“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?”
“I 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 morning 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 s
eems 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. I’ll 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 h
e 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.
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