She aimed the straw and sniffed, gagging at the chemical reek. The effect was instant, a bitter blast of awakeness. Xochi’s sinuses burned and her eyes felt huge in her head, but she could think again. She could move. She left the dressing room to find Bubbles and the “fuck you” she so richly deserved.
“Hey.” The doorman put a hand on Xochi’s arm.
Shit. Her blood raced with drugs and adrenaline.
“Bubbles is outside.”
On the street, Xochi felt fully awake for the first time all day. And there was Bubbles, coming out of the liquor store.
“Come on,” Bubbles called. She headed around the corner, away from the club. Aaron’s van was parked at the end of the block. They walked in silence. Bubbles unlocked the van and climbed inside, motioning Xochi to the passenger seat. She yanked the paper bag from her bottle of Jack Daniels and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Time for girl talk.”
Xochi accepted the bottle. Drinking didn’t seem optional. She took a series of tentative sips. A cop car passed, siren flashing red but silent.
“Xochi? I shouldn’t have to be the one who starts.”
“I’m sorry.” Xochi’s hand shook as she passed the bottle back to Bubbles. “I don’t want to make excuses, but they’re all I’ve got.”
“Oh boy.” Bubbles took a swig of whiskey and lit a cigarette. “Dude. You don’t have to apologize. I’m not asking for that. You get to sleep with whoever the hell you want.”
“Bubbles, I wasn’t—I wouldn’t do that.” You would, said a voice in Xochi’s head. You have. “He was flirting, and then he kissed me. I don’t know why I let him.”
“He’s a good kisser, that’s why. Kinda all over the place, but it works somehow. And his dick is huge.”
“Bubbles!” Xochi grabbed a cigarette, even though she didn’t smoke.
“Come on—you must have noticed. He’s like zero to boner in three seconds. Unfortunately, that’s about how long he lasts. It comes right back, though. Not bad for an old man.”
“Old?” Xochi tried to remember his face, but all she could think about now was the hard-on pressing against her stomach.
“Pushing forty. Maturity-wise, he’s about fourteen. The music thing is all he’s got going for him. That and his dick.”
Was it official? Did she have some sort of fetish for older men? Cigarettes usually made Xochi dizzy, but this one calmed her down. She accepted the bottle and took a small sip, then a big gulp. Too sweet, but the burn was good.
“Just to be clear”—Xochi rolled down the window so she could ash—“are we still talking about Dylan’s penis?”
“It was the icebreaker.” Bubbles took the bottle back and screwed the cap on tight. “We’re here to talk about our feelings, sweetie.”
“Okay,” Xochi said. “I think I get it. What happened was weird, so we’re doing this instead of you breaking my face?”
“Right. Which is easier said than done. But it’s the only way.”
“So . . . ?”
“So?”
Bubbles wasn’t going to make this easy. Xochi took a drag from her cigarette. She touched the whiskey bottle on the dash, peeling at its label, and started again.
“So. Bubbles, how did you feel when you walked into the dressing room and found me making out with your ex-boyfriend?” Xochi’s stomach twisted as she said it.
“Good girl. Now you’re owning it.” Bubbles grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the lid, took a long drink. “I’m closing this now,” she said, managing it after the third try. “To answer your excellent question, I was jealous. I don’t want to be jealous. Not about Dylan—the guy’s a joke. I know that. At least my brain does. So then I felt stupid. Because, when you think about it, it’s kind of awesome. I mean, Dylan is a great beginner boy toy, so on that level, he’s perfect for you. Because Xochi? I really, really think you need to get laid.”
They both laughed. Bubbles snorted.
“I really do,” Xochi said. “But not Dylan! He doesn’t deserve either of us.”
“We gotta drink to that! Just one more.”
They drank. A bus jolted past. Rain fell softly on the windshield. A couple walked by, holding hands.
“Xochi?” Bubbles’s voice was suddenly serious. “You know I’ve slept with Leviticus, right?”
Xochi’s ears filled with static. Bubbles’s voice was so gentle, her eyes so kind. Xochi wanted to rewind, to unhear her words, make her unsay them, but there was no going back.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Bubbles said. She scooted to the edge of the driver’s seat and straddled the gear shift, pushing in next to Xochi in the passenger seat. She leaned her head on Xochi’s shoulder.
“Of course you’re smitten,” Bubbles said. “Who wouldn’t be?”
“Are you?”
“With Lev? Oh, sweetie, no. Not now. We don’t have that spark. I wish we did. He really is a prince. Not like the guys I usually fall for.”
“I feel like an idiot. I don’t know why I’m so freaked out.”
“Because it’s confusing, that’s why. It’s impossible to know who’s got history with who. Beyond Pallas as evidence of Io and Lev, it’s anybody’s guess—I remember what it was like when I first moved in. I’m so sorry for springing it on you like this. I just didn’t want you to find out some other way and feel like I was keeping secrets.”
“Thanks,” Xochi said. “I’m sorry. I know this is stupid. I didn’t mean to be such a cliché.”
“Don’t do that to yourself. It’s not just you, I saw Lev out there. You made him mess up a few times. Ky was pissed. But you guys are star-crossed for sure. Leviticus has a thing about age, a strict policy. I barely made it through myself.”
Xochi nodded. He had been looking at her during the show. And, policy or not, if Andi hadn’t come out, what would have happened?
“Can I bum another cigarette?” Xochi was enjoying smoking like never before.
“In a minute.” Bubbles shoved Xochi over with her hip. “Scoot! I’m falling off.” Xochi scooted until the door handle dug into her side. Bubbles took her hand. “Are we okay?”
Bubbles looked soft-focus in the yellow streetlight, her hair the palest apricot, her skin a finer satin than her coat. Xochi leaned in and kissed her. It was a long kiss, a little world. Bubbles tasted like whiskey and smelled divine. Earlier with Dylan, Xochi hadn’t noticed her new piercing. Now the skin around it was sensitive and each movement of Bubbles’s tongue produced a ticklish little sting. In accord, they stopped and laughed.
“Now we can smoke,” Bubbles said. She grabbed the back of the driver’s seat for balance as she bounced back over the gear shift. She lit two cigarettes at once, handing one to Xochi.
They smoked in peace, listening to the rain on the bus’s roof.
“Even besides the age thing,” Xochi said, “there’s Pallas.”
“Ugh.” Bubbles shivered. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that. I should have.” She pursed her lips and sent a smoke ring out the window to meet the rain.
“Bubbles?” Xochi asked. “Is it weird that I kissed you?”
“Not at all,” Bubbles said. “It was lovely.”
21
The Whole of the Moon
Peasblossom had been uneasy all day. After a dinner of brown rice and tuna and a nice romp with Anna before the girl went to sleep, Peasblossom was restless.
He found Nora curled in a bed with a book, as usual. Reading impaired her hearing almost completely, so he didn’t bother meowing. He placed a velvet paw on her cheek.
“What is it, Your Highness?” As a rule, novels made Nora uncooperative, while poetry made her dreamy and unproductive. Nonfiction was easiest to manage, depending on the time of day and how much coffee she’d consumed.
He leaped from the bed to her night table and nosed a small heart-shaped box.
“Now?” Nora asked.
Peasblossom meowed assent.
Once, after a breakup, Nora had thrown the three I Ching coins obsessively for an entire afternoon until Peasblossom finally pounced, stilling them with a frustrated paw. For the first time since the substandard boyfriend had departed, Nora laughed. She threw the pennies five more times, urging Peas to stop them, and read his fortune from her dog-eared Book of Changes. It had been remarkably apt. Now, once or twice a year, the cat asked Nora to consult the oracle again on his behalf.
Nora sighed and got out of bed to retrieve the notebook she kept for this sort of divination.
Peasblossom formulated a question in his mind: What action, if any, should I take to protect Pallas and her governess from the Waterbabies?
Nora threw the coins. The cat stopped them six times. She recorded the resulting lines and found the hexagram in the index. As with most I Ching readings, there was an initial text representing the recent past or present and a second text related to the future.
Meditation was first. As usual, the hexagram neatly summed up the cat’s current state—resting, attempting to regulate his worry and formulate a sensible plan for moving forward. The changing line in the first reading formed the second hexagram.
“Your hexagram is called Grace,” Nora said. She read, brow furrowed. “‘A situation of perfect balance requiring an exquisite sense of timing. Follow established protocols to embrace a fleeting moment of shimmering Grace.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
The words buried themselves deep in his mind, jackknifing into a starlit pool. Nora read the full text of the hexagram, but Peasblossom was already formulating a plan.
His destination wasn’t far, but his bones still ached from the earlier trek to North Beach. He looked at the clock on Nora’s dresser. Muni ran to the Avenues until midnight. There was time, if Peasblossom hurried. Headbutting Nora’s thigh in farewell, the cat leaped off the bed and down the hall, through the cat flap, and into the dark street.
The bus pulled up just as Peasblossom reached the corner. The cat entered at the back door as other passengers exited. He sat under a seat and counted stops. At 40th, he disembarked. He’d only visited the Moonlit Garden once in his youth, but the fierce gatekeepers hadn’t allowed him to enter. Peasblossom had always been more of a thinker than a fighter.
At the end of the block, Peasblossom found the small Spanish bungalow, owned by a famous sculptor, and approached the storied garden and its legendary occupant with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“Ssstop!” hissed the guards when Peasblossom reached the gate. The cats were the same two he remembered, bulky tuxedos, both female, with immaculate white bibs and hard green eyes.
“I’m here to see Moonlight,” Peasblossom said.
“Fuck off,” hissed the larger guard. She was the older of the two, possibly the mother of the slightly smaller cat. Peasblossom bowed, using the gesture to pull the scent of the cats to the roof of his mouth. He tasted their relation, letting their mock-orange-and-eucalyptus musk settle. He recalled the I Ching’s advice. He tucked his paws politely, slitting his eyes.
“Please tell your mother I mean no harm,” Peasblossom said to the younger cat. “I seek wisdom only. I will abide by any condition you set.”
The daughter crouched, hips swaying in time with her twitching tail. Peasblossom bowed his head, accepting the oncoming attack. Before he could blink, she had him on his back, her teeth in the loose skin at his neck—a holding bite, not meant to puncture.
“You stink of death!” her mother hissed.
Peasblossom regretted the fish he’d eaten for dinner. “I apologize. The food was tinned, an offering from my human. I am not a hunter,” he said. “In fact, beyond insects encroaching on my home, I have never killed.”
It was true, not even a single mouse. Nora and Anna had devised a method of trap and release that relieved Peasblossom from that unpleasantness.
The daughter released him. He stayed prone, allowing the tuxedos to sniff him thoroughly. They circled, tails whipping the air.
“Get up,” the matriarch growled. “What’s your name?”
“Peasblossom.” He hoped his human-given name sufficed. These cats were clearly human fed, but it was a hotly political matter whether cats named themselves or took the name they were given.
“I am Gog,” the older cat said, her tone approaching politeness. “This is Magog, my daughter.”
Peasblossom bowed again.
“What is your business with Moonlight?” Magog asked. “She is very old and only responds to queries that interest her.”
“My question concerns two creatures recently summoned to the city. Ancient child-sized beings with claylike skin and flowing hair.”
Gog and Magog exchanged a meaningful glance. “Follow me,” Magog said, pushing open the wooden gate.
Inside was another land, so lush it exuded its own tropical climate. Interspersed among the absurdist large-leaved plants were odd, plantlike sculptures—long, thin women with mushroom skirts, hooded monks with pussy-willow legs, mantises with feathered hats. Stones were stacked in pyramids, and bowling balls were stacked like stones in large, colorful mounds. The foliage was so thickly planted, it was impossible to see the garden’s perimeter or guess its shape and size.
Magog’s trot was graceful, even a bit provocative. She glanced over her shoulder, friendlier away from her mother’s gaze. The path spiraled to the center of the garden, opening onto a pond covered in night-blooming lilies. Orange bodies flickered under the green-black surface. Peasblossom looked around in the dark for Magog, but found only her eyes glowing from the foliage.
He approached the pool and stepped gingerly to its edge. He began to purr, a peaceful drone. The sky was cloudy, the night so quiet Peasblossom heard the hiss of the sea only a few blocks west. Time stretched until Peasblossom did not know how to mark its passing, his purring song cresting and falling with the waves. Slowly, the lilies in the pond receded like ladies-in-waiting arranging themselves to receive their queen.
The water began to move, a wisp of smoke in the pond’s black depths growing brighter. A reflection shone on the water’s surface. Peasblossom raised his nose to the sky, expecting to see the moon, but the light was coming from the pond itself. Now the cat understood how the venerable koi had gotten her name.
Moonlight swam to the surface a few feet away, her scales an armor of pearls. She was the largest fish Peasblossom had ever encountered, easily twice his size.
“You must go in to meet her,” whispered Magog, suddenly at Peasblossom’s side. She touched the water’s surface with her paw. A large flat stone sat an inch below the water. He could sit there safely without having to swim, but true to stereotype, he detested water.
Magog’s unflinching gaze made retreat impossible. Peasblossom stepped onto the stone. Its surface was unpleasantly slick. He walked slowly, hoping to convey dignity rather than disgust.
The magnificent koi swam closer, breaching the surface with her blunt snout. Peasblossom leaned down to touch her nose with his own. A cool wave of greeting swam up the cat’s spine. He sat up, doing his best to keep his tail tip dry. “Shall I ask my question?” He turned to Magog. Her eyes were polished jade.
“You just did,” Magog said. “She is over a hundred years old, but today she is surprised. See how her whiskers twitch?”
The koi’s fine whiskers, as long as a cat’s, undulated just under the water’s surface. Peasblossom restrained an inappropriate urge to pounce. Nerves, he thought. He waited, unsure how to proceed.
“You have to put your whiskers in to touch hers,” Magog said, her tone almost apologetic. The suggestion brought instant nausea. Wet paws were abhorrent but bearable. Bodily submersion, barbaric. But having one’s whiskers underwater? Peasblossom wanted to gag. The koi swished her tail fin slowly, a polite invitation.
>
Magog laughed, joining him on the stone, seemingly unconcerned about the wetness of her paws. “I know, it’s unnatural as hell, but that’s how it works.” She headbutted Peasblossom. For a moment, they stood nose to nose. She batted her come-hither eyes. Effective, though Peasblossom doubted her sincerity. He’d always had better luck impressing human females than he ever had with his own kind.
He lowered his head to the pond. He’d intended to be quick, to get it over with, but the only way he could stand the sensation was to move very, very slowly. Each centimeter was like the sound of metal on metal. His teeth hurt. His skin hurt. He closed his eyes.
Suddenly, contact! The koi’s mind operated at a speed that was either incredibly slow or unimaginably fast, nonlinear and electric.
Cedar and Sulfur
The creatures, the bath
Fog, ravens
Motorcycles, moonlight
Forest and asphalt, water and fire
Pallas and Xochi, the creatures, the fog
The Hag, her warnings
A woman weeping
A woman, a man
A steaming hot spring
A golden tub
The beach, a bonfire
A bonfire, a bridge
Seals bobbing in night-blacked water
Long-haired children swimming the bay
A man in the water breathing like a fish
A man in the eye of a whirlpool
A man facedown in a shallow creek
A woman with golden hair and Xochi’s face
Tears streaming from her eyes
A comb and a hand, golden hair
A comb dripping with honey
The moon crying honeyed tears
The silver moon reflected on water
The moonlight scales of the koi
Peasblossom sat upright, whiskers dripping. The pond was covered in lilies once more, obscuring the fish below.
He looked for Magog, but she was gone.
22
Farewell, Angelina
Xochi woke to an empty attic and quiet house. She trudged down to the kitchen. Her throat was raw from smoking, her head poorly attached—the work of some cut-rate Dr. Frankenstein. Each movement loosened the bolts.
All of Us with Wings Page 11
