She clears her throat. “I suppose it’s going to be the same old thing,” she says. “Hear my story but don’t listen to it.” Her voice is louder than she expected. “Take the easy way out, hope this blows over, goes away. Hope there’s nothing you have to do about it.” She’s on her feet. “And hope whoever’s killing these birds will just stop. Or be hauled in for something else. Or even better, maybe I’ll just stop caring that they’re dead and that it’s okay you’re not doing your job.” She bangs a hand on the metal desk.
Detective Perry looks up, a strange expression on her face like she’d been somewhere else. “I heard you. Lecia wasn’t a prostitute,” she says.
Dorian stares at her. But the detective is back at her computer screen, her brow furrowed. When Dorian walks off, she doesn’t even look up.
THE SHIFT IS CHANGING—cops coming and going. Radios crackle. Someone is brewing a pot of coffee that already smells burned. It looks like it was a bad night in Southwest. Several officers from the late show are still wrapping up business—their eyes bloodshot, their faces heavy. Dorian’s almost at the door that leads to the sergeant’s desk when she hears her name, or thinks she does.
“Dorian Williams?”
She turns. It takes her a moment to realize what she’s seeing. For the second time in twenty-four hours, it’s Lecia in front of her, in the flesh, not returned as a ghost. The feeling upends her. She grabs for the nearest desk and steadies herself.
“Dorian, you okay?”
Julianna again. Right there. Right in front of her. Her long orange hair—Lecia’s hair—tumbled over her shoulders as she slumps on the bad side of a booking desk.
“Julianna?”
Julianna’s wearing last night’s clothes, tight, high-waisted black jeans, a stretchy teal crop top, shoes that you wouldn’t think you could walk a city block in. On her lap she’s holding a shiny pink bomber jacket made out of some kind of flammable-looking material.
“You’re up early,” Julianna says in her singsong lilt that’s a little slurred.
“And you’re up late.”
“Had my choice, I’d have been home in bed hours ago, fuzzy pajamas and all,” Julianna says. “Maybe a little TV. Some hot cocoa. But that pendejo had other plans.”
She gestures at a detective crossing the room with two cups of coffee. She’s still a little high. That’s pretty clear from the way she widens her eyes and bobs her head at the end of her sentences.
“They think they can keep me here all night just for trying to enjoy myself.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Dorian asks.
Julianna gives her a wide smile. She’s so beautiful Dorian wants to smack her for all the crap she’s done to herself—the dyed hair, the cartoonish makeup, the ridiculous clothes. “What else would I be doing?” There’s a challenge in the question. Julianna nods her head a few times, waiting for Dorian to rise to it.
The detective with the coffee reaches the desk.
Julianna takes her cup. Her nails are done in an array of pinks with tiny purple flowers. There is a minuscule gold ring dangling from the tip of her index finger. Tattoos are inked on her arms—a broken heart, a zodiac sign, a couple of words in Spanish, a few names, and a rose.
“With three sugars, how I like it?” she asks.
“You’ll like it how I make it,” the detective says. Then he notices Dorian. “This a friend of yours?”
“We go way back,” Julianna says.
The officer looks at Dorian. “You’re taking her home?”
“I didn’t even know she was here,” Dorian says.
“She’s lucky she’s not being booked for an overnight in Seventy-Seventh Street with the rest of her friends,” the detective says.
Dorian knows Seventy-Seventh Street. It catches the overflow from the stations that don’t have their own jails as well as from Southwest Station, which can’t accommodate women in its lockup.
“What friends are these?” Dorian asks.
Julianna shakes her head and lets out a slow, nasty laugh. “No, no, no. Don’t mother me. Don’t start thinking I need anyone’s help. That I need yours. Don’t go thinking like I know you’re thinking. It was just a little llelo. Keeps it real. Keeps me on my feet all night.”
Dorian doesn’t want to ask, but she can’t help herself. “And why do you need to be on your feet?”
“Because I was at a party.” Julianna snaps her fingers and sways her head side to side. “I needed to cut loose, you know. I needed to dance. And sometimes, I need a little help. It makes the music jump.”
“Just under a half gram of help,” the detective says. “Anything more and you’d be joining your girls over at the jail.”
“How come you arrested my girls and none of the other messed-up bitches at the party? All those USC sorority chicas were rolling and you just tell them to get home safe. Probably called them a cab. Bet you would have given them a police escort if you weren’t too busy dragging me and my girls in.”
“You and your girls are on our radar,” the detective says.
“Because we’re nasty bitches who know how to party?”
“Something like that.”
“Come on, Detective, we’re just a couple of cocktail waitresses having some fun. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.”
“Cocktail waitresses,” the detective says.
“Detective, do you have a problem with how I make my living?”
“You know I do.”
“Come on down to the Fast Rabbit. First round’s on the house,” Julianna says.
The detective blows on his coffee and glances at Dorian. “She can leave with you if you want. Otherwise she’ll have to stay until she’s sober.”
“So you’re calling me a babysitter.”
“Do you want to leave or not?” the detective says.
Julianna looks around the room like there actually might be something worth sticking around for, then shakes her head. “I wouldn’t want to waste the day, now.”
She stands up, makes a show of putting on her jacket, tossing and retying her hair. The detective hands her a slip of paper. “Don’t forget to show up. Miss your court date, this misdemeanor is going to get a whole lot worse.”
“It’s a date,” Julianna says, blowing him a kiss.
She saunters past Dorian and out the door.
Outside, Dorian has to blink several times to adjust to the sun.
Julianna pulls a pair of sunglasses from her purse, then keeps riffling through the bag. “I guess smoking’s a crime now too.” She dumps her bag out onto the station’s steps. “Took my Newports.”
“It’s not a crime but it’s a bad habit.”
Julianna squats and scrapes her stuff back into her purse. “You think I need a lecture on top of all that shit in there?” She zips the bag and flings it over her shoulder. But she doesn’t stand. The effort seems to have exhausted her. Instead she rests her head on her knees, her sass and venom gone.
Dorian sits next to her and places a hand on her back. She closes her eyes and for a moment allows herself to imagine it’s Lecia’s back beneath her palm, not Julianna’s.