Betwixt (9 page)

“Dude. You are
way
too young to be saying shit like that.”

The two boys laughed for a moment and then K.A. turned the music down — the Flame was playing — and shook his head.

“C’mon, man. We’ll figure out something for you.”

“I don’t know.”

“No. We will. Maybe my dad can get you a job at one of his stores, or — anyway. You’re still studying, man. You’ve got the
test in a few months.”

K.A. had been helping Nix study for the GED and found him a good student. Curious, intelligent, probably smarter than he was,
though maybe K.A.’s spelling was better. He didn’t know what drew him to help the older boy. The dream of the rebel he never
was? K.A. had the Mustang, the look — tousled blond hair, trucker’s hat, dark jeans, chain wallet — but no matter what he
did he would still be the straight-up soccer dude class council dork he always had been. The one with the steady job
and the cute girlfriend and the hyper-perfect older sister. The one who said things like, “you can’t run away from yourself.”
He had gotten that one from one of Yvonne’s self-help books.

“Dude!” Nix laughed. “Save it for Greenpeace. I’m a loser. You’re a winner. Loser,” he said, pointing to himself. “Winner,”
he added, jerking his thumb at K.A. “Got it?”

The squint in Nix’s eyes told K.A. that part of him was telling the truth.

“Shut up, dude. For once you’re going to listen to me. After tonight, no more dust.”

Nix looked at his lap. “I’m not doing any tonight. Anyway, it’s not your shit. You don’t know what’s going on in my head.
Why I don’t —” He turned again to the window.

K.A. ignored him. “And you’re going to study for the GED.”

“Study?” Nix smirked. “That thing is a joke.”

“Whatever.” K.A. tightened his grip on the wheel. “And we’re going to find you somewhere to stay, and maybe my dad —”

Nix was shaking his head, but his eyes were bright.

“Why are you doing this, man?”

K.A. waited, the streetlamps throwing waves of light over his face.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” He turned to look at the young man he so little resembled, fumbling for reasons. Nix was cool; he
was wild; he was the person K.A. was not. There was
something else, though. Something about Nix that made you want to be near him. Some strange aura of protectiveness. Though
K.A. told himself that it was he who was protecting Nix — team captain looking out for the benchwarmer, that kind of thing
— at certain moments he wondered if it was Nix who was protecting him.

He cleared his throat and saw the boy’s eyebrows rise.

“You’re my friend. And I don’t know why else.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see then.”

“After Ondine’s? Yeah, we’ll see.”

M
ORGAN AND
O
NDINE HAD PICKED UP
N
EVE
C
LOWES
from her house up in Southwest and driven her in. Neve’s ultraprotective mother, Amanda, waved through the living room windows
as the girls drove away; Jacob, of course, was down at the pizzeria. When they were out of sight, Neve took out a cigarette.

“God, she has
nothing
to do.” Neve sighed, looking at Morgan in the front seat and raising her eyebrows. “I have to get back by one, okay? I told
her I would.”

Morgan just laughed, and as soon as they got to Ondine’s, placed a beer in the younger girl’s hand.

“You need to relax, young Neve,” she instructed, bringing
the frosty bottle to her friend’s glossed lips. Morgan winked and licked lime juice off her fingers, watching Neve sip slowly
— but steadily, steadily — at the Corona she had given her.

“Thanks, Morgue.” Neve giggled. “I
think.
”

The girl was good-natured and cute in a turquoise fifties-style shift, which could’ve been vintage or could’ve cost five hundred
bucks from one of those indie boutiques that someone like Neve always knew about. Amanda Clowes had a Saks card, and Morgan
knew trips back to New York to see the Clowes clan in Brooklyn always meant at least a few grand dropped on some mother-daughter
Barneys time. It irked Morgan to think that the nicest sweater she owned was one that Neve had bought her. And that hair.
So blond tonight it seemed to glow. Neve swore she didn’t dye it, but Morgan had her doubts. No one got to be that pretty
just because.

“Hey, Ondine.” Neve picked up. “How psyched are you that your parents are gone?”

Ondine smiled, but her eyes were downcast. “I guess I’m happy.” She paused. “To tell you the truth, I kind of miss them.”

“Yeah.” The younger girl nodded, her brown eyes growing larger. “I always bitch about my folks, and then when they go away
I’m like ‘Where’s Mom? Where’s my dinner?
Waah
—’ I end up ordering from Dad’s restaurant just so I can taste his cooking.”

Dad’s restaurant.
As if everyone didn’t know Jacob’s. He’d
even been on the Food Network, for chrissakes. The thing Morgan didn’t understand was how a three-dollar slice could make
someone such a shitload of money.

She leaned against a corner of the butcher-block island in Ondine’s kitchen and watched the other girls prepare. Her new friend,
Ondine, sliced the limes, laughing with her old friend, Neve, who arranged chips in various bowls and unscrewed salsa tops.
How charming.
The girls’ plans to make hors d’oeuvres had vanished once they came back from the liquor store, and they ended up ordering
pizza instead — not from Jacob’s, though. Dear Old Dad didn’t need to have his delivery boys spying on innocent little Neve
this evening.
Innocent.
Puke. Neve was already slurring her words and had shown both girls the new Agent Provocateur demi she got online. Somehow
Morgan doubted that Neve was going to be so innocent when K.A. showed up.

What the fuck were they talking about? She watched the girls’ mouths move but felt as if she were watching the scene through
a mist. Things were too weird already. When they had gotten to the house and unpacked the alcohol, Morgan had been shocked
to find a second keg in the trunk, though she would have sworn that the weird, cute guy with the roaming fingers and great
lips — what was his name, Mouth? — had ordered only one. When she asked her about it, Ondine rolled her eyes and muttered
something about Moth trying to send her to jail tonight. There were a dozen bottles of booze, several cases of beer,
at least eight jugs of cheap wine. Who had remembered limes and lemons? And the rest of it? Morgan knew she’d been undone
by the eerie presence of the handsome older boy, but for the life of her couldn’t figure out how the rest of the loot had
gotten to Ondine’s. There was enough alcohol to blitz an army. Or a least the Salvation Army. Portland’s kids were, in Morgan’s
opinion, underemployed.

Or rich, she thought, staring from behind an oversized red wineglass at the two girls chatting away in front of her. The glasses
they held so casually cost ninety dollars a stem. She knew, because she was in charge of reordering at the Krak and got the
catalogs. Riedel, from Austria. What did Ondine and Neve care? They’d never had jobs. They didn’t know what five hours of
wiping steamed milk off every conceivable flat surface, including the ceiling, felt like. Cleaning toilets stuffed with tampons,
making a macchiato four times for an eleven-year-old punk and his yuppie Medusa of a mother because he “hadn’t gotten it the
way he likes it at home.”

Spoiled brats.
Morgan brushed it off. She could feel the slow warmth of the Bordeaux Ondine had opened from the Masons’ wine cellar seep
into her. She didn’t drink much, and was nervous about the prospect of giving a party, but had to admit she was also excited.
That Moth — at least
he
seemed interesting. Most of Portland’s guys made her as cold as the celery Ondine and Neve were now chopping into little
sticks and filling with
salmon cream cheese in a halfhearted attempt to make the party appear classier than a kegger. Still, despite the strange turn
of events, something seemed to be clicking, little puzzle pieces fitting together, though Morgan couldn’t figure out what
gave her that feeling. It was an early summer Saturday night like any other. She had to go to work on Monday at the Krak;
Tuesday was the second class with sexy Raphael Inman.

And tonight at the liquor store: she knew from Ondine’s behavior that James Motherwell was a prick, but then, she liked pricks.
An image of Moth laughing, his green eyes crinkling, oozed into her head and she felt a flush down her center. That soul patch
was so pseudo–Johnny Depp/I-live-in-France-and-have-many-tattoos that it made her want to hurl. Yet she could almost feel
it tickle her lips as she —

Morgan shook the thought away.

“Tonight’s going to be fun,” she said. Ondine and Neve looked up from their tasks.

Neve
mm-hmm
ed. Ondine raised a thin eyebrow. “You sound like a girl who has something in mind.”

Morgan swiped at her lips. She hadn’t eaten dinner, and tried to pretend it was just wine on an empty stomach.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just have this feeling.” She held her wineglass with both hands, retreating farther into the corner.
“Anyway, don’t mind me, girls. I’m just, I don’t know,
horny.
”

Ondine laughed and continued slicing. Neve blushed.

“Neve gets embarrassed easily,” Morgan teased, but her eyes were flat.

Neve took out a cigarette and started to light it. “Do you mind if I smoke, Ondine?”

“Not tonight, I guess.” Ondine shrugged. “K.A.’s coming.” She turned to Morgan. “Isn’t that right, Morgue?”

Morgan grimaced. “Yeah, yeah. My little Kaka. I couldn’t keep him away.”

Neve smiled and Ondine tickled her. “
Oooh!
Neve’s got a
crush.
…”

Morgan felt tired of the two girls. So —
young.
Even Ondine. But the irritation was balanced by another feeling. A kind of yearning so deep and complete she could almost
feel herself salivating.
Ondine Mason.
Morgan wanted to be near her, almost devour her. She looked around the kitchen: the Viking stove, the glasses sparkling in
neat rows in their cabinets. Everything clean and expensive. She contrasted it with her own kitchen: the old jelly jars that
didn’t match. The worn furniture set in the living room. Her mother’s cheap plates, the ones they’d gotten from Grandma Lily
that she used to think were pretty, with their blue flowers. K.A. didn’t seem to mind. He cheerfully slept on poly-blend sheets
and dug into Yvonne’s three-bean dip as if it were caviar. Morgan couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t do much about the laminate
walls and the adhesive plastic strips Yvonne installed on the windowpanes to make them look
old-fashioned, but in her own corner she kept things neat; bought four-hundred thread-count cotton sheets and cleared her
desk of the crafty crap her mother and grandmother and various aunts were always trying to give her.

Pretty, huh. Pretty trashy.

She realized she was digging her nails into the flesh of her forearms. When she released, half-moons of red stippled her skin.

“I’m going to go freshen up,” she announced. Ondine and Neve, deep in conversation about some high school idiocy, merely nodded.

She looked at them laughing, standing close. Neve and Ondine weren’t even friends. Neve was her friend. What kind of friend
would poach her brother? Yvonne’s cheap dinner plates flashed once more. One of the plates was chipped, and when Morgan was
a little girl she would always make sure the chipped one ended up at her place, especially when they had company, so no one
else would have to see it. At some point — Morgan couldn’t even remember when — she’d started setting the plate at her mother’s
place.

When did she become that kind of girl?

The girls leaned closer and again Morgan felt ashamed. She needed to
do
something. Figure out a way to get Neve away from her brother and her new friend. Find that boy Moth and maybe have a little
fun. But not just now. Now she needed to have a look around and get her head straight for later.

She walked up the metal stairway that connected the two levels of the loftlike house the Masons lived in. Trish Mason was
an architect, Morgan knew, and the whole house showed it. Around one corner an alcove housed a few Roy DeCarava photographs;
from the ceiling a wash of etched glass spires hung to suggest the Portland rain. It was a magnificent house and Morgan coveted
it.

This should be mine,
a voice inside her whispered, but she shook it off. There seemed to be two parts to her — the part on the outside: the perfectionist,
the leader, the serious and funny girl never made a mistake; and another girl she didn’t know as well. That girl moved the
chipped plate to her mother’s place, hoarded her friends only to dump them for imaginary transgressions,
wanted
things so badly it burned. That girl instructed her.
This should be yours,
the inside Morgan said at the Chanel makeup counter, admiring a thirty-dollar tube of lipstick the outside Morgan could not
afford.

So she stole it, and because she was Morgan D’Amici, soon-to-be class president, straight-A student, she never got caught.
Now what was that girl saying to her?