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.
“I 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 T-shirt 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’ll 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.”
“I’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 m
y 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.
“I 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, black-dotted 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 thr
ough 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. T.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.
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