Xochi sat down, the metal chair beneath her not quite stable. Her heart constricted around the image of Bubbles as a little girl; Xochi folded the snapshot away inside her body, even though it was too late to keep that little girl safe.
She considered the Bubbles standing beside her and the Bubbles in the mirror. Double trouble. In theory, Bubbles was totally right: stop hiding, be seen, shine. Like the directions on a shampoo bottle. But in practice? Xochi had no idea where to begin.
Bubbles sat on the counter, patent leather boots dangling. Their silver skull-and-crossbones buckles, stiletto heels and vicious pointed toes combined with lace-trimmed ankle socks to illustrate her point: the past doesn’t own you.
“Well?” Bubbles said.
“I get what you’re saying.” Xochi gazed into her own tired eyes in the mirror. “I just don’t know if it applies to me. I mean, I’m naturally sort of quiet. It’s not like there’s a secret extrovert in here trying to get out.”
“So you’re quiet—that’s fine. I’m just trying to say that all of this”—Bubbles motioned to Xochi’s body—“is yours. You get to do whatever you want with it. You can be quiet without being invisible. Invisible is a coping tool, and it becomes a habit—a bad habit we’re going to have to break.”
Xochi remembered herself in a red dress, drunk off her ass at Loretta’s wake. She wasn’t invisible that night. She’d hurt Collier. Made a spectacle of herself. Slept with a boy she hardly knew. “I don’t exactly feel qualified. My past attempts at visibility have not gone well.”
“Never fear.” Bubbles handed the champagne back to Xochi. “You’re talking to an expert.” She started digging around in her bag.
Xochi took a long swig. Bubbles patted the back of the rickety folding chair. “Stand up on this.” She brandished a pair of scissors from her makeup bag. Kiki had already cut off Xochi’s hair—what was next?
The chair creaked as Xochi’s weight shifted from one foot to the other. Cold metal brushed her leg as the denim gave way near her upper thigh. The room was warm now, almost too hot, but the draft from the door slid under her skin, snaking up her spine.
“Stay still,” Bubbles said. “These things are for fingernails, not fabric.”
Xochi closed her eyes and willed herself motionless as the scissors bit into her jeans. The sounds of people and music from the front of the club clashed with feedback as the opening band tuned up. Deep voices and bursts of laughter came from the dressing room next door.
“Almost done.” Bubbles made the final snip, turning Xochi’s nondescript jeans into short-shorts. She stood back to survey her work. “Here, sit and I’ll pull the legs off.”
“Let me get my boots,” Xochi said. Laughing, she untangled her leg and stood in front of Bubbles.
“Rats!” Bubbles yanked at the hem of the shorts. “They don’t show under your shirt.” She pulled Xochi’s oversized Led Zeppelin shirt in at the waist. She knotted it, a classic trick of Gina’s for a too-big top, but the fabric was too thick for it to hold. Bubbles reached for her scissors.
“Wait! Don’t cut this up. It’s sentimental.” Xochi had worn Collier’s old T-shirt because she was out of clean laundry. It didn’t smell like him anymore, but if she closed her eyes, the ghost scent of him was there, tree sap and SweetTarts, motorcycle grease and sweat, a comfort to her lonely skin.
Bubbles was right, though. The shirt was so long and the shorts so short, it looked like she wasn’t wearing any pants.
“Let me think.” Bubbles touched her own tank top and miniskirt, but there was nothing extra there. “Give me your shirt. I’ll see if I can trade with one of the guys, and we can cut up theirs instead.”
“Wait, take this off and give it to you? That’s the plan?” Xochi’s voice rose an octave.
“Come on!” Bubbles tugged the hem of Collier’s shirt. “I’ll tell them to be careful and make sure to get it back to you. Lock the door and finish the champagne. I don’t want those Rabbit Hole losers getting a single sip.”
18
The Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven
Kylen tuned his stand-up bass with his eyes closed. Even if this gig was Rabbit Hole trying to cop some Lady Frieda gold dust for their tired-ass band, it was nice to take the old girl out for a spin. The all-acoustic show had been the drummer’s idea. You knew the whole band was ass-backwards if the drummer was the brains in the operation. The guy even played smart. He was always right there under Dylan with a catch in his beat that changed the standards they were playing into something new. He was clever all right, but screw clever drummers. The rhythm section called for balls, not brains. He’d take Aaron over this guy any day.
The first song started without a hitch—tasteful, bordering on comatose. Kylen scanned the crowd for Bubbles. She was a dignified distance from the stage in her fuck off tank top and tight little skirt, sure to make Dylan the Douche regret the day he scorned her.
Kylen listened for Leviticus, trying to find a hook to latch onto, but Lev’s riff was off. He followed his friend’s gaze into the crowd. Leviticus was distracted, all right. He was staring straight at Xochi. Whatever fun there was to be had with that girl, it was gonna end in tears. Way too young and way too messed up. Even if his cup-half-full housemates couldn’t see it, he could.
He cast his net into the room again, searching for someone to connect with. There was always a dancer whose body naturally conducted energy, who plugged into the rhythm of his bass like old friends talking or great sex.
He probed the crowd but kept landing on Xochi. She looked close to legal after Bubbles’s little makeover, but her eyes were heavy. The kid was exhausted, not a good choice to get the lagging music up to speed. Still, something had to be done before the crowd went looking for cheaper beer and a band that rocked. Gritting his teeth, Kylen dug into the bass line, and Xochi’s hips began to move. He had to accept it—tonight, it was her or nothing.
He plucked the strings harder, lagging the slightest bit behind the drums to create the necessary tension. Xochi was instantly in the pocket, her body moving in counterpoint to his groove. Kylen focused his inner eye and forced himself to relax. It was always like this, a psychedelic trip down some stranger’s yellow brick road. There was usually light and color, and sometimes a scent. But Xochi’s inner world was completely different.
Instead of a dreamy swim in her subconscious, Kylen found himself smack in the middle of a detailed allegorical dream. Well, okay, then. The music took care of itself, eating up the images as if they were pure energy. The crowd was perking up. Giving in, he turned his attention back to Xochi’s dream space.
Ky is high in the trees, looking down. He grips a branch with his toes, which are not his toes at all, but the rough clawed feet of some other animal.
He shakes—no, he flaps.
A jet-black feather drifts down from his perch into the little green palm of the weirdest kid he’s ever seen. A second kid creeps through the underbrush, this one dark brown with hair as black as Kylen’s current feathers.
Under a massive fir, there’s a trickle of steaming water dripping down some rocks into a large golden bathtub.
Kylen blinks at the incongruous image as the tub becomes a steaming pool.
The two weird kids are shivering, palpably cold, but the taller one stops short of the water’s edge. Little Green crashes into his back.
He demonstrates the proper technique, submerging each limb slowly, watching her closely to make sure she does the same.
The green girl trembles as she enters the murky water.
Acrid steam fills Kylen’s nose with a rotten-egg mineral funk, but discomfort becomes pleasure as the girl sinks deeper into the water.
His eyes jerked open. How long had they been closed? He checked the music. The band was pushing toward the bridge of the second song. Heat seeped from his belly to his fingers as he refocused on the crowd. Whe
n his eyes landed on Xochi again, he almost missed a beat.
She was wearing the same jeans Bubbles had tarted up into shorts, the same similarly tricked-out wifebeater, but a few minutes ago, she’d just been a moderately attractive girl who needed some sleep.
But no more. Uninhibited and sexy, infused with fresh heat, Xochi was a kick-ass song, a whiskey shot, a treasure map. Kylen would bet his stand-up bass that her mid-song transformation had everything to do with those weird kids in their creepy forest. There was no doubt about it: those fey little longhairs were pulling Xochi’s strings. Worry clenched Kylen’s muscles, speeding up his groove.
This was exactly the kind of trouble that loved to follow Kylen around. He’d been born this way: queer as fuck and just as uncanny. Over the years, he’d found his mantra: just say no. Now he wasn’t even tempted by other people’s Ouija-board after-school-special dramatics.
But damn, you had to hand it to the governess. All this time, she’d passed herself off as grade B trouble—just your basic ingénue in the right place at the right time to mess with Leviticus’s head. Lev had been clean almost three years now. He’d kept it fast and loose with the chicks and a few choice guys—but not a single drop of drama. He was writing songs, surfing, healthy, happy and taking care of business. What should’ve been nothing but a bump in the road, a mere distraction, was looking more like a big-ass, road-blocking, steaming pile of crap.
The Queen of Cups. The Tower. The Lovers.
Sometimes, it really sucked being right.
19
Freeze Tag
Xochi leaned against the wall in the alley behind the club. The cool air was delicious against her sweaty skin, and the stars shone brighter than she thought possible through the veil of city lights. What Bubbles had said about not having to hide wasn’t like hide-and-seek with everything normal once you stepped back into the light. It was more like an old drawing fading in reverse, the disappeared lines turning slowly back to black.
The stage door opened.
“Hey,” Leviticus said.
“How’s it going?”
“Great.” He came over and leaned against the wall with her, following her gaze to the stars.
“That was pretty great,” she said. “‘Sweet Little Angel’ is one of my favorites.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
The silence in the alley was comfortable, the concrete wall cool against Xochi’s back.
“Sorry I lied about my age.”
“No,” he said, “I get it. People either try to take care of you or they take advantage. Pretending to be older is a good strategy.”
Xochi glanced sideways. “You sound like you know from experience.”
His eyes were on the sky. He closed them, a gesture she was coming to know. A sign he was thinking before he spoke.
“My dad—well, eventually he kicked me out of the house. I hooked up with a bunch of street kids. If you got caught, the cops sent you home—unless the people at home wouldn’t take you back. There was no way I was doing a foster home. I stopped hanging around people my age, said I was older. Being a kid is overrated.”
“My mom grew up in foster homes, but she always ran away. She said she was like Houdini, great at escaping but bad at not getting caught. Every time they found her, they put her someplace worse.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She took off when I was thirteen. Guess old habits are hard to break.”
“Yeah.” He reached for Xochi’s hand, but as his calloused fingers touched her palm, the stage door swung open.
A woman in tight jeans, tall boots and a gangsterish fedora strode into the alley. She carried a violin case and set it on the ground so she could hug Leviticus with both arms.
“Hey, stranger,” she said, her pouty lips in sexy contrast with her other features, which were strong, almost masculine. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but Xochi couldn’t stop staring.
“Hey,” Leviticus said, obviously happy to see her. “I thought you were in New York.”
“I’m on my way to LA to record with these fools.” She shrugged toward the club. “You should come down, too.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me. Are you sitting in for the second set?”
“If you want me.” She took off her fedora, releasing a mane of dark hair, and put the hat on Leviticus, stepping back to appreciate the effect. Xochi felt like she’d been shoved a few feet off the ground and pinned to the wall behind her.
Leviticus put the hat back on the woman’s head. “This is Xochi,” he said. “Xochi, this is Andi.”
“Hey. I heard about you inside. Pallas’s nanny, right?” Xochi didn’t bother to correct her. “I think Dylan’s in love.”
“Dylan’s an asshole,” Leviticus said. “I mean, he’s an old friend, but I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy.”
“Yeah,” Andi said, picking up her violin, “but figuring that out yourself is half the fun.” She threw a conspiratorial smile at Xochi and headed inside. Leviticus hesitated in the doorway.
“You coming?” His voice was off, a half-note sour. He shifted his weight from boot to boot.
“I’m gonna stay out here for a while,” Xochi said.
“Are you cold?” Leviticus unbuttoned his faded flannel, ready to keep her warm again, and there it was—Coll’s Led Zeppelin shirt. It fit him loosely, the way it had fit Collier before he started playing football in tenth grade.
“You’re wearing my shirt.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Be careful with it. It was a gift.”
“I will.” Leviticus leaned toward her like he was going to say more, but he didn’t. The door closed behind him.
20
The Teardrop Collector
Xochi forced herself to go back through the stage door. The band was tuning up. Perfect. The dressing room would be empty. She’d rescue her jacket and stash it with Pad, put some money in her shorts pocket, and get Aaron to buy her a real drink. She’d find Bubbles and dance, not caring how gorgeous Andi looked onstage.
Xochi recognized Dylan in the haze of smoke in the dressing room. He was leaning over a mirror, chopping up some white powder with a razor blade. He snorted it and stood up. She hadn’t realized how tall he was.
“Hey,” he said, “want a line?”
Why wasn’t he onstage? “Aren’t you late?” Xochi said. He’s so tall, she thought, but she’d already noticed that. His cherry Kool-Aid hair fell over hazel eyes and a boyish mouth. There was a buzz of something between them, but when Xochi stepped back an inch, the feeling dissipated.
“I’m not on till the third song.” He came closer. There it was again, heat rising, a pull below the navel. Shoo, fly.
“I left my jacket in here.”
He stepped in her path—playful, not threatening, but Xochi felt the power of his size, his belonging. Dylan picked up her jacket and dangled it out of reach, a bully move disguised as flirtation. Or was it the other way around?
“Trade for a kiss?”
Xochi blinked. Behind her lids, the bathtub from her dream bubbled. The image blurred, replaced by Leviticus following Andi’s twitching behind back into the club. It was the way of the world: her mother’s way. She’d seen Gina do it a hundred times. A surge of heat rose from her belly to her chest. The golden bathtub simmered. Like mother, like daughter?
She tilted her head the way Gina would, came a few feet closer. He held her jacket higher. Standing on tiptoe, Xochi planted a kiss on his cheek. It was that easy. Properly confused, he lowered his hand and Xochi pulled her jacket gently from his grip. Was this what Gina meant by getting flies with honey?
She’d planned to walk past him, go back into the club, and find a way to get quickly drunk, but his hand was on the small of her back and he was pulling her close. His mouth
tasted like beer and weed. The kiss was loose and rambling. Xochi felt herself respond to his hands on her hips, the hardness under his jeans, unwanted but also hot.
A sound registered behind her. She knew what it was before she turned around.
“Hey, babe,” Dylan said to Bubbles, his hand on Xochi’s ass. “Gotta go,” he said to Xochi. Before he reached the door, Bubbles was gone.
Xochi stood openmouthed. Memory hovered, wingbeats stirring images she wanted to stomp and squash and kill: a different tall man, a different unwanted kiss. Desire, betrayal. Too familiar. “Shit!” She said it out loud instead of crying. “Shit, shit, shit!”
There was her jacket, in the corner. She picked it up and put it on. She needed to find Bubbles, but what would she say? Her feet were glued to the floor. She gripped her stomach, a useless gesture. The pain was old, a tattoo inked with poison. She tried to breathe—five counts in, six counts out—but her body was going into lockdown. Pure shame. So this was what it felt like. No wonder Gina never called, never wrote. How did you face such a colossal mistake? Where did you even start?
Xochi scanned the room for her abandoned body. Her eyes found the mirror with its neatly chopped line. She picked up the straw. White powder, speed or cocaine. Gina had done it once in a while with a friend from her foster care days. They’d lock themselves in the bathroom and come out pin eyed and sniffing. Once, Xochi caught them when they thought she was asleep—the mirror, the razor blade, the powder. Dylan’s mirror was right in front of her. She looked down at her white-dusted, distorted face.
All of Us with Wings Page 10
