He was sending me mixed signals that were fucking with my mind—more than the missing void ever did—and I had no idea why.
4
Rosalia
The sun streamed through the windows of Club D as my shift came to an end. I followed a line of women to the employee’s exit in the back, waiting with them while the bus that drove us from home to work and vice versa came down the long drive.
I had a personal driver, if I requested him, one of the perks of being a higher up, but I decided I wanted the insistent chatter of voices to drown out the thoughts in my head. I wasn’t sure if they could, but taking the bus was always an experience.
What are you doing on your days off?
Are you going to Brooklyn next week?
Are you still seeing Johnny?
Let’s check out that new pizza place that just opened…anyone want to go?
Yeah, I’d pass. I’d learned my lesson. One time after they announced a place was opening and asked if anyone would like to go, I mentioned that I’d like to. I thought it would be nice to connect. I showed up and no one else did. They had moved the meeting spot someplace else, so I wouldn’t know where to go.
I had no clue why they didn’t like me. None of them really talked to me, much less told me why they had an issue with me. Even before I had told them I wanted to meet up, I felt their stiffness when I tried to talk to them, even though I couldn’t remember doing anything to offend them. I often wondered what had happened before my accident, or who I was back then, that made them so cold to me, but the chill was enough that I never approached them about it either.
His ass had more hair than his head…
That last remark was toeing the line a bit, but no one responded, and the girl who’d said it said nothing else, so no harm, no foul.
The bus driver bounced in his seat when he hit a pothole, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world as he carted us around. We never had personal contact with him. It was a strictly professional pick up and drop off service—we were like laundry, but harder to replace if lost.
They’d be pissed if he did something stupid, like hit a tree, and got us all killed. How would they find replacements so soon?
In the eyes of this organization, that was how they would see it. It was no secret. We were valued, but as a special shirt would be. Valued but replaceable.Even if it was a pain in the ass to replace the missing ones—the ones who fit like they were custom-made, because we were. We were all the offspring of, or tethered to, men who had connections to this life.
My stop came and I exited the bus, the chatter ceasing once he closed the doors. A doorman stood at the entrance to my building, and his “good morning” was drowned out by the rumble of the bus as it took off in a puff of exhaust. He tipped his hat to me and opened the door.
None of the workers were truly friendly. They had a job to do, and that was exactly what they did: whatever their employers told them to. No more. No less. They were all in the lanes they were supposed to be in, traveling at the acceptable speed.
I nodded and left it at that. I made it to my door and dug in my bag. My keys were tucked away inside of it, along with the piece of glass and the rose. The glass was like a snake that struck as I put my hand in to dig around. Besides my keys, I pulled out a finger with a slice that ran with blood.
The dried blood that was left on the glass mixed with the fresh, and something about it made me uneasy. The sight of it. Like past and future colliding, dropping me onto a battlefield somewhere in between.
The condo was soundproof, but as the door opened, music blasted out into the hall. The girl staying with me stood in the middle of the kitchen, her head thrown back, belting out the song playing on the stereo.
Her hair was pulled to one side with a velvet scrunchie. Her crop top had “Benatar” in script at the top, and underneath, “Love Is a Battlefield.” She was singing the same song at the top of her lungs while the pot behind her ran over onto the stovetop.
Priscilla Ragusa, or Cilla, as she told me to call her, was eighteen and a mixture of Kit De Luca from Pretty Woman (she could have been her twin) and JoJo from Mystic Pizza. Cilla didn’t work for Club D, but for a business the organization owned and ran, and she was with me as a form of punishment.
Cilla was the daughter of a boss in New York and had fallen in love with another boss’s son. The problem with this—the two bosses were feuding, and their children falling in love was only adding to the war. Cilla was promised to someone else, and men were looking for Joey. To keep her safe, she was here. With me. I found myself in a real-time Romeo and Juliet situation.
Cilla trusted me enough to tell me all this one night over a pasta dish she’d made. It was hard for me to admit it, but besides my girl, Bambina, she was the best friend I’d ever had. I knew she wouldn’t be staying, and just the thought of her leaving made my heart drop into my stomach.
She wasn’t everything, but she was the first…something…I’d had in a long time. I considered her a friend, and I couldn’t remember having one of those. Not in the human sense.
Bambina peeked her head out of my room, refusing to come out the entire way. Even though I’d miss Cilla whenever she left, Bambina would be glad to see her go. Cilla couldn’t sing worth a shit, and Bambina’s precious dog ears were sensitive.
A smile came to my face, and I couldn’t deny that it felt good to use the muscles. They felt stiff from disuse, almost frozen.
“Let Her Cry” replaced “Love Is a Battlefield,” and when Cilla screeched and started to sing that one, Bambina whined and ran back into the room.
It almost hurt, but this time I laughed, turning the stereo low. Cilla’s “let her go!” rose above the music, putting her on blast.
