Love Under Glasse

by Kristina Meister

  Doable. She’d observed her father and mother run a religious and political fiefdom on copious amounts of liquor and aggravation for her entire life.

  Do I look older?

  Oscar sent her two thumbs-up.

  I’m gonna walk back to the station now. There’s wi-fi on the train. I’ll tell you when I’m on board.

  For an instant, she wished she’d thought to get Riley’s phone number. It would have been easy to do, but she hadn’t thought of it. As she berated herself for that stupidity, she already knew her subconscious had been working on her behalf.

  To transform and walk away, she had to cut ties entirely. She could reflect on what Riley had meant to her, but she didn’t dare hope for more. That would be too difficult to endure, and the temptation to reach out would be too great, increasing the risk and giving her mother more opportunities to find her.

  It had to be this way.

  The phone buzzed. I love you, Snowy. Stay safe, okay?

  El chewed her lip. Tell me I can do this.

  You can do this.

  But can I?

  What would happen if you walked out right now and went home? Oscar remarked sagely.

  Okay, you win. I’ll text from the train.

  She put the backpack on and clipped it into place. The green bandana tickled her neck, tied as it was to her strap. With a smile, she pulled it loose and secured it around her topknot.

  “Green is my favorite color,” she whispered.

  No matter how far she scrolled, the words kept coming. There had to be thousands of entries, paragraph after paragraph of constant admiration. For a moment, Riley sat staring at the sheer magnitude of this outpouring of feeling and was in awe.

  Practically since the moment they’d met, an entry or five a day, all beneath Mama Glasse’s gaze, all without the object of affection ever even noticing?

  “This is . . .” Her voice faltered. It was reckless, incomprehensible, shocking, embarrassing, a bit unsettling, and so, so magical.

  Her face on fire, she rolled past all the tempting titles and settled on “She Isn’t a Girl.” Half expecting the sappiest, fangirliest love poem ever written, she took a deep breath, and even though it felt like some kind of crime, read on.

  A girl is a thing still forming. A girl is incorporating tolerance through the slow crush of expectations, saturated with that pressure which makes her a gem amongst the rocks. A girl learns her place, which is nowhere she wants to be. A girl crosses her ankles and bows her head and contorts herself into the shape they want to see. A girl is forced into patience because no one is listening. A girl speaks when spoken to. A girl does this because she doesn’t know any better, and she is still being educated, still waiting to see how long she will be called a girl. Will it be until she is eighteen, or will she be in her hospital bed, while a nurse whispers “Atta girl,” as she shovels in the last meal? Will she be a girl until she wears her first bra, or until she removes it for her first lover? Will she be a girl raising another girl? An endless line of girls. A girl is receptive and makes no choices, because a girl is a girl, and her body is built to receive, to hold, to constantly begin, but never mature until the world has nothing else it requires from her. And then, she is a sack of bones, a sack they call “girl.”

  R is not a girl and anyone who names her one will learn why she is not. I have never met someone quite as sure of themselves. I have never seen someone so calm in the face of turbulence. But R is a storm of her own making, a whirlwind, a sublime tempest. She smiles, and somehow, that is the only thing that will ever move in reply to a man. Everything else about her body is still and composed, hers and no one else’s, though her mind and her spirit are swirling inside and flickering in that knowing smile.

  R is simply perfection, in that way that is so complete, she does not even acknowledge her own grace. I wonder sometimes . . . Caught in her life and all the tiny details I can never know, she must look in the mirror and see how gorgeous she is, how her confidence is a life-giving force for me. It can’t escape her, can it? Can anything?

  I don’t know. I don’t know if when she looks in the mirror, she sees a girl looking back at her. If she does . . . I am both fascinated and frightened. If R is now a girl to herself, what will she be when she declares herself at last a woman?

  With a sucking gasp, Riley laid the laptop aside. For long moments, she stared at nothing in particular, her ears ringing and her flesh a vulnerable mass of impressions and senses. Sounds seemed louder, but somehow farther away. Her skin brushed her blankets and felt as if it had raked across dry ice. Her stomach was a tangle of butterflies.

  No one . . . how could anyone ever say such things of her? It was all bravado. It was all a facade. She wore armor so that when she fell and skidded over asphalt, it wouldn’t take off her skin. It still hurt like hell when it happened, when people called her a freak, when they tried to put hands on her, when they made fun of the wonderful man who raised her. But Dad had always said that knowing how to fall was what determined who lived and who turned to jelly on the side of the road.

  Sniffling, Riley squeezed her hands into fists.

  Always fighting, always being strong, always projecting confidence even when inside she was shrinking. All her life, always pushing back so that she couldn’t get hurt. Constant force, all the time, draining her energy until she had to find ways to cope and replenish, but there weren’t any that could fully replace what she lost. That was why she’d been counting days until she could escape.

  And someone had found beauty in that, meaning, perfection? Someone had been inspired to rebellion by her struggle? How? Someone saw her as more than she’d ever seen of herself. But was it an illusion, or was she capable of that? Could Riley Vanator be that kind of goddess, that kind of hero, or was it magic?

  The energy built inside, until at last, she had to move. If she didn’t move, she would die.

  She thought about the slamming door only after she was down the driveway. Running and running, she made the great circuit through the trees and down the road. Across the creek, leaping logs, down the hill, around again, past the great towering tree, and upward. Boots thumping, heart pounding, thoughts beating a constant rhythm, so monotonous it seemed like buzzing. She ran until the blood swelled into her limbs, but left her stomach aching.

  At the stump, she collapsed, breathing in great huffs. There should be words in her mind, she should be able to make sense. Say something. Finish a sentence. But no. All she could see was that long dark hair, those huge blue eyes, the glow of the sun on her face as she smiled and said, “I’ve wasted too much time.”

  Riley’s hand was shaking as she lifted it to her face. Astonished, she watched it, because never in her life could she remember such a thing happening. A hand so steady, she’d been servicing transmissions since she was a toddler—she never shook, even when she was cold. The shiver would wash over her like a bucket of ice water, and as it reached her toes and draped her with gooseflesh, she would focus her eyes on a point, tell her body to be still, and still it would be. Now, sitting like this in the dawn . . .

  She couldn’t make it stop.

  El was gone, on her own. She could be lost. She could be in danger. She could get hurt, terribly. Or worse . . . she could vanish forever.

  “No.”

  The trip back to the house was swift but perilous, as she bumped into every possible obstacle and tripped over every crack. Her memory had been wiped and her eyes shut off, and she was kicking at the ground in a body lighter than air.

  Her father was standing at the window. As she tumbled through the door, he caught her, and held her out, examining her with such intensity, she found she couldn’t quite look him in the eye. All those feelings were new and raw and didn’t have a place behind the armor. She had no defenses.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Even as he asked it, she knew that somehow all at once, nothing was wrong, and everything was. Someone . . . someone loved her. And that someone was gone.
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  “Dad . . . I . . .”

  “Was there a car here a while ago? Did you go somewhere?”

  All she could do was fall into a chair.

  Head in hands, her mind made a list of all the horrifying things that could happen to El, wandering with a bag of stupidly chosen camping equipment. Riley had talked her into strike steel and a water filter, but what she needed was an attitude and the willingness to defend herself. She needed confidence. She needed armor.

  “Jesus Christ, what did I do?”

  “Rye-baby, talk to me. You’re scaring me.”

  “She ran away. She took everything I said, what I was . . . and she ran away. All because of me. She’s alone, Dad. She’s alone, and it’s all my fault.”

  He squatted down, his hand warming her shoulder as he chafed her back. “Who are we talking about?”

  “El . . . this girl . . . she—” No matter how many times she swallowed or cleared her throat, everything sounded wrong. “She ran away from home, because I told her to stop letting her mother push her around. She listened to me, Dad, because . . . because she . . . Go look at my computer. I can’t.”

  He was gone a long time. Riley stared at the clock and waited for him to make some joke that put it all into perspective and made it easy to handle. When he returned, he carried the laptop in one hand. Setting it beside the microwave, he filled a huge mug with fresh coffee and then added to it from a bottle in the cupboard. It thunked down at her elbow like a gavel.

  “You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

  She shook her head. He nudged the mug toward her.

  “Calm down. Drink it. Warm up your hands.”

  The drink was hot in more ways than one, but as it slid down her throat, it coated her insides with liquid tranquility, until the stuff moved through her limbs and loosened her muscles enough to allow a deep breath. She listened to his finger tap, as he read through entry after entry with an impassive face.

  The cup was empty; he sat back and crossed his arms, his facial hair wiggling as his opinions flexed his rigid face.

  “What do I do, Dad?”

  “What do you want to do? I mean, what’s your first reaction?”

  Riley looked at her hands, clinging to the mug so hard her palms burned. She wasn’t sure if it mattered what she wanted. What mattered was that El was safe. No, it was more than that. El deserved to be safe and loved. She deserved to be cared for by somebody. She deserved to be happy and have her wishes come true.

  Her father refilled the mug from the pot and let out a sigh that could fill the Grand Canyon. “You don’t owe her anything. She’s pretty smart, and I bet that that’s why she never said anything. She didn’t want to pressure you, especially here, where people are jackasses. She felt what she felt . . . and that was on her.”

  Riley’s body was suddenly heavy. She slid lower into the chair and stared at the ceiling. “El was protecting me from her mother. If it was just one-sided, Mama Glasse wouldn’t come after me. If it was a relationship, we’d both be fucked.”

  “Yeah . . . that too.” He nodded and continued nodding, as if the act kept the thoughts coming. “She’s got good taste. I think I like this girl.”

  “She’s top of her class.”

  “Yeah, but does that matter?”

  “To me? Yeah, but not the way people think.”

  “What else matters?”

  She could feel that ancient medicine doing its work, calming the physical so that her mind could work through the logic. For the first time in her life, she gave a thought to that thing that seemed so impossible it was pointless to consider. For once, she envisioned what it might be like not to be alone. If there was a Heavenly Angel for her father and they could find each other across states and cultures and through iron bars, surely it was possible that there might be one for her.

  “She has everything that matters.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  Riley licked the coffee from her lips, tasting the smoky whisky in it. She wanted to track El down, tackle her onto a soft surface, scold her for frightening the shit out of her, and then give her a night she wouldn’t forget, but that was not something she could say to her dad, even though she was pretty sure he could already see it written on her face.

  “I have to find her.”

  “Can you?”

  She looked at the computer and knew, almost as if the strategy were divinely inspired, that yes, she could. She could lay a trap because she knew the bait better than anyone.

  She knew what she saw when she looked in the mirror.

  “I can. But if I want to keep her safe, I have to go.”

  She met his eye. His nod came to a slow halt. He massaged and groomed his beard with a hand. “That sudden, huh? Just like that? One minute you’re all Screw this and now you read this and it’s that fast?”

  Riley looked at the metal lunchbox sitting where she’d left it. “Yeah. Sometimes it’s just like that.”

  His chin ticked downward. “You’ll miss graduation.”

  “I earned the diploma. It’s done.”

  “I’ve been waiting eighteen years to take that picture.”

  She could hear the humor there and was already filling with relief. “You really think I’d be caught dead in that getup?”

  “Hell, I expected you to at least decorate the cap. Maybe with rockers and a flaming skull or some shit.”

  She smiled, but then it hit her: what would her mother think? Riley had never lived for anyone else. She’d never been that girl, because she’d existed without a mother, without a woman to watch.

  “Do you think . . . would mom be okay with it?”

  “Rye-baby . . . your mom would go batshit crazy if she thought for one second you weren’t going to go after that girl.”

  A laugh and a cry became confused and fell out at the same instant. “Yeah, but we can’t afford it.”

  “Been down that road, Riley. Know it well. Needed to go on a diet anyway, seeing as how you ain’t gonna be here to take care of me forever.” He pulled himself up from the table and nudged his head to the back door. “Come on, I got something to show you.”

  She followed him around the back of the house. The sun was already turning the entire landscape into a sauna. He led them out to the old shed and lined up the numbers on the padlock. Just inside was a white canvas tarp.

  “Me and Mike been working on this for a few months now while you was at school. I was gonna give it to you at graduation, but . . . I like this idea better. Go on!”

  Confused, Riley gave the tarp a tug, and hissed as it fell away.

  There before her, a massive touring bike of black, chrome, and power. Matte charcoal sculpted scales into the fuel tank, saddlebags, and fenders, transforming the whole thing into a sleek lizard with reflective horns, bright LED eyes, and fiery red nostrils. Four speakers, USB port, navigation, a full tour pack, Streetglide seats, and heated grips. She stood in reverence and felt all her exhaustion drain away.

  “Dad . . .”

  “I know, right? It’s a 2017, Milwaukee 8, 107-cubic-inch. 103 pounds of torque. Twin cooled, six-gallon tank—which should get you about 200 with good driving. Renegade twenty-one-inch front and seventeen-inch back. It’s got a couple mod kits, and I got you two brain buckets with the matching headsets.”

  She shook her head, her hands slowly churning the dusty air. He was rocking on his heels, his face rosy with pride and joy. The more she stared at it, the more she wanted to tame it.

  Putting her leg over, she tested the backrest, felt the grips and flipped the switches. This was a far cry from her janky sport bike assembled from spare parts—that labor they’d shared—her father’s teaching aid and her touchpoint with him. She spent so much time pitched forward on that thing, it sometimes hurt to stand up straight. This was a bike meant to cruise. This was a bike to go on long treks. This was the Shire horse of rides, and it cost more than anything she’d ever owned.

  “Dad, this is too much .
. .”

  He made a face. “Don’t be stupid. I been saving up for this since you was born, and I been keeping my eye on everything trying to pick the perfect chassis. I was gonna give you something meant for handling, but I had this feeling . . . ‘Jerry,’ I said, ‘She is gonna want to explore. She is gonna ride from one coast to another and sleep under the stars and kill anyone who gets in her way. She’s gonna roam and she needs a dragon, not a pony.’ And here you are, and my instincts were right.”

  All of a sudden, tears and snot were flowing out of her face like someone had turned on a faucet. Wails turned to hiccups, and her shirt was coated in mascara in seconds. He put his arm around her and petted her head.

  “Come on, Rye, you’re okay. I been planning this all along. This is all I know, so . . . I did the best I could for you.”

  “Thanks. I love it . . . so much. This week has been . . . really crazy.”

  “Yeah, and it looks like it isn’t gonna let up.”

  She pressed her face into his chest. “No, I don’t think it is.”

  “What are you going to name her?”

  The name manifested itself in her head so quickly it was like the bike was whispering what it wanted to be called. She had seen it once in a library when she’d been writing a paper about the Amazons.

  “Aella. The whirlwind.”

  El scanned all the roads near the tracks and whittled down her fingernails with her teeth. If she knew her mother, the woman would be in the midst of calling the banks and credit card companies, or trying to track her phone via the service provider. El didn’t know what resources a Senator really had for this kind of situation. Mama could even have the FBI scouring footage, or the Secret Service reviewing her website.

  Every shadow was a threat. Every person who took too long a look at her was a villain. Every time the door between the cars opened, El anticipated confrontation. Twisted up on herself in her seat, muscles rigid, the burner phone nearly frightened her out of her skin as it rang.