Justin returned to the present day, to the café, as the band was whacking the spirit of pop music out of their instruments.
Their performance was improving. People were entering and exiting the café. Justin looked at Solene. She was stubbing her cigarette out in an ashtray the waiter had kindly brought to their table.
To this day, Justin thought his first impression had held up. Solene Greaves was bad news indeed. A real pestilence some might have said. A bad girl to her bones. But she was his bad girl. And she had proven so on their second encounter, which took place three days after the first one.
This time around, they had come across each other in the corridors of the Condo. And after standing together speechless for the space of a minute, Solene had broken the ice with an unexpected offering. It was the power-suit armored superhero Justin had spirited away from the convenience store. She had taken it for him since he couldn’t take it himself. Though appreciative of her good intent, Justin had pulled out the stolen superhero to silence, once and for all, her prejudiced view of him. For a moment, neither of them had said anything. And then, as if on cue, they had exchanged a knowing smile for they understood each other…
“I can see I have a bad influence on you, Justin,” Solene said, lighting up another cigarette. “All the stuff I made you do ––”
“You have a lousy memory or what?” Justin quickly said. “I volunteered.”
“And you turned kleptomaniac as a result…”
Solene’s face bore a serious expression. In reaction, Justin tried to lighten her up.
“That’s nothing at all –– I’ve got all types of disorders. The kinds that end with mania. And kleptomania comes last on the list.”
Solene let out an involuntary smile. She quickly wiped it off her face. She clearly meant to have a serious conversation.
“We’ve raised hell so many times together,” Solene said again. “And I’ve never even asked you why you do it…”
It’s because I’m in love with you. Justin heard his own voice echo in his head. But he couldn’t force the words from his mouth. Come on, Solene. You’ve probably figured it out by now.
“I do it because I’m no chicken!” He finally said after a moment.
Again, Solene smiled. A voluntary smile this time. She was going back in time, and whatever she was seeing was bringing nostalgia into her eyes.
“No, you’re certainly not.”
“So are you officially taking it back?” Justin said. “Because, believe it or not, I’ve waited five years for you to take it back.”
“You’re not a chicken…” Solene plainly said, flicking ashes off the burning end of her cigarette. “But I can’t say the same about the kids you hang out with.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Your schoolmates, I guess. They sound very much like douches to me. But I can tell they’re all a bunch of pipsqueaks who still hide behind their mothers’ skirt when things get too hot.”
Justin choked from laughing. That imagery was rather amusing. He pictured Tobey, Stephen, and Kane, really doing what Solene was accusing them of doing. As for Solene, she was thinking that she had mindlessly spoken that slur. She already regretted it because those kids were Justin’s friends, after all.
“Listen,” Solene said to reset their conversation. She also began drawing a maze on a napkin with her eyeliner pencil. “You have to understand something. There is a darkness in me, and it took me a long time to admit it. It infects everything that I touch; that’s why I don’t want to pull you into it any deeper.”
“It’s not darkness, Solene,” Justin said, leaning forward. There was a genuine maturity on his face that Solene had never witnessed before. “Because if it is, I’m the darkest person alive. And you see, everybody around me is totally fine.” He added as an afterthought, “Except for my mother who almost freaked out today because of something I did.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing –– I mean, boy’s stuff, you know.”
“Oh…” Solene said as if she understood what Justin meant. She sighed deeply, thinking over the theory of her darkness not being darkness after all. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, what would you call it then? The thing that drives me and has shaped me into the person I am now. It has to be something dark…”
Justin looked at her earnestly and, without effort, found a pre-existing answer in the feelings he harbored for her. And as he spoke, his own voice surprised him.
“You want to know what it is? I’ll tell you what it is. You’re just too smart; you’re ahead of the curve, you see things differently. You’re –– you’re the wisest person I know, actually. I mean, take those things that you like to read for instance: The Crucible… Death of a Salesman… Othello… The Barber of Seville… Nobody reads that stuff; but you do.”
Justin cocked his head back, as one does when analyzing a very complex painting. He said with the same intensity, “You know, if I think about this, you’re like that Godot character that we never see, even if we wait for a lifetime, because it’d take two or three lifetimes to see someone like you. I’m just glad you decided to show up in my lifetime.”
Following the discourse, Solene stared at Justin stoically – not the reaction he was hoping for – then her expression softened to a curious smile.
She said, “Are you trying to perk up my self-esteem there?”
“Self-esteem was never a problem of yours,” Justin replied.
“My mom would disagree. She thinks I’m lacking because of how I behave sometimes. She wants me to be more like her and less like me.”
“Yeah –– and how is she?” Justin asked. He was really curious to know.
“Perfect,” Solene said wryly. “Like a blank sheet. But I’m not interested in being a blank sheet. That’s too boring”
“Sure; they’re rather lifeless until you draw mazes on them, huh?”
Justin chin-indicated the drawing Solene was airily sketching on the napkin. She had just finished adding another branching passage to her maze. She quickly assessed the overall puzzle, and was pleased to see that it was foolproof. She then put the eyeliner and napkin aside and drank her coffee. Justin suddenly reached for them and began tracing a solution. But he got stuck.
“Don’t bother,” Solene said. “You won’t solve it.”
“I knew you were pretty twisted and turned in your mind,” Justin quipped. “But not like this.”
“You won’t solve it because it’s unsolvable, genius.”
The curt tone in her voice informed Justin that she was rather fazed by his wisecracking comment. He stopped trying to solve the maze. He gazed at Solene.
“What’s the point of making a puzzle if it’s unsolvable?”
Solene bent her head and smiled roguishly, “Because it’s fun to watch people try their very best at something and still fail.”
That made sense to Justin. There was an unquestionable delight in the failure of others. Everyone could attest to that. Though not everyone could acknowledge that out loud. He admired Solene for her outspokenness.
To change subjects, he asked slowly, “What’s up with you and your mom, anyway?”
“My mom?” Solene repeated. “You really want to know?”
“I’m dying to know.”
It didn’t look like it, but Solene had always felt an awful need to talk to someone about her feelings towards her mother. And Justin’s ear was good as any at the moment. Besides, he had more or less an inside knowledge on the fact that she was at loggerheads with her mother.
“You should see the way she looks at me sometimes,” Solene started. “As if I was undeserving of –– I don’t know –– her attention. I mean, it’s not like I’m seeking her attention anyway, you know, I just ––”
A new emotion filled her, perhaps anger, and she started again.
“You see, my mom looks for a logic that could explain my actions. Because the presence of logic would be reassuring to her. She could
look at it and believe that I still have all my senses. That I haven’t gone AWOL from my own mind…”
“But there’s not always logic in everything, is there?” Justin cut in. He remembered having read that somewhere – in a book titled Introduction to Logic – while doing research for a paper.
“In fact,” Solene said gravely. “There is no logic at all. Everything, and I mean everything, is just bogus ––”
“I know what you mean. It’s like we’re living in a fake world.”
“Yeah –– And in a fake world, chaos, anarchy, those are the real logic. And that’s what she can’t understand. She lives in her little bubble of vanity and she’s clueless about what’s going on outside of it. That’s why she dumped me in that lousy Catholic school prison so I could follow in her footsteps. But she just can’t understand.”
Solene slowly looked away, out the window. And as if unburdening her conscience of a crime, she said:
“And I hate her… I hate her so much… Sometimes I wish that she wasn’t there, you know; that she was dead or something.”
Automatically, the words pushed against Justin’s lips to come out. But he waited a good fifteen seconds to remove any admonitory edge from them. Then he said:
“It’s your mom. I know you don’t mean that.”
Solene didn’t say a thing. He was half right, she thought. She didn’t really wish death upon her mother. But she did very much hate her.
Now, her gaze was misty, leveled at the busy people roaming the street. You couldn’t tell what was on her mind, but you could tell something emotional was happening within, and was looming large in her eyes...
“Or maybe you do mean it,” Justin added lightly to fill the silence. “You were probably looking to give her a heart attack with the way you were talking on the phone last night.”
Without taking her eyes off the window, Solene smiled. A little girl’s smile.
“Oh, that ––” She started. “I was mostly looking to push her buttons. But a heart-attack would’ve been cherry, I guess.”
“I see.”
“We don’t speak much, so she likes to pry into the events of my life however she can, even if it means standing right at my bedroom door and listening in. Well, now I hope she’s served.”
“I understand you want to piss your mother off but… but… but last night…
“But…but…but last night what?” Solene said impersonating Justin’s stuttering voice.
“Trust me… those things you were making up on the phone ––”
“You mean the sex techniques; the moves and all the positions?”
Justin shyly lowered his eyes. He suddenly felt uncomfortable, like that time when he surprised his mother naked after her shower. He was only a boy then.
Justin said through dabbling lips, “Hum… yeah… I mean ––”
“Because I wasn’t making any of that stuff up,” Solene said. “You’d be surprised at the things I know about sex.”
“Right… Anyway, my point is that this is the kind of subject that sits pretty badly with mothers. And if your mom listened in all the way, you may get in serious trouble.
“She listened in all the way, all right… She didn’t move. She stood right there behind the door and listened in. What is she gonna do? Ship me off to a convent, make me a nun? Besides, I’ve already told my father that I had sex with Nicholas Blaine just to see how he’d react. And I wager he told her.”
Justin’s heart sunk to his stomach. He thought he’d misheard the I-had-sex-with-Nicholas-Blaine part.
“Wait…You...What?”
“But of course,” Solene went on without hearing Justin’s bafflement. “I’ll never do it with Nicholas. He’s just another little squirt who’s even stupider than all the squirts I’m surrounded by. And the thing is my father believes he’s my boyfriend, just because I told him I had sex with him. I guess that’s the conventional way of thinking. Goes without saying.”
Solene noticed Justin’s hesitancy to place a comment.
“What?” she asked.
But Justin kept his mouth shut. However, you could see that something was bugging the hell out of him. Solene pressed him.
“Just say what’s on your mind,” she said.
“Maybe we should tone down the S-E-X talk,” Justin said with embarrassment. “I mean, someone may hear us and…”
“EssCeeEx talk –– Jesus! Is that how you were last night when I was pulling that prank on my mom? I had no idea you were so uptight about it!”
“I’m not uptight; I’m just saying ––”
“You haven’t done it before, have you?”
Good Lord! Justin thought. We had to come to this… They had reached this hazardous territory where each step you took was life or death. So understandably, he was getting very nervous.
Justin mumbled carefully, “That’s kind of a personal question.”
“Come on –– You can tell me. Make my ears ring.”
She was smiling, loose, and teasing, almost challenging him to say that he had done it.
“No,” Justin blushed. He had never felt so embarrassed in his life. “I haven’t had the opportunity… yet.”
There was a pause. Justin felt the legs of one thousand cockroaches creeping all over his skin. It was such a bummer to admit your virginity to the girl you loved. And that, along with his feelings of insecurity, depressed the hell out of him. He was thinking a million things and Solene was at the center of each of them…
Finally, Solene said, “I want to do it tonight… For real,” She was looking right at Justin with the interested eyes of a woman. A knot inside him got tight. “I mean –– I shouldn’t make any decision now. I’d just like it to happen tonight. But first I’ll see how the day ends. And if everything aligns perfectly, then tonight will be the night.”
What exactly was she saying? Justin meant to ask her. Was she telling him that their relationship had fast-tracked to the point where they could just go to the final stage and skip out on all the first tokens of love – like holding hands, the first kiss – that helped pave the way for a more passionate, intimate love experience?
Justin barely opened his mouth to inquire:
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m dead serious,” Solene said. “But I have yet to convince him…”
Justin looked up sharply. Convince him? Solene studied him as if she had said something wrong and couldn’t figure out what it was to take it back.
She frowned.
“I know what you must be thinking now,” she said. “Because I gave it a fair amount of thought myself. I mean, it’s not slutty or anything to be wanting to do it now rather than later, is it?” She looked pleadingly at Justin. “I usually don’t care about what people think of me; but somehow what you think of me matters. So I’m asking you, is it slutty or not?”
Justin stared at Solene with mixed feelings of confusion and anger. It was he who had to ask the questions here, not the other way around.
“Hold on, reset!” Justin exclaimed. “Who is that you have to convince?”
“Jaime,” Solene said before realizing by the look on Justin’s face that a mere name wasn’t helping to make things any clearer. “He’s Nicholas’ older brother. He’s very nice. I’m sure you’ll like him.”
I don’t like him, the son of a bitch... Justin thought. I don’t like him one bit.
“So, what do you think?” Solene asked again. “I mean, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this like most girls do. You know, about their first time and all. Because, 9 times out of 10, it’s gonna be terrible anyway. So I just want to put it all behind me; and if it’s terrible, if it wasn’t worth it, I’ll be able to take it, because now –– well, I’ve hit rock bottom emotionally speaking, and I can’t go down any deeper. To tell you the truth, I’m getting bored, Justin. I’m so out of it. And I just about hate everything; at home, at school… everything! And everywhere, people are just phonies; they’re so fake.
They go around pretending to be the caricature of something else. And lately this has been the only thing I’ve been looking forward to, you know what I mean? Like I’m dead inside and I need to do this to feel alive again. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but you know what I mean, don’t you? And it’s not like I’m being a slut, right?”
Justin was not insensible to the emotional stampede that was running Solene from down within. But still, he had to be inflexible in passing judgment. Otherwise, he’d lose her to someone else. He said, leaning forward almost aggressively:
“Think about what you’re saying.”
“It’s done,” Solene snapped back crossly. “I’m ready and Jaime is a sweetheart. And it’s not like ––”
“But you can’t do that!” Justin callously cut in.
“Why the hell not?”
Justin didn’t know what to say to that. His jaw set. He quickly shut his eyes and spoke the first reason that popped up in his head.
“Because… because he’s old.”
“He’s twenty something; that’s not old.”
Justin squinted at her as if he was suddenly talking to a girl he didn’t recognize.
“He’s older than you.” He argued, moistening his lips.
“I like older guys. They may be fake too, but at least they’re fun. And they understand things.”
“What do you have against guys your age?”
“I told you they’re little squirts!”
Her lips had twisted in a funny pout of annoyance. She was getting sore, but Justin couldn’t care less. He was getting sore as well.
“So you think I’m a squirt?” He asked her stubbornly.
“You know I’m not talking about you,” Solene said patiently. “Besides, I’m older than you… And why the grumpy face? I thought you’d understand. You’re the only one who knows about this, because I thought we were friends and we could talk about anything.”
“You never told me you were seeing someone.”
“It just happened, like three months ago, and I was going to tell you today.”
Three months ago… Justin grunted silently. At that precise moment, he felt the pillars of the earth cave in on him, burying him alive. A number of questions quickly crossed his mind. Has he kissed her…? Has he touched her…? My God, please be good and make it so he hasn’t touched her…
“What’s wrong with you?” Solene said. “You look really weird. Is there something you want to tell me?
Justin looked at her as if she had just slapped him across the face for no reason.
There was indeed something I wanted to tell you, he thought. But you just ruined it.
Justin slumped back in his seat, staring at the table, his mind sapped, his morale depleted. Solene was regarding him with curiosity, as if she didn’t get the cause of his drooping. Silence quickly stretched out, only to be disturbed by the buzzing sound that came from her cell phone. It was a text message. Solene read it and her face brightened up. All traces of argument were gone.
“Listen,” Solene said, putting down the phone on the table. “Jaime’s here, so before you go off the deep end, wait till you see him, alright? I’m sure you’ll like him. He’s so much like you, but only older. I’m sure you’ll like him.”
Justin didn’t say anything. So that Jaime guy was to join them at the café. That’s maybe why Solene had wanted to come here in the first place. So she can have her tryst with Jaime, and so she could introduce Justin to her boyfriend with the hopes that they became buddies or something. A blow to the skull with a mace was nothing compared to the damage this last-minute realization was doing to Justin’s head. So he didn’t say anything…
Except, “If you say so,” which seemed to please Solene.
And she looked up at him with gratitude.
Chapter XIV
GETTING OVER SOLENE…
THE INNER TURMOILS OF JUSTIN