know everything.”
I though about making up a bunch of bullshit to tell Maggie, but she’d just saved my life. She deserved the truth about Paul and me. To make her understand I had to go back to ’62…
SEVENTEEN
SEPTEMBER 30, 2762
Natasha and I sat at a window table. The restaurant bobbed with the flow of the Koba. Boats lights skimmed by, dimmed by a haze of falling rain. I’d been seeing her for months now. Things were going well, real well, but not tonight. Tonight she had something on her mind.
I offered the last mussel to Natasha. She refused, so I sucked it down and returned the shell to its plate.
Natasha had her hair pulled up. An open-backed black dress made me wish I was sitting behind her, getting lost in neck shadows and nape hair. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin for the third time. “Juno, can I ask you something?”
Here it comes, what she’s been stewing about all night. “Yeah.”
“Are you really going to arrest my father?”
“Yes. Why? Don’t you want me to?”
“Yes, I want you to. I just don’t understand why you haven’t done it yet.”
“I told you. We’re still collecting evidence. We’ll do it as soon as we can.”
“It’s just that you’ve been saying that for a long time.”
“And you’re starting to wonder if I’ve been honest with you?”
She looked down at her empty plate and nodded.
“I swear to you, Natasha; I’m going to arrest him myself. He’ll spend the rest of his life in the Zoo.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
I reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m not.”
She nodded again, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.
“Listen, maybe it would help if I knew why you hate him so much.”
She pulled her hand away and looked out the window. There was a gecko hanging on the other side of the glass, his pale underbelly exposed to me. I put my napkin on the table and unintentionally scared him away.
Natasha said, “It’s the way he treats my mother. He doesn’t love her…and she deserves better than that.”
“How do you know he doesn’t love her?”
“He sleeps around.”
“Does your mother know?”
“He doesn’t do it in front of her, but she knows. She has to know.”
“Maybe your mother should leave him.”
“She can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
She was starting to raise her voice. “Because he controls her, Juno. She’s afraid of him.”
“Why is she afraid?”
“She just is.”
“Does he threaten her?”
She looked out the window.
“Is she worried about money? Doesn’t she think she can make it on her own?”
Nothing.
“Why is she so afraid?”
“You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. He rapes her! I hear him at night yelling at her, telling her it’s time to give him a son. She begs him to stop, but he forces her. I can hear her crying while he grunts away.”
I looked away-wrong thing to do.
“You just had to make me say it, didn’t you!? You treat me like one of your snitches. You push and push, wear me down until you break me. Well, you broke me. Now you know why I hate my father. Does that make you feel big? What are you going to do about it, cop? Have enough evidence now?”
She hurried to her feet, bumping the table and making the plates jump. She took the napkin with her, using it to wipe at her eyes as she stomped out of the restaurant.
I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t move. I felt like there was a giant ball of lead in my stomach, holding me down like a paperweight. What the fuck was I doing? I was spying on her. Spying on her family. Leading her on while Paul cooked up his bullshit schemes. It needed to stop. If we were going to have a future, it needed to stop.
I found Paul watching channel F. Natasha was lying on her bed, bawling. She hadn’t bothered to take off her dress or let her hair down. My eyes stung with salt.
Paul said, “What do you think happened to her?”
“I don’t know,” I managed to rasp out. I felt sick.
She began to moan when it took too much energy to wail. I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned down the volume.
Paul asked, “How was your date?” He still didn’t know about Natasha and me.
“Not so good. We had a fight.”
“Really. What about?”
I didn’t answer. Pavel Yashin was at Natasha’s door. What is he doing? Natasha didn’t see him; her back was to the door. He came into the room and crossed over to her bed. Her face was buried deep in her pillow. Yashin slowly, tentatively set his hand on her shoulder, where my hand should be. Natasha’s body went rigid. He started to rub her shoulder, moving toward her neck. She jerked away.
I could see it now. She had lied about her mother.
Yashin stood still for a moment with his hand outstretched. She stopped crying; she stopped breathing. She had the pillow gripped like a life preserver. He withdrew his hand and walked out.
I finally understood. He’d never raped her mother. I’d seen how he never even touched her; he had a thing for young girls, substitutes for his grown-up daughter. Natasha was the one he’d raped.
I went red. In my mind, my father’s face superimposed itself over Pavel Yashin’s. The rage boiled over.
“Hey. Are you okay, Juno?”
I knocked the display over.
“It’s okay, Juno! Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
I ran outside into the stinging rain. Lizard eyes mocked me. I stomped a gecko, kicked at a too-fast-for-me iguana. I pulled my piece, took two shots at the iguana. The second one blew it apart. People came out of their houses. Paul badge-flashed them back in.
I counted breaths, bringing myself down from memories of frenzied struggles against my father’s wrist restraints. I tucked my piece away. I ran my fingers into my hair and squeezed, the pain nudging me back toward center.
Paul tried to lead me inside. “Are you okay?”
I stayed where I was, letting the rainwater cool my overheated body. “We have to talk, Paul.”
“Let’s go have a drink.” Paul didn’t ask what my blowup was about. He knew I’d tell him when I was ready.
Paul and I walked into the first bar we could find, the Jungle Juice. Fake trees lined the back wall, and fake vines hung down from the ceiling, nothing more than ropes with paper leaves stapled on. The bartenders were in Tarzan garb, the waitresses sporting zebra-stripe dresses.
We nabbed a couple seats at the bar. Bar noise invaded my thoughts. I teetered on the edge. I slugged down a shot of brandy, warming the skin under my wet clothes. My nerves dulled. A security blanket of logical thought wrapped itself around me. “It’s time to move on Yashin.”
