So I just listened to the song and watched every gesture she made, and searched for the clues to figure her out, and then the night got later and her dad appeared in the doorway to move me out to the couch, and I said good night and thought so much about what it would feel like to touch her that I forgot about everything else.
Later, Alexa wakes me with a squeeze of my shoulder. She takes an earbud out of one ear. “Hey,” she says, “we’re going to bed now, okay?”
It must be at least 3:00 A.M. The air has gotten cooler.
“Were you talking to your dad earlier? When you first came out here?”
I shake my head. “Uncle Pete.”
“I have some questions for them. Research, for the play. Next time you’re going to call them will you let me know?”
“Sure,” I say. “How was the game?”
“It was good,” she says. “We left something for you on your pillow.”
I brush my teeth with Meg. We try not to crowd each other, take turns spitting into the gray, cracked sink. Bev isn’t here, but I don’t ask where she’s gone. She’s probably outside, leaning against a wall and smoking cigarettes like someone in a movie.
I slip off my jeans by the side of my bed, and see what they’ve left for me. On the other side of the slips of paper, Meg and Alexa have answered my questions. Meg’s says, No, but that’s sweet of you to ask; Alexa has written, the color of melinda.
Bev didn’t leave an answer. Of course.
I pull the comforter off the bed and settle under the sheets. Soon after, I hear the door opening and shutting, half a dozen locks being turned or slid into place. I close my eyes and imagine that an hour has passed. Everyone has fallen asleep. I feel a weight on the mattress. Bev’s lips graze my ear. She says, I need to be with you. I turn, and kiss her, and her tongue is soft and cool.
I knew you’d change your mind, I say. And everything we do we need to do so quietly, careful not to wake the others. She gasps every time I touch her, and she digs her fingers into my back because she’s never felt as good as I’m making her feel.
Suddenly, there is a clicking sound. Brightness behind my eyelids. I open my eyes to Bev digging through her purse in a white tank top and tiny yellow shorts. She’s moved a lamp from Meg’s bedside table to the floor next to her. I watch her open a little white tube and put stuff on her lips, and even though she’s across the room I know that the stuff is clear and smells like mint and makes her lips shiny. She screws the cap back on and drops it back into her purse. She finds a pen next, rips a strip of paper from one of Meg’s trashy magazines, and writes something down. Then she folds the scrap of paper in half and drops it into her bag. This is what Bev does instead of making to-do lists or writing words on her hand. I wonder what she’s hoping to remember.
She sets down the bag and walks silently to the foot of my bed. I close my eyes again, and hope. There is the noise of the blanket rustling, but no weight on the mattress, nothing whispered. I look for her again. She’s moved my comforter to the couch, and now she’s draping it over her lap. She moves the lamp closer, takes a piece of driftwood in one hand and a carving knife in the other, and works all night long.
I know this, because I don’t sleep either.
Monday
Sunlight in an unfamiliar room.
A scratchy pillowcase.
The smell of coffee and eggs and burned toast.
I open my eyes and sit up, and Meg, pink haired in a red dress, hands me a mug. Steam rises.
“You’re amazing,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
When I carry my coffee into the kitchen, Bev is already seated with her toast half finished, reading Meg’s gossip magazine. Her hair is messy, sticking up on one side. Normally I’d make some joke and smooth it down for her, but I keep my hands by my sides. I don’t know what it would feel like to touch her anymore. I sit in a green vinyl chair, and Meg sets a plate in front of me.
“Alex-a,” she calls. “Your eggs are getting cold.”
There are only two chairs, so Alexa hops onto the windowsill.
She stares in wonder at the eggs and toast, and I know how she feels, how everyday things are rare and exciting when they turn up in unfamiliar places.
“How did you do this?” Alexa asks.
“Breakfast is only a part of it,” Meg says. “Today is going to be fantastic. What happened is this: I woke up really early and came in here because I was thirsty. So I opened the cupboard and saw that there were plates and a pan and some mugs, and then I looked up and I saw…” Meg pauses for effect. I take another bite of eggs.
“This!” She points to a woodcarving on the wall. Like the well-trained art students we are, we stand and gather around it.
“It looks pretty old,” Alexa says.
“Yeah,” I say, “but the colors are still so saturated.”
The colors are the arches of a rainbow, and a sun rising over the dips in two green hills. In black italics, under the hills, is written: Good morning, sunshine. Despite our cocked heads and intent gazes, this is not something that would ever hang in a museum. It’s more like something a kid would make in a wood-shop class, or something left over from the seventies, hanging on a motel wall because there is no better place for it.
But, still. I like it.
“So I thought, This is perfect! Obviously. And then I knew right away that I needed to get it tattooed. I’ve been searching for the right tattoo forever, and now I’ve found it. My next step was to find a good tattoo shop nearby, so I went into the market and that girl was there again and she said that her friend, some guy named Jasper, works at a place half a mile from here and that he’ll be there today at eleven. And then I bought some eggs and bread and coffee.”