The Girls (19 page)

J
ULIAN RETURNED FROM
H
UMBOLDT
with a friend who wanted a ride to L.A. The friend's name was Zav. It seemed vaguely Rastafarian, how he pronounced it, though Zav was fishy white with a bog of orange hair held back by a woman's elastic. He was much older than Julian, maybe thirty-five, but dressed like an adolescent: the same too-long cargo shorts, the T-shirt worn to a pulp. He walked around Dan's house with an appraising squint, picking up a figurine of an ox, carved from bone or ivory, then putting it down. He peered at a photo of Julian in his mother's arms on the beach, then replaced the frame on the shelf, chuckling to himself.

“It's cool if he stays here tonight, right?” Julian asked. As if I were the den mother.

“It's your house.”

Zav came over to shake my hand. “Thanks,” he said, pumping away, “that's real decent of you.”

Sasha and Zav seemed to know each other, and soon all three were talking about a gloomy bar near Humboldt owned by a gray-haired grower. Julian had his arm around Sasha with the adult air of a man returning from the mines. It was hard to imagine him harming a dog, or harming anyone, Sasha so obviously pleased to be near him. She'd been girlish and veiled with me all day, no hint of our conversation the night before. Zav said something that made her laugh, a pretty, subdued laugh. Half covering her mouth, like she didn't want to expose her teeth.

I'd planned to walk to town for dinner, leave them alone, but Julian noticed me heading for the door.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said.

They all turned to look at me.

“I'm gonna go into town for a bit,” I said.

“You should eat with us,” Julian said. Sasha nodded, scooting into his side. Giving me the sloppy half attention of someone in the orbit of her beloved.

“We got a bunch of food,” she said.

I made the usual smiling excuses, but finally I took off my jacket. Already getting used to attention.

They'd stopped for groceries on the way back from Humboldt: a giant frozen pizza, some discount ground beef in a Styrofoam tray.

“A feast,” Zav said. “You've got your protein, your calcium.” He pulled a pill bottle from his pocket. “Your vegetables.”

He started rolling a joint on the table, a process that involved multiple papers and much fussing over the construction. Zav eyed his work from a distance, then pinched a little more from the pill bottle, the room marinating in the stench of damp weed.

Julian was cooking the beef on the stove, the meat losing its sheen. He poked at the crude patties with a butter knife, prodding and sniffing. Dorm-room cookery. Sasha slid the pizza in the oven, balling up the plastic wrap. Setting out paper towels at each chair, a suburban memory of chores, of setting the table for dinner. Zav drank a beer and watched Sasha with amused contempt. He hadn't lit the joint yet, though he twirled it in his fingers with obvious pleasure.

I listened while he and Julian talked about drugs with the intensity of professionals, exchanging stats like bond traders. Greenhouse yield vs. sun-grown. Comparing THC levels in varying strains. This was nothing like the hobby drugs of my youth, pot grown alongside tomato plants, passed around in mason jars. You could pick out seeds from a bud and plant them yourself, if you felt like it. Trade a lid for enough gas to get to the city. It was strange to hear drugs flattened to a matter of numbers, a knowable commodity instead of a mystic portal. Maybe Zav and Julian's way was better, cutting out all the woozy idealism.

“Fuck,” Julian said. The kitchen smelled of ashes and burning starch. “Damn, damn, damn.” He opened the oven and pulled the pizza out with his bare hands, swearing as he tossed it on the counter. It was black and smoky.

“Man,” Zav said, “that was the good kind, too. Expensive.”

Sasha was frantic. Hurrying over to consult the back of the pizza box. “Preheat to four fifty,” she droned. “I did that. I don't understand.”

“What time did you put it in?” Zav asked.

Sasha's eyes moved to the clock.

“The clock's frozen, idiot,” Julian said. He grabbed the box and stuffed it in the garbage. Sasha looked like she might cry. “Whatever,” he said with disgust. Picking at the burnt shell of cheese, then rubbing his fingers clean. I thought of the professor's dog. The poor animal, limping in circles. Vascular system slushy with poison. All the other things Sasha had probably not told me.

“I can make something else,” I said. “There's some pasta in the cabinet.”

I tried to catch Sasha's eye. Willing some combination of warning and sympathy to pass from me to her. But Sasha was unreachable, stung by her failure. The room got quiet. Zav fussing the joint between his fingers, waiting to see what would happen.

“There's a lot of beef, I guess,” Julian said finally, his anger slipping from sight. “No big thing.”

He rubbed Sasha's back, roughly, I thought, though the movement seemed to comfort her, returning her to the world. When he kissed her, she closed her eyes.

We drank a bottle of Dan's wine at dinner, the sediment settling in the cracks of Julian's teeth. Beer after that. Alcohol cut the fat on our breath. I didn't know what time it was. The windows black, the squeeze of wind through the eaves. Sasha was corralling wet pieces of the wine label into a meticulous pile. I could feel her glance at me from time to time, Julian's hand working the back of her neck. He and Zav maintained a constant patter all through dinner, Sasha and I fading into a silence familiar from adolescence: the effort to break through Zav and Julian's alliance wasn't worth the return. It was simpler to watch them, to watch Sasha, who acted like just sitting there was enough.

“ 'Cause you're a good guy,” Zav kept saying. “You're a good guy, Julian, and that's why I don't make you pay up front with me. You know I have to do that with McGinley, Sam, all those retards.”

They were drunk, the three of them, and maybe I was, too, the ceiling drab with expired smoke. We'd shared a burly joint, a sexual droop descending on Zav. A pleased, overcome squint. Sasha had drawn further into herself, though she'd unzipped her sweatshirt, her chest sunless and crossed with faint blue veins. Her eye makeup was heavier than it had been: I didn't know when she'd put more on.

I got to my feet when we finished eating. “I've got to do a few things,” I said.

They made halfhearted efforts to get me to stay, but I waved them off. I closed the door to the bedroom, though bits of their conversation slipped through.

“I respect you,” Julian was saying to Zav, “I always have, man, ever since Scarlet was like, You have to meet this guy.” Performing an extravagant admiration, the stoned person's tendency toward optimistic summary.

Zav responded, resuming their practiced volley. I could hear Sasha's silence.

When I passed through later, nothing had really changed. Sasha was still listening to their conversation like she'd be tested someday. Julian's and Zav's intoxication had passed into a strenuous state, their hairlines wet with sweat.

“Are we being too loud?” Julian asked. That weird politeness again, how easily it clicked in.

“Not at all,” I said. “Just getting some water.”

“Sit with us,” Zav said, studying me. “Talk.”

“That's okay.”

“Come on, Evie,” Julian said. The odd intimacy of my name in his mouth surprised me.

The table was stamped with rings from the bottles, the litter of dinner. I started to clear the dishes.

“You don't have to do that,” Julian said, scooting back so I could reach his plate.

“You cooked,” I said.

Sasha made a peep of thanks when I added her plate to the stack. Zav's phone lit up, shivering across the surface of the table. Someone was calling: a blurry photograph of a woman in underwear flashed on the screen.

“Is that Lexi?” Julian asked.

Zav nodded, ignoring the call.

A look passed between Julian and Zav: I didn't want to notice it. Zav belched. They both laughed. I could smell the memory of chewed meat.

“Benny is doing computer shit now,” Zav said, “you know that?”

Julian hit the table. “No fucking way.”

I walked the dishes to the sink, gathering the balled paper towels from the counter. Sweeping crumbs into my hand.

“He's fat as fuck,” Zav said, “it's hilarious.”

“Is Benny the guy from your high school?” Sasha asked.

Julian nodded. I let the sink fill with water. Watching Julian swivel his body to mirror Sasha's, knocking his knees into hers. He kissed her on the temple.

“You guys are too fucking much,” Zav said.

His tone had a tricky bite. I sank the dishes in the water. A scummy network of grease formed on the surface.

“I just don't get it,” Zav went on, addressing Sasha, “why you stay with Julian. You're too hot for him.”

Sasha giggled, though I glanced back and saw her labor to calculate a response.

“I mean, she's a babe,” Zav said to Julian, “am I right?”

Julian smiled what I thought of as the smile of an only son, someone who believed he would always get what he wanted. He probably always had. The three of them were lit like a scene from a movie I was too old to watch.

“But Sasha and I know each other, don't we?” Zav smiled at her. “I like Sasha.”

Sasha held a basic smile on her face, her fingers tidying the pile of torn label.

“She doesn't like her tits,” Julian said, pulsing the back of her neck, “but I tell her they're nice.”

“Sasha!” Zav affected upset. “You have great tits.”

I flushed, hurrying to finish the dishes.

“Yeah,” Julian said, his hand still on her neck. “Zav would tell you if you didn't.”

“I always tell the truth,” Zav said.

“He does,” Julian said. “That's true.”

“Show me,” Zav said.

“They're too small,” Sasha said. Her mouth was tight like she was making fun of herself, and she shifted in her seat.

“They'll never sag, so that's good,” Julian said. Tickling her shoulder. “Let Zav see.”

Sasha's face reddened.

“Do it, babe,” Julian said, a harshness in his voice making me glance over. I caught Sasha's eye—I told myself the look in her face was pleading.

“Come on, you guys,” I said.

The boys turned with amused surprise. Though I think they were tracking where I was all along. That my presence was a part of the game.

“What?” Julian said, his face snapping into innocence.

“Just cool it,” I told him.

“Oh, it's fine,” Sasha said. Laughing a little, her eyes on Julian.

“What exactly are we doing?” Julian said. “What exactly should we ‘cool'?”

He and Zav snorted—how quickly all the old feelings came back, the humiliating interior fumble. I crossed my arms, looking to Sasha. “You're bothering her.”

“Sasha's fine,” Julian said. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear—she smiled faintly and with effort. “Besides,” he went on, “are you really someone who should be lecturing us?”

My heart tightened.

“Didn't you, like, kill someone?” Julian said.

Zav sucked his teeth, then let loose a nervous laugh.

My voice sounded strangled. “Of course not.”

“But you knew what they were going to do,” Julian said. Grinning with the thrill of capture. “You were there with Russell Hadrick and shit.”

“Hadrick?” Zav said. “Are you shitting me?”

I tried to rein in the hysterical lean coming into my voice. “I was barely around.”

Julian shrugged. “That's not what it sounded like.”

“You don't really believe that.” But there was no entry point in any of their faces.

“Sasha said you told her so,” Julian went on. “Like you could have done it, too.”

I inhaled sharply. The pathetic betrayal: Sasha had told Julian everything I'd said.

“So show us,” Zav said, turning back to Sasha. I was already invisible again. “Show us the famous tits.”

“You don't have to,” I said to her.

Sasha flicked her eyes in my direction. “It isn't a big deal or anything,” she said, her tone dripping with cool, obvious disdain. She plucked her neckline away from her chest and looked pensively down her shirt.

“See?” Julian said, smiling hard at me. “Listen to Sasha.”

I had gone to one of Julian's recitals when Dan and I were still close. Julian must have been nine years old or so. He was good at the cello, I remembered, his tiny arms going about their mournful adult work. His nostrils rimed with snot, the instrument in careful balance. It didn't seem possible that the boy who had called forth those sounds of longing and beauty was the same almost-man who watched Sasha now, a cold varnish on his eyes.

She pulled her shirt down, her face flushed but mostly dreamy. The impatient, professional tug she gave when the neckline caught on her bra. Then both pale breasts were exposed, her skin marked by the line of her bra. Zav exclaimed approvingly. Reaching to thumb a rosy nipple while Julian looked on.

I had long outlived whatever usefulness I had here.