was prepping foils. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she called, swallowing a biting response. If her sisters caught on, they could blow the whole plan with Rico apart.
She headed to a local bar for the drinks, distracted as she put her order in. It was no matter: the Hispanic baristo knew it by heart.
‘There’s a mess out back needs cleanin’,’ commanded Anita when she returned, scarcely looking up to take the drinks as she pulverised a stick of gum. She was reading a magazine article about tearaway starlet Aurora Nash going into rehab—again. The way the young girl had so many opportunities and yet had flown in the face of all of them confused Lori. What did she have to be so angry about? Surely with a life like that there could be no room for unhappiness. Aurora had money, fame, success … and parents who loved her.
Uncomplaining, Lori moved to her next task. Anita seemed confused by her lack of retort and threw in for good measure: ‘The john could do with a scrub while you’re at it!’
A carton of juice had been spilled and left to congeal on the lino. It had attracted flies and Lori got to her hands and knees to lift the sticky, cloying mess, dousing it with hot water and towels, wiping the floor with one hand and the film of sweat from her brow with the other.
She had given up complaining since the fallout with Angélica. Instead she had kept quiet, pretended her relationship with Rico was over and held her tongue over her sisters’ taunts. All that time, she and Rico had been saving what little money they had and planning their route across America. She didn’t care how it turned out—she was thinking only of tomorrow and what it would feel like to wake up in a different place. She could almost taste independence, could touch it, like something physical. It was close.
The yard was dusty and Lori picked her way over the lot to the heap of stinking trash, adding her load to it with an upsurge of flies. A cockroach scuttled out and across her foot. She pushed thoughts of her father away, of what it meant to abandon him in this squalor and near-poverty. But she could not carry on like this. When she was settled elsewhere, working as many hours as she could, for nothing could be as backbreaking as the toil she had known here, she would send him the money he needed. It wasn’t abandonment; it was necessity.
As she was turning to go back inside she heard the rumble of an engine.
Rico. He pulled into the yard on his bike.
‘What are you doing?’ Lori cried, gesturing frantically for him to cut the ignition. ‘If someone sees you …!’ She didn’t dare finish.
Obligingly Rico jumped off the bike and wheeled it towards her. Lori kept the door to the salon open and pulled him into the shadow behind it. She was about to reiterate her anger before she saw how pale he looked. The white vest he was wearing was covered in mottled dirt.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked, putting a hand to his head. ‘Are you sick?’
‘I’m not sick.’
‘What’s the matter? You look bad.’
‘Nothin’.’ He seemed to be in a hurry.
‘It’s all right, they’re inside,’ said Lori, misreading his concern. ‘Even so, we shouldn’t risk it—you can’t stay. Is everything ready for tonight?’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
Fear seeped through her. Rico wasn’t bailing—not now, when they were so close.
‘I’ll be late,’ he said. ‘An hour, maybe. There’s somethin’ I gotta do first.’
‘What?’
‘It don’t matter. It’s just I can’t make midnight. I didn’t want you waitin’ around, thinking I wasn’t gonna show.’
Lori searched his eyes. ‘Is everything cool?’
‘Everything’s fine.’
There was something he wasn’t telling her.
‘OK,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Same place?’
‘Same place.’ He grabbed her hands. ‘I love you, Lori.’
‘I love you, too.’
‘Do you?’ He met her gaze, and there was desperation there. ‘Because we’ve never … you know, we haven’t. I’ve never loved you properly. In the way you know I mean.’
Lori looked away. ‘We’ve talked about this.’
‘I know.’
‘And I can’t say sorry.’
‘I’m not asking you to.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘I just have to make sure you’re not holdin’ out on someone else. Someone better? Like I’m not good enough.’
She shook her head. It wasn’t a question of being good enough. But if it wasn’t that …
Fairytales don’t exist, remember?
‘Take this.’ He fed a hand into the pocket of his shorts and produced a modest silver band. She let him slip it on to her ring finger. It glinted in the afternoon light and reminded her of a ring her mama had once bought, years ago when Lori was a little girl, but they’d been forced to sell it when the business began to fail.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a promise.’ He kissed her fingers again and she saw he wore a matching one. ‘Between you and me. OK?’
She was confused. ‘OK.’
‘Whatever happens.’
‘Rico, what is this—?’
‘Shh.’ He touched his forehead to hers. ‘I’ll see you tonight, yeah?’
Lori kissed his cheek. ‘Yeah.’
Noiselessly he moved across the yard and mounted his bike, seconds later vanishing in a cloud of bitter dust.
It was cold. The moon shone bright in the clear sky like a pearl, an occasional gossamer cloud drifting across its spotlight.
Lori pulled her cell from her bag and checked the time. He was supposed to have shown up half an hour ago. Where was he?
They had arranged to meet partway down the Santa Ana Freeway, where Rico had organised a car to take them out of the city. Lori had planned her exit from the Garcia house with precision. She’d gone to bed early, leaving the volume on the TV high while she grabbed her stuff and hauled up the narrow window, which always stuck halfway. From outside she’d clicked off the set, tossing the remote back through. They wouldn’t be any the wiser till daybreak.
Lori wrapped her jacket more tightly around her. She looked up at the star-punctured sky, the dwarfed outline of an aeroplane silhouetted against the giant moon.
Several cars stopped. Each time she was aware of her vulnerability—either the driver thought she was looking for business or she was hitching to the Southside. She moved between states of fear and upset at Rico’s
