“Thanks,” I say. I guess I’m happy about it. “Wanna come in and hang out?”
I make room for him to come in. I want him to join us.
He kind of takes a step forward, but then looks over at Lake and stops himself.
“No, I’m busy today. I got places to be. I’ll check you later.”
It surprises me because I know he doesn’t really have anywhere to be. He just doesn’t want to hang out with me and Lake. Even though I know he really admires her. Garth doesn’t care what people might think. He just cares what she thinks.
“Good, I’m glad he’s not sticking around,” Lake says. “He’s such a poseur.”
But I remember the Sam Suck Manifesto. I will go my own way.
Garth is going his own way. He’s no poseur.
I throw the CD on the night table and go back to the computer. I’m not interested. I won’t comment on Leticia’s blog. I’ll just lurk. I’m addicted to knowing what’s going on back home.
“What’s that?” Lake asks, picking up the CD. “So, Garth made you a mix CD?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Oooohhhhh. Now I get it! He made you a mix CD!” she says. “You know what that means! He loves you!”
“No, he doesn’t,” I say.
“If a guy makes a girl a mix CD, he is in love with her.”
I don’t want Garth to love me. No. Not him. He’s just a friend.
“No, he said he’d make me one because I don’t know anything about music. It’s a punk primer. He specifically said that it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“Oh,” Lake says. “Well, then that’s no fun. I can’t laugh at you. You know, I could have made you a mix CD.”
“Well, you didn’t offer.”
“Well, maybe I will make you one,” she says. She’s irritated now. She’s been one-upped by Garth. He’d be pleased, so secretly I’m pleased for him.
She flips over the homemade mixed-media-collage cover art Garth has made and clucks.
“What?” I say.
“What nothing. It’s a pretty good mix,” Lake says. “He might not be completely clueless.”
Score two for Garth.
I want the CD. I stretch my hand out for it. Now I’m ready for it.
She hands me the cover as she gets off the bed and heads into the living room with the disc in her hand. I follow her and watch as she puts on the CD, pulls out the headphones, and lets the music blast out loud in the living room. Lake begins to dance and sing along. I look down and read the name of the first song.
“Los Angeles”— X
The Rat comes out of the kitchen with Trixie and sees Lake dancing. He smiles.
Lake is just the kind of daughter that The Rat would want. A girl who can tell that this is Good Music. A girl who gets up and dances. My feet are not moving. Not even toe tapping. I sit down on the couch.
Trixie starts dancing with Auggie in her arms. The Rat kind of joins in, bopping around a little, looking like a weirdo. His movements are unsmooth and out of time for someone who keeps time for a living. Trixie and The Rat feed off each other’s moves and start dancing a bit crazier when the next song comes on.
I look down at the list.
“Amoeba”— Adolescents
When that song is done, Trixie puts Auggie on the floor and takes The Rat in her arms. They slow down and kind of couple-dance. Auggie is moving around them on the floor. He’s laughing and dancing like a little man. He’s got pretty good moves for a two-year-old. He must take after his mom.
I’ve only heard of one or two of the bands, but some songs seem vaguely familiar, like maybe I heard them on the CBC late at night, or on a movie soundtrack or The Rat’s living-room stereo or car radio. As the laughing and dancing around me gets louder again, I just feel more lost, more left out.
The Rat stretches his arms out, reaching for me, inviting me to join him in the dance. I smile and shake my head, so he goes back to dancing with Trixie and Auggie and Lake. There is a party in my living room, and even though I have an invitation, I still feel out of place.
Instead, I close my eyes. The bass thumps through me. I don’t know where the next part is going to go. The music feels like it’s going to go off a cliff. Why does it change there? Why does it stop there? Why do the drums go like that? I can’t tell where the songs will go to next. I want them to go one way and they refuse. I can’t trust the songs and where they lead me.
And the words. The words are too raw. They might make me crazy. They might take me places I don’t want to go.
Auggie has finally gone to sleep. It only took forever. I creep to the window to pull down the shade to make it darker in the room. That’s when I notice him. Leo. He’s in the pool. I creep out of Auggie’s room quietly and go to the window in the living room.
I look around and notice a pair of opera glasses on one of the bookshelves. They’re quite fancy, typical Trixie. Lorgnettes, she calls them. They are too fancy for my T-shirt and jean shorts. I don’t care. I put them up to my eyes and swing my gaze over to the pool.
A leg pops into view.
It’s Leo’s leg. I have to adjust myself since the lorgnettes can’t be adjusted. I step back to view the whole body. I stare at him in his swimming trunks. My chest feels tight. He is so beautiful. His muscles are smooth and hard and well defined. There he is in front of me, almost touchable and nearly naked.
I feel at home in this world of near silence, where all I can hear is Auggie sleeping in the next room and my steady breathing, which gets a little heavier as I watch Leo in the pool. I don’t ask myself why I’m staring. I push aside the thought that it might be wrong. I know I like it. I know I want to.
Maybe I am a pervert.
I look over every inch of Leo’s body. I have never really had the chance to inspect a boy’s body so intensely before. I mean, I have stared at pictures of topless celebrities and models in magazines and online. I have seen plenty of pictures and movies that had men’s naked chests or naked asses in them. I have been to the swimming pool and the park and seen boys in their shorts with their shirts off, and Leticia and I skip back and slow-advance some scenes from certain movies we’ve rented. But only when we were alone in the house and no one could walk in on us because it could’ve been embarrassing.
But this looking through lorgnettes at Leo live is different. Here in Trixie’s apartment, I can look without anyone telling me not to. I can stare and take my time. I feel kind of quivery inside when I watch him.
I examine him closely. I decide that I like Leo’s sideburns but I’m glad he doesn’t have hair on his chest.
Should I feel bad about spying on him?
I am about to put the lorgnettes down when someone else comes into view. Lake. What is she up to?
Leo is busy in the pool doing laps. Then he notices her. He has a grin on his face. No, it’s more like a leer. He swims over to her. Now Lake is talking to Leo. I swing my view over to Lake. She is talking and gesticulating wildly. I crack open the window a little bit, but I can’t hear what she’s saying to him. Leo says something. Then he grabs her leg and tries to pull her into the pool.
Lake goes ballistic.
Lake takes his clothes and his towel and dumps them into the pool. Then she flips him the finger.
Leo is now all red and angry.
Lake heads out of the pool area. I know where she’s heading: up to visit me. I put the lorgnettes back on the shelf and grab a book on Bettie Page and dive for the couch. I try to look as casual as possible.
She knocks on the door.
“What?” I say.
“It’s Lake.”
“Door’s open,” I say.
Lake comes in and plops herself down on the couch next to me.
“What are you looking at?” she asks. The page is open to a photo of Bettie and another lady posed in a bondage scene. “Perv.”
I blush. I am a perv, but for totally different reasons.
“Shh, Auggie will wake up,” I say, even t
hough we are not being loud. “What’s that?”
She is holding Leo’s T-shirt in her hand.
“Oh, yeah. Shit,” she says, laughing and flopping over onto the cushion. “I guess I stole Leo’s shirt. It’s cool. It’s from Threadless. Here, take it.”
She hands me the T-shirt as she gets up and heads for the bathroom.
I can’t help it. I lift the T-shirt and put it to my nose and inhale. It smells really good, musky and sweaty mixed up with the smell of outside fresh air and deodorant and chlorine.
“What are you doing?” Lake says to me. She’s standing in the hallway. She’s staring at me. I’m caught.
“Smelling.”
“Oh.” She cocks her head to the side, and I put the T-shirt back into her hands. She holds Leo’s shirt up to her nose and drinks it in. “Yeah. Leo smells good.”
“I wonder if I smell good,” I say.
“I don’t know. I never smell you,” Lake says. “What about me? Do I smell?”
“You always smell like vanilla,” I say. And BO but I don’t say that.
“Oh yeah, I guess I do.”
We hear someone yelling outside. Someone is screaming Lake’s name. Leo.
“Oh, shit.” Lake laughs. “He’s pissed.”
Lake takes the T-shirt and runs onto the balcony. I walk out after her just in time to see her throw the T-shirt off the balcony. It floats delicately to the ground. Leo scrambles for it as it lands. Then he looks up at us and gives us both the finger.
“This is it,” Sam says.
The band is sitting in the living room, making plans. Big plans. Big comeback plans.
I sip lemonade, homemade. I made it with lemons from a tree in the courtyard. I put the glasses on a tray. I serve it to the band members, who take it greedily. They all have hope in their eyes. The air in the living room is exciting. Infectious. I catch it. I feel excited. Suck is getting back together for real.
“We can’t fuck it up,” The Rat says. He’s grinning ear to ear.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “We’re back. Sunset Junction.”
Lake crosses her fingers and holds them up in mock excitement.
Then she rolls her eyes at me. As excited as they are, I bet the conversation is boring to her because it’s not about her takeover of the rock world. And I know her favorite subject is herself.
Lake thumbs for me to follow her. I do. We make our escape and head down to the courtyard, and then to the street in search of a free outside table at one of the cafés on Sunset.
“What?” I say.
“I haven’t seen my dad this excited in years,” she says. “This is a really good thing.”
“Looks like it,” I say.
“You don’t even know,” she says.
I am so tired of not even knowing.
“If all goes according to my master plan, the Grown-Ups is going to be the opening band on one of the stages at Sunset Junction.”
“OK,” I say. So what? I think.
“You need to be my roadie. And I need you to do merch.”
“I’m not even in the band,” I say.
“I told you the other girls aren’t serious.” She looks at me. “Besides, I trust you.”
She’s dead serious. I’m the one Lake trusts. That is weird.
“Yeah, OK,” I say. “I’ll help.”
My eyes spy something more interesting over Lake’s shoulder. On the street, coming toward us, is the Walking Man. Today he has his radio glued to his ear. Every day since I’ve been in Los Angeles, I see this guy walking around the neighborhood.
“Are you even listening to me?” Lake asks.
I ignore her and I wave to the Walking Man.
He doesn’t even look up. He just adjusts his trajectory to weave around me. He just keeps walking.
“Why did you wave to him?” Lake asks.
“I see him every day.”
“He’s never going to wave back,” Lake says. “The Walking Man doesn’t acknowledge anyone who doesn’t live in the neighborhood.”
“Why is he always walking?” I ask.
“Nobody knows. Forget about him — he’s in his own little world. Let’s focus on the Grown-Ups.”
We grab a seat at a café and order organic juices.
“It’s at Skooby’s Hot Dogs,” she says.
“A hot dog stand?” I ask.
“It’s not a hot dog stand like you think. Everything about them is totally rock. They have live rock shows on Saturday nights next door under an old marquee on Hollywood Boulevard. The best thing about it is that it’s all ages. And that’s what’s important. I mean, it’s hard to get shows when you’re underage. My goal after Skooby’s and Sunset Junction is that the Echoplex will let me open for someone really cool.”
I get distracted from listening to her again. Leo is coming toward us with his posse in tow.
I sit up straight. I smile.
If I could just talk to him once, I know he would want to be my friend. I could explain about the T-shirt thing. It wasn’t me. I bet he knows that I had nothing to do with it. We could laugh about it maybe, have a moment of mutual understanding. We could exchange a knowing look. Maybe say something like, Oh, that Lake.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he says back. Then he glares at Lake, who gives him the finger.
“God, Beige, are you even listening to me?” Lake says.
“What?” I ask.
“Are you going to help me out or not?”
“OK, fine,” I say. “I’ll help.”
Trixie’s apartment is still. I peek in and look at Auggie, breathing deeply in his bed. His mermaid nightlight casts a low glow in his room.
I turn the TV on and realize that Trixie has no cable. Neither does The Rat. They are like weird peas in a pod. No wonder they are dating. They’re kind of made for each other. I flip through the DVDs. Trixie has nothing I’ve ever heard of, or if I have, it’s nothing I’d want to see. I find one on the burlesque scene from the turn of the last century. I pop it on.
Women on stage, heavy, dancing. The music is low. The moves luscious. I get up and feel my heart beating. I feel my knees moving. I grind and sway. I close my eyes. It’s me and my feet. My hips. Moving. It makes me feel buzzy inside.
I imagine I am on that stage with them. I imagine the audience watching me. I imagine Leo watching me.
Leo.
A noise is coming from somewhere else, not the TV. I open my eyes. My moment of abandon and swaying by myself is gone. The women in black and white on the screen are still moving. They’re at one with their bodies and the music.
What is that noise? I ask myself. Oh. It’s yelling. Bloodcurdling screaming. It’s a fight. A fight right next door. I try to hear the words. Can’t understand any of the words. It’s all in Spanish. The arguing stops suddenly with the slam of a door.
I turn down the volume with the remote. I walk to the balcony and step outside. Leo sits on his balcony. He looks up. Doesn’t say a word. Just nods. Then he rests his head in his hands.
Leo’s not looking at me. We are just sitting, outside, each on our own balcony, and all I can think of is how there is such a tiny space between us.
I try to quiet my heart, which is pounding loud in my chest.
I want to turn to him and say something. If I could just think of something smart to say. This could be my moment. Like in the book I’m reading. I’m at the Ts. Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. He could be my Vronsky. I don’t think about the fact that I don’t think that story is going to end well.
This is my moment. I imagine I open my mouth and tell him my truth. Something like: “Sometimes my feelings get so big that I just want to swim out into the darkness. Just jump off the end of the world. Sometimes I want to dig, right down to the bones of everything,” I say. “My mom digs. She digs in the earth. Right into the past. She says that sometimes when you dig, you dig up stuff you might not want to find. But that’s where the good stuff lies.”
Then I can pict
ure him moving his hand out between the grate of the balcony and grabbing mine. He’d look into my eyes.
I can just imagine it.
Suddenly, I realize Leo is looking at me. For real. Those eyes. In the world, there are only those eyes.
“You here just for the summer?”
“Yeah.”
“Your dad is The Rat.”
“Yeah.”
This is it. This is it.
“You friends with Lake?”
I nod. OK. It’s still going well.
“Leonardo! Leonardo, entra la casa ahora mismo!”
“You like parties?” he asks.
I nod.
“There’s one tomorrow night at my friend’s house on Benton, just off Sunset.”
“Leonardo!” his mother is screaming.
“I’ll be there at eight. You should come. You and Lake should both come.”
Then he laughs.
“OK, thanks,” I say.
He asked me out.
Well, not really. But it’s kind of like he asked me out.
“See you there.” He nods and gets up and heads to the door.
And then he disappears inside.
I think he takes my heart with him.
I call Lake.
“What do you want?”
“There is a party tonight,” I say.
“Yeah, so?”
“We should go.”
“I don’t do parties.”
“I don’t want to go by myself,” I say.
“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend Garth?”
“Leo invited me,” I say. “I don’t want him to think I’m on a date with Garth.”
Lake is quiet for a minute.
“He said to invite you, too.” I don’t tell her that he was laughing when he said it. I don’t want her to laugh or tell me I’m stupid.
“Where is it?” she asks.
“On Benton,” I say. “Off Sunset.”
“Oh, God, that’s Marco’s house,” Lake says. “He’s such a player.”
“Maybe you could hand out flyers there for your Skooby’s show,” I offer.
“OK,” she says. “I’ll go. But it’s strictly business.”
When Lake comes over to pick me up, her black eyeliner is smeared more than usual and that’s when I realize that she’s probably been crying.
Beige Page 11
