Of Hustle and Heart (9 page)

“G-day?” Rachel laughs. She looks from Blanca to me, expecting one of us to inform her of what G-day refers to, so I indulge her.

“It just means your birthday. Instead of saying B-day, say G-day.”

“Why?”

Blanca and I shake our heads.
Oh lord, what the suburbs will take from you. Jeez!

“It’s just hood, Rocky. When people say G-something, it means gangster,” I explain.

“So you’re a gangster?”

She’s serious, and I can’t help but laugh. But I don’t want to talk about my birthday, which is, coincidentally, the same day as our senior prom. It depresses me, because I need money for all that stuff, too.

“Gangster is just a word,” I say. “Don’t buy into the hype.”

I hesitate to talk about this past Monday, because I haven’t told Blanca about my bootlegging business. Hanging around at Ms. Kim’s is a normal thing in my neighborhood. It’s where all the kids go to get their junk food when there’s none at the house, so my being there at the time of the shooting wasn’t something Blanca would question. I figured I’d let Rachel have it and let Blanca know what was up at the same time. I was feeling very frisky and a little nervous.

“So, Rock…where were you on Monday?” I ask.

Rachel whips her head toward me and cocks her mouth sideways.

“You know, at the softball field. You were supposed to be spreading the word.”

She remains silent, thumbing her iPhone, as I wait for an answer. She’s pissing me off by not responding, and I want to reach over the table and snatch her iPhone from her hand. I knock on the table to get her attention. She looks at me, pleading, wanting me to drop the subject.

“Seriously though, Zee, bootlegs…” Blanca says. I turn toward her.
How the fuck does she know?

“Rachel, what the fuck?”

“I told her not to do it,” Blanca says.

“What? Why?”

“It’s a bad idea, Zee.” I turn toward Rachel.

“I told you not to tell her.”

“Duh, Zina, she didn’t. I heard one of the guys in my parenting class talking about it. And why
didn’t
you want her to tell me?”

“’Cause you didn’t need to know.”

“Zina! It was stupid as hell!”

“Shut the fuck up, Bee!”

“You shut the fuck up!”

We yell at each other for about thirty seconds before the waiter shows up to refill our water glasses. It wasn’t Blanca’s place to tell Rachel not to do something I had already asked her to do.

“And look what happened. I’m at Ms. Kim’s hustling shit ’cause Blanca de la Vega thinks she knows everything!” I could spit right now.

“That’s why you were at Kim’s…really…”

Blanca goes silent as I dredge up the murder of my brother’s two best friends.

“Damn, Rachel,” I say.

I want to punch them in the face right now. I’m so irritated with Rachel for standing me up and forcing my hand. Whether it was a bad decision or not, it was mine to make. Our table is deathlike. I have no positive energy left in my soul.

“Zina, are you okay?” Rachel asks, her voice inquisitive and sincere.

“No. You took her side over mine.” I stand up, tears boiling, and scoot my chair back. “I’m not so okay. I could’ve got shot, or raped, or something…Bee, it was not your business. This isn’t your life.” My voice cracks.

A tear slides down my cheek, embarrassing me, and my throat locks with hatred and grief. I can’t continue. I want help, but I don’t know whom to ask.

As I leave the table, one of Beatrice’s fugazis is watching me. My eyes shoot daggers, and as I stare down the fat, ugly, frizzy-haired, overdressed teenage slut, my body collides clumsily into someone who is rushing by.

I stumble back, caught off guard as Blanca and Rachel plead with me to come back. I work hard to ignore them. I keep my eyes down as the stranger places both hands on the small of my back. He speaks.

“God, I’m so sorry. You okay, sweetheart?”

His voice is familiar, but I’m sure I don’t know him. I scramble to catch myself, pulling away as I gain my footing.

“You go to Albert Chesney, don’t you?” he asks.

I look up at his face. It’s the good-looking caterer from my senior picnic.

“Oh…hey, you’re that guy.”

“What guy?” he asks.

“The one from our picnic.”

He turns me loose. His eyes sparkle brown and coppery like new pennies.

“So it is you, the loner from the stairwell.”

CHAPTER 16

ZACARIAS

I
’ve been dodging Whitney all day. I walk the long way to the kitchen, cutting through the restaurant so I won’t have to pass the hostess station. And she notices.

Bartending is a diversionary tactic I use when I don’t want to be bothered by outside influences or if I just want to be in the moment. You work back here when the restaurant is busy, and it’s lights out. I can’t hear anything but drink orders, and I see nothing except bottles of brown and white. But Whitney is desperate to talk. She looks at me. I quickly go back to work, but not before I see her jaw tense. And then she steps from behind the podium and heads my way.

“You’re on bar duty,” I tell Bruno as I duck from behind the bar. As I straighten my shirt and head for the back office, I knock right into someone. When I slow down enough to apologize, I see a female stumbling backward. I reach out, catching her instinctively. “You okay?” She doesn’t respond and pulls away.

The girl from the high-school picnic is standing in front of me, ignoring her friends. She starts to walk away, but I reach out and touch her arm.

“You go to Chesney, don’t you?” I ask.

She looks at me for a minute before she replies. “You’re that guy, huh?” she says, awestruck. “From the picnic.”

I knew it was her. I could never forget her. It might be kinda creepy that I suddenly hope she’s already eighteen, but it’s even worse to realize she probably isn’t.

“The loner from the stairwell!” Lame, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I smile to make up for it.

She has stopped paying attention, as if she’s a billion miles away. But when I remind her of her self-imposed isolation the day of the picnic, her attention is mine again.

“Loner?” She frowns at me. “You think I’m a loner?”

I don’t know how to respond; “loner” just slipped out. It has nothing to do with what I think about her.

“No, I don’t think you’re a loner.” The frown disappears. “I just think maybe you’re a little more complex than other people. That’s not a bad thing.”

She narrows her eyes a little. I can tell she’s picking me apart in her head, quickly deciphering my statements, throwing away the parts that don’t fly and making sense of the things about me that do. She is reading me.

“Thanks for bringing the plate of food,” she says finally. “It was good.”

Her voice cracks a little, and her eyes are moist. She looks away, trying to hide her face from me.

“You all right?” I step a little closer. “Can I do something for you?”

She shakes her head as she pushes past me and heads toward the front lobby. I want to follow her, but I don’t think she wants me to. I watch as she shoulders her way through the crowd of patrons waiting to be seated and then disappears outside.

I follow her because it feels right. As I pass the hostess station, I keep an eye out for Whitney, and I’m stunned to see that she isn’t there. I continue to look around for the girl from the high-school picnic and then head for the front door. She’s sitting alone on a bench at the far end of the walkway, staring into the parking lot.

“May I join you?” I startle her and force a smile, but she turns to look at me, frowning as if she’s never seen me.

“
Why
? Man, I’m bad company right now.”

“I’m not sure
why
I came out here,” I say, sitting down on the bench. “Maybe I like you a little.” I catch myself while a lump forms in my throat. She looks at me.

“So…how’s everything with you? Did you enjoy the picnic?”

“Yeah, it was okay,” she says. “Thank you for the plate.”

“Oh, no problem. It was…I wanted to.”

This is a hard conversation to have, her being in out-and-out disdain. Her eyes flicker at me as she dabs her cheeks with her palms and fingers. She breathes the dusky air. Her breakdown is certain.

“I’m pulling it together,” she says, her bottom lip quivering. She struggles for control, tears pooling, face scrunched tight. Then she breaks. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers, looking at me as if she has no business crying in front of strangers.

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.” I lean in, digging around in my pocket for a napkin. I hand it to her. “I’m sorry you’re so upset.”

She holds her head down and wipes away tears.

“Don’t cry.”

She shakes her head, like a toddler would if you told them to share their Cheez-It. I smile at her vulnerability. We sit there a while longer beneath the curious stares of restaurant patrons as they come and go. I try with much frustration to retrieve her name from my memory. I’d heard the Spanish girl say it a few days ago. I’m not sure, but I take a chance.

“Zina? Do you want something to drink?”

“Water,” she says, sounding exhausted.

“Okay, I’ll be back,” I say.

She looks at me, not really caring if I come back or not.

I go back into Rico’s. Whitney is still missing from her post at the hostess station. As I walk through Rico’s, Zina’s Spanish friend catches my eye. I give her a friendly heads-up, and she returns the favor. She taps on the table that she’s sharing with a dark-haired exotic girl, gaining her attention. The exotic girl looks at me as the two of them point and whisper. As I approach the bar, I see that Bruno has left.

“Yo! Noah, where is Bruno? I told him to take my place back here!” I shout.

“Don’t know, man. As soon as I got here, that dude disappeared.”

“So how long have you been by yourself?”

He shrugs, and I leave it at that.

“Toss me a bottle of water,” I say.

The restaurant’s getting busier by the hour. I scan the dining area, the bar, and the lobby for Whitney or Bruno on my way back to Zina but don’t see either of them.

Outside, Zina has dried her face and sits with her legs tucked underneath her. She fumbles with her phone, rubbing a finger around the edges and across the screen while she soaks in the evening’s fading sun.

“You came back,” she says, staring at me.

I walk over to the bench and hand her the bottled water. She licks her lips as she twists hard at the top.

“Would you like me to open it for you?” I ask.

She frowns at me as if I’ve said the stupidest thing she’s ever heard.

“You want to open the bottle for me?” She smirks, and I have no clue how I should answer.

“So you can sit back down,” she says. “I don’t like people standing over me.”

She hands the bottle to me, and I open it. I sit next to her and hand it back. She takes a small gulp that runs from the corners of her mouth and then wipes them away.

“I can open my own bottles,” she says. “I’m seventeen, not seven.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Forgive me for caring.”

“I forgive you,” she mutters into the wind and takes another drink. I don’t know how long I should stay, and I wonder what’s going on in the restaurant while I’m gone. But the longer I stare at her, the faster any other concern I have pass.

“Look, I’m just going to ask and hope you don’t get offended…Why are you so upset? I saw your friend inside. She looks worried.”

“I’m pissed at her right now,” she says. “Besides, I needed some air. I guess I needed to be by myself.”

“I’m sorry. Should I leave?”

“You apologize a lot,” she mutters.

“I do?”

“Yes,” she says. She turns to look at me. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you apologize for shit that don’t matter? You shouldn’t be sorry for caring about people or for trying to help.”

“So you don’t want me to leave?” I’m so confused that I don’t know what to think.

“No, doofus, I don’t want you to leave.” She laughs, but it sounds bitter. “Does your girlfriend work here?”

The question catches me off guard. “How do you know I have a girlfriend?”

She cocks her head. “C’mon now. So you don’t have a girlfriend?” She looks amused now, as she challenges me to tell her something important about myself.

“Very pretty smile you have there,” I say. “It’s a good look on you. Someone should make you smile more often.”

She pushes away from me, sliding backward on the bench.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” I say, trying to ease her apprehension. “It’s just the truth.”

Her eyes narrow. “Are you flirting with me?” she asks.

My heart lurches forward in my chest.
Am I?
I want her attention. This realization burns in my chest, intensifying my inopportune physical desire. My face flushes. I hope she doesn’t notice the redness.

She senses the fervent tension in the air between us and grows quiet, watching me like a child, curious and flustered. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, so I’m reluctant to continue.

“So you don’t have a girlfriend?” she asks again.

“It’s complicated.”

“Is that what your Facebook page says?” she smirks.

“I don’t have a Facebook page,” I say. “The restaurant does, but I’m not responsible for it.”

“I want to know about you, not the restaurant,” she says. “You’re, like, obsessed with this place. You could do better. I mean, the way you look alone—it’s enough to take you places.”

“The way I look?” I laugh aloud. “I’m a guy, Zina. Nobody cares about the way I look.”

“Shit, that redhead girl at the front door does.” When I don’t respond, I guess she reads it as an opportunity to continue. “She’s your girlfriend, huh? She was talking to some other girl about you—or more like bitching about you—when we came in.”

“The girl at the front door…the redhead? Hair pulled back?” She nods. “We’ve been in a relationship for almost two years.” Zina sips at her water, but I can tell she’s listening. “She might be a little possessive,” I say, “and irrational at times, I guess.”

I lower my voice and my head and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I haven’t talked about Whitney and me with anyone but John. Discussing this stuff with someone who doesn’t know her—or me, for that matter—gives the situation a melodramatic feel.

“We’ll probably be breaking up,” I say to Zina.

She pauses midsip, her eyes ablaze. “Why?”

“I’m unhappy with her. She’s a pretty woman, and I think she loves me, but I can’t be with her.” I feel my eyes stinging, and I clear my throat to keep from choking on the words. “I don’t think she’s going to take it too well, but I’m not giving her a choice. She did the most childish, fucked-up thing. If I were a different kinda dude, no telling how I would’ve spazzed.”

“What’d she do? Cheat?”

“I caught her spitting in my mother’s cup,” I reply.

Zina spews her sip of water. She wipes her mouth and looks at me. “In your mom’s drink? Why would she do that?”

“They don’t get along,” I say. This barely scratches the surface of the problem.