Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

hard—frowning and thinking really really hard—and when she opened her eyes there was one of the three or four smart kids in the class at the board taking the chalk from Nowicki.
    She tried to watch, and she tried to comprehend. Something about the chalk clicking on the board—not a blackboard , for it was green —and the numerals she was expected to make sense of—she’d begin to feel dizzy, sickish.
    Math, mathematics. Just the sound made her feel funny. Like when you know you’re going to fuck up, and you’re going to feel bad, and there is nothing you can do about it.
    Her mother, Yvette Mueller, was a blackjack dealer at the Tropicana.
    You had to be smart, and you had to think fast—you had to know what the hell you were doing—to be a blackjack dealer.
    Counting cards. This was forbidden. If you caught somebody counting cards you signaled for help. Yvette liked to say how one day soon she would change her name, her hair color, all that she could about herself, drive out to Vegas, or some lesser place, like Reno, and play blackjack in such a way they’d never catch on— counting cards like no amateur could do.
    But if Lisette said Any time you’re going take me with you Momma, OK? her mother would frown as if Lisette had said something really stupid, and laugh— Sweetie I am joking. Obviously—you don’t fuck with these casino guys—I am JOKING.
    Vegas or Reno wasn’t where she’d gone. Lisette was certain. She’d gone so far away, where it wasn’t winter the way it was in New Jersey, she’d have taken lots more clothes, and a different kind of clothes.
    In seventh grade the previous year Lisette hadn’t had trouble with arithmetic. She hadn’t had trouble with any of her school subjects, she’d gotten mostly B’s and her mother had placed her report card, opened like a greeting card, on top of the refrigerator. All that seemed long ago like in another galaxy.
    She was having a hard time sitting still. Like red ants were crawling inside her clothes, in her armpits, groin, and between her legs. Stinging, and tickling. Making her itch. Except she couldn’t scratch as she wanted, with her fingernails really hard, to draw blood, so there was no point in just touching where her skin itched. That would only make it worse.
    And her eye—her left eye. And the ridge of her nose where the cartilage/bone had been “rebuilt.” A numb sensation there, except the eye leaked tears continuously. Liz-zette’s cry-ing! Hey—Liz-zette’s cry-ing! Why’re you cry-ing Liz-zz-zette—hey?
    They liked her, the older guys. That was why they teased her. Like she was some kind of cute little animal , like— mascot ?
    First time she’d seen J-C—(he’d transferred into their class in sixth grade)—she’d nudged Keisha saying Ohhhh— like in some MTV video, a moan to signal sex-pain.
    She didn’t know what it was, exactly. She had an idea.
    Her mother’s favorite music videos were soft rock, retro rock, country and western, disco. You’d hear her in the shower singing-moaning in a way you couldn’t decipher was it angry, or happy—outside the bathroom Lisette listened transfixed. Momma never revealed such a raw yearning secret-self to her.
    Oh she hated math class! Hated this place! Her school desk in the outside row by the windows, at the front of the classroom, made Lisette feel like she was at the edge of the glarey-bright-lit room looking in —like she wasn’t a part of the class—Nowicki said it’s to keep you involved, up close like this, so Lisette wouldn’t daydream or lose her way but just the opposite was true, most days Lisette felt like she wasn’t there at all.
    Swiped at her eyes. Shifted her buttocks hoping to alleviate the red-stinging-ants. Nearly fifteen damn minutes she’d been waiting for their teacher to turn her fat back so Lisette could flip the folded-over note across the aisle to her friend Keisha—for Keisha to flip over to J-C—(Jimmy Chang)—who sat across the