“Are you incognito?” Gully covered his mouth with his hand, spy-talking.
Nancy bent to his height and spy-talked back. “Affirmative!”
She moved so I could clock the contents of her bag: two bottles of champagne. “Courtesy of the Purple Onion. Let’s get stinko.”
I took Gully by the shoulders. “I’ve got to check in with Agent Cole, KGB, talk turkey, get intel, you savvy?”
“I want to come too.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to be talking about periods,” Nancy said loudly.
Gully went red. His lip trembled like he was about to cry. “Hey! I’m joking,” Nancy said, but Gully was already trudging away. After a few steps he turned back. “What about fish and chips?”
I waved him off. “Tell Dad to start without me.”
The greenhouse was jungle-steamy; the perfect place for an assignation, if that was what we were having. Nancy and I collapsed on the bench and smiled at each other. My stomach flip-flopped. She took a bottle out of her bag and popped the cork. It flew up and I imagined it shattering the ceiling and glass raining down, skewering the goldfish and making the paving slabs sing. This didn’t happen. What did happen was I took a gulp and the drink went down the wrong pipe and came back up through my nose. Nancy drank like Dad on a bad night, like she’d been crawling across the desert for infinite days. She set the bottle down and released an epic burp.
“Your turn,” she said, like that constituted conversation.
Where to start? Otis and the photograph, Luke and the Fugg, Quinn Bishop and messes, the Ugly Mugs, the elusive Bricker, the sale of the shop, the end of the world.
I started with Mum’s phone call.
“That’s tough,” Nancy said. But her voice rang hollow. She didn’t get it—she had no family, she moved around. She was like that Rolling Stones song “Ruby Tuesday”—I used to think it was exotic, but now I wasn’t so sure. If you lived like that, what was to stop you from disappearing altogether?
I took a swig of champagne and rushed on to the next item. “So my friend Quinn showed me this website, called Otisworld, and it’s photos of . . . stuff . . . but mostly girls.” I paused. “You’re on it.”
Nancy put her hand to her heart. “Me?” But this was wrong; she looked surprised and flattered.
I nodded.
“Doing what?”
I swallowed. “Okay. You’re naked.”
She waved her hand. “Oh, that. He put that up?”
I stared at her.
“What?” She rattled my wrist. “What?”
“Don’t you care? Don’t you care that you’re naked and it’s online and anyone can see?”
“First of all, not just anyone can see. You have to have a password. And no one who knows me is going to look at that. And even if they did, so what? When I’m forty and my arse is sagging somewhere down around my ankles, I’m going to be able to look back and say, I used to be something.”
“But it makes you look like nothing. Put like that, with the pictures all rolling one after the other, it makes you look like nothing.”
“Sky, it’s really not a big deal.”
I felt confused. Was it nothing, or was it something? Then I remembered Mia.
“There was a picture of Mia Casey, too. It was from earlier. She was with a group of girls. She had a scarf.”
I checked Nancy’s neck. The lovebites were still there but faded. They looked like brown summer blossoms, like the end of something. Nancy was looking at me like she felt sorry for me. She clucked. “Poor dollbaby. Don’t you know, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom? Jim Morrison said that.” She leaned in. For a second I thought she was going to kiss me again. A pause like a canyon yawped between us, and then she laughed her donkey-honk laugh and I ducked my head, embarrassed that I was always getting so lost in her.
After that we fell quiet. Nancy smacked my arm and I smacked hers back. We went back and forth like that a few rounds. She took off her black hat and put it on my head, and then she stood, stretched, and sighed. She grabbed an overhanging palm frond and fanned herself with it, affecting the air of a jaded chanteuse.
“So, how is Otis?” I asked.
“He’s beautiful. He’s my soul mate.”
“Seriously?”
“No.” A crooked smile. “Let me tell you about Otis Sharp: He looks hot, but the guy has isshews. Number one: he can’t hold his drink. Number two: he’s more interested in looking than doing. Hence photo. Number three: he cries, like, all the time. You thought that was just part of the show, right? Well, let me tell you, it’s real. Number four: his fat friend? Om-nipres-ent.”
She lit a cigarette and exhaled a gray cloud.
“So, you’re not in love?”
“Dollbaby, love is a fiction. Love is, like, those pictures from the seventies with the kids and the flares and the big moony eyes. Of course I’m not in love. I’m working an angle.”
I laughed, but Nancy looked serious. The way she talked, it was like all those movies she’d watched had seeped into her system. I couldn’t tell when she was quoting and when she was being herself. I should have been feeling relieved. Otis meant nothing, and summer could go back to being summer—but even as I thought this, I knew it was all wrong.
Nancy snapped the branch of the palm. It made a sharp cracking sound. She said, “That party I went to with Ray. Your dad was there with some foxy redhead, looking very loved-up.”
“That’s Eve,” I said faintly.
“And that reminds me.” She dug in her bag and brought out a piece of paper. “For your dad.”
Dear Bill,
I’m writing to apologize for not looking out for Sky when we went out last Friday night. Sky’s my good friend and I’m not used to having good friends, but that’s not really an excuse. I let you down and her down, and for this I’m truly sorry. I hope you’ll let me take her out for her birthday—nothing crazy, I promise. Just two grand old girls having a grand old time.
Nancy
“Okay?” she asked.
I looked at her, feeling weird. “Okay.”
She opened the second bottle and passed it along. I was already woozy, but I kept drinking. And the more I drank, the less weird I felt. Then we were laughing again, and nothing was serious and we were in the moment and the moment was everything. Outside, the sky grew dark; birds were convening in the fig tree. Nancy’s phone pinged and she had to lam. I weaved along the path, gulping air. The grass in the dark looked like velvet. I lay upon it and stared up at the sky. The stars were spinning. I might have hugged a palm tree before puking.
Back at the flat Dad and Gully were playing Jenga. I pulled out a chair a little too forcefully, and the tower trembled. They froze. Dad kept his eyes on the block he was trying to pry out of the pile. “Where have you been?”
“At the gardens.”
“You’re supposed to see Gully all the way home.”
“He only had to walk two blocks. He’s not five.
“You have to tell me when you’re going out.”
“I was being spontaneous.”
The tower remained. A triumph.
Dad said, “You missed fish and chips.”
Missing fish and chips was tantamount to treason.
“I wasn’t hungry.” You let Mum sell the shop. I thought it, but I didn’t say it.
Dad eyeballed me. “Have you been drinking?”
“No!” I snorted. “Have you?”
I could stare Dad out—his right eye started twitching after three seconds. He looked down.
“Nice hat,” he muttered.
I thrust Nancy’s letter at him.
Dad read it and put it on the table next to his glass.
“Sky, Sky.” Gully was touching my arm. “Sky, Sky, Sky—”
“What?”
“I ate your flake. It was good.”
CRAZY PEOPLE
I WAS HUNGOVER AGAIN. I w
as beginning to see how Dad could get used to it. The headache was bracing, but the floating feeling that went with it was almost pleasant. I felt wispy, insubstantial, like the world was spinning but I was standing off to the side. The feeling stayed with me as I dressed; it followed me to breakfast, where the idea of food was ridiculous. I drank water and watched Gully hunched over some project, humming as he worked. The air around him felt frenetic. I had to sit down. I put my hand in my pocket, and my fingers felt something—Luke’s wristband. I slipped it on my wrist and promptly forgot about it.
“Gully, what are you doing?”
“I’m making a sign.”
He flashed the cardboard.
WANTED: INFORMATION
Do you own or have you seen a white Jeep? Sticker on the back says love live local. Come into the Wishing Well, ask for Agent Seagull Martin, Special Investigations Unit, in collaboration with SKPD. Reward.
“What’s the reward?”
“There’s no reward,” Gully replied. “That’s the bait.”
“Clever.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do when you find the Bricker?”
“Make a citizen’s arrest. Hand him over to SKPD.”
“Let me put it another way: What are you going to do if you don’t find him?”
But Gully didn’t want to hear that. He hummed louder. He filled in the block letters that had already been filled. The humming and his hand moving up and down did something to me. I reached over and put my hand on his. I pressed hard.
“HEY!” Gully cried. “Don’t do that.”
Dad appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
I took my hand back. “Nothing.”
Dad moved around me to the coffeepot. He poured a cup and sipped at it, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Sky?”
“No. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Dad looked at Gully. “Gully, can you excuse us?”
Gully gathered his work and huffed off to the living room.
Dad hunched across the table. He had Things To Say. I braced myself.
“Skylark. Last night. Not good. You’re supposed to be grounded. And I don’t want you drinking.”
“I wasn’t drinking.”
“I think I have some experience in this area.”
I looked at him straight.
“I want to go out for my birthday.”
“I can’t stop you.”
“You could try trusting me. How am I supposed to find my people if I don’t go out anywhere?”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “Your people?”
“Mum’s always saying, Have you found your people? You found yours. Eve said you had a whole gang. But all I’ve got is Nancy, so you should cut me some slack.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Dad sighed. He put his coffee cup in the sink and looked around. The kitchen had gone back to its bombsite state. He gave me a bleak smile and offered his arms up for a hug. I resisted. Was he going to tell me about the shop? I stared at him, willing him to tell me. I tried telepathy. I know. I know Mum sold us down the river. It didn’t work.
When Dad spoke, it was about something else. “I need you to mind the shop with Luke. I’ve got to go see a man about some records. I’ll take Gully.”
“What about my sign?” Gully shouted. He’d been listening all along.
“Sky will put it up for you. Won’t you?”
I raised my eyebrows.
Dad gave my arm a squeeze. The brief moment of contact put me off-balance. It was like he was squeezing my heart. He said, “If anyone’s selling, tell them to come back.”
“What’s the point?” I muttered under my breath. It was galling, how Dad could act like everything was normal. I understood why he didn’t want to tell Gully about the shop being sold—Gully had a shit fit if we so much as drove a different way home—but he could have told me. Now my head was pounding. My mouth felt dry. I felt shaky, seedy, and that floating feeling had disappeared, replaced with bitterness.
Alone with Luke, on a Saturday. I tried to remember Vesna’s advice—the firm hand, the element of surprise—but then Nancy’s voice kept crashing the party: You don’t have to do anything to make a guy think about sex because he’s already thinking it.
Luke was waiting out front. He didn’t look like he was thinking about sex. He looked worried. I gave him a terse nod and turned the key in the lock. Once inside, I turned off the alarm and flicked the lights—we had two and a half fluorescent bars working; the other half stuttered and threshed like a dying moth. I went through to the back room and opened that door to let some air in. I counted out the float. Without music the shop was too quiet. I flicked through my holds stash for something to play and decided on Bert Jansch—his voice was sullen and spare. It always made me feel sad, but I didn’t mind feeling sad that morning. As I performed my menial tasks, Luke stood with his back to me, gazing up at the Wall of Woe. I slammed the till tray shut to get his attention.
“It’s just you and me today. Dad has to see a man about some records.”
Luke came around the counter. I went on speaking without looking at him.
“That doesn’t actually mean he’s going to see a man about some records. It just means he’s not coming in.” I paused. “At least he took snout-boy. I’m supposed to put this up.” I indicated Gully’s sign, and then I caught Luke’s eye and kept it. “Have you seen a white Jeep, Luke?”
He shook his head. He was looking at me so seriously. His eyes were hazy blue behind his glasses. It was unnerving, the way he looked at me. I felt darkness inside, the drama rising in me.
“Crazy people,” I said. “My dad and Gully, they’re cracked.” I glared at Luke. “Why don’t you talk?”
Luke mumbled, “What do you want me to say?”
“Something. Anything. I don’t even know why you’re here.”
“Well, I’m working.”
“Right,” I said. I stared down at the counter, at the wood grain, the million pencil marks. There was a long arc of silence, and then Luke cleared his throat. “My sister was crazy.”
He wasn’t smiling. He gave a slight shrug and rubbed his hands across his knees. He spoke slowly, like he was rolling the words around his mouth before sending them out to that place where once said, they couldn’t be taken back.
“Mia was hard work. When we were kids, I never knew if she wanted to hug me or fight me. I don’t think she knew either. She broke my arm when I was eight. But she also put a hex on every bully who ever tried anything. That was during her high-priestess phase. She had a poet phase too, and she dabbled in pharmaceuticals. I don’t know where she got her ideas from or why certain things held and certain things didn’t. When I strike a match, I think about her. The flare and the hiss and the way the flame dies down quick, but your fingers still sting afterward.” He ducked his head. “I don’t have very good memories of her. I think she had, like, a self-destruct button. She’d been running away since she was twelve. And everything else. In the end it was like we just let her go. Mum used to put money in her account, but it was never enough. I know this sounds bad, but I wasn’t surprised when I heard she was dead. I was only surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.”
Maybe if we’d been facing each other, Luke wouldn’t have spoken, but parallel as we were, talking seemed easier. I could imagine we were strangers on a train, turning our stories along with the wheels.
He outlined incidents, his voice thick, almost hypnotic: Fights. Boys. Drugs. Homes. Hope. Heartbreak. His words made me feel like I didn’t know anything. And after this outpouring Luke sat staring straight ahead, his hands curled into fists. The muscle on his cheek pulsed.
“Our surname, Casey, it’s supposed to mean watchful and vigilant, but I wasn’t much good at either. The way you are with Gully—it’s really special. It makes me wish I could go back and change everything.” His eyes traveled down; at the same time we both realized
I was wearing his wristband.
“I found it, when I was cleaning up.”
“It’s okay,” Luke said. “You can have it.”
Silence again. He took a deep breath through his nostrils and released it. “Anyway. I didn’t answer your question. I’m here because . . . well . . . my parents didn’t want an inquiry. They just wanted to bring Mia home, but I felt like . . . I feel like . . .”
Luke never finished what he was going to say because just then the door opened and two people walked in. It was Otis Sharp followed by Rocky. My hackles went up. Otis didn’t know me; he didn’t know that I knew anything about him and Nancy and the penthouse and the lovebites. He didn’t know I’d seen him crying after the attack of the Paradise protestors. He was shorter than I remembered, but still with that wayward kind of glamour. His hair was terrifically shaggy, and his black jeans were dead tight. He wore white leather shoes and a cowhide vest, and the whole look was expensive but careless.
Rocky lumped a box on the counter.
“I’m selling.”
Luke leaned forward to match Rocky’s aggro.
“The buyer’s not here.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I can do it.”
Rocky watched me as I went through the buy. His presence made me rush, and I could only remember two of Dad’s rules: Move fast. Keep a poker face.
The records were good. If they’d been terrible, the buy would have been easier. For some I had to check the pricing guide. For everything else I erred on the side of generosity.
I was halfway through when Otis erupted into a giggle fit. Rocky didn’t look at him, but I could see muscles tense on his hands. Otis stopped giggling, sighed, and started giggling again. He was stoned. I had a moment of not-quite fear. Once a guy had pulled a syringe on Dad, but he’d been so wobbly he couldn’t aim straight, and Dad had shamed him out of the shop.
Rocky leaned farther over the counter.
“That’s not going to make her any quicker,” Luke said.
“Who asked you?” Rocky snapped.
I glanced up at him and then to where Otis was standing in a shaft of light, staring dazedly down, rubbing his chest, making the cowhide crackle. And then I readied the stack. “Seventy-five cash or ninety tr—”
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