The Green (11 page)

We drove through Slate Park and Cambridge and
then into Seville, a town that was almost in the country but was
still considered a suburb.

“What are we doing here?” I asked. We drove
through neatly manicured middle class neighborhoods and pulled to a
stop in front of a plain old suburban house.

“You’ll see. Come on,” he said, opening the
back door. Junior got out and locked the car, following us up the
drive. There was another car in the driveway already.

Javier pulled out a key and let us into the
house. From the foyer, the house looked pretty normal, a kitchen
sat to the right across from a normal living room with a TV and a
couch. Javier waved at a guy sitting on the couch playing video
games. Junior went to join him.

“That’s Martin. He lives here for me, but I
own this place,” he explained.

“Uh, it’s nice,” I said, not sure what else
to say but figuring that it was best to be polite.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said with a
smile.

As we walked toward the back of the house, it
was clear it was anything but normal. A heavy black curtain covered
a doorway. When Javier pulled it aside, I gasped. A brilliant green
filled my eye.

Pot plants. Everywhere. The floor was covered
wall to wall with tables, each containing as many plants as it
could hold. A system of lights hung over the tables and pipes ran
from the walls, misting over the plants periodically. The carpet
had been removed and someone had stapled plastic sheets to the
floor. All of the windows were covered with the same heavy fabric
as the doorway.

“What is this place?” I asked, bewildered.
I’d never seen anything like it in my whole life.

“This, Ariceli, is my grow house,” he said
proudly, waving his hands over the plants, as if he were showing
off his child or something.

“A what?” I still didn’t comprehend.

“You know, like you said before, it’s too
cold to grow the plants outside. This set up allows me to grow the
plants all year round,” he said.

“It’s insane!” I couldn’t believe how many
plants there were.

“This isn’t even all of it, come on, I’ll
show you.” He waved a hand at me and we continued on through the
house. Only one bedroom was used for its original purpose. The
other three were ripped apart like the downstairs and contained
rows of plants. The basement was by far the most impressive. Once
we hit the bottom of the stairs, it was like a sea of green.

Javier walked down the rows, inspecting the
plants.

“These are looking good. See, so they take
these buds off the plants and dry them and you’ve got pot. Martin
packs it up and I bring it to you. The growing is the hardest part.
But Martin knows what he’s doing. He’s one of the best growers I’ve
ever met.”

“How much is this place worth then? And how
do you keep it from the neighbors? And what keeps the cops from
coming in here?” Questions rolled off of my tongue.

“Well, here’s the deal. I bought the house,
so I don’t have any nosy landlords poking around in my shit. The
people in the neighborhood don’t know because we’ve got some
windows blocked out, but we leave a few of them open so it looks
like a normal old house where someone is living here. And Martin
really lives here. Plus, all they care about is that the house
looks good. So part of Martin’s job is to mow the lawn once a week
and keep the house looking nice from the outside by planting
flowers and shit. It’s real homey, don’t you think?”

I started laughing. “You have him plant
flowers? That’s hilarious!”

“What’s hilarious is that these people could
give a shit what I’m doing in this house as long as I got some
flowerpots on the porch and the lawn is mowed. Jesus, we could be
like serial killers and they wouldn’t even know. I guess it’s good
that they’re too busy to meet the new Latinos in the neighborhood,”
he said.

“So how much is all this worth? It’s gotta be
worth a lot,” I said.

“This house has about 2,000 plants. That
would be about two million bucks,” he said nonchalantly.

“What?!” Picked up jaw off floor. Oops, it
fell again. Picked up jaw for second time.

“Two million dollars?” I could barely
breathe. I didn’t realize Javier was this kind of big time. Holy
shit!

“This ain’t nothing, girl. I got two other
grow houses around the ‘burbs with just as many plants. So all
together it’s probably more like six million.” He smiled a million
dollar, um, no make that a SIX million dollar smile.

I stumbled back to the basement stairs and
sat down. My legs felt SO shaky.

“So, are you impressed?” he asked.

“Seriously? Like you needed to ask?” I
sputtered. “Why did you show me this? Aren’t you afraid I’d say
something?”

“No, I trust you Ariceli. There’s no reason
for you to tell. You’re a smart girl. I just figured you’d like to
see where your money was coming from,” he said. “Come on, let’s get
you home. Don’t you have some homework to do?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied, but I couldn’t
quite keep my head from spinning.

I was pretty quiet on the ride back to Slate
Park. It was a lot to take in. When we pulled into the lot, Javier
opened the door and followed me into the apartment building and
down the steps to my door.

“Well, uh, thanks?” I said, unlocking the
door. As I turned around he caught me around the waist and carried
me through the door.

“What are you…” before I could even get the
words out he closed the door and pushed me up against it. He moved
in for the kiss, pushing his lips against mine as my arms flailed
at my side. What was this? Shit. Not good. I tried to push him away
and finally was able to pry his lips off mine.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted in
his face.

“Like you have to ask. Come on girl, I
thought you were impressed,” he whispered, moving back in for
another kiss. I shivered in fear as he slid his hand down my side,
his hand coming to rest on my hip.

“No, I think you’ve misunderstood me. I was
impressed by your pot farm. That’s it. This isn’t good, man, not
good at all. I think you should go.” I pressed myself against the
door, trying to make some space between our bodies, but it didn’t
help much.

“Come on, Ariceli,” he moaned.

“No, Javi, I can’t do this. You’re my boss.
It won’t be good for business.” I was grasping at anything to get
him to think about this sensibly, or even just to get him out of
here.

He moved away suddenly, narrowing his eyes. I
stepped aside and he didn’t say a word as he flung the door open
and slammed it behind him.

Oh god, what was that? Shit. What was Javier
going to do now? Fire me? Kill me? Oh god. I sat down on the couch
and put my head in my hands. I felt sick—my stomach writhed in
knots. Imaginary filth crawled over my skin. Where the hell did he
get the idea I’d be up for that? I hope I wasn’t giving off some
kind of whore vibe. I rubbed my temples, willing the ickyness
away.

I felt like the Atlas statue, you know, the
one where the man is bent over and carrying the world on his
shoulders? Every freaking day that world got heavier and heavier
and I wondered just when it would crush me.

I’d kept pretty quiet the last few days,
worried if I answered a question with too many words it would break
the dam I had built and everything would come spilling out,
completely drowning whoever had been unfortunate enough to ask the
question.

“Oh my god, Ari, Dean is going to take me to
the Winter Formal. Has James asked you?” she rattled on at
practice.

No, he hadn’t asked me. It was early though,
the Winter Formal wasn’t until after Winter Break, but of course
everyone was asking their dates now so they could look for dresses
over break.

“Nope,” I answered shortly.

“Wellll, are you going to just ask him then?”
she asked.

I thought about it for a minute.

“No. I’m not going to ask him. If he wants to
go with me, he’ll ask. If he doesn’t, well whatever. I don’t have
the time to worry about it.” I knew I sounded like a huffy bitch,
but I couldn’t bear to ask him and have him say no. I wanted him to
make the move. I wanted him to prove that he wanted me. I’m sure
I’d made it more than obvious that I was interested. “And if nobody
asks me, I’m not going to go,” I added.

“Aw, Ari, don’t be like that. You should come
anyways. It’s senior year! You have to go to formal!” she
whined.

“We’ll see, all right. I make no promises.” I
smiled slightly inside, happy to know at least one person wanted me
there. It totally sucked, because business was so good at the
moment, I could probably pull one of those green hundreds (or two)
from the boxes under my bed to buy a nice new dress for the
dance.

My business had been building steadily and it
became harder and harder every day to cover my tracks. I had even
taken to ‘going out’ for lunch. Being that I never had a car
before, I’d never left school for lunch. Sometimes with a random
friend, but I didn’t really have lunch with any of my good friends,
like Naomi or James. But now, being that we had off campus if we
wanted as juniors and seniors, I took every advantage of that
time.

I tried to keep it to no more than three
deliveries a night, not that it was happening every night, but as
they say, when it rained it poured. I’d get nothing for a week and
then Nando’s phone would ring off the hook for two days straight.
Sometimes I had scheduled deliveries to make, but sometimes I’d get
out to the car and find more messages waiting. I started keeping
prepared packages in the car, which was definitely more dangerous
if I ever got stopped, but made it SO much more convenient. Then I
could even make drops right after school.

Tonight was no different as Naomi and I
headed out to our cars after practice. I waved goodbye and walked
to the church parking lot, wondering what Nando’s phone had in
store for me.

No sooner had I gotten into the car that it
started ringing, ‘Big Pimpin’ spilling out of the glove box.

JAVIER the phone read in all caps. Shit. We
hadn’t talked for over a week. He hadn’t come over to pick up his
cut at all lately. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know what
to say. So many things were running through my mind at once. Dirty.
Whore. Creeper. Javier’s call went to voicemail.

When he was done leaving the message, I
noticed that there was more than one on there and grabbed a pen and
piece of paper. Two more orders. Good thing I had enough in the
trunk. I listened to Javier’s message last.

“Ariceli, it’s me. I need to see you tonight.
Call me or text me and let me know when it’s good time to come
over.”

Needed to see me. NEEDED to see me? As in for
cash? Or needed to see ME. His voice was just too hard to read. I
couldn’t text him now and I still didn’t want to talk to him. Not
just yet. But he did need to get his money, so there was no getting
out of this. I wished someone would be there with me, in case he
decided to pounce on me again, but Mom wouldn’t be home until
late.

After I made the first delivery to my good
old buddy Steve in Lavender Park, I texted Javier.

B home by 8. CU then.

After the last drop off, I headed back
through Cambridge to Slate Park. Fear settled slowly into the pit
of my stomach as I got closer to the apartment. I hoped I wouldn’t
have to use the knife Javier gave me for protection against
him.

The doorbell rang and I opened it, stepping
back to get out of Javier’s way in case he wanted to lunge at me
again. Instead, I was surprised to be faced with a giant bouquet of
flowers.

“Hi, Ariceli,” Javier said as he swept into
the room and presented me with the flowers. “These are for
you.”

“Thanks?” I wasn’t really sure what to say.
What were these, some kind of
sorry-I-tried-to-shove-my-tongue-down-your-throat flowers? I
perched on the edge of the couch, across the room from him, ready
for evasive maneuvers.

“I just wanted to say sorry for the other
day.”

“Uh, thanks.” Um, can you say awkward? I
waited for a second to see if he had anything to add to that, but
he stayed silent, and stared at me. I tried not to twitch in my
seat and show my discomfort.

“I can’t stay too long, Junior’s out in the
car. But I wanted to swing by and give you these and pick up my
cut. Oh, and here’s some new supplies.” He reached into a backpack
and tossed me two new bricks of pot.

I took them into the hallway, unlocked my
padlock, and slipped into my room. I carefully placed the bricks in
the closet and grabbed the shoebox from under the bed. I ripped the
paper out of my notebook that detailed all of the last week’s sales
and put it in the box.

“Here you go. I put the records in the box so
you can see who’s buying what, ” I said, nearly dropping the box in
his lap.

“See, that’s why you’re the best,” he said,
taking the box. He opened it and looked surprised at the pile of
green. “Hot damn girl, you pull in the big bucks for me!”

He took the cash and the paper and shoved
them both into his backpack.

“I gotta run.” He jumped up from the couch.
“I’ll talk to you.”

I half fell onto the couch. He flung open the
door and shut it quickly behind him, without a look back. My legs
were shaking. I had gotten very lucky, but I was worried. Just
because he knew I wasn’t up for it last week, now I had to figure
out WHY he gave me the flowers. Were they truly a gift to apologize
and make nice or did he really still think he had a chance here?
Ugh. I shivered and threw them on the table.

Nando’s phone rang in my purse somewhere.
Shit. I didn’t have any time for a delivery tonight. There was a
huge math test tomorrow and I really needed to look over my notes.
I listened to the message and my heart dropped. Some older sounding
man named Ron in Cambridge. I had told Javier I didn’t want to deal
in Cambridge. I hurriedly found his phone number in the phone book
and hit send.