Just Get Home, page 3
She unlatched her purse and pulled a slip of paper from its recesses. Yellow legal. The curl of it bounced from Gretchen’s hand.
The million-million things.
“I know you didn’t want this...but...I looked up his salary. Plus bonuses from the past five years.”
“Gretchen.”
“What I’m saying is, I’d rep you for free. I’ll probably have to go find a new firm to work at first...but it would all go to you and Ollie.”
Dessa stared at the piece of paper. Gretchen’s neat scrawl, columns of numbers pushing their way toward the bottom. Another string of digits, this one with a heavy comma, like Gretchen had darkened it for emphasis, was ringed at the bottom.
Dessa’s chest felt hard. Why was she pushing this now? Battering at Dessa’s well-constructed walls. Breaking their unspoken agreement.
“No.”
“Do you not see how fucked-up this is, Dessa? You’re broke. He’s not. He’s Olivia’s fucking father.”
Dessa did not want to crack this open, not now. “I can’t do it without him.”
“You are doing it without him.”
“No. I am doing it without his money. It is not the same thing.” Dessa felt her control slipping. Wobbling. The drink that had relaxed her now made her feel soggy and weak. Too close to the edges of her barriers.
“My decision, Gretchen. My shit to sort out. Not yours.”
Gretch studied her face for a beat. Took a drag. “Right.” She exhaled.
The tension between them went slack. Gretchen retreating behind Dessa’s barriers. It would be okay. “Jesus. Go home, Momma.” Gretchen dropped the stub and pulled Dessa into a hug. Kissed the top of her head. “Sick baby beats drunk girlfriends. I’ll tell the girls you had to go.”
Dessa yelled, “Thank you,” as she crossed the street. “I love you!”
“You should love me! I’m awesome!” Gretchen called back before turning and heading back into the bar.
4
Dessa’s feet hurt. If she were in her car, she likely wouldn’t even consider the street she was on a hill...but in heels the incline seemed nearly impossible. Her calves burned, the balls of her feet protesting the capricious demands of women’s fashion.
She considered taking her shoes off, but the thought of her bare soles touching Los Angeles pavement drew to her mind her mother’s face, lips sour with disapproval. A blister was beginning to wear itself between the back of her heel and her shoe.
But she would not be taking it off.
Dessa could hear the cars on the 110 cutting their way through the skyscrapers. A persistent hum indicating that traffic was at the very least moving. Small groups of pedestrians, Hollywood types, in L.A. proper for a change of pace, made their way past her. This was what Friday night was like downtown, not so many people out that the sidewalks were crowded, but not so few that they were creepy.
Her phone rang. Joe.
“You know, you could have saved me a lot of flak if you had answered your phone five minutes ago,” she told him.
“I was in the car! Aren’t you always telling me not to answer the phone when I’m in the car?” On the defense...but playful.
“Where are you now?”
“In the car.”
Dessa giggled, despite herself. She pinned her phone between her shoulder and her ear and kept walking.
“I’m almost there.”
Dessa flooded with relief. “Oh thank God. Olivia threw up and this babysitter is a complete bimbo.”
“Then I shall send this bimbo home and stay with the bug.” Joe was clearly amused by her concern. But Dessa was thrilled that Ollie wouldn’t have to stay with a stranger for much longer.
“Thanks. I’m leaving now, but it could take me a bit to get there.”
Up ahead, a group of six men were walking toward her. Nice jeans and button-downs. Tipsy, grinning backslappers... The closer they got the less they looked like men to Dessa and the more they looked like guys. And she could pinpoint the exact moment that they noticed her walking toward them. The subtle changes in their postures as some unvocalized signal was sent through the pack.
Dessa pushed the phone into her ear. Trying to make the fact that she was on it more conspicuous.
It didn’t work.
One of the pack—the Alpha, Dessa supposed—shouted at her as they approached, “Hey! You’re headed the wrong way.” Dessa glanced at them, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment. An accidental connection that would have caused him to look away quickly if he had been sober. But he was not.
“Sounds like I have a little competition,” Joe gauged.
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Dessa sighed. She didn’t feel threatened by these overgrown boys...just kind of tired.
They passed her, but Alpha wasn’t giving up. He turned and walked backward, shouting at her. “You look like you like schnapps!” He exaggerated the word, somehow achieving a guttural a. His friends burst into laughter. Clearly this performance was for them. “C’mon, I’ll buy you schnapps!” Shhhh-N-Ahhhpps.
Dessa smiled. In spite of herself.
“There is something to be said for persistence though,” she said into the phone, her tone playful. Joe was silent. Her flirty serve left unreturned. “Honey?”
A series of beeps interrupted Joe’s silence. Call failed.
Dessa looked at the screen. A dim caul lay over the picture of Olivia and Joe. Try again? She took another step—
And stumbled. Ankle awkward, a dip to the side.
Dessa swore, righting herself. It couldn’t have looked good. Wobbling like some sorority reject, too drunk for heels.
But then she looked up.
The street was rolling. Gentle waves cresting and falling, pushing their way through the pavement. Dessa wasn’t exactly sure of what she was witnessing.
“Schnapps! Hey, Schnapps! We’re having an earthquake!”
Dessa looked back toward the group of guys, who were paused in the middle of the sidewalk. They seemed thrilled with this new turn of events. High-fiving each other. Like the tectonic movements of the earth happened at just that moment so they would have something to reminisce about.
At the terminus of the street Dessa could make out the bouncers at the bar where she had left the girls. They were waving the entire line of hopeful patrons inside.
The ground was still rolling. Dessa finally aware that she was rising and falling with it.
“Pussies!” the Alpha screamed. Dessa’s eyes searched the area, looking for his new target and saw that across the street other more cautious pedestrians were rushing into buildings, their faces concerned but not panicked.
“This is a three-five. Maybe a four, tops.”
His friends joined in the fun. Shouting, “Earthquake!” in mock horror. Waving their hands like frightened little girls. Dessa wondered what qualified their leader to rate the severity of the tremor.
But it was true, nothing about this lolling sine wave of a quake seemed particularly dangerous. Like the final hallway in the fun house she had gone to as a girl. The floor lifted and canted as you made your way toward the exit, hands wrapped around the banisters on the walls. Cars and taxis still drove by them on the street, probably unaware the earth was even moving.
Dessa wondered if she should head into one of the buildings. A bunch of drunk dudes in the street weren’t necessarily the best role models.
But then the rolling slowed...coming to a stop.
“See, Schnapps! Just a cute little baby earthquake.”
One of his friends threw an arm around his shoulders, “Hey! Since we’re all about to die, would you mind having sex with him? He’s got a really small penis. You’ll barely feel it.” The two of them curled over. Their laughter devolving into a heady hiss.
Dessa sighed, and turned back around. Tired of boys, of earthquakes and friends’ expectations. She just wanted to get home to her baby and her man and go to sleep. To nurse a mild hangover in the morning and go to the zoo. To call Gretchen and pretend she had no memory of their last conversation.
She turned back up the hill, her feet biting their way toward the overpass.
There was an audible smack...like the tail end of a rug snapping. A loud reverberating crack.
Dessa fell forward, less down than out. Like the earth was rising up toward her. The skin of her palms tore into the pavement as she fell, just barely keeping her chin from impacting.
Then the world began to scream.
The roar blew toward Dessa, rising around her as she lay on the ground. Something monstrous pushing its way up from under the city.
Everything began to thrum. Harmonically attuned to the coming disaster. Windows trembling. Concrete grinding. Metal straining against stone...louder...louder...
Dessa braced herself against the building next to her, gaining her feet. From the street came a blare of horns as drivers suddenly became aware of the new movements of the earth, dislocating itself from under their tires.
There was a slick motion under Dessa’s hand and she yanked it toward herself. The building next to her was moving, shuddering like a traumatized animal.
And then it jumped. The whole building leaped up, pulling at the restraints of its foundation.
The pavement beneath her began to heave and shudder. Dessa fell again, her body rocked forward, a violent shake. She screamed, looking for something to hold on to...but there was nothing but the ground that had thrown her. Forced by gravity to cling to the very thing that was betraying her.
“We have to get out of here!”
Dessa looked up. It was Alpha. His face serious now.
He held out a hand to her. Only a few feet away. She reached for him.
Twin sets of light sliced across their bodies. Dessa looked toward the street.
A car, too fast, was skidding toward them. Its wheels screamed against the road but the force of its trajectory was too strong. Dessa flinched as it swerved, its front wheel catching the curb, spinning it around.
There was a brief moment as the car flipped, a silence carried on the breeze it directed at Dessa’s face.
And then it connected with Alpha’s body, his hand still held out toward her. The hood of the car pinned him against the wall of the building. Alpha’s friends turned to run, but before they had even taken a step, the car’s tail whipped around, slamming them into the wall.
Dessa blinked, and for a moment she could still see a ghost image of Alpha’s face in the lights burned into her retinas. The whole thing had taken seconds... They had been here...now they were gone.
It was not possible, but somehow it got even louder. The world ripping itself apart. Above Dessa there began a cacophony of high ringing splits. Something brushed her face as it fell from the sky. Dessa looked down as a gentle patter of crystals hit her shoulder.
A rain of glass.
Shards of falling windows battered at the arms Dessa used to cover her head. She forced herself to move. Go, her body demanded. Go. GO! There was no longer logic; there was only instinct and will.
She ran into the street, away from the buildings and their hail of glass.
And then it was quiet.
Dessa panted, her loud breath the only sound in her ears. Limbs and chest beating in time with her heart, pulsing together. A pause. Dessa lifted her eyes, for the first time taking in the sight of the city beyond this street.
The silhouettes of skyscrapers swayed on the horizon. Like seaweed in the depths of the ocean. Pulled by a current beyond comprehension.
“God,” Dessa heard herself say.
There had not until that moment been words. And now there was only this one. God.
Oh God. Dear God. Please God.
A prayer. An exclamation. A laying of blame. Dessa did not know. But it was the only word in Dessa’s mind. The only word for this moment.
A loud crack echoed its way between the buildings. Originating from behind her. She turned.
At the bottom of the hill, the middle floors of the bar bulged outward horrifically. Dessa stared, trying to make sense of it. The structure looked impossible...because it was.
Muffled screaming emerged from the building. Hundreds of voices, rising in pitch. Men, women, everyone calling out in universal terror.
“Gretchen.” Dessa imagined her best friend inside the club. Pressed against all that screaming humanity. Her voice wouldn’t be one of them. She would be pushing her way out. She would be calm, heading for the exit. Her hands locked firm onto Heidi and Laurel. Dragging them all to safety. Dessa was sure of it. Certain it would only be a second until she would see her friends open the door, step onto the street—
The first floor gave way, disappearing under the second and the third. The building consumed itself.
Dessa screamed.
The ground came back to life. Angry. Pieces of the buildings above her began to fall. Architectural details tumbled from their moorings, cornice, molding, carved dente transformed on their way to the ground until they were all the same thing. Rubble. Pieces of the sky rained down on the street.
Dessa turned and ran toward the overpass, away from the buildings and their deadly debris. She reached the partition that separated the elevated city streets from the freeway below, and hauled her leg over the concrete barrier. Her heel dug into the grass of the embankment for a moment, but then she was sliding downward toward the stopped cars on the highway. Their taillights a river of red leading in the only possible direction. Away.
She twisted, her feet back under her. A woman watched her from inside a sedan, the shadow of the overpass making her face a dark blur.
Dessa beat at the car’s window. Pleading. “Let me in! Let me in!”
The driver looked away. Shaking her head. Her hands gripping the wheel. She was crying.
Dessa pulled at the handle. Locked, it slipped in her hand. She pummeled the window again. Harder. “Please! Help me! Please!”
Above them a section of the overpass released a shriek as it wrenched itself free from its pylons. Inside her car the woman looked up. Horror bloomed on her face.
Dessa dropped to the ground by the car. Her hands cradling her neck. There was a rush of air, the mineral smell of cement and then the darkness of impact.
11 PM
DOWNTOWN
5
Beegie wakes to a world that has gone blank. Whiteness is everything. She knows this is wrong, but can’t quite figure out how she knows it is wrong.
Right now she doesn’t know how she knows anything.
She breathes and feels her breath reflecting back at her. It makes her face warm and damp. It smells like rubber and dust.
She realizes.
The whiteness is a wall. It is close to her face. And smooth. Like the color is part of it, not painted.
There is a tug on her shoe.
She realizes. Again.
She is lying down.
She is lying down and she is facing a white wall in a dim, hollow space.
There is another tug on her shoe. “Hey, Queen... Queen Elizabeth...” says the man who is tugging on them. “You okay in there?” he says, and she nods. Her name isn’t Queen Elizabeth, but her throat is too dry to tell him. She swallows and it hurts because there is no moisture in her mouth.
“C’mere,” he says, and he pulls her by her feet out of the pocket she was in.
She realizes.
They are in a bus but it is...wrong.
Behind the man the roof is open, like it got punched through. There are bricks, hundreds of them, sitting on the seats and floor. Like the bricks are commuters. Like the bricks are going to Pacoima.
The man says, “Yeah, you’re okay,” and then he guides her to the steps. His hands are on both of her shoulders, and he is kind of pushing her out onto the street. There are people there and they look at her. They look gray, grim, ashen.
“We’ll take care of her,” says the man. And the people turn away. They seem happy they do not have to worry about her, like they have other problems.
“You are one lucky bitch,” says Not-Charlie.
Beegie doesn’t understand why she knows that that is his name. Or his not name.
“When you didn’t get off the bus, I was sure you were toast.” He laughs. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
The other man, from the bus, the Busman, puts his arm around her. He is so much bigger than her that his hand hangs awkwardly over her body. Hovering in the space between her head and her chest.
He starts to lead her away. Not-Charlie with them. A word bubbles up from somewhere in her body, “Bag,” she says, “Need...bag.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” says Not-Charlie, and the Busman runs back into the bus. He returns with her purse. He puts it on her shoulder, threading her arm through the loop. And Beegie feels better knowing it is there.
6
Dessa had experienced her “first” earthquake on Gretchen’s couch.
Kitty’s large head had been occupying the real estate of her lap when he suddenly perked his ears. He sat up, the muscles under the fawn-colored fur of his body taut. Dessa had enough time to wonder what was wrong before she felt it herself. A few of the framed photos on Gretchen’s fireplace fell over, their edges clattering against the adobe of the mantel. And then it was over.
“You feel that?” Gretchen appeared at the door to her kitchen. A bowl of popcorn in her hands.
Dessa had giggled. Nervous energy escaping. They had warned her about earthquakes when she moved here. Not Californians. Not people who actually lived and worked and occupied the area above the San Andreas Fault line. But everyone else. It was the second thing they mentioned as soon as Dessa said she had gotten a job here. Right after they mentioned the weather.
Gretchen kicked Kitty off the couch and pulled her legs up. Dessa stared at her, trying to take a cue from her casualness. “What do we do?” Dessa finally asked, and Gretchen had laughed. Open mouth and full-bodied. A maw full of popcorn.
