Rage: A Love Story

by Julie Anne Peters

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  Her eyes flit around the parking lot. “Saving your ass from getting raped?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Thank you.”

  We stand for a moment, looking at each other, into each other. Reeve saw my pain; she saw me run out, ran after me.

  She says, “Did you know you were screaming?”

  “Was I?”

  “I’m deaf, aren’t I?”

  I grin. She smiles.

  She adds, “Why did you come here?”

  I check out the lot. “I don’t know. It seemed like a safe place to go?”

  She just looks at me. “You’re kind of weird, aren’t you?”

  “Possibly.”

  She tilts her head. “That’s a total turn-on for me.”

  All the blood rushes to my face. Thank God it’s dark.

  Her eyelids droop. They’re painted silver and gold tonight, dazzling and reflective in the moonlight. This night, and that moon, and Reeve.

  “Do you have any Orbit?” she asks.

  “Will you go out with me?” The words just belch from my brain.

  She blinks. “Now?”

  “No. I mean, sometime.”

  “Why not now? Are you hungry?”

  “Always.”

  “You have a cell? We’ll call for pizza. Have it delivered here.”

  My eyebrows arch. “To the parking lot?”

  “Hey, it’s where you go,” she says.

  God, she’s here, joking around with me. Flirting? I hate to admit I can’t afford a cell. “I have a better idea. Let’s go get a pizza.”

  She doesn’t say yes or no. It’s a stupid idea. “Or—”

  “You drive,” she says.

  The closest pizza place I know is Montoni’s, three blocks from the school in this melting pot–ish neighborhood—Italian, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese. Our service club used to meet here.

  “I’ve seen this place,” Reeve says as we pull to the curb. “I’ve never eaten here.”

  “I have. It’s good.” I reach for the door handle and Reeve clenches my arm. “I want this to be the first,” she says. “For both of us.”

  First what? Date? Orgasm?

  “What about there?” Reeve points. “Have you eaten there?”

  My eyes follow her finger across the street to the Ishtar Café and Hookah. “No.”

  She takes off and I’m sucked into the wake of her comet tail.

  The inside of the café is smoky, amber lamps diffusing the haze. There’s no hostess or wait staff in sight. Reeve chooses a booth by the lotto machine.

  A waiter appears out of nowhere and drops off two menus. He says, “You want hookah?”

  Reeve and I look at each other. “Sure,” we say together.

  The waiter leaves.

  Reeve picks up her menu and studies it for a moment. She catches me staring.

  “What do you see?” she asks, lowering the menu.

  The urge is strong, but I don’t jump the table between us. “Two eyes, a mouth, a nose.” Real poetic, Johanna. God, I’m freaking out here. I’m with Reeve Hartt on a date.

  She smiles. A smile so tender and sad, I want to go to her, hold her, caress her face, kiss her lips, her eyes, nose, throat.

  She resumes scanning the menu.

  Something stops me from asking the same question of her. No doubt she sees a pathetic, desperate, freaking-out freak. The waiter sets a brass-and-glass urn or vase or goblet thing on the table and sprinkles these round, flat charcoals into a bowl. He lights the charcoal and says, “Shisha?”

  Reeve and I go, “What?”

  I giggle hysterically. She levels a stare at me.

  The waiter says, “Eighteen?” pointing to me, then Reeve.

  “Yeah. Do you need ID?” I ask.

  He waves me off. “What flavor you like? Apple, melon, mint, cherry, banana, mix fruit …” He rattles off a dozen more.

  Reeve looks at me and I shrug. We both say, “Cherry.”

  I smile into my chest. She lets out a small laugh.

  He opens a wooden box and selects a square package. Tobacco, I guess. We both watch intently as he fills bowls and assembles the hookah urn. Snaking out from either side are long, skinny hoses covered in braided cord.

  The waiter picks up one pipe and mimes what we’re supposed to do. He hands me the hose, while Reeve takes the other. The waiter vanishes.

  Reeve says, “It’s like a bong.”

  There are mouthpieces at the ends of the pipes and Reeve inserts hers into her mouth. I copy. I suck a little and nothing happens.

  I’ve smoked before with Novak. Not from a bong.

  Reeve’s eyes rest on me. “Are you getting anything?”

  “Dizzy.”

  She cricks a lip. “Any smoke?”

  “No. Are you?”

  She shakes her head.

  We must not be sucking hard enough, I figure. I try again and water bubbles in the clear globe of the urn. Smoke fills a chamber, and a second later I feel it on my tongue. A bite. It tastes like bark. Or burnt candy.

  Reeve’s eyes widen.

  Oh wow. This is nice.

  I inhale and the smoke tickles my throat. It isn’t harsh, like cigarettes. Cool, I think. Warm. My muscles and bones and shoulders relax. Reeve closes her lids and inhales.

  Her eyes are beautiful tonight. She looks like an angel. Or a water nymph. Provocative pastel eyes. She removes her mouthpiece and smiles.

  That smile is total surrender.

  “Oh, baby,” she says. “So fly.”

  I’m soaring, all right. Is this legal?

  The waiter comes to take our order and we both quickly scan the menu again. I don’t know what most of this stuff is. Hummus, I’ve heard of. Reeve says to the waiter, “Number nine?”

  I close my menu. “Same.” The waiter leaves.

  Reeve picks up her pipe. “Nine’s my lucky number.”

  “Yeah? I’ll remember that.” We both inhale. Breathing out my last knot of nervousness, I ask, “Why?”

  Reeve holds the cherry smoke in her lungs, then expresses a long, visible stream of breath. “That’s how many girls I’ve fucked.”

  The shock registers only slightly, in my conscious brain. I suck in on the hookah extra hard, filling my chest cavity.

  Reeve lowers her pipe. “What do you see now?”

  Defiance? Daring? For a moment, though, she lets down her guard. “Two eyes, a nose, a mouth.”

  Reeve looks away.

  “I see nine girls who didn’t know what hit them.”

  A smile curls her lips. “You got that right.”

  I wave my pipe in the air. “Hookah!” I say.

  She laughs, this silky, serpentine laugh that ribbons down my throat.

  The waiter sets two football-sized plates in front of us filled with skewered meat and rice and globs of purplish goo. He uncovers a basket of pita bread.

  Reeve sets her pipe beside her plate. “I hope you’re paying,” she says. “I don’t have any money.”

  “I asked you out, didn’t I?”

  She spreads her napkin in her lap. “Thanks,” she says. “Seriously.”

  “Hey, you saved my life. It’s the least I can do.”

  She picks up her skewer of meat and sniffs, then nibbles the tip.

  The meat is both chewy and tender. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to just eat it off the stick, but that’s how Reeve’s doing it, so I do too. It’s good.

  We eat in silence for a minute, testing everything. Reeve says, “So what are the best and worst moments you’ve had in high school and how has each changed your life?” She dips her skewered meat into the purply gunk. “For extra credit, who gives a shit?”

  “Really.” Not me. Not now.

  Reeve says, “Since you’re having difficulty nailing it, I’ll go first. Best moment? The day my dad left. Worst moment? The day my dad left.”

  I feel my forehead furrow.

  “He’s no
t the biggest asshole in the world.” She lifts her pipe. Her hand is trembling a little when she adds, “There’s always someone worse. At the time, you can’t imagine who …”

  We’ve spiraled into this deep discussion without warning. The urge to reach across and take her hand is overpowering, but my reflexes are slow and my arm won’t move.

  “Do you have one?” she asks. “Let me rephrase that. Is there an asshole in your life?” She blows out smoke.

  My first thought is Dante, but he’s not in my life. Then the door opens and a guy staggers in. His rheumy eyes graze the booths and glue on me. My stomach lurches. It’s the guy who got in my car.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Reeve says.

  “No, I …” He slumps onto a barstool, turning his back to me.

  I refocus on Reeve. “My dad is dead. When he was alive, he wasn’t an asshole.”

  Reeve concentrates on my face. “How’d he die?”

  “Parkinson’s. Pneumonia, actually. He was older.”

  Reeve asks, “Well, is your mom a bitch at least?”

  My eyes fall. “She’s dead too. I live alone.”

  “How?”

  “Cancer. She was—”

  “How do you live alone?”

  I look up. What does she mean? Like, how do I manage?

  “Never mind,” she says. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “What?”

  She’s scooting out of the booth.

  “Reeve—”

  “I left Robbie all alone.”

  “Reeve!” I throw down my skewer. Scrambling to move, I snag my bag and slide out of the booth.

  I have to dodge a drunk woman who stumbles off her barstool, then stop at the door because … we haven’t paid.

  I don’t have any cash on me, and my checkbook’s at home.

  Reeve slips out as a man and woman come in. I insert myself between them to follow her. The guilt will gnaw at me later. I can come by tomorrow and pay. I will. But now—

  She vanishes in the night. The sidewalk is empty, the street deserted. “Reeve!”

  Her slim figure zips between parked cars across the street and I dash after her. The sharp night air is sobering.

  My legs are longer and she isn’t running very fast, so I catch her and spin her around. She shoves me. She pushes me so hard I fall on the asphalt, crunching my tailbone.

  “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t come any closer.” Her voice sounds threatening. “I mean it.”

  I push to my feet, slowly. “Reeve, I …”

  She backs up a step, then turns and flees. Over her shoulder, she yells, “Don’t follow me!”

  My heart screams, Go after her! Don’t let her go! But my head rules. It always has.

  I drag to my car and sit inside, stunned. My butt hurts. What just happened? What did I say, or do?

  And what’s that on my windshield? I open the door and get out to remove the paper from under my wiper blade. A fifty-dollar ticket for a busted headlight.

  Fuck. Can I just catch one break?

  Chapter 10

  My brain won’t stop remixing the scene from last night. Rewriting the ending: Reeve falls in love with me; Reeve comes home with me.

  Reeve running from me—that doesn’t play in Joyland.

  I need mind-numbing activity. Today is senior ditch day, so school won’t work. I decide to clean the apartment. It’s the first time I’ve swept under the refrigerator. Entire ecosystems are destroyed.

  The phone rings, but I don’t get there in time. I haven’t bothered to brush my hair or teeth yet, and I’m still wearing the oversized t-shirt I wore to bed. Do I stink? Maybe that’s what scared Reeve away. I strip in the bathroom, and as I reach to crank on the shower, the phone rings again. I sprint to the living room to pick up.

  “How does a lesbo spend senior ditch day?”

  “Scouring the shit from her life?”

  Novak is quiet. Then she sniffles.

  I didn’t mean her. “Novak, I—”

  “Everything’s fucked,” she says. “Can I come over?”

  “I have to be at work at four.” Kind of cold, I think. But I’m not feeling all toasty warm toward her, not after last night.

  “I won’t stay long.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Please?”

  I realize I ran out here naked and now I’m all goose pimply. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

  Novak’s father is an international investment banker. The drive from Countryside Commons, where she lives, is fifteen minutes if you book it.

  I take a quick shower and put my tee back on. In the kitchen I’ve removed everything from the cabinets. What was I thinking?

  Was I thinking my life is an empty cupboard? Restock it. There’s a can of cream of celery soup that must be left over from when Tessa lived up here in high school. After Tessa left and Mom got sick, I pretty much did all the grocery shopping. Mom would make a list. Until she was forced to leave her own home, she was making grocery lists. A knock sounds on the door.

  “It’s open!” I yell.

  I’m restacking Tessa’s Corelle plates as the door whooshes open. “You don’t lock your door either?”

  I spin around.

  “I bring gum.” She holds up a pack of Orbit.

  My heart does a backflip.

  Reeve takes in the chaos and coughs. “Sorry.” She fans her face.

  Lysol fumes. “I’ll open the windows.” I rush past Reeve to crack the front window.

  “So this is your crib,” she says, looking around.

  “What?”

  She slugs my shoulder. “I’m going to smack you every time you say that.”

  “Say what?” I smile and she balls a fist.

  “Is this how you get high on ditch day?” she asks, dropping the gum on the divan. “Sniffing Scrubbing Bubbles?”

  “Yeah, I’m a huffer. Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever cleaned this place.”

  Her face lights up. “And I get to share?”

  I exaggerate a grin. “Epic.”

  She smiles back. That warm, tender smile I melt under.

  She has on shorts and a faded pink crop top. Her hair’s ruffled and loose and her high cheekbones glow with sparkles of glitter.

  I haven’t even combed my hair. “You could’ve come earlier,” I say, sweeping my mess of tangles over my head. “To share in the first scouring of Terrifying Toilet Bowl.”

  “Oh snap,” she says.

  I measure the distance between us, allowing it to close in. Mentally I spin a web around us. No escape this time. She isn’t struggling to free herself, just standing here surveying her territory.

  I take a step toward her. This is my territory.

  “I came to see how you live alone.”

  Another step.

  She tenses, then propels herself across the living room to the dining room, which is the same room, though it suddenly seems larger.

  “How did you even know where I lived?” I perch on the arm of the divan. Give her space, I think. The door is close enough that I can block it if she bolts.

  Reeve turns and looks at me. Her eyes scan my front and settle on my thighs.

  My naked thighs. I realize I don’t have anything on under the shirt, which has ridden up. Can she see? Do I want her to?

  “How do you afford this?” she asks.

  I shrug. “I’m an heiress, sort of.”

  Her eyes bounce around. “Is there a john?”

  “Yeah. He’s in the bedroom. You came at a bad time.”

  She sees I’m joking and grins.

  God, I love her smile. I point. “It’s down the hall.”

  Reeve heads that way. My heart is in my throat. Reeve is here, in my apartment. “Wow, you have two bedrooms?” she calls.

  I move to the end of the short hall, where it splits into two rooms. “No,” I say. “Only one.” The other room is a storage closet.

  She peers into the cramped closet that’s packed with jun
k. Tessa’s sewing machine and skeins of yarn, her dolls and stuffed animals. Maybe that’s why this apartment never felt like mine. Too much of Tessa left behind.

  “It’s a walk-in closet. If you could walk in.”

  Reeve snaps, “You don’t know what a closet is.” She charges me, bumps me backward, and shuts herself in the bathroom.

  I’ve said the wrong thing—again?

  My skin sizzles where she touched me. Water runs in the sink, and I think, Touch everything, leave fingerprints.

  Thunks on the stairs draw my attention and Novak suddenly bursts in. “Johanna.” She literally throws herself at me.

  I remove her arms from around me and flatten them to her sides. Her face disintegrates.

  “What?” I say, even though I know what. Make that who.

  Novak bites her lip and twists her hair over her shoulder. Her hair is thick and luxurious, the kind of hair you see in shampoo commercials. “I’m sorry about last night,” she says. “I didn’t know Dante was going to do that.” She tries to hold my eyes but can’t. “Okay, we talked about it.”

  My jaw drops.

  “You wouldn’t have been forced to do anything you didn’t want to. You could always say no. And you did.” She shrugs one shoulder.

  “Yeah. I guess I respect myself.”

  Novak swallows hard. “It wasn’t my idea. We were talking about you and I told Dante you were a lesbian and he thought that was cool. He asked if I’d be willing to do it with you so he could watch.”

  “You did tell him.”

  I don’t know what shocks me more. That she betrayed my confidence about my sexuality or that she agreed to the plan.

  “Hey,” she adds, “you should be flattered. Guys want you. Girls want you. You don’t even have to choose. You know I’d sleep with you, even without Dante.”

  Our eyes meet and lock.

  Novak’s intense gaze breaks off and her eyes shift over my shoulder. “You didn’t mention you had company,” she says flatly.

  Reeve is standing in the hallway. How long has she been there? She ducks around Novak and beelines for the open door.

  “No!”

  She’s past me. I race out the door and down the stairs to catch her. “You don’t have to go, Reeve. Don’t go.”

  She slows and turns. Her eyes have lost their luminescence. They lift up to the landing, where Novak is slumped in the doorway, separating her split ends.