Page 34 of Fade into You
“Because it looks haunted as hell!”
“Haunted?!” she crows, turning back around and laughing out loud. “Okay. It’snothaunted, except maybe by the spirit of Kurt Cobain, or Tupac, or hell, maybe Jeff Buckley….”
“What?” I shout, and finally do catch up to her. “Wait, just stop. What are we doing here?”
“Oh my god, you’re so uptight, Bird!” she says, all exasperated and annoyed. Atme.
“I’m not uptight, I’m just not going into some weird house in the middle of…” I look around at all the other broken-down, decrepit buildings growing out of the ground like sick trees.
“This is the Touchstone, okay? It’s just a badass underground music venue. Not haunted. And not evenopen, by the way. We’re goin’ out back to hang. It’s chill. Quiet. Perfect place for plotting,all right?” she says, and starts walking faster, ahead of me.
I rush to catch up again. “Well, you could’ve just said that!”
“And miss out on this fun conversation we’ve been having?”
I stop walking. I cross my arms, consider turning around and going to sit in the car instead. Why is she getting to me like this? Why am Ilettingher get to me like this? It takes her a few seconds to realize I’ve stopped following. “Ugh,Bird!” she groans, as she turns around and stomps toward me. She loops her arm with mine. “C’mon. You’re making this too easy.”
Jessa starts walking again, pulling me along. Her arm is pressed in the crook of my elbow, warm and softer than I expected. Strong. Normally I wouldn’t let anyone lead me around in this way. But I let her. I want her to.
She walks us past the house and up what was at one point a driveway, to a gate in the worn wooden fence encircling the property. With a practiced hand, she slides the open padlock off the latch and tugs the hefty gate open.
“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” I ask her.
“Yes, Bird. We’re allowed to be here,” she says, with slightly less attitude than before. “I’m tight with the guy who works the front door. Told you, it’s my home away from home.”
Inside the gate, which Jessa closes behind us, is a wide yard filled with rocks and more dusty gravel, disheveled picnic tables and benches strewn throughout, melted candles and ashtrays everywhere.
“See?” she says. “Not so scary.” Then she walks toward one of the few tables that has an umbrella sticking out of the center. She drops her bag on the tabletop and reaches underneath therusty umbrella and starts cranking hard, until it extends, forming a protective shadow all around us. She plops down on the bench, and I finally sit across from her, holding my bag tight against me.
Looking all around, there’s no one in sight. But I do hear faint music playing inside. “I guess not,” I tell her, though it really is kind of unsettling to me, in a different way than before. “But it’s still really weird.”
“Okay, whatever,” she murmurs, and picks at her chipped nail polish like I’ve personally insulted her.
“No, I just mean it’s like one of those…” What’s the word? “One of those liminal spaces, you know?”
“Whatkind of spaces?” she asks, meeting my eyes once again.
“You know, a sort of weird, dreamy, in-between kind of space,” I tell her.
She looks around, squinting at everything like she doesn’t see what I’m talking about.
“Like, this is a music venue, right?” I try. She nods. “Well, there’s supposed to be a lot of people and noise and energy and everything. But people aren’t usually here when it’s like this. It’s as if the place is waiting… for something. Something that isn’t here yet.”
She looks down at the table, traces the wood grain with her finger, and says, “So, like, hypothetically, say we’re sitting outside for lunch between the quad and E building. That’s a liminal space?”
“Yes,” I tell her, but I keep talking because she’s making me nervous, or maybe it’s the strangeness of this place. “The word ‘liminal’—it means threshold—well, in Latin,limenmeansthreshold. That’s where the word comes from. I’m a bit of a word nerd, if you couldn’t tell.” I clear my throat because the way she’s looking at me makes my words catch. “But liminal isn’t just a physical threshold. It can be metaphorical, emotional…” I force myself to just. Stop. Talking.
“Hmm. I feel like my whole life is one big liminal space, then. Just sitting here waiting for my real life to start.”
I laugh, unexpectedly, then cover my mouth.
“What, did I use your fancy word the wrong way?”
“No, y-you used it perfectly. Sorry. I—I guess I laughed because I get that. You know, being on the precipice of something… unknown.”
She doesn’t break eye contact with me, doesn’t say anything, but I can see her thinking while she’s watching me watch her. God, the smile that’s threatening the corner of her mouth right now is another liminal space. Somehow, I don’t think I should use that as an example.
She nods a few times and almost smiles again. “Precipice,” she repeats quietly. “And this is how you talk when you’re sober?”
