Anyway, I never try to gain Shannon’s attention when Beatrice is around; I’m just too cool to be fighting over boys. Besides, a boy knows whether he wants a girl or not. You ain’t gotta fight for his attention. My plan is to simply spit it out and confess—to just tell Shannon he should pick me. And I’ll put myself in front of him as often as possible so he can.
It was announced before the game started that everyone was going to Rico’s after the game—kinda like an after party. This is still set to happen. Perfect.
As Blanca drives down McKinney Avenue toward Rico’s, she asks how I’m doing. We haven’t talked about the shooting; even I don’t want to. It makes me think about my family, my little brothers. Corey’s funeral is tomorrow. His wake is tonight. I skipped it to come watch Shannon play, but Andrew and Alex’s grief has been with me all evening. I carry it as if it’s my own.
“The other night, though…” Blanca says, her voice softer than I’d ever heard. “You good, Zina? I don’t want you to be scared all the time because of all that madness.”
I’m not good. I went to the game because I hoped it would help me forget for a little while…and it did. For the last four hours, I thought only of Shannon; I only saw his face.
“I’m good,” I lie.
“Uncle Tony was freaked the fuck out.” She laughs at the thought of our badass uncle being bothered by anything. But her laughter grieves us both.
“He was?” I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am.
“Yeah, girl. He didn’t tell me anything about it, though.” She pauses for a second as she swerves her black Jeep into Rico’s parking lot. “I heard him talking to Leidys about it.”
Bee slams on the breaks and whips into the first parking spot she sees. “He said he didn’t like seeing you so scared and that he wants to find the guy.”
“What guy?”
“The one who saw you.”
“The one who saw me or the murdering motherfucker?”
She shrugs. “Shit, Zee. Both, I guess.”
“It really does scare me to think about it, you know,” I say as Blanca checks her makeup in the rearview mirror. She smiles, but it’s a weak one, meant only to hide her fear. “One of them saw me…I can’t believe it.”
“That scares Tony too,” she says. “So I think you’re smart to be scared. If you were walking around like everything was chill, I’d think something was wrong with you. Don’t worry, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because Uncle Tony…Don’t you trust him?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s looking into it. Nothing will happen. You know he won’t let it.”
I should be relieved, but I’m not.
It’s Friday night, and Rico’s is packed. The hostess tells us there’s a forty-five minute wait, and then Bee nudges my arm.
“There’s Rocky over there.” She nods toward a table in the far corner of the dining area, right outside the bar.
I haven’t seen Shannon yet, and I begin to wonder if he’ll show. I’m sure he’s totally pissed about losing the game; he has to be. The anxiety of trying to figure out what I should do or say to cheer him up is a lot to deal with. Plus, I have to tell him what I want to happen between us. The thought of confessing any sort of romantic feelings to a boy—especially one as tall and talented and handsome as Shannon Smith—makes me want to vomit. We’re already cool with each other, but the possibility of his rejection…I can’t even stand the thought.
Blanca and I head for Rachel’s table, and I’m surprised to see her sitting alone.
“Where is everybody?” Blanca asks.
Rachel shrugs. “On the way, I guess. Can it be May already? I’m ready to graduate.”
“Well, what’s the holdup?” I say. “I thought everyone was going to be here.”
“Girl,” she says, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s got something to do with Beatrice being an absolute douche bag. She and her boyfriend were going at it after the game.”
My ears perk up as Bee glances over at me, intrigued.
“What were they fighting about?” I ask.
“I don’t even know, Zina,” Rocky says. “Beatrice picks fights with him for no reason. It’s, like, totally stupid.”
Rocky dips a tortilla chip into a small bowl of salsa and nibbles at it. “Poor Shannon, spending most of his time having to check his GF.”
Blanca’s eyes almost pop out of her head. “He checks her? What? He never tells her anything!” Blanca laughs at Rocky’s claim. “I’ve never ever seen it happen. He might give her some crazy side-eye for saying something dumb, but Beatrice calls the shots in that bad romance.”
But Rocky shakes her head. “No, nuh-uh, Bee. Shannon doesn’t let Beatrice run around doing whatever she wants. I’ve heard him literally tell her to sit her ass down somewhere.” Rocky damn near chokes on her ice water at the memory of it. “For real!” She laughs. “I have classes with both of them.”
“Ooh really, he tells her to sit down…such a badass,” Blanca says. Her sarcasm is hilarious. Rachel rolls her eyes.
A waiter, an average-height, dark man with thick eyebrows, appears, ready to take our order.
“Do y’all want to stay? What if no one shows?” Bee asks.
Shannon might show up, and I don’t want to miss him. “We stay,” I say and hand my menu to Blanca. “Order something big enough for the three of us to share.”
Shannon and Beatrice are treading in dangerous water, with sharks like me waiting.
“What do y’all want to eat?” Bee asks as she studies the menu.
“Hmm…I’m eating light,” Rocky says, smiling into the camera on her smartphone.
Seconds later, I get an IG alert on my phone from the @princess_rocky, tagging me in a photo. I smile at the photo because it shows Blanca and me in the background, minding our business, while Rocky poses effortlessly.
I look up from my phone to see Beatrice walk in, three of her faux friends in tow and no Shannon in sight.
I’m not going to approach Beatrice, but I find myself staring at her, trying to gauge her emotional state. She laughs and flirts with everyone, as usual. She whispers to her friends as if her secrets are more important than mine or anyone else’s, and she’s a rock, ’cause I can’t tell if shits wrong with her or not. I can’t help it as I upchuck a nice pile of word vomit.
“Beatrice’s cappin’ ass,” I say, spitting the words at no one in particular.
I wonder if Shannon will even bother to come to Rico’s. Beatrice looks pretty happy, and if they were fighting, then maybe she won, and he won’t come because he knows she’ll be here. But what about me, Shannon? I want you here. I want you to come. I’m not like your girlfriend—I need you here. I shift in my chair as I try to think of a not-too-obvious-but-totally-flirtatious, I-want-you-now-but-not-too-much, “sexrageous”-but-PG-13 text to send.
Blanca notices the shift in my mood and tries to tame it. She raps on the table. “Zina! What’s up for your G-day?” she asks, referring to my upcoming birthday at the end of May. I forget about Beatrice for a minute, but Shannon stills burns high in the back of my mind.
“G-day?” Rachel laughs. She looks from Blanca to me, expecting one of us to inform her of what G-day refers to, so I indulge her.
“It just means your birthday. Instead of saying B-day, say G-day.”
“Why?”
Blanca and I shake our heads. Oh lord, what the suburbs will take from you. Jeez!
“It’s just hood, Rocky. When people say G-something, it means gangster,” I explain.
“So you’re a gangster?”
She’s serious, and I can’t help but laugh. But I don’t want to talk about my birthday, which is, coincidentally, the same day as our senior prom. It depresses me, because I need money for all that stuff, too.
“Gangster is
just a word,” I say. “Don’t buy into the hype.”
I hesitate to talk about this past Monday, because I haven’t told Blanca about my bootlegging business. Hanging around at Ms. Kim’s is a normal thing in my neighborhood. It’s where all the kids go to get their junk food when there’s none at the house, so my being there at the time of the shooting wasn’t something Blanca would question. I figured I’d let Rachel have it and let Blanca know what was up at the same time. I was feeling very frisky and a little nervous.
“So, Rock…where were you on Monday?” I ask.
Rachel whips her head toward me and cocks her mouth sideways.
“You know, at the softball field. You were supposed to be spreading the word.”
She remains silent, thumbing her iPhone, as I wait for an answer. She’s pissing me off by not responding, and I want to reach over the table and snatch her iPhone from her hand. I knock on the table to get her attention. She looks at me, pleading, wanting me to drop the subject.
“Seriously though, Zee, bootlegs…” Blanca says. I turn toward her. How the fuck does she know?
“Rachel, what the fuck?”
“I told her not to do it,” Blanca says.
“What? Why?”
“It’s a bad idea, Zee.” I turn toward Rachel.
“I told you not to tell her.”
“Duh, Zina, she didn’t. I heard one of the guys in my parenting class talking about it. And why didn’t you want her to tell me?”
“’Cause you didn’t need to know.”
“Zina! It was stupid as hell!”
“Shut the fuck up, Bee!”
“You shut the fuck up!”
We yell at each other for about thirty seconds before the waiter shows up to refill our water glasses. It wasn’t Blanca’s place to tell Rachel not to do something I had already asked her to do.
“And look what happened. I’m at Ms. Kim’s hustling shit ’cause Blanca de la Vega thinks she knows everything!” I could spit right now.
“That’s why you were at Kim’s…really…”
Blanca goes silent as I dredge up the murder of my brother’s two best friends.
“Damn, Rachel,” I say.
I want to punch them in the face right now. I’m so irritated with Rachel for standing me up and forcing my hand. Whether it was a bad decision or not, it was mine to make. Our table is deathlike. I have no positive energy left in my soul.
“Zina, are you okay?” Rachel asks, her voice inquisitive and sincere.
“No. You took her side over mine.” I stand up, tears boiling, and scoot my chair back. “I’m not so okay. I could’ve got shot, or raped, or something…Bee, it was not your business. This isn’t your life.” My voice cracks.
A tear slides down my cheek, embarrassing me, and my throat locks with hatred and grief. I can’t continue. I want help, but I don’t know whom to ask.
As I leave the table, one of Beatrice’s fugazis is watching me. My eyes shoot daggers, and as I stare down the fat, ugly, frizzy-haired, overdressed teenage slut, my body collides clumsily into someone who is rushing by.
I stumble back, caught off guard as Blanca and Rachel plead with me to come back. I work hard to ignore them. I keep my eyes down as the stranger places both hands on the small of my back. He speaks.
“God, I’m so sorry. You okay, sweetheart?”
His voice is familiar, but I’m sure I don’t know him. I scramble to catch myself, pulling away as I gain my footing.
“You go to Albert Chesney, don’t you?” he asks.
I look up at his face. It’s the good-looking caterer from my senior picnic.
“Oh…hey, you’re that guy.”
“What guy?” he asks.
“The one from our picnic.”
He turns me loose. His eyes sparkle brown and coppery like new pennies.
“So it is you, the loner from the stairwell.”
CHAPTER 16
ZACARIAS
I’ve been dodging Whitney all day. I walk the long way to the kitchen, cutting through the restaurant so I won’t have to pass the hostess station. And she notices.
Bartending is a diversionary tactic I use when I don’t want to be bothered by outside influences or if I just want to be in the moment. You work back here when the restaurant is busy, and it’s lights out. I can’t hear anything but drink orders, and I see nothing except bottles of brown and white. But Whitney is desperate to talk. She looks at me. I quickly go back to work, but not before I see her jaw tense. And then she steps from behind the podium and heads my way.
“You’re on bar duty,” I tell Bruno as I duck from behind the bar. As I straighten my shirt and head for the back office, I knock right into someone. When I slow down enough to apologize, I see a female stumbling backward. I reach out, catching her instinctively. “You okay?” She doesn’t respond and pulls away.
The girl from the high-school picnic is standing in front of me, ignoring her friends. She starts to walk away, but I reach out and touch her arm.
“You go to Chesney, don’t you?” I ask.
She looks at me for a minute before she replies. “You’re that guy, huh?” she says, awestruck. “From the picnic.”
I knew it was her. I could never forget her. It might be kinda creepy that I suddenly hope she’s already eighteen, but it’s even worse to realize she probably isn’t.
“The loner from the stairwell!” Lame, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I smile to make up for it.
She has stopped paying attention, as if she’s a billion miles away. But when I remind her of her self-imposed isolation the day of the picnic, her attention is mine again.
“Loner?” She frowns at me. “You think I’m a loner?”
I don’t know how to respond; “loner” just slipped out. It has nothing to do with what I think about her.
“No, I don’t think you’re a loner.” The frown disappears. “I just think maybe you’re a little more complex than other people. That’s not a bad thing.”
She narrows her eyes a little. I can tell she’s picking me apart in her head, quickly deciphering my statements, throwing away the parts that don’t fly and making sense of the things about me that do. She is reading me.
“Thanks for bringing the plate of food,” she says finally. “It was good.”
Her voice cracks a little, and her eyes are moist. She looks away, trying to hide her face from me.
“You all right?” I step a little closer. “Can I do something for you?”
She shakes her head as she pushes past me and heads toward the front lobby. I want to follow her, but I don’t think she wants me to. I watch as she shoulders her way through the crowd of patrons waiting to be seated and then disappears outside.
I follow her because it feels right. As I pass the hostess station, I keep an eye out for Whitney, and I’m stunned to see that she isn’t there. I continue to look around for the girl from the high-school picnic and then head for the front door. She’s sitting alone on a bench at the far end of the walkway, staring into the parking lot.
“May I join you?” I startle her and force a smile, but she turns to look at me, frowning as if she’s never seen me.
“Why? Man, I’m bad company right now.”
“I’m not sure why I came out here,” I say, sitting down on the bench. “Maybe I like you a little.” I catch myself while a lump forms in my throat. She looks at me.
“So…how’s everything with you? Did you enjoy the picnic?”
“Yeah, it was okay,” she says. “Thank you for the plate.”
“Oh, no problem. It was…I wanted to.”
This is a hard conversation to have, her being in out-and-out disdain. Her eyes flicker at me as she dabs her cheeks with her palms and fingers. She breathes the dusky air. Her breakdown is certain.
“I’m pulling it together,” she says, her bottom lip quivering. She struggles for control, tears pooling, face scrunched tight. Then she breaks. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers, looking at me as if she has no business crying in front of strangers.
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.” I lean in, digging around in my pocket for a napkin. I hand it to her. “I’m sorry you’re so upset.”
She holds her head down and wipes away tears.
“Don’t cry.”
She shakes her head, like a toddler would if you told them to share their Cheez-It. I smile at her vulnerability. We sit there a while longer beneath the curious stares of restaurant patrons as they come and go. I try with much frustration to retrieve her name from my memory. I’d heard the Spanish girl say it a few days ago. I’m not sure, but I take a chance.
“Zina? Do you want something to drink?”
“Water,” she says, sounding exhausted.
“Okay, I’ll be back,” I say.
She looks at me, not really caring if I come back or not.
I go back into Rico’s. Whitney is still missing from her post at the hostess station. As I walk through Rico’s, Zina’s Spanish friend catches my eye. I give her a friendly heads-up, and she returns the favor. She taps on the table that she’s sharing with a dark-haired exotic girl, gaining her attention. The exotic girl looks at me as the two of them point and whisper. As I approach the bar, I see that Bruno has left.
“Yo! Noah, where is Bruno? I told him to take my place back here!” I shout.
“Don’t know, man. As soon as I got here, that dude disappeared.”
“So how long have you been by yourself?”
He shrugs, and I leave it at that.
“Toss me a bottle of water,” I say.
The restaurant’s getting busier by the hour. I scan the dining area, the bar, and the lobby for Whitney or Bruno on my way back to Zina but don’t see either of them.
Outside, Zina has dried her face and sits with her legs tucked underneath her. She fumbles with her phone, rubbing a finger around the edges and across the screen while she soaks in the evening’s fading sun.
Of Hustle and Heart Page 8