by Earl Sewell
“That makes two of us,” I said.
“Well, at least we won our first competition.” Keysha pulled out the instructions she had been given for her research paper.
“Speaking of winning, I have to tell you what happened last night,” I said, perking up.
“Let me guess. You had drama with Viviana?” Keysha said sarcastically.
“Well, yes and no,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Keysha asked.
I leaned in closer and began to whisper. I didn’t want Miss Bingham to come over and tell us that we were being too loud. “When Misalo dropped me off last night, I walked into the house and was grilled by my parents.”
“About what? I thought you said this was about Viviana?”
“It is. Just listen. My dad was out in the shed, when he came across a backpack full of cell phones, jewelry and an iPad.”
“Why was that there?” Keysha asked with a puzzled look on her face.
“Well, that’s what my parents wanted to know,” I said.
“They thought it was your stuff?” Keysha caught on quickly.
“Yep. They wanted to know why and how that stuff was at the house. I told them that I had no clue. They had already nailed Anna and Paul, so that meant it must’ve been Viviana’s.”
“Oh, snap. That was the stuff she had gotten from pickpocketing people, wasn’t it?” Keysha now had the full picture.
“Bingo. So I told my parents about the video you had captured and showed it to them. Sure enough, the iPhone she had snatched was the same one that was beeping.”
“Oh, my God. What happened next?” Keysha hung on my every word.
“My parents said that we’re going to give Viviana a chance to explain herself. When she got home and was asked about it, she lied and said that it was LaShaunda’s.”
“She lied to your parents, and they already knew the truth?” Keysha asked for clarification.
“Yep,” I answered.
“Dang. She was straight-up busted,” Keysha said.
“You should’ve seen the look on her face when my mother called me into the kitchen where they were. She asked me to pull up the video and then held it so that Viviana could see it.”
“She should have just told it like it was. She should have said ‘I’m sorry, but, yeah, I stole some stuff,’” Keysha concluded.
“Well, it wasn’t like that would have made anything better,” I said.
“I know, but still she should have come clean,” Keysha said.
“Well, she didn’t, and my parents finally saw Viviana for what she truly was. A liar and a thief,” I said, full of self-righteousness.
“Did she say why she did it?” Keysha asked.
“Ironically, she decided to mentally check out when that question was asked,” I said.
“So what do you think your parents are going to do?” Keysha leaned back and balanced herself on the rear legs of the chair.
“She’ll probably get grounded,” I said.
“That means she won’t be able to compete with the team at tonight’s competition.” Keysha paused for dramatic effect.
“Wow. I had not thought about that,” I said gloomily.
“This sucks. All of that studying has now gone to waste,” Keysha complained.
“Maybe not. Perhaps my folks will still allow her to compete,” I said, even though I knew the chances of that happening were slim to none.
At the end of the day, Misalo, Keysha and I boarded the bus heading to our next competition. When Mr. Morgan boarded, he clapped his hands and said, “Are you guys ready to beat the mess out of Thornton High School?” He paused and realized that Viviana wasn’t there. “Where is Viviana?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Call her and find out,” Mr. Morgan insisted. I loathed the fact that he knew Viviana was my cousin. I pulled out my phone and called her, but I got no answer.
“She’s not answering,” I said to him.
“Are you serious?” Mr. Morgan exhaled loudly. “I should have known something was wrong when I did not see her in class today.”
It was then that I realized that I cared so little for Viviana that I had not noticed her absence. I was positive my parents had grounded her, but not to the point that they would have forced her to stay home and not come to school.
“I’ll call my sister. She probably knows where she is,” I said and dialed Anna. “Hey. Do you know where Viviana is?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well, have you seen her?” I asked.
“Not since last night,” Anna answered.
“Have you talked to her at all?” I asked.
“Have you?” Anna snipped. “You’re the one who placed the nail in her coffin with the video clip.”
“I didn’t force her to...” My phone went dead. The little brat had hung up on me. I looked at Mr. Morgan, who was waiting for an answer.
“My sister doesn’t know where she is,” I said.
“I knew I should’ve assigned an alternate. Damn.” Mr. Morgan was frustrated. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“What’s going on?” Misalo walked from the rear of the bus to the front where Keysha and I sat. He had been doing his usual pre-competition zone out.
“Viviana is not here,” Keysha answered.
“Where is she?” Misalo looked at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know where she is.”
Ten minutes later Mr. Morgan came walking back toward the bus with Red, one of the students from class.
“Red is going to fill in for us,” said Mr. Morgan as he and Red got on the bus.
“What’s up, guys,” said Red with a giant smile.
“Do you even know how to play?” Keysha asked.
“He isn’t going to answer questions. He will be just a body. We will worry about getting him up to speed after this game,” said Mr. Morgan.
“Relax, Keysha. I got this,” Red said boastfully.
“Great,” Misalo said sarcastically and walked to the rear of the bus once more.
* * *
We lost the competition, and the bus ride back home was a quiet one. Red did not help matters because he kept pressing the buzzer and giving out the wrong answer, which caused the team to lose points instead of gain them. When we arrived at the school later that evening, Mr. Morgan told us to make sure we were at practice.
“And tell Viviana that I want to see her,” he said.
“I will, but she might be grounded,” I admitted to him.
“I still want to talk to her. If she’s grounded, then we will have to continue on with Red,” he said.
Misalo and I dropped Keysha off at home, and then he drove me home. Before I got out of the car, we kissed and hugged each other. It had been a long time since we had kissed, and his lips were still soft and had the power to make me melt.
“Good night,” I said then opened the car door.
“Bye,” he said. I closed the door and he pulled off.
When I walked into the house, I was surprised to see Grandmother Esmeralda sitting at the kitchen table holding on to her rosary. She had a grim expression on her face, which unsettled me. Anna and Paul were standing next to my mother, who was on the phone.
“Maya, why didn’t you answer your phone? I have been calling you for over an hour,” my father said.
“Oh. We have to turn our cell phones off when we are competing,” I said, reaching in my purse to retrieve it. “What’s going on?”
“Honey, have you seen your cousin?” asked my grandmother.
“I saw her last night,” I answered.
“Have you seen her since then?” my grandmother asked with an unsteady voice.
“No,” I said and then took a seat at the table.
My mother ended her phone conversation and asked, “Do you know where Viviana could possibly be?”
“No, Mom, I don’t,” I answered. “Why? Is she missing?”
“Yes,” my mother said and combed her fingers through her hair. Her eyes were weary and red. “No one has seen her since the argument last night, and the school called to tell me that she had not shown up. She has an honors English class that she will probably fail because of absences. I thought she may have run to your grandmother’s, but she had not. I just called all the hospitals in the area, and she’s not at any of them.”
“I think we should get the police involved,” said my father.
“No. Viviana is a good girl. She is just misunderstood. No police. Not yet,” Grandmother Esmeralda insisted. “Herman, go drive around. See if she is at the mall or something. Maya, you go with your father. You can help him.”
“Fine,” said my dad and grabbed his car keys off the countertop.
“Herman,” said Grandmother Esmeralda. “I know that getting the police involved is the right thing to do. I just want to give Viviana a chance to come to her senses and call home. I know she will.”
“If she doesn’t, we will have no other choice but to inform the authorities,” my dad said before we walked out the door.
twenty-four
VIVIANA
LaShaunda and I were able to catch a Greyhound bus to Milwaukee the following morning at 6:00 a.m. We arrived in Milwaukee about an hour and a half later. The Greyhound bus station in Milwaukee doubled as the Amtrak train station. The terminal looked fairly new, as if it had recently been built or remodeled. The morning was chilly, but bright and promising. I walked through the terminal with a black duffel bag filled with clothes slung over my shoulder. The terminal was filled with travelers. Some were departing while others were waiting patiently or sleeping in uncomfortable-looking positions.
“I need a shower and to brush my teeth,” I said to LaShaunda as I walked beside her.
“Dang, girl, stop your complaining. You can do all that once we get to where we are going,” LaShaunda said.
“Tell me about this place where you and your friends stay at again.” I kept prying.
“It’s like I told you. It’s a place where everyone is cool. No one will bother you. You can do whatever you want and it’s cool. As long as you’re with me, my crew will have your back.”
“What about food and clothes? I didn’t bring much,” I said.
“Girl, please. What do you need clothes for? It’s not like you have to go to school. We’re done with school. You have now officially graduated. Congratulations.” LaShaunda chuckled, but I didn’t.
“Will you just relax? It’s going to be okay, trust me,” she said as we exited the terminal.
“Which way do we go?” I asked, squinting my eyes.
“This way,” she said and then pointed. “We have to get to Grand Avenue Mall. That’s where the buses are.”
“How much does it cost to get on the bus? I only have a few bucks,” I said as I readjusted the duffel bag.
“I’ve never paid to get on the bus. When the damn thing stops and people get off through the rear exit, I jump on. The bus driver doesn’t care,” LaShaunda said assuredly.
We walked to the corner of West Wisconsin Avenue and Third Street. We stood in front of an Applebee’s restaurant, which was next to the entrance to the mall. The area we were in was very clean. I felt comfortable and safe as I watched people heading to work.
“How far is the crew’s house from here?” I asked.
“It’s on the other side of town. It shouldn’t take us that long to get there,” LaShaunda said as she sat down on the steps that led to the mall entrance. I dropped my duffel bag and sat beside her. A short time later, the bus arrived.
“Okay, this is us,” LaShaunda said as she stood up and grabbed her bag. We walked to the rear of the bus and snuck on as soon as the last passenger got off.
“See. It was a piece of cake.” LaShaunda smiled proudly. The bus pulled off and before long, we were on our way.
“So do you think your foster parents are going to look for you?” I asked.
“I don’t give a damn what happens to them! They can rot in hell for all I care. The most important thing right now is that I’m free. I can do what I want, when I want and however I want. No rules, no curfews and best of all, no school. Like I told you, the street is my classroom,” LaShaunda boasted. “So what happened with you last night?”
“My family hates me, and I’m tired of the BS. Last night was the last straw. I had to show them that I wasn’t going to stand around and be disrespected,” I said, not owning up to the fact that their anger toward me was justified.
“Well, I know everyone in the crew is going to love you. Just wait, you’ll see,” LaShaunda said. After what seemed like an eternity, we got off the Wisconsin Avenue bus and caught the Twenty-Seventh Street bus. We finally got off that bus at the corner of West Chambers and North Twenty-Seventh Streets. The area looked isolated. There was a place called Chuck’s Smoke Shop, but it was closed, and I had no idea what a smoke shop was.
“Come on. I see the place they told me to come to,” LaShaunda said as she trotted across the street toward a white frame house that was nothing like the brick structure she had shown me in the photo. Opposite the house was a vacant lot with overgrown grass and debris, like old car tires, burned-out trash cans and abandoned furniture. LaShaunda walked up the steps toward the front door, which was boarded up.
“Hey!” she shouted out at the top of her voice.
“I don’t think anyone lives there. The door is boarded up. Are you sure you have the right address?” I asked, concerned because an abandoned house is not what I had envisioned. In fact, I had no idea what I envisioned, but I knew that it wasn’t the dilapidated house I was standing in front of.
Someone stuck their head out of an upstairs window and yelled, “Who there?” I looked up and saw this girl with scraggly blond hair that looked like it had not seen a comb in years. Her skin was ghostly and dirty, and her eyes reminded me of a fish.
“What’s up, girl! It’s me, LaShaunda.”
“Who that with you? She not the police, is she?” asked the blond-haired girl.
“Come on, Bebe. You know me better than that. This is my friend. She’s with me. We came to stay with everybody,” LaShaunda said.
“Well, I hope you don’t come in here starting trouble.” The girl looked at me as if she were evaluating my self-worth.
“Bebe, stop tripping, girl,” LaShaunda joked with her.
“Come around the back and I’ll let you in.”
“Come on, girl,” said LaShaunda, who actually had the audacity to be excited about entering the dwelling. We walked around the house and the back door was also boarded up.
“How do we get inside?” I asked as a feeling of dread washed over me.
“Right there, through the small window.” LaShaunda pointed to Bebe who was opening the window. LaShaunda squatted down, tossed her bag through the window and crawled inside.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Come on. It’s okay,” LaShaunda tried to assure me. “Don’t be like that. This is how we do it.” I looked around and saw a pack of stray dogs approaching.
“Damn,” I said and crawled inside. It smelled like a combination of mildew and mold on the inside. The moment the foul air entered my lungs, I coughed. The house was eerily silent and dark. Bebe closed the window to ensure that the stray dogs didn’t get in. The window I had crawled through placed me in the kitchen. The only sunlight that was able to get through, other than the kitchen window, came from holes in the wood that covered the doors and remaining glass. Lit candles were scattered on the floor. They
illuminated some of the darkness, but judging from the rank odor wafting in the air, none of them was scented. The walls had holes and were covered with some type of black residue. If I had to guess, I would say that the dwelling was on fire at some point in time. I glanced above my head and saw exposed pipes that ran from one side of the room to the other. The floor was a combination of old wood and busted tile. There were a few charred kitchen cabinets dangling off the wall above the space where a dated-looking stove stood. I wanted to puke. The smell inside was almost too much to stomach. Then I realized why. To my right there was a small pantry with human waste on the floor.
“Gross,” I mumbled and quickly moved past it.
“Is you okay?” Bebe asked.
She used incorrect grammar and talked very slowly as if her brain had to think about the words it was trying to tell her mouth to say.
“She’s fine.” LaShaunda spoke for me, but I was far from fine.
“It’s okay. We family here.” Bebe touched my hair and I flinched.
“What are you doing?” I looked at her wide-eyed.
“Yo’ hair be so pretty and soft all the time, don’t it?” She smiled and that’s when I noticed that several of her teeth were missing. She looked nothing like she had in the photo LaShaunda had shown me. She must have felt self-conscious about it because she quickly stopped smiling and just smirked. I didn’t answer her question as I took another step deeper into hell.
“Where is my baby, T.J., at?” LaShaunda asked.
“T.J.? Who is that?” I asked fearfully.
“That’s my guy. Remember I told you about him,” LaShaunda reminded me, but at that moment I was busy trying to process the environment I had just entered. I was also freaking out because LaShaunda seemed to have transformed into a complete stranger on me. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know as much about her as I thought I had.
“Oh,” I said, fearing that I had made a huge mistake.
“He’s up that hallway. He been waiting on you,” said Bebe. I followed LaShaunda down the dank and dark corridor. We entered the front living area, which was illuminated by more candles. Most of the furniture was gone. There was a stale-smelling couch missing its cushions. There were funky-looking mattresses on the floor. On one of them a guy and a girl were sleeping, and on another, there was a guy sticking a needle in his arm.