Finding North (Naïve Mistakes Series) (3 page)

I saw Brad's fingers curl and tense around Kayla's small arms. I put my hand on his forearm. I really liked this guy. I hoped he would like my friend.

-1-

I clutched Conall's business card in my hand as I sat in the Hospital's waiting room to see if Kayla had been given roofies. Of course, even if she hadn't been, it's not like they'd be able to test for penetration or anything because she
had
slept with someone tonight.

Brad. I thought of him again. Who would've thought that a guy so big would be so gentle with...with my punk-looking friend! I'd gotten his number before he left. I had to insist. I don't know if he didn't want to give it because he thought I was trying to squeeze in on some of his action. What I really wanted was for Kayla to call him.

And if she didn't call him, I was gonna make her! It was time she had someone stable. (Although, I really had no idea if Mr. Brad Muscles would be stable on the cheating front. But he sure as fuck had a few points for his team already. Not like the last two dumb fucks she'd chosen.)

I'd interrogated him about a few other things as well before he and his homies went off to Bushwick again. Yeah, that's where he lived. And he worked at a warehouse "picking up boxes, throwing boxes, and carrying boxes
—heavy boxes." He and his Joes had just won two hundred bucks in the numbers and wanted to "see what life is like in the Upper Sleaze Side."

"Turns out it's safer in Bushwick," he said at the end. Damn near looked like it.

Conall Williams

Financial Software Consultant

Had it been him at the party? No. Because the guy at Slimeball Raphael's party had a bit more meat on him. Not fat, but a little bloated perhaps. His skin had also been more clammy looking. Although that might've been those horrible fluorescents. But he'd also had on a blue sports coat... Just like Conall had had. Only it had been a different blue. Or had it?

My hand felt weak holding the business card. It was made of this plasticky see-through material with little designs on it as you held it up to the light. Below his name was a telephone number and an email address. On the right, against a white background, was one of those scan-code goodies. I pulled out my phone and scanned it.

It opened up his website. He did consulting for various different "software platforms" that all had different abbreviations and just made me confused. The site also wasn't set up to be looked at very easily on mobile phones so I kept on pinching and expanding my fingers to try and make heads or tails out of it.

I finally found the
Address
link:
London
. Hmmm. So he
was
English. I felt a brief victory at that because I could never tell the frickin difference between the English and Australian and Irish and Scottish and all the rest of them...

I put the card away, looked around, wondered how Kayla was doing.

-2-

"Ms Caivano?"

"Uh, yes." I looked up to see an African American nurse with a highly concerned look on her face. She was big and round. "We have the test results of your friend back. Have you had any luck contacting next of kin?"

I hadn't. It was a Friday night, Kayla's mom's busiest. The next she'd be "available" would be after the weekend, or, at a stretch, Sunday night. Business was always good for her on the weekends. Always. And she had to make sure the escorts were all taken care of and not fed roofies or anything while out on a date. How ironic.

"Um, no I have not been able to reach her."

"OK, well, we've pumped her stomach. I believe the alcohol consumption was done at your private residence?" She asked it as a question, and with a slight edge to her voice. I couldn't blame the woman. She looked like a mom herself. A
caring
mom. Not like Kayla's mom. (Fuck, who was I kidding? Not like mine either.) This nurse probably dealt with plenty of forlorn kids here every weekend.

"Yes, ma'am, we were at my place. And our parents allow us to drink there," I pre-empted.

"You and the rest of the well-to-dos... Well," she said with a sigh, "you can go on over and see your friend if you'd like. She's eighteen so, if she's not wanting to press any charges, she's free to go I guess..."

Charges?

"Th—thank you, Nurse..." I looked for her name-tag "...Thompson."

She gave a caring smile.

-3-

"Hey..." said Kayla. Her eyes were black and her throat raspy.

"We gotta stop meeting like this," I said.

"Yeah, no shit. Only this time I believe we didn't meet here but at
—" She held her throat, grimaced. "Sorry, you try talking after they stick a pipe in your mouth. She swallowed.

"Yeah, I heard they pumped your stomach. Wanna tell me what happened?"

She looked away, held my hand, squeezed it. "I'll tell you. But when my throat gets better, OK? Now, I believe when you get your stomach pumped you're allowed to eat ice scream, isn't it?"

"No, that's when you gets your tonsils out."

"I don't give a fuck. I need something to ease my fucking throat. It feels like I gave a blowjob to a porcupine."

I rolled my eyes. "Only you could come up with something like that."

"I try."

She pulled herself up and got out of the bed, walked over to the chair. "So, my ass look good?" She was standing with her back to me, her hospital gown open to reveal her petite (yet very pale) butt!

I giggled. "Come on. Your butt's in a lot of trouble. I'll let you have your bowl of ice cream to ease your throat, but then you're in deep trouble."

"Ah, b
ut you gotta eat it with me!"

"No ways! You're changing the deal!"

She laughed, then held her throat in pain. "OK, you don't have to. Wouldn't want you getting any fatter than you are."

I looked at myself nervously.

"For crissakes, woman! Your abs are made of fucking steel, dude! Don't you know men like a little softness under their hands?"

The image of that fat-slob came to me. Chills courses my arms. "Let's go," I said.

Nothing much was said in the car. It's not that I didn't want to talk to her, it's that I couldn't believe that, of all people, she'd end up at that drug-dealing scumbag's apartment. (I also couldn't believe that I had fallen for her "Oh, let's go to
Cringe
" story, knowing very well that whenever she got anywhere near that hotel she'd go all distant and pensive. Like Raphael was her one true love or something.
Pahleeze!
)

But,
go
there? Actually head off to his place? That I hadn't expected. Not even in the slightest. All I'd expected was maybe a little sadness, a little moping around after a night of partying and (for her) a bit of screwing.

I never expected her to damn-near get date-raped at her ex-boyfriend's place! The very same boyfriend who got her high on E every time she was with him
—when she was
fifteen
!—then screwed her, all while he was screwing a bunch of other under-agers!

"Miss Kayla, your ice cream." My driver stretched out a bag to us from the front.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Leroy," she said in a posh manner.

I asked Leroy to drive us around town a little. I wasn't in the mood to go home.

"You called my mom?" she asked after he closed the divider.

I nodded.

Her eyes flickered out to the city lights. "She answer?" She pulled out a spoonful of
Caramel Deluxe
.

I didn't state the obvious. Kayla took another spoonful, then put the ice cream aside. She never ate a lot of ice cream. It was my cue. "You gonna talk?" I said.

She looked out, sighed, then came out with it: "Bianca's screwing Raphael. I don't know if I'm jealous, or worried, or both. Anyway, I shouldn't care. The guy's a slimeball. He never treated me right anyway."

I didn't jump to conclusions yet. Too much had happened tonight for this to be only about Bimbo "Woe is Me" Bianca. I put on my interrogator hat.

"Why did you go to Raphael's place?" I repeated.

"Do you really need to ask?" She glared at me, then looked down and shook her head. "All this time with you rich people is making me soft. I sound like I have first world problems now..."

"Don't play down what happened. Besides, you're also pretty rich."

"I'm not playing it down. I just don't go around boo-hooing about things after they happened."

I said nothing, looked out the window.

"I went to Raphael because, when I was with him, he made me feel special, cared for. When my dad came over, drunk as a fuckin punk the one night and started losing it, Raphael was there. He's not all bad."

"Yeah, but he sure as fuck ain't good, either. Look, Kay, anyone would stand up to an abusive man threatening two women. That's not 'gallantry,' it's fucking common sense! You can't use that as the saving grace for this fuckturd of a guy."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it wasn't love when I was with him the first time. Maybe I just thought it was love. Maybe I just wanted someone stronger to be there for me."

I shook my head. "You could've gotten him for statutory, you know? I mean, back then..."

"Oh, please! I wanted it as much as a girl who was ten years older than I was. Sex didn't scar me. Sex with the wrong person did. Besides, there's too much public attention for the victim with that kind of shit.
And
I hate thinking of myself as a fucking victim."

"You still haven't answered my question enough. Why did you go there tonight? Do you know what they almost...?" I stopped, not sure how to broach this thing.

"I know exactly what happened. I also know..." She swallowed. "Look, I heard you guys calling out my name. I remember up to that point. And I remember my bustier being eased up by a guy who had.... Urgh. Disgusting. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is: Thank You. Nothing happened. But it could have. And it almost did. And then you arrived. Just in time."

A watershed of relief coursed through me.
Thank God
nothing happened! Well, "nothing" worse than it could have been. The R-Word.

She kept talking: "I went over there because I wanted to tell that fucking slimeball that he had no right manipulating an innocent girl! Even if that girl is Bianca frickin Henshaw! But when I got there... There were those lines of coke, and the music, and... It all came rushing back to me, you know. Raphael saw me..."

"I get it."

"No, you don't. I held back. I
didn't
do any of that shit, OK? I know I promised you I never would again and I kept that promise."

"Did they drug...?"

She nodded. "They found Flunitrazepam in my blood. Rohypnol. You weren't a moment too soon."

"Christ." I looked out at the buildings, the lights, a sign for Coca Cola. So much glitter hiding so much trouble.

"So, thank you again. And I swear, I will never go back there again. Scouts honor."

"Wanna crash at my place?" I asked.

"Would I crash anywhere else?"

"Brad is nice."

"Who?"

"
Brad
! You know, the guy you
screwed
tonight!"

"Oh, yeah..." Her face lit up. "He
was
nice! Hey, did you hear us when you called us during—?"

I put my hand up. "Don't go there."

-4-

We got to my place and mom wasn't home (surprise surprise). "Wanna sleep with
me
?" I asked Kayla.

"Ooh, baby!" She raised her eyebrows alluringly.

"That joke's getting old."

"No, it's not."

"You know, you're awfully chilled after..." I stopped.

"What? Should I feel bad and sorry for myself about it? It was my fault."

"No," I said. "I guess you shouldn't."

"Anyway, I'll crash on the couch. It's cool."

"You know we have a guest bedroom as well don't you?"

"Yeah, but the guest bedroom doesn't have a kitchen close-by where I can raid the fridge, and it also has no TV with late night soft porn that I can watch."

"You disgust me."

"Nope, you love me. Confess."

I hugged her, then went up to my room.

When I got there I crashed on my bed and pulled out Conall's super-duper see-through laminated card thingy. I was surprised the thing didn't sprout wings when I pulled it out and call me R2-D2.

Conall Williams

Financial Software Consultant

As I pulled it out, another piece of paper fell out, scrawled in large handwriting, clearly by someone who rarely wrote with a pen.

Bradley

555-7654

I bent down and picked up the crumpled paper, held it in my hands and felt its softness. I thought of Brad's forearm as he held Kayla in his arms, her gentle head bouncing lightly as he carried her out. I thought of his bicep as it bulged under his shirt from her weight. I thought of the light feel of the hairs on his skin. And I thought of his tattoo....