Colleen was standing in the middle of Times Square by herself, at night. She heard a scream and turned around to see it was Margarita, screaming as a familiar-looking man with cropped, light brown hair, dressed in a suit was being shoving her into a car. The man turned to her: it was Jayson Eubanks.
“See? Not everyone’s trustworthy.” Jayson had said, laughing. “She’s property of the state now.”
Tequila was standing beside the car, laughing at her twin. A familiar-looking woman with bleached-blond hair and garish make-up had one hand on Tequila’s shoulder. With her free hand she put hundred dollar bills into Tequila’s open palm. Tequila turned her head to Colleen.
“I’ve found a business I’m good at.” Tequila announced. “You didn’t go for your dream, mother.” Tequila added, taunting her.
“NO!” Colleen screamed, breaking into a run. A familiar-looking man with shaggy blond hair grabbed her suddenly, stopping her from almost getting hit by a car. She looked up into Montana’s face, grateful.
“You don’t know any histories.” Montana said.
“What do you mean?” Colleen responded.
“People. You don’t know them. You don’t know their pasts. Do you know me?”
“Of course I do!”
“Do you now?” Montana laughed. “You just let your kids die. But they’re not really your kids, are they?”
“They are!” Colleen broke free of him and looked around wildly. The car Margarita had been shoved into sped away. On the side was printed “Department of Children and Family Services”. Tequila and the bleached-blond who could only be Aura Mercy were gone. Colleen broke free of Montana’s grip and ran after the car.
She weaved in and out of traffic, taxi drivers cursing at her. Alanna appeared in front of her, her hands covered with blood and her suit saturated with the scarlet fluid. Alanna reached out to her, smearing the blood on her face. The coppery taste of it filled Colleen’s mouth it felt like her throat had suddenly filled with it. She couldn’t breathe…she coughed, hacking up the liquid all over her clothes and the street.
“Mental imbalances…everyone has them.” Alanna stated, her voice chilling. “But some have it worse than you. You made all the wrong choices. You followed your brain not your heart. And if your brain is unbalanced…what does that say about the decisions you made with it?”
“You’re wrong!” Colleen shrieked. “You all are!”
“Is that so?” Instead of Alanna, Lark now stood before her. “You lost the way.”
“What way?”
“I’m not your mentor; it’s not my job to tell you that. What do you know about me?”
“You were my friend for years! I know a lot about you.”
“So wrong you are. I was given a chance to become better than myself, but I gave it up, just like you did.”
“How can you become better than yourself?”
“It’s something you need to figure out for yourself. Before it’s too late.”
“What did you do wrong?”
Lark smiled wryly. “Love.”
“Huh?”
“Wake up, Colleen!” Lark said harshly.
Behind her appeared a tall, handsome, young man with long black hair, wearing a fireman’s uniform. There was a severe burn on one cheek and a line of soot on the other cheek. The man was someone from her past, Colleen knew. It hit her: Penn Hunter!
“You’re wasting time!” Lark announced. “Get it together! WAKE UP!”
Colleen jolted awake from her nightmare to find herself drenched in a cold sweat and her heart racing. She jumped up from the couch she had been sleeping on, throwing off her blanket. Flashes of the dream ran through her head, making her feel slightly dizzy. She felt a strange sense of urgency. She ran towards the girl’s room.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Margarita asked, coming to the door of Colleen’s room, where she had been sleeping.
“I-I don’t know. Go back to bed.” Colleen responded.
“I can’t. School starts in a half hour.” Margarita informed her.
“Oh. Go…go make yourself something to eat, OK?”
“OK. But Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Where’s Tequila?”
“What do you mean ‘where’s Tequila’?”
“She’s not in her room.”
“Oh god!” Colleen darted down the short hallway, throwing herself against the door to Tequila and Margarita’s room.
Instead of it being locked, as it had been the night before, the door flew open, almost making Colleen fall. Tequila was nowhere to be seen. Her large duffle bag that she used for sleepovers was gone, as were some of her clothes and possessions. Peaking out from under Tequila’s bed’s mattress was a manila folder. Colleen snatched it and opened it, coming face to face with Tequila’s case history, including the information that Colleen was really her sister, not her mother.
“NO!” Colleen shrieked, tears starting to fall from her eyes. She darted back out of the room and into the kitchen, grabbing the phone and hurriedly pressing a few buttons.
Montana picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Montana!” Colleen cried. “Is Tequila at your place?”
“No, why do you ask? Last I saw her she had locked herself in the girl’s room.”
“Oh God, oh God!”
“What is it, Col? What’s happened?”
“She’s gone! Montana, Tequila ran away! She found out about…you know what…and she ran away!”
“Calm down, Colleen, calm down. I’ll go drive around and see if I can find her, OK?”
“OK.” Colleen ended their conversation and punched in another set of numbers. It rang once…twice…five times…before the answering machine picked up.
“You’ve reached the law firm of Brooks, Rimes, and Yearwood, and the office of Alanna Chanterelle Spruce, Esquire. My office hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., so please call back during those times. Thank you.” Alanna’s voice stated.
Colleen cursed and dialed up Alanna’s home number, then her cell phone number. The phones rang for a full two minutes each without Alanna picking up. Colleen hung up, a bit confused. Alanna had once told her that that she would never be in the position where she wouldn’t pick up at least one of her phones, so Colleen thought that was a bit odd that she got no answer at all three. Finally, not sure what to call next and knowing she couldn’t file a police report unless Tequila had been missing for more than 24 hours, Colleen punched in one last number.
“Los Angeles County Hospital.” A young man proclaimed on the other end of the phone.
“This is Colleen Saccharine. Is Doctor Lark Panacea there?”
“Oh, Lark!” The kid sounded as if he’d brightened considerably. “Yeah, she’s here. Would you like me to page her for you? Is it an emergency?”
“Yes, it is. I’m a…friend of hers.”
“OK, then, hold on a sec. I’m Lex Cavanaugh, by the way.”
A moment later Colleen could hear Lark in the background.
“Lex!” Lark barked. “LEXAS CAVANAUGH! Have you got those X-rays I asked for?”
“Most definitely.” Lex replied. “Here ya’ go. You’ve got a phone call, though, that’s why I paged you. Someone named Colleen Saccharine is in on the phone; says it’s an emergency.”
“Hello?” Lark said. “What’s the emergency?”
“Lark!” Colleen exclaimed. “Tequila’s missing.”
“What are you talking about? Go to a bar and buy some more or whatever, cause I’m really busy…oh, wait, you mean Tequila, your daughter Tequila?”
“Yes!”
“Did she run away?”
“Yes! I have no idea where she went and I’m already being hounded by DCFS and if they find out about this they’ll take her and Margarita away!”
“Calm down, chill, relax, as hard as that sounds. You’ll find her.”
“Oh God, what if something’s happened to her?”
“Nothing will. If she’s your daughter then she must be a pretty sharp kid.”
“Thanks. I have my, uh, friend Montana out searching for her ‘cause I’ve got to take Margarita to school…would you keep an eye out for her at the hospital? Call me if she gets brought in or anything?”
“Sure. Try to stay calm and think logically, though.”
“I will. Can you talk to me a minute so I can keep my mind off of this?”
“Sure. I’ll just study these X-rays at the same time, OK?”
“OK. Er, uh, what should we talk about? What’s new with you?”
“Nothing really. I did knee surgery on a teen the other day who shattered his patella playing football at school.”
“That’s…” Colleen didn’t know what to say to that. Frankly, she thought the whole surgery thing was more than a little gross. “Good for you.”
“Yeah, the kid’s doing much better. Well the only other thing that happened to me was this guy from our high school asked me out. Do you remember Penn Hunter?”
“Yeah.” Colleen’s dream ran through her head once more. “Ohmygod!”
“Yeah, I know. It was horrible. I am never going out with him again. I don’t even know why I did in the first place. Oh, shit!”
“What is it?”
“I found something in this X-ray…I’ve got to go. Lex, c’mere! Now! Can you call me back later? I’m sure Tequila will turn up.”
Colleen looked at the phone, confused by Lark’s sudden exit, before dialing up Montana.
“Um, Aura?” Tequila called out, standing in the doorway to Aura’s room.
“Hmm?” Aura murmured, opening one eye.
“My school starts in a forty-five minutes.”
“And?”
“You said you’d drive me.”
“Oh, right. You sure you can’t drive yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn. Look, it only takes fifteen minutes to drive there. Let me sleep for ten more minutes, ‘k?”
“OK, but I don’t have any fresh clothes.”
“What about in your duffle bag?”
“I kinda only packed one set. I was in a hurry and everything.”
“Fine. Just go pick something from my closet. I don’t care what, just something that fits.”
“Thanks.” Tequila replied, but the thanks fell on deaf ears: Aura had gone back to sleep. Tequila went over to Aura’s huge walk-in closet and began to rifle through it.
Fifteen minutes later, Aura and Tequila were in Aura’s convertible, speeding down the freeway. Aura cursed when they came to a red light, seemingly taking it as a personal offense. While they were stopped, a car of twenty-something, very cute guys pulled up besides them. One rolled down his window and whistled.
“Hey hot stuff!” The driver of the car called out.
“Hey yourself.” Aura replied.
“Would you consider going out with me sometime?”
“I don’t think you could afford my rates.” Aura responded and slammed her foot on the gas as the light changed to green, leaving the guys looking very confused.
Aura took one hand off the wheel to grab the packet of cigarettes on the dashboard. She upended the packet slightly so that one fell out, onto the dash, then she dropped the packet back down. She picked up the cigarette, put it in her mouth, and reached in the open glove compartment for a lighter. She raised the lighter, lit the cigarette, replaced the lighter, and slammed the glove compartment shut. She inhaled the smoke deeply before blowing it back out.
“That’s the stuff.” Aura muttered.
“Why do you smoke?” Tequila asked.
“Why not? Didn’t we already go over this? I smoke cause it feels good. What I want I get.”
“Have you ever done drugs?”
“You kidding me, ‘Quila? Hell yeah. The tract marks are pretty much gone however, thank God.”
“Why do you talk about God like that? So casual?”
“Jesus, what is with the third degree?”
“I was just curious.”
“You’re too curious. In my line of work, too much curiosity gets you messed up or worse. You learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“Sorry.” Tequila said, her voice meek. She turned her face away from Aura.
Aura looked over at the little girl: she was only eight. She reminded Aura a little of herself at that age. Aura took another drag of her cigarette.
“The smoke bugging you?” Aura asked.
Tequila shook her head.
“You’re making me feel like I have to be some kind of role model.” Aura took one last drag then chucked the cigarette out onto the road. “I can quit whenever I want.”
“My teacher says that it’s impossible to quit after you start smoking. And she said that it turns your lungs black.”
“Your teacher’s an idiot. I quit drugs didn’t I? Haven’t had any for like, ten years. Here kiddo, I’ll prove it to you.” Aura snatched her pack of cigarettes off of the dash and hurled them over the side of the car. “There. No more.”
Tequila smiled slightly.
“So you want to know why I use the Lord’s name in vain. You believe in God?”
Tequila nodded.
“You believe in Santa Claus too?”
“No!” Tequila replied, emphatically.
“But in a way they’re the same thing. Both are some all-knowing, all-seeing presences that never die and watch over the world. They punish or reward. The way I see it, if there was a God there wouldn’t be people like me and the other girls at the Kat Scratch or all those starving kids all over the world who live shitty lives and have no luck at all and no hope to get out of their situations. You get what I’m saying?”
“I think so. Couldn’t you change your situation, though? Stop stripping and stuff?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It seems like it. You could just quit. You could move where no one knows you. Then wouldn’t you have a better life?”
Aura’s brow furrowed. This kid was actually making sense. “Possibly.”
“Then you’d have hope, right?”
The corners of Aura’s mouth turned upwards into a smile. “I guess so.”
“I want to move to Hollywood and leave stupid old LA. Then I could be with all the stars and be a famous actress who makes a whole lot of money.” Tequila announced. “Where do you want to move?”
Aura’s smile widened. “Nevada.”
Tequila frowned. “What’s in Nevada? Isn’t it just like, sand?”
“Not just sand.”
“Then what is there that would be so cool?”
“Did you ever hear of Las Vegas?”
“No.” Tequila shook her head. “What is it?”
“You’ll know by the time you’re twenty one.”
“Well then why do you want to go there?”
“Let’s put it this way: I always wanted to dance, since I was about your age. When I was a kid, stripping wasn’t my idea of what my dancing career would be.”
“You want to dance still? You want to dance in this Vargaz place?”
Aura laughed. “Vegas. Yeah, I want to dance in Vegas.”
“Then you should.”
“It’s not that simple, kiddo.” Aura replied, stopping the car. “Here’s your school.”
“Thanks. Aura, I think you should dance in Vegas if that’s what you want to do.”