Summer in the City of Roses

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  “Like, now.”

  “Already? I need to eat first, but then I’m ready. Sorry, though. About eating so much. I’m always hungry.”

  “Consider tonight’s bass service payment in full. Also, you’re not ready. Plum’s styling us. We were supposed to be at her house twenty minutes ago.”

  Orr stuffs down a PBJ and drinks the last of the soy milk. Mika’s already on the front porch. “Wanna run there?” she says. “Race you!”

  Jane and Allison are in Plum’s basement, looking like great and terrible goddesses in blood-red togas and fishnet stockings and big chunky boots. Allison’s hair is braided into a thick crown around her head with several plastic snakes woven through it. Jane is wearing an ivy crown with a wine-colored band of paint across her eyes and the same color on her lips. “Mika, yours is in the bathroom,” Plum says, taking a pin from her mouth. “It’s the sturdiest one. I didn’t want you busting out of it like She-Hulk the second you hit the drums.” Jane stays very still as Plum removes the rest of her pins. “I have to sew them onto you guys,” she tells Orr. “It’s the only way we can make it stay. Next time, please tell me you want costumes before the day of the show.”

  “But we didn’t know until you had the idea at breakfast,” Jane says.

  “And anyway, Plum, you’re totally pulling it off,” Allison says. “You’re a wizard.”

  “That’s witch to you,” Plum says. She is wearing her white men’s shirt again, this time belted as a dress. Her legs are long and beautifully freckled. There’s a delicate silver chain around her left ankle with woodland animal charms hanging off it—a skunk, a rabbit, a deer. Plum catches Orr looking. “It’s from Disneyland,” she says. “From my mom. Bambi was her favorite . . . I know”—Plum stabs the pins into a tomato-shaped pincushion—“Bambi’s mom and all. Ironic. But back then, we didn’t know.” Plum’s basement is a riot of costume supplies. “Take your shirt off and stand still.”

  Orr hesitates.

  “Chill,” Plum says. “I’m a professional.” She takes a red length of fabric and pins it on him, then sews the pinned spots to secure them. “It will rip if you take it off, so there’s no going back. But it should be fine for the show. And here.” She hands him red-and-black striped leggings. “These are mine, but you’ll wanna wear them to be decent. I only had enough fabric for a short toga for you.” She stands back and observes him. The basement is cool and green, with garden light through the open door and ground-level windows. Plum takes his hand in hers. He wants to lick it. It will be salty, he thinks. It will be sweet. She sits him in a chair to do his makeup.

  “You’re so blinky,” she says. Then, gently, “I know this feels weird. Raise your eyebrows like you’re surprised and make your face sort of stiff.”

  Plum’s breath smells like lemons and sends quivers down his back every time she exhales. If they were alone, Orr might kiss her.

  Her lips are pursed as she tickles his face with a large fluffy makeup brush. She touches the bumps on his head with a fingertip. “Did this happen last night?” She’s talking about the fight with Red, but Orr nods. “Do they hurt?” Orr shakes his head, but Plum kisses both spots anyway, so quickly it could have been a moth flying by. When she smooths color onto his lips with her fingers, Orr pulls away. Even good things can sometimes be too much.

  She steps back. There’s a feeling growing between them like the wisteria vines on her porch. Orr watches her know what he knows. Her cheeks turn pink and her freckles darken.

  “You’re fabulous,” she says. “Let me put your crown on, then you can go change into your leggings and report back.”

  Orr stands in front of the bathroom mirror for several minutes. The boy in front of him seems to know him, maybe better than Orr knows himself.

  He tilts his head to see how he looks from different angles. The ring of black around his eyes makes them bigger and darker. The red lipstick gives him the look of a classical cupid. The wreath of fresh roses around his head makes him look like some sort of god. All he has for shoes are his sneakers. Plum was adamant in her veto of them. He will be barefoot onstage.

  “Come out,” Jane says behind the bathroom door. “Plum insists on painting your nails.”

  ACT III

  Whoever drinks from me will become a roe

  1

  Given

  Circumstances

  The bus huffs and puffs down Burnside. It’s after eight, but the day gleams on with its buttery light, still and hot. Iph rests her head on George’s shoulder. They pass Music Millennium, the Laurelhurst Theater, and Shiny Dancer, heading for the bridge. Iph hums something soft and low to Scout, who has her head out of the messenger bag for pets. Iph smiles, realizing what she’s singing—a lullaby she and Orr used to call “Ai, ai, ai” for the first line of the chorus. “Cielito Lindo” is its real name. Pretty Little Heaven.

  The river is full of sailboats. At the end of the bridge the neon stag rises from the Portland sign like it’s leaping away from Old Town into the blue-green Willamette. Mom’s husky voice floats through Iph’s head. Ai, ai, ai, ai. Canta y no llores. Sing, don’t cry. After everything that’s happened, the timing is right. Iph is ready to find her brother.

  They have John Crawford Ford to thank for this confluence. Clearly an agent of fate, he left the weekly paper on the workbench at Taurus Trucking, open to the live music listings. And there it was, in big block letters:

  FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE X-RAY CAFÉ

  DEAD MOON

  CAUSTIC SODA

  THE FURIES

  WITH A SPECIAL BUCK MOON INVOCATION

  BY THE SCARLET LETTER PERFORMANCE COLLECTIVE

  3 DOLLARS

  ALL AGES

  NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS.

  PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT SHINY DANCER

  Iph feels cute in Nana’s minidress muumuu, worn this time with drugstore fishnets and a ninety-nine cent red lipstick. In the bathroom drawer of Taurus Trucking, she found the stubby end of an eyeliner pencil and revived it the way Mom taught her, by holding the freshly sharpened tip to a lit match. George liked her smoky eyes, red lips, and fishnets so much it led to kissing, then painting each other’s nails with silver glitter polish. On the way to the bus, George poached some pink roses and tucked them here and there into Iph’s tied-up curls. Iph plucked a daisy to thread through the buttonhole in the chest pocket of George’s crisp white shirt and two more for Scout’s collar.

  Because the moon is full and it’s a perfect kind of night, the first person they see is Lorna rocking a sixties-inspired Twiggy ensemble with mile-long lashes, white go-go boots, and an ugly-cute loud floral shorts-and-halter set—most likely once a swimsuit—that turns her eyes green. She pulls Iph and George into her spot in line and hugs them. Even though they’re cutting, no one seems to mind.

  The sidewalk in front the X-Ray Café is packed with every kind of kid. A pair of lipsticked boys in metallic leggings, feather boas, and hair like the guy from the Cure stand behind raccoon-eyed rocker girls in fishnets, cutoffs, and knee-high boots. Unshowered grunge kids in new Converse and holey flannels lean against the building next to too-skinny street kids with the occasional sock poking through their beat-up sneakers, scarfing falafels provided by one of the grunge guys. He’s older than the others and looks sort of familiar—like maybe he’s in a band Iph’s seen on MTV.

  A gang of buzz-cut vegan punks with safety pins in their faces, home-Sharpied meat is murder T-shirts, and those World Wildlife Fund panda-bear patches on their jean jackets pass around a single clove cigarette. A boy in a top hat rides up on a unicycle so tall the seat is level with the street signs. He dismounts with surprising grace to perform a complicated lock-up and is greeted by a mohawked girl on a normal bike with a pink-haired toddler strapped into the baby seat behind her. The unicyclist swoops the toddler onto his shoulders, and the three of them head for the back of the line. George
raises an eyebrow at Iph, like cute but also whoa. Iph nods. Those parents look about their age.

  A trio of tween girls in kindergarten dresses and plastic barrettes coo at the toddler and flirt with skater boys doing tricks at the curb. Interspersed like sparrows among Bowie birds are a surprising number of normal-looking teenagers who might’ve come straight from the library or soccer practice—or even, like Iph, from Forest Lake.

  The line moves fast. Inside is dim and smelly but buzzing with energy. Sitting at tables with the posture of regulars are a mixed-age group of what Dad would call career misfits for their well-marinated quirkiness. Some look like they’re in their twenties. Others are older, maybe even her parents’ age. In a corner in the back, Iph spots the guy who had ants buzzing around his head that day outside the Gentry. He looks better today, showered and in clean clothes with clear eyes and a relaxed face. He’s younger than Iph thought. He sees her and gives her a thumbs-up.

  “What was that about?” Lorna asks, blowing bubblegum breath in Iph’s ear.

  “Nothing,” Iph says. “Just a friend.”

  Up front the din is fantastic. George is swamped by a pack of kids who’ve spotted Scout in the messenger bag, and the pink-haired toddler climbs onto the stage and jumps off into her dad’s arms. Baby Orr would have been a howling puddle after five minutes here. Even Iph has to fight the urge to cover her ears. It’s not the volume so much as the chaos—thrash punk over the house speakers mixed with talking-yelling-laughing and someone onstage doing a sound check that involves an unreasonable amount of screaming feedback. Then, all at once, the X-Ray quiets.

  A sssss starts somewhere in the back of the room, and the Scarlet Letter moon priestesses begin their snaking procession through the small, packed space. Their silver outfits and metallic kohl-lined eyes are a knockout combination of silent film goddess and science fiction robot queen. They wear identical black Cleopatra wigs, chain-metal bras, low-riding liquid-silver harem pants, and space-age moon-phase headpieces. One of them, at the head of the sinuous line, has a fat albino boa constrictor draped over her shoulders and around her waist. All of them are tattooed: mushrooms and mermaids, waves and fire, flowers, birds, foxes, bats. One of the few brown priestesses looks a little like Mom with a machine-gun Guadalupe on her forearm and what looks like a vintage educational chart of all the kinds of sacred hearts on her back: hearts on fire, hearts with wings. Knife-, arrow-, and sword-pierced hearts. Hearts wreathed in roses and golden light. Broken hearts wrapped in garlands of thorn.

  “I heard about them at work,” Lorna whispers to Iph. “They’re a coven of sex worker poets. They came up from San Francisco.”

  A ritual cup passes, lip to lip. “Magic mushrooms,” Lorna says, drinking. Iph takes the vessel and sips the bitter forest tea. George passes it along, not drinking.

  Iph has never taken psychedelics before, but both her parents have. “It was the seventies,” they used to say when Orr, who’s never seen the point of drugs of any kind, not even caffeine, scolded them for it. It’s how her parents met, at an East Village party thrown by Dad’s musician brother. Mom knew the punch was spiked, but poor straightlaced Dad, visiting from college in Oregon, did not. According to family lore, Mom found him wide-eyed and freaked out, hiding in the bathroom. They spent all night talking on the roof, a conversation that’s still going.

  George pulls Iph close as the procession speeds up. Scout peeks her head out of the bag to give Iph a tentative lick. She’s not sure about these priestess-snake-women. “It’s okay,” Iph says. “We’ve got you, girl.”

  The hissing line resolves to a linked circle in the center of the crowd. Hearts pound. Drums beat. Or is it rain in an ancient grove? Maybe it’s both—drums calling rain from the clear summer sky. Sympathetic magic is what Dad calls it, Mom’s religion of tarot cards and candles and feathers and pine cones and stones. What exactly are these witches calling?

  As the rhythm reaches an apex, the snake grows arms, a bejeweled kraken rising from the deep to partner the crowd in a dance. As if instructed, everyone joins hands to move in a spiral, chaos to order, like the folk reels Iph learned in preschool. She and George are linked for a moment, but George’s hand is jostled away and another takes its place, calloused, belonging to a woman whose round, high-cheekboned face changes age in the flickering light—twenty, fifty, twelve. The hissing thickens as tongues kiss teeth throughout the room. On the stage is a large bowl full of gleaming coals. One by one, the priestesses peel away from the crowd and drop branches of rosemary onto the fire. The smoke curls through the air, another kind of snaking, and the spiral slithers faster.

  Then, in marvelous unison, the collective snake of them stops. The hiss sheds its skin, becomes song. An elfin blonde onstage is singing to the moon. She plays a strange instrument, a gold electronic-looking box with an antenna sticking up from either side. Moving her hands between the two metal poles, she seems to bend space into sound. The word theremin forms in typeface in Iph’s mind. The woman’s head tilts, almost as if she was the one who sent it.

  “Who is that?” Iph asks George, whose rose-soap sweetness is somehow extra thrilling in this crowd where only Iph really knows it. Well, Lorna knows it, too. And did Iph see Cait back near the door? She flashes back to the ticket girl at the movies. Probably there are more of George’s exes here. It’s that kind of crowd. She leans in close to hear George’s answer, inhaling.

  “Are you smelling me?”

  “Yes.”

  George moves closer, lips to Iph’s neck. “What were you saying?”

  “The singer.” Iph is grinning. Ridiculously crushed out.

  “Right,” George says. “She’s from some San Francisco band. Why can’t I think of the name? You’re distracting me, woman.”

  “I’m just standing here,” Iph says.

  “You guys are gross,” says Lorna, reappearing from wherever the dance landed her. “She’s from Lady Frieda. They’re in town for a big show. Oh, she’s from the same band.” Lorna gestures toward a woman with blue mermaid curls and light-brown eyes who has joined the theremin player. They sing together, their harmony breaking the room like an egg.

  “Swoon in moonlight,” they sing. “Fall into the arms of fate.”

  Iph closes her eyes, giving into the woodland magic of the tea.

  In the still moment of synchronized breath after the song is over, Iph feels him.

  Orr.

  Her brother is very near.

  2

  Spoke to the

  Songbirds

  There isn’t really a dressing room, but there is a patchwork curtain at the back of the stage and a small space behind it with a few folding chairs. After one look at Orr when they first walked in, Jane led him here, handed him a fresh set of safety-orange earplugs, and said to wait while the girls went and smoked and the witches did their thing.

  It’s taken him the better part of half an hour to calm down, but now that his heart’s stopped racing and he’s used to the noise, it’s kind of great. Iph is so right: backstage darkness is one of the best kinds, even though in this case the stage is more a platform in the middle of a café and its darkness is broken by tiny beams of light coming in through the curtain’s irregular seams.

  The hairs raise on Orr’s arms when the hissing in the café stops and changes to a weird wordless song that sounds like an old record Dad has of singing humpback whales. There is also music. What instrument? Orr could get up and look but doesn’t. The words morph from sound to language.

  “Compass your blood to your desires,” a witch sings. “Swoon into the arms of the moon.”

  Orr pulls Allison’s bass onto his lap. If his family knew about this, they would be here, cheering in the front row. He closes his eyes and tries to feel them, but all he sees are Jane and Mika and Allison—or really, mental portraits of them in their red costumes with golden auras around their heads like the saint candl
es on Mom’s altar.

  “Classic transference.” Iph said this when he was eleven and fell in love with his third therapist. Or wait, had Thao been the fourth? Either way, what he’s done is clear—substituted Jane for Mom and the girls for Iph. And in this version of mathematics, people aren’t important beyond meeting Orr’s needs. Maybe Portland has changed him into some sort of monster. Or no, it’s the same kind of beast he’s always been. The one who made his mother cry the night before her residency started and pretended to be asleep when she left for the airport. In this way, he is like Red. Selfish, no self-control. A terrifying, giant man-baby-monster.

  He tries to concentrate on this, teach himself to change, but as always, his thoughts turn to Plum. He doesn’t even have to try to conjure every detail of her snapdragon hair and lake-colored eyes. She’s always there, hovering like a swarm of honeybees, a constant buzz in the back of his brain. She’ll be in the front row tonight. She promised. Even if he doesn’t deserve her, Orr’s heart gallops.

  Coming offstage, a woman with white-blonde hair and a slight English accent is saying, “Someone was passing this around, and I have to say, I don’t approve.”

  “Haven’t they heard of germs in this town?” another woman says, laughing. “I think it’s pretty weak. But yeah, not cool at an all-ages show.”

  “Oh,” the small blonde one says, noticing Orr. “Hello. Are you in the opening band?”

  “Yes,” Orr says. He is!

  “Stage fright?” The other woman sets a blue ceramic bowl the color of her curls on the graffitied head of a dented tom-tom that seems to function as a backstage table. “I still get it myself,” she says. “It’s all good—just energy. Your body getting ready for something big!”

  He smiles at them. He likes the smaller woman’s pointy ears with their many silver studs and the bluish-green curls and maple-syrup eyes of the curvy one who looks like a mermaid, and how they talk to one another like they’re sisters.