Life's A Cappella Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Life’s A Cappella

  Copyright © 2013 Yessi Smith

  Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations

  Literary Editor: KMS Freelance Editing

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my husband – my foundation, best friend, and greatest supporter.

  Preface

  “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved but have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours...”

  -Ayn Rand

  Prologue

  I want to tell you how great my life was. How I lived without regrets. With constant laughter. Without any tears. I want to tell you how I lived each moment to the fullest. How each breath I took was fresh and full of life. With eagerness. Without any fear.

  I want to tell you all of that, but then my story would be masked with lies and not worth telling.

  The truth is I was born into a family in which the word family in and of itself was laughable. I never met my father and there are times I wish I would never have met my mother. Try as hard as she might, she never fully accomplished the task of ending her life. Which really was a shame. How much easier my life would have been if she had just ceased to exist.

  While her anger was something to be reckoned with, the malice induced by her addictions was something that should be avoided altogether.

  I learned at a very young age that home was not a place I wanted to be.

  I should have stayed in my hometown in Alabama, pissing my life away until I wound up another statistic; pregnant with a fatherless baby. That should have been my story, but I never received that particular script, so I forged my way in my own manner.

  My life didn’t start until I left my past. And I left everything. My mother, my friends, my name. Yes, my name. I will not tell you what my name used to be because it is irrelevant. That person should never have existed.

  My new name, the name everyone knows me by is Erin Lewis. It is a name common enough so that I can blend, but bright enough so that I may shine. And that is what I want, to shine so brightly that the darkness of my past is but a small speck of dust.

  Chapter 1

  Erin – December 2012

  With its eclectic personality, Miami suited me. The beach was my constant, always there and had proven to be the haven I never found in my previous life. I could be alone with my thoughts one minute, or with a couple phone calls, surrounded by people and so much noise it was difficult to hear what was going on in my head.

  After living in Miami for almost four years, I was on the verge of graduating as a nurse, and only one semester stood between me and my goal. I had a small studio apartment in the middle of Little Havana. My neighbors only spoke Spanish and constantly listened to Salsa and cooked, filling our building with lyrics I didn’t understand and a concoction of aromas that kept my stomach growling. While I didn’t speak much Spanish, I could dance like only a Floridian can and could order pastelitos and a café con leche without much of an accent.

  My neighbors referred to me as La Gringa, or the white girl, and had the constant urge to feed me. Almost every day I had a crazy old Cuban neighbor knocking on my door and shoving food through the threshold, speaking faster and louder than was necessary.

  I loved it. The noise, the happiness, the unity, the laughter, the music, the food. Definitely the food. Something was always happening. And it was happening at such a fast pace that, even after four years, I was still taken aback that anyone could keep up.

  I went to bed every night feeling secure in my environment and without hunger pangs. I was a good student, held a part-time job, went out on weekends, and had good solid friendships, including my first best friend.

  I first met Camilla three years ago when we were matched together for a project in our Anthropology class. We became friends through our common love of learning about different cultures, especially Native American culture. Our friendship was cemented when we went to Northern Florida to interview members of a local tribe. We may have taken our project too seriously and wound up drunk and high with members of the tribe to further enhance our experience. We were rewarded with the only A grade given to the whole class.

  Today was Friday, and I was waiting for Camilla to get off work so we could go out. She had started a new job at Sunset Place selling clothes that would more than likely end up in her closet. I busied myself by getting ready for the night. Seeing as how I had very little fashion sense, and even less money, I simply put on a black tank top that exposed the little cleavage I had and my washboard stomach and jeans that clung to my slim body and barely existent curves. Since Miami’s main fashion goal was to wear as little as possible, I figured I’d blend right in. A bit of eye liner and mascara to bring out the baby blues and some light lip gloss. I didn’t bother fussing with my hair since having it do its natural straight blonde thing seemed to be the envy of almost every girl I met. I slipped on my sandals and stared in the mirror. I looked more like a stripper pole than a woman of twenty-two, with only a small tease where curves should be. Ah well, I sighed, and waited when my cell phone rang.

  “You on your way yet, hoochie?” I asked Camilla.

  “I lost my car,” she responded, her voice tense, obviously on the verge of hysteria, and I could picture her transferring her weight from one leg to the other with an occasional eye roll for emphasis. Only Camilla hadn’t quite captured the art of eye rolling, and sh
e usually just made her eyes twitch sporadically.

  “What do you mean you lost your car?” I asked cautiously. Camilla didn’t like driving or anything having to do with vehicles.

  “I lost my fucking car,” she sighed heavily. A bit of an exaggerated sigh so that I could fully appreciate her situation.

  I stifled a laugh and asked, “Like, the whole thing?”

  “Yes, the whole damn thing! I have been through all three floors of this garage,” she rushed on, and I heard her kick something and inhale a response upon impact, “in and out every aisle, and I can’t find the stupid thing. Fuck!”

  “Did you do the beep beep thing?” I asked, referring to the keyless entry remote she bought for her car specifically for situations like this.

  “Battery died,” she laughed.

  Camilla’s sense of humor was one of the first things that drew me to her. She had an uncanny and sometimes annoying habit of looking for the bright side of all situations. She didn’t know how to let life beat her down. I envied her for that.

  “Why don’t you see if a security guard can drive you around on one of their golf carts?” I suggested.

  “Yeah, good idea. Never mind the fact I’ll look like the dumbass I am.”

  We hung up and I shook my head, laughing quietly to myself. There weren’t very many people that could misplace an entire vehicle as often as Camilla had.

  Two and a half hours later, Camilla was at my door. She was all of five feet tall, but wore heels that I was sure would eventually give her back problems. She rarely ever wore makeup, making her large brown eyes appear even larger. If she didn’t remember to squint her eyes just a tad she’d end up having the deer in headlights stare, which made others ask her fairly often if she was okay. I’ve never been sure what her natural hair color was, because she never kept it dyed any one color for long. Her current color, my favorite thus far, was strawberry blonde with platinum blonde highlights around her face.

  Camilla loved clothes, but in a tomboyish sort of way, and was dressed more casually than me with a graphic tee that let others know how educated women use the word fuck and shorts so short it would make a whore blush. But she had the body for it, with curves in all the right places and she was proud of it. When we first met, she had informed me that her boobs were her pride and joy. Personally, my pride would lie in running every morning before the sun rose and most evenings as the sun went down, resulting in her being able to eat anything she wanted. She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, which it seemed all Cubans did, even if you had just seen each other five minutes ago.

  “Lookin’ hot, Erin,” Camilla told me as she walked around to fully assess me. I rolled my eyes at her, grabbed our bottle of Patron, and headed out the door.

  Inadvertently, I reminded myself of my mother doing the same. Only when she did it, it was with malice in her eyes, a bottle of Jim Beam, and her leave would be anywhere between one to ten days. I’ve never been sure if I was happier when she left or when she finally came back.

  I was seven the first time she performed her disappearing act. She had left me with an uncooked pop tart and a can of soda. It was the first time she had allowed me to drink soda, so I was pretty happy and didn’t even notice her departure. But by nightfall, the novelty of soda had worn off and I was pretty upset with her for leaving me. I busied myself by drawing on napkins and paper plates. Pretty pictures that I placed on the couch, wanting to show them off to my mother when she got home. They brightened up the place so much and I wanted so badly to make our home look prettier, so I started coloring the walls of our trailer home with my crayons. I looked around, proud of my work, sure my mother would be proud too. Two days later she came back, too intoxicated to notice me or the walls.

  But she noticed both the next day. I never picked up a crayon again.

  I mentally shook my head and put myself back in the right frame of mind. That part of my life was gone. So far in the past that I could almost deny its very existence.

  Camilla tossed me the keys to her Jeep Wrangler. With the Jeep’s top off and Slaughterhouse talking to us about My Life, I drove us to the beach where a party and bon fire awaited us. Friday night bonfires had become a regular scene amongst the group of friends we hung out with. Of course, they were also illegal, so we had to constantly pick new beaches. But it was always the same people and the same scene. Ocean, sand, college students, music, and a small area my group of friends and I would claim as our own and dub the Cunt Hut.

  The beach, as always, was a welcomed sight. With each crashing wave, I felt the tension that I always seemed to carry with me ease. The beach, with its own exhibition of color, scent, and noise, pacified me. I closed my eyes and took it in slowly, completely oblivious to the noise and the people already in true party form. I opened my eyes back to the world and was ready.

  The music was blasting from a nearby radio, and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters was a welcomed surprise to my ears since pop and house music seemed to be the most prominent genre in Miami. While Camilla put her case of Corona in a cooler, I held onto my bottle of Patron and searched the faces for our group of friends, who would have already claimed a spot for our infamous Hut.

  Once I caught sight of them, we made our way to the Hut with a beer for each in tow. The Cunt Hut was originally and rightfully named for four girls; Camilla, myself, Brianna, and Tonya, but we had expanded and allowed guys, typically boyfriends, to join our group.

  Camilla had known Brianna and her sister Tonya since junior high. When Camilla introduced us, they had welcomed me into their group without any hesitations. At first I had been taken aback by their trust and the lack of restraints I normally encountered when meeting new people back home, but reminded myself to allow things to happen just as casually.

  Brianna was gorgeous. Not just head to toe gorgeous, but she had that inner beauty you heard Oprah spew on about on her talk show. To be honest, I always thought the whole inner beauty thing was nothing more than crap people talked about to make our society seem not as awful as it really was. But Brianna was gorgeous, inside and out. Her caramel skin was flawless and normally adorned in Bohemian clothes. She styled her hair carefully to make it look messy and as if she had not spent hours creating her perfectly thought out chaos. Her younger sister on the other hand, was wilder with a sense of humor I appreciated, but was just as meticulous about her makeup, shoes and clothes.

  We talked about nothing in particular and laughed at anything that remotely resembled humor. Once it was clear we were caught up in the nuisances of our everyday life, we danced. Afrojack, Steve Akoi, Deadmau5, Ultra Nate, Roger Sanchez, Christian Villa, Swedish House Mafia…

  Hours passed, and by 2 AM people slowly started making their way to their cars, so we made our way back to the Cunt Hut. I finally opened my bottle of Patron while Tonya handed out red plastic cups. I poured generously and we took our first shot of the night as we sat on the sand, , close enough to the bon fire so that the light from the fire could fight off the darkness of the night.

  Tonya sang an annoyingly catchy tune while Brianna told us about her and Jermaine’s first spear fishing experience. Camilla, fully absorbed in Brianna’s story, inched closer, as Jermaine watched his girlfriend reenact their first catch. I, on the other hand, looked around at everything and everyone, listening only half-heartedly, completely happy and relaxed.

  “When do you go back out?” Camilla asked.

  Jermaine shrugged his shoulders and directed his response to Brianna, “Whenever. When do you wanna go back, babe?”

  “Sunday morning?” Brianna offered while Tonya continued to sing softly in the background, not interrupting the flow of conversation. Tonya had a pretty voice and loved to sing as often as possible.

  “So soon,” Jermaine countered jokingly. “Seems I got you hooked,” he said proudly.

  “I’m good for Sunday,” Camilla replied, all smiles.

  “Good,” Jermaine said. “Eight too early?”

  “Nah,” C
amilla shook her head. “I’ll be done with my run by then.” I laughed at the absurdity of running so early in the morning. Or running at all.

  As my friends continued their conversation, I caught on to what Tonya was singing and snorted, like really snorted out loud, at her and gently shoved her with my shoulder. Tonya looked at me and smiled. “Hold on, it gets better,” she told me, clearing her throat and belting the famous chorus from We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

  My friends gaped at her while I tried to swallow the laughter I had bubbling inside of me. Unamused, Camilla shook her head in disapproval. “Really? You can do better than that.”

  “Right,” Tonya admonished herself. “I forgot Cam and Erin only listen to rap.”

  “Hurry, throw on some 2Pac before they gauge your eyes out,” Brianna suggested.

  “2Pac after Taylor Swift? That’s just sacrilegious,” I scolded.

  “Sacrilegious indeed,” Camilla agreed as we both did the sign of the cross and burst into a fit of laughter.

  Jermaine filled our plastic cups with more Patron as he shook his head at us. He probably thought we were a bunch of silly females. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. It was nice to be a part of a group of silly, carefree women.

  “I never told you where I found my car,” Camilla said to me. I waited expectantly, fully appreciating and embracing the simplicity of my life. “On the second floor as close to the elevators as possible so I wouldn’t lose it. I remember thinking that too. If I park here, I won’t be able to miss it when I get off the elevator.”

  “That worked out really well for you,” I replied. “Maybe you should text yourself next time,” I recommended, and in our drunken glory we laughed. Our eyes glistened with the same weightless worries the ocean seemed to encompass. I looked at my friend’s flushed face, creviced with laugh lines that over time would leave its permanent mark.

  Once we finished the bottle of Patron, we lay down on the sand and listened to the waves crashing just a few feet away. At some point we fell asleep and were awakened just after five to someone playing Bob Marley’s Wake Up and Live, which made me smile because that was all I really wanted in this life; to live.