by Wendy Heard
She pulls her phone out and Googles it. I lean in, and we read a HuffPost article together. She points to the screen. “It was murder, Jazz. Poison.”
“Poison? Damn. I didn’t think poison would be like that.”
“Did you actually see him die?” she whispers.
I nod.
“Was it scary?”
I search myself for any emotion. At last, I say, “It was sad, but it was sad because of how small it was. It didn’t feel like this huge thing. No Hollywood music, no giant revelation about how short life is. Just this...just these empty eyes.” Without my consent, my brain constructs an image of Joaquin, lifeless like the man at Villains. I try to push it away, but it’s burned into the backs of my eyes—a premonition? No. No, no, no.
* * *
I jiggle the dead bolts and open the front door for her. “The bathroom’s through there.” I point across the living room unnecessarily. It’s not like she’s going to get lost; there isn’t even a hallway, just a living room separated from the little bedroom alcove by a waist-high wall.
Her eyes travel around the space. “This is really cute. Did you paint it yourself?”
“Yeah. It was this awful Pepto-Bismol pink when I moved in.” I lock the dead bolts out of habit even though she’s leaving again in two minutes.
“I love your hardwoods. These are original, right?” She continues into the bathroom and calls out, “Oh my God, I love the vintage tile!” before shutting the door.
Vintage. That’s funny. I wonder if she’d think my rusty shower knob is vintage. Or my clunky Darth Vader window A/C unit.
Speaking of which, I flick the unit on. It delivers its signature “chunk-chunk-hummm” that signals the arctic cooling of the area immediately around the window. I pull the fan over in front of the window unit and turn it on rotate, which delivers feeble wisps of cool air into various parts of the living room.
I toss my purse on the little Ikea dining table, plug in the Christmas lights that string across the ceiling and fill the electric kettle. I’m choosing from my collection of Trader Joe’s tea when she returns, heels clacking across the “vintage” hardwoods. “You want tea?” I ask.
“Sure.” She sinks into one of the small dining chairs and sets her purse down. “Do you like living here?”
I cast her a sarcastic look. “It’s a fucking palace.”
“I just mean you’re a young woman living alone. Do you feel safe? You’re so close to downtown, and it’s not a security building.”
“What’s someone gonna do, grab a blowtorch and melt the bars off my window?”
“No,” she protests. “I don’t know. Living alone makes me nervous.”
I fold my arms across my chest and lean on the counter next to the kettle, which is making rustling sounds. “You’re not wrong about the neighborhood. It’s a little shady. But it’s cheap, which lets me set money aside for Joaquin to go to college.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “You’re saving up for Joaquin’s college education?”
“Yeah. He’s a good student. He has real potential. I don’t want him to worry about anything except studying.” I look down at the rose that wraps around my left wrist and trace the thorns with my fingertip. Will he still go to college? If Carol homeschools him, probably not. If she keeps him out of school, he’ll be full of rage and rebellion when he turns eighteen. Who knows what he’ll get into?
Fourteen thousand, three hundred and fifty-two dollars. That’s how much I’ve saved over the last five years since Carol kicked me out. I’ve saved it at the expense of everything—travel, a newer car, better clothes, a nicer apartment. Five years I’ve been picturing the pride I’ll feel writing those tuition checks, finally making up to Joaquin for all the mistakes I made, mistakes layered on top of each other until they all blend together into a careless, reckless, thoughtless life.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Sofia asks.
I try to find a joke, can’t. I clear my throat. “Joaquin. Carol. The whole homeschool thing. I’m just fucking helpless.” She looks stricken by my words. I say, “Hey, I don’t mean to be a downer. I appreciate you inviting me out tonight. It was nice of you. And thank you for calling DCFS and everything.”
“You don’t have to thank me for making a phone call. That’s my job.”
“It’s more than most people would do. I just...” I shake my head. I can’t get the words out.
“You just what?”
“I miss him,” I manage. I press a hand to my mouth and pull as hard as I can on the sorrow that’s going to run me off the road.
She takes a deep, shaky breath, and then she brings her hands up to her face. She crumples forward, and for a moment I’m so shocked, I almost don’t register that she’s crying, a faint, contained gasping like she’s choking on the sobs to keep them in. Her caramel-brown hair spills onto her tanned arms.
My own sadness forgotten, I move forward and drop to my knees in front of her. My hands hover awkwardly in the air and then land softly on her knees in my most no-homo way. “Hey, hey. What’s wrong? Is it my shitty apartment?” I’m trying to be funny the way I always try to be funny for Joaquin. “It’s really not that bad. I mean, there’s the cockfighting, and sometimes I have to wrestle wild pit bulls on my way down to my car, but other than that.”
Her shoulders shake in a different way—she’s laughing and crying at the same time. She sits up and wipes at her mascara, which turns her fingertips black. “Oh my God,” she groans. “I’m so embarrassed. Can we forget this happened?” She wipes her fingertips on her black slacks and blots her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“It’s fine. It’s been years since I made a girl cry. I thought I had lost my touch.”
She takes a shaky breath. “I lied earlier. In the car. About my daughter. I’m not in the middle of a custody battle with my ex.”
“Oh.” I’m not completely sure how to respond.
“The battle’s over. I lost.” She presses her open palms to her eye sockets, hard enough that I think she might be hurting herself.
I gently pull at her hands. “Hey. Careful. Tell me what you mean.”
“He’s a lawyer, and he knew the judge, and there was a bunch of bullshit...and he won. So she’s with him now. I have supervised visitation every other week for an afternoon. Of my daughter. My daughter.”
“Fuck. Sofia.” I don’t know what to say. I feel so bad for her.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this. What is wrong with me?”
“I think you’re just upset about not seeing your daughter. It’s only natural.”
She twists her fingers together. “I guess I thought you’d understand. Because of Joaquin.”
“I understand better than you realize.”
She cocks her head, looks me in the eyes. Her nose is a little red, her eye makeup smeared. “You’re really nice.”
I search around for a joke, a way to deflect the compliment, but I come up empty.
She stands. “Now that I’ve finished humiliating myself, I think I’m going to go. Thanks for keeping me company.” She grabs her purse, and I gather my keys off the table.
I walk her down the block to her Toyota in silence. The air is crisp around the edges, like it wants to be cool, but the fire is forcing warmth into it. Sofia looks too polished for this neighborhood, and I feel embarrassed by the apartment buildings’ dilapidated facades and the shopping carts tipped over in the median strip.
At the door of her car, she asks, “Want to hang out again sometime? I promise to be in better spirits.”
I’m surprised, but I shrug. “Sure.”
She gives me a quick straight-girl hug. “Good luck with Joaquin. I’ll let you know if I get any news from DCFS.”
I watch her taillights glow red and disappear around the corner. I stand there for
a long moment, looking at the darkness left in their wake. The air smells like smoke. The fire is still burning. Somewhere far away, sirens echo through the night.
I wish Sofia would come back. I wish anyone would come. I feel left behind.
Sofia’s grief of separation is a heavy weight she handed me, and now I’m standing here holding it only to realize it’s identical to the weight I already had.
I can’t lose Joaquin. He’s my only family, the one thing tethering me to this earth.
A homeless man from the tent city on the next block hurries past. He looks busy, like he’s on a mission. He passes me fast, but then he turns around and yells, “No!” like I asked him a question.
I turn and walk back toward my apartment, my feet leaden inside my boots.
Back inside, I head for the bathroom and wash my face. From the living area, a faint buzzing filters over the sound of running water. I turn the water off. The buzzing stops, then starts up again. I check my back pocket. My iPhone is there, but it’s silent and dark.
I remember the flip phone from Villains. I hurry for the kitchen and pull it out of my purse. It buzzes in my hand, and its little screen glows bright. Blocked, it reads.
I snap it open. “Hello?”
“Jasmine?” a voice replies, warm and low.
I hesitate. How would anyone calling this number know my name?
“Jasmine?” the voice repeats.
“Why? Who’s this?”
“Jasmine, I represent an organization to which you have been referred.” The voice is neither female nor male but somewhere in-between, and I realize its owner is using a voice disguiser, the kind you hear on crime shows. The voice resumes. “You’ve been referred in response to the situation with your...mother? Your foster mother?”
“Are you from DCFS?”
“Not exactly. Are you alone? Are you at home?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“We deal with sensitive, personal matters. It’s important that we have privacy to discuss this.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and examine it, like this will help me understand what the fuck is happening. I return it to my ear and say, “This is creepy. You have two minutes to explain what you’re talking about or I hang up.”
“I know, and I promise to explain everything in just a moment. Please, don’t hang up.”
I surprise myself by saying, “All right.”
“Thank you. Before we can continue, I’ll make you aware, in case you are not already, that recording a call without all parties’ consent is a felony under California Penal Code Section 632, and I want to further state that I do not grant permission to record any part of this, or any subsequent conversations. Any recordings of conversations will not be admissible in court. Do you understand?”
“I guess. Why—”
“Let me explain. Now, Jasmine, I understand Joaquin’s in quite a bit of danger with his adoptive mother, Carol, and you’re in a bind trying to get him some help. Does that sound right so far?”
“So you are with DCFS.”
“We are an underground network of helpers. We have access to all kinds of information. But we aren’t part of any government institution.” I’m silent, trying to process this, when the voice says, “We were quite worried when you got ahold of this phone, but when we looked into you a bit more, we realized you might be a great candidate to join our organization.”
“Dude, I don’t know who you are, but you need to tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“This is just a first conversation, and you may feel uncomfortable. That’s fine. We’ve all been in your position, Jazz. I myself more than anyone know how you’re feeling.”
“How I’m feeling?” I repeat.
“You’ve reached a breaking point, haven’t you? And through no fault of your own. We offer people in your situation a permanent solution.”
“What kind of permanent solution?”
“We can offer you a solution to your problems with Carol that would leave you free to live out the rest of your life with Joaquin as you see fit. A life without Carol.”
“Without Carol? What do you mean, like, Carol...dead?”
“I think that’s enough for now. Why don’t you think about it? I’ll call you tomorrow. It’s very important you don’t share any of this conversation with anyone.”
“Okay,” I hear myself say.
“Good night, Jazz. It was nice to meet you.”
The phone goes silent.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
9
JAZZ
WEIRD PHONE CALLS or no, Joaquin needs his insulin, so here I go.
It’s the middle of the night and the street is quiet. Sepia-tone streetlight casts geometric projections of palm fronds onto the asphalt. I grab the backpack from the front seat, get out of the truck and press the door shut until it latches with a low click. I ease open the tailgate and slide out the extendable ladder. I shoulder the ladder and leave the tailgate open to save the noise of closing it.
I make my way around the house until I’m facing the back porch and, above it, the attic intake vent. I telescope out the ladder and lean it carefully against the house.
When I’m up the ladder and level with the vent, I pull a screwdriver out of my pocket and get to work on the screws that anchor the vent to the frame. The moon is my coconspirator, shining enough light on my project that I don’t need a flashlight. I’m closer to the palm trees up here, and I can hear the rustle of their fronds as they toss around in a high, cool breeze.
The moon. The breeze.
There’s no smoke. Either the fire has gone out or the wind has changed.
Encouraged, I have the vent off in two minutes. I peer into the attic. It’s dark and smells musty. I’ve been up here before. We had a mouse problem when I was younger, and it was my job to set traps and collect the tiny corpses.
The opening is small, and it’s an awkward angle. I can’t go in leg first; it’s not big enough for me to then get my other leg around. I guess it’s going to have to be face-first.
Joaquin, you’re lucky I love you. I set the backpack inside. I grip the rough wood frame and pull myself in.
It’s pitch-black in here, and the air is close and hot. I pull a flashlight out of my backpack, flick it on and shine it around.
Ew. Gross. Piles of rodent droppings and crumbled insulation litter the rough wood floor. The attic beams show through the disintegrating insulation. I wait for giant rats to scamper out and attack me. Nothing moves.
I slip my arms through the backpack straps. I can walk if I hunch over, but I’m right on top of Carol’s bedroom, so I crawl through the rat shit and insulation on my hands and knees. I remember reading something on the internet about how, back in the day, torturers used to trap a rat in a bowl on people’s stomachs so the rat would burrow into their guts to try to escape. The thought is not helpful.
When I finally make it to the crawl-space door, I force myself to hold still and listen. If I’d woken Carol up, she’d be opening doors, looking for her baseball bat, calling out to Joaquin across the house. All I hear is muffled silence so deep it makes my ears ring.
Alrighty then.
I get to my feet, brush off my hands and grip the pull tie on the crawl-space door.
I pull the door up and set it aside. There is no attached collapsible ladder like some attics have. I’ve always just used a kitchen chair to get up here. I grip the frame and lower myself in a slow reverse pull-up until my feet dangle a couple of feet off the carpet. I take a deep breath and release my grip. I drop to the ground and let myself crumple down flat with a muffled clump, like a bag of oranges falling out of the groceries.
With my face pressed into the old carpet, memories invade my brain through my nose. Lying on the carpet watching TV—Joaquin as a ba
by puking on this carpet and Carol yelling at me for not catching the spit-up—push-ups in my room at night—rolling around, tickling Joaquin while he shrieked with joy—Carol, standing over me, my body on fire with pain—
I push myself up to standing and brush my hands off on the butt of my jeans. I tiptoe across the dark hall to Joaquin’s bedroom door. I push through it silently. With the window boarded up, this room is as dark as a cave. Bitch. How dare she kennel him up like this?
I close the door behind me and feel my way to his bed. I trip over the nightstand and knock something off with a clatter. Blankets rustle nearby. “Joaquin?” I whisper.
“Jazz?”
I shed my backpack and rush toward the sound. I trip on his metal bed frame and collapse right on top of him. “Ow,” he protests quietly.
“Sorry.” I feel my way to his face in the darkness, run my fingers through his hair. I fold him into a tight hug, and my heart smolders with love so deep it hurts.
“You’re squashing me,” he mutters.
“Move over.” He scoots aside and I snuggle up next to him. “So you’re still alive,” I whisper.
“How’d you get in?”
“I climbed in through the attic like Jack fucking Bauer, that’s how.”
He snorts. “It’s not like you broke into the Pentagon.”
“Shut up. I’m here to deliver your insulin. I’m your damn delivery girl.”
“Seriously?”
My eyes are adjusting, and I can see the glimmer of his eyes on the pillow beside me. I turn to face him. “Why are you surprised?”
There’s a pause, and when he answers, his voice sounds young. “I just thought maybe you gave up or something.”
I want to cry. I want to hit things. I want to bust into Carol’s room and beat her fucking face in. Instead, I grip Joaquin’s chin. “I’m obsessed with you. Okay? I would never give up. I’m like the worst stalker girlfriend.”
He hisses a little laugh.