Dark Companion

by Marta Acosta

  “Dog what? You never make any sense.”

  “Dog Waffle. It’s my band. I guess the answer is no. Doesn’t Hattie look amazing?”

  “Yes,” I said, but I was thinking, jackass, because he always needed to remind me that I didn’t look amazing. “Very.”

  Hattie touched my hand. “You’re so pretty in that dress. I love that color.”

  “I thought red was your favorite,” Jack said. “Valentines, roses, strawberries, blood—”

  Hattie interrupted him. “Red lipstick, rubies, beets.”

  “No one likes beets,” Mary Violet said.

  “MV, you always make these grand pronouncements,” Constance said. “With you it’s always everybody or nobody. You have a binary approach to life.”

  “That’s because my mind is like a super computer,” MV said. “Let’s do a lap of the room. Hattie, are you coming or will you be acting all groupie with the band members?”

  Hattie said, “Thanks for reminding me, MV. I better get started on that.”

  Jack waggled his eyebrows. “How do I get in on the groupie action?”

  Hattie slapped his arm and said to us, “I’ll catch up with you.”

  I followed Mary Violet and Constance as they began making their way around the room, which had quickly become packed with mostly upperclassmen and lots of college-age people. My friends were so busy that it was easy for me to edge away, keeping to the comfort of the periphery, where I could observe things and hear bits of conversation.

  The music stopped, the stage lights came on, and the other lights dropped further. Jack and three other guys hopped onstage. One guy went to the drum set, another carried a bass, a guy with bleached white-blond hair and a guitar went to the center mic, and Jack picked up a guitar from a stand.

  The DJ announced, “Greenwood’s own … Dog Waffle.”

  The crowd clapped and hooted as the singer at the center thrummed his guitar and shouted, “Uno, dos, three, four…”

  I moved back around to where my friends had left their things. I stood half hidden by one of the potted trees and watched the band as best I could between the people standing.

  At City Central, most everyone listened to hip-hop, much of it performed by students who used their closets as recording booths and sold their CDs out of their backpacks. I didn’t know much about rock, and the acoustics of the room were so bad that I had to listen hard to make out the lyrics. It was a song about deceit. The more I listened, the more I liked the band.

  Even I could tell that Jack on lead guitar was the best musician. He played with his head down, his curls tumbling over his face, but then he’d lift his head, and the light would catch the gleam of his eyes. Even when the songs rocked hard and fast, each note he played was clear and distinct.

  The singer was good, and everyone else seemed to like all his posing and preening. But I could tell the lyrics were Jack’s because they sounded exactly like him, with lots of wordplay. For the last song of the set, the bass player picked up a stand-up instrument and another guy came onstage with a cello. The singer stepped up to the mic and said, “Jack and I are gonna switch it up for this one, even though I’m a better singer.”

  Jack gave the singer that one-sided grin as he went to the center mic. “You mean you’re a better screamer.” He waited until the singer had moved into place before saying, “This is something I just wrote for someone special.” Everyone looked at Hattie, who looked shy and happy as she stood near the stage. “It’s called ‘My Titania’ and it’s for the most extraordinary girl I’ve ever met.”

  The crowd grew quiet as the cellist sounded out the first deep melancholy notes of the song and Jack began singing in a resonant, gravelly voice.

  Tangled in the darkest woods, the paths twisting,

  All direction lost,

  I try to follow my Titania,

  As she slips from reach and grasp

  Like a dream that wants to be forgotten

  Like a ghost condemned to wandering

  I turn my head and she is gone.

  The song sent a shiver through me and Jack’s eyes searched the crowd and seemed to meet mine and I felt as if he were singing right to me.

  Titania, stop for me, Titania, stay for me.

  Let me take your cloak of pain

  Let me hear your laugh again

  Titania, stop for me, Titania, wait for me

  She bewitches and bewilders me,

  Hesitates, then flees from me,

  Titania, stop for me, stay for me

  Titania, I can’t bear you away from me.

  I thought, It’s about Hattie sitting in the amphitheater like a ghost, as the crowd clapped and stomped until the floor and walls reverberated.

  Jack and the singer traded places again, and the singer said, “Okay, one more before our break.” The music cranked up with a harder, faster edge. Someone shouted out to Jack and he laughed, and I got a completely different sense of who he was.

  I caught sight of Lucky’s golden head near the front of the stage and I hurried through the crowd, excited to see him. And that’s when I saw a tall, amber-haired person beside him: Catalina. Lucky was leaning close to talk to her. His hand went up to stroke her hair. She was smiling at him, her hand on his shoulder.

  I stood transfixed by the sight of them flirting and felt as if someone were squeezing my throat.

  How completely stupid was I to believe Lucky’s “girlfriends are temporary” speech? How stupid was I to think that I might have meant something to him when he was only playing me … because he wanted adoration from the pathetic, lonely, desperate foster kid.

  I tried to find the anger that would overcome the pain, but all I could feel was the agony of rejection because I knew the truth: that no boy would ever choose me when he could have Catalina. I needed to get out of here fast.

  “Jane! There you are. What’s the matter?” Hattie caught my arm as I reached the door.

  “Nothing! I have to go. I’m … I don’t feel well.” I despised myself for letting my crush on Lucky make me so vulnerable.

  Hattie hooked her arm in mine and headed to the exit. “There’s no air in here. I’ll go with you.”

  Outside, I gulped down the cold air. Across the lot, the swimming pools glowed pure and bright, the blue of Lucky’s eyes. Voices floated from behind a tall hedge. Glass crashed and shattered somewhere, and drunken laughter followed.

  “Jane, what’s up?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “I can tell you’re not fine.” Her expression was too earnest and she wavered slightly. She’d been drinking.

  “I’m not really good at social things, Hattie. I’d rather be home.”

  “If you stay at home, you’ll never learn to deal with social things. People here are okay, but you have to put some effort into getting to know them.”

  I nodded even though I didn’t want to ever get to know them. Finally, I admitted, “I saw Lucky in there. With Catalina. She’ll probably talk smack about me to Lucky just when we’re starting to be friends.”

  “Is that all? Hey, Lucky knows that she talks smack about everyone. She even told him that he was ‘too provincial’ for her to ever date.” Hattie laughed. “I don’t think he’d ever been so insulted. She did it in front of everyone and MV told Lucky that provincial was French for ignorant hick.”

  “Then why is he all over her?”

  “Lucky gets a kick by making other girls jealous, because it keeps all the attention on him.” She twisted her lips to show her disgust. “As if I give one damn about who Lucian Radcliffe hits on.”

  I wanted to believe her. “He said the girls here are all jealous.”

  “Let’s go back in. Unless you want to get your drink on first. Some of my friends set up a bar behind the pool house.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Don’t you ever get loose, Jane?”

  “It’s not fun for me, because … thinking clearly is all I have.” I tried to explain. “If you’r
e small and live in a sketchy place, you’ve got to keep your wits about you all the time.”

  “You might not think so, but I have to stay cautious, too, Jane.” She was so serious that I assumed it was the vodka talking, and I followed her inside.

  The band had ended their set, and Jack jumped off the stage, high-fiving friends as he made his way to Lucky. Hattie hauled me by the hand as she went to meet the Radcliffe brothers.

  Lucky was in a slate-gray shirt, a gray blazer, and black jeans. He and Catalina were insanely glamorous together. She was now leaning against the stage. Her lustrous caramel satin halter dress flaunted her golden skin, the curves of her breasts, and her long legs. In heels, she was six feet tall.

  “Hi, Catalina, Lucian,” Hattie said breezily as she dropped my arm and leaned against Jack.

  “Hello, Harriet.” Catalina rolled her r’s in a way that seemed sarcastic. Then she noticed me. “Oh, who let the little mouse sneak into the party?”

  For one awful second, I thought that Catalina had discovered the nickname I hated. My paranoia threw me off my game. I lamely snarked, “It’s always so nice to see you, Catalina.”

  Lucky acknowledged Hattie and me with an apathetic “Hey.”

  Hattie frowned at Lucky and said to me, “Isn’t Dog Waffle great?”

  Jack pushed a curl off his sweaty forehead. “Hattie, it’s no use pressuring Jane to compliment me. I’ve tried and all she does is hurt my feelings. She hates me.”

  “I don’t compliment unless I mean it. You’re really good.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Good like pizza?”

  “Pizza’s great, not good, so there’s a qualitative difference.”

  Jack clutched his heart dramatically. “See what I mean?”

  I smiled, but I was acutely aware of Lucky nearby. He was already talking to some other guy who’d come up. Then more kids joined us and somehow I was standing in the center of people talking over my head.

  One guy mentioned the midterm break and another said that they should go on a group vacation. Lucky wanted to visit Portland because he’d never been there, and Catalina said she would be visiting relatives in Barcelona. Hattie voted for the trip to Portland.

  No one invited me to come along, and I was moving away when a long-faced college student named Sage stared at me. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Jane. I transferred in to Birch Grove.”

  Catalina sneered, “She’s the new Bebe because Bebe left.”

  “She probably flunked out.” Sage grimaced in disgust. “Or maybe she got knocked up by one of her thug boyfriends and sent back to the ghetto.” She dipped her head and peered up at Lucky. “Lucky, I’d think your mom would get tired of rescuing these sad orphans.”

  I held my breath, thinking that this was Lucky’s opportunity to stand up for me and to show everyone that we had a connection—but he slapped his brother on the shoulder. “This one’s all yours, bro,” he said, and walked away.

  I stared at Lucky’s back incredulously and Jack suddenly said, “I’m a sad orphan, too, Sage.”

  He stepped forward and stared down at Sage. “Yeah, I’m adopted. Do you feel sorry for me? Can I cry on your shoulder? My nose gets snotty when I cry, but snottiness turns you on, doesn’t it? Makes you feel so very special, am I right?”

  “I, uhm, I didn’t mean…” Sage said nervously while the others watched her distress as avidly as a pack of stray dogs eyes an injured member. “I didn’t know, uhm…”

  “It’s not your fault. Only our close friends knew. Like Jane.” Jack put his arm over my shoulders, drawing me toward him, and when he touched me, I got that jolt that made me tingle all over. I felt the heat from his body and smelled his intriguing scent, like the morning dew evaporating in the grove.

  “I’m sorry, I, uh … didn’t mean…” Sage stepped away from the group.

  “Don’t ask to cry on my shoulder, Jacob,” Catalina said. “Hattie is already so jealous of me.”

  “It’s because you’re so hot for me. Say the word, Cat, and I’ll rock your world,” Jack said in a sexy growl, and she burst into laughter.

  I was on the edge of tears, and kids were still looking at me. I wanted to run away, but Jack kept his arm firmly around me. I could feel the pressure of each individual finger on my shoulder.

  He smiled at me and said, “Shorty, I know you were forced to listen to my band, but if you’ve had enough, I can give you a lift home.”

  He was giving me a cover so I could leave. “Don’t you have to play again?”

  “Not for another hour.”

  Even though I didn’t want to go with him, I didn’t want to be here, either. “I was going to spend the night at Mary Violet’s.”

  “She’ll stay here until three. Our music gets worse by the hour,” Jack said. “Your choice.”

  “Let me tell her I’m going to my place.” After a brief search, I ran into Constance by the refreshment table. “I’m burned out and Jack’s giving me a lift home. I can pick up my things at MV’s tomorrow.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure. See you in the morning.” As I went back to Jack, I searched the room for Lucky’s golden head above the crowd. He and Hattie were talking by the steps leading onto the stage. At least he wasn’t with Catalina.

  He had large, wild, gazelle-like eyes: his hair, like mine, was in a perpetual tangle—that point he had in common with me, and indeed, as I afterwards heard, our mother having been of gipsy race, it will account for much of the innate wildness there was in our natures. How shall I describe the grace of that lovely mouth, shaped verily “en arc d’amour.”

  Count Eric Stanislaus, “The Sad Story of a Vampire” (1894)

  Chapter 18

  Jack and I went outside to the parking lot, and he pointed to an old green Vanagan. “Ain’t she a swell ride?”

  “I thought you were against cars.”

  “I can’t even deliver a pizza on a bike, how am I going to handle amps? It’s our drummer’s van.”

  He opened the passenger door for me. I tried to step up and sit without my dress hiking up, and I had to pull at the hem, which caught on the ripped seat cover. The van smelled like stale potato chips and motor oil and weed. There were curtains in a daisy print on the side windows. A plastic Batman with a missing arm dangled from the rearview mirror.

  Jack got in and after a couple of wheezing cranks, the engine rolled over. He struggled with the stick shift and said, “I’m driving, so it’s your job to make small talk.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not that small.” He waved at the security guard as we left the club. “Make medium talk.”

  “I didn’t know you were adopted.”

  “It’s not a big secret, but it’s not the first thing I tell people. Most people take one look at my family and say, so who’s the Jewish kid?”

  “I guess I’m used to mixed-up families. What happened to your parents?”

  “The short story is that my birth mom was the bookkeeper for Birch Grove. She died of an aneurysm when I was born, and my father gave me up to the Radcliffes because he couldn’t stand the sight of me and knew they hadn’t been able to have kids. A few years later, Lucky came as a lucky surprise.”

  “That’s why you asked me about my family and my father.”

  “I was wondering if you’d ever met him. I got in touch with my birth dad when I was fifteen. He’s in Vermont, remarried, no kids.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “He told me that whenever he saw me, all he could think was that I’d killed my mother.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “Yeah, actually it was awful. I raged out for a while,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “But I love my family, my real family.” He drove along the winding road with an occasional grinding of gears as he shifted. “You may not think I’m a prize, but the Radcliffes always act like they’ve won the lottery with me.”

  “I’m glad for you, Jack.”

  “So am I. All families ha
ve problems, though, Halfling.” He glanced over at me. “My mother works really hard trying to keep everything in order. My father gets stressed and down. Lucky has his own major issues. He’s not just some smiling, Abercrombie-looking dude, so don’t expect him to act like a hero.”

  “Jack, if there’s something you want to tell me, tell me. Don’t speak in elliptical terms.”

  “Elliptical.” He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “That’s odd coming from you with all your mysteries, Halfling.”

  “All I have is a lousy childhood. That’s no mystery, and if I don’t talk about it, it’s because I don’t want to live in the past.” We drove through the main entrance of Birch Grove Academy, and I tried to think of a safe subject. “You described the rest of your family, but what about you?”

  “I’m the one who tells them that it’s not all about success and image.”

  “In other words, you’re the slacker.”

  “Or the king’s fool.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Read your Shakespeare.”

  “Why don’t you tell me straight out?”

  “No cheating on the test. Eyes on your own paper, Jane Williams.” He parked on the drive. “I’ll walk you to your cottage.”

  He stretched across me to open the glove compartment. As he took out a flashlight, his arm grazed mine, sending that reaction through me, so potent that it threw me back into a cool, shady place that I could almost remember like one might remember the coolness of a drink of water, but not be able to recall the taste. I froze and thought, What was that?

  “Don’t panic,” he said. “Being a jackass isn’t contagious.” He hopped out of the van, and went around and opened the door for me. He took my hand to help me down. As soon as I was standing, I pulled away from him.