To the Steadfast

by Briana Gaitan

  She’s lying, I can tell. I decide to ease her mind. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to become another notch on his bedpost. I don’t know why everyone thinks he’s so hot.” Lies, all lies. I know exactly why all the girls love him.

  “I know, right?” She makes a gagging noise.

  “He’s average.” Maybe I’m trying to convince myself more than convince her. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. And with those last words, I roll over and try and savor the one solid hour of sleep I’ll probably get.

  As expected, I’m awoken a few hours later by Tom Sawyer blasting through the speakers of Violet’s father’s record player. I hold a cotton pillow over my head, but it does little to block the bass vibrating the walls of the small house.

  “I hate your parents,” I mumble. Longing for the comfort of my own bed and room, I roll off the mattress.

  Violet doesn’t stir. She’s used to sleeping over the music. I creep down the hallway, careful not to run into Violet’s mother. The entire house reeks of pot, which means both parents are up. I sneak through the hallway but check the living room before I walk past. There’s a stranger in there with Violet’s dad, who’s weighing something out on a digital scale. When I’m certain no one is looking, I hurry past, careful not to trip on the mounds of clothes and empty beer bottles that litter the floor. I’m almost in the safety of the bathroom when Violet’s mother steps out of her bedroom across the hallway.

  “Cody! Don’t you think that it’s about time? I always swore it would be, but I don’t know where to go.”

  My mouth opens slightly, unsure of what to say, so I smile and nod. Violet’s mother is slightly schizophrenic. I’ve caught her talking nonsense to herself on more than one occasion. I still can’t get used to being in the same room with her. It’s uncomfortable not knowing if she’s talking to herself or me.

  Once I’m in the bathroom, I pull off my clothes and start the shower. Only dressed in my bra and undies, I grab my toothbrush from one of the drawers and squeeze a bit of toothpaste on it.

  Mid-brush, the bathroom door flies open and Mischa comes barreling in with only a pair of boxers on.

  “Get out, I gotta piss,” he grumbles.

  I should move, but I’m in such a state of shock at Mischa opening the door I could have sworn I locked, I can’t.

  “Whatever.” He lifts the toilet seat and as the sound of him peeing fills the room, I quickly spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth out. I want to peek. I should peek, but I don’t. Chicken shit. I throw my shirt back on.

  “How did you open that door?” I ask, straightening out my clothes.

  “There’s only one bathroom in this house. Better believe I can get past that lock whenever I feel like it. Though I figured Violet was in the shower. Sorry, but it was an emergency.”

  I cross my hands in front of my chest. “You’re a boy. Go pee outside.”

  “Yeah right, and give everyone in town a free view of the goods?”

  “Get out!” I point to the door.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He gives a friendly salute, but his eyes still travel over my curves.

  “Now!”

  He slips out the door, and I relock it behind him. Afraid someone else might be able to sneak in, I jump into the shower with my underwear still on. It’s hard to wash with the fabric covering me, but somehow I manage to clean the necessary parts. I step out, and with the towel around me, shimmy out of my bra and panties. Safely back in Violet’s room, I get dressed.

  “Did you know your brother can get into the bathroom while it’s locked?” I pull on a clean bra.

  She stretches her hands over her head, still half asleep. “Yeah, he does that sometimes. Sorry. Did he see anything he wasn’t supposed to?”

  “Well, he caught me in my underwear.”

  “Want me to beat him up?”

  Not wanting to make a big deal out of it, I shake my head. “It’s okay.”

  She snickers and sits up in bed. Her Golden Retriever, who is lying on the floor, perks up and jumps into her lap. “Is that right, Domino? You don’t like Mischa either, do you?”

  Domino is almost as big as Violet, and he responds by knocking her back on the bed with his big paws.

  “Did you have fun last night?” she asks.

  “I suppose for you,” I mumble. I throw on a maxi dress from a pile of clothes on Violet’s floor and pull my wet, brown hair into a bun on top of my head.

  She spent the entire night making out with some random guy, and despite my brief make out session with bow-tie guy, I spent most of the night watching over her to make sure she didn’t get raped by some random guy.

  “I’ll drop by after dinner. See you later.” I ruffle up Domino’s fur and blow Violet an air kiss before making my way out into her living room.

  “Leaving so soon, Cody?” her dad asks. He’s hunched over the coffee table that’s covered in empty sandwich bags. I can only imagine what he’s gonna fill them with.

  “Yup, my parents just called.”

  He motions toward the chair so, in the interest of not being rude, I sit for a minute. He talks a bit more about something I don’t care about. I pretend to be interested, but instead my thoughts keep drifting toward how much Mischa and his father look alike. Same tall build, long hair, beautiful eyes, but Crumb has not aged well. Drinking, drugs, and stress will do that to you. His eyes are that same clear sea green as Mischa’s. It’s no secret that Crumb broke a few hearts in his time, and Mischa is well on his way to breaking his father’s record.

  “Here’s some new product. Why don’t you try it and let me know what you think?” He hands me a baggie of marijuana.

  “Thanks,” I say with a wide grin. Best thing about being friends with a Cromwell.

  As the bag is transferred to my hand, a pounding shakes the house as a bunch of men in black outfits and large guns stream in through the front and back doors. Crumb scrambles to grab his drugs from the coffee table while I fall to the ground in a panic. I squeeze my eyes shut, scared that if I open them I might see someone get shot.

  Bang!

  Pop!

  I whimper as a gun go off so close that my ears begin a deafening ring. Gathering all the bravery in me, I open my eyes, expecting to see a bloodied mess. One of the cops points a rifle at my head and begins yelling something incoherent. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me, but the fear is enough to almost make me piss my pants. I can’t understand him through the ringing in my ears and the look on his face tells me he’s livid.

  “I don’t live here!” I scream repeatedly. “I don’t live here!”

  I try to get up, but first scramble for my keys which have been knocked from my hand somewhere in the scuffle. The cop answers by swinging the gun across my temple, and a flash of light explodes across my vision before I hit the ground. It isn’t long before the pain kicks in, radiating throughout my forehead.

  “Don’t fucking touch her! She’s a kid!” Strong arms, which I immediately recognize as Mischa’s, wrap around my waist and pull me from the ground.

  “Let me see, baby.” He forces me to look at him as he examines my throbbing head. Blood trickles down into my eye, which he wipes away with the sleeve of his shirt. I don’t move, scared it will make the pain worse. The cops had to raid the Cromwell house while I was there. If I had left a few minutes earlier, this wouldn’t have happened.

  “I’m so sorry, Cody. My stupid, messed up family. I’m so sorry.” His green eyes are full of remorse as he turns back to the cop and starts yelling. I can faintly hear the cop fighting back with him, but my head hurts too much to stand. I reach out to tug on Mischa’s pant leg, but he ignores me. Leaning against the wall, I watch as the scene unfolds. Past the cops, past the living room, all I see is the blood soaked kitchen floor.

  “Dakota Lombardi!”

  I press my hands against the cold metal of the chain and struggle against the handcuffs that dig into my wrist.

  “Dakota Lombardi?” A man with a handlebar mu
stache and beer gut walks over. “Are you Dakota?”

  “It’s Cody,” I snap, still trying to wiggle my wrist out of the cuff. “And I demand to speak to my lawyer.” I don’t have one, but what does this guy know? “And a phone call, don’t I get one phone call?”

  “You’re not being arrested,” he snickers, making me struggle even harder. They’ve left me in here for almost an hour while refusing to tell me what’s going on.

  I give the old metal desk beside me a good swift kick to get his attention. “Hey! Then why are you holding me hostage you middle-aged freak? Where are my friends? Are they okay? Tell me!”

  “Quiet, Dakota.” My father’s voice resonates through the small office causing me to stiffen. There are two things in life that I hate more than anything else. My father being mad at me and black olives.

  “Thanks, Harry. I appreciate you calling me in,” he says, stepping closer to me with a stern face. A shiver goes down my spine as he shakes his head. He’s disappointed. He doesn’t have to say it, I can tell.

  “No problem, Doc. Since she was only visiting the house, we won’t be charging her, but she should stay away from there. We confiscated a few grand in drugs. Someone’s gonna be locked up for a very long time.”

  The two men smile like they’ve just discovered a huge secret, but Crumb’s dealings were never all that secret.

  My father shakes Harry’s hand. “Dakota is normally a good girl. She volunteers after school at the hospital. She’s just attracted to lost causes. You know how young girls are, always trying to save every stray dog they see.”

  He did not just refer to my friends as lost dogs. I scowl as Harry uncuffs me, making my wrists feel a thousand times lighter.

  My father only says two words. “Home. Now.”

  With my head down, I scurry from the office. He doesn’t follow, but I pick up a few words.

  “About this cop that hit her. What is being done about it?”

  The main office is filled with dozens of glass-divided cubicles, all mostly empty except for one. Mischa sits with his hands behind his head, his dark hair in a tousled mess. A shiver runs down me as I remember seeing him in his boxes earlier. Now isn’t the time to think about that. I need to make sure Violet is okay. As I approach, I see a small figure sitting on the floor by his feet.

  “Violet,” I whimper, running to her and wrapping my arms around her. “I didn’t know if you were all right. Are you all right?”

  Violet nods, but her swollen eyes tell me she isn’t. Red stains the front of her pants and white tank. Blood. Whose blood? Her voice is hoarse as she speaks. “They’re going away, for a long time. At least my dad is. I can’t even go home, we have to go stay with my aunt for a few days. And they killed my dog, Cody. They shot Domino because he jumped up to protect me.”

  I pull her close and look up at Mischa whose expression is empty. I can’t tell if he’s scared like Violet or upset like me. So I’d saw Domino’s blood on the kitchen floor.

  He meets my gaze and grimaces. “Your face, Cody.”

  I touch my bruised temple, knowing I can hide the mess of today under some good concealer. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Don’t worry about me.”

  He leans forward and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “I was afraid he’d shot you. When I heard the shots and came out to see blood on your face. I thought….”

  I squeeze his knee with my free hand. “I’ll come get you soon. We can forget this mess ever happened.”

  “Dakota!” I turn my head to my father, who is on the other side of the room.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  I run over to my father and walk in sync behind him. Left, right. Left, right. Since his legs are so long, I can’t seem to keep up with him.

  “Grounded,” he says.

  “But I have a date with Aaron tonight,” I protest, hoping that he’ll at least allow me to hang out with him.

  His beeper vibrates from his belt. He checks it and exhales slowly. “Fine, but you’re not to see those kids anymore. Do you understand? If I even get a whiff that you are hanging around that lowlife family, I’ll take your car and ship you off to boarding school so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  Back at home, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. At five o’clock, I’m awoken by talking outside by the pool. I can make out my mom’s nasally laugh. I try and sleep over it, but the damage has already been done.

  Rolling out of bed, I open my blackout curtains, letting my eyes adjust to the bright sun. She’s having some sort of luncheon I didn’t know about. Not that my parents tell me about their plans often. I had a nanny until I was twelve, but by then I was old enough to take care of myself. My mother is one of those people who believes appearances are everything, and since we’ve lived in Betty my whole life, she insists the Lombardi family has a reputation to uphold. My father is the head physician at our rural hospital. It’s great that he saves lives and all, but it would be even better if he were around more. Before he took the job, we actually did stuff as a family. A few trips here and there, dinners out, but we haven’t done those types of things in a long time.

  There are two parts of our small town in Georgia. The community on the east side, where I live, and the older houses on the west side, where Violet lives. The school, post office, grocery, and Main Street are all that divide the two worlds. If my mom ever caught me hanging out on the west side, she’d disown me, but I suppose that’s what makes Violet’s house so appealing. I’d do anything just to get under my mother’s skin.

  In the kitchen, I grab my favorite mug out of the cupboard and brew a cup of coffee. I pray my mom stays outside until I’ve had a cup or two.

  To my dismay, the back door flies open. No such luck.

  “Dakota, I didn’t realize you were home.” Her voice is crisp like nails on a chalkboard.

  “My car’s in the driveway.” I turn away and fill my mug. My mother and I aren’t going through some teenage crisis, we’ve never gotten along. I’m a minor annoyance on the backburner of her life.

  “I’m leaving for a thing in New York in an hour. Your father wanted me to remind you to visit your grandmother tomorrow. He’s heading to the city for a conference and doesn’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “Visit Nona, check.” I shoot an imaginary bullet her way with my pretend finger gun. Nona is my father’s mother—and not your typical old granny. She speaks her mind, listens to rap music, and loves to dye her hair all different colors. I’m convinced my parents put her in a retirement home because they were too embarrassed by her. Not me though. She and I have always been close.

  “Do me a favor and go upstairs until I leave.” My mother checks her reflection in the microwave and runs her fingers across the wrinkles on her forehead that are covered by a pound of makeup. No matter how hard she tries to deny it, she’s getting older. She’s not even mentioned my eventful morning. She probably doesn’t know I was there, and I’m not about to tell her.

  “Dear, have you seen my drink?” a voice says, followed by a man walking through the French doors from our back patio. When I recognize who it is, I almost spray my coffee across the counter.

  “Um, hello, Senator,” I say to our next-door neighbor. The surprised look on his face tells me he didn’t realize my mother had company.

  “Dakota. How is school?”

  I scoff and hop off my chair. “How’s your wife?”

  I expect to leave him stumbling over his words, but his smooth politician façade takes over.

  “Your mother and I are co-sponsoring a benefit for the hospital.”

  I hide my ginormous eye rolling behind my cup of coffee.

  “Make Mr. Carmike an expresso, Dakota.”

  Her pronunciation drives me nuts, but I guess that’s what happens when your lips are so full of Botox. You can’t even speak properly. “Stop calling me Dakota and I might.”

  “That is your name, is it not? Besides, I refuse to call you by some boyish nickname. Now ma
ke him an expresso.”

  Since I’m the only one who knows how to work it, I begin fiddling with the thousand-dollar machine that I’d forced my father to buy me. “It’s espresso, Mother. Not expresso.”

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. That’s what I said.”

  I push the small cup across the table. “Here you go, Senator.”

  He picks it up and takes a sip. “Thanks, dear.”

  I take the rest of my coffee and go back up to my room to nurse my hangover. I text Violet, worried about where the police will send her and Mischa, but she doesn’t answer.

  By the time my date with Aaron rolls around, I’m feeling much more alert. I drive to the new apartment he shares with a few other guys in his senior class. It’s near the college where he will be attending in a few months, but not too far away. Betty is a small town, population just under one thousand. On a weekend, we only have ourselves to keep us company. That means parties. Lots and lots of parties. Walking through the messy house, I push through the crowd into the living room. It’s not hard to find Aaron with his friends, huddled around a pool table. He’s the only one wearing a sports coat. Style over comfort, I’m sure he said that at least six times on our first date. A cocky grin spreads over his face as I approach.

  “Aaron, I thought we were going out for dinner.”

  He leans against his pool stick and runs his hand over his gelled back blond hair. “Sorry, babe. In the middle of an important game. We’ll chill when I’m finished.”

  It’s not surprising he’d blow me off, but I’m a little annoyed and irritable from my lack of food.

  “Okay, do you want me to get you a drink?”

  “What?” he yells over the sound of the music.

  “Never mind.”

  I lean against the wall as he goes back to his game and watch them hit stupid balls into small pockets. If I don’t get some good company soon, this is going to be a long night. The Cromwells are like a disco ball at a party. Everyone wants one there. They make every party that much more interesting.