“You don’t have to pay me.” I shrug. “Actually, you can’t pay me. It’s kind of against the law.”
“Check it out, sugar!” Bo says. “I got myself a volunteer. I’m like the friggin’ Salvation Army or somethin’.”
I don’t say anything, because I haven’t got a clue what the Salvation Army is—and also because my eyes are starting to water again, and I’m afraid my voice will crack if I talk.
Barbie is watching me closely. Her face gets all soft, like sad or something. Then she tugs on Bo’s arm.
“Give us a sec, hon,” she says to me.
I watch as she hauls herself out of the chair. They walk over to a junky blue desk, where Bo keeps an appointment book that looks as old and worn as he is. She whispers something in his ear and then he wraps his arms around her waist, resting his hands on her ass. She gives him a big wet kiss. I’m starting to feel embarrassed. Like maybe they’re about to go at it right here.
Barbie gives Bo a nudge, and then he turns toward me, looking me up and down, real careful. “All right, El Salvador. You know how to replace a faucet?”
“Yeah.”
He heads over to a door in the back. The paint is chipping off, and the hinges stick when he tries to open it. He tugs harder and reveals a storage closet. It’s a disaster in there. Looks like a hurricane blew through. He digs around for a while and then pulls out a shiny new faucet with the handles attached.
Easy. I’ve done this a dozen times.
“Have at it,” he says, nodding toward a big sink in the corner.
“Thanks, man.” I say. I want to say more, but I can tell he doesn’t want me to gush all over him.
* * *
It doesn’t take long to replace the faucet. I do the work quietly, mostly keeping my head down. But every once in a while I look up. I can’t help it. Above the sink, there’s a wall of tattoo designs, all displayed in flimsy black frames. They’re drawn with black pen on white paper. All kinds of stuff—hearts and birds and dragons. They’re really good. I wonder if Bo drew them.
When I finish, I set the old faucet on the counter.
“Done,” I tell him. “Want me to clean out that closet for you?”
Bo shrugs. “Why the hell not?”
I go back over to the closet and pull everything off the sagging shelves. Paper towels and nails and sandpaper. Rusted-out tools and ink and needles. I find a toolbox that’s in decent shape. I take out a hammer and the least rusty nails I can dig out. I use the nails to secure the shelves back into place. Then I get a roll of paper towels and clean up all the dust. I put everything back, trying to arrange it in a way that makes sense. When I’m almost done, Bo walks over and looks in, over my shoulder.
“Not bad.”
I turn away from the closet and start gathering up the dirty paper towels. I find a garbage can and throw them in. It’s really full, so I go ahead and pull the bag out.
“Where do I take this?”
“I got it.” Bo grabs the bag from me. “Let’s see the thing,” he says.
“What?”
“The tat.”
“Oh.” I feel my heart starting to beat faster. “Yeah, okay,” I say quietly.
I lift up my shirt and push the waistband of my jeans down, far enough for most of it to show. I hate this fucking thing. Christ, how I hate it. I’m guessing he won’t know what it means, though—what it’s supposed to say about me.
Bo puts down the garbage bag and pulls on my skin a little.
“Yeah,” he says. “I seen that one. You’re gonna want to get rid of it fast, El Salvador.”
I nod, looking down at my shoes, trying not to let my eyes go watery again. I guessed wrong.
“And you’re done with those assholes?”
I look right at him. “So done.”
“And they’re not gonna come lookin’ for you or nothin’, right?”
“Not here.” I shake my head.
“’Cuz I gotta watch out for my girl over there, and we’ve got two kids at home who mean the world to us. You understand, don’t you? A man’s gotta protect his family.”
I nod, but I can’t say anything because my throat has this huge lump in it. God, why am I such a wuss?
He shoves me gently on the shoulder and grins. “Dude wasn’t much of an artist, was he?”
“Nah.” I look up at him, feeling grateful that he doesn’t say more, or maybe relieved that he doesn’t seem afraid of me.
“I’ll take care of it,” he says. “Lemme see the top.”
I lift my shirt higher. I watch as he examines the gnarled hand that spreads across my abdomen, the black nails on each thin finger, two of them curled, and the other two reaching up toward my heart.
Coño, that is one ugly tattoo.
“You’ll need a few rounds, and I’m warning you, El Salvador, it hurts like hell.”
“I can handle it,” I say. “I’ll come for a while to help you out, and then you can start. I mean, I wanna earn it first, okay?”
“All right, kid. Whatever you say.”
“But I need to have it done before April fourteenth.”
“That when you turn into a pumpkin?”
I think he might be talking about the princess story, Cenicienta. So I go ahead and try a response.
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s comin’ to look for me with one of those glass shoes.”
“Christ, don’t I know it?” he says.
And then that girl Gretchen is showing up in my head again. I don’t really dance—but if she wrapped me up in her arms, I’m pretty damn sure I wouldn’t run away at the stroke of midnight.
Bo gives me a jab on the shoulder, the nice kind. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Phoenix.”
“Well, lemme tell you something, Phoenix: you gotta make your own happy ending.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GRETCHEN
OBVIOUSLY I AM TRYING to pretend I have turned a corner, because, not three hours after staring a dead boy in the face, I am back in Bree’s car, on the way to a basketball game. A basketball game! Why? To convince my parents that I am fine. To prove to them that I do not need to go back to the creepy psychiatrist who drugged me.
When we got home from Karen’s office, Mom told me it was actually better—knowing he wasn’t out there anymore. Knowing he couldn’t hurt me again. I said yeah, because I needed for her to think I was okay. I kept saying it: “Yeah, I feel better.”
Then she started talking about acupuncture, and how she was going to make an appointment with someone in Duluth named Li Kang. I have absolutely no problem with acupuncture, in theory. I understand entirely the long and significant history of Chinese medicinal traditions. I respect them. Really, I do.
But those needles are long.
So I made myself put on a little mascara from a new tube that Bree bought for me. I even put on clear lip gloss. And before I left the house, when my dad told me that we should maybe talk to the prosecutor again when I was feeling stronger, that we should help her get “those people” off the streets, I told him, “Yeah, I’ll feel stronger soon. I want to help.”
* * *
As soon as Bree and I get out of her car and start walking toward the gym, it is 100 percent clear to me that I am not feeling better. I am feeling like a nutcase. And I am not feeling stronger. I am feeling weak and alone.
“You can do this, Gretch.” Bree is walking beside me.
I head down the sidewalk with my best friend for life. She has her arm around me, like she’s holding me up, or maybe to remind me that she’s here for me, that she’s not going anywhere. I don’t want to lose her, but I’m worried I will. Or maybe I’m worried she will lose me—that she already has lost me.
We enter a gym filled with hundreds of people. A few of Bree’s friends come up to say hi, and I say hi back, but I’m not really here at all. I’m observing it through a thick fog, like I’m half awake but still mostly in a dream. We climb the stairs and shove ourselves into
a row of bleachers, next to a bunch of kids I barely know. When I was actually going to high school here, I basically only hung out with Adam and his friends, and they all graduated last year. Besides Bree, there’s really no one left for me in this place.
“There he is,” Bree says, pointing toward a guy running out onto the court.
“Who?”
“Ty. See? He’s number twenty-six.”
“Oh,” I say.
Before tonight I had been to exactly two-and-a-quarter basketball games. The ones before the winter formal. And last year Adam and I bailed after about ten minutes and went to see a concert.
God, that was a perfect night. Just the two of us at the Tabernacle. He was still in his tux shirt and pants and I had on a strapless black dress. We were up on the balcony, screaming and clapping, singing along. We both knew every word to every song. When the lead singer came running up to the balcony, he passed right by us. We both reached out to touch him, and he looked right at us, sang the words to our favorite song. He leaned out over the crowd below and we leaned in toward him. His bodyguards didn’t even stop us when we reached out to hold him up. Adam and I, we kept him from falling over the edge, and he sang his heart out, for us.
It was so loud in there that when we left, our ears were buzzing. I could barely hear a word Adam said the rest of the night, but it didn’t matter. We walked over to Centennial Park in the freezing cold. We lay down on the grass, and he wrapped us both in his enormous quilted coat. We had bought it together that afternoon, at our favorite thrift store. It still smelled like the back of someone else’s closet. But we didn’t care.
The stars were astounding that night—so many of them. We never see stars in Atlanta, because of all the smog. So it felt like we had gone somewhere else, somewhere perfect.
“Your boy’s got the ball!”
Someone I vaguely recognize is leaning across my lap to talk to Bree.
Bree shifts forward in her seat and then—honest to God—she starts to clap and bounce up and down and cheer for “her boy.”
I don’t think anyone has ever called Adam “my boy.” He’s not really the kind of person who belongs to someone else. Or maybe I’m not the kind of person who has someone belong to me.
Earlier this afternoon, after I got home from Karen’s office, I wanted to call Adam. I felt like I should tell him about the photo of my attacker, and his bullet-ridden chest. I tried, twice. But I couldn’t push call. I think I was afraid he would ask the question he always asks. He would say, Are you okay? and I would lie to him, the way I always do. I didn’t have the energy for more lies, so I never called.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. He’s coming to see you tomorrow night. You can tell him everything when you’re together.
Or not, because I probably won’t.
And then I remember how completely normal it felt to tell Phoenix—a stranger!—about that night, and the half-and-half, and the way it feels to panic. Maybe there’s a name for this, like, a syndrome or something. Maybe it’s totally typical to talk like that to perfect strangers when you’re in my condition. Or maybe it was just him, the way he made me feel okay about being a mess, the way he listened to me instead of telling me I’d eventually get better.
I wonder where Phoenix is, and if I’ll see him again. I also sort of wonder if I’ll ever find a reason to hug him again, because he felt so solid. And that was good.
I nudge Bree, who’s still jumping up and down and clapping. I’m starting to worry she might bust into a full-on cheer, spelling out defense with her arms or something.
“I’m going to get some popcorn,” I say. “You want anything?’
“A Coke. Thanks.”
Then she returns to bouncing and yelling and clapping.
* * *
It’s a relief to stand in line by myself. I keep my head down and move forward slowly, and when I get to the front, I order a Coke, a bottle of water, and a large popcorn. It feels like a triumph, standing in line alone, ordering food and paying for it. I’m breathing steadily, I’m smiling at the cashier—some nice mom who is volunteering at the concession stand to raise money for the booster club. I don’t know her, and I’m grateful for that.
“Enjoy the game!” she says brightly.
I smile and turn away from the counter. The popcorn smells like salt and butter and that weird orange oil that looks gross but tastes fabulous. I’m trying to figure out how to get a handful of it into my mouth while navigating through all of these people with two drinks balanced in my arms.
Then the horns start up. It must be halftime. Or is that football? Is there a halftime in basketball? That’s what I’m thinking when it happens.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Three loud thuds, reverberating through the gym. Suddenly I’m struggling to focus on the path back to the bleachers, back to Bree.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
But my heart is racing and my eyes are blurring and I’m not in the concession area anymore. I feel the taste of metal on my tongue, and the blood, hot and red, is seeping into my eyes. I’m back in the Old Fourth Ward, on that empty street, reaching across the asphalt for my phone, trying to make sense of what that boy told me.
Run!
I hear the squeal of tires, and a car is coming around the corner, fast. It’s full, beyond full. Two Latino guys are hanging out of the windows—maybe three. And there’s a white girl with dyed-red hair sitting on someone’s lap.
God, how many people are in that car?
I run. I stumble toward my own car and crouch behind the rear wheel. I watch the boy, sprinting fast. His chest pushes forward, his arms pump hard and his legs stretch out long. His face is looking up at the sky, and he’s calling out, begging. He’s crying out to heaven, and I’m crying too—sobbing. He turns the corner and I watch through the blood and tears as he sprints away from me.
I see a man lift himself from the sunroof of the car. His skin and hair are almost the same color as my attacker’s, but he’s wearing red, not blue, and he is not a boy. He is a man. I watch his tattooed arm extend. I see the black handgun, so small, pointing toward the boy, toward the place where he disappeared from my view. I see the girl with the dyed-red hair screaming and tugging at the man’s waist from inside the car, trying to pull him back in. I see the car take that corner, fast. I hear the sound.
Pop. Pop. Pop. And then a girl screams.
I do not know whether it is her voice or mine.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PHOENIX
PART TWO OF SALLY AND AMANDA’S plan to keep me from getting “depressed”: American basketball. They decided this morning at breakfast, over scrambled eggs and this really amazing apple-flavored sausage. Amanda said football would be better—for the whole American experience and all—but unfortunately, it’s not football season. Plus, their neighbor’s son plays on the basketball team and he’s about to graduate. I guess they’ve been promising his mom they’ll go to a game and cheer for him, and time is running out.
Sally said they’d kill two birds with one stone, take me out to see how the “Yanks” spend their Friday nights and appease the neighbors. Amanda told Sally that she hated that expression, about killing birds. She said it was so violent. But she agreed with Sally that they needed to get me out of the house.
Then they both looked at me really carefully and Amanda asked if I was feeling “down.”
I told them, again, that I’m not depressed! That I’m not even close! But they ignored me and pressed on with their master plan.
Which is fine by me. I’ve got nothing else to do. Plus, I figured it might be cool to see a real American high school, just like in all those movies.
This place, though, it’s nothing like the movies. I mean, there is a big fancy gym, and there are basketball players and even cheerleaders, but the gym is half empty, and the basketball team is a joke. Even I can tell they pretty much suck, and I have no idea what’s going on out there. Not a clue.
I pretend to pay attention to
the game, but instead I watch all the people. There are a few families in the bleachers around us, with moms and dads and little kids, all sitting together, having fun. I like watching them.
But the game is a blowout. When the score gets to 56–24, Sally suggests maybe I should try an American hot dog.
We’re standing in the concession line together when the horns start up. They sound pretty great, actually.
“What’s going on?” I ask, turning toward the sound.
“Halftime. Must be the other team’s pep band,” Amanda replies. “Ours never sounded this good.”
I motion toward the gym. “Can I go check it out?”
“Sure,” says Sally. “We’ll get your hot dog and meet you over there.”
It is amazing—a bunch of people standing together in the bleachers, swaying together and blowing on their horns. Then the drums start, these huge-ass drums hanging from guys’ necks. They are beating the crap out of them, with enormous sticks.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The sound fills up the stadium. You can probably hear it all the way back in Ivywood Estates.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
I feel those drums in my gut.
I turn around to motion to Sally. I figure she needs to see this, since she is from England and all, and I’m pretty sure this stuff doesn’t happen in England, either.
“Sally,” I call out. “Check it—”
But it isn’t Sally who I see. It’s Gretchen—the girl from the garden. She’s pushing her way out of a long line. A water bottle falls from under her arm, and she doesn’t even notice. She’s still holding a huge bag of popcorn and a large fountain soda. Her eyes are really wide, and she is elbowing people out of the way. She runs into some kid, and then she drops the popcorn. He tries to pick it up and give it back to her, but she keeps moving.
Then she screams, loud.
Everyone is stepping aside and staring. It’s like she’s in her own little world. And it is not a happy world.
I walk toward her, very slowly, but she doesn’t see me, even though she’s looking right at me. I keep moving toward her, while everyone else moves away. By now she’s sort of half bent over, and heaving.
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