My Tiki Girl (12 page)

Dahlia comes out of Leah’s room and sits down on the couch with me. She pulls out her pack of cigarettes and hands me one. She seems tired, preoccupied.

“Let’s finish up the dumb rock project,” I say. She seems to stare right through me, and I’m not sure she even heard what I said, but I don’t want to seem anal, so I don’t repeat myself.

“Tiki’s gonna make drinks.” She jumps up and heads back into the kitchen. When Tiki makes drinks, you never know what will be in them. She’s famous for her secret ingredients: orange marmalade, cinnamon, Tabasco. They’re usually frozen, frothy cocktails, heavy on the vodka and crushed ice, each one her own invention with names like Novocain Nightmare, Bloody Mary’s Revenge, or the Death of the Sugarplum Fairies. It’s alchemy the way she turns what’s in the fridge into potions that soothe, potions that make you want to put on grass skirts and dance until it’s way past time to go home. There’s no way the rocks will get done now and I should be worried or pissed off or something, but what I really am is all nerved up and jumpy, because the night is in Dahlia’s hands now and anything can happen next.

When she comes back out of the kitchen, she’s wearing a frilly apron with roses all over it. She’s got two tall glasses full of something white and foamy.

“Taste, LaSamba, taste. It’s a cure for ulcers. A cure for your LaSamba blues.”

I taste sweet bananas, the quiet burn of the vodka on the back of my throat.

“Bananas, milk, and Mrs. Butterworth’s,” she says before I have a chance to ask for the recipe.

She goes over to the shelves along the wall and thumbs through the stack of CDs. It’s Leah’s collection mostly—classic rock from the sixties and seventies. Anything from that point on is crap according to both Leah and Dahlia. In the eighties, Leah says, music lost its soul. Leah believes that songs have power and meaning and that there is music for every occasion.

“Songs are portals,” Leah is always saying, and I don’t exactly get what she means, but I know a portal is a doorway. Maybe what she’s saying is that music can take you places if you let it.

Dahlia chooses a CD and puts it on. It’s her favorite:
The Doors.
Their first album. She puts on “Soul Kitchen,” turning it up just a little, not wanting to bother Leah. She steps back and dances in front of the stereo, still not turning around, the banana drink in her left hand. “Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen,” sings Jim Morrison. Dahlia is dancing, swaying really, and when she turns around, I see her eyes are closed. She’s someplace else. She’s Tiki drinking a magic elixir that she blended up in her own soul kitchen.

“Dance with me, LaSamba,” she calls, opening her eyes, and I hesitate, nervous that if I get too close to her, she’ll somehow know how I feel. I take a few quick gulps of my drink and start to back away, but then she reaches for me, her fingertips touching mine, and I can’t refuse. She pulls me in front of her and we dance a slow snake dance, my body following hers. It’s the dance of banana cocktails with Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup. It’s a milky dance, slow and smooth. I think that maybe if I follow her, if I mimic her movements, I might learn grace. I might be more beautiful. This limp just might go away. But really what happens is that I nervously spill my drink, stumble a little, don’t dare to move with my eyes closed the way Tiki does. I feel like I’m falling more than dancing. The song is over now, and Dahlia moves to the stereo and hits the button to play it again. She goes through phases like this, where only one song will do.

I take several more swallows of my drink. It warms my whole body, makes me feel like I’m glowing from the inside, lit up like a jack-o’-lantern with a stupid grin.

“I light another cigarette/Learn to forget, learn to forget,” Jim Morrison sings, and I dare to close my eyes this time around. I’m moving, listening, learning to forget. God, it’s a game I’m good at. Forget your other life. Forget how you were Dorothy strapped into the front seat of your mother’s blue Volvo.

Oh shit. I forgot Toto.

I’m sipping what’s left of my drink and forgetting. I’m forgetting all about Troy Farnham. Forgetting the way Leah looked so defeated this afternoon, unwashed in her dingy robe. Forgetting our unfinished Earth Science project. I’m finishing my drink, thinking only of bananas. Tropical things. I’m on a beach with Tiki the hula dancer. We’re both tan and beautiful. The sun is setting and the waves are crashing all around us.

I dance until I’ve forgotten everything but Dahlia, who is pressing her body against mine, driving every spare thought away.

Why is she dancing so close? Is she just messing with me, or does she feel it, too? Her stomach and chest seem to radiate heat, and I’m thinking about those people who burst into flames and seconds later, all that’s left is a pile of ashes. Spontaneous human combustion. I’m thinking it could be like that for me here now, that I might ignite at any minute and go up in a puff of smoke, leaving only ashes, and some screws and the metal rod holding my shinbone together.

And then, just when I think I can’t take any more, that the moment of ignition is upon me, she pulls away.

Dahlia lets the CD go and sits down on the couch, where she concentrates on her drink, ignoring me. She drains it, gets up, goes to the kitchen, and pours herself another. She comes back without the apron and sits down beside me on the couch. She’s through being Tiki for now, and I know we’re all done dancing. But the aura of the dance is still hanging over me, making me giddy and stupid. The vodka isn’t exactly helping.

“Remember before Jonah came home, when you read my tea leaves?” I ask, blurting out the words fast before I have the chance to change my mind.

“Yup.” She doesn’t look up from her drink.

“I was wondering if you knew who it is I’m supposed to fall in love with.” I look away as I ask it, terrified of how she might answer.

“I don’t know,” she says, then eyes me, smiling this adorable coy little smile. “Who do
you
think LaSamba could love?”

Then she does it again, traces her fingers over my cheek, and in my head, I’m screaming,
Tiki! LaSamba loves Tiki!
and I want to kiss her so bad it hurts. For just one second, our eyes are locked, and I’m thinking I’m actually going to do it. I’m thinking she actually wants me to. That’s what her eyes are telling mine.

But what if I’m wrong?

“I don’t know. No one. LaSamba won’t love anyone,” I lie, pulling away from her.

“Maybe LaSamba will love the little smiling dog,” Dahlia says, inching over to her side of the couch.

My heart sinks. She doesn’t know me at all.

“Maybe Tiki will,” I say, sounding more pissed off than I meant to.

“It wasn’t Tiki’s fortune,” she says. “Tiki doesn’t fall in love. LaSamba does.”

I take this in for a moment. I think maybe she’s right. Maybe Tiki doesn’t ever fall in love. Tiki is smarter than that. Above it somehow. Tiki has other concerns, like finding just the right combinations for the blender.

LaSamba is a fool to even hope otherwise.

I look at my watch, see it’s nearly 9:30, and know my father will call soon if I don’t hurry home. I say good-bye, leaving Dahlia to her drink, the unfinished rock collection, the dim crackle of Leah’s radio, and the splashing of a wizard in the tub.

The walk home takes fifteen minutes. I can see my breath and I’m feeling a little drunk, worried that my father might be able to tell, even though Dahlia swears that no one can smell vodka on you. Instead of worrying about my father, I think about being with Tiki on the beach, and I manage to convince myself that just for a few minutes, she felt something, too. And that she really did want me to kiss her. Before I know it, I’m dancing, I mean actually spinning and gliding down the street, remembering the way her body felt pressed up against mine, and it doesn’t matter that I might get busted for drinking, get an F from No-Neck Knapp, or that we’re going to Troy Farnham’s house Saturday. I’m doing the banana-and-Mrs.-Butterworth’s-island dance, the LaSamba-is-in-love-with-Tiki dance, and I’m just floating. For the first time in nearly two years, my leg doesn’t hurt at all.

12

Dahlia’s mixed up
a big batch of fake blood and I’m spreading it all over her chest, down the front of her black dress. Her hair is teased into snarls, and she wears white pancake makeup with thick streaks of black eyeliner.

She’s broken off the tip of a kitchen knife, stuck what’s left of the blade through the fabric of her dress, and held it in place with hidden cardboard and duct tape. The handle sticks out, so it looks like the knife’s buried deep in her chest.

“More blood,” she’s saying, and I’m squeezing the corn syrup and food coloring out of a plastic bottle, watching it drip over her bare chest above the V-shaped neckline of her dress and down between her breasts, my breath catching a little.

I take a deep breath, make myself think of something else. Rocks. I’m thinking of our unfinished rock collection that should have been turned in today but wasn’t. Of me having to explain to No-Neck Knapp with his dandruff that we’d hand it in Monday. He didn’t ask for any explanations. He just smiled this weird, sleazy kind of smile and said that would be fine and he looked forward to getting it. He actually said that.
I’ll look forward to it, Maggie.

“Suck-up,” Dahlia had whispered when I got back to my desk. I shot her a look that said we wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for her. I mean, if she’d help out just a little instead of distracting me with drinks, dancing, and the String Man, the project would be done.

Another big thing happened at school today: I learned what that kid Joey is making back in his corner. I watched today as he stretched a piece of leather over one end of the carved log and started tacking it on with these little brass nails.

A drum!

He’s making a drum!

I had to go over for a closer look—which, of course, got me a whole chorus of whispers and giggles, especially from Heather, who started singing, “
Maggie and Joey up in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
”

Very original and mature.

I told Dahlia about the drum when I saw her later at lunch.

“It’s like a conga drum or something,” I said excitedly. “It’s got this totally tribal feel.”

Dahlia just nodded.

“Maybe we can ask him to be in our band,” I said.

“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. My heart did that familiar sinking thing it does whenever she shoots me down.

“But it’s a beautiful drum,” I told her. “He’s carved all these crazy animals into it. You’ve gotta see it.”

“I don’t even think the kid knows how to talk,” Dahlia said.

“But he doesn’t need to talk to join,” I told her. “He just needs to play.”

“I doubt he can even do that.”

“But how can you say that when you haven’t even given him a chance? It’s totally unfair!” For the first time, I was actually kind of mad at her. “You’re going to let Troy Farnham try out, and believe me, if he joins you’re going to be wishing he didn’t talk.”

Dahlia narrowed her eyes and smiled at me. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’ve actually got a thing for the Little Drummer Boy?”

“No!” How could she think that? Wasn’t it painfully obvious who I had the thing for?

“Forget it, Maggie. We don’t need a drummer anyway,” she said, and that was it. Case closed. It was clear who had all the power in our relationship. But wasn’t I the one who gave it to her?

Now I watch how the corn syrup concoction spills out over Dahlia’s neckline, running down the black fabric of the Dead Aunt Mary dress and onto the linoleum floor. We’re standing in a pool of blood, creating our own kitchen massacre.

“MORE BLOOD! MORE BLOOD! MORE BLOOD!” chants Jonah as he ducks in for a closer look.

Jonah’s in an absolute frenzy, running circles around us in the kitchen, so excited that it’s Halloween, that he gets to wear his blue wizard hat all night.

“Tiki, LaSamba, Zamboni! It’s time!” calls Leah. She’s been in her room all evening, preparing her own costume, with a pitcher of margaritas to help battle the psychic attack. We all race to her, leaving a trail of fake blood, when she calls. It’s dark; only the lamp by her bed is turned on, and there’s a black silk scarf draped over it. She’s burning incense. The room smells of cigarettes, tequila, and patchouli.

Leah is headless. She is wearing an old-fashioned dark purple dress with a very high collar. The dress has big, square football-player shoulders that come up above Leah’s head. She peeks out through a slit between pearly buttons just beneath the starched collar. The worst part of the costume is this: she’s carrying her head in her hands. It’s the head of a mannequin with bleached blond hair cut just the way Leah’s is. Leah clutches a fistful of hair and holds the head swinging at her side, the painted-on blue eyes staring out at us.

“Now it’s true, my scary monsters, I really have lost my head.” Her voice is cheerful, but muffled.

“Jumping catfish!” is all Dahlia can say.

“I don’t like it,” says Jonah. “I don’t like it one bit.”

“You’re not supposed to like it, duckling,” Leah says. “It’s a Halloween costume. It’s supposed to be scary.”