Diamonds and Pearl (33 page)

“You know this ain't on you,” Sandra said as if she could read her mind.

“Huh?”

“What happened to that girl,” she explained. “It's not your fault, even though I
know
y'all were there together.”

“What gave me away?” Pearl asked.

“C'mon, Pearl. I might be old, but I ain't no fool. I got up early this morning to collect everyone's laundry to put in the wash, and I found your outfit stashed in the back of your closet. You know it was stupid of you to sneak out, knowing your father was coming home last night.”

“I know, but I just wanted to have a little fun,” Pearl told her.

“A little fun can lead to big trouble, as I'm sure you've figured out by what happened to your friends.”

“If you knew, how come you didn't tell Daddy on me?” she asked curiously.

“Because he's got enough on him as it is without you adding to it with your foolishness. I spared your ass this time, but don't let it happen again. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Pearl said sheepishly.

On the second loop of the block, the parking gods decided to be kind, and somebody vacated a spot across the street from the hospital. After parking, the two women strode inside the hospital. They stopped at the information desk to find out Marisa's room number before riding the elevator to the third floor. Pearl's legs felt like noodles as she moved down the white hallway. It was like walking the green mile, and she was going to the electric chair instead of to visit her friend.

Standing vigil outside the door was Knowledge. There was a troubled expression on his face, but he wiped it away when he spotted the two women coming in his direction. He gave a curt nod before stepping to the side and allowing them access. As Pearl passed him, she could feel his accusing eyes on her. Normally she would've made a smart remark about it, but it was neither the time nor the place.

Big Stone and Tito stood off near the bathroom, speaking amongst themselves. Marisa's father's normally youthful face now seemed aged and etched with worry. Pearl's dad gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, telling him everything would be okay. It was obvious Tito was hurting, but he put up a good front. Evelyn, on the other hand, was in bad shape.

Marisa's mother looked like a slightly older version of her daughter, except she had alabaster skin and her hair was dyed a deep shade of plum. She was a beautiful woman who was always immaculately dressed, her face perfectly beat, but that day she looked like a train wreck. Her clothes looked they had been slept in, while her eyes were red and weighed down with heavy bags. Pearl couldn't ever remember seeing Marisa's mom without her makeup and her hair done, so seeing this woman in front of her felt like looking at a stranger. She sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her daughter's hand lovingly.

Marisa's eyes lit up when she spotted Pearl, and she motioned that it was okay to approach. Pearl took timid steps to the bedside, eyes wandering over her injured friend. She lay with her head propped up, a gas mask covering her nose and mouth. From the streaks cutting through the soot on her cheeks, Pearl could tell that Evelyn wasn't the only one who had been crying that morning. She couldn't say that she blamed her. Marisa had no doubt gone through a tragic experience, and she was lucky to have survived. Seeing her best friend like that threatened to break Pearl down, but she held it together so as not to add to the sadness that was already filling the room to capacity.

“Hey,” Pearl offered when she had finally found her voice.

“What's up,
chica
?” Marisa tried to push herself into a sitting position but broke into a fit of coughing.

“You have to take it easy. Remember what the doctor said about overexerting yourself,” Evelyn gently pushed Marisa back down and fixed her pillows.

“I'm fine, Mom. Would you cut it out?” Marisa swatted at her hands.

“How you holding up, Miss Evelyn?” Pearl asked.

“As well as can be expected, mami. When I got that call in the wee hours of the morning, my heart literally stopped.” Evelyn sighed. “That's every parent's nightmare, to hear a stranger's voice on the other end of the line telling you something has happened to your kid. I'm not letting this one out of my sight again until she leaves for college.”

“Ma, I think you're overreacting,” Marisa said, trying to downplay it.

“Overreacting?” Evelyn's neck snapped back. “Can you imagine my surprise when I found out that instead of being at a friend's house, watching movies, like she told me, my
teenage
daughter was in a bar full of
grown-ass men,
doing God knows what? You had no business being in that freaking
fiesta del gamberro
in the first place!”

Marisa sighed behind the oxygen mask. “It wasn't a thug party. I was there with some friends,” she argued.

“What friends? Were you there too, Pearl?” Evenly turned her angry eyes on her.

Pearl looked to Marisa, not quite sure what she had or hadn't said.

“No, she wasn't there.” Marisa saved her the trouble of having to answer. “I got other friends in school besides Pearl.”

“See, that's the problem right there. You keep throwing the word
friend
around, and I don't think you have the slightest clue what it means. A real friend wouldn't have given underage girls alcohol in a place where just about anything could go down. Look, I get it. I'd be lying if I said me and my friends had never snuck a bottle into the house or had a few drinks at a house party, but you were way out of your depth by being in that place.”

“C'mon, Mom. Stop acting like you know what time it is on the streets. This ain't the eighties,” Marisa quipped.

“Same game, different players, baby girl,” Evelyn shot back. “Don't act like we raised you with rose-colored glasses. Me and your dad have been through some shit that would've broken your pampered-ass back, and we did it all to make sure you would never need, want, or suffer. Now, you can keep letting this nice life we've provided you and your sister go to your head, or you can get it through that thick-ass skull of yours that it ain't nothing new under the sun. Everything you're trying to do, I've already done ten times over. Before I was a wife or a mother, I was a survivor!” she said heatedly.

“E, how about you and me go get some coffee and give the girls a few minutes?” Sandra walked up and placed a hand on Evelyn's shoulder.

Evelyn looked up at Sandra, and there was a silent exchange that bled away some of her anger. “We're gonna go to the store. Do you guys need anything?” she asked sweetly, as if she hadn't just been about to go postal.

“I'm good. Thanks,” Pearl said.

Marisa simply folded her arms.

Sandra and Evelyn headed over to Tito and Big Stone, where they exchanged a few words before the four of them left the room together to give the girls some privacy. Knowledge, of course, stayed at his post outside the door. With all the adults finally gone, the two teenage girls were able to speak freely.

“How are you feeling?” Pearl sat at the foot of the bed.

“To be honest with you, I'm fucked up,” Marisa said, removing the mask. She inhaled and exhaled slowly as if she were testing the recycled air of the hospital. “My whole body is sore, and my lungs feel like I've been smoking cigarettes the last five years. It's gonna take me a second to recover, and I'll probably be grounded until menopause, but at least I'm still here. That shit with Sheila…” She choked up.

“What the hell happened?” Pearl asked the million-dollar question.

“Honestly? I'm still not entirely sure.” Marisa placed the mask back over her face and sucked in some much needed air before continuing. “One minute I'm in the bathroom with Doodles eating my pussy like it was the last supper, and the next all hell is breaking loose. When we came out of the bathroom, the alarms were blaring and the whole bar was filling up with smoke. The first thing I did was try to go back to the VIP to check for you and Sheila. Shit was crazy with all those people trying to bum-rush their way out. I ended up coming across that nigga Boom, and he told me y'all were already outside. It wasn't until I got out there and couldn't find either of you that I realized he was full of shit. By then the roof had caved in, and it was over for whoever had been trapped inside.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Pearl hadn't realized that she was crying too until a tear splashed the back of her hand. “Do they know how it happened? How she got trapped?” She didn't know why she had asked or why it even mattered, other than there being part of her that needed to piece together the last moments of her friend's life.

“When I was riding in the back of the ambulance, I heard the paramedics talking about two guys and a girl who had gotten trapped in a supply closet when the place went up.” Marisa wept.

Pearl thought of the two guys who had been trying to slide off with Sheila before she had intervened. “Damn” was all she could manage to say. She imagined that Sheila had died a horrible death in that supply closet. She just hoped it had been quick.

Marisa read Pearl's face. “Our girl never had a chance.”

Raised voices in the hall drew both of the girl's attention to the room door. Knowledge was outside, explaining to someone why he couldn't allow them into the room. Pearl craned her neck to see who it was, and spotted Sheila's parents. A lump jumped into her throat, as she had been hoping to avoid them, at least until the loss wasn't so fresh in everyone's hearts. She looked to Marisa for direction as to what to do next, but her friend just shrugged. Pearl told Knowledge it was okay, and he reluctantly let them pass him and go into the room.

Sheila's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, came in dressed every bit of the conservative parents they were, in shades of brown and black. Looking through their wardrobes, you'd have thought vibrant colors were a sin. Mrs. Dubois continued on to Marisa's beside, a tattered brown leather-covered bible tucked to her chest. Mr. Dubois hovered near the door, glaring over the rim of his glasses at Pearl and Marisa like he'd caught them staggering out of a whorehouse.

“How are you girls?” Mrs. Dubois asked in a thick accent, managing to muster what passed for a smile under the circumstances.

“Fine. How are you, Mrs. Dubois?” Pearl stood and gave her a hug.

Mrs. Dubois pulled her in tight and inhaled deeply as if she were looking for traces of her daughter in those closest to her. “I've been better, but the good news is that it can't get any worse.”

“We are truly sorry for your loss,” Pearl said sincerely. It took everything she had to keep from crying.

“Mesi.”
Mrs. Dubois clasped Pearl's hands between hers. “May neither of your parents ever know the grief that fills our home on this day.”

The statement stung Pearl and stirred her earlier guilt. “My condolences to you, too, Mr. Dubois.” She changed her focus so she wouldn't have to look into Mrs. Dubois's heartbroken eyes any longer.

“I appreciate your condolences, but I'd rather one of you told me who had my daughter in that bar.” Mr. Dubois stepped forward. His broken eyes swept back and forth between Marisa and Pearl.

“Mr. Dubois—” Pearl began, but was cut off.

“Please, before you refer to this
street code
of see no evil, hear no evil and tell me you don't know what happened to my daughter, even though there is no doubt in my mind that the three of you were together last night, I would like you to consider this: not only did we lose our child, but a university lost a future scholar. Did Sheila ever share her good news with you?”

“Good news?” Pearl was out of the loop.

Mr. Dubois looked at Mrs. Dubois, who gave him the approving nod that it was okay to continue. “Sheila got into Rutgers University,” he confessed, to both Pearl's and Marisa's surprise. “It was only a partial scholarship, so everybody in the family had started taking on extra work so that we could make up the difference by the time she had to leave for New Jersey at the end of the school year.”

Pearl couldn't hide the shock on her face. She knew that Sheila wasn't a dummy—all the girls in the crew got good grades—but Rutgers? All Sheila had ever talked about was partying, boys, and money. Whenever the subject of college had come up, Sheila had always laughed it off as if college was a big waste of time. Pearl guessed she kept it to herself so as not to be ribbed by the cool kids about wanting to make something of herself. Now it made sense why Sheila was willing to go as far as she had for extra money. This made Pearl feel even worse for the way she had judged her.

“I had no idea,” Pearl said just above a whisper.

“She was very secretive about it,” Mrs. Dubois spoke up softly. “We tried to tell Sheila that it was an accomplishment she should be proud of, but she was worried about people making fun of her for it. These are sad times we live in when children are ridiculed for wanting to better themselves,” she said. “If there's anything at all either of you can offer to help us understand what really happened, we would deeply appreciate it.”

Pearl looked to Marisa, who was trying hard to maintain her poker face, but she could tell she was moments from breaking down. Pearl was about to tell Sheila's parents everything she knew about the party and the guys when Marisa leaned forward and spoke.

“We snuck in on our own. Nobody took us there,” she lied.

Mr. Dubois looked like he didn't buy it, but he left the subject alone. “Come. There's nothing else to be learned here.” He helped his wife to her feet. “Ladies, if you'll excuse us, we have to go home and tell Sheila's siblings that their sister is dead.”

Mrs. Dubois allowed her husband to lead her toward the door. Her shoulders were hunched like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Before leaving, she looked back at the girls and mustered a weak smile. “If nothing else, I'm glad to know that my daughter had good friends like you in her life, no matter how short it was.”