Dance For Me (16 page)

   Tristan thought about this. She thought about Hope and that stupid purple dress she’d worn. Every time she pictured Hope she was in that dress. It burned Tristan up inside when she thought of Hope. She could see her face clearly and it made her feel like she was going to hyperventilate. 

  “Like how?”

Charla started up the car.

“We can spend the evening thinking up ways, plotting.”

“You’re horrible Charla.”

“Yea or nay?”

 “Definitely yea,” Tristan said with no hesitation.

  “Dominic has a fight coming up. If he takes her, I swear, I will make her SO sorry she ever fucked with me.”

  Charla grinned. “We’re gonna make her sorry anyway.”

            Hope hung up her phone and stared at it for a moment. She couldn’t reach Shamayla. She’d been trying for two days, no word, and that wasn’t normal. The girls spoke daily, even when their work schedules didn’t coincide. She glanced at her watch. It was four thirty. She could try to catch Shamayla at home, assuming she was even there. Hope came out of her bedroom and glanced at shirtless Dominic sprawled out on her bed, sleeping and purring soft snores. She tip toed passed him and dropped her phone in her purse, reached for her car keys. She scribbled on a piece of paper “Be back in a bit” and taped it to the door. With that, she left on her quest to find Shamayla.

             Hope pulled up in front of the one story border house Shamayla was staying at. It was on the end of Phoenix Road and like most of the other houses on the street, had a lawn made up of dry dirt and bits of pebbles and twigs. The screens were browned, visibly dirty and the paint was chipping in random spots all over the house. Hope got off the car and went to the front door. She knocked and waited but no one answered. There was a Jeep in the driveway so Hope figured someone had to be home. She knocked again.

          “Hi,” she said, as soon at the front door opened. She couldn’t see the person standing behind the screen because it was either too dusty, or the sun was too bright.

           “Is Shamayla here?”

           “Nah,” a guy said, opening the door to either get a better look at Hope, or so she could get a better look at him. “She hasn’t been around in a couple days.”

           “Really,” Hope said flatly to the shirtless guy.

            “But hey, if I see her I’ll tell her…”

             “Hope.”

             “I’ll tell her Hope came by.”

              “Thanks.” Hope turned away and put her dark glasses down over her eyes. She stopped and turned around to face the twenty-something who was still standing there with the screen ajar.

             “Did you happen to see who she left with, what kind of car?”

              “Nah,” he said, seeming apologetic. “Everybody comes and goes all day and night. I don’t know.”

             “Thanks anyway.” Hope went back to her car and dialed Shamayla’s number again. The phone just kept ringing and eventually went to voicemail. A lot of things went through Hope’s mind. It could be Zefar, forcing himself back into her life again. But then again, it could also be Justin. But…then again… Shamayla was missing for two days now and Dominic would have mentioned it if Justin took off somewhere with Shamayla. She decided there was hope in this and tried not to think of all the negative possibilities, though they did outweigh the positive ones.

            When Hope got home she saw that Dominic wasn’t on her bed anymore. The note was gone, too. She closed her door behind her and stared down the hallway. She could feel his presence somewhere in the apartment and his work boots beside her bed confirmed it. She put her purse down on the table and headed down the hallway, passing the opened bathroom door. She was about to look in her bedroom but heard clanking in the kitchen. 

“I didn’t know you were in here.”

“I saw you walk by. You overlooked me.”

Hope leaned against the counter and watched Dominic stir pasta in a silver pot. He cooked. What a keeper.

“I have a fight coming up. Would you like to come see me?” Putting the fork aside, he wiped off his hands and looked at her.

 “Like, fight fight?”

 “Yeah, like, fight. It’s a big fight for me, this one. It’s kind of like an audition.” He went on to explain how winning this series of three fights in one night could catapult him to the big time. Obviously it was important to him, and he wanted her to be there to support him. To Hope, that said a lot. He put Tristan and her baby drama aside for her. Maybe he was turning out to be her kind of man after all.

On the down side, she wasn’t one for violence.

“You don’t wanna see your man in action?” 

She smiled big at the label. Her man? There went those butterflies…

“Of course I’ll go,” she beamed. She wrapped her arms around his thick middle. He kissed her head and went back to cooking.

 29…This is making me sick

  Tristan pulled into a vacant parking spot and got out of her car. It wasn’t that late yet but it was dark out and desolate so it felt late. She didn’t like that Dominic’s apartment was in the back of the four-plex he lived in, and his faced nothing. His front view was the parking lot, the trash dumpster and the road on the other side of a pink brick wall that looked like it had been bombed.

          She usually got an eerie feeling out here and wrapped her arms around herself, normally something she wouldn’t do. She figured it was “maternal instinct”.  His white truck glistened under the street light in his parking spot while Hope’s Civic was nowhere to be seen. She figured the ho must be at work which was a relief because that meant Dominic wasn’t with her. Tristan’s shoes popped against the asphalt as she walked across the parking lot toward the staircase leading to his apartment. As she walked, headlights washed over her briefly. She turned around and saw Hope’s Civic turning the corner. She panicked and ran to the side of Dominic’s truck, crouched like a hidden tiger, dragon, whatever you may. She peeked through his tinted windows but couldn’t see anything through them.

 “It’s just weird,” Hope said, pulling into her parking space. “I don’t know what else to do.”

 “Maybe she’s with friends you never met.”

  Hope shook her head.

  “If I don’t see her at work tomorrow night then something is definitely up. I’ll file a missing person’s report. Maybe I should’ve done that already.”

  Dominic put his hand on Hope’s extended arm. She looked over at him and took her hand off of the steering wheel.

  “They had a fight so maybe she’s trying to avoid Justin. She might think you’re trying to speak to her through him.”

  “No, Shamayla’s not the type to keep that to herself.”

   “Give it one more day. I’m sure she’s fine and she’ll show up at work.”

   “I hope so.” Hope pulled her key out of the ignition and cracked her door open.

         Tristan crept to the end of the truck and peeked at Hope’s car. Her door opened and a few seconds later she stepped out. Tristan’s eyes rolled down from Hope’s long tresses to her body. She was wearing a black leotard with a long flowy skirt. 

            “What a whore,” Tristan mumbled under her breath. Then she saw Dominic’s head appear on the other side of Hope’s car. They were talking and he was laughing, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. But here she was, pregnant and lonely. Tristan put her hand over her mouth. She could feel the acidic liquids churning up in her esophagus. She watched Hope lead the way up the stairs, walking like a snob while her boyfriend tailed behind her like a pathetic dog. Hope unlocked her apartment door and Dominic put his hands on her waist and tailed her inside.

             Tristan closed her eyes, turned to the side of Dominic’s truck and coughed up vomit. That grossed her out and the next thing she knew she was projectile vomiting all over his truck. She clutched her stomach and cleared her throat. Throwing up always grossed her out and made her want to cry afterward. It was traumatizing when your body worked against you like this. Still holding her stomach, Tristan hurried to her car and dialed Charla’s number. She looked through the trash on the passenger side floor and found an old napkin. She wiped her mouth with it and took a swig of water. Her throat was burning like she had swallowed sandpaper. 

          “Hey, listen, we have to kick this plan into full gear.” Tristan collapsed on the inside and started sobbing. “We have to do something now Charla! I’m losing my mind! I don’t know, I don’t know!” Tristan put a hand over one side of her face. It killed her to see what she had seen. Never did she think she would see Dominic touching another female in that way. The fact that another girl was on his mind meant Tristan definitely wasn’t. It was all too much to bear, like murder.

            “I want to kill him! I want to kill them both!”

           Charla tried to calm down her friend but it wasn’t much use. She listened to Tristan bawl for a while as she thought up ways to get back at Hope and Dominic, but mostly Hope.

          “Don’t worry,” she promised. “We’ll make them both sorry.”

The next day…

 “What are you doing?”  Justin, cap pulled down to his brow line, strolled up to Dominic who was spraying his truck with a water hose.

   “Oh dude, so gross, yo. Someone threw up on my truck!”

 Justin slid his hands on his pockets and grimaced.

  “That’s fucking nasty.”

   “Take that sponge and take that stuff off, yeah?”

  Justin looked horrified. “Fuck that!”

  Dominic chuckled and continued spraying the chunks off.

  “Yeah so uh, what happened?”

   Frustrated, Justin grunted and made his hands his claw like and put them up to his face.

    “That girl,” he growled. He told Dominic about their little fight and how Shamayla took off all pissed at him. She called him a day later to say she was sorry and beg his forgiveness.

   “I was high as fuck,” Justin added. “And she was full blown on that shit. She was talking and talking and would not shut the fuck up. She blew my high.”

    Dominic nodded but didn’t completely get it.

    “Talking, huh? That’s what girls do.”  

    “No, but she was talking in paragraphs. It’s that shit I’m telling you.”

   Dominic let the hose fall to the floor. He soaked his oversized sea green sponge in a bucket of soapy water and slapped it on the exterior of his truck.

    “What shit? What are you talking about?”

     “That bubble, dude. She’s basing, I’m not stupid.”

     “Basing?”

   “Or something!” Justin shook his head. “She was yapping and yapping and I told her I had to go. So I hang up, and she calls me back like ten minutes later talking about who knows what. Four hours of this shit. I fell asleep dude, she didn’t even notice.”

   Dominic ran his hand in circular motion, putting in some elbow work to chip the crusted barf off.

   “You’re telling me Shamayla’s a base head?”

   “I don’t know man,” Justin shrugged. “That sounds bad. She’s probably just snorting coke. I don’t know. I hope it was just coke.”

    “Just coke?” Dominic shook his head. “Dude, what the fuck?”

  “She’s been acting different too, real strange. She’s hanging out with some people in west Vegas, real shady people.”

    “Hope was looking for her.”

    Justin smiled. “Now what’s up with you and Hope?”

    Dominic scoffed.

   “What? Come on, like Shamayla hasn’t told me.”

 “What did Shamayla tell you?”

 “You dumped Tris to get with Hope?”

 Dominic’s features straightened out. He tossed the sponge into the dumpster and picked up the hose.

  “I didn’t dump her for Hope.”

  “But you did dump her?”

  “For completely unrelated reasons.”

   Justin smiled. “Right.”

   “It’s true,” Dominic insisted. “We were having problems anyway. But she caught me with Hope. It was all around bad." Dominic sprayed the soap off of his truck.

   “What do you mean she “caught” you with Hope?”

 “I had just left Hope’s apartment and walked into my place to see her sitting there waiting for me. She knew where I had been and she took off. She still hasn’t talked to me in almost two weeks.”

  “Wait up, you fucked Hope?”

   Dominic smiled.  “But that’s not the worst of it.”

   “There’s more?” Justin tilted his head with his mouth hanging open.

  “Before Tris took off she told me she’s pregnant.”

   Justin put his hands up. “Whoa, stay away. I don’t want your bad luck rubbing off on me.”

   “I’ve been trying to reach her. She’s being immature as hell. Maybe she’s lying. She’s probably not even pregnant.”

    “Yeah,” Justin snickered. “Or she’s in a dark corner planning an abortion or plotting your murder.”

    Dominic made a face like ‘yeah right’.

 30… Shamayla’s in west L.V

 Hope let herself into the shabby house on the corner of the street. There were no cars parked in the driveway or at the curb. She warily looked through the rooms and found Shamayla in one, still sleeping. She was sleeping on her stomach with one arm hanging over the bed. The blanket that covered her was left most of her back exposed so Hope could see that she was undressed. Hope looked at the ground. Amongst fountain soda cups and junk food wrappers was Shamayla’s bra.

“Wake up.” Hope tugged at her foot. “Wake up!”

Shamayla’s head jerked and she came to, turning her head and squinting in the light to make out Hope’s person.

  “What are you doing here?”

Hope walked around the bed and looked at the filthy room.

“You called me last night and told me where you’d be in the morning. What’re you doing here?”

Shamayla groggily sat up and gave herself a moment to get her head together.

“Where have you been all this time, here?”

Shamayla swept the blanket aside and reached down for her bra. She was completely naked with a shiny sparkle between her legs. Hope turned around and faced the window. Shamayla got into her clothes and went into the bathroom. She came back out a moment later pulling her hair up.