by Anna Hecker
“Mira.” He sighs and reaches for me, his fingertips grazing my face and filling me with tingly longing before I can push his hand away. “There’s a huge difference between molly and meth. Molly isn’t addictive. It doesn’t ruin lives. You can’t die from it.”
Gently, he wipes a tear from my cheek. I know I should stop him. But I don’t.
“I would never sell meth,” he continues, his eyes holding mine. “I care about these people—why do you think I bust my ass throwing parties for them?”
“But you still sell them drugs,” I sniffle.
He sighs and takes my hand. “It’s different,” he says. “Maybe if you tried it you’d understand.”
I shake my head. Now more than ever, I have zero interest in trying molly. Still, I can’t help remembering how Britt said she stopped hating the girls on her soccer team, how molly opened up her world in a really beautiful way.
“Mira, you have to understand,” he says. “Molly is part of what makes this scene what it is. It breaks down people’s barriers—it makes them more open and accepting. It lets them show the world who they really are.”
I remember the wide-eyed kids who helped me up when I face planted in the warehouse, the gum-chewing fairy-girls who hugged me after my Silent Disco set. I have to admit, the people I’ve met who were obviously on molly are nicer than anyone at Coletown High.
“And people are going to do it anyway,” Derek continues. “They’re going to seek it out. All I’m doing is providing a service. If they didn’t get it from me, they’d just get it from someone else.”
I swipe at my eyes. I know what he’s saying is true. But I still feel blindsided—and hopelessly young and naïve.
“And you swear you only sell molly?” I ask. “No meth? Ever?”
“Hey.” He slides his hand under my chin and raises my face until we’re eye to eye. “I swear. Just molly. That’s all. Ever.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“I thought you knew.” His finger traces my cheek. “It’s hardly a secret.”
“I guess there’s a lot I didn’t know,” I say quietly.
“Yeah, me too.” Derek shakes his head sadly. “She was on meth?” he repeats, disbelieving.
“That’s what I heard.” I swipe at my eyes. “And some other stuff too. Have you heard of butylone?”
“Damn.” His thumb traces my palm. “I just wish I knew …”
He trails off, looking at an empty point somewhere beyond my head.
“What?” I ask.
“I just wish I knew she was into that kind of shit.” His voice cracks. “I could have talked to her. I could have …” He breaks off and looks away, drawing a long, jagged breath.
“Derek …” I start to say.
He holds up a hand. “Just give me a minute.”
I try not to watch as he struggles to gain control of himself, but it’s impossible to look away. He gasps a little and his shoulders shake. His eyes go glossy. He blinks a few times. And in that moment the last little jagged piece of distrust melts inside of me and I know he can’t possibly be the one who sold Yelena meth.
He’s not lying; he adored Yelena. He would never want to hurt her. He only sells molly, which everyone keeps telling me is perfectly safe.
Yelena was his friend.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, reaching out and touching his cheek. “I believe you.”
“Thank god.” His eyes return to mine, brimming with tears. “I don’t think I could handle it if you didn’t.”
He leans forward and plants the lightest, softest kiss on my lips, letting it linger until I feel like I’m full of helium, about to float away. Then he kisses me harder and I’m kissing him back, our lips mashing into each other as if they can erase all the misery of the past few days, can crowd out the thought of Yelena’s coffin going into the ground.
My mind goes blank and we fall back on his bed, grappling with our clothes, and it feels like we’re screaming to the world that we’re still here, we’re alive. Soon we’re down to our underwear and he’s reaching for a condom and we’re not talking, not looking at each other, not thinking about anything except what’s happening right here and right now.
CHAPTER 28
It’s nearly dark when I leave Derek’s place. I swing by This Is A Lot, hoping to run into Britt, but the doors are padlocked and there’s only silence behind the metal walls. I send a text asking where she is and if she needs a ride home, and she replies with a single heart emoji. It’s not the answer I was looking for, but at least I know she’s okay.
When I pull into the driveway there’s a light on in the living room, and Mom is on the couch in her magenta bathrobe, some kind of gray gunk spread over her face. It’s almost pathetic how happy I am to see her. Normally she’s at the gym this time of night, going over the day’s attendance reports and wiping down equipment.
“Why aren’t you at work?” I ask, plopping down next to her and pulling the afghan over my lap.
“I can’t take a night off every now and then?” She tries to smile, but her features are frozen from the mask. I’m immediately suspicious.
“You could, but you don’t,” I say. “What’s going on?”
She looks down, rearranging her robe on her lap. “It’s nothing to worry about—just that leak again. We had to shut down a little early and call a plumber. Your dad said he’d stay there and deal with it while I came home and took a load off, which is very sweet of him.” She toys with the edge of her robe, picking at a loose thread. “So I get a night off and a little R and R, and now I get you. Isn’t that nice?”
She’s trying to sound positive, but her voice is stretched thin. I wonder what the plumber is costing us, and how my parents are going to pay for it.
“And where were you tonight?” She takes in my recital dress and raises her eyebrows. “Another date?”
I think of the darkness in Derek’s room, his hands on my skin. “Sort of,” I say.
Mom beams, making the gray gunk crease and crack. “Sounds like it’s getting serious. When are you going to bring him by?”
You mean the drug dealer who took my virginity? Good question, Mom.
“Maybe sometime,” I murmur.
“We’d love to meet him,” she says. “It’s nice to see you branching out a little this summer. I love Crow and Nicky, but …”
I know. They’re weird. Not like Britt’s bland, preppy high school friends who Mom loved.
“And what about Britt?” Mom leans forward. A chunk of clay falls off her face and lands in her lap. “What’s she up to tonight?”
My throat constricts. For a moment, I want more than anything to tell her the truth: that I don’t know, and I’m worried. That she should be worried too. That there’s more going on with Britt than she realizes.
On the coffee table, Mom’s phone begins to shriek and vibrate. She lunges forward, silencing it. “That’s my alarm—gotta wash this goop off. Be right back, Mir-Bear.”
The truth about Britt hovers on my tongue as I watch her pad down the hall, listen to the rush of water coming from the downstairs bathroom. Would it be so wrong if I told her what was going on? What if she and Dad could help?
Mom emerges from the bathroom blinking droplets from her eyelashes.
“Wow, I needed that.” She gives me a warm smile—a real one, no longer restricted by her mask. “Nothing like a little R and R when the chips are down, huh?”
She sighs onto the couch and puts her feet up on the coffee table. In the lamplight I notice the tiny web of wrinkles around her eyes, the skin below them purplish and delicate.
Those wrinkles weren’t there a year ago. Our family’s finances must be getting to her more than she lets on. The last thing Mom needs is more to worry about—and there’s no guarantee that telling her will actually help Britt.
“Maybe you should take a bath or something,” I suggest. “Make the most of it.”
“Now there’s an idea,”
she says as I stand. “I like the way you think.”
“Enjoy it.” I kiss her cheek. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, Mir-Bear,” she says as I climb the stairs to my room.
I shut the door and sink into my desk chair. I’m exhausted, but I know if I try to sleep I’ll just keep hearing Mrs. Andreyev’s scream in my head, and picturing Yelena gray-faced and seizing in front of the Bass Sector stage. I can’t stomach another night of that. I can’t keep revisiting the ghost of Yelena the last time I saw her, jerking and twitching on the ground.
That isn’t how I want to remember her. I want a different picture in my mind: Yelena the first time I met her, rushing toward me in her huge patent leather boots and silver belly chain. Yelena dancing with her hands in the air, reaching for the beat like it’s the string of a balloon that’ll ferry her away to a magical land.
A bass line starts to weave through my head, powered by the memory of Yelena’s dancing and the funny, happy hop she always did when she got excited.
Quickly, before it can disappear, I open Sibelius on my laptop. Maybe this is a way I can keep her memory alive. Music can’t make this pain go away, but maybe it can turn it into something different, something beautiful. Maybe it can help me make sense of what happened.
I transcribe the line in my head into a bass solo, the notes practically shoving each other aside to get onto the staff. But when I’ve entered them into Sibelius and hit “play” I realize I’ve written it for the wrong kind of bass. This isn’t meant to be acoustic: it’s the deep, pounding kind of bass that sounds best fattened by a synthesizer and played too loud on giant speakers, the kind that made Yelena shriek and throw her head back, spin in a circle, and shake her manic curls.
My piece for Yelena isn’t meant to be jazz. It’s meant to be dance music: the kind of music Yelena loved.
CHAPTER 29
I’m up for most of the night working on Yelena’s piece. When I finish I fall into a deep sleep, and, for the first time since she died, I’m not plagued by dreams.
I text Shay the next day.
What do people use to write dance music? I ask. Like from scratch?
I watch the three dots appear on my screen start, pause, then start up again.
Just come over, she finally replies. I’ll show you.
After work I drive to the Bronx and take the rickety elevator down to her studio. As I pick my way through the maze of storage rooms I try not to get spooked by their hulking shadows, try not to imagine Yelena’s ghost lurking in every corner. It’s a relief when I find Shay hunched over her DJ rig, bathed in the peachy glow of her lamp. Behind her I see a sleek black rectangle covered in LED buttons that glow orange, green, and violet.
“What is that?” I ask.
She grins. “My new baby. I got it cheap from some yuppie in the Financial District who finally figured out he’s too busy making money to ever be a producer.”
“That’s how you write music?” The box looks warm and tactile, the opposite of the sterile black-and-white staffs in Sibelius. A few of the squares blink under my gaze.
“Uh-huh. This thing is everything: drums, bass, synth, effects—you name it.” She taps a button and it lights up, making a sound like a kick-drum.
“Can I try?” I feel like the box is calling to me.
“Sure.” She moves aside. “Maybe you’ll have better luck coming up with something that actually sounds good.”
“It does bass?” I stretch out my fingers, hypnotized by the blinking squares.
“Sure.” Shay shows me how to switch into bass mode, how to choose a style and manipulate it until it sounds the way I want. “I guess you’re supposed to play chords or whatever, but I never had, like, formal music training. So it’s tough going.”
“I can show you.” I rest my fingers on the box and play the bass line I came up with last night. The buttons light up under my fingers, yellow and blue, as the notes boom clear and mellow through Shay’s speakers. Warmth sweeps through me, sinking into my hips. This is the way I wanted that bass to sound. This is the first thing that’s felt right in days.
“Damn.” Shay nods along to the music, a sliver of tongue wedged between her teeth. “That’s tight.”
I show her a few basic chord progressions and we tweak the bass line together, stretching the sound until Shay’s head-nod is a full-on dance. “It sounds so good!” she exclaims. “Now all we need is a beat, and a melody, and some effects, and …”
“And we can take over the world,” I laugh. For the first time since Pax Summerfest I feel like myself again, like all I need is music and everything will be okay. “Let’s try some drums.”
We spend the next hour playing with kicks, claps, and snare, then move on to structure and effects. As Shay shows me how to use the equipment, I teach her about meter, tonality, song structure, and all the other music-theory-nerd things I could talk about forever, if anyone besides Crow and Nicky ever wanted to listen.
“I think we might have something here,” Shay says when we’re finished adding effects.
“We definitely have something.” I cock my head. “I don’t know. It’s good, but I feel like it’s missing something.”
“Like what?” Shay rests her chin in her palm and looks up at me, her eyeliner smudged from sweat and excitement.
“I don’t know.” I can’t quite put my finger on it, because the song has everything it should need: a tight beat, fun effects, and a rock-solid structure with an intro and outro, verses and chorus and a bridge. But it still feels somehow incomplete. “Vocals, maybe?”
“Hmmm.” Shay blows a stray piece of hair away from her face. “We could look for samples. Or, I dunno—you know anyone with a microphone? Maybe we could record something.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I drum my fingers on the tabletop. “I’ll think about it more at home.”
“Oh!” Shay brightens. “I could play it at my gig next weekend! Maybe we just need to hear it over a real sound system.”
The idea of a track I wrote being played over a real system, for a real dance floor, sends an inadvertent zing through my chest. Maybe if it works I can play it at Electri-City, I think, although of course I don’t say that to Shay. I know it will always be a sore spot between us, and the last thing I want is to rub it in.
“You have a gig this weekend?” I ask.
“Yeah, in the Pine Barrens. I’ll put you on the list.”
“Oh, Shay. I don’t know.” I wilt against the metal wall. “My Fulton audition is in a month.”
“And you’re going to practice on Saturday night?” She rolls her eyes. “C’mon—I want you to hear my set! It’ll be fun.”
I want to tell her that I’m out—there’s no way I can come. But there’s so much hope in Shay’s voice. I don’t know how to tell her no.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, gathering my bag.
“Sure you will.” She gives me a knowing smile. “I’ll see you there.”
CHAPTER 30
I keep waiting for Britt to move on from denial, but a week after the funeral it only seems to be getting worse. I watch her from the front desk at The Gym Rat as she drags herself through teaching a Cardio Blast routine, her feet not leaving the ground. Her hair has started to grow out where she buzzed it, and the other side is dry and damaged.
If I didn’t know better I’d assume she’s moved on to depression, but I know better. She went out dancing again last night even after I begged her not to, sneaking down the stairs in a red vinyl romper that used to be Yelena’s.
In high school Britt could go out and get hammered and still be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next day, but now all her partying is starting to show. She’s barely keeping time to the music, and she winces whenever it hits a high note. There’s no applause when the class finishes. Britt just turns off the music and leaves, picking up Yelena’s backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. She stares down at the floor as she trudges through the gym, so she doesn’t see Mom coming.
“Um.” Britt tries to plaster on a smile. Can Mom not see how wrecked she is, I wonder? Or does she just not want to look?
“You’re free then, right?” Mom purses her lips. “Because I told him you were, and he’s going out of his way.”
“Yeah.” Britt’s smile falters. “I’m free then.”
“Great! So it’s a date.” Mom squeezes Britt’s bicep. “Let’s get your strength back so you can kick some butt this fall, huh?”
Britt nods weakly. The doll’s head bobs with her.
“What is that thing, anyway?” Mom asks, pursing her lips and pointing at Yelena’s backpack.
“This?” Britt looks over her shoulder like she’s surprised to see it perched there. “Just a backpack.”
“Well it’s kind of gross,” Mom says, wrinkling her nose. “Can you maybe leave it at home tomorrow? It might freak out our customers.”
Britt looks crestfallen. “Sure,” she says quietly. I expect Mom to ask what’s wrong, but she’s distracted by a motivational poster that’s coming off the wall. As she jogs off to fix it, Britt wanders to the exit.
“Hey,” I call as she passes the desk. “Are you okay?”
She stops, startled. “I’m fine,” she says.
“Britt. Come on.”
“No, everything’s cool.” She leans against the desk, the doll backpack’s dirty plastic feet trailing on my keyboard. “I mean, I could skip this soccer business. But everything else is fine.”
I frown. “But you love soccer.”
“Yeah …” her voice trails off. “But I’m out of practice. Coach will know.”
“So practice,” I suggest. “You’re not seeing him until tomorrow. You could go right now.”
“Yeah, no.” She rests her hands on the desk, the nails painted bloodred and embedded with black sparkles. “I’m too beat.”
Of course she is, I think. She keeps skipping sleep to go out dancing.