It is a constant source of white noise that I have gotten used to. It’s a comforting hum in a life that should be empty silence.
I am not even halfway across the grass, heading towards our corner apartment, and I can hear the baby. The windows are open and she is loud. I know I should go inside and help Jason, but I haven’t eaten since lunch and I still have two dollars in my pocket. So I keep walking past our front window, thankful that the curtains are drawn, and slip into the alley. Bill’s Burgers is just on the other side of the freeway and they have ninety-nine cent sliders for happy hour. I have about fifteen minutes to make the deadline, so I jog, my backpack slapping with the rhythm of my feet.
I’m still wet, but the heat is on and it rushes past my face when I enter the restaurant.
“Hey, Shan,” Jose, the owner, says from behind the kitchen counter. He says this even though there are about a dozen people milling around and waiting for service or take-out.
Every head swings to look at me and I can’t look down at my feet fast enough.
“The usual?” he asks.
I nod and slip to the back where I sit at a two-seater table that no one ever wants because it’s right next to the bathroom. But I like it. I like everything that is less desirable. I like to be where other people aren’t.
I run the day through my head. The meeting this morning feels so far away. But one thing that still feels very close is the heat of Mateo’s breath when he whispered his name in my ear.
And he was looking at my tits.
It’s so inappropriate.
A few minutes later Jose comes with my sliders and sets the red plastic basket down, along with a Diet Pepsi, which I can’t afford. “Thanks,” I say, hunching down into myself. I set my two dollars on the table and he pushes it back towards me.
“You keep it. I made this for some lady who got an emergency and walked out before picking them up.”
“Liar,” I say. But I smile.
“How is that no-good bastard?”
He’s talking about Jason. They grew up together. In fact, Jason has a lot of childhood friends in this area of Anaheim. This is where he grew up. He even went to Anaheim High too.
I envy people who have a whole community of history surrounding them. I wish every day that I was still at home in my familiar neighborhood.
“He’s OK.” I force a smile and look up as I take a bite and talk with my mouth full. “Mmmm. You have the best greasy burgers in town, Jose.”
He shoots me with his finger. “Tell everyone you know.” He walks off when his wife, Maria, starts yelling for him to get back in the kitchen.
My mind wanders back to Mateo. I will have to see him every day if I go back.
Should I go back? Is a stupid piece of paper worth all this trouble?
I’m not sure yet. So I just chew my food and drink my DP, and pretty soon, I’m out of reasons why I should stay here.
The rain has stopped when I walk back home. And the baby is silent when I grab the door handle and give it a turn.
Jason is sitting on the couch watching TV, his feet kicked up on a bright blue trunk that acts as a coffee table. “Where the fuck have you been?”He’s angry, and drunk. Well, maybe not drunk. But he’s definitely drinking because there’s two bottles of Corona on the side table next to the remote. They’re both empty.
I sit on a chair across from the couch. “So it turns out…” But then the words get stuck in my throat. It’s so complicated, way too complicated to answer in a few sentences, so I just give up. “I was getting high with Phil.” It’s so much easier to lie.
“Hmmm,” Jason says. “Must be nice to fuck off all day and have no responsibilities. Whose coat is that? You have a boyfriend now?”
I don’t say anything to that. Phil is another childhood friend who lives all the way down the alley in a little house across West Street. He’s a small-time dealer. Pot mostly. And he sells it by the joint, so he’s my kind of dealer—affordable. Plus, he likes me and smokes me out whenever I go over there.
“You’re gonna need to get a job, Shannon. I can’t pay for you anymore.”
I nod. “OK. I’ll look tomorrow.” All I want is to go to my room and collapse on my hard futon. It feels like sleeping on concrete, but things could be worse. I could be sleeping on the disgusting twenty-year-old carpet instead.
“So where were you really? Because I called down to Phil’s and you weren’t there.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Poor baby,” he says, his words rumbling out of his chest. “You’re eighteen now,” he continues, looking me up and down in a way that makes me uncomfortable. He makes me uncomfortable a lot. He came on to me once back in San Diego, but he was very drunk and the next day he pretended it never happened. “Legal.”
“What’s that mean?” I don’t look like Jill at all. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and I have brown hair and brown eyes, so if he thinks I’m her replacement, he’s wrong in every way I can think of.
Jason gets up from the couch and walks towards the small kitchen in the front of the apartment, his fingertips dragging along my knee as he passes. I hiss in a breath but he pretends not to notice. My eyes track him as he grabs another bottle of beer from the fridge, then pops the top off and throws it into the sink. That’s when I notice several more empty bottles on the counter.
He takes a long drag on his beer and then walks back over to me, stopping right in front of my chair. He places both hands on the arms and leans down. “You’re prettier than her, you know that.”
“Well, she’s dead,” I say back. Emotionless. “So it’s not that hard.”
He reaches out and the back of his knuckles sweep down my cheek. My foot comes up automatically and I kick him hard in the chest, sending him reeling backwards. He must be drunker than I figured, because he crashes against the trunk, spilling over a vase with dead flowers left over from Jill’s funeral last month.
The baby starts screaming in the other room and I see the rage in Jason’s eyes. “You fucking bitch!” he snarls, trying to get up.
But I’m out of there. I bolt for the door and pull it open, but he’s behind me, slamming it shut again. His drunken slowness has no dampening effect on his rage. He spins me around and punches me in the cheek, good enough to see stars.
My rage is out of control. “I hit back, motherfucker.” I grab his shoulders and bring my knee right into his balls.
He steps back just enough to let me turn and open the door again. I push on the screen and step outside, thankful that I had the good sense to never take my backpack off.
There’s a woman across the grassy area shoving a key into her door. She turns and I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Jason appears behind me, but he must see the same thing I do, because he says nothing, just slams the door closed behind me.
“Shannon?”
How is it that I’ve lived here for one month and everybody seems to know my name?
I ignore her. She’s a cop who just moved in two weeks ago. But she parks her squad car on the street, not back in the alley. So I see her getting in and out of it all the time when she comes home during a shift.
“Shannon?” she repeats.