“I want to ask you something about Lucia,” Russell said from another planet.
“Who?” I said, sitting up. When had I moved to the slide?
“Lucia,” Russell said, laughing. “Shit, you should see the look on your face. You are royally stoned, man.”
I patted my hair down as nonchalantly as I could and said, “What about Lucia? You see her more these days than I do.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m worried,” he said. “What the fuck is up with Bobby?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lucia says he says stuff about her weight. Like that fat fuck should talk!”
“I know.” I felt guilt rise in me like a curtain. “I haven’t seen her much lately,” I said.
I looked down at my hands. They were stiff and red with cold but I didn’t feel it. I had been neglecting Lucia, but I wasbusy with school. I told myself I wasn’t her keeper. I wasn’t even related to her. But she was my best friend. She was. Only we didn’t have as much to talk about anymore. I couldn’t talk about books or boys or ask her how to navigate female friendships. She wasn’t like any other girl I knew. Didn’t seem to feel jealousy or pride or insecurity. I saw how these feelings caused other girls to lash out and want to hurt others. You never had to worry about that with Lucia. It made me furious to think that Bobby was making her self-conscious.
“You should say something to Lucia’s mother,” Russell said.
“What should I say?” Lucia’s mother had always intimidated me.
“That Bobby’s saying weird stuff to Lucia. Who knows what else he’s doing?”
“Shit. Shit,” I said. “You’re right. I have to say something. I will.”
We were quiet for a while. I kept thinking things and then forgetting them. But I didn’t mind. Each was a gem.
“Want me to spin you on the roundabout?” Russell asked.
“I think I’d throw up,” I said. I stood. “But I do want to lie down on it. See if there’s any stars.”
“Wise Men stars?” Russell said.
I lay back and looked up at the dark sky. There were no stars. The ambient light from the parking lot cast an orange glow that made me think of sunsets and beaches. And, for some reason, a nuclear mushroom.
Russell came and lay on the roundabout opposite me, our legs touching.
“You know what I like about you, China?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing.” He laughed.
“You’re such a dick,” I said, kicking him.
“Ow,” he said. “No, the thing I like about you is that you’re different. Not just that you look different but that you are different. You see things differently.”
“Say different one more time, why don’t you,” I said.
He laughed again, and moved up until he was lying next to me, our faces close to each other. Normally this was a situation that would have made me feel jumpy, but instead I was calm.
I turned to look up at the sky. “Yeah, I am,” I said. “I don’t belong here. I’m going to leave this place and leave this town and go really far away. And I’m gonna be rich someday.”
“I know you will, China,” he said. “I believe you.”
I turned my face to his and looked into his brown eyes, the color of mud, the color of earth, the color of a warm road in summer, and kissed him.
Before I had a chance to say anything, Bobby abruptly moved out. It happened on Christmas Eve when Lucia was at her father’s. I heard male voices, Bobby’s and someone else’s, in the hallway and pounding steps going back and forth. Even my mother noticed and asked me if Lucia’s mother had a problem with her boyfriend. I said I didn’t know.
The next day, Lucia came crying to me hysterically that Bobby had taken Midnight with him. But Midnight turned up late on Lucia’s balcony that night, hungry and frightened, having inadvertently escaped during the chaotic afternoon.
I gave Lucia a glass of orange juice to calm her and asked her why Bobby would want to take Midnight.
She drank the juice in one gulp. “Because he’s mad at me,” she said. “He’s always mad at me.”
“He’s a bad guy, Lucia,” I told her. “Honestly, I don’t understand why your mom was ever with him. She’s so much better than he is.”
“I know,” Lucia said. “So I told her that Bobby tried to touch me.”
I knew it. “Did he, Lucia? When?” I grabbed her hands.
“No, he didn’t,” she said, pulling away. “I just told her that. And then she made him move out. That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s good,” I said, thinking. I really did think he was abad guy then. Later, I wasn’t sure. “Don’t tell her the truth just yet.”
“Okay,” she said. She put her arms around me and hugged me. “I’m scared,” she said.
On Christmas, we drove to my aunt’s house in Boston and spent a couple of nights there. I played with my cousins and tried not to covet their large Brookline apartment with high ceilings and thick, expensive carpet. They lived so lavishly and didn’t even know it.
When I returned home, I sensed a disturbance right away. Nobody answered at Lucia’s even though I could hear the TV through the door. “Lucia,” I said loudly. “I’m back from Boston. Knock on my door later.”
As I passed the living room, I saw flashing police lights through the balcony windows. A couple of cops with heavy belts were getting out.
It wasn’t completely out of the question for the cops to show up on a Saturday night at Hillside, but this wasn’t Saturday.
I heard the loud buzzing of the police ringing the bell. Over the intercom, Lucia’s mother’s voice said, “Yes?”
“Police,” the police said.
My mother had her ear pressed to the front door. “Shhh,” she said, shooing me away with her
