Panda
I should call him.
Why?
Because I haven't heard from him since Thursday.
It's only Saturday.
And it's almost Saturday night. I thought he liked me.
He can't go out with you every night. Didn't you want to take things slow?
Not so slow that I sit home on Friday *and* Saturday night. I mean, I could have called Ricky...
Like that wouldn't be awkward. You broke up, remember?
Whatever. Anyway, Dino should know better.
He runs a club. Friday and Saturday nights are the big nights. He's probably too busy.
Or maybe he already has dates with other girls. Maybe I'm just a JV date.
You expect to be exclusive already? That's not exactly taking it slow.
Well... I thought we had a connection.
You can't expect a busy and important guy like him to rearrange his whole life around some teenager he just met.
Fine, but at least he could call. I should call him.
How? You don't know his number.
I can call Information.
You think someone like him would be listed? He's probably got a list of girlfriends-- sorry, *ex*-girlfriends a mile long. With that car, those clothes, that bod...
He said his success was recent.
Okay, but the bod isn't new.
Well, it won't hurt to try Information.
"Yes. Oak Valley. The number for Dino Sinclair. [pause] A residence. [pause] Are you sure? Right, sorry. Bye."
Knew it wouldn't be listed.
Shut up.
So, for all that dam-bursting personal info he dropped on you last night, you still have no way of contacting him, you have no idea where he lives or where he works... shouldn't the alarms be going off?
That wasn't quite true. She did know who he worked for. At least, if Miguel was telling the truth. Which was the real reason she wanted so badly to talk to him, though she'd never admit it. She had to know: was he a... mobster? It certainly seemed to fit -- flashy clothes, flashy car, cagey about his job and his past, silver-tongued... well, she had no idea whether that was a mobster trait, but it was certainly one of his many assets...
God, Angela, you're just not very good when it comes to picking men. From Jerky Josh to... Rookie Ricky and now... Dangerous Dino.
Dangerous Dino. She kind of liked the sound of that.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out which club is his. Maybe I should go down there and surprise him...
You mean confront him. About being a mobster.
Well... Maybe that wasn't really him in the photo.
Don't be foolish, girl. You think there's gonna be two guys named Dino? Who look the same? You saw the picture.
It was dark, and kind of fuzzy...
Please. You have every detail of that man's face memorized. Face it, you're ga-ga over a ganster.
So what if he was? What did that mean, anyway? Was it really like on TV? Some people said Gerald Bates was a mob boss, but others just called him an entrepeneur. Being successful made you a target, and being involved in so many things, there was bound to be a connection to somebody doing something illegal, like that Kevin Bacon movie thing. Was it like that?
And maybe Dino didn't even know. How could he? He was so kind, and caring... Angela didn't think those were traits that would help you get ahead in the company of vicious thugs... No, he was innocent.
Well, probably not in *that* way...
Argh! She had to get herself under control! Why was she so wrapped up in this guy?
Besides the car, the clothes, the bod, the voice, the eyes... the mystery... the way he always made her feel like she was the only person in the room...
Ricky used to make me feel that way.
Why do you always bring that up? It's over. Even if he wanted to take you back, you know it's wrong to ask him.
I know, but...
You have to let him go. And you have to stop seeing him. You can't let him keep coming around like you're still together. You can't let him use you like that.
It's not like that. He still cares.
Well, it's not normal. And it's not healthy.
The sooner you forget him, the better. For both of you.
Angela sighed. She missed Ricky.
But Ricky was different now. Distant. Detached. Adult. Like his father.
She might still run into a young man named Ricky Aquino, but the boy she fell for was gone.
In a way, she'd already killed him.
Dino was in many ways the opposite of Ricky. Maybe that's why she felt drawn to him. Her image of an organized crime figure already lived with enemies and danger. He'd already chosen a life of risk on his own.
He couldn't be hurt.
Awake.
Heart pounding.
Legs trapped. Kicking. Twisted sheets.
Soaked sheets.
Hot, slick skin.
Angela stopped thrashing. Flat on her back, arms and legs splayed, gasping for breath. She couldn't remember any nightmare. She waited to calm down. Soon adrenaline would fade and she could fall asleep.
But she wasn't coming down.
Dammit. I forgot my pill. Why can't I remember? Why is this happening to me? What's wrong with me?
Get the pill. Hurry. Before the nightmare comes back. What nightmare? Any nightmare.
This nightmare.
Waking up with jumper cables. Feeling one beat short of a heart attack. Bathing in sweat. Mental gears spinning at a hundred miles an hour getting nowhere, just worrying, reflecting, wondering, random things that suddenly mattered, unrelated things that were about to domino into personal collapse, a running monologue of impending panic.
Ricky had once asked if she heard voices.
It was just one voice. Her voice. And she wouldn't shut up.
Xanax shut her up.
Legs pumped in the general direction of the kitchen, arms adjusting the body's course by banging doorjambs and walls and furniture. She could not wait for equilibrium. Every second lost was another second spent in this hell waiting for Lady Xanax to arrive to hold her down and make her focus.
The pill raked down her throat until it caught its tapwater wave. The exhausted girl collapsed on the couch, feeling the course fabric paw at her sweat-slicked skin. Angela sat there, as still as she could manage, thoughts hammering by like a slide carousel stuck advancing in time with her pounding heart.
Twenty minutes. Just hold on for twenty minutes.
Mercifully, calm finally came.
Unmercifully, the dreary lack of feeling came with it.
So Angela tried her own home remedy. She went looking for her sapphires.
She'd almost done this last night, but with her track record of late she was afraid to. Now she just wanted the high. She wouldn't go anywhere. She wouldn't try to save anyone. Anyone but herself.
Somehow this was supposed to make her feel secure.
Instead it just made her feel lousy.
I'm not well enough to do my job, but I'm well enough to use them to get off.
No, it wasn't like that. It wasn't so dirty. This was... treatment. She needed to get her life back in balance. And if the Xanax couldn't do that by itself, then maybe the sapphires could help.
Anyway, she was going to have to figure out exactly how they interacted sooner or later, because she couldn't see herself giving up either one.
It took her a while to find them. The apartment was a mess. Her mom would have said it looked like a tornado had set down here.
She'd gotten a lot of things from her mom. Now she was on her own. Her mom wasn't around to pick up after her messes anymore.
Later. She didn't have the energy to go cleaning up the place right now. She needed to even out.
She needed to do research. Yeah, that's the ticket.
There. One shoe at the foot of the bed. One in the bathroom. One wristband on the dresser. The other...
The other...
There. On the floor next to Pan-Pan, the huge stuffed panda that was Ricky's only gift to her. Well, not counting the various T-shirts she'd accidentally packed. But those were going back. Pan-Pan was staying. Big and floppy, wearing years of choke-holds and drop-kicks well. His mom had given it to him. Or to his dad, she didn't remember the whole story. He said it always made him feel safe. Now it was Pan-Pan's job to make her feel safe, no matter what happened.
"Pan-Pan, you need to do a better job watching my sapphires. You let them out in the light all day, now they won't last very long."
Last? Last for what? Until what? Until the Xanax leveled off and she didn't feel so depressed.
She just wanted to feel even.
She slipped the jeweled adornments on, immediately finding their mostly-discharged state pushed her past even into sweet syrupy weakness. Her skin immediately warmed up. She felt tingly all over. Soon her hands began to wander...
This was one way the sapphires never let her down.