Notes from Ghost Town (4 page)

“Bathroom,” I chirp, brushing swiftly past her and finding my way to the bar instead.

I twist a thin plastic straw around in my mouth while I wait my turn. I glance back at Dad’s table—he’s rubbing Heather’s shoulders, giving her little kisses on her ears. I turn back to the bar so quick I practically give myself whiplash.

The bartender looks young. I think he might be a little
stoned; he kind of looks it. I order a Stella when it’s my turn, hoping he’s too mentally hazy to ask for ID.

“You are twenty-one?” he asks with a Cuban accent.

“I’m twenty-two, actually,” I tell him, remembering Raina’s no-fail dictum:
fake it ’til you make it
.

After a pause, he shrugs. “Okay, Mami, whatever you say.” He turns to grab a glass and starts pouring. I reach for a couple dollars from my wallet, float them into his tip jar like I do this all the time.

“Gracias.”
I smile at him. His eyes drop briefly to my chest.

“Ahem.”
Someone clears his throat behind me, taps my shoulder. My spine goes rigid.

I spin slowly around, expecting the disappointed stare-down of Dad, or Heather.

But it’s Austin Morse.

His eyes tick down toward my glass and he smirks. “Go slow, kiddo, okay? Don’t want to have to hold your hair back later.”

Every single thing about Austin Morse is tinged with the kind of condescension that says,
I’ve always been better than you
—from his thick dark blond hair that seems perfectly tousled to his square jaw to his perfect teeth and, as my mother used to say, his
Herculean
build. Six foot two, captain of the swim and lacrosse teams. A bratty, tiresome jerk in the body of a Greek god. It’s amazing that he was raised for most of his life by Ted Oakley, who married Austin’s mother when Austin was an infant. Ted Oakley
has been nothing short of amazing to my family ever since Mom got locked up, and I can’t imagine why some of his goodness didn’t rub off on his stepson.

“I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen, actually,” I say.

“Oh, really?” he asks, looking me over. “I heard about some other things you’ve been doing since you were fourteen, too….”

I shouldn’t take his bait, but I do. “Like what?”

“Oh, you know. I seem to remember hearing about some epic game of truth and dare … when you gave Heath Pratt an HJ in his parents’ basement.”

I take a long swig from my beer, hoping the liquid will cool the blush off my cheeks. “Heath Pratt
wishes
. I wouldn’t get close to him with someone
else’s
hand.”

“So you’re a prude, then?” he whispers, right up close to my ear, grabbing the drink, suddenly, from my hand and taking a drawn-out chug. He hands me back the empty glass, a wicked smile on his face. “That’s disappointing.”

I
really
want to punch him. “I’m not a prude,” I say.

He laughs. “Care to prove it?”

I see him exchange a look with the rest of Finnegan Prep conglomerate across the room—Bryce quickly sets the steak knife he’d been holding to Mitch’s neck back on the table when he catches me looking.

Suddenly, I can’t bear to be in this room a single second longer, everyone’s gaze flitting on and off me, trying not to look, unable to resist—like I’m a roadside accident and they’re slowing down traffic just to see how ruined I am.

I wait until the bartender’s looking the other way and then reach behind the bar to swipe a full bottle of the first thing that comes into sight: Grey Goose. I turn on my heels and start walking away.

“Hey—Prudie. We were in the middle of a conversation,” Austin calls out.

I pause, turn briefly back to him. “I’m going to the beach.”

“Oh. Really?” He sounds disappointed.

“Follow me if you want.” I don’t know why I even offer; I don’t care whether he comes. I don’t care whether he
drowns
.

He hesitates.

“And you call me the prude?” I say. Then I turn back around and slip through the entranceway, back outside, into the thick heat.

Seconds later, the doors
whoosh
open again and he’s standing on the concrete beside me.

W
here’s the freaking fire?” Austin calls. He’s walking several feet behind me along the shore.

I don’t answer. Austin Morse deserves to suffer a girl’s silence once in a while, as far as I’m concerned. The farther out we walk, the more the fist-like lump in my throat grows. We’re getting close to my rickety old house—the one Dad built himself, which Mom painted vibrant purple—raised on stilts like some awkward, discolored pelican. Oh Susannah.

“Do you know where we’re going?” he asks. I glance back at him but don’t answer. “It seems kinda sketchy over here.”

“Trust me,” I say, “I know this place better than you think.” Ghost Town is so close. So freaking close to Oh Susannah it kills me. Before it was erected, we had a clean-sweep view of the city. Afterward, just shadows cast long off its massive face.

The bottle is cool beneath my armpit, the vodka a sloshy whisper against my ribs. I can’t tell if it’s schizo-tendencies
or what, but I swear I can
hear
her—Mom—in the
hush-hush
of the ocean. The waves, rising, receding, are her long, bony fingers, crashing along the keys, lifting briefly as though to take in another breath.

“Let’s sit here,” I finally announce, throwing down my purse and plopping myself on the cool sand in front of the stretch of abandoned piers that have, for years, been deemed unsafe and off limits. The wood is salt-eaten and rough, slick with algae and studded with rusty nails. One old pier snapped in half when I was in sixth grade and a couple standing on it ended up with spinal cord injuries that left them waist-down paralyzed.

Austin squats beside me. “Pretty dead out here,” he notes, sifting the sand through his fingers and eyeing the bottle between us. He raises his eyebrows. “No chaser?”

“Don’t need a chaser,” I answer as I grab the bottle up from the sand, tug the smooth cork from its mouth, and take a long-ass swig. It burns, hard, leaving my esophagus and belly buzzing and warm.

He stares at me, stunned. “Man. I’ve never seen a girl do that before.” He sounds genuinely impressed. Boys like Austin are always impressed when they meet girls like me—girls who didn’t come from money, girls raised skipping shoeless through sand and swampland. He adds, “I don’t think I’ve seen many guys do it, either. Except for me, of course.” He smiles, reaching for the bottle and tilting a clear stream of vodka back into his mouth. He swallows and then starts coughing, grimacing
as he shakes his soft gray (blond) head. “Man. That’s … good.”

“I’d only steal the
best
for you, Austin Morse,” I say, taking another long swig, listening to the waves play out my mother’s sonatas, the achy piers creaking and moaning. I take one more sip before he reaches for it back. I’m already beginning to feel softer around the edges, warm. It’s working: memories of Mom, of Stern, going fuzzy and distant. Unimportant.

“I get the feeling you’re being sarcastic, Olivia,” he says, drawing little
x
‘s in the sand with his pinkie finger.

“We never learned about sarcasm in public school,” I answer sweetly. “That costs extra.”

“Weren’t you in, like, some art school for awhile?” He takes another swig, lifting the bottom of his shirt to wipe his mouth with, so I can see the tan cut of his stomach, the line of white (blond) hair leading down into his soft gray (khaki?) shorts. I’m surprised he even realized I’d been gone; I didn’t think I was on his radar.

“Yeah …
was
.” I drop my palms behind me in the sand, recalling my brief stint of freedom, away from here. “And weren’t you at Ransom Everglades,” I ask, “before you got expelled for doing drugs and your Dad got you transferred to Finnegan?”

“Yeah,
was
,” he answers, smiling like all the shit he gets away with on account of his being the stepson of a bazillionaire is no big deal. When my friend Chris was arrested, during the same bust, he didn’t get to go back to
school. He got a stint at juvie and a job at Taco Bell. “So … how was Michigan?” Austin asks, obviously trying to change the subject.

“Boring,” I answer, rising back up. “Midwestern. Lots of fat people.”

“At your school? I thought artists were all supposed to be starving.” He hiccups and makes a face. I laugh, walking my fingers through the sand, back to the Grey Goose. The fact that he has human bodily functions, like hiccupping, is surprising for some reason and makes me weirdly happy.

“Nope. They just sat around eating Velveeta all day. No one even painted.” I pull my shoes off, leap up from the sand, and start cartwheeling around, warm all over, a wild, reckless feeling soaring through my whole body. Nothing matters right now and I don’t care what Austin Morse or anyone in Miami, or Michigan, or anywhere, thinks of me.
Nothing matters
.

A few moments of silence, and then: “Bryce told me he hooked up with Raina,” says Austin, hauling himself to his feet, picking a loose shell from the sand and tossing it across one of the piers and into the water.

“Yeah,” I giggle, finding my own shell and chucking it. “You’d better tell him to wear gloves the next time he hooks up with one of my friends.”

“Well you’d better tell her to wear a mouth guard.” Ooh.
Burn
.

I push him a little, playfully. “Whatever. My girl
knows
what she’s doing. Trust me.”

“In that case,” he says, pushing back, “could you give me her number?”

I walk further ahead, ignoring his comment—
am I actually
flirting
with Austin Stevenson Morse right now?
—digging my feet into the sand, watching the line of ocean foam slink back from the shore.

The satisfying thing about talking to Austin Morse is that he’s just sort of easy. He’s filler. Fluff. Eye candy. I’m an alien creature to him—a puzzle to slot together. But there’s something exciting about having power over a person like him. It’s the power that comes from being a girl, from having nothing to lose.

When I catch him staring at me, something swirls through my chest, sharp and fizzy as champagne.

“So … what do you think of the new condos?” He stands up and comes toward me, offering me the bottle again. “Sweet, right?”

I take another long swill and the world begins to spin a little. I frown at him. “Elysian Fields can suck it,” I say, and realize I’m starting to slur. “Raina and I. We call it Ghost Town, you know? But don’t tell your daddy, ’cause he paid for it!” I hiccup, stumbling over a rock before I can manage to turn another cartwheel.

“Whoa girl,” he says, catching me before I face-plant into the sand. “Maybe we need to take the vodka away from you.”

“Hold on hold on hold on.” I put my finger up, move it to his lips. “Listen up, Aus-tine. No one puts
Livie
in the
corner.” I crack up, twirling around again. “You’ve seen that movie, right? I mean, I know it’s like
old
but it’s soooo gooood.” Something inside me unlatches, and a wild fluttering feeling breaks free from its cage. I grab the bottle back, put it to my mouth for one more sip. “So, we gonna go for a swim or
what
?”

“I don’t think that’s such a good—”

I don’t let him finish. “Shhh. It’s a great idea.” I skip closer to the waves, inching my dress down to reveal the lacy black bra I bought from a French lingerie maker on Etsy. He freezes, watching me. I feel like the Sirens that Mom used to read me stories about from the
Odyssey
, like I’ve got some mystical hold over Austin Morse right now, as I inch the dress further down, past my ribs, past my belly button, over my hips, and thighs, and calves. I can tell that he’s breathing differently—slower, deeper—as I step fully out of it, standing now in bra and underwear, tossing the dress toward him.

A shiver runs up my thighs.

“You’re next,” I announce. “It’s about time I get to see you with your shirt off.”

“But my bra’s not as sexy as yours,” he jokes, unbuttoning a single button so his chest shows just an inch. He steps even closer. Suddenly, a
whoop-whoop
sounds from down the beach, bright lights flashing wide against Austin’s back.
The cops
.

Austin whips his head around, his eyes going huge, terrified. For a second, he just freezes. “Shit. Get dressed,
Olivia. We gotta go.” He throws my dress to me across the sand. I watch it arc through the air and land at my feet.

I snatch it up, suddenly confused, afraid. No more screw-ups. Dad will kill me. “We have to
hide
.”

“
Hide?
No way.” He comes to me, scoops up the dress, presses it into my hands. “Come on, Liv. Let’s move.”

The cops are getting closer. I back away from him—drunk, desperate. “
You
go.”

He shakes his head, like he can’t believe anyone could be so dumb, and starts jogging back toward the party. “Come on!” he calls over his shoulder, one last time. But then the cop lights come too close and he starts running faster. I wrestle my dress over my head and watch his body disappear into the shadows, still frozen, fear beating a path through the haze in my mind. The
whoop-whooping
grows closer and, too late to do anything else, I fling myself into the shadows beneath the closest dock. I press myself into the dark, adrenaline making my whole body wild-hot and prickly. It smells down here—like something fishy and sharp.

The car stops. I hold my breath and grow stock-still as a flashlight beams closer and closer, an officer clucking his tongue, like he’s trying to summon chickens instead of teenagers. I can’t let them find me—Dad’s overprotective enough as it is, especially since I flunked out of art school.

Craack
—something snaps behind me. Footsteps. Someone else’s breath.
Oh, shit
. My breath goes rigid again, and I’m so startled, I almost pee.

“You got a cigarette?” asks a harsh, ragged voice.

Medusa, the local, crazy homeless lady, stands behind me holding a ratty, tooth-marked comb. “I give you this. Free, for a cigarette,” she says.