Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey, Ellen R. Sasahara, Felicity Don Read Free Book Online Page A

thought to herself. Kelly never got jealous of anybody.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Ping. Ping. She was back, the twisted little troublemaker. Colin Jones looked out on the street and saw Josephine leaning imperially against a shiny white car. He went outside and stared at the white Neon, brand new, with smooth white doors and a curved roof and windows without streaks of rain.
    â€œNice car,” he said, feeling a slight longing for the immaculate vehicle.
    â€œI’ve got it for a few days,” she said, staring him right in the eyes.
    He nodded. He was on to her.
    After he’d ditched her, she’d started hanging out with Donovan and Khalil, two brothers who lived over by View Royal Video. Their mother was away a lot and so they had basement parties. Donovan and Khalil were minor celebrities in View Royal, and in the neighboring towns of Langford and Esquimalt. For one thing, they were both black, and therefore of the highest and most elite pedigree. To be black in Victoria was to be infused with an aura of indescribable glamor. It meant, regardless of your real personality, that you were just like, you had to be, must be, just like the glamorous and dangerous black men on TV. Tupac and Biggie and Too $hort and Ice Cube, and those black men from America who had guns and big cars and mansions and champagne and diamonds and Jeeps and low-riders and their own clothing lines and names of secret solidarity like Ruff Ryders and Eastsiders and big cars and mansions and champagne and ghettoes and pit bulls and sexy women in stilettos and anthems like, “Fuck with me, you fucking die, motherfucker.”
    Donovan and Khalil, Colin thought, probably taught Josephine how to steal her new car. They did it with hairdressers’ scissors, sticking the long shears into the lock and then into the ignition.
    â€œI have it for a few days,” Josephine said, and she lit a cigarette, ran her hand through her blonde hair, and she seemed to him to be waiting for an invitation or a compliment.
    He went inside his house and called 911.
    â€œThere’s a car on 14 Marton Place,” he said to the dispatcher. “Awhite Neon. I’m not going to say who. I’m not going to say how. But it’s stolen and you might want to come and get it.”
    But by the time the police arrived, Josephine was gone. It would not be the last time she would know when to leave, know how to avoid the cops. But not knowing of her future misdeeds, Colin Jones found himself both admiring and greatly irritated by her smooth escape.
    Later, on the phone, Josephine and Kelly discussed the stolen car.
    Kelly promised her, “If you get caught, I’ll take some of the blame. If the cops come and take you in, just tell them I stole the car.”
    â€œKel, I would never do that!”
    â€œBut you could.”
    And Josephine thought:
yes, I could, because Kelly is a true friend, like a sister, and Kelly,
she thought,
Kelly would do
anything
for me.

“A Very Dangerous Young Lady”
    O NCE THERE WAS a woman named Dinah who had six daughters: Diamond, Donna, Deanna, Dahlia, and Destiny. Dusty was the youngest daughter, a girl in View Royal, who was, she would later say, “totally out of control.”
    Dinah, her mother, was first to kick her out. (“Dusty’s trouble. I couldn’t handle her.”) For a few difficult months, she’d lived with Destiny, but then Destiny kicked her out. So she went to Kiwanis. Then she got in some trouble, and so Kiwanis kicked her out, and in the fall, she went to live in Alberta with her oldest sister, Dahlia.
    Destiny warned Dahlia, “Dusty will cause nothing but trouble.” Yet Dahlia believed she could be the one to help Dusty. “I love my little sister. She has a good heart.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Dusty moved like a boxer, with a kind of gait both ungainly and purposeful. She wore her hair pulled back in a