Betwixt

by Tara Bray Smith

  The boy laughed, enjoying the banter. “I’m just glad to be in your presence. Now, Morgan,” he began, taking the wine bottles from the girl’s splayed fingers and placing them in Ondine’s cart. “Tell me about yourself. Who are you, lovely angelic creature of light? And would you like to run away with me?”

  The girl stepped closer. She clearly liked the attention and was charmed by Moth. Ondine pushed faster. It felt strange to be ignored. It wasn’t that she was jealous. No. Jealousy — an offshoot of desire, which for the most part seemed to have spared her (she had kissed a few boys at McKinley dances, but never really dated) — had always seemed ridiculous, something for bad reality TV. This was more like … like a hangnail. Irritating. Stupid irritating.

  Still, there was a heat coming off these two, and she felt if she stood between them too long, she might also start to burn.

  “Come on, Morgan,” she said, walking faster.

  The cashier made it known a few paces away that he had no intention of selling to the underage girls. Nevertheless, Morgan, prepared with a smile, began loading the bottles onto the counter. The man behind it shook his head.

  “ID, young lady.” He looked up from behind his reading glasses.

  Morgan leaned over far enough to reveal a generous helping of milky breast under her black blouse. “I got my wallet stolen.” She tucked a stray lock behind her ear and smiled. “Remember? Just last week I was in here and I told you I got my wallet stolen? As soon as I get it back I’ll come in and show you —”

  “No ID, no sale.” The man tapped the “21” sign affixed to the counter. “And I suggest you put these items back on the shelves before I call the police and have you arrested for trying to procure alcohol underage.” He pushed the bottles back toward her, one by one. “Hussy,” he muttered, then coughed.

  Too shocked to say anything, Ondine stood quiet. Morgan pretended she hadn’t heard. Moth, however, who seemed to miss nothing, appeared delighted. He smiled and looked at Ondine as if to say, What did I tell you?

  The cashier wiped his nose with the back of his hand, shook his paper out, and started reading it again.

  “You, too.” He nodded to Ondine.

  “Excuse me?”

  A thick, stubbled upper lip curled in Moth’s direction. “And you can think again if you want this little turd here to buy for you.”

  Ondine and Morgan stood silent, hands at their sides. Ondine’s mouth hung open as if she intended to say something but had forgotten what it was. A wash of pink seeped into Morgan’s cheeks. Moth just laughed.

  He stepped in front of the two girls, smiling calmly. Raising his right hand — the one with the silver ring, the wristwatch, and the tattoo — to his lips, he shushed the older man. The cashier stiffened for a second, his face knotted, then by increments he relaxed. Moth kept shushing and the man behind the counter softened. Ondine watched. Morgan watched. The softer and longer Moth shushed, his finger still to his mouth, the quieter and more passive the cashier became.

  He lowered his fingers and placed his hand on the counter.

  The cashier smiled as if he had never seen Moth before. “Well, sir,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Oh, I think you can just ring us up.”

  Ondine felt dizzy and placed a hand on the counter to steady herself. She pulled it back when the cashier smiled at her, too.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t understand what was going on. One second the cashier was calling them hussies and turds, now this? She looked at Morgan. The girl was biting her lip, her eyes wide. Whatever was going on, it was clear she liked it.

  “Never you mind, young Ondine.” Moth didn’t take his eyes from the cashier’s. “Just put the bottles in the bag.”

  “No!” She turned and stared. “You tell me what’s going on or I’m out of here. And you —” She turned to face the cashier. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “Shut up, Ondine!” Morgan whispered.

  The cashier spoke, his phlegmy voice now kind. “A few chocolates for the girls, sir?”

  “Excuse me, but what the hell did you do to this guy, Moth?”

  “Make sure you still eat your dinner.” The cashier spoke over her, reaching under the counter and placing a Hershey’s Kiss in front of Ondine, another in front of Morgan. He nudged the candies toward them. “Go ahead, girls. They’re all yours.”

  Whatever was going on, Ondine realized she would have to deal with it outside. Dazed, she took the candy and put it in her pocket. Morgan unwrapped hers at the counter and placed it on her tongue. Then she sucked on it, licking her lips.

  “All mine?” she said, to the cashier or Moth, Ondine couldn’t tell. “I do like the sound of that.”

  Moth’s smile curled up on one side into a smirk, but he kept his eyes on the cashier’s. “We can explore that statement in all its, uh, positions later. Right now” — his hand snaked into his back pocket and fished out a rubber-banded roll of money, which he handed to Morgan — “be a good little girl and pay the man.”

  Morgan looked so intoxicated you’d think she’d already drunk everything Ondine was shoving into plastic bags. She double bagged the bottles, concentrating on the practical details, because she didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but she knew she wanted to get out of the store before it all exploded in their faces. Morgan peeled back twenties, one at a time. She looks like a stripper giving herself a tip, Ondine thought, then felt guilty. It wasn’t like they were stealing — although it was the first time Ondine had ever paid for something by stuffing the money into a cashier’s shirt pocket, which Morgan was doing now, leaning over the counter and throwing in a little kiss on the cheek.

  “Since you gave us kisses,” she cooed in his ear, “it seems only fair you should get one, too.”

  Her shirt rode up when she leaned forward, exposing the small of her back above her jeans, and Moth let the fingertips of his right hand play over the bare skin, never taking his eyes from the cashier’s.

  “It’s kisses for everyone then,” he announced. Then, in a firmer voice: “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  Outside, Ondine stared at Moth, who was now helping himself to the trunk of Trish Mason’s silver Jetta. She kind of wished she smoked, so she could light up a cigarette in anger.

  “What just happened in there?”

  “Magic?” Moth laughed.

  “You asshole. Why don’t you be straight with me? Can you ever tell the truth?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I just did.”

  “You know, there’s one thing I never understood about you, Moth. Other than chasing tail, what exactly do you do?”

  “Help people, I guess. Isn’t that what I’m doing with you?”

  Morgan spoke up from the other side of the car. “Ondine? Honey? Your chocolate’s going to melt in your pocket.”

  Ondine looked at her friend across the closed sunroof of her mother’s car. She had wanted to open the sunroof on the drive over, but Morgan had said the breeze would mess up her hair. Now she almost seemed to be panting.

  “Is that all you have to say? ‘Your chocolate’s going to melt’? Here then,” she said, fishing out the candy and throwing it at Morgan. “Since you seem to like it so much.”

  Moth walked over to Morgan and whispered something in the girl’s ear. Ondine noticed his fingers wrap around her waist. She felt a pang of something — not jealousy, surely not jealousy — despite herself. She had never been touched like that.

  He turned to Ondine and smiled. “See you at ten, then.”

  She clenched her jaw and clicked her keys. The Jetta hiccuped in response.

  “No. You. Won’t.” But he had already started loping away.

  “Come on, Morgan.” Ondine scowled, slamming the door. “Neve’s waiting.”

  CHAPTER 5

  TIM BLEEKER KILLS OLD LADIES’ CATS, my friend. Why the hell are you even talking to him?”

  K.A. looked over at
his friend, slumped in the passenger seat. Nix didn’t say anything, just stared out the black Mustang’s window at the soft yellow lights of Portland’s low-lying neighborhoods. The early June air was soft and a little dewy from the rain earlier in the day.

  “Hey, man. I’m serious. Why do you even mess with that stuff?”

  “I can’t sleep, man. I have these dreams.” Nix looked at K.A., then back out the window. “And I wake up and can’t get back to sleep again. The dust helps with the dreams.”

  “So you’re saying you take dust because it makes your bad dreams go away?”

  “Not go away,” Nix said to the window. “Dulls. Mutes.”

  “Dulls,” K.A. repeated. “Mutes. That’s great. You’re frying your brain because it ‘mutes’ your dreams. That makes it all better, man. All better.”

  It occurred to K.A., not for the first time, how strange it was that he and Nix had become friends. K.A. was a delivery boy for Jacob, had worked for him since he was in ninth grade, running errands, stocking the pantry. He got bumped up to table service and then deliveries when he’d gotten his license the previous year. He liked hanging out late at Jacob’s, shooting the shit with Neve and Nix. Neve, Jacob’s truly smoking daughter, he’d seen around for years. They’d gone to school together until eighth grade, after which her parents transferred her to Penwick. Something about Neve needing special attention—true, as far as K.A. could tell. Neve was a total fox — smart, too — but high-strung. Which wasn’t always a bad thing, in K.A.’s book. He still saw her at soccer games when their teams played each other. He had a distinct memory of her turning a cartwheel in a vintage cheerleading skirt; she’d worn it for the ironic value, but the look was perfectly executed, particularly the kneesocks and white cotton panties. Last summer at a party he’d watched her lose a makeshift, late-night limbo when the tips of her breasts nudged a Swiffer out of the sweaty hands of some Penwick seniors. But the thing that had really made him take notice was the day she’d slammed open the back door of her father’s pizza parlor, where K.A. was hanging out with the new dishwasher while he smoked a cigarette. Every bit the boss’s daughter, Neve had said, “Listen, D’Amici, if these three pies don’t make their way over to Northwest Glisan right now, I’m gonna let you in on my father’s special hippie recipe for making pepperoni without harming any pigs.” Nix had snorted so violently his cigarette had flown out of his mouth, and Neve, not expecting an audience, had gone red. After she’d slunk back inside, K.A. had said to Nix, “You think I should tell her I just came in to get my paycheck?” The kid had replied, “I wouldn’t risk it, man. Not while she’s got access to that meat grinder.”

  Two relationships were born that day: a flirtation with Neve that had grown steadily, and a faster if weirder friendship with the slacker-vagrant-runaway dishwasher, or whatever the hell Nix was. The fact of the matter was, Nix Saint-Michael was the kind of guy K.A. was supposed to beat up, or at any rate, avoid. Instead he felt like the little brother K.A. never had — which was even weirder, since Nix was a year older than him. As the youngest employees of Jacob’s, the threesome often sat around the same booth during the slow last hour — the pizza parlor stayed open till midnight on school nights, two AM during the weekends — sipping beer poured into soda cans in deference to Jacob, and sometimes, if it was slow enough and they’d managed to drink enough, K.A. would get Nix to tell stories about Alaska and his travels before he came down to Portland. He always stopped when the subject of his mother came up. All he would say was that she died young.

  K.A. kept his hands on the wheel now, but looked over.

  “So what happened today? With Jacob?”

  Nix leaned back in his seat and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it, man.”

  “He likes you, you know. He told me once you reminded him of himself when he first got to Portland.” K.A. saw the older boy smile despite himself and shake his head. He decided to press on. “No, man, I’m serious. He told me that.”

  Nix’s expression darkened. He took a deep breath then kicked the dash.

  “Dude! Drop it! I quit. That’s all there is to it.”

  “All right, son. I was just trying to help.” K.A. kept his eyes on the road. “Chill out.”

  They were quiet for a while, until Nix spoke.

  “Look, bro. Things are just hard for me right now. I’m depressed. I can’t take that job. These nightmares — I don’t know what to do about them. And tonight Finn kicked me out of the squat —”

  “What?”

  “Finn kicked me out, man. I brought Bleek up there for a delivery, and Finn’s into Evelyn now, and —” Nix traced the outline of the metal door handle. “Anyway, you know how Evie knows Bleek. Man, I totally fucked up. Today was a really bad day. Quit my job, got kicked out of the squat. I’m no good to anyone, including myself.” He paused and looked ahead of him, his jaw tight. “I think it’s time for me to head out.”

  K.A. took a deep breath, then spoke, still staring at the road.

  “You can’t run away from yourself.”

  He looked over at the boy in the passenger seat, waiting for Nix to say something. Nix’s face was split by a wide grin, half mocking, half miserable.

  “Dude. You are way too young to be saying shit like that.”

  The two boys laughed for a moment and then K.A. turned the music down — the Flame was playing — and shook his head.

  “C’mon, man. We’ll figure out something for you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No. We will. Maybe my dad can get you a job at one of his stores, or — anyway. You’re still studying, man. You’ve got the test in a few months.”

  K.A. had been helping Nix study for the GED and found him a good student. Curious, intelligent, probably smarter than he was, though maybe K.A.’s spelling was better. He didn’t know what drew him to help the older boy. The dream of the rebel he never was? K.A. had the Mustang, the look — tousled blond hair, trucker’s hat, dark jeans, chain wallet — but no matter what he did he would still be the straight-up soccer dude class council dork he always had been. The one with the steady job and the cute girlfriend and the hyper-perfect older sister. The one who said things like, “you can’t run away from yourself.” He had gotten that one from one of Yvonne’s self-help books.

  “Dude!” Nix laughed. “Save it for Greenpeace. I’m a loser. You’re a winner. Loser,” he said, pointing to himself. “Winner,” he added, jerking his thumb at K.A. “Got it?”

  The squint in Nix’s eyes told K.A. that part of him was telling the truth.

  “Shut up, dude. For once you’re going to listen to me. After tonight, no more dust.”

  Nix looked at his lap. “I’m not doing any tonight. Anyway, it’s not your shit. You don’t know what’s going on in my head. Why I don’t —” He turned again to the window.

  K.A. ignored him. “And you’re going to study for the GED.”

  “Study?” Nix smirked. “That thing is a joke.”

  “Whatever.” K.A. tightened his grip on the wheel. “And we’re going to find you somewhere to stay, and maybe my dad —”

  Nix was shaking his head, but his eyes were bright.

  “Why are you doing this, man?”

  K.A. waited, the streetlamps throwing waves of light over his face.

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” He turned to look at the young man he so little resembled, fumbling for reasons. Nix was cool; he was wild; he was the person K.A. was not. There was something else, though. Something about Nix that made you want to be near him. Some strange aura of protectiveness. Though K.A. told himself that it was he who was protecting Nix — team captain looking out for the benchwarmer, that kind of thing — at certain moments he wondered if it was Nix who was protecting him.

  He cleared his throat and saw the boy’s eyebrows rise.

  “You’re my friend. And I don’t know why else.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll see then.”

  “After Ondine’s? Yeah, we’ll see
.”

  MORGAN AND ONDINE HAD PICKED UP NEVE CLOWES from her house up in Southwest and driven her in. Neve’s ultraprotective mother, Amanda, waved through the living room windows as the girls drove away; Jacob, of course, was down at the pizzeria. When they were out of sight, Neve took out a cigarette.

  “God, she has nothing to do.” Neve sighed, looking at Morgan in the front seat and raising her eyebrows. “I have to get back by one, okay? I told her I would.”

  Morgan just laughed, and as soon as they got to Ondine’s, placed a beer in the younger girl’s hand.

  “You need to relax, young Neve,” she instructed, bringing the frosty bottle to her friend’s glossed lips. Morgan winked and licked lime juice off her fingers, watching Neve sip slowly — but steadily, steadily — at the Corona she had given her.

  “Thanks, Morgue.” Neve giggled. “I think.”

  The girl was good-natured and cute in a turquoise fifties-style shift, which could’ve been vintage or could’ve cost five hundred bucks from one of those indie boutiques that someone like Neve always knew about. Amanda Clowes had a Saks card, and Morgan knew trips back to New York to see the Clowes clan in Brooklyn always meant at least a few grand dropped on some mother-daughter Barneys time. It irked Morgan to think that the nicest sweater she owned was one that Neve had bought her. And that hair. So blond tonight it seemed to glow. Neve swore she didn’t dye it, but Morgan had her doubts. No one got to be that pretty just because.

  “Hey, Ondine.” Neve picked up. “How psyched are you that your parents are gone?”

  Ondine smiled, but her eyes were downcast. “I guess I’m happy.” She paused. “To tell you the truth, I kind of miss them.”

  “Yeah.” The younger girl nodded, her brown eyes growing larger. “I always bitch about my folks, and then when they go away I’m like ‘Where’s Mom? Where’s my dinner? Waah —’ I end up ordering from Dad’s restaurant just so I can taste his cooking.”

  Dad’s restaurant. As if everyone didn’t know Jacob’s. He’d even been on the Food Network, for chrissakes. The thing Morgan didn’t understand was how a three-dollar slice could make someone such a shitload of money.