The Pursuit of Miss Heartbreak Hotel Page 13

  “Rinse and repeat,” I manage to choke, hacking out gooey strands of saliva, wiping at my face with the front of my shirt. My shoulders shake with a deep-down laugh and Zoë rubs a warm hand over my back.

  “Truer words.”

  “What the flip just happened?” I say, my words massive slow.

  “You passed out?” she says, and I slump down onto my knees. “And then you woke up, grinned, and yakked all over my whip.” I look at her. “It was massive intense. Massive.”

  “You mean, I didn’t die? I’m not actually dead?”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, Jack. Not this time.” I clutch my ribs. They feel bruised, beaten, bloodied. “And I’m not sure, but you maybe just saved your Oma’s goddamn life.”

  “I didn’t save her life. Just shot her some happy juice.”

  “Whatevs. It was total gladiator. Like, whoa.” She steadies me by my arms and we stand together. “Think you’re maybe done, there, champ? Giving the whip an ole-fashioned power wash?” and I manage to smile. She leads me to the stairs and we sit. My head drops in my hands.

  “Lu,” she says. “I gotta ask. Did you take something, pills, anything? Are you back on the kick?”

  I shake my head. “No, Jack. I promise. Sauce, yes. But nothing hard. I swear. I think I had a panic attack. Or something. Marta was getting them as a wee-Jack. Right after Mom left. Terrifying.”

  She sighs. “You certainly had something.”

  “And now everything smells like vomit.”

  “Sure does.”

  I look at her and there she is, right by my side. “I can’t believe you’re here.” She smiles. “Seriously, thanks for showing up, Zo. You really came through.” My eyes fill again, bottomless wells of self-sorrow.

  “Course,” she says, slipping an arm around my shoulder. “That’s what apple-Jacks are all about.”

  I breathe in, feel the spin of the world, the tilt of the axis, the distant pull of the sun. I close shut my eyes.

  “Zoë,” I say, realizing what I’m about to say before I have time to stop.

  “Jack?”

  It’s now or never, do or die.

  “Zo, I think there’s another reason I had the attack. Like, not just ’cause of Oma. And it’s why I’ve been MIA and a lame-as-ducks apple-Jack.”

  “’Kay.”

  I take another breath, push my fingertips into the pounding rhythm of my temples.

  “I’m in love.”

  She laughs. “That’ll do it.”

  “With Eve Brooks. Zo, I think I love her.”

  Silence. And more silence. I spit a few remnant chunks of dinner into the shrubbery.

  “And she broke my goddamn heart.”

  The line goes total dead. Crickets and tumbleweed, the whole nine.

  After lifetimes, centuries, Zoë speaks.

  “One thing about you, Butler…” I swivel, look at her. “You never cease to surprise.”

  “Word?” I choke out.

  “Word.”

  * * *

  Zoë calls Maya. She rallies the troops. They’re an army for my one and my flag beats the wind at half-mast as Taps and a twenty-one gun salute pounds in my ears and I’m a prisoner of my own war. I spill the whole damn story, from Raine Hall to Ms. Hayes, the whole, pathetic reel of my secret, sad-sack, so-called love life. I say I haven’t told this stuff to anyone. That maybe I got used to it, to being secret and alone. And then I plow onward, to my present descent into wretchedness and Eve’s illicit dinner with Nate Gray, ending it all on where we began, the infamous e.p.t. in the betties’ bathroom. I tell them they can never tell a soul about the e.p.t. and Zoë says, straight-faced, “Her secret is safe, Jack, as we are your bosom friends. The friends of your bosom.”

  And Maya doesn’t even blink. Until she does and she’s crying all over the goddamn car, saying how massive sorry she is for me, about everything, about how hard it’s been and how she loves the gays and thinks each and every one is a special angel. Which is … interesting. She takes it all on, feeling for herself every blip and blunder along my windy, wayward way. And I don’t even tell her to can it. ’Cause that’s Maya, bleeding heart and all.

  Then Zoë gets hooked on Eve cracking on me and calling up Nate Gray. For that, she says, Eve Brooks must die. I don’t even tell her how much I disagree. ’Cause that’s Zoë—a tough nut, hard as rocks. My rock.

  Then I’m thinking of Eve and Oma, and my hands start shaking again. Maya gives me a hug, says she wishes I’d told them sooner. Zoë gets quiet and says she wonders if maybe I didn’t tell her ’cause she’s always acting a flap-Jack, saying that’s gay and all, and she looks about ready to cry. I smile, squeeze her arm, and say, “I forgive you, Jack, as you are my bosom friend. The friend of my bosom.”

  And I know the Cats are gonna be okay.

  Get on Up, Jack

  First, we’re Bowling Alley Cats.

  Eve and Maya say, “Word, Lu. You’re up!”

  I say, “Easier said than done.”

  They say, “You know we massive love you.”

  I say, “Sorry, Jacks. That’s a rough lot.”

  They smile and hug me. They say, “Apple-Jack, it’ll be beat.”

  I say, “I’m losing my marbles.”

  They say, “What d’you need?”

  I say, “I’d like to volunteer my skull as a bowling ball, please.”

  * * *

  Maya pulls us, heels dragging in the dirt, to yoga. I salute the sun. I’m warrior one, two, and three. I’m tree, lion, and lotus. I get massive into noose. Small drip drops drip from my eyes and pool and spatter on my sticky, spongy blue mat. I ain’t nothing but a downward-facing dog, c-cryin’ all the time.

  * * *

  Zoë says, “Get on up, Jack, and let’s slice.”

  She drags me away from Oma’s house and tosses threads on my bed and helps me get my superfreeze fly on and takes us to a massive hit club in the city, sliding a fake into my rear skinnies’ pocket. My apple-Jacks push their pinkies to the roof and clink thin-stemmed martinis as I chug deep-seated shots of tequila. We slice and they mingle and flirt, the rhythmic hammering engulfing the sorry blips knocking faintly in my heavy, sodden heart cage.

  We bounce into Clarissa, Molly Master Jack, and she pulls me into the bathroom, her eyes cat-glossy and dilated. “Butler,” she says, “rock ’n’ roll,” and fishes three pills with stars, smileys, and hearts from her back pocket. But Zoë crashpads in, giving Clarissa the stink eye, pulling me away even though my heart aches for the happy daffy high sleeping soft in that sweet hit candy.

  I crash out, slump heavy on a cold curb by the entrance and Zoë comes out, says Maya’s found her future husband. I shake my head and she sits by my side and wipes away black blurs from my raccoon eyes.

  “Flash Flood Area,” I say.

  “Slippery When Wet.” She slings her arm around my shoulders.

  The rhythm of the night thunders on without us, and then Maya’s sinking down beside us, looking dejected.

  “Wedding’s off?” I say and she gives me a soft flick on my arm.

  “Shavers are skuzz. Caution: Dead End.” She catches my eye. “And betties, too. I’m an equal opportunity hater.”

  I try a smile.

  “Never was final sale on those Pretty Pennies,” Zoë says, dragging deep a tar.

  “Not to be trusted.” Maya nods.

  Zoë looks at me, pulls on a grin. “Hey, Jack. Remember that time when you schemed Mrs. Gallagher’s magenta high heels from her closet and sported them all through calc and she never knew?”

  I laugh, sniffle. Laugh again.

  “Or what about that time when I knocked Holly Malone in the mug in gym class ’cause she slide-tackled you from behind?”

  I sniffle, laugh a little more.

  Maya says, “Or when I was coma on mono and you Jacks licked my spork and we spent January of freshman year on three-way dialing, scarfing tea and popcorn over clash-trash daytime soaps?”

&nb
sp; I smile. “And that time we all got massive blazed at Blue Lake and got hit with those Betty Scouts, spazzing around all day with them, snagging flutterbies in nets?”

  We laugh and laugh and laugh.

  And I cry and cry and cry.

  * * *

  Maya and I are heeling it by the river. Zoë’s off the clock, getting into some dram-o-rama with Gideon at his house. We walk, quiet, and follow a dusty trail along the slick-black, rolling river.

  “I’m so flip, My,” I say. “Lost. A heap,” and she smiles with a sad tug at her mouth, rubs a mitt over my back. “Why would Eve pull this? Why is she into that cog again?”

  Maya’s hush. She walks dragging a crooked stick in a line through the dirt. She looks at me. “Maybe she’s not. Maybe she’s just scared.”

  “I dunno. She said she wasn’t. She said those words.” I shake my head. “Why should she be?”

  “’Cause.” She smiles. “That’s how I’d feel.”

  “But I’m not gonna hurt her.”

  “No. That’s not it. She’s scared of herself. Of who she is if she’s heart-Jacks with you. And scared of hurting you.”

  “Word,” I sigh. “She’s doing a massive beat job of it for not wanting to.”

  Maya’s hush.

  I look at her. “What?”

  “No, nothing. I s’pose I think you should dial her. I know Zoë’s out for blood. But I think Eve deserves a chance to scat. Give her a shot to explain.”

  I’m sullen and flip. My heart cage rises and falls, burning and raw. “But she lied, My.”

  “Word.”

  I sigh massive deep. “Okay. But what if she won’t scat with me?”

  “She will.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “Because,” she says. “I would.”

  Illuminated

  “I was so flip,” Eve says.

  I dialed her when the sun came up and she told me to heel it on over.

  We’re sitting on the hood of my heap-a-junk banger hatchback, shoulder to shoulder, Eve munching her morning bagel. Her mom opens the front door and waves as she strolls to her mailbox and snags the morning paper. We’re hush and smile and wait for her to leave. Beneath my sailor hat, my skull whirls with words. My anger stirs and yanks at my chest.

  “Why did you lie?” I say, on edge. Her arm stiffens and pulls away. “I would’ve been hit.”

  “No. I don’t think you would’ve.”

  I shrug, trying to lift the hurt hanging like chains around my neck. “This is massive hard,” I say. “This whole just-scatting-with-Nate-to-figure-stuff-out thing is rough for me.”

  “Word,” she says. “Me too.” She scowls and licks her gorgeous lips. “I’m flip in the skull. What can I say?”

  “You can say…” I tap my cheek with my finger. “You can say you’ll only scat with me. Ever.” I glance out of the corner of my eye.

  “Eggs, Beatstreet. You got it.”

  “And you can say Nate Gray is a Blimp-Skull-McPopsicle-Mug and you’ll never see him again.”

  “He does have a big skull,” she laughs. “Word. He’s a Blimp-Skull.”

  “McPopsicle-Mug…,” I prompt.

  She smiles mop sad at me.

  I finish, “… who I’m never gonna see again. Ever. Or scat with. Ever.”

  She looks at me, resting her chin on her open palm. “I can’t say that.”

  I sigh. The noose of my anger dissolves and I’m hacked and feel wiped clean. Like something’s changing. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

  “I’m sorry I lied.” I watch her as she takes a big bite from her bagel. A car drives by, honks its horn. Eve looks up.

  “You seem different,” I say. “Or something.” She looks at me, tilts her head.

  “How so?”

  “Well, you’re, like, eating. That’s one thing.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Crisscross my heart.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m hungry?” she laughs and I shove my shoulder into hers. “I’m happy, too—or at least, getting there. I’m happy you called me,” and she smiles soft golden suns. “When I’m happy, I eat.”

  “Being with Nate didn’t make you happy?”

  She sighs, looks down at her lap. “Sometimes it did, in the get-go. But looking back on it now, it was like he was erasing me to see himself more clearly. And I was letting him. If that makes any sense.”

  “Um.”

  “I mean, it was like I didn’t wanna take up space. If I did, then he’d see all the flip things about me I knew he thought were ugly, boring, whatever. After a while, I told him this was okay. So I just didn’t eat and got smaller and smaller and harder to see. So he could become bigger, easier to see.”

  I can’t imagine this. I had no idea.

  She goes on. “But last night, with Nate. It was kind of amazing.”

  My veins and arteries go cold. “Oh?” I manage.

  She nods. “I think it’s why I flipped on you, told you not to come.”

  I can barely look at her.

  “’Cause Nate, he, like, didn’t get to me. Or I didn’t let him. And it felt so good, but also kind of bad. Like I knew exactly what he wanted from me and I couldn’t believe I had ever given it. And he got all pissy, like his trained monkey wouldn’t perform. And I could see it. And yeah, I wanted one of us to disappear. But it wasn’t me.”

  I let out the gallons of breath I realize I’m holding in, find her eyes. “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t massive tweak and assume the worst.”

  Eve laughs. “Word. Good thing.”

  We go quiet, the whole of it, of us, hanging silently between us.

  “But, listen, Thumbs,” I finally say, clearing my throat, desperately willing away the heartache of it all. “I wrote you this crank, lame-o poem. Like, a million and five days ago. I dunno why I just thought of it. But I have it here.”

  She holds out her hand and against my better judgment, I slip it from the pouch of my hoodie and into her hand. She reads it and I look away, smooth down my bangs, my face burning red-hot. Spell a few sentences of the poem in my head. None of them fit. When I turn back, she’s looking at my lips.

  “I wanted to kiss you just then,” she says.

  “If a kiss is an idea, it should just be a kiss.”

  Her mouth opens in a laugh and she grabs me, heeling it to the side of the house where she pulls me by my earlobes and presses me into the plastic siding and her smiling eyes cross just a little bit and she kisses me. In the broad orange light at the cusp of daybreak, her mouth, her smell, her touch, warm my chill and cloak my sorrow. I’m horizon and she’s sun and we are joined as the day is just begun.

  We are illuminated.

  * * *

  We sit cross-legged on her futon to share the dregs of a stick of canna pinched tight between tweezers. I fool about rolling the canna with my flip poem and Eve says, “You touch that thing and I’ll ax you, Bug-Jack.”

  She flicks my Zippo on and off on her leg—a trick I taught her.

  I sink into the smoke and rub at the rough sting of my rattling heart cage.

  “I sorta feel like someone took a garden hoe and scraped the insides of my chest out,” and Eve looks at me with big, sad eyes, the canna in her digits glowing red and hot. I tell her about my panic attack and yakking all over Zoë’s car. I tell her about telling my Jacks about her and how I had to shoot Oma with the morphine and nearly lost my marbles in the meantime. I try and laugh it off, say, “It’s been a real peach of a week.”

  Then we go silent and I start picking at a scab till it bleeds. She slaps my fingers away and I grab her wrist, count the freckles marching up and down the crests of her knuckles. I say I wonder what freckle tastes like and try and gnaw the ridge of her thumb. She smiles, says maybe we still need to talk about stuff.

  I shake my head.

  “Okay,” she says. “Well, whaddya wanna talk about, then?”

 
; I shrug. “Good recipes for freckle? I mean, what kind of wines pair best? Red or white? I don’t know.”

  “Nate?” she says.

  “Nope.”

  “College?”

  “No.”

  “Gun control?”

  “Um.”

  “Okay.” She smiles. “Masturbation,” and I choke, cough, wheeze, nearly die. Then Eve’s cracking up and she lays the canna down smoking in a vast white oyster shell spotted with our ash. Her cheeks flush red. “I do it,” she says, daring me with a look and I’m silent. I’m a pin, not dropping. Her smile goes broad. “Like, a lot.”

  My heart skips hopscotch in its cage.

  This is revolution.

  “Like, a lot?” I say, looking down at my guilty mitts lying in my lap.

  “Maybe,” she laughs.

  Blood rushes to my face. “You know,” I say softly, “I think we have that in common.”

  She’s silent. She takes my hand and pushes it down the front of her skinnies and my hand and I slide into the warmest pair of jeans in America.

  “Well then,” she says into my ear, her breath coming quick. “You’ll be a pro.”

  * * *

  My fingers fall into her.

  She’s so wet, she’s electric. She’s anemone and I am clown and I swim gently into her stunning embrace.

  Misty Ginger Haze

  Eve sips her mug of hot honey-ginger and her cheeks flush McIntosh Red, a sweet, early fruit. We’re on hour number fifteen plus fifty-five-minutes straight together. But really, who’s counting? I bend to kiss the flat caps of her knees and she grins, laughing through a ginger fog at my googly-for-you eyes.

  My Misty Ginger Haze.

  She shakes her head, smiling, and sips her tea. I inhale her skin. I tell her she’s ripe for picking and she falls from the tree. I wander like a grazing Holstein through fall-blazoned orchards and take her in my mouth and swallow her whole. I’m drunk. I wobble and hiccup. I am holy cow.

  Eve says, “It’s crazy. I dunno why it never occurred to me to get into it with a betty. But I’m switch as a clam it has.”