Dante
I have to tell Kayla to leave.
I say this over and over to myself as she moves her things into my bedroom, as she turns and glances at me and then down at the ground, as I go to the door and lock it, go to my desk and lay out a bottle of whisky and two glasses. I have to tell her to leave. It’s bad enough having a thief here, but having a thief here who Ogre wants to torture—who Ogre might reveal to the rest of the club—could ruin everything. The entire club could crumble. Cogs could stop turning, warehouses and protection rackets and arms deals could collapse; the entire organization could disintegrate. And all because of one large-eyed mussy-haired girl.
I sit in my chair and she comes and sits opposite, walking quickly, glancing around skittishly. Pale setting sunlight glows through the drawn blinds, and my desk lamp throws up bright yellow beams from the corner of my desk, off to our right. Kayla takes her glass of whisky, which I have already poured, and brings it to her lips. She sips so quickly and such a small amount that I wonder if she’s actually sipped at all.
I have to tell her to leave.
But I don’t, not right away. I can’t. She looks too vulnerable.
“So, how do you like the room?” I ask.
“The window opens,” she says.
“Huh?” I sip my glass, enjoying the way the whisky burns down my throat, searing my insides.
“Your bedroom window,” she says. “It opens—all the way, I mean. The ones in the dormitory only open some of the way.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s true. Do you often think like that, Kayla?”
She nods shortly. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Why do I care? Why am I asking her this? I should say: Look, it’s time for you to take your petty stolen items and get the hell out of here. We can’t have a thief roaming around, causing problems. But I don’t. I ask her questions. What the hell is the matter with me?
“I don’t know,” she says, defensive. She takes another sip of whisky, and this time I notice the level drop a tiny bit.
“So you pay special attention to the exits of a place like a goddamn Marine but you don’t know why?”
“It sounds unlikely when you say it like that,” she says, and then smiles. A small smile. But, man, an intoxicating smile if ever I saw one. Just shy enough, but just warm and sexy enough, too, as though her warmth and sexiness is trying to break through her shield of shyness.
“Maybe ’cause it is unlikely.”
Suddenly, she tips the drink back, draining it, and then pushes her glass across the table. “May I have another, please?”
I pour, and push the glass back to her.
“I feel like we’re two people adrift after a shipwreck and we’re just floating,” she says, and then giggles. She immediately cuts the giggle short, as though ashamed.
“I think that might be the first time I’ve heard you laugh,” I say, and then take a sip.
“Yes, maybe,” she says. “Possibly.”
“You mentioned the Movement, something called the Movement.” I probe, asking her to explain it to me.
“It’s just a—movement,” she says weakly.
“It sounds like some kind of cult to me. Which would explain why you’re so skittish. Did they kidnap you?”
“Worse.”
The word hangs in the air, and then Kayla drinks two more glasses of whisky, me refilling her glass whenever it becomes empty.
Finally, she says: “Yeah, it was a cult. But they didn’t kidnap me. I was there from when I was a kid, and I . . . I finally decided I didn’t want to be there anymore.”
“Why?”
Kayla flinches, glances around the room. The sunlight and lamplight clash in the center of the room; everywhere else, in the corners of the floor and the ceiling, deep shadows eat the light. “I don’t share this stuff. I hardly know you. I have done everything I can to stop you from noticing me.”
“And yet I have noticed you,” I say, leaning forward, watching her intently.
She fascinates me, even as a voice in my head screams at me that I have to tell her to leave. I shouldn’t be talking with her. I shouldn’t be getting to know her. I have to tell her to leave.
But I don’t. Dammit.
“Ain’t it strange for someone raised in somethin’ like that to just leave?” I ask. “I’m sure I heard that somewhere.”
“It is.” She nods, her little short nod, wanting to get it over with quickly. “But I had—cause.”
“What kind of cause?”
“You are cutting into deep painful places, Dante.”
“I’m just talkin’. Do you want me to stop?”
“Uh . . . I want more whisky.”
“Alright, then.”
I pour her another glass, and she drains it, and then closes her eyes.
“My mother was a good Movement woman,” Kayla says, eyes still closed. “She did everything Master wanted. My dad died before I was born, and my mother raised me. And . . . And there are lots of things I could tell you about my mother, like how she used to sing to me—sing old Johnny Cash songs like “A Boy Named Sue” and “Ring of Fire,” but in secret because Cash was considered blasphemy in the Movement. I could tell you how she used to stay up late and sit on the porch in summer and knit until the tips of her fingers bled. I could tell you how she’d whisper to me about faraway places, like the Welsh Valleys or the Maltese slanted capital, places she had never been but had read about in travel magazines. But really, all you need to know is that she did her duty to the Movement and she loved me. And then, one day, she made the mistake of—”
She cuts short. She has been talking as though in a trance, the words spilling out of her seemingly without her say-so. Now, she swallows, opens her eyes. “You can guess what happened.”
“The leader killed her,” I say, knowing I am right.
“The leader killed Sandra,” Kayla says, exhaustion in her voice.
“Sandra? Sandra was my mother’s name, too.”
Kayla grins at me, the grin of a woman who has been running too long. “Then I guess we have something in common, Dante. Maybe I ought to meet your Sandra sometime. You could introduce me like this: ‘Hey Mom, this is the girl I saved from a fire and who now steals knives and forks from my clubhouse.’”
I laugh, can’t help but laugh, and Kayla giggles.
“I haven’t seen your mom around,” Kayla says, probing, I can tell. But I can’t blame her. What was I doing moments ago? “Does she live in a different state or . . .?”
I don’t tell people shit about my past, never have, never saw the point. Makes a man weak. Makes a man doughy. Pry open your ribcage and expose your heart and more often than not someone will snap loose one of those ribs and stab you right in the heart. That’s what I’ve learnt, living this life. And yet, without hesitation, I say to Kayla: “Sandra died of cancer when I was young. Lung cancer. Smoked like a chimney, so what the fuck’re you gonna do?”
I sip the whisky, hoping the heat will burn away the desire to feel any kind of pain.
“And your father?”
“Died before I was born.”
Kayla laughs again, gruffly, eyes red and tipsy. “Then we have more in common than I thought.”
“Seems so,” I say.
Okay, now I will tell her. I will tell her that it’s time to go. I’ll give her some money, help her along her way. Of course, I’ll do the right thing. But she can’t be here, not with Ogre knowing about her stealing, not with Ogre potentially getting ready to tell the boys. And not with her uncanny ability to scratch away the armor I’ve spent decades constructing around myself, my past. She’s too dangerous. But still, I don’t say it. I can’t bring myself to say it. She looks up at me, biting her lip, eyes bigger than ever, more inviting than ever.
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“Anything bad ever happened in your past?”
For a moment, I think about telling her about the crevice-faced man and his worm-fingers and what nearly happened to me, but there’s enough emotion in the room already. More emotion in this room than has existed since I became President. I can’t tell her that. I can’t tell anybody that.
“Of course,” I say, pouring another whisky; the bottle is almost empty now. “Once, I stubbed my toe on the way to the shower. It hurt like a son of a bitch.”
She giggles, and if there’s a sweeter sound than Kayla giggling in this world, I’ve never heard it. It’s like a cool breeze on a too-hot day, the sweetest relief.
For a while, we just stare at each other, Kayla for once not looking away. Whether it’s the whisky or sharing with me that’s given her this confidence, I don’t know, but after staring at each other for around a minute, she stands up and walks around the desk. She is wearing a dress, her pert breasts squashed to her chest, her thin dancer’s legs pale beneath her. She walks around the desk until she is standing beside my chair. I swivel in the chair, whisky in one hand, the other going for my toothpicks. But my toothpicks are in my jacket, and my jacket is on the peg on the back of the door.
Kayla takes a deep breath, and then leans down so that we are eye level. I see excitement in her eyes, but also nervousness. She is ten years my junior, I remind myself, she is what I could have become: a runaway; constantly living in fear. I should tell her to leave.
And then she leans in for the kiss, and I lean in with her.