Brown Airfield is a former naval airbase that was decommissioned in the 1970s. Cici is talking, talking so fast, driving so fast, and the hot Santa Ana heat rushes along the asphalt, pacing us. There is too much information being shared for me to grasp any of it. My mind is still reeling about how I got roped into this. I nod and say, “Uh-huh,” when there is a pause in the march of her words, when she is expecting a response. I am braced in the front seat, my breath holding tight for long seconds as we swerve through the San Diego traffic. I think I am going to die tonight.
The air inside the car is so dry I feel my lipstick going from gloss to matte. The dry winds whipping around the valley feel like the coming of an apocalypse. Something is changing. Something will happen tonight that will change everything. I feel hollow in the pit of my stomach, that strange sense of foreboding. I force my eyes closed and brace as Cici slams on the brakes to make it between two cars and then slides onto the exit without looking behind her. My teeth are clenched and my jaw aches by the time we reach the bottom of the ramp, where she is forced to stop behind another car at a red light.
A voice rises through the night, and it is only after I’ve heard it that I realize it is only in my head. “Don’t ride in cars with her; keep yourself safe.” It is Dylan, whispering to me from my past, words he said about my mother when she was drinking so heavily. This is the same. The small edge of adrenaline that is coursing through my blood, the fear that my life will end today, is of my making. It’s one thing for Cici to act like a fool, and it’s something else entirely to allow her take me with her. I’m not the only person that she has put at risk tonight. She has put every car we whipped around, and every passenger in those cars, in mortal jeopardy. Beyond that, had she wrecked and the car shed a spark, she could have started a fire in the dry brush along the freeway. California is known for such fires.
I let my tenseness play out, hearing Dylan’s voice for as long as I can. I close my eyes and feel his arms wrapped around me, the way they were the day he told me about his childhood. I don’t let my mind travel to the moments in the barn, when I visited over Thanksgiving. He didn’t want me there, didn’t understand why I had come. He was angry, angrier than I had ever seen him. If I die tonight, we will never be friends again; there will be bad blood between us forever.
We are on the move again, and I let my mind go blank, watching the red lights glowing though the dark as we go from one to the next, unable to get up any speed. Cici has stopped talking, maybe because she realizes I was never really listening, and the radio is blaring, too loud. She is dancing in her seat, and the car swerves in its lane with the shifting of her hips. Traffic diminishes as we head south of San Diego. For thirteen miles we drive, letting the music drown out the recriminations in my head. When the lights allow, she ratchets up the speed, and in minutes we arrive at the airfield. She pulls in through unmanned gates and drives through the parking lot, stopping beneath one of the lights that rise up out of the black top. “Always park under a light.” She whispers like it is some kind of a mantra, and I put out my hands to take the keys.
Her eyes cut to me for a split second, and she drops them in my hand. “That’s right, you hold them. I won’t have any place to stash them.” She sticks her tongue out, exaggerating her eyes, and turns to get out of the car. I have the keys, though, and I won’t let her drive when we go to leave. I grab my purse and drop the keys inside.
She steps out of the car like she is a model in a music video, and I meet her at the trunk to get her CD player and a satchel full of CDs. I stand with the player in my hand for a long second before I look at her. “I thought this was stolen,” I say, and she shrugs. “I thought this was stolen,” I say again.
“I never said it was stolen.” She takes it from me and heads across the blacktop.
“You never said it wasn’t either,” I snap.
“So?” Her legs carry her forward on her little pointy heels. Click, click, click.
“Cici,” I say, needing her to stop, needing her to look at me so I know what is real. She waves to a young man coming toward us from the hangars, kicking her hip out with a dramatic flair. “Why didn’t you tell me this wasn’t stolen?”
“What difference does it make? I’m sorry it wasn’t stolen. Is that what you want me to say?” She leans forward, bumping her rear into the air, already working her audience. “Fine, I’m sorry it wasn’t stolen. It’s a piece of shit anyway.” She turns on her heel, and the man passes us with a small, courteous nod, he is not one of the men waiting for her at the bachelor party, although he probably wishes her were by now.
My head spins. I scowl, realizing that now the only things that had been stolen was my money, Darla’s TV, and a hair dryer. And the only person who knew about my stash of money was Cici.
We walk out of the pool of light surrounding the car, the moisture in our breath evaporating in the hot wind. Cici’s sleek, black hair catches fire from the light and glistens. I rush to catch up to her. She threads her fingers around my elbow, as I step beside her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, sounding more like herself than the entire time we were in the car.
“For what?” I ask. Is she going to tell the truth? Finally?
“You know, for making you come.” I shrug, letting it go. She adds, “I really needed you to come.”
“I know.” It wouldn’t have been safe for her to come alone. If she can’t count on me, then she can’t count on anybody.
“Forgive me?” she asks, leaning her head to rest on top of mine. She is taller than I am by about three inches, but tonight, with her clear heels, she is a full seven inches taller. She sashays, and we make our way through the parking lot toward the row of hangars.
“Of course,” I say, squeezing her hand to my side. I’ll forgive her for making me come, but the rest is still up in the air, suspicious. “I’m sorry you felt like I didn’t have your back.”
“I know you hate it,” she says, and it is her normal voice.
“Pretty much.”
“But I’m good at it,” she says without bravado. It is true; she is good at it. She is pretty in a way that isn’t intimidating, and when she trains her attentions on a person, everything else in the world fades to gray. She is the only color in a room. I know how powerful that is; I followed her all the way to California to feel it.
“I know you are,” I whisper. She giggles, taking my admission as a compliment. She sways into me, unbalanced on her precarious, invisible heels, and we make our way through the dark, being shoved along by the fingers of the Santa Ana breezes coming down off the mountains and rushing out to sea.
We reach the hangar farthest from the tower, and a young man in his twenties greets us at the door. “Destiny!” he says, and a smile breaks across his face. He is another beautiful California boy, like Trey, sun-burnished and clean. His hair is tossed at the top and closely cropped on the sides. Cici leans in and gives him a hug, and he drops a kiss on her cheek, lifting her off the ground. She squeals, and he sets her down. It is as if they are old friends, and I stand in the shadows, feeling my skin crawl along my back.
“Adam,” she purrs, and I look away, feeling exposed, tugging down the short skirt of my dress, wishing I had just worn jeans instead.
“You brought a friend?” His eyes catch me, and an eyebrow rises, assessing. His eyes travel the length of my body, and a low whistle escapes.
“She’s not for you, idiot,” Cici says, mocking, pushing him back at the shoulder. He lets her sway him. “She’s for me, silly.”
His mouth drops open, and his tongue comes out to coat his lips. “Oh God,” he groans.
“Yes, that’s what you always say,” she purrs and reaches out, cupping her hand over the low bulge in his pants. I look away, feeling the blush rising up my face. Did she really just do that? When her hand finds mine and she draws me over to her, she is all business. “How many do we have?” she asks, getting the details of the party.
“Six . . . well, seven, if you count me.”
“Good. That’s a nice size.” She looks down his length, the way he had mine, and giggles. “Well, for a party, I mean.”
He wraps his arms around her waist and draws her close. “Damn. You are so hot.” He closes his mouth on her neck, and she throws her head back, exposing her throat to his attentions. When he sets her free, it’s to a chorus from the men sitting haloed in the light of an overhanging bulb. They have realized Cici is here and are impatient for Adam to bring her to them.
“You can pay Mildred here.” Cici looks back at me, her eyes dancing with her joke. “She handles all my finances.”
He screws up his face. “Mildred?”
“Well, Milly,” she says with a toss of her head, and she sashays away from where Adam and I stand, and he hands over four crisp hundred dollar bills. I tuck them into my purse, alongside the gun, and walk with him into the hangar.
“So,” he asks, “do you dance?”
“Not in public,” I say, trying to keep my voice low and calm while every fiber of my being is screaming and trying to run away.
He chuckles, and we reach the dome of light where Cici is going from one man to the next, sitting on their laps and asking their names. She will remember everything they tell her; it’s an uncanny knack she has. I stop just outside the halo of light and lean against a pillar that rises up to the arc of the ceiling. We have walked past three planes, and the men are settled around the last one—a small, sharp-nosed jet with six windows showing from the side. It is large and small at the same time, and I am looking at it when I hear Cici calling out to me.
“Milly, wave to the boys!”
I give them a small wave and see their eyes do the same dance that Adam’s had.
“I know what you are thinking, boys, but she is all mine,” Cici says in a playful song. Chuckles and whistles echo through the chamber.
She continues working her way around the room, from lap to lap, asking for names, smiling, whispering in ears. When she has made a full circuit of the room, she turns back and says each of the men’s names to them, smiling her most coquettish smile and presses play. Her arms rise over her head, and her head tilts back like a gymnast just off the beam, with the first thrum of a bass line
I don’t care that she makes them think I am her lover. These people are nothing to me, and they are nothing to her except dollar signs. She lets the rhythm of the bass line heat up before she starts to move. She is masterful, her body undulating and curving from the top of her head to her feet.
They are in her power, and I am just here to make sure she walks out alive.
I stare at her, feeling the weight of her gun in my purse, simmering.
