Breaking the Rules

CHAPTER

THREE



LAS VEGAS

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009


They met, after school, in the coffee shop at the mall, because Eden didn’t want her mother or stepfather, Greg, to know she was back in town.

And it was crazy, but she honestly didn’t recognize her little brother when he first walked in. Ben had grown—a lot—since she’d seen him last. He was now taller than she was. And while he’d always been skinny, he was now razor thin, as if he’d been stretched on a medieval torture rack.

But the biggest change was to his clothing and hair. He’d always been a kind of geeky, dorky little redheaded kid, but now he was dressed like a Hollywood vampire, in black jeans, black T-shirt, clunky black sneakers, and a black overcoat that actually billowed behind him when he walked.

Eden had to admit the effect was striking. With his hair down to his shoulders and dyed a relentless, unforgiving midnight black, and with heavy eyeliner around his eyes, with the remains of black fingernail polish peeling from his chewed fingernails, the look accentuated his pale complexion and his blue eyes.

Both of which he’d gotten from his father, an Air Force officer their mother had hooked up with briefly after Eden, Dan, and their older sister Sandy’s father, Daniel Gillman the second, had moved out for good.

Because they were only separated but not divorced, and because the Air Force captain was both married and a total son of a bitch, when Eden’s mother, Ivette, got pregnant and Ben was born, she put Daniel Gillman the second’s name down on the birth certificate, in the slot that said father.

Which had led to a lot of shouting and name-calling when their divorce finally went through, and paying child support became mandatory.

But Ivette had tried to pretend that then-five-year-old Ben was the result of a night she and Daniel had spent together when he’d returned to Fort Bragg, and she’d gone up to see him in Fayetteville. Daniel had been pretty drunk at the time—it was no wonder he didn’t remember any of it.

Of course he didn’t remember it, because it hadn’t happened.

But because Ivette was not only a loser, but was also drawn to men who were losers as well, and because Eden’s father was a son of a bitch, too, he didn’t think about the damage that his words might do to a child when he used Ben with his blue eyes and red hair as Exhibit A. He didn’t need a paternity test, he’d shouted, because there was no way a child this ugly, scrawny, and fair-complexioned could possibly be his.

It had been Ben’s first meeting with his estranged “dad,” and all of his fantasy expectations had been cruelly dashed.

As he grew, he continued to see himself only as ugly. Try as she might, Eden hadn’t been able to change his mind about that. Because, bottom line, he wanted the same brown eyes and thick, dark hair that she and Danny and Sandy all had. He wanted to be a full, not a faux Gillman.

Eden stared at Ben now, dumbstruck. As she forced herself to greet and embrace this exotic stranger that her little brother had become, she wondered if he realized just how handsome—movie-star worthy, in fact—he was going to be in a few more years, when he filled out.

“Thank you for coming to Vegas,” he said as he hugged her in return. “I would’ve just left home, the way you did, but …”

“Your diabetes,” Eden said. He’d eventually run out of insulin.

She felt him nod. “I’d have to come back home. Or die.”

His voice was different, too—it was now deeper than hers. It had always pissed him off, the way he’d often been called “ma’am” when he’d answered the phone.

Eden’s voice had always been unusually low and husky, even when she was a child, and she’d turned it into a game—a contest—so that Ben would stop feeling bad. She would pitch her voice even lower to try to get the people who called to address her as “sir.” Ben, in turn, had to try to get people to call him “ma’am,” and whoever scored the most number of hits during the week got to choose the TV shows they’d watch on Saturday mornings, when their mother was sleeping late with whichever husband or boyfriend was currently sharing her bed.

Ben always won, but it didn’t matter. Eden had always let her little brother choose anyway.

But those days were long gone. No one would mistake Ben for a “ma’am” ever again. Unless, of course, he threw away the Goth look and dressed in drag. That could work. He was going to be that pretty.

“How are you?” he asked as he hugged her. “Eedie, I’m so sorry about the baby.”

Eden closed her eyes, refusing to go back there, but knowing it didn’t matter. Whether she focused on it or not, for the rest of her life, she was going to walk around with an empty space in her heart. “Yeah, that sucked. Let’s not talk about it.”

“I didn’t want to not say anything,” he told her. “Not just about the baby, but, well, about Izzy, too. He was cool. He, um, came looking for you after you, you know, left.”

“He did?” She pulled back to look up into her little brother’s eyes.

Ben nodded. “He gave me his e-mail address and his phone number and, um, some money. A lot of money, actually. Three hundred dollars. He said I should hide it where no one would find it—it should be my emergency fund.”

Eden stared at him. “Three hundred …?”

Ben nodded again. “He said that you told him you were worried about me, but that you were in a place right then—on account of Pinkie dying—where you had to focus on taking care of yourself. He said if I needed any help, for any reason, that I could call him. If you hadn’t e-mailed me and told me you were coming back … I don’t know. I think I would’ve done it. You know. Called Izzy.”

Great. All she needed was Izzy showing up. She could picture him, striding into this coffee shop in his cargo shorts and clunky boots, ready to save the day. Lord help her … “But you didn’t call him, right?” Eden verified.

“No.” Ben paused. “So what happened? That e-mail you sent me last year, right before you got married … It sounded like you really liked him.”

Eden just shook her head. She hadn’t come all this way to talk about her problems. Not that Izzy Zanella was her problem any longer.

She forced a smile and changed the subject. “So this is weird—you being so tall. You were so sure you’d be four foot eleven forever. I told you you’d grow.”

Ben gave her a crooked half smile at that. “Yeah, I get these spurts and … It’s been expensive. Always needing bigger clothes?” He gestured to himself. “This way, it’s like a uniform. A pair of black jeans and a few T-shirts and I’m set—until I outgrow ’em.”

“But that’s not the only reason you dress like that,” she pointed out.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s a multipurpose outfit. It really pisses Greg off. For a while I had a denim jacket that some a*shole wrote faggot on the back of, so I added the words Yes, I am a … and I wore it everywhere. Until Greg burned it.”

Eden looked up at him. “Are you really sure that you’re … You know.”

Something changed in his eyes, and she knew that she’d just made a blunder.

“Sorry,” she quickly said, but he spoke over her.

“Gay,” he said. “You’re allowed to say the word. And yes, I’m very sure. Don’t tell me that’s a problem for you, too?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, far more sharply than she’d intended. But then she realized that being spoken to sharply was exactly what he needed in order to erase that defensive, wary look from his eyes. So she kept going. “Stupid would be a problem. Gay is …” She realized that she’d automatically lowered her voice to say that word, gay, so she started over. “Gay is not.” She said it even louder. “Gay is not a problem. If Pinkie had been gay—if Pinkie had lived … Lord, Ben, what I wouldn’t give for Pinkie to be alive and gay.”

She felt her face crumple, felt her eyes well, and Ben hugged her again. And it was weird that he was bigger than she was, that his arms were long enough to wrap around her, instead of just around her neck. But he didn’t just look, feel, and sound different, he smelled different, too.

And as he started to murmur, “I’m so sorry,” Eden cut him off, pulling back to look at him through narrowed eyes.

“Do you smoke?” she asked him. “Ben …”

He looked abashed. “Sort of,” he said. “I mean, yes, but not really.”

“Grandpa Ramsey died of lung cancer,” Eden reminded him.

Ben shook his head. “I don’t,” he said. “Inhale.”

Did he really expect her to believe him? “If we can pull this off,” Eden said, “and you’re living with me? You are not smoking in my house. Read my lips. Not.”

“No,” he said. “I know. It’s really just … It’s a prop,” he said, gesturing to himself. “Part of the … persona. I really don’t inhale. I just light ’em and …”

Okay, so maybe she did believe him—which meant that he was still a dork inside. Which was a relief. “Then you’ll have to keep your props out of my house.”

Ben laughed at that, but his smile was twisted. “You want to know something funny? In Greg’s house, I’m allowed to smoke, but I can’t be gay.”

“Our house. I meant to say our house,” Eden corrected herself as they both sat down at the little table where she’d been filling out a job application. “And screw Greg. In his house, I couldn’t be me, either. He’s a creep.”

There was a “Help Wanted” sign in the window, and applying for a job was a way to use the table without having to buy anything. Expensive coffee and pastries weren’t in Eden’s strict budget.

Besides, she needed a second job—a cover job so that she didn’t have to tell Ben where she was really working—and this place, with its Internet café and public computers, would be perfect.

She glanced at her brother. “How’s Ivette?”

He shook his head. “She’s been working nights for a while—some new job. I haven’t seen her that much.”

“Sandy?” she asked about their older sister.

“She went back in.”

To rehab. “That’s good,” Eden said.

But Ben shrugged. “It was that or jail.”

“Who’s got the kids?” Eden asked.

“Ron’s mother, because, well, Ron is in jail.”

“That’s good,” Eden said, both about Ron’s mother and Ron’s being in jail. Sandy’s ex-husband was a twisted son of a bitch who drank even more than Sandy did, and the kids wouldn’t have been safe with him. “His mom seemed … nice.”

“She lent Ivette and Greg some of the money they needed to send me to brainwashing camp in June.” His smile was a twist of his lips. “She donated it to the church. I’m a church project—send the gay kid away to teach him how to be straight—how about that?”

“No one’s going to send you anywhere,” Eden told him. It was the reason she’d come back to this godforsaken place.

“Can we really pull this off?” Ben asked, the anxiety in his eyes making him look eleven again. And in a flash, she was back in New Orleans, at the Superdome.

Back then, she’d failed him. This time, she wouldn’t.

“We can,” she told him with far more bravado than she felt, because so much of her plan was riding on their brother Danny-the-magnificent—the Navy SEAL. Who still hadn’t answered her latest e-mail. She had no idea what she was going to do if he told her no, or to go screw herself. To avoid that scenario, she had to make sure she paid him back every penny she’d ever owed him, before she asked him to make this new sacrifice. Which was why she was debuting tonight as D’Amato’s newest stripper. “I’m going to get you out of here, Boo-Boo, I promise. California will be better. You’ll love living in San Diego.”

Her use of his childhood nickname made him smile, and again she was struck by how handsome he’d become. But oh Lord, while she was certain that living in San Diego would be better for Ben, she wasn’t convinced it wasn’t going to be hell on earth for her. Living on edge, near the Navy base in Coronado, afraid that any moment she might run into Izzy or one of his friends …

But unless she could convince Danny to transfer to the East Coast, she was going to have to make it work. She would make it work. For Ben’s sake.

Because he was going to that ex-gay camp over her dead body.

“While I’m doing this,” she told Ben, pointing down to her application, “use their computer and jump online. I need to find a place to live. Preferably a furnished sublet, dirt cheap, month-to-month lease. It’s got to be big enough for you to be able to crash there whenever you want, so make sure it’s a one-bedroom not a studio.” He stood up, his chair scraping across the floor, but she stopped him with a hand on his skinny wrist. “And it needs to be far enough from Ivette and Greg’s so that they don’t stumble across me. Got it?”

Ben nodded, and they both got down to work.


LANDSTUHL, GERMANY

FRIDAY, 17 APRIL 2009

Jennilyn was there.

At first, Dan thought he was dreaming.

It was a really vivid dream, though. It was so real that he actually smelled her—the sweetness of her shampoo and that lotion she used to keep her hands soft. It brought him instantly back to her tiny New York City apartment, and those few days they’d spent, locked in there, together. Alone.

Most of the time, they’d been alone.

And naked.

And he was going to go with that—his memories of the last time he’d made love to her, and just float away again for a while, wrapped in the warmth and safety of a pain-free place filled with pleasure and lightness, when he heard her voice.

“No, that’s okay,” she said, as clearly as if she were standing next to him. “I don’t mind seeing it. I’d like to. I’d … like to be able to help him take care of it, so …”

He felt the coolness of air on his nether regions, and then Jenn’s voice said, “Oh,” as if she’d been holding her breath and had exhaled it all at once.

She was holding his hand in his dream, he realized. Her grip had tightened, and it felt so real and solid, he almost didn’t want to wake up because he really liked the fact that she was there. He tried to tighten his grip on her, afraid she would slip away, but for some reason, in this particular dream, his arms and legs felt heavy and uncooperative. He really had to work to do it.

But then she said, all in a rush, “Oh, my God, I think he just squeezed my hand. Dan … Danny, are you awake?”

“I’m awake in my dream, but my eyes won’t open,” he tried to tell her, but the words didn’t come out very clearly. In fact, it sounded more like a moan.

“Are you hurting him?” he heard Jenn ask, her voice sharper. “Does he need more painkiller?”

Then another voice: “Honey, he’s got plenty in his system. Trust me, he doesn’t feel a thing.”

“No one’s hurting me,” he tried to tell Jenni, but again it came out slurred together, and it reminded him of the monster singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in Young Frankenstein, which made him laugh.

“Shh, Dan, it’s all right. You’re all right,” Jenn said, her voice so sharp and clear even though she was whispering. He could almost feel her breath against his cheek.

And even though he knew it might end this dream too soon, he forced his eyes to open.

And there she was. Jennilyn. Gazing down at him with such concern on her face and tears brimming in her seemingly average but in truth astonishingly pretty brown eyes.

“I’m okay,” he told her, laboring over each word to make it come out relatively clearly, since she obviously didn’t like his Young Frankenstein imitation.

Her tears overflowed and she used the hand that wasn’t holding tightly to his to reach behind her glasses and impatiently brush them away. As far as dreams went, this one sucked. Making Jenn cry was something he tried his hardest not to do.

But she was pretending she wasn’t crying, so he went with it.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said, too. “Welcome back.”

“Where’ve I been?” Dan again took his time with the question, also noting that they weren’t in her apartment, and that she had her clothes on, which was a shame. It had been months now, and the only time he got some was in his dreams.

He couldn’t figure out where they were. There were lights that were too bright overhead, and he had to squint to keep his head from exploding. This certainly wasn’t the enlisted men’s barracks, in San Diego, where he kept a locker and sometimes crashed at night, when friends like Lopez, Jenkins, and Silverman tired of him surfing their living-room couches.

“You’ve actually covered quite a lot of ground over the past few days,” Jenn told him.

It was then that he noticed she wasn’t the only woman standing next to the side of his bed. There was a blonde on his other side, pulling a blanket back up and over his legs, and activating a blood pressure cuff that squeezed his arm.

A nurse, which meant—shit—he was in a hospital.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?” he asked Jenn, who shook her head.

No.

She’d come all this way. Wherever he was, he knew it wasn’t Manhattan. Her being here involved air travel and time off from work.

“Is it bad?” he asked as he suddenly remembered. The car bomb. The sniper. The woman and child. The blood exploding out of his leg …

His leg …

But he lifted the blanket and saw that it was still there—heavily bandaged at his thigh. And great, he had some kind of catheter tube coming out of his dick, which bothered him far more to look at than any bandaged or unbandaged wound ever would, so he put the blanket back down so he wouldn’t hurl.

“You’re okay,” Jenn was telling him as more tears spilled from her eyes. “Your waking up was the last big hurdle.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, baby,” Dan tried to tell her, fighting the sudden nausea. But the best way was to close his eyes, which gave his body some kind of disconnect signal, which he then had to fight in order to stay awake.

She leaned over and kissed him, her mouth soft against his, her fingers gentle in his hair. “It’s okay if you go back to sleep now,” she whispered.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he tried to tell her, but he was back to sounding like Frankenstein’s comical monster.

“It’s okay,” Jenn said again. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

And he surrendered to the darkness.


LAS VEGAS

MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009

The boy who wore makeup was in the shopping mall again.

Neesha pretended that she didn’t see him, didn’t notice him.

So many people stared at him—she knew what that was like. She got stared at sometimes if she didn’t find a place to wash up or clean her clothes in the sink. Sometimes she just got stared at because she looked a little different from almost everyone else in this city.

But now, today, the boy who wore black liner around his eyes and black polish on his fingernails was watching her, and the ice of fear slipped through her.

Maybe he worked for Mr. Nelson or Todd. Maybe he’d been sent to bring her back.

But he didn’t look the type. He didn’t look old enough, either, even though he was quite tall.

Neesha could feel his gaze upon her and she forced herself to stay seated even as he pushed his own chair back and stood up. She sat even as he began to walk toward her. If she had to, she could run.

He shifted slightly, as if he were going to walk right past, but then, at the last moment, when she was sure she was safe, he stopped.

And despite her resolve to not look at him, she found herself doing just that.

He was beautiful, with pale eyes the color of the open sky and skin that was much lighter than hers. “You don’t really work here, do you?” he said.

She pretended to not understand. “I sorry,” she said, making her voice higher pitched and singsong. “I not much speak American.”

He reached a hand into his pocket, which made her heart race, until he pulled it back out—and held out a bill with a giant five on it—as if he wanted her to take it.

“Just in case you ever get tired of eating other people’s leftovers,” he said.

She didn’t know what leftovers were, but just the same, Neesha couldn’t take it from him. If she took his money, she would be indebted. She shook her head.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve seen you. You find a group of people, usually a family with little kids. And you offer to clear their trays as if you work for the food court. But this is a self-serve place. You’re supposed to bus your own trays—throw out your own trash. But little kids, they don’t always eat their entire Happy Meal, do they? So you throw out the garbage and eat what’s left.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look at him.

“I’ve seen you do it,” he said. “It’s pretty freaking brilliant. I just thought you’d maybe want … something fresh to eat sometime.”

He was still holding out that bill.

She reached for it. Stopped. Looked up into those eerie eyes. “For this, I will not give blow job.”

The pretty boy laughed his surprise, but then stopped. “Oh, my God, you’re serious,” he said as he sat down in the chair across from her and lowered his voice. “You’re like, twelve. Are you …? Have you really …?”

“I’m sixteen,” she told him, giving up her pretense of not being able to speak English well. After so many years, her accent was barely noticeable, too.

“You look twelve.”

Neesha shrugged. “I’m short.”

“I’m Ben,” the boy said. “And I don’t want a blow job.” He caught himself, smiled. “That’s not really true. I do want one, who doesn’t? But … not from you. Trust me.”

It didn’t make sense, and she didn’t trust him. “Then why do you give me money?”

“Because … you look like you need it more than I do. I’ve seen you here for about a week now, and you’re always wearing the same thing.” He looked down at his own clothes. “Of course, I’m one to talk. But I’m doing it as a statement. You’re not.”

He pushed the money across the table toward her and withdrew his hand.

Neesha found herself looking down at it. Wanting to take it.

Wondering what was the catch.

There was always a catch.

“When did you run away?” he asked, and she looked up at him, worried.

Ben smiled, which made him look like an angel, come down from heaven. “It’s not really that obvious. I mean, I know because I pay attention. But you really should get different clothes. Maybe just a few other shirts. The Salvation Army sells stuff for two bucks a bag. Do you know where that is?”

She shook her head, and he told her, but the address was meaningless. She knew only a few streets and not by their official names but by their landmarks. She’d learned to speak English by watching hour upon hour of TV back when she was a prisoner, after they’d taken away her books and papers and pencils. She’d learned from watching and listening, but she hadn’t learned to read it. Not yet, anyway. Not well enough to handle street signs.

“If you go there,” he told her, “you just have to be careful. Sometimes cops hang out, looking for runaways. Make sure you tell the ladies behind the counter that you’re looking for clothes for your sister’s birthday. And that you’re the same size. That you’re twins. That way they won’t flag you or ask too many questions.”

She pushed the bill back toward him. “I can’t,” she said. And she couldn’t—take his money, or his advice. As much as she would’ve loved to have a whole bagful of clean, fresh clothes, she couldn’t do it.

She started to stand up so she could walk away.

But he stood up, too, far more gracefully. He pushed his chair in and backed off.

“I’d run away, too, if I could,” he told her. “My stepfather is a son of a bitch, and my mother’s invisible. School’s a nightmare, and …” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. In a few months I’m moving to San Diego, to live with my brother and sister. Either that or … I don’t know, maybe I’ll be dead. One way or another, it’ll be an improvement. See you around.”

And with that, he walked away without looking back, leaving that five-dollar bill on the table.

So Neesha picked it up, and put it in her pocket.