Ask the Passengers (18 page)

So I nibble on her ear and whisper other words. “Abalone,” I say. “Abercrombie.”

She chuckles and slips her hands into my jeans and down the sides of my legs. Under my panties, and then aims them around my ass and holds it like someone would hold a water balloon. Carefully. Skillfully.

“What were you saying?” she asks.

“Ab… dominal external oblique muscles.”

She removes her hands from my jeans and lifts my shirt a little. She kisses my lips. My chin. My neck. My collarbone. My belly. My ribs. She says, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. Were you trying to say something?” She begins to unbutton my fly.

“I think it was abrasion,” I say. “Or maybe abridgment.”

She lifts my bra, and my breasts spill out. “Are you sure? I thought you might be trying to say something else.”

Brutally loud knock on the window. We lie and breathe for a second.

“Abrupt, abominable abuse. That’s all she’s good for at times like this.”

Kristina keeps knocking.

I sit up and sigh. “Did you ever wonder if what you believe
is reality? I mean, that beyond this is a real reality that’s more real than the reality you know?”

“Shit, Jones.”

“But did you? Did you ever get pulled in so many directions you weren’t sure which one was real?”

She bear-hugs me.

I say, “I love you.”

She kisses me on the forehead.

Kristina knocks again and says, “We’re leaving you here if you don’t come now.”

We straighten ourselves and get out of the car. I feel the cold more than I usually do. I realize that I was sweating. Parts of my body are damp. The right parts. I shiver. Dee and I cross the street and get in line and press ourselves together. Neither of us can stop smiling. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s like no one else is here. Justin’s and Chad’s lips are moving, and they seem to be having a conversation, but I can’t hear them. Same with Kristina and Donna. Blah blah blah. I feel 100 percent ready to say
abracadabra
.

Maybe even tonight. Claire would be so proud.

We are now experts at getting through the door. My heart rate doesn’t increase. My palms aren’t sweaty. I don’t even have exact change. I smile at Jim the bouncer and hand him my twenty-dollar bill. I say, “For two,” and hold up two fingers. Dee thanks me as he hands me ten dollars in change.

As I step over the threshold, I feel I am entitled to happiness, even if my best friend is acting weird and making me paranoid. Even if I just did what I did with a complete stranger named Kim. Even if I feel like an occasional dumbshit. I am in my own personal happy jet—in a wide seat and with the perfect mix of cool and warm air and the little pillow positioned perfectly in my lumbar region.

I look around at the other passengers. Biker lady is here. She is a leather-clad flight attendant. She brings me a bottle of water and says, “I know that’s the kind you like.” She takes Dee to the dance floor and dances with her during an old disco classic. Dee is probably more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. It’s not just her clothes or how she’s put her hair back. It’s the cabin pressure in here. It’s making us worry-free. Timeless. Funny. Grown up.

The pilot puts on some more disco and says, “We’re playing your favorites until midnight! Drop by the cockpit and give me a request!”

It’s all so good, I don’t have time to feel guilty.

Dee and I drink lemonades and find a place in the back corner of the dance floor. Atlantis is particularly crowded tonight. There’s a line for the ladies’ room that stretches to the bar doorway.

When the techno comes on at midnight, more people crowd onto the dance floor, and Dee and I start to kiss again in
the corner while our hips are pressing into each other and our hands are touching places that should not be touched in a public place.

We are right by an amplifier, so she has to yell. “You want to go back to the car? Maybe you could find that word you’re looking for.”

I really want to say yes, but I’m afraid of leaving now and what Kristina would say. “I do, but I… I don’t want to do it in the car,” I say. I don’t like quite how that came out, but she nods.

“Maybe you can remember the word tomorrow? I’ve got a free house.”

We pull away from each other and lock eyes. She nods. I nod.

We dance until we’re twice as damp as we were when we arrived.

I see Kristina and Donna over by the bar. Kristina waves at me and smiles. I wave back. After a brief rest, Dee grabs me for a slow dance, and we dance so close I think I’m losing circulation in my torso. Nothing ever felt more perfect. I think about telling Mom and Dad again. I think that it would be easy to tell them if they understood that I’m happy. All parents want their kids to be happy, right?

Right when I think this is when everything changes.

First, a loud voice. Then the music goes off. Then the lights come on.

THOSE OF US IN
the middle—halfway between the street entrance and the back parking-garage entrance—start a surge toward the back door. But then we’re pushed back toward the bar by those who were in the back room, because there are cops coming in that way, too.

“Oh, shit,” Dee says.

I don’t know what to say.

“Can they arrest us?” I ask.

Justin and Chad whisper a few things to each other.

“They’re checking IDs,” Dee says.

“I don’t have an ID,” Kristina says. “Except my school ID.”

Donna says, “Babe, I don’t think that’s what you want to say when they get to us.”

I reach to my back pocket. I have my driver’s license and a ten-dollar bill.

Dee puts her head in her hands. I can see the color drain from her face. This might kill her hockey scholarship chances. Or maybe all of our everything chances.

The cop goes to Chad first. Chad reaches into his wallet and pulls out his license.

“Looks like a long drive for your folks tonight, all the way from Allentown!”

“Am I going to jail?” Chad asks.

The cop smiles and shakes his head. “Just a trip to the district justice with your parents. Go give them a call.” He points to the phone on the bar.

Chad nods. What a mixed-bag answer. No jail, yes district justice. What the hell does that even mean?

As the cop moves on to Donna, who has, unbeknownst to all of us, a fake ID, it begins to dawn on me that I am completely up Claire Creek without a paddle.

And then Kristina starts laughing. Like a crazy person. Just laughing and laughing. Donna tries to shake her out of it, but she can’t. The cops look disturbed. One of them asks if Kristina is on drugs. Instead of this making her stop laughing, it makes her laugh more. She even snorts a few times. Tears are pouring out of her eyes.

“Did she have a lot to drink?” the cop asks.

None of us answer because we can’t figure out what’s happening to Kristina.

It’s Justin who snaps her out of it. He makes her sit down
on the bar step. “Kris, stop it. You’re freaking out. Breathe with me.”

They breathe together. She has to giggle in between. Then she gathers herself and stands back up, no longer laughing.

“Are you okay?” a cop asks.

She laughs again—through her nose—and says, “Yes, sir.” Another giggle. “I’m fine.”

She’s smiling so big you’d never know she was getting busted along with the rest of us.

“HELLO?”
Oh, thank God it’s Dad.

“Dad? I’m really sorry about this,” I say. I give him a minute to wake up. It’s now two thirty
AM
.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Everyone is fine, and nothing bad has happened. Buuuut. Uh. I’m gonna need you to come pick me up.”

There’s silence.

“Dad?”

“Did that jerk just leave you there?”

“No. No. Nothing like that. Except, well,” I stammer. “He
is
a jerk.” I realize that Dad is so asleep/stoned/out of the loop that he thinks I’m out with Jeff tonight.

“Okay, which theater are you at? I’ll come get you.”

I hear him get out of bed and breathe heavily as he puts on his pants. He says, “You know, I’m really proud of you for calling. I’m glad you took us seriously when we told you that you could call if you ever needed help or if anyone was drunk or any of that.” He pauses. I can hear him zip his pants. “He didn’t drive drunk, did he?”

“No, Dad.”

“Good. You’re so smart. Thank God for that,” he says. “So are you at the mall or over at the Multiplex?”

I sigh and look at Dee. Kristina is still standing next to me.

“I’m actually in the city,” I say. “On Chestnut Street.”

I hear him put on his coat. “Chestnut Street? Is that where they put that new IMAX? I thought that was farther downtown. Huh.”

“No. Uh, Dad, I’m at a bar. The cops just busted it, and I’m not allowed to leave unless you pick me up.”

Silence.

“Dad?”

“A bar?”

“Yeah.”

Huge, heavy sigh. “What the hell, Astrid?”

“Look. It’s at the corner of Chestnut and Fifth. Just get here.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I know, Dad. Believe me. Just get here.”

“What’s the name of the place?”

I take a deep, jittery breath. “Atlantis.”

“Atlantis?” he says. Like he knows. Like he knows exactly what Atlantis is.

So I hang up.

DEE’S MOTHER IS THE FIRST ONE TO
get here. Well, the first one we know. There are at least fifteen other underage people here who we don’t know, and some have already been picked up.

She looks around and exhales in deep disappointment, signs the ticket and takes Dee out the front door without a word to her. I feel like following them out and apologizing and telling Mrs. Roberts that it was all my idea and my fault for dragging Dee out. But my feet don’t move.

Five minutes later, the door opens, and it’s Dad and Kristina’s mom at the same time. Dad looks around and gets a look on his face like he’s disgusted. Not sure why. There is
nothing in here that looks too different from any bar, I don’t think.

Chad is waiting alongside Justin. Kristina says something to both of them before she goes toward her mother, who slaps her right across the face like in the old movies. The Houcks have a knack for that sort of thing. It’s like
Gone with the Wind
or something. Strictly the 1939 brand of slapping. It only works because the slapper loves the slapee, and the slapee knows it.

This wouldn’t work in my family.

My dad doesn’t say a word and just stuffs my ticket into his coat pocket and grabs me by the elbow and pulls me out the door.

I wiggle free when we’re outside and go to get into the passenger’s seat.

“Sit in back,” he says.

“What?”

“Sit in back. I don’t want to talk about this.”

I close the passenger’s door and I sit in the back.

About halfway home, he says, “Do you have any idea what your mother is going to say?”

I stay silent and think about how I can lie my way out of this, because tonight is not the night to make this decision. Not under these terms. Not under interrogation.

“She’s going to lose her mind.”

“There’s no way we can keep this between us?” I ask.

He’s quiet for long enough that I think he might actually agree. Then he says, “Do you know who you’re dealing with?”

I let that question echo and look out the window into the
quiet night. Dad doesn’t have the heater on and I’m freezing, but I’m afraid of what he might say if I ask him to turn it on. I am his prisoner, in the backseat, trapped by child locks. I deserve to be cold and uncomfortable, I guess. I look out my window, and I see a plane high in the sky, its taillight flashing.

I ask it:
Do you know who you’re dealing with?

I ask myself:
Do you know who you’re dealing with?

Yes. I know who I’m dealing with. I’m dealing with the fire that sends flickering shadows. I’m dealing with the Claireplane on which I’ve been a passenger for seventeen years. I look at Dad and I know he’s a passenger, too. Even Ellis, up in first class. We’re all passengers.