While I was working on a problem about a village of 130 people where 60 percent of the people own cars and 55 percent of the car owners are male, Cindy quit shaking the dice. At first I thought she was hiccuping.
The sound of crying always made the hair stand up on my arms. She went, “Uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-huh,” squeaked, then “Uh-huh-uh-huh-huh-huh-huh,” then she kind of screamed. I opened my door a crack. She was curled up in a ball, rocking with her arms wrapped around her knees, the wineglass dangling from two fingers.
I quietly shut my door, sat back on my bed, and willed myself to figure out what percentage of women owned cars. My forehead was covered with sweat, and I could feel huge pit stains spreading accross my shirt. I read through “Brønsted Acids and Bases” twice. The chapter made me sweat even more, and my brain hurt. I went over it again. I’d talk to Carl about it. I read the first three books of The Odyssey, all about Penelope and her suitors and Telemachus’s journey to find out if his father had died. I studied irregular Spanish verbs — niego, niegas, niega, negamos, negáis, niegan. The whole time I had to force myself to keep breathing. After forty-five minutes, Cindy stopped crying. I tipped over backward.
My face was numb with exhaustion. My heart felt hard. I had closed it against her. I couldn’t play Yahtzee. I had to do my homework or I’d never have a plan or any kind of life and I’d never be a doctor.
At 9:30, I finished my homework. The apartment was silent. I closed my Spanish textbook and looked at the cracked green walls a few feet on either side of me. I was as flattened as someone who’d just run a marathon.
Bruno Mars rippled shinily over me. When I had insomnia, his voice was the only thing that could get me to sleep. He sounded so calm, so cool . . . so sweet.
After a thirty-six-hour shift, I walked down a New York street. I was exhausted but still looked gorgeous in my blue scrubs. The wet sidewalk glittered with lights. I stepped into a café with low lights and candles lit in round red candleholders. I sat at a table in the back, where it was dark and private, so I could rest, get a salad, and go online. I’d just ordered a drink and opened my laptop when someone touched my shoulder. Startled, I spun around. It was Bruno Mars. He was wearing a black jacket and a red shirt. He looked stunned, as if he’d been searching for the girl he’d always dreamed of and finally . . . “Excuse me,” he said. “Could I join you?”
“I’m thrilled to meet you, seriously,” I said, “but I’m an intern and just got off a thirty-six-hour shift. Can I call you?”
“Of course, but please . . . tell me your name.”
“Leah. And you’re Bruno.”
“God, that’s a beautiful name. It’s perfect for you. And, yeah, I’m Bruno.” He laughed and wrote his number on a napkin that he tucked into the breast pocket of my scrubs while staring into my eyes. . . .
I got off my bed and stepped quietly into the living room. People laughed silently on the TV.
Cindy’s head was thrown back as if she were exposing her neck for a vampire. Her mouth was open in a little O as though she’d been taken by surprise. She was wearing pink socks. I lifted her feet back onto the couch. I was careful about her bunion. I covered her with the blanket, picked up the wineglass, and turned off the TV. The carpet in front of the couch was soaked with wine. I threw a kitchen towel over it.
I washed and dried the wineglass and put it back in the cupboard. When the last wedding wineglass finally broke, Cindy would probably use it as an excuse to drink an entire box of wine in one sitting. I could just see her crying while I tried to study for finals.
A tiny spider struggled to keep its footing in the drain. This was not my stained sink with gray bits of meat stuck in the strainer. This was not my faded, water-spotted magazine picture of a meadow. This was not my wedding wineglass. I did not play Yahtzee. This was not me. This was not my life.
I opened the refrigerator and took out a package of cheese slices, a jar of mayonnaise, and bread. I made a cheese sandwich, swallowed it in two bites, then made another. I decided to eat until I was sick, and then the only thing I’d have to think about was how fat I was. That was simple. I could eat carrots and lettuce and cottage cheese. I could do Zumba with a DVD in the living room. I could spend my whole life trying to lose fifteen pounds.
I was halfway through the second sandwich when I remembered that I, or Ashley, was supposed to meet Kurt King at 10:45. I checked my phone; it blinked with messages.
I threw the rest of the sandwich in the garbage and went into the bathroom. I stared at the girl in the mirror. I saw my mouth, my eyes, my hair. I was a girl, just a girl, like any girl. I could have been named Ashley. I washed my face and armpits, put on my gold hoops and my double teardrop necklace, then went back into my room and shut the door. I put in my earbuds and blasted “Treasure” on my iPod. I whirled around. I went crazy in that tiny space.
When I stepped out of the apartment into the hallway, I had the fantastic feeling that I was leaving behind my crappy life. I could be anyone I wanted to be.
I jogged down the orange carpet through laugh tracks and the smell of burnt toast, then up the stairs. In the entry, Mrs. Martin was unlocking her mailbox.
She turned and looked me up and down. Her hazel eyes clicked to a stop at the sight of the neckline on the tank I was wearing under my hoodie. She was old, but her brown freckled face was smooth and unwrinkled. She wore orange lipstick and her white hair in a tight bun, and got a manicure once a week. She was a retired principal.
“Where do you think you’re going this time of night?”
I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and smiled the empty polite smile I gave adults when I wanted to be invisible. “Hi, Mrs. Martin. My mom’s really sick. I’m going to Safeway for cold medicine.”
Her huge eyes blinked. She did not smile back. “Watch yourself. It’s after curfew.”
“Oh, I will. Thanks, Mrs. Martin. See you later.” I pushed through the door and headed out into the night. Mrs. Martin watched me walk down Vargas.
I had ten minutes to kill and actually did go into the Safeway. They were about to close. I had no money and wandered around the store like a shoplifter. I stopped at the baby-food display. The little jars looked so colorful and enticing but contained substances like mashed green beans and liquefied bananas. Sometimes I got to feed Jimmy. I loved scooping up stuff like sweet potatoes and bringing the rubberized spoon to his tiny open mouth. His breath smelled like icing.
A woman stepped in front me, grabbed five jars of pureed beef, and tossed them into her cart beneath a car seat. A scrawny little girl, clutching a Barbie, straggled after her. The kid was probably a little tired since it was ten thirty on a school night.
In Florida, the grocery store was called Piggly Wiggly. I’d hang on to the side of the metal cart so I wouldn’t lose Cindy in one of the long, narrow aisles packed with people in shorts and flip-flops. Sometimes in the parking lot, while she loaded me into the car, she’d accidentally burn me with her cigarette. She’d scream at me for crying. She was always lost in thought, her eyes shiny and blind, her teeth buried in her lip. I wanted to fix whatever was wrong. I wanted to make her happy. I liked school back then. It was peaceful to sit in rows with other kids, scratching in workbooks with a pencil. The cafeteria was warm and smelled like sour milk. Everyone got reduced-price lunches. It was hot in Florida, and the air was swampy. I never saw the ocean. I turned ten, Cindy quit smoking and we moved to Colorado.
At the end of the aisle, I saw a flash of blue uniforms. Cops with little plastic baskets were shopping for their midnight snack. When they turned down the cereal aisle, I headed for the door. If the cops were bored, they’d bust me for curfew.
At ten thirty on a weeknight, Tenth Avenue was bleak lights and empty parking lots, all lonely and end-of-the-worldish. The sky was dark blue, a mess of stars. Black mountains, dotted with lights, bulged into the sky on the edge of the town.
The 7-Eleven sign lit up the end of the block. It suddenly occurred to me tha
t I wasn’t Ashley. I stopped, feeling the darkness all around me, and tried to feel who I was. Cars honked; the light turned green. The lights in the Safeway went off.
The black Mustang, parked at a slant, took up three spaces in the 7-Eleven parking lot.
Kurt King leaned against the brick wall. He was wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans. I felt for the tube of lip gloss in my pocket and smeared some on. I held in my stomach and walked closer. I stopped and looked up at him from the potholed parking lot. White light flooded from the store, but the edges of the parking lot were black.
He pinched his cigarette, took a long drag, then flicked the butt so that it arced like a tiny firebomb over the Mustang; we both watched it. He turned without a smile and looked me up and down. He was chewing something tiny. “You again.”
I ran my fingertips across my forehead. “Ashley couldn’t come tonight. She told me to tell you.”
“Where’s Ashley at? She’s supposed to be here.”
“She couldn’t come.” I tried not to blush or smile. We knew each other. I’d ridden in his car. We talked almost every night. I talked with my regular voice, my Leah voice, the one he didn’t recognize.
“So you could come, but Ashley couldn’t. How come?”
“She got grounded.”
He shook his bangs out of his eyes and tipped his head back against the bricks.
I was sweating and my mind began to blur. I yawned uncontrollably, got something in my eye, turned away, and tried to rub my eye without smearing my mascara. “Sorry . . .” My phone buzzed in my hoodie pocket; I turned it off.
Kurt King squinted at me with his mouth open, his arms folded across his chest. His fingers played piano on his arm. One side of his mouth tilted up in a kind of smile. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me. He picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue. He slid the bottom of his boot back and forth over the concrete.
“Well, you just keep poppin’ up. So, what’s going on tonight?” He ran a finger across his upper lip and smiled real slowly. He knew that he looked like a movie star. He watched me watch him.
“Nothing’s going on. I just came to tell you . . .”
“Want to hang out?” He stepped down off the curb into the parking lot.
It was bizarre talking to him in real life after talking to him so many times on the phone. I could only look at him for a few seconds at a time before I had to look down at the gravel clotted in tar. I felt the cold air on my neck and chest, turned away, and zipped up my hoodie. He laughed.
“Let’s move out of this light. It’s too bright.” He touched the small of my back with his hand. I felt electricity shoot in all directions. We moved toward the Mustang.
With the lights behind him, I couldn’t see his face, just the outline of his shaggy hair, the slant of his cheekbones. But I could feel him. “Let’s go for another ride. That was a good time.” The Mustang gleamed in the light from the store. It had just been washed.
“I have to go.”
“Where you got to go? You don’t want to go for a ride? Well, then, come out back with me for a minute. There’s a nice place I like to sit and have a smoke. They got lilacs blooming. Don’t be shy. Come on, have a smoke with me.”
He strolled across the parking lot and called over his shoulder, “Don’t you disappear on me. You took off like a little scared rabbit last time.” His boots clicked on the asphalt. He headed into the darkness beyond the lights of the store.
I felt completely alone with the sound of my own breathing. Not a thought in my head. And then Anita flashed through my mind with her chin out and her arms crossed. “Don’t be an idiot.” But Kristy would go. Corinne wouldn’t, but Kristy would run back, laughing and flinging her hair over her shoulders. I know him, I thought. I talk to him almost every night. I rode in his car and nothing happened. He’s just a guy.
A car full of junior girls pulled into the parking lot, did a slow U-turn, and left. Kurt King stepped out of sight. I followed him. A chain-link fence rang alongside the alley. Security lights blazed by the store’s back door.
A scraggly lilac bush hung over a low cement wall that ran behind the Dumpster. Kristy, Corinne, and I had waited here when he bought us beer. Kurt King sat down on the wall, leaned back, stretched out his legs. He shook the hair out of his eyes. “Sit down. What’d I tell you? We got lilacs.”
He offered his pack of cigarettes. I tried to pull one out but couldn’t, so he shook one into my hand. He held out his lighter. I leaned forward, and the flame lit up my face. I felt like a woman, a movie star. I remembered how he’d held my cheek and said, “Thanks, sweetheart.” I wondered if he’d kiss me. I saw myself sitting in a café with Bruno Mars. He reached out to touch my hair. . . .
My body tingled like every cell had lit up. I wasn’t exactly happy, but I was alive. It was different. I was somewhere else. No Cindy, no crappy little apartment, no Kristy. There was me. Leah. I was dreaming, wide awake and dreaming, the best place to be.
A delivery truck pulled around. The truck backed up, beeping, blowing out clouds of exhaust. A man dropped down from the cab, threw open the back, and started unloading crates. The man was bald with big ears and a belly that hung over his belt. He looked like somebody’s dad. He carried the crates across a crooked rectangle of light that fell from the store’s open door.
“So.” Kurt King softly punched my arm. “Talk to me. Tell me about Ashley.”
A familiar sadness snaked through my excitement. I crossed my arms, blew smoke away from him. “Oh, Ashley? Ashley’s fine.”
“Me and her talk every day. I saw her. I talked to her downtown last weekend,” said Kurt King. He lifted his arms and stretched back his shoulders. “I want to get something going with that girl.”
The delivery man grabbed a crate, stopped for a minute outside the light, and squinted at us, a teenage girl and a man smoking in the dark by the Dumpster. He snorted, bit down hard on his gum, and hauled the crate into the store.
Kurt King moved closer so that his thigh pressed against my thigh. “Listen . . . you know that Ashley. I’m not in love with her or anything. I’m just curious. The girl sends out certain signals. I just want to check in and clarify the situation. You know, you send out different signals. You strike me as a girl with a steady boyfriend, a guy I wouldn’t want to mess with. Am I right?”
“Maybe.”
His arm came to rest around my shoulders, and his fingertips stroked the top of my arm through the hoodie. The toe of his cowboy boot slowly tapped against the asphalt. The leather of his boot was worn almost white.
I was struck silent by the heat and hardness of a grown male body pressed against mine. The weight and warmth of his arm lay across my shoulders. I could feel him breathing, could feel his ribs through his shirt, his bony hip, his leather belt. I breathed in the smell of cigarettes, beer from his breath, a whiff of BO when he moved. His fingers were still stroking my arm. He made little circles on my arm like he was daydreaming. Even Kurt King could see Damien Rogers’s mark on me. I wondered how long it would be before Damien Rogers held me like this.
“You know that Ashley,” he said again. “She’s not so special. She’s no more special than you are.” He ran his thumb across my cheek. Nerve endings from every part of my body followed that rough thumb.
I looked up into his face. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. A stranger with a bristly chin stared down the front of my hoodie. He had wrinkles around his eyes, and his breath smelled like onions.
“I got to go.”
His hand slid down my arm onto my wrist. He pulled my arm behind my back. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Then: “Just kidding,” he said. He let go.
I jumped up and turned around to face him, my arms crossed over my chest. I walked backward, glancing over my shoulder for potholes so I didn’t trip and fall. “How old are you? Why don’t you date people your own age? Ashley’s too young for you.”
He spit, shook his head, laughed at the ground b
etween his knees. He got up, stepped into the light, smiled. “Don’t be like this. Why you being like this? I’m not too old for Ashley. Man, I’m, like . . . I’m twenty-two.”
“Yeah, right. Ciao, Mr. Corduroy.”
“Ciao? Mr. Corduroy? What kind of jackass name is that? You tell Ashley that Kurt King wants to see her and he’s a real gentleman.”
“Gotcha, Mr. Corduroy. I’ll tell Ashley straightaway.”
The truck door slammed shut. Its engine roared, and the truck backed up and drove down the alley. Except for a buzzing electrical box, it was quiet. The back door of the store closed. I kept walking backward down the alley toward the street.
“What’s with the jackass name? Hey, hey, hey . . . stop.” He shook his head and rubbed his thumb against his chin. “I offended you, but I don’t know what I did. Come on, come sit with me. Man, I’m having a hard night. Come here, come on back.”
“I got to go.” But I stopped.
He held his hands up like an outlaw giving himself up. He took two steps toward me. “Honey, I don’t know how I blew it here. What did I do wrong? Listen, how about this? Come here for a sec.” He tipped up his chin. “I’ll tell you a secret. But you got to tell me one. Come on.”
I stood where I was, but felt it. It was like being pulled by an invisible rope. “What’s the secret?” Maybe the secret was that Kristy wasn’t so gorgeous after all. She was blond but kind of scrawny. You, on the other hand . . .
“Don’t be mad at me.” He walked toward me and slowly reached out, his hand all veins and fingers and smooth brown skin. He ran a finger along my throat. I felt myself loosen at his touch, and it made me feel crazy because I didn’t know what it meant — like was it fate? Was this what fate felt like? My head ached and my skin tingled and my brain felt sleepy and I didn’t know.
“OK. Tell me the secret.”
“My secret is . . .” Kurt King grinned and shook his head. “My secret is that I’m not really twenty-two. I’m twenty-six. OK, I’m fessing up. And the other secret is — I’ll tell you two secrets — I just broke up with my girl. She’s pregnant by another dude. Man, it was ugly. Broke my heart.”
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