Last Night at the Circle Cinema (12 page)

“Ah, your trademarked phrase. You should get that tattooed on your shoulder.”

“Maybe I shall,” he said, but we both knew he wouldn't. I looked back down at the book, trying to find a shot of Olivia, and when I looked back up to say I couldn't find one, Bertucci wasn't there.

••••

I had the feeling, as I found my way back to the art gallery, that I was missing something crucial. Like if you had a kid and forgot him somewhere or like when my dad had come out of the Slice once and saw that his car wasn't there. He'd called the police and my mom and me and was all flailing around spewing his feelings about everything to the police when I looked away out of embarrassment and, to be honest, boredom, and noticed that there, across Chestnut Avemue, was his car. Poorly parked, because it had rolled down the steep incline? Yeah, but definitely his. Was my father happy or grateful that I pointed out his car was not in fact stolen but that he'd forgotten to set the emergency brake? No. He was pissed. Like it was my fault.

Anyway, I had the feeling that something like that was happening. The car was in front of me, but I couldn't see it.

I did, however, notice something else. “Bob!” I screamed, and my voice sounded girly so I tried it again. “Bob!” There in the frame was my flamingo. Horrifying to me was that I felt like crying when I saw the painting. Bertucci had taken the time to frame it and hang it and for some reason I found this more touching than weird.

As much as I wanted to get out of the Circle, I didn't want to leave Bob there because I knew I'd never see him again, not like this, so I unhooked the painting from the small clasp at the back and hefted it under one arm. I walked down the stairs, continuing on my search for actual people.

What if Livvy was really hurt? What if some cleaver-wielding lunatic had found her? What was wrong with me that I was trying to save Bob instead of grabbing Olivia and telling her I missed her, that I was worried? I wanted to see Olivia, show her Bob, and ask her where she'd gone in the maze of darkness.

I made my way from the gallery over to the bathroom and propped up the painting while I made use of the urinal. I still had the skull in one hand, which made for semi-awkward peeing, but better than hearing it scream. I always feel relaxed after a good piss, and I exited the bathroom sighing, only to be met with a huge bang and crashing from someone bashing on the large window in front of me.

“Bertucci, you asshole!” I screamed, sweat forming on my upper lip.

Everything was ghoulish now, the darkness, the shadows, even my painting. I regretted showing up, even though that would mean that I'd have disappointed Livvy yet again. Maybe I didn't regret it. Maybe I had the courage of a tube sock.

“Codman?”

I could hear a voice calling me from the depths of the unlit hallway in the back.

Then I heard nothing and faced the figure at the window, who continued to pound the glass on the parking lot side of the building.

I was halfway to the side door, going against my instinct and heading toward the pounding, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and let out a string of obscenities. I grabbed the wrist and spun around, angry and out of breath even though I'd been standing still.

“Codman, it's me.” Livvy's voice was shaky and her hands cold. I remembered the way her hands felt at her parents' beach house, and then shook it off.

“Where the hell have you been? It feels like forever,” I said, and then the pounding started again.

“Oh, well, you must've missed the part back there where you deserted me.”

Bang! Smash
. The pounding was incessant. “I didn't desert you. I merely suggested we split up—”

“Oh, you left me standing there, and you damn well know it.” Livvy was annoyed. Her hands shook. “Shut up. Never mind.” She walked deliberately toward the side door.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, and she looked at me, surprised. “No, I mean, the towel. The blood ...” She rolled her eyes and went to the door. “You think that's a good idea?” I asked, though I followed her. “You don't know what's on the other side.”

Olivia unbolted the door. “Lissa!”

“Hey,” Lissa said to me as though Olivia weren't even there. “The rain's not doing me any favors. Sorry I'm late.”

18

Livvy

Not doing her favors? Lissa's white tank top and white v-neck shirt were soaked through, making her enviable breasts visible. There she was, the blue-ribbon winner in the wet T-shirt contest, while my clothes had mainly dried. My jeans felt crunchy, all of me wrinkled, undone, Bertucci's sweater dangling over my ass.

I watched Codman—still panting in his dramatic Codman way—back up so Lissa could come in. She had a package, the writing on the label smeared and dripping green Sharpie onto her hand. I also noticed Codman's eyes take a long walk all over Lissa's top. Whatever freaked out Codman, a fine pair of breasts had soothed him for now.

Lissa looked at Codman but spoke to me. “Do you mind, Olivia, if Alex and I have a moment?”

Codman shrugged as though we were in the corridor outside of the science lab at school. Lissa waited for me to say something. Even the way she waited—with her hair cascading over one shoulder, lips twisted to the side—was flirtatious and annoying. Codman bit his upper lip then scratched the light stubble that was coming up on his chin. He wasn't going to shove her away, and I couldn't look at Lissa one more second. “Sure. Take your moment.”

I backed up and then turned around, focusing on the rivulets of rain on the wide panes, the streetlight speckling the glass, anything other than the two of them behind me, probably slinking off somewhere.
Can we have a moment?
What the fuck else could I say?

No, you can't?

It was so stupid, even imaginging them together, like peeling skin from my dry thumb, knowing it would bleed, would sting, but doing it anyway. Was that what Codman was, a scab that wouldn't properly heal?

But it was hard to force myself to turn away from the images in my brain. I could easily picture Lissa's convincing argument about why they would make a good couple, how they would reunite tonight, back together just in time for graduation. I pulled out my phone and texted Bertucci.
Please come back.

It wasn't that Lissa was a bad person—in other circumstances maybe we'd even have been friends. Even as their voices moved away from me, their intimate way of being near each other still hustling me to the periphery, I remembered a ridiculous scenario I'd dreamed up at Bertucci's after the crowds dispersed, and it was just me cleaning up. I had this vision somehow of Lissa and Bertucci together, me and Codman as a couple, the four of us magically not bothered by the cross-contamination of our emotional baggage. We could drive to the beach! Barbecue! Paddleboat as a foursome! Everything I imagined had an exclamation point in it because it was just. That. Fun.

But of course it made no sense whatsoever.

I could hear the last wisps of Lissa's giggle at the back of the lobby. The last brightness of her wet top had vanished into the blackness; I tugged Bertucci's sweater from my waist, put it on, and re-rolled the sleeves, which seemed longer now. Like being wet and surving the night so far had made even his sweater larger than life. I shifted my backpack and felt for the apple. It was bruised, but at least it was food. Then I remembered the snack bar—the first one was still stocked. Who cared about the cliché? I could feed my pain with sugar.

The snack bar was shaped like an uppercase U, with stale popcorn at the front, two sides filled with boxes, a dazzling (and now dusty) array of Slushee machines, and a glass case where nachos once roamed until trapped by fake cheese. Alone again, I felt fear creeping up the edges of my body. I also became aware of something else.

“Good thing there's no line,” I said aloud. I hoisted myself over the counter and dropped down into the shadows on the service side.

When I saw Bertucci, I jumped. “Jesus, Bertucci! Why do you have to sneak up on me like that?” I hated how he scared me, showing up unannounced and out of the blue. I'd be walking along just fine and out he'd leap in front of me. It happened everywhere. “I just texted you, by the way.”

“Oh, you thought you were alone?”

I pictured Codman slipping his hand around Lissa's. “Sort of.”

“Well, you're not.”

He leaned back against the sliding glass of the snack bar. He had on the same T-shirt that he'd worn a couple of weeks ago, a shade darker than his eyes. I couldn't see it from the angle where I was, but I knew on the back there was a tiny black dot and, at the hemline, the words
You are here
. It was like the wall-sized map I had in my room with pushpins to mark where I'd traveled. Maybe people could have those markings too, showing who'd meant something, who mattered, who'd been there.

I sank down, scooting along the linoleum so I was next to Bertucci, not cuddling exactly but as close as I could get. I put my head in my hands. Tears welled up, came spilling onto my sweatered arms, and snot worked its way from my nose to the sleeves.

My whole body shook with sobs.

I waited for Bertucci to rub my back or throw his arms around me, but he didn't. When I looked up, I hiccupped from crying so hard. I saw parking lot light filtering through the candy shelving glass, illuminating just enough so I could see something red on the floor at the other end of the candy counter. One glance at Bertucci, and he gestured with his chin for me to go see what it was.

On my hands and knees, crawling over popcorn Codman had dropped, I discovered Bertucci's iPod. He had ridiculously large and padded headphones that he hardly ever took off. “They're just so insanely comfortable,” he'd said whenever I complained about their bulk.

I reached out and held the iPod in my hand, looking at Bertucci for some sort of instructions. Like I was all by myself in this puzzle of a night. Then I figured, how complicated could it really be? Obviously, I was meant to put the thing on and press play. I did, and as the music started, I stood up to brush my hands and legs free of popcorn lint. As soon as the music started up I saw the chords appear in my head.

Bertucci had written them out on his hand when he'd taught me how to play it on his used acoustic. I wasn't great at reading music, but I could manage, and it seemed important to him that I learn—or maybe that he teach me.

“This song only has two chords,” he had said.

As I stood there listening to those chords, I thought about how the strings had pressed into my fingers in his room, leaving marks.

“Remember when you showed me how to play it?” I said to Bertucci. “You told us that quote from Harlan Howard?” I laughed, remembering. “And Codman, in his eloquence, said, ‘Who the fuck is Harlan Howard?'” I knew he was a country songwriter, but that's about it. “The thing is, it kind of hurts to play the guitar when you first start,” I said, and Bertucci nodded, showing me the calluses on his fingers. “I couldn't really get my fingers to cooperate.” I thought back to that day. “It was a sort of sad afternoon, wasn't it?” Bertucci shrugged. Maybe he didn't look at it that way. “It was like ... the three of us at your house, but wanting to be elsewhere.”

Bertucci nodded. “Harlan Howard said, ‘All you need to write a song is three chords and the truth.'”

“You know what, Bertucci, this song only has two chords, so what does that even mean?” I asked. It was one of those questions that was meant to imply more, but I felt too shy to actually ask. I reached for Bertucci, but he pulled away, and I flinched, stung. The last time I'd heard this song was on Bertucci's ugly back porch, right before Memorial Day weekend. He had rearranged my hands and made the song come to life.

With the music and the popcorn littered around us, I looked at Bertucci and instantly remembered seeing him for the first time. “Do you remember that?” I asked, like he could read my mind.

“Tell me,” Bertucci said. He folded his long arms over his knees and tilted his head to the side in full-on listening mode.

“Okay,” I started, shifting on the dirty carpet. “You may or may not know that my freshman orientation night involved the embarrassing addition of parents. I sat next to my mother—she smelled like that nasty hospital sanitizer. And bananas. Or maybe the sanitizer was banana scented.” I paused and looked at Bertucci, trying to memorize the way he looked at me.

“Anyway, there I was, my eyes darting from face to face. I did that thing where you pretend to stretch just so you could turn around and look at everyone filtering into the room. Mr. Griffin gave that speech. Ugh, and the clubs gave their plugs for why we would love Vive La France! or Chess Central ...” I could swear I saw Bertucci flinch as I mentioned chess, but I went on. “So my mom's like, ‘You'll make a ton of friends!' And I'm rolling my eyes. And then we're on the way out of the auditorium, and she points to a kid in purple cargo pants and a black T-shirt and goes on and on about the purple pants.”