American Outlaw - Jesse James [64]
“They’re all little sluts,” Karla said, crying, one night when she came home after work.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
She buried her head in my chest. “The other girls I work with . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Come here.” I got up and got a glass of water from the kitchen sink for her. “Stop crying and tell me what’s going on.”
She sniffed, and wiped away the tears from her eyes. “My boss . . . he says I have to go topless.”
“I thought they didn’t do that where you worked.”
“We don’t!” Karla spat. “But my boss says all the other places are doing it these days. He says the customers expect it.”
I sat there for a second. “What do you think you’re gonna do?”
She shrugged and looked so helpless. But then she screwed up her face, and gave me that determined kind of look that I had come to associate with Karla. “I’ll just go topless, then.”
And she tried, for about two weeks. But it was awful to see. Every night, Karla came home from work bawling her eyes out, pissed at the rude crowd, and incensed at the younger girls who were cutting into her money.
“I was so close to punching that Jezebelle tonight, I swear to God!”
“Honey . . .”
“I mean, I am like this far from wrapping up her hair around my fist and yanking her down to the floor!” She paced back and forth across the linoleum of our kitchen. “Tell me that I won’t! I’ve done it before and I am FULLY capable of doing it again!”
“Karla.” My voice was loud. “Just stop for a second.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you doing this anymore.”
“Who cares what you want?” She looked at me incredulously.
“Come on,” I said. “Give me a break. What I mean is, I don’t think you want to be doing this anymore.”
She bit her lip stubbornly. “Oh, believe me, I do. I’m better than any of those little tramps.”
“I know you are, Karla,” I said. “You have class.”
“Yes, I do,” Karla sniffed.
“But you’ve done it. You’ve lived it. It’s enough. It’s time to move on.”
She stared at me for a second, helplessly. “But what else can I do?”
“Work with me. Help me get my business off the ground.”
She was quiet for a moment, considering. “Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Right?” I asked.
“You could use a lot of help, is what I really mean,” Karla said. “You’ve got no sense of how to balance a bankbook, for one thing.”
“Well, see, there you go.”
“Not to mention you know nothing about marketing.”
“Right,” I said, clearing my throat.
“I’ve always wanted to try to learn about business accounting,” Karla said, excited all over again. “I think I might have some talent at it.”
“You’ll be just great. Let’s move on to the next stage, okay?”
She came closer to me, and I wrapped her up in my arms.
“I got your back,” I said. “I promise.”
She kissed me and we hugged. It felt really good, to have her heart up next to mine, to have her little body sitting up on my thighs, clutched close to me.
“You really think I was good?” she whispered. “I mean . . . at dancing?”
“Karla,” I said to her, truthfully, “you were the best I ever saw.”
9
My life felt full and busy. I was trying to figure out how to get my own business off the ground, but I continued to work at Boyd’s during the day, knowing I’d never find myself in the company of so many experts again. Unbeknownst to me, though, my life was about to get even fuller.
“Hon?” Karla said to me one morning as I was getting up and getting ready to ride to work. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure thing,” I said. I buttoned the top button of my Dickie’s shirt, letting the others hang open in my Long Beach gangbanger fashion. “What’s up?”
“I . . . I think I’m pregnant.”
I was stunned.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” she said, looking pale.
I waited, mulling the news over. After a moment, I was able to let the news sink in. “Well, that’s good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah,” I said. I came nearer to Karla and put my hands on her shoulders. “Aren’t you happy?”
“I am,” she admitted, blushing. “I just didn’t know what you were going to say.”
“I’ve been hoping we’d have a kid.”
“Really?” She looked at me happily. “Man, you never told me that!