Page 21 of Fade into You
She smiles in relief and looks around. “Um, Jessa, where the hell are we?”
“Since you mentioned hell,” I joke, “this is actually the elevator to the first circle.”
Her eyes widen and then narrow as she gets the sarcasm. I grin a little, finding her irritation kind of cute. “It’s an old maintenance elevator. Doesn’t work except for the light, but I dig the vibe in here and it’s a decent escape spot if Dade gets a little too… well,Dadeat the movies.” I don’t tell her it’s where I go when people he knows show up and I have to pretend I’m there alone.
“Cool,” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s serious or not.
“Well, it should be safe to leave,” I say, and accidentally bump her as I’m reaching for the door pull. Clumsy as hell, as always. She shrinks back, and I can’t help but think for a second that it’s ’cause I am… who I am. I mean, at least half the population thinks I’m dirty or that my queerness is somehow contagious or something. Too many girls have uninvited me to stuff because “God,what if she hits on me ?” Olivia Fucking Rubens warned a whole bathroom during class change not to use the stall I had or they “might get toilet AIDS from the lesbo.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, hitting on some random straight girl is the last—the very last—thing on my mind. But if I’m being honest, I have thought a bit about Bird…. Jesus, I need to be more careful orshe’ll be talking just like everyone else. I try to shrink myself into a smaller space, allowing her a wide berth to get out, following only once she’s a couple of steps ahead. The excitement and chills of our recent adrenaline rush give way to the heaviness of who I am, the disgust I accept even from myself. We walk back to the car in silence, and I wish I was brave enough to ask Bird if she has thosegod, what if she hits on mefears, but I guess I’m too afraid to hear the answer. Dade and Kayla are leaning against the trunk as we approach, attempting some extreme frottage. I hit the car alarm and they jump. Dade flips me off, but Kayla jumps up and down.
“That. Was. Amazing!” Kayla is wayyyy too stoked. Dade is looking like a very unhappy wet cat. Perhaps some breakage? One can only hope.
“Then you’ll enjoy the next six on my list!” I crow.
Bird lets out a small groan and rolls her eyes. I shrug again, unsure how I can make this better for either of us. We’d be suffering one way or the other, but at least Dade is suffering too.
When Mack fountain-hopped four years ago, she was manic and she didn’t look out for security. It was one of the earlier incidents, so she didn’t actually resist arrest, and Mom and Dad wrote it off as a teenage indiscretion. They ignored her babbling the whole ride home from the police station and paid the fine and pretended everything was cool. When she bottomed out and hid in her room, well, that was just moping over being grounded. Still, I knew something had been changing. The happiness seemed as artificial as the sadness seemed real. Even at that point, I was disturbed, but if I’d only known wherewe would go from there… we were still on the kiddie coasters.
Bird touches my hand that’s on the gear shift, and I jump a bit at the sensation. “Light’s green,” she says, and looks away from me. I have definitely succeeded in pissing her off. I nod and drive forward, headed uptown, where there are two fountains back-to-back.
It isn’t until the last fountain that we finally see a little glimmer of argument between our besties. Kayla is trying to drag Dade into the fountain, a multilevel thing with pools you can practically wade in, and he starts balking.
“Come on,” he grumps. “Can’t we go and get some food or something? We’ve already done this in six other places….”
“Daaaaaade,” she sings out. “One more time, bun, it’s so romantic!”
“It’s cold,” he says, looking down into the pool in front of him, “and dirty.”
“Who cares?”
“I do,” he says.
“Same,” Bird murmurs as she steps up next to me.
But still, she dips in carefully. Somehow she hasn’t managed to get a drop on her clothes yet, though I feel bad that her leather sandals are definitely ruined. I’m stepping in when I hit a patch of slime and slide sideways, taking her down too. God, I am a disaster.
I come up sputtering and see her thrashing, grab her hand and pull her up and she gasps, water flying off her in all directions. “Jesus, Jessa!”
“I’m so, so—”
“Insane?” she says, cutting me off. And for a second that old fear curdles up to the surface. What if I am repeating Mack? What if I’m actually enjoying this and the way it makes me feel? What if when I get home tonight everything will crash down and I’ll be just the same as my sister?
Bird is getting out and I try to help her. “I’ve got this,” she snaps. But then I remember she thinks I’m insane and I turn away.
“Fine, help yourself,” I say, and move back toward the car. Security here apparently doesn’t give a crap, and Kayla is trying to get Dade to sit in the fountain and hold her, and Dade is getting out of the fountain. Maybe the spell is broken.
But then I see her lean in and whisper something and they’re back in, holding each other, and Bird is almost to the car, so I unlock the doors and sit in the driver’s seat. She flops into the passenger seat and for a bit no one says anything. I grab my Altoids tin, decorated in nail polish and a Breeders sticker, from the center console, pull out a joint, and prepare to light it when she pipes up.
“Can we just commit one crime today, Jessa?”
“Come on, McGruff, I need some relaxation.”
“There’s a whole fountain out there to relax in. Dade and Kayla seem to be very relaxed.”
I look out, and Dade and Kayla look more stimulated than relaxed. Grody.
“I’m sorry, Bird, this was a dumb idea,” I say, and slide the joint back into the case, then tuck it into the console.
She’s sifting in her purse and pulls out a black cigarette boxwith a red triangle. Cloves. She places one between her lips, a pretty sight. “You know, they were almost irritated there for a second,” she says, flicking her lighter, which is definitely empty. I pull out my Zippo and light her smoke, and she inhales deep, then breathes out a sweet-smelling cloud. Betty the Buick decides it’s okay because according to Six Roots, cloves don’t count.
