I haven’t told Marsha any of this because she told me not to start talking until she said to.
After she prepares each slice to be eaten, she returns her attention to me. “I’m going to record this conversation, so I can type it up as part of your file. Completely between us, so feel free to say whatever you would like.” She places a recorder on the table and presses the red button. “Alright. First off, I need you to explain to me your relationship with any and all members of the Oakland Police Department, particularly Officers Carlisle, Parker, and Reed.”
It’s funny hearing their names, names I can’t place to a person because they were never that to me. They were never branches in a family tree or men who gave those surnames to their brides. They were numbers and badges and jaws. I tell Marsha I don’t know exactly who Parker and Reed are, that all I know is how the first cops found me that night off Thirty-Fourth, got me in their car. All the times they refused to pay me, said protection was my payment. I tell her about the day the detectives showed up by the pool, that room that closed in on me, the eyes, the tingle. I tell her about 612—Carlisle—and how he touched me, how his house was fit for five and seemed to house only him and his gun. I tell her how they came for Marcus and Cole.
Marsha asks for dates, times, names, like I remember. All I know is the detectives showed up on my birthday, that the heat followed us.
When I tell her that, she pauses, tells me to go back. “Did you have contact with the officers prior to your eighteenth birthday?”
I feel like I’m on the verge of saying something that’s gonna land me in some shit, hesitate.
“It’s all confidential, Kiara,” she reminds me.
I take a bite of my pizza just to stall. Swallowing, I say, “Yeah.”
“And did they know of your age?”
I stop to think about that, take another bite. “Not sure. Some of them asked and I usually just say I’m old enough, but I don’t think most of ’em wanna know. Can imagine whatever the fuck they want that way, you know, little-girl fetish without the consequences.”
Marsha asks more questions that I wouldn’t have even thought had to be asked and it’s slowly getting clearer that this isn’t some sort of quick blip that’s gonna end in me and Trevor back on the courts in a week. I’m scared to ask Marsha, but our plates are empty, and we’re getting closer to the point when she tells me what I don’t wanna hear.
“What exactly’s gonna happen next?”
Marsha crosses her legs, wipes the last couple crumbs off her skirt, and tilts her head. “With all the publicity, probably a criminal investigation.”
I snicker. “They gonna arrest half the police force?”
Marsha raises her eyebrows, shakes her head more times than she needs to. “Oh, no, that’s not how this works. Not with law enforcement. If things go as I expect they will, we aren’t talking about any arrests, not at first. Instead, there’ll be a grand jury.”
I don’t know exactly what that entails, but I’ve seen enough news to know the only time a grand jury ever comes up, it’s because some blue-suit shot a black man and the government wanted to pretend they actually gave a shit. Never ended in nothing but black boy on the news, hood up, some report about how he smoked some flower in seventh grade. I’ve done so much worse.
“So I’m on trial?” I ask.
Marsha breathes in, talks out with her breath. “You have to understand that a grand jury isn’t a trial. It’s what comes before one. If the jury decides to indict, then they’re basically saying they think there’s enough of a reason to have a trial. So, there’ll be no arrest and, even if there was, you shouldn’t be the one being arrested. You’re the key witness, so you’ll be the framing testimony. Like I said, this is high-profile, even though technically grand juries aren’t supposed to be public.”
“And in my case?”
Marsha bounces one of her heeled feet. “In your case, the media will make it so there is nothing private about this, except for what occurs in the courtroom. That is entirely private.” Marsha pauses. “Trafficking is a very serious offense, Kiara.”
“I ain’t been trafficked,” I spit back.
“Whatever you want to call it. You were a minor and they are full-grown men with authority.”
The blue in the room is getting louder with every word coming out Marsha’s mouth. I shut my eyes for a couple seconds, hoping that when I open them the room will be a pink or a yellow or anything less sunken than the strange blue walls and the keep calm and carry on framed poster.
I open my eyes, the blue still blasting, and now the nausea is returning heavy, pizza threatening to show itself again. My face must be giving me away because Marsha asks if I’m okay and I ask her if the door to the patio opens and I think she says yes, don’t really care either way, I stumble toward the door and pull on it until it releases and I’m out over the ledge of the patio, looking down to the bay below.
If there’s an opposite of seasick, I think that’s what the bay does to me: everything stills the moment the scent of salt hits me, ocean breeze wrapped around my exposed waist, wind exacerbating the knots in my hair. It ain’t that I feel free, but I feel home. Probably more home than I do anywhere else, which is ironic ’cause it’s blue too, and I know I’d drown the moment the waves took me in.
Marsha follows me out, asks if I’m okay a couple more times, but I don’t have the energy to respond to her yet. I open my mouth enough that the bay-infused air can touch my tongue. I want to taste it, know the bay exists beyond any of this. Don’t matter if everything else caves in tomorrow, the bay will still be here, will still taste like salt and dirt and wood from boats that carried too many bodies.
I look for the ships down there, spot one passing beneath the Bay Bridge. I imagine somewhere in there a girl just like Clara with hair blacker than Alé’s or Lexi from Demond’s party, small and shaking, is pressed between stacks of cargo. The sound of water, waves, thrashing; the only constant.
And here I am, above water. I think about what Alé said to me, how I chose this and Clara didn’t and somehow I’m here and she’s gone and the world just ain’t fair. Death is always a possibility in the streets, but it didn’t feel real until now, knowing Alé could’ve been planning her sister’s funeral and I am simply a reminder of what might have happened to her.
The least I can do is be grateful to still be breathing. If I’m lucky enough to not be submerged, then maybe Marcus can be lucky enough, too. I turn back to Marsha, who is awkwardly standing and watching me.
“What about my brother?” I ask. None of it matters if I can’t have Marcus back and, without Uncle Ty, I have no other strings to pull. I need to get him back, so that he can do things different, be better.
Marsha takes a minute to look out at the water, joins me by the ledge. “This looks worse for the department than they’re going to let you know. If we play our cards right, we can use your brother as leverage, like a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” I’ve entered too many negotiations that ended in my pockets empty, chest a tight knot, exposed.
Marsha smiles. “That’s the fun part. We have the power here. They’re going to try to make you feel like they do, but you aren’t the one with everything at stake.”
Feels like I am.
“And what if I decide not to testify?”
“They’re going to subpoena you whether you like it or not, so you won’t have a choice about being there. The only thing you have control over is what you say.”
“What if I lie?”