Little & Lion

by Brandy Colbert

  He maneuvers the Jeep up the hill at the top of DeeDee’s street, parking in the dusty open space in front of the yellow DEAD END sign. He gets out of the driver’s seat, and I should get out, too, because I know he’s going to come around and open my door, which is so fucking nice it’s unreal—but I can’t move.

  His face shows up on the other side of my door. He pulls it open, but I don’t get out. “Ready?”

  “Not really.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

  “Emil.” I finally turn to look at him. “Be honest: Did everyone stop talking to Lionel because of his… because of what happened?”

  “What? Is that what he told you?”

  I swallow. “He said you guys weren’t there for him while I was gone. DeeDee says he stopped coming around, but—that doesn’t sound like Lionel, to just stop talking to people… unless he has a reason.”

  “It’s not as simple as that,” Emil says. “DeeDee and I knew what happened with him, and everyone else knew something was up, but we didn’t tell them exactly what it was… out of respect. So people may have come to their own conclusions.”

  I frown. “Their own conclusions? Like what? That he’s dangerous or something?”

  That’s what a lot of people think about bipolar disorder. I found out when I was researching it online, when I wanted to find out more about what Lionel was going through than the information that filtered from his doctors and through my parents to me.

  Emil shakes his head. “People aren’t sitting around talking about your brother. I think… You weren’t here, and no one knew the best way to handle it, and we just kind of drifted apart from him.”

  I gaze into the thicket of oak trees stationed behind the DEAD END sign: dark and leafy and quiet. “I never should have gone away.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” he says firmly. “You don’t know what would’ve happened if you’d stayed.”

  “I do know my brother would probably be in this car with us instead of staying home to read a thousand-page book.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Emil holds out his hand. “But you can’t spend all night worrying about it. Come on.”

  He’s right, even though I don’t want to admit it. So I swallow down the contrary response on the tip of my tongue, and then I take Emil’s hand and hop down from the Jeep.

  DeeDee’s mom is an architect, and the Sullivan house is designed to meet her every desire. She obviously has a deep, abiding love for glass, as the entire front wall of the house is made up of windows that stretch all the way to the second floor. A modern chandelier with vertical glass tubes housing skinny, soft blue lightbulbs hangs almost to the floor in the foyer, and every time I am here I think how DeeDee is tempting fate by letting us hang out. Someone would only have to step the wrong way for the whole thing to shatter, but DeeDee says she doesn’t want to waste time worrying about bad things that might happen, and so far that’s worked out for her.

  The whole front of the house is empty, but I can hear a few people around back, voices floating through the open door off the kitchen that leads to the veranda. Still-sealed packages of hamburger and hot dog buns sit on the counter, nestled among bottles of liquor and cheap wine. DeeDee’s parents are decidedly not here this evening.

  I do a quick scan as we walk out to the patio, but I don’t see her anywhere. The space is, however, dotted with my old group of friends: the creative types at school, ranging from modern dancers who are always moving, to brilliant, socially awkward musicians, to visual artists who create pieces that make adults complain at the school’s gallery shows.

  “Well, look who’s back to grace us with her presence,” Catie Ransom says in her trademark flat voice as she strolls over. She makes angry art, like the small-scale wire installation depicting abused laboratory animals that she presented at the end-of-year show last spring.

  “Holy shit, it’s Suzette.” Tommy Ng walks up and strums a buoyant note on the guitar strapped over his shoulder as if he’s ready to start busking for drinks. Tommy never goes anywhere without that thing.

  “It’s me,” I say with a small smile, suddenly feeling alone even though I’m surrounded by the people I used to spend every weekend with.

  Emil has drifted away a few feet, talking to his best friend, Justin, who’s laying out rows of burgers and chicken breasts and soy dogs on the grill. All of us have known each other since middle school, but as soon as DeeDee transferred into our high school freshman year, I became closer to her than anyone. And I don’t think it’s my imagination that they’ve all seemed even more distant since I went away. We hung out during winter break, but they had private jokes that I wasn’t a part of and new friends I didn’t know, and I couldn’t keep up with who was dating or fighting. It seemed like a totally different crowd.

  Maybe I’m different to them, too. Not just because I went away, but because I’ve never talked openly with them about Lionel’s illness. But really, was I supposed to tell them everything I shared with DeeDee, the person closest to me besides my brother? That I was scared and worried for him, and angry that I’d been forced to leave my life here?

  “You seem upset.” Catie is wearing a black cotton shirtdress and floral combat boots, and when she raises her eyebrows at me, I notice the electric-blue color smeared across her eyelids. “Are you upset?”

  “I’m not upset.” I stifle a sigh because that would only prove her theory—which, by the way, is there a reason Catie Ransom of all people is analyzing my mood? “I can’t get over this stupid jet lag.”

  “Cry me a fucking river, Suzette.” Ah, there’s the Catie I know, switching from concerned to vicious in mere seconds. “I’d give my left tit to go live across the country for most of the year. You do realize how disgustingly mundane it is being stuck here?”

  “We don’t live in some podunk town,” I say, shaking my head. “L.A.’s worst day is still better than Avalon on its best.”

  Catie rolls her eyes and clomps away, muttering, “Whatever. You’re still so ungrateful.”

  “Hey, Suzette, want to hear this new thing I’m working on?” Tommy asks, running his fingers gently over the guitar strings. “I started it a couple of months ago.…”

  “Um, I was just going to find DeeDee,” I say, but the question was only a courtesy because Tommy is already strumming away, singing with the heart of someone performing in front of thousands. I slip away once someone else wanders over to listen.

  The empty kitchen I passed through on the way in has been replaced with a roomful of people who’ve just arrived. Most of them I don’t recognize—maybe soon-to-be sophomores or people who managed to fly under the radar my first year. One girl looks vaguely familiar; she has stringy, lime-colored hair and she’s standing next to the fridge with two other girls I don’t know. We see each other at the same time, and she narrows her eyes.

  “I know you,” she says, then snaps her fingers a few seconds later. “You were at my party with DeeDee.”

  I walk over to them slowly. “New Year’s Eve?”

  She nods and I remember.

  “That was the best party,” I say. And it was. We were on the beach and it was freezing, but we were all wrapped up in plaid woolen blankets and I shared a bottle of champagne with a group of people I didn’t know as we raucously counted down to midnight. “Hey… are you here with Alicia?”

  “Technically. She ditched us for DeeDee as soon as we got here,” says a girl with big, curly black hair and the most badass tattoo I’ve ever seen in my life. Truly, it’s fucking beautiful. A collage of various flowers is inked onto her pale skin, petals overlapping with stems on top of leaves, and all of it done in the most gorgeous, saturated hues of green and blue and pink and orange. I could stare at it for hours. She notices and smiles and that’s what makes me look away.

  “I, um, better go find DeeDee. Nice seeing you again,” I say in the general direction of the green-haired girl as I make my way across the kitchen.

  Climbing
the stairs to DeeDee’s room, I pass the same photos I’ve walked by probably hundreds of times—DeeDee and her parents, DeeDee standing solo on a hiking trail, fifth-grade DeeDee with her first French horn. I didn’t know her back then, but she’s looked the same since she was a kid: long, peachy-blond hair and sleepy brown eyes and skin that burns at the mention of sunlight. Seeing her smile makes me realize how much I’ve really missed her.

  A soft light glows under her bedroom door at the end of the hallway. It’s too quiet up here and I find myself tiptoeing down the hall even though her door is ajar. I lean forward to listen, to make sure she’s not in the middle of something with Alicia. Voices carry across the room, but they don’t sound intimate or angry. Just quiet and intense, and that’s pretty much the nature of DeeDee and Alicia’s relationship.

  The door squeaks as I push it open and Alicia looks over, startled, alone on DeeDee’s bed. The laptop in front of her is responsible for the voices, and she’s watching whatever it is in the dark, the glow illuminating her round face. Her eyes go even larger when she sees that it’s me.

  “You’re here!” She pauses the video and sits up straight.

  “I’m here.” I smile at her. I don’t know Alicia well. She started dating my best friend while I was away, but she’s always been nice to me, and she would have Dee tell me hi sometimes when we talked on the phone. “Is she up here?”

  “Yeah, she’s almost finished getting ready—”

  The door to the attached bathroom opens at the far end of DeeDee’s room and she steps out barefoot, a silky green skirt brushing the bottoms of her ankles. She gets halfway across the room before she sees me.

  “Oh my God, how long have you been here? Why didn’t you text me when you pulled up? I would’ve met you at the door. Oh my God, Suz.” She rushes forward and pulls me into a warm, tight hug.

  I look at Alicia. I like her, but I wish she weren’t here, her angular bob falling across her face as she traces the music notes splashed over DeeDee’s duvet. I was hoping to have a little alone time with my best friend, a few moments away from everyone else.

  Dee understands what I’m thinking without me having to say a word. Just one of the many things I love about her.

  “Babe, can you give us a minute? We’ll be down in a bit,” she says, her soft voice even sweeter than normal.

  Alicia nods, closing the laptop before she stands. She smiles as she leaves the room, but there’s a look she gives me. Not mean, but… curious. And a little skeptical.

  “I’m so happy you’re back.” DeeDee reaches out to finger one of my dreadlocks. She’s one of the few I’ll allow to touch my hair without asking, a rule that sounds weird until you realize how many people are fascinated by black hair to the point of rudeness. “Your trip was good?”

  “It was fine,” I say, sinking down onto her bed, my back against the pillows. “I’m happy to be back, too.”

  “Everything okay yesterday?” She joins me on the bed, moving the laptop to the floor so she can stretch her long legs. “Sorry I couldn’t talk. Dad had this meeting with a client and wanted me to go with him, and you know his rule about talking on the phone during a road trip.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. I don’t want to get into the Lionel thing right now. I don’t want her to think I’m accusing her of abandoning my brother. DeeDee is fiercely loyal; abandonment is not in her nature. But she’s one of the few people who know Lionel’s diagnosis, and a part of me can’t help thinking maybe she didn’t try hard enough with him.

  She toys with the milkmaid braids wrapped around her head like a wreath. “So… anything new with Iris?”

  I let out a breath. DeeDee knows about Iris—about us—but I didn’t expect her to ask so directly. Or so soon. “She left the day before me and we said good-bye and… I don’t know. She’s back home in Michigan now.”

  DeeDee’s mouth turns up at the corner. “Did you say good-bye or good-bye?”

  “Dee…”

  “Suzette,” she mocks me. “Are you seriously trying to be shy with me?”

  “I’m not trying to be anything, I just…” I pause, remembering the look on her girlfriend’s face as she left the room. “Does Alicia know? About Iris?”

  DeeDee looks at me with soft eyes. “I’m sorry. I was so excited for you and it slipped out and—well, I know she hasn’t said anything to anyone. She doesn’t even go to our school.”

  Even so, she’s downstairs with all our friends right now; the news could slip out of her as easily as DeeDee revealed it, and then what? I have to explain myself for the rest of the summer to people I’ve barely seen for the past year?

  But I say, “It’s fine.” Because Alicia doesn’t seem like the gossipy type. And while I’ve always been able to trust Dee with my secrets, a part of me assumed she would tell her girlfriend, if only to announce another initiate to the girls-liking-girls club. “But I feel like she thinks we’re going to start hooking up now.…”

  DeeDee laughs loud and long, a laugh that comes from deep in her belly and makes me smile in spite of myself. “You and me? First of all, you’re not my type; your boobs are way too big. But also, it’s not like that, Suzette. Like, you start making out with girls and so we have to make out because I like girls, too.”

  “It was one girl,” I say, sliding down the bed so I’m lying flat on my back, no longer supported by pillows. “And that’s the thing: I haven’t felt like that about any other girl. So maybe it was a one-time thing… an Iris thing.”

  If that’s even possible, to like someone so wildly different from everyone else you’ve been attracted to. Were we just experimenting all those nights in our dorm room, under the covers, hands sliding over curves and lips exploring freely? Iris had been with other girls; she was experienced. But I’d only ever kissed boys, and only two at that, and always with our clothes on.

  “That could be true,” DeeDee says thoughtfully. She turns to face me. “Do you still like guys?”

  “I don’t know.” I close my eyes and try to remember the last guy I thought about that way. Emil. My eyes fly open. He doesn’t count. He’s cute and he looks really good tonight, but—he’s Emil. “Maybe?”

  “Well, you don’t have to figure it out now.” DeeDee touches my arm. “Or ever. Just like who you like.”

  “Says the girl who’s known she was a lesbian since the day she was born,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “I was eight, smartass,” she replies. Then, with an exaggeratedly dreamy expression, she says, “I still think Ms. Bowling is one of the prettiest people I’ve ever seen. I looked her up a while ago. She was living up in Portland with some dude. Alas, we never could’ve been.”

  “Never mind that she was your third-grade teacher.” I sit up. “Hey, Dee?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you not tell anyone else about Iris? I don’t know if I can talk about it yet.” There’s still too much I don’t understand, like why, even though everything I did with Iris felt good, I was still so shy about kissing or touching her first. Even after weeks of fooling around. Or why, after what happened a couple of weeks before we left Dinsmore, I’m scared of the same sort of judgment here, though I’m surrounded by queer friends and allies.

  “Of course,” DeeDee says. “And I know she hasn’t told anyone, but I’m sorry I mentioned it to Alicia. That wasn’t cool.”

  “It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “Really.”

  And it is.

  Because the person I’m most worried about knowing the truth is myself.

  More people have arrived and the scene downstairs is larger, louder. DeeDee gets pulled away almost as soon as we reach the first floor, and I stand still for a moment, holding on to the steel banister as I look around the room.

  “So where’s Lionel?” comes the voice I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear again tonight.

  Catie is standing in front of me with her arms crossed, and her red-ringed eyes tell me she’s had a couple of drinks since I saw her out back.r />
  “At home.” I don’t offer anything else, and most people would respect that, but not Catie.

  “You know he never comes around anymore?” She eyes me as if I have something to do with this. “People are saying he’s schizo.”

  My skin goes cold. “Who’s saying that?”

  She scratches at a spot on her shoulder. “Well, is he? If he’s not schizo, what’s wrong with him?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him, first of all,” I begin, stepping closer. Catie takes great joy in intimidating people, so it’s best to remind her that I’m not scared. “And second, what makes you think it’s any of your business?”

  “It’s creepy, how secretive you guys are about everything,” she says, obviously not intimidated by me, either. She lifts her chin. “Like no one can break through your little duo.”

  I look her dead in the eye. “You’re being an asshole, Catie.”

  Her lips twist together into a smile. “Well, at least I’m honest, Suzette.”

  She stomps off for the second time this evening, and I make a silent promise to stay as far away from her as possible this summer. But it’s hard to get her snide tone out of my head, and I’m stuck on the last thing she said, about being honest. Does she know more about Lionel than she’s letting on? Does she know something about me?

  “Whoa, who pissed you off?”

  I look up to see the tattooed girl leaning against the wall on the other side of the foyer, now in possession of a beer bottle. And realize I’m still glaring after Catie, fists clenched at my side.

  “Nobody worth knowing, trust me.” I feel my body relax and I try to smile at her, but it’s easier to stare at the indelible ink on her arm rather than look at her face.

  “Oh, I’m like a magnet for people not worth knowing,” she says, and I don’t normally think much about voices, but I like hers. Not quite deep, but throaty and sure, like she could be on the radio. “Attracting them is, like, my special skill.”