I almost laugh. Pop does have really horrible breath.
“I got Advil if you need it.” I remove my hand from my pocket.
“Shit. I already took five.”
I think about the comment Natice made seconds before I offered her Advil, wondering if perhaps I heard her wrong. “So what are you studying?”
“Economics.”
The look of surprise must show on my face.
“What? You never seen a black girl study economics?”
I feel my face turn red again. “No. It’s just… I’ve never seen anyone study economics.” It’s the truth, but it’s more the fact that I didn’t expect Natice Gentry or any other member of a street gang to be studying anything, let alone economics. “I’m Ally, by the way,” I say, hoping to change the subject.
“Natice Gentry. Nice to meet you,” she says sarcastically. “So where you from?”
It’s obvious that I’m not from Cantor.
“Seattle. I moved here for the summer to take care of my grandmother. She’s sick.” I repeat the lie I told Pop earlier.
“That sucks,” Natice says.
After that, we stand awkwardly with nothing more to say.
Chapter 18
I’ve already burned my hand once taking a large pie out of the oven using a peel, a long, shovel-like wooden paddle.
“Shit!” I scream for a second time.
Natice laughs. “Girl, don’t get so close to the damn oven.”
Later, I drop an entire pepperoni pie on the ground and get reamed out by Pop. Thankfully, the Advil has kicked in, and Natice is in a slightly better mood. Her attitude is gone, at least her attitude toward me. “Don’t let Fathead speak to you like that. Tell him to fuck off,” she says after Pop walks away.
Around eight o’clock, cars start to fill the parking lot. It’s mostly guys and only a handful of girls who empty out of the cars. A couple of times, I practically jump out of my skin thinking I see the girl whose nose I bloodied in the East Cantor game, but then it ends up it’s not her. And most of the chicks never come inside the pizzeria. They simply hang out in the parking lot, drinking beers and listening to music. Natice knows every guy and girl who walks through the door. Some of the kids in my high school try to act tough and talk “gangsta” and wear their jeans low. But these teenagers really are gangster. At one point, a fight breaks out in the parking lot. A kid is beaten so badly his friends have to rush him to the hospital.
Natice shakes her head. “Dumb-ass don’t learn. He got his ass beat twice last week.”
I’m still recovering from the image of the boy’s face being stomped with a shoe when a black Mercedes rolls up to the front of the restaurant. It’s followed by the familiar Toyota Camry with the Jesus is Lord bumper sticker. Sure enough, Ronnie Rodriguez, Lori Silva, and Cracker empty out of the Camry. My anxiety quadruples just seeing Lori Silva, who once again wears her hair tight against her head and looks cold and menacing.
A moment later, the unattractive dude from Lori’s Facebook profile picture steps out from behind the wheel of the Mercedes.
“What up, Vince?” Natice waves.
Vince sees Natice and nods. He’s tall, thin, and his long hair is held back with a black headband. He wears a white tank top and loose-fitting jeans that look like they might fall off his waist at any second. A bunch of guys gather around him, bumping fists, greeting one another. Lori appears right next to him. Vince leans against his Mercedes and pulls her between his legs. Lori cracks a smile and kisses his lips. I instantly wish she were dead.
Seconds later, the door opens, and a surge of noise enters, followed by Ronnie Rodriguez. She bounds up to the counter with the energy of a puppy, wearing a black spandex top that’s too small for her oversized belly.
“What up, Natty, Nat, Nat!”
“What up, girl?” Natice swings her shoulders from side to side.
Ronnie takes a step back and poses in a sexy manner. “Yo, I’m on a diet.”
Natice laughs. “A diet? Again?”
Ronnie rubs her belly. “Yeah I gotta trim down. I ain’t seen my feet in a year.”
Natice laughs at her.
“For real. I ain’t kidding. I took a shower the other day and looked down…” Ronnie wags her head as if picturing it in that moment. “It ain’t pretty, girl. It ain’t pretty.”
Ronnie notices me. “Who’s this?”
“This is Ally. New girl,” Natice says sarcastically.
“Pop hired someone new?”
“Uh-huhhhhh. If you can believe that.”
“Another white girl.” Ronnie shakes her head.
“Uh-hmmm.”
“He don’t learn,” Ronnie says.
“Nope,” Natice adds matter-of-factly.
They speak as if I’m not even standing there.
“How long you give her?” Ronnie asks.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell with her.” Natice stares hard at my face, as if aware I’m hiding a secret.
I feel my face grow red again, worrying Natice knows who I am, then without any hint of recognition, Natice says, “Two days.”
“Shit, I give her two hours!” Ronnie laughs as she starts dancing to a song playing on the radio. “New girl, hook me up with two pepperoni!”
I grab two slices and layer on the pepperoni. Ronnie leans up against the counter like a little kid. “Don’t be skimpy. More… more…” I double up on the pepperoni, and Ronnie responds with a smile. “Nice.”
“I thought you were on a diet?” Natice says.
“I am. I’m only getting two.” Ronnie grins. Her left hand clings to the counter, and I notice the same black diamond tattoo between her thumb and forefinger. I place the slices into the oven, and I hear her laugh. “New girl, what the hell is wrong with your hair?”
“She did it herself.” Natice raises an eyebrow.
Ronnie cracks up. “Hey, I can fix it. For real. Fifty bucks.” I turn around and face her. “Seriously. You’ll go from Ronald McDonald to…” Ronnie can’t think of anyone. “Anyway, you need that head worked out, girlfriend.”
She smiles at me, nodding her head yes, doing a dance.
Natice laughs at her. Clearly she is making fun of me.
“Your hair is orange back there!” Ronnie stops dancing and holds her crotch. “Oh shit. I gotta go!” She runs to the bathroom, and Natice laughs harder. Ronnie has just pissed herself.
The door opens again, and before I can give thought to what happened, Cracker walks in. Her pasty skin is red with sunburn. She’s wearing a low-cut blouse and tight, feminine blue jeans, which seems incredibly odd in comparison to how she walks, like a guy. In her hand, she clutches a box of Cracker Jacks.
“Natty, Ronnie in here?” Cracker says, having just stuffed a handful of the candy-coated popcorn into her mouth.
Natice, I notice, is a lot less friendly toward Cracker. “She’s in the bathroom.”
Cracker’s face twists into anger. “What the fuck! I been standin’ outside waitin’ for her fat ass for an hour!”
Cracker spots me, and right away, I sense trouble. Unlike Ronnie or Natice, there is something truly frightening about Cracker. Maybe it’s how she speaks or the look in her eyes. Or maybe it’s that out of all of these girls, excluding Lori, Cracker is the one most likely to have shot and killed my sister. Whatever it is, I don’t like how Cracker is looking at me. I wonder if she’s carrying a gun.
I busy myself checking on Ronnie’s slices.
“Yo, hook me up with a sugar high.” Cracker tosses her head at the soda machine.
Natice grabs a large Styrofoam cup and fills it with orange soda.
“How the hell you work in here? It’s hotter than outside.” Cracker tugs at her shirt, impatiently waiting for her drink. When I turn back around, she eyeballs me. Bravely—or stupidly—I
hold Cracker’s stare. She smirks as if to say I’m a joke and not worth her time and shoves a handful of Cracker Jacks into her thin, angry mouth. She chews with her mouth open. She’s rough and hideous, and I hate her even more.
Natice interrupts our staring game by placing the large soda in front of Cracker, who then tosses down a dollar.
“Yo, fire down below. Where’s the other one?” Natice waits for more money.
Cracker begrudgingly digs into her jeans and dumps another dollar on the counter. She uses her left hand, the same hand that gun residue had been found on.
“Yeah, tha’s what I thought. Cheap ass.”
Cracker smirks, and Natice releases the soda.
“Damn, y’all. I almost shit myself too!” Ronnie reemerges from the bathroom, looking relieved she hasn’t.
Cracker shoves her from behind. “Ronnie, I was waiting outside for you!”
“So? Tha’s your problem.”
Cracker calls her a bitch and walks off to the basketball toss game.
I pull Ronnie’s slices from the oven and place them on the counter. “Four seventy-five.”
Ronnie scoops up one of the slices and bites into it, burning her mouth. “Ah! Mmmuckin’ hot.” She chews with her mouth open, trying to swallow the hot pieces.
“Girl, let it cool down first.” Natice laughs.
“I’m mumgry,” Ronnie mumbles and walks away without paying.
I stare after her as she joins Cracker at the basketball toss game. Natice walks next to me and offers some advice. “Get the money first, girlfriend. ‘Cause this crowd ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of bottom-bitch hoes.”
I have no idea what a “bottom-bitch hoe” is, other than I know it’s not a “do nothin’ hoe,” but after that, Natice takes a break and joins Cracker and Ronnie. I stand at the counter, staring at the three of them playing the basketball game. For a moment, I can’t feel any part of my body—arms, legs, nothing. I clench my fist and push the heel of my sneaker hard into the tiled floor. It’s surreal being so close to these girls, knowing they had something to do with my sister’s murder. Before, they were only names and photographs, criminal resumes on paper: Natice Gentry, Ronnie Rodriguez, Cynthia Down. But now they’re live girls, standing only a few feet in front of me, talking, laughing, and playing a game. I twist the leather band on my watch. This is why I don’t own a gun. I’d have used it by now.
As the night wears on, it doesn’t take me long before I understand why Natice and Ronnie bet on how long I would last. Pop apparently has trouble keeping new girls around because of Cracker. And I’m no exception. Cracker makes comments about my hair, dumps her trash on the floor, then demands that I clean it up. I simply take the abuse and ignore Cracker as best I can. At one point, she flicks a lit cigarette butt at me. It takes everything I have not to end this bitch with a wooden peel to the back of her head.
I’m relieved when Natice comes to my rescue. “Cracker, cut the shit a’ready!”
“Keep your pointy noise in your own damn business, Natice!”
“Why don’t you keep it for me!” Natice says.
“Yeah, a’right,” Cracker mocks then stuffs a handful of Cracker Jacks into her mouth and walks away. There’s definitely tension between Natice and Cracker. I wonder why. But after that, Cracker leaves me alone, except for one last remaining comment.
On my way to the bathroom, I walk past Ronnie as she nets a basket. “Nice shot.”
“What are you, a fuckin’ cheerleader?” Cracker comments.
Ronnie laughs and keeps shooting. “Thanks, cheerleader!”
I hear Cracker call me a dumb bitch as I escape into the bathroom.
I close the door behind me and suddenly wish that I could be back home. I’m exhausted, and between the random thug guys hitting on me and Cracker’s abuse, I simply want to be out of this shit hole and back in Middletown. But then I remember what home is like. I remember Jenny is dead. I remember I’ll never see my little sister again. The pain doubles me over. I take hold of the sink, strangling its porcelain sides, fingers white knuckled, teeth clenched, tears streaming down my face. I look in the mirror. “You got this, Campbell! You can do this!” I try to psych myself up. I think about all the times I’ve ever gone up against much bigger girls on the basketball court. They didn’t own you, Campbell. You owned them. You’re tough. You’re a winner.
I tell myself I can do this. I tell myself I have a plan and a purpose. I tell myself I am not leaving Cantor until Lori, Cracker, Ronnie, and Natice pay for killing my sister. I wipe away the wetness, take a deep breath, and open the door.
My heart skips a beat as I run straight into Lori Silva.
She stares at me coldly and reeks of cigarette smoke. I step out of her way, and she walks past, without a word. The bathroom door slams closed. A wisp of air hits my back. I swallow hard and walk to the front counter to finish out the night.
Chapter 19
My iPhone rings around noon when I have just woken up. On the caller ID I see: Dr. Evans. I think about not answering, but I know why he is calling. I know he will call again. But mostly, I pick up the phone because I could really use a friend right now. My finger swipes right.
“Checking on me?”
It feels good to hear his voice. As expected, he’s calling to see how I’m doing. He asks about basketball camp. I tell him my legs are sore, since they are always sore at the beginning of any camp. He asks me if I am making any new friends. “…or are you isolating?”
I tell him the truth. “I’m meeting new people.”
“Any that you like?”
“There’s one girl that doesn’t annoy me.”
He laughs. “One? That’s progress.”
We talk for a little bit about how hot the weather is and what they’re feeding us at camp—I say hamburgers, pasta, and pizza—and then Dr. Evans asks how I’m sleeping. I tell him it’s pretty much the same, without going into details about my last nightmare, and he gives me a breathing exercise that he thinks might help me fall asleep. “It’s called four-seven-eight. You breathe through your nose for four seconds, then hold your breath for seven, then exhale out your mouth for eight. Do it for a minute, and keep practicing. It takes time to get used to it, but it might help.” He no longer sounds worried about me harming myself, probably because he thinks I’m at basketball camp. If he only knew where I was, he’d probably be a lot more concerned, not only that I’d harm myself, but that others might do the job for me.
We hang up, and I close my eyes and inhale through my nose for four seconds then hold it for eight. Or was it seven? Shit. I’ve already forgotten.
Later that afternoon, I wait in my car, sweating my ass off, until Natice finally arrives fifteen minutes late when she is dropped off in a tinted-window Lexus by the good-looking black dude I recognize from Ronnie’s Facebook photos.
I walk in right after Natice, wet with sweat and feeling five pounds lighter. As a form of punishment for us both being late, Pop orders me to mop the floors and tells Natice to clean the bathrooms. A short while later, he leaves the pizzeria to pick up some supplies, leaving Natice and me alone.
Natice waits until his van drives out of sight before grabbing her book bag from under the front counter. “I’m going downstairs to study. If Fathead comes back before I’m up, tell him I’m still cleaning. Okay?”
“Sure.” I watch her disappear to the basement, still finding it difficult to believe that Natice Gentry, or any other member of a street gang, could be enrolled in college.
An hour later, Natice reemerges. She has just stuck her bag under the counter when Pop walks through the door carrying boxes. His eyes land on Natice, and he immediately knows she is up to something. “Were you in the cellar?”
“Does it look like I was in the damn cellar?”
Pop looks at me as if expecting to find the truth.
; “She was in the bathroom, fixing the toilet,” I say.
“What the hell did you do to the toilet?” he screams at Natice.
“She didn’t. I dropped my Kotex in there. It wouldn’t flush.”
Pop stares at me as if I’m an idiot. “What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t be puttin’ your damn woman products in there! Use the goddamn trash can.”
“Sorry.” I play dumb. “It slipped, and it bombed the bowl.”
He shakes his head as if there is something truly wrong with me then turns to Natice, who I now see is suppressing a smile. “And you study on your own time!”
“Was I studying? I pulled a bloody Kotex out the bowl!”
Pop makes a sour face and orders us to get the rest of the supplies out of the back of his truck. Natice and I walk out the door, laughing so hard we almost break a rib, and it is with the Kotex lie that Natice Gentry starts to become my friend.
Out of the five nights I work at the pizzeria, Natice and I work three of them together. My friendship with Natice is not fast and furious, and at times, it’s hard to tell whether or not she even likes me. Some days, she barely talks to me. Other days, she is funny and friendly.
“So what’s Seattle like?” Natice asks. It’s a slow night, and we are both standing at the counter.
“It rains a lot. It’s really green and pretty. But boring.” I repeat what I have read online, adding the boring part. I assume wherever you grow up, you think it’s boring.
“It’s gotta be better than here.” Natice tosses her nose up at the outside. “So where’s your grandmother live?”
“The Shell Motel.”
“Girl, your grandmother lives at the shitty Shell? That place is a dump.”
“Yeah, I know. I killed a cockroach last night.” It’s true, and it almost had me packing my bags.
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