by JB Salsbury
“Oh, right.” She scurries to Carrie’s side.
“Okay, so . . .” Carrie’s gaze darts to one side. “I guess we’ll see you at lunch. Hey, Damian.”
“Carrie. Amber.” My cousin rolls up with narrowed eyes, probably just as dumbstruck as I am that they’d be hanging around me.
“I guess we’ll see you at lunch.” She gives us a finger wave, and the girls turn with a simultaneous flip of their hair.
Damian watches them walk away while I sort out the books I need for my first class. “Do you think they choreograph that crap? Like, oh hey, let’s practice our retreat,” he says in a girlie voice and then adds an exaggerated hair flip.
I zip up my backpack, slam the locker door, and check the lock to make sure it’s engaged. After what happened this morning with Mercy then the confrontation with Frank then Carrie, I’m having a hard time finding my chill. As hot as Carrie is, she sometimes talks to me as though I’m the hired help, and I hate feeling inferior.
We’re headed to our first classes when Damian asks, “How was the first night with the new kid? He go here?”
I shake my head. “Nah, man. And he’s a she.”
“No way. You have a sister?”
“She’s not my sister, puto. She’s a foster. I don’t even know how long she’s staying.”
“She hot?”
No. The response on the tip of my tongue feels wrong in my mouth. The thing is she’s not ugly. She’s just . . .”She’s different.”
“Different . . .” He turns to me. “Like in a bad way?”
“Are we really talkin’ about this?”
He shrugs. “She our age? Or my age?”
“Screw you.” I turn the corner and swerve out of the way of a freshman running to class.
“I’m serious,” he says through a chuckle. “Is she good-lookin’?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . . It’s hard to tell.”
No makeup.
Freaky translucent skin.
She barely said two words.
“Why? Is she disfigured?”
“No.”
“Then what? Is she loca?”
I stop, and he immediately stops with me. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re acting weird. Why can’t you just tell me?”
Excellent question. Why can’t I? When I question myself, all I come up with is an unjustified desire to protect her. Or . . . is it more about protecting myself? I’m already the retired gangster and the super senior who’s also the school’s janitor, and now I’ll be the guy who lives with a ghost.
And when did I start giving a shit about what kids at this school think of me?
The warning bell buzzes over our heads.
“I gotta go.” I take off, jogging the last few yards to my class, leaving Damian behind me and flipping me the bird.
I told myself I wasn’t going to dwell on Carrie or her ex-dick Frank. And I don’t. It’s easy, really, to redirect my thoughts to other things.
Stuck in class, listening to a monotonous lecture, I start to wonder what would’ve happened if I’d walked in on Mercy in a different situation, like just out of the shower.
I’m not being a pervert.
It’s more like a scientific observation.
What does her body look like under all those clothes?
During my second-period world history test, my mind wanders to how pale all that long hair is. It fell in waves over her body, making her look like some kind of mythical mermaid who’d been doused in bleach and forced to wear old-man pajamas.
In econ when Mr. O’Doyle starts in on the roles of government in a market economy, my thoughts take a dive, and I wonder what all that white skin would feel like against my palms. Would she feel different from other girls? Softer somehow?
By the time I hit my weight-training class, I’m distracted by the images my mind has conjured up and even more disgusted by what a sick bastard I am for even thinking that way about the quiet foster girl.
Milo
THE NEXT FEW weeks follow the same pattern. The boys and I get up and ready for school while Mercy’s door remains closed. Laura cleared her work schedule for the first week to stay home with her, and when she went back to work, Chris stayed home.
As every day passes, I come up with more questions to ask, like why does this girl only leave her bedroom to use the bathroom? Laura even brings all her meals to her room. I’m starting to wonder if Mercy is more of a prisoner than a foster.
Where did she come from, and what kind of horrors has she seen that landed her here with us and afraid to leave her room? I’ve wanted to ask Laura and Chris, but they’ve both been really busy, and it’s none of my business anyway.
One Saturday morning, I manage to sleep in till eight. I wake up to a few text messages from Carrie. She wants me to meet her at some party up in the hills. We’ve hung out at school during lunch and between classes, but since the mall incident, she’s never asked to hang outside of school. I stare at the stupid heart-kissing emoji she put at the end of her text and consider her invite.
Only richies live in the Los Angeles hills. It ain’t my scene, and chances are that my boys and I will get mad-dogged by every Vanilla Ice fruitcake in the place. A slow smile curls my lips. Maybe a night in the hills wouldn’t be so bad. The thought of pissing people off sounds like a great way to blow off some steam. I blame my DNA.
I throw on running shoes and a shirt and head into the main house to take a piss and grab a bite before I go for a jog. Julian is at the coffee table in front of the TV, shoveling cereal into his mouth, and Miguel is at the breakfast table doing homework with his headphones on. He doesn’t look up as I pass him toward the hallway.
I do a double take at Mercy’s room when I see her door is open. I almost forgot she lived here. Maybe she doesn’t. I stop and peek inside.
Nope. Still here. She kneels on the floor beside her bed, her colorless legs folded beneath herself. Her arms are bare, as she’s wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt that showcases her milky skin tone. I jolt a little at the shock of seeing so much of her strange skin exposed, but not nearly as badly as I did at our first meeting. Her hair falls to her thighs as she kneels on one side of the room in the shadows. She doesn’t seem to know I’m here, and I watch as she reaches out toward a bright stream of sunlight that pierces the darkness through a crack in the blackout curtains.
Her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she stretches forward with shaking fingers. Just before they touch the beam of light, she stops. Seconds pass, and she seems to be building up the courage to touch the light. Her other hand fists the fabric of her shirt at her stomach, and her lip must be raw from how she’s working it between her teeth.
“It ain’t gonna hurt you.”
She jerks her chin up, and fear etches her doughlike face. Even in the darkness—maybe more so because of it—she practically glows. Her eyes are eerier than normal, freaky in an Exorcist kind of way.
However, judging by the way she’s looking at me, I think I scare her more than she scares me.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “I ain’t gonna hurt you either.”
She pushes to stand, and I try not to gawk at how her womanly body fills out the tiny shorts and how her long legs eat up distance as she moves toward me. Her T-shirt hugs her curves, making her look older than I originally thought. I wipe the quick shot of lust from my veins, because as perfect as her shape may be, her color is . . . not.
I back up a little as she gets close, and right when I think she might step out into the hallway and, I don’t know, zap me with her laser vision, she closes the door in my face. It’s not abrupt, not like she’s telling me to fuck off, more like a gentle goodbye—a request for privacy.
No need to tell me twice.
I head to the bathroom, do my business, and hit the pavement for a jog, happy to leave Ghostgirl and her freakiness behind.
“I’M SO HUNGRY I could eat the ass out of a rhino.” Keaton pulls a few beers fr
om his deep pockets and pops them into my mini fridge. He’s the quarterback on the football team, but he grew up in East LA as I did. His parents are hard-working people who’ve put all their dreams into their kid, whose arm fires footballs like missiles. Keaton bridges the gap between people like me and Damian and the popular jocks at Washington High. The school is located between the richer Pasadena families and the middle-class Arcadia hood, which means fancy kids and lower-middle-class kids are all shoved under one roof.
It’s also Keaton who decided we’d meet at my place tonight to pregame before we head over to that party in the hills.
Laura, Chris, and Miguel went to Julian’s baseball game, and when I saw them pull away, I was shocked to see Mercy curled into the backseat with them. She was wearing that same sweatshirt, hood pulled up over her head, and even though it was getting dark outside, she had on dark sunglasses. When she’s covered up like that, it’s hard to tell the difference between her and any other teenager.
As far as I know, this is her first time out of the house since she got here. I wonder, Why now?
“We should grab some grub on the way.” Keaton pops the tops on two beers and hands one to Damian. “You guys wanna hit up Filbertos?”
Damian’s beer freezes midair to his lips, and he glares. “Oh, just cause we’re Mexican, you think we want Filbertos? Racist.”
“Yeah, dumbass. Because it has nothing to do with me craving a California burrito.” Keaton drops onto the couch next to him and picks up his controller.
I shake my head and take a pull off my beer, checking the time. “If Seth would get here already, we can hit the Pizza Palace.”
“Ohh yeah, I’d kill for a meat lovers’.” Keaton bites his bottom lip while killing video-game zombies.
“I bet you would, pretty boy. You luh dat meat.”
Keaton shoves Damian, and my phone buzzes with a call while they spar verbally.
The caller ID lights up. Andy.
“I gotta take this.” I leave my beer behind, knowing he can’t see me holding it but worried he’d know somehow, and I head outside, closing the door behind myself. I hit Accept. “Andy, what’s up?”
“Emilio, hey. I wasn’t sure you’d answer. Thought you might be out.” Andy was my caseworker before I aged out of the system. Now he’s mainly responsible for my brothers, but he still calls from time to time, acting as though he’s just checking on the boys. He’s a pretty cool guy for a tall, skinny computer nerd.
“Nah, you got me early.”
“Nice. How’re things?”
I know the routine. He means am I doing okay in school, still on schedule to graduate, and he wants intel on the boys, so I give him the rundown, quick and dirty. Then I tell him about Sebastian.
“Hmm . . .” A few beats of silence pass, and I’d bet money that he’s writing this down. “Did Damian say exactly when Sebastian’s getting out?”
“Nah. I’m not worried about it. I can avoid him, but I don’t want him messing with Miguel, and Julian always loved Bastian. He doesn’t really get that the dude is bad news, ya know?”
“Yeah, yeah . . .” More silence. “I’ll see if I can get any information. Obviously, if Sebastian tries to contact you, ignore it. If he shows up in person, call the police.”
There’s no way I’d call the cops on a member of the LS, but I don’t tell Andy that. “Right.”
“If we need to eventually get a restraining order—”
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll need that.”
They don’t work anyway. If my loser cousin shows up, I’ll take care of it myself.
“It’s an option, Milo. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I hear you.”
I remember my mom threatening to get a restraining order. My dad laughed in her face and said, “You think you can hide from me behind a piece of paper? I’d like to see you try.” If the LS wants to get to someone, they’ll get at them and erase all the evidence, including the dead body.
“So I hear there’s been an addition to the house. How are the boys handling living with Mercy?”
“Good. She’s different . . . ya know?”
“Different how?”
I roll my eyes toward the sky. Don’t make me say it. “She uh . . . keeps to herself, mostly.” I kick a few loose rocks on the driveway as I build up the nerve to ask what I’ve been dying to know. “You know what her story is?”
“I’ve heard a few things.”
“Yeah?”
He blows out a breath. “You know I can’t tell you. I’m sure if you took the time to know her, she’d tell you herself.”
“Don’t think I’ve heard her say more than a couple words since she got here.”
“It’s hard being placed in a new home. You know that.”
“Yeah.”
I remember. She probably has no idea who she can trust.
“All right, I’ve kept you long enough,” Andy says. “I’ll let you go. If you hear from Sebastian, call me right away, okay?”
“Will do.”
Inside the thin-walled garage, Keaton and Damian are yelling about someone getting an unfair point.
“Talk to you soon.”
I hit End and shove my phone into my pocket. For some reason, my eyes are pulled toward Mercy’s window. The same crack in the blackout curtains is still there, and the light is on inside. I walk across the driveway and turn back to make sure no one sees me being a nosy dick before I push through the hedges to peek inside.
The crack is only a sliver, but I can make out the room well enough. Very few clothes hang in her closet. A simple twin bed is made up with white sheets and a fluffy comforter covered in flowers. A stack of books rests on a simple wooden dresser. No mirror—no mirrors anywhere, which seems strange for a girl’s room. Something is stuck to the wall, a sheet of paper with a drawing of some kind. I shift for a better view, shielding my eyes with my hands. Pressing closer to the glass, I can make out the image of wings . . . some kind of bird that looks hand drawn.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text. I back away, feeling like a complete creeper, and open the text. It’s from Seth saying he’s on his way.
Good. I’d like to be gone before Mercy gets back. The last thing I need is all my friends seeing her and asking a million questions I don’t have the answers to.
“WELL, SHIT, ESE. I didn’t know we’d be partying at JLo’s crib.” Damian has opened his eyes as wide as my mine feel as we stare up at the monstrous house.
It looks like a knock-off of the White House, with thick concrete pillars and a dome on top, as well as a front yard that looks like a damn golf course minus the holes and the flags.
“Whose house is this?” I hit Send on a text to Carrie to let her know we’re here then shove my phone into the pocket of my jeans. Something tells me she’s going to have to meet us at the door if we want any chance of getting inside.
“Franklin Aloysius Masterson, the third,” Seth says in a really shitty British accent. “His grandparents, I think. They’re spending the year in Rome or some crap.”
“Hold up.” I stop Seth with my arm. “You mean Frank, Carrie’s ex?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I groan and drop my head backward. “Why the hell would she invite me here?”
Keaton glares at the house. “You want to leave?”
“Yeah, but I already told her we were here.” I shake my head and pray for the patience I will need to not backhand that dick Frank in his own granny’s house.
Seth starts moving toward the door. “I bet they have caviar and finger sandwiches up in here. Let’s check it out.”
We all trudge across the miles of manicured lawn, leaving a trail of flattened grass in our wake. We weave through bushes where the flowers are so big and bright they don’t even look real, and the thorns tear into my forearms.
Damian leans toward me. “I bet my balls they’re gonna think we’re the caterers.”
I can’t help but grin. “Not the worst thing, to
get stuck in the kitchen.”
“I’ll take a piss in their gold-plated sink right in front of that sissy Aloysius.” Keaton opens the doors, and we’re met by a crowd of obnoxiously drunk high school kids.
I grimace and glare at the in-ceiling speakers. “What is that noise?”
Damian grimaces. “Taylor Swift. Some remix techno version.”
“And here I thought it was impossible to make a Taylor Swift song sound any whiter than it already does.”
Keaton pushes past me, clapping me on the shoulder. “You’d be wrong.”
The rooms are so big that they don’t even have to move furniture to create dance floors. At least one hundred people must be in this room alone as the ocean of teenage bodies sways to the beat. Two guys stagger by us, one sloshing beer all over the fancy floor, which is peppered in gold flakes. Damn—so rich they put gold under their feet.
“Is it just me, or does every dude in this place think he’s P. Diddy?” Keaton and I share a look and start busting up.
“Yay!” Carrie’s high-pitched greeting calls all our eyes to her as she waves to us from the enormous staircase in the middle of the room. “You made it!”
“Ay dios mio,” Damian mumbles over my shoulder. “She looks good enough to eat.”
She moves with a heavy sway to her hips, her tight pants hugging her curves, and her short top exposes a flat stomach and pierced belly button. Little rebel.
“Hey, Milo.” She reaches up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around my neck and presses her sticky-glossed lips to the corner of my mouth.
“Carrie.”
“Lucky son of a bitch,” Seth growls and takes off to the other room with Damian and Keaton.
“You look handsome.” Her eyes devour me in a way that has me checking to make sure I’m not naked. “Are those Diesel jeans?”
“Who?”
She giggles and fits her body into my side, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me forward. “You’re so funny.”
I throw my arm over her shoulder as she leads me through a living room that looks as though the decorations alone cost more than Laura and Chris’s house. I stifle a laugh when she draws me into the kitchen, which is as big as the homeless food kitchen in downtown LA but a hell of a lot fancier.