A Cruel Kind of Beautiful

by Michelle Hazen

  Of course, we’re inside Portland city limits, so our bonfire has to be in a metal bowl with legs that looks like an overgrown wok, but city girls can’t be choosers.

  Jax isn’t here yet, so the yard is quiet except for the snap of the fire as I hand Danny a beer, then drop down next to him and swing my feet into his lap. He glances down.

  “New jeans?”

  This is not a function of his amazing observational powers. This is a function of the fact that I have exactly two pairs of jeans that aren’t edged with his tattoo designs rendered in black or silver Sharpie. It’s a win-win for me: uniquely decorated pants that more than one person has tried to buy off my body, and the simple fact that as long as Danny’s drawing, he’ll talk a hundred times more freely than any other moment in his life. It’s a trick I’ve been pulling on him since junior high.

  “Yup.” I pull a Sharpie out of my pocket and hand it over. “Knock yourself out.” I kick out of my flip-flops and release my weight into the grass, enjoying the rare blue of the sky, finally un-muffled by clouds.

  The marker cap comes off with a smooth plastic snick, Danny ignoring my jeans as he starts on the top of one foot. The ink slicks cool and pleasant against my skin as he begins some intricate design. There’s not a word for his style. It’s not Celtic, not tribal, not totemic, though he can pull off all three with programmatic accuracy. His creations are smoothly asymmetrical, a little frightening, and uncomfortably beautiful. I could look at them for decades.

  “More temporaries for the girl who won’t let me come within a mile of her with a tattoo needle,” he murmurs.

  I cock my head, confused at his tone. Danny loves drawing on me. Sometimes in the summer, I’ll lie out by the lake in a bikini and let him cover my entire back with designs, scrolling down my arms and onto my fingertips, my thoughts getting lost in the sweeps of the marker tip. It’s why I’ve never gotten a tattoo: if one of his sketches were permanent, he’d stop drawing on that part of me, stop creating new designs to tempt me. He’s offered a hundred times to give me a real tattoo, but I don’t think I’ve ever caught the tiny flash of disappointment I just saw in his eyes.

  “Wait, does that bother you?”

  He shrugs.

  I narrow my eyes. “D...”

  Just then, my back pocket chimes and Danny pauses, taking the marker away long enough for me to lift one hip up, digging my phone out so I can read Jacob’s message. He was busy modeling for a figure drawing class tonight but apparently not too busy to text me. That happens a lot: he’ll say he needs to go home to do homework, or do something for his sister, Hayden, but then he’ll text me all night. And if it’s really homework, why wouldn’t we just study together like we do the rest of the time?

  Danny flicks a glance at the screen and then goes back to sketching. I bite my lip against the smile that wants to creep onto my face when I read the text.

  How’s your Boys’ Night Out going? Did you finish the keg yet? When’s the stripper showing up?

  I laugh, smiling as I type my response.

  You volunteering to lose the clothes for a different audience?

  I drop my phone next to me, trying not to listen for the chime of his reply.

  “I thought you were avoiding that guy because you couldn’t date him,” Danny says.

  “Yeah, well, we kind of made a deal.” I try to cover my rising blush with a sip of beer.

  “Just friends again?” He snorts. “Last I heard, you were awesome at that.”

  I stick my tongue out at him. “Don’t make me smack you when you’re wielding permanent ink.”

  My phone dings and I sneak a quick peek.

  Depends. Is anybody over there likely to get handsy?

  I refuse to be that girl who’s too into her phone to be with her friends but I at least have to answer his question. That’s totally fair, right?

  Probably Jax. He’s got a soft spot for strippers.

  Not the answer I was hoping for. In that case, I’ll stick with the art students, since they come with a chaperone. You have fun, though, and if there’s a tiger in the bathroom when you wake up, be sure to feed it.

  I giggle at The Hangover reference.

  LOL Will do.

  I lay back on the grass as Danny’s marker moves down and begins to inscribe some kind of whorl with my anklebone as the center. The only reason I haven’t told my best friend that I’m with Jacob now is I can’t decide how to explain why I went back on my no-dating ban. After Andy, Danny was the only one I opened up to about exactly what happened. If anybody will understand what I’m doing now, it’s him. It just sounds so bizarre to say it out loud.

  “Jacob has this idea that we can be together without the sex thing getting in the way.” I prop my beer on my stomach, picking at the label. “Crazy, right?”

  “Yup.”

  I groan, propping myself up on my elbow so I can glare at Danny. “Great. I guess it was too much to ask that you’d be supportive and tell me everything would work out.”

  “Sex matters. But you might be focusing on it too much.” He gives me a sideways glance with the hint of a smile. “Some smart girl told me that once.”

  I flop back, laughing. “The overuse injury in your wrist kept you off the bass for a month. I think I had a pretty solid argument about what was ‘too much.’”

  “So? I was fifteen.” Danny turns my foot so he can sketch up past my ankle.

  “Great, so my lifelong sexual dysfunction can be conquered as easily as your teenaged addiction to porn?” I raise my beer in a mocking toast. “Thank you, Dr. Ruth, for that little gem.”

  “Didn’t say that.” He shifts my foot to start on the other side.

  “You don’t say a lot of things. For instance, for almost a month you’ve been avoiding saying what you really think about the deal with Amp.” I watch him, waiting for even the smallest twitch of reaction.

  “Your dad thinks if we don’t take it, we might not get another chance.”

  “Yeah, but you know Dad’s biased. His career tanked when he quit his label to get full creative license but that was before the MP3, before YouTube, before Pandora. It was a different world.”

  “Really? Because YouTube hasn’t booked us a stadium show so far.”

  “So what you want is a stadium show?”

  He exhales a quiet laugh. “Subtlety, Jera is thy name.”

  I take a sip of beer, and then lie back and close my eyes, giving Danny a minute to think about what I said. It feels good to be still, to do absolutely nothing for a moment. I wonder if Jacob ever gets to do that, with his jobs and all the credits he’s taking.

  Danny carries a line from my skin onto the outside seam of my jeans and begins to fill out his design. I don’t bother to check what it is, because I already know I’ll love it.

  “Seriously, Daniel. I want to know what’s going on inside that crazy head of yours.”

  “Promise not to get mad?”

  “No,” I scoff. “Why, do you promise to actually care that I’m mad for once?”

  “No.” A smile creeps into his voice. He flattens my jeans against my leg and my skin prickles beneath the tracery of the marker. “I want to sign. No negotiation, no quibbling over royalties. I want to show up at their studio and let them turn my bass into magic. I want to walk out on a stage and not be able to count all the people there to hear us.”

  My eyes pop open and I lift up a little. “What? You do?” I set down my beer. “I thought you didn’t want to sign because you didn’t want Amp to tell us what to do, but I figured you were just staying quiet so you wouldn’t influence me and Jax.”

  “I don’t want to influence you and Jax.” Black ink knots stretch across my jeans, sprouting like vines that know exactly where to grow. “But you asked.”

  “What about them wanting to re-package our sound?”

  He tilts his head, but his eyes stay on his marker. “If they want us to change things and it doesn’t sound good, I won’t do it.”

&n
bsp; “Um, then they might not distribute our album.”

  He starts to black out the hem of my jeans to provide a frame for his creation.

  “If you refuse to make the album, they can sue you for breach of contract,” I press.

  “My car sucks. And they can have my futon.”

  I flick his leg. “Don’t play poor with me, O’Neil. I know what your family’s worth.”

  Danny grew up the kind of upper-middle class rich where you can’t just have stuff: you have to legitimize your stuff by putting it in baskets. Somehow, he never manages to do his dishes until they reach the level of the faucet, but on the table, his salt and pepper shakers are neatly contained a basket. On his coffee table, the remote control and rolling papers rest in a woven sea-grass bowl, and in the bathroom the mouthwash and lotion are also in a low-walled wicker corral, as if at any second they might make a break for it and have to be forcibly restrained in their appropriate areas. I can never decide if he’s being purposely ironic or endearingly oblivious. Possibly both.

  “That’s my parents’ money. The record company doesn’t have anything to do with them.”

  I roll my eyes. It’s not that simple, but I don’t expect Danny to get that. He’s pretty well allergic to the finer details of the business world.

  The sun finally goes behind the trees, and shadows yawn across the grass. I shiver and take a sip of my beer, which only chills me more. Danny sticks the marker between his teeth and leans back, his thighs flexing beneath my legs as he stretches to grab his hoodie off the grass. He passes it over and waits while I squirm into it before he starts to draw again.

  “Why do you care so much what I think, anyway?” he asks. “You’re flip-flopping all the time: one day Amp is the devil, out to ruin all your songs, and the next you’re dying to get into their studio and let them make us rock legends. Seems like you’re the one who needs to make up your mind, not me.”

  I blow out a slow breath. “I can’t shake the feeling that they’re only telling us what we want to hear. What if once we sign, they want us to change?” I fidget with my beer, the yard so quiet I can hear the Sharpie crossing the texture of denim. “Worse than that, what if they’re right? What if our songs aren’t good enough on their own?”

  He finishes the frame of the design on my jeans and glances up at me. “If you don’t know the answer to that, Jimi, you’re not ready for the big time anyway.”

  My forehead crinkles but before I can ask him what that’s supposed to mean, the side gate rattles and Jax’s voice rings out, “You guys back there?”

  “Only if you brought beer,” I call back.

  He swings through the gate, carrying a twelve-pack of microbrew bottles, his hair pulled into a messy fist of a bun. “Yeah, I brought beer. But what are you guys going to drink?”

  I sit up. “Oh man, tell me that’s the variety pack with the lemon ginger one...”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Depends. Am I gonna starve?”

  I grin. “Ribs in the oven, just for me and you. Daniel here is going to starve but we’re set.”

  Danny holds the marker threateningly above my face. “You sure you didn’t get anything for me? ‘Cause I’m thinking when we meet with the label again, you’d look a little more legit with a mustache...”

  I yelp and roll away and he jumps up to chase me across the yard.

  Jax drops down into a lawn chair and sighs. “Guess I’ll have to drink all this lemon ginger ale by myself. Life is hard.”

  TO OUR CREDIT, WE MAKE it through dinner, sunset, and most of a twelve-pack before anybody brings up the contract again.

  And of course it is Jax.

  “We could just make a pro and con list,” he says during a lull in the conversation. “Tonight. Hash it all out. I mean, I know this was supposed to be a night off but we’re all thinking about it, right?”

  I drop my head back against my chair and groan. “What is it with you and the lists, Jax?”

  He stiffens. “Lists are useful. You can pretend it’s neurotic all you want. But without lists, people forget things.”

  I snort and tip my beer up, but it’s empty. “Like what? Cotton balls? Loosen up already, Jax.”

  “Like food.” Danny leans forward to toss a stick onto the fire. “His mom used to forget to buy food for the house unless he put it on a list.”

  My head snaps up and I look at Danny, then Jax. His parents are divorced and I knew he grew up mostly with his mom—his super rich, socialite mom. Not usually an upbringing where food is an issue. “Is that...true?”

  Jax throws our bassist an annoyed glance and shakes his head, taking a drink. “Way to be a drama queen, Danny. No, I mean, Mom would take me out to eat if I said I was hungry. It’s not like I was starving.”

  I stare at him. “Yeah, but not knowing there was food if you wanted some, late at night or when your mom was busy or something...that would be weird. And kind of shitty.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. Plus, if it wasn’t for that, I might not have gotten hooked on performing.”

  “What? How’s that?” I drop my empty beer into the twelve-pack holder and pull out a new one, swiping Danny’s car keys off the ground so I can use his bottle opener.

  “When she’d have friends over, Mom always bought really good food. Fancy cheese and weird shaped cookies and stuff.”

  “You liked fancy cheese when you were a kid?” Danny lifts an eyebrow. “Snob.”

  “Kraft singles are not real cheese, you crazy redneck.” Jax takes a sip of his beer. “Anyway, this one time I was goofing around and I did this made-up skit for one of Mom’s friends, and she loved it, laughed her ass off. Probably because I was like, a really little kid and being dumb but I didn’t know that. Mom ended up having another party that same week because her friend told her other friend about my skit. I thought that was cool, plus she ordered a cupcake tree for that one.”

  This, I can picture. Little blond Jax, hamming it up for a bunch of society wives? Pass the camcorder, please. I smile and hook a knee over the arm of my chair, swinging my foot a little as I listen.

  “Pretty soon I was doing these plays with elaborate songs and dance routines and everything. They didn’t have much for plot, but the songs were epic and I’d make up all the lyrics on the spot. Sometimes they were just nonsense words, but if I sang with enough emotion, they’d hang on every word.” He blows out an amused breath through his nose. “Her friends started meeting at our house more often, bigger groups of them, because they heard about me and I was this fad for about five minutes in between the Pilates craze and Guatemalan Algae facial masques. We had crazy sandwiches and fruit platters and cakes and sometimes tiny individual pies, like the kind that fit in a coffee cup, you know?” Jax chuckles. “I had a great time.”

  My foot isn’t swinging anymore. I dodge a quick glance at Danny to see if he’s hearing this, too. If I’m the only one who thinks this is a lot more sad than it is funny. His eyes are quiet and he’s already watching me when I look over.

  “So what happened?” I say softly.

  “Yeah, did you eat all the pies and become the chubby kid?” Danny asks, and I doubt Jax realizes how calculated the lightness of his tone really is.

  “No, the novelty wore off after a while and they moved onto other stuff.” Jax smiles. “Plus, I figured out if I just made my mom a grocery list, she’d get whatever I wanted from the store. The plays were still cool, though.”

  I swallow. “I, um, I’m gonna get some more beer from inside.” I push to my feet, taking my mostly-full drink with me.

  The reflection of the fire flickers in the glass of the patio door as I slide it open. Once inside, I close the door and duck to the side so the wall of the kitchen will shield me from view.

  Holy shit. I teased him for making lists? I might as well have needled Oliver Twist for hoarding oatmeal well into his Social Security years.

  I owe Jax an epic apology. At the same time, I’m not sure I want to bring it up, since that will
make him think about how sad his childhood actually was.

  The patio door slides open. Before I even turn around, I know it will be Danny. He has always been a better person than me, so there won’t be an I-told-you-so in sight, even though he’s been hinting for months that there was more to Jax than I was giving him credit for.

  I wait until the door closes before I speak. “Maybe we should turn down the contract, Danny. For Jax.”

  He doesn’t nod, doesn’t shake his head. Just listens.

  “If we don’t have sole control over our music, and they push me to co-lead the band, it will tear him to pieces worrying about if he’s good enough and if people like him enough and if the songs I headline are more popular than the ones he does. If I had control, I could just do a few new songs, stretch my legs a little but without overshadowing him.” I spread my hands, itching to pace but not wanting Jax to see my agitation when I pass the glass doors. “Except what if we pass this up and we never get another offer?” I pause, pain rocketing all the way up into my throat with the terror of my music fading away into the silence of my garage, lyrics stopping at my notebooks and going nowhere. “This is one in a million as it is, Danny.”

  “So what? They’re not going to take away your drum kit if you don’t sign, Jimi. You’ll always get to play music.”

  That’s crap and he knows it. We’re the definition of small time right now, and the contract would change all of that. How can I spend everything in me writing songs only a handful of people will ever hear?

  I exhale heavily. “Yeah, but we won’t have the time so we’ll never be as good as we could have been without day jobs. Do you really think I’m going to write some brilliant song after pulling a double shift, when I come home and all I want to do is get off my feet and zone out for a while? Besides, we’ll never have the time off or the money to tour on our own, so we’ll never get heard outside of Portland.”