Lainey’s List, Chapter 2

“What’s your pleasure?” Carlos Binelli drawls as he swings open the apartment door. He hangs onto the top frame with one hand and blocks my view of the inside of the house. However, when his gaze hits me, he immediately straightens. “Lainey, what are you doing here?”

Carlos can get things. That’s why I’m here with the X-Box I fished out of the garbage can. I shove the tangle of plastic and cords into his arms. “How many minutes will this get me on a prepaid phone?”

He looks at the mess suspiciously. “Didn’t Tito give you this?”

“If you know that, then you know it’s mine to trade.” I peer two houses down to see if Grandmama is home yet. “Can we go inside? I didn’t realize you did all your business on the porch.”

Carlos’ frown deepens, making his round face look like an unhappy pumpkin. For the most part, Carlos is a good-looking guy. He has a full head of tousled black hair and dreamy brown eyes. His skin is golden brown, a gift from his Italian parents rather than any time spent out in the sun. Mama says that with his stocky frame, he’s the type who’ll end up looking like a ball when he’s forty… if he makes it to forty.

Around here, the average life span is pretty low. At the age of forty-nine, my grandmother is one of the oldest. Most everyone will die of violence, sickness, or just plain neglect before fifty.

If you get out, it’s a different story—a different life. Uncle Tito, for example, is up at UT Austin on a baseball scholarship. The ability to hit a 100 mile an hour fastball is worth a lot of money. Unfortunately, I don’t have that skill.

“You shouldn’t be here Lainey. Tito wouldn’t like it.”

Tito’s a friend of Carlos’. Or maybe it’s the other way around but either way, I’m relying on that friendship to get me a fair deal. Everyone likes Tito and wants him to succeed.

“Tito knows how it is at home. Grandmama is worried that the games will turn me into a violent killer.” I make a gun with my fingers and pretend I’m shooting Carlos. “Are you going to help me out or do I go somewhere else.”

“Shit.” Carlos curses and then allows the door to fall open. “Get in here then and be quiet.”

I follow Carlos down a short hall. “Is little Amelia sleeping?”

He nods. That’s another thing about being poor. We seem to produce an inordinate number of children, as if the only way we know how to go about telling people we love them is to procreate. We exchange babies instead of rings.

Carlos’ back bedroom is an office full of boxes and electronics and probably other stuff I’m better off remaining ignorant about.

“So your granny thinks you’re on your way to becoming Bonnie?” he jokes, as he rifles through a box. “Who’s Clyde?”

“No one. She’d have kittens if I brought a boy home.”

Grandma had mom at the age of sixteen. Mom followed suit by having me at seventeen. I suppose just graduating high school without getting pregnant will be a victory for the Valdez family.

Carlos grunts and then turns around with a phone in either hand. “I can either get you this snazzy smart phone with no minutes or this ancient flip phone with three months.”

“Three months of what?”

“A thousand texts and sixty minutes of talk time per month.”

Of course, I want the shiny smart phone. I could shove it in my back pocket and for once look like the rest of the girls at school. Even if it wasn’t activated, I’d feel like I fit in. Plus, if I had a phone, I could sit in class doing my school assignments instead of being sent to the computer lab. But all of those pluses were offset by one big minus.

No texting meant no Nick. I could go to the library a couple of times a week and send emails but his phone number meant something to me.

If I had a phone in my pocket where I could call or send him messages at any time and receive them as well, it would be like he was with me all the time.

I reach over for the cheap, dull phone with all the minutes because it’s not the container that matters, but the connection it brings, stretching from Texas to Illinois.

Yeah, I looked up his phone number. It has a Chicago area code. That’s about all I could find out.

“I’ll take the cheap one.”

Carlos spins around and hooks it up to his computer. “I’m going to program my number into it so when you’re feeling lonely, you can give me a holler.”

“I’m telling Tito you hit on me.”

Carlos holds up his hands. “It was a joke, Lainey. No need to rat me out to Tito.” He taps a few keys only to pause and look over his shoulder at me. “Everything else going okay at home? Your mom and granny holding up?”

“Yup. Grandmama still has that job over at the telecom company and Mama’s doing some side jobs. We’re good.” Even if we weren’t, I’d lie and say we were great because I don’t want Tito to worry. He’s got a chance to get out of this life and I’m not going to ruin that. But fortunately, it’s not a lie. For the most part, we have food on the table and can pay our rent. I’m not entirely sure what Mama’s doing for the money she brings in, but I operate under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“You need anything, let me know.” Carlos tosses me the phone.

I catch it with two hands and flip open the screen. It says “Welcome Lainey.” “Nice touch.” I grin.

“I’m into good customer service.” Carlos leans back in his chair. “Keeps the customers coming back for more.”

“How much to keep it going after three months?” I ask.

“Fifty bucks.”

“For three more months?” I do some mental math.

“For each month,” he corrects me.

I don’t do a very good job of hiding my surprise because Carlos says, “you’re fifteen with no credit card and no bank account. You’re not going to be able to get one from anyone but me. Plus, I’m giving you a friends and family discount. Not to mention I’ll keep my mouth shut about the fact that you even wanted one of those.”

“Right.” I blow out a breath and try to think of a way to earn fifty bucks a month. I’ve been saving up for college but it’s slow going because I won’t be able to get a real job until I’m sixteen.

“What you should do is save up your money and get a fake,” Carlos informs me. “I could get you an ID that says your twenty-one and you could make some real coin dancing.”

He flicks his eyes over my thin jeans and equally worn t-shirt. “But you’d need about two grand for a boob job if you wanted to do that.”

I cross my arms over my small chest and scowl at him. “Thanks for the shitty advice, Carlos.”

“No problem,” he replies cheerfully.

“Are we done?”

“Yup.”

I tuck the phone into my back pocket. At the front door, he taps my arm with a business card. “If you do need to make some extra cash, give this guy a call. He runs an online porn shop.”

“Carlos, I’m not taking my clothes off or doing porn!” I nearly shout.

“Shh, Amelia’s sleeping,” he reminds me.

“I’m not doing porn,” I hiss at him.

“It’s not porn. Sometimes he needs still photos to advertise his texting services. He posts pictures of good-looking girls and then he has a crew of about five old crones who send dirty texts and audio to the guys on the other end. It’s a hundred bucks an hour and all you have to do is sit there with your shirt off.”

“No.”

Carlos shoves the card in my back pocket. “Think about it. Your tits are a little small, but a lot of these pervs like to imagine they’re banging a teen.”

“I am a teen,” I say through clenched teeth.

He just shrugs. “But you’re not actually having sex with anyone. You’re just showing your titties. Lots of your friends do it. How do you think they pay for their shit?”

I’m still gaping open-mouthed five minutes after he’s closed the door in my face. It never even occurred to me that the girls in my school would be paying for all their stuff by doing what Carlos suggests they are doing. And I don’t want to believe it either. He’s just saying that to be rude.

Back home, I hide myself away in my bedroom and take out my new prize.

It’s a dull gray, no bigger than my palm but possibly the nicest thing I own. I practice typing in a couple of messages. Using a keypad to compose my thoughts results in brief, one-sentence missives.

“How are you?” takes five minutes my first time.

“I’m a girl,” takes even longer but mostly because I keep deleting that sentence.

I’m afraid to tell Nick that CalledinSick, his favorite videogame companion, is a female. Girls aren’t welcome in most games, which is why I always pretended to be a guy. Or, more accurately, I never mentioned my gender. And I never talked. Talking is a dead giveaway.

The minute a girlish voice comes through the headset, the guys are either “get the fuck out or I’ll rape you” or “come over and let me shoot the bad guys for you.” There’s never any in between.

But after all these months of playing, messaging, and hanging out, albeit online, I don’t want to hide anymore.

So I take a deep breath and press send on the message that took thirty minutes to compose.

  Hey Nick. CalledinSick here. Miss hanging out with everyone on the game. Thought I should tell you that I’m not actually one of the guys. Hope that doesn’t bother you.

There’s no immediate message back.

And there’s no response ten minutes later. Or fifteen. Or sixteen. I shove the phone under my pillow and leave the room, hoping that distance will alleviate some of my anxiety.

But I’m back in my bedroom moments later.

I want to send another message. One that says Did you get this? Alternatively, I could run to the library and send a quick email. I’m at the door with my backpack over my shoulders when reason finally sets in. What kind of psycho person am I? I hit my head against the door a few times until I can regain some self-control.

“Elaina, what are you doing?” Grandmama’s sharp voice jerks me out of my self-pitying moment.

“You’re home early,” I say weakly and shrug out of my backpack.

Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “Have you done all your homework?”

“Yes. And I cleaned the bathrooms.” Each day I have a list of chores. Today is bathroom day. I did that before I scampered off to Carlos’ house.

“Good. Now it’s time to make dinner. I think we’ll have cannoli. Go and get the ingredients ready while I change.” She leaves the living room to shed her work clothes while I go to the kitchen. I’m grateful to for the distraction because sitting around waiting for Nick’s response is its own kind of torture. If I’d known having the phone in my pocket would create this much anxiety, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to Carlos’ house. Maybe I—

  Ding!

The tinny alert sound sends my heart into hyperdrive. I yell down the hall to Grandmama. “I have to pee first!”

“Don’t forget to wash your hands,” she hollers back.

I sprint to the bathroom and slam the door shut. With shaking fingers, I pull out the phone and read the message.

  I knew you weren’t one of the guys. Wouldn’t have given my number to one of the guys.

A huge grin splits across my face.

 How? I type out.

 Never talked for one. Other things like wanting more girls in the space pod and that you never once talked about how you banged someone’s mother.

The insults in Saturnalia were almost always sexual and almost always directed toward the player’s mother. I read the next message.

But maybe it’s because I wanted you to be a girl. Things just work out right sometimes.

My heart flutters wildly and goosebumps dot my arms. He wanted me to be a girl. That’s a gift worth giving up a hundred X-Boxes to read.

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