A few minutes later, Eve’s mammoth afro popped up from the stairwell. She was giggling like a schoolgirl. Right behind her was the boy with the goatee she’d kissed in the bar. Eve’s round rear end was eye-level with him and he cupped it coming up the stairs, which earned him a playful punch in the shoulder from her. Behind them was the band boy, Taj.
Eve introduced the goateed boy as John. When she introduced Taj, we both pretended like we’d never met, which I guess we hadn’t. Officially. She told me their band, Tell Me Lies, had just returned from a tour, up to Seattle and back. “They opened for X,” she said, grinning and looping her arm possessively around John.
No wonder I hadn’t seen him around. He was on tour with Exene Cervenka and John Doe’s band. I was impressed, but tried to hide it. I peeked out from under my bangs. He was watching me, so I looked down, focusing on his Converse sneakers and the skateboard dangling from his arm. Rain came over to me then and Taj walked away. I realized that I’d never seen him talk to Rain. He hadn’t been there the first few nights when she was sick and everyone had pitched in to help. And now, he seemed to avoid her altogether.
I was wondering about his weird behavior when Danny emerged from the stairwell juggling a giant platter of tamales and a plate of brownies.
“Merry Christmas, gringos,” he said, cackling in his characteristic Mad Hatter way. “This is how we do it in East L.A., baby.”
We sat in ripped lawn chairs someone had hauled up onto the rooftop and dug in, punctuating our bites with swigs of wine and beer.
“Oh my God,” Eve said, swooning and rolling her kohl-rimmed eyes back as she bit into her third tamale. “That’s it. I know for sure now—I’m a Chicana trapped in a black girl’s body. I’m going to become Catholic, marry an East L.A. boy, have ten kids, and eat like this every night. I swear it.”
“It’s too bad I like boys, Señorita Eve, or I would be your perfect man,” Danny said, a grin spreading across his baby face. “You see, I’m a black guy trapped in a Chicano’s body. I only wish I had the bootie to prove it.” He stuck out his flat butt and started wiggling it around until we were all laughing so hard we were practically crying.
Despite her comment about marrying a boy from East L.A., Eve only had eyes for John. And he kept his arm around her the whole night. Every once in a while, I’d glance at Taj. He was practicing tricks on his skateboard, occasionally failing and landing smack on his ass. I tried to ignore him. But every time he caught me looking, he smiled that gap-toothed grin.
After the sun set, without intending to, we split off into two distinct groups—Taj, John, and Eve standing against the west wall with their backs to us, facing the city skyline, and Danny, Rain, and I sitting behind them with our backs pressed against the east wall, also taking in the view of the city. Danny and I polished off one bottle of wine and started on another. When Rain reached for a brownie, Danny grabbed it and stuck it behind him for a second.
“Now you see it, now you don’t.” With a flourish, his hand came back with a giant-size Hershey bar. “Got this especially for you, niña.”
Rain reached for the bottle, but I told her to stick to soda.
“You’re not old enough to drink either.” She made a face. She’d been in a bad mood ever since Danny talked about her staying off the junk.
I couldn’t argue with that. None of us were. Besides her, I was the youngest one there. Danny was the oldest at nineteen.
Then it struck me. These people were turning into friends. Real friends. Not like the ones I had in high school, the ones who whispered about me in the halls and stopped inviting me over to their fancy homes when my mom left us.
Looking around at the faces on the roof, a tremor of worry raced through me. What if I opened myself up to these people and they turned on me, too? Maybe it was smarter to keep them at arm’s length—to keep my guard up.
But I had a feeling it was already too late.
Close to midnight, an introspective mood seemed to fall across the rooftop. Night falling had brought a slight chill. It was nearly a full moon and big, puffy clouds kept floating past, sometimes briefly blocking the beams of moonlight shining down on the roof. The boombox in the corner was playing the Ramones, but at such a low level it was mellow background music.
John and Eve were off in a corner kissing and whispering. Taj stood off by himself.
I allowed myself all of five minutes to think about my dad, my mom, and my sister, and then shook the memories off. It hurt too much to remember what I no longer had.
I wondered if my friends, like me, were remembering families and friends who weren’t here with us.
Maybe this was my family now. I cast a glance at Rain. She was off in a corner. I wondered if she missed her family. I walked over to her as she leaned over the wall and looked at the street below. She gave a tiny gasp. It was nearly inaudible, but I heard it. So did Danny, who was standing nearby. We both hurried over to the edge of the wall. A black car turned the corner.
“What’s your home boy doing in this neighborhood on Christmas?” Danny sounded angry. Ever since he’d come back with the tamales, his body was stiff and tense, and although he was still goofy, it seemed like he had to force his smiles. There was a glint of something in his eyes I’d never seen before. Something dangerous and sad.
“Leave me alone. Mind your own business.” I’d never heard Rain sound so nasty. Danny looked crushed.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her arm. “You’re being rude. We all know that black car is trouble. Just because you want to keep your mystery man’s identity a goddamn secret doesn’t mean you have to act like an ass to us about it.”
She whirled back, jerking her arm away. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do. You don’t understand anything at all. You can’t tell me what to do. You aren’t my big sister. I hate you.”
I sat there for a second and then, when my words came out they were flat and cold as steel. “Why don’t you get the fuck out, then? Why don’t you just leave?”
My face burned as she ran away.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Taj watching.
I was reeling from her words. Screw her. I had taken her in and tried to take care of her, and for what. Her hatred. But, immediately, guilt and horror filled me at what I had said.
“Oh my God,” I said with a sob.
Danny touched my arm. “Hey, she didn’t really mean it.”
“The hell she didn’t.”
“Wait here, I’ll go talk to her. I’ll tell her you didn’t mean it.”
“Thank you, Danny. I’m such a jerk.” I wiped away a mutinous tear that had escaped.
“Nah. She totally deserved that shit. She was being a shit teenager. We’ve all been there, right? Neither one of you meant it. I’ll go fix it. I’m a good mediator. I’m good at that shit. God knows I’ve had years of practice with my old man and old lady.”
I watched as the black car stopped in the middle of the road below us. What the hell was it doing?
“You’ll keep an eye on her, right?” I asked Danny.
“Sure thing.” He loped toward the roof door.
After they left, even in the dark I could tell that Taj was watching me. I was sure he heard our nasty exchange.
Blushing, I stretched and stood, walking over to get a better view of the city at night. Standing against the waist-high wall, the city loomed before me. Giant silver skyscrapers dotted with squares of white light sparkled against the night sky. A big cloud drifted lazily across the moon, making it dark. It was then I sensed him at my side.
“It doesn’t even seem real, does it? It feels like you can reach out and grab a skyscraper, doesn’t it?” His voice was husky.
Keeping my gaze on the city skyline, I nodded. I was relieved he didn’t bring up the confrontation with Rain. We were both quiet for a moment.
“When I look at the city, it seems alive, like it has a life of its own,” I said without turning. “It makes me feel like by living here, I’m part of t
hat, you know, part of something bigger than my own life. I don’t feel so small and alone.” I immediately regretted my words. “That sounded kind of pathetic, didn’t it?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, his voice rising in intensity. “It totally makes sense. I think of L.A. as a spirit sometime. Without getting too granola, it’s like everything has a spirit, the trees, the animals—why not a city? It makes sense. Los Angeles has an energy unlike anywhere else. If there was ever a city that was alive, why wouldn’t it be here?”
I nodded, a bit too enthusiastically, probably thanks to the wine. “This city makes me feel like there is nowhere else on earth I should be—that I’m exactly at the right place at the right time. Almost like I’m at the center of the universe. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m where I belong, where I’m supposed to be.”
“Exactly,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Like if I weren’t here, I’d miss out on something—or everything.”
I thought about what he said for a few seconds. Maybe I was drunk, but I knew what he meant. Every day at school after my mother died, I’d sat in that empty classroom, eating my lunch alone while everyone else in the school laughed and had fun and made plans for the weekend. The silence between us felt awkward, so I reached over for a brownie from the plate on the ledge and began nibbling.
In the moonlight, Taj’s face showed something like surprise. “I didn’t think you…”
I was confused. We watched as Eve and John parted for a second and she disappeared down the stairs.
“Oh, never mind,” he said. “Hey, I was thinking…” His voice faltered. He seemed a little nervous and for some reason this made my heart race. “There’s this song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and it talks about what you said, about the city making you feel less alone. I got the tape in my room. Want to go down and listen to it? I think you’d dig it.”
He moved closer and I was glad another cloud cast us into darkness because it hid the warmth I could feel spreading across my face. He was so close. His fingers were near my belly, grabbing the edge of my shirt and pulling me toward him. The heat of his fingers against my bare skin, gently caressing the soft area right above the waist of my jeans, made me catch my breath. When I looked up at him, searching for his eyes in the dark above me, I felt a little dizzy and didn’t know if it was from being this close to him or from too much wine. His head dipped down toward me when the loud racket of a door slamming open startled us.
It was Eve.
“I can’t find Danny,” she said. “And the bathroom door is locked. Nobody is answering when I knock.”
Rain.
I pulled away and raced for the stairs, feeling unsteady. For some reason the wine had hit me hard and fast like never before. As my boots squished across the warm black tar, it felt as if the roof was trying to suck me into it. In my peripheral vision, the night sky was blurry and filled with streaking stars and teetering buildings.
When I reached the staircase, the steps seemed to stretch and elongate under me. The voices behind me were distorted, including what sounded like Taj calling my name. But I kept going, clutching the wooden railing on the stairs when I felt like I was going to fall. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I was at the bottom. Down the hall, Danny’s door was open, but his room was empty. I pounded on the bathroom door.
“Rain? Danny?”
Nothing. Meanwhile, the hallway began spinning. Taj and Eve and John caught up to me. Everything seemed to be tilting back and forth. What was wrong with me? I threw myself to the ground, peering under the crack of the bathroom door. Underneath, a big pair of men’s bare feet blocked my view. They weren’t moving.
I got up, pounded, and yelled again. I shoved my body against the door, trying to break it down. I barely noticed when Taj appeared beside me and knelt with something in his hands. A screwdriver. Within seconds the door handle was off. I shoved the door open and Danny woke up, cringing as the door pinched his toes.
“Hijo de tu puta madre,” he hissed, his eyes scrunched up in pain.
My eyes searched the rest of the bathroom, including the shower stall. Empty.
“Danny.” I leaned down to shake him. “Where’s Rain?”
His eyes rolled back in his head. Taj and John silently helped Danny to his feet, supporting him. I sprinted to my room. Why hadn’t I gone here in the first place? Something was really wrong with me. I was dizzy and couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t have been that drunk. The keys were dangling in the door to my room. I flung open the door and scanned the small space. Rain’s purple backpack was missing. I ran back into the hall. Taj, John, and Eve were all looking at me.
Rain was gone.
My vision was kaleidoscoping. Panic rose in my throat and my voice became shrill. I searched the faces in front of me as if they would give me the answer.
Just then, Danny seemed to realize what was going on.
“Rain’s gone?” His words were slurred. “She was just here.” He looked around and seemed confused. “I told her to wait right here while I went to the bathroom. We were gonna come talk to you, Nikki. That’s no good, sister. Smack, once it gets ahold of you, it ain’t gonna let you go easy. I know.”
He started laughing.
“This is not even remotely funny, you asshole.” In the sudden silence, I realized I had shouted the words, which echoed in the hallway.
Danny’s baby face crumpled.
All the faces in the hall seemed unfamiliar. I turned to them. “What are we going to do?”
“Nothing right now,” Taj said. “If she’s still not back in the morning, we’ll look for her. Give her a chance to come back on her own.”
“Danny said that she went looking for drugs.”
“That’s not necessarily true. We don’t know what happened,” Taj said. He looked off to the side, biting his lip a little. “Danny’s relationship with drugs is a bit…uh, complicated. Just ’cause he thinks she wants drugs doesn’t make it true. He could be totally wrong. I think you should lie down. Maybe try to get some sleep.”
Go to sleep? Frantic, I ignored him and headed toward the stairs. At the stairwell, I turned. They all stood there, exchanging glances. I didn’t have time to figure out what that meant, but pounded down the stairs.
The walls seemed to be undulating, breathing in and out as if they were trying to close in on me, so I raced down them as fast as I could. It was like one of my panic attacks, but much worse. What the hell was wrong with me?
Finally, I hit the last step and flung open the front door, looked up and down the street. Nothing. Not even a homeless guy hanging around. I darted toward the café. As I rounded the corner, I saw something far down the road. Was it a car without lights? Two darker, smaller shapes were nearby. My vision was going wonky. It seemed like the yellowish street light circles were spinning and moving in and out. Shadows elongated, stretched, and then receded. I put one palm flat on the wall beside me for support because a wave of dizziness swarmed over me, making me feel off balance. I tried to keep my eyes on the shapes near the car, if it was a car.
I squinted hard, trying to focus. The smaller figure was dressed in white. It had to be Rain. We had bought her a white sweatshirt at the thrift store the other day. As I strained to see, the white figure merged with the darker shape at the same time a sound, a short, piercing cry rang out and then was suddenly muffled. I startled, taking a step as the larger dark shape, the car, disappeared around the corner.
“Rain!” I shouted, but then closed my mouth, knowing it was useless. Hearing a sound, I turned and found my neighbors standing there, staring at me. Eve had her hand pressed to her mouth.
“We’ve got to find that car. I think they took Rain.” My voice sounded weird, more piercing and high-pitched than normal. I put my palm up against the wall again to support myself. Bile rose in my throat and I leaned over, worried I was going to puke. When I looked up, four faces searched mine.
“What car?” Eve said. She came up and put her
arm around me, rubbing my arm, soothingly.
“There was a car. That black car was here. I swear it.” Again, my voice was screechy.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” Taj took my arm gently, but I shook it away.
“Don’t patronize me. There was a goddamn car and it took Rain.”
“We believe you saw something, sweetie,” said Eve. “But are you sure? Those brownie’s Danny brought are pretty strong.” Eyes narrowed, she shot a glance at Danny. “Especially for someone not used to it.”
Brownies? Oh God, of course. That was what was wrong with me. There had been something in the brownies Danny had brought. No wonder he had told Rain she couldn’t have any.
“But I don’t do drugs.” I closed my eyes for a second.
“Yeah, well, you just got a dose of liquid acid, sister,” John said, his arm around Eve. “Are you sure you saw Rain get in a car?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and paced, stopping to kick the wall of the brick building with my steel-toed boot. Bad move, because it made me feel even more off balance and nauseous. “I don’t know,” I said again in a small voice as I slid to the ground, my back against the wall.
“Hey, it was probably Rain,” Danny said.
I turned to him gratefully. “You saw it,” I said. “Earlier, you saw the black car in this neighborhood, right? We both saw it together.”
I waited, but Danny didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything until Danny laughed and said, “I told you, chica, smack grabs ahold of you. Bammo. You need it. You go find it. That’s probably what Rain did. Went looking for that pinche culero in the black car.”
I swallowed back a sour taste. I stayed like that for a while—crouched on the ground with my back to the wall, staring off into the darkness, hugging my knees and shaking my head.
Sometime later, after I finally threw up a few times, I lay on my futon praying for the spinning and hallucinations to stop. When I closed my eyes, I had a complete song and dance show on the back of my eyelids. Mickey Mouse in tails and a top hat dancing to imaginary music in my head.
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