Raye knocked on the door.
Jinx opened it.
She then promptly announced, “Not gonna happen, gringas,” and tried to shut the door.
There was a kerfuffle as we forced our way in. I didn’t speak Spanish, but I had a feeling much of what came out of Jinx’s mouth during this hubbub were curse words.
She could curse all she wanted, even though she was wily and street-smart, there were eight of us, so she didn’t stand a chance.
Though, she almost slipped away when we got inside, and we all saw butter-yellow walls, a wicker chair and coffee table, a comfy white couch covered in a traditional blanket and banked with interesting toss pillows, a fabulous, fringed rug over the wood floors, and Mexican accents hanging on the walls and sitting in a corner curio cabinet.
It wasn’t that we’d think Jinx would live in a dump.
It was just that she had a flare for welcoming comfort with a twist of pride in her culture mingled with a hint of femininity that was super freaking cool.
But we got over our admiration.
And now we were in that living room, Jinx was in her wicker chair, Luna was behind it, squeezing her shoulders like she was Jinx’s trainer and Jinx was facing a heavyweight bout, and Raye was sitting on the coffee table in front of Jinx giving a pep talk.
“You deserve this,” Raye said. “You’re kind and salty and pretty and funny and smart. He sees all of that. He sees you, Jinx.”
Jinx was zoned out with anxiety, so I wasn’t sure a single word penetrated.
“Jinx, you’re one of the strongest people I know, you can do this,” Raye told her.
“I wanted to be a schoolteacher. For the real little kids. Like Barbara Howard, without the pearls and singing in the church choir. I got a shit voice,” Jinx blurted.
We all stood still and silent because Jinx never ever shared.
At least, not this deep.
Jinx kept talking
“Papá got sick, and Mamá was working so hard. All the kids had to help. I don’t know how it happened. My brother and sister got in with some bad guys. I tried to get them out, and I got sucked in. Papá and Mamá were so sad and so upset at us, and they were rundown, and there was hardly enough money to eat, much less send me to college. I got out of that mess, my brother got dead in that mess, my sister got stuck in it, but I had to feed myself. I had a rap sheet by then, no one wanted to hire me, and this is all I could do.” She shook her head. “This is all I knew how to do.”
Part of me wished she still hadn’t shared, because that tale of woe was seriously woeful, and I hated that was her life.
Even so, I was honored she gave it to us.
“And you did what you had to do so you could eat,” Jessie told her and flicked a hand out to indicate the space. “Then you got yourself a nice place, built yourself a life. You’re not strung out and forced into this, giving a take to some guy who has you under his thumb. You’re your own woman.”
“I sell sex,” Jinx said bitterly.
“So?” Luna asked, giving up on the shoulder rub and coming around the chair to get face to face. “You aren’t the first, you won’t be the last. You did what you had to do, and if anyone judges it, fuck ’em.”
Jinx was blurting again. “He was bored.”
She was talking about Noah now.
We were all so keen to hear about Noah, we shut up.
“That’s what he said,” Jinx went on. “I was the first whore he slept with because he said he was so sick of the women he met. He was so sick of how obsessed they were about their hair and bodies and buying designer shit and doing everything every influencer told them to do. He said he felt like he was a walking stack of cash they wanted to lay claim to. He said the sex was mierda. Like they were doing it for a camera, waiting for their closeup.”
Well, that had to suck.
Jinx kept going.
“He said all the men he knew were boring. The parties he went to were boring. The restaurants he went to were boring. And he could see a life ahead of him with a woman whose reason for being was taking off her baby weight and competing with her friends for the most pimped-out Christmas tree. And the only thing he had to look forward to was a round of golf with a trio of tedious men who were his only friends.”
