The Dead Inside Read online

  I can feel her eyes on my face. But Joanna’s so cool, she doesn’t ask me any questions. I mean, I know I don’t look right. My eyes are blue-circled like lunar eclipses, from being up all night and from Jacque. But Jo leaves it alone.

  After school, on the bus to her house, I go, “I can’t go back to my house, man,” and she just says, “All right.”

  Soon as we walk through her front door, she’s yelling. “Dad! Can we stay Sunday night too? You can drive us to school Monday? It’s okay with Cyndy’s parents.”

  Mr. Azore’s voice comes back, “Okay.”

  Done. Just like that. We’re staying in Bridgeport Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, like we actually live there. And my mother will have no idea how to get me. As if she’d even try, now that last night’s drama—My daughter ran away! Help me, Mr. Policeman!—is over.

  Besides. When Dawn went and told Youth Officer Rudy I was staying at her house last night, he told my mother to let me “cool off” there until Monday. And if a man in uniform says it’s a good idea, that settles it. I’m safe, at least for the weekend. I have to call Dawn and tell her I’m staying at my best friend’s place, instead. But I don’t have to tell her which place…

  See? My life is all working out, like God snapped his wrist and flung open a photo-accordion of possibilities. I just had to—no fucking around—leave that house. I had to prove I meant it. Now that I have, He’s totally gonna save me. I don’t know yet if it’ll be Dawn’s or Jo’s or Steve’s or what, but he’ll put me in somebody’s house, where I’ll be safe and people will like me. For sure.

  • • •

  It’s like, as soon as we cross into Bridgeport, every pore on my body opens and all this air rushes in. Even though you could get shot on any street corner, I feel safe. I wish I knew how to tell Jo’s parents how thankful I am that they brought me here. I’m gonna ask God to do something nice for them too.

  Jo snagged one of her dad’s T-shirts for me to wear, because mine was pretty skanky. It’s a big white V-neck with nubbles in the armpits, the kind of shirt dads wear on weekends for doing plumbing and stuff. It’s big enough to knot at my middle, but I like wearing it long, like a dress. With my denim jacket over it and my Levi’s underneath, I look like one of the Outsiders.

  When Joanna and me are heading for the Zarzozas’, it hits me: I’m not the scrappy sidekick anymore, all nervous and stupid. I’m as fuck-it as Jo is. We’re parallel, like Ponyboy and Johnny. Not good enough for—but way better than—the pretty, happy people.

  So when we’re walking now, we don’t need to talk. We’re cool to just listen to our footsteps. We’re in Bridgeport, we’re out in the night, we’re together. The moon’s a purple scoop in a Cinderella sky.

  • • •

  We always sit in the same arrangement at the Zarzozas’, like those hollow stacking dolls that only fit together in one order. I sit on the cot with Steve on my left and Shithead on my right. Jo and Tony sit across from us on the chairs that leak gray stuffing. The only missing doll is Rich.

  We’re smoking a joint tonight. To me it seems like just a hot little sliver of paper. It’s so thin, I can’t even feel it touching my mouth. And I still don’t know how to suck it right. But I hear the pot popping, and the paper sizzles against my lips, so I guess I got a hit…?

  God, just please let some smoke come out when I exhaaaaale…thank you. Thank you for making them not watch me. For making Steve scoot closer to me. For making me feel like I maybe sort of belong.

  Tony brings the joint to his lips and inhales with tiny sucks. He closes his eyes and mouth for a second, and then huffs out. When he leans his head against the wall, Joanna and Shithead do too. They look blissed out, like the wall behind them is a feather pillow. They must be super baked, ’cause nobody’s talking about smoking anymore. I guess we’re supposed to listen to the death metal thumping out of the boom box.

  I pull down the hem of Mr. Azore’s shirt, making it a perfect line across my thighs. When I pull it extra hard, the V of the neck stretches so low you can see the top of my boobs. I want to know if Steve’s noticing, but I can’t turn and check. He has to think I’m just, you know, fiddling. Man, this big white T-shirt is awesome. Jo needs to get me a stash of these.

  “Hey, wanna get outta here?”

  At least, that’s what I think I hear, but the music’s pretty loud. I turn my head and there’s Steve, a half-inch away from my nose. He is noticing. He says it again.

  “Wanna go?”

  He’s looking at me. Right in my eyes. A lead brick drops in my belly. Go where? And…get out of here how? I mean, Bridgeport is big and dangerous. Shouldn’t we have to ask somebody first?

  Steve’s still looking at me, still smiling. God, he actually likes me. Like, I could actually be wanted here.

  “Um, ’kay.” It’s the best I can do.

  Steve creaks up from the cot, then puts a hand out for me. It takes me about five minutes to stand, since I can only push up from the cot with my left hand. Because my right hand is being held by a boy. A cute boy, who belongs. Who could make me belong too, if he tells everybody I’m his. Me and this boy, we walk up the stairs, out of the Zarzoza house, and into the night.

  • • •

  Steve’s house is all brown inside. The walls are made of fake wood. Mr. D’agostino must get so much blue out on the ocean, he doesn’t want color when he’s home.

  He’s out catching lobsters, I bet. Even though it’s late-late night. Because he’s definitely not here. You’d know if anyone else was home, because Steve’s house is teeny. I wonder if, when one of them has to poop, the other two D’agostinos leave. Otherwise, in a house this small, they’d basically be all in the same room for it.

  Steve has no mom. She died when he was little, so it’s always been just Steve and Rich and their dad. Doesn’t that seem weird? Like aren’t only dads supposed to die, and moms get to live? But Steve’s dad may as well have died, because he’s totally not around. Ever since Steve was a little kid, he says, his dad’s been out on the boat all the time. And when he’s home all he does is drink and think about his dead wife. So frigging sad. Sometimes I wonder what God’s thinking.

  It’s easy to tell what Steve’s thinking, though, bringing me to his empty house. He’s thinking about…you know. And I kinda wish he wasn’t. He opens the back door and we’re in the kitchen, which is jam-packed with a table, four chairs, and a dark brown fridge. I’m across the kitchen in two steps, pulling out a grandma-looking chair, all metal legs and brown and orange vinyl cushion. But I don’t get to sit because Steve says something scary.

  “Come see my room.”

  When I look at Steve, it’s like he’s a different kid. His hair is mega-greasy, and when did he get this skinny? He’s looking back at me, like, super serious, and I have this realization: this is the first time I’ve seen Steve with a light on. This is how he’s always looked. I just didn’t know it.

  Good thing I’ve got that chair to hold me up. I’m death-gripping it, both hands, as I turn away from Steve and study how truly mini his house is. You could fit this whole house into my bedroom in Monroe, almost. Where the fuck will they put me, when Steve’s dad adopts me?

  Steve’s still looking at me.

  “Yeah, so what’s your room like?” I say, ’cause I have to say something.

  I follow him through a fake-wood door, and we’re in a living room. No windows, a big TV, and a cable box. MTV! But no MTV for me, because Steve’s at another door. He pushes it in six inches before clunk, it stops. It must be blocked by his bed. But Steve doesn’t even need to turn sideways to get through. He’s a living toothpick. I try to sideways myself in, and the doorknob jams in my flab. Like I said, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

  Steve’s kicking some clothes into a corner, so I have a minute to scope the place out. Instead of brown, Steve’s room is black. Mostly. It’s bla
ck and DayGlo orange and yellow, with a purple lightbulb in the ceiling. You know what? I can get past skinniness to hang out in a room this cool. Glow-in-the-dark paint and a dad who’s never home? I’ll sleep standing in the closet if I have to. Just let me stay.

  There’s a Metallica tapestry hung on a slant over the bed. I’m staring at it so I don’t have to look at Steve, whose bed creaks as he lies down.

  I’m like, scared. I left all my toughness on Joanna’s street. It’s back there leaning on a stop sign, smoking a cigarette. Here, in this empty house, I’ve got no tough at all.

  After the bed creaks, the silence is long. Steve is the one to break it, by pressing the play button on his stereo. Wind comes rushing out of his speakers. I know this sound like a baby knows a heartbeat. It’s Floyd, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” It’s our album.

  I sit on the edge of his bed as a guitar moves in with the wind. Steve pushes himself next to me. There’s a pinkie finger of space between us.

  I need a pep talk. Like, What the fuck is wrong with you? You’ve made out with Steve a ton. Like, three times. Quit being such a loser.

  Weird notes from a piccolo, maybe, swerve out of the speakers, and my head talks back to me.

  We’re alone in this house. Anything could happen. Anything.

  My stomach feels funny again. Steve’s moving his face, putting it in front of mine. I mean, right in front. I can smell the moon and the Marlboro on his skin. I close my eyes and he presses his lips onto mine.

  If Steve says you’re his, you’re in.

  The guitar roils as Steve pushes his fighting slug of a tongue into my mouth. The piccolo’s gone, but Steve’s hands aren’t. And I’m not nervous anymore. We’re frantic as his hands move over my cotton-covered boobs and hips. His body feels boney on top of me, but his hands feel good. They’re stronger than they look as they unpop the buttons on my 501s. Just like his brother did in the Zarzozas’ basement the night we met.

  Everything’s moving quickly, and the guitar starts screaming, like I do, when I’m trapped by Jacque. My head is all splintered as Steve’s hand slides down. It’s too much. I’m seeing Jacque. I’m hearing music. I’m feeling Steve, whose fingers are at my triangle, which feels really scary and good. The guitar plucks out each note from “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”

  The music is safe. If I concentrate on the music, maybe I can switch to just hearing and feeling, not thinking. The guitar and the piccolo and some kind of harp, they’re crisscrossing each other like DNA. Like the beginning of everything. It’s phenomenal and impossible, like Steve’s fingers in my jeans.

  “Wanna do it?”

  The music turns to buzzing, as if Floyd is waiting for my answer, too. Steve’s fingers are still in the pudding under my jeans, but everything feels cold now. My fingers unlatch from his shoulders, and my arms thud back to the mattress.

  “I just…” I finally get out.

  The music spirals off with downward notes.

  “I don’t think I’m ready,” I say, as the final note dies.

  The tape ends. The play button pops up on the stereo, and SNAP. It’s over.

  6

  NO BORROWING MONEY, CANDY, OR CIGARETTES

  After everything turned weird with Steve last night, I was psyched to get back to Jo’s. We have twenty whole hours to just eat, sleep, and watch TV. We don’t even have to hide in a locked bedroom. We can hang out right in the living room.

  It’s just me and Jo until way later, ’cause the guys are vampires. It’s like they don’t exist until after 9:00 p.m. We’re not even supposed to talk about them if the sun’s out. But I can’t help it. I have to tell her about last night.

  “Yeah, so Steve brought me to his house.”

  Joanna picks up her mom’s cigarettes and lights one. It’s long and skinny with a pastel band where the filter starts. She can’t say anything, I guess, with her mouth full of cigarette. So I talk again.

  “Did you guys wonder where we went?”

  She clips the cigarette between two fingers and holds it away from her face, then leans her head back and blows out a river of smoke. She looks, I don’t know, ladyish. Like an olden-days movie star.

  “Nope. Didn’t even notice you were gone.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  I feel really lame all of a sudden, the way I used to feel with Kim when her friends were around. A cigarette’d fix it, but I’m not asking Jo for one of her mom’s.

  “What’d you guys do?” she asks from behind a curtain of hair. Like every great rocker, Jo wears her hair big, curly, and over her eyes. Most of the time I love that we don’t make eye contact, but this weekend it’s making me nervous. There’s something she’s not saying. If I can’t see her eyes, I won’t know what it is.

  “Well, we went to his house, and we fooled around. A lot, I mean.”

  She takes a drag so hard her cheeks go hollow; then she stabs her cigarette out in the brown metal ashtray.

  “Oh yeah?” she says, torquing up another. “How’d that go?”

  I think of the house’s smallness, and Steve’s boniness. Of how fun it should’ve been, and how scary it actually was. Of the silence between us when we walked back to the Zarzozas’. I try to think how to explain all of that to her. It doesn’t work.

  “It was okay. Can I get a drag of that?”

  Joanna tosses me the pack, which means I’m gonna steal from Mrs. Azore. I light it with a prayer she stays in bed or wherever she is, ’cause I really don’t like stealing from people who are nice to me. Joanna stares at the TV.

  “Yeah, so, Jo?” I say. “He, like, asked if I wanted to do it.”

  Joanna’s the queen of cool. I could be telling her I lost my virginity last night, but all she does is finish her drag, turn her head, and raise her right eyebrow at me. That’s it. She doesn’t even say anything.

  So I do my thing. I sweat and stutter and stutter and sweat. “Are you crazy? No fucking way! But Jo. I was, like, terrified. I mean, we came so close—we were alone in his house, and he, like, had his hand in my pants, and what was I gonna say? Just, No!?”

  She stares at me. Her mouth stays in a straight line, except when she puckers to put her cigarette to her lips. Then she raises her other eyebrow. That eyebrow says plenty.

  “So I didn’t say no, exactly. I pretty much said not yet. But I’m freaking out. I mean, if I don’t, would I even be allowed at Zarzozas’? Should I have said yes? What would I do when we’re in Bridgeport if he doesn’t like me anymore?”

  For a sec, Jo hooks my gaze with hers. There’s a lot happening in her mind, but I can’t figure out quite what. Then she turns back to the TV. She smokes slowly. I smoke fast.

  On Sunday, we don’t talk about Saturday night. We don’t talk about how Steve didn’t ask if I wanted to leave the Zarzozas’ and go back to his house, or how Rich was there and how he said, really loud, “Hey Jo! It’s your turn to come back to the water bed! Eh. I just looked at ya. Never mind.” We don’t talk about how everybody laughed at that, even her, but not me. Instead, we talk about Kara Anderson.

  Kara Anderson is this weasel chick who’s on the fringes at our school. She’s not a jock. She’s not exactly a loser, and she’s no way a hood like us, even though she wants to be. She’s not cool enough for Levi’s, but someone got her some work boots, which she wears all laced-up and tied. Fuckin’, duh! She hangs out at the edge of the smoking pit, trying to make people like her by talking shit about the cool kids.

  Last week, the person she talked shit about was Joanna. Probably Kara thinks it’s safe to talk about Jo ’cause Jo only just moved to Monroe. Probably she thinks people don’t know Jo yet, so she can say whatever she wants. What she doesn’t know is that Jo’s my best friend, and that when I’m pissed, I turn into the Hulk. Kara is a stupid, stupid girl.

  So Sunday morning, when we’re back in front of the TV, Jo
tells me what’s up. “Check this out,” she says. “Kara Anderson’s telling people her cousin went to junior high with me.” There are no cigarettes on the table today, so Jo’s chewing a big purple wad of gum instead. “She’s saying her cousin said I’m a whore.”

  Jo doesn’t seem mad. So I get mad for her. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re not a whore!”

  “Right? I wish. So pretty much, Kara’s trying to look good by making me look bad. What a winner, huh?”

  I don’t know why Joanna’s laughing at this, but I’m not. I’m on fire. And through the flames, I see some kind of a chance. I can’t really explain it, but Kara Anderson’s gonna get me past that wall in Jo’s eyes.

  “I’m gonna get ’er, Jo,” I say, “Watch. I’m gonna kick her ass. Fuck her.”

  Joanna tongues the gum blob to the front of her teeth and holds it there for a second, half-in and half-out of her mouth. She looks at me; then she shrugs. “’Kay,” she says and goes back to chewing. She blows a big, hazy bubble, and I smile.

  • • •

  In his zip-up work jumper, Mr. Azore looks more like Mario than ever. Even at 7:28 on Monday morning, he’s smiling. But his smile falls a notch when Jo kicks the car door open in front of the school. “What? No kiss?” he says.

  “Bye, Dad.”

  Joanna has no fucking idea what she’s got.

  It’s 7:29 when we step out of the car, which means we have to book it to first period and pray we’re not marked tardy. Jo’s work boots flop as she runs down the hallway, throwing another “bye” over her shoulder at me. The last thing I see are her Sammy Hagar curls, swinging against the hood of her sweatshirt.

  A stripe of loneliness cuts through me as the 7:30 bell rings, then ricochets down the empty hallway. Petting Mr. Azore’s T-shirt hem, I make my way to Spanish class.