The Art of Lainey

by Paula Stokes

  “I’m Alexandra,” the EMT formerly known as Alex pipes up.

  I had almost forgotten she was there. All three of us turn to face her. She leans toward me and her teeth glow bright white under the club’s iridescent lighting. For a second, I think she’s going to try to shake my hand. I quickly cross my arms behind my back.

  “This is Lainey,” Jason says. His eyes meet mine but then he looks away. “She’s . . . my sister’s friend.”

  I drop my eyes to the floor. Is that how Jason thinks of me now? As his sister’s friend? I’m tempted to say something smart, like how I wasn’t his sister’s friend when we were hooking up all over his dad’s condo a few weeks ago, but that would totally blow my act with Micah so I bite my tongue.

  “Nice to meet you,” I force out. And then I just stand there, mute, shifting my weight from one leg to the other. Even the Tin Man probably would have had more to say. All I can think about is how Alexandra is different from me. What does she have that I don’t? She’s a little older, but Jason never expressed an interest in older women. She’s shorter than me, definitely curvier, which I know he likes. But were her looks enough to lure him away? Or was it something else, something I can’t see?

  “Nice running into you—literally.” Jason sounds like he means it, but I am still stinging from being called his sister’s friend.

  “Yeah. Sorry,” I say. The song ends and the video screen lights up with a popular hip-hop song from a few years ago.

  “Sweet.” He spins around and moves his body to the beat. For a white guy, he’s got rhythm.

  Alexandra grabs him by the hand. “Come on. I love this song,” she says.

  “Later.” Jason lets Alexandra pull him out into the middle of the smoke and lights. He does his spin-around thing again and she goes through a series of dance moves that look like part of a pom-pom-girl routine.

  “I think that went well,” Micah says.

  He’s trying to be funny, but I don’t laugh. Instead I second-guess my decision not to punch him in the gut. “Yeah. Thanks for making me look like a complete idiot.”

  My eyes water, but I refuse to cry in front of Micah or Jason. Or Alex. Alexandra. Whatever. I wish Bianca were here. Pushing past him, I fish my phone out of my purse as I head for the front door. Beneath the pulsing beats, I’m pretty sure I hear Micah’s combat boots tromping after me.

  The night is warm but the rush of air that hits me as I cruise through the doors feels cool after the packed, sweaty club. I form my hair into a ponytail with one hand and fan the back of my neck with the other. Leaning up against the building, I text Bee.

  Are you there?

  She doesn’t respond. Maybe she’s working or asleep already. I consider trying Kendall. She’s probably awake, but use of her phone is so restricted on So You Think You Can Model there’s no chance she’ll pick up. I start to put my phone away and then wonder what time it is in Ireland. Pretty sure it’s already the next morning there. Maybe my brother is up early. I send him a quick text:

  Hey, how’s it going?

  Steve calls back right way. “Lainey?” His voice is half sleep and half worry.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  He laughs under his breath. “It’s five fifteen in the morning. Yeah, you woke me. What’s going on? You okay?”

  I slump back against the building. Damn it, I can’t do anything right tonight. “Sorry, Steve. I thought the time difference was bigger. I thought maybe you’d be at breakfast.” My voice wavers a little. A rogue tear trickles down over my cheek.

  “No big deal.” He yawns. A moment passes. “Are you crying?”

  “Not really. I just saw Jason with his new girlfriend and I’m wondering what’s wrong with me.” I wipe the tear away, almost like I think my brother can see through the phone. Another one quietly takes its place.

  Steve is completely awake now. “There is nothing wrong with you,” he says firmly. “Forget about Jason. Find a better guy. One who doesn’t make you feel like crap.”

  If only it were that easy. “I’ll try.” I sniff. “What about you? Did you find a pretty Irish girl to bring home to Mom?”

  “Ha! You know she emailed me the other day about my tea leaves. A forked path. A big decision.” He chuckles. “That could be the fortune for every single person for every single day of their lives.”

  “I know, right?” I smile through my tears. “Thanks. You always make me feel better.”

  “Likewise,” Steve says. “Seriously. You’re a superstar. Any guy who doesn’t see that is too stupid to date you.”

  They’re nice words, but he’s my brother. He’s not exactly objective. Still, I appreciate the effort.

  “Speaking of stars,” I say. “Did you know that one we used to wish on was actually Venus?”

  “Yeah, I learned that last year in Intro to Astronomy,” he says. “Explains why we never got any snow days, huh?”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was one of those cool childhood memories I didn’t see the point of messing up for you.” He yawns again. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Get some more sleep. Love you.” I hang up and slide my phone back into my purse.

  “Hey.” I flinch at the sound of Micah’s voice. He’s standing a few feet away, the mix of shadows and fluorescent parking lot lights distorting his features. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

  Instead of responding, I blot at my eyes with the back of my hand. A rush of emotions tunnels through me as my brain replays what happened inside Beat. Jason. Alexandra. My sister’s friend. Any strength I got from talking to my brother disappears instantly, like a kite snapped from its string and stolen away by the wind.

  Micah leans against the wall next to me and pulls out his cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

  I shake my head. I can’t talk, because if I do I’ll cry.

  A moth buzzes around his head and he swats it down to the concrete. He flicks his lighter and I stare at the small flame. As he touches it to the tip of his cigarette, the end glows bright orange. Then the lighter flame winks out and something else seems to vanish with it. Jason. Maybe part of me always knew he was gone, but I never let myself believe it.

  Until now.

  I stare down at the fallen moth. It takes a few tentative steps toward a sidewalk crack, stunned but not injured. I think I’m ready to give up. My brother is right—there’s nothing wrong with me. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Alexandra either. If Jason likes her better than me, maybe I should let it go. She might be really cool or she might be a dumb bimbo, but either way he’s with her now, and not me. Maybe it’s all decided, like my mom with her tea leaves. Maybe it’s pointless to fight the universe. I try to swallow the sob that is working its way up my throat.

  Micah turns away to exhale a puff of smoke. He turns back to me and instantly sees the emotions on my face. “Lainey.” He drops his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his boot.

  Tears fall from my eyes. “I think I quit,” I whisper. “I think maybe it’s over.”

  “Come here.” Micah puts his arms around me and pulls me in close, but I’m so tall in my platform sandals I end up crying mostly into the tips of his mohawk. I try to slouch down but then I’m crying directly onto his pierced eyebrow and that’s no good either.

  He doesn’t seem to mind. He strokes my hair with one hand and pats my back with the other. “We should go,” he says. “You don’t want people to see you like this.”

  He doesn’t mean people. He means Jason. “I don’t care,” I choke out. “Let him see what he did to his ‘sister’s friend.’” Another storm of tears spews forth.

  “You do care,” Micah insists. “You care more than anyone I know, even when you shouldn’t.” He turns me toward the car but my legs are rubber, my feet stuck to the ground. “Hold on to me,” he says. Bending down, he loops one arm beneath my knees and pic
ks me up.

  I try to tell him to put me down before he gets a hernia or something, but my words get lost in the spot between his chin and his neck. He’s so warm . . . and strong. He carries me easily across the parking lot, like I’m made of feathers. The next thing I know, I’m tucked safely inside the passenger seat of the Civic, still crying, and Micah’s sitting across from me, the keys dangling from the ignition.

  “Do you want music?” He’s got his phone out and is swiping at the screen.

  “Do you have some kind of crying-girl playlist?” I wipe at my eyes. “Why aren’t you telling me to stop, like every other guy would?”

  “Sorry. You didn’t come with an owner’s manual,” he says. “Besides, I’m not big on telling people what to do.” He reclines the driver’s seat of my car and looks over at me. “Is there anything I can do?”

  I shake my head. Gradually my tears dry up, my sobs become sniffles. “Things are never going back to the way they were, are they?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “But we’re wedding cake people,” I say, more to myself than to him.

  “What?”

  I sniff. “Me and Jason. We’re like those little people on top of a wedding cake.”

  “Made of plastic?” Micah’s lips quirk into a smile.

  “Quit trying to be funny.”

  “Sorry.” He falls silent.

  “You should be. Did you do it on purpose?” I ask. “Run me into him?”

  “No,” Micah says. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. To force the issue, I guess. It’s like something Kendall would have done.”

  He whistles long and low. “I am many things, but I am not Kendall Chase.”

  “So what? You got klutzy all of a sudden?”

  “You really want to know?” He glances sideways at me.

  My heart thuds against my rib cage. Maybe I don’t want to know. No, I do. Knowledge is power. Not sure if I got that from Sun Tzu, but I know he’d be down with the idea. “Yeah. I want to know.”

  Micah is looking straight ahead again, staring out through the smudgy windshield. “The way you touched my hair. It kind of . . . turned me on.”

  I make a sharp, bitter sound, part laugh and part bark. “I don’t believe you,” I say. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you’re not into me. That’s the whole reason our little arrangement works.” For a second, I consider telling him about the way I felt at The Devil’s Doorstep, that some part of me is attracted to him. But no, I’ve endured enough humiliation for now. I don’t need to add more rejection to the night’s list of disasters.

  Micah doesn’t say anything. His fingers tap out an imaginary beat on the Civic’s steering wheel. “I never thought of you as my type,” he says finally. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not hot.”

  My face gets warm, even though I’m sure he’s only saying it to make me feel better. “Thanks,” I whisper.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know. The whole school thinks you’re hot.”

  It’s funny. Kendall always says beauty is mostly a state of mind, that if you act like you’re pretty, everyone will believe it. Getting dumped has made me question everything I used to think. Maybe my whole high school existence has been nothing but theatrics.

  “I don’t feel very hot right now,” I admit.

  Micah pokes me in the shoulder. “Come on. You got those legs and that smile and that shiny hair.”

  I bury my face in my hands. As much as I want to hear the things he’s saying, I feel like the world’s biggest loser. How lame am I that Micah has to take over where my brother left off? It’s like I need a full-time personal cheerleader or something.

  “Sorry. I sound like such a lame-ass,” Micah says.

  I peek at him through my fingers. “Why are you being so nice?”

  “I guess I’m just a nice guy. Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’ll wreck my rep.”

  Letting my hands fall to my lap, I lean across the center console until my head is resting against his shoulder. “Sorry about your hair. I don’t know what it is. I’ve wanted to touch it since that first day at Mizz Creant’s.” I exhale hard. “And now I sound like a lame-ass.”

  Micah laughs under his breath. “All the ladies love the mohawk.” Turning to me, he lowers his chin so the top of his head is in my face. “You can touch it, now that I’m prepared.”

  “Seriously? Like a pity grope? No thanks,” I say drily, trying to ignore the fluttering in my chest.

  “Touch it,” he whispers. “You know you want to.”

  “Shut up.”

  He gives up and leans back in his seat. “My sister cuts it and dyes it for me. She could give you a matching one if you’re game. Think of how scary you’d look on the soccer field.”

  “I’ll pass.” I rest my head back against seat and look through the windshield again. Beyond the rows of parked cars I can just barely see Venus, low on the horizon, unblinking.

  “Feeling better?” Micah asks.

  “Yeah, except I wish I could forget this night ever happened.” I glance over at him. His hazel eyes glow softly in the dim car. He’s been so cool to me. It would be easy, too easy, to let him make me feel better. Suddenly I am dying for any kind of closeness. “Do you want to go get drunk or something?” The words fly out of my mouth before I have time to even think about them.

  Micah’s lips twitch, and then his mouth curls into a slow grin. “Tsk-tsk, Lainey Mitchell.”

  “What?” I fiddle with the hem of my T-shirt dress.

  “I’m sensing that might involve more rule-breaking.” He reaches over and pats my bare leg. “And as fun as that sounds, it’s probably a bad idea.”

  He’s right. I started out the evening trying not to be a flirt and here I am offering him . . . I don’t even know what. I hear Bianca telling me not to mess with him just because I’m lonely. She’s right. Micah’s right. Everyone is right, except for me.

  His phone buzzes in his pocket. Pulling it out, he glances down at it but doesn’t answer. It buzzes again. And again.

  “Who is it?” I ask, curious.

  “Amber.”

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” I am eager to salvage any part of this night, and also to erase that ill-advised “go get drunk” suggestion. I might as well refocus on the plan.

  “I can call her back later. You know, deception, not being too aggressive, all that crap. That is what the strategy guide calls for, right?”

  “Something like that. Did you get yourself a copy of The Art of War?”

  “I read it online. His voice softens. “Let’s get out of here. You chill. I’ll drive.”

  My voice speaks independently of my brain again. “Can I have a hug?” I cringe at how much I sound like a five-year-old, but you never realize how much you miss little things like hugs until you stop getting them.

  He looks over at me. “Now that sounds like a much better idea.”

  Micah pushes a long piece of my bangs back from my face as I slide halfway onto the gearshift and throw my arms around his neck. This time I don’t bother keeping any space between our bodies. I drink in his warmth and the faint tickle of beard stubble against my cheek.

  He makes a strangled sound. “Try not to crack any ribs.”

  As we let go, his barbed-wire bracelet catches on my hair. He stiffens. A strand pulls taut.

  “I got it.” I reach up and untangle the bracelet from my hair. As I lower Micah’s wrist, I can see his third tattoo hiding underneath the bracelet—a hangman’s noose.

  He catches me staring and adjusts the bracelet to cover most of the tattoo. “That’s the logo for my dad’s old band, Hangman’s Joke. It was my first tattoo, but teachers kept giving me crap about it, asking if I wanted to hurt myself, did I want to hurt other people, all that bullshit. It was like fifth grade all over again, so now I keep it covered.”

  Fifth grade. I can still remember what my desk looked like, how someone had carved an F in the lower-left corner, how the
re was a face hiding in the wood grain that reminded me of that painting The Scream. Looking down was so much easier than looking at Micah. “I never told you how sorry I was about your dad,” I blurt out.

  Micah doesn’t say anything. He just stares at his wrist.

  I think about what it must have been like for him to watch his dad bleed to death on the floor of a convenience store. “I’ve never really had a reason to be sad,” I say. “Never lost anything.”

  “What about your precious Jason?” Micah snaps his head around to face me.

  “That’s different,” I say. “It’s not like Jason died. It’s not like I can’t ever see him again. Plus losing a boyfriend is not like losing a parent. I know I’m lucky to have both of mine.”

  He nods slowly. “Yeah. It sucks,” he says. “I was the one who asked to stop at the store on the way home. I was . . . thirsty.” His voice cracks. “I try not to blame myself, but most of the time I still do.”

  “Micah. You can’t—”

  He looks away, toward the side window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. Tell me about your other tattoos,” My fingers graze the pyramid tattoo on his bicep. There’s an eye floating above it, like the symbol on the back of a dollar bill.

  He pulls up his sleeve so I can see better. “My dad had this same tattoo. His favorite singer used it for an album cover. The guy got diagnosed with schizophrenia after his first big hit and lost everything. He was even homeless for a while, but then his brother helped him get the medicine he needed and he went back to performing.” Micah looks down at his arm, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. “Dad always said it was the most inspirational story ever. Used to keep him going when times were tough.”

  “And this?” I reach out to trace the overlapping circles on the side of his neck.

  Micah’s smile widens. “It’s a trinity.”

  Duh. “Wow, you guys must be really close.”

  “That’s the one good thing that came from everything, I guess. Trin was only eight years old when Dad died, but she took care of me and my mom when we couldn’t take care of ourselves.” Micah shakes his head. “The mom. The new ‘man of the house.’ We were supposed to be the tough ones, but we both kind of lost it. The baby sister had to keep everyone going. We’re all so close now. I would die before I let anybody hurt either of them.”