Light of Day

  “Last-minute party, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He took a drag and turned his head to blow smoke. “Parents went out of town. Told me five minutes before they left so I wouldn’t have time to organize anything. I called my man Pete, and inside an hour, we’ve got it going.”

  Maria and I went inside. Blasting music. The smell of beer. Walls thumping as if they had a heartbeat of their own.

  Maria headed straight for the drink table in the kitchen, pouring herself a screwdriver. Judging by the amount of vodka she put in, I’d be carrying her out of here later.

  “Gabby’s here!” someone shouted, and then I was being hugged by my old friends Alicia and Becca. Both tall brunettes, they had been my besties in junior high, along with Maria. These days, we were social media friends and occasional party friends. They were the ones I’d gotten drunk with in eighth grade, resulting in my banishment to St. Anthony’s.

  “Tell us about the missing girl!” Becca said. “I loved that show you did about her. I cried my eyes out.”

  “So did I,” Alicia said. “Sounds like you knew her really well. What do you think happened to her?”

  I was aware that a group of people were now listening.

  “She probably trusted the wrong person. But I think she’ll come home. I really do.” I wouldn’t say more than that. There was no way I’d jeopardize what the Destinos were doing to find Bree.

  “Wow.” The girls looked awed, like I’d imparted some great wisdom.

  Then we danced.

  After dancing for a while, we plunked down on the couch, and caught up on the latest happenings. Becca and Alicia were single, but both had their sights set on certain guys, and shared their plans for reeling them in.

  Alicia turned to me. “Have you got a new boyfriend, Gabby? I bet you meet all sorts of hot prospects at the radio station.”

  “There are zero single guys there. I’m not with anyone right now.” It felt like a lie, and yet it wasn’t. X and I weren’t together. For some guys, a kiss sealed the deal. It meant you were going out, or at least seeing each other. But I was sure X didn’t play by those little high school rules.

  “JC is here, you know,” Becca said.

  “Really?” That was a surprise. “I didn’t realize he hung out with anybody at Rivera.”

  Maria looked sheepish. “He does, sometimes. Sorry, Gabby. I was worried if I said anything, you might not want to come.”

  “That wouldn’t stop me. I see him every day at school. It’s not a big deal.”

  I couldn’t help thinking it was odd that JC was hanging around with Rivera kids. When we were together, he’d never been interested in them. And he was friends with practically every senior at St. Anthony’s. How many friends did he need?

  “Well, if he bothers you, we’ll leave,” Maria said.

  “No worries.” If JC was here, fine. I doubted he’d come after me the way he had at the anniversary party. He probably wouldn’t speak to me at all. Besides, these days, JC and his friends were too torn up about Bree’s disappearance to bother with the icy stares and hallway jabs.

  The conversation then moved on to Maria’s ex, Renaldo, and she dove into a rant I’d heard many times before. I figured it was a good time to get something to drink.

  The kitchen counters were stacked with all types of booze. Unfortunately a guy with a sleazy grin was now the gatekeeper. “Five bucks for whatever you like, sexy lady.”

  A cash bar at a party—was he serious? “I just want a Diet Coke.”

  “Whatever you say. One buck, baby.”

  I gave him a dollar, watching carefully as he poured the Diet Coke into a plastic cup. After the roofies incident, I was going to be forever paranoid.

  Back in the living room, Maria was having a meltdown. It wasn’t a surprise. A little booze plus the topic of her cheating ex was enough to reduce her to a sobbing mess.

  “Let’s go talk in private.” I took her hand and we left the living room, heading for the small den at the back of the house. Glazed eyes watched us enter. It might have been drug central, but it was a lot quieter in there.

  We found a corner, and I gave Maria the usual pep talk. He’s not good enough for you and never was. You should be thankful that he’s gone. But she wasn’t listening. She never listened. So I just put an arm around her and let her cry.

  “You wanna go home?”

  She wiped away her tears, careful not to smear her mascara. “Are you kidding me? No way. It’s only ten thirty.”

  That was a good sign. Her spirit might be bruised, but her will to party was unbroken.

  Glancing past her, I saw JC enter the room. He looked a bit on the scruffy side in baggy pants, an old T-shirt, and a ball cap. He slapped hands with some guys chilling on a couch near the door. Then he took a couple of baggies out of his pocket and exchanged them for cash.

  “What are you staring at?” Maria said. “Oh, him.”

  JC must’ve heard her, because he turned our way. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. He gave me a vague who cares shrug and left the room.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Maria, scrambling to my feet.

  I caught up with him in the hallway. “JC—wait.”

  He turned, his expression switching from apathy to anger. “What do you want?”

  “I saw what you were doing in there. Are you out of your mind? You could get charged!”

  He scoffed. “You think I’m a drug dealer? Now that’s an interesting accusation. The dumpee becomes the dealer. What a great way to turn people against me, Gabby. Go tell everyone at school on Monday and see what happens. Better yet, talk about it on your show. I’m sure the ratings will go sky-high.”

  I noticed the sweat beads on his forehead, and the glazed, dead look in his eyes. He wasn’t just dealing, I realized. “You’re using, too.” I stared at him in disbelief. When we were together, JC had never used drugs—he’d been anti all that stuff. And now?

  He didn’t deny it. Maybe he wanted me to know.

  JC put a hand to his chest. “I’m touched that you care so much. Really I am. And if you want to rat me out to my parents, go right ahead. They already know.”

  Maybe they did, I realized. That could be the real reason he’d been going to counseling.

  “I’m not trying to get in your business,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Help? You’re a past life to me, Gabby. Over now.”

  JC stalked off.

  An uneasy feeling swept through me. I didn’t know who could help JC, but he was right about one thing—that person wasn’t me.

  PUSH

  “LOOKING SPIFFY,” I SAID TO Caballero the next night at WKTU.

  When Caballero went to an event, he did it in style. He reminded me of Prince in a purple suit with a white silk scarf around his neck.

  “Red carpet tonight. The wife and I are going to a movie premiere.”

  “What’s the movie?”

  He swiveled in his chair and picked up the invitation off his desk. “Jugular.”

  “I’m guessing it’s horror.”

  “You bet your ass it is. They’re calling it Saw meets Paranormal Activity. Get this, if we don’t lose our appetites from all the gore, there’s a buffet at the Marriott afterward, catered by some MasterChef winner.”

  “Sounds awesome.”

  “Hey, you gotta take the perks where you get ’em. I’m hoping the movie will scare the pants off my wife. That woman can scream.” He held up his phone. “I’m gonna record her and play it on the air tomorrow.”

  I laughed. “You’re so evil!”

  “’Course I am.” He grinned, glancing at the digital clock above the controls. “Ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes couldn’t come soon enough. I needed my on-air fix.

  I’d spent most of the day dwelling on last night’s confrontation with JC. Had our breakup been the trigger that made him use drugs? I couldn’t help but think that it was—that maybe, if I’d handled it differently, this w
ouldn’t have happened. But I knew it was pointless to think that way. If JC wanted to be self-destructive, that was his choice.

  It was a relief when I went live. I tipped my chin toward the microphone, entering into my own little world.

  “Hey, everybody, I’m Gabby Perez with Light Up the Night. Yeah, I missed you too. I want to thank all of you who’ve been praying for my friend Bree O’Connor and who’ve been on the lookout for her. Let’s not stop until we get her back.” I swallowed. “As you all know, I love to talk about relationships. Especially about cheaters. The people who deceive us. But one thing we haven’t talked about is when we deceive ourselves. Tell me, have you ever met someone you knew was bad news, but you went out with them anyway? Have you ever been in a relationship that you knew wouldn’t work, but you stayed in it? Have you ever known the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, and done the exact opposite? Tell me about it.”

  Within seconds, the phones lit up, and we were off.

  When my hour was done, I handed off to Caballero’s replacement, DJ Sandro Track, and went back to my car. I turned on my phone, hoping there was something from X. But there was nothing.

  Maybe it was up to me to make the next move, to show him that I wanted to be in his life. What type of person did I want to be, anyway? The type who goes after what she wants, or the type to sit around and wait?

  I texted: Where are you? Wanna hang out? Then I sent it before I could stop myself.

  There, I’d done it. I wondered how he’d react to my message. It obviously had nothing to do with Bree—it was about us. He couldn’t read it any other way.

  I waited, holding my breath. X always had his phone on him. If he didn’t respond within five minutes, that would be my answer.

  Then his response came up.

  I’m at home. Come over. I’ll meet you outside. He gave his address.

  Oh my God.

  In fifteen minutes, I was there. Could’ve made it in ten, if I hadn’t been driving so erratically and made several wrong turns.

  I parked at the curb and got out of the car. He was standing outside his building in flip-flops, jeans, and a black paint-stained T-shirt. As I walked up to him, I was aware that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing here. The faint smile on his lips told me he was aware of it too.

  “Come on in.”

  X lived on the second floor of an outside walk-up. When I entered the apartment, I stopped and stared. His living room was an art studio. One entire wall was a work in progress. It was a Miami cityscape painted in stark colors—black, blue, yellow. His art supplies were scattered as if he’d been painting when I called. Music with a hard bass thumped.

  “Your landlord lets you do this?” I approached the wall. Every person in the painting was so real, every building perfectly symmetrical.

  “I’ll paint over it when I leave.”

  “But how could you ever paint over this? It’s amazing.”

  “It’s just for fun.” Picking up a wide brush, he added some yellow touches to a black, looming building. “Painting has a way of keeping me grounded. Some people meditate, I paint. It’s the same with your radio show, isn’t it? You can block out the world and just be.”

  He was right; going on air was totally consuming—it took me over, put me right in the zone. “It’s funny. When I sign off, I’m always relieved that the show is over, but I also feel let down because the show is over. Does that make sense?”

  He nodded. “Perfect sense. You turn off the show and turn on the world. And sometimes the world sucks.”

  I walked up to the wall, my finger hovering above it, but not touching. “It’s so vivid. If you had this on canvas, you could sell it for a wackload of cash. Oh, wait—you don’t want to make money off your talent, right?”

  He shrugged. “Ideally, maybe. But my art pays the rent. If I’ve got some talent, I try not to take it for granted.”

  The song on the radio ended, and DJ Sandro Track’s smooth voice filled the apartment. X had been listening to WKTU, I realized. To my show.

  He was so close to me that his leg brushed against my hip. I shivered. What are you doing here, Gabby? I asked myself.

  Suddenly nervous, I went over to where several canvases were leaning against the wall. Each one was signed with a distinctive X in the right-hand corner. “How much do you sell these for?”

  “Fifty bucks, mostly. Twenty-five for the small ones, a hundred for the big ones.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t he have any idea what his talent was worth? Sarita sold paintings for thousands. I was no art critic, but I could see X’s work was extraordinary.

  “So tell me something, Gabby.”

  “What?”

  His hands came down on my shoulders. “Why are you here?”

  I took a slight step away from him. What did he expect me to say?

  “I didn’t feel like going home after the show. Needed to burn off some energy.”

  He raised a brow, and I saw the heat in his eyes. “And you think there’s something I can do about that?”

  The air was heavy between us. I felt like a coil about to spring. “Did you, um, have fun with your brother last night?”

  His eyes told me that he knew what I was doing, but he went with it. “It was all right.” He went over to the sound system and turned it down, then sat on the couch, putting his feet up on the battered wood coffee table. “He’s close to getting expelled from his third high school. I can’t get through to him.”

  I sat down on the couch, leaving some space between us. “You’re doing what you can. I hope he wakes up before he gets expelled again.”

  “Me too. I wanna shake the kid, you know? He’s still got time to turn it around, but he doesn’t care.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Kaden.”

  “What’s your name?” I couldn’t resist.

  He didn’t look amused. His blue eyes went shuttered. “My name’s got baggage.”

  “Can’t blame me for trying. You’re a mystery to me, X. I want to know more.”

  I inched closer to him on the couch, and looked up into his eyes. I was laying my cards on the table. When I reached out to touch his arm, he caught my hand underneath his.

  “You’re an amazing girl, Gabby. You never try to be something you’re not. You’re . . . unshakeable.”

  My heart filled up. I’d had no idea he thought of me that way. “I don’t know anything—that’s all I know.”

  He smiled. “That’s Socrates.”

  I nodded, surprised. “Only thing I remember from last year’s history exam. When’d you read Socrates?”

  “In juvie. I finished high school while I was locked up. With a 3.9.” He paused. “My mother always said I was the smart one. She thought it was because she was so sick when she was pregnant with me that she couldn’t keep down the vodka.”

  “Oh. That’s . . . horrible.” I realized that he’d been deliberately trying to shock me. It had worked. But I wasn’t going to let him scare me away. I could see through his hard exterior to the person beneath.

  “Sounds like you’ve had a tough go,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

  “You could put it that way.” For a split second, I might’ve spotted vulnerability in his eyes, but then his expression turned cool. “I can’t give you what you want, Gabby.”

  I frowned, not sure what he was getting at. “What do I want?”

  His faint smile softened the hard lines of his face. “Whatever it is good girls want. I can’t give it.”

  That got my back up. Did he think I wanted some picture-perfect boyfriend to bring me candy and flowers? I’d already had that. “I was with a guy for two years, and it sucked. He tried to be Mr. Perfect, but I couldn’t stand it. I broke up with him last spring, but I should’ve done it a year before that.”

  “I’m surprised. You don’t seem like the type to suffer in silence.”

  I decided to take that as a compliment. “I let other people influence me too
much. And I didn’t want to hurt him. Anyway, the point is, I’m not looking for anything serious right now. I’m not asking you to be my boyfriend. I just want to hang out with you.”

  There. I’d said it. We could hang out, maybe make out, no strings attached.

  He watched me closely. “What does that mean? You want to be my friend? Or you want to hook up with me? The bedroom’s down the hall. There’s nothing I want more.” His eyes were electric blue, and I saw that he meant every word. I couldn’t help but glance down, seeing the strong effect my closeness was having on him. He turned away, gritting his teeth. “But you don’t really want that, do you?”

  My throat went dry. I was still reeling from his invitation to the bedroom.

  “You could never be with someone like me, Gabby. Your parents wouldn’t even let me in the front door. And you know what? They shouldn’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” I wasn’t going to stand for him putting himself down.

  “Because I’m not like you. I never had your type of life, with the nice home and loving parents. That stuff makes you who you are. If you don’t have it, you become something else. Someone else.”

  “So just because our families are different, we can’t spend time together?” I shook my head, disgusted. “That’s such a cliché. If you don’t want me, just say it.”

  “What I’m saying is, I don’t want what you want. Someone like you—”

  I cut him off. “Someone like me? You make it sound like I’m from some perfect world, but I’m not. I mean, yeah, my family has enough money, but it’s not like we’re rich. And I don’t have the best parents, trust me. They’d do anything to see me give up the radio gig.”

  X stared at me. “Is that your criteria? They don’t agree with you on something, so they suck? You’re the luckiest person in the world, Gabby. My mother never gave a shit about me and my brothers. I don’t even know who my father is, but he sure must’ve been fucked up to leave me with my mom.” He shook his head, as if he shouldn’t bother, because I’d never understand. “You don’t know what it’s like to be scared every fucking day. Scared that there’s not gonna be food when you get home. Scared your mom’s boyfriends are gonna make you their personal punching bag. Scared that social services is gonna come and take you and your little brother away. Scared that they won’t take you away.”