Blues for Zoey (6 page)

18

Now
for Those Next Two Letters
(The Ones That Come after A
and B)

Both of Topher B
riggs's parents were wizards
of finance at an uber-bank downtown. Accordingl
y, his family lived on Meadow-
lane Road,
the wealthiest street in Rosemount. The hous
e was a long bungalow-style mansion made of huge gray stones
. A broad, U-shaped driveway curved aroun
d out front. By the time we dr
opped Nomi off and drove u
p to the house, it was already jamme
d with cars. We had to park
three blocks over.

As we walked
up, the music thumped through the windows, ev
ery one of which was blazing, and flickering with the
shadows of people. One of those silhouettes, I thought, was Christina Muñoz.

The inside of Topher's house
was just as expansive (and expensive) as the outside. In the entrance, there wer
e curved white walls, plants on pedestals, and a grand, swirling staircase up to the second floor. The carpet was
so thick you sunk an inch with every step.

I didn't recognize anyone.

We carried the beer into the kitchen, which was packed with more unfamiliar people. Suddenly, Alana
squealed at a girl she knew. A second later,
she vanished into the next room. Calen and I could
n't fit our beer into the fridge, so we
left the box on the floor.

The door at the far end of the kitchen was cordoned off with masking tape. I recalled from earlier
years that beyond that tape were the bedrooms, a big study full of books, and a music room Topher's family called “the
Salon.”

Although Toph's parents turned a blind
eye to his annual summer party, even
doing him the favor of going away for the weekend, that masking tape was their one standing r
ule: that side of the house was off-limits.

This year,
Toph seemed especially worried about trespassers. Not only was there more tape than usual, there were tiny words written all
over it:
KEEP OUT! FUCK OFF!
Or, for guests who had drunk themselves into a state of illiteracy, an easy-to-understand doodle of a skull and crossbones.

“
So
,” I said to Calen as we opened the first of our warm bee
r, “you happen to see Christina on the way in?”

“Whoa, dude, we just got here. If you go looking for her right away, she'll think
you're needy. Girls hate that.”

Calen had a point. I
tried to relax. This entailed leaning nonchalantly against the kitchen counter
, beer clutched in one hand, my other one dangling down at my side, lamely patting my leg in time to
the music. With the first pat, I hit something sharp.
It was the corner of the CD Dave Mizra had given me that morning.

When I took it out, Calen gave me a weird look. “Dude. What'
s on the cover?”

“I think it's from the seventies,” I said, as if that would explain everything.

“That a
ceeee-dee
?” someone asked from the kitchen table.

At first, I was just happy to see someone I recognized. Devon Whitney. He
was sitting at the head of the table, his Afro gather
ed back in a green headband, aptly embroidered with the word
SKILLZ
.

Devon didn't go to Rosemount, but I kn
ew him from running track. He was one of the fastest kids in the city. Ever since high school star
ted, he had consistently and authoritatively kicked my ass in the 400.

“Who listens to
ceeee-dees
anymore?” he mocked. The other guys ar
ound the table laughed.

In my defense, I said, “A friend gave it to me.”

Across from Devon was this older kid in a button-do
wn shirt checkered like a picnic blanket and a pair of huge, black, thick-rimmed glasses. “That
Freudian Slap
?” he asked.

I wasn't sure if it was wise to admit this or deny it. “Uh … yeah?”

“
Stellar
. Shain Cope, right? Whoev
er your friend is, tell him he's got good taste. Lemme see.”

I passed over the CD and the kid in the glasses nodded in appreciation. “Too bad he killed himself,” he said at last.

“Shain Cope?”

“Yeah, I think so. He's dead, anyway. Happened in the eighties.”

“I wouldn't know. The liner notes are in French.”

“Kinda makes
it a collector's item.” The music geek
handed it back—slowly, like he wasn't happy to
part with it. Suddenly, he eyed me like an inquisitor. “You got a fa
vorite song?”

I said the only title I remembered. “‘Colt's-Tooth Blues'?”

The music geek approved. “
Stellar
. It's like he made up his own genre. It's fucked up, but it's good.”

I nodded. Everybody was ogling the CD—and me, too. I didn't want to say anything to spoil it.

Even Devon had shifted his earlier verdict. “Sounds like it might be decent. Think maybe I need to hear this.”

“Cool,” I said. “I'll go put it on.”

1
9

Freudian Slap
by
Shai
n
Cope
,
1
981
(trackli
s
t)

1. Colt
   '
   s-
   T
   ooth Blues
   
2. Boat Riders and Mules Skinners
   
3. F
   r
   eudian Slap, Part 1
   
4. The
   r
   e
   '
   s A Girl On Murton St
   r
   eet
   (She
   T
   ook the Ring But
   W
   on
   '
   t
   W
   ear It)
   
5. Punching the Gu
   f
   f
   
6. Make A Man On His Merits
   
7. Brickya
   r
   d Jimmy (Kicks the Can)
   
8. Splice the Mainbrace
   
9. 50,000 Sha
   r
   es of Consolidated Copper
   
10. M
    r
    . Finneran
    '
    s Mutt
    
11. F
    r
    eudian Slap, Part 2
    
12. Get Me Home
    

20

How to Make a Roomful
of
People Shut Up and Stare at
You Like
You Just Morphed in
to a Manatee

In the living room, there was no sign of Christina Muñoz. I
n my fertile-slash-horny imagination, I hoped her absence meant she was
out back, where Topher's patio included a massi
ve swimming pool. My imagination also took the liberty of putting Christina in a red bikini. (It's the details that make all the difference.)

A bunch of people were sitting on the floor, lounging on cushions and rolled-up blankets. The stereo was embedded in the wall. A little tray poked out of it, propping up a pink iPod stickered with fake diamonds.

A guy with an eyebrow ring lounged on the floor below it. “You mind if I change this?” I asked him.

“Go ahead, s'not like I'm the DJ.”

I put in the CD and switched the music. Nobody seemed to care.

I don't know what I was
expecting to hear. The music Dave Mizra usually brought
over was fast and upbeat, but this was different. This was a dirge, something you
might hear at a funeral. It started with a
piano, playing a sad, slow melody in a profoundly
minor key. Here and there, the piano
was complemented by a few plucks on something with
strings, a cello maybe.

“This?”
said the guy with the eyebrow ring. “This is what you wanted to put on?”

I nodded weakly
and the music changed. It blossomed and swelled. It was still a funeral mar
ch, but it had gone from the burial of somebody old and decrepit to the
death of an acrobat or a clown. Maybe the
death of a whole circus. It was the
same sad melody, only with trumpets and drums and a wheeze of accordions. That was when everyone in the room shut u
p. But it wasn't because of the music. No,
everyone was staring at me like I was a fr
eak because of
the voice
.

Imagine a set of vocal cords pickled in whiskey for twenty years, then smoked
over coals for another ten. Got that? Good. N
ow scrub what's left with sandpaper. That's
Shain Cope. Imagine that voice—
singing
.

He heard there'
s rain in Paris
Gotta wonder if she's there
She always looked her prettiest
With drizzle in her hair
The sky's got nothing in it
Just the flapping of the crows
The sun's as bright as
—

“What the hell?!”

Guess
who it was, swearing at me from the
patio doors. (A hint: she wasn't wearing a red bikini.) I hit the Stop button on the stereo and the room went horribly and embarrassingly silent. Meanwhile, Christina
Muñoz was striding across the room and—even sans bikini—she looked
hot
. And, yes, I know they teach us that boys-slash-men aren't supposed to objectify women
's bodies, and that makeup is a tool of oppression, and that high heels murder your calves,
but when you see Christina Muñoz coming toward you, it'
s easy to forget everything you learned in social studies.

“Who said you could touch my iPod?”

“It's yours?”

“Uh,
yes
.”

“There was a guy
in the kitchen. He told me to
put this on.”

“You always do what people tell you?”

“No. But … the guy had cool glasses
.”

Christina laughed, but not in the way I'd hoped.
Not in a nice way. I don't think she got that it was a joke.

“His beard was pretty cool, too.
”

“Oh, I get it. You're high.”

We were
on track to set the record for Longest Con
versation Ever with Christina Muñoz. Sadly, it wasn't going well.

“Actually, I'm not, I was just—”

“Okay, well, no offense, but whatever you put on just now?
It sucked
.”

“Oh.”

“This what you were playing?” She grabbed the CD case out of my hand, squinted at it for a second, and then said, “
Ew!
” She jammed the case into my chest, pushed past me, and put her iPod back in charge of the music. She even scrolled back a couple songs, obviously to make sure we didn't miss anything.

“There, that's better.”

“Uh, Christina?”

She responded with a
How-do-you-know-my-name?
slash
Have-you-been-stalking-me?
face.

“For a couple years, didn't we go to the same junior high?” I asked this
like it had suddenly just occurred to me, and,
to add to the lameness of the question, I actually stuck
out my arm as if to shake hands. “Nice to see you again.”

Christina stared at my rigid palm like it was a disease. “You want to
shake my hand
?”

I went limp from the shoulder down. “No! I mean, we don't have to.”

“I know we don't.”

At this point, Devon Whitney came out of the kitchen, coolly inserting himself into the awkwardness of the conversation.

“Hey, babe,” he said (not to me). “What's going on?”

Babe
. Bold move.

“This guy put on, like,
music from hell
.”

Devon wagged his finger in my face. “Don't mess with a girl's music.”

Thanks, Devon.
Maybe you could've dropped that advice back in the kitchen. I was
just about to say something to this effect when Dev
on Whitney did something appalling. Something
horrifying
. He put his
arm around Christina's waist.

“'Specially my girl's. She's fierce!”

“Your girl?”

“We hooked up this week.” He
said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. He didn't ev
en bother to look at me as he spoke. He was gazing out through the big living
room windows, the ones overlooking the patio. “Anybody in the pool yet?”

Christina nodded. “A couple people.”

“Let's go, then. You brought your bikini, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Christina told him, smiling as bright as a holiday in the tropics. “My red one.”

21

Names with Z

So it turned out Devon Whitney was faster than me, both on and off the track. I didn't feel like moping back into the kitchen to tell Calen. So I decided to take a walk.

Out back, I deliberately igno
red the people splashing in the pool. Topher's pr
operty was massive. There were several
paths leading away from the patio. I chose one at random. It wound through a few curv
es between some hedges before leading to a small gazebo
. A dim light under a metal shade hung down from the center of the roof, giving off a gentle, smoky glow.

Someone sat alone on the bench. It was a girl in a red pleated ski
rt, high-laced boots, and a black camisole that showed off long, willowy arms. She had a book in her lap, so her head was cast down. Even so, I knew who she was by her hair: blonde, pink, and purple d
readlocks.

“I know you,” I blurted.

She looked up quickly, as if I'd startled her, and her e
yes hardened. She looked tense. “You think? From where?”

I wanted to answer, but I couldn'
t. I was too struck by her face. Her face was gorgeous. She wasn
't “hot,” not like the girl I had just lost
to Devon. This girl was more like
movie-star gorgeous, the kind of face you don't believe exists, not in real life, and certainly not
in a gazebo out behind Topher Briggs's house.
But here she was.

“
Hello?
” She waved her hand. “You slow or something?”

“Sorry, what was the question again?”

She sighed, but her body remained rigid. “From
where
? Where is it you think you know me from?”

I put one foot on the bottom step of the
gazebo. It creaked softly. I could see her face clearly now. Her skin was pale and her
lips were thick, curved down slightly
in the corners. It could have turned her face into a frown, or made it fish-like, but it did neither.
It was because of her eyes. You barely
noticed her mouth because her eyes were so
bright. They caught so much light, everything else went dim.

“I saw you.
I work at a laundromat on Steinway
. The Sit 'n' Spin. You walked past the window.”

She seemed relie
ved. “Oh, yeah, I know that place. I play across the street sometimes.”

“That's a crazy instr
ument you have.”

She nodded vaguely. I expected her to elaborate, but she didn't. “What is it with grass?”

“Grass?”

“I was just thinking about it. Like,
why
? Why grass?”

“Are you talking about marijuana?”

She laughed—she thr
ew her head back and let out one sharp whoop.
“
HA!
Grass? Where are we, 1972?
The least you could do is say
weed
. Or chronic. Ganja. Doobs. S
kunk, kif, boom.” The words sounded like sound effects in a video game. “Not even
my dad
says grass.”

She closed her book and pointed over the railing, to the shad
owy yard that stretched on foreve
r. “I mean
actual
grass.
It's boring
. Just look: you hav
e this big house, you have all this property, you
obviously
have shitloads of money
, and what do you do? You cover your prope
rty with the most boring plant in the world
.”
S
he took her beer off the railing and took a
long swallow. “If I had a lawn—which I do
n't—but if I did, I'd plant something good. Something
interesting
. You ever seen a shell flower?”

I shook my head.

“They have these really long stems, all cr
owded with leaves like little green seashells. They remind
me of the ocean—
and
they also happen to be good
luck.” She turned her shining eyes to me. “What would y
ou plant?”

“Never thought about it.” I took another step up the stairs. “But now that I
am, I guess you're right. Grass
is
kind of boring.”

“I hate
anything
boring.”

“Venus flytraps,” I said with a certain authority.

She smiled. “
Definitely
not boring.”

I was on the gazebo with her now. Her dreadlocks were tidier than
I expected. There was style and precision to them, as if they
were the work of a salon. Something about that surprised me.

“I like your hair,” I told her, maybe to explain why I was staring.

She took one
dyed-purple dread and held the tip in f
ront of her face. “I have a confession to make.”

“You do?”

“I know you too.”

“What do
you mean?”

“It was you who just tried to put
on some decent music for once. Wasn't it?”

“Wer
e you inside just now? I didn't see you.”

“I was by the
pool. I heard through the windows. I
love
Shain Cope.”

I nodded, trying once again to appear knowledgeable. “He's great.
”

She frowned. “Too bad the skank made you turn it off.”

I laughed.

“What's funny?”

“
The skank. She's sort of the reason I came tonight. My friend told me she was
single, and I thought—well, let's just say my friend was wr
ong.”

For a second she looked disappointed (or so
I hoped). Then she shrugged, turning back to the boring grass. “Guess I can see why you'd like her.”

With
her head turned, I could take in her profile. The sharp line of her jaw
, the smoothness of her forehead, the thin tendon that ran up the side of her neck.

“I'm not sure I do anymore,” I said.

“Because she's taken?”

“No. I think I finally realized … she's not for me.”

“Here's what I know,” she said, still gazing at the grass. “If you shaved that girl's head, she'd look
terrible
.”

“Please don't tell me you
scalp
people over their choice of music.”

She laughed. “No! I just think you can tell the most beautiful girls if you imagine them bald. If you can do that—and if they still look good—then y
es, they're the real deal.”

I tried to imagine Christina Muñoz without any hair. I couldn't.

“So … ” I said, not knowing where to go next. I thought about
her playing across the street. “Do you
know Dave Mizra?”

“Nope,” she said, shrugging. “I asked him if it was okay to play my rattler on that corner and he said it was cool.”

“Your rattler?”

“The rood rattler. That's what I call it.”

“What's so rude about it?”

She laughed. “Not rude as in ‘you forgot to say please.' I mean
rood
. R-o-o-d. It's a totally different word.”

“What does it mean?”

“You know the giant
cross they put up behind the altar in a church?
That's called a
rood
.”

“I'm not really religious.”

“Me neither
. I just think it's a cool name and it fits, you know? Rood rattler. Just because of the shape.”

A little pocket
of silence fell between us. I went right
up to the bench and leaned against the railing. Our legs were almost touching.

“Dave Mizra,” I said. “The guy who runs the jewelry shop—he's really into your music.”

When she heard this, she grinned. “He is?”

“He told me you were his angel.”

“Angel?” She laughed, but not like before. This time it was a quiet, nervous laugh. “Trust me, I'm nothing like an angel.”

You look like one to me
, I thought. Which—unfortunately—is when Calen came crashing up the path, clomping right up on the gazebo with us.

“
Kaz! Dude!
” he panted. “What're you doing out here? I looked everywhere! You
goootta
come see this!”

“I was sort of in the middle of a conversation?”

Calen's eyes shifted to the girl on the bench. I could see him trying to make sense of her, trying to figure out who she was. “You guys neighbors in Evandale or something?”

The girl shook her head. “We just met.”

“
Okay, well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is serious.” He grabbed hold of
my arm. “You have to come see this.
Like,
right now
.”

“See what?”

“Toph bet some guy a hundred bucks he could light a twelve-inch blue angel!”

I
looked at the girl on the bench. “That's
funny. We were just talking about angels.”

She rolled her
eyes at me, but in a nice way.
She was smiling. Calen didn't really care. “Are you coming or what?”

Still looking at the girl, I said, “You wanna?”

“Sure, why not.” She stood up and linked her arm in mine.

Calen's face went all twisted. “Sor
ry, Topher said no girls.”

Instantly, our arms came unhooked.

“I'll be right back,” I told her. “I'm Kaz, by the way.”

She looked at me intently. “Like K-A-Z?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I start where you stop.”

“What?”

“K-A-Z. All the best names have a
Z
in them.”

“You think?”

“Of course,” she said. “My name's Zoey.”