by Carolee Dean
“She’s out of my league. We don’t even play in the same ballpark.”
“Have you seen the way she looks at you?”
“She looks at everybody that way.”
“You’re a good kid, Dylan.” He patted me on the back. “Not very observant when it comes to girls, but you’ll figure it out.” Gomez walked back to his office, leaving me to wonder what the heck he was talking about.
I went to the bathroom. Peeled off my grease-stained work shirt and washed my armpits in the sink. Combed my hair. Studied my reflection in the mirror.
Girls always told me they went crazy over my eyes. The rest of me may have been dark and hard but at least I had nice eyes.
I went back into the garage to get Baby Face. I worried that I looked like I was trying to show off my arms by wearing the white tank top. Figured my filthy blue work pants and black boots would counter the effect. Thought about putting my dirty work shirt back on. Sniffed it and decided against it.
I found Jess outside, sitting in the Beemer, top on, air-conditioning running. I realized that by the time we reached Hermosa Beach I’d be sweating like a pig again, since the air conditioner in the Mustang was busted. I was saving money to put in a new system, but by the time I got what I needed it would probably be winter.
Jess rolled down the window.
“My car’s out back.” I said. “I’ll pull it around front and follow you.” Jeez, what was I getting myself into?
I expected her to tell me she’d changed her mind or to forget about it or to take a hike. Instead she looked up at me with her green eyes and said, “Thank you.” It made me feel proud, and I figured, what the heck. I’ll follow her home. Who knew what might happen.
17
“CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHERE IN THE LIVIN’ HELL WE are?”
I look up to see the morning sun shining on Wade, who is standing outside the Mustang. Baby Face is next to him, on her leash, growling at a cow on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. I get out of the car and look around. Realize that I’ve driven right off the road onto the shoulder. I must have fallen asleep and taken my foot off the gas.
We’re out in the middle of nowhere. The landscape is so flat that I look in all directions and see nothing but brown grass and sky.
It’s creepy, like one of those movies where you’re the only person left on Earth or where the mutated locals hack you to pieces and then barbecue your body parts.
“Ten miles to Plainview,” I say, squinting to make out the name on the road sign.
“And you complained about me takin’ detours,” he says. “Why don’t you let me drive?”
“Maybe I should,” I say, getting back inside the car on the passenger side.
“Looks like we’ve landed on another planet,” he tells me as he puts Baby Face back inside the car and sits behind the wheel.
“We have,” I reply. “This is Texas.”
18
I PARKED ON HERMOSA AVENUE AND MET JESS AT THE PIER. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but we started walking and talking and pretty soon I was buying her and me and Baby Face chili dogs from a beachside vendor.
“My dad used to be a beach vendor,” she said as we walked along the Strand eating our hot dogs. “He had a T-shirt truck, and he’d park it by the pier down in Newport Beach.”
“Is that how he made his millions?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“You pulling my leg?”
“Think about how many people buy T-shirts,” she said, giving me a sideways smile. She had a spot of mustard on her chin. I wanted to reach over and wipe it off, just for the excuse to touch her face, but I didn’t. “I mean, he had to move up,” she explained. “But it all started out of the back end of a truck. His dream was to get us out of our little apartment and buy my mother a beach house. Before long he was renting a booth in a mall in L.A. and we were moving to north Downey. Then my mom started selling real estate. Dad finally saved enough money to get a storefront on Hollywood Boulevard.”
She was talking a mile a minute and I was glad, because I couldn’t think very clearly. Didn’t want to say something stupid. She was walking a little ways ahead of me, backward, like she was leading me somewhere. Her skirt was blowing in the wind coming off the water, so she looked like she was floating. Watching her move was hypnotizing. “But you ended up here, so it was worth it,” I said.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, like she wasn’t sure at all. Then she got real quiet and looked out at the water.
We kept walking until the sun started to set. I figured I should be heading back to my car before I wore out my welcome, but all of a sudden Jess stopped and said, “This is my place.”
“This?” I looked up at a house not eight feet from the short fence separating it from the beach. I couldn’t believe it. She had a place right on the Strand. It didn’t have much of a yard, but then she didn’t really need one. It was narrow and tall. All the houses there were. But I knew it had to cost a fortune for its location alone. I had a sudden feeling of panic like I used to get when the cops came around checking IDs at the bar, like I was pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. “Don’t you gotta meet your boyfriend or something?”
“He’s gone to Big Bear for the holiday.”
“What about your folks?”
“My parents are out of town until after the Fourth.”
My parents are out of town . Those words coming from a girl would usually sound like music to my ears, but something about the way Jess said it made me feel nervous.
“Jess, there you are,” a voice said, and Jess’s smile faded as Katie and Alice walked up to us. “Alice and I have been texting you for half an hour. Did you forget about the sale down at Chico’s?”
“I think I’ll pass,” Jess replied.
“Come on, Jess. Don’t be like that. You know we’re fundage impaired.”
“Hey, aren’t you that guy who fixes cars?” Katie asked, looking at my grease-covered work pants as if she couldn’t believe I ever left the garage.
“Yeah, they let me out every now and then,” I said.
“Where’s Jason?” Alice asked.
“Gone for the weekend,” Jess said, lifting her chin in defiance.
“I see,” Katie said, looking me up and down. “Guess you’ve got a thing for bad boys.”
“We’re friends,” said Jess. “Not that you would understand what that means.” Jess turned to me, and the look in her eyes was so deep and warm it seemed to melt away all the years between Long Beach and Hermosa. I was twelve years old again, wanting nothing more than to find a way to make her laugh.
“With a boy who looks like that, there’s no such thing as just friends ,” said Katie. “But we can take a hint. Come on, Alice. Four’s a crowd.”
When they had left, Jess turned to me. “Do you ever look at the people around you and wonder how you ended up with them?”
I thought of Wade and how I’d met him during in-school suspension at Downey High School. “All the time.”
“Come on,” she said, hopping over the brick fence and leading me into her backyard. She sat on a porch swing and I sat down next to her, facing the beach.
This was a place I could get used to.
“I love to watch the sun set over the water,” Jess said, looking out at the flame red horizon.
“Yeah. It’s different every day.”
She looked surprised.
“I like to unwind on the weekend by driving up the coast,” I told her.
She nodded, then reached out and touched my right hand, tracing the crude tattoo of the cross with her fingertips. The sensation of her skin against mine was like an electric shock.
“Ellee. Is that your girlfriend?” she asked, reading the letters beneath the cross.
“No.”
“But it is a girl.”
“A woman.”
“Really?”
“No. It’s not the way it sounds.”
“You have her name tattooed on your hand. She m
ust be important.”
I wondered how much I should tell Jess about Ellen Carter. I knew if I hung around her much longer I was going to fall hopelessly in love, and that would be terrible because we would never end up together, not in a million years. Maybe if I told her the grisly details of my past, I could scare her away and avoid the heartache.
“When I quit school my uncle Mitch got me a job with a friend of his, a guy named Jake Farmer, who owns a used car lot in East L.A. Last summer he got me and Wade to start chopping cars for him.”
“Chopping cars?”
“Stripping down stolen cars for parts. Taking out the CD players, radios, anything of value.”
“Oh.” Jess raised an eyebrow. “Did your uncle know?”
“No,” I said, though I’d never been sure exactly how much Mitch knew about Jake’s side business. He and I never talked about it, even after I got busted.
“Jake said me and Wade would never get caught ’cause he had us working out of an abandoned warehouse. He said even if we got arrested, we’d never do time because we were juveniles.”
“What does this have to do with Ellee?”
“Ellen.”
“Your tattoo says Ellee.”
“Wade was afraid we’d get caught, and he got a little sloppy with the nail.”
“The nail?”
“That’s how you do ’em in jail. Either that or a piece of wire. You gotta poke the skin and dab in the ink that you make with lead shavings and toothpaste.”
“I see,” she said, taking a deep breath. Good! It was working. I was obviously scaring her. Any minute she was bound to tell me to get lost.
“Ellen was an innocent old lady who got in the way of the gangbangers who stole her car. So they ran her down. She’d left her cell phone in the glove box, so it was easy for the cops to track the GPS to the warehouse with me and Wade the next morning. That’s how I know Ajax and Spider. They’re in the gang.” I didn’t mention that Ajax was the one who’d killed Ellen. I realized that if I’d ratted him out he’d be behind bars, and the streets would be safer for Jess.
Of course, I’d also be dead.
“I made a bargain with God. If he let Ellen Carter live, I’d clean up my act and go straight.”
“What happened?”
“God didn’t keep his end of the bargain.”
“Wow.” Jess was quiet for a long time. Plotting her escape, I assumed. She pretended to watch the sun sinking into the sea, leaving streaks of red and gold. It was almost dark, and here she was sitting in front of her beach house with an ex-convict.
I watched the people going by, laughing and talking. Not sad, desperate people, but folks with hope and a future. I wondered what it would feel like to be a person with a future. All I’d been thinking about for the past few months was surviving. Keeping my nose clean. Holding down a job. I wished I could erase the tattoo. Wished I could erase myself and start over. But even if I did, what would I do differently? Why couldn’t I have found Gomez before I found Jake Farmer?
“What about you?” Jess finally spoke. “Did you keep your end of the bargain?”
“I’m trying.”
Jess looked up at me. “That’s so … unbelievable.”
“It’s all true. Believe me.”
“I believe it happened, I just can’t believe you would tell me. I mean, my friends would never confess anything like that. They can’t even admit they buy Prada knockoffs. It’s like we’re always in this huge competition for who has the perfect life. I’m so sick of it. Sometimes I feel like we’re all in a big popularity parade, all dressed up, marching behind the horses.”
“You want me to leave?” I braced myself for rejection.
She looked surprised. “Why?”
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” I’d seen people cross the street to avoid me and my type.
“Should I be?” She didn’t seem afraid at all. She didn’t even seem disappointed.
“No.”
“Then I guess I’m not.”
“So you don’t want me to leave?”
“No. I don’t want you to leave. In fact, what I really want …” She looked down at her sandals.
“What?”
She still wouldn’t look at me. “Dylan, would you stay the night with me?”
I felt my mouth fall open as I suffered a mild heart attack. That was not the reaction I was expecting from her.
“No. It’s not like that. I’m not coming on to you. That’s not what I mean. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that.” She was trembling like a kitten left out in the rain, and I suddenly realized what she wanted. What she needed.
She was afraid of being alone. If two mongrels like Ajax and Spider had tried to force me into a van, I’d be scared too.
“Sure. I’ll spend the night with you. I’ll spend the whole week if you want.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. It was weird, the idea of a girl wanting to be with me because she thought I was safe. I remembered the way her boyfriend had treated her, and I made a promise to myself that I would never be like that.
“I don’t expect anything,” I said. “You’re safe with me.”
“I know. I don’t know how I know, but I do.” She smiled, took my hand, and led me into her house.
Jess input a code on the security pad so we wouldn’t set off the house alarm. Then she locked the back door. She proceeded to walk through the entire first floor, turning on every light, looking in every corner, which is exactly what I would do if I’d been accosted by gangbangers the night before. “My room is upstairs,” she told me. “It used to be a separate flat, but my parents connected them.”
When we reached the staircase, Jess picked up a black trash bag filled with clothes. “Oh, maybe you could use these. I was supposed to take them to Goodwill for my father.”
“Thanks,” I said, looking down at my dirty work clothes, realizing I wouldn’t be going home to change.
When we reached the second floor, Jess said, “Home sweet home.” She pointed to a large room with a small kitchenette in the corner, set off by a bar and four stools. There was a small bathroom next to the kitchen, but everything else seemed to be in the one room, a futon facing a wide-screen television, a beanbag chair next to the futon, and a shelf filled with books and movies. There were piles of books and clothes everywhere.
A huge full moon was glowing through a plate-glass window in the wall behind the television. “I bet that’s one awesome view during the day,” I said, trying to make conversation. Not really sure what I was supposed to do next.
“You must think I’m a total wimp to ask you to babysit me.”
“Nope,” I said, turning back to her. “I think you’re alone … and scared.”
Jess wrapped her arms around herself and sat on the edge of the futon. Baby Face curled up on the carpet and laid her head on Jess’s feet, looking up at her as if to make sure she was okay.
I left the window and went to sit beside her. There was an afghan folded on the table next to a pair of pajamas. I unfolded it and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was cold on the beach after the sun went down. Farther inland the concrete soaked up the sun and never let it go, but here you could feel the temperature drop after the sun set.
“My parents are never here.”
“What do you mean?”
“After a month of haze and gloom my mother decided she didn’t like the beach—or my father. They both have separate apartments in the city now, close to their jobs. They’re always taking separate vacations. As soon as I graduate they’re going to sell this place and probably get a divorce.”
“Wow. Is that how the rich abandon their kids?”
“Yeah, with a credit card. I don’t mind. It’s better than having them here fighting all the time. But last night I thought every sound was an intruder.”
“So I’m filling in till Jason gets back.”
“It’s not like that. He doesn’t know about my parents. God, if he did he’d be trying t
o move in with me.”
I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying. I wanted to ask her why she confided in me when she couldn’t talk to her boyfriend, but I didn’t.
“No wonder you look so tired,” I said, touching the dark circles under her eyes. “Don’t worry. I know just what to do.” I got up to leave.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To my car. I’ll be right back.”
I walked down to Hermosa Avenue, got the Mustang, and parked it behind Jess’s house. Then I found my copy of Poetry Through the Ages in the trunk. By the time I returned, Jess was already in her pajamas—a pair of shorts and a tank top. She didn’t seem to have any idea how sexy she looked.
“I’ll read you to sleep,” I told her, looking hard at the book, trying to avoid looking at her body. “I do it for my mother all the time. She says my voice is a natural sedative.”
“It may not be that easy. I’m an incurable insomniac.”
“That’s okay. I know a lot of Yeats.”
“You like Yeats?”
“My mom used to read me a lot of poetry when I was little. What, I don’t strike you as the sensitive poetic type?”
“Not really.”
“I try to hide it.”
“You do a good job.” She was smiling again. God, I loved the way her mouth twisted up at the corner, like we were sharing a secret joke.
I had left my reading glasses at home, so I couldn’t keep up my old ruse, but I opened the book to page fourteen—to “The Mermaid”—another Yeats poem—and pretended to read anyway.
“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down,
Forgot in cruel happiness,
That even lovers drown.”
“I thought mermaids were supposed to save men.”
“They are,” I told her. “But sometimes a guy doesn’t mind drowning.”
19
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE LOST?” I ASK WADE.