The bus is a giant, lumbering monster filled with sadness and stale air. In each town, it shits us out for twenty minutes, two hours, three, it doesn't matter, it's all the same: a diner, a convenience store, trash in the restrooms, trash in the gutters. I hide the money Vinnie gave me deep in my pockets and use it only for chocolate bars and sodas and salty chips and once an egg salad sandwich with the expiration date blacked out. The taste of chocolate in my mouth is like an explosion of bliss.
I don't talk to the people who sit next to me. They drift in, smelling like smoke or dirt, and then drift off at the next stop. In Kansas the bus breaks down in the middle of the night in a town where Christmas is still happening in mid-May: faded wreaths on darkened storefronts, fat lights twinkling in the window of a gas station. The woman next to me drops her chin inside the thick shell of her fake fur coat and mumbles Blessed be as we lurch off the bus and stand awkwardly in the lot of a boarded-up diner. The men in the back of the bus simply move their shell game outside to an alley while the driver paces and waits for help. I sit on a curb away from everyone else, still too warm in the peacoat. My ticket says we'll drive through six states before we reach Arizona and that it will take one day, twenty-one hours, and forty-five minutes. The driver says he doesn't know how long until a new bus comes.
I cry in toilet stalls, warm tears spilling into the neck of the peacoat, staring at the money Ellis and I earned. I'm finally going someplace, maybe someplace better, but she isn't with me, and it hurts. Everything hurts me again, sharp and scary against my scary skin. I just keep trying to think of Mikey, and how good it will be to be with him, and maybe, this time, a little more than just friends.
It's the middle of the night when we arrive. The driver's sudden, cheerful shout of Toooooo—suuuun fills the bus and jolts several people awake. I join the sleepy line of people stumbling off the bus and into the warm, murky air.
A couple of passengers have people waiting for them and I watch them hug and kiss. I've got no one, so I pull out the envelope from Mikey, to keep myself from feeling lonely.
I read the letter over and over on the bus, just to remind myself that this was really happening, that I was really getting out.
Charlie! Everything is going to be okay, I promise. I'm sorry, I won't be back for a little while, so you'Il be on your own. Don't worry, my landlady's cool, she's an artist, she knows you're coming. Her name is Ariel and if you need anything, ask her. Your mom said she had some money to give you, so you should be okay to get food. Here's directions to my place and a map so you know where to buy groceries and stuff. CHARLIE: I can't wait to see you.—Mike
I actually hold the notebook paper up to my face, just in case there's a scent of Mikey that I can inhale to stop the stuttering of my heart, but there isn't. I take some deep breaths, trying to calm myself.
I look at the map, struggling to make sense of where I am, where I'm supposed to go, and what Mikey's arrows mean. The streets are empty, but I keep my head up.
Evan always used to say that it wasn't what you couldn't see that you should be afraid of, but what was right in front of you, in plain sight.
I grit my teeth as I walk through an underpass, willing myself not to think of that night. The handle of Louisa's suitcase digs into the palm of my hand. The peacoat is way too heavy for this weather. I'm sweating, but I don't want to stop and take it off. I pass a lot of little bars and shops. The sky here is like dense, dark cloth, stitched with faint white stars, something I want to put a finger to.
Mikey's note is three pages long. You'll see a house with a bunch of HUGE silver birds in the yard. 604 E. 9th Street. She lives in the Pie Allen neighborhood. Mine is the purple guest house in the back. Use the yellow bicycle and lock. Ariel left them for you. Key for door is under yellow pot.
They don't look like birds to me, but they are luminous, glinting in the night air, their fierce wings open. The guest house is in back. I find the key under the pot. A yellow bicycle with a new-looking willow basket is locked to a laundry-line pole. I unlock the door and grope for the switch along the wall, blinking at the sudden glare of light. The walls inside are painted purple, too.
I have no idea what to do. Is the landlady home? Did she hear me?
There are no ping-lights here. No endless everywhere beige carpet. No crying girls. No secret room.
I am alone. For the first time in months and months, I am utterly alone. No Evan, no Dump, no Casper, not even irritating Isis. For a minute, pinpricks of panic shoot through my body: if something happens to me between now and when Mikey gets here, who will know? Who will care? For a moment, I'm back there: those terrifying days of street before Evan and Dump found me, when every day was heightened heartbeat and the nights lasted years, waiting for the dark to end, jumping at every sound, trying to find a safe place to hide.
There is being alone, and then there is being alone. They are not the same thing at all.
Breathe, Charlie. Breathe, just like Casper said. I slide my fingers undemeath the peacoat and pinch my thighs, too, hoping the pain will snap me back in place. Bit by bit, my panic subsides.
My stomach growls loudly. Grateful to have something else to focus on, I scout the mini-fridge tucked into a corner. There are some bottles of water and mushy bananas. I eat a banana, suck back a bottle of water super quick. There are also two pieces of pizza in a small cardboard box. They're so stiff and stale that they snap when I shove them in my mouth, but I don't care. I'm ravenous. Slowly, my panic ebbs away, exhaustion bubbling up to take its place.
The neighborhood is still. What time is it? There's a big trunk in the corner and I push it in front of the door, just in case. My whole body is sore from the bus trip and my legs are weak. I turn off the light. Even though my body is slicked with sweat, I don't take off the peacoat. Taking it off would make me feel even more exposed right now. I need a little protective armor, just in case. I arrange myself on the futon, Mikey's futon, on the floor. I can feel things lifting from me, disappearing into the silence around me. I'm not listening to the sadness of several girls living along one hallway. Fucking Frank is far, far away, his hands cannot find me here. I have a little money in my backpack. My body is becoming lighter and lighter.
I can feel it, finally, after months and months of fighting it, and it's pulling me deeper into the peacoat, into the futon: sleep. I bury my face in the pillow and it's here that I finally find Mikey's smell, something cinnamon-tinged. I breathe it in as deep as I can, letting it slip into all the crevices of me and rock me to sleep.
When I wake up, sunlight is pouring through the sole window in the guest house. I look around groggily, sliding the damp peacoat off. After almost two days on the bus, I can smell myself.
It takes me a minute, but I realize the guest house is just a crappy little converted garage: the two doors on the back wall against the alley have been soldered awkwardly together, their square windows covered with small blue curtains. The kitchen is just a sink set into a countertop on top of an old metal cabinet.
There's a ceiling fan and an air conditioner set into one of the walls. The floor is cement and the bathroom is an old closet with a toilet and plastic insert shower.
I crawl out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. Pee and then turn on the shower. It spurts and then a thin trickle eeks out. I turn it off. I'm not ready to shower yet. Not ready to look down at myself and touch my new damage. Touching it will make it all the more real. And my scars, they still hurt. They will be tender for a long, long time.
At Creeley, most of us made do with just washcloth-soaping our pits, shits, and splits, as Isis referred to it, because if you wanted to take an actual shower, you had to do it with a female attendant present, just in case you tried to, you know, drown yourself with shower spray or something. And nobody wanted an audience while they were naked, so most of us preferred the other option. Back in my overalls and out of the bathroom, I run my hands over the kitchen counter. It's plywood overlaid with Mod Podge, postcards of foreign cities sealed underneath. Some of the postcards are turned over, with scrawled messages: A: Meet me at the fountain, love, four o'clock, like last year. A must be Mikey's landlord, Ariel. I look at the postcards, the images, the messy handwriting. A little story unfolding beneath my fingers.
I spread out the money Ellis and I made. Fly over the ocean, Ellis said, arms out, spinning around her room. Touch down in London, Paris, Iceland, wherever. All the romantic-seeming places she wanted to live. Sipping espresso on the Seine will be fucking angelic, Charlie. You'll see.
Nine hundred and thirty-three dollars and only one of us got out alive. Semi-alive.
I stare at it for a long time before tucking it far back under the sink, behind the dinky one-cup coffeemaker.
I have to find food.
The sun is so bright when I step into the yard that spots cloud my eyes, so I unlock the door again and root around a desk drawer until I find sunglasses that are painted gold and flecked with black, something a girl would wear and carelessly leave behind; did Mikey have a girlfriend? Does Mikey have a girlfriend? I don't want to think about that right now.
Mikey's hand-drawn map is filled with arrows and notes: Circle K, three blocks —>; Fourth Avenue (thrift, coffee, bar, eat, book) six blocks 7: the U seven blocks <—. My face and arms begin to heat up as I trudge along the sidewalk to the Circle K. It's weird to think that only a few days ago, I was in sleety weather with gray skies, and now, here I am, sun everywhere, no jacket.
Inside the Circle K, the air is cool; it's like being underwater in a clear, deep pool. The guy behind the counter has huge black plugs embedded in his earlobes. He looks up from his thick book as I stumble down the aisles, grasping at bottles, boxes of gauze, sunblock, tape, tubes of cream. In the air-conditioning, the sweat dries quickly on my face. It feels gritty and sticky. I grab a glass bottle of iced tea from the cooler. I have to restock my tender kit, just in case. I don't want to hurt myself; I want to follow Casper's rules, but I need these.
Just in case.
I pay, stuffing everything in my backpack.
Outside on the sidewalk, I unfold Mikey's map. There's a grocery called the Food Conspiracy, up the street, so I start walking.
It's a co-op, earthy and expensive-seeming, with whispery music drifting down from the ceiling. I'm not sure what to get. I never looked at what Mikey had to cook with, if anything. I sweep a box of crackers, a block of pepper jack cheese into the wire basket.
The store hums with activity. Two hippieish ladies squeeze pears. A tall guy ladles curry from the salad bar into a Tupperware. I was shoving my bare hands in Dumpsters, and then I was shoving cardboardy mac and cheese in my face with a spork, and now I'm shopping.
At the checkout, I'm suddenly afraid I don't have enough money. I'm using Vinnie's money. Did I even count it? Did I even check the prices on the shit in my basket? I've forgotten how much food can cost. Blue comes back to me. Don't let the cereal eat you.
The cereal is eating me. The cereal is eating me alive.
Is everyone looking at me as I fumble for the bills in my pocket? They are. Aren't they? My fingers tremble. I jam the food in my backpack, don't wait for the change.
Outside, the sounds of cars and people are chain saws in my ears. I Squeeze my eyes closed. "Don't float," Casper would tell us when we got stressed, when the pressure in our brains began to fight with the pressure inside our bodies and we'd start to disassociate. "Don't you dare float. Stay with me."
I walk too far in the wrong direction and end up inside the underpass, cars whirring by.
The concrete reeks of piss. My boots crunch broken glass. He comes back to me.
Passing cars make grimy shadows on the graffitied walls. I was tucked all the way at the top, trying to sleep, my throat choked with gunk and my body steaming with fever. I was sick on and off my whole time outside. Now I know I had pneumonia.
The first thing I felt was his hand on my leg. I try to remember: what did Casper say, what did Casper say. Stop. Assess. Breathe.
In the dark and clammy underpass I clamp my hands over my ears and close my eyes, holding my breath and letting it out in slow waves. The cars blow warm, musty air against my legs; I concentrate on that. Gradually, the fire leaves, the saws drift away, the memory disappears..
Hands lowered, I turn and walk straight for blocks up Fourth, passing everything on Mikey's map: Dairy Queen, a coffeehouse where men are playing a game with white pieces on a table on the sidewalk, bars, restaurants, vintage stores, feminist bookstore. I go too far again and have to double back, finally reaching Ninth Street and practically running, so desperate am I to reach the purple guest house.
I lug Mikey's trunk in front of the door to keep the world out.
I have to find a way to quiet the black inside me. First, I take out the glass bottle of iced tea and drink it down all at once. I find a faded hand towel in Mikey's tiny bathroom and wrap it around my hand. I close my eyes.
And then I smash the bottle on the cement floor.
It's like a thousand birds of possibility, all beautiful, spread over the cement, glinting. I choose the longest, thickest shards and carefully wrap them in the linen that held my photographs. I slide my photos into a baggie. Mikey's got a dustpan and hand broom under the sink. I sweep the rest of the glass up and throw it in the trash.
I take out my tender kit and prep it: nestling all the rolls of gauze, the creams, the tape, the glass in the linen, side by side until everything fits perfectly.
It's all I need for now. I just need to know it exists and is ready. Just in case. I don't want to cut. I really don't. This time, I want so much to be better.
But I just need it. It makes me feel safer, somehow, even though I know that's all messed up. Casper can tell me to breathe, she can tell me to buy rubber bands to snap on my wrists every time I panic or get an urge to cut and I will, I will try all of it, but she never said, or we never got around to talking about what will, or would, happen if those things...didn't work.
I tuck it under some T-shirts in Mikey's trunk.
I crawl across the floor and pop the locks on Louisa's suitcase.
Looking at the inside of the suitcase calms me. It was never filled with clothes. Mikey's sister's clothes fit well enough in my backpack. The suitcase is for everything else: the sketchbook, pens, and pads of paper Miss Joni gave me; the baggies of charcoal, wrapped so carefully in paper towels. My Land Camera.
I open the sketchbook, unpeel a charcoal from the paper towel, and take a real look around at Mikey's apartment.
Purple-painted walls covered with band flyers and set lists. Mikey's single futon with the one black pillow and a worn blue-and-white serape blanket. A rickety desk with a wooden chair. An old record player, tall speakers, the shelves of LPs and CDs that surround them. Stacked red milk crates leaking T-shirts, boxer shorts, and frayed blue work pants. A white toothbrush resting in a tin cup on the kitchen counter. The casual accumulation of Mikey's being.
I start there. I draw where I am. I put myself at this new beginning, surrounded by the comfort of someone else's easier life.
———————————————————————————For two days, I sleep and draw, nibbling the crackers and cheese, drinking all the bottles of water until they're gone and I have to refill them from the tap.
On the third day, I've got a pair of Mikey's headphones on while I draw. Morrissey's singing sweetly at me when I hear a dull pounding. I slip the headphones off, my heart thumping wildly, as the door swings open. Mikey? Is he back already? I scramble to my feet.
The woman at the door is tall, her lean hands grasping each side of the doorframe. Her hair is white and straight, just past her ears. I'm wearing overalls, but my arms are bare in my short-sleeved T-shirt, so I tuck them behind my back. I'm disappointed it's not Mikey—my heart slows back down.
She squints down at me. "Blind as a fucking bat. Forgot my glasses in the house. Michael texted me. He wants to know if you're okay. In case you haven't figured it out, I'm the lady who owns this place."
There is a rough edge to her voice, some type of accent I can't place. She has the kind of lined face that people call etched. The kind that looks beautiful and intimidating and slightly creepy. I always wonder what these women looked like as children.
I nod cautiously. I'm always careful around new people, especially adults. You never know what they're going to be like.
"Michael didn't say you were mute. You mute?" Turquoise rings on her fingers clack against the doorframe. "So you okay, or not okay?"
I nod again, swallow. "Bullshit."
She moves quickly, reaching around me to grab my wrists. She flips my arms so the raised lines are visible. Instinctively, I stiffen and try to pull my hands back, but she tightens her grip. Her fingertips are tough with calluses. She makes a growling sound. "You girls today. You make me so fucking sad. The world hurts enough. Why fucking chase it down?"
The breath through my nostrils is bullish, panicky. Fucking let go careens inside my head like a pinball and shoots from my mouth. I'm surprised by the sound of my own voice and she must be, too, because she opens her hands and lets my arms fall away.
I rub my wrists and consider spitting at her.
"A girl with teeth." Her voice is weirdly satisfied. "That's in your favor."
The edge of the door brushes my shoulder; in my head I slam it in her face. I step away from her so that I don't make that happen in real life. Who is this bitch?
"T'm Ariel. Here." She presses a piece of paper to my chest. "I have a friend down on the Avenue. She's got a shop. She needs some help. Tell her Ill take her for appletinis on Friday."
Halfway across the scrubby yard, she turns, shading her eyes. "You get a job, Michael's friend. You find a place for yourself. You don't stay here longer than two weeks."
———————————————————————————It takes me two hours to get up the nerve to leave the house. I spend those two hours walking the perimeter of the small guest house, talking to myself, rubbing my arms, doing my breath balloons. Going out to the shop to ask about a job means talking. It means opening my mouth and hoping the right words come out. It means letting people look me over, cast their eyes up and down me and my weird overalls and long shirt, funny hair, all of it. Right? Isn't that how job things go? You have to tell people where you're from, where you worked, what you like to do, all that shit.
My answers: nowhere, nowhere, get messed up, and cutting. That's not going to go over well.
But the alternative is telling that fierce woman in the front house that I never went to find her friend, and maybe getting kicked out before Mikey gets back. The alternative is ending up right back where I was.
And I promised myself I would do better.
I finally get myself out of the fucking guest house by running out the front door and locking it before I give myself a chance to make another lap around the walls inside.
I find the shop easier than I thought I would. It's called Swoon. It's already late afternoon, and very hot. Through the glass window, I watch two girls in silver minidresses flit among the clothes racks, straightening hangers and laughing. Silver glitter sparkles on their eyelids; they have matching white bobs. This is a store where pretty, cool girls work, not scarred girls in overalls. I will not be getting a job here.
I look up and down the street. An Italian restaurant, a thrift store, a bookstore, the co-op, a fancy-looking café.
I don't have a phone. How will someone call me if I fill out an application? And what about short sleeves? Waitresses are always wearing short sleeves. Who's going to hire me with my arms the way they are? The hole in my stomach starts to grow. I'm in the middle of the breathing exercises when I hear a soft voice say, "Can I help you?"
Except for Ariel, I haven't talked to anyone in four days. One of the glittery Swoon girls is standing at the door, peeking out.
"T was just...my friend...somebody told me you were hiring, but..." Gah, my voice. I sound so...timid.
She looks me up and down. "No offense, but we're more vintage-y. You're more...grunge-y. You know?"
I give her a look like, Yeah, I know, because we don't have to pretend. These girls and me? We're fucking miles apart in terms of our exterior maintenance. I move on.
"Do you... mean, do you know of anything else around? Like, better suited to me, or something? I really need a job."
She purses her mouth. "Mmm. Most everything cool is sealed up on the Avenue right now, I think. Hold on." She shouts back into the store. "Darla! Kid out here's looking for a job. You know anything?"
The other girl pokes her head out. I feel disoriented just looking at them, with their blinding white hair and lips and matching dresses.
Darla smiles. "Hey there." Like her friend, she looks me up and down, but not in a bad way. They work in a cute vintage clothing store. I get it. They're used to placing people by what they wear.
"Oh, yeah, you know what? Try Grit. It's a coffeehouse up the street, next to the DQ. I think somebody quit yesterday. You look like total True Grit material. Ask for Riley."
The other girl elbows Darla. "Riley. Oh, yeah. Riley West." She draws it out like it tastes delicious in her mouth: Weessssst.
"Keep your panties on, Molly."
Molly rolls her eyes at me. "Riley's kind of hot," she explains.
Darla says, "Kind of. On a good day. There aren't many of those. Anyway, just tell him we sent you, okay? And buy a hat or something, girl. Your face is starting to get real pink."
They laugh and retreat inside the store before I can ask about Riley, his hotness, or falling panties. I hope he's having one of his good days, whatever that means.
I'm nervous walking up the street, psyching myself up to have to talk again. What if this doesn't work out? I touch my face. Darla said I was getting pink. That's just brilliant: a sunburn.
I get distracted, though, by the bright colors everywhere. The sides of buildings are blazing with murals: dancing skeletons in black top hats drink wine from jugs, their white bones loose and floppy. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison look out over the street, the Beatles walk barefoot down a wall. Everywhere I look, I see something unusual and cool.
A bunch of boy punks in heavy leather gear are sprawled on the wooden benches in front of the Dairy Queen, nibbling sprinkled cones. There's just one girl with them and she's not eating, only smoking and picking her black nails. The boy punks eye me as I walk by.
Next door, several older men sit at wrought iron tables, staring down at square boards with perfectly round white and black stones. They chew their fingers and take slow sips from chipped white mugs. Behind the players, against a cloudy glass window, a blinking, slightly crooked neon sign spells out TRUE GRIT. Coffee ums and potted ferns on the inside window ledge peek through the lettering. The sad strains of music drifting from a speaker mounted above the window outside come to me gently: Van Morrison. Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were / and the way that we wanted to be....
The screen door to the coffeehouse clatters shut behind a thinnish guy wearing an apron smeared with red sauce and grease. He lights a cigarette, his eyes moving over the game boards. Plumes of smoke billow in front of his face.
The music keeps me rooted to my spot on the sidewalk. My dad played this album over and over when I was little, sitting in the back room of the house on Hague Avenue the rocking chair creaking back and forth. It was a creamy clapboard house with a small, square backyard and a crumbling chimney. Listening to the music, I have a rush of longing for him that's so strong I almost cry.
"Lost in the reveries, eh, love?" The voice is accented, light, and shakes me out of myself. The men at the tables chuckle. The guy in the apron cocks his head at me. His face is crackly with stubble. Lines spider his eyes.
His attention takes me by surprise. His eyes are very dark, resting with curiosity on my face.
Something shifts inside me. It's electrical, and golden. He sees this happening, or senses it, and his face breaks into a gigantic, shit-eating grin. My cheeks flood with red.
One of the boy punks yells, "He's not really British!"
"Nah," says a narrow-faced man at one of the tables, leaning his head in his palm. "He's an all-American asshole, that's for sure."
"Aw." The man in the apron grinds his cigarette out on the sidewalk. He speaks without the accent now, his voice lazy and pleased. He's still got the grin. "Care for a coffee? Espresso? Bagel? Enchilada?" He sweeps an arm to the coffeehouse. He pronounces it en-hee-lada.
Checked shirt with silver buttons, bulge of the lighter in his pocket. He is a person entirely comfortable in his body. Why is he paying any attention to me?
"Cat's got her tongue, Riley." The girl punk's got a crooked, glazed smile. I like her pink hair.
They are all terribly high. "She never met nobody famous before."
Riley. Riley Wessssssst. The one who makes Molly-from-Swoon's panties fall down. I can see why, kind of, now. This must be one of his "good days."
"Semifamous," another punk corrects, spitting on the ground.
"Semifamous locally," one of the game players asserts, wagging a finger.
The girl punk cackles. "Semifamous locally in his head on this street." The punks bark with laughter. The guy in the apron glowers at them goodnaturedly.
A super-skinny boy punk says, "Riley, man, you look like shit, dude. You look old."
I sneak a look at him. Riley. Maybe he hasn't noticed how red my face is? It's true; his face looks worn out, a little too pale. He glances at the punks dismissively. "I'm a good and goddamn twenty-seven, children, and nowheres near heaven, so don't you worry none about me." He lights another cigarette, twirling the gold lighter. When I raise my eyes to his, his face splits back into that wild grin.
And for some reason, I smile back, that electrical feeling fluttering inside me.
And now we're smiling stupidly at each other. Or, Riley's smiling at me like he might smile at anything with breasts, and I'm the one smiling stupidly because I'm a stupid jackass.
Because if he really knew me, if he could really see me, what would he think? Once when we went to the Grand Old Day Parade, hoping to scoop up fallen wallets and half-drunk beers, Dump made us stop to watch the dance team girls go by in their purple hot pants and spangly gold tops. Evan noticed me watching them, too. After a while, he said, "You're kind of excellent-looking, Charlie, you know?" He grinned. "Under all that dirt and shit."
I just looked at him, not knowing what to say. Before, Ellis was always the one who got noticed, for obvious reasons. And the boys I'd been with? There hadn't been any need for sweet talk or flowers there. But what Evan said...made me feel kind of nice inside.
Dump glanced over at us. He scanned my face intently. "Yeah. You got good eyes. Really blue, like the ocean or something. You got nothing to worry about."
Now Riley tilts his head at me. "Well, Strange Girl? You got something to say?"
That's right. A job. I'm here to ask about a job.
I blurt it out. "Darla sent me. From Swoon. She said you might need somebody."
"Darla knows me so well." He smiles, blowing a smoke ring. "I need somebody, all right. I think you' ll do."
The men at the tables snicker. I feel my face heat up again. "For a job. I need a damn job."
"Oh, right, right, right. That. Now, see, I'm just a lackey here. My sister owns the joint, and she's not back until day after tomorrow. I just don't—" "Gil quit," says one of the players at the table. "Remember? The incident?"
Riley scoffs, "She doesn't want to wash dishes."
"Yes, I do," I say quickly. "I do."
Riley shakes his head. "You'd make more waiting tables somewhere."
"No, I don't like people. I don't want to give them food."
The men laugh and Riley smiles, stubbing out his cigarette. From inside, I hear "Riley! Riley! Order up! Where the fuck are you?"
"Looks like my time here is done. Gentlemen." He salutes the players, then turns to me. "All right, Strange Girl. Come back tomorrow morning. Six a.m. No promises."
He winks at me. "That's how hearts get broken, you know. When you believe in promises."
The green door slams behind him. I stand there, thinking (hoping?) the players, or the punks, or anyone, might talk to me, but no one does. They just go back to what they were doing before I showed up. I wonder if everyone at Creeley has forgotten me. I start walking home.
A job. Washing dishes. I breathe deeply. It's something.
When I get back to Mikey's, Ariel's house is dark, so I decide to sit in the backyard for a little while. I find an extension cord and plug it into Mikey's lone lamp, dragging it outside and setting it up on the dirt. I arrange my sketchbook and charcoals around me. I take off my boots and socks and wrinkle my nose at the smell. I'm now going on about a week without washing. No wonder everyone in the co-op was staring at me: I stink. I sniff my armpits. I'm going to have to take a shower. But not right now. I've lived for longer without washing.
From somewhere, not far away, comes the sound of guitars and drums, the noisy lurch and sudden silence of a band practicing.
I listen with my eyes closed, toes pushing into the sandy ground. The bass player frets and shifts, unsure of his fingers; the drummer is playing out of time. The singer is frustrated with everyone's awkwardness. His voice cracks as he tries to hit notes, match the bridge. The band stops abruptly, the bass slyly petering out; the singer barks one two three and they leap in again, scrabbling to find each other in the noise. It makes me miss Mikey even more; he was always taking me and Ellis to see his band friends rehearse in garages and basements. It felt electric and real, watching a guy try to figure out a chord over and over, or a girl pounding away at the drums. Ellis always got bored pretty quickly and would take out her phone, but watching and listening as something was created could feed me for days.
In time, fingers and voices come together, the music happens; the song inside the music awakens.
Oh I don't want to be
your charity case
I just want you to see
my for-real face
Can you do that for me? It'll take a minute or three Oh, can you do that for me?
The faces of the day run through my brain, setting themselves up like dominos: the game-playing men, the punks with liquid eyes and chapped lips on the Dairy Queen benches, Riley at the coffeehouse, with his smeary apron and who-cares attitude.
At Creeley, we would be gathered in Rec at this time of night, a rustling scrum of girls with iPods and approved novels. I miss Louisa. Who is she talking to tonight, in the dark, in our room? Have I already been replaced?
The sound of my charcoal on the paper is like a dog quietly working at a door, its nails methodic and insistent.
My father's face comes slowly as I draw. The shape of his large, dark eyes, his sand-colored hair. The shoulder bones I could feel through his Tshirt when I climbed on his lap. I wish I could remember the sound of his voice, but I can't. Sometimes he wouldn't let me in the room where he rocked in the chair and so I sat outside with our rust-colored dog, burying my face in his fur, listening to Van Morrison through the door.
I wish I could remember what happened to our dog. One day he was there and then one day he wasn't. Just like my father.
Where his teeth should be, I give him tiny, tiny pill bottles. I regret it instantly. It looks awkward and wrong.
He was smoke and despair. He had dark almond eyes that were kind. But when I looked closer, I saw something else, something quivering in the background.
Riley at the coffeehouse has those eyes, too. Just the thought of him makes my body flood with scary warmth.
When I sleep that night, though, I push thoughts of Riley away: it's Mikey's smell on the pillow and blanket that comforts me, like a promise, a tangible good thing that will happen soon. I fit myself against his blanket like it's his body, filling my lungs with the scent of his sweat, the oils from his skin. I hold him to me as closely as I can. I can't let him go.
———————————————————————————I stand across the street from the coffeehouse for a good ten minutes. I've been up since four a.m., even though I found a little travel alarm clock in Mikey's trunk and set it for five, drawing and working up my nerve to come here. It's almost six a.m. and Fourth Avenue is starting to liven up, stores rolling up gates, people lugging tables out onto the sidewalk.
The neon TRUE GRIT sign is lopsided, the u blinking on and off.
I cross the street, taking deep breaths. Just as I'm about to knock on the heavy front door to the coffeehouse, the green screen door a few feet down pops open, the one Riley emerged from yesterday.
And there he is, already smoking. And smiling.
"Strange Girl," he says amiably. "This is the first day of the rest of your life. Welcome. Come in."
A woman with pink fox-tipped hair rides up on a blue bicycle. She looks at us curiously. She's older, blocky, in a torn sweatshirt and long tasseled skirt.
"What's up, R? What's going on?" She smiles at me nicely as she locks her bike to the rack.
"Temporary disher, Linus. Hey," he says, looking down at me. "I don't believe I actually know your name, Strange Girl."
"Tt's Charlie," I say quietly. "Charlie Davis."
He holds out his hand. "Well, it's excellent to meet you, Charlie Charlie Davis. I'm Riley Riley West."
I hesitate, but then I take his hand. It's warm. I haven't touched anyone nicely since I petted Louisa's hair. My body floods with a sudden warmth and I pull my hand away.
"Right," he says cheerily. "Back to the matter at hand, yes? Dirty dishes, coffee, ungrateful peons, and the long slow march to death." Linus laughs.
We walk through the green door, which Riley says is the employee entrance. There is a gray, industrial-looking punch clock on the wall and slots jammed with time cards. Linus heads to the front and in a few minutes, I hear the grinding of coffee beans and the air begins to smell thick, almost sweet, from the smell of fresh coffee brewing.
Riley shows me how to load the dishwasher, what buttons to press, where the dish trays are stacked, where to rinse and store the bus tubs. The dish and kitchen area is steamy and hot, the floor mats slick with soapy water and slimy food scraps. The sink is filled with pots, pans, crusted dishes. Riley frowns. "Those girls didn't do a great job of cleaning up last night, I guess."
Linus slips past us to get something from the grill area. "Welcome to the madhouse, kid," she says, smiling, and lopes back to the front counter. She starts fussing with CDs.
Riley tosses me a grimy apron and begins slicing bell peppers and onions, flinging them into a stainless steel bin. I pull the apron over my head and try to tie it in back. It's too big, so I have to loop the strings around and tie it in front.
From the corner of my eye, I see Riley pause as he waits for whatever Linus is going to put on. She presses a button and there it is, Astral Weeks, plaintive and sad. He nods to himself, as though he approves, and starts dropping bread on the grill.
I turn back to the sink, staring at the piles of dishes and pots. I turn on the water. This is what you came here for, I tell myself. Here you are. Work.
In an hour or so, Linus unlocks the front door. We don't have long to wait before people begin to show up, a hive of voices and cigarette smoke. Some of them nod at me, but mostly they just talk to Riley and Linus. I don't mind. I've never minded listening. I'm better at that than talking, anyway.
I spend the morning loading dishes into the washer, waiting, yanking the rack and restacking in the cook and wait areas. To restack in the cook area, I have to walk behind Riley and reach up to the shelves. The cook station is small and opens onto the dish area. There's a grill, fry pit, oven, two-door stainless steel refrigerator, the cutting board counter, and a small island.
From listening to Riley talk to the waitpeople, I learn what meager food True Grit serves and who works there. A lot of them seem to be in bands or in school. The sturdy, crackling whir of the espresso machine is always in the background. I'm getting thirsty, but I'm afraid to ask for anything. Do you have to pay for drinks here? I didn't bring any money. Everything Ellis and I made has to be spent on a place to live. When I think no one's looking, I take a glass and drink from the sink tap. Pretty soon, though, my stomach starts rumbling, and having to scrape leftover food into the garbage gets pretty painful. I think about snagging some uneaten halves of sandwiches and mentally make a note to figure out where to hide them.
Once, when I return with more dishes and silverware, Riley's not cooking. He's looking at me intently, which makes my skin prickle with embarrassment.
"Where you from, Strange Girl?"
"Minnesota," I answer warily. I scooch by him to put some dishes on the rack above his shoulder. He doesn't make room for me, so my back brushes against the front of his body.
"Oh. Interesting. Minnie-So-Tah. You betcha. I played the Seventh Street Entry once. You ever go there?"
I shake my head. The punks had called him semifamous. The 7th Street Entry is a club where cool bands play in downtown Minneapolis. Is... was...Riley in a band?
"You moved out here for a boy, I bet, huh?" He smiles wickedly.
"T did not," I say, my voice flaring with anger. Not really, I think. Maybe. Yes? "What's it to you?"
"You're kind of a strange one, you know that?"
I'm quiet. His attention is freaking me out. I can't tell if he's being nice in a real way, or trying to bait me. You can't tell with people sometimes. Finally, I sputter, "Whatever."
"You can feel free to talk me up, Strange Girl. I don't bite, you know." Linus sticks an order slip on the pulley. "Not right now, you don't." Riley tosses a crust of bread at her and she ducks.
At four-thirty Riley says I can go. I take off my apron and run it through the dishwasher, just like he showed me. I'm sweaty in my long-sleeved Tshirt and push up my sleeves to cool off.
Riley is about to hand me some cash when he says, "Whoa, whoa, now, hey. What's up with that?" I look down, horrified, and quickly yank my sleeves down over my arms.
"Nothing," I mumble. "Just cat scratches." I grab the money and stuff it into the pocket of my overalls.
Riley murmurs, "I hope you get rid of that cat. That's a fucking horrible cat, Strange Girl." I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't look at his face. That's it. I'm out. No way he'Il let me work here now.
"Absolutely," I answer, flustered. "Today. Right now, as a matter of fact." I walk quickly to the back door.
He shouts, "Come back tomorrow at six a.m. and talk to Julie. I'll put in a good word for you!"
Grateful and surprised, I look back. I can come back another day, which means maybe another day after that. I smile, even though I don't mean to, and he kind of laughs at me before turning back to the grill.
I'm achy and tired. The smell of wet food clings to my clothes and skin, but I have money in my pocket and more work tomorrow. I buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at the Food Conspiracy co-op across the street.
Back in Mikey's garage, I lie in bed as the light fades outside, my body filmed over with dried sweat, old food, and soapy water. It feels good to rest after being on my feet all day, lifting heavy bus tubs and dish trays. I slowly eat one peanut butter sandwich, then another. The first day of work wasn't so bad. The people seemed okay. Riley seems nice enough, and plenty cute. It's something, anyway. When I finish the second sandwich, I start the rickety shower and strip. The water is cold on my body and I shiver. I look around. No shampoo or soap. I take care not to look at myself too closely, but it doesn't work, and I see flashes of the damage on my thighs. My stomach sinks.
I'm Frankenstein. I'm the Scarred Girl. I tilt my face up toward the spray and suddenly the water switches to hot, hot, all at once. I pretend that sudden sting of heat is why I'm crying.
———————————————————————————Mikey's screen door slamming shut wakes me. I sit up and rub my face slowly.
I dressed in just a T-shirt and underwear after the shower. I must have dozed off, tired from my long day at True Grit. I scramble for my overalls, turning around so Ariel can't see the scars on my thighs. I'm sore from all the lifting I did today. I haven't used my muscles so much in months.
Ariel is bent down, flipping through my sketchbook, making a sound like a hungry bee. She pauses on the sketch of my father. I'm protective of my drawings, and him, so I pull the book away, pressing it to my chest. She shrugs, standing up.
"Prescription bottles. Interesting choice, but too distracting. In portraiture, it's the eyes that explain the person, that give us our window. If you put the whole story in his teeth by making them pill bottles, it's too easy for us. You just gave us the ending to the story. Why would we stick around? We need to move over the whole face, we need time to think. You understand?"
Move over the whole face, time to think. Before I can ask what she means, she says briskly, "Come. Let's have breakfast. I love breakfast for dinner, don't you? I bet you're starving."
I slip a hoodie on and pull on my boots hastily. I'm not going to turn down free dinner. Even though I ate before my shower, I'm hungry again. I guess I have a lot of space to fill inside. My mouth waters as we cross the yard. I look up. The stars are perfect pinpricks of white.
Her house is airy and comfortable. The cement floors are painted with large blue and black circles. It's like stepping on bruised bubbles, which is kind of cool, and I like it.
I've never been in a house that had so many paintings and it takes my breath away. Ariel's cream-colored living room walls are slathered with large, blackish paintings. Some of them have slanted strips of light cutting through the darkness, like light from beneath closed doors or up through the branches of tall, old trees. Some of them are just different shades of darkness. Some of the paint is so thickly applied, it rises off the canvas like minuscule mountains. My fingers itch to touch them but I'm afraid to ask if I can. Everywhere I look, there is something to see, and I love it.
Ariel stands in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me. "You can touch gently."
I do, very carefully laying a finger on the tiny hill of one particularly dark painting. It feels, strangely enough, cool to the touch, and very firm, almost like a healed, raised scar.
Ariel says, "What are you thinking, Charlie? Speak. I always tell my students that whatever they feel about art, it is true, because it is true to their experience, not mine."
"T'm not sure...I don't know how to say it." The words bubble inside me, but I'm not sure how to arrange them. I don't want to sound dumb. I don't want to be dumb.
"Just try. My ears, they are as big as an elephant's."
I step back. The paintings are so large and dark, except for those tiny sprays of light. "They make me...they make me think of being stuck somewhere? I don't know, like weighted down, but then these little patches..." I falter. I sound stupid. And looking at so much darkness is kind of pulling at something inside me, because, I think, only a very sad person could have done these paintings and what would have made Ariel so sad?
Ariel is behind me now. "Go on," she says quietly.
"Those little parts that stick off? It seems like the darkness is almost trying to leave the whole thing, because the little light is back there, and it's turning its back on the light. That's stupid, I know."
"No," answers Ariel thoughtfully. "Not stupid, not stupid at all." She walks away, back to the kitchen, and I follow her, relieved that I don't have to say any more about the painting, at least not right now.
Her glossy red kitchen table is laid out with an iridescent platter holding Sliced strawberries, chunks of pineapple, scoops of scrambled egg, and red, soft-looking meat. "Chorizo," she says. "You'll like it." I'm almost ashamed at how ravenous I am for real, cooked food. I calculate how much to put on my plate so it doesn't look like I'm being too greedy all at once.
The chorizo isn't hot so much as spicy; it has a strange, mashed-hot-dog quality that's slightly gross, so I eat some eggs instead. It's been a long time since I've eaten a real meal in someone's house. Maybe the last time was with Ellis and her parents, at their grainy dining room table, the one that leaned a little to the right.
The silverware is cool in my fingers, the plates sturdy and definite. I try to eat slowly, though I really do want to shove everything into my mouth at once.
Ariel takes a large mouthful of chorizo and egg and chews luxuriously. "Where are your people? Your mama?"
I make a pile of strawberries and top them with a wedge of pineapple, like a little hat. I fill my mouth with food again so I don't have to answer Ariel.
"Maybe you think she doesn't care, but she does." She turns a strawberry between her fingers. I can feel her watching me.
"Michael says you lost a friend. Your best friend. I'm so sorry." She looks over at me. "How awful."
It's unexpected, what she says, just like the fresh tears that suddenly well up in my eyes. I'm surprised Mikey told her about Ellis, but I don't know why. And I also feel weirdly betrayed that he did. Ellis was...is mine. "I don't want to talk about that right now," I say quickly, jamming pineapple and strawberry into my mouth. I blink rapidly, hoping the tears stay put.
Ariel licks chorizo grease from her callused fingers and wipes each one with a napkin, dipping the edge of the fabric into her glass of ice water.
"Most girls your age, they're off to school, they fuck boys, they gain weight, they get some good grades, some bad grades. Lie to Mommy and Daddy. Pierce their tummies. Tramp stamps." She smiles at me.
"That's not you, though, right? Michael says you didn't finish high school, so you can't go and study boys and fuck books." She laughs at herself. T did finish," I answer defensively through a mouthful of food. "Well, almost. Sort of. Soon."
Ariel nibbles her pineapple. She regards me steadily, her eyes slightly enlarged by the lenses of her glasses. Then she makes a crackling, explosive sound low in her throat. "Boom!" She spreads her fingers. "You keep people inside you, that's what happens. Memories and regrets swallow you up, they get fat on the very marrow of your soul and then—"
I look over at her, startled by her strange words. Her face softens as she says, "And then, boom, you explode. Is that how you got those?" She gestures at my arms, safely hidden underneath the hoodie.
I fix my eyes on my plate. Boom. Yes. She smiles again. "How are you going to live this hard life, Charlotte?"
The sound of my full name makes me look up. Pinkish powder dusts Ariel's tan cheeks, minuscule lines of lipstick swim into the wrinkles above her mouth. I can't imagine ever being her age, how she got here, this airy house, her life. One day from now is hard enough for me to imagine. I don't know what to say.
She reaches across the table and brushes the scar on my forehead. Her fingertips are warm and for a second I relax, sinking into her touch. "You're just a baby," she says quietly. "So young."
I stand up, clumsily knocking into the table. She was getting too close, I was letting her. The food and her kindness made me sleepy and complacent. Always be alert, Evan would warn. The fox has many disguises.
She sighs, squares her shoulders, and brushes crumbs from the table into her cupped palm. She raises her chin toward the back door: my invitation to leave.
On my way out, my hip bumps against a slim table. Something glittery peeks out from under a jumble of envelopes and circulars. I don't even hesitate before sliding it into the pocket of my overalls. Ariel has taken a little from me tonight and so I am taking a little of her.
———————————————————————————I pull the object from my pocket and put it on the floor of Mikey's garage. It's a red cross, slightly larger than my hand, made of plaster and encrusted with fat white skulls with painted black eye sockets, black nostrils, blackdotted mouths. The sides of it have been dipped in thick red glitter.
The skull-cross is gaudy and cheap and wonderful and showers me with a palpable ache: Ellis would have loved it, would have bought several more to nail to the walls of her blue-painted bedroom, where they would share morose space with posters and cutouts of Morrissey, Elliott Smith, Georgia O' Keeffe, and Edith, the Lonely Doll.
I find an old striped scarf in Mikey's trunk and gingerly wrap the cross in it and push it under the pillow. I get up and look around the smallness of Mikey's place, thinking about what Ariel said, which overwhelms me and makes me long for the safety of my kit in the trunk, so I go into the teeny bathroom and rock back and forth on the toilet for a while. Casper said repetitive motion, like rocking, or even just jumping in place, can help soothe your nerves.
When I get overwhelmed and I can't focus on just one thing, when all of my horrible hits me at once, it's like I'm one of those giant tornados in a cartoon, the furry gray kind that suctions up everything in its path: the unsuspecting mailman, a cow, a dog, a fire hydrant. Tornado Me picks up every bad thing I've ever done, every person I've fucked and fucked over, every cut I've made, everything, everything. Tornado Me whirls and whirls, growing more immense and crowded.
I have to be careful. Being overwhelmed, feeling powerless, getting caught up in the tornado of shame and emptiness is a trigger.
Casper told me, "You can only take one thing at a time. Set a goal. See it through. When you've finished one thing, start another." She told me to start small. I tell myself: You made it out of Creeley, however it happened. You got on a bus. You came to the desert. You found food. You have not hurt yourself in this new place. You found a job.
I repeat the sentences until the tornado stops whirling. When Mikey gets here, everything will be just a little better.
Out loud, I say, "A place to live."
I have money. I can find a place to live. This is what I tell myself, in a kind of mantra, as I arrange myself on Mikey's futon and fall asleep.
———————————————————————————Linus is waiting for me outside the coffeehouse the next morning, pulling her pink hair into a scrunchie. Her lower lip puffs out. "Did you see Riley, by any chance?"
When I shake my head, she frowns. "Shit. Okay. Onward." She unlocks the door to the coffeehouse, presses some buttons on the security alarm. She hangs her stuff up on a peg.
"Julie got a little delayed in Sedona. She might be late. It's all cool. She runs on kind of a loosey-goosey energy, not clocks, like the rest of us. Meanwhile, you can help me set up. I hear Peter Lee and Tanner closed down the Tap Room last night, so they won't fucking be on time. That's a bar downtown. You look a little young to know that."
She slides aprons from the dishwasher, winces at their dampness, and throws one to me. "I'm guessing Riley didn't give you any kind of new employee lowdown, so here's the basics: you can have regular coffee for free, as much as you want, and mostly any kind of espresso drink you want, within reason, unless it seems like you're taking too much, and then Julie will start charging you. You're supposed to pay for any food, but again, that can get iffy. Like, what if we make the wrong order? You know what I'm saying? Smoke breaks are outside in front, but sometimes you can smoke in the lounge"—she grins, pointing down past the grill and dish area to a dark hallway littered with mops, brooms, and buckets—"but don't let Julie catch you. Her office is down there and she hates the smell of smoke."
She pauses. "And then there's Riley. There are all sorts of Riley rules and Riley breaks all sorts of rules, but Julie lets him, because he's her brother, and she has fucked-up notions of what love is. So what this means for you is...sometimes he smokes back there when he's cooking, when she isn't here. And sometimes he drinks back there, too. And since you're back there, and I'm usually up here, it's kind of your job to keep an eye on him, and tell me if things seem to be going to hell. If you know what I mean." She eyes me carefully. "Deal?" I nod. "Okay, moving on. First, we make the mojo."
She leads me to the espresso machine, the urns that hold five different types of coffee, the smudgy pastry case that faces the seating area of the coffeehouse.
"But first first," she says, "we put out the tunes." She flicks through the stacks of CDs and tapes on the countertop. More CDs are jammed inside the bottom cabinet amid green order pads, boxes of pencils and pens, extra register tape, and a bottle of Jim Beam, which makes Linus sigh very heavily. She shoves it to the side of the case, out of view.
She looks up at me. "We choose according to our mood. Later, we may choose according to customer, unless we hate them. This morning, we are feeling very..."
She pauses. "Sad. So many things left unsaid in my life. I'm sure you're too young to understand, right?" She winks at me.
"Van Morrison it is. 7:B. Sheets. Familiar? I'm kind of in a Morrison mood at the moment."
I nod, but I tense up a little, because of my dad. But when Da da dat dat da da da da fills the space, I start to relax; the music is familiar, and soothing, and I try to think of it as maybe my dad being here with me, in a weird way.
She runs through the oily-looking beans in the see-through bins: KONA, FRENCH, GUATEMALAN, ETHIOPIAN, BLUE MOUNTAIN, KENYAN. The teas sit loosely in wooden pull-out shelves. They look like small and fragrant piles of twigs. Out the enormous window that opens onto Fourth Avenue, other places are opening up, too, windows are being washed, sale racks placed on sidewalks, patio tables being lugged out. The whole day is starting for everyone on the Avenue, including, I realize, me. I have a job. It's kind of disgusting, but it's mine. I'm a part of something. I've hauled myself up at least one rung on a ladder. I wish Casper was here. She'd probably give me one of her goofy high fives or something. I'm so kind of proud of myself that I'd probably let her.
A body appears in front of the True Grit window, blocking the light. Linus elbows me out of the way, making the watch movement to a dirtyfaced man on the sidewalk: tapping her wrist ten times, which must mean he needs to wait ten more minutes. He nods, the brim of his straw hat stiff over his eyes. He leans against the bike rack, tucking a newspaper under his arm. He begins to have an intricate conversation with himself.
Linus resumes grinding, shouting over the sound of beans being mashed. "Tt's Fifteen-Minute-Shit Guy. He's here every day at open. He brings in a newspaper and a bucket. He takes a fifteen-minute shit in the can and then we let him take the old coffee grounds in the bucket." She points to an empty five-gallon pickle bucket.
I stare at her. I have to yell over the grinder. "For reals? Like, the shitting part? Fifteen minutes?"
She nods. "Reals. And it's going to be your job, as the disher, to go in there after he's done and check it. Make sure everything is clean." She winks. "But you know, he uses the grounds for his garden down on Sixth and damned if that fucker isn't goddamn beautiful. Sunflowers up to my fucking eyeballs and tomatoes the size of my tits."
I laugh without thinking, a big fat guffaw, and quickly cover my mouth. Linus says, "It's okay! You can laugh. I'm fucking funny, aren't I?" She nudges me with her elbow. I let my hand drop away from my mouth.
I smile back at her.
"That's more like it. I like that." She fills up an urn with water and hands me the filter of Ethiopian beans, ducking her head so our eyes are level. There's a slight mist of dark hair between her eyebrows.
"Julie's gonna love you, don't worry. She loves the damaged and you reek of it. No offense or anything. It's a good thing, in a weird way, for this place. We are all fifty kinds of messed up here."
She fills two mugs of coffee from the urn and hands me one.
"Now, go let Fifteen-Minute-Shit Guy in."
By eight-thirty, Linus's face has bloomed bright red and she's swearing, running from the front of the coffeehouse to the grill station, slicing bagels and throwing them on the toaster shelf. The waitstaff is late; Riley is still not here. He was supposed to come in at six to get the breakfast items ready: the chili sauces in the pots, the home fries on the grill. She's already asked me to man the potatoes and then sworn at me when I didn't remember to flip them at regular intervals.
"You have to go get him," she says finally, shoving a forkful of scrambled tofu into her mouth. My stomach growls as I watch her. I forgot to eat before I left the apartment this moming. "He doesn't have a phone and I can't leave or close the café. Julie would fucking kill me."
She scribbles an address and directions on a piece of paper. She tells me to get one of the moon-faced Go players outside to wait tables while she cooks. "Tell him coffee's free for the rest of the day."
Outside I look at the directions she's given me. It's downtown, not far, through the underpass, I think. I unlock my bike and take off.
He lives around the corner from a plasma bank in a robin's-egg-blue bungalow set back behind a few drooling cottonwoods, on a street of funkily colored houses and old cars with peeling band bumper stickers. On the front porch I walk by a full ashtray and a single, empty bottle of beer next to a green Adirondack chair stacked with dog-eared paperbacks.
No one answers my knock and I can see that the screen door isn't latched. When I push the front door, just a little, it gives. I call out, softly, "Hey, anybody there? You're late for work...."
No answer. I debate for a few seconds, peeking through the crack in the doorway. I don't want to find him naked in a bed with some chick, but I don't want to have to go back to Linus without even trying. And I'm kind of curious, too, about what Riley is doing, exactly. What his life is like, this person who was once in a band and now slings hash.
I push open the door the rest of the way and walk in, nudging aside a pair of faded black Converse. The front room is filled with books—piled on the floor and jammed into a glassed-in oak bookcase that rises from the floor to the ceiling. A sagging burgundy velvet couch is up against the far wall, beneath an open, curtainless window.
I pass into the kitchen and the calendar on the wall catches my eye. Curvy pinup girls from the forties with sun-soaked hair and long legs, breasts pulsating against the fabric of swim clothes. The page is on November.
Today is the last day of May. In the past forty-five days, I've tried to kill myself; been put in a psych ward; been shipped by bus across the country; got a job washing dishes in a dumpy coffeehouse; and now I'm lurking in the house of a weirdo with an apparent drinking problem. A cute weirdo, but still a weirdo.
Not even Ellis could make all that sound angelic.
I walk down a dark hallway and slowly push open a door. Tiny bathroom, painted white. Claw-foot tub with a shower. Dirty mirror on the medicine cabinet. Framed postcard photograph of Bob Dylan in front of a Studebaker. Woodstock, 1968, it says across the bottom. I inspect the postcard wistfully. My father loved to listen to Nashville Skyline. He told me Bob had a bad motorcycle accident and stopped drinking and smoking and that's why his voice was pure and deep on the album. God was coming back to Dylan. That's what my father told me.
The other door is cracked open just a little. I hesitate before knocking. My heart pounding, I tap softly on the door and then push it carefully, my eyes just barely open, just in case.
He is lying on his back on the bed, still in yesterday's clothes: the foodstained white T-shirt, the loose brown pants. His arms are behind his head and his eyes are closed. He's using a folded quilt for a pillow. Clothes are tossed on a puffy leather chair. On the floor next to the bed there's a loaded ashtray and two crumpled packs of cigarettes. The room smells of old smoke and sweat.
Heart racing, I take a breath, say his name. No answer.
Is he dead? I walk closer, staring at his chest, trying to see if it's rising and falling, however slightly. "Riley." A curious odor lingers about his body. It isn't the same as alcohol, the same as sweat or smoke. It's something else. I bend down and sniff.
Suddenly, his eyes snap open and he sits up.
Before I can jump back, he grabs my wrist, pulling me between his legs and locking me in the grip of his knees. It knocks the breath out of me. Adrenaline shoots through my body.
My brain fuzzes in and out with images of Fucking Frank's terrible face. Riley's breath is hot against my ear. I'm struggling, but he's holding me too tight, even as I cry, "Let go! Let go!"
His voice is low and slightly hoarse. "Who are you, Strange Girl? Sneaking into my house. You gonna rob me?"
"Fuck off." I work hard not to panic, to stay in the moment, not float. I can't understand why he's doing this. He seemed so nice before. I position my elbow and try to jab him in the gut, but his fingers are so tight on my wrists, my skin is starting to burn and I can't move.
"Fucking let go." Gasping.
His breath swarms against my cheek and neck and now Fucking Frank is gone and it's the man in the underpass who zooms back to me, a dark
memory of fear that triggers my street feeling again, something I thought I'd left behind. No! I yell it.
I use all my strength to twist my hips, gaining some leverage, and then I stomp on his fucking foot as hard as I can. He cries out, his arms springing open, releasing me. I scramble to the open door, a safe enough distance away. He holds his naked foot, his face scrunched in pain. I rub my stinging wrists, glaring at him.
"Jesus, I was just playing around." He scowls at me. "You think I was gonna do something, or something?"
"Asshole." I'm gulping breath, trying to force the air down hard enough to put out the tornado starting in my body. "You're so horrible. That's not funny. Why would you think that's funny? Get your own fucking ass to work."
I keep gulping air, only now I'm hiccupping, too, and tears are pouring down my face, which is the last thing I want.
"Jesus, honey," Riley says, suddenly serious. "I'm sorry."
I swipe at my face angrily. Fucking hell. Fucking people. Crying in front of him.
Riley stares at me, the circles under his eyes like black half-moons. Whatever caused those dark stains, it wasn't just alcohol, I'm sure of it. "T'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm an asshole, I am. Don't cry. I didn't mean for you to cry." His voice is different now, softer.
We look at each other and I see something pass across his face, very gently, a sadness, some realization of me that makes me want to cry even harder, because he knows, he knows it now, that something happened to me, and grabbing me like that wasn't okay.
He looks ashamed.
"Linus...Linus says get your ass to work." I turn and run out of his room. I'm out of the house, slamming the door behind me, and then peeling away on my bicycle as fast as I can.
On my way back to the coffeehouse, as I pass through the Fourth Avenue Underpass, somewhere in that sudden flash of darkness that replaces the impossibly white sunshine of this city, it occurs to me that he knew Linus wouldn't be able to come herself. He knew I was going to be working at the coffeehouse, that I would have to come instead.
He wasn't sleeping at all. He was waiting for me. I thought he was a nice person and now I remind myself: People aren't nice, people aren't nice, you should know that by now.
I stop my bike. I could just turn back, go back to Mikey's, shut the door, push the trunk in front of it, rescue my kit. Not go back to Grit. Not have to see him. Not have to deal.
But then I will lose what little I've gained. I take deep breaths, close my eyes. Blue comes back to me. Was what happened cereal?
A car honks at me, jolting me out of myself. Before I can even process what to think, I'm pedaling to the coffeehouse again.
Outside True Grit, the sidewalk tables are already full, Go players scowling at empty cups of coffee, people fanning themselves with menus. The high drone of customers erupts as I rocket through the employee screen door and rush to get into my apron.
Linus throws down the spatula and swears when she sees me by myself. "Shit. I knew it. Usually, he's just drunk, but if he's late like this, like this late? It means he's been using. I knew it."
Before I can ask her about using, a guy with neck tattoos bursts through the double doors and calls out "Order!", slamming the green sheet on the counter in front of Linus. He runs to the front to ring people up as Linus hustles around the grill, sliding eggs onto plates and toasting bagels. I turn back to the dishwasher, steam coating my face. What Linus said about Riley using echoes in my head.
Before he face-planted in the craggy stream in Mears Park and almost drowned, DannyBoy had started trolling Rice Street, looking for a leanfaced man in a black vinyl jacket with purple piping. Whatever DannyBoy took, it first made his face gray, his stomach clench; after that, he was like a baby.
But Riley's weird smell, the forceful way he grabbed me. Whatever he was on wasn't what DannyBoy was on. DannyBoy became all heat and sighs. Whatever Riley did last night turned him mean.
———————————————————————————The rush of breakfast has died down and I'm up to my elbows in dishes and coffee mugs when the screen door swings open. I look over to see Riley slouching in just ahead of a wide woman dressed like a kind of female tepee in long, loose brown fabric. She looks around, shaking her head at Linus behind the grill, who promptly finds an apron to cover her dirty shirt. Riley has showered: his hair is less matted, and his clothes, though again a white T-shirt and brown pants, appear to be a cleaner white T-shirt and brown pants.
He looks at me, amused, with a glint in his eye. "Well," he says cheerfully. "Looks like you're going to have that job interview now."
He says it like nothing happened at all. There are still faint red marks around my wrists from where he pinned me so tightly.
The woman nods toward the long hallway, and I follow, not taking off my damp apron. Halfway down the hall, I turn around to face Riley, who is loping after me. I hiss, "You suck."
"Not the first time I've heard that, sweetheart."
The woman collapses in a swivel chair behind a desk mountained with papers, receipts, folders, cups full of pens and pencils, and a bowl of luminous blue stones. She puts her forehead down on the desk. "I'm so tired."
On the grayish wall behind her, there is a framed portrait of a girls' softball team, sunburned faces, sun-bleached hair bunched under green caps. I look at the dark road map of freckles on the woman's face. She's easy to locate in the photograph, far on the right-hand side, bat against her shoulder, thighs straining the hems of her shorts.
Her hand feels around the desk for something, pat-pat-patting. She seems confused, but in a kind of funny, nice way. Riley has stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes. I don't know what to do, so I stand by the door, pressing my back against the wall.
"You didn't bring in any coffee," she tells Riley. "You didn't tell me to bring in coffee." "Well, go get me some."
She lifts her head in my direction. "Julie. Julie Baxter. And you are?" She lays her head back on the desk and whimpers.
I wonder why she and Riley don't have the same last name. Maybe she's married?
"Riley? Why are you not getting my coffee?" Julie's voice is muffled on the desktop.
Riley shuffles up from the couch. He pauses next to me. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"
I shake my head. I'm still angry, and weirded out, by what he did. His face seems tired, yet he's kind of jittery, walking out the door in a funny way. | wait until he's through the door before I turn back to Julie.
Softly, I say, "My name is Charlie."
Julie is sitting up now. She seems to not hear me. "Huh," she says mildly. "That's curious."
She gazes at the ceiling, her mouth slightly ajar. Then she says, looking directly at me, "You see, a normal Riley never would have asked if you wanted coffee. A normal Riley would have just brought back coffee for you, probably something extravagant, like a mochaccino with extra whipped cream and strawberry sprinkles. Because normal Riley must flirt with every female person. Young, old, in between, fat, thin, middling. Doesn't matter. He would have brought back his pretty gift for you and you would have fluttered and giggled and he would have assured himself of another ally. Though, to be fair, you don't seem the fluttery type."
She pauses and folds her hands. "Not a conquest, necessarily, but certainly an ally. He thrives on mass affection, even as he appears to want to push it away. So this is interesting. Very interesting.
"Something has passed between you two." She rolls a pencil between her hands. "I can tell. I have real intuition." Her hazel eyes dart across my face, but I keep it blank. I'm not going to tell her what happened. She might not keep me around. I'Il just try to steer clear of him.
She opens her mouth to say something else but Riley has come back with two cups of coffee. She gives him the same searching, intent look she gave me.
"What?" he says crossly. "What are you looking at me like that for?"
"Intuition. ll have to develop my thesis further." She twines her hands greedily around the coffee. "Anyway! So. Charlie! See? I was listening. I bet you thought I wasn't. You have an awfully painful-looking scar on your forehead and you're wearing overalls in the desert, two things that strike me as both interesting and sad." She takes a long sip of her coffee. "Why are you here?"
I look at Riley without thinking, but he only shrugs, settling back down on the couch, resting his coffee mug on his chest.
I flex my fingers behind my back. "Money?"
"No, why are you here?" Julie closes her eyes briefly, as though very annoyed.
"Like, on the planet type of thing?"
"Just in Arizona. We' ll talk about the planet at some later date. That's a much more complex conversation." She crinkles her eyes at me as she sips her coffee.
"T moved here? From Minnesota?" What more am I supposed to say?
"For a boy, probably," Riley laughs.
"Shut up," I snap. "Why are you so stuck on that? It isn't even true."
Julie says, "Then what is true?"
And before I can stop myself, because this whole morning has been a clusterfuck that now includes this weird job interview, I blurt out, "I tried to kill myself, okay? I messed up, and here I am. And I'm fucking hungry, and I need money. I need a stupid job." As soon as I say them, I desperately want to gather the words up and shove them back inside my mouth. Freak, she's probably thinking. Instinctively, I feel for my shirtsleeves, making sure they're pulled down far enough. I can feel Riley staring at me, hard. It's all I can do not to look over at him.
Abruptly, he gets up from the couch and leaves the office.
Julie squints a few times, like she's trying to evacuate unexpected dust from her eyes. My stomach flip-flops. She's going to tell me to get out. There's no way she's keeping me now. I start to untie my apron.
Instead, she cocks her head at me. Her eyes are kind and sad. "There's a lot of stuff in here, isn't there?" Like a bird, her hand flutters before her chest, near her heart.
She nods to herself, touching the bowl of blue stones on her desk. "Yes, this is what I do. I like to talk to people. It gives me a much better sense of them than wanting to know if they've ever washed dishes or brought out a plate of food or handled a mop or what they studied in school." She looks right at me, her freckled face open, her eyes clear. "Come here," she says.
I step forward and she takes my hands in her own. Her eyes are little ponds of warmth. Julie's hands are sure and smooth, motherly. Pat, pat, pat. The scent of lavender oil drifts off her skin.
She closes her eyes. "Right now, I'm really feeling you."
When she opens her eyes, she lets go of my hands, reaches into one of the bowls, and presses a stone against my palm, closing her fingers around it. The stone has a curious heat.
"Lapis lazuli," she tells me. "They have such an amazingly strong healing ability, do you know? Their power is to carve a deep path through confusion and emotional turmoil. Really helps me work through shit sometimes. You into stones at all?"
"T don't know anything about them," I say. My voice feels small. How can a little stone have so much power? I close my fingers around it. "Do you, like, pray to it, or something?" Talking to rocks. Blue would have a field day with that one.
"If you want." Julie smiles. "Or you can just hold it, and close your eyes, and let yourself really feel its energy, and trust that the stone's energy will feel you."
She starts writing on a pad of paper. "It's some really beautiful knowledge, stones. You should think about it. Tomorrow I'll bring some aloe vera for that scar on your head. Keep the stone. It's yours."
She slides some forms across the table. "Here. You need to fill these out for taxes and payroll. Bring them back tomorrow along with your ID and we' ll get you on the books." I take the papers and fold them, putting them in the pocket of my overalls.
She hands me a piece of paper, with days and hours written down. Four days a week, seven a.m. to three p.m. "That's your schedule, Charlie. My brother can be a real prick, but he's my brother. He falls down, I pick him up, he shoves me away, he falls down, I pick him up, et cetera, et cetera."
The phone rings, and she swivels away to answer it.
I stand there for a moment before I realize it's my signal to go. I walk down the hallway slowly, the stone still in my hand. When I see Riley in the dish area, wiping the counter, I look away quickly, slipping the stone into my pocket.
I start unloading coffee mugs from bus tubs, trashing the soggy napkins and bent stirrers. Riley comes over and picks up a mug, tilting it so I can see inside.
"You'll want to soak these, see the coffee stains? Soak them once a week or so, with a couple capfuls of bleach in hot water. Just fill up one of the sinks or an empty pickle bucket. Whenever you notice, really. Julie likes them nice and clean."
I nod without looking at him.
Riley whispers, "I'm a lousy person. But you've learned that already."
When I don't say anything, he presses a finger against my sleeve, just above my wrist. He leans closer to me. "You didn't have to lie to me about a cat. I'm no stranger to fucking up."
"Riley!" the tattooed guy yells from the wait station. "Tell us about the time you threw up on Adam Levine's shoes!"
"Oh, that's a good one." Linus laughs hard, like a cartoon horse. I turn around and she winks at me.
Riley lights a cigarette and inhales deeply, smoke sidling from his nostrils as he walks back to the dish area. "Now, now. Vomiting is not uncommon in rock and roll. It's kind of a staple, actually. I was not the first and I am sure I will not be the last to vomit on Mr. Levine. But I'd like to remind you, it was not just his shoes, it was Mr. Levine himself that was the unsuspecting target of my sudden digestive vulgarity. The story begins like this...."
I go back to the dishes, still listening to Riley spin his story, following the lilts and cadences of his cigarette-gravelly voice, but I'm also thinking about what he said: I'm no stranger to fucking up.
Even though I don't want it to, what he said kind of touches me. What he said: I should have it printed on a fucking T-shirt, because it's the motto of my life, too. Which means that however horrible he was this morning, and however kind he's being to me right now, and very funny, with this story, he and I are closer than I'd like to admit.
My face flushes. I slip a hand into my pocket and wrap it around the stone, will it to tell me to stop thinking what I'm thinking, but the stone stays silent.
After work, I take some of the cash Riley gave me and buy a bag of chips and an iced tea at the co-op. I'm so hungry that I rip into them right away, stuffing my face while looking at the FOR RENTs on the community board outside.
It doesn't look promising. My heart kind of sinks. Most of them ask for first, last, and security. Even for a one-bedroom for six hundred dollars, that's eighteen hundred dollars up front, plus utilities. How do I get utilities? Do I have to pay up front for those, too? I do some math in my head: with what True Grit will pay, ll hardly have anything left over for rent anywhere, not to mention any extras like food or gas or electric.
I ride around downtown for a while until I find the library. I head to the bathroom first, and wait until a woman leaves before I take one of Mikey's empty water bottles from my backpack and fill it with lemony hand soap from the dispenser. I can use this for the shower, but I'm going to need to find a toothbrush and toothpaste. I bundle toilet paper around my fist and stuff it in the pack. There aren't any more rolls left at Mikey's.
Downstairs, I find out you have to sign in to use the public computers, and that they time you. The young librarian looks at me warily when I write my name on the sign-in sheet, but I figure it must be because of the scar on my forehead, because I know I don't stink, and my arms are covered. I sit in front of the computer and pull out the sheet of paper Casper gave me. Her email address is typed, but in neat, round handwriting next to it she wrote Charlie, please don't hesitate to contact me. I am thinking of you. She even signed her real name. Bethany. I ignore the information about the halfway house and support group, because that was for Minnesota, and I'm far from there now.
I log in to the email account I set up at Creeley during my ALTERNALEARN studies. I don't really know what to say, so I just start typing.
Hi—I'm not where you think Iam and I'm sorry. It wasn't going to work out with my mom and she knew it. My friend Mikey lives in Tucson and I'm down here now. I have a little money and I'm staying at Mikey's place. It's not the greatest, but at least it isn't outside. I found a job, too, washing dishes. I guess that's what I'm good for. I've been drawing in my book a lot. I don't think I'm scared, but maybe I am. It's weird. Everything is just weird. Like, I don't actually know how to live. I mean, I managed to live on the street and everything, but that was different than normal living—that was kind of just about not getting killed. I don't know anything about utilities, or rent, or "security deposits" or what food to buy. I've hardly talked at all to anyone, but I'm already tired of talking. Tell everyone I say hey and tell Louisa I miss her—Charlie
When I'm about to log off, I notice another message, buried in alerts from the online education center asking me when I will resume classes and from people in Nigeria asking for money.
The subject line is Bloody Cupcakes. My heart drops. I hesitate for a moment, then click on it.
Hey soul sister—Sasha snuck around on GhostDoc's desk and found your file. Had some emails from that online school thing you were doing—found your email addy in there. GhostDoc's got a whole FILE on yooooo. Talk about dramarama—you never said anything about some weird sex house. You with your mom now? How's THAT working out? Tsk tsk on GhostDoc for leaving your file out, too, but how the hell are you? Francie's out—she never came back from Pass one day. Louisa is still up to the same old same old, writin writin writin, blah blah blah. So whats it like outside, Charlie? Ive still got so much time ahead of me baby, I have no hope. Give me some hope! Isis will be sprung in three wks and she is freaking OUT. C U Cupcake, write back soon. BLUE
The sound of the timer startles the mouse from my grip. A large woman with meaty arms nudges me from the chair, barely giving me time to log out.
I make my way out of the library to the plaza. The sun is starting to go down, the sky turning pretty shades of pink and lilac.
Why did Blue want to find me? She didn't even like me at Creeley. At least, it didn't seem like it.
I want that world to stay hidden. I want that world to stay sixteen hundred miles away. I want a fresh start.
Three grubby guys on the library lawn catch my eye. They're rolling cigarettes, sitting against their dark backpacks. I grit my teeth. I don't want to talk to them, but I'm going to, because they' Il have information I need.
Two of them grunt when I ask where the food bank is, but the third man points down the street and tells me the name of the place. One of the other men says, "Yah, but you won't get in, girl. Got to get in line for dinner practically at the crack of fuckin' dawn and lately, it's all babies and they mamas. Can't take a plate of food might be for a baby, girl."
I say thanks and unlock my bicycle. Riding home, I snag a damp plaid blanket from a fence. Someone must have left it out to dry. Next up on my list of fresh start items is a place to live. The blanket will come in handy.
———————————————————————————The next morning, I'm up before the sun rises, drawing in the half-light, eating a piece of bread with peanut butter. I'm drawing Ellis, what I remember of her. She liked me to talk to her when she took a bath, her skin wet and shiny. I loved her skin, the smoothness of it, rich and unscarred.
At work, Riley is on time, but he looks terrible, his face ashen and his eyes dark. He gets a little color back after he sneaks some beer from the fridge. I pretend like I don't see, but I think he knows I know. Mostly, I just stay quiet and so does he. I get the feeling you have to tiptoe around him a lot.
After work, I ride my bike back downtown. I find the shelter and the kitchen; the men were right. Lines of resigned-looking women and jitteryeyed kids are camped out under tarps hiding from the sun, waiting for the kitchen to open for dinner. Around the back of the building are bins of clothing and household goods under a long gray tent. A shelter worker reads a magazine while I rifle through the bins, taking some plates and coffee-stained cups, utensils, a chipped pink bowl. I find a tub filled with bags of sanitary napkins, boxes of tampons. The shelter worker hands me two rolls of toilet paper, tells me that's the limit. She gives me a Baggie with a toothbrush, floss, two condoms, a tube of toothpaste, a flyer with directions to a food shelf that looks miles and miles away, and a pile of pamphlets about STDs and food stamps. I tell her thanks and she smiles a little. I don't feel weird about coming here. Evan called places like this godsends. It is what it is. I take my meager supplies back to Mikey's and draw until it gets solidly dark.
It's after ten o'clock when I ride over to Fourth Avenue and head down the alley behind the Food Conspiracy. I've been thinking about this ever since I came to the co-op that first time—that this would be the ideal place for vegetables and fruit in the Dumpster. I'm still against using any of the money Ellis and I made. If I spend that, it should be for a place to live, and the money I get from Grit isn't much. My stomach is starting to hurt from all the peanut butter sandwiches. I need something else.
I work quickly, filling my backpack with bruised apples, dented peaches, too-soft celery. Just as I'm zipping it up, I notice a figure at the end of the alley, watching and swaying slightly.
At the shelter, I snagged a fork for protection and wedged it into my pocket. My fingers curl around it now as I stare down the alley at the weaving figure. But then I let my breath out and my fingers loosen.
Riley takes a drag from his cigarette. Before I can stop myself, my words are out, tentative, unfurling down the alley to him.
"Riley," I say. "Hey. Hi."
I want him to talk to me, but he only takes a drag from his cigarette and keeps walking. "Bye," I call out, but he doesn't look back.
I wait for him to mention it the next morning at work, but he doesn't. In fact, he doesn't say much of anything all day.
But when I go to punch out, he appears with a brown bag. There are circles undemeath his eyes.
"If you're hungry," he says, "ask. I don't want to see you in dark alleys anymore, Strange Girl. Okay?"
He walks back to the cook station without waiting for my answer.
———————————————————————————I'm sitting outside on my break, next to the Go players, when I realize that the kind of place that will rent to me, the kind of place I could probably just barely afford, isn't the kind of place that even advertises in something like the Tucson Weekly or on the Food Conspiracy co-op board. Credit checks, first and last, security deposits, and, as one Go player helpfully tells me as he looks over my shoulder at the ads, "If you ain't lived in Tucson before and never had no utilities in your name? You have to pay fucking two hundred and forty dollars just to get your gas turned on. They call it a deposit." Another player says, "Seventy-five dollars to turn on the electric."
They all start grumbling about rents and the economy. I wonder where they live and what they do, because they don't seem to have jobs. They just come here every day, all day, and drink coffee and eat bagels and then go home, leaving their coffee mugs filled with cigarettes. For me to clean out.
Evan.
Evan liked to cruise restaurants and bars that had outside seating, snatching half-spent cigarettes from ashtrays. He would lead us through the narrower parts of St. Paul, where people looked out the windows of high, stuffy-looking apartments with listless eyes, or slumped inside three-season porches. If we could work up the money, sometimes we were able to find a room for all three of us for just a week or so in some crappy house, barricading a shoddy door against the druggies who came looking for latenight handouts. It was nice to be in a room, though, instead of crouching together in an alley, or trying to find a good spot by the river with the others.
The place that will have me won't have fees, or first and last. It won't even be in the paper. I toss the Weekly on a chair and go back to work. After my shift, I ride my bicycle back down to Riley's neighborhood and then a few blocks farther, where the sidewalks become cramped and cracked and the houses squat closer together. Just like in St. Paul, in this neighborhood people are still doing nothing, but doing it on porches of decrepit apartment buildings or while leaning against telephone poles, because it's warmer here. I ride until I find a scrawled sign Scotch-taped to the chain-link fence in front of a peeling white building: ROOM FOR LET, ASK INSIDE, 1A. The front door to the building is wide open. Two houses over is a drive-in liquor store.
Inside, an elderly man answers the downstairs door marked 1A, OFFICE. The room behind him is dark. He blinks as though the light hurts his eyes.
"You Section Eight? Don't matter if you are. Just want to know up front." "T don't know what that is," I tell him.
He shrugs, pulling a thick jumble of keys from his pocket. We walk down the matted red carpet in the lobby to some creaky-looking stairs. There are doors all along the first floor, most with peeling paint.
Blue duct tape holds in loose plaster on the stairwell walls. The old man stops to lean on the banister. I hesitate and then touch my fingers to his elbow to help. The skin there is whitish and dry, cracked.
"Sixteen steps," he breathes. "I bet you don't know how old I am." His crinkled eyes are tinged with pink. His nose sprouts hair and blackheads. My grandmother always took care of herself: she had her hair done every week and she smelled like creams and cinnamon. I wish I had remembered to ask my mother about her, what happened to her that made the insurance for Creeley stop.
This man is crumbly old, and not well taken care of. He laughs, revealing a damp and largely empty mouth. "Me neither!"
On the second floor, he pauses. "You seem a little young for a place like this, but I don't ask questions. A lot of people here have troubles. I just ask they don't bring any extra, you understand?"
I nod as he leads me to a door that has been plastered and painted with a sickly shade of brown over an already strange shade of orange. I lived in some crappy places with my mother, where mice ate through cupboards. I lived outside with rain and icy snow. I lived in Seed House. These shitty, broken walls and crappy paint and this old, old man: it all falls somewhere in between. After what I'm used to, it's not paradise, but it isn't hell, either.
The room isn't much bigger than a large bedroom, with an extra room off to the side. That room, I find out when I peer in, is actually a combination kitchen and bathroom, with a dented pink refrigerator and an old-looking sink on one side and a toilet and tiny claw-foot tub on the other. There's no stove and the tub is the smallest I've ever seen. When I climb in and sit down, my knees press almost to my chest. It's weird, yet I kind of like it.
He shrugs. "The building is old. Nineteen eighteen, maybe? Back in the day, tubs was a real luxury. People laid a board across them to eat supper. That was the dining table! There's a common bathroom down the hall for the men. I try to give the rooms with toilets to the ladies."
He says across like acrost. People laid a board acrost them to eat supper.
The ceiling is a maze of peeling paper and red and yellow splatters. I look over at the man.
He rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Well, see, that was old Roger. Sometimes he'd get the fits when he was drinking, start the fighting with the mustard and the ketchup. He liked his hot dogs, our Roger.
"Got a ladder you can use to clean it up. Knock twenty bucks off the first month since the room isn't cleaned. There's a fella down on the first floor used to do my handiwork, but he don't wanna do it no more." He pauses. "Call him Schoolteacher, cuz that's what he used to do, I guess. He's always jawing about something. I guess you can't really get rid of what you used to be. It kinda sticks to you."
Outside, sometimes that's what older people became known for: not their name, but what they used to do, before they ended up on the street. MoneyGuy. BakeryLady. PizzaDude. If you were a kid, though, that's all you were: Kid. I wonder what I'll be known as here, if I'll just be Kid again.
I wonder how Schoolteacher got from his classroom to this broken-down place.
The old man glances back out at the front room. He seems puzzled for a minute; then he says Ah. "No bed," he tells me. "Took that away when Roger passed. Knock another ten off the monthly rent, then. Was just a mattress really, anyways."
In the front room, there's a lamp with a dubious-looking shade, a plain card table, and a green easy chair. He sees me looking and smiles. "Partially furnished," he says.
"Three eighty-five a month includes utilities, but if you bring a television in and want the cable, you'!l have to set that up and pay yourself, though a couple of gentlemen on floor one seem to have figured something out on the sly. And I don't have any of that wiffy."
He says, "Most of us are just month-to-month, you know, one or two week by week, if that's what they want. I do need a security deposit, though, that's my rule, even if you're short-term and you don't seem like trouble. You never know when someone's gonna do some damage, am I right? That'll run you two hundred dollars, but you get it back if you leave your room in good shape."
He pauses, looking down at me sternly. "Liquor store gets a little noisy if that's a bother to you. I'm not particular, but like I said, just bring the troubles you already got and no more than that."
A television across the hall sends off the sounds of tinny laughter. Someone down the hall sings softly in Spanish.
I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know if this is a good place, or a bad place, or what I should ask about. All I know is that this is the place I have money for right now, and that this man seems nice, and he's not asking for an application fee or a credit check or anything like that. I've been in worse places, and I feel scared, but I look up at him anyway and nod. I can't find my words, and my hands are trembling. I don't want to think about what might happen if this turns out to be a horrible place.
He stoops to brush a fly off his pants leg. His toes are gnarled and dirty in his sandals. "I'm Leonard. Why don't you tell me your name and we can start this beautiful friendship." He reaches down to help me up from the tub.
I take his hand. It's surprisingly soft, and I smile in spite of myself. I relax a little. He seems so nice, and honest. "Charlie," I tell him. "Charlie Davis is my name."
———————————————————————————When I get back to Mikey's apartment, there's a CD leaning against the screen door, with an envelope taped to the front. Mike is written in flowing purple ink, with the e drifting off into a series of pert purple flowers. I don't have time to really think about what it means, so I leave it by the door. I write a note to Mikey with my new address.
It doesn't take long to repack my stuff. I wrap the dishes from the shelter in the plaid blanket I snagged from the fence and wedge them into Louisa's suitcase, throw my clothes into my backpack. I find some rope and lug everything outside, strap Louisa's suitcase to the back of the yellow bicycle, and hoist my backpack onto my shoulders.
Opera pours from the windows of the front house. I stop for a second, listening, and wonder if I should say goodbye to Ariel, or thank her, or something, but I don't. I use the garden gate to leave and I don't look back. It's just another thing I've never learned how to do: say goodbye.
It's a slow, hard ride to the white building. The suitcase keeps shifting behind me on the bicycle and I struggle to keep my balance and keep pedaling. I'm a little worried about leaving my bike outside, even locked up, but I do it, hoping for the best.
I drag everything I own up the rickety stairs and stop. Wiping sweat off my face, I stand at the doorway to the room for a solid five minutes, waiting for someone to let me in, when I realize I can let myself in. Because I have a key. I look down at it, cool and silver, in my hands.
When I flick the light switch in the room, nothing happens. I can see in the shadows that there's no bulb in the light fixture, only an empty, dark hole. I drag my backpack and Louisa's suitcase into the room and shut the door, sliding the chain lock into place.
I pull the cord on the standing lamp; nothing. When I unscrew the bulb, I see the stain of blowout. The kitchen area is only a few steps away from the door. The tiny bulb above the sink there works, though I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach the string, which turns out to be a dirty shoestring.
The sunlight is fading. From the street comes the dull and insistent wheehoo, whee-hoo of cars hitting the driveway bell of the drive-through liquor store.
I've finished my bread and the jar of peanut butter and just have one bruised peach left from the Dumpster at the co-op. My stomach rumbles, but I don't want to go anywhere else tonight. Yellow light streams through the window from the streetlamp outside. I cup my hands and drink musty water from the kitchen tap, thinking about what to do. I decide Leonard is my best bet.
I unlock the door and ease it open. The hallway is empty. I can smell cigarette smoke. There are three doors on my side and three across the hall, with the door to the bathroom at the end of the hall. That door is closed, though I can hear some grunting. I shut my door and head down the stairs quickly, grateful that the hall light works.
At Leonard's, he hands me a hammer and nail. I offer a quarter for a spare lightbulb, and he accepts it, grinning. In the room, I screw in the lightbulb.
I pound the nail into the wall and hang the glittery skull cross from Ariel's house above the tub.
I push the green chair in front of the door, make sure the door is latched, then lie on the floor, my head on my backpack. I count to myself: I had nine hundred and thirty-three dollars of the Ellis-and-me money. I paid Leonard a total of five hundred and ninety-five dollars for rent and security, so I have three hundred and thirty-eight dollars left. It was scary and sad to hand over so much money at once, to have to let go what she and I had dreamed about.
But I do have a room of my own, at last. I'm not in an alley, or an underpass, or a leaky, cold van, or a red room in a horrifying house. I'm here.
I don't feel sad. For just now, I don't feel scared. I feel, for right now, well, kind of triumphant. I hug myself, listening to all the life outside this grimy room, the shouts from the street, muffled voices from the other rooms, televisions, crackling radios, the blare of a siren several blocks away, thinking, My room. My room.
———————————————————————————In the early morning, the clatter of boots outside my door wakes me up. Over and over, the door down the hallway opens, shuts, then sounds of pissing or sighing, then flushing, then more boots. Groggily, I swipe at my eyes. My hand comes away gritty and salty.
The tub doesn't have a shower spigot. I peel off my clothes as the water runs. I look everywhere but at my body: the hooks on my overalls, the stains on my blue jersey shirt. I don't feel comfortable just standing while the tub fills, so I step in and sit down. I feel a rush of gratefulness for the warm water. I use the lemony hand soap from the library to soap my hair, then I close my eyes and splash water over my thighs, stomach, breasts, face. Finally, when I feel clean, I scrunch way down on my back and submerge my head, enjoying the silence.
When I'm about to step out of the tub, I realize I don't have a towel. Just one more thing to add to the list of things I need.
I brush water off my body, using my hands as best I can. I don't have to worry about my hair, it's still so short. I choose a clean long-sleeved shirt from the pile of Tanya's clothes and then slip on my overalls. I almost forget to lock the door on my way out to work. My door.
———————————————————————————I'm dozing on the floor the next afternoon, after work, using my backpack as a pillow, when I hear the soft sounds of tapping coming from the hallway. At first, I think it's from a television in one of the other rooms. When I realize it's not, when I realize someone is knocking at my door, I stand up, grabbing the bent fork from the backpack, just in case. Warily, I push the green chair out of the way. I tug open my door just a tiny bit, but keep the latch on, and peek out.
A blond, dreadlocked figure smiles widely at me, pressing his face through the crack. The fork clatters to the ground. My heart starts beating wildly.
"Charlie Davis," Mikey sings softly. "It's you. Look at you."
I fling the door open, my face already wet. "Mikey," I whisper, burying myself against him. "Oh, you're here. You're finally here."
He hugs me so hard we fall to the floor, laughing and crying. It's a great relief to be held, to feel arms around my whole body, arms that clasp my stomach, another pair of legs spooning, a face pressed into my neck, absorbing my heat, my tears. Mikey's voice is a soft Hey now, come on now, it's all right against my ear, lips dry on my temple. He rubs my back as he rocks against me. He nuzzles my head with his chin, his stubble catching in the bristly tines of my hair. I say, I missed you, and he answers, Me too. My fault, I say. No, he says. Never. I say, I didn't answer her. Ellis's texts had come slowly, one by one: Smthing hrts. U never sd hurt like this. 2 much. Seeing him brings it all back. I hadn't seen her in almost three months. I stared at the bright yellow text and turned the phone facedown on the bed, using all the anger I had at her to steel myself, and when I woke up the next morning, my mother was in the doorway, saying my name in a funny voice, her mouth trembling.
Wrapped in Mikey's body, on the floor on the stolen plaid blanket, I think of those photographs taken inside waves, the ones with surfers in slick suits on boards coasting through the tunnel of water, eyes wide. I think they must feel protected inside that curl of water, inside the sudden silencing of the world, even if only for a few minutes. I feel like that, right now, in my small, gloomy room: everything I've done and pretended to be in the past year, in the weeks past, is washed away and I am being cleaned, transported, polished for the new world.
"So, out with it. Tell me. What did they tell you in there? Is there, like, a name for what you...have? The cutting thing." Mikey stares at me intently. When did he get so handsome? I look down at my plate. We're at a place called Gentle Ben's and sharing a Black & Blue Burger and peppery fries.
His question makes me nervous—how much should I tell him? What's the squick factor on cutting and psychotic behavior, after all? I swallow a French fry and take a deep breath. "It's called NSSI. Non-Suicidal SelfInjury."
He wipes his mouth and takes a sip of his Coke, his eyes flashing. "What's that supposed to mean, exactly? Did...does Ellis have that, too?"
"Tt means I hurt myself, but I don't want to die." I take a bite of the burger. Cooked food tastes so good. I ordered a lemonade, too. I take a drink, savoring the sweetness that floods my mouth before I have to talk again, because Casper said to talk.
I force it out, slowly. "It's hard to explain. I have other stuff, too. Impulse-control disorder. PTSD."
He frowns. "Post-traumatic stress disorder? Isn't that for vets and stuff ?"
I chew my burger carefully. I don't mean to, but what I say comes out in a whisper. "It's from a lot of stuff." I never told Mikey about what happened to my dad. I guess he just assumed my parents were divorced because most everybody's parents were divorced. He didn't know about my mother hitting me until just before he went away.
He never knew about the cutting, or about Ellis's eating problems. We held each other's secrets tight.
"Jesus, Charlie. I'm so sorry." He pushes his plate away. "You know when I came back for break once, I tried looking for you. With DannyBoy. But we couldn't find you."
His face is leaner, harder, in a way. Adult-like. He pulls his knees up against his body, resting his sneakers against the edge of the plastic chair.
Of course he would look for me. Of the four of us, Ellis, Charlie, Mikey, and DannyBoy, Mikey was the most responsible, the most well-spoken. He could talk us out of trouble with police officers in Lowertown. He could smooth over missed curfews and alcohol breath with parents. He could put his small, wiry body between DannyBoy's loose, fleshier one and the hard body of a crusty punk with hands the size of fresh hams.
He clears his throat. "I don't drink anymore, Charlie, or anything. I'm totally straight now. I thought you should know. I just want to set that out right now."
"Okay," I say slowly, kind of grateful. I'm not supposed to do any of that, either, and if Mikey's clean, that will make things easier. "I can't drink, either, or do anything, really. My doctor doesn't want me to. And it was okay in the hospital. It wasn't bad. I was safer, anyway."
Mikey looks relieved. Happy. "That's good," he says, "that's really good you aren't drinking. For me, it was like, after I got here, I was so tired of all that shit. I just wanted to start fresh. I mean, we spent so much time wasted back home, do you realize that? We were fucked up all the time."
"T know. Some of it was fun, though." I smile.
"Yeah, but sometimes you have to let stuff go if you want to move forward, you know? Did you know DannyBoy got clean?"
"Are you kidding?" I remember how things got worse and worse for DannyBoy, and he would spend hours walking Rice Street, looking for the man in the black vinyl jacket with purple piping, and after he found him, he'd go soft, like a baby, and loll in the grass in Mears Park by the shallow pond, the sun illuminating his slack face.
"No lie. I talked to his mom when I was back for Christmas. He spent six months at some rehab way up north, by Boundary Waters, way out in the forest, where they had to chop their own wood for heat and raise chickens for eggs and food. Crazy stuff, but he did it. He's been clean for a year. He works with old people now, like taking care of them. Feeding them and stuff. In Duluth." I try to imagine lumbering DannyBoy spooning oatmeal into an old person's mouth, or changing their diaper, but I can't. I can only see him high, or sad, or pummeling someone in the alley after a show.
"Tt can be done, Charlie. You see? You can change stuff in your life, if you want to."
I nod carefully, because I'm not sure that's possible, or if it's even something I can do, since I always seem to be fucking up. Mikey smiles, slipping money from his pocket and tucking it under his plate. I'm sorry to see him do it. It was getting easier and easier to talk to him here, our words drifting like water.
"Well," he says slowly. "I don't like where you're living, but first things first, right? We need to get you something to sleep on. I've got no wheels, so this means some legwork. You up for legwork? Looks like you could use some legwork."
"Hey!" I say, my face reddening a little, realizing that he's been looking at my body, which makes me feel scared and kind of hopeful. I shift in my seat. Does he think I'm too chunky now, though?
"They wouldn't let us exercise. And the food was really starchy."
"Just teasing," he says, smiling. "A little weight looks good on you. You were always kinda scrawny."
We stand up. He stretches, his green hoodie inching up. His belly is brown and downy, pierced with a silver ring. I have a sudden urge to place my hand on the sharp bone of his exposed hip, to feel the warm skin there. I feel my face color again. I wish I knew for sure if he was thinking the same thing about me.
Suddenly I want to ask him about the CD on his doorstep, the purplescripted envelope. I'd forgotten all about that, that Mikey might have a girlfriend. I'm about to ask him when he steps closer to me and says quietly, "Show me."
I know exactly what he's talking about. I flinch, worried about what he might say, but then, slowly, I push up one jersey sleeve, then the other. It's almost dark now; the white lights dangling along the patio's roof are as fuzzy as the snow I left behind in Minnesota. He takes a deep breath; the warm exhalation coats my face. His eyes water as they fix on my damage. I push my sleeves down. "Time's up," I say lightly. I'm very aware of how close we are and the fact that his lips are not far from mine.
What would he say if I told him there are even more scars on my legs? Mikey rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"Everything got very big," I say.
He doesn't say anything.
Casper said, You have to talk, Charlotte. You can't be silent. "It's like I was talking about," I say, forcing the words out. "Like, everything got very heavy, you know? I couldn't hold it anymore."
I missed Ellis so much and I was so mad at her and it was all my fault. And Mikey, there was this house, this really bad house.
But that stuff stays inside.
He shakes his head. We stare at each other. He says, "Okay, then. Let's try to keep it small, all right? One thing at a time."
"Small." I test the word carefully. "Small." I like the sound of it. Nothing more than I can hold in two hands at once. Small.
We borrow a pickup truck from his chubby friend, Rollin, who lives on Euclid Avenue. All around the university, desks and tables and mattresses are lumped in alleys or stacked in teetering piles on sidewalks outside apartment buildings and dorms. Mikey says, "This is a good time. Everybody's moving out since it's summer break. Throwing out perfectly fine stuff."
We find an aluminum Wildcats garbage can, a box fan, a toaster painted with black and white polka dots, a water pitcher, a small end table. Later, driving slowly down an alley, we spot a twin futon wedged between a glasstopped coffee table and a stack of framed Hooters posters. Mikey checks it for cigarette holes. I try to joke with him, saying that doesn't much matter, seeing as how I used to sleep in an underpass, but that just makes him grimace.
He runs down the street to his apartment for rope to tie the futon in a roll. The futon smells like smoke and beer. I'm tired, rubbing my eyes, when I hear the sound of shuffling footsteps.
It's Riley, holding a canvas tote bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It's almost midnight, but he's wearing sunglasses. He regards the futon and the other items in the pickup truck.
"Ah." His voice is thick, slightly slurred. "Excellent season for road furniture."
The light of the streetlamp turns his face yellowy, sallow.
He pushes the sunglasses to the top of his head. "What did I tell you about hanging out in alleys?" He tosses his cigarette into the road. He slips a beer out of the tote bag and wrenches the cap off with his belt buckle, tilts it toward me.
He shrugs and takes a drink when I shake my head. Warm light flickers into his eyes. He smiles—and a flare inside me, a tiny whoosh, like the flick of a pilot light, heats my face. He moves toward me, so close I can feel his breath on my lips, smell the tang of his beer as he whispers, "I felt that happen, too."
The crunch of gravel knocks us loose: Mikey is slowly jogging back up the alley, rope swinging in his hand. I pinch my thighs through my pockets to stop the thudding of my heart.
Mikey stops short when he reaches us, looking back and forth. "Hey," he pants. "Riley. How's it going?"
"Michael." Riley takes a pull from his beer. "It goes well. How was the Cat Foley tour?"
"Freaking awesome." Mikey grunts heavily as he moves around the futon, tightening the rope. "Got some great crowds out east. DeVito was really on for the Boston show. Hey, this is my friend, Charlie. Charlie, this is Riley."
"We're already old friends, Michael."
Mikey looks from Riley to me and back again, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"IT work at True Grit," I say reluctantly. "Washing dishes. I started a week ago." Riley nods. "She really knows how to bleach a coffee cup, I'll give her that. And you two...you know each other...how?"
There's a glint in his eye that I don't like. Even though he's drunk, I can see the wheels turning, can see him remembering our conversation about why I moved here. He thinks Mikey is the boy I moved here for.
Mikey says, "We kind of grew up together. Back in Minnesota." He walks around the futon, tightening the rope.
I sigh. Wait for it.
Riley looks over at me. "That's so interesting. Charlie didn't mention it." His eyes are bright and the quirk of his smile is catty. "What a nice co— I mean, what nice friends you make."
I glare at him.
Mikey is blissfully unaware of Riley's innuendos, busy jerking the rope into a knot. "Hey, Charlie, Riley was in a band, did you know that? You remember that song 'Charity Case' ?"
Riley's expression changes suddenly. "Let's not go there," he says, his voice sharp. "No need to reopen old wounds."
The song title pings around my head until it lands on the night I sat in Mikey's backyard, drawing. The lyrics trickle back to me. "Yeah," I say. "I heard some band playing it the other night, too."
Mikey nods. "Oh, yeah, it's a big cover staple around here, for sure. Riley didn't usually sing lead, but he did on that track." He laughs at the annoyed look on Riley's face.
I do remember. It was a big song for a while, four or five years ago. Vague images flash into view: a video of four guys with tousled hair, black low-tops, crummy T-shirts under short-sleeved checked shirts, singing a song from the bed of a pickup truck as it rambled across the desert. There were close-ups of lizards and girls swing dancing with each other, wearing Daisy Dukes and kicking up dust. All the guys looked similar, but the singer had a thrilling voice, a high, romantic twang that fell into deep ache with sudden swoops.
I look at Riley and it hits me. The singer in the video, laconic in the back of the truck, staring straight into the lens as two perfect model types in halter tops leaned against him, nuzzling his cheeks, singing I just want you to see my for-real face...A little stoned, lazing on Ellis's bed in the middle of the night, skipping through channels; she stopped at the video, growled, Hotsy-totsy, that one, and then flipped to something else.
"You," I say, almost gleefully. "That was you."
Riley holds up a hand. "I'm all done here, kids." He extracts another beer from the tote bag. "I'll be seeing you, Michael. Strange Girl, don't forget to get your beauty sleep. Those dishes won't wash themselves."
We watch him lumber away.
"That guy," Mikey says. "Superior musician, stellar songwriter, but major fuckup. Talk about a waste of talent." He shakes his head and we watch as the alley gradually, gently absorbs Riley's body.
Getting the futon up the sixteen stairs requires the help of one of the drunk guys on the porch, but when we're done, Mikey looks satisfied and happy. He brushes the dirt from his hands onto his pants.
"Charlie," he says softly.
His eyes are kind and I move toward him. It's been so good to be with him after so long, so safe. I've been holding him for more than two weeks, breathing him from his pillow, waiting for him to come back. He already knows me; maybe he wouldn't care about my scars.
I put my hand on his belt, super lightly, and hold my breath. It's not going to be true, I tell myself, what Louisa said. That nobody normal would ever love us. It's not going to be true.
He kind of laughs, but he doesn't meet my eyes. Instead, he wraps his arms around me and talks into my hair. "I gotta get a move on, Charlie. It's almost two in the morming and I'm working tomorrow at Magpies. But everything's going to be cool now, all right? I'm gonna help you, you know that, right? I have a lot going on with the band and work and stuff, but I'm here now. I'm here. And it's so cool that you already found a job. That's such a good start."
I listen to the patter of his heart beneath his shirt, disappointment ringing in my chest. "Okay, Mikey." I wish he was staying. I wonder what he means by stuff, and if that has anything to do with the envelope and the CD. He gives me a little wave as he leaves.
The door falls shut behind him. I push the easy chair that smells like dried wine and unloved cat in front of it. The junk we found is in piles around the room, the stupid things you're supposed to fill your house with. The people in the building move quietly tonight, running water in sinks, whispering on phones.
The temperature outside has dropped, so I shut the window above the kitchen sink, wrap myself in the plaid blanket, and take out my sketchbook and bag of pencils and charcoals. My fingers find a pattern on the page; the night replays, a loop in my head, in front of my eyes.
Whoosh. That electrical warmth hits me again as bits of Riley's face form under my fingers, the beginnings of a person on paper.
Riley's sway as he disappeared down the alley, I recognized it. It wasn't all booze. It was the thing that happened when a little too much got a little too messed up. That sway, it's what creeps over a person when they've begun to empty out and don't care enough to put anything back, to replace what has been lost.
I feel like I walk like that, too, sometimes.
I look at the drawing. His face is more worn than that face from the video a few years ago. He looks more tired than hotsy-totsy now. Something's disappeared. And there's an edge, too, that I can't quite get a fix on.
Whatever he is, or whatever happened to him, I don't want any part of it, no matter how much my body starts to freak out when he's near me. I turn the page. I start drawing fields of dreadlocks instead, intricate nests of hair, the kind slope and open heart of Mikey's face.
———————————————————————————The next morning, Riley doesn't say anything about meeting me and Mikey in the alley. He must have been so messed up, or gotten so messed up, that he doesn't remember. Or he doesn't care. It's hard to tell with him. He's super talkative with Linus and the waitstaff, but not me, though he does slip me half of a grilled cheese sandwich at lunchtime.
After I get off work, I head to the library. All the computers are taken, so I camp out upstairs, in the art section. Ellis used to think it was weird, that I liked to look at old art and stuff, like Rubens and all his pillowy women with soft hair and flushed cheeks. I like Frida Kahlo, too, she seems so pissed off, and her colors are all angry. There are like a million stories inside her paintings. Even though Evan said my comics made him feel great, and famous, they seem dumb to me, just stupid stuff about loser kids on the streets, high as kites, dancing around in dark capes and pretending they're superheroes.
This art seems important. It's in books. It lasts. I have to teach myself, I want to teach myself, how to make something great. I want my drawings to be great.
Before I go, I'm able to slip onto one of the computers. There's an email from Casper.
Dear Charlie,
Well, I was afraid something like this might happen. I wasn't entirely confident in your mother's ability to help you. I am glad that you seem to be safe, and will have a friend looking out for you. I hope you're following the rules I set out for you, and I hope you're looking for some help. There might be some free counseling available to you, or a group that you could join. Perhaps your friend could help you look for something? I want you to be safe, Charlie. Sometimes we can get overconfident when things seem to go well, and we might not recognize the danger signs that could derail our progress. Take everything slow, Charlie, and one thing at a time, yes? Your first priority is YOU.
I think it's wonderful you've found a job. A job can lead to important gains in confidence. Well done!
You asked about Louisa. I wish I could tell you about Louisa, Charlie, but I can't. Patient confidentiality and all that "blah blah fuck-all," as Blue likes to put it. Be well, and I hope to hear from you soon.
P.S. I know all the nicknames, like "Casper" and "GhostDoc," by the way. Just FYI, as you girls like to say.
I'm just starting to reply when the timer goes off. I promise myself I' ll come back tomorrow after work and write her an email. I should probably write Blue, too. I know how lonely it can get at Creeley. I feel bad that I didn't reply to her email the last time I was at the library.
When I get home, there's a note from Mikey shoved under my door. Meet me at Magpies at 9. I got suckered into a double shift today. I'll take you to a party after, okay? See you.
I fold the note tenderly, my heart thrumming at the thought of seeing Mikey again. A party. Like a date? Something? I'm not sure. I use a lot of soap in the bathtub, pick a clean shirt. I slip into the bathroom down the hall, wincing at the smell of piss in the toilet and the overflowing wastebasket. I inspect my face in the dirty, cracked mirror.
"Excellent-looking underneath all that dirt and shit," Evan had said at the parade.
I don't have any dirt and shit on my face now. It's pink from the sun and clean, with a wave of freckles across my nose. It's still a shock seeing my real hair after years of dye. Who is this person? What's she becoming?
I blink at myself. I could be a girl, a real girl. I could be a possibility, with Mikey.
Couldn't I?
———————————————————————————We can hear the party a block away, the heavy throb of drums and bass and laughter. Throngs of people spill onto the sidewalk, mill in the street. Outside the house there's a blue velvet cowboy hat on top of a squat cactus.
Before we go into the backyard, Mikey stops suddenly, his face dropping. "Oh, man," he says, looking down at me. "I completely forgot. The drinking thing. I'm cool with it, but how about you? I want to make sure you're comfortable."
I take a deep breath. "It's okay," I say. "It's fine. I want to go. Ill be okay." I smile. "Swear."
Inside, though, there's a little part of me that wonders if I really am ready.
"Shit." He stares ahead of me at the yard, where tons of people are dancing and milling around. "I really want to hear this band. Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's cool."
"Okay." He bites his lip and his face flushes. "There's something else, too, and I probably should have told you, but—"
He's interrupted by a heavily sweating guy who runs up and yells something unintelligible in Mikey's ear. Mikey gives me the "one minute" sign with his finger and follows the guy to where the band is playing. He leans down behind some amps. I lose sight of him as I get swept along in a crowd of people decked out in various combinations of sneakers, combat boots, vintage dresses, piercings, T-shirts, and porkpie hats. Everyone here seems much older than me.
The band is a tangle of wires and amps, holey jeans, horn-rimmed glasses and sweat-soaked checked shirts. The music is loose and fiery with lots of raspy vocals and high-pitched howls. The singer splashes his face with a cup of beer, lights a cigarette, throws it into the crowd, and hunches back over the microphone, singing about coyotes and girls and beer and being a garbageman. People are dancing along, red cups held over their heads. I close my eyes for a moment, letting the music fold over me, feeling the gentle crush of people pushing my body. This is something I missed, being at a party or a show, being a part of people, of something.
I miss the warehouses and basements. I miss the screaming singers, the shredded, bloody fingers of the bassists. I miss the pit at hard-core shows. Ellis didn't like it, but she came with me anyway, standing at the edge of the crowd while I hurled myself, and got hurled, around in the pit. No one cared for you in the pit. No one asked your name. You fell in and moved and swung and circled and bashed and when you stumbled out, your bruises and cuts felt beautiful.
I feel a brief surge of glimmering possibility: if I could just move forward, one foot, two, I could join the undulating bodies, could lose myself to skin on skin, bone against bone.
But when I open my eyes, I have not moved and Mikey isn't behind the amp anymore.
"Hello, Strange Girl."
The voice in my ear sends chills down my neck. Riley. I turn and he grins and moves closer to me. I hadn't noticed before that there's a thin scar under his jawbone by his ear. It's pearl-white, perfect and flat.
Usually he's behind me, in the cook station, tossing out his little quips to the waitstaff, and I'm only really near him when I have to take dishes into the station, and I try not to look at him when I do that, because my skin starts to heat up.
But out here, up close under the white lights strung across the trees, I can see that his skin is ruddy, traces of pockmarks under the stubble on his cheeks. His brown T-shirt fits loosely over his body, as though he was heavier once but never replaced his old clothes.
And I notice, too, that if I leaned against him, my head would fit right under his chin.
That's a bad thought, so I step away from him and wrap my arms around my body. However kind of cute he is, he's a mess, and I don't need a mess right now.
"So. Strange Girl. How are you liking our fine, hot, and dry state? Our... creative and energetic citizens?" He motions with his beer to the throngs of partyers.
Riley fixes his eyes on me and they aren't unkind, they seem almost nice, in a little bit of a sad way, and the weird thing is, he seems almost... interested in what my answer might actually be, which is not something I'm used to. And it's confusing, because of my feelings for Mikey.
Suddenly, I wonder if the mess thinks I'm a mess, too, but it doesn't bother him in the least.
Which makes me blush, so I duck my head, in case he can tell what I'm thinking by the look on my face. I'm about to try to answer, though, when Mikey shows up, clutching two plastic cups of water, a tall blonde by his side. She's one of those girls Ellis would call, in a jealous way, willowy: smooth and lean in her tank top and long, flowery hippie skirt, two shiny braids nestled against her chest. She's wearing not one, but two ankle bracelets.
The blood drains from my face. She's exactly the type of person to write in purple pen.
Riley chuckles. The blonde is now kneeling, wiping spilled water from Mikey's sneakers with the hem of her skirt. Riley whispers in my ear, "That looks like a problem. Did you know Michael had a friend? Watch out for Bunny there. We boys are suckers for ankle bracelets."
Before he drifts away, Riley says, louder, "Enjoy your evening, Strange Girl. Looks like it's going to be an interesting one. Can't wait to hear all about it at Grit on Monday."
The girl named Bunny stands up, practically towering over me. She's taller than Mikey. Her skin is flawless, with naturally flushed pink cheeks that look exuberant instead of, say, blotchy and sad, like mine.
She smiles prettily. "Charlie! I'm Bunny! Oh my God, were you talking to Riley West? Isn't he the best? He's so funny and my God, such an awesome musician!"
She says, "It's just so great to finally meet you. How are you feeling? Mike said you had a kind of rough time? You doing okay?" Her face is pursed with concern, but then brightens. "Oh, I bet you can tell me all sorts of stories about Mike's old girlfriends!" She pinches his arm playfully. A furious blush creeps up Mikey's cheeks. When Bunny turns toward the band, Mikey says softly, so low I can barely hear, "I was trying to tell you, before."
I was breathing Mikey in for two weeks, I was thinking about him saving me, and what it might mean, I had this hope, a tiny hope, some flickering thing—
Stupid. Just fucking stupid. I bite my lips and watch as Bunny turns and leans into him, her back pressed against his chest, her head resting against his.
Mikey says, "Charlie."
I bolt. There are so many people here, I can get lost. I can always get lost. I know how. I squeeze my way to the back of the crowd, where the kegs are set up. I think about Casper, and her rules, and—
It's so easy, isn't it, to grab a cup and pull the spigot and drink it down. To tamp down the fire stoking itself inside me.
I'm just a shit girl in overalls and a dirty jersey shirt. Frankenstein face and Frankenstein body, so who really cares, or notices, what I do? If I drink just one or two? Or three or four? Casper didn't give me directions for what to do if somebody I used to really like-like, somebody who would be somebody good to love, somebody right, somebody who understood about me, turned out to not have the same ideas about me.
Who forgot me when he moved away, and moved on.
The night is peeling itself back, opening up, the beer flooding through my veins. Through cracks in the crowd, I watch him kiss her, softly, one hand gently stroking a lock of her hair, twining it through his fingers. I drink one, then another, and one more, like water, water, water.
A fissure begins inside me and it's an ugly thing. For all the people here, I am utterly alone. I let the plastic cup drop from my fingers and run.
I can hear Mikey shouting for me, but I don't stop. The bars downtown are just starting to close; dismayed, disheveled people are being popped back out onto the street, lurching into me, bouncing away as I push through them.
He shouts my name again and then his hand is pulling on my arm. "Stop! Charlie, just stop." "Go back," I sputter. "To your girlfriend." I'm weaving a little from the beer. I haven't drunk anything in so long, my eyes are already starting to blur. I wonder if he can tell that I drank.
He sighs heavily, clenching his jaw. "Bunny and I have been going out for a while now and yeah, I should have told you right away, but honestly, what's the big deal here?"
I start walking away quickly, but he follows me, muttering, "I'm not going to let you walk home alone, Charlie." I don't look back, but I can hear him following me, the slight squeak of his sneakers on the pavement.
Three men are slumped on the steps of my building, bare chests shining in the heat. They pass a paper bag back and forth. They squint up at us, nod politely.
I stumble going up the sixteen steps to the second floor and almost knock out a tooth. Swearing, I push myself back up. Mikey says, "Jesus, you okay, Charlie?" But I don't stop. The stairwell light is out and I jam the key around the lock in my door, finally hitting the slot. I try to shut the door on Mikey, but he pushes at it gently and steps inside.
"Charlie, come on," he says finally. I ignore him. I'm afraid if I say anything, I'll cry. After unlacing my boots, I put them as neatly as possible in the corner of the room. I turn on the standing lamp. I make a practice, just like I used to when my mother was in one of her rages, of making things as orderly as possible. I straighten my sketchbooks on the card table. I put my pens and pencils in the glass jar. The plaid blanket flares out before me as I settle it softly on the futon. It was bad, really bad, to drink that beer, because now I've loosened something inside. I've chinked away at a wall I didn't know would be so important and now I want my tender kit. I want him to leave. I need my tender kit.
Roar of ocean, swirl of tornado. I'm being swallowed.
Mikey sighs. "Is this going to be like it was with Ellis and that guy all over again? Come on, Charlie. You're older than that now."
I whirl around, blood in my ears.
When Ellis took up with that boy, he stepped into my place beside her, easy as a chess move, and I was nudged to the edge. I was so angry, and hurt. I didn't think I'd be on Mikey's edge.
"What's the problem here, Charlie?" His voice is tired and blurry. "Talk to me. You're acting all weird, all jeal—"
He stops suddenly, his mouth dropping open. He's still standing in front of the door. I turn my head away, flushes of shame threading my skin.
"Just get out," I whisper. I can feel waves of tears behind my eyes.
"Oh my God. Did you...you thought we...that I..." He lets out an enormous breath all at once and covers his face. Behind his hands comes a muffled "Shit, shit, shit."
"Just get out, please. It's fine. It's nothing. I'm cool, just go." Blathering, staring at the wall, anywhere but at him. Gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. 'm mortified.
But he doesn't. What he does is even worse, because he's Mikey, because he's nice.
He comes over to me and puts his arms around me. "I'm sorry, Charlie. If I did anything to lead you on, I didn't mean to. The last thing I'd want is to hurt you."
But it makes it even worse, being held by him, being warm inside the cocoon of his arms, because when he angles his head to look down at me, and his breath is warm on my face, and his eyes are so sad and he is just so near to me, I kiss him.
And for a second, just a blip of a white-hot second, he kisses me back.
And then he pushes me away.
And wipes his mouth.
Because of course he would wipe his mouth.
"No, Charlie," he says. "No, I can't do that. I don't want to do that."
I shut my eyes so hard I see red clouds pulsing inside my eyelids.
"Please just get the fuck out, okay?"
When I open them, he's gone, and the door's closed. I turn off the lamp, because I need the dark right now.
I can still feel the press of his mouth on mine, the nanosecond of warmth it gave me. But it doesn't stop the flood of shame I feel: how stupid am I, echoing through my whole body. Like Louisa said, "Nobody normal will love us."
I've already broken one of Casper's rules: I drank. And I want to break another, but I don't want to, Idon'tIdon'tIdon tIdon*t, and so I get my tender kit from under a pile of clothes, and cover it with the plaid blanket, and then cover it with a bunch of shirts, and then my boots, and then I shove it into Louisa's suitcase and wedge the whole thing way back under the claw-foot tub, where I can't see it.
I practice those fucking stupid breath balloons for as long as I can, until I'm practically wheezing, and then I find my sketchbook, because drawing is my words, it's the things I can't say, and I let loose in the pages with a story about a girl who thought a boy liked her, and maybe could save her from herself, but in the end she was just stupid, stupid, because she's a fucking freak, but if she could just make it through the night, there was going to be another chance, another day.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
———————————————————————————My fingers start to hurt just as the sun starts to rise. I finally put down the charcoal when the first colors come in the window, soft and golden. I drink a cup of water and listen to people using the toilet down the hall, the sounds of Leonard shuffling to the porch to drink coffee out of his pink mug.
My head is bursting from the beer. My eyes hurt and my mouth tastes terrible. I'm grateful that I don't have to be back at True Grit for two more days. I peel off my clothes and sink to the futon and fall into a deep sleep.
When I wake up, it's the afternoon, and my room is sweltering hot. I made it through the night, but I'm still jittery and tense. I want to talk to someone, but the only person I know is Mikey, and now I've probably ruined that. I decide to go to the library and email Casper. Like, maybe I should tell her I've failed, now, by drinking, by throwing myself at Mikey.
Outside, the heat is stifling already, but I don't want to not wear my overalls because I feel more comfortable, protected, somehow, with them on. I go back into the apartment building and knock on Leonard's door. He lends me a pair of scissors without a word. Upstairs, I cut a couple of pairs of overalls off at the knee. That way, I might be cooler, but my thighs are still hidden.
I'm sweating profusely by the time I get to the library. Everyone else seems so cool, even in this heat. Maybe I'll get used to it after a while. There's a thermometer outside the library. Ninety-seven degrees and not a cloud in sight.
I log on. I reply to Blue first, because I know she'll know how I feel, exactly.
Dear Blue,
I am my own worst disaster. I did something stupid to someone. I just wanted to feel better. My own body is my deepest enemy. It wants, it wants, it wants, and when it does not get, it cries and cries and I punish it. How can you live in fear of your very self ? What is going to happen to us, Blue?
I wait, stupidly, like she's going to respond right away. Of course she can't—she'|I have to wait to sneak a tum at the computer and who knows when that will happen. But just writing it eases something in me.
And then I write to Casper, because I should tell her what I did. I tell her I drank three beers, that I tried to kiss Mikey, that I did kiss Mikey, and that he didn't like it. But I also tell her I didn't cut, even though not cutting made me exhausted.
I press Send. I just sit at the terminal for a little while, watching the people in the library. The longer I sit and watch them as they pick books, whisper on their phones, fall asleep in chairs, the more lonely I feel, the more weighted down inside. Everyone seems to have a grip on life but me. When is anything going to get better?
Mikey is waiting on the front steps of the building when I get back, a grocery sack next to him on the top step. I panic a little and start to walk past him, but he pulls the buds from his ears and grabs my hand.
He says, "Hey. Charlie. Don't do this shit, okay? Sit down."
I drop down heavily, avoiding his eyes, trying to block out the scent of him, the nearness.
Down the block, the line outside the plasma bank moves like a slow snake. I wipe sweat from my forehead self-consciously. I bet Bunny never sweats.
"Hey, look what I brought for you." Mikey parts the top of the grocery sack so I can see what's inside: a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, an apple, and an orange. I sigh. I'm so sick of peanut butter.
I pull out the apple, rub my thumbs over its shininess. "Thank you," I say softly.
He clears his throat. "What happened, that can't happen again. That was...not good. Kissing." A stinging, a tightening in my chest. Angrily, I say, "You kissed back, you know, before you...didn't."
"And you drank. I tasted the beer. You promised."
"T'm sorry." It's a whisper, spoken to the sidewalk.
"Ts that the only thing you've had to drink since you've been here?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Yes!"
He sighs. "Charlie, do you know why I decided to go to college all the way out here? You and Ellis were exhausting. Your little games with each other, with me, that shit tired me out. Did you ever realize that? Probably not. You two were so wrapped up in yourselves."
"You came to the hospital. You said you didn't want me to die. I just thought..." My voice cracks. I press my head against my knees to block him out. I want to cry all over again. I thought, I thought? What did I think? That Mikey would like me, dumb little me?
"Of course I don't want you to die! I never want you to die. You're my friend. But I didn't mean that I...that we..."
Mikey goes silent. After a while he says, "This is what it is, Charlie. I'm here, but I'm with somebody. I've moved forward. Coming out here really changed something for me. I've moved on. I made goals for myself. I want to help you get better, and I will, but I can only help you if you want to be helped."
I lift up my head, blinking in the daylight. Mikey looks at me head-on.
"Okay?" he asks. He takes my hand. "Are we okay?"
What else am I supposed to say? "Okay," I answer. "Okay."
He stands up, all business, pulling me with him. The apple tumbles off my lap. Like the good person he is, he jogs down to the sidewalk to get it.
———————————————————————————I've agreed to meet Mikey at a gallery downtown after he gets off work. He's drawn a map to a place not far from my building. At first, I consider not going. I'Il just feel awkward, and Bunny will probably be there, too, but then I decide to go. I only have one friend here, and he's it, and maybe sometime I won't feel like such a jerk around him. Casper would probably be proud of me for that. I change into another pair of overalls and a longSleeved jersey shirt and slide my key and the lapis stone into my pocket.
The gallery is in the middle of the smallish downtown, not far from where I got off the Greyhound, on the third floor of a pink building wedged between a bar and a diner called the Grill. The gallery is narrow, crowded and deep with creaky floorboards and an aroma of dark wine and exotic cheese. There are a lot of older people dressed in black with silver jewelry and clean, styled hair. I'm glad I wore my hoodie over my overalls; I feel a little awkward and out of place here. It feels better to burrow in it, to know I can pull the hood up if I need to. I notice Mikey talking to Ariel in the corner. I breathe a sigh of relief: Bunny doesn't seem to be anywhere around. They wave me over.
I look down at the bright jewels on Ariel's sleek, flat sandals, so shiny next to my grubby boots. Did Ariel ever wear clunky clothes and hide her body? She seems eons away from anything like that. She was probably born SeXy.
Ariel takes a sip of her wine. "Charlie! You're here!"
Mikey says, "Hey, Charlie, glad you made it." He socks me lightly on the shoulder. I give him a small smile. "This stuff is a trip, don't you think?" He wanders away to look at the paintings.
Ariel leans down close to me, conspiratorially, like we're best girlfriends or something. "What do you think, Charlie? My friend Antonio worked very hard on these." I look around carefully. They just seem like triangles and squares to me, painted in primary colors. I shrug. "They're really bright." I try to imagine what it would be like to have my drawings in a place like this, or any place, really. But who would come see a bunch of drawings and comics about loser kids? Or even the sketches I've been doing at night, alone in my room, of Mikey, of Riley? My dad?
"Boat paint." Ariel takes another glass of wine from the buffet table. There are little pieces of bread in the shapes of hands. I nibble one. "It really shines, doesn't it? I'm so glad he doesn't burn his paintings anymore. So bad for his lungs, but he thought it necessary. He used to do that, you know, years ago, when we were both just frisky pups in the desert, smoking our brains out with hash and laying anybody who cracked a smile at us."
I choke a little on the bread-hand.
"But," she continues, examining the rings on her fingers, "he was in a Kiefer stage then. We all have our Kiefer stages, when we want to destroy ourselves in order to create. To see if that's beautiful, too."
She gestures across the room at a very handsome man with slick, blackish hair wound into a ponytail. He's barefoot, wearing a gleaming gray suit and what looks like an immensely heavy turquoise necklace. "That's him. Tony Padilla. He's going to sell the shit out of these paintings. What about you? How is your drawing coming along? Sometimes I catch myself thinking of your drawing. That one, the man with the pills for teeth."
"My dad." It comes out before I can stop myself. I pinch my thigh. Stupid.
Ariel looks at me, her face softening a little. I wonder what she's thinking.
"T see," she says. She sips her wine. "Well, it was very good. All wrong, of course, but good. You're not confident in that type of line work—I can tell. You need some classes. I'm teaching a workshop this July in my studio. Drawing and portraiture. Weekend warriors sort of thing for the retired set. It pays the bills, and I do love them. Unlike most of the students in my U classes, they try. They want. They don't just assume that art belongs to them." Book page image
"T don't...I mean, I have a job now, but it's just washing dishes. I don't have any money. Sorry."
"I know you have no money. I was once a Starving artist, too. You can come and sit in. You can help me clean the studio after. How about that?" She swirls wine in her mouth, surveying the crowd of people. Her eyes move rapidly, lighting on one person, resting, then searching for another, like a bird looking for the perfect branch.
"T think, Charlie, you have talent. I do. But I don't think you'll get far until you examine yourself and study. Until you let yourself be your subject. That's the exquisiteness of youth: you are allowed the luxury of vanity, of self-examination. Take it! Don't be ashamed of yourself."
I don't understand half of what she just said and I know I should probably say thank you, but instead, what comes out in a rush is "Why are you being so nice to me? You don't even know me."
"Because when everything is said and done, Charlotte, the world runs on kindness. It simply has to, or we'd never be able to bear ourselves. It might not seem so to you now, but it will when you're older." Her voice is very fierce. She takes a large sip of her wine and looks straight at me.
She says, "And I do know you. I know you, Charlie."
And for just that moment, I think I see a terrible cloud of sadness pass over her eyes.
But Mikey comes tumbling back, excited and out of breath, and Ariel's face returns to being smooth and cool.
"T wish I had tons of money," Mikey chatters. "I'd buy one of these. These are fucking cool."
"Maybe that band you are always driving around will finally hit it big, Michael, and you can buy all the paintings you want." Ariel laughs. "Charlie doesn't like these paintings."
"Tt's not that!" I say quickly, feeling a little embarrassed. "It's just...I like a story, I guess. I like faces, or people doing things. These seem kind of like just painting colors...to paint colors?" Talking like this makes me nervous. Nobody has ever really talked to me about art before, and I wonder if I'm saying all the wrong things. Book page image
Ariel gazes at me. "Colors by themselves can be a story, too, Charlie. Just a different kind. Come to my class. I'll give Mikey the info. It was good, Charlie, to see you. Mikey, your rent is due, sweetheart." She lays a hand on my arm and waves to someone across the room, drifting away.
Mikey raises his eyebrows. "Wow, Charlie, that's cool. Ariel wants to teach you? That's totally positive. Ariel Levertoff's kind of a big deal, you know." He beams at me and I let myself smile back, grateful to be caught in a good moment with him, even if it hurts a little to be so close to him. I make a mental note to look up Kiefer and Ariel Levertoff the next time I'm at the library.
He holds up two tiny bread-hands and we pretend to do battle. I don't even care that some of the people in the gallery are staring at us like we're just dumb kids, or that when he leaves tonight, it will be to go back to Bunny, probably, and stay the night with her. Ariel likes my drawings, she likes me, I think, and Mikey is with me. And after he walks me home, when I read the note taped to my apartment door, my heart feels even lighter, in a weird way: Come and wake me up. Five-thirty tomorrow. I promise I won't bite this time. R
I hold the note in my hands, my skin tingling with warmth.
I left Mikey's travel clock at his guesthouse when I moved. I've been relying on the sound of the other people to wake me up in time for work every morning, but suddenly, I don't want to take a chance on being late or not having enough time. To talk to Riley tomorrow, when it's just us.
Riley came and found me.
As I bound down the stairs to see if Leonard has a spare clock, I'm in a little bubble of warmth, just like I had with Ellis, a place I never thought I'd be again.
———————————————————————————Book page image
When Riley doesn't answer his door the next moming, I don't even hesitate before going in. In the front room, I find a battered acoustic guitar and a four-track cassette recorder in the middle of the floor, surrounded by sheaves of notebook paper. They weren't there the other day.
He's in the same position in his bed as last time: hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles. A couple of empty bottles rest on the floor by the bed. He opens his eyes slowly. It takes him a few minutes to register me standing in the doorway to his bedroom, but then his face breaks into a smile. It's so sudden and surprising that I can't help but grin, too.
"Hey," he says drowsily. He looks at me in a weirdly comfortable way that makes my stomach jump. A look that says it's perfectly natural for me to be in the doorway to his bedroom at five-thirty in the morning. I hope he can't see the warmth that's spreading across my cheeks.
"Tt didn't take me long to find out where you lived. Just asked around for the girl on the yellow bicycle and poof, there you were. Or weren't, I should say. I enjoyed meeting your neighbors. Fine lot of men, they are."
"You should get up. You look wrecked," I say. "Are those ashes in your hair?" Jesus Christ, this guy.
He rolls over on his side and looks up at me sleepily, but grinning. "Hey, speaking of fine men. How'd that work out the other night? With your friend Michael? And his friend...Bunny?"
I purse my lips, but I'm not really pissed off. That comfortable look he gave me earlier is still working its magic. He looks delighted. "It didn't, if you must know. Now get up. We can't be late. I don't want to be late."
"Well," he says, groaning as he sits up. "Michael's loss, then." He moans, like something hurts.
"Do you need help?" I ask warily. I don't want to get too close yet, not after last time. "You look like total shit." Book page image
"There you go with that sweet talk, Strange Girl. No, no help. I'll be good as new after a quick dip in a scalding shower." I step out of the doorway to let him pass. He heads to the bathroom. As soon as I hear the water running, I slip into the kitchen and cruise the refrigerator, my stomach churning, looking for something to eat, and also to distract myself, because as much of a jerk as he is, he's still a kind of used-to-be-better-looking jerk, and he's also, at this very moment, very naked.
A carton of eggs, a packet of tortillas, a jar of green salsa. A block of yellow cheese, a block of white cheese. I find a knife in a drawer and hastily cut a hunk of yellow cheese and cram it into my mouth. I'm careful to wrap the rest of it back up and replace it, just so, in the refrigerator. A half-drunk bottle of Chardonnay in the side pocket, next to a crusty jar of jam. Three oranges. I peel one open quickly, eat a few sweet slices, and shove the rest into my backpack. It's an open, square kitchen, plain and weirdly clean and empty. Maybe he does most of his eating at True Grit. There's a teakettle on the stove, which I wouldn't have expected.
Under the sink is where I find his stash of bottles. I wonder where he keeps his other stash, the one Linus was talking about. Through the backdoor window, I can see a sturdy wooden building in the yard, surrounded by fat cactuses.
Bare feet slap on the hardwood floor. Riley stands beside me at the window, droplets flaring off him as he rubs a towel against his head. "It's my recording studio. I built it with some of the money from the second, and last, Long Home record that I was on. Kinda ramshackle, nothing fancy inside or anything, but it works. At least, it used to." He runs his fingers through his hair.
"How come you're not in a band anymore?" I ask. "I mean, you guys were kind of famous, right?"
He shrugs. "It's the same old rock and roll story. Boy joins band, band gets big, or almost big. Nearly big. Big enough, anyway, so that egos grew, money floated from the sky, excess occurred, demons were created, or, in my case, simply crawled to the surface after remaining carefully cloaked. And what once rose high and mighty thus fell really, really fucking hard back to earth. The end." Book page image
"Are you...do you still play?" He's gazing at the studio with a faraway look in his eye.
"Sure. Sometimes." He clears his throat, gives his hair a final scrub with the towel. "But you know what I'm really good at? Being a disappointment. You've gotta work with the talent you're born with, I guess."
He throws the towel on the kitchen counter. "Let's hit the road, Strange Girl. Don't want to make Linus mad."
We're quiet as we walk, me pushing my bicycle.
Being a disappointment, he said. I was always disappointing people, too, like my mother, my teachers. After a while, why bother trying? I can see what Riley's talking about.
It's just before six a.m. and the air is already warming up. I tie my hoodie around my waist. "Is it ever not hot here?" I ask. Riley laughs.
"Oh, shit. You ain't seen nothing, girl. Wait until July. It's like a hundred and twenty fucking degrees outside."
We cross through the darkness of the underpass, silent, and after a while, it seems kind of comfortable, this not talking. I mean, I want to ask him more about the music thing, and what happened, but it's okay not to talk, too. And a little part of me is still nervous; I don't want to make him angry.
Half a block from True Grit, he stops and lights a cigarette. His hands are trembling fiercely, but I don't say anything. "You go in first, okay? I'll come in a few minutes." Smoke drifts from his nostrils. "We shouldn't go in together."
I want to ask why, but I don't. I just keep going and lock my bicycle to a pole. Linus shouts out a hearty "Hello!" when I get inside. Riley comes in a few minutes later and heads straight to the coffee. When he comes back to the dish area, he has two cups and hands me one.
I help Linus with the coffee urns and the espresso machine and then start on the dish area. Whoever worked dishes last night left plates of dried food stacked in the sink, topped with stained mugs, tea strainers, and the tiny, delicate spoons for the espresso cups. I lose myself in the task of scraping food into the trash, soaking plates and cups in the sink.
Linus walks back from the front, her face pale. "R, Bianca's at the counter. She wants her money." She lowers her voice. "Do we...have her Book page image
money? Where the hell is Julie?"
Riley gets very still. "Uh, yeah. Let me just go cut her a check. I'll be back."
Linus bites her lip as Riley rushes down the hallway to the office. The doors to the kitchen swing open. A curvy woman in a loose purple dress looks around, her eyes suspicious. Linus says, "Riley went to get a check."
The woman looks me over kind of grumpily and then huffs to Linus, "I don't want to have to beg every time for my money, Linus. You guys want my goods, you pay and you pay on time. Julie needs to get her head together."
"I know, Bianca. Things are a little wonky right now. Business is off some days and then roaring the next. We're working on it." Linus twists a dish towel in her hands.
Riley jogs back down the hall. When he sees Bianca, he slaps a hand to his forehead. "Lady B! I swear, it's all my fault. My sister asked me to run some cash by the bakery yesterday and I forgot. My apologies."
Bianca takes the check and inspects it. "A check, Riley? Is this one good? If this one tanks, I'm out. You people need to get your shit together."
"Tt's all good, Lady B."
She grimaces and takes off through the kitchen doors. Linus glares at Riley. "Again, R? Again?"
"Tt's not what you think, Linus, so why don't you go back to work?"
Linus stalks back to the front. Riley walks past me without saying anything.
I listen to the murky burble of the fryer, to the drone of the grill, the dishes as they sway back and forth in the washer; I wonder what's going on. What happened to the cash Riley had for that lady? What did Linus mean by again?
Then I find myself listening to the unmistakable sound of choking, and the rush-jumble of vomit. I whirl around.
Riley holds a hand to his mouth. He's bent over the trash bin by the grill, liquid dripping from his chin.
I quickly hand him a towel and then cover my nose. The smell is awful. Book page image
He wipes his chin and neck, throws the towel into the bin, and opens the refrigerator door, blocking his face. When it closes, he's drinking deeply from a can of beer. He sets it back inside, his chest heaving. The color's returning to his face, spreading up his cheeks like a pink river.
There were older people, men and women, on the streets who acted like this. Who drank and drank and drank so much their bodies were slick with the stench of old wine, beer, vomit. The only thing, the next morning, that made their hands stop trembling, that made them stop heaving up bile or chunks of soup kitchen food? was more alcohol. The DTs, Evan called it. That's some fucking nasty shit, he'd say, shaking his head.
The finger Riley presses to his lips has tiny red nicks from his chef's knife. Because his hands were trembling so badly, I realize.
Shhhh, he mouths. He nudges the trash bin in my direction. I look over at Linus, who's ringing someone up at the register. She told me to tell her if stuff like this happened.
Riley's eyes plead with me. I'm not sure what to do.
And then Ellis's texts flash in my brain. Smthing hurts. U never sd hurt like this. 2 much. My stomach churns with shame. I didn't help her and I lost her.
Quickly, I pull the bag from the trash bin, tie it, and take it out back to the Dumpster. He did get me a job, after all.
Later, when my shift is over and I'm almost out the screen door, Riley appears with a brown paper bag.
"Messed up an order. Bon appétit."
I hesitate before taking the bag, because by taking it, I know I'm agreeing to keep some sort of secret, and I'm still not sure I want to do that.
But the hunger knocking around in my stomach wins out. I'm so sick of stale bread and peanut butter. And as soon as I get home, I tear into that food: a green chili bagel with scrambled tofu and Swiss cheese, with a broken oatmeal raisin cookie wrapped in wax paper.
———————————————————————————Book page image
The library is nearly empty, so I have plenty of time on the computer. Casper has finally sent a message.
Dear Charlie, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond to your last message and I'm sorry you're feeling anxious. I should be clear, here, though: I'm not your doctor, anymore, legally, so I have to be very careful with what advice or thoughts I give you. And I am helping others, too, so sometimes I may not be able to respond to you as quickly as you'd like. I hope you can understand that. I've looked up some resources for you in Tucson, they may be of help. You'll find them at the end of this message.
The most important thing, Charlie, is to keep yourself active and keep yourself aware at all times. Such as: no drinking, which you haven't followed. Have you had anything to drink since the email to me? Is there anyone you can talk to, like your friend? It's very, very important that you follow steps every day to keep yourself sober and safe. It's going to be a hard road, Charlie, and the hard work is largely up to you. You were given very few emotional resources as a child and your life, until now, has been one of hiding your feelings until they become simply so powerful you can't control them anymore. Practice your breathing, take walks, do your art. Be kind to yourself— Dr. Stinson
I may not be able to respond to you as quickly as you'd like. I look at her list of resources: Alateen, a therapy group for survivors of suicide, a women's shelter. Alateen? I think about sitting in a group of kids talking about drinking. About what happens if you drink. Book page image
And then I think: I'm probably what happens if you lose control. A kid will end up on the street, no home, etc. I don't want to sit in a group where I'm the whole thing they're trying to not be. I look at the survivors' group on the Web: a lot of pictures of sad people sitting in a circle on the grass. I don't even look up the shelter, because I do have a place to live now, even if it isn't the greatest.
I start to write back, but then I delete the message. What could I tell her? Whine more about messing up with Mikey? She'd say Make another friend, probably. She'd tell me to go to one of these groups. Frustrated, I click on another message, from Blue. It's a week old.
SILENT SUE WHR R U? I miss you, my good girl. Re: your last email: yeah, we are our worst enemies. But it doesn't have to be all that. I've been kind of really paying attention in Group lately, and some of what GHOSTDOC says, it's not all bad,
when. Been following rulez, eating up meds, thinking about hooking up with Isis in KANZ ASS. Maybe we will cum on out and check u out !! Have u been a good girl? PLZ talk 2 me. Everyone you knew here is gone but me and Louisa and I tell you, that girl is NOT doing well. Something's going on. BLUE
I stare at the message. She wouldn't come out; that's just Blue being a poker again. Right? I look at the list of Blue's messages on my email. For someone who started out being so mean to me at Creeley, she sure does seem to like me. And she might, I think suddenly, and kind of sadly, be really lonely, too. I'm not sure what to do with feeling sympathy for Blue.
Make a friend. What would be the harm in answering Blue? She's the only one I have right now who could possibly understand what it's like to live this way.
Blue—Good on you for listening to Casper. What else are you gonna do, right? The desert is a hot mess—if you come down bring your halter tops and sunglasses and lots of sunscreen because every day is like fire on your skin. I'm not sure what Book page image
I'm really doing here, but here I am, so here I am, I guess. I have a job washing dishes and it isn't so bad. What is going on with Louisa? Tell her I miss her before you go, okay? Maybe you could give her my email or something. I'm not a good girl, I'm bad all the way through.—Charlie
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A few days later, over the rumbling sound of the dishwasher, Riley calls out, "I hear the boyfriend's going to roadie for that band on a big West Coast roll. Won't you be lonely for the next few months!"
I yank the lever down on the machine. "What?" I blow steam away from my face. The swamp cooler in the kitchen is broken and it's apocalyptically hot outside, which means it's even hotter by the dishwasher and fryer and the grill. Riley says this heat is unusual for June. There are box fans set up and Riley's got a fan jerry-rigged to the wall, but his face is slicked with sweat and pocked with red blotches by his nose and hairline. He's hiding a sweating can of beer under the counter and smoking a cigarette, the ashes sinking to the floor. He sweeps them away with his boot.
He pretends to choke on a sip of the beer. "Oops. Did I spill beans that weren't ready to be spilled yet? Looks like Michael's in the doghouse."
I blink. "Mikey?"
"Michael. He's a man, call him by his man's name, girl."
I wonder if he's taking Bunny on the trip. I wonder if he's told Bunny.
I practically just got here, I think, morosely dunking plastic water glasses in the soapy sludge of water. And he's leaving already.
But then I remember what Mikey said: It's not going to be like it was, and I think, It doesn't matter anyway. My one friend: gone, already.
Riley scrapes a block of hash browns across the grill, twirling the spatula in his hand. His cigarette rests on the lip of his beer can. Julie is away for the next week. "In Ouray," Linus said this morning. "Learning about her doshas." It seems like Riley is being even more careless than usual about drinking at work since she's gone.
Riley finishes his cigarette and drops it in the can. He stands up, lobbing the can over my head and into the trash bin. "And stop wearing those long-Book page image
sleeved shirts, Charlie Girl. You make me hotter just looking at you in those things. Buy some goddamn T-shirts or something."
I don't answer him. Instead, I dump some food on top of his beer can in the trash.
———————————————————————————I finger the bundle of cash in the pocket of my overalls as I walk the aisles of the art store near the coffeehouse. Willow charcoal sticks, the airy, soft bristles of watercolor brushes. I press my fingers against the stacks of bound drawing paper, feel the raised teeth under the plastic-wrapped covers. Elegant Winsor & Newton paints in pristine bottles, lined up in perfect TOWS: SCARLET LAKE, PURPLE MADDER, LEMON YELLOw. They have pads with comic panel templates already in place; no more using a ruler and a finely sharpened pencil, like I did with mine. I see a lot of canvas messenger bags, low-slung army pants, and filmy scarves on the necks of the girls in the store. The boys all look like car mechanics in sandals, light scruffs of hair on their chins. I wonder if some of them are in Ariel's classes in the program at the university. Her workshop is starting next month. [I still haven't decided if I will go. Art School Tools, that's what Linus called a tableful of kids in paint-spattered pants and horn-rimmed glasses. They had full messenger bags and black portfolios duct-taped together. They drank cup after cup of tea and coffee. They left tips of stacked pennies and handrolled cigarettes, sometimes a napkin sketch of one of the waitpeople. I check the prices on sticks and graphite and paper. I have to buy some soap and toilet paper, tampons, and underwear. The soles of my boots are thinning; I can feel the bumps in the pavement on my feet as I walk and it's so hot outside, maybe I should just get some sneakers or something instead, a lighter, cooler shoe. I have to pay Leonard rent, but I'm not sure when I'Il get a check from Julie. And then I think: Where am I going to cash this check? I don't have a bank account. I try to add some figures in my head, but the numbers get complicated and I lose track of them, and myself. Everyone here seems to know exactly what they need, but I leave without a thing.
———————————————————————————Mikey lowers his eyes to his plate of sweet potato fries and vinegary green beans. "Yeah," he says, "I'll be gone about three months. It's summer, so I won't miss out on any school. It's a really big chance for the band. And I'm the manager, right? Manager slash van driver, I should say. I mean, I don't get paid or anything, but maybe this will turn into something. Maybe a record. This is all super positive."
He pushes the plate toward me. "You'll be cool, right?" He looks at me with a look that really says I need you to be cool.
The fries I've stacked look like a tiny orange log cabin. There's a buzzing in the air; some of the hanging lights on the restaurant deck are fritzing, going dim.
I count in my head: three months. June, July, August.
"Tt's a long time." He plucks a fry from the cabin and it falls apart. Salt glints on his lips. "A friend is subletting my place."
I can't stop thinking that when he goes, I will be alone again.
"Are you going to do Ariel's class? That would be really good for you. You might meet some people, too."
I move food around my plate. "She said they'd all be older."
"She was just joking. I helped her last summer. They weren't all old. And I think if she wants to help you, you should let her, you know? It might help her, too."
I put down my fork, suddenly pissed. "Help her? How could I help her? Hello, look at me."
Mikey frowns. "Don't be like that. I just mean..." He takes a breath. "Her son died. A couple of years ago, before I moved into the guest house. Drug overdose. I think...I don't know all the circumstances, really, but she hadn't heard from him for a long time before it happened. She's always talking about you to me. I think her wanting to help you...maybe makes her feel more hopeful? She really was in a bad place for a long time."
I suck in my breath. Ariel's son died. An overdose. Here I thought she had such a perfect, pretty life, filled with art and interesting things, all the time.
Now I know what she meant in the gallery. Why she said, "I know you." Why that cloud passed over her eyes.
The thought fills me with a weird heaviness. Is that why she was so pushy with me about finding a place to live, finding a job, taking her class? To make sure I didn't...become like her son? Disappear, too?
I think of the paintings in her house. So, so dark, with just a little light, but the light is turning away from the dark.
"Her paintings," I say slowly. "Those really dark ones in her house. When I saw those, all I could think of was that only a really sad person could have made them."
He nods. "She hasn't painted since then. She did all of those in a rush, right after he died, then she just stopped. Zilch. Nothing."
He says cautiously, "Bunny's around, too, if you need anything. It wouldn't kill you to get to know her."
The mention of Bunny knifes me. I shred my napkin, gather the stained bits in a mound on the table, blow them away like snow. Mikey smiles. Michael smiles.
"Serious. She's really cool. I mean, you don't have to be such a cold fish, okay?"
My face colors. "Cold fish? What the fuck?"
"You know, Charlie, it's just...well, you know. I mean, you're not the most outgoing person, are you? You were always kind of...remote, right, back in the day? Now you're more or less, I don't know..." Mikey stutters, sighs. "I mean, plenty of people would like you, but you don't even give them a chance. This is your chance, right here, now, to change some things. Make the right friends."
"Make the right friends? What are you even talking about, Michael?" Make the right friends? I feel like our conversation has taken a weird turn. "Charlie." His voice has cooled. "Listen. Bunny says she's seen you walking with Riley West. You know she works at Caruso's, right? Across from Grit? She's seen you two walking to Grit together in the morning."
I twist a fry between my lips with my tongue and waggle it at him. I'm mad, and scared, that he's going, and I want to be mean to him.
"What's going on there, Charlie?" "Why do you care?"
He grabs the French fry from my mouth and pushes it against my plate, an angry little mash of pale potato guts.
"Riley West was tremendously talented. But now he's a tremendous waste. Don't go there. He has a...history. You shouldn't get messed up with him when you should be working on your own recovery. That's what I mean by making the right friends."
"He gave me a job. A fucking job washing dishes." I push the plate away angrily. "He can't fucking get up in the morning, so I go over and get him. Don't worry, Michael, I'm just his alarm clock. I mean, who's going to want to fuck me when I'm all scarred and crap? Not you, right? You wiped your mouth after we kissed."
Mikey's face flushes. "You tasted like beer, that's why I wiped my mouth. I don't drink, and you tasted like beer and I have a girlfriend."
I can't stop it, it all comes tumbling out in a hot rush. "And what kind of conversation should I have with my potential suitor, Michael, when he asks me how I spent the last year? Shall I tell him that I spent it eating rancid food? Or helping my friends rob men in the park? Did you know that, Michael ? You left and I lost Ellis. I was alone and I did what I had to do. And now I look like a freak. And I feel like a freak. I don't think you need to worry about my dating life."
His face is blazing red. "I'm sorry, Charlie. That's not...just keep your shit together, okay? The object is to move forward, not back, right? I don't want you to get hurt. More hurt."
He reaches out and takes my hand. I try to pull it away, but he grips it tight. "There's nothing wrong with you, Charlie. Not one thing. Can't you see that?" But that's a lie, isn't it? Because there are so many things wrong with me, obviously and actually. What I want Mikey to say is: There are so many things wrong with you and it doesn't matter.
I have one hand on the stone in my pocket and the other one trapped in Mikey's grasp. What I want to tell him is: You left once, and look what happened, and now you're leaving again, and I'm scared, because I don't know how to be with people, but I don't know how to be alone, either, and I thought I wasn't going to be alone again here.
And how is it even possible to be more hurt than I've been in the past year? But all I say is "I'll miss you, Mikey. I'll be okay. I promise."
When I get home, I wait until it's dark and then I ride my bicycle over to Ariel's house. I don't lock my bike, just lean it against a pole, since I'm not staying. There are no lights on in her house, though I can see a stream of whitish light from the backyard, where she has some strands hanging. I walk quickly up her steps and put the little brown bag up against the screen door. Inside is the red, glittery cross, and a little note that says I'm sorry.
———————————————————————————The shift is slow. Linus and Tanner, the waitperson with the neck tattoos, are discussing cover songs. Tanner is a stocky guy with short purple hair and a barky laugh.
Strands of damp hair stick to my forehead. Cold fish. That's what Mikey said. Every day when I come here to wash dishes I listen to all of them as they banter and nudge and tease and yell and talk about stupid shit and smoke. I've caught them giving me sidelong glances, curious looks. Ellis always took the lead when we met people at a party or on the street; I was her silent accomplice. You're so fucking still, a boy grunted at me in Dunkin' Donuts once, the morning after a long, confusing party. Ellis had dragged us all there, bought a dozen jelly doughnuts and burning cups of coffee. The boy's face was pimply and pale. What are you—you're like made of fucking stone or something. He and his friend laughed. Sweettasting jelly sat on my tongue like a blob. I reached out and took another doughnut, crushing the gritty dough against his stunned face. His friend just kept laughing as the other boy sputtered and grabbed at his sugary face. Ellis glanced over from the counter where she was flirting with the cashier and sighed. Time to go! she called out to me, and we ran.
I've watched Mikey. I watched people in school. I watched everyone at Creeley. I've been watching the people here, and it seems like for some people, making friends is like finding a shirt or a hat: you just figure out what color you want, see if it fits, and then take it home and hope everyone likes it and you. But it's never been like that for me. I've been on the outside ever since I was little, getting angry in school and picked on. Once all that happened, I was damaged goods. There wasn't going to be any way back in, not until Ellis, and we kept to ourselves. I say the wrong thing, if I can bring myself to say anything at all. I've always felt like an intrusion, a giant blob of wrong. My mother was always telling me to keep quiet, not be a bother. "Nobody's interested, Charlotte," she'd say. Ellis was interested. And she brought me Mikey, and DannyBoy. I take a breath. Cold fish. I'm not a cold fish. I just don't think I matter.
I want to make myself matter. And even if Ellis isn't here with me, maybe she can still help me find a way in.
"Hey," I say, perhaps a little too loudly. My voice is slightly hoarse and I have to clear my throat. "My friend once had this great idea for, like, a country cover of 'You're the One That I Want.' "
Linus and Tanner-with-the-neck-tattoos blink at me. The only person I really talk to is Riley, and even then, not much, and mostly on our walks to work. He's been very careful with me since the vomiting incident.
They look at each other and then back at me. "You mean that song from Grease?" Tanner folds forks and knives into paper napkins, wraps them tight as sausages.
"Yeah." I stammer slightly, twisting the hem of my apron. "J-just think about it for a minute. Add some, like, slow strumming, just the guitar and singer, and then at that point in the chorus where they all sing 'Ooh, ooh, ooh...'" My face flushes, I lose sight of what I was trying to say, why it was even important. You have the shittiest singing voice, Ellis would laugh. No wonder you like all the music where people just scream. I turn on the hot water, run a hand under it quickly to force myself back to the present.
"Oh my God." Linus nods, squints. "Yeah, I see it. I mean, I can hear it."
Nobody laughed at me. I release my breath. That wasn't so bad. It worked.
"You could do some wicked acoustic licks with that." Tanner considers and then sings softly, making the Ooh ooh ooh sound like Owh owh owh, a slow, catlike growl.
Riley shakes his head. "No, no. There is no way to erase the cheese from that song. None." He slurs a bit and Linus frowns.
She says, "Riley, that's your fourth one this morning."
"Fifth, pet. Maybe." He lowers his beer can, out of her sight. "Our secret."
He bumps up next to me, running knives under the hot water, taking longer than is necessary. Linus watches Riley's back like she's willing him to turn around. When he doesn't, she walks off, the screen door clacking behind her as she leaves the café.
Water drips from the wet knives in Riley's hands to the sloppy, dirty floor mats. He stumbles on the mats as he turns back to the grill.
I hesitate when I hear him open a fresh beer. I should go outside and tell Linus this has gone too far, but my feet are rooted to the spot as I listen to him take a large gulp. I mean, what will it matter? She'll send him home, but he'll be back tomorrow. Like Julie said, she'll protect him forever. And what if I do tell Linus? What if I'm the one who gets in trouble and loses my job?
Instead, I help him. When his hands start getting too loose and slices of bread start slipping to the floor, I just pick them up and throw them away, and he starts over. When the orders come faster and he gets overwhelmed, I help him do plates, flip home fries on the grill, dish out scrambled tofu, and toast bagels. Be nice, right? He did give me this job. Not a cold fish.
And that afternoon, I get a brown paper bag filled with a turkey and Swiss sandwich on an onion bagel, with mustard and mayonnaise, and a Slice of stale lemon cake carefully wrapped in foil. There are tiny flakes of ash in the sweet yellow icing, but I just flick them away with a finger before I take a bite.
———————————————————————————It's so hot outside, the sweat is pouring from my face when I get inside the library. I spend some time mopping up in the bathroom. My room was too hot, the building too noisy with people running fans and coolers and playing music too loud.
At the computer, I type in Ariel Levertoff + artist. A bunch of articles come up and some galleries that sell her work. I scroll through, not sure what I'm looking for, until I see one article titled "Death and the Disappearance of Ariel Levertoff." It's a long article, in some fancy art magazine, with tons of huge words and a black-and-white photograph of Ariel and a little boy with dark, dark hair falling in his eyes. They are surrounded by paintings. He holds his hands up, happy. They drip with paint. Ariel is laughing.
Her son died of a combination of pills and alcohol. His body was found in an alley in Brooklyn. Alexander. He'd flunked out of school, he was bipolar, she'd lost touch with him and even hired a detective, but she couldn't trace him. She'd canceled shows, stopped painting.
He disappeared on her. They found him on the street. A little hole starts to burn inside me.
I wonder suddenly about her paintings, the tiny, tiny shafts of light in all the stormy dark. She said in the gallery that sometimes a painting of just color can tell a story, too, just a different one. Is her son the dark or the light in the paintings? Which one is Ariel? I'm struggling to understand, but it's hard, so I click off the article. I miss Ellis so much it's like a huge dark cavern inside my heart. That must be magnified a million times for Ariel when she thinks about her son.
Is my mother at all frantic, wondering about me? Or is it just another day for her, every day, one where I'm gone and not her problem anymore? Was she relieved to hear from the hospital, even if she didn't come right away? Does she ever think about the times she hit me? She would get even madder after she hit me, holding her hand up like it burned, staring down at me. Because I tried to hide, especially when I was small. It's how I first learned to be small, scrabbling away under a table, or finding the corner of a closet.
Was she worried I would tell, in the hospital? I look away from the computer, down at my lap, at my fingers busily pinching my thighs to keep me from floating.
Before I can stop myself, I'm opening up my email and I'm typing in her address, or at least the last one I know she had. I write: I'm okay.
My finger hovers over Send. She would want to know, right? That I'm at least alive out here?
She knows Mikey's number. They talked in Minnesota. But she hasn't called him, or anything, to see how I am.
Sometimes when Fucking Frank was very high, he would tell us, all of us in the house, "Where are Mommy and Daddy now, huh? Are they at the front door, begging you to come home?" Smoke would drift across his face, his eyes burning like coal in the white plumes. "I'm what you have now. I'm your fucking family and don't you forget it."
My mother hasn't called Mikey. Or Casper. Or done anything. Mikey's leaving. Ellis is a ghost. Evan is all the way up in Portland. I delete the email to my mother.
I'm utterly alone.
———————————————————————————Mikey leaves in the middle of the night a week later, the end of June, parking the band van outside my building at two a.m.
He knocks softly on my door, calling my name. When I open the door, he says, "We have to leave early. It's crazy, we're on a weird schedule to make the first show tomorrow." He's jittery, excited. I can feel the nervous energy coming off him.
He puts a piece of paper on top of the card table. It's got his cell phone number, Bunny's and Ariel's numbers, and his tour schedule. "I know you don't have a phone, but maybe you can use Leonard's or the phone at work if you have an emergency, okay? And you can email me from the library."
Mikey bends his head close to me, so that I can almost feel his cheek against mine.
"This is really going to be something, I think," he chatters. "I think we've got a line on doing a record at a studio up in Northern California, too. I mean, that would be fucking awesome, right, C?"
I duck my face, but he catches me in his arms. I count to twenty, very slowly, in my head. He kisses my forehead.
Keep your shit together and stay strong, he whispers in my ear.
———————————————————————————I rub my face with a fresh dish towel, trying to erase the steam and heat of the kitchen. Little drops of sweat fall from my chin into the hot water pooling in the sink. Riley is walking down the corridor from the office, holding a folder of papers. He catches sight of me and frowns. He seems better today. It's almost eleven o'clock and he hasn't cracked a beer yet.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he says. "What did I tell you about the shirts? It's hot back here, sweetheart. I don't need you dying of heatstroke."
"T don't have any." I busy myself by sliding plates into the tray.
"Well, get down to Goodwill and buy some after shift today." He sets the invoice folder on the cutting board. "At least roll up your fucking sleeves, though. Just for me."
I insert the tray in the machine, clang down the door, take up a load of wet silverware from the sink so I don't have to look at him.
Riley's voice becomes firm. "Roll up your sleeves, Strange Girl."
He's very close to me now. I can smell him through the dish steam, a mixture of sweat and spice, coffee and smoke. I stay very still.
Riley looks over at the front counter, where Linus is absorbed in cleaning the pastry case. He loosens my fingers so that the silverware drifts back into the sink water. Slowly, he pushes up one sleeve of my jersey shirt, just a little at first and then all the way to my elbow. He turns my forearm over.
I sense rather than see his chest suck in, and then out, deeply. I concentrate on the dirty food that floats in the sink, soggy chunks of meat and bread, tendrils of scrambled egg, but my heart is stuttering.
Something is happening as he's touching me, though, something confusing: an electricity, a wire being strung through my skin.
He pulls that sleeve down. He checks my other arm. His fingers are warm and gentle. Book page image
"You've been dark places, Strange Girl." He tucks the folder under his arm, slides the cigarette pack from his shirt pocket. He likes to sit and smoke with the men playing Go. "I remember you saying you tried to kill yourself, but that's just goddamn annihilation."
I look right at him. His eyes are dark and tired. He knows something about annihilation, too, which makes me a little less ashamed of my arms, I think.
He fits the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. "But you've got to own your travels. You're a big girl now. There's no going back from that shit, you know? Buy some goddamn short sleeves and fuck the world, you know?"
Halfway to the screen door, he turns back and hands me an envelope. "Almost forgot. Your first check. You're finally officially on payroll, no more swanky cash in pocket for you. Sorry it took Jules so long to process it. Don't spend it all in one place, y'all." The screen door bangs shut behind him.
After the lunch rush, I open the envelope and my heart sinks almost immediately. The amount is smaller than I counted on, because I didn't think of the taxes. I stare at the amount taken and the amount left over, which will just barely cover my rent. And then how will I buy anything I need until the next check? It was almost better when he paid me in cash. Tanner sees me looking at the check and he nods grimly.
"Fucking sucks, doesn't it? I'm up to my ass in loans for school, but I can't get a second job or I wouldn't be able to study." He dips his head in the direction of Linus, ringing somebody up at the front counter. "She works doubles here all the time and still has to sell plasma and shit to send money to her kids. Maybe ask your parents for some help?" He expertly rolls silverware in napkins.
I fold up the paycheck without answering him. Tanner swipes at his nose. "Most everybody here is in school and gets by on loans or money from parents, except for Temple. You haven't met her. She works nights. She's got four jobs. This one, driving an old lady to get groceries, working a booth at a sex shop, and tutoring some kid in Spanish."
"T was lucky enough to find this job," I say softly.
Tanner shrugs. "Gotta do what you gotta do to get by, I guess. Roommates help, even though that can suck, too. At least I make tips." He gathers the napkined silverware in his arms and kicks open the door to the front of the café.
In a minute, he sticks his head back in. "Go check with Linus. She can probably cash that pitiful thing for you. I'm guessing you don't have a bank account? If you try a check cashing place, they'll just take a slice for themselves."
———————————————————————————Book page image
I take a long time biking home, trying to quell the panic building in me about money and rent and buying regular things and what to do. Linus did cash my check. Ill have to pay Leonard tonight. To make myself feel better, I decide to visit a house I like where they've used bedsprings as trellises in a garden. The curvy bodies of green beans lace through the tendrils and coils. Beyond the bedspring trellis, the giant heads of sunflowers droop over cosmos and cactuses. Brightly painted paving stones have been looped throughout the yard, a path between the dazzling flowers, the cactuses, the glinting hubcaps suspended from cottonwoods like oversized chimes. Orange fish bob on the hazy surface of a round pond. The whole outside of the small house has been muraled with swirling clouds of color, thunderbolts, baying coyotes, lazy turtles. Sometimes when I walk by, I see a woman touching up the paint, her thick gray hair gathered at her neck. She works carefully, moving her brushes just so, a cigarette dangling in an ashtray at her feet. Once, she turned and smiled at me, a flash of white in the white-hot day, the mural a bright explosion behind her, but I hurried past her, shy. I like this house, and I like thinking about it, and that strange woman, the tidy wildness of her garden, and I want to know how to get there, to get a tiny spot on the earth, a little house to paint inside and out, a backyard to fill up and shape, how to feel comfortable in the very air around me.
———————————————————————————Book page image
It's a bad day in the kitchen: Riley has asked me something, and that something is floating in the air between us, becoming heavier and heavier by the second.
Riley is staring at me, waiting for me to answer his question.
Riley's fingers are the color of watery coffee. How many cigarettes has it been today? Orders have been sent back: bagels are black on one side, the scrambled tofu is missing chives, home fries are brick-hard. Two plates broken, their jagged white edges kicked beneath a stainless steel prep table.
He says he needs this to get through the shift. He says the house has a black door and a blue pickup out front. The espresso machine is whining, puffs of steam clouding Linus's face. Tanner is cleaning the tables out front. Julie's in her office.
"You have a break." He takes a drag on his cigarette. His eyes are tinged with red. This morning when I came to get him, he was already up, sitting on the couch, smoking, staring at nothing, a peculiar, plasticky smell tacked to his skin. "I'm not allowed to leave during work hours. House rules." He tries to wink, but it looks more like something's caught in his eye.
"Please." A hoarse echo in his throat, just like Evan when he got needy. "Your shift's almost over anyway. I'll pay you."
I remember Ellis, tugging on my arm, her face frantic with need. Please, she begged. Just tell my mom I'm in the bathroom if she calls. I told her I'm staying over. Please, Charlie. I just need to be with him. Help me, Charlie, please?
He reminds me of Evan, too, when he needed a fix, just something, he'd say, to stop the motherfucking abyss threatening to eat my fucking soul, and I would steel myself, and wash up in a bathroom somewhere, enough so my face wasn't too dirty, and stand on a comer a few blocks from Mears Park in St. Paul just after dark, waiting for a man to show up, and to lead him to the park, where Evan and Dump would be waiting.
But Ellis needed that boy, and I needed her. And Evan had helped me, saved me, so I helped him. And now Riley is asking for help. And he said he'd pay me. I need that extra money.
Casper said it would be easy to fall back into old habits, old patterns. But Casper is busy now, a million miles away. The comforting beigeness of Creeley Center is a million miles away. I feel a million miles away.
A familiar numbness comes over me as I take off my apron and lay it over the dish rack. I don't say anything to Riley. I hold out my hand for the money and close my fingers around it. It isn't until I've slid the money into my pocket that I realize I've forgotten my lapis lazuli stone today. My fingers fish about for it for a minute, then give up.
Outside the café, the heat sizzles the dish steam from my skin. Riley didn't notice me hiding the knife in my pocket.
The man who answers the door looks me up and down and then past me, to the street, like he wants to make sure I'm alone. He's chewing on the cap of a pen. His teeth are yellow. The house stinks of canned cat food.
Evan and Dump taught me silence is the best weapon. People will trick you with words. They'll twist what you say. They'! make you think you need things you do not need. They'!l get you talking, which will relax you, and then they will attack.
The man falls back on the couch. I stay close to the door. Cats are everywhere: black-and-white, gray, tabby, milling around and mewling throatily. The coffee table in front of the man is littered with papers and cups, wrinkled magazines. "You Riley's girl?" The pen in his mouth rolls wetly against his teeth.
"Cat got your tongue?" He points to the sea of fur moving on the raggedy carpet and laughs. "Huh, huh." His smile dies when I stay silent.
He asks me what I've got. I put the money on the table. Assess, Evan would say. Always assess before you progress. From the corner of my eye, I see a baseball bat leaning against the wall. I see dirty plates with dirty forks and knives balanced on top of the television. The television is an arm's length away. My pocket is closer.
The man counts the money, reaches back, and raps against the wall six times.
"That's a big-ass scar on your forehead." He tosses the lighter back on the table, leans back into the couch as he exhales. The cigarette bobbles above his knee.
I keep my face blank. Talking is what gets you in trouble. It's the way you get trapped.
A door opens down the hallway. A woman appears, sleepy-eyed, barefoot, her tank top sagging across her stomach. Her hair's messy; long strands of dyed red and yellow hang in her face.
She, too, looks behind me, at the door, disappointed. The man on the couch appraises her. "Wendy, looks like your guitar guy sent a little friend instead. Should we trust her?"
Wendy drops a brown bag on the coffee table. She looks me up and down, a smile playing at her lips. "She looks harmless enough. I'm a friend of Riley's, too," she says to me coolly. "A very good friend."
The man tells her to go, and I watch her swish back down the hall. The ash on his cigarette has grown. Slowly, he pushes the bag across the table with his bare toes, until it plops on the carpet. I pick it up, feeling the knife against my thigh as I bend.
"You want anything for yourself, you know where I am."
I don't answer, just turn and leave. I don't stop or look back until I'm pushing through the screen door of True Grit.
Riley pulls me into the grill station, holds out his hands. He tucks the bag under his shirt. He whispers for me to cover the grill for him.
On his way to the bathroom, he motions to the refrigerator. When I open it, I see my thank-you: another bulky bag of food. I take it like a robot, no feeling, no expression, and wedge it all the way into the bottom of my backpack. Riley comes back more alert, licking his lips. He gives me a wink and goes right back to flipping potatoes on the grill.
I don't know what to think of what I just did or why. I've blanked myself out, erased myself. I spend the rest of the shift in a haze.
In my room, I push my green chair against the door. I put the bag of food on the table. I slide the knife from my pocket. I don't know how I forgot I had it.
And then just like that, all the numbness I had drops away and my heart starts beating like a crazy caged bird. Doing that for Riley, it felt good. It was wrong, but I did it, and it made me feel like I sometimes felt with Evan and Dump and what we would do: like, yes, it was bad, yes, it was wrong, but there was also an element of danger that was appealing. Like: how far could you take something before it snapped? Would you recognize the moment that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong?
But I also realize that I'm getting really far down the ladder of Casper's rules and all of a sudden I'm flooded with despair. I get up and pace around the room. I try the breathing exercises, but I just gasp, I can't slow down. I'm too keyed up. Mikey said move forward and I went backward big-time and oh, fuck, here comes the tornado.
My tender kit is still wedged far back under the claw-foot tub, hidden inside Louisa's suitcase. I don't want that, I don't. I run the blade of the knife lightly across my forearm, testing. My skin prickles and longing fills me up; my eyes grow wet.
I'm so close to feeling better, feeling release, right here, with this stubby little blade. But I turn my arms over, force myself to look at the rough red lines ridging my soft skin.
Anything but that.
I let the knife clatter into the sink. Now I'm kind of coming down. Now I don't feel very good at all. Too close today, with Riley and that man. Too close to what I used to do, and part of me wanted to see what it would feel like again, but I also wanted to make Riley's eyes stop blinking, wanted him to stop shaking, wanted to be a good egg, a keeper, just like with Louisa. Just like I'd do for Ellis. And that one time, that one time when I didn't help her, when she needed help the very most she'd ever needed it, I did not help her and I lost her.
The room is closing in on me. I yank open the door. I could go downstairs, have one of the men on the porch take my money to the liquor store. I'm just about to leave when the door across the hall opens and a small, dirty-faced woman comes out. I don't know her name, she's only been here a few days, but we've passed in the hall, with her pressing herself against the wall if I get too close. She talks to herself a lot in her room at night, a lot of muttering.
"Hey," I say, before I chicken out. "You got anything to drink in there? Pll pay you." I pull out a five-dollar bill from my pocket.
Her little eyes are like raisins. She's wearing a stained tank top. Faded tattoos stretch across her chest. Names, mostly, but I can't make them out. She looks down at the money. My hand is shaking. When she reaches out to snatch the bill, I see her hand is shaking, too. She goes back into her room and slams the door.
When she comes out, she shoves a cheap bottle of wine, a screw-top, at me and then takes off down the hall. Her flip-flops thwack down the sixteen steps to the first floor.
I don't even wait to eat something. I unscrew the cap and take long pulls until I start to gag a little, then I pour the rest down the sink before I drink any more. It hits me quickly, the dizziness, the warmth followed by the little feeling of elation in my stomach. It's enough to tamp down my anxiety. I feel bad, but I made a choice. Cutting or drinking, and I chose drinking.
In the bag Riley gave me, I find a small burrito wrapped in foil. It's stuffed with chicken, shredded cheese, chilies, and sour cream. A tiny mountain of crisp hash browns borders the burrito. They're still warm, lovely and greasy on my tongue. I finish everything, even the wet bits that fall on my lap. I pull the white napkin out of the bag to wipe my face and a twenty-dollar bill falls out. I can only guess that it's an extra thank-you from Riley.
I pick up the book I checked out of the library earlier in the week. Drawing is a state of being, I read. An interaction between eye, hand, model, memory, and perception. The representational method... I sigh, closing the book and pushing it to the edge of the table. I think of the woman with the muraled house, her garden like a castle. Soon, Lacey in 3C will begin to cry in her room, like she does every night, a snuffling, hiccupping sound. Schoolteacher downstairs will watch reruns of The Price Ts Right all night, the bells and whistles and audience chatter trickling up through the floorboards. The men on my floor will stagger down the hall to the shared bathroom, groan and piss.
I draw like a demon, but this time on the wall next to my bed, filling up all the emptiness that surrounds me, some kind of mural of my own to wrap me up and keep me safe, until the wine pushes me into sleep.
———————————————————————————The next time, the man on the couch isn't so talkative. This time, the redand-yellow-haired woman lingers a little longer as I gather the sack and stuff it into my pocket and as I leave, she says, "You tell Riley Wendy says hey. You tell Riley, Wendy sure does miss him." That makes me wince. Were they together once? I try not to think about that.
At the café, I hand him the bag, watch as he rushes to the bathroom. Tanner is paging through a book of glossy, odd-looking photographs. He lifts it up for me to see. "Eye out of orbit,' he says. "I'm gonna be an EMT."
The photograph shows the profile of a stunned-looking man, his eyeball sprung from the socket, connected by a cartoonish zigzag of artery. It's gross and I make a face. "Shit happens," Tanner murmurs. "The human body is a wonderful thing in all its fucked-upness."
Linus walks through the double doors, wiping her hands on her apron. She gags at the photo and Tanner laughs. I look up, catch her smiling at me, but I look back down at the white plates, the squares of wheat bread and hot cheese that I'm flipping while Riley's in the bathroom.
Linus says, "It's okay to talk to us, you know. We don't bite."
Tanner says, "Sometimes I do," and they laugh, but not at me, I can tell, so I kind of laugh, too. I'm getting better at being around them, talking a little more.
Riley returns. I can tell he's deliberately avoiding looking at Linus because he gets busy right away with prep work.
His skin gives off the cold scent of water. The color's returned to his cheeks, his eyes are liquid light. Whistling, he slips the spatula from my fingers and quick, quick, he flips the hills of hash browns, preps a plate, oils a dry spot on the grill. He's quiet until Linus and Tanner have walked to the front to check the coffee urns. When they do, he leans down, his breath warm on my cheek, and whispers, "You're a real good girl."
———————————————————————————The rain happens very early, while I'm riding my bicycle to Riley's to wake him up for work. It was humid all night and I slept with the fan right against my body, but it didn't do any good. I rinsed off in cold water in the tub, but my clothes stuck to me the instant I got outside.
About halfway to his house, it's as though someone drew a dark curtain across the sky and suddenly, the fattest rain I've ever seen or felt starts pouring down. It's like a thousand faucets have gone off in the sky at once. The street fills up instantly and cars driving by skitter and splash even more water all over me. I almost crash when someone hits a puddle and the water slashes across my face. The rain is warm and powerful.
I'm soaking when I get to his house. I run up on the porch, kick off my boots. I call out through the door, but there's no answer. I don't want to get his floor wet, but then I think, What's he going to care, anyway? So I run through his house straight to the bathroom. The only towels are on the floor. I start mopping myself off, shaking water from my hair.
Riley appears in the doorway, his hair tousled. He's shirtless, which makes me blush. "Well, look what the cat dragged in. This your first monsoon?"
"What?" Now I'm shivering, my overalls heavy with water and my shirt sticking to my body.
"It's practically the best thing about Tucson. Monsoons. Absolutely epic rainstorms. They can shut down parts of the city in minutes, flood the roads. Let me go take a look."
He comes back, whistling. "That's a pretty bad one. We can't head out in this. We'll have to wait it out. You better take off those wet clothes."
I look at him. "Excuse me?" His eyes are gleaming.
"You're a real wet cat, Charlie. You can't stay in those clothes. I don't have a washer and a dryer. I do that stuff at Julie's apartment. You'll just have to be naked." He laughs.
I wrap the towel around myself.
"T'm just joking. Hold on."
My teeth are chattering. I can hear the rain beating against the roof, the sides of the house.
Riley comes back with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. "Here," he says, handing them to me. "Left over from a houseguest."
Houseguest. When? Who? I look down at the clothes. Riley closes the door. I peel off my wet clothes and hang them carefully on the shower curtain. It feels weird to be in different clothes. The jeans are a little big around the waist. I have to roll them down at the top and then roll up the legs. He didn't bring me any socks, so I have to walk barefoot.
I feel bare in the short-sleeved T-shirt. And cold. I grab another towel and wrap it around myself.
The front door is open. Riley is sitting on the porch cross-legged, smoking. I sit next to him.
"T love this weather," he murmurs. "I love rain."
I look out at the blustery sheets of water. Everything seems to have a gray-brown, shimmery gauze over it. "I don't," I say. "I don't like it at all. I don't like snow that much, either."
"You and Mother Nature don't get along, huh?"
I think of the times Evan and Dump and I got stuck out in the rain, when we couldn't find a place to go. How when you're standing in the rain, pressed together, getting wetter and wetter, knowing that the wetness will grow a fungus in your dirty, wet socks, that you'll probably get sick for days, it feels like you' ll never be dry again.
"T lived outside for a while," I say, surprising myself. "Before I came here. It isn't fun when it rains and you have nowhere to go to get dry."
I can feel Riley's eyes on me. He's quiet for a while and then he says, "T'm sorry to hear that, Charlie. That's no good. That's no good at all."
"Tt wasn't." I can feel a ball rising in my throat. I pinch my thigh so I don't start crying. I feel kind of good for telling someone, for telling him. Out of everyone I've met so far here, I feel like he'd understand fucking up and being lost.
He puts out his cigarette in the ashtray and reaches over, touching my hand. "You're still cold." He rubs my skin with his fingers and then stands up, holding out his hand.
"Let's get you back inside. That blanket on the couch? It's the best, trust me. You go wrap up in that and I'1] make some tea."
He smiles. "Okay?"
I look at his hand for a moment before I take it. "Okay."
———————————————————————————At first, I think the knocking must be happening to someone else's door, like Manny down the hall, whose mother, Karen, often staggers in at strange hours, bearing cans of Coors Light and Lost DVDs, which they proceed to watch back to back while drinking beer and eating microwaved popcorn. Karen has a loud, insistent knock, because Manny is usually on the verge of passing out by the time she gets off her shift at Village Inn and arrives by cab in front of the building. She's the most common last customer at the liquor store next door, showing up just as they're locking the door and tugging down the grate. Through my window I can hear her wheedle and whine and offer them extra money, money she's spent all night earning, pulling moist bills from malt cups and from under the leftovers of grilled cheese. I know this part because sometimes Karen cries about it to Manny, that she has to work such a late shift, that she has to deal with mean college kids and drunk clubbers. Manny comforts his mother, heating up a cup of coffee in the microwave to get himself ready to drink again. Manny and his mother are possibly the loudest people in the building.
I frown, looking up from my sketchbook. Only Mikey and Leonard, once, to unplug the sink, have come to my room. I've been sitting in just a T-shirt and underwear because the room is so hot, even with the fan I bought at the Goodwill. I pull on my overalls.
My heart quickens when I open the door and see it's Riley, leaning against the doorframe, the darkness of the hallway spreading out behind him. He's swinging a plastic bag in one hand.
"That's so cute," he says, "the way your face gets all pink around me."
"What are you doing here?" I don't even try to hide the pissed in my voice, though I'm not sure if I'm pissed at him for noticing and saying something rude or pissed at myself for getting all blushy around him.
"I see you wear short sleeves at home," he continues, like I've said nothing. "You going to invite me in?" He's been quiet at work the past few days, strangely calm. I sniff the air around him, to stall. "Are you drunk?" "T brought you a present." He dangles the bag from a finger.
My mouth's gone dry. His eyes are shining and he looks happy. I think, Everything will be easier if you don't come into the room. Because now I'm sinking into his happy eyes, and remembering how kind he was the other day when it rained, and how nice it felt to talk to him on the porch, the warmth of his hand in mine.
But gently, he eases past me, tossing the plastic bag on the rumpled easy chair.
"You always hang out in the dark, Strange Girl?" He tries the lamp, but it just says click, click.
"T ran out of lightbulbs and my job doesn't pay me enough to buy more," I say grumpily. "The streetlight, and the light from the store over there, that works."
He flops on the futon, kicking off his boots, and links his hands behind his head.
"Open your presents." He points to the easy chair, his eyes glinting. "Right there." Instead, I throw the bag at him. He laughs, rummaging inside. He holds up a faded green T-shirt with M*a*s*H on the front. "I know how you kids like the irony, and all." He lays the shirt on the bed and puts the bag aside.
"Anyway, I was drinking at the Tap Room and I dropped my keys on the way home, I think. I'm locked out of my house. Can't break a window, they're fucking expensive." He pauses. "I looked everywhere on the damn street, but it's just so fucking dark out. Can't see so well in the dark."
He shifts onto his side. I kneel down, spread out the T-shirt. "It's too small," I lie.
"Bullshit," he says. "You love it and it'll fit perfectly. I've had a lot of time to ponder your size, staring at your back four days a week for weeks on end."
He pauses. "We aren't so different, you know. I got you something else." There are other shirts in the bag and beneath them, I feel the flat edges of a card. In the half-light, I hold the postcard close to my face. A redheaded woman with patches of pink clouding her cheeks. Her face is half hidden in shadow, one enormous dark eye looking directly at me. Wife of the Artist, 1634.
"T saw you looking at all those books in the library. A while ago. I found this card in a junk shop way up on Twenty-Second. Thought you two had the same eyes. Kind of stormy. Sad."
There is a stream of streetlight crossing his cheek. He saw me at the library? My stomach tightens. "What...what were you doing at the library? Why didn't you say hi?"
"T read, you know. And there you were, looking at some big old art books, like nothing else mattered. You looked happy."
He places a finger on my leg, making little circles on the denim. Circle, circle, traveling up, up, until his finger reaches the shoulder of my overalls. I stop breathing.
I bite the inside of my cheek, glad for the grayish dark, the streetlight that allows just enough for me to see him.
Louisa said no one would love us in a normal way, but I'm still a person, and I'm aching to be touched.
"You must have a million stories inside you," he says softly.
He sits up. Fine lines spackle the corners of his eyes. I can smell the remnants of hard alcohol—bourbon?—something sharp and deep coating his breath. The electrical wire is coursing through my legs, through my stomach.
He says, "I'm a walking cliché," and unhooks the shoulders of my overalls, the straps falling with a soft clank. He takes up my arms, turns them over and over, his fingers running up and down the rivers and gulleys of my skin. I'm sinking, and I'm not trying to stay afloat, because I do, I do want to go all the way under.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says, grazing my neck with his lips. "We get each other, don't we?"
He pushes me back on the futon, pulling my overalls off easily, moving his hands down my thighs, exposing the ladderlike lines there. He rubs his thumbs across them like he's testing guitar strings, easily and without apprehension.
This is happening, and I'm letting it. It's one more thing that's falling away, one more thing on Casper's list, and soon, everything about Casper will disappear. I cover my face with my hands and listen to my breath ricochet against my palms.
And then he moves his hands higher, lighting on my stomach outside my T-shirt for a brief second, then slipping under so suddenly my breath sharpens. His thumbs brush my chest.
I pull his face down with force, greedy for the feel of his mouth on mine. I don't mind the taste of his mouth, the smell and lingering heat from cigarettes in his hair, on his skin. I see blue and tangerine on the insides of my eyelids. His hands knead my waist, travel down my legs, the insides of my thighs. I barely feel his weight, he feels light, he fits somehow with the makeup of my bones. I let my hands wander over his pants, a few fingers tucking experimentally between the waistband and his skin. But he pushes my hand away, nuzzles his face against my neck, slides his fingers down my boxers, between my legs, and inside me.
I say No, no, and Riley pulls back, saying, You want me to stop, and I say No, no, taking big gulping breaths, because I don't want him to stop but I do, and everything gets all tangled up inside me then. When I try to unbutton his pants, he stops me, No, just this, let me do this, and I understand then that he's way drunk, too drunk, but the insides of my eyelids are on fire, bursting into black and red, and I can't stop what's happening to me. He laughs softly into my neck as I shudder. Far down the hall, we both hear Kate shout, "Jack! Jack!"
In the morning, I wake to him tracing the faces of the people in my sketchbook. He doesn't say anything about them, though, just smiles at me, a smile that shoots through my blood and makes me ache. He rolls on top of me, says, "I was drunk last night, but I'm not now," and I'm shy at first because we are in the full light, no more dark, all of me is open and exposed, but that falls away in time. We rise and dress without speaking. My body feels a blur, still, my brain is fuzzy from confusion. Like a couple, we buy coffee at a bustling, tidy, fern-filled café on Congress Street, so unlike True Grit with its grubby walls and fingerprint-laced pastry case. Like a boyfriend, he buys me a chocolate coffee concoction with whipped cream and sprinkles.
I have never had a boyfriend. I had those boys in garages, but that wasn't anything. I'm almost eighteen, and a boy has never bought me anything chocolaty until now.
We trace the sidewalks from his house to Hotel Congress, where the Tap Room Bar is, looking for his keys. The hotel lobby is a gleaming, sunlit place with leathery couches and a Western, punkish feel. An enormous painting of a beautiful, creamy blonde in denim shorts, flicking a whip, adorns a whole wall. He shows me the main room of Club Congress off the lobby, the small, squat black stage with loamy red curtains, the long, oldfashioned bar at the back of the room. He stares at the stage for a minute and murmurs, "We opened for John Doe here once," but I don't know who that is. He seems in his own world and I have to remind him that we have to be at work soon.
Off the club is the door to the Tap Room and through the window I see a plain, empty bar with high stools, a jukebox, homey cowboy art high on the old-timey papered walls, and simple, worn red booths.
We find his keys glinting in the early-morning sun, in the simplest of places: at the base of a stop sign. He has a keychain that says ICELAND.
"The band, we stopped there, once, on a layover. It was the prettiest place I've seen," he says. "You ever travel?"
Iceland. He's been to Iceland. I wonder what Ellis would say to him about that. Paris, London, Iceland, wherever.
"Here," I answer. "I've traveled here."
That makes him smile.
On the way to work, he smokes and offers me drags, which I take without even thinking. We separate, as usual, a block away, me heading in first, smiling cautiously at Linus. I empty the urns from last night and give them a quick rinse in the washer, returning them to the front counter. The screen door bangs, followed by Riley's easy "Hello" as he shuffles to the telephone and listens to messages from last night, writing things down for Julie. He fires up the grill, dumps a vat of home fries on it, squirts butter and oil over them, and messes them around with the spatula. He makes himself an espresso, brings me a cup of coffee, asks Linus something about a loom.
I tie an apron around myself, listening to the bell clang as the first customers straggle through the door. Steam seeps out of the dish machine, but I'm not as hot as I usually am, not nearly, because I'm dressed in the faded green short-sleeved T-shirt with M*A*S*H on the front.
When I turn with a stack of saucers, Riley is sipping his espresso, looking at me. A current shoots through me again at the sight of him, electrical and sharp. Flashes of last night, his mouth and hands; I can still feel his breath on my neck.
I catch the saucers before they escape my fingers. He grins.
I sense, throughout the day, sneaked looks at my arms, whispered talk among the waitstaff, but I am also aware of Riley watching over it all, issuing silent, stern looks, raising his eyebrows. He makes a point of conversing with me, making light jokes, including me in his conversations with the staff. It is as though he is spreading a veil of protectiveness over me, and I am greedy for it.
———————————————————————————In my dark room I wait for him, cleaned off, skin still hot from the bath, but he doesn't come. I listen to the men drinking on the porch, to the far-off, hazy sound of a band finishing a set at Club Congress down the street, but there's no knock at my door. I wait until it feels like my insides will explode, until I feel like a mass of fire, heat trickling from my pores, and then I get dressed, get on my lemon-yellow bicycle and ride to his house.
When he opens the door and sees me, he tucks the crook of his elbow in his hand, the smoke from his cigarette lifting dreamily into the air. "Where have you been?" he asks. Throaty voice, amused eyes. Then he takes my hand, leads me inside.
———————————————————————————Of course it starts again. It stopped for a little bit and I thought, now that we are together, I won't have to do this anymore, because he wouldn't ask me now, would he? All of it is wrong. I see it. I understand it. I've seen movies. I know boys should come to your house in a car, and take you to dinner, and buy you flowers, or some shit like that, and not make you wait, wait, wait, in your dingy apartment until your body can't stand it anymore, and you get on your bicycle and ride to his house, instead, so grateful that he even opens the door and smiles. "I lost track of time." "Hey, you, I was just thinking about you." But he does ask. "Would you, could you, think you could go on a little run for candy for me? Then we can watch TV, or you know." He calls me "my nighttime visitor." He's like the desert itself: it's so beautiful, it's so warm, but there are sharp edges everywhere that you have to watch out for. You just have to know where they are. SO: I know this is all wrong. But maybe, me being me, this is as good as it's going to get. It's too late, anyway, you see: I've already fallen in.
———————————————————————————I lean back on my bike seat, listening, the bag from Wendy in my hand. Every night I've stopped at the same cross street, the same stop sign with the dented pole, and listened to the sound of Riley's guitar drifting down the street. I know that later, when he opens the door for me, I'll find the fourdeck on the floor with a loose-leaf notebook open, Riley's messy, scrawled notes all over the pages, an ashtray mounded with crushed butts. On some nights, it's just the tender, warm sound of the Gibson Hummingbird hanging in the close air; Riley doesn't sing all the time. Once, at the library, I looked up Long Home on the computer. Tiger Dean still maintained the band's website. I clicked on songs like "Stitcher" and "Charity Case," Riley's big solo number. It was Tiger's voice that was initially captivating, a powerful blend of personality and tone, but it was the lyrics that kept everything together, that kept me listening closer, instinctively seeking out certain phrases and words. There was one other song that Riley sang solo, a ballad called "Cannon," about a man so heartbroken his heart tears from his chest and rolls away and he follows it (And my heart burst from me / like a cannon / And it rolled to the bottom of the canyon / And here I will stay / Emptied in these empty days / Until you come back / And marry me, baby), and I think it worked precisely because he wasn't a natural singer. It made the song all the more sad that his voice broke in some parts, wavered in others, and disappeared altogether at the end.
On Riley's street, people sit on porches, beer or wine in hand, listening to him, too, their faces open to the sound of him. When he gets it right, when there aren't any mistakes, when he can sail through a song completely from start to finish, it's thrilling, it pierces right through me. The faces of his neighbors light up. When he's done, they mime applause, because nobody wants him to know they're listening, nobody wants him to stop playing. Everyone is careful around him, like he's an egg they have to cradle. But he does stop playing when he hears me clatter up onto the porch. He settles the Gibson on the couch, rustles his papers, takes a long drink of his beer, lights a new cigarette, takes the bag from me, and disappears into the bathroom.
When we're in his house, together, with all the signs of Riley-ness, his well-thumbed old books in the sturdy bookshelf, his records alphabetized on shelves all around the room, the comfortable, elegant, and crumpled velvet couch, the carelessly full ashtrays, I think it's somewhere I could stay: inside a life already lived and firmly in place.
———————————————————————————At first, they laugh a little too much, nervous, and I have to wait until they calm down, let them drink a bit more, before I start.
The sunlight is fading, but I have enough light on the porch to draw them. It's Hector, who lives in 1D, and Manny and his mother, Karen. I think they're used to people staring at them, not looking at them. She shifts in the rusty metal chair, playing with her fingernails. Manny is on the steps, leaning back against the railing. "Yeah," he finally says. "You can do it, right, Ma?"
On the porch, I study the folds and lines in their faces and work quickly, smudging, blowing away the gray dust of charcoal. "Your big romance," Karen says to me. "I need to know."
I just say, "Mmmm. Not much to tell."
Karen shakes her head, says, "The mens can be so difficult." Manny is edgy, his dark brown eyes steady on my face. He squirts beer through his gritted teeth and tells me that his job consists mainly of other people not showing up for their jobs.
Each day he and Hector and some others from the building wait on a sweltering street corner downtown with dozens of men as trucks crawl by looking for day laborers to water the gardens of those who live high in the hills on the North side, clip their hedges, help gouge the dirt for new pools, for elaborately tiled Jacuzzis. "This one place," Hector says, slurring, leaning forward, out of the pose he held so well just a moment ago. "The pool tile was like his woman's face, you know? Like her picture, under the water. She's going to have to swim on her own face." He spits on the porch, glancing at Karen, who frowns.
Manny says, "We make this fucking city run and they want to run us out. Build some stupid wall." When I'm done, they hold my pad reverently in their hands. They're pleased they can finally see themselves, just like Evan was when he saw himself in my comic. Their happiness fills me up.
———————————————————————————At the café, I'm wiping down tables when a man at the counter snaps his fingers at me. "A little help, please?" He taps the counter insistently.
Everyone is gone, so I make him his cappuccino, pouring the silky froth carefully over the espresso into a to-go cup. I usually don't do this, but I've watched Linus enough, and it feels kind of thrilling to try it out. The man hands me his money and I ring him up, which is a first for me here, too. I did work that little bit at my mom's friend's deli, so I remember the basics of the cash register. The bell on the door tinkles as he leaves.
"What are you doing, Charlie?" Julie has appeared, her face furrowed.
I look down at the still-open cash drawer, the slots of bills and change. "Nothing. That guy, he bought a coffee." I point, but the man's already left. The café is empty.
Julie reaches around me and bangs the drawer shut, narrowly missing my fingers. I flinch, surprised at her anger. "Where is everybody? You're not supposed to run counter."
Riley appears, shoving his cup under the urn, a big smile on his face. "What's up, Jules?"
Julie's voice is strained and high. "Riley. Am I paying you to drink coffee and get drunk on shift? No. You can do that shit when you punch out. I'm sick of all of you taking advantage of me. I need you to supervise. She's not supposed to be on the register. We've been low on end counts for days."
Panicked, I blurt, "I didn't take any money. I wouldn't take money." I don't like that I can feel my face heat up as I say it. It makes me look guilty, but I wouldn't do that to Riley. Or to Julie. "I'm sorry. No one was around, I thought it would be okay."
"Nobody's saying you took money, Charlie. That's not what she's saying, right, Jules?" Riley sips his coffee calmly, watching his sister's face carefully. He doesn't look over at me.
Julie shakes her head. "Why do you do that? Why do you always undermine—"
She stops suddenly, a troubled look crossing her face. She steps closer to me, looking down. "What is that? What did you...I didn't know it was so ba — Jesus, you can't be out here like that."
She waves her hands over the scars on my bare arms, staring at my skin. I step back, instinctively sliding my arms around my back. I bump up against the pastry case.
"Charlie, we've got people here trying to heal. The Sisters, Charlie." Julie's voice sounds desperate. I haven't ever seen her like this; it can't just be about me and my arms. Can it?
The Sisters come in every Tuesday and Thursday and push the tables together, open their journals and free-write. They cry softly, rubbing each other's backs. They drink fruity teas and wear loose, hand-sewn clothes. Their hair is plain and flat and they eat too many carob brownies and lemon poppy seed muffins. Linus says they used to belong to a cult on the border of Arizona and New Mexico.
"Jesus, Jules, are you listening to yourself?" Riley says, his voice suddenly hard. He shoves the bus tub at me and tells me to go finish up. I don't move. I'm frozen against the pastry case.
Julie whirls back around to me. "I don't want you wearing short sleeves, okay, Charlie? I know it's hot in here, we'll get that cooler fixed, but seeing that's a trigger, you know? I have to keep the customers we've got, do you understand?" Her voice breaks. "There's not a goddamn customer in the whole fucking place, Riley. Where is our lunch rush?" She buries her head in her hands.
I step around them, Riley patting her shoulder, and go back to the dishwasher. I hear them whispering, but I can't make out the words. When Riley comes back, he won't meet my eyes. "I told her nobody's going to look at anything but your pretty face, but she's in a weird spot right now, okay, so maybe, tomorrow, just do the long sleeves. Just for a little while, okay?" My heart drops with disappointment. I thought maybe he would stick up for me a little more. I look up at him. He averts his eyes. I get a queasy feeling in my stomach.
"Riley," I whisper. "What money is missing? What's she talking about, Riley?"
He winces, his fingers trembling as he positions an onion on the cutting board. "Just don't worry about it, okay?"
"T didn't take any money. I don't want her thinking I took any money."
"Everything's going to be cool, all right? I'll take care of it." He turns to the grill and starts scraping grease into long, caramel-colored hills.
He sold you out, baby. Evan's voice, wheedling, in my ears. But I push it away, because I don't want to believe it.
———————————————————————————In the moming, someone shouts Riley's name and I roll over, looking at him, his face slack and pale. I touch his shoulder lightly, listening to the sound of footsteps coming around the side of the house and then the knuckles that tap the half-opened window. Riley startles, his eyes flying open. I notice the grayish pallor of his face, the pink cast to his eyes. He was facedown in the bathroom when I came in last night. At first I was scared, and then I realized he was just passed out. It took me a while to drag him down the hall to the bedroom, and even longer to hoist him onto the bed.
He presses a finger to his lips, pulls the sheet over me. The mattress squeals as he crawls across the bed to the window, pushing it open. "Oh, hey. It's you." His voice is flat, wary.
The voice that answers is amused. "Well, well. Up to the old tricks, I guess. Who's beneath the sheet?"
Riley answers, "None of your business."
"Come on, let me see. I liked that last one you threw away. Liked her so much I married her, too." Muffled laughter.
My heart jumps. Riley was married? My breath catches in my throat.
"What do you want?" Riley coughs. He's angry; I can hear it. Sunlight filters through the faded sheet. It's getting hard to breathe with it draped over me. I'm starting to wonder if Riley's embarrassed by me, if he doesn't want his friend to see me.
"Luis Alvarez has pancreatic cancer."
Riley's body stiffens. "Are you fucking with me?" He sucks in his breath. "He let me borrow his car a few weeks ago. He just said he wasn't feeling well that day. That he wasn't going to work."
"Nope, no joke." The speaker's words come out a little softer. "It's too late, man. There's just too much of it. Book page image
"But listen, I'm putting together a concert at Congress for his wife and kids. They're gonna need some money. Thought about the Rialto, but I think Congress is better. Won't happen until sometime in the fall, though. All day, all ages, booze with ID, maybe a couple of outdoor stages, too. Probably have to get some local distributors to pony up, but most everyone knows Luis, so it shouldn't be too hard."
"Fuck, that sucks." Riley is silent for a moment. "He's a really good guy."
"Yeah." Pause. "Just give me a little peek, huh?" The sheet wiggles slightly.
"Fuck off. What do you want, anyway?"
"Word of mouth is you're giving nightly concerts for the neighborhood and that the musicianship's not half bad. So I got to thinking: Riley West back in the game? That might sell some tickets. Especially for the inevitable onstage implosion."
"Fuck you."
"Now, now. This is for Luis. He helped us out a lot, back in the day." The other voice is quiet, almost pleading. "You can do this, Riley. I know you can do this."
"Tiger." Riley sighs. "I haven't played out in almost two years."
I make myself as still as possible, careful not to miss a word.
"This is for Luis. He's fucking sick, man. Tons of other people have already lined up. I've got the Hold-Outs, Slow Thump, Cat Foley, California Widows, Hitler's Niece, Swing Train, Eight-Men-On, and I'll get more, I promise."
There is a silence. Finally, Riley says yes.
"Good man. Now, have you recorded any of the new shit yet? I've absolutely got to hear what Riley West has been up to."
Riley slides off the bed. I hear him cross the room and pull on a pair of jeans and mumble that he' II be right back.
Slowly, the sheet starts to peel away. Tiger Dean still has black hair, just like on the album covers, but it's no longer whirled elaborately over his forehead. It's short, well combed, and thinning. When I was looking up Riley, and Long Home, on the computer at the library, I found Tiger Dean's website. It said Tiger Dean still makes music with local bands, performs for private parties, and is also available for your graphic design needs. There was a photograph of him behind a desk, one hand on the computer keyboard, the other holding the neck of a cherry-red Stratocaster.
"Hello there." A smile flickers on Tiger Dean's face. I don't trust it. It reminds me of those too-cool guys in high school who always sauntered down the hall nonchalantly slapping the heads of geeks as they passed by. Tiger Dean angles himself a little farther into the window. He's wearing a red corduroy blazer.
I sit up and kick the sheet down my body. I'm dressed in a dirty jersey shirt, still grimy from my shift yesterday, and an old pair of Riley's striped pajama bottoms, rolled way over at the waist. My mouth tastes like cigarette butts. After I lugged Riley into the bed last night, I went back to the bathroom and smoked one of his cigarettes, ashing it in the sink. I finished the fresh beer that he must have just opened before he passed out, too. He'd set it carefully on the side of the tub.
"What are you doing with this little punk girl?" Tiger calls to Riley, leaning in against the window frame. "What are you wasting your time for?"
Last night I sat on the toilet, drinking and smoking, thinking about how I'd just had to drag my boyfriend, who may or may not consider me his girlfriend, into bed, and how I did runs for his drugs, and how I did those things for nothing—for his hand on my cheek when he was sober. And then I finished the beer and went back into the bedroom and walked right up to the side of the bed, testing the floorboards for the creak I'd noticed, and then brought my heel down smack on the floor. A piece of the board popped up, and there it was: Riley's kit, a small square cherrywood box that contained everything he needed. Everything he needed instead of me.
But I'm not going to let Tiger Dean know that.
I look hard at Tiger Dean and slowly, slowly, raise my middle finger.
Surprised, he frowns. "For God's sake." His eyes move to the scars on my arms; I don't try to hide them. "Two peas in a pod," he murmurs. "Playing little fuckery games." Riley comes through the doorway with a beer, which makes me wince. If he starts this early, it will be a long, uneven day. He tosses the CD through the window to Tiger Dean, who catches it smoothly and tucks it inside his blazer. Riley climbs back onto the bed, nestling the bottle between his knees. He looks from Tiger to me.
"Couldn't resist, huh?"
Tiger casually touches the sunglasses on top of his head; they fall easily over his eyes. "You always had such interesting taste. I just wanted to make sure your work had remained consistent."
"Adios."
"This one seems a little young, though. Little uncouth for my taste."
"Vete a la chingada."
"Oof." Tiger raises his chin to me. "I bet if you knew his real name, you'd be out of here in a goddamn minute. It's—"
Riley starts to close the window on Tiger's fingers. Tiger laughs.
"T'll be in touch. And Riley," he says through the glass, lifting up his sunglasses. "Please, try to delay the inevitable Riley West breakdown until the actual concert. That's what's going to get people in the seats, like the old days."
Riley closes the window. Before he even settles back in the bed, I blurt, "Married?" I wonder if he's going to lie to me. "You were married ?"
He gazes at me steadily, not blinking. "Yep."
"Like, till death do us part and all that? Ring-on-finger church thing?"
"Happens all the time. Guy finds a girl, they kiss, he buys a ring, they get married by Elvis in Las Vegas on a tour stop. And then, boom. Shit happens, girl leaves guy for lead singer in guy's band. The end." He takes a long pull on his beer.
"What kind of shit happened?"
Riley traces the neck of his beer with a finger. His nails are dirty. "Me. I'm the shit. All my shit."
"Do you...ever see her?" My heart's thudding. I feel kind of sick. "What was her name?" I don't even know why I want to know, but I do. It's like the puzzle I had assembled for Riley has been kicked apart, and new pieces have been dropped into my hands.
A grin spreads across his face. "Are you jealous, Strange Girl? Because you don't need to be. No, I never see her. They live in a nice house up in the foothills. Got a baby and everything."
"What was her name?"
"Charlie."
"Tell me."
"Her name was Marisa."
Marisa. My mind whirs. Ma-ri-sa. A pretty girl's name. Delicate features, I bet. I can see that. I can see Riley falling for someone whose whole body sang delicate.
I shut my eyes so he can't see the pricks of tears.
"Aw, no, don't start that." He nudges me with his elbow playfully. "I had a life, Charlie, before I knew you. I'm older than you, girl. I've done all sorts of shit. Even fallen in love and got married. No need to worry about that now."
I push his elbow away, hiccup. "Like change your name?"
He laughs. "Yep. Didn't you know that, though? We all had the same last name for the band: West. Tiger thought it would be cooler that way. He uses his real last name now."
"What about the Riley part?"
"Oh, I've had that forever. Since I was little. I was always fucking shit up in one way or another. My dad used to say, 'Who do you think you are, living the life of Riley or something?' Stupid. But it stuck."
"Well," I say slowly. "What's your real name, then?"
"My real name is Riley West because that's who I am now." He closes his eyes and yawns. "No more questions, okay? Test's over. Put down your pencil and leave your blue book on the table, please."
Frustrated, I say, "I can ask Julie." It's one more puzzle piece.
He finishes his beer, puts the bottle on the floor by the bed. He wraps his arms around me, burying his face under my shirt. "She won't tell. She'll never tell." He licks my belly button. "The thing I like about you, Strange Girl, is you don't ask for much. You don't ask for more than you need. You know what a tremendous relief that is, that you just let me be?"
And then he distracts me so much, I forget all about asking Julie his real name, or more about his ex-wife, or even about the box under the floorboards, or about how little I need.
———————————————————————————August gets more and more brutal. Every day is over a hundred degrees, sometimes hitting one hundred and nine, the heat wrapping me like a fiery blanket. It's insufferable in my room at night and so I've been staying with Riley as much as I can, hoping every night that he'll be home, because he has a swamp cooler. On the nights he isn't there, I drift in and out of a hot Sleep, the floor fan pressed right up against my futon.
Riley and I have come to work early this morning. We're sharing quesadillas with over-easy eggs and red chile when the phone rings.
Riley comes back around the corner and pulls me down the dark, greasyfloored hallway to Julie's office. "Linus is sick; she's not coming in," he says, shutting the door behind him. He kisses me deeply, running his hands under my shirt.
"Riley..." I feel uncomfortable.
"Shhh. Tanner won't be here until seven-thirty and Julie's in Scottsdale at a retreat. She won't be back until this afternoon." He settles on the couch and reaches up for my overall straps. Our lips sting from chile.
I don't want to do this here, it feels wrong to do this in Julie's office, but he's insistent, and it's over quickly. I rub the cushion of the couch with my hand before we leave the office, to smooth out any wrinkles.
As Riley opens the door, tucking his T-shirt back into his brown pants with his other hand, he stops short; my face mashes into his back.
Tanner is standing awkwardly in the hallway. He has a very weird look on his face, like he doesn't know what to think, and in that moment, I know he heard us, and my face blazes up with embarrassment.
Tanner squints as though he's been doused in water. He whispers, "I'm so sorry for what's about to happen." He steps to the side.
Behind him, standing by the dishwasher, is Julie. Book page image
"The last session of my retreat was canceled. I got home last night." Her voice is cold.
The air around us is heavy and tense. "Sorry, Jules," Riley says calmly, sidling by her as if nothing is wrong. I walk slowly to the dish station, squeezing past her, so scared and embarrassed that I feel sick. I can barely hear myself think, my heart is pounding so much.
Julie looks at Riley, now safely behind the cutting island. She looks at the plate of half-eaten red chile quesadillas, the two forks. She looks over at me and down the hallway to the open office.
"Wash your hands, the both of you, this instant. I can't deal with this right now. Our fucking breakfast rush, if we have one, is about to happen. Where's Linus!" she yells.
"Sick," Tanner says..
"Jesus fucking Christ." Julie stomps to the front counter without saying anything else.
Riley soaps his hands next to me at the sink. He arches his head to check the front of the coffeehouse before kissing me quickly on the cheek. He shrugs, which makes me think everything might be okay.
There is a breakfast rush and a lunch rush. After, when the café clears out, I help Tanner bus the tables while Julie counts the register. She worked counter all morning while Tanner waited tables, walking back stiffly with her orders and slamming them down for Riley without a word. She wouldn't look at me, which made my heart sink.
When Tanner and I come back into the kitchen with our full bus tubs, Julie's shouting from behind the closed door of the office.
"Oh, shit, this is going to be good." Tanner cracks the refrigerator and takes a can of Riley's PBR. "I mean, not for you."
"Shut up," I hiss at him, my face draining as Julie's voice gets louder and louder. "Tt's not funny."
At intervals, we hear: "Why do you always make the worst decisions?" "How the fuck long has this been going on?" "Did you not even think about what she said in this office? Is she even eighteen, Riley? Do you have any idea what that means? It means statutory rape." The ugliness of that slaps itself over my skin. I start pinching my thighs through my pockets.
Tanner looks over at me. "Are you eighteen?" He has an amused grin.
"Yes," I hiss. "Soon. Eleven days." I'm so embarrassed, I think I'm going to throw up. My stomach is roiling.
"Do you think you can just fuck in my office?" Julie screams, "And you left a fucking condom in my fucking wastebasket!"
My face drains. Oh my God. I don't know why I didn't wonder what he did with it at the time. Tanner laughs out loud, a barky sound that pierces my heart, which is the last straw for me.
I pull off my apron and shove it onto the dish tray, turning on the machine. The sudden sound of water drowns out the fuzz in my ears. I grab my backpack and leave.
I walk bleary-eyed through the Goodwill, looking for nothing but not wanting to be outside or at home just yet. I finger odd stacks of electronics that I know nothing about: bold blue plastic boxes of wires and cords and sprockets and springs. I paw through the endless racks of scarred and chewed LPs. I try to keep my eyes open and my breath even. I pinch my forearms. Even if I leave bruises, Riley won't say anything about them, I'm sure of that. Finally, I go back to my room to wait for him.
I forgot to lock the door. When he knocks, I don't answer, and he pushes in anyway, crossing the room to the refrigerator. He opens it, though I don't think he's really looking for anything to eat.
He closes the door and leans against it, looking down at me on the floor. "You really only ever eat at Grit, don't you?"
He's clutching a paper bag and he holds it up to his lips, drinks from it. I watch him and remember the alley behind the Food Conspiracy Co-op those few months ago. He stood the same way, shoulders slumped, paper bag in hand. I'm between the tub and the wall, where I've been burrowed for the past several hours, waiting. It's true; I only buy food if I have to. Every morning, I'm hopeful that sometime during the day, Riley will make the wrong order and offer it to me: a bagel with hummus instead of cream cheese, an omelet with black olives instead of green peppers. Or I take what he gives me after a run. We never go out to eat. Sometimes I wait until he's asleep and select things carefully from his haphazardly stocked kitchen: an orange, a tortilla slathered in butter, a glass of dubious-smelling milk.
When he's not too far gone, we do incredible things in the dark, on his rumpled bed, but I am afraid to ask him for food and except for the one time on his porch, I've never really talked about living outside and what it means. And he's never asked, which now makes me even sadder than I was before. I'm always asking him things about himself, as much as he'|I allow, but he never asks me about me.
I will my voice not to break. "Are we fired now?"
Riley caps his bottle. "Me? She'll never fire me. Though I was a little scared there, after she yelled about the condom. I think she's mad about a lot of things, not just us screwing in her office."
Groaning, he settles on the floor next to me, stretching his legs out on the scarred linoleum. "She's royally pissed, Charlie. What you didn't hear, because you took off, is that she knew about us awhile ago. Being the tender lovebirds we are, we walk to and from work together, which she can see from her window above the restaurant, but she decided not to say anything right away. Her apartment is up there. I don't know if you knew that or not. She ignored it. But our relations today, in her office, kind of threw her for a loop."
"And?"
"And...she's switching you to nights. Actually, what she said was 'I won't hand her to you on a platter.'" He looks amused. "She said, 'She's not a cookie, or a book, or a record on a shelf. You can't just play with her and then put her back.' "
You can't just play with her and put her back. "That was really embarrassing," I say sharply. "Having her find us like that. I didn't even want to do it. You made me." He gives me a sharp look. His voice gets tight. "I didn't make you do anything, girl. I think you got something out of it."
No, I want to tell him, I didn't. But I don't, because wasn't it partly my fault it happened anyway? I didn't want to do it, but I let him anyway.
He lolls his head to the side. Something catches his eye and he leans forward. "Why do you have a suitcase wedged under the tub, Strange Girl?"
Before I can stop him, he slides over and pulls it out. He fixes his glisteny eyes on me, the side of his mouth rising in a smile.
He lowers his voice in a spooky way. "Is this it? Does the magic suitcase hold the secret to my little stranger?"
He flips the clasps and paws through the shirts until he finds the metal kit. Only, he thinks it's just something neat, because he says, "Cool." But then he unlatches it. His eyes dart over the objects inside, the creams, the tape, the bandages, everything I bought that first day I got here, at the convenience store. My heart's in my throat, watching him.
It's a little mean, a little payback for today, for never asking me about myself. Because it's going to make him scared, and a little sick, being faced with the puzzle pieces of me for a change.
Riley picks up the roll of linen hesitantly and lets it unfurl; pieces of broken glass tumble onto the floor, making their familiar chimelike sound.
He huffs twice, queer sounds, like someone's knocked him in the chest. "What the fuck is this?"
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, "It's me. It's what I do. What I did, I mean. I'm trying not to do that anymore." I hold my breath, waiting.
It's like he didn't hear me. Angry, he holds out the box, his voice rising. "What is this shit?"
He holds up the pieces of glass one by one, the small plastic container of hydrogen peroxide, the tube of ointment, the roll of gauze.
"Tt's what I use. To cut myself. Those are my things."
Riley drops them all back in the box as though they've bummed his fingers. He kicks the kit violently across the floor and stands up, yanking the hood of his jacket over his head tightly. I close my eyes. The front door slams. I crawl across the floor and take my kit in my hands, holding it close to my body. I carefully reassemble everything, slotting everything in its place, because it's all precious to me. In my fingers, the glass tinkles, pricks, tiny promises that I have to steel myself to ignore. The linen rests against my palm. I put the kit in the suitcase, push the suitcase under the tub.
The door to my apartment bangs open and shut. He walks straight to the sink, cracking the window above it, and lights a cigarette. "Tell me," he demands. "Like, what is that all about? Why do you have that box? What does it mean?"
"Where the fuck did you think my scars came from?" My voice breaks. "Do you think they just...appeared by themselves?"
He mumbles. "I don't know...I just...I kind of kept it abstract." He exhales smoke out the window. "I figured you were all done with that. It didn't occur to me you kept, like, a fucking box of shit to cut yourself if you fucking felt like it."
"You have a box of shit." It tumbles out of me like water. Riley's mouth drops open. He didn't know I knew. He didn't think I would look, I bet, or even guess.
"Are you the only one in the world who gets to be a fuckup? Am I spoiled for you now that you've seen my stuff ? Did it make me real? Not a cookie or a cake or a record anymore?" My body is revving up in a dangerous way, my breath coming in gasps.
"Don't." His voice is a warning. "Don't even go there. That's not... valid."
"T'm the only one here who's trying not to do the bad thing, who's trying to get better, and you're treating me like shit for it." My palms are flat on the cold, sticky linoleum. I can smell the unwashed floor, the dirt in the cracks by the wall, the whole shitty mess of the building, and Riley, Riley, too: his burnished alcohol stink, the cloud of old cigarette smoke that sticks to his clothes.
I ferried his drugs. I fucked him in his sister's office. I let him see all of me, every bit, and now I'm sitting here on the grungy floor, a dog at his feet. Like a dog I wait for him at night. Like a dog, now, stupidly, I only want him to pet me, love me, not leave, and that makes me suddenly, blazingly angry and sad all at once, which feels like fire inside me.
I pound and claw at his legs. He jumps in surprise, his bottle falling, smashing inside the sink. He catches my arms, swearing when I struggle, and for a minute, a flicker of something dark crosses his face, his lip curls; the tension increases in his wrists. His fingers tighten like metal on my skin. He's shouting now, like my mother, What is wrong with you? And then one of his hands is in the air, fingers together, palm flat.
My mother and her raised fist flashes in front of my eyes. I shrink away from Riley, shutting myself off, bracing myself.
There is the person people see on the outside and then there is the person on the inside and then, even farther down, is that other, buried person, a naked and silent creature, not used to light. I have it and now, here, I see it: Riley's hidden person.
There's a crackling in my head. My wrists ache.
"Stop making that noise," he says roughly.
I look up; he's dunking a cigarette under the tap. The hot paper sizzles and then silences.
"You were going to hit me." My voice sounds flat, far away.
"Jesus, this is fucked. You're still such a fucking kid. I'm fucking twentyseven years old. What am I doing? I don't know what the fuck I'm doing." His face is papery with exhaustion as he walks to the door.
When the door closes, I turn off all the lights and curl up in the bathtub in a very tight ball. I imagine myself inside an egg, a metal egg, impenetrable, locked on the outside, anything to keep myself from crawling to my kit, from crawling outside to my bicycle, to wait at the stop sign down his street, to say I'm sorry, but for what, for what, for what.
———————————————————————————The next afternoon, before my first night shift, he's waiting inside the employee entrance of the coffeehouse, folded into a green plastic chair, reading the Tucson Weekly. He stands up, blocking me from walking any farther.
"You okay? We okay?" The last two words he whispers in my ear and I turn my head from his husky breath. "Come on now," he says as if talking to a petulant child.
"You almost hit me," I hiss, sidestepping him. From the doorway, I can see the mounds of dishes stacked in the sinks.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Please, I'm sorry. I would never do that, I promise, I promise, Charlie. Things got a little out of control. I mean, come on. Did you think I'd jump for joy when I saw your little box?" He shoves the newspaper into the pocket of his jacket.
He takes my hand, but I yank it away. The Go players look up at us curiously, coffee cups in midair.
"Please, Charlie, I'm sorry." His voice gets softer, worming its way through me. I feel myself giving in. He wasn't expecting to find my kit. Anyone would be upset, I guess. To see something like that. But—
Linus pokes her head out the screen door. "Charlie, Julie's waiting for you in her office, kiddo."
I drop Riley's hand, relieved, and step away from the dangerous warmth of his body. My heart flip-flops the entire time as I walk down the hallway to the office.
Julie looks up at me from her swivel chair, sighing heavily. "This is hard, okay? I don't want you to think I'm going to like any of this one bit, okay, Charlie?"
She rubs her temples. "Don't think I don't like you, because I do. I just know my brother better than you, you know? Can you understand? I'm not going to..." She stops talking and looks away as if she's thinking.
"Hand me to him on a platter?" I finish, looking directly at her. I feel bare today, as though something has been shed from my body. I spent all night in the tub, not sleeping, thinking about the dark that spread across Riley's face, the fight that appeared there just behind his eyes. I looked at my charcoals and papers in the morning and ignored them, going to the library instead. I checked my messages (No Casper; Mikey's in Seattle; Blue says the doctors are rethinking her release); I stole twenty dollars from a woman's purse in the bathroom. The bill was tucked awkwardly in a front pocket. I was washing my hands, wondering about the stupidity of leaving a purse on the shelf above the sink with money hanging out. I didn't really have to think much about it all. Stealing it was a delicious thrill.
Julie turns her mouth down. Her face becomes a little lost. "Riley gets things and he hasn't done the work to get them. He's an addict. He's a liar. He's charming. He's not charming."
She looks right at me. "In the big picture, he's not old, but he's had a life and you've had none."
I kind of choke-laugh. "No offense, but you don't know anything about me. Like, at all. You have no idea what I've been through and seen."
"Oh, Charlie." Julie puts her chin in her hands and gazes at me for so long, I become uncomfortable. Her sad tone grates at me. I feel for the lapis stone in my pocket, fret a finger over it.
"Never in a million years will a relationship between an alcoholic junkie and a scared young girl work out."
Before I can say anything, she stands up, briskly ponytailing her hair. "We had a terribly violent father, growing up. My brother got the brunt of it. To my dying day, I will protect him, no matter how much money he steals from me and how much he siphons off my soul. But I won't be responsible for collateral damage, do you understand? That, I can control.
"Don't ever have sex in my office with my brother, or anyone, ever again. And if you two happen to overlap with schedules and you are here while he is here, I don't want to see anything, anything, that even hints at affection between the two of you. Because I will fire you." We stare at each other. I look away first, because, of course, she has me. I need this job, and I need her brother. I nod at the floor.
"Now, go find Temple," she says.
Temple Dancer is a tall girl wrapped in a batik skirt with bells dangling from the waist-tie, a Metallica T-shirt, and dyed blond dreads bundled into a bun on each side of her head. She crosses her arms. "Really? A girl dish? At night?"
"Do you have a problem with that?" I'm angry, Julie's words still stinging my ears.
Temple Dancer's face loosens and she laughs, a deep sound, like owls
fluttering from her throat. "Just testing. It's awesome. I'm totally sick of dudes."
Julie appears, changed into drapey pants and a tank top to go to her yoga class. "Girls, play nice. Linus!"
Linus emerges from behind the grill, Riley's grill, her face sweaty. "Welcome to nights, Charlie. And I know, I know, I work too much, it's true, even nights. I never leave!"
"Let's try to keep it together tonight, okay, girls? Kibosh on the drinking?" Julie pleads.
"No problem, J." Linus spins a dish towel with her forefinger.
As soon as Julie's gone, two waitgirls burst through the doors to the front, planting themselves right in front of me. Temple Dancer joins them. I've never been in the coffeehouse at night, so I've never met them.
"You're the one that fucked Riley in Julie's office? Oh my God."
"Jesus! You totally fucked Riley in Julie's office. How was it?"
"T thought he was fucking that Darla girl from Swoon? Does she know? Because she will die. She's such a pussy."
"T thought you were with Mike Gustafson. Did you guys break up? You were a totally cute couple. I saw you guys eating fries at Gentle Ben's once." The comment about Mikey cuts me a little. The comments about Riley horrify me. Darla from Swoon? Did that really happen?
Linus waves the dish towel in the air. "Enough. Officially over, no more questions asked or answered. Temple, do your bit: train Charlie."
One of the other girls says, "I'm Frances. Nights are hell here." She tucks her orange bob behind her ears. "But in a good way," she finishes before taking off to the café floor with her green order pad.
Temple says ominously, "The best and worst thing about nights is when we have live music. It can sucketh or it can giveth. Tonight, our pleasure is..." She fishes a sheet of paper from under the counter.
"Modern Wolf. Tonight will sucketh." She jams a finger into her mouth, gagging.
The other girl says, "I'm Randy." She does a little two-step shimmy. She's dressed in a black miniskirt and white T-shirt with a spray-painted red target. Her saddle shoes scuffle against the hardwood floor.
Randy rolls her eyes. Her blond, feathered hair swings against her cheeks. "Modern Wolf sucks ass. This means we'll get mostly bangers and some art types thinking this is prog rock, which it is not. It'll be loud and awful and hell getting rid of them at closing."
Temple is spearing receipts on a spindle. "Sucks for you, since you have to clean both shitters and the main floor at the end of the night."
Randy nods. "And we'll all be waiting for you, and stuff, to finish because Julie says we all have to leave at the same time? But we can't help you."
"Because nobody helps the dish." Temple makes a sad-clown face.
"So we' ll be getting angrier, while we wait for you," Randy says.
"And angrier," Temple concurs. She frowns. "Jesus, you're going to burn up in that shirt."
Randy cocks her head at me. "We know about you. Julie told us. I have a T-shirt with short sleeves in my bag, if you want it."
Desperately, because their machine-gun conversation has made my head spin, I say, "Do you guys ever shut up?" Behind the grill, Linus laughs.
Temple grins. "Never." "It's cool with me, you know," Randy tells me, leaning in closer, so that I can see the shine of the piercing in her nose. "Julie hardly ever comes in at night, anyway. My cousin, she was a cutter. She's in law school now. Stuff happens, you just keep on truckin', am I right?"
Move forward. Keep on truckin'. I'm getting tired of everyone thinking it's so easy to live. Because it's not. At all.
Randy gives me a friendly little nudge with her elbow and I try to smile, just to be nice, Don't be a cold fish, but I'm starting to feel sick, and heavy inside. I look out the front window at the dark sky. Working at night is going to be a lot different.
Around eight-thirty, Modern Wolf come in drunk and take a long, noisy time setting up; one of them falls off the riser and passes out. Temple empties a pitcher of water over his head. The band has a core of friends who fling themselves into the battered wooden chairs and smoke inside even though they shouldn't and drink enormous amounts of beer they smuggled in stuffed in paper bags. They stomp booted feet on the floor so hard that Linus shakes her head at me and says, "You stupid, stupid children. Why do you think that's music?"
The band reminds me of the ragged kids Mikey and DannyBoy used to take me to see in St. Paul: skinny, loose-jeaned kids, girls and boys, with bad skin and crunchy hair who whaled on instruments in the moldy basements of houses, popping strings and bashing on drums. It was exciting to me, that you could throw yourself into something so much simply because you loved it and it consumed you. It didn't seem to matter if you were good or not. It only mattered that you did it.
Modern Wolf sings, My heart is a political nightmare / Guantanamo Bay every day / You've searched and seized and strung me up / I'm left with nothing to say /I ain't got nothing to say!
A girl in a mesh top and hot pants lurches through the doors to the kitchen area, takes a look at Linus and me, spews fries and beer from her mouth, the dregs caking instantly to her chin, and whispers, "My bad," before Randy shoves her out. I sop up the chunks, holding my breath. They were right, nights are way worse than days. No one ever vomits during the day, except for that time with Riley. I'm exhausted and my head hurts from all the noisy music and there are still two hours until closing, and longer after that to clean. My heart sinks farther and farther.
At closing, Temple brings out a large bottle of Maker's Mark and pours cups for everyone except Linus, who grimaces. Temple raises her cup and shouts, "Salud!" I just leave mine by the dishwasher. Even though I've had some drinks at Riley's, mostly when he's sleeping, and that half bottle of wine, I haven't had anything else.
Someone has menstruated in an ugly way on the women's toilet seat and that takes me some time. The men's room is all graffitied walls, piss on the floor, paper towels stuck to the tiled backdrop above the sink. I drop stream after stream of cleanser in the toilet, but it remains a defiantly burnished yellow. My hands burn from the chemicals when I'm done.
While the other girls bustle and laugh behind the counter and in back, I tackle the tables: wiping them down and heaving the chairs on top of them so I can mop. It's a lot more work at night. My face is red from the effort and I'm breaking out in sweat. Modern Wolf is still straggling out, the last of them bleary and unsure of the direction of the doorway. It's Friday; Fourth Avenue will be packed with people going to hear music along the street, to Plush, O'Malley's, the Hut with its enormous, glowering tiki head, all the way down to Hotel Congress with its pretty, old-fashioned awnings. Mikey's probably calling Bunny every night. Maybe buying things for her in truck stops, stupid stuff, like pencils with fuzzy tops.
I wonder what Riley's doing, because we'd be together now, on a good night, maybe listening to records in his living room, something quiet like that that I like. I wonder if he's thinking about me at all.
It's while I'm mopping the sloping hardwood floor, listening to the other girls laughing and drinking and smoking, that I suddenly get really lonely. They're a gaggle of girls, together and happy, normal girls doing normal things. They're all going to go out after, find friends and boys, maybe go to the bars. And I'm mopping shit up and smelling like old food.
The bell tinkles on the front door and happy girl-squawks erupt from the counter: Hi, Riley, hey, Riley, taking us out for drinks, Riley? My heart sinks and soars at the same time when he answers, So sorry, ladies, I've just come to collect my girl, and then there's an awkward, small silence before Temple says, Oh, right, because she, and they, all of them, I know, were really thinking, But we thought you just fucked her.
He said My girl.
My heart leaps, but I don't want him, or them, to see it. I can feel everyone watching me from behind the counter, so I ignore them, pushing through the double doors to the kitchen area. I dump the grimy, slick water in the sink, run my apron through the washer. There are two tiny white cups of untouched Maker's Mark on the counter by the washer. They're called demitasses and they're for single espressos. Linus has been teaching me the names of cups for coffee drinks. I love them because they're perfect and compact and unblemished.
When I finally turn around, the girls are there, giving me little halfsmirks, Riley standing among them, already several drinks down. He wobbles slightly on his feet.
We aren't going to listen to records. He might have said My girl, but will he remember that in the morning? I look down at the demitasses. What does it matter if I drink now, too? Would he even notice?
A tiny, tiny part of me whispers: Is there even room for me in what we are? A cookie, a book, a record on a shelf.
"T'm almost ready," I say, and tur back to the sink. A wave of resignation washes over me. I down the Maker's Mark and rinse the cups. My throat and stomach burn, but the warmth that spreads through my veins obliterates that. I wipe my mouth and turn around to face them.
"Are you ready?" I ask Riley. "I'm ready to go."
Outside, I have to push through a gauntlet of bodies to get to my yellow bike. I'm fumbling with the lock when someone shouts, "Hey, Riley, man, is that your girlfrien'?" Slurry laughter creeps from the Modern Wolf crowd. In that moment, looking at the sea of drunken, black-shirted boys with greasy, dark hair and boots with dangerous soles, I know that Mikey has heard, or will hear soon, about what I've been doing. And I don't think I care anymore. I feel heavy and numb.
A rumble of ooohhhs seeps from the crowd and Riley takes the bicycle from me, puts my backpack over his shoulders, settles on the seat. "Don't be mad," he says quietly in my ear. "I came to take you home. I swear I would never hurt you, Charlie, never. You have to let me show you that."
He angles me on his lap so that I'm facing forward, my hands gripping his thighs, my feet up on the bike's bar.
He tells me to hold on or we'|! both die, and we ride to his house.
———————————————————————————I think that slopes are meant to be slippery. I don't know why. I don't even know who invented the stupid notion of them. I don't even know why it matters. Who cares? Who cares about a scarred girl who can't seem to be by herself? Who cares about a scarred girl who mops floors and ferries drugs for her boyfriend? The scarred girl should care. But she doesn't know how and once you let the Maker's Mark in, once you let anything like that in, like kissing, or sex, alcohol, drugs, anything that fills up time and makes you feel better, even if it's just for a little while, well, you're going to be a goner. And sometimes, once, maybe twice, she starts to say that she's thinking of taking a class with this lady artist, and she stops, because a little mouse taps her brain and heart and whispers, But then you wont get to spend so much time with Riley, and the words, they turn to stone again, fat in her throat, and she can feel little bits of herself disappearing in the large thing of Riley and me and and and...
The slippery slope, it will never, ever end.
———————————————————————————It's so sly, the way it happens. Like a thread through a needle: silent and easy, and then just that little knot at the end to stop things up.
Temple is scrolling through her phone, sitting on the stool behind the counter, as I stack coffee mugs and plastic water cups on trays. The band never showed up tonight, and she let Frances and Randy go early, because the place was dead. Linus is in the back, reading a book.
Temple says, "Didn't you date Mike Gustafson? Or something? I know I Saw you guys at Gentle Ben's a couple times."
"No," I tell her. "He's just my friend. Why?"
She shakes her head and makes a disappointed, clucking sound. "All the good ones get snapped up, don't they?" She angles her phone. "Check it out. That hot little weasel went and got married in Seattle!"
It feels like moving through mud, making my way to her, bending to look at the image on the phone. Facebook, someone's page I don't know, maybe a band member, and there it is, there he is, there she is, and they're both smiling insanely, their faces shining. He's wearing a button-down shirt and a red tie with jeans and sneakers. Bunny is wearing a plain and pretty strapless flowered dress, with a crown of tiny, delicate roses in her hair. The roses match Mikey's tie.
All the blood in my body turns cold in an instant. I don't know what sound I'm making until Temple starts shouting to Linus, "I think Charlie's gonna hurl, Linus! Come help!"
I'm heaving, but nothing is coming out. I hold my head over the trash can, make an excuse: "I think I ate something bad for lunch. I have to go, can I go," and Linus says she'|l give me a ride, it's almost closing anyway, but I stumble up and away from her, grab my backpack, leave the coffeehouse in a blur. I forget my bike. I walk so hard my shins start to burn and then I start to limp. I break into a run at the underpass and don't stop until I'm at his door, pounding.
I'm ashamed that I still feel like I have to ask to go into his house.
He opens the door, pulls me in. I'm sick, I tell him, tears coursing down my cheeks. I'm just sick, so sick. And then, as though someone pulled a plug in me, everything drains out of me at once, and I fall on the floor.
I can hear Riley swearing and little Oh, Jesuses, and Oh, honeys, as he unties my boots, strips off my socks. He picks me up carefully, sliding his hands under me. I'm dizzy. He's a blur.
Riley takes me to his bed. After a time, his sheets grow damp with my sweat and he peels off my overalls, touches the back of his hand to my forehead. He sets water by the bed, a small bin with a plastic bag inside. I throw up three times and he empties the bag each time. He asks me, Did you take something? I tell him no and roll toward the wall. I lost something, I lost some things, I tell him. I keep losing things. I'm tired.
Riley says, I'm sorry to hear that, baby. But he doesn't ask any more questions. He tells me he'll cover my shifts at True Grit. He draws on his cigarette and his eyes are the slick dark of stones underwater. For three days, he works in the morning and he covers my dish shifts at night. He heats bowls of broth. He sets a cool cloth on my forehead. As he sleeps behind me, his breath is a billowy sail against my neck. On the fourth day, I stagger from the bed when there's a knock at the front door. It's Wendy from the drug house, her red-and-yellow hair mashed under the hoodie of her jacket, scratching at her cheek. She says, I need Riley, where's he at? He around? Her skin is like the surface of the moon. When I don't answer, she smiles. Haven't seen him in a while, is all. We get worried.
You don't look so good, kid, she says. Tell him Wendy came by.
All day Wendy appears in my dreams, long-legged and smudge-faced, smoky-voiced and grinning. When Riley comes home late, late, he's not so far gone that I can't press against him in the dark, work at him with my fingers, make him noisy, make him do things to me that he doesn't know hurt me, all to erase Mikey and Bunny, Wendy at the door, erase the gray turning back to black inside my body. We are such a terrible mess now.
———————————————————————————I get up and out of Riley's bed four days after seeing Mikey on Facebook. I walk like a zombie to my own apartment, change my clothes, and walk to the library.
No message from Casper, nothing from Blue. There are eleven emails from Mikey. I delete all of them, unread. Door, shut. World, over.
———————————————————————————Every so often, when I take coffee mugs to the shelf behind the front counter, I sneak looks outside the window at Riley. He's been off shift for a few hours, but he hasn't left yet. He's installed himself at a table by the front window, a thick paperback in his hands. Steam rises from the cup of coffee wedged on the windowsill next to him. He banters with the Go players at the next table. He compliments an old hippie woman on her knit hat as she passes by. We don't speak to each other at the coffeehouse; we follow Julie's rule. So here he is, sitting out front until the open mic starts, when he's allowed to come in and set up the stage for the performers and emcee the show.
This is my first open mic at the coffeehouse. When Riley comes in, he's greeted warmly by everyone at the tables and he walks around like he owns the place, which I guess he sort of does. From behind the counter, I watch him check amps and adjust the mic, things he's done a million times in his life. He looks at home on the ramshackle stage and there's a moment, when he presses his mouth to the microphone and murmurs Check, check, check, that my heart starts to stutter at the way his husky voice travels the room. He soft-sings a few lines of Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue" and everyone in the audience gets very, very quiet. But then he stops and stoops down to the amp to adjust the levels.
Riley introduces the first act, a hip-hop poet who prowls the lopsided stage, waving his arms and slouching his hips. "He's like a fuckin' cheetah on acid," Temple says dryly. He scratches his belly and chest incessantly and drops bitches so much that one woman trying to drink her latte and read her paper shouts, "Oh, please stop him already!"
He's followed by a waifish girl with a pixie cut who reads horrible poems about hunger and war in a childish, thin voice. An older woman with hair to her knees and thick ankles peeking from her tie-dyed skirt lugs her bongos onstage; she's actually pretty good. She plays intensely, her grayish hair fanning behind her. The pounding of the drums is so hypnotic, even Linus comes out to the front counter to listen.
Riley sits on a chair just off the stage. He jumps in front of the mic and asks the crowd to give a hearty welcome to a nervous high school trumpet player whose forehead gleams under the bright ceiling lights. Riley dims them, casting the coffeehouse in an amberish light. The trumpet player's hands shake; he plays something sultry that makes me think he and the bongo player should join up. At the break, I collect empty cups and glasses. The tub is almost full when I notice Riley helping a young woman in Docs and a sleeveless black tee adjust the mic. Her black skirt looks like it was cut with scissors; the hem hangs unevenly. Her hair is black and spiky and her face is lit with contempt. She looks like she's my age. Her dark eyes take stock of the room. I haul the tub to the dish area and then go stand by the counter again. Riley's leaning down, whispering something in the girl's ear. She laughs and kind of curls her head away from him. My heart stops. What was that?
Temple and Randy catch the look on my face. "Uh-oh," says Randy smoothly. "Somebody's got a jealous streak."
"Don't worry about it, Charlie," Temple tells me, patting my shoulder. She's got henna tattoos on both hands today, swirling designs that wind around her knuckles. The minuscule bells hanging from her ears tinkle as she shakes her head. "There's nothing there. She's been playing here since she was, like, eleven."
Linus comes out from the back, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her face lights up when she sees the stage. "Oh, man! Awesome. Have you heard Regan yet? She's gonna blow you away. Riley loves her."
Temple keeps patting my shoulder. Riley's never said anything about this girl.
"Ladies and germs," he murmurs into the mic. "Please welcome back True Grit's favorite troubadour, our own sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Regan Connor."
Applause fills the café. There's an eerie wind-down as the room gradually silences and grows attuned to her presence. When the café has stilled, she attacks the golden acoustic guitar with single-minded purpose, her fingers flying. She stands as though she's staring a bulldozer down, her legs planted hard on the stage, one knee bent. Her voice is reedy, scratchy, and divine; she can control it enough to suddenly shift to a whisper or a growly bark.
You can't break me down, she sings. You can't cut me clear.
On the sloppy stage in the dim light she looks exuberantly defiant, and her words have rough, girlish hope. The crowd is rapt. Some people have their eyes closed. I look back at her, flooded with envy. She's my age and so confident. She doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks. Her voice is threatening and silky, floating over everyone in the café.
Regan is transporting the room; I watch them, one by one, fall for her.
You can't break my heart, she cries, breathy and furious. You can't own my soul. What I have I made, what I have is mine. What I have I made, what I have is mine.
When she's through, the audience roars; even the hip-hop poet shouts, "Dang, dog!" Riley uses two fingers to whistle; his eyes are wild with light. I look from Riley to the girl and then back again, anxiousness pinging inside me.
I'm always losing things.
———————————————————————————The boxy warehouse sits snugly against the far lip of downtown, beyond the shiny buildings that rise and dominate the skyline. Pickup trucks and bicycles clog the wide gravel lot. A hand-painted sign by the double front doors lists artists' studios and three galleries. I look at the ad in the Tucson Weekly one more time.
Linus went with me to buy the portfolio, a large, handsome envelope of leather. I used the last of my Ellis money. Linus whistled as I brought out the bills, but I didn't tell her where the money came from.
I didn't tell Riley I was coming here, either. Seeing him happy about that girl at the open mic, the way he talked about her on our walk home and how beautiful her voice was, and thinking of the way I never went to Ariel's class because I didn't want to spend any time away from him, made something wake up inside me, a spiteful, angry thing.
Watching that girl, her confidence. I wanted that. J wanted that.
I take a deep breath and enter the building.
The hallway's dusty and cluttered. Some studio doors are open. In one, a small man is swiping yellowy paint repeatedly up and down a blank white canvas. His room is a mess of paint cans, rolled canvases, jars of murky liquid, books. A woman in the room next to his is bent over a tall table, her face pressed close to the paper she's drawing on. Tendrils from spider plants dangle from the tops of her bookshelves. Salsa music drifts from a speaker at her feet. Other doors are closed; behind them I hear loud thumps, whirs, grinding noises. The air smells mechanical, plastery, and oily all at once.
The gallery at the end of the hall is sprawling and empty, my boots echoing against the shiny wood floor. There are no windows; the walls are bright white and bare. A boy, not much older than me, sits at a long table against one wall. When I walk closer, the table is actually an old door nailed to some two-by-fours. He's typing away at a keyboard. He's dressed like Beaver Cleaver from that old show. "Yes?" he says plainly. Not annoyed, but slightly dismissive.
He glances at my portfolio. "You have work to submit for consideration?"
"Yes."
"Uh-uh. We can't do hard. We wanted digital. You know, like images over email or on a website? Do you have anyone to take photographs for you or can you do it and scan them and send them?" He begins typing again but keeps his face on mine while his fingers dance.
I shake my head. "No, I just kind of thought—"
"No, sorry. You've got to follow the submission instructions." He turns back to the monitor.
I turn to go, disappointed, thinking I'll walk my bicycle back to my room instead of riding. It was hard to ride and hold the portfolio at the same time. My hand got sweaty, holding the portfolio against my bobbing thigh.
"Hey-oh, what do we have here?"
Ariel's friend, the painter, is clutching a sheaf of papers and a gym bag, out of breath. Tony Padilla from the art show.
"I know you. Ariel pointed you out to me at my show. The girl dressed like a farmer. Did you like it?" He smiles expectantly. "My work?"
I swallow, considering. Wisps of dark hair curl from inside his nostrils. "Not really."
He laughs, putting down his papers and bag. "You didn't like it. That's good! We don't always like what we see, do we? We should always say so. Give me a look, yes? I see you're old-school. I miss the days of toting a portfolio around." He slides it from my grasp.
He spreads the portfolio out, kneeling to look at it. Today, he's not dressed in an elegant suit. He's wearing khaki shorts and Birkenstocks with socks and a sweat-stained T-shirt with a rabbit on it. His hair is no longer in a ponytail; it sprays across his shoulders like a black fan streamed with slivers of white.
"You submitting for the show?"
"T was, but that guy..." "That's my intern, Aaron. This is my little gallery. I'd like some new work by younger artists this time around. They tend to be interesting in different ways, you know?" He examines a portrait of Manny. "You have model permissions?"
"What?"
"Release forms. If people are posing for you, they need to sign releases agreeing to have their image shown in public. Aaron, print out some sample release forms. Do you have your résumé?"
I shake my head and he laughs. "I haven't had you in a class, have I? There's a great deal of proficiency here, and something odd, too. But I like them." He peers closer to the drawings, lifting his glasses away from his face. "You're in. Leave them here. I've got hours of videos and films and an installation of a childhood bedroom. And a nudist. But not one drawing. Not one painting. You kids today. If you can't watch it, walk through it, or sit on it, you don't want to make it."
He zips the portfolio gently and hands it off to Aaron, who shoots me a quizzical look as he passes me the release forms. "Antonio Padilla. Tony."
"Charlie." His hand in mine is smooth and hairless, with fine, tapered nails and a single silver bracelet that knocks against his wristbone.
"Your people are...interesting." Tony Padilla gazes at me curiously.
"They live in my building."
He says, "Is that so," holding his chin in one hand. "Bring one of my cards, too, Aaron?"
Tony sighs. "Well. We have a lot of work ahead of us, putting this show together. One thing I always tell my students, and it always surprises them, God knows why, is that an artist's life is all about work. No one is going to do it for you. It doesn't just appear on the page or on a gallery wall. It takes patience, it takes frustration." He looks at the blank walls.
He laughs a little. "It takes spackling, nails, projectors, lights, bullshit, and long days. I expect everyone in the show to pitch in. I hope you're not afraid of hard work, Charlie."
I can feel how big the grin on my face is. It practically busts my cheeks wide open. I haul mop water and bus tubs all night and clean up piss and shit in restrooms and now I'm going to have my work on walls, for people to see. Me.
"Nope," I tell him. "I'm not afraid of work at all."
———————————————————————————Linus says, "That's so great," and claps her hands. She pauses. "TI'll bet Riley is psyched."
I busy myself with the mop bucket, wringing out the grimy liquid from the mop. "Yeah, he's super excited." I keep my head down, in case the lie is written all over my face.
"Mmm." Linus gets quiet. She scrapes the grill slowly. "I see. So how much is he up to these days?"
"Excuse me?"
"How much is he drinking? Some of his prep work has been a little, uh, a little sloppier than usual." She pushes a bucket of scrambled tofu to me and I peek inside. Ashes are dotted along the ridges of the puffy yellow hills. I'm ashamed for him, even though I know I shouldn't be. And I'm ashamed of myself.
He's usually asleep when I get to his house, if he's there, splayed on his velvet couch with a book across his lap, a lit cigarette still drooping in his fingers. The bottles disappear more rapidly from beneath the sink, are replaced just as rapidly. He seems to have stopped preparing for the Luis Alvarez benefit in the summer, the guitar in its case in the corer. The notebook of lyrics and sheet music is shoved under the couch. Sometimes he looks at me as though he can't place me. I've started to come in and watch him and smoke his cigarettes until my own chest feels sooty and clogged. Once, his hand on the screen door as I went off to work, he looked at me and mumbled, "I miss you being here with me at night. Hard without you." And that felt good, but sad, and those things tug-of-war inside me until I want to bury my head in the dirt.
I avoid Linus's eyes.
"Charlie, I am an old, sober drunk. I've known Riley now for six years and I know his schedule." She takes a deep breath. "He's in a downward Slide and in that slide, we users will take everybody we can down with us. Because if we land in shit, we don't want to be alone in the shit."
I stare at her. Linus, who's always helping people, always cheerful, an alcoholic? I guess that's why Temple never pours her anything to drink at night, now that I think about it. I try to picture her like Riley, but I can't. And what she says kind of pummels me, about him taking me down with him. I tighten my grip on the mop, looking at the dirty water in the bucket, like I can find some answer there.
She says, sadly, "Listen, I don't know much about you, and I don't want to pry, and I also don't want to judge, but staying with him is only going to be hurtful to you. I just have to say it. Can you see that, honey? Like, really see it?"
I jam the mop in the bucket and grab the broom, trying not to cry, because I know she's right, of course she's right, but I try to concentrate on my work, to push the anxiousness away. The band tonight was some sort of polka-punk trio who spewed confetti, and little bits are strewn everywhere. The tables in the seating area have been wobbly for so long, the newspaper underneath the legs is frayed and greasy-black. I should replace it soon.
"He'll be better. I know it." I avoid her eyes, swipe at my own like it's just sweat and not tears. "I can help him. You shouldn't just give up on people."
"Charlie," Linus says glumly, "I've been in recovery for years. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that, I'd be a rich woman, and not working in some half-ass coffeehouse."
———————————————————————————This city is dry and stifling hot. Everyone keeps telling me I'1l get used to it, that ll grow to love it, that the winter will cool down a little, but the sun is a giant ball of fire that doesn't quit. Just biking from my apartment to the library downtown leaves me in a full sweat, with the underarms of my shirt soaked and my bike seat wet.
There are nine new unread messages from Mikey. It's like I'm starving him out and I don't know why. I don't have anything from Blue, but I write to her anyway, just one word, Hey. It's like reaching out to get a grip before you fall off a cliff, but no one is there.
But the last email from Mikey catches my eye. The subject line says birthday/a while longer. I click it open and read it.
You probably heard by now about me and Bunny. It's crazy, I know. We are going to be out on the road a little longer now—at least until November. I'm taking a leave from school. We're going to do that album up in N. California. There's a record deal, Charlie. I didn't want to be without Bunny any longer, and things just seemed right. When I get back, I have something really important to talk to you about. And hey, it's okay that you haven't written back. I understand. I hope you are okay. And, Charlie: happy birthday.
I stare at the word: birthday. Then I close down my mail and leave the library.
It takes me a good forty minutes to find the right place on my bicycle. I have to ride deep into South Tucson to find what I want. When I find it, a shabby little panaderia that smells like sheer heaven, I choose the most cream-filled, icing-topped confection behind the smudged glass of the pastry case. After studying the coffee list, I ask for a café de olla. I sit in a sticky chair by the window, the sweetness of the pastry collecting in my mouth, the creamy, caramelly drink warming my hands. I wonder what Mikey wants to tell me that's so important he couldn't just say it on email. Maybe Bunny's pregnant. Maybe Mikey is about to have his perfect life with kids and a wife and a rock band and everything he's ever wanted, while I'm dehydrated and tired and should be drinking water, but I'm not, I'm drinking coffee, spending seven dollars and sixty-eight cents to wish myself a happy fucking eighteenth birthday that I'd forgotten all about.
———————————————————————————I ride down to the gallery every moming and help Tony and Aaron with the show. The other artists are older than me, in their late twenties and thirties. Tony has them experiment with the placement of pieces while he walks around, rubbing his chin and thinking. He's decided not to frame my drawings, but to mat them simply. Tony was right: there are plenty of installations, including someone's childhood bedroom, right down to a complete set of My Little Pony figurines and her original ballet shoes paired with her adolescent Docs and fishnets. Someone else has spliced found video footage together: on one wall plays an endless loop of people and dogs jumping from diving boards. The colors are washed and dreamy; the jumpers seem to leap through thickets of watery sunshine, pasteled sky. A man with one half of his head shaved and the other in a tall Mohawk has glued eighteen beach balls together in a pyramid and painted crude words on each one. One woman kind of has paintings, but there isn't any actual paint on the canvas. Instead, she's glued squirrel pelts, crow feathers, and chunks of her own hair to the canvas.
A thin, angry-looking woman named Holly plans to lie nude on the floor. "I'm my own exhibit," she explains to me, crunching her black thumbnail between her teeth. "Just having to confront the fact of my presence will be overwhelming for most people."
I don't really understand how the woman's piece will work (what if someone touches her? What if she has to go to the bathroom?), but when I look over at Tony, he winks and whispers to me, after the woman has stomped away, "Holly's thesis defense is going to be spectacular. For all the wrong reasons, but spectacular nonetheless."
They use words and phrases like theory and actualized identity and constructed identity and core fragmentation. When Holly saw me with my sleeves pushed up, she said angrily and earnestly, "You need to understand and examine your transgressions against societal norms." She gripped my wrist. "Do you understand the act you've committed against yourself is fucking revolutionary? I'm going to make you a reading list tonight. You have so much to learn."
I memorize what they say as I wander the gallery, following Tony's instructions, moving things this way and that, my hands covered in little white gloves, like Mickey Mouse. I think, no, I know that some of them are laughing at my drawings and me. They snicker at Hector and Manny's lumpy faces and bad teeth, Karen's hopeful smile. And when I leave, I go to the library and search for all their terms and words and phrases, working my way through them.
I don't want them to think I'm stupid, but I also don't want to be stupid, that's why I take the time to learn their language.
And when I look at my arms, I don't think revolutionary. I think sad, and pain, but not revolutionary.
The next time I see Holly, though, I do think asshole, and that makes me smile all day.
———————————————————————————Temple passes me the phone. "Hurry up, okay?" she whispers. "We want to make it to the Tap before last call." I look at her enviously; all the girls here go out together at night after work, to bars, to parties; they never ask me to go along. I've been trying to talk more with them, but their group seems tight. I'm too young, anyway, to go to bars. Only Linus seems interested in me, mostly in a motherly way, pushing plates of potatoes and bowls of lentils to me across the grill island. Linus does not go out with the girls. Sometimes she'll tell me she's headed to a meeting after work. "Addiction isn't nine to five," she'll call out cheerfully. "You can feel like shit twentyfour seven. That's partly why I work all these shifts. Have to keep busy, keep the demons at bay."
"Charlie. Sweet Charlie." It's a woman; her voice is throaty, assured.
I twist the phone cord between my fingers. "Who is this?"
"Charlie Davis, soul sister, after all the time we spent together, all that time sharing our blood stories, and you don't recognize my voice?"
My heart drops clear to my feet; my entire body goes up in flame. "Hello, Blue."
YOU ARE READING
Girl in pieces
FanfictionCharlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she's already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your fath...
