Looking for Group

by Rory Harrison

  The dude doesn’t blink. He just hands his phone over and goes back to sorting cigarettes.

  Now I have leftover adrenaline, but that’s okay. I still have to move fast. I do something I’ve never done before: I log into the website for my Warcraft account and turn on Real ID. For some reason, this game company thinks people who run around pretending to be goblins and dwarves want people in real life to be able to find them.

  Maybe they’re right. Arden’s had it on for a while now. Adding me as soon as she got it, she waited for a tag back. A long time, too. Now I’m finally doing it, and I feel like I’m about to choke on my own tongue.

  It worked; it worked. As soon as my account refreshes, I have exactly what I came for. Takes all of two seconds, and I have Arden’s real name.

  D. Arden Trochessett.

  I cradle the phone and frown. Arden’s easy, but my mouth won’t wrap around that last name. I don’t know where to start pronouncing it. Too many T’s and S’s laying side by side. So what? I can’t pronounce it, but it’s exactly the kind of name I need. Rare. Unusual.

  I type Trochessett and 411 into the search engine. Up pops one phone number in all of Amaranth that matches. Right next to it, one address. That goes into the clerk’s map app, and a red line leads me straight to Arden’s front door. Borrowing the credit-card pen, I draw it on the inside of my wrist.

  “Thanks,” I tell the guy, returning his phone. I don’t want to steal it. It’s nice, but so’s the clerk.

  “Somebody coming to help you?”

  “Sort of,” I say. I buy a bottle of water, ’cause I think I’m gonna need it, and then I get my head on straight. As I walk out to the car, I study the map on my wrist. It’s not too complicated, but I didn’t pay attention. That one long line could be two blocks or five miles. What the hell, though. Why not?

  I throw open the car and grab my bag. I don’t have much. Gum, pens, dumb shit. My bottle of pills. The Tic Tacs in the glove box. A foil space blanket with a tear in it—I go ahead and take that, and I don’t know why. Because it’s there, I guess, and I don’t want to walk away with nothing.

  That car smells like stale grease, old shoes. It smells like the decrepit stuffing in the backseat, green and grainy and old. To hell with that car. Let the police tow it back home. Now it’s not stolen and now nobody can find me. That’s better than knowing nobody wants to.

  Anyway, that’s where this quest starts—with me walking away from my mother’s car. It’s on the edge of dark, and I have a half-ass map, but I don’t care. It’s not like a quest is supposed to be easy. If you can just walk through it, who gives a shit, right? You gotta work for it; you gotta bleed for it. So I take a swallow of cold, tinny water, and start down the street.

  The drive into Amaranth made it look like one of the villages in the game. Red roofs and pretty trees. A cathedral lining up the horizon just so. But on the ground, it’s real obvious I’m not in Elwynn Forest. Real life Amaranth looks like real-life anywhere. The strip I’m on is kinda industrial, but it gives way to neighborhoods after a while.

  Now Amaranth is anywhere nice. The houses have neat front yards. Trees stretch up and out. Some of the sidewalk squares are crooked, but that’s only because the roots pushed them up.

  People put their names on the mailboxes. And flags, too. Flowers climb up the posts, their blossoms watching you approach. Like they want to say hello or something. At home, I have a rusted pocket nailed to the outside wall. Right by the door. The numbers peeled off a long time ago.

  Amaranth is quiet. Cars come and go, mostly at the speed limit. Nobody sits on their porches or yells out the windows. Pills rattle in my bag, and I clutch it to my chest. This place makes me nervous, like the whole town might be coiled up. Waiting. Windows glow, houses probably full of blue-eyed freaks.

  What if that’s what’s waiting in Arden’s house? What if her stepmom opens the door, wearing a silk scarf and sharp-lined lipstick? Her tiny little nostrils will clamp shut when she smells the cheap on me. She probably won’t even know who I am.

  And even though I’ve been talking to her for years, I suddenly realize Arden don’t know who I am, either, not exactly. We met in the game. A game where she calls me Sutterglut, or Sutty for short, and sometimes if it’s been a real long night and we’re punchy, Moo Moo Kitty.

  Who uses their real name in the game? I mean, shit, can you imagine? Like, you walk up to the dungeon in Karazhan, who’s gonna believe it was owned by an ancient, evil Arch-Mage named Jerome Brown? You don’t journey to the belly of a lava dungeon in search of Brad Stertz.

  What am I thinking? What exactly am I hoping to accomplish here?

  It doesn’t matter. Sucking up deep, humid breaths that taste like the slowly approaching rain, I make myself walk. No more thinking. Just one foot in front of the other. My spine rattles. My head hurts.

  According to the scans, according to everybody, even according to me, I know it’s just a headache, a regular one. People get them, it happens. But my pills rattle in my bag, and they remind me. Maybe not. Maybe it all comes back—one more step and it’s back to seizureland for me.

  That’s how a lot of kids find out they have cancer, actually. Start out with a headache, get clumsy, flop around like a fish on a dock, go directly to dead.

  The osteo kids, I think maybe they have it worse. They go for a jump shot, come down and break a leg. Tough titty for the starting center with a scholarship to Stanford. You’re going somewhere else, my friend. There’s no scholarship, and you’re never coming home.

  A lot of us get better. Most of us, actually. You roll up on a kids’ cancer ward and you get a lot of leukemia, a lot of brainies like me, a lot of Hodgkin’s. We go through hell and we get better; that’s just the way it is.

  Most of us don’t get to end-stage and turn around at the last minute, though. So me? I’m still waiting for it to come back.

  I’m not ready, but I’m prepared, and maybe I should take something when I get to where I’m going . . .

  All that thinking, and somehow, I got to where I was going.

  Arden’s house is blue and white, and the downstairs windows are dark.

  (SILVER)

  I stand in the shadows and hate the front door.

  It’s white. Fresh, clean, brand-new white with a door knocker that looks like a ring of ivy. It’s heavy, with all kinds of shades and shadow in it. It’s so perfect it nearly looks real.

  Who pays for something like that? How much did it cost? I hate that I always wonder that, but I want to know. I think it says a lot about somebody—how they spend extra money.

  It costs me seventy-seven bucks (and ninety-four cents) a year to play World of Warcraft, but I need that. Fighting and screaming, I made my mother give me that. Lynne says my disability should pay for it, but what does she know?

  I pick up the ivy door knocker and let it drop. It’s a dare. If nobody hears it, I’ll just go home. Quest: failed. Though I want to, I don’t press my head against the wood. Wrapping my arms around myself, I shiver and wait.

  This is stupid. There’s not an undead rogue waiting for me inside this house. There’s no such thing as an undead rogue, anyway; it’s all pixels and lies.

  No, you stole a car and came here, an annoying part of my brain argues. It’s real. Arden is, anyway.

  I should run. But when I look down I realize—my legs aren’t interested or able. I’m in remission, but I’m not well.

  So I’m still standing there when a human being answers the door.

  This man is a stranger. Grey hair, grey eyes, and pajamas like people wear on TV. Matching top and bottoms. He’s old, and suddenly I’m praying. Don’t make me go home. Don’t turn me away. I know it’s late and I look like shit, but come on, man.

  He looks past me, frowning. Turning, I wanna know what he’s looking at, too, but there’s nothing to see.

  “Can I help you?”

  I don’t know what to say. He’s not mean. He’s not nice. He’s just there, c
oncrete blocks for legs and stones for eyes. I could be a fly on his porch, buzzing and buzzing. Too far away to matter, but too close to ignore entirely.

  I haven’t uttered a sound, and he’s already decided about me. He makes me want to walk on his potato salad.

  I have to put my tongue in the right place to say the words. “Arden has my Dragon Age CD.”

  Concrete Blocks stiffens. “Who?”

  For a second, I panic. Did I call her Nuba? In case I did, I clarify. “Arden. Arden has my game; she said I could come by and get it.”

  For another second, the man stares through me. Then he turns, his flannel jammie pants whispering as he walks to the foot of the stairs. Those are some quality stairs, too. The steps are wood, the rail is carved fancy. That’s a staircase for a movie. A staircase to fall down and die on. I wonder what would happen if I grabbed a laundry basket and just slid down that thing in it. Instant roller coaster.

  I’m so caught up living the life suggested by that banister that I don’t hear the man say anything. When footsteps interrupt my fantasyland, I realize he just walked away. No kidding. Pulled out his phone, tippity-typeity, then turned and went.

  If I was a meth-head spree killer, he’d be dead. But I’m not, and the door is still open.

  My heart beats hard. It skips, and my head goes soft and fuzzy. There are feet on the stairs, attached to silver-patterned leggings. They disappear under a soft silver tunic, one that stretches across broad shoulders, and my brain just stops. It stops.

  As long as I’ve known Arden, my mental picture of her has been digital. She has purple hair and glowing yellow eyes; she’s a zombie in leather armor. When I see Arden on a regular day, she says hello with two daggers that are longer than the exposed bones of her arms.

  But Arden in real life doesn’t match my memories.

  She’s not Forsaken, first of all. Second of all, even though I know her, and I know who she is, I can’t help seeing the body she was born with, even in her leggings and tunic. Broad shoulders and narrow hips, green eyes squinting curiously at me beneath dark, shaped brows. Her face is soft; it resolves into a strong jawline and a pretty neck. I feel like an asshole for reacting to her body; I feel like I should do this better.

  But who wouldn’t look at Arden twice? Who wouldn’t stand there and stare at somebody beautiful like that? Jesus, I’ve got a knot in my chest and I can’t catch a breath. She’s burned in, like an image after the flash, making my blood run fast and hot.

  But that’s flesh and I’ve got a brain. Forcing myself to breathe, I twist my thoughts back into shape. I’m gay, she’s a girl—these things are just true.

  “I’m sorry,” Arden says, and it sounds like she means it. “Do I know you?”

  My mouth tastes like bitter metal on old leather. I have Yoda on my tongue, my voice comes out creaky and wrong. “You don’t recognize me?”

  It’s not a game. She’s not an undead rogue, and I’m not a magic cow. We’re just people, standing here on a porch in the dark. Just a couple of feet, and miles and miles away from each other.

  Tears spring up, but I force them back.

  I might have considered crying in front of Nuba. But this is D. Arden LastnameIcan’tpronounce. A stranger. I shake my head and it hurts—not just my head. Everything—my chest, the way it seizes, and my thoughts, too. This isn’t what I wanted.

  Humiliation laced with depression: it’s a hell of a drug.

  It’s just, I want her to recognize me. This one thing, I want it to be real. Us. This life, that life in the game, that time we spent together. I need it to be real. God, need it so bad that my insides bubble and roil.

  Arden clutches the frame of the door with one hand, but she steps out. Anchored. Safe, because she’s out, but still in at the same time. Something flickers across her face, hesitation maybe? But all the same she leans toward me and murmurs, “Dylan?”

  Catching the porch rail so I don’t fall. I’m tired and my head’s killing me. But she knows my name, she does. She knows me. Everything whites out for a second. I’m dreaming on my feet, flying away.

  Probably because I don’t answer right away, Arden lowers her voice even more. “Sutty?”

  My name in the game. How I first met her. It just tripped off her tongue. Everything breaks inside; emotions rush out, they spill out of me. I’m drowning under a wave. Now I have to cry, because I’m real, and she’s real, and we’re standing on the same front porch, under the same constellations, in the same world. I can’t stay on my feet anymore, so I sit down hard and nod.

  “Yeah. Yeah it is, Arden. It’s me.”

  She drops and hugs me tight, for a second. For a flash. Then almost as fast, she backs off. It was like touching me was burning her. There were too many possible reasons why, but all I knew was that for one second, everything was perfect—and then it was gone.

  Arden invites me inside and I can’t even look at her. Words and worries spin around in my head. I’m not her memories of me, either. In the game, if I said, let’s go on a quest, let’s go on an adventure, she would say yes. Done deal. Easy.

  What’s she going to say when it’s just me?

  (THIS IS HOW I MEET THE ONLY FRIEND I HAVE LEFT)

  Arden walks me upstairs and locks the door behind us. Leaning her forehead against the wood, she seems overwhelmed.

  Her back arches, one shoulder blade higher than the other. Her fingers curl on the knob. Motion washes through her; she’s the sea, drawing away from the shore. “You want to hear something crazy?” she asks.

  “Always,” I reply.

  She exhales a long breath. “I was afraid something had happened. When the Real ID popped up, I was afraid your mom was logging in to tell me you were dead.”

  I drift through Arden’s physical space and settle on her bed. It smells spicy, with an edge of dark to it. It’s hard to settle into her scent, because it stirs me up. I feel like I’m stealing something, cutting glances at her when she can’t see. But look at her. She’s made out of hearts; she has stars in her eyes.

  I drop my bag on my feet. That bright spark of pain is distracting, and good, because now I can say something. “My mother doesn’t know about you.”

  “Oh,” she says. She looks hurt.

  I spread my hands on the sheets, her sheets. “She doesn’t know the difference between Warcraft and Minecraft. I doubt she realizes I even play anymore.”

  This time, when she says, “Oh,” it’s softer.

  She slides off the door, her body gliding easily. When she moves, it’s smooth. Dancing from step to step, a bloom of arms and legs, she comes to sit beside me. Not too close. She puts a whole body length between us. I’m disappointed and grateful. I don’t wanna like her for the wrong reasons, and I’m afraid all my reasons are wrong.

  It’s weird to sit in her room. To see her real face and her real skin. I don’t know how to talk to Arden outside the game. I’m used to sitting with Nuba, and she’s somewhere in Azeroth, too far away for me to reach.

  There’s an echo when I pluck at the sheets. My hands feel detached. I don’t like it, part of my body checking out on me. What if it means something bad? I haven’t been not-sick long enough to believe it’s gonna stick, you know? But probably I’m just tired. I’ve been going awhile. I need to pass out, but I can’t do that, can I? I just got here.

  Uneasy, I rock forward, then back. Instead of looking at her, I look at her toes. Her bare toes, square little toes, every one perfectly straight. Each nail painted, but a different color. A rainbow when she walks.

  Finally, I say, “I can leave.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Maybe.” I lean back, my thin hair crunching against the wall. “I just rolled up on you, no notice. You weren’t expecting me.”

  Slipping beside me, Arden wraps herself up in her arms and studies my face. “Yeah, I was. I mean, online, but this is better, right?”

  It’s sweet that she says that. Maybe she even means it. Looking around, I’m pret
ty sure it really would be the second worst thing in her world if her gaming buddy quit showing up. Oh darn, her day is ruined, her stepmom got the orange juice with the pulp. Wrong color car for her birthday, dang it.

  And I’m a dick, even thinking that. Who cares about stuff when her dad won’t stop calling her son?

  Does the nice room make it better? No. No, it doesn’t, but damn. It’s not just nice. It’s rich.

  It’s about a thousand times better than my room in Village Estates. Back there, there’s barely enough room for a full-sized mattress (and that’s my mother’s old set). The bed goes almost from wall to wall, lengthwise, underneath my window. The walls are grey. They used to be white because that’s the only color we’re allowed to paint them, but I like to put my feet on them when I read.

  Arden’s got a TV as big as a movie poster. Two computers, and a laptop. On her desk, her cell phone is charging, one of those great big ones that can do all the tricks. The air smells good; there’s no stains on the ceiling. One wall is this unmarked, pearly blue and the others are sort of silver. She has art with frames, and nothing stuck up with thumbtacks.

  It’s a showroom, and Arden sits in the middle of it like it’s not fucking amazing.

  Her skin is smooth and her teeth are straight and all this clean perfection is suddenly driving me crazy. For a long time, I don’t say anything. I’m afraid to move, like dirty and poor will flake off me and ruin all this. She’s gotta know that, because she steals a look at me from the corner of her eyes. Then her gaze darts away again.

  Pulling a foot into her lap, she grinds her thumbs into the arch. When she catches me turned her way, she smiles. Her shoulders curve, like she’s folding into herself.

  Fear skitters across my skin—a tick, a flea. If Arden looks too long, she’ll see everything about me that Warcraft hides. I’m not brave. I’m not strong. I’m not anything. No wait, that’s not true. I’m an idiot, because I stole a car and I came here thinking I’d waltz in and say, let’s go on a quest and she’d say, yeah let’s go, I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.