The Mythic Koda Rose

by Jennifer Nissley

  So. The week leading up to Lindsay’s arrival is spent not with Sadie, but wishing for her. Curled up with my forehead against the back of the duct-taped couch, the guitar—my father’s guitar—in my lap. Teaching myself to tug the strings so gently, the sound that warbles out barely counts as sound at all. Just knowing that eventually, Sadie will hear anyway. And then she’ll look up from her scribblings and smile, like she’s slipping me a note.

  Some days, that’s enough. Other days, it’s not, and the memory of her calling my father dishonest makes me want to sever every string on the guitar’s neck one by one. So he cheated on her. So what? I mean, cheating is wrong, irrefutably shitty, but they got back together in the end. Didn’t they? Didn’t they write all those songs for their final album about how in love they were, and everybody else could kindly fuck off? I don’t want to hear her say another word about my father if it’s going to be untrue. That might give me a reason to dislike her—and I couldn’t handle that. Not now, when Lindsay will be here tomorrow. At school, I make a desperate resolution. Get Sadie talking about him again—the real him. The father who will help me say what I need to.

  I brave the treacherous studio elevator only to find Em alone, grimacing over the heap of papers she and Sadie call their abortions. Failed songs. “Where’s Sadie?” I ask. My backpack plunges from my shoulders, onto the damp-smelling carpet. There’s another beat or two before Em looks up.

  “Figured she was with you.”

  “Nope.” I don’t bother squeezing the irritation from my voice.

  Em stretches. She has a cat tattoo—multiple cat tattoos—on her bicep. “Hm,” she says. “The plot thickens.” Like she’s talking to a fourth grader.

  “Not really. Her stuff’s right there.” Guitar propped against the armrest, jacket flung across the couch.

  “Well, don’t let that fool you, Koda Rose—Sadie does what Sadie wants. Say she’s gone and vanished for real. You prepared to fill in?” She points to the little brown piano in the corner, and an image wells up without me asking it to—Sadie sitting hilariously tall and proper on the hard wooden bench, her real playing interspersed with pointed key banging whenever Em gets distracted.

  I swallow, realizing that her finger is now aimed at me. “I can’t play piano. My dad couldn’t either.” The significance obviously escapes her. She throws her hands up, like, Guess I’m fucked. I try to defend Sadie. “It’s not that big of a deal. She could be in the bathroom.”

  “For an hour?”

  “Maybe? She always takes a long time.”

  Her eyes widen with what seems like alarm, but she rolls them quickly, muttering, “If she’s powdering her nose.”

  I pull my coat off and get comfy on the sofa arm, the guitar propped gingerly on my knee. Still muttering, Em goes over to the piano and flips the cover up. Witchy cat eyes leer from her bicep.

  “Shows what you know,” I say under my breath. Sadie never wears makeup.

  * * *

  It’s snowing when we leave the studio. I can’t yank my hood up quickly enough and get trapped for an extra cycle of the revolving door. By the time I’m free, Sadie and Em are lingering beneath the streetlight, smoking into each other’s faces. Once Sadie finally did show up—no explanation, no apology, slinking into her place at the piano—their rental of the room had nearly expired. Em freaked out. Forty-five minutes later, she’s still pissed, gesturing wildly. “Don’t be stupid,” she’s saying. “I refuse to believe you’re that naive. I refuse to believe you’re incapable of change. Meaningful change, Sades. You’re—you’re jeopardizing your career. Your life. And what about me? Do you know what it does to me to see you doing this to yourself again, the thoughts it puts into my head? Or do you not care about me anymore, either?”

  Sadie exhales, and I hang back, wanting to interrupt but not knowing what to say. Whatever they’re arguing about, it clearly has nothing to do with me. So I jam my hands in my coat pockets and wait. Embarrassed. Jealous. Like I really am in fourth grade.

  Clouds coil above Sadie’s head. I can’t make her breath out from the smoke as she says, “Here’s another idea. You worry about you, and I worry about me. What do you think?” And then Em accuses Sadie of being reckless, of not worrying about herself, going on and on until Sadie seizes Em’s face in her hands and kisses her. Once on each cheek. “Bye,” Sadie chirps.

  Snow swirls. I’m molten, but I wait for Em to get out of earshot, for the crowds and snow to all but erase her, before I ask, “What was that about?”

  “Oh.” Sadie hefts up the guitar case. “Em’s like that. Thinks she knows best and all.”

  “Like Teddy.” I slosh after her across the street.

  I’m proud of myself for bringing Teddy up—proud Sadie’s shown me so many pieces of herself that I can make connections, but Sadie doesn’t acknowledge this at all, just shoves her hand deeper into the pocket of her coat. There are more questions I want to ask. Change how? Doing what to yourself? Only, I kind of don’t need to. I understand what it’s like, everybody demanding something different from your existence, pushing and pulling until the pressure practically atomizes you. I couldn’t subject Sadie to that. Not when she’s the only person who hasn’t done it to me.

  Besides, Em’s yelling isn’t a tenth as important as what came after. That question, when I finally ask it, comes out casually. “How come you kissed her goodbye this time?”

  The sidewalk narrows and Sadie slips ahead of me, the case’s clasps rattling. “Italian manners.” The back of her leather jacket is streaked with melting snow. I count drops and don’t remind her that Lindsay will be here in a matter of hours—that I still can’t imagine kissing her, kissing any girl, that confidently. I don’t point out that Sadie’s never kissed me.

  It’s dark as hell for seven p.m., the air black ice. The sidewalk widens, breathing room again, and I move next to Sadie, trusting her to lead me through the East Village’s twisty streets. There’s a stark difference between here and where I live, dozens of blocks up—the buildings almost as low as they are in Queens, smothered with graffiti. Nearly everybody we pass resembles Sadie. Some kind of artist, draped in as many kooky accessories as they must have ideas. Not that I’m intimidated or anything. I’m with Sadie Pasquale, and even if she doesn’t seem to feel like talking right now, our breath clouds are mixing, guitar case bumping against my calf. I’m worthy at last to walk among them.

  At some point, we must pass the corner where Driver usually picks me up, but neither of us mentions it. When the glowing green orbs of the subway come into view, I recognize the station instantly. The same one I ambushed her at back in December. Except the Christmas carols have been shut off, the sushi restaurant closed. The metal grate makes stripes on Sadie’s face as she twists her cigarette out. If she smokes another, we’ll get an extra five minutes together. At least.

  When she takes out her MetroCard, my heart sinks. She can’t leave yet. “Can I ride with you?” I ask before I fully grasp what I’m saying.

  To my surprise, she doesn’t agree right away. Just glances toward the narrow, dripping steps, like this is not the best idea I have ever had. “I don’t know if that’s…” She stops herself. “We live in opposite directions.”

  “So? You could ride with me to my stop and then turn around. Or—or I could ride to Queens with you and have my driver pick me up. I know it’s risky,” I add, trying to guess what’s making her so reluctant, “but we still need to make it official, right? My New Yorker status? Please.” Sadie keeps her eyes trained carefully away from mine, tapping the MetroCard against her mouth.

  Actually, she explains, leading me underground, public transit’s not as risky as you’d think—each car anonymity heaven. “More likely to get accosted in my own neighborhood, wouldn’t you say?” The grin she flashes over her shoulder seems strained. I decide not to worry about it.

  The station reeks of old pee, the floor smeared with mud and half-melted snow. Sadie swipes her card for me, and then I linge
r awkwardly, obstructing the flow of passengers no matter where I stand, until a gaggle of French tourists distracts the booth attendant long enough for her to hop the turnstile.

  “Only illegal if you get caught,” she says, seeing my face.

  Her knuckles are chapped, frozen stiff, and she blows on them while we wait on the platform, one foot resting on the wall behind her. A movie poster. Something about superheroes, this epic battle between good and evil, that I’ll eventually have to pretend I’ve seen. I don’t mention this to Sadie, or pull my hands from my coat pockets. In fact, I’m glad she’s acting standoffish. How would I invite her to tuck a hand in with mine anyway? My newfound bravery only goes so far.

  When the 6 train lumbers in, my stomach curdles. There’s more people crammed in the car than seems physically possible, let alone safe. Sadie fends them off with the guitar case, hauling me aboard by my wrist. The doors shut on my coat, stagger open. I press forward, absorbing multiple death stares.

  The first couple of stops are unbearable, the whole length of my impossibly long body crushed against the doors, but after Union Square, things loosen up enough for Sadie to snag me a seat. I end up smashed between some kid in an NYU cap blasting trance music without headphones, and a lady sniffing her own hair. With every lurch, the guitar case bumps against my knees. Sadie can’t look at me without laughing. I laugh back, so relieved to see her out of the funk Em put her in that I don’t mind how sweaty I’m getting in my sticky plastic seat. I just try to relish it. Like her—a true subterranean.

  Once the NYU kid gets off, Sadie squeezes next to me. “Seat’s still warm.” She props the case between her knees, arms around its neck. “What a gentleman.” I giggle, rolling my eyes so she’ll comprehend how gross that really is. Other than that, we stay quiet. Not because there is nothing to say—there are so many things—but because our eyes speak what we’re thinking anyway. Doors open. Bodies filter off. My phone hums—Lindsay wondering how cold it is and if she should pack a coat.

  “What’s wrong?” Sadie asks, hugging the case.

  “Nothing. It’s—it’s just Lindsay.” Then, seizing my chance: “I haven’t showed you a picture yet.” Except we’re several feet below sea level by now, and Instagram refuses to load until we’re clanking into the next station. Twenty-Eighth Street? Where is that? I realize, swiping through pics, that I don’t actually know which stop is mine.

  At last, I find a picture where we both look decent. I have my one-piece on. Lindsay’s hair hangs in double braids.

  “Blondie,” Sadie jokes, passing back my phone. Her smile dips. “Must be weird having all those pictures on you. Don’t think I could quite handle that, having Mack, all those memories at my fingertips.”

  “Oh.” I scan passengers for signs of eavesdropping, but Sadie’s so whispery. And everybody seems super committed to denying anything is happening around them at all, blank-faced and head-phoned. “You do have some pictures of him, though, right?” The one facedown on the nightstand, maybe. But it’s hard to imagine her disrespecting him like that. “Where do you keep them? I haven’t seen any.”

  “Ready? Close your eyes—I want you to picture this. A book, an actual book, with pockets for storing your most cherished memories.” Sadie’s still joking. Smiling huge, even as she presses the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling a yawn. “You wouldn’t have seen them. I keep those photo albums… not a hiding place, understand. Somewhere I can get them. But they can’t get me.” She falls silent, rewinding back to some private memory. I nudge her out of it.

  “So can I see them? Not if you don’t want me to,” I add quickly as her gaze slides from mine. “If it’d hurt you too much.” She wraps her arms tighter around the guitar case, then shrugs and yawns again.

  “Whatever you want, kiddo. Remind me.”

  Before Lindsay gets here would be preferable. But the stops keep coming, so many I forget to worry and relax into the motion of the train. Eyes shut, letting it lull me. Sadie will say when my stop’s up. So many people are packed onto our bench that we’re practically in each other’s laps, shoulders jammed together, her leg jittering against mine. But as the doors shuffle open, and more and more people get off, we stay close, practicing our apathetic New Yorker faces until we catch each other’s eyes and bust up laughing. It’s not until we clank into another station, and the garbled voice over the intercom announces One-Twenty-Fifth Street, that I bolt upright. “We missed it, didn’t we? We missed my stop?”

  Sadie does not share my panic. A smirk works at her mouth. “Well, damn. Guess we’re going to the Bronx.”

  The Bronx. I settle back against the seat, tossing her a glare in case she thinks I don’t realize she tricked me, so she won’t notice I’m actually too thrilled to care. This is an adventure. As we pull out of the station, I spot an ad for the New York Aquarium and wonder what it’d be like to bring Sadie there myself someday, letting her glimpse who I was before she blew my world up with her magic. Truth is, being a fish isn’t that different from being in a band. You travel together, wear the same stuff, except instead of ripped-up velvet, fish have scales, and stripes for camouflage. So I tell Sadie… I find myself telling her about how Lindsay and I used to go to the Santa Monica Aquarium, specifically the tide pool exhibit, even as it became increasingly obvious that we were the oldest kids there. Rocks and crabs, those she’d touch no problem, but not my favorites—the silent, gliding rays. One day I grabbed her hand and held it underwater until a ray slipped past, billowing jelly across our fingers. Lindsay screamed. Me too, even though I wasn’t grossed out.

  Sadie smiles. “That’s sweet.”

  I shrug. “All that story really makes me think about is… telling Lindsay I love her, and then… I… I’m just afraid of—”

  “Showing her your jelly.”

  “Well, their fins are made of cartilage. But yeah. Basically. Like, this thing that’s so integral to my existence won’t matter to her. I don’t know if that makes any sense.” Now is the part where Sadie assures me it makes perfect sense. Where she tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and reminds me how she met my father, in a dusty music room while their classmates were at lunch. She didn’t laugh when she heard his terrible playing. She moved his finger higher up on the frets. She whispered, Like this. But Sadie doesn’t remind me of any of that now. I’m not even sure where I first read that story—which online article, or archived blog post.

  Sadie says, “Guess I won’t be seeing you for a while, then.”

  “No,” I say, only just realizing it myself. “Well—she’s coming early tomorrow, and leaving Monday afternoon.”

  Only three days, but Sadie and I haven’t been apart that long since Christmas, and I guess… I guess I’ve been so panicked over Lindsay that I haven’t fully considered how much being without Sadie this weekend will suck. Does she feel that way too? Quickly, she turns her head away, staring toward the back of the car where a man sits folded up and alone, a brown paper bag wedged under one arm. I can’t tell if he’s passed out or not. If that’s regret, or relief, tugging at Sadie’s mouth.

  “I’ll miss you,” I say. One of us has to. “Seriously. I’ll be going through withdrawal.”

  Her head snaps around. “You know nothing about withdrawal.”

  That’s… true. I splutter, not sure how I messed up. “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s just, it’s an expression? People at school say it all the time—it’s not meant to be taken literally.” But Sadie seems to have forgiven me already, picking idly at a pot leaf sticker on the guitar case, its edges crumbling and faded. At least, she might’ve forgiven me. All night, her mood’s been as impossible to decode as that song of hers I found, a wad of slashed-up paper. Before I realized it was about me.

  “I wish…” I push my fingertips against my mouth, but there’s no stopping what I’m about to say, no taking the words back once they’re out. “Lindsay doesn’t know I know you. I keep wanting to tell her, but. I don’t know why I can’t, I just… I want you for mys
elf.” It’s humiliating, telling her this. Also weirdly liberating, the closest you could come to a love confession without uttering love itself, not that Sadie gives indication that this pleases or disgusts her, or registers at all. The longer I sit here, the clearer it becomes that she’s not going to answer. The more impossible it seems that within seventy-two hours, all my agonizing, and obsessing over Lindsay, will come to an end, that the next time I see Sadie, I’ll be on the other side of this feeling, this mess of fear and excitement and dread that’s plagued me my whole teenage life. That’s just fact, even if once I’ve regurgitated my entire soul onto her, all Lindsay says is, I’m sorry, Koda. I don’t like you like that.

  Maybe I’ve secretly always known that response is the only logical outcome. Maybe this whole trip is just one needlessly elaborate step toward moving on. What if it’s not rejection that scares me?

  What if it’s not knowing who I’ll be, if I don’t feel exactly this way?

  It makes me wish Lindsay won’t have an answer ready, that she wasn’t so good at telling me when I’m being dumb, need to step back, take a break. Her silence I could handle.

  Not Sadie’s.

  Hers burns a hole right through me.

  “God, kiddo,” Sadie murmurs. She glances around the depleted car. “You crush me. You know that?”

  “I’m being honest. Like you said my father wasn’t.”

  She looks away again, but I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—maybe dishonesty’s not so bad after all. Maybe both have their place. I could, for example, tell Lindsay nothing. I could choose to ache.

  Sadie lifts my chin. I’ve been gazing at my boots.

  “Mack and I used to ride the subway like this all the time, the Bronx to Manhattan, Manhattan to the Bronx, just careening through the tunnels all night. We didn’t really have any place else to go, you know? And the trains were so warm. He’d wrap me up in his arms, and I’d sleep. To this day, when I ride the train, it’s a damn ordeal staying awake.”