Pretty Girl

Mason Martinez

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It only took Lucia’s mother seven hundred and fifty seconds to leave her. Twelve minutes. Lucia liked the sound of seconds because it sounded worse. Way worse. She stood, alone, beneath the dull buzz of fluorescent lights in the middle of a gas station market; headphone wire curling in places that her growing elbows kept getting tangled in. When the right bud ripped out of her ear for the fifth time was when she realized—right on the twelve minute mark— that the market was oddly silent.

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Too silent.

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Lucia was familiar with silence. It was the kind of thing that was hotter than the Nevada sun in mid-summer. The kind of thing that filled her great grandfather’s stolen 1989 Red Ram for the last half an hour as she and her mother made the trip from New Mexico to the outskirts of Vegas where her father was supposedly living now.

 

“Men don’t know what they want, Lucy, that’s why you have to go and remind them.” This was after hours of berating him, calling him over and over again to no avail.

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Lucia didn’t know why she had said it. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was hunger. But the words had come tumbling out. “Maybe he just doesn’t want you.”

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And now Lucia was alone. Unwanted. She set down an airy bag of Cheetos and peered out, past the plastic aisles, past the payphone where her mother had been shouting loudly in Spanish, and into the two stalled gas pumps where no vehicle sat.

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There was nothing but the rocky terrain of Highway 93 and an eleven-year-old girl with seventy-eight cents in dimes, nickels, and pennies and an oddly shaped mp3 player that reminded her of the sticks her mother had frequently peed on, in those last days before her father left.

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“This is how you keep a man, Lucy.” But Lucia couldn't imagine how squatting over a toilet, and holding a hand between her thighs to catch the steady stream of piss, could make a man stay.

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“You good?” There was a clear line of sight between the register and where she stood. The boy leaning behind the counter was young. Not nearly as young as her, maybe a couple of years older, but still a boy, naive and foolish. He thumbed through one of those ninety-nine cent comic books that came in a three-pack at the discount store.

 

She thought about telling him, “hey, my mom just left me twelve minutes ago,” but that didn’t seem serious enough. If she said seven hundred and fifty seconds ago, maybe then he wouldn’t catch on to the seconds part, only the numbers. The amount of them would make him jump into action and help her like the heroes in the comics he read.

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Instead, Lucia went with, “Do you know what I could get with this?” She dug through the small pockets of her mother’s hand-me-down shorts, revealing the small pile of coins in her hand.

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He spared a quick glance—one presumably meant to last a millisecond before returning to the comic-book world of good and evil—but then that deep, lip-licking curiosity seemed to overtake what he thought he wanted and told him, instead, what he needed. His eyes were drawn to her long brown legs, the curve of her waist and thighs. Lucia felt it. Saw it in the way that his eyes, beige like the hard sand outside, returned to her, traced her figure, and burned it into his memory for later, when the sun began to fade away.

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“Um,” Lucia started, hoping to turn his attention to her face and not her growing body. There was a hoodie on the floor of the truck that she used as a blanket. Gone with her grandfather’s cigarette smelling truck. Gone with her unicorn keychain and lilac bookbag. Gone with her mother. “It’s seventy-eight cents.”

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He set the comic down slowly, a small seemingly friendly smile pulling at the corners of his lips, a patchy mustache blossoming along dry skin. “You could get three of those,” he pointed with his chin towards the various bags. “I won’t charge you tax so long as you don’t tell. It could be our little secret.” He winked at the last bit.

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“Oh,” Lucia squeaked. “Thank you.” It sounded more like a question than a statement. She turned so she faced the chips straight on. She thought of what he might have seen. Where his eyes would land this time. She had not yet grown in certain places, but at the same time, she wasn’t certain. She tried not to think about it, to focus on other things instead, like dodgeball with her friends, sharing earbuds in the gated courtyard, and jumping over cracks so she wouldn’t break her mother’s back.

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“You know,” he said, nearly singing the words with a tune meant to allure her. A slick grin parting his damp lips. “I think you ought to be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

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Her body went rigid, but Lucia forced herself to smile the way her mother had always told her to. Be polite, it’s the way to survive. But what if she didn’t want to? What if she wanted to bare her teeth, exposing two pointy little fangs. What if she wanted to hiss and snarl, scream and yell, call him names like pendejo or cabrone, all those ugly words that filled her father’s voice box. Would he still find her pretty then?

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The tips of the boy’s fingers traced the edge of the counter as he rounded it. She felt the air in her lungs collect, the sun-bleached hair on her arms rise.

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How was she going to survive this?

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She couldn’t hear his footsteps coming closer and closer to her, but she knew they were coming. She could feel the heat, the want, the need.

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A bell chimed across from her, familiar flopping chancletas filled the room with noise. Her mother sauntered to the back of the store where the refrigerators hummed in protest of the thick heat. “Lucy!” She yelled.

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Breath tumbled out of her body until she was a ribbon floating in the air.

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“You forgot the water!”

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Not I forgot you. My only daughter. My only child. It was thirst that had made her mother return. Thirst that had made the boy round the counter. Lucia’s fingers curled into the palms of her hands until she felt a sting. 

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Her mother walked towards her, popping bubble gum between plump lips, trying to mask the cigarette smoke.

 

“Mija, do you think I have all day? Just pick one and let’s go!” She shook her head, making way towards the register. Lucia reached forward and grabbed anything. It didn’t matter. One way or another, her mother was back. She had survived. Right?

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The register clicked and dinged as the boy rang them up. His eyes were glued to its plastic keys, feigning disinterest and boredom. Like they were just two people passing through. Like Lucia had not been the prettiest girl in the world. But as they walked out into the sizzling Nevada heat with their two waters and one bag of chips, she realized that he never charged them tax.