Night Owls

by Jenn Bennett

  “Damn . . . looks like we’re slammed up in here today,” I said.

  “I can’t stop yawning,” Ms. Lopez admitted with a smile, crossing her arms over her apron. A small red-and-black pin glittered in the center of her tie, right below the knot. She had a thing for lady-bugs and always wore the lucky insect somewhere—socks, sweater, pins. I got her a preserved ladybug encased in piece of Lucite for Christmas; she kept it on her desk in the office. “How did your secret meeting go?”

  Ms. Lopez knew all about my art and wasn’t weirded out by the idea of my drawing dissected cadavers—another reason why we got along.

  “Unfortunately, it was a huge bust.” I spilled most of the story but stopped when I got to the part about sneaking home on the Owl bus and meeting Jack. “So, anyway, I get another shot on Wednesday. Lucky for me, I’m not scheduled, so I don’t have to beg my boss to let me have the night off.”

  “Lucky for you, your boss is cool, so you wouldn’t have had to beg too hard.”

  True. “So, what’s going on around here?” I asked as I squatted to check my paper-bag supply. “Any good gossip?”

  “We’re out of the on-sale salmon steaks.”

  “That’s terrible gossip.”

  She hmmed, trying to think of something juicier. “Oh! That gold graffiti vandal hit the Ninth Avenue Golden Gate Park entrance.”

  My heartbeat lurched from bored to FIRE! “Wh-what?” I said, shooting up from behind the cash wrap.

  “On the sidewalk. News crews were up there this morning when I was walking Beauty before work. The letters are about as tall as me and sideways stacked.” She ripped off a piece of register tape and scribbled a visual aid:

  “Sideways stacked,” she said with a hand flourish, complete with perfect red nails that never seemed to chip.

  Bloom. I was still in shock.

  “It’s very pretty and feminine. Lots of curlicues and vines.”

  “The Botanical Garden,” I realized. It was located just inside that particular park entrance.

  “Yes, on the walkway leading to the gardens. Police say it’s the first time there’s been a direct connection between one of the words and the place it was painted. Now everyone is worked up that it’s some elaborate Morse code message.”

  I thought of the button pinned to Jack’s coat: BE HERE NOW. Weren’t Buddhists supposed to be peaceful? I pictured kindly old men raking patterns in sandy Zen gardens and drinking tea, maybe doing some yoga in the afternoon.

  Not defacing public property.

  “Whoever is doing this is either very stealthy or very lucky—or both,” Ms. Lopez mused. “But luck doesn’t last forever. I think it’s only a matter of time before someone catches the vandal in action.”

  That someone could’ve been me. But now I’d probably never see him again. I mean, all I knew was his first name and his philosophical stance on bacon.

  Oh, and something else I’d almost forgotten: our fellow acquaintance.

  4

  MY SHIFT AT ALTO MARKET ENDED AT EIGHT, BUT INSTEAD of going straight home, I took the N-Judah train to the hospital. It was only a ten-minute ride, and my mom wasn’t working that night, which meant I didn’t have to worry about crossing paths with her. So I just texted her to say I was running a little late and would catch a ride home with one of my coworkers.

  Evening fog was rolling in, but it was still light outside, and the hospital parking garage was fairly busy. I checked out all the places I usually spotted Panhandler Will. But after walking around for twenty minutes, I’d just about given up. That’s when I saw him waving at passing cars on the corner.

  “Hey, Will,” I called out from a few feet away. He sometimes got startled, so I didn’t want to give him any reason to freak out on me.

  His head turned, and he surveyed the sidewalk with a confused look until he spotted me. “Sad Girl! Why are you wearing a tie?”

  “It’s part of my work clothes,” I told him, holding out an Alto Market bag. “I brought this for you.”

  “Me?” He warily took it and peered inside. “What is it?”

  “Meatloaf, potato salad, and a cupcake.” The least froufrou stuff in the deli counter; I didn’t think I’d be doing him any favors by giving him imported olives and spicy noodles. “But don’t get too excited. It’s a bribe. Do you remember when I saw you last night at the bus stop across the street?”

  He sniffed inside the bag before looking up at me like he’d already forgotten I was there. “When? Last night?”

  “You were talking to a boy who knew you. His name’s Jack.”

  Blank face. This might’ve been a bad idea.

  “He called you Willy,” I added.

  “Monk!” he said with a grin.

  “Monk?” I repeated, wondering if we were on the same page.

  “He’s religious,” Will explained.

  “Oh, the Buddhism thing?”

  Will brightened. “Yeah.”

  “That’s him,” I said. “How long have you known him?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. Years, probably. I see him two or three times a week.”

  Years. That meant he wasn’t just visiting a patient who’d had surgery. “Does he work here or have family that works here?”

  “He comes to see his lady friend.”

  I pictured Jack cuddling up with some busty candy striper, and my heart sank a little—which was silly, because the boy was a criminal, not my potential soul mate.

  “Do you know anything else about him? Like his last name? Where he lives?”

  Will sniffed and wiped his nose. “I know he takes the N.”

  “Outbound?” I asked. “Like the bus we were getting on last night?”

  “No,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. “He takes it that way.”

  Okay, that was something. He must’ve specifically taken the Owl bus to paint the BLOOM graffiti piece in the park. Which meant he didn’t live in my neighborhood. But where he did live was anyone’s guess. The N line stretched across the city and connected to a billion stops.

  “Is there anything else you know about him?” I asked.

  Will shrugged. “He’s pretty funny. Tells a lot of good jokes. Some of them are over my head. But you know, sometimes people smile when they’re sad. And sometimes girls who look sad are really smiling.”

  He pointed at me and winked like he’d just handed me the secret to life. And that would be nice, but it was more likely he’d recently scored pain pills from one of the patients leaving the ER. And when he started whistling what I suspected to be the theme to The Brady Bunch, I knew I’d coaxed all I could get out of him, which wasn’t much.

  And unless I wanted to camp out with Will until he happened to see Jack, I didn’t hold out high hopes of seeing him again. The medical campus is a busy place.

  Just not as busy I thought.

  Two days later, I headed back over for my second chance with the anatomy director. It sometimes seemed like the only times I really needed the train to be on time were the times it was late, so I was already ten times more anxious than I wanted to be. And maybe that’s why I wasn’t paying attention.

  Someone bumped my arm, and my portfolio flew from my hand. “Ow!”

  “My bad. I thought you saw me.”

  A jacket bent over in front of me and picked up my portfolio. When the jacket stood back up, it grew arms and legs and a face that probably competed with Helen of Troy’s in the ship-launching department.

  Jack.

  He looked so different in daylight. A turquoise plaid Western shirt peeked out from the jacket, which was one of those classic black leather motorcycle ones. And when I say classic, I mean actually vintage—like, straight-up 1950s Marlon Brando Wild One–style, all lightened along the creases and covered in tiny punk rock buttons. It matched the big black boots beneath the turned-up cuffs of his jeans. No hat covered his hair today, which was dark brown and several inches longer on the top than the super-close-cropped sides and back. That long t
op was swooped up into a loose pompadour, with fallen tendrils hanging over his forehead and all tousled in a way that was far too good to be windblown.

  He was all retro and rockabilly and cool. If James Dean and David Beckham had a baby, it would be Jack. That jewel-thief outfit he’d been wearing that first night was a total criminal disguise.

  “Jack the Vandal,” I said, and not in a cheerful way, either. More like he was my mortal enemy.

  He cringed and glanced around. “Can you please not announce that to the world? I liked it better when I was Jack the Burglar.”

  “So you’re not denying it? I mean, you shouldn’t, because I know what I saw, and then I find out that you . . . desecrated the Botanical Garden.”

  “ ‘Desecrated’?”

  “You heard me.” Okay, I hadn’t actually meant to use that word. It’s not like I’m really into flowers and thought the park was some kind of temple of nature; I was just nervous. But since it was already out of my mouth, I defended it like I was an old woman shaking her fist at scamps and ne’er-do-wells, snatching the portfolio out of his hand to emphasize my righteous anger. But he wasn’t fazed.

  “Did you see it?” he asked, herding me toward the edge of the walkway with his too-tall body as a group of medical students passed.

  “Umm, you mean ‘bloom’? I think the entire city saw it.”

  Joy flashed through his eyes, but he blinked a few times with miles of dark lashes and sobered up. “You’re the only one who knows.”

  “I doubt that. What about your little revolutionary art collective, Discord?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t belong to Discord.”

  “That’s not what people are saying online.”

  “Well, they’re wrong. I work alone, and no one knows who I am.”

  Huh. Funny, but I sort of believed him. Or maybe I had a case of temporary hot-boy-influenced naïveté.

  “Scout’s honor,” he promised. “Only you hold my secret identity in your hands, Lois Lane.”

  Do not be flattered. Do not be flattered. . . . “But not your real one.”

  “You know more than I know about you.”

  I ignored that. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “You said you had another meeting today and that it was before Dr. Sheridan’s lecture, so I checked the schedules and guessed the wrong one.” He scratched his head in a way that would’ve been adorable if he wasn’t an admitted criminal. “I’ve been waiting around here for the last two hours. But now that I see you again, it was worth it.”

  Was he serious? I tried to form a snappy answer, but it came out as one long, strangled vowel. To make things worse, heat crept up my cheeks, so I turned away from him and strode down the cement walkway like I was full of Grand Purpose, not like I was running away. But it didn’t matter. Long legs always beat short legs, so it was no surprise when he caught up in a couple of steps.

  “I dig the dark-rimmed glasses,” he said alongside me, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. “They give you a sexy scientist vibe.”

  “Artist vibe,” I countered without looking at him. And I’d only traded out my contacts that afternoon because I thought the glasses made me look older, but he didn’t need to know that. And he definitely didn’t need to know that my heart double-timed a few beats when he said “sexy.”

  “Can I see what you’ve got in your portfolio?” he asked.

  “Just pencil sketches.”

  “That’s cool. Can I look at them?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because . . . your art isn’t good?”

  “It’s good.”

  “Prove it,” he said, taking one hand out of his pocket to tap a couple of knuckles against my portfolio as it swung between us. “You know, one artist to another. You’ve seen mine. Show me yours.”

  Oh, the teasing in his voice—and oh, the places I could go with that line. The older, sophisticated Fantasy Me was completely charmed. But the real me was feeling too many pinwheeling emotions wrapped in a center of gooey nervousness. I was also having trouble tearing my gaze away from the scuff marks on the toes of his boots. They weren’t plain-old Doc Martens; they looked fancier, like Fluevogs or something.

  The entrance to the building that housed the anatomy lab was only a few yards away. I checked the time on my phone. Crud. I had to hustle. Why did he have to show up right now? I needed more time to properly freak out about his being there.

  “Will you at least tell me your name?” he asked as I pocketed my phone.

  “Why? Afraid I’m going to snitch on you? Is that why you tracked me down?” And why was I being so defensive?

  “You don’t know anything about me and have zero proof, so what’s there to snitch on? It would be smarter for me to avoid you, if you want to get right down to it. Besides, you’re the one who tracked me down first.”

  I stopped in front of the building and faced him. “How so?”

  “Willy said the sad girl was asking about me.”

  That little panhandling ratfink. “Look, I was just curious—”

  “Me, too. Since that night on the Owl, I’ve been having midnight fantasies about meeting hot girls on buses, and that’s messing up both my routine and my deep loathing of public transportation.”

  Was he really saying this? Ignore! Ignore! “I asked Will about you because I wanted to find out if you were really a criminal,” I argued a little too loudly. A student exiting the building gave us a curious look. “I have to go. I’m running late.”

  I tried to move around him, but he blocked me. “I’m a low-level criminal at best. Barely even a reprobate. And I’ve never been caught, so if a tree falls in the forest, does it really make a sound?”

  “Don’t make me laugh. I’ve got an important meeting.”

  He ducked his head to catch my eyes. “If I make you laugh, will you skip it and go have dinner with me?”

  Whoa. Was that a date request? “Look, this is serious. I’m going to be late.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Please, just tell me your name. An email address, phone number—something. Come on, Sad Girl. All old Willy could tell me was that you have a sister and that your mom’s a cleaning woman at the hospital.”

  “Brother and nurse,” I corrected, stifling a laugh. “He told me you’re a monk and that you have a ‘lady friend’ who works here.”

  Jack laughed and said, “Oh, that Willy.” Then he abruptly went quiet.

  “Do you?” I pressed, silently saying the end of the question in my head: . . . have a girlfriend?

  “Though it’s true that I do visit a female person, other wise known as a ‘lady,’ here, and we are, indeed, friends, she would probably kick me in the balls if I ever called her my ‘lady friend.’ Besides, I’m a monk, apparently.”

  Hmph. Monk, my ass. The only guys at school who were this particular combination of per sis tent and beautiful were players. I backed up and pointed to my wrist. “Seriously have to go.”

  “Give me something, please. Don’t make me wait out here in the cold stalking you like a creeper.”

  I took a few more backward steps and opened the door, heart racing. “Body-O-Rama. It’s an anatomy illustration blog. I’m one of the contributing artists. If you can pick my art out of the lineup, you’ll find my contact info there, and you can stalk me online.”

  He grinned and pulled his leather jacket closed as the wind picked up. “Challenge accepted.”

  5

  MY MEETING WITH DR. SHERIDAN WAS STRANGELY UNSATISFYING. Maybe that’s because I was still holding a grudge about her leaving me hanging at our first meeting, or maybe it’s because I spent the entire ten puny minutes she gave me struggling to keep Jack out of my thoughts.

  This wasn’t me. At all. I’m the serious girl with straight As. Well, except for the Bs in calculus and that C in freshman PE, which I earned for my “bad attitude” toward Mallory Letson—who happened to be head
of the varsity pep squad and Coach’s favorite. Never mind that she was talking crap about Heath, who was a senior that year. (For the record, I think Mallory was behind the whole Morticia thing.)

  Still.

  All Dr. Cold-as-Ice Sheridan said was that my portfolio showed “remarkable talent,” and after questioning why I wanted to be a medical illustrator, she just went on to explain that the university was one of the top medical schools in the country and had (standards and practices) or (board members’ expectations) or (insurance regulations) to uphold. And that their actual students came first. She promised to consider my request and run it by her colleagues and students. She said she’d have an answer in a week or two.

  In a week or two, the summer would be half over and I’d barely have time enough to come up with something else for the student art contest. But what could I do, argue with someone who was doing me a favor? She gave me her business card, so at least I had her email address. I wasted no time writing her the cheesiest, most polite thank-you email in the history of sucking up.

  After that, I’m ashamed to say that I spent my entire night checking my artist profile on Body-O-Rama, hoping that Jack had gone straight to his computer and searched me out. Granted, my profile pic was an inked self-portrait with half of my face drawn as exposed musculature. But only twenty artists were featured on the site. How difficult was I to recognize? Then again, Jack really didn’t know anything about me. Maybe he’d mistaken me for the much cooler girl who painted brightly colored Day of the Dead sugar skulls. In a panic, I read through all the comments on everyone’s recent posts, just in case.

  Nothing.

  And nothing the next day. And the next. But it was the day after that when his lack of response was more disappointing than it might’ve been if it was just another Saturday. Because it wasn’t: It was my eighteenth birthday.

  And yet, no Jack. Had he given up? I’d even made it easier on him by posting about my birthday plans the day before. It practically screamed, Look! Here I am! It was just weird that he was begging me for my name and supposedly waiting for hours to see me, and then boom, nothing.