The Pretty Ones (14 page)

The train she boarded was more abandoned than any that she'd ever been on. But the graffiti that flashed across the plexiglass was ever-present, lit up by the city's glow just enough to read.

WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU'LL BE.

There and gone in less than a second.

Nell tucked her purse beneath her arm and got off at her usual morning stop. She walked past the office, paused her steps when she finally stood in the bright-red neon of the Cabana Club. The girls were probably long gone, but something about visiting a place they might have been felt cathartic. An ushering in of the change Nell was determined to make. A preview of things sure to come.

She stepped inside. Parliament's “Give Up the Funk” played loud enough to rattle her teeth, but the noise was good. She was tired of thinking. Always thinking. So incessantly thinking that she was about ready to crawl right out of her skull.

Taking a seat at the bar, she wondered if the bobbing and weaving guy who was drying glasses with a towel was the bartender Miriam daydreamed about. He was tall, slender, had an unmistakable John Travolta/Vinnie Barbarino look. When Nell caught his attention, his mouth bloomed into a smile that made her heart wriggle like a worm. He shimmied over to her, leaned in, and, as politely as a guy could, yelled right in her face.

“What's your poison?”

“What?” Nell leaned toward him, unable to hear him above the roar of the music.

He motioned for her to come closer, angled himself toward her ear. “What'll you have?”

“You mean, like, a drink?”

“Yeah!” He gave her a perplexed sort of grin. “What do you want?”

Nell leaned back, pondered for a moment, and finally posed a question. “Do you have iced tea?”

“Iced tea?” He peered at her like she was the cutest thing he'd seen in his life, even cuter than Miriam Gould. “Yeah, baby, I've got iced tea. One Long Island coming right up.”

Baby.

Nell turned away, made like she was interested in the dance floor while hiding her blush. Parliament faded into KC and the Sunshine Band. A few couples vacated the floor while a handful of fresh faces took their place. Girls in tall shoes and sparkling shift dresses danced with guys in bell-bottoms, mouthing lyrics while KC wailed.
Shake, shake, shake . . .

“Here you go, baby!”

Baby.

The bartender slid a tall glass across the counter. It was the fanciest iced tea Nell had ever seen, garnished with a slice of lemon, a maraschino cherry, and a little paper umbrella, like something you'd get on a tropical island. Nell smiled and slid a dollar bill his way.

“Two bucks!” he yelled, holding up his fingers in a peace sign, just like how Barrett did when she left for work.
Later, dude.

Two bucks? Is
that
what a drink cost
s these days?
She gave him an incredulous look. She could buy an entire dinner for two bucks. But she'd already ordered the stupid thing, so she pulled another dollar from her purse and forced a good-natured smile. And here she thought he was supposed to be giving these things out at half price. She supposed those were the perks of looking like Mary Ann Thomas. When you rivaled the likes of Farrah Fawcett, the drinks were practically free.

Shake, shake, shake . . .

Over and over.

Shake, shake, shake!

Nell wrapped her hands around her drink and turned back to the dance floor.
Baby.
She snorted, took a sip of the concoction that had cost her an arm and a leg, and just about choked on the taste. It was ghastly, like something only a person without a working set of taste buds could guzzle down.

“You like it?” The inquiry came from behind her. She twisted in her seat to catch Vinnie Barbarino grinning her way. Was he smiling like that because he was playing a joke on her? Did he mess up her drink on purpose? No. He was waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, sure!” She took another sip to convince him, trying her damnedest to keep a straight face. The barkeep gave her a thumbs-up and danced away, lending his attention to a guy who looked about Nell's age on the opposite end of the bar. This guy had a friendly face, a head of messy black hair. He was on the heavyset side—not fat, just rounded out, as though his mother had fed her baby boy well. Nell liked that. It made her feel less awkward, less out of place—the heavyset girl at a nightclub full of flashy, beautiful people.

When the guy turned his attention from the bar to Nell, she started and looked down at her drink.

Oh God.

Staring at the bright-red cherry that rode like a castaway on top of an ice float, she began to panic when she sensed him scooting down the bar toward her. Desperate for something to do, she took a gulp of her awful drink. He sidled up to her despite her obvious nerves, and Nell was left with no choice but to glance his way.

“Hi,” he said as soon as she cast him a look. “How's it going?”

“What?” Maybe if she pretended she couldn't hear him above the music, he'd give up and go away.

“How's it going?” he boomed. “You here alone?”

Nell managed a smile and bobbed her head, continuing to play the deaf card. The guy wasn't dissuaded. He lifted his own drink—a bottle of Old Milwaukee—and took a swig.

“Dave,” he yelled.

“Hi,” she finally yelled back. No use looking more stupid than she already did.

“You got a name?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Name!” He screamed it. “What's your name?”

“Nell,” she told him, immediately regretting her honesty. She should have made something up. Should have said her name was Linnie or Savannah or Mary Ann, if not to keep her anonymity, then to at least have a more interesting name than the one she'd been born with.

Nell, plain from day one.

“You from around here?” he asked. Nell shook her head, her eyes fixed on the giant lapels of his yellow-and-green paisley-print shirt. “Where you from?”

She faltered at his persistence. “Uh, Queens!”

Dave looked intrigued by her answer, as though he had a particular interest in the borough. Then again, that was where someone had shot those two kids the other day. It was where the cops had found Linnie Carter, where the panic had risen to a fever pitch. Lots of people were interested in Queens these days. It was a horror show out there. A real bloodbath.

“You wanna get out of here?”

Nell blinked. Was he . . . ?

“To talk!” he yelled over the music. “Just to talk.”

Yeah, right,
Nell thought, but was flattered despite herself. Nobody had propositioned her before. The idea of accepting Dave's invitation sent a thrill spinning through her like a Catherine wheel. She looked down at her drink; she hated it, so why not give this guy a shot? Maybe he really
did
want to talk, or maybe he wanted more, and would that have been so bad? Sitting in his car in the dark. His hands sliding down her thighs. Her, pushed against the interior of his car door. Him pressing his mouth against her neck. His fingers grazing the elastic of her panties. Ducking beneath the fabric. Pushing her legs apart as he murmured hot against her ear:
You like that? You like that, huh, baby?

A tremor shot through her hands. She pushed her iced tea onto the bar, afraid that if she didn't put it down, she'd end up spilling it all over her new clothes. A flash of a memory lit up the back of her eyelids. A slit of light beneath the closet door. Her mother's heavy breathing. The rhythmic banging of something against a wall. Nell and Barrett sitting in the dark, their hands pressed over their ears as they huddled together, holding their pee. A man's voice asking:
You like that?
You filthy girl.

That's what he had called their mother.

You little slut.

And she had liked it.

Yes,
she had gasped.
I'm dirty.
A filthy little slut.

“I can't,” Nell told him, cutting the memory off. “Sorry, I just . . .”

“Oh, come on,” Dave urged, but he wasn't smiling anymore. His round face took on a distinct look of impatience. Her own expression must have shifted to something akin to alarm, because as soon as he looked at her again, his agitation scurried back into its hole. “What're you gonna do, go back to Queens on your own? That's dangerous, ain't it? I've got a car. Let me at least drive you.”

“I'm waiting for a friend,” she insisted. He needed to leave her alone.

“What?” Dave leaned in closer, holding a hand up to his ear.

He had to give up. Give her space.

“A friend,” she yelled, but Dave had suddenly gone deaf.

His hand landed on Nell's arm as if to pull her away from the bar.

Her pulse thumped up into her throat, keeping time to the music.

She jerked her arm away.

“Hey, why don't you scram?” she yelled, unnerved by his persistence. “Go find some other girl to drive back to Queens.”

Dave blinked at her like she'd just thrown dirt in his eye. His face shifted from stunned to incensed within a span of a second. And as Nell sat there watching him, she was sure he'd happily slash her throat the same way Barrett had cut Linnie's.

Dave took a step back, grabbed his beer, and turned away, but before Nell could breathe a sigh of relief he spun back around and hissed into her face. “Stupid bitch!”

Flecks of saliva spattered across her cheek.

She winced.

Her elbow jerked sideways, nudging her glass of disgusting iced tea along the sticky surface of the bar. When he finally turned away for good, Nell closed her eyes and tried to steady the rhythm of her heart.

If Barrett wants to kill somebody, he should kill
that
guy,
she thought.
Garrote him with a piano wire. Ram that beer can down his throat.

She waited for Dave to leave the Cabana Club, then stalled an extra ten minutes to make sure he wasn't lingering outside to ambush her. He seemed like the type of guy to pull something like that. But the longer she waited the more disgusted she became with herself. The thumping bass of the music had thumped its way right into her skull, vibrating her brain, reawakening her migraine. Her stomach churned around the alcohol she'd drunk for no reason other than to busy herself at a bar she should never have visited. And the recollection of how she'd pictured herself and Dave getting hot and heavy in his car made her skin crawl. Booze and strange men and impure thoughts and hanging out in bars on a weekday—the realization snapped inside her like a rubber band.

Barrett was right.

His outrage was sound.

He was worried that she'd turn into their mother, and here she was, dressed in a way she'd never dressed before. Drinking some horrible-­tasting drink. Smiling and bobbing her head despite having a miserable time. Fantasizing about random strangers off the street.

She bounded off the stool, ready to march for the door and catch the next train home. But her legs went wobbly beneath her. She had to catch herself against the bar. That was when—involuntarily plopping back down onto her stool—her gaze fixed on the door she wanted to walk through so she could go home. There were Mary Ann Thomas and Adriana Esposito, stepping in from off the street, cool as a pair of cucumbers.

At first Nell was sure she was imagining them. The pair was a figment of her imagination, her deepest desire brought on by too much booze. They couldn't possibly be there, except that there was no reason for them not to be. Savannah had said the Cabana Club was their spot. Why
wouldn't
Mary Ann and Adriana be there? The club was in full swing.

Mary Ann and Adriana made no effort to approach the bar or put down their purses. They immediately shimmied onto the dance floor, falling into step with the other patrons as the Bay City Rollers spelled out S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y.

Nell twisted away from the dance floor, mortified. If they spotted her . . .

Oh
dear Lord.

Forcing herself onto her unsteady feet, she wobbled down the length of the bar toward the booths at the back of the club.

“Hey!” Vinnie Barbarino yelled after her. “Hey, baby, everything all right?”

She ignored him.

The back booths were hardly visible from the dance floor through all the cigarette smoke. They wouldn't see her there. They'd dance the night away and leave, and that's when Nell would make her exit. She'd be stuck at the Cabana Club until last call at the bar, but it wasn't like Barrett was home.

But just as the thought of her brother being out there somewhere settled heavy in her head, her attention was drawn to one of the dimly lit back booths. There was a man sitting alone in one of them, his face obscured by the shadows of the club, but she knew. She
knew
.

Here she was, worried about that weird Dave guy possibly waiting outside for her, but she'd been followed all along. Her own flesh and blood had ambushed her instead.

.   .   .

Nell couldn't remember how she got home. When she woke in the morning, her head was still throbbing. She was exhausted, hardly able to peel her eyes open. And as she peered at her alarm clock through sleep-blurry eyes, she figured herself lucky to have gotten home at all. At least she still had time to grab a shower before catching her train into Manhattan. If she hurried, she could stop by the coffee shop across from the station and buy a much-needed cup of joe. Otherwise, she was quite sure she'd end up falling asleep at her desk.

But all thoughts of preparation and commute were lost when her feet hit the planks of the floor. Even exhaustion dissipated into little more than fleeting fatigue. Because there, littering the hardwood of her bedroom, were her new blouse and skirt—the ones she'd worn to the Cabana Club. Despite her half-drunken state the evening before, she was sure she'd hung up her outfit in the closet after she'd come home. No, she was
certain
, because she remembered looking at the blouse's label. She recalled groaning when she discovered that, even though the thing smelled like cigarettes, she couldn't just throw it in the wash with her other things on laundry day.
Dry clean only.
She'd have to walk the eight blocks it took to get to the nearest cleaner and cough up fifty cents to get it laundered. So she had hung the thing up rather than dropping it on the hamper, hoping that the scent of nicotine would dissipate if it stayed in the closet for long enough. Hoping that she'd be able to wear it at least once more before trudging clear across the neighborhood to get it cleaned.