Chapter 3
“Luz,” Letty said. “Why do you have such short skirts?” Letty sat perched on the footboard of her sister’s bed, eight years old and dying to be exactly like her.
“Because I have perfect Lex,” Luz replied without hesitation, never taking her eyes off of her reflection, touching up the hookeriffic red that stained her lips.
“Do you have perfect nalgitas, too?” Let asked. “Because, when you bend over, I can see those too.”
Luz laughed aloud and came to where Letty sat, kissing her with a loud smack, leaving a set of fire-engine red lips on Let’s cheek.
“Yeah, chulita. My whole body is perfect. How you think I got Enrique?”
Letty had never forgotten the way Luz had cried when they’d left Puerto Rico and, consequently, Enrique, behind. Luz had been fifteen, Letty almost nine, their mother dead, and they’d ended up in Los Angeles with Luz’s father, Quino. In less than a year, Quino’s crackhead girlfriend, Keisha, had given birth to Ruben. She’d been arrested when Ruben was six weeks old, for possession with intent to distribute, doped up bigger than shit and completely convinced that she wasn’t on anything and had never done drugs in her life. They’d sent her away to an asylum for detox and therapy, and she’d never come back. She’d been released years ago, but had then disappeared.
So Quino had been stuck with all of them. And by all of them, there was Luz (his by Aurelia Linares), Letty (not related to him in any way, shape or form), and Ruben (his by Keisha Thompson). He was an asshole of the utmost degree, Quino, and Luz had escaped on her 18th birthday. The sense of abandonment this had given Letty was ever-present and had endured. She had become and had remained Quino’s whipping boy, his scapegoat, on the receiving end of constant unprovoked abuse of varying degrees of severity. But Letty wasn’t going to leave when she turned 18. She had to protect Ruben. She wouldn’t let him take her place at the post.
Luz looked exhausted. Her entire body was glazed over with a glittery film of perspiration, and her pulse was visible at the base of her throat. Scrappy bangs hung damp against her forehead, her wide, almost innocent eyes fixed with a dark determination on the mirrored wall before her. She was perfect; long and slender, encased from knee-to-ankle in thick black legwarmers, every subtle curve and contour of her trim torso traced by a black sleeveless leotard, long arms bare, graceful neck stretched, proud chin held high, hair in a tight bun. She stood en pointe, wordlessly raking her reflection with an unforgivingly cold criticism.
Letty said nothing, waiting, as usual, for acknowledgment, leaning with her back against the closed studio door, arms folded over her chest in black leather pants and a black wifebeater, black combat boots. Luz took a deep breath, executed a broad pirouette to gain momentum, and launched herself into the air. Letty winced at the sight of her sister’s legs, spread at a 180-degree angle in the air. Luz stumbled on the landing and growled out a fairly un-ballerina-like exclamation of self-disgust, then whirled to face Letty.
“I quit,” she spat, and Let smiled wryly.
“Sure you do.”
Luz dropped to the hardwood studio floor and tore her shoes off, chucking them clear across the room, where they landed, ribbons in disarray, beneath the barre. Luz answered her smile, the frustration fading from her features. Letty felt a pang of jealousy at her sister’s delicate prettiness, but shoved the sentiment aside, sauntering into the room as Luz wiggled her bare, bruised and bunioned feet.
“Occupational hazard,” Luz grinned, and Let held out her calloused hands.
“Know what you mean.”
“Dance with me, Leticia,” Luz said, with a soft smile. “Vente, baila conmigo.”
“I’m a mechanic now, Lucesita. I can’t dance anymore.”
“The fuck you can’t. Lose those ridiculous boots.”
Letty grumbled, but obeyed, coming to stand behind her sister as Luz rose to her feet once more. Let wiped her hands awkwardly on her thighs and then, as the song started, echoed her sister’s movements, making a mess of the first few steps, but her reluctant feet found some semblance of a rhythm, and the smile on her sister’s face was beautiful, making the struggle worth it. When the music ended, Letty took a deep, dramatic bow, and Luz laughed.
“You dance like a mechanic, Let.”
“No shit.”
“Or a soldier.”
“Ha ha.”
“It’s all the muscle. Look at you. You look like you just got out of boot camp.”
“Dom Toretto’s ‘I’m too cheap to hire any help’ boot camp.”
“I can’t believe you’re still with that asshole.”
“Come on, Luz. He’s not an asshole.”
“He is an asshole. How many times has he cheated on you now? Six? Seven?”
“Once, thankyouverymuch.”
“That you know of.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about Dominic, Luz.”
“All right. Shoot.”
Letty had to smile. Luz’s accent was tons heavier than her own. Sometimes she was barely understandable.
“I’m gonna be 18.”
“Yeah.”
“But Ruben’s only nine, and I don’t want to leave him there with Quino.”
“You don’t really have a choice, you know.”
“I think I might go to SS next time he hits me.”
“Oh, no you don’t. He will go to jail if you do that.”
“And?” Letty sat down and wrestled her feet back into her boots.
“And he’s not perfect, but he doesn’t deserve to be in jail.”
“Luz, they don’t put people in jail for no reason. If he doesn’t deserve to go to jail, he won’t go there.”
“He’s a shit, no doubt, but he puts food on the table, makes sure you two have clothes to wear. You turn in Quino, and they’ll send Ruben to a foster home in Compton and he’ll have to share a bedroom with sixteen other kids.”
“And if Quino doesn’t kick me out, and I stay there, Ruben watches his dad beat the shit out of me everyday. And if I leave, Quino beats the shit out of Ruben, instead.”
“Did you ask Dominic if Ruben could stay with him? I mean, with you guys? That’s where you want to move, right?”
“Dom’s house is no place for a little kid, Luz. And all those people are not gonna change just because my kid brother’s there. And Dom would resent me for it…” Letty held her head in her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. “Fuck, I don’t know what to do.” Let could feel her sister’s eyes on her, but Luz was silent. She sat still for a long moment, then grunted in supreme, agonized frustration and got to her feet.
“Leaving?” Luz asked.
“Yeah,” Let said softly. “Something you’re used to.” She stalked out and slammed the studio door behind her.
The foul mood stayed with her for the walk back to Dominic’s house,
and when she got there, he was nowhere to be found. The resident sixteen-year-old
boy genius sat zoning in front of the television with a game controller
in his hand.
“Where’s Dom, Jess,” Letty said, and he shrugged. “We were supposed to go and look at a car.” She looked at her watch. It was five p.m. He’d wanted to leave at five p.m. “Where’s he at.”
“I don’t know, Let.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“I wasn’t here when he left.”
“Where’s Vince and Leon?” She headed into the kitchen, her eyes scanning the cupboard doors and the refrigerator for a post-it note.
“They went with him.”
“So he just fuckin’ ditches me? Wait a minute. How do you know they went with him if you weren’t here when he left?”
“Leon told me he was going with Dom this afternoon.”
“Where did he say they were going?”
“Didn’t I just tell you I don’t know where they went?” Jesse turned around and looked at her, his eyes barely open, just slits underneath swollen, heavy lids.
“You have smoked yourself stupid again, haven’t you.”
“I’ll share if you don’t tell.” He flashed a lopsided grin, and Letty sighed, licking her lips and frowning as she struggled to decide. Dom didn’t like her stoning, and she had to be home at a decent hour…Fuck Dom. He’d ditched her. And fuck Quino, too. Finally she smiled and sat cross-legged next to him. He passed over his baggy, dipped no doubt from the stash he was supposed to move that week, and a pack of Zig-zags.
“Where’s your Zippo at?” she asked, scanning the floor around him as she licked the edge of her paper and set it on her knee. He fumbled around and found it as she packed the paper and rolled her joint.
“You got beautiful technique,” he said, taking the joint from her and turning it over in his hand. “Big old fatty. Niiiice.”
She laughed and snatched it back from him, holding it between her thumb and forefingers, pinning it between her lips.
“Light me up, bro.”
Stoned out of her mind, she lay back into the carpet and stared at the ceiling fan, watching it whir before her eyes, her depth perception skewed by the drug, and she reached up, completely convinced that she’d be able to touch it. It looked as if it were only a few inches from her nose. She was vaguely aware of Jesse laughing at her, but she didn’t care, enthralled by the spinning wonder of the fan above her. That fascination, however, was interrupted by intense marijuana-induced hunger, and she staggered to her feet, mellow and loving it, her irritation with Dominic forgotten. She found the makings for rum and cokes in the kitchen, drank down a few of those like Kool-Aid, and blacked out on the couch.
“You pissed at me?”
The voice came to her as if from underwater, and she became vaguely aware of the fact that there was someone lying on top of her, touching her face.
“What?” She jumped, shoving at whoever it was squashing her, and struggled to focus bleary, mattered eyes.
“You pissed at me?” It was Dominic, smiling down at her, and he kissed her. She relaxed then, trying to stretch beneath him.
“I was. But I got high, so it’s all…It’s okay. Wait.” She cringed. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
“It’s okay. Jesse gave himself away anyway.” Dom pointed to his right, and Letty followed his gesture, looking at Jess, who was snoring, sprawled helter-skelter across the floor, clutching a bag of Cheetos in one hand and what was left of his weed in the other. “I’m takin’ him off the roster. He’s losing me all kinds of money. I’m not pissed. My own damn fault for putting a 16-year-old to work.” Letty nodded, trying to process what he was saying, but her mind was still foggy.
“Where were you?”
“Just out.”
She opened her mouth to ask another question, but was cut off by a deep, hard kiss, his tongue against hers, and she reached up to hold his face in her hands as he dicked around with his drawers and a condom. She wasn’t particularly aroused, but she knew how it worked with him…His desire for her came in spurts: Hot and heavy, rugged and raw for a week and then nothing for the rest of the month. She would never turn him down, because she wasn’t sure how long this fuck would have to last her.
She broke off his kiss and managed to gasp a word, “Jesse?”
“He’s down for the count. He’ll never know the difference.”
She could hear people rustling around in the kitchen, Vince and Leon’s voices, fading in her haze.
“Wanna see what’s on Spice?”
“Can’t. There’s live Spice goin’ on in there. Let’s go do vidz upstairs.”
Letty had to laugh at that as Dom sat back on his heels and pulled her pants down and off of her, wrestling with her boots and discarding everything, then breathing shakily against her upper lip as he came toward her, kissing her even as he hitched her legs up over his shoulders, his hands resting on her knees. She watched his eyes roll back and his brow furrow as he pressed into her, and she bit her lower lip, letting her chin go up, one arm gripping the armrest above her head, the other hanging over the side of the sofa. Dom said nothing as he thrust into her, neither fast nor slow, not gentle or rough, just in between, just deliberate pushes and heavy breathing, his mouth on her chest, and, as usual, it didn’t take long for her to come, her hands going to his head and her body going rigid, and when she opened her eyes again, he was grinning and watching her. He let her legs fall then, down his torso, and she wrapped them around his waist, her arms going around his neck, holding onto him until he came in a rhythmless, bucking frenzy.
When his heartbeat slowed, and he was breathing normally again, he brushed his knuckles down the side of her face and sat back on his knees, peeling the condom off of him and hiking up his pants.
“I’ma go flush this,” he said. “Wanna do me a favor and roll me one?”
“Somethin’ wrong with your hands?” she asked, feeling heavy and lazy.
“No one rolls ‘em like you, Let,” he grinned, nudging her, and she smiled, shoving her legs into her pants and wrenching Jesse’s bud from his hand.
“I’m gifted, that’s why.”
Dominic headed up the stairs to the bathroom, and Letty stilled shaky hands enough to get the J rolled for him, and when he came back, chest gleaming from his recent exertion, he took it from her.
“Thank you, baby.”
“My pleasure.”
“Got a meeting here tomorrow night, so don’t plan nothin’.”
“I won’t,” Letty said, determined and somber. “I wouldn’t miss it.”