by Andi Loveall
P.S. I might be falling in love with her too. Damn it.
He had been here for almost four days and he hadn’t even looked into getting his visa yet. Who was he kidding? There was no way he was going to be ready to go to India in a little over two weeks.
The trouble was, if he waited too long, he might lose his motivation. India was the answer. India would give him the edge he needed, both in writing and in life. Besides, only an idiot would change his plans for a girl he barely knew.
He needed something to launch him forward. Or someone.
It was ten thirty that night, and he was lying on his bed with his legs propped up against the wall, bored and restless. Cora called it an early night, Panky was down the hill on the Internet, and Lucius was across the room, eyes lost in a novel.
“Hey,” Devin said, sitting up. “Where are you going after this?”
“Well.” Lucius set the book down on his lap. “In a few minutes, I’ll probably go to the can and take a piss.”
“No.” Devin laughed. “After our gig here is up. Do you have a plan?”
“That’s a good question. I’ve actually been trying to figure that out. Panky’s staying through August. Me, I don’t really know what I’m doing. What about you?”
“I told Walter three weeks for sure.”
Lucius smiled, his eyes narrowing into little slits. “You want to stay longer now don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But hey, you said you’d never been to India, right?”
“Nope. Was going to, but I headed south instead.”
Devin paused. What the hell.
“You want to come with?”
“To India? With you?”
“Sure.”
“Wow … That would be something to seriously think about. India. Hmm …”
“Seriously dude. I’m new at this. I could use a companion.”
“Give me a few days to think it over?”
“Naturally.”
A picture was coming together: He and Lucius, two adventurers on a mission to experience the unordinary in a foreign land. Maybe they would get themselves into some sort of troublesome scenario, only narrowly escaping death, and he would write an award-winning novel about their fight for survival. Future Devin would look back and feel nothing but thankful that he hadn’t allowed himself to fall in love and get stuck before living the dream.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Lucius said.
“How do you have enough money to fly all around like this?”
“Honestly? I got lucky. My grandma died.”
“Huh?”
“I’m just kidding. It’s true though, she died, but that’s not the lucky part. When she died, she left all her grandkids fifty thousand dollars. I was supposed to use it for college, but I dropped out halfway through my second semester and got on a plane.”
“Sweet. Were your parents mad?”
“Yeah. It’s okay, though. If I wait long enough to call them, they’ll usually be so thankful to find out I’m alive, they forget to yell at me.”
“So they won’t get mad if you go to India?”
“Nah. They get that I’m going to live like this as long as I can.”
“Good. Since you’re taking an aspirin and all, you could be my wingman.”
“Wingman. Don’t you be talking about no wingman to me, fool. I’m already sick of aspirin. I’m done with aspirin.” Lucius held his stomach, voice choking. “My blood has become too thin.”
“So the quest for enlightenment is over?”
“Still on for now. It’s not like I have any prospects, unlike you.”
“Prospects,” Devin said, making a gun with his hand and pretending to shoot himself. Her eyes flashed across his mind, and he knew it was too late. He was already up to his waist in her quicksand. Unless someone threw him a line and pulled hard, he was going down.
“Blessed damned duck.” Lucius eyed him. “You’ve got to learn to relax and let the spirit guide you. If you find something good—enjoy it. Don’t be too quick to head for greener pastures. Because trust me, all the pastures aren’t green. You won’t love every place like this place.”
Maybe he was right. What was the rush, anyway? India had always been a popular destination, and barring some sort of nuclear war or zombie plague it would most likely remain a travel-friendly country for some time. Even if there were to be some sort of cataclysmic meltdown in the very near future, which would halt all travel to and from the country, wouldn’t it be better to watch in disappointment from the safety of the states rather than be devoured at ground zero?
That settled it. India could wait.
It wasn’t as if he would be changing his plans exclusively for a girl. He needed to wait on Lucius, and next week, Raven was going to teach them how to make vegan sour cream and this Spanish rice recipe that had been passed down her family through the generations. She had a lot more recipes after that.
See? It had almost nothing to do with Cora.
That night, he dreamt of a traveling carnival, set up way out in the misty canyons. There was a ten-arm monster lurking nearby, but he wasn’t afraid because Cora was with him, all snuggled up inside his little traveling-carnival trailer.
This was love, he kept saying to himself. The feeling stayed, even after the dreamscape morphed into a freaky version of his Grandma Lillie’s house, a creaky old place with sterile gray carpeting and an antique grandfather clock that had terrified him as a child. It stood at the end of a long hallway, startling him with its loud boms and doms. When they were little, Michael claimed to have seen the ghost of a little boy standing beside it.
This was love. Screw the grandfather clock, the ten-arm monster, and anything else that stood in his way.
***
Saturday morning, Devin found Walter on the front path. He was shaking his head at the rotting fence.
“Looks like this thing has about had it,” he said. “We’ll need to rebuild it pretty soon here.”
“Yeah.” Devin stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels.
“What can I do you for?”
“Well, I was just wondering … Have you already got someone new coming to replace me when I go?”
“Not yet. I figured we’d be well good with just three for now.”
“Oh … Well because, I was thinking maybe …”
Walter’s face brightened. “You’d like to stay?”
“Yeah. I mean I don’t want to impose if you don’t need me but—”
“Nonsense lad. I wasn’t going to be needing anyone else if you had to be on your way, but if you’d like to stick around, I can find a use for you.”
Devin smiled. Relief.
“You think you might like to stay through August? I’ve got a couple lined up for then.”
“Maybe.” He pursed his lips and let out a long slow breath. “I’m not in any big rush to leave.”
“Tell me something boy.” Walter’s eyes were hard. “Does a certain young lady play any role in your wanting to stick around?”
“No, no. Not at all. I mean … Well, maybe a little, but … ” He swallowed. “Look, I’m not trying to do anything—”
“Hush! For love of the Lord boy, I’m only winding you up. You’re a good man, you do whatever you feel. But word to the wise—the girl is just like her mother.”
Devin let out a chuckle, longing to know what that meant but deciding it was better not to ask. He headed off, feeling relieved. The living situation was now situated.
He stopped off at the house and shared the news with Raven.
“I’m going to fill your brain with recipes, boy,” she said, hugging him. “I feel so deeply that we’re all meant to be.”
***
That night he dreamed of Jess, which was odd because he hadn’t been thinking about her at all lately. He figured that although Cora was making him horny, it was still Jess who provided most of the real-life imagery that occupied his sexual imaginat
ion. With Cora, he could imagine and did so with abandon, but it still wasn’t quite the same as remembering the real thing. With Jess, the curves of her nipples and shape of her lips were still firmly ingrained in his mind, and so was the way she looked when she was on top of him, her hair hanging loosely around her face. In the dream, she spoke telepathically. Fuck me, Devin. Fuck me.
Jess, also known as Jessica Riley-Valan, had always been far too hot for him. There were four Riley-Valan girls, all curvy brunettes with nice eyes and freckly skin, and Jess was the youngest and prettiest of them all. He would never forget the moment he first spotted her walking into the party, all dolled up and beautiful and sweet as a cupcake. Aaron claimed her first. He spit game at her for over twenty minutes while she nursed a can of crappy beer and politely leaned away. Devin floated over to save her, and as predicted, Aaron wandered off to try his hand at one of the more intoxicated partygoers. As a complete surprise, Devin and Jess ended up talking all night.
He did all the typical stuff: flowers, dinners at expensive restaurants, jewelry. It was fun, courting Jess, the virgin princess. She was so innocent back then. And it worked. Her eyes sparkled at him over their fifty-dollar plates of beef tenderloin. He got her.
It seemed so beautiful at the time, like she was this precious thing to protect and keep pure, and on the night they finally did the deed, he felt like a good man because he was tender and careful with her. They had sex every day for a few months at least, and during that time, he learned plenty of little tricks, like licking his way from her clit to her bellybutton, or picking her up and pressing her against the wall—she really loved that one. He loved all the little things she did too, like scratching his back or pulling his hair. Or the way she squeezed her eyes shut while he fucked her, making a face as if it hurt but begging him in little whispers to continue.
Little Jess … If he had taken her to a place like this, she wouldn’t have lasted a day. The lack of hot water alone would have done her in, let alone the food situation. She couldn’t have been more different from Cora, other than the fact that they were both ridiculously out of his league.
But hey, if it hadn’t mattered the last time …
It had been a while since he was in a girl’s room, so when Cora invited him in on Sunday evening after dinner, he got pretty excited. Seeing a girl’s room was like seeing a universe made up of her thoughts and sight and smells. He loved looking around and taking it all in—the random boxes, papers, and crystals on the shelves, the little keys and locks that hung on the doorknob, the green and white Christmas lights on the wall, and the dried flowers that were taped up in between them. Then there were the photographs, one of a pretty woman standing next to a lake, her hair blowing in the wind, and another of a much-younger Cora, with neon pink hair and a blue sweatshirt, sticking her tongue out at the camera from the passenger seat of a car. Another equally colorful girl was leaning into the shot from the driver’s seat.
“Oh my God,” Devin said. “How old are you here?”
Cora leaned over him, looking at the picture. “Maybe thirteen.”
“Gah.” Devin shook it out. “If I met you at that age, it probably would have killed me.”
She laughed.
“Is this your sister?”
“Yeah. Maggie.”
“She looks just like you.”
“Everyone always says that.”
“Does she live in California still?”
“No. She’s dead.”
He felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. “Jeez … I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
“What happened?”
“She drowned.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
She fiddled with a strand of her hair, furrowing her brows. He sat there, not wanting to make the dreaded apology and not wanting to carelessly change the subject.
“Listen … I know how it is. My mom died when I was fifteen.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But unless you really want to talk about it, I’d rather change the subject.”
“Okay.” He pushed her down on the bed.
“Hey,” she said, laughing and kicking at him. “That was really hard!”
“See? Now we’re talking about how strong I am,” he said. “Subject changed. You choose where we go from here. Movies, books, alien invasions—I’m pretty much open for anything.”
“How about how strong I am?” she said, punching him in the shoulder.
“Ah,” he said, grimacing. “You should know I have a sexual thing with being beaten.”
“Gross,” she said, laughing and shoving him off. “Don’t say that.”
“I won’t,” he said. “I just wanted to acknowledge that I successfully changed the subject from the sad death of our loved ones to sadomasochism in under thirty seconds.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Now you better change it again.”
“You choose.”
“No, you.”
“Anything?”
“Yeah,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“ … Can you tell me something about doing graffiti?”
“Like what?”
“Just what it was like. How you got into it. I’m curious.”
“Maggie got me started in it.”
“Oh … Jeez.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind telling you.” She took his hand, looking down and playing with his fingers as she spoke. “One time, Maggie and I got into a big fight with our dad and decided to run away. And we were pretty pissed, so we went with all we had. States away. I didn’t know it at the time, but she had stolen three thousand dollars from his safe, so money wasn’t an issue. And it was on that trip that she taught me how to paint. I did my first piece on a bridge just outside of Flagstaff. She’d been doing it since she was twelve, so hers was a lot better than mine.”
“What did you paint?”
“Words.”
“Well yeah, but—”
“Just strong words. Like spirit. Or love. And then, sometimes we just painted our aliases. Hers was Tigress.”
“What was yours?”
“ … Echo.”
“That’s highly cool.”
“There—I told you something about doing graffiti.”
“I think that might have been the most you’ve ever shared with me.”
She was quiet for a second. “Sometimes I don’t like to talk about my family.”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“The more we talk … The more you’ll know.” She wrinkled up her face as if it were a dirty word. “And the more you know, the more we can never go back to the time when everything was new.”
“I don’t like things new,” he said, poking her. “I like them good and broken in.”
“Why does everything you say sound so dirty?”
“Because you have a dirty mind,” he said.
“I do not.”
“I think you do. But hey, before we ‘change the subject,’ will you do me a favor?”
“Maybe.”
“Will you teach me one day?”
“What?”
“How to do graffiti,” he said. “I seriously think it’s really cool. I want an expert like you to show me how to do graffiti in a public spot and not get in trouble for it. And no legal copouts either, I want the full-on experience. I want the danger. I’m talking the busiest bridge, in the busiest part of Los Angeles—”
“Devin.”
“Or, we could drive out in the country somewhere. That would be cool too.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What are you going to do for me?”
“I want to do a lot of things for you. If you’ll let me.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Take me tagging? Or let me do things?”
She giggled. “Both. I do still have all my spray paint in the trunk of my car.”
“When can we go?”
“I don’t know. Some time.”
“What about the other? The doing things?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “Some time.”
He took her by the hands, interlocking all of their fingers.
“I want you to know,” he said. “I appreciate how slowly we’re taking this.”
She laughed. “Oh really?”
“Yes. I want to take it nice and slow,” he teased, kissing her fingertips. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, actually,” she said, flushing. “I do.”
“I wouldn’t even kiss you right now if you came at me first. I would shove you off and shout of my decency.”
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Is it working?”
“No.” She pulled her hands away. “It’s actually making me want to tease you even more.”
“You know, for someone who didn’t want to talk about sadomasochism, you’d make a great dominatrix.”
“You might be my muse when it comes to beating and destroying people.”
“Yeah, you’re bad. I like it.”
“Do you like bad?”
“I love bad. I love bad like a normal person loves good but even more.”
“I’m not really bad.”
“I know. But if I think about the good in you, it’s a lot harder for me to take it slow.”
The good in her was just there, radiating around her like a bubble of pure sunshine. He wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to take it slow. Being teased with this perfect thing was the most delicious build of his life, and everyone could feel him feeling it.
In the following days, they continued to hang out in her room, but they didn’t kiss then, either. Something about her paralyzed him. He couldn’t quite get his game on the first move. After a little while, this shyness made him feel a little pathetic. That, and Panky was usually in the room. When she was, she was incessantly up in their business, asking them why they hadn’t shagged yet and making them as uncomfortable as possible.