Nightcrawling(22)

Alé’s sister went missing when she was twelve. Clara was two years older than Alé, just entering high school at Castlemont High. Alé says her sister was acting different those first months of school and then one day in November, Clara didn’t show up for her after-school shift at La Casa. The family called the cops, who didn’t say much beyond taking some basic information and entering Clara into some database. No news report, no AMBER Alert, just a cop who said she’d do her job.

After the first two days Clara was gone, their mama made posters that Alé and I uploaded onto Facebook and Myspace, then rode around the city taping them to poles and stop signs. Those first weeks after Clara disappeared felt like all the oxygen had run out in the city, like there wasn’t enough room for us to breathe and we were waiting for our next puff. After a few months, when OPD still didn’t have shit to say about Clara’s case, we all started to realize she was gone, that her being gone meant more than her being dead because in this city, it’s just as probable that she was stolen, that she’s out there somewhere walking streets just like I am now.

Maybe it didn’t make sense for me to leave tonight, when I’ve got money to make and it’s still early. The things your body needs most don’t usually make sense, though, so I let the air ripple my skin into a path right back to High Street, right back to the Regal-Hi. Sometimes when I walk, I look for Clara, try to find a glimpse of her in the shadows of these streets. I try to tell myself I’m nothing like her, that this is my choice and I’m old enough and I’m being smart. I’m starting to wonder if I even believe it at all.

I push the gate open to the pool greeting me like it hasn’t been following me up and down the streets: same blue, same glow. The stairs are massive, never-ending in these heels, and each step makes my ankles click like the joints are trying to find a way out of the climb. When I reach the landing, I don’t rush toward my apartment or even toward Trevor’s. Instead, I walk slow enough, close enough to the doors that I can hear the muffled sounds calling out to me. A child’s shriek. A stream of laughter. What sounds like the talking-to that comes right before the beating. A teakettle.

When I get to Trevor’s door, I don’t bother listening for a noise because there is none. Like Trevor said, Dee ain’t been home in weeks and, as far as I know, Trevor’s always in there sleeping or munching on another bowl of Cheerios.

Their door has an updated slip of paper taped to it: rent due in next 7 days or pending eviction. Vern keeps it sweet and simple, doesn’t even bother signing it. I continue on down the line to my door, to the same slip of paper that I leave to soar upward with the wind when the door slams shut behind me. I toss my heels across the room, sinking into the couch next to a sleeping Marcus.

Marcus stirs from his sleep, blinking his eyes open, yawning and looking over so the faint trace of ink twists below his ear. “You good?”

I pause, holding my breath, looking down at my thighs, and part of me hopes he’ll ask me where I’ve been. “No.”

He doesn’t move from his slouch. “Gonna be alright.”

“No.”

He shifts on the couch. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know how to do this either, Ki. But I got faith. Just go to sleep.” He turns over so his face is pressed against the back cushion.

I stand up, slipping into the bathroom.

On my sixteenth birthday, Marcus told me he had a surprise for me. We were sitting in that same patch of carpet behind the couch, the place we spent most of our time together since Mama left, eating my cake out of the box with plastic forks. Marcus was always fucking around or at work, but he told me he was all mine for my birthday and he kept his promise. It was before I dropped out of school and I was taking a couple short shifts at Bottle Caps while Marcus worked at Panda Express. Together, we made it work, up until Marcus met Cole and Uncle Ty’s album came out and Marcus stopped trying.

“What is it?” When Marcus told me he had a surprise for me, I assumed I wasn’t gonna get nothing but his company, which was really all I wanted anyway.

His grin covered half his face and I could see his silver crown better than I had since the day he’d gotten it and proudly opened wide to show me. He got up from the floor and left the room, heading to the bathroom. He hadn’t done that in over a year and I thought maybe I should go with him, hold his hand so he wouldn’t panic if he saw flashes of dripping water spilling across the floor. I stayed put and he came back a minute later with a needle in his hand.

“You want me to sew your pants or some shit?”

“Nah, I’m gonna pierce your ears.”

“What?”

“You always said you wanted your ears pierced. I ain’t got no money to take you somewhere to do it, but I been watching videos about how and I even got Lacy to give me these.” He grabbed his jacket slung across the couch and took out a pouch, shaking it into his hand. Two stud earrings fell out, leaf-shaped.

“You serious?”

His smile only grew. “Hell yeah, I’m serious. You ready?”

I sat on the carpet and Marcus kneeled next to me, a bowl of ice and a slice of apple in hand.

“You sure that needle’s clean?” I’d never had any part of my body pierced, begged Mama for years, but she refused. “Is it gonna hurt?”

Marcus waved me off. “I cleaned it, quit asking these damn questions.”