The door flies open and Oak Longsteinson is there. Shirtless. Of course. Because I’m not flustered enough, apparently. “Hey,” he says. “Moon, right?”
I mumble, “Good morning,” and when safe in the bathroom, immediately splash water on my face.
Is this what it’s like to live with guys? All pecs and happy trails exposed all the time? If so, I’m not ready. At all.
I change quickly into a pale-pink wrap sweater and black leggings. I look in the mirror and groan. Right in the middle of my forehead, a beautiful reddish bruise the size of Alaska. The color of it feels like clippers pinching my legs. I brush my hair in my face and hope that’s enough to distract from what is essentially a lake of blood just under my forehead.
* * *
There are words I hate, for no reason other than they feel abrasive in my body when I say them, read them, even think them. “Evergreen” is one, though just “ever” or “green” is fine, weirdly enough. I hate “poncho” and “thrash” and “crumb.” But if you add an s to “crumb,” it changes everything. Suddenly the word is soft like snow on my forearms.
I’ve been collecting words almost as long as I’ve been talking, or at least, that’s what my dad said to me once.
As I join Santiago in the back to unload the merch, I can add another word to the mix of most unliked. “Stubborn.” It’s an ugly word, one I’ve never liked, but as I think it now, hot spikes burn into my back.
“I can get that,” he says for the fifth time as I grab a box. He tries to pull it from my hands.
“I’ve got it. Really.”
He stares at me, or rather, the bruise on my head for the hundredth time. Most people might say something like, Are you okay? What happened? Can I get you something? But not this dude. Or, not if you were a bit of a poophead for his first impression of you. I guess.
He pulls on the box harder and I just give up and let it go, then grab three smaller ones to head up the million stairs flanked by ivy-wrapped columns. And that’s when I notice that Santiago is missing his left hand. He balances the boxes perfectly on his forearm on that side, securing the front of the pile with his right hand. I wonder if he was born without it, or if there was an accident or something. I’ll never ask, though, because that is rude as flip, even if he is my nemesis.
On his way back, Santiago reaches for my pile once again, but this time I’m ready and jump away. “This is my job too, you know,” I say, staring right at his ridiculously gorgeous face.
He stands there, glowering, his eyes flicking to my forehead again. With a huff, he turns and walks off, grabbing more boxes. He doesn’t look at me or my head injury for the rest of the setup, and I happily pretend he is made of air as well.
* * *
“Wow,” Andro says, walking up. Our little merch corner is adorable, thanks to me. I’ve organized it based on aesthetics, keeping the Andro and FG T-shirts and mugs in the center. I took some of the fairy lights and paper triangle banners from the bus, completing my effort with a candle I found in the bottom of my bag, so now everything smells like clary sage and oranges. Andro beams, which means the whole light of the sun is now in this room with us, and then he frowns, and just like that, the sun bounces away. “What happened to your head?”
My brain feels weird under his black-eyed gaze. “Tripped,” I respond, and it comes out a little like a cough. And then Andro’s hand is on my face. Let me repeat: Andro Philips is touching my face. He tilts my chin up and, oh God, he can hear my heart picking up, can’t he?
“You don’t have any dizziness? Fatigue? Headache?”
I shake my head. I don’t trust myself to speak.
“What’s wrong with your forehead?” Star’s voice rattles in like a broken bell, and Andro releases my face. She and Chamomila have both walked up, arms crossed, faces concerned, but like, not for me, I don’t think.
“I tripped.” If I focus on them, I can form sentences.
“Over what?”
“The Grinch.” It comes out before I can stop myself. Beside me, Santiago clenches his jaw.
“Let me know if you feel off, okay?” Andro is still looking intently at me. Everyone is looking at me, actually. How can Star stand this all the time? All I want to do is turn my eyes into lasers, Cyclops-style, and set everything on fire.
“Andro, how do you like the new shirts?” Star asks in a singsong voice, gesturing to her merch pile. Finally, blessedly, Andro looks away from me.
Star’s debuting a lot of new items on tour. There’s an assortment of tanks and bracelets that display WWVMD?, which stands for “What Would the Virgin Mary Do?” Along with some of her classic stuff, like soft long-sleeved crewnecks featuring gold font that says NOTHING FEELS BETTER THAN SAVING YOURSELF. Everything white and bright and pure.
“Wow, the fonts are fantastic,” Andro says. “Who’s your designer?”
“Oh, um,” Star says, fingering her hair. “That would be Moon.”
Andro flashes me a brilliant grin. “Really? That’s great. What font did you choose here?”
“It’s…” I cough. “It’s mine.”
Andro looks stunned for a moment. “Rock and roll! It’s so good. How long did it take you to make?”
“Oh,” Star responds. “Moon just does these things as a hobby.”
Andro doesn’t look at her. He’s still waiting for me to answer, I guess.
“Um. A week.”
“You’re joking.” He glides a hand over one of the shirts again.
Fonts change the texture of words. The one I designed Star’s merch in, it makes words feel like silk has bees thrown on it. I originally wanted it for my tarot deck, but in the end it was a little too soft.
“Moon,” Star says. I realize I’m daydreaming.
“What? Sorry…”
Andro looks concerned. “You sure you’re not dizzy?” He takes a step forward, and I, like a mirror, take one back.
“I’m sure,” I tell him. If he gets any closer, I will get dizzy, but it won’t have anything to do with the head injury.
“Good.” He pauses. “I was just asking, how much for a custom font?”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“It’s her hobby,” Star says again, most helpfully.
“You should charge a lot. This is quality.” Again he ignores Star, and the look on her face! I want to take a picture. But she’d kill me by strangulation using one of her WWVMD? bracelets.
Andro smiles again. “It’s great that you girls are so devoted to purity.”
“Oh, that’s definitely not Moon,” Star says. “Not anymore.”
Everyone looks at me, even Santiago. What the hell? Star is probably the only virgin in a twenty-mile radius and I’m the freak? I glare at her, and she has the decency to look bashful.
“Well,” Andro finally says. “Great job on the font. Maybe we can talk about something custom for me, yeah? Sometime?” He points at me with both index fingers, and I nod, my cheeks flushed.
But I’m not free from near-constant humiliation yet. Oh, no. Because for some reason Crappy Cham has to speak up right then. “Where’d you get that scar, Moon?” she asks, and now everyone’s looking at my collarbone—or trying not to and failing. And like, what the hell is wrong with everybody today? Is this some alternate reality, where no one understands what manners are? “I’m sorry,” she adds, looking around like she’s just realized her faux pas, which I don’t believe for a second. “I was simply noticing…” She drifts off, looking for me to fill in the awkward pause, which I don’t.
But Star, of course, comes to the rescue. “She fell. It was a bad, bad… fall.”
“Yeah, I fell,” I say. “And there was this knife sticking out of the ground, almost like someone—a lady, even—was pointing it right at me, and I fell on it, like—”
“Andro!” Star practically shrieks. “I think we’re almost late!” I have to turn because I can’t stop my eyes from rolling. Anything. Star will do anything to keep the status quo, to keep any
one from knowing any little flaw in our lives, to keep the ugliest truth buried sixteen million miles in the earth.
“Right! Influencers,” Andro says, and Star and Chamomila straighten their backs. “We’ve got a meet-and-greet in… oh, ten minutes. Let’s go!”
I sit in my designated merch-girl chair and bury my face in my hands.
“Wow, Chamomila Jones is a bitch, isn’t she? Your sister, too.” I peek through my fingers. It’s Belle Brix, rearranging her pyramid of Brixsticks.
“Star’s…” But you know what? Belle Brix is right. Star acted like a real jerk, and for no reason. I mean, I get the scar thing, ’cause that’s her MO when it comes to that, but not the other stuff. I don’t get any of it.
Belle can read my face, I guess, because she responds, “I know. Can’t talk trash about the VM.” She holds up one of Star’s bracelets. Star insisted on getting them dipped in platinum—the purest, whitest metal.
I smile. I can’t help it. I mean, I know Brix is supposed to be the enemy, but right now it feels like the opposite.
“I haven’t formally introduced myself,” she says, holding a hand out. “I’m Belle. Makeup extraordinaire.”
I shake her hand. “Moon. Weed extraordinaire.”
“Weed? You mean like…” Belle mimes smoking a joint.
I laugh. “No, I mean like dandelions. The kinds of plants that everyone thinks are ugly and tries to kill?”
Beside us, Santiago snorts.
“That is a unique brand, Moon. How are you, Santiago?” Belle asks. He responds by inclining his head toward her, keeping his eyes on his book.
Belle glances at my head. “They make concealer for that, you know.”
“Eh. I’m okay.”
She looks disappointed. “Don’t tell me you’re an au naturel girl too.”
“No. No, I love makeup. I’m completely obsessed with your glitter cat-eye.”
Belle smiles and grabs some of her merchandise. A few lipsticks, eyeliner, other things in shimmery smooth containers, and hands it all to me. “Uh…,” I say.
“A gift.” She smiles. “For being real,” she calls as she turns away to join the others.
“Thanks,” I call back, but I think she’s too far away to hear me.
And then it’s just me and Santiago. I tap my fingers on the table for a few moments. When is the event done? An hour? I check the schedule in my emails. Jeez Louise. Two and a half hours. Thank goodness I brought my sketchbook. I pull it out, along with my watercolor pencils, and sketch flower arrangements.
After, like, thirty minutes, I look up. Santiago hasn’t moved a millimeter, and he’s still reading that ancient-looking tome. It looks like a regular-size book in his hands, but that only means it’s seven feet wide and nine feet long. Ridiculous. But I should be nice. Right? He and I are going to be working side by side as the merch people for the next eight weeks. So I should at least try.
Angling my body toward his, I say, “What are you reading?”
It’s a fairly innocuous question, but Santiago sighs like I’ve asked him to tell me the name of his first crush, his social security number, and the passwords to his bank accounts. He lifts the cover and lets me look at it for all of a trillionth of a second. I don’t even get to read more than a word, which is “flavor.”
“Is it good?” I ask.
For my efforts, I am rewarded with a shrug.
Okay. Two more hours until showtime. Jesus on a tortilla.
I try to rein in the embarrassment of that awkward encounter. After all, he has no reason to like me. He doesn’t owe me anything. I shuffle through my bag, trying to look busy, when Santiago, like he can hear my thoughts, speaks. “We’re not friends.”
I snap my head up. He’s still looking at his hulk book, the muscles in his neck tense.
“What?”
“You and I.” He finally glares at me. “Are not friends. So stop talking to me.”
Well, I had stopped talking to him. I mean, I got the hint, didn’t I? Apparently not well enough. He’s still looking at me. “Do. You. Understand?” He speaks slowly, like I’m a child. The tone of his voice is burlap scratching at the back of my neck. I want to tear it off and throw it at his face.
“Not friends. I get it.” I shake my head a little. And then I can’t help myself. My mouth becomes a runaway train. “But I’m really going to miss what we had, you know?”
His glare turns to bewilderment. “You know,” I continue. “Staring contests. You marking your kitchen territory like a wolf. Barking at me even. Tripping me this morn—”
“That wasn’t…” His voice is loud, and he lowers it. “I didn’t mean that.” And he gazes at my forehead before dropping his eyes back to his book.
“Look, I’m just saying I’m going to miss us. You know? We really could’ve been something, Santiago.”
He looks up at me, even more confused. And maybe it’s my imagination, but his cheeks look a little pinker than a moment ago.
“You know, like how Thor and Loki were something.” I raise my eyebrows. “Or Jesus and Judas.”
And then Santiago astonishes me. He smiles. His lips go peach and wide, and his eyes sparkle, making the brown of them even deeper. When his face relaxes like that, he looks warm. Attractive and warm. It’s so unsettling, I almost prefer when he looks murderous. But then he says quickly, “I’m not Judas. You’re fucking Judas.”
“Only if they paid me enough silver.” I shrug.
Santiago narrows his eyes and tilts his mouth in a half smile, and I know, just know in my bones that it is on.
We don’t speak again until the stampede of Foto-fans approaches, so loud, I’m concerned for a moment that we’re going to get trampled. Then it’s all business, passing items and change back and forth, and I drop a few coins.
“Nice one, Loki.”
I’m kind of shocked, but not shocked enough to refrain from responding, “Screw you, Thor.” I ignore the gasp from my customer.
“I’d rather be crucified.”
And now my customer looks genuinely appalled. “Sorry,” I mutter, handing her a bag. She walks away in a huff. Turning to Santiago, I say, “What the eff?”
“You started it.” He adds “Judas” under his breath, and I grin. Our banter continues like this for nearly an hour. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had this much fun with someone.
The one time our energy hits a bump is when a woman walks up and takes a look at Santiago’s left arm, staring right where it ends at his wrist. “Oh my God,” she says with a huge, unnecessary gasp. “Oh God, what happened?”
“Polar bear,” Santiago responds, his voice hard. I think only I notice the pink at his ears and neck.
This confuses the woman for a beat, but then she gives him a look of pity. “You know, you’re so brave—”
And this is when Santiago shoves the bag in her face and says, “Next.”
I think the lady doesn’t really care about Santiago at all, because instead of taking the hint, she scoffs, looks at me, and says, “Some people.” And waits for a response. Like I’m going to agree with her?
So I say, not kindly, “Ma’am, your transaction’s done and you’re in the way.”
She raises her shoulders, huffs, and walks away, muttering something like, “Kids these days, no respect.”
When I turn back to Santiago, his eyes are all soft on me. It’s hard to explain. He looks like he actually likes me for a moment. But then he growls, “Back to work, Judas.”
“Whatever, jerk-head,” I respond, and he tries really hard to hide his grin. I can just tell.
And that back-and-forth sort of summarizes the rest of the day. It’s weird, but it feels better to get all that hate out in the open. Like Belle Brix said. It’s real.
* * *
Everyone’s out to dinner at some fancy Peruvian restaurant. Star tried to convince me to go. “It has a star theme, Moon! The whole thing is covered in silver glitter and star lights! Perfect for a shoot!” But
I made myself keep an expressionless face as I told her I needed to draw. And save the $173 I’d spend there. Not to mention, fuck doing anything with my jerk of a sister, but I left that bit out.
So here I am, sitting in the living area. Santiago’s in the kitchen, cooking up something that smells better than bacon-fried cheesecake covered in chocolate and crack. But we’re back to ignoring each other, which, whatever. I’ve got yogurt and a PB&J and my sketchbook. I will live.
I don’t really know all that much about tarot, except that it originated in France as a card game and turned into something more mystical. The most famous version—what lots of people consider to be the original modern tarot—is called Rider-Waite. Which is complete bullshit to me, since the name doesn’t include the woman who actually painted each of the seventy-eight cards. Decks should be named after the artist who made them, not the random guy who had a cool idea. In my mind, it’s the Pamela Colman Smith tarot, and that’s that.
I’m sketching ideas for my next card—the Ace of Wands—when I hear a grunt in the kitchen.
“You okay?” I say without looking up.
There’s no response. So I go over and see him pop open this lid of what looks like gray crystal bits, shimmery and beautiful. He scatters them on his plate of pasta.
“Holy heck,” I say. “That looks great.”
“You sound surprised.” I blink because his tone is back to bristly. My neck itches again.
“Are you okay?” I ask once more.
He stares for a second before responding. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Again, his voice is sharp. I’m covered in paper cuts.
Is it weird that I feel hurt? I thought we’d struck up a sort of comradery earlier. A hateful one, sure, but not mean-spirited, not like him right now. And I’ve kind of had it, so I turn around to leave, but then spin again to face him and say, “You know what, Santiago? I apologized. I was a jerk. I don’t expect you to forgive and forget it, but since we’re working together all freaking summer, surely you could be more like a cloud.”
His brows furrow, which is an improvement from the murder-stare. “A cloud.”
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe Page 6