All Our Pretty Songs Part 4

Ca.s.s and Aurora are still in the kitchen, stir-frying vegetables. A pot of brown rice simmers on the stove. Hippie dinner. I sigh. Some days, like this one, I wish Ca.s.s was not a witch so that we could have steak. After we eat, Aurora follows me into my room and rummages through my records, and I know I'm forgiven. She sprawls across my bed with an old issue of Magnet and I take out my sketchbook to draw her. We're quiet for a while, Aurora turning pages and humming, me laboring over each line, trying for fluid grace and failing miserably. "I have something for you both," Ca.s.s says from the door.

"Presents!" Aurora says happily. "I love presents!" She rolls over, sits up.

"Hey," I say. "Now I'll never finish this." Getting Aurora to hold still long enough for me to draw her is a futile endeavor, but that never stops me from trying. Ca.s.s hands us each a bundle wrapped in silk. I unfold the cloth to find a little leather bag on a leather string. She's given Aurora the same thing.

"What's in here?" Aurora says, tugging at the bag's knotted drawstrings.

"Don't," Ca.s.s says sharply. "Don't open them. They're bound."

"I know it's bound," Aurora says. "I want to see what's inside."

"Not bound like that," I say. I take Ca.s.s's witchiness more seriously than Aurora does, although nowhere near as seriously as Ca.s.s does herself. "They're amulets. Thanks, Mom."

"Amulets for what?" Aurora leaves off picking at the strings, but she's still eyeing the bag like she thinks it's full of secret treasures and wants to tear it apart.

"Protection," Ca.s.s says. "Safe travels through dark places." Her voice is even. A chill runs through me, and for a moment the room is very still. Aurora stares at Ca.s.s. I can the challenge in the set of her chin. The leather bag is warm in my hand, warmer than the heat of my skin.

"I don't need amulets," Aurora says. They are watching each other like cats raising hackles, growls starting in the backs of their throats. I look from Ca.s.s to Aurora and back again. Whatever is happening here, it definitely bypa.s.sed go and went straight to really f.u.c.king weird without collecting two hundred dollars.

"Hey," I say, but they ignore me. Ca.s.s blinks first and Aurora looks away, the corner of her mouth curving up in a malicious smile. "Hey," I repeat. Ca.s.s shakes her head as if she's walked into a spider web.

"I can only help you if you let me."

"I don't need anyone's help." Aurora hands her amulet back to Ca.s.s. "Thanks, though," she says in a normal voice, and some of the tension seeps out of the room.

"You'll wear it," Ca.s.s says to me.

"Sure." She looks at me. "Okay." I loop the leather over my head. The bag settles between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It's heavier than it felt in my hand.

"Don't take that off," she says. "Good night."

"'Night," Aurora says to her retreating back. "G.o.d," she yawns when Ca.s.s closes the door behind her. "Your mom is such a f.u.c.king weirdo."

"Tell me about it," I agree, touching the leather bag.

"I should go."

"Spend the night."

"Nah." She looks almost furtive. "I have to be somewhere."

"Where?"

"It's nothing."

"Aurora."

"No, really. Just this dumb thing."

"You want me to come?"

"You would hate it," she says.

"I'll still come."

"I know." She smiles. "You're the best. I'll spare you."

"Okay," I say. "Have fun." After she goes I sit on my bed, staring at nothing. We've always had secrets, me and her. But we've never had secrets we didn't share.

Aurora calls me late the next morning, talking nonstop as soon as I pick up the receiver. "What are you doing? Go to the window. Go to the window right now." Dutifully, I carry the phone across the room.

"And?"

"And look outside. Look! Outside!" I peer down the street.

"I'm looking?"

"Tell me that is not the most magnificent motherf.u.c.king morning you have ever seen in your natural life, sweet child of mine. We are going out into it, you and I. Call Jack."

"Jack doesn't have a phone."

"Then send him a missive of the heart. We are coming to fetch him. He's going to busk for us."

"I don't-"

"Perfect, I'll be there in ten."

I'm still laughing when she pulls up outside my window, honking furiously. I grab my backpack and take the stairs two at a time. "What are you wearing," she says.

"Clothes."

"G.o.d grant me the serenity to accept the disastrous fashion choices of my best friend in all the world, who elects to garb herself in rags even when being transported by her faithful chauffeur to the abode of her beloved, possibly the foxiest man in the entire-"

"He is not my beloved. Lord. What's wrong with my clothes?"

Aurora snorts and takes a corner so fast I nearly go through the open window. "Seatbelts are recommended," she says.

Aurora leaps up Jack's steps and pounds briskly on his front door. He opens it, blinking sleepy-eyed at the morning sun. "Come on!" she yells. "Get your guitar! Come on!" She's on the verge of jumping up and down. Jack looks at me over her shoulder.

"It's like saying no to a tornado," I tell him.

"I see," Jack says. Obediently, he fetches his guitar from next to his bed, puts it in Aurora's trunk, gets in the backseat.

"We're going to the ca.n.a.l!" Aurora says, gleeful as a toddler. "You can busk and we'll pa.s.s a hat around. And then we'll make garlands out of flowers and put them on your head. And everyone will love us and you'll be famous."

"I think the steps to fame are typically more complex," Jack says, but he's grinning.

"Nope," says Aurora. "Stick with me. I'll make you a star."

The gra.s.sy parkland along the ca.n.a.l is packed with people. It's a farmer's market day. Hippies tote babies and trail dogs on hemp ropes, and wholesome-looking types are weighed down with cloth bags overflowing with greens. Ca.s.s's idea of heaven. If I had the power, I'd send the lot of them straight to h.e.l.l. Aurora buys a still-warm loaf of bread and some goat cheese and shoves chunks of bread in her mouth as she directs us to a clear spot next to the water. Jack takes out his guitar, tunes it. No one pays much attention. "Play a happy song," Aurora says through a mouthful of cheese.

"The happy songs are never the good ones," Jack says.

"Fine then," she says. "Play something that will devastate us all."

Jack winks at her. When he starts to sing his voice is a surprise: low and rough with the raspy longing of a much older man, weighted with decades of hard living and cruel twists of fate. A bourbon-thick smoker's voice, a voice of old sorrows and older wants. "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees," he sings, the chords under his fingers sinuous and sorrowful. I tilt my head back, let the impossible yearning fill me with a hunger I never knew I had. "Standin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' down." It's as though the pain in his voice strips him naked in front of us, lets us see into the life he had led before we met him. Lonely nights and cold beds, hungry enough to eat your own shoes, sleeping in ditches and hitching rides to a place you know won't be better. A despair so deep it's like an animal living inside you, a thing you can call by name. Note after shimmering note, suffering spun into a net of music. All around us, people fall silent, turn toward him. Even the birds in the trees still their trilling calls, crickets hushing where they chirp in the gra.s.s. Barking dogs sink to their haunches, lay their heads across their paws, fetches forgotten. Aurora takes my hand. When he finishes there is no sound other than the movement of the wind in the trees all around us. Jack bows his head, his braids obscuring his face.

"Jesus," Aurora says. I've never seen her so close to speechless. "You really are the real deal."

He smiles at us from behind the tangle of his braids. "I know."

Jack plays for us until the shadows are long in the gra.s.s. Nothing like that first song: lighter things, melodies that move hopping around us like b.u.mblebees, lazy silly songs that make me think of cats in patches of sun, or pedaling downhill with the wind in my face and the world singing all around me. People come forward and drop dollar bills in his guitar case, sheepish, as though they know what they should be offering is something far more precious. A little boy brings him flowers, and Jack lets him put them in the frets of his guitar. Aurora smokes, stretches out in the sun, runs her fingers through her long hair.

At last Jack sets the guitar aside. His case is full of bills, not all of them singles. Other things, too: gla.s.s beads, a cheap ring, a packet of incense, a playing card. When I look over at Aurora she is watching me watch Jack, her face serious, her eyes far away.

"We should go get something to eat," I say. Jack tugs idly at the fraying hem of my jeans.

"No," Aurora says. "I mean, you go ahead. I'm not hungry."

Aurora is never not hungry. Aurora would eat veal while watching calves go to slaughter, demanding more condiments. "I'll drop you off somewhere," she adds.

"Can I come over?" Jack asks. I can't stop the stupid smile that spreads across my face.

"Okay," I say. Aurora chews on her hair.

"Fine, then," she says. "Come on." Without waiting for us she hops to her feet, scampers toward her car. Jack puts his guitar back in its case, tucks away his booty.

"That was really fun," I say in the car. Aurora is uncharacteristically quiet. Jack's staring out the window, not paying attention. My words drop into the silence and hang there. When Aurora stops in front of my building, she clears her throat.

"I'm going to a show later," she says. "If you want to come."

"I'm okay," Jack says. "Thanks."

"I guess not," I say.

"Sure," she says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Ca.s.s is out, and the apartment is dark. Jack paces each room as I turn the lights on. I'm anxious, now that he's in my house for the first time. Now that he can see our shabby rugs and derelict furniture. My room isn't clean. I try to remember the last time I washed my sheets. He looks for a long time at Aurora's and my kingdom. I stand in the middle of the floor, watching him, wanting to turn around in embarra.s.sed circles. Something. Anything. I am way too young. He is realizing I am way too young. I am an idiot. Idiot idiot idiot. Id. I. Ot.

"This is really good," he says.

"What?"

"This." He points to some of the more recent additions: Raoul in his vampire clothes, offering up a handful of apricots. A house I drew one sleepless night, with a neat garden and a hobbity round door. A mountain range.

"Oh. Aurora drew some of it, too." I point out where we started. "When we were kids we thought if we got good enough we could climb in."

"You wanted to?"

"It wasn't always so great at home."

"Yeah," he says. "I know all about that one. Do you have anything else?"

"My sketchbook. But you can't see that. Some other stuff that's stupid. Do you want to see Aurora's birthday present?"

Aurora's birthday is next month, and for weeks I've been painting her a banner. I put her at the center, in one of her white dresses with her long hair streaming in elaborate curlicues that turn into twisting, sinuous vines. I surrounded her with jewel-feathered tropical birds that gleam through the foliage. The feathers are taking me forever. So many tiny lines. Roses explode at the corners, giving way to a border of orchids and lilies. Behind her, a sunset colors the sky pink. The whole thing is like Maxfield Parrish on ecstasy. I had to restrain myself from adding a unicorn.

"Wow," Jack says, but I can't tell if he's impressed or horrified.

"It's supposed to be campy," I say quickly.

"It's not at all. It's beautiful. There's so much love in every line." He outlines the curl of a vine with one finger without touching the canvas.

"She's my whole life."

"That can be dangerous," he says.

"Not if you really love someone."

"Especially if you really love someone." He turns back to the banner. I don't know whether to touch him. Don't even know what game we're playing. Like when I was a kid on the playground, every day the other kids knowing by some secret code what clothes to wear, what things to say, me always getting it wrong, not even realizing there were rules.

"I don't know how to talk to you," I blurt. He looks at me in surprise. "You're a lot cooler than I am," I say. "You're beautiful. You're the most amazing musician I've ever seen. You're like a-a-I don't know, you're like a real person. I'm-"

"You're a very real person. You're one of the realest people I've ever met."

"I don't know what that means. Are you telling me I'm stupid? Because I'm not stupid."

He laughs so hard he has to put his hands on his knees. I have no idea what I just said that was so funny. "I haven't known you that long, but I can definitely tell you aren't stupid."

"Does that mean I can kiss you?"

"Yes," he says. "That is exactly what it means."

Late that night, after Jack's gone home, Aurora calls me from the club. "Babycakes," she says, her voice slurring. "I'm too f.u.c.ked up. Come get me."

Ca.s.s is asleep and I take her keys without asking. Maybe I'll get lucky and she won't notice. The night is lovely and smells of salt, and I roll my window down all the way. If I weren't driving I'd hang my head out like a dog. I want to enjoy the moment. I don't know what I'll find when I get there.

I'm expecting ambulances, sirens, cops, something. But from the outside the club is still. Inside it's noisy and hot and dark. A metal band screeches from the stage. I peer around the room, check the bar, shove my way through the pit. I can't see Aurora anywhere. If she was still walking she could have gone home with someone in the time it took me to drive here. I try not to think about that. There's a line for the women's bathroom, sullen girls with teased hair and too much eyeliner. "I'm looking for my friend," I say to one of them. "Blond hair. Really pretty. Skinny." I have to shout over the noise. She stares at me.

"Some crackhead b.i.t.c.h has been in the bathroom for a long-a.s.s time," she says. I cut past the line and pound on the door.

"Aurora. Aurora." I hear something shatter. "Ah, s.h.i.t," I mutter, and throw my shoulder against the door.

I'm strong and the latch is cheap and I only have to hit the door twice before I'm through. The mirror over the sink is in splinters, the bathroom floor scattered with broken gla.s.s. Aurora's sitting on the toilet, her white dress stained red. "I cut myself," she says. "You came for me."

The metal girls are trying to push past me into the bathroom. I haul Aurora to her feet and shove them out of the way. One of them c.o.c.ks her fists at me but falters when she sees my face. I drape Aurora's arm over my shoulders and half-drag, half-carry her outside. She's as light as a bird.

In the empty street in front of the club she puts her b.l.o.o.d.y hands against the wall and vomits. I check for damage. Her knuckles are a mess, but the cuts look worse than they are. No one's watching us. I take off my sweatshirt, yank my shirt over my head, put my sweatshirt back on. When she's done throwing up I wrap the shirt around her hands to stop the bleeding. "I'll get your shirt dirty," she mumbles.