“Like how to steal someone's husband?” Winnie had retorted.
“Very funny.”
“I'm not joking.”
The look on his face. His guilt made him hate her sometimes; at that moment he despised her. If she were dead, if he didn't have to see her or talk to her on the phone, it would be a gift to him.
Winnie opened her eyes. They were passing the round and columned pseudo-Roman Forum on her left. The sign advertised
Sunday services for the Faith Central Bible Church and also the comeback tour of a 1980's heavy metal band. A giant cemetery stretched off to her right. She had made no instructions about her funeral. The cemetery was pretty, a swath of deep green grass and leafy trees in the middle of the sinking urban scene. It was bordered on the west by Prairie Avenue. She had always loved the word prairie, the wide, open spaces, the long grasses moving in the breeze. She had never seen a prairie, never been to Nebraska or Kansas or any place where she could see empty land for miles and miles.
“I'd like to be buried there,” she said.
“I'll tell Lacy,” Oren replied.
Winnie recoiled as if he had hit her again. “I'll do whatever you say. Just leave her alone.”
“You can't make deals with me.”
He was crazy. He didn't know where Lacy was, he couldn't. They crossed under the 405 Freeway.
“We're almost there." He had his phone out giving him directions. He turned right abruptly, throwing her against the door.
“Sorry,” he said. “This is it." He turned into the parking lot.
“Tip Top Coffee Shop,” she read the neon sign aloud. The second “o” was only partially lit and the rest of the slanted 1960s building was equally neglected. But she could see customers inside, sitting at booths in the window. A handsome black man looked right at her as they drove in. She held up her bound wrists, but he had turned back to his eggs and potatoes or grilled cheese sandwich, whatever was on his plate much more interesting than her.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“This has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry you had to come along.”
Oren drove through the parking lot and around behind the building. The back area was completely empty except for a young Latino man in an apron throwing garbage into two green dumpsters. He wiped his hands and went back through the kitchen door and closed it behind him. Oren looked at his watch.
“Are you late?”
“Tell me he didn't leave.”
“We're meeting someone with a female iguana, aren't we?”
“You're pretty smart.” Oren sighed. “He's a reptile dealer. The best. He doesn't have the female yet. He's going to get me a good one. From the jungle. A young adult and a clutch of eggs." He continued proudly, “I negotiated for the clutch. Won't cost me a penny more.”
“How much money is in that envelope?”
“He wanted three thousand for her, and fifteen hundred expenses.”
“Forty-five hundred dollars? He'll wait.”
“I'm short three hundred.”
Oren groaned and pressed his palms into his eyes. He had a redhead's hands, every wrinkle obvious in the white skin, with fiery little hairs and freckles. Winnie thought of his mother telling him not to bite his nails, slapping his hand out of his mouth. His mother, his dead mother. Maybe he didn't bite those nails until after she died. And what happened to his father?
“It's a lot of money." Winnie tried to reassure him. “Maybe he's inside.”
Oren shook his head. He sighed again and let his shoulders drop, his chest sink, his hands fall open on his lap. Everything about him collapsed.
“I shouldn't have come." He looked used up, an old rag wrung out.
“He's got to be here." She soothed him as she eyed the back
door to the coffee shop. There were people in that kitchen, right through that door. If she screamed as she climbed out the car window, somebody would hear her, somebody would run out and see her. Slowly she inched her hands toward the button, leaned over on one hip preparing to leap.
“Thwock!”
Oren jumped. So did she. An overweight man in a safari jacket was knocking on Oren's window.
“Kidney!” Oren grinned as he rolled it down. “Thank God.”
“Where the hell've you been?” The man asked Oren, but he was staring at her, taking in her tied hands, her sweaty face, the bruises on her bare legs. Oren tried to lean forward, keep him from seeing her, but it was too late.
“What you got there, Oren?”
“Nothing.”
The man leaned in, pushed Oren out of the way. “Hey there. You're not nothing.”
“Please. I'm Winnie Parker and he's kidâ”
Oren clamped his hand over her mouth. She struggled, but it didn't matter. She was saved. The man had heard enough. Then he began to laugh, a slippery sharp laugh that turned in her gut like a knife.
“Heh, heh, heh. Pleased to meet you Winnie Parker. I'm Kidney." Then to Oren, “She looks a little old for you.”
“It's not what you think." Oren said. “We're just talking.” Kidney laughed some more, but it sunk to a scratching low in his chest. Oren handed him the envelope of money. Kidney counted, and then gave a little tsk tsk.
“You're missing some.”
“Just a little.”
Kidney handed the envelope back to Oren and started to walk away. He was bluffing. Winnie could tell by the way he
took tiny steps with his head cocked back waiting for Oren's plea.
“I can get it to you. I can. Kidney, please.”
Kidney turned and did a little funny move, as if he was dancing, pulling an imaginary hat over his forehead. She had hoped he would save her. He was crazier than Oren. He came to the car and squatted down. He held onto the door through the open window and his fingernails were too long and dirty. The pinkie nail was the longest, for cleaning his ears or picking his nose.
“You owe me three hundred dollars. That's a lot of money.”
“I'm good for it. You know that. You know me.”
“Fact is, I hardly know you at all.” Kidney stood up. He hitched up his pants and Winnie saw the crotch of his old man light washed jeans was spotted with pee or spilled food. “Get out of the car, Oren, so we can talk face to face.”
Oren looked at Winnie.
“Don't let him push you around.” Winnie whispered. “I mean it, you shouldn't have to pay the rest until he delivers her.” She surprised him and herself. She was not his mother. She should have told him to punch Kidney, to get into a fistfight. Then the cops would come or the manager would run out. Someone normal who wouldn't laugh when he saw her. Oren gave her a little smile, calmly turned off the car, took his keys from the ignition, and got out. She saw the butt of the gun protruding from his jacket pocket. Surely anyone walking by would see it too. But nobody was walking by. There was no reason to be back here unless you were the busboy with the garbage and he had finished that job.
The busboy and that kitchen door. Oren and Kidney were talking on his side of the car. Oren was pleading with Kidney, holding out the envelope, begging him to take it. On her side,
the kitchen door was closed but it had to be unlocked. It had to be. She counted to three and lunged for the door handle. The door opened and she half fell from the car. Her ankles were tied, but she had thought she could manage to stay standing. She struggled to her knees. She opened her mouth to scream just as Kidney grabbed her from behind and squeezed the air from her lungs. She could smell beer and sweat and his dirty clothes and hair. She thought she would vomit. She thought she would pass out.
“Where do you want her?” Kidney asked Oren. He spun her around like a child in her father's arms. Around and around and around.
“Stop,” Oren said, “C'mon, Kidney. Stop.”
Kidney chuckled and put Winnie down on her feet. She was so dizzy, and her feet so close together, she fell over. He pushed her prone and straddled her. She would have bitten an ankle, anything, but he wore scuffed and dirty cowboy boots.
“Who is this bitch?” he asked.
“She's my girlfriend's mother.”
Winnie twisted to look at Oren. He was making this up. He was trying to get Kidney to leave her alone, but it was so ridiculous no one would believe him.
“Sure, she is.” Kidney looked down at her. His face was bloated and sagging, but his arms had been like a vise around her ribs. The cuts on her stomach were bleeding again; Oren's white T-shirt stuck and pulled as she tried to get to her hands and knees.
Again Kidney pushed her flat with one foot. “Listen, Oren. You owe me three hundred bucks. I got a deal for you. Why don't I take her off your hands? We'll call it even.”
Buster had done this before and Lacy was glad. The top button of her jeans had been hard to undo. She sometimes had trouble with it herself, and Buster was only using one hand. She was also happy he was absolutely stone cold sober for this most momentous act of her life so far. He told her he'd been too nervous to even take a single toke with the guys in the glass garden.
“But you seemed so cool."
“Shaking and quaking on the inside.”
His bedroom was familiar, the same Ikea furniture everyone had, done in boy colors of blue and brown. She smiled at his football-themed sheets.
“Mom,” he said embarrassed.
“I still have ballerinas.”
The bed was a single but they managed to fit. As long as he kept kissing her anything was possible. His hand stroked her stomach. She squirmed, but it was good. She hoped Buster would be her boyfriend. It would be great to have a boyfriend at school. They could sit together at lunch. They could walk down the hall holding hands. She could put “in a relationship” on her page. And she really, really liked him.
Buster's hand slipped under the elastic on her underpants and between her legs. She was damp down there and she knew that was normal. Her breath came faster. Her whole body tingled. She lifted her hips so he could wiggle off her jeans. Good
thing she had worn decent underpants, a favorite pair decorated with flowers and a little lace. Buster took her hand and put it on his thing. She gasped. It was so much softer than she expected.
“Don't worry,” Buster said. “You're not hurting me.”
“It's like velvet.”
“Glad you think so.”
“Are they all like this?”
“Frankly, mine is the only one I've ever touched.”
“Me too.”
“I'm honored. Really." He looked into her eyes. “Touch. Explore. Discover. “
She giggled. “Like at the Science Museum.”
“Exactly. My dick is your personal exhibit.”
He laughed too. What a relief to be herself. With Buster she could say or do anything. With her older, mystery man she had to be Lacy Parkerâwealthy, sophisticated, and abused young adult. She had not meant to lie to him. They had been on the phone for the first time. It was very late at night, after her mother was safely asleep. She turned out her bedside lamp so she could listen to him in the dark. He was looking at her picture online while they talked. He told her she was beautiful and obviously smart, not a combination he thought regularly went together.
“Beautiful? Really?”
“Absolutely.”
She said no one told her she was beautiful and his response was so vehement and his outrage so comforting that she wanted it to continue. So she lied, just a little that night, about her father and especially about her mother. The divorce was true. Her famous father and the popular game show he hosted were true. Her mother's anger and unhappiness were probably true, but the way she took it all out on Lacy was not true.
“I'm a senior. I'm eighteen, but she won't let me go anywhere
by myself. She makes the chauffeur follow me everywhereâeven to school. I had a chance to play flute once with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and she wouldn't let me go. She doesn't want me doing anything better than her.”
He had been gratifyingly incensed. “She's insane.”
“She's so jealous of me.”
“What does your father say?”
“He doesn't believe me.”
“Asshole.”
The next time she had upped the ante.
“My mother's boyfriend followed me around the house. He stalked me. He came in the bathroom when I was taking a shower. He told me he wanted to rape me. And when I told my mother, she got mad at me. She slapped me. She took away my clothes and made me wear this enormous ugly dress.”
He had shouted into the phone. He had been desperate to save her. He would not let this continue. He'd come and get her, wherever she was, break down the door if necessary. Lacy had loved his passion, loved that she inspired it. No man had ever wanted to fight for her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Buster asked her. “We can just kiss.”
His face was flushed and he was practically panting. He ran his hands over her naked body. He kissed her eyes and then her collarbones and then her tits. He circled her nipple with his tongue. She thought she might lose her mind, fall into this crazy sex place and never come out. His thing was hard, but soft at the same time. She looked down at it. A tiny drop of milky moisture came out the tip.
“I'm⦠I'm sure."
She was. She was sure. It was about time, she was sixteen years old. Losing her virginity was just another kind of piercing.
So cool when it was done. And it felt so good to be wanted, to see the desire on Buster's face that only she could answer. He needed her.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“I'll try to go slow, but I am a teenage boy. We are notoriously self-centered.”
Her confusion must have shown on her face because he smiled. “I'm just talking,” he said.
“You talk a lot.”
“Not more than you."
She put her hands behind his head and pulled his lips to hers. When they talked she was not as brave. She needed his kiss, his tongue, his breath in the back of her throat. He lifted himself over her. She spread her legs. He tried to find the right entry. She had not thought that part would be so difficult. But every time he missed and ran the tip over her special spot, she gasped. It was so much different than her own furtive explorations at home. So much better. She reached down and guided him back over that spot. Was that okay with him? He moaned. She assumed that was a good thing. Anyway it was too wonderful to stop, she never wanted to stop. She knew an orgasm would come, she was not a child, but dancing along the edge of it was the best feeling she had ever experienced. A little bit was good, but more was a whole lot better. Don't stop. Never, never, never. Some small part of her worried she was becoming a sex maniac. Sex might be like heroinâone time and she was addicted.