Dorian can smell the late night on Julianna—the sweat mixed with baby powder, perfume, cigarettes, booze, and the strange sweet smell that leaks from the pores of people who use too many speedy drugs, a chemical sugary tang.
Julianna coughs and Dorian feels the rattle in her lungs.
What happened to the little girl Lecia would bring over after school and plop on the carpet while she got out her old toys? The little girl she introduced to her scratched dolls, her chipped tea set, her windup television that played “Row Row Row Your Boat”? What happened to the kid Lecia and Dorian taught all the games and songs that they’d played for years? She was somewhere inside this hard-partying Jujubee, hidden behind the makeup and the tattoos—the little girl Lecia started babysitting for next to nothing after discovering her playing alone in a playground one summer afternoon.
Julianna coughs again and slides forward a little more.
Dorian keeps rubbing her back anyway, trying to buff away last night and all the others that came before it.
“Julianna.”
Julianna stands up, knocking away Dorian’s hand. “I need to get some new smokes. I need a shower and a Diet Coke.”
“How about breakfast?”
5.
JACK’S FAMILY KITCHEN IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER FROM the station on Western. Julianna’s all sass and swagger, tossing her hair and strutting the short distance to the restaurant. But when she takes off her sunglasses at the table, Dorian can see the weariness in her eyes—the whites tinged with red, the dark shadows underneath.
Dorian’s not really hungry, but she orders large to inspire Julianna—eggs, chicken sausage, biscuits, salmon croquettes, and chicken wings. The waitress brings her a coffee and a water for Julianna.
Julianna scans the restaurant, seeing no one she knows or no one of interest. “You’re hanging out at the station now?”
“Julianna, you’re a beautiful woman, you need to be careful.”
Julianna rolls her eyes. “Not this shit again.”
“When was the last time anyone told you to be careful?” Dorian says.
“Who says I’m not careful?” The last hint of brassy energy has vanished from Julianna’s voice. She sounds plain worn. “I’m not the one who lost a kid.” Dorian imagines Julianna would be ashamed of her words, but she holds Dorian’s stare, challenging her for the reprimand.
Dear Idira.
“What’s that?”
Had Dorian said it aloud?
Dear Idira, They’ll try to tell you you were careless. They will say the most hurtful things because you’ve already been through the worst. They think you can handle it, that you need to hear it. That you are either tough enough because of what happened or that you need to get tougher, hear the hard truths. But there’s nothing you can do. You just listen. You ignore. You turn in and away.
“Where are you living now?” Dorian asks.
“What’s it to you?”
“Do you ever go home?”
“Fuck that shit. Some girls and I have a place down by the Rabbit, down on Forty-Seventh. But it’s hectic. Too many ladies. So I move around. Here, there. Home, if you really need to know. Can’t be tied down.”
There’s a second when Dorian envies Julianna’s attitude. Because if there’s one thing Dorian is, it’s tied down. Tied to the fish shack. Tied to Lecia’s memory. Tied to the women on Western she needs to feed.
“I know,” Dorian says.
But Dorian also knows the Fast Rabbit—a cocktail bar down Western from the Snooty Fox and the Mustang Motel where the luckier girls take their customers. The bar is rumored to have a back room where the cocktail waitresses make big tips.
“Life’s too short to be tied down by bills and rent and all that shit.”
Dorian’s certain that Julianna has no idea how short life can really be, and if she does, she’s not paying attention. One day you can be getting dressed for work, slicking your hair, tightening your curls, lining your lips, and quarreling with your girlfriends over who’s going to wear the pink halter top. One day you can be heading out the door for your weekly babysitting gig. And the next you’re lying in an alley or worse.
“Too short,” Dorian says. “For sure.”
If Julianna catches her meaning, she doesn’t show it.
Their food comes—too many plates for the table. Dorian digs in, although fried food apart from hers never appeals. Julianna picks at her plate, eating like someone who’s hungry but whose stomach is troubled. She takes a bite of a salmon croquette, then pushes it away.
“Something wrong?” Dorian asks.
“It just can’t hold a candle to yours. Your fish is the best on Western. Everyone knows.”
“Do they?” Dorian can’t remember the last time Julianna had been in the fish shack.
“I tell everyone, I’ve been going to the R&C since I was too little to see over the counter.”
“So how come you don’t come by anymore?”
“Life,” Julianna says, “it gets mad busy.” She glances around the restaurant. “I need a cigarette.”
Dorian opens her mouth to object.
“Did I say I need a cigarette or a lecture?” Julianna asks. She gathers her bag and steps out onto Western. Dorian watches her glance up and down the street. There’s a gas station and a minimart on the corner. But Julianna stays put, waiting.
Dorian signals for the check and drops forty bucks without doing the math.
Julianna flags a middle-aged man passing by. Dorian can guess at their exchange—Julianna flirting, asking for a cigarette, asking for a light, giving the man the time of day for a second, then sending him on his way so she can smoke in peace.
The waitress is at Dorian’s side. “You want change?”
Julianna steps closer to the curb to smoke. The wind lifts her curls, making them fly back from her head like a cape. From a distance, last night doesn’t show.
“You want change?”
Dorian nods, waves her hand, a noncommittal gesture.
“Yes or no?” The waitress leaves.
A car approaches, slowing as it passes Julianna. The window rolls down. Julianna tosses her smoke.
“Here you go.” The waitress is back with a pile of ones and a heap of loose change. “I was out of bigger bills,” she says. “And now I’m almost out of singles. Excuse the coins.” She puts the tray with the check and the money on the table. A handful of change tumbles onto Dorian’s lap and then ricochets onto the floor. She stoops, colliding with the waitress on her way down.
She gathers the change and rights herself. The car and Julianna are gone.
Dorian had her and she lost her. She bolts from the table to the street and looks south where a sedan is speeding off—too far for the make, model, and license. She’s alone with the wind on Western.
6.
WEEKENDS ARE FOR LARGE PARTIES—BIRTHDAYS, QUINCEAÑERAS, baby showers, family get-togethers, postchurch meals, and lazy suppers—which means Dorian can lose herself in the all-day routine of battering, frying, baking. It takes her mind off Julianna. Because Julianna was there one minute, smoking her bummed cigarette, tapping her impossible heels on the sidewalk, and the next she was gone, vanished into a passing car like she’d been waiting for it all along.