Betwixt

by Tara Bray Smith

  She leaned against a corner of the butcher-block island in Ondine’s kitchen and watched the other girls prepare. Her new friend, Ondine, sliced the limes, laughing with her old friend, Neve, who arranged chips in various bowls and unscrewed salsa tops. How charming. The girls’ plans to make hors d’oeuvres had vanished once they came back from the liquor store, and they ended up ordering pizza instead — not from Jacob’s, though. Dear Old Dad didn’t need to have his delivery boys spying on innocent little Neve this evening. Innocent. Puke. Neve was already slurring her words and had shown both girls the new Agent Provocateur demi she got online. Somehow Morgan doubted that Neve was going to be so innocent when K.A. showed up.

  What the fuck were they talking about? She watched the girls’ mouths move but felt as if she were watching the scene through a mist. Things were too weird already. When they had gotten to the house and unpacked the alcohol, Morgan had been shocked to find a second keg in the trunk, though she would have sworn that the weird, cute guy with the roaming fingers and great lips — what was his name, Mouth? — had ordered only one. When she asked her about it, Ondine rolled her eyes and muttered something about Moth trying to send her to jail tonight. There were a dozen bottles of booze, several cases of beer, at least eight jugs of cheap wine. Who had remembered limes and lemons? And the rest of it? Morgan knew she’d been undone by the eerie presence of the handsome older boy, but for the life of her couldn’t figure out how the rest of the loot had gotten to Ondine’s. There was enough alcohol to blitz an army. Or a least the Salvation Army. Portland’s kids were, in Morgan’s opinion, underemployed.

  Or rich, she thought, staring from behind an oversized red wineglass at the two girls chatting away in front of her. The glasses they held so casually cost ninety dollars a stem. She knew, because she was in charge of reordering at the Krak and got the catalogs. Riedel, from Austria. What did Ondine and Neve care? They’d never had jobs. They didn’t know what five hours of wiping steamed milk off every conceivable flat surface, including the ceiling, felt like. Cleaning toilets stuffed with tampons, making a macchiato four times for an eleven-year-old punk and his yuppie Medusa of a mother because he “hadn’t gotten it the way he likes it at home.”

  Spoiled brats. Morgan brushed it off. She could feel the slow warmth of the Bordeaux Ondine had opened from the Masons’ wine cellar seep into her. She didn’t drink much, and was nervous about the prospect of giving a party, but had to admit she was also excited. That Moth — at least he seemed interesting. Most of Portland’s guys made her as cold as the celery Ondine and Neve were now chopping into little sticks and filling with salmon cream cheese in a halfhearted attempt to make the party appear classier than a kegger. Still, despite the strange turn of events, something seemed to be clicking, little puzzle pieces fitting together, though Morgan couldn’t figure out what gave her that feeling. It was an early summer Saturday night like any other. She had to go to work on Monday at the Krak; Tuesday was the second class with sexy Raphael Inman.

  And tonight at the liquor store: she knew from Ondine’s behavior that James Motherwell was a prick, but then, she liked pricks. An image of Moth laughing, his green eyes crinkling, oozed into her head and she felt a flush down her center. That soul patch was so pseudo–Johnny Depp/I-live-in-France-and-have-many-tattoos that it made her want to hurl. Yet she could almost feel it tickle her lips as she —

  Morgan shook the thought away.

  “Tonight’s going to be fun,” she said. Ondine and Neve looked up from their tasks.

  Neve mm-hmmed. Ondine raised a thin eyebrow. “You sound like a girl who has something in mind.”

  Morgan swiped at her lips. She hadn’t eaten dinner, and tried to pretend it was just wine on an empty stomach.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just have this feeling.” She held her wineglass with both hands, retreating farther into the corner. “Anyway, don’t mind me, girls. I’m just, I don’t know, horny.”

  Ondine laughed and continued slicing. Neve blushed.

  “Neve gets embarrassed easily,” Morgan teased, but her eyes were flat.

  Neve took out a cigarette and started to light it. “Do you mind if I smoke, Ondine?”

  “Not tonight, I guess.” Ondine shrugged. “K.A.’s coming.” She turned to Morgan. “Isn’t that right, Morgue?”

  Morgan grimaced. “Yeah, yeah. My little Kaka. I couldn’t keep him away.”

  Neve smiled and Ondine tickled her. “Oooh! Neve’s got a crush. …”

  Morgan felt tired of the two girls. So — young. Even Ondine. But the irritation was balanced by another feeling. A kind of yearning so deep and complete she could almost feel herself salivating. Ondine Mason. Morgan wanted to be near her, almost devour her. She looked around the kitchen: the Viking stove, the glasses sparkling in neat rows in their cabinets. Everything clean and expensive. She contrasted it with her own kitchen: the old jelly jars that didn’t match. The worn furniture set in the living room. Her mother’s cheap plates, the ones they’d gotten from Grandma Lily that she used to think were pretty, with their blue flowers. K.A. didn’t seem to mind. He cheerfully slept on poly-blend sheets and dug into Yvonne’s three-bean dip as if it were caviar. Morgan couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t do much about the laminate walls and the adhesive plastic strips Yvonne installed on the windowpanes to make them look old-fashioned, but in her own corner she kept things neat; bought four-hundred thread-count cotton sheets and cleared her desk of the crafty crap her mother and grandmother and various aunts were always trying to give her.

  Pretty, huh. Pretty trashy.

  She realized she was digging her nails into the flesh of her forearms. When she released, half-moons of red stippled her skin.

  “I’m going to go freshen up,” she announced. Ondine and Neve, deep in conversation about some high school idiocy, merely nodded.

  She looked at them laughing, standing close. Neve and Ondine weren’t even friends. Neve was her friend. What kind of friend would poach her brother? Yvonne’s cheap dinner plates flashed once more. One of the plates was chipped, and when Morgan was a little girl she would always make sure the chipped one ended up at her place, especially when they had company, so no one else would have to see it. At some point — Morgan couldn’t even remember when — she’d started setting the plate at her mother’s place.

  When did she become that kind of girl?

  The girls leaned closer and again Morgan felt ashamed. She needed to do something. Figure out a way to get Neve away from her brother and her new friend. Find that boy Moth and maybe have a little fun. But not just now. Now she needed to have a look around and get her head straight for later.

  She walked up the metal stairway that connected the two levels of the loftlike house the Masons lived in. Trish Mason was an architect, Morgan knew, and the whole house showed it. Around one corner an alcove housed a few Roy DeCarava photographs; from the ceiling a wash of etched glass spires hung to suggest the Portland rain. It was a magnificent house and Morgan coveted it.

  This should be mine, a voice inside her whispered, but she shook it off. There seemed to be two parts to her — the part on the outside: the perfectionist, the leader, the serious and funny girl never made a mistake; and another girl she didn’t know as well. That girl moved the chipped plate to her mother’s place, hoarded her friends only to dump them for imaginary transgressions, wanted things so badly it burned. That girl instructed her. This should be yours, the inside Morgan said at the Chanel makeup counter, admiring a thirty-dollar tube of lipstick the outside Morgan could not afford.

  So she stole it, and because she was Morgan D’Amici, soon-to-be class president, straight-A student, she never got caught. Now what was that girl saying to her?

  She wiped a hand across her face, her cheeks warm from the wine, located what she assumed was the nearest bathroom, and shut the door.

  A light illuminated a recessed mirrored cabinet. A few vitamin bottles, Listerine, eyeliner, mascara, two bars of handmade soap: nothing int
eresting. She closed the cabinet, studying her own face. She was pale, despite the wine, and her red lips looked sultry against her ivory skin. Morgan knew she looked lovely tonight but it gave her little pleasure. She thought about Neve. Neve was cute. So damned cute, with her pigeon toes and her shapely legs, and her always-perfect clothes, whether from Barneys or a thrift store. What did Neve have that she didn’t? Morgan was prettier, smarter, more popular. She thought of her brother, his smiles reserved for her, and though she knew it was wrong, she felt a bitterness rise at the thought of those smiles going to Neve.

  No. She shook her head, resting her hands on the marble of the bathroom counter. She felt dizzy and the smooth stone calmed her. Taking off her black silk blouse, she left just her camisole on. Maybe that would cool her down.

  A little bowl of trinkets — earrings, necklaces, a few silver rings — sat next to the sink. Ondine’s bathroom, Morgan reasoned. Plucking a plain jet strand out, she tried it on, looking sideways in the mirror. It suited her. She unhooked the necklace and dropped it into her purse.

  “Morgan, Morgan!” Neve called from downstairs. “Someone’s here!”

  Shaking out her hair, she took one last look in the mirror.

  Sometimes you’re a real bitch.

  Walking into Ondine’s bedroom, she could see the moon rising in the big picture windows, the ubiquitous fir trees of Portland below. A single headlight flared and then dimmed. She approached the window to see who it was. Her eyes adjusted to the light and made out the lean figure of someone taking off his helmet. He stopped, put the helmet on his seat, and ran his fingers through his hair.

  James Motherwell. Morgan’s chest constricted.

  He looked up. She was conscious of the fact that she wore only her camisole, but didn’t move. Instead she stared. Moth grinned slowly and waved. She thought of Ondine and Neve inclining toward each other, laughing, their hands on each other’s arms.

  Let them whisper.

  She slid her camisole off and stepped closer to the glass. Her nipples stiffened.

  Looking up from the driveway, Moth smiled wider.

  She waited till the bell rang to put her top back on, then headed down the stairs.

  FROM THE ONLINE, IM, CELL PHONE, CRACKBERRY, and good old-fashioned coffeehouse buzz, you’d have thought Ondine’s was the party of the year. You wouldn’t have known it from the outside, though. Things were quiet on N.E. Schuyler — a faint music coming from somewhere — but so hushed that when Nix and K.A. pulled up after getting a few slices — not from Jacob’s, Nix noted — and talking more about Nix’s plans for the summer, the boys couldn’t tell whether the famed party they had heard about was happening. All they saw were a few flickering lights from Ondine’s windows. Everything else was as silent as a Tuesday night in January.

  “You sure it’s tonight, bro?” Nix turned.

  “Yeah, yeah. My sis told me for sure. A lot of kids know about it. It was all over MySpace.” K.A. looked at the car clock, which read 10:27. “I don’t know. Maybe Ondine decided to keep it mellow. She’s the only girl I know who can give Morgan a run for her money being uptight.”

  The two boys walked across the lawn, hands in their pockets. When they got inside, the scene changed. It was dark at Ondine’s, and though there were at least a hundred people lining the halls, sitting on the stairs, dancing in the sunken living room, the house seemed full of nothing but thrumming shadows. It was noisy — both could feel it — but it was a noise they could sense more than they could hear. Music played. People K.A. knew from school danced. Nix waved to a few folks from the squat. It seemed that all of young Portland was there. Finn and Evelyn; Rainy Alvarez, the twenty-something waitress from Jacob’s; Li’l Paul, Morgan’s manager from the Krak; tons of kids from McKinley; even a few from Penwick. Despite the awkward parting that afternoon, Finn waved and Evelyn smiled. Shadows and light undulated. People laughed, music hit Nix and K.A. low. Yet nothing seemed loud — and everyone seemed happy.

  The perfect party, K.A. thought.

  It was he who saw Ondine first. He knew her from soccer when they were younger. He’d always liked her and, from one overachiever to another, admired her. If someone had asked him, K.A. would have said that she was beautiful, but he’d never given it much thought. That changed tonight. For the first time Ondine’s beauty impressed itself on him. There was something regal about her in the half-light, a playful smile glinting across her face, something undeniably sexy, too.

  “Smokin’.” He whistled under his breath and Nix looked in the same direction. “Her parents left her alone for the year,” K.A. whispered, surveying the scene. “Seems to have had a good effect.”

  Like everyone else at school, he’d heard that Ondine’s parents had gone away on sabbatical, leaving their seventeen-year-old daughter alone for her senior year, but it seemed to K.A. that Ondine was just now realizing the immense possibilities afforded by that absence. She seemed — well, she seemed grown-up. Self-confident and aware. Something K.A. yearned to be and didn’t know anything about. She stood near the kitchen talking to a senior boy he knew, but she was also keeping tabs on her party — her house, her mother’s art on the walls, the stereo people were plugging their iPods into. When she saw him she walked over.

  “K.A.!” Ondine laughed and did a little twirl. “Pretty tight, huh?”

  “Damn, Ondine.” K.A. looked around at the dancing teenagers. “Who, like, made this?”

  She smiled. “Well, your sister helped.” She looked over her shoulder at Neve, who was standing in a doorway talking to another girl. “And of course Neve’s here —”

  K.A. tried to keep his face cool as he looked over, but he bit his lip. “Neve, huh?”

  “ ‘Neve, huh?’ ” Ondine laughed. “Yeah, Neve-huh helped. But really, it was Moth. He bought us the booze and spread the word — or so I gather.” She shook her head and surveyed the scene. “You know Moth?”

  He nodded. “James Motherwell? That guy’s still around? I heard he got kicked out of U. of O. a few years ago. Some big dust thing.” K.A. shrugged. “He made this happen, huh? I guess you never know about folks.” He grinned, putting his arm around Ondine. “You’re sure running with a fast crowd these days, little Ondine Right Wing.”

  She laughed and looked down. “I guess. Moth ran into Morgan and me at the liquor store, and what was supposed to be a chill thing for a few friends became the party of the year. I swear to god the kegs won’t kick. And people keep coming. If I weren’t having so much fun, I’d be totally bugging. But no one is complaining and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. I have Indra collecting keys at the door.”

  K.A. nodded, surveyed the pulsating crowd. “I’d say. Where’s Morgue?”

  She waved a hand toward the dance floor.

  “In Moth’s clutches probably. I think he likes her.”

  She smiled then looked over his shoulder at Nix, who’d been quiet the whole time. K.A. followed her gaze, lingering a moment where Neve stood chatting with two boys he didn’t recognize. He fake-smacked his head.

  “Jesus, I’m an asshole. Ondine,” he said, “I want you to meet someone. This is Nix.” Nix offered a hand. “Nix, Ondine. Sorry guys — just a little preoccupied.” He tipped his head toward Neve. “Now excuse me. I think someone’s in need of a refill.”

  “Hey.” Nix smiled. He had never seen a more beautiful girl. Clear brown skin, big eyes, berry-stained lips. Impeccable ’do. He noted the low-slung dark jeans and a tight black T-shirt that showed just a bit of firm skin between hem and waistline. Silver rings flashed on her long fingers. She was barefoot and had tied her braids back with a red scarf that matched the polish on her toes. Nix felt a sudden blush creep into his cheeks.

  He looked at his shoes and wished that he owned better ones.

  Ondine stared back at the long-haired boy standing in front of her and grinned. Too many boys had blushed like that in front of her tonight to count, and by now she was just chalking it up to something in the air, as
if Moth had found a way to atomize dust.

  “Hey.” She leaned in, aware that she was flirting. “So, you work with K.A.?”

  “Yeah,” Nix said. “I mean, no. I mean, I quit tonight.”

  He felt peculiar. He never told strangers about his business — he even had a hard time trusting K.A. — but something about Ondine made him feel safe. Her eyes, he thought. They were purple-blue-brown and furry and they made him feel like he could rest.

  “You quit? Why? I thought Jacob was cool.”

  “Yeah …” Nix trailed off. He thought about the light around Jacob and for the first time since he’d seen it a month ago, felt something else besides terror. Something like — power? Like maybe he could do something to change it? He didn’t know what he was thinking altogether yet, or why it had hit him then, there, in the middle of a party where he didn’t know anyone. It was just an instinct, somewhere low and unformed, but standing there next to Ondine, he felt calmer.

  He waved it off. “You know, my accountant. He told me dishwashing’s over; the real money’s in garbage collecting. I’m gonna join the union Monday.”

  Ondine laughed. “Go Teamsters,” she cheered. She could tell the boy didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering him, but appreciated his attempt at a joke. For some reason she felt connected to him, though not in a sexual way — well, not quite. She found Nix attractive — with his widely spaced black eyes; his lean, toned frame — but there were a lot of guys in Portland who affected that look. He felt like something more. As if she had known him for a long time and was starting to know him again. She put a hand on his arm.

  “Tonight is about relaxing.”

  He looked at the girl, felt her cool-warm hand on his skin.

  Ondine stepped a little closer. “Do you like people watching?”

  For a moment Nix imagined a circle of people standing around him and Ondine doing something he hadn’t thought about doing since the sweetpea girl in Seattle. He thought about how good it would be to feel warm flesh up against his. The salt taste of sweat, the giggles as hair got in all the wrong places. Whenever he’d been with the sweetpea girl, Nix had always insisted on absolute darkness, because he wanted to be able to see even the faintest glimmer of light if it came. The thought of him and Ondine, and people watching, though — mmm. The two of them bathed in light, fused, glowing.