South by Southeast (5 page)

They were Maria and the Kid again. Maria was the one who had given her the street name Chela, which she said was sexier than Lauren, a new beginning.

“What are you doing in Miami?” they said, and laughed when they both said, “Jinx!”

Chela was taller than Maria now, who seemed oddly petite beside her, no longer towering over her because she was two years older and had navigated the streets three years longer. Although she couldn't be older than twenty, Maria looked at least twenty-five, with lines framing her eyes that had been absent in L.A., making her look slightly sleepy in a way that rest wouldn't help. She was probably stoned, Chela remembered. Maria was dressed like a pop star in shredded jeans and a glitter bikini top, and she looked as if she lived a pop star's long hours.

But she was still gorgeous. Maria's hair shone like onyx against olive skin, hanging long across her bare shoulders. Maria had seemed so beautiful to Chela that she'd once been confused by her emotions, wondering if she liked girls. Later she'd realized that the floating sensation she felt around Maria only meant that she wanted to slip into Maria's skin and experience the world from behind her eyes, never missing a moment of her. Not a sex thing—more like a spirit thing. If that was a girl crush, so be it.

“I've been partying with a millionaire all week,” Maria whispered in her ear. “He lives down the street, and he told me someone was shooting a movie. What are you doing here?”

“I'm here with my . . .” The word
Dad
had never seemed as wrong as now. “Friend,” she finished carefully. “He's in the movie!”

They squealed and hugged again, the way Chela imagined two old friends might at their twenty-year high school reunion after they both learned they had married for love, had children they adored, held high-powered careers, and could still fit into their cheerleader skirts and sweaters.

The bald, fat guy on the crew who was closest to the fence glared again, his unappealing stomach jiggling beneath a tank top as he raised his finger to his lips to shush them. “Which one is your friend?” Maria said, scanning the crowded patio.

Ten was easy to spot, since he was wearing the most clothes.

“I'm not feeling the glasses,” Maria said, and Chela's memory
of Maria sharpened. Maria needed to be choosier, more discerning. She always found a defect to point out.

“That's just for the part. He doesn't really wear those.”

Maria nodded, relieved. “Oh, okay. Definitely fine, though. Nice face under there.” She nudged Chela. “Good body?”

Chela's throat tightened.
Ugh.
“He's not that kind of friend,” she said. “Ten's more like a big brother. He looks out for me. I moved in with him and his dad a couple years back.”

“For reals?” Maria said, her voice hushed. She seemed confused by the concept, and Chela suddenly felt so sorry for both of them that grief stabbed her. The idea of a family almost seemed like a betrayal, since they had given up on the idea by the time they met. Families were people they saw on TV on those old sitcoms like
The Cosby Show
. Families were a lie.

How would she explain that her boyfriend was president of the chess club (“Wait—there's a club at your school just for people who play chess?”) or that she'd graduated with a 3.8 GPA and that her mailbox had been flooding with recruitment letters from places like UCLA and Spelman, falling over themselves to woo her (“You mean colleges are writing to
you
?”).

And there was no way in hell Chela could explain that she and Bernard had never had sex—even though they were creative about their chastity—because he was born again, saving himself for marriage. She didn't think Bernard's resolve would last much longer, but she wasn't pushing, either. Sex was no mystery to her, but she preferred romance. She liked holding hands and falling asleep with her head on his shoulder at the movies. Besides, if she had sex with Bernard, it would only be fair to tell him about the revolving door in her panties, and wouldn't he run for the hills when he knew? Chela didn't keep the number in her head, afraid to do the calculations. Too many.

“Who's your millionaire friend?” Chela asked, deflecting.

Maria flipped her hair over her right shoulder the way she always
had when she was about to tell a story she was proud of, true or not. “Twenty-six. Totally ripped. His father's company flies executive jets, so they're rolling. He says he's gonna fly me to Jamaica. And he never gets tired—I mean, he can go all night without stopping.”

In another life, back when Chela had been working, Ten had rescued her from rapper M.C. Glazer, who'd put her up in his mansion and promised she could live with him forever. Now she understood how deluded she must have sounded to Ten. Maria's millionaire might not be paying her in cash, but he was a john.

Maria's eyes sparked as if she'd seen Chela's thoughts. “We're not exclusive or nothing,” Maria said. “We just like to party. We met at Phoenixx.” Maria suddenly grabbed Chela's wrist, her eyes wide with a revelation. “Maria and the Kid! We should party tonight. Have you been to Phoenixx?
Chica,
it's the best club on the East Coast, like the best clubs in Vegas. All the stars go there. You won't believe it.”

Chela had been about to suggest that they should go to the beach or have lunch on Ocean Drive, where they could hear their conversation. Chela wanted to know where the lines radiating from the corners of Maria's eyes had come from. If she was still in the Life. Chela hadn't been to a club in years.

Her lame California driver's license, which clearly stated her age as eighteen, was the only ID she carried. The Kid was dead. Nothing about going to a club sounded like a good idea.

“I don't have a fake ID,” Chela said in her
oh well, end of story
voice.

Maria laughed, giving her a playful push that nearly knocked her into the toddler-wrangling woman next to her. “You're kidding, right? Please. I can hook you up with an ID that could get you through an airport. Takes ten minutes. We'll pick it up on the way. Just bring an extra fifty bucks. Let's meet at ten thirty, okay?”

Chela's heart surged as she imagined a hypnotic bass beat and
flashing lights, a dance floor writhing with bodies, and perfumed sweat fogging the air.

My, my.
Seemed the Kid wasn't dead after all.

She hadn't been to a club in years! And hadn't she been meaning to get a fake ID so she could sip an appletini once in a while? If people could go to war at eighteen, they damn sure should be able to have a drink.

Maybe it was true that people could feel eyes when they were staring hard enough. Something made Chela look back toward the patio just as she heard the director yell, “Action!”

Ten was staring straight at her, as if he had heard every word.

WHEN YOU'VE SPENT
as much time as I have near trouble, you can smell it from a distance.

“An old friend and I are going to hang out tonight,” Chela told me after dinner. The pitch of her voice rose slightly as she tried too hard to sound casual. Even Dad caught it, glancing away from our living room's fifty-inch flat-screen. “I'll be home late. Just letting you know.”

My stomach gurgled, but not from the food. We'd just finished a boatload of raw fish from Sushi Rock down the street; even Dad had tried his first taste of raw fish. Any parent of a teenager knows you have to pick your battles, but it's more important to know how to pick.

This was a test I'd been dreading. I thought of all the times I'd postponed talks with Chela about making good decisions because she was doing so well. Stayed in school and graduated with good grades. Picked a nerdy boyfriend who, aside from wrestling meets, seemed to lack the slightest trace of testosterone. Save for a single internet incident I'd squashed by spying on her, Chela had stayed far away from her old life. Now I'd brought her old life back to her feet. I'd never met the girl Chela had been chumming with at the morning's shoot, but if she wasn't a prostitute, she'd missed her calling. Girls like that had supplied Mother, my old madam, with enough Stoli Elite vodka and
real estate holdings to last two or three lifetimes.
Takes one to know one,
my Evil Voice taunted.

But that wasn't quite true. An escort in my price range would have been tougher to spot. Chela's friend might be a streetwalker, or she might be working the clubs or hotel bars. A worker bee, not a Queen Bee. It's a designation that has nothing to do with her looks, because I could see that the girl was a beauty, or had been, even if life had trod on her hard. Cute is only part of the story for girls like her.

“An old friend from where?” I said, nailing the casual tone she'd been striving for.

Chela wasn't fooled. She raised her eyebrow, defiant. “Catholic school,” she said. “Our Lady of Mind Your Own Damn Business.”

Marcela clucked disapprovingly from the kitchenette as she threw away our takeout containers. This was not going to be a conversation for witnesses.

I whistled softly to Chela, nodding toward the dining area's balcony behind a glass sliding door. “Let's check out the sunset,” I said.

“The sun sets in the west,” Chela said.

“Humor me.”

It was a little after six. Below us, families of sun-reddened beachgoers were streaming back to their cars, and the dating set was just beginning to arrive in heels and pressed shirts. In a few hours, the after-dark hordes would take over Ocean Drive.

Chela was silent, staring at me as if she didn't know what I wanted to talk about.

“Is she one of Mother's?” I said.

Her mouth dropped open before she caught herself. “Who?”

Now I stared. Waiting.

Flustered, Chela flipped her hair away from her cheeks while the breeze tried to wrestle it back. “You're such a jerk sometimes,” she said.

“Why? Because I'm right?”

“You're not,” Chela said. “Sorry, detective. I knew her before I knew Mother. She did her own thing. An independent operator.” She didn't conceal the pride in her voice.

If I remember the story right, Chela had fallen into the company of streetwalkers who taught her the trade when she was at an age too young for me to ponder without a stomachache. Mother had been a major step up for Chela. Mother had let Chela go only reluctantly, when I threatened to take the old bat to jail if she stood in my way of giving her underage novelty a shot at some kind of life. I have a flinch response on the subject, seeing the aged madam beneath every rock and behind every bush, even on the other side of the country. But even if the girl didn't know Mother, she was no one I wanted back in Chela's world.

A small flock of seagulls rose skyward north of us, six birds veering in perfect formation. Dad used to say that a flock of seagulls meant a storm was coming. No clouds marred the fuchsia sky yet, but South Florida thunderstorms don't give much notice.

“I know you don't want to hear me . . .” I began.

“True.”

“But this is a bad idea, Chela.”

“You don't even know her!”

I nodded. “What's her name?”

Chela paused, sensing a trap, as if I were a cop. “Maria.”

“You're right, I don't know Maria. But I know what she represents. And I think you do, too. So even though you're eighteen now, which makes you a grown-ass woman, I hope you'll remember that sometimes old habits don't die—they just go to sleep for a while.”

Chela was so angry her face colored red. “Thanks a lot for the trust, Ten. If I come home late, just check out the alleys to see if I'm sleepwalking in kneepads.”

She headed back for the glass door, where I could see Dad and Marcela on the sofa pretending they weren't wondering what we were talking about.

“I'm not just making this up to hurt your feelings, Chela,” I called after her. “Ask me what I was doing on those trips six months ago.”

Chela stopped cold.

I wasn't supposed to talk about those trips; my lady friend with ties to the Cowboys In Action had told me that the people I'd been working with would disappear me if I did. Last I heard, there's a price on my head in Hong Kong, and I don't plan to visit to verify it. Some people might say I'd been working for a patriotic cause, but despite the labels and justifications, I'd seduced a woman under false pretenses. Even back when I'd worked for Mother, I'd never had to lie my way into anyone's bed; my clients did the lying to their husbands and boyfriends. Mother had given me all the training I needed. It was piss-poor consolation that I'd almost died for my sins.

Chela whipped around, lovely mouth twisted in a sneer. “Well, listen to Mr. Hypocrite.”

The word
hypocrite
cut me; it fit my size just right. “I just want you to know how easy it is, Chela,” I said. “Wrong people. Wrong place. Wrong time. The next thing you know . . .”