Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds)
Read Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) Online
Authors: Hilarey Johnson
Sovereign Ground
Hilarey
Johnson
Copyright © 2014 Hilarey Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including
information storage and retrieval systems without written permission of the
author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in review.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, incidents and the town of Salt Creek, Nevada are the product of the
author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Scripture taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2008
by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover by Blue Azalea Designs
Cover image: Ro Sen/Shutterstock
Interior Image: Petrovic Igor/Shutterstock
To any man
or woman who has stood naked before the accuser
Last night I dreamed about dancing. The images
become more vivid with each slicing step. I twirled on a Heidi mountain,
breathing in sunshine. That was last night—currently I freeze and watch drivers
to see if anyone makes eye contact. They don’t.
A blister grates my heel as though a shard of
glass is wedged in my sneakers. It makes the weight of my book bag pull at my
shoulder—the Hans Christian Anderson collection is a heftier volume than my
normal library loan. I no longer count to make sure two steps fit in each
sidewalk square. Just like the fabled Little Mermaid, I suffer with each step.
It would figure that the prince loved to watch her, ignorant of her torment.
Doesn’t it also figure she would dance for him in pain?
I don’t think I’ll finish the story.
An image of a real-life Barbie, stretched across a
billboard, advertises a casino downtown. The billboard must work. Cars speed
past, drivers desperate to leave this corner of Reno lined by single story
motels, pawnshops and the promise of quick loans.
I miss my green mountain. Though I rarely think
about it in the day, I’ve had that dream hundreds of times since I was nine.
I’m not always in the mountains; sometimes I’m at a great body of water. The
dream started the night after I danced at a Powwow with my dad, two months
before I got sent to Nevada. Dancing that night was the last time I felt free.
Nearly seven years I have lived with my half brother, Thom, and his wife,
Lorna. Nearly seven years I have known about the curse.
I plop down on a graffiti-covered bus-stop bench.
There’s a fading “you just proved this sign works” ad on the back. I stare at
the brick building across the street where a tattoo parlor sign sways with the
occasional biting gust. No one will hire me, a high school dropout, a Native
American. I’m proud of my heritage—at least I’m practiced at saying I’m proud.
But only in my dream of dancing do I lift my face with my arms. Only in my
dream the spirits do not hunt me.
Thom told me I wouldn’t find work. He probably
hoped I would resurrect the stubborn pride he says I have inside, find a job,
and prove him wrong. He would know. He’s great at finding jobs, just not at
keeping them. I’ll just sit on this bench instead and let the pulse in my heel
drum against my shoe. There isn’t a chance Lorna would come get me. If I don’t
find a job, I may never leave their place. Still, I can’t muster any more
effort.
Too bad there isn’t a snack in my bag. I finger
the book. I could use a little break from job hunting. Maybe I’ll see if the
Little Mermaid ever gets an eternal soul.
A motorcycle growls above the hum of car traffic.
It’s a nice bike, shiny at least. The rider zips past me and wheels up onto the
curb. She stops and lifts her helmet. Brown curly hair falls out, not the
natural kind of curl, the permed kind. Still straddling the bike, she gives me
a wink. It feels funny to get winked at by a woman who’s not much older than
me. I laugh a little, and she smiles back showing a Madonna gap between her two
front teeth.
She throws a leg over and walks her bike through
the parking lot of a building I hadn’t noticed behind me. A sign hangs above:
The Wild Lily. The winter sky is dark enough to show lights burned out on the
sign. The final “Y” pulses from dark to dull, and the lily is missing part of
the stem. The building itself matches, a cement square with rebar protruding
where the corner crumbles. Looks like someone drove into it. Bars hug a
ground-level basement window, and huddled against the glass is a handwritten
“Busser Wanted” sign.
What are my options? If I looked like a
cheerleader, I would’ve probably been hired at that tourist clothing store. Who
am I kidding? Cheerleaders don’t get jobs. They don’t wear clothes from the
Salvation Army or have shoes a half-size too small. I should have told that
last store I would wear one of their
“My-grandparents-went-to-Reno-and-all-I-got-was-this-lousy” T-shirts.
Maybe it isn’t my clothes. Lorna is probably
right, it’s me.
I walk to the Wild Lily, no longer hungry. I
really don’t want to walk into a building that has steps leading down, going
below the ground. But I open the door and look inside. A cloud of smoke waits
like a stalker over the bar. Even the gray January sky is brighter than it is
in there. The door swings behind me, and I can’t remember if it’s day or night
outside. The winter season is irrelevant.
“We’re closed, honey,” A man stands behind a
little round table covered with papers.
I look up at the window and point to the sign with
a sort of shrug. I’m a fool. I should go.
“Are you here for the job?” His Santa Claus
stomach strains against a thin white shirt tucked into shiny pants with a worn
belt. Arms crossed and feet planted apart seem to declare that he is the one in
charge. He grabs a jacket that matches his pants and stains to pull it up his
arms. I want to laugh at the thought of him trying to button it.
“Someone here, Buzz?” An older woman leans against
the bar. Wrinkles of loose skin run like a river down to taut cleavage. She’s
outlived her implants. Her Hawaiian print tank top is short enough to reveal a
large rodeo belt buckle clasped over black Wranglers.
“Just your new busser.” Buzz changes his mind
about the suit jacket and lays it down over his chair-back again.
“I’m Cassie.” She crosses her arms like Buzz did,
but she has a wet rag in one hand. Maybe she’s the one in charge. “You got a
high school diploma?”
I nod. If they ask to see it, I just won’t return.
“Are you eighteen?” Cassie’s teeth match a picture
I once saw in a “reasons not to smoke” pamphlet.
Again, I nod. I practically am.
“Have you ever worked in a restaurant before?”
“No. But I’m a fast learner.” I heard a teacher
say that was the best response. I try not to laugh at the restaurant comment.
In the middle of a dozen conspicuously small tables, which wouldn’t hold more
than a plate, there is a twelve by twelve-foot stage with a pole—securing floor
to ceiling.
“Can you start soon?” She looks down and adjusts
her tank top so the neckline shows more.
“I can start now.”
Cassie likes that. She uncrosses her arms and
really looks at me. I use my thumb to tuck the hem of my shirt into my jeans,
hiding the torn edge.
“Let me introduce you to the girls.” Cassie walks
as though each foot is on a spring. Even with a sore heel, I catch myself
imitating it a little. We pass the stage and enter a door hidden on the right. The
narrow room has mirrors and lights lining each wall. Someone tried to clean the
mirrors, but gave up on smearing the wipe marks. Three twenty-something women
look up at me. The first one to smile is the motorcycle chick. She winks at me
again.
“Brita, where are the waitress shorts?”
“Here, I think.” Brita yanks open a plastic tub of
drawers. A mound of bright satin expands. “Oopsy.” She chuckles in a manly way.
“Get ‘er all taken care of.” Cassie waves, and Brita
gives her a wink too. Brita holds a red bra up to me.
“This color looks gorgeous next to your tan.” She
scrunches her lips like she’s trying to drink out of a straw to her left. “Naw,
you have such a baby face. Blue.” Brita lifts a handful of blue lace and holds
it out.
There was only one other time I touched something
this luxurious. Right after Health and Welfare took me from my dad, Lorna had a
pile of laundry on the couch. When she saw me looking at her unmentionables,
she cried and cried. She and Thom had a bad fight that first night.
I can’t resist. I touch the lace shoulder strap, the
kind that would always “accidentally” peek out from under girls’ shirts at
school. I let go.
“Here’s your uniform.” Brita sets a pair of shorts
and a thin white tank top on the counter.
“Changing room?” I ask.
“You’re in it,” the taller girl with thin, brown
hair says. She has stripped to a bra and panties—so I feel stupid.
I face the wall and slip my shirt over my head. I’m
not that modest, I just don’t want them to see the bleach stain on the front of
my sports bra. Lorna usually dumps bleach in my laundry. She thinks I
bring—well, brought bugs home from school.
“Oh, Baby.” Brita lifts my frayed strap. I didn’t
realize it had gotten so tattered. “Take the bra. It’s yours.” Brita hands it
to me.
I won’t take it, so she holds up the scarlet bra.
“Any color will look gorgeous on you. I can’t wear red; makes me look
sunburned.” Brita shrugs and her robe slips from her shoulders like butter in a
skillet. She catches it at the last moment and tosses it on the counter.
Without turning, she dresses in the green bra.
“It won’t hurt to try one on,” Brita says.
I reach for the blue one again. Blue like the sky
in spring, in Tahoe. She squeals when she sees it on me.
“Let me put some makeup on you, Baby.”
“Why not?”
She winks, and this time I wonder if she has a
tick. I try to hold still for the mascara brush.
“You have a nice bike.” When I talk, the mascara
brush hits my cheek. I take a deep breath when she licks her thumb to wipe it.
“Thanks, my son hates when I drive it.” Brita
reaches for a brush and pulls my hair from the ponytail. “Oh. My. Gosh. I have never
seen such hair. Are you Pocahontas?” The other two girls giggle.
I start to form a response for that, one I would
couple with a slap, but she interrupts.
“He acts like he’s nervous for me, but I know it’s
just because he wants to use it to sneak out and see his girlfriend.”
Ah, the bike. “Son?” She must have been twelve
when she had him.
“He’s such a brat. He isn’t even old enough to
drive.” Brita laughs that same manly way and pulls me to my feet.
“Who’s your friend?” Up till now, the other two
gals were only concerned with their makeup. The taller one who spoke earlier
walks forward and smiles like a social worker.
“Lexi, this is Baby Face.” Brita winks again, and
says to me, “We don’t use our real names.”
“I’m Misti.” The one in the corner, with shoulder-length
black hair, stops smearing cover up under her eyes long enough to wave. “Lexi. Misti.”
Misti repeats while pointing.
Lexi pulls a pink boa from the wall and throws it
over my shoulders.
“No way,” Misti says and laughs. “It doesn’t
match.”
I laugh too. I would never hold something that
ridiculous.
“How about this?” Misti joins in the decorating.
“Fab-u-lous.” Brita mouths the word like it’s three.
“Look at this color.”
“I would kill for her skin.”
“Do you work out?”
“Isn’t she beautiful?”
“So exotic.”
My hair is tugged and played with as I become
their doll. Churning colors of fabric rain on me with the compliments. I am Nevada
desert, drinking it all.
We’ve moved to the door on the opposite side of
the room. I know what’s coming, what they’ve been doing all along. But I don’t
care.
When we leave the dressing room, I find myself
alone on stage. Their cheering swells around me. The light shines bright on my
face and heats my skin. Another man talks with Buzz. They are both in suits,
and they hardly look at me. Cassie turns a dial for music behind the bar, and
she waves like a ribbon in the breeze.
I move. The women’s applause crests over me. I
undulate like Hemmingway’s ocean, a lover under a frothy blanket. I am not a
dropout. I am not a ward of the state. I am not cursed. I am a stormy sea.
My heel doesn’t hurt. The fancy shoes I wear have
straps that miss my blister. If the song never ended, I would be content. My
foot slips. I grab the pole to keep from falling. The cheers rise with
laughter.
“I’ve done that too.” I think it was Cassie.
The man with Buzz walks forward. He has a
commercial smile and holds out a hand. We shake.
“You are fab-u-lous. If you want a job dancing—we
want you.” When he pulls his hand away there’s a bill pressed to my palm, a
crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. I won’t have to walk home tonight. What will
Lorna say if I show up in a cab?
“Buzz, take care of this girl.” He speaks to Buzz,
but looks at me.
“Sure thing, Brody.”
Brody is the one in charge.
The girls twirl around the tables, laughing and
talking about their plans for the weekend. Those plans include me if I want.
Alone on stage, I dance with them. They have seen
me in my underwear and they don’t even know my name.
