The Season of Risks

Chapter Sixteen

I awoke in a white room. Where I was, who I was, didn't seem too important. What mattered was the cat.
It sat in the middle of the white-tiled floor, a silver cloud, washing itself. Then its head lifted; its empty eye sockets turned toward me. Told me it was time to go.
Even in the fluorescent glare from the ceiling lights, the cat had patterns of grey amid its silver coat. "Marmalade," I said.
I slid out of bed, shook the skirt of my blue dress to lose its wrinkles. The cat crossed the room and disappeared through a shut door. It wasn't locked, and I followed. The cat moved down a brightly lit, empty corridor. I walked quickly, keeping close to the wall.
Marmalade led me to another door, then down a concrete stairwell. I saw her tail disappear through a steel door at its bottom and I ran down the last flight, trying to catch up.
The door sprang open, and I was outside, underneath a night sky. The wind smelled like Miami. And Marmalade was gone.
I moved through the darkness between two buildings, looking for her, but saw nothing, not even a wisp of smoke. A streetlight ahead showed a sidewalk, and the sidewalk bordered a street full of slow-moving cars. Like a sleepwalker I followed the empty sidewalk for blocks, realizing with each step something I lacked: money, form of identification, car keys, phone.
Then I saw people: tall women made taller by high-heeled shoes, wearing bright colors and drinking cocktails, surrounded by slender men in their shirtsleeves, smoking cigarettes. I thought the place must be some sort of courtyard cafe, with a brass fountain shaped like an urn and white chaises surrounding it, big as beds.
The smells of the women's perfumes mingled with cigarette smoke, making me feel weak. I had no idea how long it had been since I'd eaten or been fed.
I walked through the crowd, trying to find a restroom. A wall of glass blocks glowed and changed colors, and I moved along it slowly, following its curve, until I saw a muscular man leaning against it, drinking deeply from the throat of a red-haired woman. His shaved head lifted, and his eyes flicked over me, as if he recognized me.
"Little sister looks hungry," he said.
My hands made the open-mouth Mentori sign.
He held out his left arm, the other one still holding the woman, who seemed to have fainted. "Come and eat," he said. "I have more than enough."
After I'd bent my head to his wrist and drunk my fill, energy swept through my body, steadied my nerves, made me feel grounded again. I said thank you, but the man's attention had already returned to the redhead.
Finding the restroom, I washed my hands and face, wishing I could take a shower, wondering how long I'd been wearing the blue dress, afraid to ask a stranger what month it was. I combed my hair with my fingers and went back to the courtyard.
The women reminded me of flamingos as they stalked from the chaises to the bar and back to the fountain area again. Their voices sounded much too loud. Even the fountain's plashing seemed exaggerated, as if someone had turned a volume switch up as high as it could go.
I stood still and breathed deeply, scanning the place, until I saw a cell phone on an empty table. My heartbeat sounded loud to me as I swept past the table, lifted the phone, and went out to the street again.
Dashay. The name came to me easily. I knew that I knew her phone number by heart, but somehow I couldn't think of it. Relax, I told myself. Don't panic. I stood very still, willing myself to remember.
I tried to visualize this Dashay. A hazy image of a woman came to mind, as indistinct as my face would be in a mirror. I looked at the phone's keypad, imagining myself making a call, but I couldn't think where to begin. When I was about to give up, I remembered a single digit. Then I saw the entire area code, hanging in an orange cluster beneath the streetlamp. I pressed the keys. The rest came back just as slowly, one number at a time. Finally I had it all and tapped the last number into the keypad. The call went through. Each ring made my head hurt. No one answered.
A couple with their arms wrapped around each other sauntered along the street, headed toward the bar. I waved at them. "What's the name of this street?" I asked. Each word sounded too enunciated, as if I were trying to speak a foreign language.
The man smirked. He thought I was drunk. "You're on Southwest Fifty-eighth, sweetie."
"Southwest Fifty-eighth." I repeated it slowly, twice.
They kept walking. I pressed the redial button. Please, I prayed.
On the fifth ring a sleepy voice said, "Who is this?"
"Dashay?" I said.
"This is Dashay," she said. Then she must have recognized my voice. "Oh my madda. Ari? For real?"
I said, "For real." I was thinking, Ari. So that's my name.
"I knew it," she said. Her voice came out like a sob. "I knew it all the time."
I read her the name of the cafe from its awning. She told me to go back and stay there until she arrived. "Sit down and don't move. Don't move one inch. And don't you go talking to strangers, now," she said. "Miami is a bad place."
After I hung up, I went back to the courtyard and managed to slip the phone back onto the empty table. Then I figured I might as well sit there myself, unless someone asked me to leave. The cell phone said the time now was 9:10. I hoped I'd be on my way home before the bar closed.
Meantime, I would people-watch. More likely, vamp-and-people watch. Hard to tell which of those around me were others. Everyone seemed a little larger than life.
The man wearing gold chains who said, "Lookin' good, mama," had to be human. He paused at my table, took in my lack of reaction to him, and said, "Okay, okay," as he walked away.
The man with the shaved head-my donor-came around the corner, patting his lips with a folded red handkerchief that he returned to the pocket of his black jacket. He went to the bar, ordered, and carried away two red glasses. Then he came to my table and set them down.
"You look as if you could use a drink," he said. He took the chair next to mine.
Only then did I realize how thirsty I was. I clinked his glass and took a sip. "Thank you. For everything."
"No problem." We sat back in the white upholstered chairs. For some reason I felt very comfortable around this man, with his blunt-featured face and enormous muscles. His strength itself soothed me, made me feel protected. I sensed he would bring me no harm.
Maybe he sensed the same about me.
"I wish I could buy you a drink back," I said. "But I don't have my wallet with me."
He looked thoughtful. "Somebody took it away, right?"
"How did you know?"
He sipped his Picardo. "I'm a regular here. A few years ago some poor vamp wandered in here looking like a lost puppy. Like you. I don't know what happened to you, what happened to him, but he came in here all drained and hungry and a little slow in the head. Without his wallet."
"That kind of sums it up." My speech was coming more easily now, though it still didn't sound normal to me.
"I talked to the guy. He said that he felt like his brain had been taken apart and put back together again."
I felt like that, too. "Could you tell me what month it is?"
When he said late April, I nearly spilled my drink. Last time I'd seen a calendar, it was January.
I wondered what I'd missed.
His name was Miguel, he said, and he'd been born in Little Havana, a neighborhood west of downtown Miami. These days he lived in Coconut Grove.
The names sounded more musical than the sounds of the fountain, which didn't seem quite so loud now.
Then I thought about Dashay's warning. "You aren't in a gang, are you?"
"Everyone's in a gang," he said, "even if it's a gang of one."
We ate platefuls of oysters and olives, and the food's saltiness hurt my tongue. But I kept eating.
"You remind me a little of my sister," Miguel said. "Where do you come from?"
I had no idea. He must have seen the confusion in my face, because he said, "Hey, no big deal."
"My name is Ari," I said.
Someone began to play a piano-a grand piano, glimmering at the end of the courtyard like a white ghost. Small white candles flickered on the tables. The breeze smelled like exotic flowers. I sipped a second glass of Picardo and sent a thank-you to Marmalade for leading me back to the land of the living.
Dashay didn't walk into the bar, she sailed-her caftan wafting, braided hair flying behind her. When she spotted me, her face brightened, then turned sour when she saw Miguel.
The first thing I said when she reached our table was, "I'm okay. He's okay." That quieted her long enough for me to add, "This is Miguel. He saved me from starving." I turned to Miguel. "This is Dashay. She doesn't like Miami."
Dashay wouldn't even sit down. "Happy to meet you," she said, her tone contradicting the words. "The truck is waiting, Ari. We need to get you home."
Miguel stood up. Dashay glanced at him and said, "Oh my." In spite of her reservations about Miami strangers, she was impressed by his build.
Miguel gave me a quick hug. "I'm always here on Saturdays," he said. "If you ever need me."
I surprised myself, and shocked Dashay, by giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then Dashay took my arm, led me out to the street. "Since when do you kiss strangers?" she hissed into my ear.
I didn't know, so I didn't answer.
A truck was parked at the curb, its motor running. In its cab sat a man who looked familiar.
"That's Bennett," Dashay said, her voice softer. "You remember him?"
I said yes, but he seemed a stranger until he smiled.
Bennett was in the driver's seat. I sat in the middle, and Dashay climbed in next to me. She turned toward me, took my face in both her hands, looked hard into my eyes.
"You're all right," she said, as if willing it so.
"I feel strange," I said.
"Anything hurting?"
I said no. "My brain feels kind of"-I struggled to find the word-"spacious."
Dashay looked puzzled, then turned away and strapped us both in. "We'll deal with that in the morning." She rummaged in her purse and handed me a tissue. "You need to clean up. Your mouth is bloody."
"Her bad blood got the better of her, maybe," Bennett said. He pulled the truck away from the curb.
My head rested on Dashay's shoulder. She went to sleep as soon as the truck merged onto the interstate, but I felt wide awake. I watched the highway roll toward us in the truck's headlights as Bennett drove us home.
"We're here."
Bennett's voice woke me. The truck's motion must have rocked me to sleep, after all. Beside me, Dashay still slept.
While I stirred and stretched, Bennett walked around the truck, opened the passenger door, and lifted her out. He carried her inside a blue-painted house that seemed to sprawl in all directions.
I looked at its windows, yellow-tinted from the lights inside. I knew I'd been there before, but the place seemed familiar only in the way a landmark glimpsed in a postcard might. I made my way toward the house and stepped warily inside, looking around me for clues.
Bennett walked into the living room. "Ariella?" he said. "Don't you know where your room is?"
I turned around slowly, looking for something I knew, finding nothing. Then I began to cry.
He crossed the room, enfolded me in his arms. "Don't be worried, child," he said. "I came back. You can come back, too."
The room he led me into-blue walls, white bed-smelled of lavender. I felt so pleased to recognize the scent that I said the word out loud: "Lavender." The blue violet letters of the word shimmered as I spoke it.
After Bennett left, I walked around the room three times. Every object in it stood out, as if outlined by a child using thick pencil strokes. Nothing but its scent seemed familiar to me. I stared at the books, the clothing in the drawers, the charcoal sketch of a girl propped against the dresser mirror. All the mirror gave me was a blurry face, edged by strands of dark hair. I looked from the sketch to the mirror, willing the images to marry.
Finally I went to bed, because I didn't know what else to do. Seconds after I'd turned out the light, I heard soft footfalls on the bedroom floor. Then the mattress moved, and something made its way toward me. A cold nose sniffed my hand, then a furry form molded itself against my left side.
I didn't know it until later, but Grace had arrived. After that, I drifted toward sleep, floating in the dark room. Where I was, who I was, didn't seem too important. What mattered was the cat.