Beige

by Cecil Castellucci

  Trixie’s arm comes up and goes around my shoulder and she pulls me in for a hug, and when my face reaches her shoulder, I sigh. She smells like jasmine. She strokes my hair and she says, “Katy, that’s a lot to keep all bottled up inside.”

  I’m so glad someone can see that. Finally.

  “So, what am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to hang in there. It’s going to be all right.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be all right. It feels like my mother is abandoning me. Like I’m not interesting to her anymore. I really am beige.”

  “She’s not abandoning you.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s picking a guy over me! I want to go home! And now I have to go to another new country, and this time I don’t even speak the language!”

  I’m totally yelling. I didn’t know I could be so loud. Auggie is going to wake up for sure. Trixie doesn’t seem to mind. She just lets me yell.

  “Katy, she’s living her life for the first time. And she can’t do it without you. Think about that.”

  “Are you going to be like every other adult and tell me it’s a great opportunity?”

  “No,” Trixie says. “I think it sucks. I wish Vittorio were going to move to Montréal. Make the man change his life, I say. It’s such a typical gender role for the woman to have to change her life for a man.”

  “Yeah,” I say. That hurts because it sounds like something Mom would say.

  “You know, Katy, your mom is really young,” Trixie says.

  “I know.”

  “I mean, she’s ten years younger than I am.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. You know what I was doing when I was in my twenties and thirties?” Trixie asks. “I was making big mistakes and dating the wrong guy. And getting out of a stupid marriage. And I was wild. And I was independent. And I did whatever I wanted. I went crazy and did crazy things and I was selfish. You know what your mom was doing? None of that. She had you.”

  “She probably regrets it now,” I say.

  “I doubt it. You know, you’re not so far from the age she was when she had you,” Trixie says.

  I stop. I am nearly fifteen. And Mom was eighteen. I try to imagine having my own baby three years from now. I can’t. It seems impossible. I would never be able to do it.

  That makes me cry again. It must have been so hard.

  “Don’t you see?” Trixie says. “Your mom and I are kind of opposite, you know. Now I am in my forties and I have Auggie, and my whole life has changed. I can’t do anything that I used to do. And that’s really hard. I have had to make a lot of sacrifices. But I’m happy to do it. I’m ready. Just like your mom was when she had you. You’re old enough to be your own person now. She’s just letting loose a little.”

  “But I don’t want anything to change,” I say, and — I can’t help it — I start crying harder. Trixie hands me a Kleenex, ’cause I’ve got snot bubbles coming out of my nose.

  “She might be ready for a change, but I’m not.”

  “Ah, sweet Katy, nothing ever stays the same,” Trixie says. “The only thing you can take care of is yourself and how you feel. You can only make the best of it.”

  I want to tell her that I can’t bear the idea of spending years in Madrid wishing I were home. Just like I spent the whole summer in L.A. pretending I was somewhere else.

  I’m so not depressed anymore.

  I’m angry.

  We are dropping off the flyers at Amoeba Records for the Grown-Ups’ warm-up show at Skooby’s Hot Dogs.

  “So, wait. You’re moving to Spain?” Lake says.

  “Yeah, I’m going to go to an international school there.”

  “Too bad you still don’t habla español,” she says.

  I slam the pile of flyers down on the counter.

  “Could you just not do that?” I say.

  “Not do what?”

  “Pick on me and make me feel worse about my already horrible situation,” I say.

  “Well, it’s true!” Lake says.

  I shoot her a look.

  “So what should I say?”

  “How about ‘That sucks.’ Or ‘Good luck.’ Or ‘Whoa. Bummer.’”

  “OK, I hear you,” Lake says. “It is a bummer.”

  I thought we were just going in and out, but Lake pulls me deeper into the store and starts browsing. I don’t know what to do here. I’m standing in the aisles surrounded by rows and rows of CDs.

  The clicking of the plastic as people flip through the discs starts to have a soothing effect on me. It’s got a rhythm. It must lull everyone else, too. All around me, people are concentrated and dreamy-looking as they flip. It’s so Zen.

  A song comes onto the speaker. It startles me. I know it.

  The boy next to me, flipping through the racks, glances at me and nods in approval. As though I’m in the know.

  I am in the know.

  It’s Suck.

  Sam’s voice is screaming through the speaker. I look around. Nobody is panicking. Some people’s heads are bobbing up and down in time.

  I check myself. I’m fine. I’m not panicking. It’s not making me crazy. It’s not taking me anywhere I don’t want to go.

  I head toward S. Suck has its own divider.

  Then I start looking for all the bands on Garth’s mix CD. I pull the CDs out and examine the covers.

  “Did you find something?” Lake says, pulling the CDs out of my hand.

  I nod. I did find something.

  “Huh,” she says. “Not bad.”

  I hear The Rat talking on the phone. I can hear him through the open window. He thinks he’s being clever ’cause he’s stepped outside, like he is going to smoke a cigarette or something. But he’s not being clever.

  He’s coming in loud and clear. He’s talking about me.

  “Is she upset? How would I know?” he says. “Right now she’s kind of always upset.”

  It’s true. I am upset at everything.

  “That’s true — I remember my teen years. Kind of.”

  Then he laughs.

  “I’m glad that she’s been here, because it’s about making up for lost time. But now Suck wants to go on tour,” The Rat says. “Two months is a long time.”

  I move away from the window so I won’t have to listen to him, but he’s still coming in loud and clear.

  “Yeah. I guess I’m ready for her to leave. It’s going to be kind of nice to be selfish again.”

  I forget to breathe. Everybody is ready for me to leave. Everybody is ready to forget about me.

  I know what I need to do. I need to leave first. Who am I kidding? I would never do that. I couldn’t. I’m just not that kind of girl. I just don’t have that much rebel in me. But my body starts moving. My hand is turning the knob.

  Instead of just thinking about it, I do it. I head out the front door.

  My feet hit the pavement hard. I feel it through the bottom of my brand-new Chuck Taylors. My pace quickens. It’s dark, and nobody walks in L.A.

  I push the gate open and head down the driveway. I stand on my tippy toes and feel behind the wing of the angel. I got it. The spare key to the jam space.

  I open the door and then lock it up behind me. I flick on the lamps and get a good vibe going. At last I can let it all out. In here it doesn’t feel stupid to cry or scream. This jam space is the only place to go.

  The instruments seem to beckon to me. But no matter how hard they try, I’m not tempted to bang on the drums — even though a part of me knows deep down inside that banging on them will probably make me feel better. I don’t want to feel better. I pull out the blanket and lie down on the couch.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Through crusty eyes I see The Rat standing above me. Lake is standing next to him.

  “I told you,” she says. “Nothing to worry about.”

  It must be like four in the morning.

  “Do you know how worried I was about you? Don’t you ever do that aga
in!” he yells.

  “Do what?”

  “Run away! You do not have permission to run away.”

  “I thought you said by the time you were my age, you’d run away like five times, gotten a tattoo, been kicked out of three bands, and had sex.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “It just is.”

  “It’s not different.”

  “You’re different, Katy,” The Rat says. “I thank God you’re different than me.”

  “I wanted to be alone.”

  “You could have gone to Trixie’s.” He takes off his cowboy hat and rubs his head.

  “I told you she’d be here,” Lake says, piping up from the doorway. “And it’s no wonder. I’d be pissed off if I were Beige, too.”

  “Lake, please stay out of this,” The Rat says.

  “Rat, be a little more grateful,” Lake says. “I showed you where she was.”

  “And I thank you for it,” The Rat says.

  “I can take care of myself,” I say. “I didn’t do anything stupid. I just had to get out of the house.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason to run away,” he says.

  I bet he’s run away for stupider reasons in his time. I can tell that he hates that he sounds like a parent, but I know he has to say it.

  “If I’m different, don’t you trust me?” I ask him.

  “I do.”

  “If you trusted me, you’d know that I would have come home tomorrow like a good little girl and packed my stuff up to go to Madrid,” I say.

  “But now you’ve broken the trust. I can’t trust you when you leave without a word.”

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “Yes, you can,” The Rat says.

  “I heard you. I heard you say you were ready for me to leave. I heard you say that two months was a long time. Well, you got off pretty easy, don’t you think? Two months out of fifteen years?”

  “Katy, you misunderstood me. When you say it like that it does sound awful.”

  “It is awful,” I say.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty awful,” Lake says.

  “Lake, shut up. I can speak for myself.”

  Lake looks kind of surprised. She throws her arms up in mock surrender.

  “You didn’t hear what I said on the phone, right,” The Rat says.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No,” he says. “You didn’t hear the full context of the conversation. I was talking to Frank about how I’m going on tour in the fall for two months. I’m going to be on the road all that time. I meant that I need to be selfish and completely focused if Suck wants to make it this time.”

  It doesn’t even register.

  “I didn’t want to come to Los Angeles. I didn’t want to meet you again. I hate it here!”

  “Katy, I want to talk about this,” The Rat says.

  “I’m a bother. Now you can have your life back. I’m going to be out of your way and in Mom’s way.”

  “It’s not true!” he says. “You’re not in anyone’s way. I love having you around!”

  The Rat doesn’t have anything else to say. He just rubs his face with his hands, like he’s tired. I’m tired, too.

  I’m so tired.

  “You know what? Go away. Just let me sleep,” I say.

  “I’m not letting you sleep here.”

  “Have you ever slept in a jam space, Rat?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I had to live in one for three months when I couldn’t afford an apartment.”

  “So I can stay here for one night.”

  I pull my blanket up and roll over, away from him. He kind of stands there for a while and then he finally leaves me the hell alone.

  I let myself in, not knowing if The Rat is going to be home or not. I just want to go straight to my room. I didn’t want to come home yet, but I was feeling kind of bad about being away.

  The Rat is sitting on the couch working on a model airplane stretched out in front of him.

  “Whoa! It’s hot,” The Rat says, glancing up at me.

  He doesn’t say, I’m glad you’re home, or anything about last night. I think he’s trying to be cool. He stops working and goes into the kitchen.

  When he comes back, he’s cracking open one of his nonalcoholic beers.

  “Where’s my beer?” I ask.

  “You can’t drink beer,” he says. “You’re under twenty-one.”

  “You can’t drink beer either,” I say. “You’re sober.”

  “It’s an O’Doul’s. It’s nonalcoholic,” he says. “I like the taste.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  I go to the kitchen and I grab myself an O’Doul’s, sit down on the couch next to The Rat, and throw my legs up on the table. The bottle feels cold in my hand.

  We kind of stare at each other for a minute, waiting for the other one to say something. I kind of want him to say something. I want to go ballistic. I’ve been extra quiet for so long. I put the bottle to my lips. It smells skunky.

  The Rat sits back down on the couch.

  “You know it’s genetic. You’re susceptible to becoming an addict because of me and your mom,” The Rat says, cringing.

  “A cold fake beer on a dry, hot day sometimes is the only thing that hits the spot. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It sure does.”

  He nods. Takes a swig.

  I take a swig.

  It hits the spot.

  I let out a sigh.

  “It’s not like I haven’t tried a beer before. I had one a week ago at a party with Lake.”

  “I remember,” The Rat says. “Do you want to talk about this thing with your mom and moving to Spain?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Do you want to talk about running away last night?”

  “No.”

  “Do you promise that the next time we have a problem, we’ll talk about what’s going on?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes,” The Rat says. “Do you want to be mad right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, I understand that,” The Rat says. “Do you have to take it out on me?”

  I don’t answer him. I take another sip of near-beer.

  “OK. Cool. I understand. It’s OK if you do want to take it out on me. But I’m not the bad guy here.”

  I tap a beat out with my fingernails on the bottle. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  Skooby’s has a little PA system on the sidewalk under the half awning, separate from the seating area. Sam Suck got roped into driving us to the show, because no one in the Grown-Ups has her driver’s license yet. I sit there on a stool with Sam, minding the merch table while the Grown-Ups play.

  I know their set list by heart from sitting in on their jams.

  CHARMER ALARM

  POLITICS OF THE HEART

  ONE, TWO, THREE, WHORE!

  BIOLOGY CLASS RIP

  NEEDLE DICK

  SUN SCREAM

  MAMA’S BOY

  MÉNAGE À TROIS

  TINY HEART

  I see Garth, kind of skulking in the background. I wave for him to come and join us. He kind of shakes his head. I leave him alone. He knows he’s welcome at the table, and I see that knowing that puts a smile on his face.

  Sam bobs his head up and down to the music. The guy who owns Skooby’s knows exactly who Sam Suck is and gives us our hot dogs for free even though we’re not in the band. He asks Sam Suck for his autograph.

  “Does everybody know who you are?” I ask.

  “I started Suck with The Rat in junior high so we could get girls,” Sam says. “Now I get free hot dogs.”

  Well, that’s a perk, I think.

  I catch Sam looking at me. “Now you really remind me of your mom,” he says. “When I first met her, she was our merch girl.”

  “I’m just doing this as a favor,” I say.

  “Funny,” Sam says. “That’s what your mom said, too.�
��

  I think about how my mother followed The Rat to California. Now she’s following Vittorio to Madrid.

  It’s just like she always says: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

  The set is almost over. They’re going to end with the new song. But instead of being their usual full-on wall of sound, they strip it down. Lake sings it. Pretty. Like in the jam space. She does not growl. She sings. And the other girls hang back and don’t add too much more to the song. They keep it the way I liked it, when Lake was singing it just for me.

  “It’s been

  three days

  still haven’t

  heard from you.

  My heart

  lives underwater

  breathing for you.

  But you

  break apart

  my tiny heart,

  giving me

  no chance to start

  something

  with you.

  I dove into the pool

  I dove in

  hoping to swim

  now I’m drowning.”

  I never really listened to the words in a song before this. When the words are right, they make you sad and happy at the same time. Because you know, you just know, that what’s being said is true. You feel like the song was written just for you. And in this case, I guess it really was.

  I get goose bumps as I listen to Lake singing it my way. I start to sing along in my head.

  Garth stands there at the edge of the pool, more bones than skin. He sticks his arms out in an Arnold Schwarzenegger man-of-iron pose. It looks ridiculous. But he has everyone at the pool laughing. He keeps hamming it up.