He had carved the grass down to the nub all morning. The whip of the weed eater still rang in his elbows. A strip of green stuck to his socks and the cuffs of his jeans where the line had sprayed. He sat in the thin shade of a pecan tree beside the shed, back to the bark, heat sliding off the metal door even in the shadow. The air held cut grass and gasoline. Somewhere on the other side of the daycare wall a cartoon jingle leaked out and then cut off. Cicadas kept time.
It had been a few days since Mireya buckled Camila in and drove away. The memory came quick and he let it pass, like a wave that wanted to name what it took. Camila’s tears had come from the seat and from her chest, small body sure she could bend the day back if she asked right. He tipped his head against the tree and closed his eyes until the sting in them settled.
Grass crunched. He opened them to see Laney stepping off the path with a glass and a folded sheet. She stopped in front of him. The glass sweated onto her fingers. The paper had neat lines and a pink sticky note riding the top corner.
“We made lemonade with the kids for lunch. Here ya go.”
He took it and sipped. Sugar hit first and loud. He smacked his lips once. “This taste like diabetes.”
Her mouth went to a half smile. “You ain’t wrong.”
She handed him the list. He saw her handwriting in boxes, doors and a latch and a pile that needed hauling before a storm that might not even come. She kept talking, eyes taking quick inventory of the shed, the yard, his shirt stuck to his back. “You been doin’ a good job.”
“It’s better than hauling shingles up and down ladders,” he said, “or throwing OSB around.”
“Work like that’ll teach you some discipline, though.” She didn’t put weight on it. Just said it. Her wrist turned and the wedding band on her hand caught a pale stripe of sun that had slipped through the leaves.
He nodded. He drank again and felt his teeth ache at the hit of sweet. He shook his head once at the glass and set it in the grass by his thigh. A breeze started and quit.
Silence held a beat. She tilted her chin. “I didn’t know you was a daddy.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Camila’s my everything.”
“How old was you when she was born? You still so young.”
“Fifteen.”
“Lord.” She breathed it so small it barely reached him.
“You have children, too, right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Three boys.”
He let his eyes move off to the far fence where the field started and the color changed. His voice came out level. “Yeah, it’s crazy being a parent. I’d do anything for that little girl, starve if I had to just see her happy because she got her favorite snack or some shit.” He looked up and caught her watching his mouth. “My bad.”
She waved it off with two fingers. “I don’t think God mind.”
He nodded once. “That’s my whole reason for keeping at football, providing her a childhood I ain’t have.” A short breath left him like a laugh that knew better. “Even though I’m probably gonna have to pay for a lot of therapy for her.”
The sound that came after was him snorting at himself. He didn’t chase it. A fly worried his elbow and he brushed it off. “I ain’t mean to say all that out loud,” he said after a moment. “Just been thinking about it since they were here.”
Laney didn’t fill the space right away. The daycare’s back door thumped somewhere behind her and a child’s voice climbed, then got quiet at a staffer’s shush. She let her eyes sit on him without pressing. “You tryin’—that means you a good daddy, Caine.”
“Thanks,” he said. The word landed easy and stayed.
She glanced down at the list like it was a habit she trusted. “You finish that far strip by the fence?”
“Yeah.”
“Mm. After you drink, go on and get that latch on the nursery closet. It’s stickin’. Then them three doors off the hall.”
He tipped his chin. He stayed seated. She stayed standing.
From the building, a girl called, “Miss Laney?” Laney half turned, then back.
“Make sure you drink enough water when you finish the weed eatin’.” she said over her shoulder.
He looked at the glass. The lemon floated dull under the ice. He picked it up, held it a second, then tipped it and let the lemonade thread out into the grass until the glass ran light and empty. Sugar smell lifted and went thin in the heat.
“Alright,” he said.
Laney toward the call. Gravel popped under her heel and then the door swung and took her inside.
He set the empty glass down by his boot. The weed eater lay in the thin shade of the shed door, warm to the touch. He leaned his head back against the tree again and let the bark press a line into his neck. The cicadas kept on. He closed his eyes for the space of one slow breath before he picked himself up for the latch and the doors.
~~~
The instructions were a sheet of cartoon pictures that assumed she owned three extra hands. Mireya sat on the floor in the rectangle of her living room, cross-legged and barefoot, with pressboard pieces fanned across a moving blanket she had folded out of the back of the closet. From the hallway, bleach rode a draft that made her eyes blink once, then settle.
Her phone played a song that had too much bass for the little speaker. She let it be loud enough to keep the quiet from getting ideas. The quiet today was a gift anyway. Camila was at Sara’s, already sticky-cheeked from cartoons and a Popsicle by now. No small feet cutting laps. No “Statesboro,” every hour with a mouth that still didn’t know how to make the t soft. No “It’s okay they don’t have boats, mommy.” And no “when we seeing daddy again?”
She laid the paper flat with her palm and matched Drawing B to Board 3, turning the piece until the holes lined up. The Allen key bit her skin. A screw rolled and tapped against her ankle. She reached without looking and caught it between two fingers before it found the crack where baseboard met floor.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. A short text with an address and nothing else. She stared at the street name. Somewhere across town. She slid the keyboard up and sent a single green check.
The song changed and she didn’t know the opening line. She worked anyway. Cam locks clicked. Dowels pushed home with the soft satisfaction of a job halfway done. She told herself the table would be good enough until the legs wobbled less. The rent to start had taken the softness out of her wallet. Gas to Georgia and back had wrung the last of it out. Tuition sat out there on the calendar with a smile it hadn’t earned. She pinched a nut into place and turned until resistance found her wrist.
Alejandra slipped into her head then, all glitter and easy air. She dropped into splits so deep men forgot to breathe. The way the room had answered—hands, noise, that ripple that moved through men when they thought something belonged to them. Most importantly, money. Mireya glanced at her own legs. Not Alejandra’s legs. Still hers.
She scooted back to give herself space and set both heels out in front of her, toes flexed. Air moved over damp skin and made it goose. She inhaled and went wider, knees whispering their opinion. A little more and her inner thighs flashed a warning heat. The floor felt hard against her tailbone. She held the line five seconds, ten, then pushed and felt the cramp bloom bright and mean. She snapped her legs forward fast and thudded her heels together.
“Nope,” she told the empty room, breath laughing once through her nose. “You need another trick, because that ain’t it, girl.”
She shook her legs out, rubbed a hand down one quad, and blew a breath toward the ceiling until the knot let go. The music reached the hook and she let her body answer, small. She rolled her body, attempting to make it smooth, natural. Not the way she did it dancing with friends or with Caine, but the way she needed to do it for fives and tens.
Her phone dinged again, louder than the chorus. Leo.
when you coming back to work
She looked at the name, at the lower-case sentence that pretended it was casual. She didn’t answer. She set the screen face-down and seated another dowel, pressed the joint tight, checked the picture with her brow folded to keep sweat out of her eyes.
Another ping chased the first.
got some more money for you when you do come back
She sighed and flipped the phone with one finger.
nah, I’m good
The reply hit and she set the phone again. Allen key. Quarter-turn. Quarter-turn. Keep the line clean. Don’t strip the head. From the street outside came a late bus groan and a brake squeal, then the voices that always followed, somebody mad about time, somebody laughing at nothing.
Leo again, fast.
you said that the last two times
She wiped her palm on her tank and answered.
yeah, no. I’m good
The three dots floated, stopped, came back.
getting high and mighty again, Mireya?
The words tried to crawl under her skin. She let them fail. She set the phone down without replying and nudged the volume up with her knuckle. The beat filled the little room enough to push his voice out.
She leaned over the blanket and guided the last cam into the last groove. The table had become a table when she wasn’t looking at it, cheap wood pretending to be something else, standing on its own because she had told it to. She pressed her thumb against a screw cap until the plastic clicked into place. Her shoulders ached in the way that paid off later.
On the sill, a row of things waited to be real—one cup, one bowl, a jar of red sauce with the label half-peeled, a roll of paper towels that had the nerve to cost what it cost. The air smelled a little like cleaner, a little like the neighbor frying something, a little like hot dust burning off the window unit’s coil. Sirens ran the edge of the block and faded. The city kept doing what it always did around her.
She stood and shook her hands out, fingers tingling where the key had kissed the bone. The cramp in her right leg had decided to behave. She tested it anyway, stepping wide and letting the thigh muscle lengthen slow, then stepping back.
Her phone stayed dark for a full minute. Then it lit with the same thread. She didn’t give it her eyes. She picked up the Allen key, rolled it in her palm until it sat right, and knelt by the table to tighten each corner the way the pictures told her to. The song hit the part she liked. She let the beat settle in her ribs and kept turning.
~~~
They drifted the way boys did when there was nowhere to be and too much day left. Air pushed cold from the ceiling vents and still couldn’t cut the damp that clung to shirts. The mall buzzed in a low hum of music bleeding out of chain stores, kids clacking across tile in cheap slides, and the wet-plastic smell of a freshly mopped patch glinting under a yellow sign. A fry stand threw salt into the air. Somewhere a baby wailed and fell quiet against a shoulder.
Trent palmed his phone and stopped in front of a display of basketball shorts he wasn’t going to buy. “They said the new college joint dropping next month,” he said, half to the rack, half to the other two. “You think Caine in it?”
Javi snorted. “He in there, but they gon’ do him dirty. Like a sixty overall if they feeling nice.”
Trent grinned. “Nah, fifty-two.”
Saul rolled the elastic tag on a pair of socks between his fingers and let it snap.
“Y’all doing a lot of hating for dudes who gotta put themself in the game on create-a-player,” he said. His voice stayed flat. “Talk about sixty.”
Javi laughed and touched fists with Trent. “You right. But I’m gonna cook y’all either way. I’m talking four verts, bomb away.”
“Boy don’t even know the playbook,” Trent said. “He just mash buttons and pray.”
They moved again, unhurried, drifting past a kiosk where a woman called out about phone cases and a guy with a too-white smile tried to hand them lotion. Trent shook his head at both without breaking stride. The escalator rattled somewhere behind them. Security strolled by with hands tucked behind a belt, radio hissing in little stutters.
Saul’s mouth twitched and then went still. He didn’t feed it. He cut down the side of the food court, the floor sticky here and there where soda had dried to sugar. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t anything in particular. The day was just the day.
They turned the corner by a sneaker store and he heard it. Zoe’s laugh, full and loose, catching on the air the way it did. He didn’t have to look to know. He looked anyway.
Across the walkway, Zoe walked tucked into a man’s side, his arm over her shoulders in a way that said he had been there awhile. Tattoos ran under his sleeve and onto his forearm. Diamonds sparked in his mouth when he smiled. He was talking too loud and she was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Javi’s eyes cut that way and he made a sound low in his throat. “Told you she be letting everyone hit.”
“Shut the fuck up, man,” Trent said, quick.
Saul’s face didn’t change. He watched one beat more. Then he said, “That dude looks forty.”
“Shit might be,” Javi said.
Saul put his eyes back on where he was going and kept walking. He didn’t turn his head again. A kid in a stroller dragged a toy across the tile and the wheels rattled. The AC pushed against his damp shirt and failed. Stores bled the smell of new rubber and cheap cologne. He slid his hands into his pockets and walked.
Behind him, Trent and Javi didn’t say anything else. He heard their shoes pick up, a little scuffle as they cut around a group taking selfies by the fountain. The old man at the ring-cleaning kiosk stood up as if anyone would stop. A girl tried on sunglasses and took them off. A door thumped closed at the far end of the hall and echoed.
Saul passed a poster for a movie and the mirrored glass threw him back at himself for a second. He didn’t slow. He didn’t speed up. He moved through the cold and the noise and the light. He set his shoulder to the edge of it and kept going.
“Yo,” Trent called, jogging a couple steps to fall in at his side. The word carried without pushing. Javi came up on the other flank, breath moving easy, no more jokes in his mouth. They matched his pace without making a point of it. For a few steps all three of them were just legs and air and the scrape of soles. They went on like that, together, the mall swallowing their noise.
The fountain spit thin streams that went nowhere.
They reached the corner together, steps syncing without a word.
~~~
The bar breathed out heat and noise every time the door opened. Caine had his shoulder to a wall near the end of the pool table, letting Donnie tell a story that had already grown twice since the last time he told it. Kordell rolled an unopened beer bottle between his hands. Carlos and Kion watched the line at the bar inch and stall. It smelled like spilled beer and fryer oil and perfume sprayed too heavy.
Rylee came in with two friends and found him fast. She slid in under his arm as if she lived there, cheeks bright, eyes glossy. She laughed for no reason and pressed a cold bottle to his hand. He looked down at her and then at the bottle.
“How much y’all pre-gamed?” he asked.
She pinched the air between thumb and finger. “That much.”
He shook his head once. The bartender yelled a name that was not his. Rylee leaned harder into him, content. Donnie angled past them, all grin, and lined himself up with the friend with a septum piercing.
“You ever had a big man, baby? It’ll change your life,” Donnie said. “I could carry you and your problems.”
She tipped her head. “I got a lot of problems. You got a dolly?”
The table cracked. Kordell slapped it once. “He probably don’t even know what a dolly is.”
Carlos bent at the waist, laughing. “That big motherfucker could just hitch the shit up on his back.”
Donnie pointed at him like a warning. “Y’all hating but everytime winter come around, who they want? Me.”
Kordell wiped at his eyes. “Too bad, it ain’t even summer yet then, huh?”
The girl covered her face, laughing for real now. Donnie threw his hands up and backed off half a step, trying to smile through it. “Aight, aight. Y’all wild.”
Rylee sipped and swayed. Caine put two fingers at her elbow before she felt the floor tilt. He didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on Donnie still trying to make it happen.
Donnie reset. “I’m sayin,” he told the friend, “you already know I know how to cook because I like to eat.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” she said, “And that makes it seem like you got bad decision making skills.”
Kordell let out a holler. Carlos shook his head. Even the second friend, the quiet one, grinned against her bottle.
Rylee lifted her beer again and lost her balance a touch. Caine steadied her, took the bottle from her hand, and turned toward the bar.
“Gimme this,” he said, soft. “Hold up.”
He went to the bar, got a water and a plastic cup. Back at the group he traded the bottles, the move easy, unremarkable.
“Vodka,” he said.
She raised it and killed it. Her face smoothed, then crumpled at the taste, then she laughed and hiccuped. “Strong.”
“Mm.”
Donnie cleared his throat. “I’m the whole deal though. You ain’t gonna find another dude like me out here.”
She didn’t blink. “That’s probably a good thing.”
Kordell barked. “Damn, D. You gotta wrap it up now.”
Carlos wheezed. “Shit getting embarrassing.”
Donnie tried to hold a grin and failed. “Y’all got jokes.”
The girls leaned on each other, laughing, shoulders touching, the sound rolling over the music.
Rylee leaned once more, heavier. Caine’s hand was already there.
He looked towards her friends. “One of y’all take her home.”
The one with septum ring shook her head. “She drove us.”
Caine breathed out through his nose. He looked at the door, then at Rylee. “I’ll bring her somewhere to sleep it off.”
Rylee saluted, sloppy. “Aye aye.”
Outside, the night was heavy and wet. Tires hissed through a puddle. Rylee hooked her arm through his and stumbled over the curb. He caught her hip and steered her to the car. She folded into the passenger seat and tilted her head back, breathing loud through her nose.
“Your seats soft,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s old.”
On the drive she hummed along to a song she only half knew. Streetlights slid across her face and moved on. She rolled the window down a crack. He didn’t say anything about it.
At his place she beat him through the door and clipped the edge of the rug with her toe. He got a hand between her and the table and kept it from taking her down. The table rattled and settled. Keys clattered into a dish. The place held the faint sting of bleach from the morning.
“You a lightweight,” he said, voice even. “You gotta rethink how much you drink.”
“Rude,” she said, and giggled, then winced.
He walked her down the short hall. The light was too bright. He eased her to the tile in front of the toilet and let her lean against the wall. Her hair slid forward and threatened to fall into her face.
He gathered it without thinking. He twisted a quick bun, tight and neat, and slipped the elastic from her wrist around it. She touched it like she needed proof it was real.
“Damn,” she said, small and honest. “You’re good at that.”
He checked the trash can. Empty and lined. He set it beside her knee. He turned to go.
“I’ma come back in a minute,” he said.
She squinted up at him. “Why you leavin me in the bath—”
The sound changed. She jerked forward and gagged hard, arms wrapping herself, and everything came up into the bowl. He put a hand on the doorframe and waited.
When it passed, she sagged, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and blinked until she found him again. Her eyes were red and wet.
“Shit,” she said, voice rough. “We got something at the church tomorrow.”
He snorted a laugh through his nose. “I’ll get you some water,” he said.
He stepped out of the doorway and walked for the kitchen.
~~~
Mireya’s knees kissed the stage and slid once in a circle. She let the spin finish clean, palms behind her on the floor, chin back, chest forward as the last beat cut off. The lights swung to purple and then died. A different song found its first bar. She stood, scooped the bills with quick hands, edges damp with sweat, and fed them into the little zipper bag at her hip. A soft cheer from the rail, then shoes on the stairs. She stepped off, reached for the robe that hung on the peg, and pulled it across her shoulders.
Backstage air held smoke and hairspray and the sweet-sour of spilled cranberry. Mireya moved through the narrow hall, shoulder to wall, heels knocking as she went. The dressing room lights buzzed bright along the mirror. She dropped onto the stool at her station, unhooked the strap on her shoe and then the other, toes sighing against the tile. Sweatpants. Tank. Hair twisted up with a clip she kept in the side pocket. She dumped the bag out on the counter and spread the bills flat with her palm, counting.
Jaslene leaned over from the next mirror, lipstick half-done. “You hungry?”
Mireya shrugged without looking up.
“We’re going eat when we leave,” Jaslene said.
“Who is we?” Mireya asked.
Jaslene flicked her chin down the line. “Me. Hayley. Liana. Alejandra. Bee.”
On the far end, Alejandra had her own little green pile and a pen mark on her wrist where she kept tally. Hayley tugged a sweater on over a sparkle bra. Liana eased her lashes off with two careful fingers. Bianca cracked her neck and counted again, lips moving.
Mireya pressed a thumb to a stack and thought for a beat. “I can’t. I have to get home to Camila.”
Alejandra heard it and leaned forward, voice carrying over the table noise. “Mexicana, she’s asleep. It’s three in the morning.”
Hayley nodded. “She do got a point.”
Mireya exhaled, eyes on the money. The room hummed. Someone laughed in the hall. A bassline thumped through the wall and kept going. She tied the drawstring on her sweats and slid her money into the bigger bag.
…
The door chime gave them away. The diner was empty except for a lone trucker across the room, forearms brown and glossy under the lights, eyes cutting up when they walked past. The air smelled like syrup and hot griddle. A coffee pot hissed behind the counter.
They took a big booth. Vinyl squeaked. Jaslene sat across from Mireya. Alejandra slid in next to her, hip to hip, elbows already on the table. Liana and Bianca filled the other side with Hayley at the end. Water glasses sweated rings into the paper mats.
Hayley reached for her drink.
Alejandra touched her wrist. “You know you can’t start eating until we do the thing. It’s bad luck.”
Mireya looked at Jaslene. “What’s the thing?”
Jaslene rolled her eyes and slouched back. “Something stupid.”
Alejandra and Hayley both pulled small folds of twenties and fanned them open like cards. They turned to Liana and Bianca.
“Pick,” Hayley said.
Liana pinched a bill. “A.”
Bianca pulled one from Alejandra’s hand. “D.”
Alejandra sucked her teeth and snatched her twenty back. Hayley shook her head and took the first long pull of her drink. “Gonna be a bad ho day.”
Mireya blinked. “What?”
Jaslene tipped her head toward the bills. “They try to match the bank on the little stamp. If it matches, good ho day. If it don’t, bad ho day.”
Mireya laughed once because it sounded ridiculous in an empty IHOP at three-something. “That’s real?”
“Been telling them to change it,” Bianca said, leaning forward on her elbows. “Switch to two places somebody actually wanna go.”
Liana flipped a stack of flash cards beside her plate. “That would require y’all knowing which bank is which.”
Alejandra raised a hand. “I know the bank that takes my money.”
Silverware clinked down. Plates slid across the table from a passing hand. Hayley carved a triangle off a pancake and popped it whole.
Jaslene pointed with her fork. “Y’all need to make sure y’all don’t blow everything before next Saturday for Graciela’s birthday like last year.”
Hayley chewed, unbothered. “I did my part. That was Bee asking Fat Henry for a bigger tip before she forgot.”
Bianca cut her eyes at her. “Bitch, if you had to try to straddle that fat motherfucker to give him a lap dance, you’d want more money too.”
Liana smothered a smile and turned another flash card.
Alejandra leaned into Mireya’s shoulder, soft enough not to crowd. “Tell us when your baby’s birthday is and we’ll do something for her, too.”
Mireya looked up, surprised enough that it showed. “O—okay.”
Mireya kept her hands on the warm ceramic of her mug and watched the talk hop to something else without her. Bianca argued with Liana about something on a TV show the two of them were watching together. Jaslene and Hayley laughed about the last time they went shopping and the looks they got. Alejandra shifted the napkin holder and made space for the syrup, then pushed it toward Mireya without looking. Mireya nudged it back when Alejandra reached.
“You know that pinche puta C.J. took a VIP from me tonight,” Jaslene said, stabbing at her scrambled eggs. “That skinny white bitch really knows how to push my buttons.” She pointed at Hayley with her fork. “Ever since Benito did the Super Bowl, you know?”
Hayley snorted. “Jas, I don’t think you can call that man by his first name just because y’all from the same place.”
Bianca tapped the table twice like she was swearing. “Shit, I’d call his ass daddy if he let me.”
Liana looked up. “Don’t you mean papi?”
Bianca flipped her off. “Bitch. Nah, wait, I mean puta.”
Alejandra laughed, loud and a little obnoxious as was her way.
Mireya sipped water and let her eyes move. The AC coughed and rattled over their heads. On the other side of the glass, the lot held three cars and a streetlight that hummed. Her phone sat face down by her plate. She didn’t turn it over.
“Alright, alright,” Alejandra said, clapping once quiet, like she was sealing a deal. “Y’all know we gotta take la Mexicana out to get her some new stuff so she doesn’t have to keep going to Khadijah.”
Mireya looked up. “I don’t think we gotta do all that.”
Hayley raised both hands. “Ah, shit. You gonna get her started.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Get the soap box out.”
Alejandra held one hand up, the other over her heart. “Excuse me for wanting her to look good.” She turned to Mireya. “You are sexy, no? We are all sexy, no? So, you should be sexy everywhere you go. Embrace it. You never know. Maybe you find a sugar daddy when you go to the daycare to pick up your kid.”
Liana snorted. “I don’t think sugar daddies are hanging around daycares.”
“Oh, they are.”
“Yeah,” Jaslene said. “Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve had someone’s wife looking for you, Ale.”
Alejandra shrugged, unbothered.
They lingered anyway, picking at plates. Alejandra reached across and pinched a crisp edge off Mireya’s bacon without asking. Mireya flicked her hand and let her have it. The trucker on the far side stood, stretched, and left bills under his saucer. The bell over the door chirped when he went.
Checks came stacked in a little fan. They all dropped twenties on the table. Probably too much. Definitely too much. Mireya clocked the carefree way they put the money down.
They slid out of the booth one by one. Vinyl hissed under thighs. Bags went up on shoulders. The door’s bell gave them that same small sound on the way out. Air outside felt thin and damp, the kind that stuck to the back of your neck. The parking lot lights hummed. Somewhere far off, a siren lifted and disappeared into the distance.
They crossed the lot in a loose row, talking over each other. Mireya walked in the middle and listened. She didn’t say much. She didn’t need to. The world felt ordinary for a minute. She kept pace and watched their mouths shape the next plan, and the next, and let the quiet she carried settle without taking over.
