Carmen
The house was silent when I walked in. “Daddy?” I called into the musty stillness. “Daddy, are you home?”
No answer. I didn’t see any lights on the ground floor. Dropping my keys into the dish on the island counter in the kitchen and slinging my bag to the floor, I padded upstairs to check his office.
As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw the door to his office was shut, but I could see a thin sliver of warm light coming out from under the bottom edge. He must be inside.
I stopped in the darkness, one hand on the railing, and closed my eyes. C’mon, Carmen, I thought to myself. Just go in there and state your case. Tell him you’re eighteen years old now and all you want to do is go on a simple date with a very nice boy. It’s just dinner, nothing more. Not a thing in the world for a father to worry about. I let out my breath in a long, slow exhale. Then, steeling myself, I knocked on the door.
“Daddy, it’s me,” I called through the thick wood.
“Come on in, Car Girl,” he said back, using the nickname he’d had for me since I was just a little girl.
I twisted the knob and walked in. His office was fairly sparse, with only a rickety desk and a small lockbox safe tucked in one corner. He was seated behind it, calmly flipping through the folder he held in front of him. With his reading glasses on and a long-sleeved Henley shirt covering up most of his tattoos, he looked like the world’s most normal dad. He could have been an accountant or a lawyer or some other ordinary, suburban job like that, the kind of dad who told corny jokes and brought home flowers for his wife in the evenings. He wasn’t any of those things, of course. But sometimes I liked to pretend.
“Hey, sweetie,” he said, looking up and smiling at me as I entered. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” I said. “I just studied at the park for a bit, then I went to Lori’s.”
“Ah, the infamous Lori Greene. How’s she?”
“She’s good.” I was dying to get past the small talk and discuss what I really wanted to talk about, but I was too nervous to jump straight into it. Besides, maybe it would help to warm him up a little bit first, just so he was in a better mood when I finally got down to it. “Same as always,” I added.
“Which means crazy,” he said with a chuckle. “That girl is a wild child.”
I forced myself to smile. “Most definitely.” I opened my mouth to bring the conversation around to the real subject at hand, but suddenly, fear squeezed my stomach hard, and I froze. I felt feverish and claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in around me and I was hurtling forward in time faster than I could possibly handle.
Daddy noticed my discomfort and gave me a quizzical sideways look. “Something wrong, dear?” he asked.
“I, um…” I stuttered, unable to find the words.
He lowered his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked at me with concern. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I blabbered. “I know that. I just, I wanted to ask, if, um…” Where was the speech I’d practiced with Lori? Where were all those perfectly neutral words I’d rehearsed, the ones that made my request seem totally reasonable and normal? I’d forgotten completely how to speak and all my resolve was leaking out of me like sweat. I couldn’t even think straight.
Focus, said the voice in my head. One word at a time.
I took a deep breath. I had this under control. I could do it. All I had to do was ask. “I was wondering if—”
But just then, the cell phone lying on top of a stack of papers on his desk came alive, bursting with a ring tone and flashing colors. He picked it up and frowned when he saw the name of the person who was calling. “I’m sorry, doll, just give me one second. I have to answer this. Hello?” he said as he picked up the call.
I stood in front of his desk squirming as he listened intently, eyebrows furrowed. The tinny voice at the end was talking rapidly, although I could hardly understand anything it was saying. I heard the word “warehouse” repeated multiple times, whatever that meant.
Apparently, though, the caller was delivering some very bad news indeed. As the seconds went by, ticked off loudly by the hands of the clock on the wall, my dad’s face went from calm to stormy. His gray eyes took on a swirling anger and the lines in his forehead and around his mouth deepened. By the time the voice quieted down, he looked ready to kill somebody.
“Call a meeting,” he commanded in an acidic tone. “I want everyone involved at the clubhouse tonight.”
The voice squawked again, but he cut it off quickly. “I don’t give a damn,” he said. “If they had plans, cancel them. Somebody fucked up. We’re gonna sort this out immediately.” He hung up the phone without waiting to hear the response. Dropping it on his desk with a thunk, he ran a hand through his flowing silver hair and looked back up at me. As he readjusted the glasses to sit properly on his face, he said, “I’m sorry about that, Carmen. What were you saying?”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
He waved a hand in the air. “Fine, fine, don’t worry about it. Just a…disruption at one of our warehouses. Nothing for you to be concerned about. Now, please, finish what you were saying. I didn’t mean to cut you off.”
I faltered, the nice flow of words I’d built up in my head completely gone now, vanished without a trace. “I was at the park, and was, uh, wondering, you know, because this guy asked me if I wanted to, like, you know, go to, like, eat a, what do you call it, a, um, dinner, sometime?” My voice rose to a pipsqueak at the end, but before I had even finished, I knew it was no use at all. Every word had only added to the angry wrinkles on my father’s tanned face, and by the time I was done, he didn’t even need to say a thing. I knew what the answer would be already.
“Carmen,” he said, a hint of irritation on the edge of his voice, “you know my rules.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“I’m sick of repeating myself, too. I’m going to say this one last time, and then I don’t ever want you to bring this topic up again. Ever. You are not allowed to go out with any boy, do you hear me? Not now, not ever.”
“It’s just that I was hoping—”
“You shouldn’t have been. With your mother gone, you’re all I have left. I have to keep you safe, and that means keeping you out of situations where I can’t protect you. Who knows who this boy may be working for?”
“Daddy, he’s not working for—”
“Enough. I have lots of enemies. They’ll do anything they can to hurt me and the people I love. I’m not willing to let you expose yourself to that kind of danger.” He stood up and planted his fists on his desk as he looked me down. “That’s a no, Carmen. You are not to leave this house tonight. Am I understood?”
I looked down at my feet as I answered, “Yes, Daddy.”
“Good,” he said, straightening up. He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t meet his eyes. “Look at me, Carmen.”
Still, I kept my eyes trained on the ground.
He repeated himself. “Carmen, look at me.” He tucked two fingers under my chin and gently raised my gaze to his.
I was trembling with an exhausting mixture of anger and disappointment. My body felt thin and achy. All I wanted was to lie in bed and cry for a long, long time. That was the only outlet I had left.
“You’re precious to me,” he said softly. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back tonight. Don’t stay up too late; I know you’ve got those exams coming up soon.”
He let me go, then turned and walked out the door without another word. I stood there for a long time, hot tears burning my eyes. I felt so stupid for crying, since it didn’t solve a single one of my problems, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I just stood there in his empty office and cried.
After a while, my phone vibrated twice in my pocket. I had two texts. The first was from Dan.
Football practice got cancelled. Are you free tonight?
I deleted it right away.
The second text message was from Lori.
How’d the talk with Papa J go????
I typed out my response slowly with shaking fingers. Terrible.
She shot back, I’m coming over.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket and walked downstairs. Without bothering to turn on any of the lights in the living room, I slumped onto a couch and closed my eyes while resting my head back against the armrest. I focused on breathing deeply and evenly. In through my nose, out through my mouth, then repeat until I stopped feeling like I was going to puke or pass out or break something. Eventually, the blood stopped pounding in my temples and my breath started to come a little more easily.
The door flew open, introducing a wide swath of light into the dark room. Lori burst inside and scanned the room. She saw me and leaped over towards the couch to sit next to me where I was lying down. “You okay, Carmen?” she said as she brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over my face.
I kept my eyes closed gently. “I hate him.”
“I know. It’s not fair.”
I sat up straight and locked eyes with my best friend. “It’s not fair at all! Why am I cooped up in here all the time? Why can’t I ever just do what I want? Is going to dinner such a big freaking deal? Would it be better if I had a fucking security patrol to go with me? God, I hate it so much!”
Lori cooed wordlessly and kept stroking my hair as I buried my head in my knees. I wanted to cry some more, to help relieve the savage pressure built up behind my eyes, but the tears just weren’t coming. I’d exhausted the supply.
“I just don’t get it,” I said after I’d regained my composure. “He goes flying off at all hours of the night to do his job, which he doesn’t ever even bother to explain to me, and I’m just stuck here alone, not allowed to go out or do anything fun with my life. Maybe I should just run away.”
She tilted her head to the side and looked at me. “You know what?” she said. “Fuck your dad. Let’s do something fun tonight.”
I looked at her curiously. “Like what?”
“Well,” she began slowly, “don’t freak out…”
“That’s never a good way to start something, Lori,” I said cautiously.
“I know, I know, but listen. On my way over here, I ran into my friend, Hawkeye, from the tattoo shop. He told me about some awesome party that’s happening tonight. If you wanted to, we could go.”
“What kind of party?”
She waved her hands evasively, trying to convince me that it didn’t matter. “Oh, you know, just, like, a party. People drinking, dancing, talking, all that stuff.”
“What kind of people?” I said, my voice wary. I knew Lori well enough to know that when she was avoiding the subject, it meant there was something I wasn’t going to like lurking beneath the surface.
“Just, people, come on,” she demurred.
“Lori,” I warned.
She bit her lip. “Okay, so, like I said, don’t freak out, but Hawkeye might have mentioned that it’s being thrown by the Dark Knights guys.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you insane?” I exclaimed. “Are you actively trying to get raped and killed?”
“Okay, okay, Carmen—breathe. You said you wouldn’t freak out.”
“I did not! And I’m definitely going to freak out!”
“Just listen! It’s going to be an awesome party. Hawkeye is a great guy; he won’t let anything bad happen to us. And we’ll leave the second you feel uncomfortable. But come on,” she said, pleading and tugging on my arm, “it’s going to be so much fun!”
“Lori, you’re insane.”
She shifted to look straight at me suddenly. “Don’t you want to get out of here? You were just saying how badly you wanted to leave. And if your dad is gone for the night…” She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Then what’s the harm?”
I sat back against the couch and considered her words. On one hand, she was right. I desperately needed to get the hell away from this repressive dungeon on the next thing smoking. ASAP or sooner. It was a nice house—my mom had invested so much time into decorating it before she died—but the longer I spent in here, the more I grew to hate all the things that she herself had loved. I didn’t want that to happen.
And if I was being honest, I didn’t want to hate my dad, either. He cared about me and loved me, even if it was his own particular brand of strangulating, self-serving love, and at the end of the day, he was still my dad and I was his Car Girl. But another night locked away in this house might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Still, the avenue out that Lori was proposing was not just risky. It was downright insane. The Dark Knights were notorious for throwing raging parties that girls attended at their own risk. I’d seen them tooling around town on their bikes from time to time. They were the biggest, the meanest, the most tattooed and grizzly-looking guys this city had to offer. Every single one of them was rippling with muscle, ink, and more piercings than I could count. I’d heard stories of girls who’d gone to one of their bashes and ended up pregnant or worse. The Knights guys churned through a sizable portion of Albuquerque’s female population on an almost nightly basis.
My dad, of course, had on more than one occasion ordered me, in no uncertain terms, to stay the hell away from those guys and everything they represented. But, given the present circumstances, that gave me all the more reason to take Lori up on her crazy offer.
“You’re chewing your fingernails,” Lori observed excitedly. “You’re thinking about it. Come on, Carmen, it’ll be so fun!” She squeezed my wrists and shook me. Her eyes were lit up with eager anticipation.
I giggled nervously. “I don’t know,” I said. “What happens if my dad finds out?”
She shook her head vigorously side to side. “No chance. We’ll be back before him, guaranteed. We’re just gonna go, have a couple drinks and flirt a little, then come back. Pinky promise.” She stuck out her pinky to me with a grave expression on her face. “Come on, Carmen. You know how seriously I take these kinds of things.”
It was true; Lori treated the pinky promise like it was the most solemn oath a person could swear. If she was offering it, then she really meant business.
I hesitated, then reached out my hand. Just before I wrapped my pinky around hers, I froze again. “I really don’t know,” I said for the thousandth time.
Lori’s eyes were desperately cajoling me. “What else is there to think about?” she demanded.
I considered the risks. There was everything to think about, of course. Getting caught by my dad, while horrendous in its own right, would probably be the least of my troubles. The place we were going was the real source of danger. The Dark Knights were not nice and normal like Dan. They were serious guys who did seriously bad things, at least according to the stories that circulated around school, and by going to this party, we would be stepping straight into the lion’s den. There was no telling what could happen if I agreed to tag along.
I pursed my lips. Lori could tell I had made up my mind. Her face lit up when I snagged her pinky with mine and squeezed. She flew into me and wrapped me in a big hug as she squealed, “Yay!” I laughed, though the pit of my stomach still crawled with nervousness.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her upright. “One more question,” I said with the utmost seriousness.
She stopped moving immediately. I could tell she was afraid I had changed my decision. She barely breathed as she waited for me to talk.
I waited a long beat before smiling and asking her, “What am I going to wear?”
Her worry parted and gave way to a beaming grin. She leaped up from the couch, grabbed my hand, and tugged me upstairs towards my room. “Come on, girl,” she said over her shoulder as we raced up the stairs. “We’re gonna have you lookin’ hot.”