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I flopped back on the bed satiated like I had never been before.
I wasn’t surprised that Nick fell asleep since he had driven all the way from Houston.
I took a shower, moistened my eyes with Visine and lay down on the sofa to catch up on my reading. It’s been a long time since I had a quiet Friday night. Just when my book started getting interesting the doorman called to say my sister was on her way up.
Girlfriend looked a mess! Before I could fully digest the swollen eyes, disheveled clothes, and tearstained face, she stomped past me. “I never want to see or speak to Phil again as long as I live!”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if Saundra had said she was going to become a hooker, working the streets near the river on Eleventh Avenue. “This is the first time you’ve ever complained about Phil,” I said, pushing her into my living room. “What on earth did you two fight about?”
“Please don’t ask,” she answered miserably, falling onto my red leather couch like it didn’t cost me over two grand. “I had to leave and there is nowhere else for me to go.”
To my horror, she covered her face with both hands and burst into sobs that were so heartrending I would have given up all my jewelry to make her stop. Instead, I sat down beside her, pulled her head onto my chest, and cried with her. What had Phil done to my sister? My head started throbbing as I searched my mental Rolodex for the name of a gangster-type dude who had spent some time with me two years ago. What the hell was his name? His face was still clear in my memory: Light-skin, high cheekbones, and eyes that never conveyed an emotion. He gave me five thousand dollars in cash and an emerald necklace when he split. A dangerous motherfucka. Just what I needed to take Phil down if he had made the mistake of beating up Saundra.
She was rocking back and forth. The way she was holding her stomach filled me with rage. “What the fuck did Phil do to you, Saundra? I’ll kill the sonofabitch.”
Saundra looked into my eyes for a moment. “He didn’t hurt me physically if that is what you’re thinking. I swear it. He didn’t lay a hand on me and that worthless bastard is definitely not worth you going to jail for. I just need to lie down.”
“Okay, let’s get some sleep, sweetie, and we can talk in the morning,” I told her quietly. “Nick is in my bed but I’m going in there and put his ass out.”
“Which one is Nick?” She sniffled.
“The one with the huge trust fund.” I put an arm around her shoulder.
She pulled away from me and hunched over, holding her stomach again. “It doesn’t matter. Let him stay. I’ll be fine out here.”
“Where is Yero? Did he drive you here? Do you want me to call him?”
“Fuck him,” she spat. “I’m not marrying anybody. He probably has secrets I don’t know about, too. I hate all men. Every last one of them.”
My heart almost stopped beating. Saundra calling Phil a worthless bastard? Fuck Yero? What in Sam’s hell was going on?
“Saundra . . .”
“Stop talking. Leave me alone.”
Saundra lay down with her back to me. Her shoulders shook, so I knew that she was still weeping.
C
hapter 31
PHIL
Saundra was gone.
As soon as I saw her standing in the doorway, my brain froze. As if in slow motion, I saw Saundra’s shock turn to disbelief, then revulsion. I felt my own hands sliding blue jeans over my feet and up my legs. I felt the soft, nubby carpet under my feet as I ran downstairs and then the pain of the graveled driveway. My elbow kept moving back and forth like somebody had it on a string and it took me a minute to realize that Pastor Hoffman was pulling on it. Saundra’s cab disappeared into the night and then the fuzziness disappeared. The whole thing became enormously plain.
I had lost her forever.
My Saundra . . .
Pastor Hoffman watched as a now fully dressed Hugo removed my elbow from his grasp and led me firmly back inside my own home.
“I’m so sorry,” he kept saying as I collapsed on the living room sofa. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see . . .”
But it wasn’t going to be all right, and when Hugo said it for a third time, I told him to shut the fuck up. My skull began to split from the inside and I clutched one of the pillows as though it was the key to maintaining my sanity. My eyes closed and then something cold and wet was pressed against my lips. It was Hugo . . . trying to get me to drink something. I slapped it out of his hands. “Get the hell outta my goddamn house. I ain’t had nothin’ but problems since I met your motherfuckin’ Puerto Rican ass!”
That was a lie.
