Fade Into You Page 4

  I am the girl who wonders what to say, if to say anything at all, when Amy Daniels, while standing in a group of girls that for some reason includes me, says, “Oh look, here comes Alex Molina and his entire family of beaners.” I am the seven-year-old whose first-grade teacher announces, “Oh sweetie, your nanny’s here,” to which I reply, “That’s my mommy.”

  I am tired of being your fly on the wall. Invisible bystander. A quiet barometer of how much is still wrong. You don’t see me, but I see you. Pale and pretty on the outside, burned to a cinder in my soul.

  ×

  Jessica Silverman is pulling out of the parking lot at school trying to hold a cigarette between her teeth and looking over her shoulder. We’re listening to “Walking in LA” by Missing Persons and bobbing our heads in unison. The cigarette ashes on the console between us and she slams her foot on the brake and releases the wheel.

  “Shit, shit!” she curses, brushing it away quickly with her hands. It falls onto my seat and she clenches her fists. “Motherfucking ash.” She tries to rub it out of the black interior.

  “Spit on your hand,” I suggest.

  She spits and wipes her palm, exposing well-manicured nails. A ripped-up friendship bracelet, a piece of black string, and large art-deco-style rings cling to her fingers and wrists like growths. I’ve never seen her without them and I can tell they’ve been showered many times. I shake my head at the ever-expanding spit spot near my thigh that she is feverishly rubbing, probably because she’s stoned. The ash is long gone, was never a problem, the seats are leather, but I don’t say anything and look out the window. In the rearview Dan Meanstreetz Martínez is rolling up on his skateboard. He’s wearing his usual ragtag garbage pail of shreds. Punk patches pinned to black jeans, a crumbling denim jacket that smells like armpits, rusted studs around the elbows. A giant Nausea patch the size of his entire back, pinned to his ass, hangs down like a thin delicate train.

  Jessica’s foot is off the brake and we roll backward as Battle of the Ash continues.

  “Watch out!” I shout. She looks up and screams.

  “Fucking bitches!” yells Meanstreetz, slamming his hands on the back of Jessica’s mom’s Mercedes.

  She shoves her foot down, pulls the parking brake, and we both spin around in our seats and onto our knees, peeking over the top of the leather like kids at the banister on Christmas morning. I hold my breath and so does Jessica. “It was Meanstreetz,” I whisper.

  “Should we get out? I mean, did we hit him?”

  I nod. “I think so.” Smoke is rising from the bottom of the floor near Jessica’s feet.

  “Oh Jesus!” I shriek, covering my mouth with one hand and pointing at the smoke with the other. I back into the window, legs beneath me.

  “Fucking fuck!” she yells, leaning down and looking for the cigarette.

  Her door swings open and Dan glares at us, all Redrum, Here’s Johnny–looking and we scream again. “What the fuck, you fucking graveyard brains!” He reaches in and grabs us by the shoulders. We raise our hands to our faces shrieking and jump in our seats.

  “I dropped a cigarette!” she says panicked, kneels down, and resumes searching the floor for it.

  “Get out!” he shouts again.

  “I can’t you caveman! Can’t you see I’m fer-reaking?”

  “You fucking hit me, bitch, with your tank!”

  “Oh, she did not,” I say, opening my door and walking to her side of the car. I crouch beside her. “It’s underneath the seat.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Inspector Gadget?” she says, raising her head and getting snappy with me.

  “Ugh, it smells like skunk in here. Move.” He yanks her by the arm and she stumbles out of the car. Dan rolls the seat back and grabs the smoking culprit. “You burned a hole in the carpet. Smooth move, Einstein.”

  “Goddamnit!” she says clenching her fists and stamping her foot. “My fucking mom is going to kill me.”

  “She’ll never know unless you tell her. Roll the seat back, air this dump truck out, and you’re fine.”

  “Let me buy you pancakes,” she says taking a giant breath.

  I kneel on the hood and shield my eyes. “We were heading to IHOP. I’ll throw down on fries.”

  Dan looks up the long set of stairs heading to King Hall and then at us. “You’ve got Lavoi, what did you guys do today?” he asks, looking at me.

  “First chapter of Beloved. If you haven’t read it don’t bother going.”

  “I need to go to my locker first.”

  “Why?” she asks, pushing in the car lighter and pulling a pack of smokes from the front pocket of her backpack.

  “Homework.”

  “We’re coming back for Arts. Two hours, tops.”

  He looks at his Swatch and thinks.

  “As a thank-you and an apology for almost hitting you,” she offers.

  “For hitting me,” he says, opening the backseat and throwing his skateboard in. “You hit me, bitch, no almost.”

  “There is no try,” I say, taking the cigarette from her mouth and sucking a drag. Dan squints up his face and looks old, serene, taps his fingertips together like Yoda. “Only do,” we finish in unison.

  ×

  We’re at the IHOP on Fremont, right before Valley, and Dan is dipping fries into Tabasco and making hot sauce art across the plate. A smiley face, a pentagram, a shooting star.

  “Saw you scamming on Lydi last weekend at Jaime’s party.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me and takes a fry bite, sticks out his tongue, and lets fry mush fall on the table. “No te metas en mis asuntos, puta.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “Surprise, surprise, Darling,” he says, flipping me off.

  “Oh please, are we going to do this?” asks Jessica, leaning forward, about to shove a forkful of pancakes in her mouth. “Can I be invited to the conversation? Please? I only paid for lunch, I don’t feel like paying for a Spanish to English translator too.”

  “How extremely unracist of you, Jessie.” He takes a pancake off her stack, rolls it up, and shoves it in his mouth.

  “You’re so rude.”

  He screws up his face and mimics me silently, limp wrist smacking his hand against his chest.

  “It’s actually unbelievable how offensive you are.”

  He smiles and ketchup drools from the sides of his mouth.

  “What the fuck, asshole?” Jessica says, setting her fork down. “You’re such a fucking pig.”

  He snorts and little bits of pancake shoot out of his mouth and into the air. “You love it.” He chokes, his cheeks full.

  The thing is, Dan is half-right. Everybody does love it. He is undisputedly gorgeous, completely nihilistic, and super easy to fuck. A dynamo recipe if there ever was one. Dark eyes, wavy shiny black hair, scruff, a nose that makes him look like a Mayan god. High cheekbones and dimples, white teeth, and the most beautiful, heartbreaking smile. He is a megababe. It doesn’t work on me though, because he’s also a pig. He lurches forward at Jessica and snorts.

  “You should bottle your essence and sell it. You can call it Eau de Man Slut,” I say.

  “Eau de Garbage Disposal is more like it,” she sneers. “Seriously, you smell disgusting. When was the last time you showered?”

  “I slept in Venice last night.”

  “Shut. Up.” I roll my eyes.

  “I did. Swear to god. Sam and I were skating and passed out in Muscle Park. Woke up with the sunrise and some nasty seagull pecking at my nuts.”

  “Probably because you smell like a rotting corpse,” says Jessica, her attentions reabsorbed in the pancake pile.

  “I don’t believe you,” I say, sticking my fork into hash browns. “How’d you even get out there? I know I didn’t take you.”

  “I have my own wheels, dude.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I do. My dad got me a Honda last month. ’87 hatchback. It’s pretty mint. Don
’t need you rolling up in your mom’s Aerostar, thanks.”

  “Well, now I know why I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  He looks down at his fries and doesn’t say anything.

  “I heard you fucked Chloe. If we’re still talking about the brain-dead,” chimes Jessica, scanning the syrups. She picks up the hot-pink boysenberry.

  Dan makes the kind of face that says, Come on, man, but then says something else instead. “She’s nice.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. She’s my best friend, remember?”

  “Yeah, some best friend. Fuck, girls are ruthless.”

  “Oh, and what?” I ask, shoving ketchuped hash browns into my mouth. “Guys are so thoughtful?”

  “Yeah. We are. We can be.”

  “Oh, sure.” I eye roll.

  “Join the gender revolution, pig breath,” huffs Jessica. “Maybe you’ve heard of it, a little thing called women’s rights? Little piece of radical law called the ERA?”

  “Don’t tell me about shit I already know.”

  “Yeah,” I add, “why don’t you buy a Bikini Kill record or something?”

  “Because it’s 1996 dummy and I like Massive Attack.”

  “Why don’t you huff paint with some Jerry’s kids since you’re all der.”

  “Why don’t you suck a Fruit Roll-Up off my butthole.”

  “Why don’t you get AIDS and die?”

  “Why don’t you accept a gift from Whoville so your heart can grow three sizes?”

  “Why don’t you choke on a shark dick and drown?”

  “It’s a whale dick, estúpida. You fucked it up.”

  “Why don’t you two hump and get it over with?” says Jessica, pouring hot-pink syrup on her pancakes. Dan grabs her sausage and shoves it in his mouth, chewing like the abovementioned pig, for our amusement.

  “I would but I don’t want scabies,” I shoot back.

  Dan looks up at me and he doesn’t look fun anymore, he looks red, blushed, worried. All his good-time energies have seeped out around him and Jessica and I glance at each other.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” he says scooting out of the booth. “Gotta take a shit.”

  “Eww.” She throws a napkin at him. “You really are a hog.”

  “Hakuna matata,” he grins, waving his arms back and forth.

  An old couple sits behind us in the next booth and the old man looks up and says something to Dan.

  “What?” he asks, turning and looking at the old man.

  “Mijo,” he says, pointing a shaky finger at the ground. “You dropped your glasses.”

  Dan looks down. His glasses case lies beside the booth near the open lip of his backpack. “Gracias,” he says, nodding at the old man wearing old-man clothes that make me want to close my eyes. I don’t want to think about the grandparents I never call. Or the thought of them dying. Dan reaches down and grabs his glasses, shoves them in his pocket. “Gracias, gracias.”

  The old man nods and smiles turning back to his wife. “Ofelia,” he says, holding out his arm for a napkin. She pulls one from the dispenser and hands it to him. Outside the window large wooden scaffolding has been placed around the massive open lot across from the Toys“R”Us and Ocean Star dim sum banquet hall. A giant sign advertising something called the Fremont Commons is stapled to one of the wooden boards. It’s been tagged and wheat postered. EMF is spray-painted on top of a wrinkled, dripping cartoon of Pete Wilson. Inside the site a huge yellow tractor cranes its neck and shovels large chunks of dirt and cement. I wonder who the hell thought to develop all this backland. All this in-between. This plot of dirt by the police car parking lot and the 1950s paper manufacturer. The longest, flattest stretch of nothing green this side of Huntington Boulevard. Dan comes back from the bathroom, bobbing along. He slides back in and smiles.

  “Ahhhh,” he says, as if he just took a sip of something fizzy and delicious.

  “Well I’m not hungry anymore,” says Jessica, dropping her fork.

  “Yeah,” I echo. “Dit-to.”

  She wipes her mouth with a napkin and tosses it on the table, defeated. “You think looking like that gives you license to be a dick, but it doesn’t, hog brain. You won’t look like that forever.”

  He stares at me and grabs a handful of hash browns and shoves them in his mouth, bits of ketchupy potato on his fingertips. “Me so pretty.”

  “I hate you,” she says, her eyes watering, and just then something registers that hadn’t registered before. They’ve fucked, and he left. I look at her face, puffy and sad.

  “Well then go home, Jessica, because I’m just getting started.”

  ×

  I make my way up our street from the bus stop around the corner. Mom’s car is in the driveway. I walk inside, drop my bag on the table. The kitchen is empty. I follow her voice into the master bedroom, where she’s on the phone. She sees me, waves me away, and turns her body toward the wall.

  “Well honey, if he’s, well, stop interrupting, just listen, if he’s doing it now, it won’t change, you can’t argue a man out of that behavior. Please believe, Lyla. Lyla, stop talking and let me finish.”

  “Momma,” I say, flopping on the bed. I raise my arm toward her, touch her hand, she pushes it away and mouths, Stop.

  “Mommy,” I say again, and nudge closer.

  “Lyla, hold on, no, just wait, hold on.” She covers the receiver with a hand and looks at me, bothered, “What is it?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I brought sushi from work, it’s Bristol Farms. It’s in the fridge.” She uncovers the phone and starts again.

  “Lyla, if you feel this way why did you move in with him? See, this is why you don’t move in with every Tom, Dick, and asshole.”

  I sit up and nudge closer. “Momma,” I repeat. Except this time she’s had it and her eyes mean business. I start to scramble away but it’s too late.

  “What is it?” she shrieks, still wielding the phone in one hand. “You’re like an incessant pest buzzing in my ear! Mommy, mommy, mommy, can’t you see I’m on the goddamned phone with your sister?”

  I take a deep breath, push the air in a circle through my stomach, making it do cartwheels before I breathe it out again. I want to watch movies in her bed. I want to rest my head in her lap. I transform my breath and exhale a whatever.

  “Can I take the photo basket in my room?”

  “Jesus Christ, Nicole. Fine, take it. Can I talk with your sister, please, is that okay with you? Shut the door.” She picks up the receiver a final time. “I’m sorry, honey, your sister’s whining at me. What I’m saying is it isn’t going to change, the thing you need to get through your head, honey, he’s an abuser and if he’s hit you once, he’ll hit you again. Christ, don’t you have a girlfriend you can stay with?”

  ×

  That night lying in bed, I think about Claire. The cool white shadow of the moon moving across my wall. The jalousie windows with their many slats cast dark noirish shadows in its spotlight. I could get up and be a moonlight marionette. Like the porcelain masks with the painted tears in my sister’s high school bedroom before she left.

  Claire looking over her shoulder while in line at the campus coffee shop, talking to me out of nowhere. I looked around to make sure I was the one she was talking to. “I mean, fuck everyone. Fuck this place, fuck you.” She huffed and checked her watch. “What is taking this bitch so long?” The girl in front of us was fishing through her purse, lip gloss and receipts falling to the ground. Claire groaned. I gulped and could feel the five-dollar bill sweaty in my palm. “It’s like this entire place is just an idiot factory and—” and before she could finish the barista at the window of our little A-frame coffee shop poked her head out of the vestibule and called, “Next!” I hung back, desperate, waiting for Claire to finish ordering and complete her thought, but instead she took a deep gulp, flipped her hair, pulled her Wayfarers down, and stalked off. An angry cloud of psychic beauty. Iced coffee
: black.

  Claire stealing magazines from the campus bookstore. A place the high schoolers weren’t even allowed to be. But she went there in all the time, without remorse, without shame. I’d watch her waltz in, scoop up an LA Weekly and a Rolling Stone or whatever, flip her hair over her shoulder, and confidently waltz back out. Sometimes spitting when she left. She was such a marvel, a character from some teenage movie crossed over into this universe and sprinkled generously over our lives, except everyone was a stupid pod person and had no idea how lucky we were to walk alongside her.

  I try to imagine her in a girls’ home. Can she stomp there like an angry dinosaur? Can she burn a hole in your head with a death-ray stare? Can she dismiss you with the turn of her head? Can she see inside you to the shitty piece of shit coward that you probably are? Can she make you convulse with her clarity? Float and vibrate, tremble and fly? Can she, you know, use the pay phone?

  ×

  Later that week at the Malahini, the Whittier motel where the punk kids rent a room every couple of weeks to throw dog pile beer bong ragers, I find myself sitting leaned against the bathroom door nursing the champagne of beers, a slow moan emanating from beneath. My foot touches the orange-black, gum-spotted carpet. I can hear the soft panting and whining of a girl. It’s quiet like a pigeon, a small, rolling, high-pitched purr. After a few minutes of silence the door swings open and I’m pushed forward. The 40 slips between my fingers and rolls onto its side. Thick, foaming streams of beer seep into this dirty merkin called a floor covering.

  “Come on,” says Dan, zipping his fly. He reaches down and grabs my arm.

  “Hey!” I shout. “What the fuck?”

  “Time to go. Come on.”

  I scramble to my feet and brush the dirty Malahini Motel off my butt. I spin in the direction of the fallen and she’s sitting there at the edge of the toilet seat, her eyes all sad and sad looking. She’s naked. Of course. Of course. All broken up and stupid fucking sad. She doesn’t even go to school with us. I don’t even know who this sad sack is. Hair all drippy and stringy in her pretty, dewy face. She looks up at me, covers her face, and starts to cry. Some blond. Come on, I want to say, come the fuck on, what did you expect? I shake my head at her as Dan pulls me toward the door. Really. Really? Don’t look sad. Don’t look sad. Jesus.