RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance (41 page)

              “She got hers for a better deal,” I say.

              “Do you guys go to the same school as us?” the girl asks.

              “Um, no,” Angela says.  “We graduated a few years ago.”

              “Oh, cool.”

              “We’re in college now.  We wanted to see this big game though.”

              “It’s been really good so far, hasn’t it?”

              “Fabulous.”

I buy two cokes.  We return to the stands and watch the rest of the game.  Afterward the mobs of fans begin dispersing.

As Angela and I walk out of the stadium, the girl from the concession stand calls to us.  “Hey, can I ask a favor of y’all?” she asks.

In the Toyota we follow the teenage couple in an old, mud-caked Ford Explorer to a nearby liquor store.

“We want Jim Beam and some beer.   We have sixty dollars,” the girl tells us.  She nods to her boyfriend.  “Go ahead, give it to them.”

The guy in the backwards cap hands me the cash.

In the store I scan the shelves while Angela follows me.

“Let’s just take the money and go,” she tells me.

“Go where?  Our car is parked right beside them.”

“So?  What are they going to do?  You could kick that guy’s ass.”

“It’d be stupid.  It’s sixty dollars.  And they’re just kids.”

“They’re our age.  Or mine, at least.”

“We don’t need the money or the hassle.”  I pick up a handle of Jim Beam.  “Let’s just take it easy tonight.”

Angela doesn’t say anything else, though I can tell she is disappointed.

I grab a case of beer and walk to the counter.  A bald man wearing overalls asks for my I.D. before letting me pay with the sixty bucks.  Out in the parking lot I hand the teenage couple the alcohol.  I start to hand them their change, but the girl stops me.

“You can keep it,” she says, her mood bubbly.  “This is perfect.  We can’t thank y’all enough.”

“Sure.”  I pocket the change and Angela and I get in the Toyota and drive back toward the motel.

“Fuck that bitch,” Angela says.  “Giving us a few dollars like she’s doing us some favor?  You should have taken that bourbon bottle and smashed it across both their heads.”

I smile and look at her.  “Why are you so riled up tonight?”

“Because we could have had them – easy.”

“We don’t have to jump on every opportunity.  Sometimes you have to show some restraint.”

Angela shakes her head.  “They don’t even know what we could’ve done to them.  It makes me feel sick that we let them walk away.”

“Chill out.  We can go back to the motel and spend some time together.”

“I’m tired.  I just feel like going to bed.”

In the morning I walk to the motel lobby and buy a local newspaper.  I return to the room where Angela is still curled up asleep on one side of the bed.  I sit on the other side and open the paper to the classified ads.  I browse for employment opportunities.

Angela wakes up and turns toward me.  “What are you doing?”

“Looking at jobs.”

“Why?”

I glance at her.  “What would you think of settling down here for a while?”

She sits up.  “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve been doing well.  Really well.  But we shouldn’t push our luck.  Things have been crazy.  We should calm down a little before we get too out of control.  Let’s take a little time and lay low.  We’ve saved up the money we’ve made together.  I was thinking of maybe finding a job to keep some cash rolling in.  You could too.”

“That sounds boring.”

“When you have a hot hand, you have to know when to take your winnings and go home.  Otherwise you’ll end up losing everything.”

“You really want to be all normal?”

“Temporarily, yeah.  I’d like to give it a shot.  I’d like to take some time without having to think three of four moves in advance about where I’m going to sleep or how I’m going to get money and how I’m going to avoid getting caught.  I wouldn’t mind relaxing for a while and just being with you.”

“I could make you happy?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Angela thinks about it and smiles.  “We should try it.  Things have been intense.  Let’s just enjoy being together for a while.”  She stands out of bed and gets dressed.  She shuffles through her purse and finds the photo strip of us together in Mississippi.  Angela grins and holds it up so I can see it before setting it down on the nightstand.  She puts on her coat.  “I’m going out for a walk.”

“You sure?  I bet it’s pretty cold out there.”

“I’ll only be a minute.  I need some air.  What kind of jobs are we going to get?”

“I don’t know.  We can look for whatever we want.”

“Are we going to get an apartment?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I want some input on which one we pick.” 

“You got it.”

She leaves the motel room.

For the next hour and a half I’m alone, sitting on the bed and browsing the paper.  I check the clock a few times and look out the window but see no trace of her.  Finally there’s a knock at the door.  I open the door and there stands Angela, her cheeks reddened from the cold.

She steps into the room and takes off her coat.

“You were out there a long time.”

“Yeah, I just needed some time to walk around and think.”

“About what?”

“Just mentally getting my head wrapped around what life is going to be like now that we’re taking a break.  Did you find any good jobs in the paper?”

“Eh, nothing too appealing.  The only thing I think I could stomach is being a personal trainer.”

“At a gym?”

“Yeah.”

“That could work.  You’re in good shape.”

“I could probably build a nice clientele – people who want to be shown how to do a few exercises.”

“Yeah, you’d have women with disposable income drooling over you.  Maybe some guys too.”

“People with too much time and money.”

“It’d be perfect.”

“Wait.  We’re not going in that direction, remember?”

“Yeah … right.”

Off and on throughout the afternoon and evening, we converse about possible jobs and apartments without getting anywhere.  Angela presses some clothes of hers on an ironing board while we talk.  Finally she says, “I’m getting a headache from talking about this.  Let’s just stop for tonight and figure it all out tomorrow.”

“Okay.”  I lie on the bed.

She unplugs the iron and places it on the TV stand and crawls up beside me on the bed.  Her head on my shoulder, she rubs her hand up and down my chest and upper abdomen.  “Wasn’t it perfect timing that we ever even met each other?  You were hanging around the condo where me and my family were staying.  If it weren’t for that, I’d be sitting in my room doing homework right now.  School was starting that week after the vacation with my family ended.  There was no way.  I was just dreading it – normal, boring life.”

“Then I showed up and you saw a way out.”

“Timing is everything.”  Angela smiles and kisses me – slowly at first before straddling me and kissing much more aggressively.  Her lovemaking is urgent, almost frantic, and even more passionate than our first time in Memphis.  I feel totally connected to her, physically and mentally, an intuition having developed between us during our time together.  Over the night we have intercourse multiple times until I’m exhausted.  I drift to sleep with Angela near me, our legs tangled together and her body warmth radiating against me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ariel always said she had no distinct memories of our father.  She only remembered him vaguely, though fondly, and missed him dearly, always hoping she could someday see him again.

I never remembered much about him either, though one incident does stand out.

While still living with our father in an apartment, a shouting match erupted between him and our mother.  Eventually he had her pinned against the refrigerator and looked like he was about to strike her.  Then, suddenly, he let her go.  He grabbed me by the arm and said we were going outside for some air.

My mother, probably stunned she didn’t get hit, said nothing.  She only kept Ariel with her in the apartment.

My father took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and perched one on his lip as we walked down the apartment stairs.  “Does your mom ever say anything about me?”  He sparked a lighter and lit his cigarette.  “Does she say anything about me when I’m not around?” 

I said, “No.”

“She never says anything bad about me?  Not ever?”

“No,” I repeated, taking the question at face-value, not thinking anything of it.

He took me to small playground next to our building.  “Alright, okay, that’s fine then.  Go play.”

I ran around.  I went down the slide a bunch of times, then climbed on the jungle gym.  I looked for my dad every so often to make sure he was still there.

He paced around, smoking, thinking, occasionally glancing at me.

I was near the top of the jungle gym when my father approached me.  “Hey,” he said, smiling, looking at how high I’d climbed.  “Are you going to jump off there?”

I looked down.  Several feet below me, the ground was covered with small, dirty pebbles.  I shook my head, declining to jump.

“C’mon,” he urged me.  “Go ahead and jump and I’ll catch you.”  He tossed his cigarette to the ground and held out his hands.  “Don’t be scared.  Jump and I’ll get you.”

I looked at how far away he was.  I decided I could make it.  And, even if I fell short, I knew he was big and strong enough to grab me anyway.  Mustering my courage, I leapt for him.

He made no attempt to catch me and I landed hard on my belly and my chin bounced off the ground, causing me to bite my tongue.  I was too stunned at first to cry.  I stared face-first into the dirty pebbles while my chin and stomach ached.

My father picked me up, brushed me off, and said, “Now you’ve learned something: Don’t trust anybody.”

Early in the morning I turn over in bed.  Angela isn’t there.  I glance over at the bathroom which is empty with the light off.  No signs of movement are inside.  I sit up.  Angela’s bags are gone as are all of her possessions.  There is no trace of her left in the room except a can of hairspray and the iron she’d used the previous night both sitting on the TV stand.

I check for the bags containing our cash, more than seventy-thousand dollars in total.  It’s all gone.  I check my wallet and thousands are gone with only a few hundred remaining.  I dash to the window and look out.  I look for any trace of Angela but find none.  All that remains is the Toyota.

My eyes dart around the room until a small, folded piece of motel stationery from a notepad catches my attention.  It sits on the bed, its white color blending with the sheets.  I snatch it up and open it.  It doesn’t say anything.  There’s only an imprint of a red lipstick kiss.

I sit on the edge of the bed, numb, staring out the window until I get an idea.  I pick up the phone and call the motel lobby.

“Lobby.  Can I help you?”

“I have a quick question,” I say.  “I’m looking for a girl that was with me.  She’s thin, medium-height, with dark hair.  Did she stop by the lobby this morning to call a taxi?  Or did you see any sign of her?”

“Please hold one second.”  The phone goes dead momentarily, until the voice returns and says, “Sir, I think I can help you.  Someone will be visiting your room shortly.”

Before I can respond the line is dropped.  I put the phone down.

Soon there is a knock at the door.

I open it.

Standing in front of me is a tall, fit police officer wearing silver-mirrored sunglasses.  “Morning, sir.  You just called the lobby about the young girl with dark hair?”

              “Yeah.”

              “There was a car in the lot here broken into earlier this morning.  Someone caught a glimpse of a dark-haired girl.  He gave a description similar to yours.  This girl is staying here with you?”

“She was here last night, but she’s gone.”

              The officer takes out a pen and notepad.  “Where’d she go?”

              “I was trying to find that out myself.”

              “What’s y’all’s relationship?”

              “I just picked her up at a bar last night.  We came here afterward.  I don’t even remember her name.”

              The officer looks past me at the can of hairspray and iron beside the television.  “Do you mind if I come in and take a look around?”

              “No,” I say.  “Go ahead.”

The officer steps in and takes an overview of the room.  He walks into the bathroom.  “I appreciate your cooperation.  Never know if we could find something to identify her.”

              I lean back against the television stand.

              The officer walks out and looks around the bed.  He notices something between the bed and the nightstand.  He reaches down and picks up the photo strip of me and Angela in Mississippi.