Lani started laughing. ‘It’s to clean out your mouth!’
That one mouthful made me feel sick. It prickled in my throat like an acid or something. I put my head on the ground. An old cigarette touched my cheek.
‘Adi’s not coming back,’ Coco said.
‘What are you talking about?’ I said into the grass.
There was a push in my gut then my throat, as if I were really going to vomit. ‘She’s dead,’ Coco said. Lani started to laugh, her sharp birdy laugh.
I closed my eyes, totally repulsed. Deep in my head I heard something snapping, one tiny wishbone broke in each ear.
I sat up, dizzy. Coco lit up. Lani was as blank as the clouds.
‘You guys, she’s not dead. She called me two days ago. Maybe three, I don’t remember.’
‘Oh my god, what’d she say?’ Coco passed me the joint. Lani perked up.
I sucked in harder than I’d ever sucked a joint. That toxic drink still crawled on my tongue.
‘She said she was, uh, sorry that she left, but she was trying to make a go of it somewhere else. I don’t know. I didn’t hear where. I wanted to know but I didn’t catch where she was. She said I shouldn’t tell anyone.’
‘That’s it?’
Coco took back the joint. Lani poked the dry ground.
‘Uh, she asked about Gio. She asked if I’d seen him.’
Lani and Coco stared at me. They knew he’d been to my room. My heart started beating too fast.
‘You should not have fucked him, Mira. That was fucking, fucking wrong!’
I rolled my eyes. I fucked her old lover. So what? She stole from me.
Coco helped Lani up from the grass, clutching her fat arm. They left linked together, whispering. I realized right then as I watched them go back to the club that Adi was more like them than like me. I saw right then the biggest difference between us. Adi wasn’t ever going to go home and neither would Lani or Coco. They wouldn’t leave here like I would one day. This was their life, their stuck, money-making lives. I knew that some girls could do things like fucking for cash and they could always go home, they could always feel new, but some girls do things and never escape – they fuck up their bodies, take drugs, sit in shit.
This was the line between me and Adi: the revolting line of inequality.
I put my forehead on the dead grass. Shame explored my shit-flung face.
It was early in the morning the next time Gio came.
‘Morning has broken,’ he said, at the bottom of my bed. He had a strange look. His eyelids were flickering.
God, why did I want to be with him so badly? Why did I wish that he would just climb into bed and get naked with me?
It sounded like Gio was humming for a second, like he was some old man letting it come out through his nose.
‘I’ll see you then, Mira … ’
‘You’re leaving?’
Gio walked to the door. ‘I will if you’re not downstairs in five.’
I didn’t have time to dress in anything good. I didn’t put on makeup and I didn’t brush my hair.
When I ran out back, Gio was standing beside a smallish white car. He opened the passenger door for me. I didn’t want to link up his car with that car.
The seats were covered with burlap and it smelled like gas inside. It had a bit of trouble starting, but once we got out onto the highway, everything seemed all right. We were driving east, away from the city. Both of us were quiet for a long time. I kept trying to think of something to say, but nothing seemed right. Maybe I felt Adi’s body sitting in my seat.