“And that’s nine,” says Kyle. He pulls his extendable key from the ring on his belt, bends down, and locks the door so no one else can come in. The man in the suit will be our last customer. I hope his order is simple, because, like I said, the dishes are done. Kyle heads to the back, probably to grab the full mop bucket and get started on the last job of the night.
“Can I help you?” I say. He’s at the counter now, grinning like crazy.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I say. “Have you decided what you’ll have?” I ask.
“Not yet, Svetlana,” he says. He licks his lips and grins as he scans the menu hanging on the wall over my head.
“Oh!” I say. “You were in the other day. You asked if Lana was short for anything.”
“That’s right,” he says, squinting at me.
“Um, those are nice flowers,” I say, because they are. “Are they for your wife or girlfriend or something?” It’s a wild bouquet of tiny-petal flowers in every color. If not for the professional paper wrapping and baby’s breath, I’d think this man had just been in a field someplace, gathering exactly the right samples for this bouquet.
“I’m glad you like them,” he says, and he holds them out, sneaking a glance over my shoulder toward the back. “They’re for you.”
“For—” My stomach twists a little, and I take a step back. I’m still smiling, but now it’s a frozen thing, stuck to my face, and I can’t break it. My forehead goes cold, and the icy tingle under my arms starts its crawl across my body. Behind me, the water is running. I can’t figure why. The bucket was full. Why isn’t Kyle up front yet? Why is he still back there? Who is this man?
“I’m sorry,” says the man across the counter. He lays down the flowers between us and reaches out for me, as if to comfort me, like I’m a frightened cat who might hide under the couch. My forehead tingles and starts to go cold. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Who are you?” I say, and he stands up straight and his smile comes back and he says, “I’m Stebbins.”
The water running behind is so loud. It fills my ears, so my voice sounds like it’s not my own, like it’s coming from far away, deep in a cave on the other side of the world. I shake my head and step back a little farther. “I don’t know you.”
“Sure you do,” he says, pulling in his chin. “I’m sure it’s weird. You can take some time.”
Someone’s trying to get in. Someone’s tugging on the locked door, over and over, but we’re closed. It’s dark outside, and through the glass, with the ultrabright juice shop lights on and pounding down on me, I can’t see a thing. My polo shirt is clinging to the cold sweat on my back.
The man in the suit—Stebbins—leans one hand on the counter and puts the other on his hip. “You’re just how I pictured you,” he says. “You’re just exactly how I pictured you.” He’s shaking his head, so impressed with me, and the water is still running behind me like a torrent.
“Kyle,” I call to the back, because I wish he’d turn off the water, and Stebbins seems to come to life—his face flashes and his smile is gone, and his hand shoots from his waist and grabs my wrist, pulls me closer to him, down across the counter. I tug back, but it’s no good.
“You’re hurting me!” I snap, and the tugging on the door is back, like it might burst from the hinge, and then there’s pounding on the glass, and a voice—a voice is shouting from the darkness, calling my name: “Svetlana! Open the door!”
I shriek for Kyle and the water finally switches off. He comes from the back now, drying his hands, and he’s angry—he’s angry at me. I pull the key from his belt and run around the counter for the door. Stebbins gets there first, though, and he’s pleading now with his hands up. He takes my shoulders and tries to hold me there. What is he saying? My ears ring, an echo of the water’s white noise, and pound along with my pulse.
“Lana, don’t freak out,” he says. “It’s me. You know me. You’re just having a hard time. But it’s me.”
I shake my head and raise my shoulders, try to pull away. Kyle is shouting now too, reaching over the counter. He’s got Stebbins’s suit coat by the sleeve, pulling. It’s going to rip.
“Let go of her!”
The banging on the door is so loud. The glass will break. “Stebbins!” says the voice outside. “It’s me!” It’s Lesh. He’s screaming. He’s screaming and crying. “That’s not her!” His throat will tear and bleed. “It’s me!”
Stebbins stops. He lets go of my shoulders. And I can breathe, and I can see, and I thrust my knee and connect with his crotch. His breath catches and he says, “Uf,” and he falls to his knees in front of me. I drop beside him and unlock the door, and Lesh throws it open. He pulls Stebbins by the lapel onto the sidewalk, and I shove the door closed and lean on it. Kyle is beside me in an instant, with his arm around my shoulders, and I’m crying.
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CHAPTER 54
LESH TUNGSTEN
It’s raining and cold, and in no time we’re drenched. Stebbins gets to his feet and faces me.
“What the hell is this?” his says. He’s coughing, too, holding his stomach. His face is red, and I can’t tell if he’s crying or if his cheeks and the corners of his eyes are just holding on to raindrops. “Who are you?”
I stand there, letting the rainwater flood over my face. “I’m her. I’m Svvetlana.”
He stares at me.
“Not her,” I say. “She has no idea. I’m Svvetlana. I’m the one you’re looking for.”
He looks back through the glass door. Svetlana has her back to us, sitting against the door next to her boss. Her shoulders are shaking, and I know it’s my fault.
Stebbins turns, like he’s done, like he’s heading back to his car, but he only gets one step and turns back, and he pulls back and throws a punch. His fist connects with the side of my face just under my eye, and I go down. I lie there, watching Svetlana’s shoulders shake only inches away on the other side of the door, and I’m listening to his heavy wet footsteps and then the roar of his engine, and letting the rain fall down over me.
The water coats my face, and I can’t tell if I’m bleeding, but while I watch her, Svetlana looks over her shoulder at me, her face still wet and tired. I know what it means: it means disappointment, scorn, confusion. I’m going to have to explain, but for now I just sit up, stand up, and start walking.
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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CHAPTER 55
LESH TUNGSTEN
She eats lunch in the library now, I guess, every day. I’ve hardly seen her. I’ve only caught a glimpse here and there of a white-blond head above the crowd in the entrance of the school, or bouncing down the stairs on the east side, or even coasting south on Lexington at two thirty. I haven’t tried talking to her, not since I sent a long message—a rambling thing I read and reread and wrote and rewrote fifty times, all that Sunday, knowing it was pointless, knowing I didn’t deserve to be forgiven.
I’d said I was sorry, though. I’d said I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, or scare anyone. I’d tried to tell her I admired her, that I adored her, that I saw something in her that was so special, so beautiful, so powerful, that it had seemed so natural to me at the time, and every time, that this magical, strong, silver-haired elf would be her. She couldn’t be me, I tried to explain. I’m not beautiful. I’m not powerful. I’m not special. I’d made an orc, I even thought of saying, and that was me: smelly and mindless and wielding a single heavy swo
rd like—well, it’s obvious, I guess.
But I couldn’t get any of that to sound right, so instead I typed this:
There’s a scarecrow stuck to the top of my neighbor’s chain-link fence. She’s just a little one, like something you buy at a craft store to decorate around Thanksgiving. She’s been there for a couple years now, and she’s faded and bent, and looks a little sad, but all told she’s holding up pretty well. Don’t worry; I’m not about to compare you to a world-weary scarecrow. But here’s the thing: I don’t know why I call that thing “she.” It could just as well be a he. I suppose it’s the apron, a little square of oncered, now-pink tied around her waist. Pink means she, I guess, in my little pea brain. I’m watching her from my bedroom window right now. She’s fluttering a lot. It’s windy.
I don’t know if it’s like this for everyone, or even for every boy, but when I was little, it was pretty simple: boys have a thing; girls don’t. Obviously there’s more to it, but that was enough as a kindergartener, I guess. I’m older now, and I’m realizing that’s bull, and here’s why: because the difference between boys and girls and men and women isn’t about what men have and women don’t. It’s about what women have, and men don’t.
Svetlana, you have grace and beauty and strength and confidence and purpose and talent and love for the world and your friends. I have none of those things, and when I grow up, I’d much rather be like you than be another giant boy with a beer in one hand and a remote control in the other. I hope you can forgive me.
Then I explained about the game, and I explained about Stebbins, and I hit send. A week later, I haven’t heard back, and I kind of hope I never do. I’m finished with lunch quickly, and I head for my eleven-fifteen class, Olsen’s English class. It’s up on the third floor, so I take the main steps past the library—I still hope to catch a glimpse, now and then, if I can—and settle down on the floor outside room 3217 and pull out the reading. I’ve read it—I’m not gaming anymore, and I can’t bear to even talk to Greg these days, much less hang out with him, so I have more than enough time to get my homework done; I’m sure Mom’s happy. But I pull out the reading anyway because it’s something to put in front of my face.
I don’t think Svetlana went around telling anyone what happened. I don’t think Deel spread my elf priestess’s existence around either. Even so—I know it’s out there now, out of my head and my body and in the world. That means it’s on my face, and it’s part of who I really am, who I’ve really been. So I sit, with the book in front of my face so no one can see me, no one can see the word printed across my face: G.I.R.L. Maybe it doesn’t even need the periods anymore.
Someone’s standing over me. But my headphones are on, and the book shield is up, so I ignore the shadow falling over me and keep pretending to read. But whoever it is won’t have any of my crap and kicks my foot. I look up.
You already guessed, I suppose, and I jump to my feet and pull off my headphones, so panicked and afraid that they miss my neck and hit the wall behind me and fall to the floor. She laughs and I apologize.
“Do you want to take a walk?” she says, and I look at my feet and hers and mumble something about class and Mr. Olsen. She points out we have twenty minutes.
“I ate faster than I meant to,” I say, and then add, “I don’t like being down there anymore, by myself.”
She swallows and looks at the stairs. “Come on,” she says, and she walks and I gather my books into my bag and follow. She’s carrying her tote over one shoulder, so I walk on that side of her, a little behind, and she leads me down the steps—two flights down, to the drama rooms and the music classes and the pool, and we meander down the long, wide halls without lockers. She doesn’t speak, so I don’t, and instead we listen to the orchestra instruments tuning and playing and tuning in a random and wild—I’m searching for the Svetlana word for it, and it doesn’t come. I miss her. I want to tell her it sounds like Björk, and that Björk reminds me of her, and of the afternoon in the her bedroom when she grabbed me and kissed me after the little hen ran downstairs. But I don’t.
“I wanted to ask you something,” she says.
“Okay.”
“You like me,” she says, and it’s not a question, so I stay silent and wait for the rest. It’s twenty-five paces before it comes. “But there’s a lot I don’t get.”
“Me too.”
She looks at me sideways and keeps walking. “Your message has been on my mind,” she goes on, “like, all the time since I read it.”
“Really?”
A little nod. “I’ve read it over and over, too. I’m trying to wrap my head around it, but I’m not sure I can.”
“That’s because I’m a mental patient.”
A smile. “I doubt it.”
I don’t.
“But I don’t really get one thing, and it’s kind of the important thing,” Svetlana says, and here she finally stops and turns to face me. “Do you want to be with me, or do you want to be me?”
That’s the million-dollar question.
Her face is only inches from mine. I feel like I haven’t seen it, this close and this well, in so long. I’ve been parched for it, maybe, and glimpses in the hall—fleeting ones—and glimpses of her online profile haven’t been terribly fulfilling. Now here she is, with me, and I would do anything to not have this conversation, to go back ten days, three weeks, to that night at the corner of Thomas Avenue and Hamline, to do this right, to bury down deep whatever inkling in my messed-up brain of rocks told me to climb into a silver dress of spirit and a pair of leporine ears.
“I …”
The buzzer sounds. We have to go. But Svetlana shakes her head and crosses her arms. “Uh-uh,” she says. “Answer me.”
But … “I can’t.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose and sighs. Strawberries and honey and maybe the tiniest bit of garlic and soy sauce. The tiniest bit. “We’re going to try meeting in Roan’s basement tonight,” she says. “Gaming Club, I mean. You’re still a member, right?”
“I am?”
She puts a hand on my wrist and smiles, and then she’s off, leaving me standing here outside the orchestra room as the place starts to empty, students streaming past me, around me on both sides, like I’m a rock in a stream, each of them carrying a hard black case, boats in the stream, full of potential music.
Roan’s house isn’t far from mine, really just a straight shot north across the train yard. Mom’s driving me up there. It feels weird. I can’t remember the last time I asked my mom for a ride someplace. Normally if I’m going anywhere, it’s with Greg, and if we’re going beyond his house off the bus route or far enough away that we’d have to transfer a bunch, we’re going with Cheese or Weiner or one of those guys. No mom ride necessary. Anyway, tonight I’d be happy to walk, but it’s really getting to be winter here, and winter in Saint Paul is no joke.
We turn left onto Horton—the road I generally just think of as the one we take to the zoo and little amusement park. Mom’s feeling wistful. “I used to take you up here, jeez, three times a week sometimes,” she says, nodding to the right as we pass the turnoff to the zoo parking lot. “Sometimes we walked. Or anyway I walked. You rode in the stroller. It was the only exercise I got, I swear.”
I’m leaning against the passenger window, breathing on it so it fogs up around my nose. Then the fog recedes when I inhale, like it knows. I get that it fogs when I exhale, but the inhale part really weirds me out for some reason.
Roan lives just a few blocks from the zoo, so in no time we’re pulled up in front. I’m relieved to see a plain old Como bungalow, sort of like ours, but sideways, and not one of the giant Victorian things that line Midway Parkway.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Let me know when you want to be picked up,” she says. “Give me a little warning, too, okay? And you won’t be too late?”
“I doubt it,” I say, and I’m secretly hoping I won’t call for a ride, since Svetlana probably drove. Maybe sh
e’ll offer, and maybe that’ll mean I’m getting another real shot at—at something. Don’t make me say friendship, because we both know that’s not all I want. Now if I could just figure out what I do want.
Roan’s little house is crowded with red-haired Garnets. Her father, the only gray-mane, lets me in, shakes my hand, tells me his name and his wife’s name—she’s standing behind him about twenty paces, in the kitchen, and she waves. She’s got a towel over her shoulder, and a girl with pin-straight bright orange hair is leaning against her leg, watching me come in.
“Let me hang up your coat,” says Mr. Garnet, and I let him peel it off me, then watch as he tosses it over the back of the couch.
“Thanks.”
He slaps me on the back and then grabs a magazine from the little table near the door. It has a painting of Mars on the cover. He heads into the bathroom, leaving me standing near the front door.
“Um,” I say, not to anyone in particular, but kind of hoping someone will figure out that I don’t know where the basement is, and a moment later a door in the kitchen flies open and Roan’s freckled face pops out at floor level.
“Down here, miscreant!” she shouts. I hear Svetlana’s admonition and Reggie’s exaggerated guffaw from behind her and decide to take it as good-natured ribbing instead of ongoing distaste for my person.
The basement is done up—it feels at once like Svetlana’s handiwork, like she’s done her best to cover the Garnets’ basement in a thick coating of her brain. That sounds grosser than it looks. The walls are partially covered with whisper-thin hangings—a few just fields of abstract color, one of a red dragon, twisting and turning, and one of a black jungle cat, peering out of the art at me. The dragon seems to breathe and cavort as the slight draft from the open basement door flutters the silk. The cat prowls, its yellow eyes nearly demonic; it threatens to pounce from the fabric and knock me to the floor at the bottom of the steps.
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