Didn’t you just pee on that end?

She showed up out of the blue a few days later. My very best friend. I turned around the bodega on the corner and saw her sitting on the sidewalk under the yellow-orange street lamp, next to a couple opaque rubbish bags from the nail salon next door. There was something white sticking from her mouth, bigger than a cigarette. A thermometer maybe. And she was holding an ice pack over her eye. It was fresh, which meant Abdul had probably given it to her. I could see him as I approached, peering out between the painted letters of the shop window, making sure the crazy white girl with the black eye was okay sitting alone on the street.

He raised a hand when he saw me coming.

“It’s all right,” I called through the glass. “I’ll take care of her.”

Abdul Suleiman was the 50-something owner of the Halal market under my flat, and my landlord. He had a sloping bald head with an arc of black stubble around the sides. I don’t want to stereotype anyone, but pretty much every time I saw him, he had a meat-stained frock hanging around his neck and a knife in his hand. I took that to mean he was pretty much working all the time.

Kell had her bangs pinned back and wore a colorful silk jersey jacket over a half-length Ninja Turtles T-shirt that showed off her flat stomach. Her sleeves were rolled, exposing the full-sleeve tattoos on her arms. She watched me approach, then stood.

“You’re wearing my jacket,” I said. I forgot I let her borrow it. Months ago, when the weather was cool even in the daytime.

She lowered the ice pack and I could see the shiner under her right eye. It didn’t look all that new.

“Do you have my sunglasses, too?” I hadn’t been able to find my favorite mirrored aviators. They were over-sized and made it seem like my eyes were huge. I loved them.

She pulled them from the jacket pocket and put them on. They reflected the yellow streetlight. I must have left them in the jacket.

I looked at the white plastic sticking from her mouth. It definitely wasn’t a thermometer. It was a pregnancy test.

I scoffed. “Didn’t you just pee on that end?”

She waggled it up and down with her tongue.

I swiped it and looked at the result.

Positive.

“He didn’t hit me,” she said. “Okay? I fucking freaked when I saw the result and hit my head on the toilet.”

She was still gorgeous, even with the bruise. Every time we got together, I was very aware of how not-gorgeous I was.

I got my keys and opened the heavy door between the market and the hair salon. She grabbed the plastic bags by their necks when she stood, and I realized they weren’t rubbish. They were her things. Not even all her things. Just some stuff she’d grabbed in a hurry.

She saw me looking and shrugged. “Got kicked out.”

I sighed.

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here,” she said softly. “Okay? Just say you haven’t heard from me or something. Promise?”

I pointed silently to the stairs and she walked up.

Abdul and his family lived above me, on the third floor. There were two studio units on the second. I had the one facing the alley in back. The other seemed to be in a constant state of renovation, which was fine with me. It meant I never ran into anyone. I think Abdul was holding it in the hopes that his 25-year-old son, Samir, would get married and move under his parents. I suspect they were in for a disappointment. On multiple fronts. Samir was a total player, and gay.

I watched my friend saunter up the stairs. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me. Sauntering. She had platinum blonde hair and looked sort of like a hipster Marilyn, with the same round hips but a narrower waist and ginormous eyes. And absolutely perfect skin, right down to the beauty mark over her full lips. And of course those boobs, which bulged casually out the side of everything she wore, like she just didn’t know what to do with them. She was the original femme fatale.

“It’s called a bra, bitch,” I said on the way up.

She raised a hand and flipped me off.

There was a strong light on the second-floor landing, and I grabbed her hand and turned it over. The ends of her nails were scuffed and the polish had been scraped off in a couple places near the tip. There was a thin brown hair — short, like a man’s — underneath one.

She pulled her hand away and scowled at me.

I could guess how it went. Kell told Lyman she was pregnant. He blamed her. Or something. They had a fight. Shouting and throwing things, knowing Kell. At some point, she took her claws to him. Probably got an ounce of flesh, too, before he hit back.

I stuck my key in the door. “I at least hope you got in a couple good ones.”

“You know it, bitch. That toilet didn’t see me coming.” She swung a mock punch.

“I thought you were gonna move out,” I said as we walked into my place.

“Please don’t lecture me, okay? Can you just be my friend tonight? You can be my mom tomorrow.”

It was a testament to our friendship that I didn’t have to tell her what a disaster my flat was. Let alone make excuses.

She stopped in the door and looked at the two-meter tall, unfinished paper-mache clitoris, complete with dimple and subcutaneous wings. “Sweet. This the new one?”

“I dunno,” I said, frowning at it. “I thought so. But now I think it’s just kinda cliche.”

My flat had one open space that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. It was heated by a radiator in the corner and cooled by a window-mounted AC that blocked one of the two windows at the back. Across from the front door was a narrow bedroom and closet-sized bathroom. I had an Ikea table, two chairs, a secondhand couch, and no TV. The carpet was littered with spray cans, boxes of markers, construction paper, stacks of newsprint, dirty dishes, clothes, and dozens of casually discarded shoes. And one giant clit.

“What are you gonna do with it?” she asked.

“I don’t know . . .” I sighed. “I don’t know anything anymore.” I took the bottle of Patron off the Ikea table and carried it to the kitchen nook, whose side wall was a kind of scrapbook of inspiration.

Kell dropped her plastic bags on the couch, tossed my silk jacket and sunglasses on top, and sat under the wall at the front. It was plastered in sketches and plans — some new, some old.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just, why am I doing all this if I’m not even brave enough to pull it off.” I removed the silverware drawer from its groove and reached into the gap underneath and took out a baggy. “Does it really count as art if I’m not taking any risks?”

She turned to the sketches on the wall behind her and ended up laying flat on the floor. “We’re a team, man.” She dug a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. “If I get arrested, I’m totally taking you down with me.”

“Yeah . . .” I took a bottle of sangria from the fridge and got a glass with ice. “Can I at least know what you’re doing for money these days? Or is that a mom question, too?”

She sat up with a grunt. Her loose, half-length shirt revealed the underside of her left breast. She inhaled the cig. “I’m hooking. Downtown.” She exhaled. “Outcall. Only the best. Make five grand a night.”

She looked up at the ceiling as she spoke, as if she were contemplating what that life would really be like.

“Cool,” I said. “Give me a loan?”

“Whatever. You’d make more than me, with that ass.”

“And no boobs? Please.” I walked over and handed her the drink. “One Dragon Ball Special.” Sangria, Red Bull, a shot of Patron, and an illegal pharmaceutical. On ice. I had an unlit joint between my fingers.

She snuffed her cigarette in a dry cereal bowl I’d left on the floor and took both. “You give alcohol to all the pregnant women you know?”

“Only the ones who smoke.”

She downed it in three gulps. “Yum. I forgot how good you are at that.” She shook the remnants of the drink in her hand. “How come you’re better than me at everything?” She lit the joint and dragged.

“Is that my invitation to the pity party?”

She thought in a visibly dramatic way, moving her head back and forth as she looked to the ceiling and put a finger to the corner of her lips. Then she nodded in the affirmative.

“Because I’m Asian,” I answered. She handed me the joint and I took it. I leaned against the wall and slid down it next to her. “And Asians are better at everything.” I took a hit.

She exhaled hers. “Jesus. That explains so much.”

I wrapped my arm under hers and rested my head on her shoulder. A long moment passed like that. She kicked the ice pack across the hardwood. It bounced off my purse and hit the big clit.

“Not what we thought, is it?” I asked rhetorically.

She knew what I meant. Life after art school. She took the joint from my hand. “I quit because of you.”

I sat up. “What?”

“I saw what you and Rey were doing and knew I could never be like that. So what was I going into all that debt for?”

I glared at her, but she wouldn’t return my gaze. “That’s stupid.” I yanked the joint back.

She exhaled and smiled. “It’s okay, though. I mean, it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you or anything. I used to think you were so cool.”

“Ha. Used to.”

“You know what I mean.”

“That’s funny seeing as how I was the one everyone tripped over in the rush to be friends with you.”

“To fuck me, you mean.” She fake-smiled. “Big difference.”

She put a hand to my cheek and I turned away. It makes me uncomfortable when people look at me closely. At my eyes. They don’t quite line up. My left is just a little crooked. Kell said that meant I could’ve been a runway model — because I had a beautiful imperfection. Never mind that I’m at least a foot and a half too short.

“You still haven’t told me about him,” she said.

“Who?” I feigned.

“Oh, whatever. I’ve only asked you like a hundred times.” She stood. “I don’t wanna talk here. Let’s go on the roof.”

I groaned and she grabbed my hand and pulled. We used to have so much fun sneaking up there. Back when we lived together. Before she moved out. To save our friendship. I couldn’t believe we used to live in that tiny place together. I looked at the rubbish bags on the couch. Apparently we were again.

I was excited.

I was terrified.

The great thing about having the flat facing the alley is that we could go out the window in the “kitchen” and step right onto the fire escape. From there, we could reach the roof without making hardly any noise. Abdul had told me repeatedly that I wasn’t allowed. But he never did anything. Other than get mad.

“It happened to me,” I blurted. I don’t even remember being conscious of thinking it. I just spoke and out it came. The truth.

Kell was sitting on the gravel with her back against the half-wall that surrounded the roof. There were metal braces bolted to it that held up the Halal market’s large yellow sign. Good for obstructing us from passersby. Man, we had so much fun up there.

She studied me, like she was trying to decide if I was telling the truth. “How come you never said?”

I shrugged.

I think that hurt her feelings.

Actually, I know it did.

“What did you do?”

“Went to the doctor. A traditional one. Not, like, a Western doctor. Kai’s uncle — ”

She sat up fast. “Is that his name? Kai?”

I nodded.

“Really?” She was like a kid with a new toy. “That’s so cool.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Kai. It just sounds cool.” She looked at my stomach. “So that was it? You popped a pill and . . . No more bun?”

“Ha! Hardly! Uncle Wen — he’s not really my uncle. That’s just what we called him. He was Kai’s sifu from when he was like six. But now he just does medicines and stuff. Like, a herbalist.”

“He gave you something?”

I nodded. I walked to the edge and peered over. The sidewalk below was dark, which meant the shop was closed and the lights were off.

“I was soooo sick. Shaking. Throwing up and stuff. Like, for days. And when it passed . . .” I looked down. “I thought I was gonna die.”

She looked out over the city for a minute before turning back to me. “Passed?”

“Yeah. What do you think happens?”

“I don’t know! I thought Nature had a way of just shuttin’ that whole thing down.”

I laughed. I pulled on the edge of the roof and leaned back. I lifted my feet on my heels and looked at the points of my toes.

“What are you gonna do?”

She rolled her head back and forth against the wall. There was an unlit cig between her fingers. She was fondling it.

“Are you gonna keep it?”

“I just need time,” she said under her breath.

“Kell — ”

“Just a couple days. Okay, mom?” She wasn’t looking at me. “A couple days.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Just . . . no more alcohol? Okay? Party’s over. At least until you figure it out.” I waited for a response. “Please?”

She broke the cigarette in half and threw it over the side. “FUUUCK!” she screamed.

I watched her put her hands in her hair. Then I screamed too. “FUCK!”

She bent over and screamed louder. And longer. And hard and real. “FUUUUUUUUCK!” It ended with fists shaking and a guttural snarl through gritted teeth.

We looked at each other a moment, right as Abdul burst onto the roof. He flung open the door, knife in hand, ready to defend his home, his family, and his livelihood.

He relaxed when he saw who it was.

Kell fought back a giggle, like we were sixteen and causing trouble in class. But I was legit sorry and said as much. Abdul had moved to the States to escape a war in his homeland. I’m not sure he ever really did.

I pushed Kell down the stairs and we ate chocolate syrup. That’s all I had. I squeezed what was left into two glasses and handed her a spoon. Kell sat on the window sill with one leg in and one leg out and I was on the kitchen floor. We talked until sunrise.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

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The next chapter is: Random acts of chaos

cover image by Betsy Cola

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