Romancing the Dark in the City of Light (12 page)

Kurt lights a cigarette, turns and heads down the path out of the park to the street. The guy stares after him. Kurt veers in Summer’s direction. She dashes behind a parked van.

Okay, maybe it’s just a friend.

He walks right past her, trailing cigarette smoke, back into the city streets. She leans against the side of the van and wills her breathing to slow.

A jarring screech of brakes and honking cars blares from the underpass. She springs back to the corner for a line of sight on the guy, but he’s gone.

Her feet are frozen to the asphalt. Heaviness that can only be rapid-forming ice climbs through her legs and trunk. She didn’t actually see it, but there was no place else to go. That guy had to have just stepped off the overpass. Because Kurt walked away from him? No, surely not, but something very weird is going on.

Even though she can’t feel her feet, she sprints past the brasserie to the boulevard and the taxi stand. She leaps into the first one. As they speed off in the winter evening toward the other side of town, flashing blue lights pass them going the other way, trailing that sound of French sirens,
weee-ooo, weee-ooo, weee-ooo.

TWENTY-FOUR

The apartment is dark and quiet when Summer gets back. Mom’s gone. In her room, Summer pours a tall vodka and gulps it down. The guy was there. He disappeared over a big commotion on the street, right below where he’d been standing two seconds before. And then sirens. There was nowhere else he could have gone, but down.

By choice.

“What is
wrong
with this city?” she bellows. “Why is everybody offing themselves?”

And Kurt was there.

Why has he been twice now near the scene of—She takes another deep quaff of vodka. He couldn’t have known that she would be at Les Halles. She didn’t know herself. It was random.

It was like she was drawn there. Pulled like a magnet.

Just stop.

She’s being ridiculous. Overactive imagination.

Everything’s fine.

While she’s at it she fills her flask and takes a few slugs. The alcohol burns, then soothes and unclenches her. Antifreeze.

There’s only a little left in the bottle so she bottoms up, too, for good luck. The vodka is helping. Her dear bosom friend, Wodka. She should make a documentary about it. Now she’ll settle down.

She goes in the bathroom to pee, and then afterward, checks herself in the full-length mirror in her room. Her skin looks kind of blue. She
is
a little thinner—are those not ribs?—same big butt. She startles when she hears a loud buzz.

Huh? The outside intercom. She jogs unevenly down the hall that’s tilting just a bit. Through the viewfinder she sees Moony. Yay! Oh, phlegm, she completely forgot he was coming for tutoring. She wouldn’t have drunk so much. Shit on a stick. But it’s wonderful he’s here. She can handle it.

She buzzes him in the building, then fumbles with the lock that’s all sticky, throws open the door and leans hard against the hall wall. Takes forever for the prehistoric iron cage elevator to arrive.

“So glad to seeeee you!” She throws her arms around Moony and kisses him moistly on each cheek.

Moony looks surprised, then says evenly, “You’re hammered.”

She starts to say something but burps instead. “’Scuse me.” It is hitting her kind of hard and fast, but she’s not so far gone that she’s not worried what Moony will think. ’Cause she really likes him. A lot! She giggles.

He blinks slowly. She takes a breath and says, “Noo, not that much.” She tries hard not to slur her words, but she feels them sliding out from between her teeth and tongue in misshapen, elongated ways. “Jusss a little. Shoulda had it in grape juice.” She’s consumed at least a quarter bottle of some funky Romanian vodka. All at once. Even for her that’s a lot. “Grape
fruit
juice.”

Moony sighs and puts his coat back on. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he says slowly and clearly.

“Nooooo.” She grabs him by the shirt. “Dohn leave. Please. Whooaa.” She loses her balance and crashes into him. “Sorry.” He helps right her, but he looks so grumpy.

“That Goth guy. Jumped off a the overpass.
Jumped,
Moony. I liiiike you so. Much. But I’m scared a … know whad I mean?” she says, throwing her arms around him. “How ’bout a hug?” He hugs her back, to her drunken surprise. He’s also trying to help hold her level.

They tilt, and then crumple to the floor. He winces.

“Ohhh shit. You okay?”

“Fine,” he coughs, but she realizes she’s glommed on to his weak arm and shoulder. She lets go and sprawls back onto the Persian carpet where it’s surprisingly comfortable.

“Some tea,” he says. He pulls himself up by holding on to the gilded marble console.

She tries in vain to focus on him. The foyer is tilting fully now, starting to spin. “Wish you coulda met my dad. I’m jus’ like him…”

He puts his hand on his hips and stares down at her. “Summer,” he says firmly. “Get up.” He gives her his left hand. “Hot tea.”

Her roiling stomach demands her attention. “Ohhhh. Notta hampy capper.”

“I need to go.”

“NOOO!” she bellows. About the only thing she can now focus on is that she doesn’t want him to leave. And that something is really wrong. “Pleeez staaay.” She rolls over and pushes herself to her hands and knees, but then crashes sideways to the floor. “Huh.” She tries again, then realizes molten vodka is coming up the pike. “Bleehhhh uhhh gonna be sick…”

And then she is. All over Mom’s precious carpet and the parquet floor.

“Wooo.” Still on her hands and knees, she holds still, to make sure nothing else is coming. There isn’t anything else. “Splashage,” she observes.

Moony appears with some paper towels and a dish towel. “I feel bedder,” she assures him, although it’s an exaggeration. “Moony, Moooony, no, dohn clean up I’ll do later. Ouaiba’ll help.”

Camus trots down the hall to sniff the barf, his nail tips tapping on the parquet floor. “Outta here,
rat
dog,” she yells. He shows his underbite and then retreats.

Meanwhile Moony spreads the paper towels over the mess and wipes her face. Then he holds out his good hand.

She takes it and he pulls up all her weight, throws his arm around her, and pushes her down the hall toward her room. “Where is Ouaiba?” he demands.

“Up stairs … six floor. Intercom thingy—” she says, pointing up.

He practically carries her into her room and plops her onto her bed. He takes her shoes off, then puts the metal waste basket beside her. He also puts her toothbrush glass full of water on the bedside table, but she doesn’t see that until she wakes up hours later.

Miraculously the mess is cleaned up when she staggers out of her room at 4:30
A.M
. Although that intricate, pale carpet will never be the same.

Summer feels like a giant dried dog turd with a mouth and stomach full of charcoal briquettes and a tight crown of barbed wire. She completely deserves the pain. Welcomes it. She knocked Moony down because she couldn’t stand up straight. Then she puked all over him. “Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid,” she mutters, her eyes and fists clenched tight. “Oh. My. God.” Why on earth did she pound down so much vodka? She of all people knows how to hold her liquor.

Despite the hour, she texts him:

My EXTREME bad. I’m so so sorry. Thanks for being such a good friend.

No reply.

She shuffles into the living room and grabs Mom’s vodka. She only needs a tiny bit. Hair of the dog and all that. She freezes. The floor in the hall creaked. Then she remembers Mom is gone. Whew.

The pounding in her temples is at a disco tempo, the sickness in her stomach is swelling. She closes her eyes. No. She’s got to stop this. She is so not in control of this party. As much as she’d like to think she is. She clanks the bottle down.

In the kitchen she opens a blue French sports drink, Allez Oop, and takes a few swigs. Then, head throbbing, she goes back and gets the bottle of vodka after all. This is an emergency. She measures in a modest half shot. She’s
hydrating
. She chugs half the sports drink and then pours in just a little more vodka. The alcohol enters her bloodstream fast, like a warm hug. She can breathe again.

A box of Doliprane sachets—French Tylenol powders—sits on Mom’s bathroom counter.. She dumps the flowers out of a small silver vase, pours in fresh water, two powders, and chugs.

She sits on the couch in the dark living room, looking out at the moon rising above the Eiffel Tower, and the other city lights. She could sit there for a long time.

Being still is best.

Camus
trip-trops
across the wood floor. He looks at her then jumps up onto the couch. She pats her lap. “Really? Come on, then, it’s okay. I won’t bite,” she says. “Long as you don’t.”

He jumps into her lap. Curls up, solid and warm. She strokes him, smiling at the fact that they could possibly be friends. He likes her better since she barfed.

They supposedly bring in lap dogs at old age homes to let the patients pet because it lowers their blood pressure. Carrying Camus, she gets her music and puts on earphones. The sweet low melodies and gospel backup singers of Kentucky Morris’s latest, “Itemize My Demise,” fill her brain.

Say you didn’t ask for this, turns out you did.

She closes her eyes and scratches Camus’s ears.

What does Camus think about being alive? A dog’s world has limits and as far as she knows, there’s no existential questioning, despite his name. And when you think about other creatures, like insects or viruses, it’s even more true. They don’t understand what’s beyond them. Could we explain the concept of near-death experiences or nuclear fission to a beetle? To Camus? But that doesn’t mean they don’t wonder. Or feel sad. Like Camus staring at the moon out the window. But he’s thinking,
What the heck is that? Something to eat?
He just wants to survive.

So what’s beyond human comprehension, and our five senses? Probably a lot. This isn’t all there is, right?

Sometimes it feels like Dad might be watching over her. At odd times, it’s like he just floated into the room. That would be cool, only he had a hard time watching out for her while he was alive so she’s not so sure it’s such a hot idea now.

The vast majority of humans believe,
feel,
that there is something beyond this life. Something greater than us.

They can’t
all
be stupid.

One thing’s for sure: Humans are not in control. They like to think so. Mom thinks that. But they aren’t.

Do any dogs ever
not
want to survive? A sick one maybe.

Maybe she’s sick. Something could be seriously wrong. She probably needs help.

She first got fixated on Pandora when she was twelve. Right after Dad died, come to think of it. That’s why she could relate to all that pain and evil Pandora let into the world. It was right where she lived. The spirit of hope—illustrated as a wispy little fairy trapped in the box—unsettled her deeply. At the time, it seemed like hope was left behind for humans as a sort of torture. To keep them suffering all those ills, and basically to prevent them from just giving up. It was so annoying.

It still is.

Kurt hugged that guy.

Oh my god,
she
hugged poor Moony and knocked them both to the floor. She winces.

Ha. It’s okay. He’ll forgive her.

Eyes closed, she drops her chin to her collarbone. No, he won’t. He knows you for what you truly are now. Just like Grace and Conner and Katie. Katie, back in ninth and tenth grade, was a straight shooter, an athlete, then redefined herself as Justin’s girlfriend. They lost touch when Summer got kicked out of Hockaday. She and her best bud Conner had a big blowup near the end of her career at Verde Valley. But Grace from senior year St. Judes was a lush, a slacker, and a traitor, and even she couldn’t handle Summer’s partying and whatever—unpredictability. For sure, now Moony’s had more than enough.

She blinks and gulps a swig of vodka to loosen the tightness in her throat. She has a sobering vision of it igniting and burning her head and neck from the inside out, like a wildfire. The icebergs will crush it out, though.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Yet more vodka, Summer? It’s for her extreme headache, but this has to stop.

Strangely, as she strokes the warm dog curled in her lap, the slightest hope flickers within.

There’s only one thing that really matters. She must do everything within her power to keep Moony’s friendship and respect.

Well, after last night, maybe just his friendship.

TWENTY-FIVE

Two hours later, it’s still Monday morning, and even though death by firing squad would be a welcome relief from this hangover, Summer showers, braids her hair, pulls on a sky-blue T-shirt under a blue-gray sweater that sets off her skin, puts on lip-gloss, drinks coffee, and calls a taxi to arrive at school on time. Her homeroom teacher does a double take when she sees her. Summer marches into first period English Lit and even though paying full attention is not an option, she sits ramrod straight and pretends to.

Then she rushes to Moony’s locker, sure he’ll stop by. She spots him down the hall, walking slowly with Jackie, his skinny, highlighted, bejeweled, French-Lebanese friend. In fact, he’s leaning sideways, listening attentively to Jackie-the-selfish-cow’s animated monologue.

Summer pulls herself into the science lab behind her, hides behind the door and strains to hear Jackie’s conversation. They move into her line of sight through the cracked door, and Jackie stands on her tiptoes to give Moony a tender kiss, for chrissakes. The two walk off in opposite directions.

Summer covers her face with her hands. She deserved to see that.

She trails Moony to Concert Choir, then, at the last moment, she ditches it. Bawk, bawk, bawk, she thinks. She also skips lunch as even the smell of food will likely make her toss her tortillas all over again. By the end of the day, she can barely walk or chew gum or form sentences she’s so depleted. But she gets on Moony’s bus and sits near the front. He’s already in back with a couple of soccer players and doesn’t seem to notice her.