8
ANGELA
“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message?—”
Angela slammed the phone to the glass coffee tabletop. Half-drunk cans of soda toppled over. Liquid doused her pack of cigarettes, melting loose tobacco and the ashes from joints onto its top.
“Son of a bitch!” She tossed the pack of cigarettes to the sunken suede sofa. The plastic casing was damp, but they survived the debacle.
On the edge of the table, fast food packaging still laid from this morning’s breakfast, a few crumpled napkins beside them. Angela tossed them onto the mess. As soon as they touched the liquid, they molded into the chaos. Napkins? No. Soggy, useless lumps.
Hands balled to fists, brain sloshing against her ears, Angela headed for the kitchen area of her studio apartment. The washrag drawer was empty. Hanging over the faucet, though, was a crusted, dried-out hand towel. She returned to the coffee table with it.
The job was haphazard, sticky residue remaining on the glass top, but she mopped up most of it.
With gritted teeth, she picked up her phone again, praying that it would light up with his name.
It didn’t.
She went back to her call log.
David (21 outgoing) 9:34 a.m.
Work (3 minutes, 52 seconds) 7:06 a.m.
PCP (12 minutes, 18 seconds) 4:38 p.m. Yesterday
David (32 minutes, 43 seconds) 3:25 p.m. Yesterday
That was the last time they’d spoken. 3:25 p.m. yesterday.
She had called him twenty-one times this morning. He’d answered none of them.
To hell with it. She dialed again.
This time, she made it to the voicemail. After the generic message played, she rubbed her eyes. “Hey, honey. It’s me again. You said that after you talked to Jess and found out about Junie, you were going to call me back. That was at 3 o’clock yesterday. Now it’s 9 the next day, and I still haven’t heard from you. You didn’t get picked up, did you? I know you would’ve called me by now if you did.” Jaw tight, she imagined him, again, sitting in a jail cell, waiting for her to bail him out. “Damn it, boy. If you’re not in cuffs right now, I’m gonna beat your ass whenever I get a hold of you. Scaring the shit out of me like this. Call me back, kid.”
Angela ended the call.
For a few heartbeats, she stared at that call log. Then she went to her contacts.
David 1
David 2
David 3
David 4
All the way up toDavid 15.
She called each number. She got the same automated voice message each time.
This never happened. Never for this long. David always called her back. It may have taken him an hour, or two, or three, but never more than twelve. Even if he was on a bender, he called her back well before twelve hours passed.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. A mother knew. It was a sixth sense, an instinct.
Angela scrolled through her contacts again, checking to make sure she wasn’t missing one of his other phone numbers. When she made it to David 15, another name caught her eye.
