Beige (16 page)

Lake goes ballistic.

Lake takes his clothes and his towel and dumps them into the pool. Then she flips him the finger.

Leo is now all red and angry.

Lake heads out of the pool area. I know where she’s heading: up to visit me. I put the lorgnettes back on the shelf and grab a book on Bettie Page and dive for the couch. I try to look as casual as possible.

She knocks on the door.

“What?” I say.

“It’s Lake.”

“Door’s open,” I say.

Lake comes in and plops herself down on the couch next to me.

“What are you looking at?” she asks. The page is open to a photo of Bettie and another lady posed in a bondage scene. “Perv.”

I blush. I
am
a perv, but for totally different reasons.

“Shh, Auggie will wake up,” I say, even though we are not being loud. “What’s that?”

She is holding Leo’s T-shirt in her hand.

“Oh, yeah. Shit,” she says, laughing and flopping over onto the cushion. “I guess I stole Leo’s shirt. It’s cool. It’s from Threadless. Here, take it.”

She hands me the T-shirt as she gets up and heads for the bathroom.

I can’t help it. I lift the T-shirt and put it to my nose and inhale. It smells really good, musky and sweaty mixed up with the smell of outside fresh air and deodorant and chlorine.

“What are you doing?” Lake says to me. She’s standing in the hallway. She’s staring at me. I’m caught.

“Smelling.”

“Oh.” She cocks her head to the side, and I put the T-shirt back into her hands. She holds Leo’s shirt up to her nose and drinks it in. “Yeah. Leo smells good.”

“I wonder if I smell good,” I say.

“I don’t know. I never smell you,” Lake says. “What about me? Do I smell?”

“You always smell like vanilla,” I say. And BO but I don’t say that.

“Oh yeah, I guess I do.”

We hear someone yelling outside. Someone is screaming Lake’s name. Leo.

“Oh, shit.” Lake laughs. “He’s pissed.”

Lake takes the T-shirt and runs onto the balcony. I walk out after her just in time to see her throw the T-shirt off the balcony. It floats delicately to the ground. Leo scrambles for it as it lands. Then he looks up at us and gives us both the finger.

“This is it,” Sam says.

The band is sitting in the living room, making plans. Big plans. Big comeback plans.

I sip lemonade, homemade. I made it with lemons from a tree in the courtyard. I put the glasses on a tray. I serve it to the band members, who take it greedily. They all have hope in their eyes. The air in the living room is exciting. Infectious. I catch it. I feel excited. Suck is getting back together for real.

“We can’t fuck it up,” The Rat says. He’s grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “We’re back. Sunset Junction.”

Lake crosses her fingers and holds them up in mock excitement.

Then she rolls her eyes at me. As excited as they are, I bet the conversation is boring to her because it’s not about
her
takeover of the rock world. And I know her favorite subject is herself.

Lake thumbs for me to follow her. I do. We make our escape and head down to the courtyard, and then to the street in search of a free outside table at one of the cafés on Sunset.

“What?” I say.

“I haven’t seen my dad this excited in years,” she says. “This is a really good thing.”

“Looks like it,” I say.

“You don’t even know,” she says.

I am so tired of not even knowing.

“If all goes according to
my
master plan, the Grown-Ups is going to be the opening band on one of the stages at Sunset Junction.”

“OK,” I say.
So what?
I think.

“You need to be my roadie. And I need you to do merch.”

“I’m not even in the band,” I say.

“I told you the other girls aren’t serious.” She looks at me. “Besides, I trust you.”

She’s dead serious. I’m the one Lake trusts. That is weird.

“Yeah, OK,” I say. “I’ll help.”

My eyes spy something more interesting over Lake’s shoulder. On the street, coming toward us, is the Walking Man. Today he has his radio glued to his ear. Every day since I’ve been in Los Angeles, I see this guy walking around the neighborhood.

“Are you even listening to me?” Lake asks.

I ignore her and I wave to the Walking Man.

He doesn’t even look up. He just adjusts his trajectory to weave around me. He just keeps walking.

“Why did you wave to him?” Lake asks.

“I see him every day.”

“He’s never going to wave back,” Lake says. “The Walking Man doesn’t acknowledge anyone who doesn’t live in the neighborhood.”

“Why is he always walking?” I ask.

“Nobody knows. Forget about him — he’s in his own little world. Let’s focus on the Grown-Ups.”

We grab a seat at a café and order organic juices.

“It’s at Skooby’s Hot Dogs,” she says.

“A hot dog stand?” I ask.

“It’s not a hot dog stand like you think. Everything about them is totally rock. They have live rock shows on Saturday nights next door under an old marquee on Hollywood Boulevard. The best thing about it is that it’s all ages. And that’s what’s important. I mean, it’s hard to get shows when you’re underage. My goal after Skooby’s and Sunset Junction is that the Echoplex will let me open for someone really cool.”

I get distracted from listening to her again. Leo is coming toward us with his posse in tow.

I sit up straight. I smile.

If I could just talk to him once, I know he would want to be my friend. I could explain about the T-shirt thing. It wasn’t me. I bet he knows that I had nothing to do with it. We could laugh about it maybe, have a moment of mutual understanding. We could exchange a knowing look. Maybe say something like,
Oh, that Lake.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says back. Then he glares at Lake, who gives him the finger.

“God, Beige, are you even listening to me?” Lake says.

“What?” I ask.

“Are you going to help me out or not?”

“OK, fine,” I say. “I’ll help.”

Trixie’s apartment is still. I peek in and look at Auggie, breathing deeply in his bed. His mermaid nightlight casts a low glow in his room.

I turn the TV on and realize that Trixie has no cable. Neither does The Rat. They are like weird peas in a pod. No wonder they are dating. They’re kind of made for each other. I flip through the DVDs. Trixie has nothing I’ve ever heard of, or if I have, it’s nothing I’d want to see. I find one on the burlesque scene from the turn of the last century. I pop it on.

Women on stage, heavy, dancing. The music is low. The moves luscious. I get up and feel my heart beating. I feel my knees moving. I grind and sway. I close my eyes. It’s me and my feet. My hips. Moving. It makes me feel buzzy inside.

I imagine I am on that stage with them. I imagine the audience watching me. I imagine Leo watching me.

Leo.

A noise is coming from somewhere else, not the TV. I open my eyes. My moment of abandon and swaying by myself is gone. The women in black and white on the screen are still moving. They’re at one with their bodies and the music.

What is that noise?
I ask myself. Oh. It’s yelling. Bloodcurdling screaming. It’s a fight. A fight right next door. I try to hear the words. Can’t understand any of the words. It’s all in Spanish. The arguing stops suddenly with the slam of a door.

I turn down the volume with the remote. I walk to the balcony and step outside. Leo sits on his balcony. He looks up. Doesn’t say a word. Just nods. Then he rests his head in his hands.

Leo’s not looking at me. We are just sitting, outside, each on our own balcony, and all I can think of is how there is such a tiny space between us.

I try to quiet my heart, which is pounding loud in my chest.

I want to turn to him and say something. If I could just think of something smart to say. This could be my moment. Like in the book I’m reading. I’m at the
T
s. Tolstoy.
Anna Karenina.
He could be my Vronsky. I don’t think about the fact that I don’t think that story is going to end well.

This is my moment. I imagine I open my mouth and tell him my truth. Something like:
“Sometimes my feelings get so big that I just want to swim out into the darkness. Just jump off the end of the world. Sometimes I want to dig, right down to the bones of everything,” I say. “My mom digs. She digs in the earth. Right into the past. She says that sometimes when you dig, you dig up stuff you might not want to find. But that’s where the good stuff lies.”

Then I can picture him moving his hand out between the grate of the balcony and grabbing mine. He’d look into my eyes.

I can just imagine it.

Suddenly, I realize Leo is looking at me. For real. Those eyes. In the world, there are only those eyes.

“You here just for the summer?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad is The Rat.”

“Yeah.”

This is it. This is it.

“You friends with Lake?”

I nod. OK. It’s still going well.

“Leonardo! Leonardo, entra la casa ahora mismo!”

“You like parties?” he asks.

I nod.

“There’s one tomorrow night at my friend’s house on Benton, just off Sunset.”

“Leonardo!” his mother is screaming.

“I’ll be there at eight. You should come. You and Lake should both come.”

Then he laughs.

“OK, thanks,” I say.

He asked me out.

Well, not really. But it’s kind of like he asked me out.

“See you there.” He nods and gets up and heads to the door.

And then he disappears inside.

I think he takes my heart with him.

I call Lake.

“What do you want?”

“There is a party tonight,” I say.

“Yeah, so?”

“We should go.”

“I don’t do parties.”

“I don’t want to go by myself,” I say.

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend Garth?”

“Leo invited me,” I say. “I don’t want him to think I’m on a date with Garth.”

Lake is quiet for a minute.

“He said to invite you, too.” I don’t tell her that he was laughing when he said it. I don’t want her to laugh or tell me I’m stupid.

“Where is it?” she asks.

“On Benton,” I say. “Off Sunset.”

“Oh, God, that’s Marco’s house,” Lake says. “He’s such a player.”

“Maybe you could hand out flyers there for your Skooby’s show,” I offer.

“OK,” she says. “I’ll go. But it’s strictly business.”

When Lake comes over to pick me up, her black eyeliner is smeared more than usual and that’s when I realize that she’s probably been crying.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Like you’d care,” she says.

I might care if she tried me. I don’t say anything. I have learned that if I wait long enough, eventually she’ll cough up what’s on her mind.

I lock the door behind me and follow quietly behind Lake. Her body in motion looks like it’s an attack on the air and an assault to the pavement. It’s like she wants to fight with everything.

“The only reason I’m coming is because those bitches bailed on me for practice tonight.” It’s always about the band. Always how the band is holding her back.

At the party, Lake doesn’t say hello to anyone until she finds the beer. I stay out of her way. She can just cool off. She brings me a beer but I don’t accept it. I don’t drink.