I couldn’t help but stare at Rachelle, until I noticed her staring back. That was odd. Though I could hardly take my eyes off her, she never really looked at me. She chatted with Justin, Tommy and gang, and kept glancing back at me and Anita.
“Wonderful. This is turning into a real mess. I never should’ve posted that stupid video.”
Anita’s eyes missed nothing. She saw what I saw, and shook her head. “Yeah, but he’s the idiot. You’re just the guy with the camera.”
I had a flash recollection of my vision from the other night, Rachelle in a gossamer blue dress with a wicked scowl. As I stared, the vision overlapped and Rachelle’s face began to morph into a look of distaste. It wasn’t … vicious, but it was eerily similar to that vision. Gave me the chills, a tentacle of creepiness grew in my belly. Rachelle kept her eyes locked on me as she marched straight for us, Tommy Schroeder right behind her.
“Shit.”
This was weird. Usually Rachelle acted as if I didn’t exist. I had been a non-entity to her for two years. Then I recognized the Rachelle-on-a-mission look. She had a bone to pick, and that bone had Justin’s name all over it.
She laid into me with a scathing tone, “I can’t believe you posted that video! It’s soooo disgusting!” Rachelle had this cute way of dragging out the word ‘so’ into two syllables. It was cute right up until she made me feel like vermin that should be exterminated. I had conveniently forgotten how nasty Rachelle could be. I chose to focus on her beauty, as I had always done when she flew into one of her fits. Her anger accentuated her devastating beauty. I loved that spark of fire in her ice blue eyes. Felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. As Tommy stood behind her gloating at me, I could barely speak. My mind drew a complete blank.
Good thing I had Anita for back up. Pretty little miss priss blondes were a sure ticket to piss her off. She cracked her verbal whip. “He’s not the one who was behaving like a complete ass at McDonalds in front of families and children on a playground! He’s not the fucktard who pulled his pants down to show the world what a dickless moron looks like!” She jabbed her finger out towards the cafeteria exit in the direction Justin had gone. “Go ask Justin. He’s the star of the video!” I didn’t care to think about the implications of Anita’s stinging defense, but I was sure glad for it.
Asshole Tommy was laughing. Either at us or with Anita, hard to tell. He had one of those nasty laughs, where you always know someone is the butt of a joke.
Rachelle grunted and stomped, her arms up in the air as if it was inconceivable anyone would speak to her like that. She retorted full of indignation, “That. Does. Not. Justify. Posting that horrible video all over the internet!” She enunciated the first part of her words slowly and clearly, but ended up in the screech zone with her deadly finger of righteous accusation pointed at me.
Anita didn’t miss a beat, “Shhhit! That’s nothing! When YouTube approves the posting it’ll go viral! He’ll probably have several thousand views in a week!” I was on the verge of shushing Anita, but the fabulous beauty of Rachelle’s fit distracted me.
“Oh. My. God! Are you friggin’ serious?”
“Un hunh suga. On my mama!” Anita bobbed her head from side to side like Beyoncé slamming it home about feminism.
Tommy cackled, definitely laughing at Anita. Fucker.
Rachelle snorted in disgust and did an about face, but still managed to snipe over-her-shoulder while walking away. Tricky, but she had years of practice to perfect it. “I don’t know why I even bother speaking to you!”
Anita raised her voice, ensuring everyone heard. “Hey Rach!” (This was once my pet name for Rachelle--it grabbed her attention) Rachelle halted in her tracks and turned back around to face Anita with the look. It was the I-hate-every-bone-in-your-body look, the very same one from my vision. Surprisingly, the intimate pet name still held a small measure of power. A button screaming to be pushed.
Anita let fly with her middle finger held up proudly. “Sit and spin, Rach. If you don’t know how I’m sure Justin can show you, he’s pretty good at it.”
Laughter erupted all across the cafeteria.
That did it. Rachelle was so furious she couldn’t even speak. Tommy’s laughter died. A dirty look formed on his face. He didn’t appreciate his girlfriend being laughed at.
Rachelle turned, snagged Tommy’s arm, and marched out of the cafeteria. Tommy’s wicked glare over his shoulder said it all. This shit was not over.
All my ambitions of dating Rachelle blew out the cafeteria door as she exited the building. I was in shock. I could scarce believe what had happened. I looked to Anita cockeyed. Sometimes I wondered if she’d had a sex change. She acted more like a guy than most guys – a guy shoved into the body of a chubby teenage girl.
Anita held my gaze, the flush in her cheeks barely noticeable under her permanently tanned skin. It was difficult to catch a Mexican blushing, but I could see it, I knew her that well.
After a moment of staring at each other, she broke the awkward silence, “What?” It was spoken like an accusation.
I shook my head, put my arm around the most loyal friend in the world, and looked into her big brown glistening eyes. “Remind me to never, ever, piss you off. I’d like to retain all my limbs. Okay?”
She blushed even further and put her head down on my shoulder. “Okay.”
I picked up her chin to catch her eyes. “I mean it. You can be a real bear when you want to. I prefer not to get eaten alive. Alright?”
Her eyes seemed different somehow. And I could almost taste the flavor of the bubblegum on her lips. Nose to nose, heart beating fast with all the drama, a new kind of anxiety began to take hold.
What was going on with Anita? Why did I feel like this? Why were her lips so … shiny? Why was she looking at me like that?
“I’ll fight your battles anytime, Mike. But you really need to stay the hell away from Rachelle. She’s no good for you.”
What the hell? “Since when have I ever been near her? She doesn’t even talk to me. Well, except for bitching about butt-hurt Justin.”
“Just stay away from her.” Almost sounded like an order. Or a threat.
I can’t pretend to understand girls. Girls are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma wearing skin-tight clothes with glossy lips and wavy hair and loads of makeup. And then there’s those big brown eyes that look at you with some unspoken expectation.
“Fine.” The bell rang for class, and I was off the hook. But I saw the disappointment flit across her eyes as I said the words, “Later.”
What the hell did she want from me?
* * * *
Chapter 6
Thursday, September 23rd, 7:55 p.m.
Since I didn’t have work today, I spent the afternoon hanging at the skatepark with Anita and some of the usual suspects. Those awkward moments between us seemed forgotten. I practiced kickflips, boardslides, and whatever. I was thinking about the coming video shoot, but my mind kept circling back around to the Twilight-Zone-night-from-hell with the Hoodie girl. She had marked me. Her blood had stained my soul, and I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
And then I found my car with a flat tire in the skatepark parking lot.
“Fuck.” One tire. Totally flat. A little half-inch gash in the sidewall. “It’s been slashed. Son of a bitch!”
I asked everybody at the park, and of course, no one had seen who did it. “There’s another forty bucks I don’t have.”
I changed the tire over to my donut spare and took off. Had to have been Tommy or Justin. Who the hell else would do it?
Never shoulda posted that stupid video.
On the way home I stopped by Wal-Mart to grab some more survival food. Wonderful, dirt-cheap, macaroni and cheese. I had become accustomed to the generic brands. It’s an acquired taste.
As I stepped out of my car into the chill September night, a cool draft slipped up the right side of my right skate shoe. The toe cap had torn loose and was splitting
away from the sole. Time for another tube of Shoe Goo. I leaned down to inspect the torn shoe. That was the side I always dragged across the skateboard as it popped in the air. It was the first part of my skate shoes to go.
I never outgrew skate shoes. I shredded them to pieces.
The only thing that helped was layer after layer of Shoe Goo. It’s not pretty, but it added a few more weeks of life. At fifty bucks a whack, I could scarce afford new shoes.
And still I kept thinking about that girl. Who the hell was she? Where did she disappear to? Why did she leave all that money? Was she okay? Did she get to a hospital? I had been reading the Grant County Herald newspaper daily, looking for any reports of a hit and run, anything that might indicate I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. It seemed so surreal, dream-like, as if it never happened.
Coincidentally, the money came in handy. Dad hadn’t paid the electric bill for two months. It totaled $298 dollars. The cash she left was exactly what I needed, at the right time. Talk about serendipity.
Now I had to scrounge up money for a new tire.
I hadn’t told a soul about that night, not even Anita. It was so unbelievable, inexplicable. I couldn’t find the courage to talk about it with anyone, didn’t really have anyone I felt comfortable talking to. What would I say? How could I explain my ridiculous decision to bring the girl into my bedroom and handle her injuries all by myself? Then there was the other concern, the unreported hit and run. I’d rather avoid that mess.
And then suddenly, she was there.
She stood eyeing a clothing rack, dressed in a dark navy blue hoodie with a pair of second-skin black stretch pants showing off every contour of her slender chicken legs. She turned to me with a brilliant smile. She walked right to me, as though she’d been expecting me to arrive at that precise place and time.
It all hit home. She was real. It all happened. And she was obviously okay, casually shopping at Wal-Mart as if she hadn’t almost died in my lap two weeks ago. Everything flashed before my eyes once again, like a video played in fast forward: her shoving me back into my Geo, that squishy wet smack of impact and her flying through the air, her blood on my passenger seat and hands, her slight weight in my arms, stripping her clothes off, pulling on her left arm as she popped her shoulder back into the socket, washing all that blood and dirt and gravel from her wounds as she lay on my lap gritting her teeth and whimpering. All real … all of it. And here she was, smiling, seemingly unscathed.
I stared at her like a complete idiot, then blurted out excitedly. “Hey there, how you doin’?” I hadn’t realized how badly I’d been hoping to see her again, to find out if she was okay, to get some answers. I grinned like a fool.
“I’m fine, all better now, thanks to you.” She spoke exactly as I remembered, with that barely noticeable lilt. She took hold of my hand, as if we’d been friends all our lives.
I had a dozen questions to ask, but all that came out was, “So … ah … what are you doin’?”
She flashed that pixie smile, still holding my hand. “Shopping.”
As the novelty of seeing her again wore off, the pressing questions finally came to mind. “Did you see a doctor?”
She shrugged it off and pulled on my arm, dragging me deep into the girls’ clothing racks to continue shopping. I waited to hear her answer, but she remained absorbed in the rack of hoodies.
I pressed the issue, “You were hurt pretty bad. I wasn’t sure you were gonna make it. Did you see a doctor?”
“No. I’m okay. You did a good job.”
I wondered if she could afford a doctor. And then she pulled up her left sleeve to show off her left hand all the way to her elbow, not a mark on it.
“Holy shit. Look at that.” I slid my hand up and down her smooth, cool skin. She looked at me funny, kinda like Anita looks at me. I realized what I was doing and snatched my hand away.
“And what about your leg?” I pointed at her right thigh.
“That’s so cute, you’re worried about me. Oh! … I see. You’re trying to get my clothes off again?” The heat of my embarrassment had to be showing on my face, because I was burning up. I avoided her direct gaze as she poked me in the ribs.
She stuck her little pink tongue out. She was teasing.
“Here.” She moved in and grabbed my hand, sliding it down inside the waistband of her stretch pants. She rubbed my fingers down over the smooth curvature of her bony right hip and kept on going towards her inner thigh. I jerked my hand back as if she’d run my fingers over an open flame.
She leaned up against me and whispered in my ear, “If you want a closer inspection we can go to the bathroom.” Her soft lips brushed over my ear lobe, tickling as she spoke. I suppressed an involuntary shudder.
I tried to back away, “Ahh no. That’s okay, I believe you.” I stammered as she followed, pressing up on me. I asked the first question that came to mind. “Do you live here in Moses Lake?”
“Yep.” She returned to browsing through the racks with a naughty little smirk on her face. The brat enjoyed this game.
I pushed for more, “Out on Stratford Road or in town?”
“Here in town.”
That cleared up absolutely nothing. She latched onto a dark maroon hoodie from the rack and held it up. “What do you think?”
I spoke without thinking, “I think you should get some shirts and underwear too.” Open mouth, insert foot.
She hadn’t been wearing a t-shirt or bra that night, nothing but the hoodie. And I knew firsthand she wasn’t wearing any panties today.
She giggled and scrunched up her dainty little nose. “Nope, too restrictive. I like to live uninhibited. You should try it sometime.”
I blushed again as I remembered her naked in my bed and the crazy dreams that followed. I shook my head to break the disturbing spell of the memory, mumbling, “Jail bait, nothing but jail bait.”
She held up a tiny scrap of a shirt, “How about this?”
“Yeah, that’s good. Wearing a shirt is a good idea.” I’m such an idiot. The girl had reduced me to a fucktard.
Still smirking, she grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the dressing rooms. The absolute last place I wanted to be. She hauled her clothes in and shut the dressing room door behind her, leaving me to wait.
She popped back out in her black stretch pants and the miniature scrap of fabric that was supposed to be a t-shirt – a see-through tank top. I already knew what her little breasts looked like, but the sheer white top was a blatant reminder. The exhibitionist brat was playing with me, flaunting her body.
This girl was nothing but trouble. Eighty pounds of trouble waiting for a place to land, or someone foolish enough to get involved. I’m that fool. I should’ve turned around and walked away, put her out of my mind. But I couldn’t. Our shared horrific experience had somehow bonded us – as if her shoving me back into my car, saving my life, had somehow entwined our lifelines.
“How you like it?” She had a naughty twinkle in her eye while she twirled around to show off.
“Well … I think maybe it’s a little too revealing.” Or maybe a lot.
“Nothing you haven’t seen before.” She giggled like a little girl, but there was an undertone of something else.
I didn’t understand why, but the girl had activated a protective streak. I felt responsible for her. And I still didn’t know her name. What kind of big brother doesn’t even know her name? God, what a loser.
“Um, I didn’t catch your name.”
She frowned and stopped twirling. “You don’t like it?”
“I guess it’s okay. Something is better than nothing.” I had a real problem today. My mouth kept engaging before my brain could dictate what came out.
She turned and headed back into the dressing room. Her arms, shoulders, hands, all unblemished. Perfect, pale skin. Not a mark on her.
As I puzzled over this strangeness, only one in an ongoing series of strangenesses, she yelled, “Natasha.” She popped back out with the n
ew maroon hoodie on, pulling her shoulder-length mahogany hair out the neck of the hood.
“But you can call me Nadia. My close friends call me Nadia. We are close aren’t we?” She stepped up until she was physically rubbing against me, with that intense unblinking stare.
“Unh hunh, we’re pretty close. I guess.” I seemed to have trouble producing any kind of coherent speech around her.
“We can get a lot closer, if you like ...”
“Uhhmm … maybe we should go.” I was a real charmer, dropping dope lines left and right.
She backed off on the intensity and took my hand. She snatched my generic macaroni and cheese from my other hand. “Is that all you’re here for?”
It took me a couple seconds to realize she was referring to the mac and cheese. “Yeah, and some granola bars and Shoe Goo.”
She took off, guiding me to the grocery aisles, still holding my hand. I picked out the chewy chocolate chip granola bars, which she immediately grabbed from me.
“I’ll take care of it.” The granola bars disappeared into her hoodie with the finesse of a Las Vegas illusionist.
“Whoa, what are you doing?”
She stared at me with that unnerving look and spoke in low even tones, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
She then guided us straight to the hardware section. She grabbed a tube of Shoe Goo, slipped it into her magical hoodie pocket with professional sleight of hand, and went straight for the checkout stands. Hard to say who was taking care of who.
She continued rolling right past the checkout stands, towards the exit.
“Hey, this isn’t cool.” I pulled up short, trying to redirect her back towards the cashiers.
That’s when a bald, fortyish man in a Hawaiian shirt stopped us with a hand on Nadia’s shoulder, “Excuse me but you folks have some stolen merchandise. I’m afraid I have to place you under arrest for shoplifting.” He whipped out a Wal-Mart security badge to shove in our faces.
I recognized the man. He’d been lurking nearby the dressing rooms, obviously undercover.
Then the strangest thing happened (stranger than all the other strange things that had happened thus far). Nadia turned to the security guard, leaned in close, and stared at him directly. She looked at him for several seconds without blinking, and then spoke slowly, clearly enunciating her words, “We do not have what you want. You have made a mistake.”