Free Party Girl by Lynne Ewing Page B

change the music,” he said.
    “Too late,” I said.
    “Kata, dancing … it does something for you I can never do. I seen you onstage. You go someplace.”
    “That was with Ana,” I said.
    I left the porch and started walking. At the curb I stopped and turned back.
    “Maybe you can tell the kids about Chancey and Dreamer?” I said.
    “Yeah, I’ll tell the girls about Outrageous Chaos,” he said. “But I’ll tell them not to be that way. It’s too big a price to pay.”
    A garbage truck stopped where I stood. My lungs filled with the sour stench and exhaust. The garbage collectorlifted a can, and I stepped back to avoid being thrown in, too.
    I walked down the street, then through the county housing project to the old flood-control channel by the river. Serena was there, standing near a fire, dressed like a hoochie mama in tight shorts and a halter top, swaying to music from a boom box. Her eyes were glassy, reflecting the red flames, and I knew Pocho had stood her up already. She had a large brown bag next to her feet. When she saw me, she lifted a forty from the bag.
    “Want one?” she said, her words slurred. She tried to smile, but her lips couldn’t curl over her hurt.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    She sniffed and threw a piece of wood on the fire. “It’s cold,” she said.
    “Maybe you’re coming down with the flu,” I said to give her a reason to leave. I knew she wanted to go so I wouldn’t see her cry.
    “Yeah, maybe I better go home,” she said, and handed me the bag of forties.
    When she left, I tried to dance to the hard-hitting music coming from the boom box.
    It was no use. My legs felt lifeless, and I twisted my ankle.
    I sat by the fire getting sloshed on Olde English Malt liquor, waiting for the guys in the Monte Carlo to come find me in the puddles and foul-smelling black mud.
    When the sun set, my homies started showing up. I watched them down forties and tequila and drag on passed-around weed, talking and flirting. But when Pocho came and started telling big stories about what we had done the night before, I left and walked home, the sour taste of alcohol on my tongue, my stomach stinging and wanting food.
    Nando was sitting on our front porch, waiting for me, a chicken clucking in a wire cage next to him. His long black hair was thinning, and the breeze blew it up and down. His wire-rimmed glasses fell to the end of his fat nose when he stood. He pushed them up with his thumb, then opened his arms to me.
    “Come here, mi’ja,” he said in a soft voice that comforted me.
    I fell against his thick body, his sweater scratching my cheek. He rocked me back and forth, and the smell of his tobacco and spicy aftershave made me cry.
    “I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “I’m sony about Ana.”
    “Does Mom know you’re here?” I asked finally.
    “I didn’t want to wake her,” he said.
    I knew he was afraid he’d find her in the arms of another man.
    “She called you?”
    “Yeah, to take her to the doctor and the AA, but mostly she was afraid you might do something … foolish,” he said.
    “Do what foolish?” I said.
    “Nothing you do will bring Ana back. Don’t throw away your life.”
    I pulled away from him. “This life?”
    “You don’t know what’s coming,” he said. He sat on the porch and patted the cement step for me to join him. “Maybe something good’s coming in your future. Something you can’t see yet because you’re living too close to the earth.”
    “I know what’s coming,” I said. “I see it every day.”
    “It doesn’t have to be that way.” He raised his head and nodded toward the sky. “Look out there at all those stars hanging in that cold, vast heaven. It makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of eternity.”
    I looked up at the sky and wished I could see what Nando saw. I only saw the red neon sign from the taco stand and pale gray clouds moving across a moonless sky.
    “I always feel less burdened after star watching,” he said.