Her smooth brassy hair clung closely to her head thick with sweat, as she attempted to start the non-compliant air conditioning. Trying to live on her own was her idea, where she visualized all the house parties she had dreamed of since she was five, but now it included getting smashed on gin and tonics. Emily her best friend lived with her to curb the loneliness that she felt when she paused long enough to really think. They had met in the fourth grade, when their mothers joined the same Sunday brunch group and were left with the same Hispanic babysitter. All Sarah remembered about this babysitter was that her dad said she was a very precise cleaner, but to always keep her piggy bank hidden in her closet. Her name was Lydia, Maria or maybe it was Elena.
“It's seven o'clock, ” Emily's voice sang out into the empty hallway. That meant prime time at Ebony on a Saturday night. The local club that they vacated way too often on Central Avenue, where twenty-somethings would slink around looking for their next sexual fix. Sarah really needed to take her mind off of the strain of work, especially the expectations laid out for her just because she was Richard Smith's daughter. A few minutes later, Emily appeared from her room wearing a low-cut maroon top that threatened to exposed her breasts if she moved to quickly.
The girls slipped out into the blanket of heat that smothered them, as they momentarily stepped from their apartment into the cool interior of a cab. Sarah eyed the cab driver suspiciously, a young man that had the skin of a worn penny.
“Good evening, where to ladies?” he said with a polite smile
“24th and East,” Emily smiled back, her long brown curls framing her heart-shaped face.
“Girl's night out I suppose?” His I.D. labeled Amal Singh swung viciously to the classic rock station that was softly accenting the ride. Sarah heartbeat quickened and her imagination ran wild with trying to pinpoint the real intentions that were held in that last sentence from the Middle Eastern.
“Of course,” Emily said,, her dimples once again lighting up her face.
The cab came to a halt, as the light turned cherry red, Sarah suddenly felt her throat constricting and her breath becoming ragged.
“Actually we're going to get out here,” Sarah demanded, her thin, tall frame stood rigid and looming.
“But...,” Emily started to protest before Sarah dragged her out by the forearm, throwing a ragged ten dollar bill towards the astonished cab driver.
The girls stumbled onto the hard concrete of the sidewalk and stood melting in the dying sunlight as the city whirled past them in a blur.
“What was that all about,” Emily had the same strange confusion plastered on her face, as when her dog Lucy had died in the sixth grade.
“You saw the way he was staring at us,” Sarah said blankly. A shadow crawled over Emily's face, from a passing city bus that was rushing past.
“Let's just go to the club, we need to meet Johnathan.”
After an exhausting cab ride later they stumbled out into the early evening and into a long line snaking itself around the corner of the club's rugged exterior. A lanky boy stood at least a foot ahead of the crowd, with a blank stare in his dull gray eyes. This was Emily's brother Johnathan, who had come back from the war a few months ago, Emily had explained to her something about getting special permission to return home, because they found that he had a weak heart. Sarah had noticed an obvious lack of pride for her brother's service and had tried to squeeze out of her what was wrong. But Emily just said that she was tired and stressed from working at her new PR job overtime.
“Damn, we didn't beat the rush,” Sarah said breathlessly as she approached Johnathan. Emily who had stayed silent the entire cab ride there, started to gnaw at the torn skin around her scarlet nails.
The girls greeted Johnathan and his friend, Matt who he knew from NYU. No one said much as they waited, Johnathan tugged impatiently at a stray thread hanging down from his coat pocket. Emily sighed several times, as they slowly made their way up to the entrance of the club.
The silence stayed with them as they entered the club that reeked of cologne and impatient hormones. The four of them headed straight for the bar. But halfway there the boys had already gotten separated from Sarah and Emily, when they ran into two girls they had known from school. Continuing to head toward the endless bottles of rum, vodka and gin, Sarah struggled to kept up with Emily's giant strides and her unsubdued anger. Finally Emily nearly collided with the bar, in her attempt to distance herself further away from Sarah's desperate grasp.
“I'll have a rum and coke,” Emily barked at the bartender. Sarah and Emily had been drinking for nearly ten years and never in that time had Emily drank rum. They always had agreed that gin and tonics were their ideal drink of choice. Sarah quickly ordered the usual and then pulled Emily by one bony shoulder, into the dark hallway that led to the bathrooms.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Sarah interrogated, her eyes flashing angrily across Emily's indifferent pout. “If it's what happened in the cab, I don't know why you fucking care so much. You can't fucking trust everyone, now can you?” There was silence and then Emily's hand met Sarah's flushed check, and vanished out of the club.
Sarah not wanting some stupid fight to ruin her evening, downed eight more gin and tonics and got felt up by guys who hungrily devoured her body with their black eyes and offered to go home with her. Johnathan and Matt were in a plush velvet booth, surrounded by the two girls from before. The girl wrapped around Johnathan had her bronzed arms draped over his shoulders, slowly caressing his ear with her tongue. Remembering somewhere in the far excesses of her mind that she was going to have Sunday brunch with her family tomorrow, she dragged herself outside to hail a cab. It was nearly one when she got home and in her half-dazed state Sarah stumble into the still apartment and passed out on the sofa.
The next morning the digital numbers on the DVD player blinked into existence in the darken living room. 6:15am. A pain shot through Sarah's head as she tried to get her bearings, then a quiet shuffling came unmistakably from the kitchen. In her half-asleep trance, the first thought that came to her was that a thief had bribed his way into the building. She groped around for something to defend herself with, but she could only find a seven inch brass replica of the Eiffel Tower that her mom had brought back from Paris. She picked it up and held it over her shoulder like a baseball player ready to bring it home. Tiptoeing softly into the smooth linoleum, she posed herself ready to strike her victim , when she recognized the familiar brown ponytail bobbing in the darkness.
“Emily!” Sarah had forgotten about her friend's nightly pilgrimage to the Brita filter. Emily turned around facing her with the the intensity of lightning striking a tree with unfathomable force and suddenly the night before came rushing back to her. Emily moved inches towards Sarah's face, Her night breath engulfed Sarah, which seemed punishment enough.
“You know, Sarah it's people like you that see the world in black and white that are the cause of this war,” Emily slammed her glass on the counter, creating a miniature tidal wave onto the white granite.“You know the truth about John was that he didn't leave the war because of his heart.”
“What,” Sarah twitched uncomfortably.
“He bribed a doctor there to give him a note that said he had a weak heart.” Emily nose was almost colliding with Sarah's. “He went overseas because he thought he needed to prove himself, was too headstrong and wanted to show who was boss...face to face.”
The fog in Sarah's head dissipated, her face her eyes narrowed into tiny almonds. Emily took a sharp breath and continued.
“You know when he finally made it over there, he did not see anything different about the enemy, the racial boundaries fell away. The were just people who wanted nothing more than to not see another innocent life cut short, to hear the wails of children turn into cries of joy. Wanted nothing else but justice.”
Emily switched the weight of her body so she was now leaning with her right hip jutted to the side, her hand clamped onto the side of it.
“You know the day I saw John came back, he came back with this story and shame, nothing else. Sarah, ignorance is the strongest killer.”
Sarah stood very still as the sunlight came in through the window in sharp blades., slicing her feet into several slivers of gold. She turned on Emily and walked back down the hallway. She did not understand her friend anymore, there was nothing else to say, because they were a world apart. But in her gut she knew the war was for a good cause, that there were those that deserved to die. Revenge was a necessity.
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