The Misbegotten

We ate and talked, joked around for almost an hour. We were so stuffed by that time we could barely sit up, let alone talk.

Katie and Ramona staggered over to my bed and flopped down like a pair of Elephant seals on a beach.

I straightened up a bit, putting what we had dirtied into a large bag designated by me as “the trash”.

Jacob strode over to the weed and picked it up, looking it over with avid speculation.

I knew what he was thinking with no more than a glance. “Go ahead, take your cut,” I prompted. “There are some small Ziploc’s stashed in the right hand corner of my top drawer.”

“Oh yeah, right beside the giant dildo you use every night,” he jibed. He went about separating his “finder’s fee” from the rest of the pot he had purchased earlier.

I was about to head over to lay down next to Ramona when my cell phone chirped on the nightstand. I stopped in my tracks and frowned. Why in the fuck is she calling me? I asked myself. I recognized the special ringtone I had assigned to her number when she called. I was still a little bothered by Tirza and I know she was through with me, so the fact she was calling was weird.

Ramona rolled over on the bed. Before I could so much as take a step, she grabbed the phone. She swiped at its’ surface in one deft move, her entire face darkening.

I realized she’d seen the Caller ID and the accompanying picture. She knew it was my ex-girlfriend. Double-fuck!

“You’ve reached Estefan’s cell, how can I help you?” she said into the handset, terse. She listened for less than a second. “Why the fuck should you care if I answer his cell phone or not. You’re out of his life, remember.”

Everyone else in the room perked up at that. The others all turned in her direction.

Ramona was nodding now. “Yeah, he’s here. But if you want to talk to him, you’re gonna have to tell my why first. Otherwise, I’m going to click on your ass.”

I took a few steps toward her.

Her hand flashed outward, demanding I stop where I was. If she hadn’t made such a significant sacrifice a short time ago and hadn’t shown me a whole different side of her, I would’ve ignored her gesture. I might have even snatched the phone from her.

Instead, I stopped near Katie’s head and waited. I felt Katie tug on my arm, silently asking me what was going on. I just raised my eyebrows and shrugged I had no idea.

Katie frowned, but continued to hold onto me.

“You gotta be kidding me, outside, right now? Come one, Tirza, why in the hell would he want to do that in the first place? I mean, you weren’t particularly nice when you broke up with him. How do you know he’ll want to lift a finger to help you?”

That, by itself, shook me. Tirza wanted my help? When I heard that, I knew something bad had happened. I knew Tirza. I knew her like the back of my hand. She was such a stubborn bitch. The only way she would even consider asking me for help meant, whatever the fuck was going on, it was bad – bad beyond bad. I disengaged myself from Katie and walked the rest of the way to Ramona’s side. I placed my hand out, asking for the phone.

She looked at my hand and then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Steve,” she began, speaking my name in English, which wasn’t a good sign, “she is out front and wants to talk to you.”

“In front of my house, for real?” I asked with true incredulity now.

“Yes, and she says it’s urgent,” she replied. Then, she let her defenses drop for as moment.

I could see she was fighting an internal battle between the old and the new Ramona. I was more than a little happy that my new girlfriend won out.

“She is saying her sister is missing…”

“What!?!” I exclaimed, horrified.

“She says she hasn’t been home for more than two days -.”

Now, I know for a fact Ramona had given me more details. I know this, but I can in all honesty tell you, I never heard them. My mind just jumped back into itself recalling Lisa, Tirza’s fourteen-year-old sister. She was a sweet, caring little girl, but she was autistic, had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. I felt my heart sink to my knees. I knew, after forty-eight hours, the pliant, eager-to-please teenage girl was in grave danger. By now, she'd have suffered repeated rapes and left for dead along some lonely road. Or someone had chopped her up… placed her in a trash bag and buried her somewhere.

I shook with fear at the gruesome thoughts, pushing them from my mind. Still, I knew in my heart, the chance of finding her alive was remote; playing a craps table in Vegas had better odds. I knew in my heart that cheerful, ornery little girl was beyond our reach now. I knew this terrible, cold world had reached out touched her. She was dead. I could feel it down deep in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to do nothing more than vomit.

I don’t remember having left the Loft. I don’t recall running down the flights of stairs to reach the ground floor. (Both Ramona and Katie told me later I had done so). I don’t recall the warm sun on my face as I rushed through the front door of my parent’s house. I don’t recollect rushing toward the small Honda Hybrid-electric car Tirza’s mother drove. I couldn’t comprehend it was me that rushed around the car.

All I do remember is coming toward Tirza’s rolled-down passenger window, seeing her eyes as wide as my own. There was pure dread in the pit of her soul.

In a timeless flash, I was seeing Lisa giggle and jump up and down on the sidewalk in front of her house. This was when Tirza and I had kissed for the first time. She had been spying us the whole time. She had been so happy over her successful attempt at catching us doing the “shame, shame, shame”. I can still see her rubbing her right forefinger over her left, saying over and over, “Thame, thame, thame! Teezee kiss Effy! Thame! Thame! Thame! Day gonna make a bebe, nowhoooooo!” She had said the last word, “now”, like a wolf howling at the moon.

At first, I felt embarrassed and a little more than mad at her. But, when I got home that night, I realized she hadn’t been making fun of us. Rather, she’d been happy for us. She was celebrating a new chapter in her sister’s life. It was her way of expressing it that was unusual. The thought process though was spot on.

I realized then that Lisa Cardenas was a lot smarter than people were willing to accept. She had understood her older sister was growing into a whole new world. A world of boys and kisses and hugs, and she was thankful to have seen it.

Things might have withered and died between me and Tirza, but I still cared for Lisa very much. She was the sweetest, most sincere soul that I had ever met. She was always quick to laugh and joke. She was super-fast to give you a hug when you felt uncomfortable or uneasy. Even though, she had difficulties, she could still somehow manage to talk your ears off. She could spend hours showing you what she had seen on TV or read in a magazine. Whether it was a picture or a drawing, she could sit for a quarter of the day. She would speak to every single detail, down the smallest nuance.

I had liked her.

She had liked me.

I spoke before I knew what I was saying. “Teezee, how in the hell did you guys lose sight of Lisa!?!” I remember being demanding, outrageous with accusation. My voice so earnest, I must’ve looked like a Neanderthal to Tirza and her mom. In my mind, though, there was no time for preamble or bullshit.

Tirza face should’ve hardened and turned to ice at the ridiculous indictment, but it didn’t. All I could see was the pain in her eyes, the strain in her small face. She looked like she’d been walking upon a tightrope for hours with no rest in sight.

Tess Cardenas, Tirza’s mother, didn’t even turn to look in our direction. Her head appeared to have a mind of its’ own. She scanned the immediate area about her car.

To me, it was like she was certain, at any second, Lisa was going to walk from behind some random bush. She was going to come around any one of the trees surrounding us on either side of the street. I had seen that look on her face before, I knew it for what it was. It scared me to death. It told me all I needed to know about the severity of what had happened.

It was a mother’s hope. A thing she would hold on until the end, a tangible thread of optimism, beholden of strength, of fortification of the will. It would force her get up in the morning to forge on. It would be with her until she found out, one way or another.

In that brief second before Tirza answered me, I prayed that Tess would get her daughter back safe and sound. The loss of Lisa would devastate her.

“W-we don’t k-k-know what happened, Estefan. My mom dropped her off at school, saw her walk into the yard. She thinks she even saw her teacher’s aide come up to Lisa and take her to her classroom,” she began. Her tears never stopped falling. Her face was swollen and pink, her nose was dark red, looked on the verge of severe chapping. Her hair looked matted and stuck to her forehead like she had been running. She had sweated completely through it and left it to dry more than once.

Tirza was one of those well-proportioned girls with flawless bodies. She had nice, perky breasts, rounded hips that ended in a full, firm butt. She was fit and trim, like any other athletic girl her age, except she was small, almost miniature. She was the smallest girl attending our school. She stood only four-foot-nine without shoes, weighted ninety pounds, and that was soaking wet. She had straight, light brown hair about a broad face. When I call it broad, I mean for her size. Compared to anyone else, it was smaller than small. She had smooth cheeks and a squarish, though delicate chin. She had large oval, dark browns eyes, beneath thick eyebrows. Her angled nose was little too and seemed to protrude at the end where a bulbous tip formed. When she smiled, a deep dimple appeared only on the right side of her face and enhanced her charm.

She was nowhere in the mood for smiling at the moment though. She sat slouched upon the bucket seat of her mother’s car, dressed in a simple blue tank top and a short jean skirt.

I couldn’t help myself and noticed it showed her well-formed legs and knees.

Tess, by the same token, was no more than an inch taller than her daughter. But, she had the body of a middle aged woman. Her hips had broadened due to childbirth, making her big tits drooped a bit. Her face was wide and round. Though, at that moment, her puffy cheeks had shrunk to jowls that could have rivaled Winston Churchill’s¹ very own. Her dark-brown hair she had dyed a lighter color with blonde highlights. She was still wearing the bright pink smock and matching polyester slacks. She wore them every day to the nail salon where she worked in Toluca Lake just off the 134 freeway.

“And that was two days ago…?” I asked afraid of the answer.

“Y-yes,” was all she said.

“What did they say at her school?” I inquired. The image she’d depicted of her mother’s memory sank in deeper.

“They say she never made it to class. No one saw her on campus that day.” There was frustration and anger soaking her tone as if she suspected some sort of conspiracy. They must’ve had some issues at the school about this. Fucking typical bureaucrats! Accountability doesn't mean a goddamned thing to them. Well, it’s your job motherfuckers!

“But, I thought you said your mom saw her go into the school?” I was so confused.

“I did! Those stupid, fucking jerks are covering their asses over this. I can feel and it makes me sick!” It wasn’t Tirza answering. It was Tess, through clenched teeth and a few hand strikes to her steering wheel. “I know I did, because I always do! I wait until she is completely within the gates of that place! Every day, goddamn it!” She was saying it more to herself than to us. Tirza’s mother was a regular attendee at church, so to hear her curse and talk with such violence was unsettling.

“That’s not a big school, how could they misplace a student with all the security. They pay special attention to make sure no one gets hurts. I don’t understand?” I said, much more quiet to my ex-girlfriend.

Her mother kept muttering with rabid hostility in the seat next to her.

“Neither do we. My dad has been down at the police station raising hell, and they – the police – are interviewing everyone who works at the school. So far though, nothing…” She wiped at her nose with what appeared to be an old fashion handkerchief, and then sighed in defeat.

“Jesus, it sounds so weird. Why would - ? How could - ? But, that don’t -.” I kept cutting myself off mid-sentence, the shock of the situation making me flounder.

“So, you haven’t seen or heard anything?”

The raw hope behind her muffled words was heart wrenching. I had to force myself to set aside the emotion lurking behind my every breath. Things between Tirza and I weren’t like that anymore.

“No, Tirza, we haven’t. I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Is that why you came here, you thought she might hiding out here?”

“She always had a crush on you, Eff, you know that,” she smiled through her puffy, bloodshot eyes. “We just figured she might’ve shown up here, you know. It was a long shot, but right now, we’re not leaving any stone unturned.”

“I wish she had come by, Teezee. I really do, but we haven’t seen her. I’m sorry.”

“Ok…”

“I can have Jacob ask around if you want. I mean, he knows a lot of people and some of them aren’t… Well, you know, they’re not all that nice. It might lead to something, you know?” I offered, trying to come up with anything that would make them feel better.

She glanced pass her mother and through the window at Jacob.

He was standing a few feet from Ramona and Katie. All three of them had decided to stay near the front entry of the house, giving Tirza, her mother and I some privacy. “You guys just hanging out?”

“Yeah, my cousin flew into town just last night to spend the summer with us.” There was no need to spread Katie’s business all over town. A little white lie here and now never hurt anyone.

“Oh, Katie,” she said through a catch in her breath. She brought her eyes back to mine. “She’s here the whole summer, huh?”

“Yeah, she needed to get away from some things in Oklahoma,” I clarified. I was feeling like the ground beneath my feet wasn’t all that solid anymore.

“…or get into new ones…,” she murmured so quiet, I wasn’t sure I had even heard her right. She covered the word almost at once. “Well, will you let people know to keep an eye out?”

I nodded.

“And, yes, I think it would be a good idea for Jacob to ask around a bit, as long as he doesn’t get into any trouble or anything. You know how some of those kind of people can be, always spying, looking for the next ‘diseased’ person.” She said it with raised eyebrows and then smiled, thin and wan. She tapped her mother on the arm, who was still cursing under her breath. “We can go now, mom.”

“Bye Tirza, we will do what we can, ok? If we find anything out I’ll call you. I promise,” I reassured her, then gazed passed her. “Bye, Mrs. Cardenas, we’ll do what we can.”

She was trying to be strong and not cry, but she wasn’t having much success. She waved a small wave at me. “Ok, Eff, you tell your momma hi for me, ok?”

“I will.”

“Thank you, Eff, call me if you find out anything,” pleaded Tirza. Then her mother crushed the accelerator and they shot down the road like a cannonball.

I walked back across the street with my head lowered, studying the ground. I wasn’t that all sure there was anything we could do, other than ask around. Two days, she could be anywhere by now or…

I just pushed those thoughts to the side, not wishing to rehash anything drenched in negativity at the moment.

Yet, there was something Tirza had said that sparked a thought. It had burned bright for a moment or two before it fizzled out. Now, I couldn’t quite focus along the same train of thought. It eluded me. What had she said? “…the next ‘diseased’ person…” Why did that resonate? Why was that important?

“What’s going on?” asked Katie, which brought my head up.

I hadn’t realized her and Ramona had walked from the front steps of the house, intercepting me half up the walkway.

There was empathy on my cousin’s face, her voice subdued and calm.

My thoughts scattered. It still took me a few moments to recover. “Like Ramona said, Tirza’s little sister is missing. She’s been gone for two days now and nobody seems to know where she went. Not even the people at her school know where she is. Everyone there is saying she never made it to class. But, Mrs. Cardenas says she dropped her off and saw her walk onto the campus grounds.

“So, Tirza and her family are all freaking out as you can imagine. The cops are all over the school like ants, but still no sign of her,” I explained as cold as I could manage. I wanted to keep what I felt in my heart where it belonged – buried. I didn’t want to break down.

“That sounds awful,” Ramona commented, coming about to put her arms around my waist. She trapped one of my own within her grasp, giving me a long squeeze. “You ok?” she asked, knowing how much I liked the little girl.

I nodded.

“You sure, ‘cuz?” was Katie’s question as she stroked touched my cheek - a slow, tender caress.

I smiled, dejected. “How could I not with you two around? You guys make me feel like a king.” I tried to make it sound light, but I know I didn’t succeed. I hadn’t tried hard enough.

“You see,” began Ramona with a little mischief in her grin, “they were right, Estefan.”

“No they weren’t,” I muttered, derisive, not in the mood for horseplay.

“Yes they were.”

“Who was right?” asked Katie.

“The girls at our school,” began Ramona, gazing across me at Katie. “If you ask them about Estefan - how he is, what he’s like, etc. They all pretty much say the same thing.” I saw wicked delight spreading across my girlfriend’s face.

“And what is that?” Katie’s tone dropped a few octaves. She had no doubt formed an opinion of her own.

The other teenager chuckled. “They say he has ‘powers’. They say if he puts his mind to it, he can get any girl to go out with him or kiss him. Plus, a select few even said, he could get girls to sleep with him if he tried hard. They say he accomplishes this by saying the right thing at the right time. This seems to make girl’s hearts melt in droves.”

I expected Katie to laugh and say those girls were all full of shit.

She thought about it though, the same fingers that had nuzzled my cheek were now tapping her lips. “You know, he kinda does do that.”

Her response floored me. What!?!

“Last night, I was having a tough time with things. He had me calm and comfortable. I swear to god more than a little moist just by what he said.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “Were you using your ‘powers’ on me last night, Effy?”

Ah come on, Katie, I don’t feel like brutal honesty right now, goddamn it!

“No.” I had had about enough of the ‘powers’ bull-pucky that Ramona swore by for more than a year now.

“He might not have known it, Katie, but he was using them. He uses them all the time, but he thinks it’s his natural way of being. He just goes around being himself. Yet, for you, it’s something else entirely. Before you know it, you realize you’ve made decisions about him that you shouldn’t be making. You’re willing to do things that you shouldn’t be willing to do. That’s right about the same time you realize, he’s not a normal guy. You see there is something about him that attracts you, and you can’t figure it out.” She chortled, being seductive. “That’s usually when you feel your panties hit the floor.” Ramona hadn’t let go of me, and, as she finished, she shook me in her arms, rattling my brain. “Isn’t that right?” She licked my earlobe.

It made me shiver with delight despite my efforts to subdue the sensation.

“You make me sound like some hard-up vampire or something,” I quipped, but didn’t pull away.

“Cuz, there is no way you’re that hard-up, You’ve never waited one hundred years to be with the right girl. You took every one you could get your hands on like you were sampling a box of chocolates.” Katie winked, and then laughed. She was walking beside me, opposite Ramona, her narrow hips rocking this way and that.

Ramona rattled with a lengthy purr.

Maybe I was in some trouble here…

“Where the hell did Jake go?” I asked, seeing he was nowhere in sight.

“He went back upstairs,” relied Katie, offhanded.

“I gotta talk to him about lighting some fires under people’s asses in the neighborhood. I need to see if he can turn up anything on Lisa,” I said to no one in particular. “If there is someone out there who can stir the pot, no matter how big the damn pot - Jacob can do it.”

“You got that right,” agreed Ramona as we walked back in the house and closed the door behind us.

{ ¹Winston Churchill: a Britishpolitician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955; widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century. }

*****

[He breaks the surface, though his fingers never stop moving.]

Lisa was one of the first persons that we knew personally, who suddenly disappeared without a trace in the second half of that year.

There would be many thousands afterward…