Victoria Blanca
My uncle taught me how to breathe quietly before he taught me how to shoot.
It sounded strange until you understood that breathing was the first thing a panic episode tried to take away from you.
I reminded myself of that when I stepped out of the black truck and into the spa’s glass lobby, with damp palms, and my heart beating wild.
In the glass, I could see ‘Valerie’ looking back at me, the new me.
Today, my ponytail was smooth and sleeked back and I wore soft makeup with my nails painted nude.
My beige wrap dress hugged my curves with my name badge clipped straight across the top left breast. I was no longer Blanca’s niece but that would never change the fact that I was still the girl raised in a courtyard full of rifles and rugged men.
However, right now, I was just a front desk girl in downtown Miami who smiled and said “good morning” to women who smelled like bergamot and lots of money.
Inside, the air was clean and chill, with eucalyptus and lemon scent to it.
Low music played out of hidden speakers and water trickled from the stone fountain causing a shallow pool circling underneath it.
The marble reception desk glistened like they’d just cleaned it as I allowed my fingertips to brush across it.
Did I feel like a new person? Of course not, and I never would as long as my uncle was hunting us.
“Morning, Valerie,” Tia spoke as she walked in behind me with a tote bag bigger than her torso.
That wasn’t her name, but everyone called her Tia because of her smile and looks.
She was half Dominican and half black. She always wore her baby hair slicked around her edges with long natural lashes.
“You early again. You know we don’t get paid extra for overachieving girl. ”
“I’m still learning the software and everything else,” I said, and I was.
The booking grid, the point-of-sale screen, the way the calendar color coded deep tissue in midnight blue and prenatal in mauve.
I liked it more than I expected. I liked the click and order of it.
If I stacked appointments right, the day went smoothly.
If I made the girls at the back laugh at me for fucking up, they weren’t mean about it, they’d just laugh and show me what to do and it felt normal outside of my dangerous world.
Mel came in next. She was such a nice-looking Haitian girl with dreads wrapped up, and hoop earrings gracing her ears with a dimpled smile. “Valerie, tell me you brought coffee.”
“I brought willpower,” I said, lifting my water bottle because I still couldn’t keep coffee down, and anyway, my hands shook enough. “Does that count?”
She laughed. “I’ll take it.”
I slid behind the desk and turned the computer on.
The login screen lit up and accepted my name.
The name still didn’t feel like it belonged to me, but each day it fit a little more.
I pulled the appointment list for the day.
The first clients were already on their way with two facials, three massages, and one spray tan which made the most money in the spa.
The doors slid open and a couple wearing matching clothes walked in wearing their diamonds while giggling.
I smiled at them like we were always supposed to do.
“Welcome to Azure, do you have an appointment?” I asked checking them in.
Everything had been running smoothly so far, and I was happy about that.
At about 9:27am, a thin brown skin delivery boy with a baseball cap walked in with flowers in his hand.
When he got to the desk, he didn’t make eye contact, but he didn’t need to.
He placed the long box on the desk and slid a handheld pad toward me.
“Delivery for… Valerie,” he said, reading my badge. “Sign.”
“From who?” I asked forming a wrinkle in between my perfectly arched eyebrows.
He shrugged. “It says from nobody… just Valerie.”
I signed because my hand moved before my senses did, and before I could ask anything else he had already turned, around and walked out. Just then, Tia showed up with glossy lips, ready for some good gossip.
“So, who is it from?” she asked, smiling. “Already got a fan?”
“Maybe it’s a wrong name,” I replied with a shrug, but that feeling was in my gut.
I used the box cutter we kept taped under the desk and I lifted the lid and smelled it before I saw the green stems, in cold water with one long stemmed white rose with the thorns on it. There wasn’t even a card attached.
Every muscle in my body stiffened up one by one.
It shouldn’t have meant anything to anyone but a florist, however I grew up where flowers had a language, and white was more than just a color.
White meant watch yourself. White meant you were being watched, and it was the joke inside my uncle’s cartel the way men used to slide a single white flower through a gate the night before they were getting ready to shed blood.
I shut the lid trying hard not to show my hands trembling.
I wasn’t afraid to shoot if I had to. I wasn’t afraid of any of my uncle’s men.
I simply just didn’t want to have to fight with El Blanca.
He disowned me and I liked my new life way better.
“You good?” Tia asked. “You look like you saw a ghost mamacita.”
“It’s nothing,” I lied. “Maybe it’s for the manager, or again the wrong name.” I smiled in a way that made her stop looking at me like I was lying to her.
The reservations phone started to ring, and I just briefly stared at it before picking it up.
“Azure Spa, this is Valerie, how can I assist you?” I went through a booking, typed a note, added a preference for a therapist and ended the call without needing any help, all while holding my breath.
I then tried to place the rose in the desk, and the stem was too long, so I snapped the stem in the middle, placed it in there and closed the drawer.
“Valerie…” Tia began, but Mel called her, and she turned around sashaying away instead of trying to pull more gossip out of me. I was thankful for that because I didn’t want to talk about this.
I should’ve called Dom. That’s exactly what I should have done.
I should’ve walked to the back where I’d be alone, pulled the encrypted phone he gave me, and told him about the rose.
Instead, I glanced at the front where the tinted glass glared back at me and I thought about the two Royal trucks that always parked somewhere within a block now, how his men dressed in all black tees were always somewhere around.
He said I would always have eyes around me.
He said if anything felt wrong, to call and I wanted to.
Dios (God) knows I did, but there was also this girl, this stupid, stubborn girl who spent days locked in a condo like she was a pet, who finally had a desk and a co-workers who actually liked Valerie.
I swallowed hard and stood up. “I need to check the linen,” I told Mel. “Be right back.”
“You need help?”
“I’m fine.” I replied.
“Uh-huh,” she said, unconvinced, and returned to her client’s chart.
In the hallway, everything became much quieter than in the front because the lights were low and the soft music played.
Behind every frosted glass, a therapist’s hands massaged oil into the deep tissue muscles of people.
I kept walking right past the locker room, past the staff bathroom, and down the little service corridor that runs to the back where the deliveries came in.
I literally held my breath the entire time.
When I pushed the back door, the Miami heat hit like someone had slapped me in the face.
The alley was bright and narrow with trash cans and pallets everywhere.
On the far end, I saw the shape of one of Dom’s trucks angled across the opening of the alley as I placed my hand to shield my eyes from the sun.
“Senorita,” a voice said behind me.
It didn’t sound like one I knew, and it surely wasn’t the accent that belonged to a Dominican dishwasher or a Peruvian busboy.
However, it was really thick like back home.
My hand went to the door to walk back inside, but a second hand was already on the knob pushing the door back in place.
I finally turned around since I had no other choice and looked him in the eyes.
He was taller than me, and very thin with his cap worn low and cheap shades covering his eyes.
No tattoos were visible from what I could see, but his hands told a story with multiple war wounds across his knuckles, and he even had a few cigarette burns too.
He held a folded newspaper under his arm and gave me a devilish smile.
“We’ve been looking for you,” he said. “La sobrina.”
I only cocked my head to the side and replied in English as if I didn’t know Spanish. “We don’t allow smoking in the alley.” I smiled.
He laughed. I knew there were three rules when you were trapped between a door and a man like him.
One was to keep your distance, two was to never let the pattern of your breathing betray you, and three was to keep your hands where they could become weapons.
I gave myself half a step, turned my body sideways, let my right foot slide back enough to find the ground in case I could run.
He tracked my movements and adjusted his own stance letting me know the same person had taught us.
“I have to go back to work,” I said in my sweetest receptionist voice. “Sir, if you need a service, you can schedule at the front desk.”
“Tu eres el servicio,” he replied letting me know that I was the service. This time, he tone was way more inpatient with my games.
“I don’t…”