South on Highland: A Novel

by Liana Maeby

  “This feels good,” I whispered into Griffin’s ear. He put his hand on my neck and turned my face into his.

  Toby got a sudden craving for a milkshake, so we ended up in a back booth at Mel’s Drive-In. I was still wearing that Lou Reed T-shirt over a bikini, but at least I’d managed to slip my boots on before we’d left Griffin’s house. It was 2 a.m., and a pair of tweakers sat in the corner. They both had fluorescent-yellow hair spiked high above their heads. They kept looking over at our table. Finally, one of them turned to Jasper and said, “Hey. Aren’t you the Gavin? From Davin, Gavin, and Avin?”

  Jasper shrugged.

  “Dude, you totally are!”

  Jessika snickered and asked, “You watch the Disney Channel?”

  “Man, I watch everything. You ever catch those ShamWow infomercials late at night? With that psychotic Israeli dude?”

  Jessika shook her head.

  “The pathos of that motherfucker is goddamned palpable.”

  “Amen,” I replied, and we all nodded stoically.

  Our waitress came over, interrupting the tweaker’s oral dissertation on the reusable-paper-towel advertising industry. Toby ordered three milkshakes—chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry—just for himself, yet somehow it was me the waitress glared at while she jotted down her shorthand.

  When she left, Griffin handed me a napkin. “Leila, your fucking nose is bleeding like crazy.”

  “Oh shit.” There was, in fact, blood everywhere. Down my face, and all over Lou Reed’s too. “Weird, I didn’t notice.”

  “You can’t feel that?” Griffin asked, more accusatorily than seemed fair.

  “Come on.” Jessika leapt up and steered me by the arm into the bathroom. She kept handing me paper towels while I washed myself off. When the bleeding stopped, she pulled makeup from her bag and painted my face.

  “There. Now you look like a movie star.”

  I moved to wipe a last bit of blood from my nose, but Jessika stopped me. “Leave it. More authentic that way.”

  I smiled. “Someone call the paparazzi.”

  Jessika pulled what was left of the cocaine from her purse. “You really like this stuff, huh?”

  “Uh, I guess,” I stammered. Is it that obvious? “I mean, like, it’s fun.”

  “Want a little more?”

  “Sure. Why not? But only if you are.”

  Jessika did a bump off her car key, black with a Mercedes logo, and made one for me.

  “Other nostril, sweetie.”

  I snorted the molehill and then one more. Somehow, I was even higher than before. I could feel the bright colors of the diner in my bloodstream, and the ’60s tunes coming from the jukebox in the follicles of my hair. Jessika and I went outside to smoke. One of the tweakers was there too, sucking at a Marlboro like it was an asthma inhaler. He looked at me and Jessika standing there high as kites in our heavy makeup, she in her studs and me without pants. “Hey,” he rasped. “I’ll pay you chicks a hundred bucks to make out.”

  And we did. Jessika and I swapped spit right there in the Mel’s parking lot. But the guy didn’t have a hundred bucks.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bored with schoolwork that had become entirely too easy, I decided that junior year was as good a time as any to embrace what I thought of as my destiny—so I launched my career as a professional writer. Fueled by a constant stream of synthetic energy, I began scribbling plays, biting little slices of American teenage life. My favorite of these one-acts can be described as an updated Breakfast Club set at a rave. A group of kids from different social strata find themselves huddled in the corner of a dusty warehouse, rolling on ecstasy and petting at one another’s hair. Under the magical sway of the lovey-dovey drug, they solve all the problems of high-school politics—only to forget everything they’d figured out come morning. The play included lines of dialogue like:

  KEVIN

  So if hell is other people, that means heaven’s just yourself? That doesn’t sound so great either.

  I used the thing for an eleventh-grade English class assignment, and sensitive old Mr. Consuelo liked it so much he had me work with the drama department to stage a little reading. He invited the owner of a local joint called the Last Theater, a gaunt and wild-eyed fellow named Ron, who decided to produce the thing for real as part of his spring showcase. So there I was, just sixteen and with my name on a real live Los Angeles marquee. Well, almost my name—the theater was missing a couple of signage letters, so for a period of time I became known as L3ILA MASS3Y.

  My ecstasy one-act did pretty well thanks to a little write-up in the LA Times calling me “like a teenage Arthur Miller,” and Ron commissioned me to write something else—a longer play in the same vein as the first one. It didn’t take me long to settle on a topic. They say you should write what you know, and what I knew at this point in my life better than just about anything else was Adderall. So I set about crafting a simple love story between two teenagers who get high on uppers and go through all the stages of a relationship in a single night. It featured lines like:

  STEPHANIE

  Parting is such sweet sorrow that, fuck it, let’s stay up eating Doritos in bed until our tongues are bloody and we can’t see straight. Deal?

  I was feeling totally on edge the day the play was set to open, so I compensated by taking even more pills than usual—which, of course, only further amped my nerves and turned the butterflies in my stomach into various incarnations of Mothra. I found myself pacing the halls right before showtime, reciting dialogue from the play even though there was absolutely no need for me to have it memorized. I could hear murmuring from inside the theater as people settled into their seats. I figured it was time to get my shit together and head inside, but before I could, the door swung open and Ron dashed out. He placed his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you. We’ve got a full house in there.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “I want to introduce you before the curtain goes up.”

  “Cool. Am I supposed to say something, or—?”

  “If you want to, absolutely.”

  I felt sweaty and wondered if it showed. I took a deep breath and smoothed my hair. Ron rushed me inside, and we walked onto the stage. He thanked the audience for coming, offered some kind words about his staff, and introduced me with a peppering of accolades like “brilliant,” “wise beyond her years,” and even “the voice of a generation.” I was only able to take in half of what he said, more focused on the blood rushing my brain and how my body felt like doing jumping jacks so that it wouldn’t explode.

  The audience applauded, and then there was silence. They were waiting for me to speak, but all I could do was stare at the crowd, eyes roaming across middle-agers, college theater types, and even a couple of kids from my school. There was a monologue in my head, but I couldn’t latch on to it. I knew I should talk a little about how the play came to be. And I should thank Ron and Mr. Consuelo. But I couldn’t figure out which I needed to do first.

  I got the idea to imagine the crowd in their underwear, but I immediately got too invested in getting the characters right. Hanes or Calvins on the pretty gay boy with the pouty lips? And the purple-haired woman in the front row screamed “granny panties,” but perhaps she played against type and wore a thong under her flowing skirt?

  They all stared at me, just waiting, until I was finally able to open my mouth.

  “Hi.”

  No one said it back.

  “I’m Leila.”

  They already knew that, didn’t they?

  “You know what? I think I’m really nervous.”

  A few people smiled sympathetically, including Purple Hair—which definitely seemed like a granny-panty move.

  “Anyway, I hope you like the play. And if you don’t, well, I hope you’re a good liar.”

  I got a few laughs, but it didn’t stop my face from flushing shades of raspberry sherbet. If there had been a whip around, I wou
ld have flogged myself right there on the stage. I was so high I couldn’t think straight, and I needed something to calm me down.

  I walked behind the curtain and left the theater through the backstage exit. Earlier, I had helped Ron set up the building’s spare room for an after-party, and I headed straight there. There were bottles of cheap liquor on the table next to packages of cookies, and a little disco ball hung from the ceiling.

  I was alone in the room, which suddenly felt piercingly bright. My heart raced, and my mouth tasted bitter. I turned off the lights. I swiped a bottle of whiskey and sat down on the floor beneath a folding table.

  “I think I’m nervous?” I said aloud to no one. “Very professional, genius.”

  I opened the whiskey and sipped straight from the bottle, trying to drink away my exploding nerves and forget the night before it had even ended.

  INT. AFTER-PARTY ROOM – NIGHT

  Roughly two dozen people are in the room, talking and drinking. The disco light spins above.

  The door opens, and Leila walks in. She’s a little wobbly and clearly drunk. She surveys the room but hangs back.

  Ron spots her and darts over. He throws his arms around her in a giant hug.

  RON

  Congratulations!

  LEILA

  Oh. Um, thanks.

  RON

  So, what did you think?

  Leila scrunches up her face guiltily.

  RON

  You . . . didn’t watch, did you?

  LEILA

  I couldn’t. I don’t know why I got so freaked-out.

  She looks down.

  RON

  Well, you’ll catch the next one. People loved it, kiddo. We’re a hit.

  LEILA

  Seriously?

  RON

  Don’t sound so surprised.

  A COLLEGE-AGED GUY standing behind them turns around.

  GUY

  Okay, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I was sitting next to the reviewer from the Weekly. And I got a look at his notes.

  LEILA

  Oh God. Good news or bad news?

  The guy grins.

  GUY

  I saw “Kenneth Lonergan,” “Chekhov,” and even “Shakespeare” scribbled down. So do with that information what you will.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When my junior year came to an end, I rather thrillingly chose to spend summer break doing things that would look good on college applications. There was an experimental museum in the hills off East Hollywood that offered free courses to high-performing public-school students, classes like Seminar on Creativity, and How to Think Like a Genius, Even If You Aren’t One.

  I enrolled in Life Experience 101, in part out of a burning curiosity over what on God’s earth that could mean, but also because I was genuinely in search of what the class claimed to offer. The course met twice a week at the museum’s hillside building, a boxy architectural wonder that opened up onto a lush lawn on one side and a man-made ravine on the other. I walked into the classroom on the first day, and a slight, goateed man eagerly shook my hand. “I’m Victor,” he said. “Take a seat up front, and we’ll get started in a minute.”

  I grabbed a chair in between a long-haired kid in a Tron T-shirt and a petite Filipina girl with a Hello Kitty backpack. I pulled out my notebook and looked around the room. My eyes came to rest on the class’s second instructor, who sat quietly near the front of the room, flipping through a book. He was a handsome but worn-in guy in his late twenties with closely cropped hair and tattoos covering both arms. His scuffed boots were kicked up onto the table in front of him, and one of his arms rested casually on top of a sleek motorcycle helmet.

  “Welcome to your summer adventure,” Victor said, pausing for applause that never came. “As you know, I’m Victor.”

  He pointed to the other teacher. “And this here is Blake Ableton, an accomplished visual artist and world traveler.”

  The handsome teacher offered a Scout salute and a little smirk. “Yo,” he said.

  Victor continued to tout the virtues of Blake, explaining that the younger teacher had grown up on a farm and knew how to do things like milk cows and clean up after hogs. Gritting his teeth, Blake seemed to barely tolerate the explanation, clearly not vying to jump on a horse and ride back home to Iowa anytime soon. Victor then asked each of us to stand and offer an unexpected fact about ourselves. When it was my turn, I walked to the front of the room and offered the dumbest fact about myself I could think of, hoping it would make Blake laugh.

  “I am a proud member of the Cherokee Nation,” I said solemnly. “A full sixteenth on my father’s side.”

  At the start of the second class, we were each handed a Polaroid camera and a pack of film, and let loose to photograph three found objects and invent their backstories. I stuck close to the grounds, looking for pieces of trash that might contain the meaning of life as laid out by Aristotle, or at least a decently compelling plastic action figure. I rejected a filthy beach towel and a sneaker before coming across a deflating balloon tied to a tree. I snapped my shot and shook the photo, to make sure it would develop, before I moved on.

  As I rounded the corner, I spotted Blake through the trees, leaned up against a chain-link fence that cordoned the grounds off from the dirty ravine. He was smoking a cigarette and idly kicking pebbles through the fence. I watched him for a minute before I slowly meandered over, posturing as though I were searching for something to photograph. I put the camera up to my eye and looked through it, then rejected the composition. When I was close enough to Blake that he couldn’t ignore my presence, I pulled a cigarette from the full pack in my bag.

  “Would you happen to have a lighter?”

  The expression on Blake’s face was an amused one, and he let it sting me for a moment before he reached into his pocket and handed me a plastic Bic bearing the image of a white wolf howling at the stars.

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  I lit my smoke and handed the lighter back to Blake. I took a few steps toward the ravine and rested against the chain-link fence. Again, I put the Polaroid up to my eye but lowered it before snapping a photo. I drew a line in the dirt with the tip of my shoe and built up my courage.

  “Hey.” I turned back to Blake. “Can I see your lighter again?”

  “Wow. Take it easy with the nicotine, kid,” he said before tossing me the Bic.

  I caught the lighter and examined it. I turned toward the fence and balanced the lighter between pieces of twisted metal so the head of the wolf was facing me. I stepped back. I put my Polaroid up to my eye and snapped a photo of the lighter in its new setting. Then I handed it back to Blake.

  His eyebrows were raised in what I hoped was incredulity. At a disregard for the rules that was undeniably charming. “I don’t think that’s really the point of the exercise,” was all he said.

  “Um. Don’t tell Victor?”

  “All right. But you’d better come up with a damn good backstory for that lighter.” Blake winked. He stomped out his cigarette and turned away. He slipped his hands into his pockets, and I watched him walk all the way back to the building. With one object left to photograph, I settled on a dirty tennis ball, thinking I could blow Victor’s mind asunder by nailing the narrative of a scrappy, aged rottweiler.

  The following week, Blake led the class for the first time, giving a talk on how to translate real-world experiences into art. He had prepared a slide show of his paintings and the seemingly incongruous scenes that had inspired them. A month spent living in a tiny apartment in Mexico City begat photographs of shoeless boys playing soccer in the grimy streets, and old toothless men surrounded by bottles of tequila. But the paintings Blake created were less literal interpretations of the photos and more oily abstractions imbued with a similar sense of motion. The point he was making was pretty obvious, but the artwork was nice to look at, and I wanted to appear as fully absorbed in the presentation as I possibly could, so I scooted my chair forward and hardly allowed
myself to blink.

  Blake took us through the backwoods of Kentucky and the metropolises of South America, then showed the bodies of work inspired by each place. He paused as he flipped to the next batch of slides. “I was on the fence about showing you guys this set,” he said. “But Victor convinced me you’re all mature enough to handle it.”

  He scrolled through images of rural Thailand that quickly turned into cityscapes and portraits of people shopping at a busy market. Then we were inside a nightclub and out into a dark alley lit by a string of lanterns. The final and most potent photo depicted two young girls, probably prostitutes and definitely jailbait, sitting naked on the end of a foldout bed. The following image—ostensibly inspired by the last—showed one of Blake’s paintings, an abstraction containing bamboo-like strips of paint over various free-floating anonymous body parts cut from porno mags. The class looked at the painting for several seconds before half the room erupted into spontaneous giggles.

  “Cool,” Blake said. “Victor, you were definitely right about the maturity level here.”

  Blake switched off the projector, obviously pissed. The presentation turned into a discussion about how to interpret interpretation—but seeing as it was led by Victor and not Blake, I let myself check out. I lingered a little after the session was over, swallowing a booster in the women’s bathroom and fixing my eye makeup. I walked slowly to the parking lot and took my time unlocking the door of my car. Eventually, I saw Blake heading down the steps and waved, waiting to see if he’d come over. He did.

  “Hey,” I said. “I really liked your thing today.”

  “Yeah? Thanks. I never know how people are going to react to that stuff.”

  “It was interesting. And it made sense. I mean, it finally felt like there was a reason I’d signed up for this class.”

  “Oh?” Blake raised his eyebrows. “Do you not feel like you’ve gained invaluable experience in the ways of life?”

  I laughed a little harder than I meant to. “Hey, can I ask why you’re teaching this class? I mean, besides today, you haven’t seemed all that into it. No offense.”