Page 20

1995

Orchid bought two bus tickets to LA. If she were traveling alone, she could have gone farther—south to Arizona or east to Chicago, even New York—but she’d promised to look after this thin, quiet girl and she would. Besides, LA was a huge city. If Orchid’s mother was still living in the valley, if she was still alive, she wouldn’t find Orchid there. Because Lorna Chambers wouldn’t be looking. When Orchid killed Trevor, her mother had called her a whore, a psychopath, a murderer. She’d made it clear she no longer had a daughter.

The pair sat side by side in the second-to-last row of the Greyhound bus, Lucy’s arm pressed against Orchid’s, a pleasant human warmth in the air-conditioned chill. They rode in silence, Orchid watching the arid scenery of central California out the window, while Lucy stared straight ahead. Eventually, Orchid worried aloud. “We’re going to need money,” she said, voice camouflaged by the hum of tires on asphalt. “I don’t have enough for a motel. We’ll have to go to a shelter or sleep on the street.”

The younger girl didn’t respond, just fished in the grocery bag stuffed with clothes. “Does this help?” She extracted a small bag full of white powder. Orchid hadn’t seen Lucy take it, hadn’t even known it was in the trailer.

“What is it?”

Lucy shrugged, buried it back amid her clothes. “Meth, I think. That’s what they usually do. It makes Clyde go crazy.”

“Yeah, it helps,” Orchid said. “It helps a lot.” The girls exchanged a smile. They were already a team. They could both feel it. Together, they would survive.

Orchid had never bought or sold drugs, but it couldn’t be hard. Some of the stupidest people she knew were adept at both. And she remembered Trevor traveling downtown to buy drugs for her mom and him. They’d snort some sort of powder and then they’d go out, not returning for days on end. She figured it would be more profitable to divvy the meth into smaller portions, but where? And how? It wasn’t possible. They’d have to unload the whole bag, and with that money, they could travel farther away. Just to be safe.

She felt Lucy’s head fall against her shoulder, her body still. The kid was exhausted, and she finally felt safe enough to sleep. Orchid closed her eyes, too. But she remained alert.

Two girls lost in a big-city bus station are not lost for long. The first man to approach them was a pimp, aggressive and unnerving, but they managed to shake him off. Within a few minutes, another guy sauntered over to them. He was younger, just a boy himself, despite his graying skin and dull eyes.

“You guys want to party?”

“Sure,” Orchid said.

The boy offered to carry Orchid’s backpack, but she declined, worried he might run off with it. Still, they followed him west for a few blocks. His name was Christian, and he was from San Diego. His stepdad had beat him up regularly, so he’d left home when he was only thirteen. He was nineteen now, making his living selling drugs, stealing from cars, selling whatever he could. “You need something fenced, I can do it,” he said with pride.

Orchid glanced at Lucy pointedly. They couldn’t tell Christian about the bag of meth buried in that plastic bag. He was stronger than both of them. He could easily take it from them, and then they’d have nothing to sell. Nothing but themselves. Orchid vowed they wouldn’t have to do that.

Soon the barren streets became lined with tents, litter, the scent of filth and fire. A woman wailed in the distance, her words unintelligible except for FUCK and GOVERNMENT. Christian explained that a mental institution had recently closed, and the city had failed to provide the outpatient support they’d promised. All those people, mentally ill and unmedicated, had nowhere to go but to the streets.

“There’s social housing, but not a lot. And it’s hard to get,” he said. “But not everyone down here is crazy,” he added, scratching roughly at his arm, leaving red streaks on the pale skin. “Some people are hooked on drugs and booze. Some people have jobs but can’t afford their rent. And then some of us just feel at home here. We don’t know any different.”

They joined a group clustered around a small fire in a rusted barrel. It was a cool evening, but not cold. The fire seemed mostly aesthetic, a prop that let them pretend this was a gathering of friends there by choice, not necessity. Orchid and Lucy hung back on the periphery of the crowd of mostly men but a few women, one in a wheelchair, her leg amputated at the knee. Orchid studied them all until a clear leader emerged.

He was a Black man, muscular and handsome despite missing a front tooth. He didn’t speak much, but his power was evident in the reverence of those around him. Orchid leaned over to Christian and whispered, “Who’s that?” She nodded subtly at the man.

“That’s Mal. Don’t piss him off.”

She wouldn’t.

Holding Lucy’s arm, Orchid approached Mal. Her heart thudded like a bass drum in her chest, but somehow her voice was cool. “We have some meth we need to get rid of.”

Mal looked them up and down in a purely mercenary way. What could they do for him? How could he use them? But Orchid was determined not to be anyone’s pawn. She would chart her own future.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Orchid.”

“I’m Lucy.”

“Follow me,” Mal said. He started walking and they had no option but to scurry after him. They moved past makeshift shelters, people fixing on the sidewalk, bodies strewn on the pavement like a battlefield. They went down an alley and Orchid tried not to focus on the smells: sex, urine, feces… They paused behind a dumpster full of cardboard. It was dark and secluded, and Orchid knew how vulnerable they were. But they had no choice but to trust this man.

He lit a cigarette, the cherry glowing red like a warning light. “Let’s see what you got.”

Lucy fished among her clothes and offered him the bag. Mal took it, weighed its heft in his hands. Then he licked a finger, dipped it into the bag, and tapped his tongue.

“That’s not meth, it’s coke.”

Orchid was not a user, but she knew coke was worth more money. Something hopeful flickered in her belly. “You wanna buy it?”

“Yeah,” Mal said, and threw out a figure that Orchid pretended to consider. She had no idea what a bag of coke was worth, but it sounded like enough. Mal pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, counted them out by the light of his cigarette. Orchid took the money, stuffed it into her backpack.

“And I’ll toss in this,” Mal added, handing over a small switchblade. “You’ll need it out here.”

“We’re not sleeping out here,” Orchid said as she pocketed the knife. She had money now. She could put a roof over their heads. “Is there a motel nearby?”

“Yeah, if you like bedbugs. And the motels around here are just as dangerous as the streets.” He tossed his cigarette into a filthy puddle. “Maybe more so.”

Mal walked off, leaving the girls to discuss.

“It’s warm out,” Lucy said. “We could sleep out and save our money for food and stuff.”

Orchid considered it. “Maybe for a night or two.”

They would sleep on the sidewalk for nearly a year.