We Own the Night

by Ashley Poston

  “So . . . wanna go catch a bite to eat Saturday night? I got stuff with . . . well, stuff with Heather, but Saturday night she’s hanging out with her friends. It could be like old times, yeah? Just me and you—what do you say?”

  I’ve been waiting all summer for this exact moment. For some semblance of what we were. But I’m not the girl I was at the beginning of the summer, and I don’t want to be that kind of girl again.

  I give him an apologetic look. "I can't . . . I’ve got plans.”

  “C’mon, Igs, what kinda plans could you have on a Saturday night in Steadfast?”

  “You can listen in, if you want." I hurry back up the steps to the front door.

  "What?"

  "Listen in! Saturday at midnight; 93.5 KOTN.”

  “The . . . radio?”

  "Of course!" I ring the doorbell. "It’s a little-known fact, but when midnight rolls around, I own the night.”

  Chapter Forty

  When I show back up for work Thursday, nothing’s changed. Not that I expect it to. I’ve changed, but Steadfast never does.

  Heather’s leaning against the registers like a sentry, waiting for me with her usual scowl. She points back to the Twizzlers aisle. “I organized them—again—so don’t mess them up. You have the gum ball machine today. I just got my nails manicured.”

  I grab a bag of gum balls from the shelf in the break room and drag it out to the front, onto the counter. “I did it last time,” I complain.

  “And?” She looks down at her phone, scrolling through her social media feed. “If it doesn’t get done, then fine.”

  I stare at her for a long moment, feeling more pity for her than anything else, then drag them over to the gum ball machine and ask her for a quarter. She fishes one out of the register and tosses it to me. I plunk the quarter in and half turn the nozzle so the gum ball hole opens, and I shove the first gum ball inside.

  “Hey, Ingrid,” she begins as I look back to her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks—” Her phone rings, and she answers it, hopping up to sit on the counter. She pulls one leg over the other, picking the lint off her red-and-white-striped apron. “Hello? Oh, Lila, yeah I heard it Saturday. Whatever—so, apparently Mike, because he’s like a total insomniac, found this really cool radio show last night.”

  My hand freezes in the gum ball machine.

  “Yeah, she heard from a Tumblr group and like it’s all the rage—whatever. So, like, I was thinking we should go up to that super weirdo who runs the radio station up the street and ask him to throw a listening party. Everyone’ll love it. Like, we have nothing else to do—” Heather notices me staring and makes a face halfway between a scowl and a glare, then turns around. “Sorry, so what do you say? Yeah? I mean, it’s totally relatable and the girl who does it is so clueless that she loves Dark and Brooding—right?” She giggles. “It’s like a romantic comedy. They should make a movie out of it.”

  “It’s called Sleepless in Seattle,” I mutter, sticking another quarter in the slot, twisting the crank, and shoving another gum ball in; then another.

  My mortal enemy is talking about me, about my radio show, about how cool I am. I wonder how she would feel if she knew it was me. Would I still be cool? I used to think there was a difference, between Niteowl and Ingrid—a girl trapped in a town and a girl trapped on the airwaves. When did I draw that line? And when had I crossed it?

  Heather finally hangs up and turns back to me. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then says, “Hey, do you listen to Niteowl?”

  I hesitate, rolling a gumboil in my hands. “Not really . . .”

  “You should. She’s pretty cool—”

  The bell above the door dings and we both turn to Mike Labouise. My shoulders slump.

  “Hey, girl,” he greets, sauntering in.

  “Hi,” she replies curtly. “Here to buy something?”

  “Nah, just come to look around,” he replies, and his foot brushes against the bag of gum balls. I’m not sure if it’s an accident or on purpose (let’s be honest, it’s the latter), but they go skittering across the floor. A few roll under the shelves. Those will come out of my paycheck. “Whoops, sorry about that.”

  “Mike,” Heather says. It sounds flat. A warning?

  “Oh, come on; she could use the exercise.”

  I stare at the gum balls on the floor.

  Am I really spending my life in a candy store shoving gum balls up a machine? In the glass of the machine’s bowl I can see my reflection, my eyes bloodshot from going to bed at two and waking up at eight to make it to this terrible job that pays minimum wage, with a girl I can barely stand, living in a house I always thought was home, but home doesn’t even remember my name sometimes. Grams told me she doesn’t want to be a burden. She was never the burden. It’s my own dreams deferred that are my burdens, and I’m so sick of drowning in them.

  “Hey, aren’t you gonna say something?” Mike eggs.

  “Sure,” I say, getting to my feet. I dust off my white pants. I turn to face him. “What do you want me to say?”

  His mouth flops open.

  “Oh no, Boo’s here to pick on me again—poor me! I’m so scared!” I mock, throwing my arms in the air. He glances at Heather, confused. “Making my life a living hell must really get you off.”

  Heather chews on her lip to keep herself from laughing as Mike pales. “The fuck you say?”

  “Oh, come on, Boo,” I taunt. “Can’t you take a joke?”

  “That’s not funny—”

  “Oh, now it’s not funny, but you bullying me is? Let me tell you something, it’s not. It was never funny. And you,” I turn to Heather, “you just let it happen, don’t you? You don’t do anything about it, you never did. I know you don’t like it, but you don’t stop it. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Heather’s eyes widen. Her lips form into a perfect, glossy O.

  “Or are you just scared of what other people might think? Scared you won’t be cool anymore? Bless, you have this great boyfriend and you won’t even show him to your parents! He loves you!”

  Heather sinks back, her face a stone mask. There are tears glistening in her eyes. I didn’t think Heather could cry, and I’m sorry I’m the cause of it. Mike tries to grab me by my shop apron but I sidestep out of his grip. “At least she’s not fat like you!”

  “Because being fat means I’m evil! Or that I’m not worthy! Or what—that I’m less than you?” I laugh. Turning around, I scoop a handful of gum balls from around my feet and throw them at him. “And for your information, I prefer VOLUPTUOUS!”

  At that exact moment the front door swings open, and Bossman enters whistling Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”. The gum balls ricocheted off the back of the door and drop like bullet shells onto the ground. Bossman closes the door, as if flying gum balls hadn’t almost killed him, and slowly pivots on his heels to me. Mr. Harvey—Bossman—is a short ginger-haired middle-aged man who always wears suspenders and pleated trousers, even though he’s only thirty-five. He gives me a wide-eyed look behind magnifying glasses that make his eyes bulge like a comical anime character’s, and I quickly hide my other hand full of gum balls behind my back.

  “She’s gone nuts!” Mike shrieks. “I was only trying to help and she’s gone insane!”

  “Ingrid . . .” Bossman says my name slowly, like talking to a two-year-old. “What are you doing?”

  “He was threatening me,” I say. “He came in here and started messing with me.”

  “Heather?” he asks her. “Is that right?”

  Heather chews on her lips, darting her green eyes between Mike and me, and back to Mike. I know where her loyalties lie. And I know my job here is done.

  “It’s okay, Heather,” I take off my apron and hand it to the Bossman. “I quit.”

  He blinks at me as if he doesn’t understand the words. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said I quit,” I repeat and make my exit, gum balls rolling after me as
I leave. But then I pause in the doorway to add, “Be sure to tune into 93.5 this Saturday at midnight. You’ll be in for a treat.”

  Then I fling open the door and leave Sweetey’s Sweet Shoppe for the last time in my entire life. It feels good. Buoyant. Like I’m paving a road I’ve seen in the distance, but never dared to travel.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Friday passes like molasses. I keep listening to Rooney Quill’s five messages (mostly the one where he grovels). I surf the Internet, pulling up sound bites from yesterday’s radio broadcast. My voice sounds foreign to me, an out-of-body experience. If I go, I can’t do the radio show anymore. I won’t talk to Dark, I won’t see Billie. I’ll have to intern for Rooney Quills, who wanted me to ask those terrible questions. Maybe I’ll have to again, and maybe next time the interview won’t go so well.

  But if I don’t go . . .

  This turmoil leads me to sitting on my bedroom floor Saturday night, staring at my phone and the five missed calls from Rooney Quill, and wishing my phone could tell me what to do. As if on cue, it lights up with Lorelei’s face, and I jump to answer it. “You’re alive!”

  “Far from dead!” she laughs. “Miss me?”

  “So much,” I reply earnestly. “How’s . . . everything?”

  She waits a beat before answering. “Iggy, it’s like . . . like I fit in here. Not all of me. But more pieces. Jason really is a tool, but he reminds me of Micah—in a good, less lousy way. I wish you were here.”

  “I wish you were here,” I agree. “But I’m glad you’re there. What did Jason say about that job he mentioned?”

  She scoffs. “Like I’ll be a sound tech.”

  My stomach drops.

  “But I am auditioning for a minor role in his touring band. Just for shits and giggles.”

  “Holy shit, yeah?”

  “Yeah. I probably won’t get it, but . . . it’s a step in the right direction. It’s something. Like I’m finally in motion.”

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Life is dull without you, Iggy,” she goes on. “Pack up and come back.”

  Come back, as if I belonged there instead.

  “I . . . think I will.” It’s the first time I’ve decided it, but the moment I voice it I realize it’s true. I want to be there. Home will always be with Grams, but home is also wherever I am, too. “I have to do something here first.”

  “I know you do. Good luck, my love,” she says, “I’ll be listening.”

  “Thank you.”

  After I hang up, I go downstairs to find Grams in the living room, reading another of her magazines. She looks up with a smile, still remembering that I was gone for a day. She asks me how it was, and I tell her everything—about the city, the interview, the concert. How the smell of the city still clings to my skin, how I walked on stars instead of watched them orbit over me, how even surrounded by a million people, I never felt more at home.

  “I . . . I think I’ve got my mom’s heart after all,” I say, a little embarrassed. “I want to travel. I want to go places.”

  “Your mother didn’t want to travel,” Grams replies. “She wanted to run away, and she’s been running ever since.”

  “I don’t want to run.”

  She nods, and then she gasps, snapping her fingers. “Oh, I know I forgot to tell you something! Billie came looking for you while you were gone.”

  I almost drop the magazine I’m shuffling through. “He . . . he did?”

  “The poor boy said he wanted to see you one last time before he left. And he wanted to give you this.” She shuffles to the kitchen and digs through her purse, taking out a CD.

  It’s Jason Dallas’s first EP—a collector’s item. I can see where Billie tried to scrape off the price sticker on the top left corner but couldn’t get it all the way gone. Some of the letters are missing, but it says “MANIFEST.” The record store in North Platte.

  Wait, was that why we went to North Platte? So he could pick this up? Was that why he was talking with the redhead with those snakebites?

  He wasn’t flirting with her?

  My heart rises into my throat like a helium balloon.

  “Is he gone?” I croak. Even as I say it, I’m standing and grabbing my phone and keys.

  “I’m not sure, dear,” she replies. “I’m a bit funny in the head these days, although I’m still taking my medicine.”

  “I know.” I kiss her forehead. “I won’t be home until after midnight, is that okay?”

  “Sneaking off like you do every Saturday,” she says, and tsks. “Must go somewhere wild, do you?”

  Of course she caught on. I wonder how long she’s known I’ve been sneaking out? There’s a radio on the mantel that I start to tune to 93.5—but it’s already there. I want to think it’s weird, but I should know better.

  You can’t keep secrets in a town like Steadfast.

  Grams wags a finger at me. “I might be old, but I’m not senile yet,” she says. “Now go catch your boy, Niteowl.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I kiss her again—because, bless, I’ll miss kissing her—and set out in a run, hurtling out the door and onto the lawn, in the opposite direction of the blinking red light of the radio tower. I punch in his number, but it goes to voice mail. I try three more times.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I’ve never been good in PE. I’m terrible at endurance. But I don’t have much time, and I can’t be late for my radio show. The shortcut to Billie’s house is a worn path in my head from the summer when we rode our bikes through the neighbors’ yards and scaled fences. My knees are permanently scarred from all the falls and all the scrapes and scratches, and they might be knobby and they might hurt sometimes, but I wear them proudly like badges. Even though we’ve all grown and changed, LD, Micah, Billie, and me, the yards have stayed the same. The swing sets have gotten older, the dogs grumpier, the shrubs higher—but it’s all the same and leads to the same blue vinyl house I’ve always known.

  The porch light’s on, and the cars are home. Maybe Billie is, too. I can’t think about if he isn’t. He has to be. I don’t want to have missed him again.

  I remember the summers his dad used to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of fireworks and put on a show on the Fourth of July. We’d all sit on the grass, drinking milkshakes Mrs. Perez made, the taste a sticky-sweet vanilla. Billie always had this concentration the rest of us didn’t. He wouldn’t tear his eyes away from the sky for an instant, not wanting to miss a single firework. I’d shift and wiggle—I hated sitting still.

  “Pay attention, North,” he’d say, never taking his eyes away. “It’s the good part.”

  But all of it was the good part. The fireworks, the ice cream, the summers cutting through lawns. Our entire lives have been the good part. And I don’t want to miss any more of it.

  I ring the doorbell, and his mother answers. “Ingrid! Billie said that he just missed you going to New York! He didn’t think you’d be back.”

  “Is he home?” I ask, breathless.

  “No, actually he just stepped out . . .” She frowns, noticing my flushed cheeks. “Is something wrong? Want to come in and wait?”

  “I can’t,” I reply, wiping my damp forehead with the back of my hand. My heart thumps down into my stomach, and sits there like coal. I missed him—again. And I don’t have time to wait. “Can you tell Billie to tune into KOTN in fifteen minutes?”

  “That’ll be midnight!”

  “I know. It’s—it’s important. Please?”

  “Of course, Ingrid! Do you want him to give you a call?” she shouts after me as I make my way back onto their lawn.

  “Sure!” I reply, and finally turn toward the red blinking light. Star light, star bright, I think, staring up at my old North Star, knowing there is only one thing that I could wish for.

  RADIO NITEOWL

  SHOW #165

  AUGUST 4th

  NITEOWL: Happy midnight, my fellow Owlers! With a heavy heart I'm here to say thi
s'll be my last broadcast from radio nowhere. You all have been through a lot with me over these last few years, and I'll forever be grateful for it. Thank you for being my ears, for being my diary, for trusting me with your hopes and dreams and aspirations and lost loves. I feel honored to have gotten to know all of you, so thank you. You have all shared so much, and I've shared so little . . . I think I should change that. My name is Ingrid North, and I'm from a small town in Nebraska. I lived with my grandmother, who is my world, and I have three amazing friends who have made me who I am. I'm not sure what my future holds after this, but whatever it is, I hope you'll be with me for the journey. Caller One, you’re on the air.

  CALLER ONE: Like, did you really interview Jason Dallas?

  NITEOWL: I did! He was very nice. Got front-row tickets to his concert, too. The one that Roman Holiday didn't show up at. Great concert.

  CALLER ONE: So he's not a complete tool?

  NITEOWL: He could be, but he seemed perfectly nice to me! Give him a chance. Everyone deserves two. Or three. Caller Two, anything?

  CALLER TWO: So what're your plans after this? Anything on the radio?

  NITEOWL: Oh, I'm a radio heart. I'll never abandon it! Thank you for your call. Caller Three, how are you?

  DARK AND BROODING: Hi.

  NITEOWL: Oh . . . oh, hi! I didn't think you'd call.

  DARK AND BROODING: I'm sorry. The timing's just never been right. And I’m sorry I never called the Swish. I was listening but . . . that timing wasn’t right, either.

  NITEOWL: It’s okay. I’m glad you called now. And this is it. The last show.

  DARK AND BROODING: That sounds so final.

  NITEOWL: Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t—but I just want to say that it’s been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for everything. For being there, for listening, for talking with me . . . I don’t think there are enough words to describe how much I want to thank you. And I’m going to miss you, Dark. I’m probably going to miss you the most.

  DARK AND BROODING: I’m going to miss you, too.