deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 61: fresh paper and fan clubs

Esmé took her seat right next to Joey with her face slightly blushed and the collar of her mock turtleneck down a little bit from her chin. She showed him a perky little deep scarlet lipstick laden smile, to which he returned the favor, albeit with a blush on his part. She, Sam, and Marla helped make a full dinner party for the evening, and all the while, Sam caught glimpses of her father speaking to Joey about things, especially with how life went for him up to that point. She wasn't even in the same room and she squirmed a bit at the curt sound of Ruben's voice directed at him.
She would slice up carrots and in between the knife blade on the cutting board, Joey's nervous voice made its way into the kitchen.
"I am, uh—yeah," he would say, "yeah, I'm a hockey player as well as a musician."
Then Ruben said something.
"No, well—" Joey cleared his throat. "Well, it's a little bit harder than that 'cause like—like—I would play for hours on end. On the ice, I mean. And it's a different vibe being up on stage, too."
Then Ruben said something.
"Um—" Joey cleared his throat again. "—I don't think so, no? It's funny, I, um—" He snickered a bit. "I was just talkin' to Sam about that one time and it escalated into something about—"
Sam then poked her head in at the sight of Joey and Ruben opposite each other in the living room. She loudly cleared her throat to grab his attention, and Joey turned towards her.
"Huh?"
"Yes?" Ruben raised his eyebrows at her.
"To Joey," she started and she shook her head at him.
"Oh, okay," he breathed out and brought his arms in closer to his little body. Even with his sun kissed skin, he managed to blush a full blush. "It's a little—" He coughed and covered his mouth with one fist. "—a little thing between me and her. So never mind that."
He let out a long low whistle and he turned his attention back to her, to which she tilted her head at him. He swallowed and ran his fingers through his black curls so she could see his right ear.
He never let the blush go away by the time they sat down for dinner and Sam kept her eye on Esmé, who sat on his other side, all the while. She eyed his tone flat stomach as he leaned back in his chair. There was a lot of food on the table in front of them, and Sam wondered that since he was a hockey player, that he really could eat as much as he said he did. The two of them lay their napkins over their laps in unison and while she wanted to know more about the strange man in junction with her father, Sam thought about Greg and Alex there on the porch.
That was literally the first time she got to see Alex in his element and without a crowd around him. She pictured him alone with her and with nothing more than his guitar with him, all for her. It was a fleeting thought but it proved to be something for her. She thought of his jet black hair and that smooth skin, and of course there was that beautiful stripe: even with the hair dye, she could still see it for herself. She knew that it was still there.
Marla, who was on the other side of the table, picked at her chicken and sipped on her cider in the mean time. To think that she and Charlie had broken up, and now she had to move back to Hell's Kitchen. Sam thought for sure they were a match made in heaven.
"So Sam," Ruben started, "Joey here told me that you have big news to share."
Sam flashed a look at Joey, but then again, she should have done it right there upon entering the house when she had the chance.
"I do," she carefully replied, "another good friend of mine—her name is Aurora, she's not an artist, but she's getting married to my landlord." Marla then set a hand on her forehead and leaned over the plate. She needed to be alone and away from there.
"Aw, that's wonderful," Esmé declared, and then she knitted her eyebrows together. "What's his name again?"
"Emile. Emile St. Vitus. Big Southern genteel guy from New Orleans. He just got divorced, too, so it's going to be quite the change."
"Wow," Ruben muttered as he brought his glass of cider to his lips, "wow."
Sam thought about what her mother had said about Joey when they came to the house. There had to be something there, a secret that she never knew about before. It didn't help matters that whenever Joey opened his mouth to say something, Esmé always looked at him with a glow to her face and Ruben returned the favor with a nonchalant expression. There was definitely something there, but in the meantime, Sam kept on thinking about Alex.
The sight of him on the hillside with his shirt off. She never got to touch him but her fingers tingled at the very thought of it. If and when they got to play a string of shows for themselves, he had to do that at some point.
She thought about that piece of rice paper in the bottom of her drawer back home. There was something behind that cool demeanor, something she wanted to know more of.
She lifted her gaze to Marla across the table, still silent and with her elbow rested upon the table as she picked away at her food. They had just broken up, which meant she never had the chance to rid of those feelings within her; Sam also wondered about Charlie, and how he was taking all of it.
All the thoughts stayed on her mind even as she told her parents about her art and how school was faring for her all the way in New York; she dared not tell them about her questioning her place there lest they frown at the notion of her wanting to leave for somewhere else.
She and Joey offered to clear the table, the latter of whom was quick to take up the offer given Esmé's fleeting glimpses and warm little smiles to him: there was a moment in which Sam swore she winked at him when he made a joke about hockey players having strong legs.
She stood before the sink with the rubber gloves on as she scrubbed the dishes and Joey put the food away. She wondered what exactly happened between her and that other man, and if her father knew about it. If he did, he should have said something: it only made sense to her. Once he put away the bottles of salad dressing, Joey stood next to her and right in front of the drainer with his hand on the counter. Her parents were in the next room, right there behind him, and while Marla was telling them something, she knew they had to end it at some point.
"Your mom is quite nice," he whispered to her. "A little bit too nice, if you ask me."
"She told me you remind her of a boy she used to know when she and my dad were dating," she whispered back to him.
"Oh, shit, really?"
"Yeah. She never went any further than that so I don't know anything else."
"Did you ask her?"
"No. I probably should've, though."
"Eh, should'a, could'a, would'a." He set one of the clean dishes onto the counter in front of him. Sam peered past him at the sight of Esmé, who nestled back in a corner of the next room, right within her line of sight. She could very easily look in their direction and check out Joey's slender toned body. She had been acting strangely all evening long: she had never acted like this with Ruben when Sam was growing up, at least not as far as her memory went along.
Indeed, Esmé glanced into their direction and Sam swore she looked on at Joey's curved back and slender shoulders. Careful to make sure her mother couldn't see her, she leaned a bit for a better look past Joey. Esmé's eyes scanned those black curls as they sprawled down his back like the fresh tendrils of a pea plant.
He then raised his eyebrows at her in curiosity.
"What is it?" he asked her, to which he turned around right as Esmé looked away and back to the television. Joey returned to Sam, befuddled.
"Nothing, I—I thought I saw something in there."
He frowned at her, and that was when she noticed Esmé's glance again. That time she raised an eyebrow at Joey's back and behind. If her mother wasn't going to talk about it then she had to force an answer out of her. There was only one way to do it as she took off the rubber gloves.
"Fuck it, come here, Joey—" She put her hand on the back of Joey's head and she planted her lips onto his. He scrambled a bit out of sheer surprise but she let her lips do the talking for him. He held his arms out before him, perfectly still, and then she set her hands on his chest and groaned in her throat. Just so long as her mother got to see them in the moment. She closed her eyes and relished in the soft silken feeling of his dark lips. Soft and smooth like melted chocolate; unforgettable like venom.
She let go of his lips and he gaped at her, bewildered and with a bit of blush across his tanned skin. She looked past him again, and that time Esmé had gotten up and left the chair; she sighed with relief.
"Whoa," he breathed out.
"Sorry," she said as she let him go and ran her tongue over her lips: he tasted like dinner and innocence.
"Sorry?" he chuckled at her. "What for?"
"My mom was looking, Joey—I had to think quickly."
"Well—" he chuckled and he held his fingers up to his mouth. She noticed his tongue sticking out like that of a dog. "I wanna know where that came from, though."
"I just did it," she confessed with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Sam?" Ruben called from the front of the house.
"I'll be right back—"
"I'll be waiting for ya," Joey promised her with a wink and a lopsided grin. Sam ducked into the living room where Ruben awaited her with a pad of smooth grained, pure white Bristol paper and a small set of watercolor paints.
"Happy late birthday," he announced to her.
"Aw, thank you, Daddy," she replied and, once she took the paper for herself, she leaned in for a hug on his part.
"Little sump'n different," he said, "I figure it's going to be part of your curriculum at some point to work with Bristol, so why not get ahead of the curve?"
"It's so smooth," she remarked as she ran her hand over the top sheet.
"The guy I spoke to at the store said it's ideal for anything, especially with illustrative type work." Sam then flashed back on Charlie's comic book at L'Amour. Maybe that could be a new venture for her! She hugged Ruben once again and then she bowed back to her old bedroom to check it out for herself.
It would definitely be something to work with once she returned to New York given she couldn't stop feeling the top side of the paper.
The family turned in at eleven thirty at night: Marla rubbed her eyes out of exhaustion and she trudged into the guest bedroom across the hall from Sam's old bedroom, but Sam herself was still wide awake by the time she gave her parents one last embrace.
"Leave the door open," Ruben whispered into her ear.
"I mean, it's not like we're gonna do anything ridiculous," she pointed out with a shrug, "and I'm twenty two now, but yeah, okay. I'll do that."
"I know you're twenty two now but leave the door open."
"Okay, okay—" She nodded at him, slightly exasperated. She returned to her bedroom where Joey awaited for her with his jeans unbuttoned and something red in his hand.
"What's this?" she asked him as she left the door wide open and stripped off her top.
"Check it out," he told her as he lay out a couple of bright red feathers on the bed before him.
"Ooh!"
"It's the very beginning of a little thing I've got planned for a song on the new album," he said. "Just a li'l hint."
Sam ran her hands over the edges of the feathers, and the soft plumes kissed her skin. She pictured Joey with the crown of feathers all about his head and she wondered what they could have in store for her and the rest of the world. She lifted her gaze to find him staring back at her with his eyelids hooded and his dark lips turned into a warm, sensual smile. The sight of him made her heart skip a couple of beats, especially since she had no shirt on herself.
"I also have something else," he continued, and he reached behind him to the nightstand, and he showed her a white T-shirt with the word "Alcoholica" inscribed in bright red lettering over the top.
"What the hell?" she giggled.
"Lars gave me this before we left," he explained. "I told him I was gonna be spendin' the night here with you and he lent me this. What a name, right?"
"Right! Total inside joke."
"By the way, speaking of inside jokes—I can't stop thinking about that kiss you gave me earlier," he confessed in a low voice, and Sam rolled her eyes at the thought.
"Joey, I just did that so my mom would stop staring at your ass," she scoffed.
"Still. I can't stop thinking about it."
She raised her head a bit and gave her black hair a slight toss back so he could see her neck. His tongue slithered out like that of a snake. His brown eyes seemed much darker and more brown than before. He wanted something, like a dog waiting for his treat from her. But then she remembered the look on Marla's face when she turned in for the night. Something wasn't right over there across the hall. Any excuse would do.
"Sit tight, I have to talk to Marla about something," she told him with a raise of her finger.
"I'll be waiting for ya," he vowed, and he still kept the smirk on his face. Sam bowed out of the room and across the hallway to the guest room with the night light in the bathroom as her guide. Careful not to wake her parents, she knocked on the panel with two knuckles.
"Who is it?" Marla called.
"It's me," Sam said in a low voice.
"Come on in."
Sam ducked into the small but cozy guest room with the large queen bed, two nightstands, a bookshelf against the wall, and a small television adjacent to the door. Marla had hunkered down in the bed with her arms upon the covers; her iridescent hair glowed in the soft pale yellow lamp light and her eyes looked puffy as if she had been crying. The television wasn't on, either.
"What's up?" she asked Sam at a fast clip.
"Nothing, I just—needed to get out of that room," she confessed.
"Why's that?"
"Joey's—trying to make a pass on me."
"At least he's doing that." Marla sniffled. "At least someone's hitting on you."
"Are you okay?"
"No." Her bottom lip trembled. "No, I'm not okay."
Sam took a seat at the foot of the bed.
"Do you want to tell me?" she gently coaxed her.
"Charlie told me he has feelings for someone else," Marla replied in a broken voice, and she stared on at Sam, who gaped at her.
"Me?"
She shook her head.
"No, he didn't say. But—that was enough, though. That was his follow up to the whole 'we shouldn't see each other anymore.'" A tear streamed down her face and she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Sam then leaned in with her arms wide open for her, and Marla returned the favor for her. She shuddered and shook under her arms; Sam closed her eyes and held her so close to her body. Her iridescent hair smelled soft and clean as if she had just washed it.
Marla held back and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes.
"Thank you," she breathed to her.
"It's all I can do," Sam admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. She sank back down onto the edge of the bed next to her, and Marla folded her arms over her chest.
"Can I get you anything?" Sam offered.
"A drink of water? I have kind of a headache."
"Yeah, I can do that. I'll be right back."
She headed out of there and, still using the night light in the bathroom, she made her way into the kitchen for a clean glass and some water out of the fridge. She returned to Marla who then drank it down in four large gulps.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"And if you need anything, Joey and I are right across the hall here," Sam told her, to which she nodded her head. "Try and get some sleep, Marla. We'll be going home tomorrow."
She gave her one last hug and then Sam returned to her old bedroom, where Joey had taken off his shirt and crawled under the covers. He lay in the same exact spot as Cliff, except he propped himself up with the pillow. He bowed his head and gazed on at Sam with the darkness over his face. Like the freshest bloom of deadly nightshade.
But Sam slid under the blankets next to him and she lay her head down on the pillow before he could do anything more. The room was silent except for his own steady quiet breathing and the water from the pipes.
"I didn't tell you this but your mom pinched my butt," he whispered to her.
Sam rolled over onto her side for a better look at his silhouette in the darkness.
"She pinched your butt? When?"
"When you and I were clearing the table. I picked up the platter that had the chicken on it and she brushed past me, and I could feel the slightest pinch right on my right one."
"Oh, my god. I need to talk to her now. I'm sorry, Joey."
"No, don't be. It was kinda funny, actually. I wasn't expecting it so it got a giggle out of me."
Sam paused, and then she thought about it. She couldn't resist a soft laugh herself, and then Joey started laughing at it. But even as she rolled back onto her side and closed her eyes, she knew she had to talk to her mom about it.
They woke up bright and early in time for breakfast, but Marla wanted to get back to the Bay Area in time for their flight.
"Besides, all our things are over there," she added in a low voice.
Sam bode her parents another goodbye for the time being, and the whole ride back, she was disappointed in the fact she had no time to talk to Esmé about the other man in her life. There was no way she could do it over the phone, either, given the secret was already out for her.
They soon reached the villa in Marin Heights, and Marla gaped at what they saw before them once they pulled up before their cabin. Sam climbed out first, followed by her and Joey, and they glanced about the place.
Kirk and Rebecca's door stood wide open while Testament's windows stood wide open despite the cool overcast feel to everything. Trash was strewn about the driveway: a metal keg had tipped over onto its side and lay there dented before Zetro's cabin. Tom and Gary both lay on the ground: even from a distance, Sam could tell that they had plenty to drink; the former had his arms over his head and the latter had partially taken off his black denim vest so his arms were tied right behind his back. Cables like the ones Sam tripped over at the Stormtroopers of Death show extended across the way in a big mess. A microphone stand lay on the ground, and boxes that held amps were scattered all over the place. Exodus had had a miniature concert but then it all came unraveled; something foul filled the air and Sam knew it wasn't from the marine layer.
Joey glanced about the place with his hands pressed to his hips. He looked on at Tom and Gary before Zetro's cabin and the dented keg, and he shook his head in disgust. Sam grimaced at the thought of him being there with them, lest he be laying there with those two men.
"Oh, my god, they're hammered," he groaned, and Sam lingered closer to him, but then he strode towards the collapsed makeshift stage.
"What is that smell?" Marla asked as she wrinked her nose.
"It's either dirty socks or clean broccoli," Joey quipped as he tripped on a cable, but he caught himself before he could face plant into the grass.
"Oh, my god, there are you guys are!" Belinda called from their door step. She hurried over to them, wrapped in a sweater and with her blonde hair tied back behind her head in a taut ponytail.
"Looks like a tornado hit this place, what the hell happened?" Joey demanded.
"You guys should've seen it," Belinda started. "Alex, Greg, and I were in the room upstairs with the guys from Death Angel and the whole party just raged on out here. Everyone got drunk, and I mean everyone. The bunch of us were like, 'there's no way we're sticking around here', and Greg wanted Alex to stay away from it—you know, his being the young kid and whatnot, and I was just hanging here reading when they came in. I literally thought Zetro was gonna light something on fire with that lighter of his."
"Did he?" Sam asked her, horrified.
"No, but he was smoking like crazy, though. Smoking like a chimney and around a bunch of booze. I thought he was either gonna light something or fall ass over teakettle right into the keg there on the ground. Zelda ran away from there and I haven't seen her since."
"You sayin' Zelda's missing?" Joey asked her.
"Maybe. I dunno—she told Zetro she was gonna be back but she hasn't come back since. And yes, she was sober the whole time."
"So for all we know, Zelda's missing now," Marla remarked. She fetched up a sigh and closed her eyes, but then Sam noticed something right behind her.
"No, wait, there she is," she pointed out, and Marla, Belinda, and Joey whirled around; Zelda hurried up the driveway with a flustered look on her face. Her suspenders dangled off of her jeans and a big hole had ripped in the knee of her jeans. She let out a low whistle once she came within earshot.
"Zelda! What the hell happened?" Sam asked her.
"Oh, man, I can't believe this place is actually still standing," she said in a single breath. "I told Zetro I wasn't comfortable but he was completely wasted, though, so I bolted down the hill here. Spent the night on a park bench and an old German guy walking his dog offered to buy me breakfast. But there was no way I was gonna sleep with him last night. Jesus H. Christ, my band doesn't even party that hard—when we do, it's usually cocktails and a little bit of weed." She gestured at Belinda. "Really hope you and Greggy and little Mr. Skolnick locked your door last night."
"We did," Belinda assured her. "Greg slept in the top bunk and Alex went with Mark and Death Angel into their room, and they promised to keep him away from it all. Andy said they pretty much just locked their door and played cards all night until Alex fell asleep."
"Greg slept in my bunk?" Sam chuckled, and Belinda's eyes sparkled.
"Yeah, he was moving his butt around the mattress and he was all like 'oh yeah, Sam's been sleeping here, isn't she?' And I was like 'yes!'" Belinda and Sam both laughed at that, and then the former returned to Zelda with a serious look on her face. "But yeah, we all retreated into our homestead once things started getting rowdy. I was waiting for you, though—even from up top, I could see you and I could tell things were tense between you and him."
Zelda shook her head and pressed her hands to her hips.
"Made a big mistake breaking it off with Louie," she muttered. "Made a big mistake."
"Lou was smashed, too," Belinda continued, "he and Chuck went back into their cabin in a stagger, and I think they both just collapsed in there because I haven't seen them."
Zelda shook her head again, and Sam dropped her gaze to the ground. On one hand, she was glad that Joey was with her when it all went down the night before. But on the other hand, the whole description of it, and the fact that they hadn't burned the place to the ground told her that there was something afoot there in that scene.
She thought about the Alcoholica shirt that Joey had showed her and suddenly it made sense.
"At least nobody was drinking vodka, though," Zelda said with a sneer on her face, "that shit's like solvent."
"Metallica were," Belinda corrected her. "Kirk and Lars just downed a whole bottle of it between the two of them, and Rebecca was like, 'how can you guys drink that stuff like water?' And that was when I said, 'nope—I'm outta here' and I fetched Greg and Alex."
"Well, shit," Marla declared, and she folded her arms across her chest. "Are you packed?"
"I am, yeah. Just been waiting for you guys. I don't know what Charlie's plan is, but I think he's up right now."
She nibbled on her bottom lip, and then she strode over to the cabin next door. Sam and Joey glanced at each other.
"Need any help?" he offered her.
"Nah, I think I got it."
Indeed, the ride to the airport was rather quiet between them, as Sam took to the front seat next to Charlie and Marla stayed in the way back section. Anything to keep the tears at bay as they made their flight on time; Marla sat next to her two rows behind him and Frank, and right across the aisle from Belinda and Joey. Sam thought about the mess back there at the villa, and she hoped they all would at least do something to clean it all up. She thought about the times Joey had drank too much. It was too much to think about in and of itself.
"What is with these boys getting so drunk, I don't get it," she confessed in a low voice.
"My guess is it's part of the lifestyle—to do it and let go of control all the while," Marla told her with a raise of her eyebrows and a slight shrug. "At least, that's my guess."
"It just makes me wish they would take better care of themselves, though," Sam continued. "If drawing Joey and Cliff has taught me anything, it's that men have beautiful bodies, and they need to take care of them."
Marla rubbed her eyes again, but she had no tears in them. Sam then picked out that copy of Siddhartha and buried her nose into the pages. Marla kept her arms folded over her chest and gazed out that small rectangular window at the fluffy white clouds, and then the high desert and the Rocky Mountains.
The two of them were silent for the rest of the flight back to New York City, and they were still silent until Marla drove her back to the Bronx.
"I always found it odd that you live in the Bronx," she remarked finally at one point. "I mean, I kinda get it. It's cheap-o, but it's the school of hard knocks up there, though. Once you've settled in, it's hard to get out of there, especially if Frankie and Charlie are anything to go by. You oughta come back down to Hell's Kitchen with me and Bel. It's nicer. Little bit pricey but it's a little more in your wheelhouse, though."
"Or I can go to Brooklyn with Aurora," Sam said.
"Brooklyn's great—real funky and there's so much there. But Hell's Kitchen is where it's at—well, for those of us who like art, anyways."
They fell silent again, and that gave Sam some more time to think. Maybe that was the source of her problems: she need not leave the city altogether, just find a different neighborhood for herself. Within time, they rolled back up to her building and Marla offered to walk her upstairs. Sam fetched the mail before they headed up to her room together; once they were inside, she noticed the red envelope at the very bottom of the stack.
"Ooh, what's that?" Marla asked her, and then she remembered the first one of those she had had when they were still known as Legacy.
"It's my first club letter," she declared.
"From Testament?"
"From Testament."
Sam was eager to open the envelope that she set everything down on the couch and put all her attention on that. She unfurled the soft red paper so as to reveal Eric's shaky scrawl of a penmanship.
"Testament—formerly Legacy—are going on tour!" she read aloud. Marla gasped.
"When?" she asked, excited.
"This spring and summer—and with Anthrax, too!" But a small voice in the back of her head said it was going to be trouble, given the whole thing between Joey and them. Then again, she returned to the paper in her hands. "Special guest... to be determined. But oh my god!"
"I think it's gonna be Metal Church," Marla told her, "because one of the last things Charlie told me before I left was Anthrax wanted to go on tour with Metal Church this year. Does it have dates?"
"Ummm... let's see..." Sam moved her thumb down the surface of the paper. "—yes! A couple here in New York City—wowie, plus back out on the West Coast, including Reno and Vegas."
"So your parents can see them if they wish," Marla concluded.
"Yeah, and my mom would be all over Joey's ass the whole entire time, too," Sam joked. Five pieces of paper the size of postage stamps drifted out from under the club letter.
"What are those?" Marla asked her, and Sam stooped down for them.
"Aw, look at these boys," she remarked as she showed Marla the little photographs of the five of members of Testament. Alex's photograph was taken some time before the hair dye, and the little pearl of gray hair over his head held up strong and high over his brow. She gazed into his deep eyes, those deep set eyes that she knew she would be able to recognize anywhere even if his hair changed colors all the way. He had missed that big brouhaha from the night before, and she wanted him and Joey both to stay that way as Marla handed her the photographs of Chuck, Eric, Greg, and Louie next.
Young, safe, healthy, and most of all, beautiful.