The Heartbreak Messenger (7 page)

I needed a front man, someone out in the field of potential clients who could make the sale for me. So I turned to the only high-schooler I knew.

“Marcus, I have a proposition for you,” I told him one afternoon over a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

“Oh, yeah? What's that?”

“You know how you told Jared about the help I gave you with Melissa?”

“Oh, sure. Man, he was hurting something bad. Problem was, he knew Carmen would beat the crud out of him if he broke up with her himself.” Marcus laughed. “In fact, I haven't seen him at school since you delivered the message. He's probably still lying low, just in case.”

I rubbed the side of my face, which was still a little tender. “Do you think you could find other guys that might need my services? You know, send them my way like you did Jared?”

“I'm sure I could.…” Marcus's eyes grew a little wider. “I see. You want me to drum up business for you. Yeah. In fact, I know a couple guys off the top of my head that might want a little help. I'll talk to them. For a cut, of course.”

“How about ten percent of the profit?”

Marcus stuck out his hand. “Deal.” I knew it would take him awhile to crunch the numbers and figure out it only came to two-fifty a job. In the meantime, I now had my front man.

Marcus was as good as his word. The next Monday after school, as I headed out of the junior high, Marcus was standing there with another high-schooler. Marcus pointed toward me and flashed a thumbs-up. I changed direction and headed for an empty part of the school yard. My new potential client, a tall kid with a shaved head and glasses, sauntered over.

“What's up?” he said. “I'm Ty. My man Marcus says that you're the Heartbreak Messenger.”

“That's right. What can I do for you?”

The guy bit his lower lip and looked up at the sky for a good, long moment. “I gotta break up with my baby.” He smoothed down his eyebrows with his fingertips.

I waited for him to go on. His eyes were getting a little moist.

“I'm no good for her, see. That's what her mama says, that's what her girlfriend says, that's what everybody says. And they're right, man.” He sniffed, long and loud. “I love her, but I'm no good for her. I gotta end it.”

“Oh. I'm sorry. I guess.” I felt like an undertaker talking about funeral arrangements. “What's her name?”

“Her name's LaTisha. It means ‘great happiness.' And that's all she's brought to me. I got a picture right here.” He whipped out his wallet and flipped it open. “See?”

It was a picture of Ty and a girl with big hair making kissy faces at the camera as one of them held it out to snap the photo.

“And where can I find her?” I asked.

“She works the desk down at Chic Clinique on Fifth. She always smells like the shampoo of the week.”

“Uh, right. Well, a lot of guys want me to take the girl chocolates and flowers.…”

“Nah, none of that. She's got allergies for, like, everything.”

“Okay.” In my mind I could see the carnations wilting away in my room. “Well, then…”

“But I do have a song.”

“A what?”

“A song, man. It's our song. Hers and mine. It's something special, and I wrote it myself. I want you to sing it to her. Kind of a going-away present from me.”

“Well, I'm not much of a singer.…” Understatement of the year. Mom actually asked me
not
to sing in the shower.

“No worries. Powerful lyrics like this sing for themselves. Poetry. It's all about what's here that counts.” He thumped his heart with his fist. “It goes like this.…”

Every once in a while life hands you a surprise, something you never could have guessed was going to happen. A high-schooler serenading me on the junior high blacktop was one of those things.

“You see the moon, You see the star,

But me alone, I won't go far.”

Ty didn't hold anything back. His voice warbled and rose up and down like he was serious stuff in a recording studio. I glanced around to see a few stragglers still leaving the school grounds. I tried to look natural, which was hard since Ty had some hand motions and arm waving to go with those powerful lyrics.

“You have my love, you are my fire,

Like the sun above, you're my desire.

Ba … by.”

He savored the final note like it was a piece of creamy European chocolate. “You got that?”

“Um, close enough.” My screechy rendition would mostly be unintelligible anyway. “Now about the money…”

“Oh, and there's one more thing, Heartbreaker. My ring.”

“Your ring?”

“Yeah, she's got my class ring. The one with the red stone in the middle. She wears it everywhere. But since we're going our separate ways and all, I'm gonna need it back.”

What did he think I was running, a singing repo service? I'd heard that the customer is always right, but after the Carmen Mendoza business, I was a little wary about getting close enough to grab a ring. “You sure you need it?”

“Yeah, man. I paid good money for that ring. Just give it to Marcus when you got it. He knows where to find me.”

I charged him thirty, since love songs and ring retrieval were a little outside of my normal job description. He was cool with that, except that opening his wallet to get my cash brought LaTisha into view again, which meant an encore performance. I hummed along.

*   *   *

Chic Clinique was just a few blocks from Mick's, so I went to the garage to drop off my things first. Rob and Abby were already at the picnic table, notebooks out.

“Hey guys,” I said as I tossed my backpack onto the table. “I need to run an errand. I'll be back in a few.”

Abby looked a little disappointed. I figured it was because we had an English assignment due the next day and she wanted help with it. “Don't worry,” I said. “I'll be quick.”

I made my way over to Chic Clinique, a small shop squeezed between an all-oak furniture store and an Army surplus outlet. I put my face up to the window to see several customers in swivel chairs, and several employees doing hair and nails and whatever else they do in places like that. None of them looked like the photo of LaTisha.

I started to turn away when I saw the receptionist desk crammed into the front corner. Behind it, reading a magazine, sat the girl who was apparently too good for Ty.

Now, how to get her alone? The thought of going inside a room full of gossipy women terrified me. Who knew what deep secrets they might be able to pry out of me with their arsenal of cosmetic chemicals. I also needed to be outside just in case any of them had grudges against guys and didn't take kindly to Ty's message.

I moved to the nearest window and tapped quietly. LaTisha didn't look up. I tapped again, a little harder. I felt a few of the hairdressers and nail filers turn in my direction, but LaTisha remained glued to her magazine. I banged on the window with my knuckles. LaTisha looked up at me, along with every other person in the salon.

Not quite the subtle approach I had planned. I smiled weakly and motioned LaTisha to come outside. She gave me a funny look, but I heard one of the other employees say something. LaTisha sighed and put her magazine down and headed for the entrance.

“Hey. What do you want?” she asked as she stuck her head out the door.

“Are you LaTisha?”

She looked a little confused. “Yeah. Who are you?”

After Carmen, I'd taken some time to look up a few good one-liners on the Internet, and I had one ready for LaTisha. Kind of an icebreaker, you know. “‘The hottest love has the coldest end.'” Socrates. Being able to toss out a saying by someone both dead and Greek makes you seem all the more professional.

“Yeah, that's nice kid. You waiting for your mom? I'm sure she'll be done soon.” LaTisha started to duck back inside.

“Ty sent me.”

That made her stop. “Ty?” She stepped out onto the sidewalk, the door swinging closed behind her.

I cleared my throat. “Ty sent me to tell you that he's no good for you, and he's breaking up with you.”

LaTisha stood there with her mouth open, her eyes moving back and forth, as though she were trying to read the joke on my face that wasn't there.

“Why are you messing with me?” she asked, her eyes flashing between anger and desperation.

“Um, I'm not. Really. In fact, I have a song he asked me to sing.” I hummed a starting note just to see how it sounded before launching into it.

“You see the moon, You see the star…”

LaTisha stepped forward and shoved my shoulders. “Oh, no you don't!”

I jumped clear and backed a few steps into the street, my heart in my throat. My eye was just returning to its natural color, which was how I wanted to keep it.

LaTisha stood on the curb, hands on her hips. Her head wove from side to side as she spoke. “How dare you tell me Ty's breaking up with me and then go and sing our song. That ain't right. You don't treat a woman like that. You go back and tell Ty that if he wants to break up with me, he comes and tells me himself.”

“Well, actually, I'm in the business of taking messages. Maybe I could help you out.” One side of my brain was screaming at me to keep my mouth shut, but the other side couldn't let a potential opportunity pass me by.

Her eyes narrowed. “If you wanna help me, you'll turn your skinny junior-high butt around and go let the air out my ex-boyfriend's tires.”

There was business potential there, too, but that seemed a little more risky.

LaTisha turned, ready to take her icy storm into the Chic Clinique where it would probably become hot gossip.

“Uh, one more thing, please.”

She gave me a sidelong gaze of death with one hand on the door.

“Ty wants his ring back. His class ring with the red stone in the middle.”

Her look was what a vulture might give a half-dead deer on the highway before tearing into it.

She walked back toward me with a casual swagger. “He wants his ring back, does he?” She pulled a gold ring off her middle finger. “The ring I helped him pick out? The ring he told me represents his undying love for me? The ring he said he was gonna replace someday with a diamond? That ring?”

“Well, um, does it have a red stone? If it's the one with the red stone, then yes.”

She held up the gold ring with the red stone in the middle. “Here you go.”

I hesitated, and then took a step forward with my hand out. I could hardly believe she was really going to give it to me.

She moved her hand toward mine, dangling the ring above it. Then just before she let it go, she moved her hand to the side. The ring plunged like a skydiver without a chute down toward the street. With a metallic
clink
it hit the metal grate of the storm drain. With another
clink
it struck the second set of bars. And with a
thud
it stopped at the concrete bottom.

LaTisha lifted a single eyebrow and then slowly turned and strutted into the salon.

I stared after her, wondering if Ty had broken up with his girlfriend, or if it was the other way around.

 

Chapter 11

“Oh, brother,” I mumbled, staring into the storm drain. Water-swept leaves and grass with a sprinkling of candy bar wrappers decorated the wide crisscrosses of the first grate. The filth on the lower grate was barely recognizable. And the concrete floor on the bottom glistened with a thick green layer of who-knew-what.

I got down on my hands and knees and peered into the semi-darkness. It wasn't very deep. I could probably reach the ring if I really stretched, and if my hand could fit through the narrow openings of the second grate. The question was, did I really want to?

If I didn't return the ring to Ty, he would probably want his money back. He might even think I'd stolen the ring and sold it on the junior high black market. Or worst of all, he might start telling his friends what a botched job the Heartbreak Messenger did for him. One rumor like that spreading through the high school locker room would put a stop to my business like a brick in front of a bike jump. And I'd be left with nothing to help Mom out with the rent.

I leaned down and stuck my hand through the first grate.

I squinted and held my breath as I passed my hand through the second grate. I tried not to touch the slimy metal, but it wasn't easy, since I had to stretch my fingers out and fold my thumb in just to get it through the small opening. The built-up filth felt like wet leather on my warm skin.

Once my hand was through, I pressed my shoulder against the first grate and groped for the ring. I forced myself to run my fingers over the moist cement bottom, since it was hard to see anything down there. I thought I could make out a glint of clean metal, several inches from my fingertips. I couldn't stretch any farther, so I pulled my arm out, moved over a little, and then pushed in through the grates a second time.

The stench coming from the wide mouth of the sewer made it hard to breathe. A slight wave of nausea rolled through my stomach and I tried to think more pleasant thoughts. A hot shower and hand sanitizer, for example.

It took me a bit of feeling around, but in time I struck gold, literally. I snagged the ring with my fingertips. But as I pulled my hand back out, holding the ring like that, I found that my hand was too wide to fit through the grates. I felt the ring slipping from my fingers as I pulled.

“Quentin?”

I twisted my head around, trying to keep the rest of my body as still as possible. Abby stood above me on the sidewalk.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I, uh, dropped something and I'm trying to get it back out. Bad luck, eh?”

“Right.” Abby shifted her weight from foot to foot as she chewed on a fingernail.