by Heidi Ayarbe
I nod.
“Where do you think she went?” he asks.
I clear my throat and try to keep my voice steady. “To die. I need to find that place. The place where we go to die.”
Charity shakes his head. “No way, honey. Nohow. I don’t do the mass graveyards gig.”
I try to control the ache that burns my stomach and pricks at my eyes. Don’t cry, I think. She might not be dead. Not yet.
I can’t help but picture Mom’s empty prescription bottle next to her whiskey. Her languid body looking so peaceful.
But the smell. The smell of death is sickly sweet.
I have to get to Nicole on time. “I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff,” I finally say. “Please,” I whisper.
“You ever been to Hell, baby?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“It’s right next to Heaven. Just one wrong step, and ‘Bye-bye.’”
I try to swallow but my throat is too closed to do anything.
He caresses my face. “She worth it?” he asks.
The tears finally spill down my cheeks. “Yes,” I whisper.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Maya. Maya Aguirre,” I say trying to control my breathing.
“Dancing Queen.” Again.
“Baby, is that you?” His voice sounds strong. Like I remember. I can picture his smile and the way he looks before he thinks up a new scheme. I kind of think he likes doing what he does just to see if he can pull it off.
But he didn’t pull off his latest scheme. And Klon is dead and Nicole…And I am standing in a phone booth in Garden City, Idaho, with a drag queen getting ready to go find my friend. My family. The only person who matters right now. I lean my head against the booth, cooling my forehead on the glass.
“Maya? Maya, I love you so much.”
The words get caught in my throat and swell too big to come out. Words. They stay stuck. Deep down inside. They hurt.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. Are you okay?”
No. No I’m not okay. And I don’t know what to do.
“I’m just happy to know you’re there, baby. I’m just so relieved. I’ve been so worried.” He pauses. “You’re strong, baby. I know that. But it’s okay to need help. It’s okay to ask for help.”
Who could I ask?
I’m so scared. Would he understand that?
“I never taught you that. It was stupid of me.” I listen as he talks until the minutes run out. Then I listen to the dial tone, clutching the phone to my ear.
“Hey, honey, you gonna stand and hump that phone all day?” Charity asks. “Christ, it’s too Goddamned cold to stand out here.” Charity taps the phone booth with his chipped nails.
It’s taken us a few hours to walk here. Every minute counts, I know, but I’m so so tired and my body just hurts everywhere.
I follow him to what looks like the outside of a factory building. Music thunders. Smoke pours out from the doorway. Streams of teens walk inside.
It’s early afternoon, and the place booms with music. “A rave? We’re going to a rave?” I ask.
Charity shakes his head. “I need cash for a ride back. You can’t imagine how much these boots chafe. And you, darling, you are on your own.”
“Where?” I ask.
Charity is distracted by a guy in tight jeans. “Nice nut huggers,” he says.
“Where?” I say again.
He points toward the river. “The Garden. It’s all yours.”
I walk past some state fairgrounds and find my way to the river, its icy waters churning. It’s late afternoon, and the sun has that orange-sherbet color, like its rays are melting all across the sky. Misty rain starts to drizzle from the sky, turning it a gray blue, blotting out the light.
I sit at the river edge, relieved. I imagined it would be covered in corpses—like some kind of morgue. But it’s actually really peaceful. I find a broken Coke bottle on the ground and pick it up, tucking it in my pocket. Find a garbage can. That’s normal procedure, not: Find dead friend.
I walk downstream past groups of kids getting stoned. Then I see her jacket. I run toward her, and when she turns around, she’s a he. I barrel into him, breathless. “Where’d you get that?” I gasp and grab his shoulders. “Where did you get that jacket?”
“Whoa, psycho chick. Lay your hands the fuck off.” He pushes me away. His friends laugh, and he gets braver. “You lookin’ to party?”
“Where’d you get the jacket?” I ask. My voice sounds so small in the wind.
He taps his groin. “Nothing’s for free around here.” Some of his friends circle me, and he takes a step forward.
The Coke bottle pushes against my hip bone. I stand up as tall as I can. Being five feet three inches doesn’t help. But I stand, my hands trembling, and take out the Coke bottle, cutting my hand on the jagged edge. “You don’t know who this has cut. You don’t know what incurable communicable disease I’ve got.” My hand doesn’t tremble when I hold it in front of me. I can almost feel what it would be like to sink it into his thigh and grind it around while he screams in pain. “One step closer, you better hope to pull off agamogenesis, because the closest you’ll come to sexual reproduction will be internet porn.”
“Huh?”
“Mycrobacterium leprae. Leprometous strain. Your dick will fall off.”
“What the fuck is she talking about?” one says.
It figures Nicole wouldn’t be around for my prime obscenity hour.
They all back off. I must be too crazy for them to waste their time. “Where,” I repeat, “did you get that coat?”
The guy points toward a clump of trees that juts out into the river. “Jesus, it’s not like dead kids need coats, you freak bitch.”
I have to catch my breath. It can’t be. I push past him and run through the woods, twigs snapping on my face. I stumble and rocks get embedded in my hands. When I get to the river, there’s a path of stones in the shallow river edge out to a big boulder, and I see her. Rain pours on her limp body.
I stumble through the icy waters and scramble onto the boulder. Her eyes are closed. I stare for a moment. And wait for that subtle up and down, up and down movement in her chest but see nothing.
Her lips are blue.
She holds the pill bottle in her hands, some pills scattered on the boulder.
She’s dead.
I’m too late.
Again.
I collapse to my knees and start to shake her. “Please,” I whisper. “Please. Please.” I can’t hold my hands still enough to find a pulse, and can’t see through my tears to see if her chest is moving, so I pull her up and shake her rag-doll shoulders. “Wake up. Please. I’m here. Please. Just. Wake. Up.”
Nicole coughs, her eyes fluttering open. She slurs her words. “Hey, Jeops.”
“Oh God,” I say pulling her to me and putting my arms around her. “Oh God.”
Nicole closes her eyes.
I hit her. Hard.
She jolts awake. “What?” she says. “Where’s Klon?” she asks.
“He’s okay now, Nicole.”
“Cappy,” she whispers.
“Cappy,” I say.
“So thirsty.” She burns with fever.
I open her palm, pills stuck to it.
“Couldn’t swallow,” she mutters. “No water. Just wanted to sleep; not feel anything anymore.”
I sigh. “C’mon.” We slide down the boulder into the water, and I lean her on my shoulder. “I’ve got you.”
When we get across the river, I put my coat on her. We walk through the dark streets, Nicole slumped on my shoulder. The only thing I can think about is finding a way to help her. I can’t let her die, too. It’s like everybody who means something to me—
I stop the thoughts that crash through my brain.
She will live.
I just have to find a way to get help.
I look for police cars, ambulances, c
linics—nothing. The green neon sign of an all-night drugstore catches my eye. We pass it and walk another block until I find a bench where Nicole can lie down. A couple sits on the bench. They stare at us. They cover their noses with their hands.
Fuck you, I want to say. I was there, too. Where you are sitting on that bench. Was it five weeks ago? Six weeks ago? “Move over,” I say. “She needs to lie down.”
The couple moves away, hunched together to escape what they don’t want to see.
I wait outside the drugstore until I see a middle-aged couple go inside and walk in with them. The man holds a prescription in his hand and walks back to the pharmacist. The pharmacist stares at me and half listens as the man goes on about his colonoscopy and polyps and needing the extra fiber in his diet.
Way too much information.
When they walk by, I bump into the lady and slip some boxes into her purse, hoping she’ll set off the sensors.
Bingo!
When the alarms go off, the pharmacist runs to the front of the store and grabs the couple, surprised to see I’m not the one who set off the alarm. They all begin to argue, the man talking about how stress certainly isn’t going to help his stool soften, the lady gasping when the pharmacist pulls out the Ex-Lax boxes from her pocket.
Nice touch, I think.
I slip around the metal sensor, leaving the store. I sit Nicole up and crush ten pills of aspirin into a bottle of Gatorade, holding it to her mouth.
“Drink,” I whisper. “Just drink this. One sip at a time.”
She falls asleep, and I shake her awake. “We need to find help. Put your arm around my shoulder.” We walk until the moon hangs high in the sky.
Then I see the sign to the same shelter the police officer had told us about that first morning in the alley. The Path of Light Home for Women and Children.
I look up at the stars bright in the obsidian sky. The clouds have cleared. “Thank you,” I say. I reread the name of the shelter and pound on the door. “Help us,” I say. “Please.” Nicole slumps to the ground and I sit next to her, leaning my head back, closing my eyes.
The door opens and a man takes Nicole from my arms. They pull on latex gloves, strip her down, and wrap her in blankets, head to toe. Then they do the same to me. Three people come in and ask us what has happened. Nicole is slipping in and out of consciousness, and I force myself to stay awake—stay awake for her.
“I got first shift,” I say, and hold on to her hand.
She smiles. “Don’t fall asleep.”
They race us to a clinic, social services in tow. Billie—a psychologist working on her doctorate at the local college—has been assigned our case. “You have names?”
I nod. “Jeopardy and Capone.”
“Okay,” she says. “Where’d you come from?” she asks.
“The Garden,” I say, and stare out the van window at the city; the buildings blur, and I bite my lip, trying to swallow back my sadness, trying to stop trembling. It’s like the cold won’t go away. Nicole’s head rests on my lap and I lay my hand on her chest, feeling the soft thud of her heart, barely there.
We drive up to the emergency entrance, and nurses, doctors, who-knows-who-else come out with rickety gurneys and lift us onto them. Glaring fluorescent lights shine above. I close my eyes listening to the soft hum of the lights, the ring of telephones, and murmur of muffled voices behind glass windows and closed doors. I hold Nicole’s bag of lies in one hand and reach for her with the other, but she’s ahead of me.
They shove a needle into a thin blue vein on the top of my hand, hanging a bag above me. Our area is crammed with people buzzing around us carrying machines, tubes, IV drips. “Help her,” I say, and clutch Nicole’s bag tighter.
But they don’t hear me.
And I don’t know if I even speak or if everything’s in my head.
“You got a pulse? You got a pulse?” I watch as they plug Nicole into some machine and stare at a green straight line that starts to blur. “Damn it, we’re losing her.”
They pull the curtain closed, and I scream.
Or I think I scream.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Afternoon sunlight seeps through the blinds. I rub my eyes and hope that when I open them, I’ll be back in Reno. I listen to the noises around me: the beeps of machines and rustle of paper gowns and doctors’ masks. I breathe deep and smell floor wax and pee. Somebody says a prayer. Somebody breathes heavy. Somebody mumbles.
I open my eyes to a curtained cubby and know that none of it has been a dream.
And I know that Klon is dead. And Nicole—Nicole! I sit up, and my head feels like it’s been filled with exploding nanotubes.
“Take it easy, honey. You’re gonna need to take it one breath at a time. Your body’s been pretty hammered.”
Black pinpoints dot my vision and I lie back down until my world stops spinning. When I open my eyes again, I see Billie—the social worker.
“Where—” I start to ask.
“Garden City Community Clinic.”
“How long?” I ask, my voice hoarse but throat feeling better.
“Two days.”
“My friend—is she…?” I can’t finish the question.
“She’s alive. She started to go into organ failure and has slipped into a coma.”
I try to digest her words. “Will she—”
Billie sips on a cup of coffee and clears her throat. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this, okay? You look like you’re too smart for that.”
I nod.
“She might not make it.”
“She’ll make it,” I say. “She’s strong.”
Billie nods. She doesn’t believe me. She’s seen Nicole’s scars. She knows this isn’t the first time. But it’s different now. Things will be different.
I rub my head. They’ve cut my hair, and I scratch at the short curls.
“They had to cut your hair. Lice.”
I shrug. I was looking like a chia plant with dreads, anyway. “Our things,” I say.
Billie takes the box and Nicole’s bag of things out of a locked drawer and hands them to me with the keys. I hug them to my chest, turning away from Billie. “Why are you here?”
Billie smiles. “I was worried. I’m just glad I was here when you woke up.”
“Who are we to you?” I bite my tongue before I say more. I’m starting to sound like Nicole—jaded.
“You got to her just in time. You saved her.”
What did I save her from?
“Was she at the Garden?”
I turn away from her and nod.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Billie asks.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” I say.
“What about the box? What’s in there?”
I stare at the crushed box. “I’m not sure anymore.”
We’re quiet, listening to the sounds of other patients. “Where is she?” I ask. “Where’s Nicole? Can I see her?”
I slip and say her name. Nicole would kill me. Rule number two. Or was it rule number three? I get them all mixed up.
Billie nods. “She’s at St. Andrew’s. Only family’s allowed to visit a minor. Do you know about any family?” she asks.
I hold Nicole’s plastic bag in my hands. Seven years of postcards from a crackhead mom trying to give her daughter some hope. Lies. “Yeah,” I say. “Me. I’m it.”
Billie says, “We would like to know your full names, where you’re from.”
I turn away.
She follows my gaze and stands in front of me. “You have somewhere to go?”
“I’m not sure.”
“A mother? A father looking for you? Someone?”
I shake my head. “No one’s looking for me. But—” I sigh and close my eyes. I don’t know what to say to anyone anymore. Can I trust her? “I have an aunt who I’m trying to find.”
Billie sips her coffee. “Where does she live?”
“If I knew that, I don’t think I’d be in this mess,
okay?” I say.
We’re quiet. She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it. “There’s a shelter. The one you found the other night. It’s better than the streets. A bed. Food. A safe place to be. For now. Until you find—”
Why do I always feel like people think I’ve invented Aunt Sarah?
“Is it far from St. Andrew’s?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “You can take a crosstown bus.”
“Okay.”
“So you’ll come?” she asks.
“I’ll come.”
Billie checks me out of the clinic. I can hardly walk, I’m so weak. I clamber into the van, and we pull up to the shelter.
Home sweet home, I think.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
When I open my eyes, I notice for the first time there’s a security guard sitting behind a window, staring at me like I’m in some kind of aquarium. I sit up and stretch—the only one in the room. The other beds are stripped of their sheets and blankets.
I creep out to the front desk. The same guy is there who helped Nicole and me the other night. A sign about God’s light and salvation hangs in the window. Stacks of pamphlets are piled on a wobbly card table. Family violence, paternity rights, drug abuse, sexual assault, stalking—the pamphlets each have a little cross on the upper right-hand corner that says “Find your way by following His light.”
“Hove I slept long?” I ask. My voice is hoarse but my throat is feeling much better.
“Since yesterday afternoon.” He looks at the clock. “About eighteen hours.”
“Eighteen hours?” How is it possible after having slept two days at the clinic? That’s gotta be a record. Maybe Nicole’s right and I have a sleeping disorder. I better get that checked.
“And my friend?” I ask.
“Alive,” he says.
I sigh.
“First things first.” He hands me a fresh pair of underwear, sweats, a towel, generic shampoo and soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. “Go wash up and come back out here. I’ll give you the rules to the shelter.”
The steaming water pours over my body, and I lather myself everywhere. I get out and wipe away the steam to see myself in the mirror but turn away from the gaunt face that stares back at me. I run my finger across the layers of grime that cover my teeth and brush for about twenty minutes.