Chapter Seven
Ring, Ring
It’s almost midnight, and I’m standing in front of a pay phone. There are few pay phones left in Detroit, but Dizzy taught me how to find them. This one has a booth, but I’m afraid to go inside. Even though I love pay phones with booths. Even though they remind me of old black-and-white movies where the hero sweeps a well-groomed girl off her feet after one fated call.
Even then.
I’m not sure what this woman wants with me, but I’ve spent ten months with Dizzy, and before that was an expanse of Nothing. I can’t think about the Nothing. I can’t let myself remember my life before I lived on the streets. Because remembering will make Wilson happy. And when Wilson is happy, bad things happen.
Correction: I appear when bad things happen. Doesn’t mean I cause them. Well, not always.
I shake my head, and an image comes to me as it has several times today. Dizzy screaming inside his cell. Dizzy rocking back and forth, people touching his hair, his face, his stomach. Greg can’t help; his store hardly makes enough to stay in business. And there’s no way anyone will hire me without transportation and identification and a second set of shoes. So I go inside the booth and salvage the card from my pocket.
I insert fifty cents into the phone and push the buttons.
My heart is in my ears. I can hear it beating louder than ever before, because it’s right there in my ears. I pray the phone will ring and ring, give me time to back out. But someone picks up right away.
“Hello?”
It’s her. It’s Ms. Karina.
I don’t speak.
I hear the sound of a lamp being flipped on. She takes a deep breath. I imagine the oxygen leaving her lungs filling me up. “I’m glad you called.”
She must know it’s me, but I still don’t speak.
“I know it’s frightening to leave behind the familiar for the unexpected, but you are so very brave. The girls at my home will adore you, and we’ll make sure you always have something warm to eat.”
My stomach growls imagining these warm things.
“As I said last night, you’ll have to work hard. This isn’t charity.”
I like that. Does she know I like that? I should say something, but I can’t. Even though it’s ninety degrees outside, I’m frozen solid.
“You are talented, and it’s a shame no one noticed how special you are.”
That’s not true. My father noticed. I can’t think of him, though.
“Come and live with me, okay?” Her voice is honey, and I want to drink it down. “Domino?”
That’s what seals the deal. Her saying my name like that. Like she’s heard a million names before mine but never spoken one so lovely.
I swallow. “Okay.”
“Oh, good. That’s wonderful.” She sounds truly happy, and I have to stop the twinge of hopefulness working its way inside. “I could pick you up near the same alley we met in yesterday?”
“What about money?” I ask, remembering Dizzy. “How soon would I get paid after I started working?”
Ms. Karina pauses. “That all depends on you. There are plenty of different jobs available. The longer and harder you work, the more you’ll earn. We can discuss the details of what will be expected of you when you arrive at my home, but you won’t be asked to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”
I have more questions for her but decide they’re pointless. I’m going. I don’t have a better choice if I want to bail Dizzy from jail. She says if I work hard and put in long hours, I’ll earn quickly. And that’s what I need. Because every day Dizzy is in jail is a day he’s suffering.
And a day I’m alone.
I squeeze the phone. “I’ll meet you outside the alley.”
An hour later, I arrive at my destination. The gold sedan is already parked outside, and there’s a second car parked in front of that one. The second car looks like a demon—chrome teeth, chrome claws. It’s sleek and black and glistens in the streetlights. The huge, way-too-serious boy I saw last night steps out of the driver side and walks around the car. He doesn’t look in my direction.
After he opens the backseat door, Ms. Karina appears. She wears a cautious smile, arms folded over her middle. Even from here, I can tell she’s tired. A sliver of guilt courses through me for calling so late.
Somewhere in the distance, a train releases a mournful choo, choo. Almost immediately, my shoulders loosen. I love trains. I love their sturdy engines and rusted cars. I love the steadiness at which they chug along and how they seem to be going slow until you get right up close.
But the sound is best. I respect a machine that gives fair warning while it’s still far away. When something is that powerful, that dangerous, it’s only right that people have time to flee. Here I come, it says as it screams down the tracks. Give me room!
“Come, dear,” Ms. Karina says.
I come.
My footsteps echo off the sidewalk. As I approach the car, the man-boy opens the backseat door on the opposite side. Before I step inside, I glance over the hood at Ms. Karina. “I’ll need to go by my place and get my stuff.”
“You’ll get new stuff once you arrive,” a new voice says. I glance at the gold sedan parked behind us and see White Shirt guy. He’s swinging keys around his pointer finger like he’s in a hurry.
“If she wants her things, she’ll get her things,” Ms. Karina snaps.
The guy straightens and then shrugs. “I’ll follow you, then.”
Ms. Karina looks in my direction. “Eric can be quite impatient, but I want you to be comfortable. Shall we?” She motions toward the inside of the vehicle.
Glancing around, I take in Detroit in all its gristly glory—the city of motors and lions and brute determination. I didn’t grow up here, but it was home for a little while. A better home than I’ve had in the past.
I sit down in the car, and the smell of leather hits my nose. The interior is dark and stiff, and the cup holders contain a glass bottle of orange pop and a plastic tub of gumdrops.
Who are all these people? Wilson asks. I don’t trust them.
You don’t trust anyone, I hiss, before remembering that replying only encourages him.
“Where to?” Ms. Karina asks.
It’s been so long since I’ve been in a car. I want to touch everything at once. Instead, I tell her where my place is, and the boy in the front seat kicks the beast into drive. It travels down the road like a ghost, feet off the ground, and by the time we make it to the abandoned house I don’t want to get out. But I do anyway, gathering my wigs, body jewelry, and makeup from upstairs. I’m too embarrassed to bring any of my other stuff.
The last thing I do is leave a note for Dizzy. If he somehow escapes (he won’t), or talks his way out of jail (he might), then I want him to know how to contact me.
Diz,
I’m going with a woman who says she’ll give me a job. I’ll earn enough cash to get you out of jail, and then come back. If you get this, and I’m still gone, call Greg. I’ll keep in touch with him.
Domino
I leave the paper on the couch. It’s hard to refrain from adding more to the letter. Like how I’m feeling with him gone. Or how I wonder if he’d do the same for me if the tables were turned.
Though I think about it, I don’t tell the house good-bye. This isn’t my real house, not like the one I’ll have when I get enough money. So I just grab a T-shirt of Dizzy’s on my way out and return to the idling vehicles.
Giant Boy opens my door again.
“Thank you,” I say to his two-layered eyes.
He doesn’t respond, but I don’t miss the way his muscles tighten. I wonder if, when he works out, he uses these cars as bench-press weights. Black one on the right side of the bar, gold one on the left. Three sets of eight reps and he’s all warmed up.
I step inside, and the door softly closes.
My makeup and jewelry is balled in Dizzy’s T-shirt, but my wigs spill across my lap in a disheveled rainbow. Ms. Karina eyes them and smiles. She seems pleased that this is what I needed to retrieve.
“Let’s go, Cain,” she says to the boy.
Cain.
I let that name sit on my tongue like a peppermint. It burns with flavor.
Cain pulls out onto the road and, behind us, the gold sedan follows along. I lie back on the headrest and look up at the stars. It’s early morning now, but it’ll be hours before the sun rises.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly.
“Texas,” she responds. “West Texas.”
My heart leaps at this news. I figured we might travel some, but Texas is a million states away. How will I get back? How will I get the money to Dizzy? And what was Ms. Karina doing here if she lives in Texas? Something about this whole thing unsettled me since the first moment I saw her in the alley, but now I’m almost ready to bolt.
Almost.
I wonder what’s in west Texas. I’ve never been to the state before, but I’ve heard it’s big and flat. And friendly. I think I heard somewhere that people in Texas are friendly. And I know for a fact that it’s even farther from my past, which is endlessly enticing.
“Have a jelly.” Ms. Karina offers the plastic cup of gumdrops. I’m not ready to accept any kindness from this woman, but my mouth waters seeing the crystals of sugar clinging to the candies. I choose a green one. When she holds out the soda, I take that, too. Both treats taste like childhood. Like pajamas with feet and cartoons on Sunday and my father’s arm around my shoulders.
It tastes incredible.
And it makes me forget my concerns.
For the next twenty hours, we travel. We stop once at a hotel and sleep for a few hours. But mostly I feel as if I’m asleep the entire journey. The realization that I’m moving farther away from Dizzy twists my stomach, and it makes me tired. My eyelids are heavy, and my chest rises and falls slowly. I’m walking through a field of REM-blossoms. I gather them into my arms, all the colors of the world right here at my fingertips. Look how much sleep I’m holding. Enough to feed an army of insomniacs.
Wake up, Domino, Wilson urges.
But it’s too hard.
Ms. Karina offers me sandwiches if I get hungry, and always the jellies. One after another, gumdrops in my mouth.
Sometimes when I don’t even want them.
At some point Ms. Karina says my name directly, like maybe she’s said it more than once. “We’re almost there, Domino. Are you excited?”
I push myself up, and the woman offers me a new drink. Water, I think. I gulp it down, ravenous after so much tart orange soda. I put the bottle down in the cup holder and glance outside. The ground is impossibly flat with knobby oak trees peppering the landscape. A heavy sun hangs in a cloudless sky, and I can practically see the heat vibrating across the land. Cain navigates our car down a narrow unpaved road toward a manual fence. When we get close, he hops out to unlatch the thing. It groans as he pushes it open, his triceps flexing against the weight.
Cain runs a hand over his shaved head as he walks back. I try to catch his eye, but he won’t have it.
“Did you hear me?”
I turn to look at Ms. Karina.
“I asked you a question. I need you to answer when I ask you questions.” Her voice is sharper than I’ve heard it in the past.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Yes, I’m excited.”
Her face relaxes, and she smiles like it’s perfectly okay. I like it when she smiles at me that way.
Cain shuts the door and pulls the car through the gate, and the woman waves an arm toward the windshield. “This is it, Domino. Madam Karina’s Home for Burgeoning Entertainers. Isn’t it spectacular?”
PART II
DOMINO’S RULES
FOR LIVING IN A GROUP HOME
Remember why you’re there, and how to get out.
Keep your head down and your mouth shut.
Don’t be afraid to make enemies.
Make yourself useful.
Claim your space.