Welcome to Bordertown

by Holly Black

  She takes my hand in one of her own and plucks the bracelet out with the other. Then she lifts her free hand toward my face.

  “May I?” she asks.

  It’s like butterfly wings on my skin as she explores the contours of my face.

  “You’ve got a strong nose,” she says.

  “Yeah, that’s why they called me Big Nose back on the rez when I was growing up.”

  I don’t add that they stopped because I went after whoever used the nickname. If you don’t nip something like that in the bud, you’re stuck with it for life. Just ask Six-Toes George, Uncle Herbert’s brother.

  “You’re Native American?” she asks.

  I nod, then add, “Yeah,” because I’m not sure how much she can see with her limited sight. “I belong to the desert tribes. Kikimi on my mother’s side, and my dad was a Yaqui.”

  “Not exactly fairy-tale country.”

  “Not so much.”

  “So what brings you to FaerieCon?”

  “I’m with the crew that set up the booths,” I tell her. “I ran into your dad this afternoon. He said I should come by so we could talk some more.”

  I figure that’ll be the end of any interest she might have in me. Girls like her don’t hang out with the behind-the-scenes joes, who are supposed to stay invisible. But she only smiles.

  “I should warn you,” she says, “when Dad says ‘talk,’ he usually means he talks and everybody else listens.”

  “He seemed okay to me.”

  “Oh, he’s awesome. He’s just not a good listener. But he’s full of all sorts of interesting information, so he’s rarely boring.”

  “That’s not a problem,” I tell her. “I’m more of a listener myself anyway.”

  “Really? You’ve got such a compelling voice.”

  Is she flirting with me? Time to shut that down. The last thing I need is to have some nice middle-class white girl flirting with me, even if her dad does think he’s a tree.

  “I just find that things work out better when I don’t talk too much,” I tell her. “I can have a big mouth and it gets me into trouble. Or at least it did back when I was still drinking.”

  That should do it.

  “How old are you?” she asks.

  “Seventeen.”

  With the sunglasses on, it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.

  “Me too,” she says. “But I’m thinking I’ve still had a way easier life than you.”

  “I don’t think of it like that,” I tell her. “Growing up the way I did—that’s just the way it is down in Kikimi County. I could beat myself up about it, but I’d rather look at it as a learning experience that shaped who I am today. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve messed up a lot, but I’m getting better at doing the right thing.”

  Speaking of which …, I add to myself.

  “I should go,” I tell her.

  I don’t know what it is about this girl and her father that has me yakking away like girls on the rez.

  “Don’t,” she says as I stand up.

  I hesitate. I know I shouldn’t stay, but I can’t help feeling flattered by her interest. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Maybe never, unless I was paying for the drinks.

  “What’s your name?” she asks.

  “Joey.”

  “I’m Juliana.”

  She puts out her hand and I automatically shake. As soon as her fingers close around mine, she pulls me back down onto the chair.

  “I’m enjoying your company,” she says. “Because of my disability, people can feel a little awkward around me. It’s easier for them to just give me a friendly hello, then go off to carry on with whatever else they’re doing. They don’t actually want to sit with me.”

  “That’s got to be hard.”

  She shrugs. “It’s what it is. But it can make me feel a little lonely sometimes.” She pauses before she adds, “You don’t seem to focus on it at all.”

  “I guess I can stay awhile longer.”

  She beams. Then she lifts the book from her lap.

  “If you don’t want to talk,” she says, “maybe you could read to me.”

  “I’m not that good a reader.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I can read,” I tell her. “I’m just slow at it.”

  “Then maybe you could tell me a story.”

  “You mean like a Kikimi fairy tale?”

  “Do you know any?”

  “Not really.” Though right now I wish I did. “All I know are Jimmy Littlecreek stories.”

  “Who’s Jimmy Littlecreek?”

  “He was kind of a legend back on the rez—always getting into complicated situations and making even more of a mess out of things. But at the same time, he had these desert rat smarts that always made things work out. Back home, everybody knows a story or two about him.”

  “He sounds like a trickster.”

  “I guess he is. Sort of a little cousin to Coyote.”

  “I’d love to hear one.”

  So I tell her about how he and Bobby Morago stole a train in Linden and drove it backward all the way from the mountains down to Santo del Vado Viejo, just so they could have a date with a couple of Mexican girls they’d met the previous weekend. It’s a good choice, because I get the reward of her laughter over and over again. Truth is, I stretch it into an even taller tale just to keep her laughing.

  I’m just finishing when her dad shows up. He stands there smiling as I tell the end of the story.

  “Sorry I didn’t get back sooner,” he says. “Green Man business always seems to take longer than I think it will.”

  “That’s okay. Juliana’s been keeping me entertained.”

  She laughs. “It’s more like the other way around.”

  Tom’s still smiling, but I can see he’s studying me. Probably regretting that he asked me to come around to his booth. But then he surprises me.

  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” he says.

  “What do you need?”

  “My friend Sam drove the van you helped me unload this afternoon, but I just found him in the bar and he’s had far too much to drink. Now I’m stuck with having to get both the van and my station wagon home. What makes it more complicated is that I also have to drive to the airport to pick up Juliana’s mother. Her plane’s coming in around nine and it’s already eight.”

  I nod to show I’m listening, but I don’t know where he’s going with this.

  “So I was wondering,” he says, “if you’d mind dropping Sam off at his place and then taking Juliana home. She hates the drive out to the airport at night.”

  “Hate it,” she puts in.

  You don’t know anything about me, but you’re going to entrust your daughter to my care? But then I remember the way he was studying me a moment ago. He had that look in his eyes that Tía Luba gets when she’s taking somebody’s measure. Maybe he’s got her gift for reading character. If that’s the case, he knows he can trust me.

  “I can do that,” I tell him.

  “Yay,” Juliana says.

  “I really appreciate it,” Tom says. “I’ll go round up Sam and meet you in the parking lot.”

  After he leaves, I help Juliana gather her things. She slips her hand into the crook of my arm. I don’t think I’ve ever walked arm in arm with a girl before. Back on the rez I wouldn’t be caught dead doing this. But I like it. At least I like it with this girl.

  We get to the station wagon around the same time that Tom and Sam do. Tom’s half-carrying his friend. I remember how that feels. It looks even less pretty.

  Sam’s geared up like a male version of that girl Luther was lusting after. He’s wearing a mix of pointed ears and wings with some tooled-leather clothes and boots. The jacket has odd little clockwork accessories sewn onto the shoulders and lapels, and he’s wearing a top hat that has something like a combination of a monocle and a short telescope attached to the brim.

  Tom takes of
f the hat, unhooks Sam’s wings, and steers him into the backseat. He puts the hat and wings beside him. When he straightens up, he looks at me.

  “Did you drive here?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I’m taking the bus home.”

  “I’ll give you a lift when I get back.”

  “Or he could just stay the night,” Juliana says.

  Tom laughs. “Or you could stay the night.” He gives Juliana a gentle poke in the shoulder. “But not in your room, young missy.”

  I’ve never been around people like this before. Is this how the rest of the world lives?

  “Thanks again, Joey,” he says. “I’ll see you kids later.”

  I walk Juliana around to the passenger’s side, then get in the car myself. I adjust the rearview mirror and see that Sam’s already passed out.

  I start up the car.

  “I forgot to ask your dad for directions,” I say.

  “There’s a GPS in the glove compartment, but I can tell you where to go. I won’t be able to tell if you make a wrong turn, but we should be fine.”

  “I’m in your hands.”

  For some reason, that makes her giggle, which is just as endearing as her laugh, and I realize I’m in trouble.

  When it comes to girls, I’m not the most experienced guy in the world. I’ve never fallen for one before; I’ve just hooked up. Stoned or drunk at a party, maybe in one of the bars back home that will look the other way for a minor who’s got the cash. The longest “relationship” I’ve had lasted a weekend.

  And I’m not saying I’ve had a lot of hookups, though to be honest, I can’t really remember. Those days just blur into each other. I remember my times in juvie, but I was sober then. Juvie’s like jail: rehab for poor people, and it doesn’t usually take. But I’m good right now. Ten months and seven days, counting jail time. That’s the longest I’ve been straight since I was twelve.

  I remember how scared I was, the first few times I got locked up. But this is scarier. Maybe Juliana’s just slumming, having some fun as she flirts with me. But if she’s not, if she’s feeling anything like what I’m feeling, I’ve got to step up to a world of responsibility. I’ve got to do right by her. And for damn sure, I can’t start something I can’t finish.

  I’m getting way ahead of myself. Who knows what she’s thinking? But that’s the funny thing about hope.

  * * *

  We drop Sam off at his apartment. I take him upstairs and get him laid out on top of his bed.

  “You’re on your own now,” I tell him.

  He pushes his face into his pillow, and I doubt he hears me leave.

  Back in the car, I set the GPS to “home” and read out the address it gives me.

  “That’s us,” she says.

  It’s not far to the Hills’ house, and I’m feeling nervous right up until we pull into the driveway. I was expecting something fancy, all modern lines and expensive. I see old buses and cars parked along one side of the property. The house itself is a bungalow that’s been added onto a few times, so that it does this zigzag walk into the backyard. A couple of lanky dogs get up off the porch to greet us, and I feel right at home because none of this would be out of place back on the rez.

  “That’s Lucky and Bud,” Juliana says as the dogs push their noses into my crotch.

  “I would have thought they’d have faerie names,” I say as I help her out of the car and walk her toward the porch.

  “What, like Titania and Oberon?”

  “I don’t know who they are, but yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Can you see these guys with fairy-tale names?” she asks as Bud shoves his nose back into my crotch.

  “I guess not.”

  I’m not saying she was particularly timid moving around earlier, but she gets way more confident as soon as we step onto the porch.

  She takes a key out of her pocket and fits it smoothly into the lock, using a finger to guide her. Swinging the door open, she reaches around the doorjamb to turn on an overhead light. I follow her inside.

  The room we’re in is the kitchen—a big, friendly, and very cluttered space with rustic furniture standing shoulder to shoulder with modern appliances. From where we stand, I can see another room past the kitchen. It’s poorly lit at the moment, but it seems just as welcoming and cluttered.

  “Want to see my room?” she asks.

  I laugh. “Maybe later.”

  When her parents are home.

  “Okay. How about some coffee or tea?”

  “Sure, I—look, I’m new at this, but I’m just going to go with the assumption that if you need help with anything, you’ll ask for it. Is that okay?”

  She smiles as she effortlessly finds the kettle, fills it, then takes a couple of mugs and a box of herbal tea down from a cupboard.

  “That’s one of the things I like about you, Joey,” she says as she plugs the kettle in. “With most people, my disability is like a third person in the room that we don’t really want to have hanging around, but there she is all the same.”

  “Don’t you think that people are just being sympathetic? That they only want to help you?”

  “Oh, I know that’s most of it. But it also makes everything awkward because they can’t forget about it, either. So it never just feels normal.”

  I feel bad for her. I think about how few people in the world I’m close to. But that’s always been my choice—or if I’m going to be honest, the result of the bad decisions I used to make. The thing is, I never really tried to fix it. Juliana’s had it pushed on her through no fault of her own.

  When the tea’s ready, she leads me through the cluttered dining room into an equally cluttered living room, where we sit together on a fat sofa.

  “So tell me more about faeries in Baltimore,” I say to keep the mood lighter. “Or maybe this Bordertown you were talking about.”

  “Only if you’ll tell me more about Jimmy Littlecreek.”

  “Deal. But you first.”

  “It’ll be easier to show you,” she says. “Are you coming back to FaerieCon tomorrow?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. Do you think I should?”

  She taps her fist against my shoulder. “Of course I do. It’ll be fun.”

  “I can’t really get away until later on in the day. We’re doing the setup for a motivational speaker tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay. Things don’t get hopping until the evening. Everybody gets all dolled up and parades around the halls, and then we all go to the Good Faeries’ Ball. Mom says she’s got some surprise outfit for me that she picked up in Eugene—that’s where she’s been, visiting a friend from college.”

  “I don’t really do costumes,” I tell her. “Even back on the rez. At the powwows, I was always the kid sitting under the bleachers swapping a bottle with the other reprobates and making fun of the dancers.”

  Her hand brushes my arm, butterfly-light. “You really have had a hard life, haven’t you?”

  “It’s just what it was,” I say. “I’m working on making it different.”

  There’s a moment of awkward silence, and I wonder if I’ve said too much and who knows what’s going on in her head because of it?

  “So, let’s forget about that stuff for now,” I say. “What about this Good Faeries’ Ball?”

  She brightens up. “There’s live music and dancing and just, you know, fun. But you’d probably like the dance on Saturday night better. That’s when we have the Bad Faeries’ Ball.”

  “You think I’m more into bad faeries?”

  “No, but you’re a guy and the girls wear some pretty sexy outfits.”

  “And are you going to have a bad faerie costume?”

  She smiles. “I’m thinking about it. I guess it depends on if Mom’s willing to help and Dad’ll let me out the door.”

  I laugh. “So they’re that sexy, are they?”

  “You’ll just have to come and find out.”

  I want to put my arm around her s
houlders. No, that’s not true. I want to lie naked with her on the sofa and forget about everything else in the world but her. But if I know anything, too much too soon is never a good thing if you want to stay in it for the long run. Doesn’t matter how flirty she is with me. Except then she rests her head on my shoulder and I think the hell with it. I put an arm around her and lean down to where her lips are lifting toward mine, and then headlights flash on the walls and we hear the tires of a car crunching on the dirt and stones of the driveway.

  She sits up, though she doesn’t move away from me.

  “Perfect timing,” she says ruefully.

  I start to move my arm away, but she lifts a hand to hold it in place.

  “Come to the Good Faeries’ Ball with me tomorrow,” she says, “and I’ll let you take me to the Bad Faeries’ Ball on Saturday night. And no,” she adds as I hesitate, “you don’t have to wear a costume. You can be my mortal consort.”

  “I’ll be there,” I tell her.

  The kitchen door opens and I stand up to meet her mother.

  Alana Hill gives me a glimpse of the beauty that Juliana’s going to grow into. She’s a tall, striking woman with a spill of long reddish-gold hair that hangs almost to her waist in a waterfall of curls. After the introductions have been made, she holds on to my hand and studies me for longer and with a more penetrating seriousness than her husband did.

  “Mom,” Juliana says.

  Her mother finally lets go of my hand. I can’t tell if I passed muster or not, but at least she smiles.

  “Come on,” Tom says. “I’ll give you a lift home. And thanks again for helping me out.”

  “Can I come?” Juliana asks.

  “Of course,” Alana says.

  Juliana takes my arm.

  * * *

  Uncle Herbert’s building isn’t much to look at, but I already know that the Hills are pretty casual when it comes to this sort of thing. They’re not going to judge me on where I live. Tom pulls the station wagon over to the curb.

  “Look the other way, Dad,” Juliana says, then leans over and kisses me. “So, see you tomorrow?”

  She sits back in her seat before I have a chance to react.

  I nod. “Soon as I get off work. Thanks for the lift, Mr. Hill.”

  “Just ‘Tom’ is fine.”