Betwixt (8 page)

Before everything starts?
What the hell was he talking about? Ondine ignored the mysterious comment. Moth was known for the kind of deep guy blather
she hated.
Hey, are you going to Burning Man this year? Cool tats, man
— blah blah blah. Lines like these may have worked in Portland, but they were just ways of getting into crunchy girls’ pants.

She waved her hand. “Dippin’ into the dust a little too much these days, Motherwell? Let me rephrase.
You. Are. Not. Invited.
”

He only smiled. “Whatever.”

“Come on, Morgan.” Ondine started for the counter. “We don’t need your help, Moth. We’re just having a little gathering —
a small, select group of people. From
high school.
But I suppose you can’t be expected to remember back that far.”

The boy laughed, enjoying the banter. “I’m just glad to be in your presence. Now, Morgan,” he began, taking the wine bottles
from the girl’s splayed fingers and placing them in Ondine’s cart. “Tell me about yourself. Who are you, lovely angelic creature
of light? And would you like to run away with me?”

The girl stepped closer. She clearly liked the attention and was charmed by Moth. Ondine pushed faster. It felt strange to
be ignored. It wasn’t that she was jealous. No. Jealousy — an offshoot of desire, which for the most part seemed to have spared
her (she had kissed a few boys at McKinley dances, but never really
dated
) — had always seemed ridiculous, something for bad reality TV. This was more like … like a hangnail. Irritating.
Stupid
irritating.

Still, there was a heat coming off these two, and she felt if she stood between them too long, she might also start to burn.

“Come on, Morgan,” she said, walking faster.

The cashier made it known a few paces away that he had no intention of selling to the underage girls. Nevertheless, Morgan,
prepared with a smile, began loading the bottles onto the counter. The man behind it shook his head.

“ID, young lady.” He looked up from behind his reading glasses.

Morgan leaned over far enough to reveal a generous helping of milky breast under her black blouse. “I got my wallet stolen.”
She tucked a stray lock behind her ear and smiled. “Remember? Just last week I was in here and I told you I got my wallet
stolen? As soon as I get it back I’ll come in and show you —”

“No ID, no sale.” The man tapped the “21” sign affixed to the counter. “And I suggest you put these items back on the shelves
before I call the police and have you arrested for trying to procure alcohol underage.” He pushed the bottles back toward
her, one by one. “Hussy,” he muttered, then coughed.

Too shocked to say anything, Ondine stood quiet. Morgan pretended she hadn’t heard. Moth, however, who seemed to miss nothing,
appeared delighted. He smiled and looked at Ondine as if to say,
What did I tell you?

The cashier wiped his nose with the back of his hand, shook his paper out, and started reading it again.

“You, too.” He nodded to Ondine.

“Excuse me?”

A thick, stubbled upper lip curled in Moth’s direction. “And you can think again if you want this little turd here to buy
for you.”

Ondine and Morgan stood silent, hands at their sides. Ondine’s mouth hung open as if she intended to say something
but had forgotten what it was. A wash of pink seeped into Morgan’s cheeks. Moth just laughed.

He stepped in front of the two girls, smiling calmly. Raising his right hand — the one with the silver ring, the wristwatch,
and the tattoo — to his lips, he shushed the older man. The cashier stiffened for a second, his face knotted, then by increments
he relaxed. Moth kept shushing and the man behind the counter softened. Ondine watched. Morgan watched. The softer and longer
Moth shushed, his finger still to his mouth, the quieter and more passive the cashier became.

He lowered his fingers and placed his hand on the counter.

The cashier smiled as if he had never seen Moth before. “Well, sir,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I think you can just ring us up.”

Ondine felt dizzy and placed a hand on the counter to steady herself. She pulled it back when the cashier smiled at her, too.

“Yes, dear?”

“Nothing.”

She didn’t understand what was going on. One second the cashier was calling them hussies and turds, now this? She looked at
Morgan. The girl was biting her lip, her eyes wide. Whatever was going on, it was clear she liked it.

“Never you mind, young Ondine.” Moth didn’t take his eyes from the cashier’s. “Just put the bottles in the bag.”

“No!” She turned and stared. “You tell me what’s going on
or I’m out of here. And you —” She turned to face the cashier. “Why did
you
change your mind?”

“Shut up, Ondine!” Morgan whispered.

The cashier spoke, his phlegmy voice now kind. “A few chocolates for the girls, sir?”

“Excuse me, but what the hell did you do to this guy, Moth?”

“Make sure you still eat your dinner.” The cashier spoke over her, reaching under the counter and placing a Hershey’s Kiss
in front of Ondine, another in front of Morgan. He nudged the candies toward them. “Go ahead, girls. They’re all yours.”

Whatever was going on, Ondine realized she would have to deal with it outside. Dazed, she took the candy and put it in her
pocket. Morgan unwrapped hers at the counter and placed it on her tongue. Then she sucked on it, licking her lips.

“All mine?” she said, to the cashier or Moth, Ondine couldn’t tell. “I
do
like the sound of that.”

Moth’s smile curled up on one side into a smirk, but he kept his eyes on the cashier’s. “We can explore that statement in
all its, uh, positions later. Right now” — his hand snaked into his back pocket and fished out a rubber-banded roll of money,
which he handed to Morgan — “be a good little girl and pay the man.”

Morgan looked so intoxicated you’d think she’d already drunk everything Ondine was shoving into plastic bags. She double bagged
the bottles, concentrating on the practical details, because she didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but she
knew she wanted to get out of the store before it all exploded in their faces. Morgan peeled back twenties, one at a time.
She looks like a stripper giving herself a tip, Ondine thought, then felt guilty. It wasn’t like they were stealing — although
it
was
the first time Ondine had ever paid for something by stuffing the money into a cashier’s shirt pocket, which Morgan was doing
now, leaning over the counter and throwing in a little kiss on the cheek.

“Since you gave us kisses,” she cooed in his ear, “it seems only fair you should get one, too.”

Her shirt rode up when she leaned forward, exposing the small of her back above her jeans, and Moth let the fingertips of
his right hand play over the bare skin, never taking his eyes from the cashier’s.

“It’s kisses for everyone then,” he announced. Then, in a firmer voice: “Now, let’s get out of here.”

Outside, Ondine stared at Moth, who was now helping himself to the trunk of Trish Mason’s silver Jetta. She kind of wished
she smoked, so she could light up a cigarette in anger.

“What just happened in there?”

“Magic?” Moth laughed.

“You asshole. Why don’t you be straight with me? Can you ever tell the truth?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “I just did.”

“You know, there’s one thing I never understood about you, Moth. Other than chasing tail, what exactly do you
do
?”

“Help people, I guess. Isn’t that what I’m doing with you?”

Morgan spoke up from the other side of the car. “Ondine? Honey? Your chocolate’s going to melt in your pocket.”

Ondine looked at her friend across the closed sunroof of her mother’s car. She had wanted to open the sunroof on the drive
over, but Morgan had said the breeze would mess up her hair. Now she almost seemed to be panting.

“Is that all you have to say? ‘Your chocolate’s going to melt’? Here then,” she said, fishing out the candy and throwing it
at Morgan. “Since you seem to like it so much.”

Moth walked over to Morgan and whispered something in the girl’s ear. Ondine noticed his fingers wrap around her waist. She
felt a pang of something — not jealousy, surely not jealousy — despite herself. She had never been touched like that.

He turned to Ondine and smiled. “See you at ten, then.”

She clenched her jaw and clicked her keys. The Jetta hiccuped in response.

“No. You. Won’t.” But he had already started loping away.

“Come on, Morgan.” Ondine scowled, slamming the door. “Neve’s waiting.”

T
IM
B
LEEKER KILLS OLD LADIES
’
CATS
, my friend. Why the hell are you even talking to him?”

K.A. looked over at his friend, slumped in the passenger seat. Nix didn’t say anything, just stared out the black Mustang’s
window at the soft yellow lights of Portland’s low-lying neighborhoods. The early June air was soft and a little dewy from
the rain earlier in the day.

“Hey, man. I’m serious. Why do you even mess with that stuff?”

“I can’t sleep, man. I have these dreams.” Nix looked at K.A., then back out the window. “And I wake up and can’t get back
to sleep again. The dust helps with the dreams.”

“So you’re saying you take dust because it makes your bad dreams go away?”

“Not go away,” Nix said to the window. “Dulls. Mutes.”

“Dulls,” K.A. repeated. “Mutes. That’s great. You’re frying
your brain because it ‘mutes’ your dreams. That makes it all better, man. All better.”

It occurred to K.A., not for the first time, how strange it was that he and Nix had become friends. K.A. was a delivery boy
for Jacob, had worked for him since he was in ninth grade, running errands, stocking the pantry. He got bumped up to table
service and then deliveries when he’d gotten his license the previous year. He liked hanging out late at Jacob’s, shooting
the shit with Neve and Nix. Neve, Jacob’s truly smoking daughter, he’d seen around for years. They’d gone to school together
until eighth grade, after which her parents transferred her to Penwick. Something about Neve needing special attention—true,
as far as K.A. could tell. Neve was a total fox — smart, too — but high-strung. Which wasn’t always a bad thing, in K.A.’s
book. He still saw her at soccer games when their teams played each other. He had a distinct memory of her turning a cartwheel
in a vintage cheerleading skirt; she’d worn it for the ironic value, but the look was perfectly executed, particularly the
kneesocks and white cotton panties. Last summer at a party he’d watched her lose a makeshift, late-night limbo when the tips
of her breasts nudged a Swiffer out of the sweaty hands of some Penwick seniors. But the thing that had really made him take
notice was the day she’d slammed open the back door of her father’s pizza parlor, where K.A. was hanging out with the new
dishwasher while he smoked
a cigarette. Every bit the boss’s daughter, Neve had said, “Listen, D’Amici, if these three pies don’t make their way over
to Northwest Glisan
right now,
I’m gonna let you in on my father’s special hippie recipe for making pepperoni without harming any pigs.” Nix had snorted
so violently his cigarette had flown out of his mouth, and Neve, not expecting an audience, had gone red. After she’d slunk
back inside, K.A. had said to Nix, “You think I should tell her I just came in to get my paycheck?” The kid had replied, “I
wouldn’t risk it, man. Not while she’s got access to that meat grinder.”

Two relationships were born that day: a flirtation with Neve that had grown steadily, and a faster if weirder friendship with
the slacker-vagrant-runaway dishwasher, or whatever the hell Nix was. The fact of the matter was, Nix Saint-Michael was the
kind of guy K.A. was supposed to beat up, or at any rate, avoid. Instead he felt like the little brother K.A. never had —
which was even weirder, since Nix was a year older than him. As the youngest employees of Jacob’s, the threesome often sat
around the same booth during the slow last hour — the pizza parlor stayed open till midnight on school nights, two
AM
during the weekends — sipping beer poured into soda cans in deference to Jacob, and sometimes, if it was slow enough and
they’d managed to drink enough, K.A. would get Nix to tell stories about Alaska and his travels before he came down to Portland.
He always
stopped when the subject of his mother came up. All he would say was that she died young.

K.A. kept his hands on the wheel now, but looked over.

“So what happened today? With Jacob?”

Nix leaned back in his seat and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it, man.”

“He likes you, you know. He told me once you reminded him of himself when he first got to Portland.” K.A. saw the older boy
smile despite himself and shake his head. He decided to press on. “No, man, I’m serious. He told me that.”

Nix’s expression darkened. He took a deep breath then kicked the dash.

“Dude! Drop it! I quit. That’s all there is to it.”

“All right, son. I was just trying to help.” K.A. kept his eyes on the road. “Chill out.”

They were quiet for a while, until Nix spoke.

“Look, bro. Things are just hard for me right now. I’m depressed. I can’t take that job. These nightmares — I don’t know what
to do about them. And tonight Finn kicked me out of the squat —”

“What?”

“Finn kicked me out, man. I brought Bleek up there for a delivery, and Finn’s into Evelyn now, and —” Nix traced the outline
of the metal door handle. “Anyway, you know how Evie
knows Bleek. Man, I totally fucked up. Today was a really bad day. Quit my job, got kicked out of the squat. I’m no good to
anyone, including myself.” He paused and looked ahead of him, his jaw tight. “I think it’s time for me to head out.”

K.A. took a deep breath, then spoke, still staring at the road.

“You can’t run away from yourself.”

He looked over at the boy in the passenger seat, waiting for Nix to say something. Nix’s face was split by a wide grin, half
mocking, half miserable.