Punk Like Me (2 page)

So, like I told you before, I’m sitting there, Þ nally able to take a bit of a break before we go on stage for the Þ rst time, and Trace has decided to be Florence Nightingale and the Rock of Gibraltar simultaneously, with a very healthy, and I mean
very
healthy Mae West and Tallulah Bankhead thrown in.

Somehow, she has her arms around my shoulders, her legs wrapped over and around mine, and when I lean my head back against her shoulder because she’s petting it, she strokes my neck oh so very lightly with her Þ ngertips. “You okay, baby?” she’s whispering into my ear, her voice a honeyed whiskey. Then she nuzzles baby-soft lips into my neck. That feels so amazingly good, I just groan in reply.

Suddenly, she grabs my hips with surprising strength of purpose and pulls me tightly against her just as she starts to nip, nibble, and lick the sensitive skin of my neck. I open my eyes in surprise. I’m tired and nervous and feverish, and I know my temperature’s running high, because wherever Trace’s body meets mine I burn, and everything else is lonely cold.

I close my eyes again. “Oh, what the hell,” I think as I stretch my legs out farther along the bench, “might as well enjoy this while it lasts,” and I settle my back into her warmth while I enjoy the patterns her lips have begun to leave on my throat.

Trace starts to massage my hip with one hand, while the other dangles between my thighs, sometimes resting on one, perilously close and not close enough to the restless situation she’s creating in my already unstable body.

“Damn!” I hear Jerkster say to no one in particular. “We’re not even on yet, and she’s already got chicks all over her. How the hell does she do it?”

Nicky, I mean Nico (we’d all started calling him that in the last year), my younger and only brother, answers, “She’s got some mojo. I don’t even have to introduce my girlfriends to her—they all go for her right away.”

• 14 •

PUNK LIKE ME

Trace has got her tongue in my ear so it’s kinda hard to think, but I just realized—this is deÞ nitely a far ways away from my last visit to CBGB’s.

• 15 •

• 16 •

PUNK LIKE ME

So the real story starts back when my best friend Kerry and I, and a whole slew of our friends, had gone to the Carter boys’

annual “Everyone’s Birthday in July” party right off the boardwalk in a place called South Beach, a popular destination for New York City dwellers in the forties and Þ fties, but now a semi-abandoned beach (except for the occasional National Parks people or whatever they are, who inspected it whenever a bonÞ re got too out of hand).

Now, at this point in life, I wasn’t too tall, being just about Þ ve foot three inches as a junior in high school (yep, it’s true, I was one of those late bloomers), and Kerry, with her dirty-blond hair and cat green eyes, was even shorter as a sophomore. In grammar school, she’d been Nicky’s classmate, and of course I knew who she was and all that, but we weren’t what you could call close.

Somewhere, though, between junior high and high school, we’d just started to click, and by freshman year we were an inseparable duo, despite the fact that she went to Tottenville, the local public high school, and I went to a place nicknamed “The Hill”—an all-girls’ prep school run by nuns—that was great academically, but sucked socially.

Freshmen had to take Latin
and
self-defense/judo, for Chrissakes.

Hmm…maybe the judo was because of the uniform? I dunno. Besides, I’d Þ gured out a loophole in the student handbook (yeah, we had one of those—and we had a test in it every year, too, just in case we forgot something or the nuns added something new). Anyway, I changed into jeans or army pants and my favorite pair of boots before I left school every day, so it wasn’t really an issue for me anymore.

But still, the fact that I did better in judo than in Latin—not to mention my ability to Þ nd loopholes in that dumb rule book—might

• 17 •

have been a good indication as to why I was always in trouble—so often, in fact, that I’d met my other best friend, Samantha, on one of the many afternoons when I was on detention that Þ rst year of high school.

A year ahead of me, she became, among other things, my detention partner.

But I digress. Back to the party in South Beach, which, by the way, if you had good eyes, good binoculars, and an even better imagination you could see Coney Island from. This party was for the forty-some-odd percent of our friends who had July birth dates—it allowed us to have one massive gathering instead of having to coordinate and reschedule Þ fteen conß icting ones. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, brought something from dips to drinks, and we had plenty of everything. We also experimented making our own drink concoctions. At the annual Halloween party in the fall (and the Þ rst one I’d ever been to—Carter boys’ party, that is), we’d made something we named the
Thing That
Came and Stayed
because no matter how much of that Hi-C orange-colored stuff we drank, spilled, and were afraid to offer to the sea because of toxicity, it never disappeared. We Þ nally used it to put out the bonÞ re in the backyard.

The beach party was no different. The Þ re was lit, the
Son of Thing
That Came and Stayed
was born (purple Hi-C this time), and we were dancing and laughing ’round the Þ re to “Planet Claire” and “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s.

Now you might be surprised, all those kids and alcohol (together again, Þ lm at eleven!), but ya know, none of us did drugs then (me and Nicky never will, knock wood), and there was only one guy who took it too far. Even though his name was Rob, we called him “Chuck” or “Yack,” not only to prevent confusion with Robbie from the comic book store Universe where we all hung out (and they were cousins, by the by) but because it was also the level he drank to. But we were too young to know he had a problem, and our ride home was dryer than twelve days in the Sahara and keeping it that way so he could shove sixteen of us—no joke—into a ’76 Dodge Dart.

The weather was warm, the sky was clear, and our blood was Þ lled with wild, wild joy.

I had invited Samantha to the party, along with Nicky, Kerry, and me—people were always inviting fresh faces to the group, which gave

• 18 •

PUNK LIKE ME

it its wildly eclectic nature—and she and I hadn’t really seen each other since school had ended for the summer. Samantha had been having a really rough year—her father had passed away that spring—and I guess she wasn’t feeling very social.

Not that I blamed her, though. It’s just that she was so withdrawn, and after almost a month of “space,” I thought that maybe she could have a little fun, hang out a little, get out into the world a bit, and I wanted her to meet my bro and my buds. Besides, she had a July birthday, too, and I had bought her a little present.

Nicky and I had been there a little while, mixing and mingling about, chatting with friends, dancing, drinking a little, and the sun hadn’t truly gone down yet. It lay about a third of the way above the horizon, casting gorgeous shadows and reliefs everywhere it chose to, and every now and again, I’d glance back across the beach to the parking lot to see who else was joining our party.

At some point, having taken my socks and shoes off a while before, I walked over to the water’s edge just to breathe it all in and enjoy the sun, the sand, and the surf all together and washing over me.

Feet sunk into the sand and water bathing my calves, I was peacefully blank, lost in non-thought.

“Knew you’d be near the water, Nina,” a low female voice I knew spoke over the crash of the waves. And slightly startled, I turned from my place in the sand with a smile to see Samantha—dark hair loose about her shoulders over a cut-off sleeve, hooded sweatshirt with our school logo on it, a knee-length pair of surf shorts, and bare feet.

“Yeah, well, you know, we start out swimming and we never stop.” I grinned at her, referring to our mutual love of water and our membership on the school swim team. “Hey, by the way, I’m really glad you made it!”

Still being respectful of Samantha’s need for time, I hadn’t called too often, just left a message every now and then. She hadn’t really called back, so I didn’t know if she was going to show or not. Obviously, though, she had. Glad she got the message.

Samantha crossed the few feet from where she stood to join me in the cooling waves, and we gave each other a hug. When we released each other, she casually draped an arm over my shoulder and I put one lightly around her waist. We watched the sun drop down in

• 19 •

companionable silence.

“Had to come,” Samantha Þ nally said. “You asked me so nicely.” She looked at me and grinned, then tousled my hair. “But I can’t stay long,” she added, and her expression became a bit rueful. “There’s some things I have to do.”

Well, I could understand that, and I Þ gured maybe she was feeling a little awkward. It couldn’t be very easy to just try to be normal when so much in her life wasn’t, and I said as much—at least the Þ rst part about understanding, anyway. I didn’t want to say the rest ’cause that was sort of obvious.

I pushed the forelock back off my face that her tousling and the wind blew. “And besides,” I added, “it
is
‘Everybody’s Birthday in July’

party, ya know, so you had to be here, even if it’s just for a little bit.” I smiled back and mock-punched her shoulder, trying to keep things light. My knuckles barely grazed her shoulder.

I remembered the present I’d brought for her, and suddenly, I felt a little shy. I could actually feel my face start to ß ush. The sun was just about to dip below the horizon, so I hoped Samantha wouldn’t notice in the lengthening shadows.

“I, uh, I got you something, nothing big, ya know, just, cool,” I managed to say without stammering too much. I don’t know why I felt so strange. I mean, we’d spent almost every day of nine months hanging out during the school year, for the past two, going on three, years. Maybe it was because this was the Þ rst time we’d actually hooked up outside of the semester? That sure enough sounds right, anyway.

My words seemed to blow away in the light breeze that played off the water as Samantha jammed her hands into the single pocket of her sweatshirt, and she just watched me brieß y, an expression in her eyes I didn’t understand and a tiny little smile playing on the corner of her mouth.

Finally she pulled a hand out of her pocket and very gently brushed the hair the wind had blown onto my face behind my ear and lightly cupped my cheek. “You shouldn’t have. You know,” she spoke softly,

“it’s not necessary.”

Her Þ ngertips were cool and soft against my heated cheek, and I felt a weird new little pressure build in my throat. I must have had more purple Hi-C than I’d realized, I thought to myself when I felt that same pressure build in my face, even though Samantha removed her hand.

• 20 •

PUNK LIKE ME

“Sure I should, sure it was,” I struggled to answer, only the words came out in a whisper, and I jammed my hand into the pocket of my shorts, scrabbling with my Þ ngertips to Þ nd the little wrapped bit that I’d gotten. Finding it, I jerked it out, practically shoving my hand in her face. “Here, for you,” I stated Þ rmly. “Happy birthday,” and I opened my Þ ngers to let her see the little blue package.

The sun had sunk even lower, and now the water was grayish blue, the way it looks before a storm.

Samantha simply stared at me, and I was struck by her eyes. They were the same color as the ocean. Very slowly, very carefully, she reached for my hand, and with a touch so gentle that I could barely feel it, she withdrew the tiny little package.

I held my breath as she opened it and simply stared at her gift, and I shifted my weight slightly from one foot to another. I found a balance that suited and dug my toes into the wet sand while I waited and watched for, well, I don’t know, something.

“Oh wow…” she breathed out quietly.

“Do you, um, do you like it?”

Samantha Þ nally lifted her eyes to mine, her eyes wide and a soft smile across her lips. “Like it? I love it, Nina.” She grinned at me, slid the little bit of wrapping paper into her front pocket, then held the gift out before her. “Help me put it on?”

It was a very simple gift, a perfectly reproduced miniature sword—

a claymore—two inches long on a silver rope chain. I had picked that for her because of her nickname, but more on that later, ’kay?

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” I smiled back and stepped closer, taking the chain from Samantha’s hand. I reached up around her neck, closing the ends of the chain under her hair, brushing it out to make sure it wasn’t caught. “There,” I said Þ nally as I released the chain, “you’re done.” I stepped back to critique my handiwork. “It looks great on you,” I told her in honest admiration, and watched her Þ ddle with it.

“It’s very cool, Nina,” she told me, that same little smile playing about the corner of her lips. “Thank you.” Her eyes caught mine and she stepped closer to me.

“This is it,” a part of my brain thought. “This is what?” asked another. Suddenly I could feel that pressure again in my face and throat—I could feel my pulse jump in my neck—and it seemed to me that we almost swayed into one another. Her face came closer to mine,

• 21 •

and all I could see were her eyes, and then her lips. The pressure was so great my cheeks tingled with it, and I closed my eyes against it as all the sound disappeared except for the waves, which seemed to dominate everything.

“Thank you,” whispered Samantha warmly against my face, and the lightest feather of cool heat touched the corner of my lips. It might have only been a moment, but it seemed to last forever. The touch disappeared. “I have to go,” she whispered, and I felt her warmth leave.

I’ve no idea how long I stood there like that, with my eyes closed and the wind off the water making colder the space Samantha had left, but when I Þ nally opened my eyes, she was long gone.