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It’s been a few months—four to be exact—since that night and I haven’t seen Gavriel since. Which is a shame really, but it’s okay because I’ve been searching for clues on my parents. So far, I found that my mother’s maiden name was DeLuca, but all other information has been sealed shut like a nun’s legs; the only reason I found out my mother’s maiden name was because the city worker let it slip before she realized all the records have been locked.
“I’m sorry I can't offer you more assistance, Ms. Romano. All we can legally give you is this.” She hands me a document that gives vague details about how I came to be a child of the state. A woman left one-year-old me at a church here in Manhattan. Soon after, I was being taken to Texas, but it doesn’t say why, just dates.
I’ve been planning to visit the churches and see if I can find more answers, but I haven’t gotten to it. Maybe, I tell myself, it’s because I’m overwhelmed with work and my new life here, but that’s a lie. I’m scared to find out. What if my parents are dead or worse, didn’t want me? That would be painful. To realize that I’ve lived a life filled with so much rage and pain that I now have zero hesitations to take a human’s life while all this time I could have had a better childhood? Damn, I think I’d become more of a dark soul than I already am.
I think I need to admit that I’m not as ready for those answers as I thought I was.
Maybe I’ll never be.
Maybe I should just let it go and focus on myself and my future, leave the past behind.
Right.
It’s my first weekend off work this month and I’m looking forward to sitting at home, bundled up from head to toe in blankets. Spend my evening writing some lyrics that’ve been bouncing around in my head. I’ve noticed that my lyrics have gone from a darker side to lighter. Not quite happy-go-fucking-lucky, but since coming here and making a new life that puts a smile on my face every day, my lyrics are lighter. Soulful and happier with a bit of my natural darkness. “Wickedly happy” Carla calls it.
Instead of sitting peacefully in my room tonight, though, Carla has different ideas for this cool October evening. “Let’s hit up that new club that just opened over on Madison Ave.”
“Aww, C. Why? It’s fucking freezing outside and I just want to practice Italian words and write some lyrics.”
Carla’s been teaching me how to speak the beautiful language and set up an online account to learn what she’s unable to teach me. I’m picking it up pretty easily. I think it’s because it was the language my parents spoke. Maybe not, but I like to imagine that’s the reason.
“Freezing? Girl, it’s a cool night not freezing. God, you Southerners have weak skin.” She rolls her eyes and playfully sticks her nose in the air like she’s too good for me.
“Bitch, please. You try living in the South for summer and we’ll see who’s got weak skin. I don’t want to go out to a club. The last time we went you got wasted and I had to drag—literally—your drunk ass home. I may have missed my morning workout today, but I don’t need it so bad as to carry your deadweight.”
When I give her my best stink-eye, she shrugs and says the magic words, “I hear the owner is fine as hellannndhe’s having an open mic night tonight. Maybe you can sing some of your own songs.” She says that last part in a sing-song voice.
Fuck it, it’s not that cold tonight anyway.
Three hours later we’re almost ready to go and despite my fake bravado I’m really not looking forward to the chill that’s bound to be in the air. It’s around fifty-five degrees outside, so I’m most definitely not wearing clubbing clothes like C is. Instead, I’m wearing my ripped, black skinny jeans with red wedge heels, a loose satin strappy crop top—same red as my shoes—under my trusty black leather jacket. My wavy hair is hanging down my back, but in case it gets hot at the club I have a hair tie around my wrist.
“Do the smokey eye look but add in some red to match my theme,” I tell C, my bestie slash makeup artist. She’s really good with details and knows how to bring out someone’s natural beauty, but it shouldn’t be a surprise because this bitch can paint! Her art work adorns the walls in my room and most of them are abstracts painted to my lyrics while others are scenes she depicted based on my voice and words. And her fucking charcoal drawings! They’re worthy of art galleries.
Once she’s done with my makeup, she goes to get changed into her outfit and take her hair out of those tiny curlers. How she has the patience to mess with those, I’ll never know. Once we’re outside waiting for the Uber to pick us up, we light a joint and pass it back and forth. The weed here is so much better than the crap I smoked back in Dallas, which was dry as hell.
I watch the way the smoke dances as Carla’s shivering voice chimes. I knew I wasn’t the only person feeling the cold. “I’m really hoping you’re able to sing some of those songs you’ve been working on tonight. Maybe someone will sign you to a label!”
As great as that would be, I doubt I'd get that lucky in an open mic night. I mean, if I haven’t gotten a music producer calling me yet—and I’ve been watched on social media as much as cats afraid of cucumbers—then I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. That’s okay, though, because I really like the personal setting I have going on at Medusa’s.
“I like what I’ve got going now. I mean, I know I’m only singing for tips, but I feel like I have a deeper connection to the audience at the bar. The only thing that would make it better is if Joe would let me sing my own songs. That would be the fucking icing on my cake if he made that happen. I love cover singing, but the repetitive song requests make singing feel like a chore.” Taking the last pull from the joint before tossing it and holding the smoke in my lungs until it burns, I slowly exhale, letting the thick, pungent smoke wrap around us as the Uber pulls up.
