Now A said, “Like, you dance like you mean it. Like you have to dance or something.”
“I do,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I feel depressed otherwise.”
“Why?”
I shrugged and tried to smile. I didn’t want him to think of me as a depressed person.
“Let’s swim,” A said.
He pulled off his T-shirt and jeans and jumped into the pool in his boxer briefs. I stood there watching him bobbing up and down, spitting water out of his mouth.
“Come on.”
So I finished my beer in a gulp, took off my pumps and my dress, and jumped into the water. It was cold, and when I started to shiver, A swam over and put his arms around me. His Mohawk had flattened out against his head. I wondered what he would have looked like with a full head of hair. In the dark I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could feel the cool, smooth flesh of his arms and chest, and I could feel his heartbeat in the night. His dick pressed against my thigh and all my muscles loosened against him.
I’d never seen a penis in person, and I had mixed feelings about them. Fear. Aversion. Curiosity. A mild, tingling delight.
“Can I kiss you?” A asked.
I nodded. He put his hand behind my neck and brought my face to his. I closed my eyes and tilted my mouth up to him. His lips. His firm, gentle tongue. Then stronger. I ran my fingers over his busted nose, his bony cheekbones, his skull. I felt myself slipping away into the water and the night. Teenage boys are not so far away from being kids and are very far away from being men. Most of them. A seemed pretty close to both.
“We’re going,” M shouted. “Hurry up, I, or we’re going to leave you.”
I pulled away from A, suddenly aware that I was wearing only a bra and underpants, wet ones so that everything showed through. “I have to go,” I said, getting out of the pool.
* * *
When A said he’d pick me up at my house, I told him I’d meet him outside, because I knew my mom would never let me go out on a motorcycle. It was really the only rule she had, and even though she was distracted with what was happening with my dad, I knew I couldn’t get away with it.
I met A a little way down the street. He was wearing a leather jacket, leaning on his bike with his arms folded and his legs crossed like James Dean. He had two helmets and he put mine on for me. Then we got on his motorcycle. As I straddled the seat I felt A between my legs. Bikes are so dangerous and hot. Death and sex. I guess that’s why people like them. Or hate them. He revved the engine and we rode.
Laurel Canyon twisted like the river that had probably originally forged it, among the steep hillsides covered with wildflowers. Vines had grown across the telephone wires and hung down in green clumps above our heads. A girl in a black taffeta dress with black cowboy boots and a shock of magenta hair was hitchhiking. I wished I were dressed like her.
We drove down Sunset to the Whisky and parked. He helped me off the bike and we went inside the dark little club that smelled like smoke. I’d gotten a fake ID from this nerdy guy at my school who made them for you using a photo booth picture, but I’d always been too scared to use it. Unlike A, who didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.
The club was packed. On the stage, five girls in shabby vintage dresses were playing their instruments badly and too fast. They were amazing. The lead singer had a round, cute face that reminded me of J’s. “We’ve got the beat,” the girl sang. I’d heard the song on the radio and at Phases, but it was different live. I thought, girls can do this punk thing? I had no idea. My life changed at that moment.
“Aren’t they awesome?” A said, grinning at me in the dark. “The bass player reminds me of you.”
She was petite and wore a kilt and moccasins. Her dark curly hair was cut short. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. When she sang backup, her voice was a squeak. “That’s Jane,” he said. “My favorite.”
Jane. I wanted to be Jane. He brought me a beer but said he wasn’t going to drink, since he was driving. The beer was cold and I was starting to love the taste. I drank the whole thing and A took the empty bottle from me. He and I slammed together in the pit, his body shielding me from the writhing wall of boys. I knew I was safe. My hair stuck to my face as I sweated from my pores. I closed my eyes. I was falling, drifting far away. He put his arms around me and brought his face close to mine. We kissed. I could feel him so hard against me. His Mohawk dark and majestic in the darkness. I was with the best guy. The best one.
We went outside. The night was warm. I never wanted to go away to Berkeley and leave Los Angeles. I wanted to drink it down like a beer. I wanted to roll in it and put it inside of me. I got on the back of A’s bike and we took off down the Strip. Billboard models watched us with their huge eyes. Frowned with their sexy mouths. I could feel the careful attention A was paying to everything around him. His body was quivering; he was alert, keeping me safe, just as he had on the dance floor.
We were stopped at a light, waiting to turn into a gas station at the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset. I said, “I don’t know why I was afraid of motorcycles. They’re the greatest thing in the world.”
We made the turn and a car going through a yellow light tapped against us. Just like that. Lightly but with surprising precision. We went down.
We weren’t hurt at all. Not even a scrape.
“Hey,” A said when we got to my house. “I want to tell you something.”
The air smelled of eucalyptus and I could hear an owl in the distance.
“That’s not my house. My mom works there. For that actor, John Davidson. He was out of town and my mom was at her boyfriend’s when I had that party. We live in the guesthouse. Sometimes my friends crash with us when their parents won’t let them come home.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I wanted to confess something, too. “My dad has cancer and I have to go away to college in the fall.”
“Oh, that sucks.” He squinted at me in that pained James Dean way.
“Yeah.” I shrugged and tried to smile. Why had I told this to A? Why had I said it out loud?
“Where are you going to college?” he asked.
“Berkeley.” I was going to ask him the same question, but then wondered if he was even going, if the question would make him uncomfortable.
When he kissed me good night my lips were hard; I didn’t respond. Not because his parents didn’t own that big house or he might not be going to college or he and I could have been badly hurt in the motorcycle accident. More because it had fully hit me that I was moving away and probably wouldn’t see A again when I did. Because I wasn’t as pretty as L, as cute as J, as powerful and cool as M, and maybe A would realize this. Because of the cancer that was spreading through my dad’s body and would eventually take him away from me and my mom, leaving us grief stricken and alone. Or something.
I went into my little house and went to bed. I could hear my mother through the wall. She was sobbing. I thought, When Dad dies it will kill her. And then I’ll die, too.
* * *
I didn’t hear from A. My friends and I went back to Phases. The Sick Pleasure guys weren’t there. Instead, there was a pack of surfers I’d never seen before. They were all tan, with blond hair, and wore plaid shorts and T-shirts with Vans sneakers, or Levi’s with short-sleeved button-down plaid shirts and Topsiders, no socks.
M said, “Now those are some hot guys.”
I didn’t really think so. I mean, none of them were A.
J said, “Oh my God, that one’s mine,” and she pointed to the shortest one, who had angelic blond curls and a baby face.
“You got him,” M said. “That’s Angel. I get Swell.” She nodded to the tallest, best looking of the guys. “L can have Hot. I, you get Tan-the-Man.”
I didn’t want Tan-the-Man. I wanted A. Why hadn’t he called me? Did he think I didn’t like him? Had he lost interest in me? I wished I’d k
issed him back. I could never explain to him why I hadn’t; I couldn’t even explain it to myself. But maybe if there was another chance, I could kiss him properly. I could make it right.
M commanded that we all dance and we went onto the floor. The surfers watched us. I didn’t feel the music the way I usually did. I kept thinking about A’s body and the taste of beer and chlorine on my lips as he kissed me in the pool.
Swell danced over to M and loped in circles around her. He was so animated, he seemed like he was made out of electricity. He had dimples and a flashing white smile with perfect teeth, like a dentist’s son. Or John Davidson. J and Angel had the same playful dancing style and shy grins. L danced with Hot but mostly she seemed to be ignoring him. I missed A as I made myself dance with Tan-the-Man. I remembered the way I’d balanced on A’s big steel-toed boots, the way his big hands felt on my waist, the clean smell of his breath. Tan-the-Man smelled like alcohol and gaggingly strong Brut cologne. He leaped, rather than loped, around in circles like Swell, but Tan couldn’t pull it off the same way. He was making me dizzy.
Just then, I saw Rat Catcher standing at the edge of the dance floor, watching me. M had given him his nickname because he had pointy features and a wiry body. I turned from Tan to look for A. He was there. He was standing next to a girl. He was standing next to the girl with skunk stripes from the fifties dance contest. They walked outside.
Part of my soul detached and tried to follow A, but it slammed into the closed door like an alcoholic or a dazed, wounded animal and collapsed onto the ground.
I turned back to Tan. And I started dancing as hard as I could.
Later I found out that Tan’s name was B. He and his friends were from Camarillo. All I knew about that place was that there was a famous mental institution there.
Yes, the guys were surfers, as we had thought. Tan was going away to UC San Diego in the fall. He was going to study pre-law.
“Hey,” Tan said. “We’re having a party. You and your friends should come.”
* * *
J drove the VW to Camarillo. The air smelled like the sea and strawberry fields. It was a nice community with midsize homes and green lawns. We parked and went up to a house. Loud new wave music was playing, so we knew it was the right place. Inside were girls with tan skin and tight striped dresses or white shorts and bikini tops, lying on couches with surfer boys. My friends and I must have looked exotic, the girls from LA. I was wearing a T-shirt, Levi’s, and Converse sneakers, like I’d worn to the Whisky with A. I realized I’d worn the wrong thing to this party.
Swell ran up and grabbed M around her tiny waist and lifted her in the air and spun her. She squealed. M was not a squealer. Swell carried her out of the room, her legs dangling over his arms, her flip-flops falling off her feet. (M, of course, had dressed perfectly for the party). J and L looked at me. Angel came over with beers. He gave us each one. He and J were both wearing the same thing: short-sleeved Polo shirts, plaid shorts, and flip-flops. He took her hand and they walked away. Even from across the room I could see J’s dimples and the light in her eyes.
L was wearing Topsiders and a white tank top that made her brown skin glow. She and I looked at each other; she frowned, as usual. Hot came over and she frowned at him. He shrugged and walked away. L and I sat on a couch. Tan-the-Man came over and joined us.
“Looking good, ladies,” he said, putting his hand on my knee.
I realized that I wanted to lose my virginity. And A wasn’t there. We’d won a fifties dance contest. He was a great kisser. He lived in John Davidson’s guesthouse. He had a motorcycle. We’d had an accident. What if I’d gotten really hurt? My mom would have been so angry at me, I think. Or maybe she wouldn’t have noticed because she was so worried about my dad. Maybe dying on a motorcycle with A would be better than watching my father die slowly of cancer and my mom die of grief soon after.
I swallowed some beer. “My dad has cancer,” I said to Tan.
He leaned closer and cocked his head so his ear was near my mouth. “What?”
“Never mind,” I said.
“Hey, you want to go see the upstairs?”
“Sure.”
We left L sitting on the couch and rolling her eyes. That L, she was the smart one. She would attend Harvard in the fall. She wanted to be a veterinarian.
Tan took me to a bedroom upstairs. He took out a vial of white powder and sprinkled it onto a mirror. I thought of the mirror I’d won at Phases. I’d put it on my dresser at home under a tangle of jewelry made of plastic and rhinestones.
Tan snorted and then offered me some. I snorted, too. It hurt my sinuses with a bright white pain. I didn’t feel anything else except an accelerated heartbeat and a kind of shiny panic. Maybe it was bad coke. Then I left my body quietly while he pulled my jeans and underwear down over my hips and shoved himself inside of me. It actually didn’t hurt that much, maybe because of all the dancing I’d done. I think I’d broken my hymen that way. Or maybe the coke worked to dull the pain. Or maybe it was my naturally high pain tolerance. Or the fact that I wasn’t really there.
M was right; I felt different afterward. But not more mature. I got so sick the next day—I’d never been so sick. My whole body burned with poison fever. I wondered if I was just responding to the metaphor of feeling fucked.
I missed A with a longing as strong as those hot winds that ravaged us that summer, that hot sun that had burned blisters on my skin. But I had not chosen A. Somehow, with all the grief and confusion and fear and years of mild but persistent negative thoughts that had worn a path in my brain, I had chosen to get fucked by Tan-the-Man instead.
Love can be so strange and sad. It can be hard to understand why we run toward certain people and away from others at different times in our lives. Why we search so hard for that thing we are looking for, and then run so fast when we find it.
* * *
Years will go by.
M will be happily married and working as an art director on movies. She and I will have had a falling out after I finally let her know that I’m sick of her telling me what to do. She will say, “You don’t know what love is. I’ve been the best friend you could have.” Maybe she’s right.
J will be a heroic CHP officer, married with two kids.
L will be a successful veterinarian, still single, still beautiful, and so smart.
None of us will be in touch.
Maybe A will be living in a bungalow in Hollywood, working as a graphic designer, still writing and drawing zines, still listening to punk music. If he is losing his hair, or even if he isn’t, maybe he shaves his head. Maybe he still wears creepers. Maybe he has kids. A boy who is a musician in a garage band. A girl who is an artist. Maybe A will have just gone through a divorce and just be starting to think about dating again.
I will have lost my parents, one to cancer, one to cancer and grief. I will have two children I adore, and, a few years after my divorce, I will just be starting to think about dating again. I will like myself a lot more than I did when I met A, but I will still have to work at it every day.
Words will be the answer. They always were.
I will write a story about A for you. Maybe it will make you feel better. Or at least feel. Something. And the story will be for A, too. Maybe he’ll read it.
Marigold hated this time of year. July was hotter—and maybe even wetter—than the rest of summer, for one thing. The air swelled thick with humidity. Sweat trickled down the hollows of her body. And the rain showers, so frequent in the afternoons, caused more inconveniences than relief. Dark clouds became a weary sight.
She hated the sunscreen and the gluey white paths it left behind when smeared across her skin. She hated the bloodsuckers—the hidden ticks with their threat of Lyme disease and the inexhaustible mosquitoes, buzzing inside her eardrums and always preferring her above other people. She hated the texture of her hair, fattened and frizzed, unrecognizable as her own. And she especially hated the boiling hot parking lots.
Parking lots like this one.
Marigold Moon Ling’s relationship with North Drummond had been bookended by parking lots. They’d met in an Ingles grocery store parking lot last winter, and he’d broken up with her in a Bed Bath & Beyond parking lot last spring. At the time, she’d been holding a small microwave purchased with one of those big, blue twenty-percent-off postcard coupons. It was her first appliance for her first apartment. She’d been leaving the laid-back mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina, for a job in the gridlocked urban sprawl of Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was a three-and-a-half-hour drive away. Three and a half hours seemed manageable to Marigold. They did not to her boyfriend.
Ex-boyfriend.
God. That prefix still stung, even in her head.
But it was this specific sting—this steadily intensifying sorrow, this oppressive sense of guilt—that was the reason Marigold was standing in the parking lot of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, about to make what might be the most humiliating mistake of her newly adultish, nineteen-year-old life.
Marigold was here to save her ex-boyfriend.
Not save in the Southern, religious sense. Less dramatically and more specifically, Marigold was here to convince her ex-boyfriend to follow her back to her apartment in Atlanta, split her rent, and enroll in college.
It was still a tall order. She was aware. But the mission was platonic. It was about helping out a friend who had helped her, about repaying a massive cosmic debt. It felt both intolerable and unjust that Marigold got to leave while North believed that he had to stay.
What Marigold didn’t understand was what North was doing here. She’d returned to North Carolina under the guise of visiting her mother, but, before even dropping off her weekend bag, she’d driven the extra thirty-two miles past Asheville to his family’s Christmas tree farm near Spruce Pine. His mother had shocked her with the news that he no longer worked there. He’d been adamant about staying at home so he could manage the property for his ailing father, but now he was working another full hour’s drive away—down endless winding roads, past countless overgrown campgrounds and churchyards—even deeper into the mountains at Mount Mitchell State Park.