Land of Shadows (20 page)

Relationship:
It's Complicated.

It was
always
complicated.

There was a back-and-forth about that status change with a girl named Renata Reese.

Number 1 or Number 2?
Renata had typed.

Number 7
, Monique had answered.
Got me a big baller. LOL

???

LOL!!!

:(Plz?????

I said its compliated. ROTFLMAO.

Im calling U RIGHT NOW!!!!

Monique had been tagged in a picture of seven black girls, their ghetto booties straining against the denim of their skinny jeans, hands on hips, Miracle Bras working wonders. Two Ed-Hardy-T-shirt-wearing males stood behind them, fingers in some salute that who-the-hell-knows what it was supposed to represent.

Poseurs trying to be hard.

“Let Derek and his BPS homies see you doing that,” I muttered.

Whatchu claimin', fool?

Ladera Heights, nigga. 90056.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

I clicked off the iPad and slumped in my chair. “Enough.” I reached over to the side table for my wineglass and took a long gulp of 2007 Sequoia Grove cab. The band had switched to Earth, Wind & Fire and “That's the Way of the World.” I grabbed the Amazon box from the table and tore it open. The packing slip said that Lena had sent me this book.

Impostress
by Lisa Jackson. On the cover, there was a blonde in a Princess Leia–style dress, looking into the distance. There was a castle in a foggy background, and a glowing … lily pad?

Exactly what I needed.

One hundred pages later, I tossed the book on the deck and pulled myself out of that chair. I glanced at the clock on my phone—almost ten thirty—then found Greg's hotel phone number in the recent calls directory.

A woman answered.

I paused, then said, “Is this Room 3133?”

She said, “Yes. Is this room service?”

She sounded young, Japanese.

I squeezed shut my eyes as the Crazies started to claw their way in. “Is Greg Norton there?”

“Yes. Hold on.”

I had started rocking in the chair, chewing my thumbnail, tugging at my silver hoop earring.

Greg came on the line.

“Who was that?” I asked him, hot as Satan's skin.

He paused—this was
not
room service. “Who was who?” He paused again, then said, “Oh. No one. What's up? I was just about to call you.”

I knew No One. She had been with him that time in New York. She was different from Just a Friend in Toronto.

“What's No One's name?” I asked.

Greg paused a second too long. “Michiko. I told you about her.”

“No, you didn't.”

“She's just a friend.”

Ah. There she was again. Just a friend. Like Angie.

“Michiko Yurikami,” he said quickly, attempting to sound casual but coming off as cagey. “I know I've mentioned her.”

“She work for M80?”

“No. She … She designs purses. Whatever. How's the case going?”

I closed my eyes and gripped the phone tighter. I confessed that Monique Darson's case had injected me with a renewed sense of purpose.

“I know she reminds you of Tori,” he said, “but she isn't. Remember that.”

And then, we talked about lie detector tests, Lakers season tickets, and the leaking showerhead. I swiped my eyes, expecting my fingers to be wet with tears. But I wasn't crying.
Why wasn't I crying?
I sat there, dry-eyed, trying to figure that out, listening to my husband lie and pretend that we were okay. I sat there as anger instead of sadness poisoned my heart, as the smell of kelp and jasmine curled around me, as the band played on.

 

27

It is almost midnight and even the lights in Stevie's and Treyanna's house are dark. Renata glances at the clock on her cell phone again, sucks her teeth, then says, “I am so stupid.”

She told Big Jay just yesterday that she was more than a booty call. And he had said, “You right, you right,” like he did every time. But nothing changed.
She
hadn't changed because here she was, driving to see him this late at night.

If it walk like a booty call, if it smells like a booty call …

She climbs into the Taurus and shivers.

Two days ago, Jalen dumped all of the milk from his sippy cup into the backseat, and now the car smells sour.

“Just one more stink,” she mutters, shoving the key into the ignition. But she doesn't turn. Not yet. She usually whispers a prayer before she turns the key.
Lord, please let it start this time.

Tonight, though, she pauses.

If she wants Big Jay to treat her right, then she has to respect herself first. No more late-night booty calls, then getting tossed out of his bed afterward, kicked to the curb an hour after she arrived. She deserves better, especially now. Jalen deserves better, too. And if Big Jay doesn't understand that, then she needs to be ghost.

She stares out the windshield, at her pink house down the block. She and Monie used to jump double Dutch in the front yard. Sit beneath that big magnolia tree with bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. They would lick their red-stained fingers and talk about boys and complain about their mothers. The yard is dark now, but silver television light shines in Momma's bedroom window. Momma had pretended to sleep as Renata crept past the bedroom door. Jalen was asleep in bed, next to his grandmother. He acted more like Momma's son than Renata's.

Why hadn't Momma stopped her? Why hadn't she said, “Big Jay ain't gave you nothing except a baby. He ain't good for nothing else.” She said those words more than she said “the” and “and.”

For Renata, the baby
had
been enough. Jalen was just two years old but he already knew how to spell his name. And he looked just like his daddy, with those wheat-colored eyes and those thick cow eyelashes and the freckles … She loves Big Jay's freckles, and the times that he lets her stay in his bed while he sleeps, she counts those rust-colored spots.

Jalen will never know his godmother. Renata will show him pictures of Monie, but that ain't the same as Monie being there. She is alone now, friendless, and sadness sits in her belly like an anchor, pulling her deeper and deeper into the darkness.

A tear slips down her cheek. Her heart—the part that remains—hurts. Her breathing hasn't been the same since …

“What the hell am I doing right now?” she whispers. She is not Cinderella, and a pumpkin is more reliable than her fifteen-year-old Ford. And Big Jay sure as hell ain't Prince Charming. But here she is, freshly showered and shaved, sitting in her car, hand on the keys, not turning, not going anywhere.

The world blurs as tears flood her eyes. “Oh, Monie,” she gasps.

Tomorrow.
She will tell the detective working on her friend's case everything she knows. She'll tell that detective about Von and Todd and—

Tap-tap-tap.

Renata startles at the rapping on the driver's-side window. She dries her face on her jacket sleeve and peers through the fogging glass. “Oh, hey!” She unlocks the door and rubs her hands together as she waits for her friend to join her.

God has answered the prayer she hasn't prayed. He knew that she was lonely, that she needed comfort and would attempt to find that comfort in the wrong place, in the wrong arms. And so He has sent the angel now sitting beside her.

No longer alone, Renata exhales with relief. “You scared me! You don't know how happy—”

The rear door opens and now the Devil sits in the backseat of the Taurus. The gun, the one pointed at the spot above Renata's ear, makes her swallow her words. Her underarms prickle and beads of sweat pop on her nose. She moves her mouth but can only say, “Why?”

And she thinks of Jalen and his rust-colored freckles and she wishes she had given him a bath instead of letting Momma—

 

Friday, June 21

 

28

She sits on the couch and pretends to watch people her age auditioning for a dance competition. But she can't focus. And even though she wears one of his most comfortable dress shirts—Egyptian cotton, high thread count, the softest material in the world—she is far from relaxed.

He mutters to himself in the bathroom.

A razor blade scrapes against glass.

She closes her eyes and tries to block those sounds.

Scratching. Muttering. Scratching …

And she has to pee but she doesn't want to step into that bathroom.

Her mind races—nothing makes sense anymore.

He had tried to explain but his words started to slam and melt into each other until they turned into stew.

Lately,
physically
, he seems …
not there.
His arms and fingers jerk and jab a lot at times. He'll be eating something, eggs for breakfast, and the fork would fly that-a-way, sending yolk into the air. And sometimes he moves really slowly, as though he would die if he wiggled a toe. As though his bones would shatter if he walked like a regular person. His speech slurs now and his eyes glaze—and it isn't because of the coke, at least not all the time. And “Lorraine”? Who is she and why does he keep calling her by that name?

Something is wrong.

The door of the medicine cabinet slams shut. A second later, he lurches into the living room holding his mirror filled with white. At least he's moving quicker. He collapses next to her on the couch, being careful not to spill. He slips the mirror onto the coffee table.

She watches him but says nothing. Her bladder pushes against her belly—she really has to go, but the bathroom … He threw up and like always, he's left it for her to clean. She jams her hands beneath her butt and takes slow, steady breaths.

He smells sick. Sweet, but not a good, cinnamon-roll kinda sweet. More like a piece of meat inside of him is rotting.

He touches her thigh.

She bristles. Did he notice her flinch?

He bends over the mirror and snorts a line. Satisfied, he sits back and flicks a finger at his nose, nods toward the table.

She shakes her head. “Don't feel like it.” Then she fixes her gaze on the television screen.

On a stage in Seattle, a chubby girl rolls around to Madonna's “Vogue.”

He hoovers another line, then places his head in her lap.

She lays her hand atop his head, runs her fingers through his thinning hair but avoids his ears—the hair in his ears yuck her out. Then she hears herself say, “I know you told me and everything, but why? I mean, I understand but … I guess I don't understand. Not really. She wasn't gonna tell. If you had just let me talk to her…”

He doesn't speak.

Her heart races as though she's done three lines. Maybe she should shut up and watch the fat girl voguing and sweating.

He says, “You don't trust me?” His sick breath warms her thigh. Gives her goose bumps, but not the good ones.

She forces herself to smile. “Baby, you know I do. I just like understanding for myself.”

He slowly sits up and stares at her. His corneas spin like pinwheels, twirling and spinning. “Come 'ere.”

She snuggles against him, changes her mind, and climbs into his lap. She holds her breath as she kisses him.

He strokes her hair and lets his hand fall to her neck. “My sweet angel.”

That's when her smile becomes true—she loves his hands. They are almost as strong as his will.

He clasps her neck with one hand. “Don't get soft on me.”

“Baby,” she coos, “I'm—”

His grip tightens. “We needed to, all right?”

Tighter now …

Her body trembles. “Yes.”

“You wimping out on me now?” he asks. “After all I've given you? Thought you loved me.”

Tighter …

“I do,” she squeezes out.

The room whirls and something in her neck cracks. Her bladder threatens to release.

“Can I trust you, Lorraine?” he asks.

She nods—her head is pounding.

He releases her and chuckles. “My sweet angel.” He bends over and snorts another line.

Air scrapes against her throat and it still feels as though his hands are clenching her neck.

By now, the fat girl on the television has left the building in tears.

He sits back and nods toward the table.

The coke will dull her pain. Clutching her own neck now, she bends over glass too messy to reflect. She takes one long snort and sends that numbing powder into her blood.

 

29

I startled awake in my dark bedroom, breathing hard and sweating. On the nightstand, the clock's red numbers blinked 3:15. My damp tank top stuck to my skin, and my heart pounded as though I had been running through the Grand Canyon. Someone too short and too lean to be Greg lay in bed beside me, hidden beneath the sheets. I stared at the sleeping figure, at the rise and fall of its breathing. I reached over and pulled away the comforter.

Tori lay there. Her skin was black and leathery, and her fingers were clawed. Creamy white moths fluttered around her body.

I couldn't move. Heat spread like brushfire across my face, and my scalp prickled. I needed to look away, but I couldn't look away. I couldn't scream. I couldn't move.

Tori pointed at me and whispered, “Lulu, help me.”

My eyes popped open.

Clang-clang-clang.

I sat up.

Pinballs.

I touched the empty spot in my bed. No Tori. Just a dream.

Clang-clang-clang.

Greg was calling.

I grabbed my iPhone from the nightstand and climbed out of bed.

It was Friday.

After our good mornings and a rundown of the past ten hours (and no mention of Michiko Yurikami), Greg asked, “Breakfast with Mom today?”