Sara disappeared completely—it didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t a huge fan of drinking but she’d smoke if there were smokers, and there were. I’d seen them gathered in a circle in the muggy darkness of Benny’s parent’s garden, barely illuminated by a single porch bulb burning behind thick amber glass. Daphne never stopped circling—she’d orbit a group of talkers, shoot in a few choice interjections, and move on. When she floated past me and I called her on her nomadic tendencies, she rebuffed me handily with a strangely appealing explanation.
“Luce,” Daphne said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m a shark. If I stop swimming, I die.”
Wanda mingled—much to my surprise, she wasn’t nearly the social caterpillar I had been expecting. She rotated through groups at a respectable pace, and I even saw her laughing a few times. Granted, her whole body threw off the no sudden movements vibe, and she looked ready to bolt most of the time, but she still hung in there. I had to give her credit.
I did okay—I talked to almost everyone, but I couldn’t repeat half of their names or three-quarters of their stories without a gun pressed firmly to my temple. Or my stomach. Ha, ha. Even my metaphors were Freudian.
Mostly I watched. I enjoy people-watching—I always have. But part of me was clenched, ready, waiting for the hammer to fall. I couldn’t explain the sensation—a kind of loose worry of an unnamed thing. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the party. Maybe it was the fact that after an hour and a half, Zack hadn’t come looking for me once. Hadn’t even waved or checked up on me or—
I swallowed and shook my head.
I tried to pull myself into the now, a task not even remotely helped along by having to return to an agonizing conversation with a senior about his burnt orange 1965 Mustang Convertible. And the worst part? He wasn’t even hitting on me. It might have been an ego upswing if he was. Instead his eyes strayed not a centimeter from the eyes and overly exposed chest of one Emelia Beryl. A junior, cute, wearing too much eye make-up and not enough shirt. She didn’t fit the hot girl stereotype, and in fact looked a little too Goth-punk for my tastes, but this guy would not let up. I sighed and tried to find my place in the conversation.
I’d only even been involved in the conversation because I happened to be leaning against the same wall as Emelia, and I think Mustang guy was just trying to hit up as many targets as possible. Still, Emelia seemed to be the primary, and so after a few pleasant smiles and nods I managed to fade away.
Without even trying, and angry at myself for succeeding, I spotted Zack. Standing next to Benny, both of them gesturing in unison and telling a loud story. I couldn’t tell if they had practiced it or just told it too many times. Three girls hung off their words like the last helicopter out of Fallujah. Groan.
I was torn—break into the group and force my awesomeness on him, or bail and leave him high and dry. My phone buzzed in my purse instead. It was the first herald of a terrible night, and I wish I’d been lucky enough to suspect it. Instead, I flipped my phone and saw a name I didn’t expect—Morgan.
“Morgan?”
“What’s up?” she asked.
I frowned. Hadn’t she called me?
“Just…just the party.”
“Oh. Right,” she said. Even through the phone, her voice sounded clipped. Harsh. Uh-oh.
She tried again.
“How is it?”
I shrugged to no one. “It’s okay. Wanda seems to be in the lead for most-improved. I didn’t know that girl could schmooze.”
“She is on ASB,” Morgan said. Robotic.
“I guess,” I said. “Sorry you can’t-”
“Me too,” she spat, and I frowned. What the hell?
“Morgan what—?”
“Forget it, Lucy. Say hey to Benny for me, okay?”
Benny?
“Morgan, what’s up?”
“You don’t know?”
I thought my question had made that obvious. I took a deep breath.
“Know what, hon?”
“Just forget it. Have a great party.”
Cell phones don’t click, and thus, don’t dramatically hang-up very well. I took the long ache of profound silence as her disconnecting. I stared at my phone like the traitor it was and exiled it to the bottom of my purse.
Benny? I didn’t expect Morgan to be happy about being so thoroughly and inescapably grounded, but why had she bitten my head off? I looked around, anxious to spread my annoyance to someone else, but none of my friends were in sight. None except Zack, laughing with a trio of junior girls.
I turned toward the kitchen at speeds blurrable. I blasted through the swinging double-hinged door and went for the counter with my still-outstretched hand. My fingers clenched around glass, and I spun it in my fingers. Jack. Okay. In the cup.
I closed my eyes and grabbed again. Smirnoff? In the cup.
Grab. Margarita mix? In the cup.
Grab. Fumble. Break. Cringe.
Shrug. Grab. Orange Juice, Triple Sec, Grenadine. Cup-Cup-Cup.
Tequila. Bleh. Double-cup.
I swished the devil’s brew I’d concocted and stared down the business end of the red plastic cup. It looked…orange. It wasn’t brown or gray or green—none of the real evil colors. Okay. I plopped a handful of ice in and swished again. It didn’t seem to help the smell—a one-two combo of kerosene and Otter Pops.
“You’re not drinking that,” a voice said, stiffening my muscles in unnecessary alarm.
I didn’t turn once I’d recognized the voice. I wrapped both hands around the cup and touched the rim to my chin. I tried to hone in on the particular Otter Pop—it was a toss-up between Sir Isaac Lime and Little Orphan Orange. And kerosene.
“Daph, shush,” I said.
“What’s up?”
Her words were slurred, but genuine. I sighed and turned around. She was leaning in the door frame of the kitchen, the swinging door hanging behind her, held open only by her butt.
“Nothing, Daph,” I said. “Come drink with me.”
Daphne fluttered over, managing to control her gait with a determined nose-crinkle. I wasn’t positive, but I got the feeling she was overplaying her inebriation. Daphne and melodrama go hand-in-hand. Maybe mouth-and-mouth. Tongue-in-mouth.
I missed Zack.
Ugh.
I tipped the cup back and took a huge swig of the foul drink. I gagged and clapped a hand over my mouth, but somehow managed to keep it down. I petted my stomach, trying to reassure it about the poison rocketing its way. By its violent thrashing, I don’t think I fooled it.
Daphne made the gimme gesture, and when I handed her the cup, she took a swig herself. She made a wine-tasting face, swished it around, and swallowed. She handed the cup back to me and shrugged.
“Little Orphan Orange,” Daphne concluded.
“That’s what I thought.”
She didn’t miss a beat. Her bad news dovetailed nicely with the direction of my night. “Tyler is here. Just got here, actually.”
Tyler. Wanda’s obsession and her kryptonite. She wasn’t strong enough to tell that user to go away, and he wasn’t cool enough to move on from someone as confused and easily-taken-advantage-of as Wanda. She was a pathetic jerk’s dream—scared, submissive, and lonely. I loved Wanda to death, but she had a target painted on her back.
If Morgan was here, she would have risen up like a mama-bear and would be thrashing the guy’s skin off his bones already. Morgan. I thought of the weird phone call and rubbed my cheek.
“What do we do?” Daphne asked.
“Do?”
“About Tyler?”
“We ride,” I said, and pounded toward the living room.
“Oh shit,” Daphne said. She leaped off her counter stool and bolted after me.
I came through the door with my face put together—calm even. My scan for Tyler didn’t take long—I just had to look for Wanda.
She was leaning against a bookshelf next to the door, one of her hands gripping a shelf at shoulder level
with the white-knuckled intensity that only the very angry or the very balance-challenged possess.
“How drunk is she?” I asked.
Daphne made a face I didn’t want to interpret.
“How?”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Daph!”
Daphne scoffed and said, “What? She needs to relax.”
“You’re really going to try to defend what you did, aren’t you?”
“I was but I wish I hadn’t.”
Should I even be surprised that Daphne mickied Wanda? I sighed and rubbed my forehead.
Tyler, wearing what looked like a basketball jersey—seriously?—stood in front of her, his right palm touching the book shelf behind her. Closing her in, blocking her. It looked like the only one who wasn’t thinking Wanda would try to make a break for it and run away from him was Wanda herself. She looked ecstatic—grateful. My stomach turned, and it wasn’t the booze.
“Double team?” Daphne asked from behind me, her voice electric with excitement.
I pushed through a small cluster of boys talking about girls and tapped Tyler lightly on the shoulder.
He turned. Not much taller than me—average-to-above-average guy height—but he looked down a crooked nose at me. It looked like it had been broken many times or just one really good time, and helped with the thuggish exterior he was projecting. Prominent brow, gaping mouth. The only thing that didn’t scream Neanderthal was his eyes. Sharp, alive, and aware. Smart eyes.
I reconsidered, but only for a second.
“Yes?”
“Hey, Luce, how’s it going…?” Wanda whispered, but no one reacted.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I don’t think you should be here,” I said, and I hated that my voice trembled. I suddenly had, at least a little, understanding for Wanda. Tyler scared me, too. He knew exactly why I was talking to him. His eyes were confrontational and smug. He wore a sneer to match.
“Oh?” he said, and turned back to Wanda.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m talking to you.”
Tyler sighed—his shoulders flexed with the over-exaggerated movement, and turned back to face me.
“Well,” he said. “You made a statement, and I turned around. You didn’t ask me a question.”
“Ha-you’re-an-idiot-ha,” Daphne said. “Wanda doesn’t like you.”
Tyler smirked. “I don’t know. I think you don’t like me. And believe me…I’m not interested in you. So win-win.”
I put my hand on Daphne’s shoulder. She took a step back, but the burning look in her eyes didn’t die.
“We’re done here, Tyler,” I said. “You got your warning.”
“Oooooh,” he said.
Child.
We both walked away from him through the thickening mass. We emptied out near the back door. I threw the sliding glass slab open and took a step into the orange glow of the back porch. The dark silhouettes of an urban-grown forest leaned toward us. Thankfully, the smokers had dispersed.
Daphne was shaking. She didn’t like to lose, or even stalemate, and our confrontation with Tyler had been at least one of those.
“It’s okay,” I said, and leaned against the stucco wall next to the door. “We’ll head back in when it loosens up a little and watch her. And him.”
“Yeah,” Daphne said, and sat down on a little green garden chair. “Blech. What a little punkass.”
I agreed, and we sat in silence for a while, stewing.
When Daphne went inside to pee, I cupped my cheeks with my hands and leaned forward in my chair, trying to summon my thoughts.
I heard something crunch in the backyard—it sounded like a twelve-foot kid eating a mouthful of giant cornflakes. My heart jumped, but either horror or curiosity made me hold my place and my tongue. The inky blackness of Benny’s backyard jungle stirred, and I saw something moving. My first thoughts ran to werewolf—weird, I know, but inexorable—and then to the man-in-white.
I thought of smoky-black eye-pits, of a face twisted like taffy. I slammed back against the sliding glass door with a whimper that I wasn’t too proud to take credit for, and my fingers dug for the stun gun in my purse.
“Luce?”
I froze…and a wide smile split my face in half when the figure came into the orange-amber light of the back porch.
“Morgan?”
I thought of her phone call. Was this about Benny? I remembered quickly that I was angry at her, even through the light haze of alcohol.
“What’s going on?”
Morgan shook her head. Her arms were tight to her sides, and her hands curled into balls at her hips. Her eyes darted from me to the door behind me.
“What is it? Is this about Benny or something?”
I took a step off the porch and reached for her hand.
“Morgan, what is it?”
“I’m so sorry, Luce,” she said, her blue eyes wide. “I didn’t know what to do.”
The hairs on my neck saluted.
She took a step back, and the leaves crackled beneath her. I took another step forward.
“Morgan,” I said. “What the hell is up?”
She bit her lip, her eyes darting again to the sliding glass door. I looked over my shoulder but saw nothing but oblivious party-goers. I turned back to her.
“He found me…he told me…actually I guess he showed me,” she shook her head. “He had to speak to you.”
The man-in-white. I stared into the black curtain behind her, trying to sort shapes out of the shadows. I had to help Morgan, somehow, but I couldn’t—
“Wait,” Morgan said. “He doesn’t seem dangerous. Just…kind of weird, actually.”
My hand froze. What?
The figure standing behind and to the side of her walked forward. Tall, lanky, old and sprightly. Identically dressed, as before, in his worn tweed coat. He bowed deeply, and his rakish smile turned his wrinkles and dimples into canyons.
“Puck,” I breathed. “You’re alive!”
He held one hand up, sighed, and made a see-saw gesture.
Chapter Twelve
When It All Fell Apart
I leaped down from the back porch and tackled him. He caught me with surprising strength and squeezed me hard in his thin arms. When he set me back down again, he flashed Morgan an apologetic look. When I glanced at her, I watched her tense posture and terrified expression deflate into something more like weary confusion.
“Lucy,” Morgan said, and leaned back against a dead-looking tree. “You owe me a hell of a lot of explanation.”
“I know,” I said, and turned to Puck. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
And I was. Puck had saved me from the monster-in-white, and more importantly, he had convinced me I wasn’t alone and spiraling into madness. The grey beach was real, or realish, and my condition wasn’t…internal.
I looked up at his boyishly old face, but he gave me nothing but an understanding smile. Then I knew.
“You really can’t talk, can you? Not even here?”
Puck shook his head apologetically. I sighed and covered my face with my hands.
“What?” Morgan asked. “What does that mean, not even here?”
I glanced at her, then back at Puck.
“It means…it means we need to talk,” I said. My legs went rubbery. “But first just…listen.”
Morgan frowned.
“I need to ask Puck a few things and I’m gonna sound…well, like a nutjob.”
Puck pointed at me and nodded to Morgan. Her face cracked a smile.
I glanced at Puck and raised an eyebrow, “But, um, how do we do this, exactly?”
Morgan made a face at me, turned to Puck, and made a gesture with her hands. I didn’t catch the quick movement, but Puck did. He made something like a fist, his palm toward Morgan, and bobbed his knuckles.
“You know sign language?” I asked them both.
Puck bobbed his fist in time with Morgan's grin.
"My cous
in Lance?" Morgan said.
I bopped myself on the forehead. I’d completely forgotten that her cousin was deaf—still, she’d never mentioned the fact that she knew sign language. Figures. Tall, gorgeous, sporty philanthropist. And me, well I’m…not that. Moving on.
Puck smiled at me and touched my shoulder. He had an uncanny ability for setting me at ease.
“He isn’t deaf,” Morgan said. “He just can’t speak.”
A revelation popped in my head.
“Did you get Morgan because you knew she knew sign language?”
Puck laughed without sound and clapped his hands together once. He nodded furiously, and something akin to pride beamed from his face. Morgan, standing next to him, looked more freaked out than anything.
“How’d you know she knew?”
Puck took a deep breath, looked at Morgan, then began signing.
“He says… ‘I know more about you than you think, Lucy. I mean, in a not-creepy kind of way. We had an exchange…’”
Morgan couldn’t have looked more perplexed. She glanced back at Puck for confirmation. Puck smiled softly and re-signed the end of his sentence.
“...I think he said ‘we had an exchange in the Grey. You know about me, too, if you try hard enough.’”
Morgan looked at me sharply, “What the hell? An exchange?”
I held out a palm to her, effectively hushing her. I only had time for one ridiculous thing at a time, thank you very much.
“Just…wait. I know—”
Her mouth turned into a white line, and she flashed me a glare that could peel paint.
“I know I’m being an asshat,” I said. “But something…abnormal happened to me last Friday. And Puck knows more than I do.”
Morgan’s lip twisted, and after a beat, she nodded. She didn’t look happy about it, but she did turn to watch Puck’s hands.
“Oh…of course. What’s your name, Puck? Your real name.”
He made four sharp gestures. Morgan laughed.
“P-U-C-K,” Morgan said.
I glared at him.
“‘You knew my name the same way I knew your friend knew sign language,’” Morgan translated.
My eyes popped open. So I hadn’t made up the name—was that possible? I’d picked up on his thoughts without even trying? Or his memories, maybe?
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