Mr. CEO(70)
“First of all, it's 'I am not a baby'. Second of all, in this house, you will not curse me, nor any other person who is my guest. What you do outside I cannot control, but you will show respect to me and my house.”
“Or else what? You send me back to the orphanage? Return to sender, address unknown?”
Virginia gives me a little smile, which pisses me off for some reason. “Well, you can't be all bad, you at least have some knowledge of Elvis. As for what will happen... no, I will not send you back, for two reasons. First off, because I don't fail, and sending you back means that I fail. But more importantly, because I won't let you fail, and sending you back will guarantee you that you will end up a failure in life. You're not going to get another foster home, not with three strikes against you. Even if you are a pretty little white girl, the only place you'll end up is some pervert's house. And while I may not live in the best home in New Orleans, that's by choice, and you will not fail on my watch.”
“I ain't no failure!” I scream, getting to my feet. “You take that back!”
“Make me,” Virginia says softly, shifting her right foot back. “If you can.”
I charge her, my right hand already cocking back in a punch that comes from the depths of my rage, but instead of hitting her, I'm redirected. She sends me spinning through the air and crashing to the hardwood floor of the dining room. Virginia keeps a hold of my wrist and twists, and I howl, tears of anger and pain already flowing as she turns me over onto my stomach. She wrenches my hand around and up until I feel my little finger touching between my shoulder blades and her knee on my spine near my waist.
“Your anger makes you strong, Katrina. But you must learn to control it. Now tell me, before I have reason to dislocate your shoulder, why are you so angry?”
I cry, trying to look up to see her, but I can't, no matter how hard I kick or fight. Finally, I howl, letting the truth out. “My parents! They got blowed up!”
Virginia eases off her arm lock slightly but keeps a strong grip on my wrist. “Tell me what happened.”
I close my eyes and struggle against the memories, but they come flooding out anyway, carrying me away. “Mama and Papa, we were at the Fair Grounds. We'd gone for the horse show... I'd begged them to take me after that movie, and after the hurricane. Mama said that she'd dropped her phone, and I told her I'd go get it. I run back and see it on the ground near the door to the elevator, and turn around. The car... the car blowed up! The fire... it's so hot... MAMA! PAPA! DON'T LEAVE ME!”
I'm sobbing, and Virginia releases my arm to pull me up into an embrace. She lets me sob and scream my horror, anger, and everything into her chest. When the tears finally stop, Virginia lifts me to my knees and looks into my eyes. “This is very, very important, Katrina. What do you want to do with this rage?”
I sniff and wipe at my nose, looking into Virginia's sand-colored eyes. “I want to kill whoever killed Mama and Papa.”
I know I shouldn't say it. The social workers tell me that it's wrong to feel this way, that I'm supposed to live and let live like Pastor Gibb who comes by the orphanage says we should do...but I'm no Jesus. I want something darker.
But Virginia doesn't flinch, and instead she nods, brushing a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Good. You're being honest, which is a good thing. Then I make you a promise. Your training will not be easy. You may not survive your vengeance. But I swear to you, as someone who's been there... you will not fail.”
I open my eyes to see the candle's burned itself out. I smile, feeling refreshed. Using meditation to supplement sleep wasn't something that Virginia taught me, but I can't deny that I learned a lot from her. She was the first in a long line of instructors, of teachers who gave me the skills that have finally brought me to this point.
I shift positions, rolling onto my back because I know my feet are going to be asleep still after kneeling for what's most likely been an hour or more. As blood flow slowly returns to my toes, I feel a pain that gradually subsides into the familiar pins and needles sensation that's always a part of this process. My feet are still tingling when I hear the door to my loft unlock. I sit up immediately—only a few people have a key to my place, but still I'm wary. It pays to be careful, and pays more to be paranoid.
The door opens, and the soft lighting above my door shows me it's Darcy. She's another one of my mentors, but more importantly, she's my best friend. She's thirty-two years old, but Virginia introduced us six years ago, on my sixteenth birthday. Meeting Darcy was my birthday gift from Virginia, and in the long run has been the best gift I've ever gotten. “Darce, I'm over here.”
“Damn girl, I know you want to cut down on your electricity bill, but you could run this entire setup right now with two nine-volts and a hamster wheel,” Darcy says, making her way through the dim space. “What, short on money again?”
“You know that's not the problem,” I tell her, although there have been times in the past when I barely had two dimes to rub together and another payday nowhere in sight. “The skills you taught me provide better than that.”
An anarchic, idealistic hacktivist, it took Darcy a long time to come around to my point of view on things, and agreeing to teach me more than the basics of computer science. Not that my education was ever traditional, but nowadays, under the hacker handle Coup De Grace, I'm able to earn enough to put food in my stomach and keep the lights on.