23. 🔧 Catalytic Converter

**JUSTICE**

I cruise the streets for almost forty-five minutes before I catch sight of Keke at an all-night diner near a bridge. How she made it here in that time is anyone’s guess. She probably ran track in high school or something.
I park where I can see the car and jog across the street. I’m thankful that the seats near her booth are empty because judging by the tear streaks in her makeup, our conversation won’t be pleasant.
When I slide onto the leather, her eyes lift from the menu to rest on my face. I hope she notes the worry there, the anguish. I guess I deserve it, springing my intentions on her without talking to her first.
I just can’t win with the women I like.
A casual time is what I give best and when it is over, I walk away without looking back. I’ve never tried transitioning to a relationship. With Keke, I’m more than willing to give it a go.
If she’ll let you.
The server comes over, holding a cup of coffee with two creams and one sugar resting on its saucer. “Your apple pie à la mode is coming right up.” She turns to me. “Sir, can I get you anything?”
“Coffee. Black. And I’ll have the same.” The pie will probably turn to sawdust in my mouth, but it will keep my hands busy.
“Sure thing.”
When she leaves, Keke readies her coffee by emptying her sugar with measured slowness and stirring in the cream in a counter-clockwise motion. She taps the spoon on the cup for way longer than necessary. With a final clink, she sets it on the saucer.
Staring at the steaming contents of her mug, she says in a whisper so full of hurt I cringe, “It was just like that night. That night that started everything.” Keke lifts her tired eyes to mine. In her gaze I hate that I see a wounded soul. “I told you about Arjun and the spices, right? The first day I got here?”
I nod, not daring to say a word. I don’t want to distract her from telling me why she ran out into the dead of night to a diner more than a few miles away. I have to know her story and if it takes all night, I’ll be here to the bitter end.
“Arjun moved his family to the UAE to help his friend start up a club. That’s how I first met Krish, through Arjun.” She pauses, lowering her eyes to the Formica table, lost in her own mind.
And the palpable pain she radiates breaks my soul apart.
I clench my hands under the table, imagining them circling the neck of an unseen foe.
“I didn’t meet Krish until a couple of months after we arrived. He came to dinner one night.” She pauses and with her head still bent, I don’t get the full frontal of her expression, but her words tell of her exasperation at what she views as unfair. “One thing you have to understand: there is a hierarchy in Dubai. Although people don’t talk about it, it exists like some invisible barrier. The rich circulate among themselves and the people who work for them, stay behind the scenes... and nary shall the two meet.” She stops talking as the server arrives with my coffee and the pie we’d ordered. We ignore the desert for the moment to take a sip of coffee, laying our cups down with a chimed clink.
“Now, I grew up in middle class America,” she continues, fiddling with the fork on her pie plate. “I came from a different mindset than many of the household workers over there, but still, the wealth in that country intimidated me—a behind-the-scenes person. I accepted it because that’s the way things are.” She shrugs, her shoulders sloped with resignation. “With Arjun and Sachi, they didn’t treat me badly, mind you, but it wasn’t like in Prague where they treated me like a friend. In Dubai, I was no longer made to feel like I was part of the family.” She takes a small bite of pie. Grimacing, she sets her fork down.
I couldn’t imagine doing the same. The pie would choke me for sure because I can relate to how she felt. Many of the women who paid me to sleep with them had more wealth than Gary had times twenty.
After they got what they wanted from me, they treated me like dog shit stuck to their expensive shoes… until the next time they picked me up from the streets, eager for me to show them a good time.
I want to reach over and grab her hand, telling her I’m here for her. I’m afraid if I do, she will stop, so I don’t. Instead, I sit and watch her looking at that damn pie with whipped cream drooling down its sides.
The undertone in the booth, an oozing mist of anxiety and despair, reminds me of the day I left home. How empty and alone I felt. It was nothing compared to what awaited me on the streets.
And what I kept hidden for years afterward.
Until Keke chased it away.
I can’t lose her. She means to much to me.
“Anyway…” she looks up to give me an apologetic smile. Her foot had bumped me under the table when she uncrossed her legs. “Uh… the night I met… him, Krish, Arjun and Sachi’s son, Jai, had forgotten his favorite toy in the living room. He wouldn’t go to sleep without it, so I went in there, my eyes not looking at my employers or their guest, but the long gray ears of the toy sticking from the side cushion of the couch. Still, I kept some of my American sass when I interrupted Arjun to say, ‘Excuse me, Jai forgot his bunny.’ Arjun looked annoyed, but Sachi laughed, telling me to come and meet their friend.
She lifted her eyes to mine, and the hurt mirrored in there had me seething.
That bastard did a number on her.
Her story, told in fits and starts, and tears, confirms my worst suspicions. It also places murder in my heart.