Poison Ink

by Christopher Golden

  More buses rumbled into the line. Together the girls started to move down the line and stopped at the third bus, which would take Letty home to her neighborhood. Caryn’s and Sammi’s buses were farther along the sidewalk.

  “The usual stuff with my parents,” Letty said, one corner of her mouth lifting in a halfhearted smile. “I think they’re a little worried about you all sleeping over, like, what are all these girls doing hanging out with our lesbian daughter.”

  Sammi glanced at Caryn. “Well, duh, lesbian orgy.”

  Caryn nodded, all serious. “Absolutely.”

  Letty let out a burst of laughter that brought stares from a lot of the guys and girls around them. “I love you guys,” she said.

  Solemn, Sammi crossed her arms. “That’s what your parents are afraid of.”

  Letty gave them each a small hug and jumped onto her bus, the last one aboard before the doors closed.

  As the engine rumbled and the yellow monster pulled away, the other two girls hurried along until they reached Sammi’s bus.

  “Wow,” Caryn said. “For Letty’s sake, I hope her parents don’t make it too weird this weekend. Can’t they just be happy their daughter has friends?”

  “It’s never gonna be that easy,” Sammi replied. “Letty told me she feels lucky her father still speaks to her. In her culture, I guess a lot of times it doesn’t work out that way.”

  “Not just in her culture.”

  “I guess. But, yeah, hopefully they won’t be too high-strung that we’re sleeping over.”

  A sly smile crept across Caryn’s face. “Guess I better get to work on those tattoo designs. I want to find something that’s perfect for us.”

  Sammi forced a smile and stepped onto her bus.

  “You’ll do it. I know you will,” she said.

  She and Caryn said their goodbyes, and then Sammi worked her way toward the back of the bus and found a seat. A couple of rowdy guys got on right after her, and the bus driver told them to be quiet and sit down, that he’d let them off in the middle of the street if they started trouble.

  Caryn might have waved to her, but Sammi didn’t even turn to look. For most of Monday she had worried about the whole tattoo plan, trying to figure out a way to tell her friends that she loved them but that her parents would just never understand. Today, at school, she’d managed to avoid thinking about it very much, and when they only briefly mentioned it at lunch, she’d told herself that the idea would wither and die and she wouldn’t have to go through with it.

  No such luck.

  Butterflies darted around in her stomach. As she started to turn the problem over in her mind again, her cell phone vibrated. Flipping it open, she saw that she had a text message from Cute Adam.

  How wz yur 1st day?

  Smiling, she put the issue of the tattoo aside for the moment.

  i survived.

  anyplace special u wnna go fri nt?

  surprise me.

  Come Friday night, Sammi found that Adam had taken her seriously. Of all the places she might have guessed he would take her, the Peddler’s Daughter wouldn’t even have been on the list. Growing up in Covington, she had passed the place a hundred times, but she had never been inside. Just around the corner from both England’s MicroCreamery and Krueger’s Flatbread, down a side street known for its little art galleries and a dance studio, the little Irish pub sat tucked away in the cellar of another, trendier restaurant.

  The rest of that shortened first week of school had passed uneventfully. Adam had arrived to pick her up at seven o’clock and spent a few minutes chatting with her parents. To Sammi’s profound relief, they seemed to like him all right. Or at least, they didn’t immediately lock her in her room and throw him out of the house, despite his being the first boy to ever take her out in his own car.

  In the fading light, Adam led the way down the steps between buildings to the entrance and held the door for her. The moment he opened it, she heard the music. Sammi felt her heart lift and blossom with pleasure as she stepped into the pub. Brass and dark wood and dim light gave the Peddler’s Daughter an authentic air, but nothing added to that ambience more than the music that came from the tiny stage at the back of the pub, where a quartet played a rising, exultant Celtic tune. The two guitars provided the beat, while the girl playing violin and an older man on flute made the song dance and reel.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  Adam slipped his hand into hers. Sammi let him.

  “You like?” he asked.

  She grinned. No other answer was necessary. Just the idea that he had put real thought into where he would take her tonight, that he had worked to surprise her, to please her, felt new and extraordinary. This wasn’t a night at the movies or a stop for pizza, and it certainly wasn’t a stop by some beer bash some of his friends were throwing.

  “Can I help you?” the hostess asked, coming around from the dining room.

  “We have a reservation,” Adam said.

  Sammi marveled at the idea. She had been on dates before, but this belonged in an entirely different category. Cute Adam, it appeared, had a lot more to offer than a mischievous grin and soulful eyes.

  “So,” she said, after the hostess had seated her and left them their menus, “how did you know about this place?”

  “My father takes me here sometimes. My parents are divorced and he lives in Plaistow. He swears by the place. Says they have the best burger in the Merrimack Valley. But I remembered they had music on weekends and I thought you’d like it.”

  “I do. Very much.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Adam said, seeming genuinely pleased.

  They looked at one another, their eyes lingering a few beats longer than felt comfortable, and Sammi looked away. She glanced at the menu.

  “How long have your parents been divorced?”

  “Since I was eleven,” Adam said, studying his own menu. “I know I’m supposed to be all bummed, but I can’t summon up the tears. They fought so much when they were married that life is a hell of a lot easier with them apart, for all of us.”

  “All of us?”

  “I have two older sisters, both in college.”

  Sammi looked up, eyebrows raised. “That explains a lot.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Guys who have older sisters just get it more than guys who don’t. ‘It’ being girls in general. Either that, or you just learn to fake it better as a matter of survival.”

  Adam laughed, nodding. “Faking it, definitely. But yeah, there’s a comfort level, I guess. What about you? Siblings?”

  Sammi set her menu down. “Nope. Only child, parents still married. At least for the moment.”

  “You think that’s going to change?”

  She gave a tiny shrug. “I didn’t say they were happily married. The house didn’t need air-conditioning this summer. You have enough cold shoulders around, it gets plenty chilly.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Me too. So what about school? What’s it like to be a senior?”

  The conversation went on like that for a while. Adam had been held back in the first grade. Minor dyslexia had given him trouble learning to read, which explained why he was eighteen and just starting senior year in high school. He definitely had college plans, with Somerset University just north of Boston his first choice, and UNH as a serious backup.

  They both had burgers. By the time they were halfway through dinner, she had decided that if he wanted to kiss her later, she would let him. That was a bit of self-deceit, however. In truth, she had known from the moment he sat down by her on the beach at Kingston Lake that she would very much like him to kiss her. Now, though, she had a feeling she would be gravely disappointed if he didn’t.

  Damn, she thought as they walked hand in hand around the corner to the little park outside England’s, watch your step with this one, girl.

  Adam didn’t wait until the end of the night to kiss her. While they sat in that tiny park eating ice
cream, he made her laugh, and then silenced that laugh with his lips. She tasted black raspberry ice cream on his tongue, and a shiver of pleasure went through her.

  Not once did she mention that she would be sleeping over Letty’s the next night, or the pact she and the girls had made. The subject of tattoos did not come up. Sammi had been working hard all week to avoid even thinking about it, and being with Adam helped her to forget. Kissing Adam, she could cast off all her worries.

  Even that night in bed, drifting off to sleep, she felt a pleasant buzz from her date and imagined she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers.

  But she did not sleep well, and her dreams were unpleasant.

  Sammi’s mother agreed to pick up Katsuko before going to Letty’s on Saturday. They drove up into the Ardmore section of Covington, over the bridge from the old factory area of the city. Ever since the days when people had sweated for sixteen hours a day making shoes and clothes and glassware while their managers and executives went home to mansions across the river, people who’d grown up north of the bridge had held a grudge against those who made their homes in Ardmore. Even now, all these years later, folks who’d grown up in Covington had an edge in their voices when they talked about Ardmore.

  As her mother drove up Valley View Drive, a ten-year-old development full of minimansions and perfectly groomed acre lots, Sammi knew she must be resisting the urge to comment, and appreciated the effort.

  The door opened the instant they pulled into the driveway—Katsuko had apparently been waiting for them—and the girl called back into the house and shut the door quickly. She ran down to the car with her overnight bag, smiling brightly.

  “Wow,” Linda Holland said as Katsuko approached, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the girl smile.”

  “She smiles, Mom. She’s just very serious.”

  Sammi might have said more, issued an indictment about how strict Katsuko’s parents were, but then the door opened and Katsuko plunged into the backseat.

  “Hi!”

  “Sorry if we’re late,” Sammi’s mother said.

  “Not at all. I just couldn’t wait to escape. I cleaned my room twice today, and I think they were inspecting it to see if I had missed anything.”

  Sammi glanced into the backseat. “Are you kidding? Why?”

  “They didn’t want me to go. I didn’t give them much choice, but I’m sure they were looking for a reason to change their minds.”

  Sammi’s mom put the car in reverse. “Then we should get the heck out of here.”

  Katsuko beamed. But if her mother had known what had Katsuko so excited, she wouldn’t have been so sympathetic. Sammi looked at her mother and saw how pleased she was to have scored points with her daughter’s friend, and a fresh wave of guilt crashed over her.

  Throughout the ride to Letty’s house, Katsuko and Mrs. Holland made small talk about school and swimming and college and what it felt like to be a junior. Sammi barely said a word, gazing out the window, watching as they went back over the bridge and drove through the city, passing through neighborhoods in descending order of income. When she started seeing graffiti on the sides of brick buildings, and rusted chain-link fence, she knew that they were almost there. Over the years, Covington had become a true melting pot, and it had a sizable Latino population. There were Latinos in every part of the city, but Vespucci Square had been the beating, immigrant heart of Covington for a century and a half. Italians and Germans had come first, and then the Irish. Later, there had come Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and now a wave of Brazilians. The condition of many of the duplexes and row houses spoke of poverty, not of culture.

  Which hadn’t stopped Sammi’s father from hesitating when she asked if she could sleep over Letty’s, or her mother from telling her to be careful, not to wander off. Sammi could not even blame them. The neighborhood could be rough, especially for people who didn’t live there.

  All those thoughts filled her head as her mother pulled past the dingy Citgo station beside the two-family Letty and her parents shared with Teresa, her older sister, and Teresa’s two babies. The walls were so thin—Letty had warned them—that she could hear the babies crying in the night. The house itself was well kept, with a fresh coat of paint and a small, immaculate yard.

  But even though she knew better, Sammi couldn’t help holding her breath as she got out of the car. She would not let her mother see her nervousness. Could not let anyone see it. No matter how much she knew about the origins of Vespucci Square, the reality of the local paper was inescapable. When trouble went down in Covington, whether it was drugs or prostitution or murder, it nearly always happened within half a mile of this spot.

  As Katsuko said goodbye and expressed her thanks, climbing out of the car, Sammi had to take a steadying breath. What they were planning for tonight was bad enough—trouble enough—but walking the streets of Vespucci Square after dark added to the danger in a way that sent a shiver of fear through her. This whole thing is stupid. What the hell is wrong with me? she thought.

  By then, her mother had said goodbye and begun to pull away.

  Standing on the cracked and pitted sidewalk in front of Letty’s duplex, she and Katsuko looked at one another.

  “Are you nervous?”

  A shudder of relief went through Sammi, and she uttered a nervous laugh. “Oh my God, completely. Aren’t you?”

  Katsuko nodded. “Oh yeah. But it feels kind of good, you know?”

  Sammi smiled as though she did know, but her smile was a lie.

  She picked up her overnight bag and followed Katsuko up the concrete steps to 46A, Letty’s half of the duplex. Sammi rang the doorbell, and they heard voices and footsteps inside, then the sound of two locks being drawn back. The door swung open and Letty opened her arms to them, giddy with excitement. She wore artfully torn jeans, low around her hipbones, and a tank with spaghetti straps.

  Caryn and T.Q. were behind her in the hallway. Letty ushered Sammi and Katsuko in, and the girls all started talking at once. Caryn had dressed fairly sexy, in a ribbed top and a short skirt. Katsuko and T.Q. were conservative in comparison, but Sammi wore jeans and a loose green cotton shirt. This was supposed to be girls’ night. Whom were they trying to impress?

  “Letty?”

  They all looked around to see Mrs. Alecia silhouetted in the entrance to the kitchen at the end of the hall.

  “Hello, girls,” Letty’s mother said.

  They all greeted her, but Mrs. Alecia stayed near the kitchen, and they did not move from their spot by the door. Sammi shifted in the moment of awkward silence as the woman appraised them, obviously wondering if one of them might be her daughter’s girlfriend, and if so, which one?

  “Are you sure you don’t want to have dinner here? I’m cooking for your father and Teresa anyway.”

  Letty smiled. “No thank you, Mami. We’re just going to have pizza, if that’s okay. It’s girls’ night.”

  Mrs. Alecia smiled wanly. “All right. Have fun, Letitia.”

  Letty rolled her eyes at her mother’s use of the name. “We will. We’re just going up to my room for a minute. Gotta show the girls something before we take off.”

  Mrs. Alecia vanished into the kitchen. When Letty turned to face them, Sammi saw the sadness in her eyes, but Letty covered it with another one of those giddy smiles.

  “Let’s dump your bags upstairs,” she said to Katsuko and Sammi. Then she looked at Caryn. “Wait’ll you see the designs our favorite artist has come up with.”

  They all exchanged conspiratorial looks and followed Letty upstairs, as if the whole thing might be some wonderful game. Sammi went last, trailing behind the others, wishing she had never agreed to play, knowing how hurt they would be if she tried to back out now.

  Knowing that by morning, whatever she decided, she would have betrayed the trust of someone she loved.

  4

  A fter dark they made their way down to Valencia Avenue, a street that Sammi had ridden past with her par
ents many times over the years but could not recall ever having gone down. There were bakeries and dollar stores and empty storefronts with the glass postered over or whitewashed. One relic had once been a video store, but such places were nearly extinct now.

  Across the street, Sammi spotted the shop with blacked-out windows, a blue neon Open sign the only indication that it was inhabited. That particular shade of deep blue ought to have seemed cold and wintry—especially on a night that had turned so unseasonably cool—but to Sammi it looked like blue fire. Just looking at it made her flush with a strange heat that might have been excitement or embarrassment, or maybe a little of both.

  Her heartbeat sped up and she ran her tongue across her lips. Frightened as she was, the sensation of doing something so taboo, so forbidden, exhilarated her. Being bad had its allure.

  “Are we really going to do this?” T.Q. asked.

  Sammi blinked in surprise and looked over, relieved that someone else had put voice to the question that had been on the tip of her tongue all night. When they had sat in Letty’s room looking at Caryn’s intricate and elegant designs, she had tried to make herself say those words a dozen times. Knowing the way the other girls would look at her, knowing that it would hurt them, she had not been able to summon the courage.

  T.Q. had asked the question. Her eyes were wide, staring across the street at the black windows, at the flickering blue neon letters. Open.

  “Maybe—” Sammi began.

  “Damn right we’re doing it,” Letty said.

  Katsuko laughed as she unconsciously rubbed at her hipbone, the place she intended to get her tattoo. “We didn’t come down here to just forget about it now, T.Q.”

  A nervous, almost giddy smile blossomed on T.Q.’s face. She nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”

  Sammi tried to open her mouth, tried to reverse time just a few seconds, long enough for her to agree with T.Q. and maybe make the others hesitate. But the moment had passed. She had missed the opportunity. Sammi wanted to do this for her friends, but her parents had enough problems without dealing with what they’d perceive as their daughter’s rebellion. She had been struggling with the decision all day, but in her heart she knew that she wouldn’t know for sure what she would do until the moment arrived.