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by Megan Hart

  “Cute,” Jen commented. “But listen, tell me more about Johnny. What’s his house like? Did he come on to you?”

  “Gorgeous. And no way. If anything, he couldn’t wait to get me out of there.”

  “Bummer.” Jen pulled a blue sleeveless tank dress from the rack. “This is a great color.”

  “Yeah. I guess I couldn’t be surprised. I mean, I did nearly knock him over on the street like a huge, giant doofus.”

  Jen laughed. “But you managed not to ask him if you could bite his epic ass, right?”

  “At least there’s that. Hey, I’m heading over to the shirts.” I couldn’t look at any more dresses. I’d end up spending twenty bucks on vintage finery I’d never wear.

  I have a theory about thrift-store shopping. I’ve spent hours going from store to store in search of something specific, but I’ve never gone away from a thrift store empty-handed. For whatever reason, whenever I shop at a thrift store, no matter what I want, I find it. When I wanted an emerald-green cardigan sweater, an item that was both out of season and not in a trendy color, I found the perfect one at the Salvation Army. When I needed a jean jacket to replace the one I’d left behind in a hotel, I had my choice of ten or so from the local church bargain basement store. I think there’s some higher consciousness involved, or maybe it’s a matter of perception that allows your eyes to be opened at just the right time. To see things you wouldn’t have noticed before.

  Like the T-shirt in my hand. White cotton, faded from hundreds of washes. I’d plucked it from the rack because of the fabric’s softness, though I wasn’t looking for a T-shirt. I’d grabbed it because of the material, but what made me hold on to it was the design on the front.

  It was the poster for one of Johnny’s movies. Dance with the Devil was the English name, but this had been filmed in Italy. I recognized the artwork from my internet research. Johnny on a motorcycle, in a black leather jacket, hair blowing back from his forehead, cigarette in his mouth. Very James Dean. Very sexy. Also, very rare.

  The tag on it was for one dollar, which put the reduced price at fifty cents. That made up for the hefty price I’d paid for the out-of-print DVD, and yet I hesitated, hovering between shoving the shirt back on the rack and walking away and gripping it tight with two fists and knocking down everyone in my way to get to the cash register.

  Perception or higher consciousness? What had placed my hand on this shirt just now? If I’d come across it a few weeks ago, would I have pushed it aside in favor of the peasant blouse with the tags still on just beyond it? The shirt crumpled in my fingers as I clutched it.

  The world tipped, just a little.

  “Hey, what did you find?” Jen looked over my shoulder.

  The world steadied. No orange smell, no wavy lines around my vision. No fugue. I let out the breath I’d been holding and held up the shirt.

  Her eyes widened. “Get the fuck out of here. Is that Dance with the Devil? On a fucking T-shirt?”

  I looked at it. “Yes!”

  “Girl.” Jen got solemn. “I don’t know where you’re getting your Johnny mojo, but damn. That shirt looks real. I mean, not like someone did it themselves with a homemade iron-on. I’ve never even seen them advertised anyplace. Let me see the tag.”

  I showed her. She puffed air between her lips and handed it back to me respectfully. “Tag looks old, too. I think this is an original promo piece or something.”

  “Could be.” I held the shirt close to my chest with two hands. “I’m buying it.”

  “Of course you are. You’d better. That shit is probably worth something.” Jen nodded. “Not that you’ll sell it, I guess. You’re going to wear that to bed, huh?”

  I laughed. “Probably. Definitely, yeah.”

  “Johnny on your boobs,” she said a little dreamily. “Can’t blame you there.”

  After that find, there wasn’t anything else that could top it. We paid for our stuff and parted ways in the parking lot. Night had fallen. The air smelled like snow. Jen was talking about something, going out, meeting up on the weekend for something or other, but I couldn’t concentrate very hard on what she was saying. The T-shirt felt too heavy in the plastic grocery bag dangling from my wrist, and it had nothing to do with its weight.

  She waved and got in her car. I got in mine. I drew in breath after breath of frigid air, making sure there was no scent of oranges, nothing but the odor of old fries from the grease-spotted bag in my backseat. Nothing wavy in my vision except from the moisture now dotting my windshield.

  By the time I got home, my fingers ached from clutching the wheel. My head hurt, too, from concentrating so hard on the road. For a change, the spot in front of my house was empty, and I took it even though I’d grown to like parking in front of Johnny’s house.

  Inside, I threw everything I’d bought that could be washed into the washer and set aside the items that would require dry cleaning. The T-shirt I held in my two hands for much longer than necessary. The shirt had been washed before, I could tell, and the print on the front barely faded. It was probably safe to machine wash, but I took out a bucket from beneath the sink instead, and swished it around in Woolite, rinsing in cool water and hand-wringing it gently before hanging it on a drying rack.

  Too much effort and care for a T-shirt, I thought. It wasn’t yet time to switch the laundry from washer to dryer, so I went to the kitchen to eat. I could see the drying rack every time I walked past the kitchen doorway, and I looked at it each time.

  I dreamed of him that night, but they were normal dreams. Disjointed, confusing, full of leaps and jumps that didn’t happen in the fugues. I didn’t know I was dreaming in them, either, even when he kissed me. Even when he told me to get lost. Then Johnny faded in and out of now-Johnny’s clothes in the dream and was replaced at one point by an actor whose name I didn’t know but who’d been on the last commercial I saw just before bed.

  Restless and wakeful, I got up in the darkness and made my way to the laundry room, where I found the T-shirt, dry and a little stiff, smelling clean. I took it back to bed with me and held it as close as I used to hold my blanky. If I dreamed again, I didn’t remember it.

  Chapter 07

  I didn’t meet up with Jen at the Mocha the next morning, though it was crowded enough without her there. I didn’t have more than a few minutes to pick out a muffin and grab a coffee before work, and I almost reconsidered the stop when I saw the long line. Still, by the time I’d figured out I ran the risk of being late, I was almost at the head of the line. I crossed my fingers and prayed to miss the morning traffic.

  I was thinking of him, of course. Johnny had fully infiltrated my brain. So when I turned, coffee in hand and muffin in the other, my car keys jangling, I had to blink a couple times before I could make myself believe he was really there. He’d paused by the newspaper rack to check out a copy of the New York Times and was just tucking it under his arm when I stepped in front of him.

  “Hi,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it was something entirely different than a blank stare and a blatant brush-off. Johnny didn’t even acknowledge me with a nod. He pushed past me without a word and stepped up to the counter to pay for the newspaper, leaving me behind with my face virtually slapped. I must’ve worn my distress as obviously as a neon sign, because Carlos gave me a sympathetic glance from behind his open laptop. He was there early today.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said quietly as Johnny wove back through the crowd and out the front door, black coat flapping around his ankles. “He’s like that to mostly everyone. I mean, he doesn’t like being fawned over.”

  “I wasn’t fawning over him. Jesus.” I frowned, watching Johnny through the glass. “I was being friendly.”

  Carlos shrugged. “I’m just saying. He does get some pretty loony fans once in a while. I guess he’s being cautious.”

  “I am not,” I said tightly, “a loony fan.”

  Carlos’s brows raised, and he grinned. “
No? You and Jen look at him like you want the Mocha to put him on the menu.”

  Heat spread across my cheeks. “Oh, God. That obvious?”

  “Nah. I don’t think he notices, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s just leery. I mean, I’ve seen some chicks who practically rip off their shirts and try to mount him right here!” Carlos shook his head as though he couldn’t decide if the thought disturbed or excited him. “Old chicks, Emm. Like in their fifties, old. You, in comparison, are a very hot young chick.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I could no longer see even a hint of Johnny’s black coat. I took a drink from my coffee and eyed Carlos. “Jen says he was nice to you.”

  “Maybe because he knows I don’t want to fuck him. Or even if I did, it’s not the same as being in love with him because of some stuff from a long time ago.”

  “Why not?” I knew Johnny’d had some sexual fluidity in his past, but had never claimed to be gay or even bisexual. He’d called himself “straight but openminded” in more than one interview.

  “Who knows, maybe he doesn’t find dudes as threatening, in general. Maybe we’re easier to put off. Or maybe he was just in a good mood that day. I don’t know.”

  Carlos’s assessment, as close as it was to truth, stung. “I never said I was in love with him. Besides, last week I bumped into him outside his house and he invited me in for tea.”

  “Tea? Get out of here.” Carlos flapped a hand, scoffing.

  “I’m serious.” I hadn’t slipped a paper liner on my cup, and my hand was starting to burn. I switched, almost crushing my muffin in the process. “I sat in his kitchen and drank his tea, and today he can’t even say hello? That’s just…well, that’s douchy, that’s all.”

  Carlos shrugged, looking back toward his laptop. “Man’s got issues, what can I say? If it makes you feel any better, it’s not just you.”

  That made me feel worse. I didn’t want to be treated the same way Johnny treated everyone else. I wanted to be…special.

  “Later,” Carlos called after me, though I’d moved away without saying goodbye. “Don’t let it get to you, Emm!”

  But I was. My coffee tasted bitter without the extra sugar and cream I normally added but had forgotten. My muffin, when I looked into the brown paper bag, had crumbled into bits. And I was late for work.

  “All I said was hi,” I grumbled under my breath.

  I thought about it all day long as I sat at my computer, entering data into spreadsheets, answering calls and emails. Putting out fires. Probably starting a few, too; I was too distracted to notice.

  I’d ended up in banking by accident. I’d gone to Lebanon Valley College in my hometown so I could live at home and walk to school if I had to. Annville’s a tiny town bordered to the north and south with farms but blending east and west into the towns next to it. I was limited in my job choices within walking distance of my parents’ house. Pizza shop, gas station, movie theater…bank. The bank had the best hours, pay and benefits, and I didn’t have to rely on my parents to give me a ride. I’d worked there all throughout college and then after when my inability to drive limited me even more severely.

  After a few years I’d advanced to bank manager. I liked my work. I liked numbers. I liked my new job, working for the Pennsylvania State Employee’s Credit Union, even better.

  But not today.

  Today I counted the minutes until I could go home and check the mail to see if my DVD of Night of a Hundred Moons had arrived. Unfortunately, the mailbox was empty yet again. My stomach sank like the Lusitania. I actually checked twice, as though a package could possibly be hiding in the shallow box somewhere out of sight. Then, disappointed, I let myself into my dark and chilly house.

  I didn’t even have any calls on my answering machine, not that I ever had many. Most people who wanted to get in touch with me rang my cell if they tried at home and didn’t reach me. Apparently, today I wasn’t even popular enough for that.

  I took a long, hot shower, head bent to let the steaming water pound down on my shoulders and back. Tension had twisted my muscles. I needed strong hands to unkink the knots. Sadly, unless I wanted to pay for it, I was out of luck. My skinned knees stung as I ran a razor over them.

  So of course I was thinking about Johnny again.

  What the hell was his problem? Okay, so I understood that it might be annoying to have random strangers compliment him on his cock. Even if he wasn’t ashamed of his art movie past, it had ended more than thirty years ago. I could respect him not wanting to live on the bragging rights of work he’d done so long ago, or off a body that had now aged. I could respect him not wanting to be worshipped for his looks. What I couldn’t get behind was him blowing me off like he’d never made me tea just the way I like it and offered me cookies. That was douchebaggery of the highest degree, and I didn’t want to believe he was a big bag of dicks. I was too much in crush for that.

  Johnny could have no idea of the late-night movie marathon Jen and I’d had. He couldn’t know of the fugues and the dreams. And no matter how anyone else had ever behaved to him, I hadn’t. No matter what I’d thought or what had gone on in my subconscious, I hadn’t acted on it. I hated that he’d lumped me in with loony fans who stalked him in the Mocha. Hey, I hadn’t moved into my house to get closer to him, for fuck’s sake. We were neighbors.

  My stomach rumbled at the memory of the cookies. What had he said? Homemade’s better? And wouldn’t it be neighborly of me to offer him some?

  In a few minutes I had an array of baking materials spread on my kitchen island. I’d bought this house in part because of the kitchen, which the former owners had refurbished and updated—not in colors I liked or top-of-the-line appliances, but they’d added this island that doubled as workspace and eating area. I didn’t have a kitchen table.

  I had all the ingredients. I even had mixing bowls and measuring cups. What I didn’t have was a recipe. Not a good one. Not the best one. I had pieces of it stored away in my Swiss-cheese brain, but I’d never actually baked my grandma’s chocolate chip cookies on my own.

  My phone was already to my ear, my mom on autodial, when I realized I hadn’t spoken to her in about three days. Three. I couldn’t remember ever not speaking to my mom for more than two days or so in a row. If I didn’t call her, she called and left me messages until I called back.

  She’d answered before I could contemplate this too much. “Hello?”

  “Mom, it’s me. Emm,” I felt suddenly compelled to say, as though she had more than one daughter.

  “Emmaline. Hi. What’s going on?”

  She hadn’t asked me what was wrong. That was both a relief and a concern. “I need grandma’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.”

  “You’re baking?”

  “Well…yeah.” I laughed. “Why else would I need it?”

  “I haven’t made cookies in forever,” my mom said.

  I paused in shaking the bag of flour into the tin I hadn’t been using before. “Really? How come?”

  “Well…your dad and I have been trying to cut back on sweets. Get ourselves in shape.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t think anything of that. My mom put my dad on a diet a couple times a year and often vowed to do the same for herself, but both of them liked to eat and not exercise, a family trait I’d unfortunately inherited. “How’s that going?”

  “Oh, you know your dad. He says he’s sticking with it, but I know he’s sneaking burgers and fries.”

  “Maybe if you made him cookies once in a while he wouldn’t,” I offered, and we both giggled, knowing there was no way my dad would replace burgers and fries with cookies, no matter how good they were.

  “I found it.” My mom sounded triumphant. “I stuck the paper in the back of that cookbook Aunt Min got for me a few Christmases ago.”

  “Which one, the low-fat baking one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mom, why would you put a chocolate chip cookie recipe in that cookbook?”

  “Because,” my
mom said as though I were a fool for even asking, “I knew I wouldn’t look for it there.”

  We both laughed again. Nostalgia swept me. I’d spent so many evenings baking cookies with my mom, or rolling out crust for fruit pies and potpies. My mom was an excellent cook and had taught me well, but I hardly ever cooked for myself. I missed that. I missed her.

  “Emm? You’re not getting a cold, are you? Or, God forbid, the flu? You should take that…what’s that stuff called, your cousin told me about it. Oscillating something. Like a fan.”

  She meant oscillium. “I’m okay. What’s first?”

  She didn’t follow up with that, and I paused again. My mom never just let something go. If she even had a hint that there might be something wrong with me, she shook it to death like a puppy with a stray sock.

  “You have all the ingredients?”

  “Yep.”

  “Shortening?” My mom sounded suspicious. “Eggs?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Because, Emmaline, you know you can’t make cookies without eggs.”

  As once I’d tried. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

  “Never,” my mom said. I heard the smile in her voice. I heard the love.

  I sniffled but put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone so she wouldn’t hear. I didn’t want my mom to worry about me. Then again, I didn’t want her to not worry about me, either.

  She walked me through the measuring and mixing as she kept me up-to-date with family gossip and stories about our neighbors. Her neighbors now, no longer mine. She told me about running into old school friends I hadn’t even spoken to in years aside from the casual Connex wall post.

  “You spend more time with my old friends than I do,” I told her as I finished scooping the last blob of dough onto a baking stone and slid it into my embarrassingly clean oven. I licked the spoon.

  “You’ll get salmonella,” my mother warned.

  “How did you know?”

  “I know you, Emmaline. I’m your mother. Oh, I have to go! My show’s about to come on. Bye, Emm. Love you.”