deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 49: one of us

Sam spent the next night at Joey's apartment before he offered to drive her back to the Bronx, complete with the painted canvas in the back seat. He also offered her to take a week off from school and spend it with him, but she turned it down.
"I worked too hard to get into school and claim my spot here in the Northeast, Joey," she explained to him as she nestled down in the passenger seat next to him, "I mean, really. There's no way I'm giving that up. I wouldn't be here right now if not for school."
"We gotta hang out again, though, Sam," he insisted. "I like hangin' out with you. I feel more like myself when I'm hangin' out with you."
"Maybe we can do something together over Thanksgiving—I have a four day weekend then."
"Nah, I can't. We're gonna be touring over in Europe."
"Dammit! Well, what about Christmas?"
"Christmas, I dunno. I think we have it off? I'll have to run it by Scott when I see him in a bit. Although—I do think we go back to Poughkeepsie after Thanksgiving, though. Poughkeepsie and also Providence."
"Providence! So Zelda will be able to see you guys just fine."
"I hope she does, yeah!"
Another few hours and soon the New York skyline emerged in their view: the cold gray clouds only made all those skyscrapers as well as the Twin Towers off in the distance appear even colder. Seeing the clouds made her think of that cat she and Marla had found outside of their new rehearsal space, especially given it was pouring rain when they found her. As Joey took to the next lane over to keep up with the freeway, she turned her attention to him.
He took a couple of glimpses over at her, the second of which he raised his eyebrows at her.
"What's up?" he asked her.
"Is it too much trouble to ask if we could swing by Marla and Charlie's place? They don't live too far away from my building."
"I was just thinkin' about them," he confessed. "The two of them and that little black kitty cat that she found."
"Actually it was me who found her—Marla and Charlie took her in."
"Oh, I see! But yeah, we can go see them for a little bit. I'm not the one with school after all." He flashed her a wink; the freeway spanned out into a long flat stretch and they made their way towards the Bronx and all those familiar neighborhoods. For a few moments as they rounded the bend, she had forgotten what they had named the cat but she wished to find her something the next time they saw each other.
Joey took the next exit into the very heart of the Bronx and Sam shivered in the seat despite the blast of warm air from the heater vents. He flexed his fingers even though he barely held onto the wheel the whole ride there. She had had the gloves tucked away in her pocket, but she wondered if he had another pair perfect for his own hands, and one that was perfect for driving.
He flexed his fingers again.
"Tired?" she asked him with a raise of her eyebrows.
"Nah, just cold hands. I don't have those drummer gloves with me."
"Drummer gloves," she said in a flat tone.
"Yeah. When I was first starting out as a drummer, I'd wear this little pair of white leather gloves that protected my hands from the drumsticks. They also kept my hands warm against the cold. I think I forgot them back at my place. Louie has a pair, too." He somewhat grimaced at the mention of Louie's name. "They're almost like gardening gloves."
"Oh, I see. Speaking of which, I had already seen you in a hockey get up, I should see you drumming next."
"Playing hockey and drumming at the same time," Joey challenged her with a smirk on his face.
"Playing hockey and then drumming," Sam added.
"Or drumming and then play a round of hockey. I'm that active, after all."
They snaked their way through the side streets of the Bronx, and towards her apartment building, but they continued onward to Marla and Charlie's building nearby. She had a flashback to when she and Frank were in that closet together and she drew those cartoons in her journal. She could still feel the fine lush hair against her fingers. She wished to do more of those same types of cartoons in her journal, and it made her think of the ink drawings she had made in the past October. She missed doing it that time around given Cliff's passing and her filled schedule that fall as well, but she wished to do it again.
Lars encouraged her to do it with the ink at Cliff's memorial after all.
The rain had fizzled out by the time she and Joey made their way up the steps and inside of the dry, warm building.
"Do you remember where they live?" Joey asked her as he ran his fingers through his black curls.
"I do as a matter of fact!"
Sam reached the apartment first and she knocked on the door panel three times. Silence ensued.
"Are they even home at all?" Joey wondered aloud, and the door swung open. Marla greeted them, and complete with a towel wrapped around her hair.
"Hey," she said with a surprised expression on her face. "Hey, you two!"
"Who's here?" Charlie hollered from the kitchen.
"Joey and Sam," she called back to him, and she returned to them.
"We should'a called first but—we were just coming back home, though," Joey explained.
"Just wanted to see how the two of you were doing," Sam added with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Aw, that's too kind—come on in, you guys."
Joey ran his fingers through his jet black curls again as they padded inside of that cozy front room. They had rearranged the furniture at some point: the couch had been moved over to the wall opposite from the front door and they had tucked a cat tree into the right corner of the room. Charlie emerged from the kitchen with his dark curls tied up at the back of his head, a plain white shirt, and bright red shorts rounded out by knee high white socks.
"Cute," Sam chuckled with a gesture to the shorts.
"What, these? I found these literally right after we came back home from the tour."
"I thought he looked good with them," Marla added as she took a seat on the couch. The cat jumped onto the arm, right next to her, and something jingled in junction with it.
"There she is!" Joey declared.
"What'd you name her again?" Sam asked her.
"Genie," Marla filled in.
"Genie, that was it!"
"Dream Genie," Charlie added as she slunk past the back of Marla's head to the other end of the couch. She squatted down there and glanced over at Sam: those golden eyes shone under the soft light of their apartment. She spotted a black and green collar around her neck: right in the middle was a circular silver tag that resembled to a coin, and right behind that was a silver bell.
"She's our girl," Charlie declared.
"I kinda wanna do something for her," Sam confessed.
"Yeah, me, too—" Careful not to frighten her, Joey strode over to the couch.
"She's not too particular about men, Joey," Charlie told him. "It took her a bit to warm up to me." Joey bowed forward and extended his hand to her: Genie hesitated and her pupils dilated a bit. Sam held still for her; but then Genie tapped her dark nose on Joey's fingertip.
"We good?" he asked the cat in a gentle voice. He raised his hand a little bit to pet her head: she closed her eyes, and Joey moved in closer to her. Genie lifted herself in a seated position so he could pet her more.
"Yeah, we good," Marla replied as she adjusted the towel on her head.
"Are we dying our hair again?" Sam asked her.
"Not yet, no—I'll dye it a different color over Christmas, though."
"She did recolor it," Charlie pointed out.
"Yeah, I recolored it a tiny little bit just to fix the roots and make it look even for the rest of the quarter. I'll leave the actual color a surprise, though."
Joey meanwhile took his seat on the couch so Genie could come closer to him. Even just standing there next to Marla, Sam could hear the rich purr from inside of her throat: Joey petted her head and her back, and her tail shot straight up in response.
"I envy you," Charlie muttered as he folded his arms across his chest. Genie rubbed up against Joey's arm and purred even louder. It was right then Sam knew that all of his problems were trivial: if that cat acted like that towards him, there must be a way to help him heal and overcome it all. She even turned around and let out a soft little meow for him.
"I really envy you now," Charlie followed it up.
"You wanna pet her, Sam?" Marla offered.
"I'd love to—" she said as she gingerly stepped closer to Joey.
"You did find her outside of Montana after all—"
She extended her hand to Genie and she tapped her nose on her fingertips as well: she then ran her fingers on the crown of her head, and she continued to purr. Sam looked over at Joey and his brown eyes softened at the sight of her. The cat liked both of them almost immediately, and she knew there was a way in there with him.
Indeed, he walked her back to her place and up those stairs together. Aurora was descending the stairs with a plastic bag in hand.
"Oh, hey! There you are, Sam!"
"Were you waiting for me?" she asked her.
"Yeah, me and Zelda both. I was just gonna go down the block to ask Marla and Charlie if they knew where you were."
"Well, I'm here now," Sam told her, "with Mr. Bellardini here, too. What's going on?"
"Halloween and Day of the Dead, that's the deal." Aurora flashed her a wink, and Sam thought about that one song that the Cherry Suicides did for their Halloween show the year before. "Day of the Dead." She had a feeling but she had no idea if it was at all true. Aurora ambled closer to her and Joey, and she gestured for them to lean in closer to her.
"I was gonna tell Zelda after I came back," she explained in a low voice, "but Metal Church, the band that opened up for Metallica and—" She turned to Joey. "—you guys, on their tour—"
Joey nodded in response to that.
"Metal Church cancelled the remainder of their dates for the remaining stint of the tour," Aurora continued. "I called Morgan of the Cherry Suicides if she wanted to fill in for their spot and she accepted without a shred of hesitation."
Sam gasped and Joey's face lit up.
"But don't tell her, though," she lowered her voice to a near whisper to them, "I want it to be a surprise."
"And you want to let it come from your mouth, too," Sam added.
"Exactly, yes! She's been awful moody lately, too, so I wanna see the joy come to her face when she hears it."
"Aw, that's so kind of you, Aurora," Joey told her with that lopsided smile on his face.
"Anyways, what's in the bag?" Sam asked her with a nod. "It's for Halloween and Day of the Dead?"
"Well, it specifically is for Halloween. Day of the Dead has something else in a different bag out in the my car."
She opened the top side of the plastic bag to show her the collar of a beige jumpsuit. The inside was line with black satin.
"From that movie Ghostbusters," Aurora explained, "I even got this one personalized—" Indeed, she took it out part of the way, and they both noticed a black name tag embroidered there on the side of the chest: inside of the rectangle was Aurora's name in red lettering.
"I can get you one, if you'd like, Sam," she added.
"I'd love one," Sam replied with a smile and a raise of her eyebrows.
"One for me, one for you, one for Marla, and one for Belinda if she wants to join in with us. I tried to offer it to Zelda but she told me she didn't feel like dressing up. I told her, 'it's Halloween—you ladies own Halloween', you know to try and lift her spirits and whatnot. But I dunno."
"She's probably waiting for us," Sam remarked as she adjusted the lapels of her coat.
"Probably waiting for you in particular," Joey added, "here, Aurora—lemme help you out with that—"
Sam continued on to the stairs, to the third floor and her apartment. Zelda had taken her seat outside of the front door: she flashed back on the time Cliff had taken his seat there outside of her door. But Zelda had more of a distant look on her face in comparison to him: he awaited her presence; she awaited some sort of comfort. She sighed through her nose and she bowed her head a bit, but when Sam stood above her, she peered up at her. Her eyes were large but far away.
"How you doing?" she asked her, to which Zelda shrugged. "Is everything alright?"
"I think my band might be breaking up," she confessed in a small voice. "We haven't been able to do anything—Aurora hasn't gotten us anything. I can't put the blame on her, though. I feel like it's my fault."
"Well—how 'bout you come on in? I can put on a kettle and make you a cup of tea."
Zelda sighed through her nose again.
"Okay," she almost breathed that out, and she climbed to her feet. "I do feel a little bit better saying that, though. I haven't been able to tell that to anyone else." Sam unlocked the door and let her inside of the apartment. Zelda took her seat on the couch and she leaned back against the soft cushion. She still had that distant look on her face as Sam fetched her a clean mug and a bag of green tea. Her slender, toned legs separated a little bit: she looked a little bit thinner than usual.
"Would you like some sugar in your tea?" she offered her in a gentle voice.
"Sure, why not."
"Um—Aurora is gonna get us some costumes for a Halloween party," Sam recalled. "We could all go together in an ensemble of sorts."
"Yeah, maybe we should," she muttered. Something else bothered her, and Sam took her seat next to her on the couch.
"What's wrong?" she asked, and Zelda sighed through her nose again.
"I feel bad about breaking it off with Louie," she confessed almost without taking a single breath.
"Well..." Sam fell short with that. There was no way she could console her because she had lost Cliff to something she couldn't control, whereas the whole thing with Louie hit a brick wall. And yet they both lost their boyfriends: she nestled up closer to Zelda, who kicked off her shoes and she pulled her knees up to her chest. She bowed her head and rested her lanky elbows upon her knees; Sam considered putting her arm around her shoulders so as to console her but she had no idea how Zelda would react to it. She smelled of cinnamon, that smell of Christmas. That smell that made her think of Cliff.
"You know Cliff used to sit right there whenever he came over here," she told her in a low voice.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. He would just sit there and relax, and he let me come closer to him."
Zelda's bottom lip trembled a bit.
"Do you miss him?" she asked Sam in a broken voice: tears lined her eyes.
"Every day. I think I'm gonna miss him every day."
"At least you have him all to yourself now, though," Zelda pointed out. "I just don't have it with Louie anymore."
"Well—you guys broke up for—for—for some reason."
"For some reason, for sure."
"Would you be willing to listen to Legacy's new album, though?"
"Of course. I wanna know what it feels like on his end. He's also a drummer—I like my drummers." She sniffled.
"You like your drummers even if they leave," Sam pointed out.
"I do. I do, I do, I do, I do... I still love Louie even with him not next to me anymore."
Sam extended her arms for her and Zelda moved in closer, and they embraced each other.
"Thank you," Zelda breathed into her ear.
"If it's any comfort at all," Sam started again; she moved back so she could look right into her tearful eyes, "I feel my heart opening again."
"Really?" Zelda brushed away a tear.
"Yeah. To Joey."
"Whoa, really."
"Yeah. And—I wanna tell you to keep it under wraps, too."
"What for?"
"Because—I honestly don't know how to break it to him yet. Or to anyone, really. I'm also not really sure of it myself, either. I keep thinking, oh, it's nothing serious. I just love him out of necessity. I don't necessarily feel that sort of love for him. But—all things equal—I do feel love for Joey. But I don't really want it to leak out as of yet. Mine and Cliff's relationship leaked out onto him and so I don't want me and him to leak out." Sam extended her pinky finger to her, and Zelda hooked her own around it.
"I won't tell a soul," she vowed to her a low voice. "And the amount of times you said 'leak' makes me wonder if there's a leak in here."
"Nah, that just—sort of happened." A soft whistling noise emerged from the kitchen.
"There's your water." Sam lifted her gaze to the door and at the sight of Aurora and Joey. "And there they are, too."
"Speaking of leaking—" Zelda turned around and Sam stood from the couch and hurried into the kitchen before the kettle whistled even louder. She heard their voices in the next room. And she switched off the burner and she picked it off there; before she could make her way back into the front room when Zelda let out a shrill yelp.
"OH MY FUCKING GOD, AURORA, I LOVE YOU!"
Joey burst out laughing right then. Sam hurried into the front room with the kettle in hand; Zelda threw her arms around Aurora's body and she began to push her back to the door. Joey set down the plastic bag and he clapped his hands. Even with his darkened skin, a soft blush bloomed in his face from his laughter.
"Well, don't suffocate her, Zelda!" Sam chuckled again; Zelda pressed her lips to the side of Aurora's face, and her smooth almond shaped eyes widened a bit at the feeling.
"Oh, my god, that just made my life!" she tearfully declared.
"I told—Morgan—but I wanted it to be a surprise—" Aurora stammered.
"So you coming to the Halloween party thing now? I don't even know what it is, to be frank," was all Sam could ask as she poured the hot water into her mug.
"For sure!" She wiped away more tears. Joey clapped his hands some more before he extended his left to her. She gave him five down low and threw her arms around him. Aurora ran her hands under her black hair and let out a low whistle.
"I can't even remember the last time I had a bear hug with someone," she choked out, "not even when I grew up out in San Diego. I don't remember the last time I had that." And Sam almost dropped the kettle from laughing so hard.
Over the next couple of weeks, things seemed to lighten up once again. Sam could focus more on her art and her classes. Indeed, her watercolor paintings seemed bolder and brighter than before, with the washes looking as though she had taken the paint straight out of the bottle and applied it onto the heavy grained paper. The lines on her graphite drawings looked cleaner and smoother, and she was finally getting the hang of the extra dark shading. Belinda made a joke that it came from the weekend together with him.
"His last name is Belladonna, you said?" she asked her the day before Halloween.
"Yeah. A play on his real last name of Bellardini."
"You know belladonna is deadly nightshade, right? Genus name belladonna atropa?"
"He took me to his hockey rink and he actually had a ball that actually said 'atropa' on the side, and he told me that was what sparked the idea for it."
Belinda leaned in closer to Sam's ear.
"He's injected you with his venom, Sam I am," she whispered.
"Injected me with his venom," Sam chuckled and rolled her eyes at that, but Belinda's face remained serious. She never elaborated on that for the rest of the day, or even the next day before the party. The thought did linger in the back of her head as she returned home after school: she took a glimpse in the window next to her, at the black hat upon her head. She gazed into her own dark eyes, and she thought of Joey's big brown eyes. As brown as the earth. As dark as venom.
But it wasn't possible
But on the other hand, Sam felt relieved that it was Friday again, especially when Aurora swung by and they drove down to L'Amour together, wrapped in their jumpsuits no less.
"We're missing the little ghostie symbol on the door panel," Sam said to her as the familiar neighborhood appeared from around the corner; she adjusted the black leather gloves that Frank lent her earlier that morning.
"The siren, too!" Aurora laughed. "Let everyone know that we've arrived."
They rolled up to that spot before the side door, which hung fully ajar: as Sam climbed out of the car, she spotted Scott and Dan inside there, both with no shirt on. Lush dark hair sprouted all over Scott's chest while Dan looked as though he had just come from several rounds at a nearby gym. And she thought Joey was trim and fit!
"Looks like we've got some manly men, Aurora," she announced in a loud voice. They both looked in their direction and burst out laughing: Sam strode inside first and she stepped to the right. Aurora followed suit and put a pair of black goggles on top of her head, and she stood to the left. Both girls pressed their hands to their hips.
"Lookin' badass, ladies," Dan remarked with the points of finger guns; he then ducked away for something. Once they had come inside, Sam realized that their faces had been painted a pearly white, as if they had walked right out of a spa. Both men had clipped their bangs back to put more emphasis on their masks.
"Yeah, kinda puts our costumes to shame, to be honest," Scott added with a raise of his dark eyebrows.
"Aurora, Marla, Belinda, and I are the Ghostbusters," Sam explained. "We're just missing our version of Ecto-1 is all."
"The lasers, too," Aurora added.
"What about Zelda, what's she dressing up as?"
"No idea—I hope it's something good, though," Sam confessed. "After Aurora said that the Cherry Suicides will be opening up for Metallica in Providence next month, she's just been on cloud nine lately."
Dan returned with a handful of jars and some flexible stencils in his arms, and he set them down on the little table in between them.
"What's all this?"
"We're gonna be dancing clowns," he explained. "Kinda glad you girls showed up, too."
"Why, you need a couple of girls' help?" Aurora teased him, to which she took a step forward.
"If you don't mind at all," Dan replied with a shrug of his bare shoulders.
"You girls are one of us," Scott added as he took out a pair of plastic vampire teeth from his shorts pocket, "—we really need you."
"Here, Danny, let me help you," Aurora volunteered.
"Which means I get Scott." Sam turned her attention to him. "Would you like some help with those false teeth?" she offered.
"Nah—I do need a li'l help with the false blood on this, though."
Sam took off the black leather gloves and tucked them into her pocket. Scott held still as he let her paint that bright red and jet black paint over his skin: the stencil stayed in place upon his skin, but her hand remained steady. She followed the elaborate groove of the stencil and the thick solid black onto the white foundation.
"Scott and I were making a joke," Dan began in a mumbled voice, probably from the stencil on his skin as well, "he should shave the word 'not' into his chest hair."
"Pffff, why?" Aurora laughed.
"Kinda fits the whole mood of things," Scott added with his teeth barred together. "We lost a good friend so we wanna lighten up for a bit."
Sam dipped the brush into the paint again, and she thought about the red shorts Charlie wore when she and Joey visited them for a bit. She wondered where they were going with it all, especially since it had been a touch over a year since their record dropped. She placed the other stencil on Scott's face but she kept her free hand on the free one.
"They're sticky so don't sweat it 'bout it fallin' off," he assured her.
"I see."
"And I see Zelda over there—in a dress."
"In a dress, really? Run for the hills!" Sam laughed, and Scott gritted his teeth to keep himself steady. His eyes darted across the room and he raised his thick dark eyebrows a little bit.
"Oh, my," he muttered without moving his lips.
"What's it like?"
"I can't—really describe it."
And with that, Sam peered over her shoulder and there was Zelda in the doorway. She had put on a big long white lacy dress with a skirt that fell down to the floor. She had on a smooth silken ribbon around her waist and torn lace gloves. But right in the middle of that fitted bodice was a false butcher knife, and fake blood spattered across her skin and a good part of the dress itself. The floppy hat upon her head had splatters of blood across the brim.
"Oh, deary dear," Sam remarked.
"Oh, my god, Zelda, you look amazing," Frank called from the other side of the room.
"Yeah, I know right?" Zelda said with a big smirk across her face. "Thank my ladies for this. We're not called the Cherry Suicides for no reason. We got the news from Aurora just yesterday and there was no way we couldn't not celebrate by dressing up like a bunch of bloody Victorian ladies!"
"Bloody Victorian ladies," Scott echoed in a fake British accent.
"Hold still," Sam encouraged him as she brought the paint brush back to his face for some more stenciling. His thick dark eyebrows complimented the black and red paint, and within mere minutes, she peeled off the stencils for him.
"Deliciously evil," she remarked, and he stuck the fangs into his mouth. She then turned to Dan and Aurora, the former of whom had stars painted all over his face. "Excellent!"
She recognized that head of purple on the other side of the room, right by the bar and wrapped up in a beige jumpsuit herself. She had a black backpack on: it wasn't the laser, but it looked as though it did the trick.
"And there's the third member of our party, Aurora," Sam declared.
"Thank you, Sam I am—this feels fantastic," Scott told her.
"My pleasure, Scott—" She jogged across the wooden floor to meet up with Marla. She already had a Bloody Mary before her, and her face lit up at the sight of Sam.
"Hey, I was just thinking about you. Want a drink?"
"Nah, I'm good—Bloody Maries aren't really my thing."
"No, no, I want to get you something."
"Oh, yes please! One of those black and purple drinks with the club soda inside."
Marla asked the bartender for just that, and Sam took her seat next to her.
"Belinda's on her way right now," she promptly said, "apparently the suit was a little too small for her."
"Too small? She's like a living doll."
"I know, right? But I guess it was a bit too snug around her chest so she had to wing it a little bit on her sewing machine. She's like a mad scientist sometimes, I swear..."
Sam's drink arrived and they clinked their glasses together. She took a sip when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Aurora had finished up Dan's face paint and she met up with the heavy gentleman with the black suit and the black fedora atop his head.
"And there's Aurora and Emile," she remarked. "He looks like a dark Colonel Sanders."
"What's going on between them, do you know?" Marla asked her in a low voice.
"No idea, to be honest. All I know is he's separated from his wife and they're friendly with each other." She turned her head towards Marla. "A little too friendly, if you ask me. That's just from what I've seen, anyway."
"So there's whole thing between you and Joey and now we have Aurora and Emile."
"Right. And I have no idea what's going with any of it, either."
Marla squinted her eyes at the sight of the couple on the other side of the room. She didn't move or say anything for a good long minute.
"Let's see where it all goes from here on out," Sam suggested.
"It's all we can do," Marla added as she picked up her Bloody Mary and took a sip. Sam held her purple drink up to her mouth but she kept it there.
With Cliff's passing came a whole new world. Almost two years had surpassed since Sam came to New York and it felt as though so much more had happened to her. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly and she couldn't hardly stop to rest a lot. Emile quipped something to Aurora, who then burst out laughing. He set a hand on her upper back.
There was definitely something in between them. No way it was just friendly. Sam didn't have much experience with the whole thing but she knew that that extended beyond mere friendship. She finally took a sip from her glass, and Marla did it in unison with her.