deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 45: belladonna atropa

Sam crossed her legs so as to better steady herself on the little stool there on the floor. They still hadn't brought in most of the chairs back into the new space, a vast brick building with a low arch outside of the front door and a short stairwell that led down to a carpeted hallway. Next door stood the actual rehearsal spot: the day before Anthrax were in there but Sam and Marla had had a full day of school two blocks away from there.
"Two blocks away and we can still hear them, though," Marla had said with a chuckle. "Through the bricks."
And thus, even though they soon learned it was named Montana Studios, the three of them referred to the place as merely The Bricks. The rain came down over their heads as she and Sam strode down the sidewalk together from the school; the brim of the hat protected Sam's eyes from the onslaught of a downpour around them where Marla shielded her eyes with her hand.
Sam put the hat on the table next to her, and she only had nothing more than a small stool head underneath the seat of her jeans: granted, they hadn't moved in the rest of the furniture and most of the equipment as of yet, but Aurora did have a heavy wooden desk with her now tucked in the corner of the room there, one fetched from the street courtesy of Frank and Charlie: a proper desk in comparison to a simple clipboard. She could sort everything out with ease.
On the first visit, and it was raining that day as well, Sam spotted a little black cat outside of that back room, right outside of that low floor level window. She opened the window and Marla coaxed her in from the rain. Her black fur was soaked but they let her rest there in the far corner next to Aurora's desk. Sam bowed down further for a better look at the alleyway out there, at the tipped cardboard box with a half a dozen of old glass bottles.
"Little female alley cat," Aurora remarked as she brought in a blanket from the closet down the hall, and folded it up and lay it on the corner.
"Let's get her some food," Sam suggested, and Marla ducked out to the street to do just that. Sam and Aurora sat with the cat down on the floor: since the only towels around there were the paper ones from the bathroom, Aurora was gentle with her as she dried off her black fur. Her round golden eyes gazed up at her, and then Sam pet the back of her head. A soft purr emerged from her throat.
"She came in just easy," Aurora noted.
"Yeah, she's definitely not much of a stray," Sam added as she kept on petting the cat's head. Within time, Marla returned with a few cans of cat food and a pair of little bowls. She set the food and water before the cat and, gingerly, she scanned the little lump of food first: her little black nose twitched at it. She nibbled at it at first, but then she moved in closer for a larger bite. Marla pet the top of her head and she bowed her head over the food.
"I'm calling you Genie," Marla said to the cat. "'Cause you came to us out of a box of bottles. The bottom of some bottles."
"She came out of a bottle!" Sam declared as the cat raised her head towards her and padded closer to her legs.
"Might wanna take her to the vet, though," Marla pointed out. "Just to make sure of everything, you know?"
"Oh, right."
That night Marla took Genie home with her and Charlie, who was eager to take care of her. And within a few days, she had mingled into her household and she nestled in between them in their bed together.
"Black cat around Halloween," Sam remarked at one point complete with a wag of her finger.
"Black cats are good luck, though," Marla assured her. Aurora herself meanwhile shuffled through the papers on her desk, and she picked up a list of something on top of the stack closest to her. She then raised her eyebrows and parted her lips at what she saw before her.
"What's up?" Sam asked her.
"The records that came out this past year, I swear," Aurora remarked.
"That's according to Charlie, too," Marla added.
"I mean, between Metallica and Megadeth, and then Anthrax put out Spreading late last year—can't believe it's been almost a year already!" She gaped at that. "Then there was Slayer, Exodus, Death Angel, Overkill... Legacy and the Cherry Suicides are both trying to worm their way in now."
"Do you even know when Anthrax are gonna be here?" Marla asked her.
"I don't, no. I was thinking you'd know that given you and Charlie."
"He went over to Frankie's place this morning when I went off to school and then that was it after that. Sam and I walked here through the rain."
"A year since Spreading," Marla echoed her as she folded her arms across her chest.
"I still have yet to listen to that thing, too," Sam confessed in a low voice.
"You haven't listened to their record?" Aurora gaped at her.
"No! I don't have a record player on hand back at my place and it's not like I can make it come out of thin air, either. And I haven't heard anything from Danny yet—he promised to let me use his record player just so I can listen to it."
"I dunno if there's a record player in here, to be honest," Marla told her with a shrug of her shoulders.
"And I'd have to run back to my place anyway," Sam pointed out.
The rain came down even harder on the roof over their heads; she lowered her gaze to the hat right next to her. She shivered and she thought of Cliff right then. A jar of ashes having strewn across the cold earth: she wondered if he was going to become a tree out there in the Bay Area. She wondered how he would have reacted when he saw Genie there in the corner behind them.
But they stayed there for another twenty minutes when they saw that Anthrax weren't showing themselves there at their brand new home. Aurora took the bus back to her place but Marla offered to take the subway back to the Bronx with Sam. They stood across from each other next to one of the silver poles: Sam gazed at the crown of her head and the dark roots under the violet color.
"Are you gonna dye your hair again?" she asked her in a low voice.
"Yeah, definitely," Marla replied with a nod and a flip of her hair. "Not sure what color I'll use yet."
"You should do like zebra stripes," Sam suggested, "all random colors."
"Like all neon colors or something?"
"Yeah!"
"Neon green with like dark red and solid black, and then straight up blonde next to that and then gray and blue."
"Silvery gray," Sam added.
"A solid head of silver? Hm, I can see that aging me, though. You know, the whole thing with Alex's gray sliver and everything. It makes him look older than he actually is."
"Maybe you can do silver with like really hot pink."
"Perfect half colors or like a fading into the next color?"
"Fading. Although the half colors would be hilarious, though."
"I wanna be stylish not funny looking, though."
"Maybe there's a line between the two?" Sam asked her with a raise of her eyebrow.
"Could be. Where that line is is a whole other question, though."
They got off there in the Bronx and Marla walked her back to her building through the heavy rain.
"What's today?" Marla asked her as they made their way up the front steps.
"Thursday." Sam held the door for her and they ducked inside the front foyer. "I only have one class tomorrow, though."
"I have two."
The two of them made their way up the steps to her apartment: she thought about Cliff and the times he waited for her outside of her place. Indeed, she expected to see him at the top step, and then she imagined him with his back to the front door. She was disappointed when she didn't see him and the two girls padded into the apartment.
"Want something to drink?" Sam offered her.
"Yes please! It's gonna be a while before Charlie comes back here, as far as I know."
"Where'd they even go by the way?"
"They're going back on tour soon, so they drove upstate today. I think Belinda's out there, too. I didn't see her today."
Marla took her seat on the couch as Sam continued on to the kitchen. She thought about the mug of Mexican hot chocolate she made for Cliff, and then she remembered the flight home from the Bay Area given she saw Zelda and Louie together. The last time she saw Zelda and Louie together no less.
She put on the kettle, and she took a clean mug out of the cupboard over her head and set it down on the counter in front of her. She rounded the counter and stood in the kitchen doorway with one hand on the side there.
Marla raised her head to her.
"D'you know Zelda and Louie broke up?" she said to her, and she gaped at her.
"No!" Marla paused, and then she frowned. "I didn't even know they were together. Like, I didn't know that at all! What happened?"
"The whole long distance thing was getting to them."
"Ohhhh, no!"
"Yeah." Sam set a hand on her hip. "She was telling me and Aurora on the flight home a few weeks ago that she's a Rhode Island girl and Legacy is a West Coast band."
"Sounds like they're getting serious," Marla noted, "Legacy, I mean. You know, when Anthrax were starting to get serious with touring, Charlie and I weren't sure that we would last, though. But here we are now with a cat that sleeps in between us."
"Well, Alex is out of school now after all." Sam thought about Alex's chilly expression.
"I hope they can do something with themselves," Marla said, "—especially with that name."
"If nothing, they could just have 'the' before it."
"Yeah, they could. I can still it being confusing a bit, though, if another band's using it."
Sam doubled back into the kitchen for the kettle of water and the chocolate.
"Would you like some marshmallows with your cocoa?" she offered.
"Oh, yes, please. Those tiny little marshmallows the size of your thumbnail—"
She was cut off by a knock on the door.
"That's probably Charlie," Sam said as she poured the boiling water into the mugs. She dropped a few of those tiny marshmallows in as Marla opened the door for him. She asked him something but Sam couldn't hear it.
"Some treats for the dream Genie," he answered, and he followed it with a soft rattling sound: a small bag of fish shaped cat treats!
"Wanna share a cup of cocoa with me?" Sam handed her the mug: it felt so weird without the whipped cream and the spices, but it was part of letting go of Cliff.
"Oh, no, Frankie and I have pressing matters to attend—but I just swung by here to come get you and say hi to Sam I am."
"Well, I have a cup of cocoa now," Marla told him as she brought the rim close to her lips. "I'm just gonna drink this real quick and then we'll bounce."
Sam took a seat on the couch with her mug in hand. The right side of the couch, and she gazed on at the cushion next to her where Cliff always took his seat at. There was so much to adjust to, albeit adjusting she never realized before until she took a seat there. Everything reminded her of him, even with Marla and Charlie there before her.
She dared not tell him that Zelda and Louie split and Marla was silent about it the whole time they were there. He was going to find out about it one way or the other anyway once Legacy came to the label and proceeded with their new record.
She thought about them once Marla and Charlie left and thanked her for the cocoa. The day of Cliff's memorial, the five of them were clustered at the back of the room. And she never realized just how much more she wanted from them. She knew there was so much more to Alex in particular—if only there was a way inside of that cool demeanor, that sliver of gray right over his forehead.
She only had one class that next day, and when she emerged from the front door, she spotted a head of black curls by the curb, and she recognized those large brown eyes and that Roman nose even from a distance.
"Hey, Joey," she greeted him. "What brings you here?"
"I came here to just check on you," he confessed; he fixated on the hat upon her head, "I also came down from upstate to do some rehearsing. We're going on tour again with Metallica soon enough."
"You want to spend some more time with me before you gotta boogie again?" she followed along.
"Exactly!"
"So glad today's Friday," she declared as they walked side by side. "Been a long week."
"Yeah, I'll say," he added. "So are you done for the day?"
"Yup, Friday is one and done for me." She turned and faced him. "Why, you wanna do something?"
"Yeah. Seeing as it's still pretty early, let me buy you a big lunch."
"A big lunch? Where?"
"I'll take you back to Syracuse with me," he told her as he led her to his car parked at the curb.
"You just like me fat," she teased him as she stopped in front of the passenger door.
"Nah, I promise you—you're gorgeous. Nice and round still. But I call it a big lunch so you got sump'n to work with. I want to introduce you to my world."
"What do you mean, your world?"
Joey unlocked the door and he nodded to the back seat. Sam peered through the back window at the pair of hockey sticks as well as the skates and a pile of red fabric behind the driver's seat.
"Oh, that world!" she proclaimed as they both slid into the car in unison. She shut the door and paused. "You sure you wanna do that with me? I'm not really much of an athlete."
"It's okay," he assured her as he ran his fingers through his black curls: some of them began to pile up and stand on end at the top of his head, as if he wore an actual crown for himself. "It's why I'm here. I just have a little rubber bouncy ball in the back seat there 'cause I couldn't get a mask for you, though."
"That's okay—" He started up the car and they drove away from the curb into the fine drizzle. "But a big lunch to keep me going, though?" she asked him.
"Yeah. It takes a lot of energy just to stand up on the skates and move about on the ice. And I'm just gonna assume you haven't really eaten much either."
"Just some toast and a cup of coffee."
"Oh, yeah, gotta get that belly filled up. Open your gullet and drink down the venom, you're hanging with the deadly nightshade for the day."
Four hours later to the same spot in the northern side of the city, and Sam never realized how hungry she was until she and Joey split a large slice of blackberry pie and he encouraged her to eat up a large helping of macaroni and cheese with vegetables. She thought back to the reception following the ceremony and how Joey himself just vanished afterwards.
"I ate so much after Cliff's ashes were scattered," she told as she picked up a forkful of carrots.
"Really?"
"Yeah, me and Lars. We had like four plates full of food. He and I were so stuffed—and then Kirk tried to offer us some birthday cake, because you know, it was Alex's birthday."
"Oh, yeah, that's right! I overheard one of those guys saying that. Like his birthday was literally two days after we got home from Sweden."
"Do you know anything at all about them?"
"Who? Legacy?"
"Yeah." Joey shook his head as he picked up a slice of garlic bread.
"I really wanna know more about them," she admitted, "I'm a part of their fan club but I haven't really heard anything, though."
"Probably 'cause of Alex. Mr. School Boy."
"Probably." She shrugged her shoulders.
"By the way, I oughta tell you this," he started. "Seeing as we're here and you mentioned Lars."
"What's that?"
"I really, really want to be drawn up. Full body, the same way in which you drew Cliff."
"You mean—pounced in the middle of the classroom floor before me?"
"No. Minus the classroom."
Sam stopped right in her tracks and she raised her eyebrows at him.
"Just you and me," he said, "in an intimate setting. And I want it to be a full thing, too—that little pen drawing you did for me back in the cabin feels like an appetizer."
"Okay," she said in a low voice, and she picked up some more macaroni, "let's set aside a day for it, then."
He flashed her a wink and they continued with their lunch. The refills and slices of pie continued until Joey pointed at his wristwatch.
"Gotta get going," he told her with his mouth full. "Before we get too relaxed here—"
He almost dragged her away from the table and to the hockey rink two blocks away. Joey was quick to strip off his shirt and put on that delicate little red jersey and those big black skates, complete with shiny silver blades which looked so pristine. She slipped the skates on over her feet, and the blades underneath felt as though if she stepped the wrong way even a little bit, it would twist her ankle. She tightened the laces and gazed on at the jersey next to her on the bench.
"I'm so glad we could come out here," he confessed as he lifted his hair out from under the jersey's collar, but Sam was still reluctant to put on the jersey. Joey ran his tongue over his dark bottom lip.
"'Cause I oughta get you in the middle of a hockey rink as well," he told her. "It's not hard. I promise."
"I dunno, it seems awful violent," she confessed with a grimace on her face.
"Hey, you're a girl with a boyish name and you just lost the boy you love. A little violence, a little pain, will give you some stout strength. Trust me on it, Sam. Trust me when I say this—it'll give you the swift kick in the ass and it'll allow you to clean everything out." He then handed her a pair of black and white gloves, but then she put on the jersey over her shirt first.
"Whoa, you sure you wanna do that?" he warned her with a look of concern on his face.
"What?"
"Put the jersey on over your shirt? You're gonna get hot."
"You just want me to change in front of you," she teased him.
"Nah—I won't look," he promised her. "Here—" Joey bowed his head and covered his face with the gloves and his left hand. Sam took off the jersey first and then she peeled off her sweat shirt after that. The cold feeling the concrete floor beneath them sent a wave of chills across her slight belly and up her back; but she was quick to put the jersey back on over her bare body. She adjusted her ponytail and she tapped her finger on Joey's shoulder. He lifted his gaze to her and he nodded at her.
"I'm gonna assume you haven't skated before," he stated, to which she shook her head. "It's all about balance and getting acquainted with it. Just getting on and to the ice is the only bitch about it."
"So you said it's not hard," she pointed out.
"Nah, it's not hard at all," he echoed, and they held perfectly still across from each other. She rolled her eyes and he giggled at that. She almost lost her balance right there from the blades under her feet. They both swung the hockey sticks over their shoulders and began onwards to the sheet of pearly white ice.
"Keep the guards on," he advised her: he held her hand with his free one and he guided her towards the edge of the rink. It felt like walking in sand, but once they reached the rim, he let go of her hand and opened the gate. She stood still and watched him lift his left foot. That guard came right off.
Right foot next: those blades were sharp and perfect. He set the guards on the little notch there, and then he set one foot on the ice, followed by the next.
"Do you need help?" he asked her, and his voice echoed over the sheet of ice behind him. "I'll hold the stick for you—" He reached out with his free hand.
"So I just take them off and get on the ice?" She handed him the stick and then held on the top of the protective wall. She pried off the guard and that blade glimmered bright under the cold white lights.
"Exactly! Careful, though—gotta let the blade do the talking. Easy now—"
She set that foot down and pried off the other guard. She set them there next to his. She clutched onto the sides of the gateway, and she set her right foot on the ice. Like standing on a razor. Joey held both sticks in one hand and he reached out for her all the while.
"You got it?" he asked her in a soft voice.
"I think so—" she sputtered as her ankle quivered from the strange feeling. All her weight on that little blade.
"You got it?"
"No—!" She lost her balance and stumbled towards him. But Joey caught himself and steadied her right against his body. He showed her a grin.
"Easy now," he warned her: his chest was warm and his body was soft. But she had to let him go first. He held onto her hand as he inched away. He held her steady with one hand and held both sticks with the other.
"Should probably tell you that falling down a lot is normal," he told her, "I remember I did when I was starting out." He then handed her the sticks: he nudged the other one closer to her with his fingers. "Thing is is ya don't wanna think about it too much. Just get moving and let the blades and the ice do their thing."
"Like drawing or painting," she declared as she took the stick.
"Like drawing or painting, yes!" But he never let go of her hand. He guided her towards the other side of the rink with the stick in hand.
"I'm not letting go and dropping the ball until you're comfortable enough," he vowed to her. She gazed into his eyes, those deep brown eyes: like the dark of night, like venom. He locked eyes with her such that he slipped and almost lost his balance, and he nearly brought her down with him. But she let go. He corrected himself and stood upright. She almost fell the other way but she steadied herself by some miracle.
"We's be fallin' face down ass up!" he called out as he skirted around the rim of the rink, but she caught herself before she could fall even further down onto the ice. Sam clutched onto the hockey stick and she put her right foot before her to better steady herself.
Don't think about it too much, he said.
She inched forward and the blades glided across the ice. It felt like running, especially when she picked up speed and put her other foot forward.
"Hey, you got it!" Joey called after her.
"Yeah, I do!" she declared as she neared the end of the rink and turned her feet away from the wall: she moved in a parabola away from it and back towards Joey. He took the black ball out from his pocket and dropped it on the ice: as she came closer, she spotted the word "atropa" inscribed on the side.
"Origin of my last name," he said. "Bastardization of Bellardini."
"Deadly nightshade," she declared as she stuck the hockey stick out.
"Deadly nightshade, yes—hey!" She nudged it away from him and he chased after her to the other side of the rink.
"Good thing it's just us here," he confessed as he swiped it with a flick of the head. "I can see you playing rough—" But he was the quick one: Sam lagged behind him a bit, such that he coasted in order to slow down.
"Hey, what's Metallica's new bassist's name? Jack?"
"Jason!" she called back.
"Jason, that was it!"
He moved the stick's head behind the ball even though he kept moving along the ice.
"I wish you girls could tag along with all of us," he confessed, and she glided up to him with the stick in both hands.
"Aurora, Zelda, and I were all talking about that on the flight home—and you were right there when we said it, too. If we were there, the accident wouldn't have happened. And we're gonna start acting more. And being here definitely helped me out, too."
"See what I mean? It gets you goin'!"
He was about to skate forward with the ball but she caught it from him instead.
"I'm an influence, I see," he teased her.
"Well, yeah. But—thank you, though, Joey."
He showed her a crooked little smile.
"It's my pleasure," he said in a low voice, and then he moved his stick ahead for the ball, but she knocked it ahead of them. He laughed and lunged forward, but she held back a bit and watched him go ahead.
He peered behind him with a grin on his face.
"I need like a big headdress on top of my head," he confessed to her, "'cause I'm Iroquois Indian, you know?"
"You oughta do that while on tour," she suggested as she skated after him, and that coaxed a big laugh out of him. And then it hit her, especially when she gazed on at those thick black curls and at those big brown eyes whenever he looked in her direction again.
He had been there all along, and yet she was far too focused on Cliff in order to better see him for herself. The way to letting him rest but the memory with her all the way, and it took Lars sitting next to her after a funeral for her to bring up the connection. She could build on it from that point onward.
The answer was Joey.