Across from where
Rio
was floating was a perfect view of the back of the mammoth home, the D.J., and the keg.
He
watched the students
in
line for their beers. Sierra continued to hang on him. He petted her body while watching the back of the house. He saw two of Brittany’s cheerleader friends in the
kegg
e
r
line, and then saw Brittany exit the back door and cut in line. She wore her signature high-heeled sandals and daisy dukes.
Rio
couldn’t see her face. It was turned towards her friends as she waited in line. He felt rage.
Trying to focus on the present instead of the past, he grabbed Sierra by her little hips and pulled her to the wall of the pool. She annoyingly giggled. He pressed up against her and passionately kissed her. Her eyes were closed, but his were fixed onto Brittany.
Brittany seemed unaware he was even at the party
.
Reaching under the water,
Rio
pulled off his underwear and then pulled off
Sierra’s
. He pushed himself inside of her and
thrusted
. She moaned. Both were unconcerned they were having sex in plain sight of the party.
Rio
hoped Brittany would turn her head and see him humping Sierra in the pool. And if she didn’t see them, then at least hear others talking about it. People walked by the pool, making comments and laughing.
“Real classy,
Rio
and Sierra!” Bart shouted from across the pool. He threw a Nerf football at
Rio
in between heaves and missed. “Now we’ll have to drain the pool.” He, Kathleen, and
others gathered
closer to watch
them
.
Some took out their phones and recorded them.
Rio
kept humping away and Sierra kept moaning to a level that almost seemed like a performance. Then
Rio
tingled. Ecstasy soon enveloped his every nerve. He felt so alive. Joining Sierra in her chorus of moans, they attracted even more attention. As he
ejaculated, he sighed, “Brittany!” Only it wasn’t Brittany, it was Sierra. And it would never be Brittany again.
Chapter 30
Leah sat in her car and counted out her windfall of tips. It was 3:00 a.m. and her shift at The Dollhouse had just ended. The evening proved to be her most lucrative to date. Was it her new cowgirl outfit? Wealthier patrons? Did her dancing improve? She wished she knew exactly why she made more than double. She had plenty to stash away without Pete knowing.
She took $500 and slid it in a hole underneath her driver’s seat and got out of the car.
The bulb next to the front door shone like a spotlight on a dozen beer bottles, an overflowing ashtray, and an almost empty bottle of Early Times. She turned off the light and went inside.
Jake’s bedroom door was shut. Leah assumed he was asleep and checked on
Rhianna
. The little girl looked like a cherub with her blonde curls, pink skin, and thumb slightly stuck in her mouth. Leah looked at her own bed, surprised to see that it was empty.
“Hmmm,” Leah uttered. She went outside and double-checked Pete’s car parked on the other side of the trailer.
Gone for a walk? Drinking with a neighbor? Met someone new and left me for good? Quit dreaming. Maybe an old friend picked him up…
Her instincts sensed something was very wrong.
“Jake, you up? I need to talk to you,” Leah said as she knocked on his door. Nothing. Her knocks turned into pounds. “I’m breaking down the door if you don’t open it!” Leah kicked the bottom of the door and frantically twisted the locked doorknob. Click.
“What’s the matter?” Jake asked as he opened the door.
“You know where Pete is? His car’s here.” Leah’s tone had a manic edge to it. The last time Pete didn’t come home her brother died and he was arrested.
“Don’t know,” Jake replied. His eyes nervously fluttered.
Leah thought she was scaring him. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “I’m sorry for waking you in the middle of the night. I must look like a crazy woman. Look, when did you last see Pete?”
“After you left for work. He wanted a ride in my new car so I drove him around the trailer park. He wanted to drink more beers, but I told him I was too tired and went to bed. He sat alone outside when I last saw him,” Jake answered.
Leah backed away from his door and sat on the living room couch. “I’m worried. Did someone call? Any cars stop by?” Jake shrugged. “Go back to sleep. You’ve got school in a few hours.”
Leah made a pot of coffee and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. She grabbed a romance novel she had bought several months ago and opened it for the first time. Hours went by and still no Pete.
By 6:00 a.m. she woke Jake for school.
Rhianna
joined them at the breakfast table, and they ate cereal in silence. Once finished, Leah cleared the table.
“
Rhi
, could you go get the mail for me? I forgot yesterday,” Leah asked. She wanted her daughter out of the house for a moment.
Rhianna
slipped on her sandals and went outside.
“I’m
gonna
have to call the police. Now you’ve said some things…You
wanna
tell me something new, now’s the time,” Leah pointedly stated.
“No,” Jake said. “I have no idea what happened. I’m not
gonna
pretend that I’m sorry he’s gone. I hate the son-of-a-bitch. But you saw firsthand how nice he was to me last night.”
“
Ahhh
, but then I left. It all could’ve turned to shit,” Leah said.
“Well, it didn’t. Like I said before, I went to bed. I have no idea what happened to him. And I hope he never comes back. So go report him missing. Good riddance,” Jake unapologetically remarked.
Rhianna
came back into the trailer with an armload of mail. Leah thought Jake was hiding something. He grabbed his backpack and headed for the bus stop. For now, the conversation was over. Later on she planned on reporting Pete as missing, but he wouldn’t be missed
.
***
The day after Pete’s death, Lucien woke up feeling better than he could remember. He put on a track suit and headed to the nearby grocery store. The weather was perfect.
He placed two leather scrapbooks and some food on the conveyor belt of the checkout line and waited to pay his bill. As the cashier scanned his groceries, he felt the sudden urge to buy a Marlboro Lights. He had her throw a carton and a lighter onto his bill. The craving unnerved him. He never smoked cigarettes, only pipes.
He settled with the cashier and asked for $50 of quarters. She handed him five rolls. He walked outside and approached the pay phone at the end of the store’s entrance. Setting his bags down, he opened the carton, lit a cigarette, and then dialed a phone number he hadn’t dialed in years. He still knew it by heart and hoped it wasn’t disconnected.
The phone rang and a recording demanded $19. Lucien dropped the quarters into the slot. The number belonged to a family owned pharmacy in Port-au-Prince. An unfamiliar male voice answered.
“Bonjour.”
“Bonjour,
is
Giselle
Truveau
there
?” Lucien asked in
English
.
The unfamiliar male voice replied, “Hold on.” He shouted
in French
away from the phone receiver. Lucien could hear his muffled voice calling for Giselle.
“How can I help you?” Giselle questioned as she spoke into the phone.
Lucien’s eyes welled with tears. He still recognized her voice. Giselle would now be in her late sixties. He wasn’t sure if she was sixty-eight or sixty-nine years old. She was the only one of his children who still talked to him when he called. He took a long drag off of his smoke and spoke to her in French.
“Giselle! Papa. I didn’t know…so you still have the pharmacy. I’m alive, still in the U.S. Did everyone survive the earthquake?” A long pause followed his questions. “Giselle?”
“Yes, I’m here. Just in shock. It’s been a long time…I know you have to be careful, the danger you face by calling…We all figured you were dead. You must be a hundred by now,” Giselle said.
“Almost. But my time
has ran out
. I doubt I will see my next birthday. Please tell me everyone survived,” Lucien said.
“I wish I could. Pierre, his wife, Vivienne, her first born, and her only daughter didn’t make it. Rene, Jean-Paul, Dominique, Francis, they were saved under piles of rubble. Olivia, Marguerite, and their families are still missing. And Danielle, did you know she passed away last year?”
Lucien sobbed. Danielle was his first wife. A few minutes went by with Giselle catching him up with his family’s survival. A recorded message rang in his ear, demanding more quarters. Lucien threw another fifteen dollars of change into the phone.
“What about money? How are you all making ends meet?” Lucien asked.
“You know very well that money has always been tight. I have no success stories to share. All of us are
either
poor or really poor,” Giselle answered. He could hear the bitterness in her voice. When he left Haiti, he took all of their money with him, leaving them penniless and shamed with a notorious father wanted for murder and many other crimes.
“Listen, I’m almost out of change. I’m glad the pharmacy is still open. I’m sending a boy in the beginning of June to deliver you an envelope. It’s your inheritance of sorts. Please share it with your siblings, your children, and your mothers. This should solve your money problems, maybe even make you wealthy. I want you to know how much I regret the things I’ve done. But I love you. I love all of you. I wish things were different. May we meet again in the Cosmos. Goodbye,” Lucien said and hung up the phone, devastated.
He suddenly sensed that was
the last time he would ever talk to her.
Chapter 3
1
Jake left for school full of apprehension. He wasn’t ready to tell Leah about what happened to his uncle; she’d never believe Pete was about to kill him and a wolf appeared out of thin air to save the day. Jake wasn’t sure if he believed it and he saw it happen. Then there were the comments he made about wanting Pete dead. She wouldn’t forget that. It was obvious she doubted his story. He feared she would blame him. Besides, if he told her, it would violate the oath he had taken, the oath of the
Bizango
brotherhood.
After school, Jake went to Lucien’s trailer without Henry. He had questions the old man needed to answer. There was Lucien sitting in a plastic chair on the lawn in front of his enclosed porch. He was smoking a cigarette.
“Sick of the pipe?” Jake asked as he approached.
“Something new,” Lucien answered.
“Henry’s got a dentist appointment and will come over with me tomorrow,” Jake said.
“Good, good. I went to the store today and bought some scrapbooks, a copy for you and a copy for Henry. I’m going to write down everything I know - spells, poppets, possessions, healings…everything and more. Some of it will be coded. Once I’m finished, I’ll show you both how to read it,” Lucien said. “If something happens
before I finish…if
I die, you can find the books in my armoire in the bedroom. Don’t let anyone else get these books. They are…important.”
Jake didn’t understand the precaution. He also didn’t understand how Lucien looked, healthier and younger than when he first met him. “You dying? You sure don’t look it. You look
old but not really old like you did
a few months ago.”
“Ah, today I’ll live, but I don’t know about tomorrow. Pull up a chair. You look like you’ve got something to say,” Lucien said.
Jake went to the side of the trailer where a few lawn chairs were stored. He carried one over by the front porch and sat down by Lucien. “You’re right. I do have something to say, or actually ask.”
“Let me get us a couple of Cokes. And then you can tell me what’s on your mind,” Lucien suggested. He sprang out of his seat like a ten-year old with ADD and ran into the trailer. Within seconds, he returned and handed Jake a cold can of Coke.
“As you know, I’ve got a lot of problems. Some are more
serious.
And you’ve always been like a grandfather to me.
Actually, more like a father.
I need to know who you are. Or what you are. Was it you last night? Did you save me?” Jake stuttered. Lately he wasn’t sure of the old man’s intentions. Something in his gut, instinct perhaps, told him that Lucien was not what he seemed.
Lucien stared at him with his mesmerizing hazel eyes, yet seemed so far away. Jake made the connection. The wolf, Lucien, both had to be one in the same. But how? He watched him gulp down the whole can of Coke and then light another cigarette.