I text back: o/, then do the physical approximation in my bedroom, alone, where no one can see.
A few moments later I get a text that says simply: do u like the blues?
the color palette? I text back.
etta james, she texts. smartass. tribute show at blues alley, this weekend.
My fingers itch, and my heartbeat quickens. A lot of people like Etta James, right, but—I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody my age who likes her the way I do. Punk rock girl wants to take her many piercings and ripped jeans and flaming hair to a blues concert? This is where she most wants to go?
Then again, Etta James is sort of the definition of punk. Talk about a sassy, uncompromising woman.
what time? I text back.
• • •
I don’t usually get nervous before dates, but come Friday, I’m definitely shaky. I try on a couple outfits—slip on a dressy shirt and slacks, add a jacket, take the jacket off, consider a tie, then mentally kick myself. We’re going out to a mid-range restaurant and a club, not the Kennedy Center. I finally settle on something simple, just jeans, a dark blue button-up and black Nikes.
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of Otis Redding, groove a little, breathe.
“Hi,” she says when I arrive at her front door.
“Hey,” I say. “You look beautiful.”
She does, in a black skirt and black boots, her shirt made of some slightly shimmery blue fabric. Her eyes are dark, made darker by eyeliner, and her hair hangs in soft waves to her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she says.
There’s this awkward moment when I hold out my hand to help her down the steps, and she takes it and shakes it, but then I keep holding on because—I can see her processing it—I want to hold her hand. Melanie looks like she’s concentrating very hard on the toes of her black boots, but doesn’t pull away.
“Let’s get going,” I say. “That cheesecake ain’t gonna eat itself.”
The Cheesecake Factory at Chevy Chase Pavilion is crazy crowded, like it always is on a Friday night. Normally we’d have to wait in line for about six hours, but I get us in right away because the hostess remembers me. She’s this pretty, light-skinned black girl wearing a low-cut dress that accentuates the curves of her hips and makes her look like a model. She hangs on my arm and laughs all tinkly as she shows us to our table, and I smile back at her. I know exactly what she’s doing. Mama didn’t raise no fool.
“You look amazing, D,” she simpers.
“Do girls always do that?” Melanie asks once we’re seated.
“What?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“Throw themselves at you,” she says.
I shrug, but I feel a little embarrassed. “Sometimes, I guess.”
“I’d never be able to do that,” she says. “Just assume that some guy wants me and go for it.”
I never thought of it like that. I don’t tend to notice when girls do that, maybe because I’m used to Carlos distracting them, flirting—
I clear my throat.
“This place is crazy,” I say.
Waiters dressed all in white flutter around carrying plates heaped with mounds of food.
“Everything’s pretty good,” she says. “I’m just excited to have somebody serve me for a change.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t know how you stand waiting tables. I’d get so tired of people.”
“Oh, you mean like customers who come in and only order black coffee and nothing else?” she asks, smirking.
“Hey, I tip well. You didn’t complain so much when I was there,” I say with a sly smile. “I think maybe you like me.”
She waves her hand dismissively.
“Yeah, right,” she says, then: “Maybe a little.”
I shake my head. She tilts her head to the side and winks, big and exaggerated.
The waiter comes and takes our order. We both order pasta: I get fettuccine alfredo, she gets spaghetti with marinara.
“How do you feel like the play is going?” Melanie asks.
I shrug. “All right, I guess. Still hard. But it’s a Shakespearean tragedy, not High School Musical, so—”
“Hey, those High School Musical kids worked really hard,” Melanie says seriously, and I snort.
“I like it,” I say, “but sometimes I don’t want to be there. You know?”
“Sure,” she says. “I could never do what you do.”
“Well, I couldn’t paint a set to save my life,” I say.
“What do you think about when you’re up there onstage?” Melanie asks. “I just . . . Watching you guys, I wonder.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Nothing.”
That’s a lie. It’s more like everything—all my thoughts mash together until they’re white noise, a humming background intensity that somehow feeds me energy and anger and grief.
“Nothing?” Melanie says, skeptical. “Really?”
“I think about the character, what the character’s feeling,” I say. “And it becomes what I’m feeling, I guess.”
“That’s so weird,” Melanie says. “And sort of awesome, too.”
“Sometimes it’s scary,” I say.
I think of Othello and his shaking rage. ’Twas I that killed—
“Why do it, then?”
“You know that feeling you get when you watch a horror movie and somebody jumps out from behind a door and your whole body tenses up?” I say. “That’s the feeling I get onstage. It’s the good kind of scary.”
Melanie slides one finger down the laminated surface of the table, her forehead creasing.
“It’s like falling for somebody,” I say, without thinking. “Scary as hell, but worth it.”
Melanie glances up, and our eyes meet. She blinks at me, biting her lip.
How can you think you’re not one of the pretty girls, Melanie?
“Yeah,” Melanie murmurs. “The good kind of scary.”
“The best kind,” I murmur.
I don’t look away, and neither does she.
• • •
After dinner we drive over to Georgetown and spend forever finding parking. C’est la vie. I don’t mind. It gives me more time to look at Melanie up close, to watch the way her eyes shine when she talks about Etta.
“She was just so strong, you know?” Melanie says. “Like—so strong and so tough and so fierce.”
I was right. Ain’t nobody more punk rock than Etta.
The club is packed and the crowd is mixed, black and white and all shades in between. It’s a rare all-ages show, but we’re still definitely some of the youngest people there. I mention this to Melanie and she nods, as if it’s expected.
“I think a lot of kids our age don’t appreciate music that isn’t right in front of them,” she says. “Like if it’s not Top 40, it’s not worth listening to.”
“We appreciate it, though,” I say.
Melanie smiles up at me. “We’re special.”
The singer who climbs onto the stage is named Chantelle. She doesn’t look anything like Etta. She’s tall and willowy and dark-skinned, but when she flicks a strand of her short-cropped hair out of her eyes and strikes a pose, my breath quickens. I can already tell she’s the real deal.
I’ve been listening to Etta since I was a little kid, Sunday afternoons with my dad and his jacked-up record player, her voice scratchy from many years of cigarettes and distorted by the well-worn grooves in the vinyl.
The low throb of the guitar pulses through me, the drums a steady snap. Melanie moves her hips to the beat, back and forth, not quite a shimmy. Chantelle implores invisible Henry, all that talk about rolling. Took me a long time to understand what Etta was really singing about.
I touch the inside of Melanie’s wrist with my fingers and then hold her hand. We sway like limb
er tree branches, easy and graceful.
I like Melanie like this: unraveled, boneless, not afraid. She smells like grass after rain. When I place one hand at the small of her back I find she’s sweaty there, moisture collecting along her spine. I feel it and I know: I want to touch her. I want to hear the music she makes.
I can hear her telling me something. She shouts over the music but it doesn’t quite make it to me.
All I want to do is watch her mouth move.
She angles her chin up and stands on her tiptoes to shout into my ear, “She’s beautiful.”
And she is—Chantelle is no Etta but she’s still gorgeous, slim-hipped and dirty-mouthed with wicked inflection, her voice making all the hairs on my arms stand at attention.
When those familiar violin strings begin, Melanie shifts so she’s facing me, and I wrap my arms around her so it’s almost like we’re dancing. The crowd presses us close.
I lean down. I hear Melanie inhale and the tart sweetness of Chantelle’s voice, but mostly I feel the press of Melanie’s lips against mine.
She tastes like tomato sauce and mint. She curls her hand in my hair and pulls me closer and I go with her.
I will go where you want to take me, Melanie Ellis.
Melanie
We used to write stories on the ceiling with the glow-in-the-dark stars. You always saw bears—bears having a picnic, bears going to market, bears discovering new planets. I thought this was silly, but now whenever I see stars I think: Ursa Major, Ursa Minor.
I can see your name in your hair, you said once. You said things like that all the time, things that didn’t make sense if you thought about them too much. You were always the artist, always the creative and weird one. Sometimes I didn’t want you to be weird, to always be drawing attention to yourself. I wanted you to be like everybody else. I used to get so frustrated, like why couldn’t you just be a normal mom who said normal things?
But now—I see your name in my hair, DANA ELLIS, the way you used to write it, little curlicues on the ends of the letters like children trailing behind. I wonder if I’ll always see these things, or if they will fade like my glow-in-the-dark stars. They don’t glow anymore. Now, every time I turn out the lights I think I won’t be able to see you, crouching over my bed in the darkness, pushing your fingers through my hair. But I do, even without that soft, hazy light.
CHAPTER SIX
The morning after my date with Damon, my phone rings at the ass crack of dawn.
“Melanie,” Tristan says, and I groan. “Wait, don’t hang up.”
“Jesus Christ, Tristan,” I say. “It’s, like, oh-dark-thirty.”
“I woke up and I couldn’t go back to sleep because I kept thinking about your date.”
“You’re stupid,” I say, and grasp blindly for the clock, turning it around so I can read it. “I can’t believe you called me at six thirty on a Saturday morning because you wanted to ask me about my date.”
“You don’t go out on dates often, you know,” Tristan says. “It’s a special occasion.”
“Can I go back to sleep now?”
“No, no, you have to tell me everything.”
“Seriously,” I say. “You are annoying and I hate you.”
“Was it good? At least tell me if it was good.”
“It was good. It was very nice. He’s a very nice boy.”
There’s a long-suffering sigh on the other end.
“God. You suck.”
“Yeah, I know. Sleeping now.”
“Later I expect a complete breakdown with a play-by-play, okay? Just so you know.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ll just be over here, alone and sad. Thinking about where my life went wrong.”
“Right.”
“Wondering why my best friend won’t share the important things in her life with me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Imagining a world where people are kind to each other, where—”
“Oh, shut up, Tristan.”
Four hours later I wake up for real, stumble down the stairs and putter around the kitchen, making coffee. Dad is probably still asleep—he always works late on Fridays and sleeps in on Saturdays, letting Dahlia handle the brunch crowd. People often assume that having a dad who works in a restaurant would be awesome because I should get good food all the time, but it does not work that way. Usually my dad is too tired to cook, and leftover diner food is gross. American cheese, when melted and cold and congealed, is basically nuclear waste.
“Hey,” I hear from behind me, and turn to see Dad standing in the doorway, looking sleepy and rumpled. He scratches at his stubble and blinks. “What time did you get in last night?”
“Uh, like midnight?” I say.
“You were out with Tristan?” He smiles. “I like Tristan. He’s a good kid.”
“Tristan is a good kid,” I say, pouring cereal into a bowl, “but no, I was not out with Tristan. I was out with Damon.”
His face falls. “Damon? Who’s Damon?”
I take in a breath. “Damon Lewis. He goes to my school. He’s in the play, so we’ve been hanging out.”
“And you two were . . .”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s a thing.”
“A thing?” He laces his fingers together and cracks his knuckles. “Please describe this thing.”
I can see my mom sprawled on my bed, chin in her hands, saying: He sounds hot.
I would wrinkle my nose and say, Ew, Mom, don’t be gross.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
You’re not her.
You can’t be her.
I’m sorry.
He looks defeated, slumped in the doorway in his pajama pants and undershirt, dark hair going gray and thinning at his forehead. For a second he seems old, which is crazy, because he’s not even fifty. But you don’t have to be old to look old. You don’t have to be old to die.
“I have homework,” I whisper, dumping my cereal into the sink and pushing past him into the living room.
I think I see wetness on his cheeks as I pass him, but that can’t be right. Not my dad. He doesn’t do that.
• • •
Tristan comes over later that afternoon and proceeds to harass me about Damon and the date in person, just like I knew he would.
“Cheesecake Factory!” Tristan exclaims, bouncing on my bed. “Classiest of establishments.”
“Don’t make fun,” I say. “It’s not like your boyfriend is taking you out for a ten-course meal followed by dancing.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Tristan says, flopping down on his back. “Romance is dead.”
My phone buzzes with a text.
Damon: i really enjoyed our evening. so nice to be with someone who understands the awesomeness of the blues. let’s do it again soon?
Tristan snatches my phone away before I can stop him and makes a squawking noise.
“All that and a gentleman too?” he says. “Melanie, you may have found the perfect man. Do you know what the last thing Bryan texted me was?”
He shoves his phone at me. It reads: ur so good with yr tongue.
I laugh, and he makes a face.
“Come on, he totally appreciates you,” I say. “That’s basically poetry.”
“The worst,” he states. “The worst.”
“Damon’s not perfect either, you know,” I say.
“Really?” he says. “Like he picks his nose? His socks don’t match? What imperfection does he have that sullies him in your eyes, Ms. Ellis?”
“Hey, I’m not that picky,” I say.
Tristan raises his eyebrows. “You kind of are, Melly.”
“It’s not like I’ve had a lot of choices,” I say, feeling defensive.
“That’s a lie,” Tristan says. “You just alw
ays think you don’t have a lot of choices.”
“When have I had choices?” I ask.
“That guy Ridley last year,” Tristan says. “He was nice, and he had that cute haircut, and he liked you a lot.”
“He did not!” I say.
“He flirted with you all the time in English,” Tristan says. “He kept trying to get you to join Art Club.”
“Who wants to be in Art Club?” I say. “Lame.”
“Malcolm, your chem lab partner.” Tristan ticks off on his fingers. “He was into you sophomore year.”
“How was I supposed to know—”
“He did, like, all the work for you on your lab reports,” Tristan reminds me.
“I thought he just really liked chemistry,” I say, and Tristan actually laughs at me.
“There was that kid from Mexico, what was his name—”
“Pablo, the exchange student,” I say. “But that was because I spoke Spanish to him—”
“Do you hear yourself?” Tristan says. “You’re making so many excuses! Boys like you sometimes. They do. But you always find some reason that they couldn’t like you for real.”
Is that true?
You have to let them in, I hear my mom say.
But when you let them in—
Then you have to let them see you.
“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being choosy. Lord knows sometimes I wish I was a little more . . . well.” Tristan sighs. “My choices are more limited.”
“Just wait until New York,” I say absently.
Tristan brightens. “Yeah,” he says. “New York will be the best.”
The silence blankets us. I sit very still and try to organize my meandering thoughts.
“Damon, though,” Tristan says, finally. “He seems different.”
I think of the way he felt pressed against me, his hand at the small of my back. His lips soft on mine.
Safe. He felt safe.
“Yeah,” I say. “He does.”
I text Damon back: same. definitely soon.
• • •
Sunday afternoon I’m yawning my way through a particularly deadly passage of Ethan Frome when my cell phone begins doing a frantic tap dance on my nightstand. I lean over and grab it, reading the caller ID.
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