“Come dance.” She tugged my arm. “It’ll be like old times.”
“I can’t.” I could feel myself ready to bolt. Not yet, not me—no.
“Of course you can.”
“No, I can’t. And, um…I brought a friend, see…” I looked around till I found gauze-wrapped Rachel, bendy-noodly in a far corner, talking intensely to equally noodly Jake, who was immediately recognizable despite his Spider-Man mask. They were standing close, right by the fire-escape window.
That view. That was the same fire escape where Kai and I had sat outside.
“Oh, come on. Five minutes?” Lissa pleaded.
“Maybe later,” I apologized. “I have to hit the restroom. So good to see you, Lissa. But I gotta…go.… ” And I leapt away from her bewildered reaction before she could find the words to protest.
13
You In or Out?
The bathroom was over-lit and unisex and crowded. When I finally got my turn and emerged from the stall, I had to smile. I should have known Lissa would follow me in. She was standing inconveniently in front of the towel dispenser, not paying attention to the others—who even went so far as to apologize when they needed to duck around her to pull down a paper towel. Lissa’s outsized confidence was integral to her persona.
“You don’t think you can do it anymore, am I right?”
“What are you talking about?” But I couldn’t meet her eye. I unpeeled my forehead bandage to splash cold water on my face, wetting my bangs so that now they lay flat and dark, like some ceremonial costume hat.
“But you need to. You love this. I can’t bear to see you not do the thing you love.”
“You’re wrong. I’m just feeling tired is all.”
She stepped toward me suddenly, cupped my chin in her hands, and pulled me in to face her head-on—a Lissa gesture if there ever was one. “I’m right. But why am I right?” When she let me go, I stepped back and crossed my arms in front of my chest.
My dry eyes blinked. She stared back. She was not giving up on this. “My body used to be one thing and now it’s another,” I admitted. “I don’t know if this body even knows how to be out in public, dancing. And if I can’t, I might not be able to handle the disappointment.”
“My brother-in-law Charlie in AA would say fake it till you make it.”
“See, that’s the thing,” I told her. “I’m not even sure I can fake it. I have these images of falling and getting up and falling down again, like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.”
“And if you do, so what? But you won’t know anything till you try.… ”
I wasn’t winning this one, and Lissa took my hand and pushed us out of the restroom and back into the heat and noise.
Desire had been overcoming my reluctance anyway, and the energy of the other bodies warmed me up. With Lissa’s close, upbeat presence shadowing me, I knew that, after a couple of minutes, I was okay. To the point where I stopped caring if others were watching me, or if I was dancing naturally, or if the accident had stolen my rhythm. And I wasn’t Scarecrow. My muscle memory was deep for this. Then Rachel and Jake joined us, and then a few of Lissa’s friends…and then I was lost in it.
Seeing Maisie pried me out again. I caught a glance from a distance. She’d pushed up her mask, and she was over by the drinks table, in a loose friend throng. I moved closer to see. One of the girls, long and dark-skinned, with that fluid, economical body that could wear anything—including the Cleopatra tunic and gladiator shoes she was in right now—seemed like a person who maybe I knew? When she noticed me, she waved, and I waved back, but it wasn’t an invitation on either side.
I turned in, toward the center, where bodies pulsed together like a core of dark matter. Those weren’t my friends. That was a whole crew of strange kids, who seemed only circumspectly interested in my presence here. Still, Maisie was my Anthony Travolo link, and I’d come all the way out here to find her. Should I approach her, and talk to her? Pry her for more information about Anthony?
It seemed almost too awful, a dread obligation—go spend tonight learning everything you can about that guy you killed.
By now, I’d stopped dancing. My feet felt leaden and unable. I stood, chewing my bottom lip. But I wouldn’t go over. Rachel was right; this wasn’t the time or place.
“Hey!” Lissa twined her fingers through mine. “Loosen up!”
As if she knew. As if she was purposely trying to make me stop thinking about it. I stole another glance at Maisie. If I wanted to find out more from her, I could. I’d Facebook her tomorrow. Yes, that would be better.
Then the music changed. A downbeat. The floor seemed to absorb air-mass noise sweat into one clammy thud and pull of motion.
My eyelids drooped, but now I was too tired—my limbs kept losing tempo, my mind was suspended with strange thoughts of Maisie and Anthony, all of them—when I looked up, I saw that Smarty was actually getting into it, too, though her dance style hadn’t changed; she’d always moved as awkwardly as a baby foal. Her zombie bandages were, like mine, sticking to her T-shirt and leggings, and her bleached-white bangs were starfish-spiked off her head.
She was here because I was here.
Her quick, self-conscious smile nearly melted me. Smarty, at a dance club. She’d never have come if I hadn’t wanted to go. My bestie. Holden couldn’t have been right, that we’d been fighting. Even if so, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. No way.
When the music transitioned again, I signaled to the others for my much-needed break. We stumbled to a table in the back. Jake procured our paper cups of electric green punch. Then the DJ layered a Weregirl loop over the next track.
“Ooh, Weregirl…” I was so happy to hear them, like a stamp of approval on the club, and our presence in it.
Out on the floor, Lissa was twirling like a punk sylph. Maybe it was Lissa who’d loved this band?
“Think we’re gonna sit out a few.” Rachel was tucked under Jake’s arm. “Do not—I repeat—do not wear yourself out, Emb, okay? Your mom would have my head on one of these poles.”
“I won’t.”
I could feel Rachel’s gaze stay on me warningly. She could see how exhausted I was. She and Jake dragged a couple of folding chairs to a dark, far corner of the room that a few other couples had already staked out.
But I returned, relocated Lissa, tuned in Weregirl, found myself. I’d never heard their music pound so loud, so mesmerizingly surround-sound. Here I was, pre-accident. And my old self was emerging delicate as new skin. But this one song was all I had in me. I couldn’t keep pushing myself much longer.