Shining Sea (18 page)

INQUISITION

Dad is in front of the TV when I get home, watching some show about boats. For a minute, it seems like he’s forgotten all about the “face-to-face” talk he wanted to have, and I’m relieved. My head is leaden—my pulse, like a caged thing. How can I talk to anyone?

But then he says, “There’s steak and salad,” and heads into the kitchen. So I do too.

The aftershocks of the strange afternoon still rocking though me, I get out a plate and some silverware. Dad takes a beer from the fridge.

“Well? Let’s hear it. What happened to the truck?” He sits down at the table.

“I—borrowed it.”

“So I gathered.”

“I went to the museum,” I say, taking the steak and salad out of the fridge. “That old house, the Wayside. Coming home, I’m not exactly sure, but . . . I think a stone hit the window.”

“Did you fall asleep?” He gives me a hard look. He knows I’m leaving something out.

“Um, maybe?” I grimace. “I’m okay, though,” I add, hoping that might be enough.

“Apparently. Where’ve you been? Didn’t you get my note?”

Where have I been? To heaven. To hell. Is that love?

“I was with Bo. We went to Seal Cove after school.” I sit down.

“After school.” Dad runs a hand over his face. “That was a while ago. Bo Summers?”

I nod.

“But last night you were out with—?”

“Logan.” My cheeks grow warm.

“That’s what I heard. Sounds like it’s not a very good time to get grounded.”

“Not really.”

“You know, the truck isn’t for joyriding. You’re going to have to pay for that window.”

“I said I would.”

“Yes, you did.” He laces his fingers together, rests his hands on the table.

“Dad, I’m sorry about the truck. I shouldn’t have taken it. But do you think you can just forgive me? I’ll pay for the window, and, well, maybe, can I be grounded some other time?”

“Some other time.”

“Right.”

“And what ‘other time’ did you have in mind?”

“Um . . . I haven’t really thought that through yet. Maybe, sometime soon?”

“Sometime soon as in, when you’re not dating two guys?”

“Dad!”

Guess he figures that little jibe is punishment enough, or maybe he’s just glad I’m not hurt, or that I finally have a social life. He takes a sip of beer. “Sometime soon. Guess we can make that work. Now tell me, what happened to the note I left for you this morning?”

“Oh. Did you leave a note? For me?” Lying to him is impossible.

He squeezes the bridge of his nose. Then he gives me another hard look. “Okay. You’re officially not grounded. But you owe me one. And tell me where you need to go. I’ll give you a ride. Hopefully, the Cherokee will be fixed soon, or, I don’t know. I’ll look around. I’ll take you to school tomorrow, though, all right?”

“Sure, okay. Great. Thanks. A lot. And sorry about the truck, really, I’m sorry.”

“You can stop being sorry. It’s fixed. I’ll send you the bill.”

Dad gets up and leaves the kitchen, presumably going back to his boat show.

“Logan phoned,” he hollers a moment later from the living room.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

He pokes his head around the doorframe. “Heard you two tried the new sushi place.”

“Uh-huh, we did.” I try to give my voice the kind of tone a parent reading to a child gives the final words of a bedtime story:
The End.

Dad mumbles something about teenagers and then retreats across the hall.

INTERVENTION

Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. I don’t hear from Bo. And I’m glad. I
am.

I’m also sick. Literally. Friday, I stay home with a fever.

But I’m sick in some other way too—because I can’t stop thinking about him. Specifically, I can’t stop thinking of the split-second crush of his lips against mine. There was something true about it, something more real than his fantastical wings.

He’d talked about love. Told me his secrets.
Why hasn’t he called?

On the weekend, I lie in bed, burning up, tossing and turning, waving away Dad’s good intentions. I can’t stop touching the shell that sits on my bedside table. I pick it up. Put it down. Marvel at its royal-purple edges. Wonder what I did with the pink pearl of a pebble I’d placed in its smooth white center just after Bo gave it to me. I swear I put both in the pocket of my jeans.

It’s only after I throw up for the second time on Saturday night that I think of Lilah. The way I’m hunched over the toilet—it suddenly reminds me of her, hunched over the Moleskine.

I am waiting.

Not hearing from Bo acts as a trigger, and I feel the bite of the black-eyed dog that Nick Drake sang about so beautifully. But I fight it—I do. I listen to music. Finish my homework.

I’m almost afraid of what might come out if I pick up my guitar, so I open a book instead.

But none of my favorite characters have anything on me. No great novel, no trashy romance, no story I’ve ever read has prepared me for feelings like these. My heart feels squeezed—my gut, raw. I can pretend I’m not thinking of Bo—but that’s all it is. Pretending.

And Logan? He’s on it—on me. Looking suspiciously at me on Monday when I manage to keep down a little food and make it back to school. Offering me a ride on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, joking and trying his best to cheer me up on Thursday.

Finally, Friday, he’s in my face. “I don’t get it,” he says as I stare unseeingly out the cafeteria windows. “Last week you looked like you won a jackpot or something, but did you share the money? No.” He waves a fork. “Fine. Keep the cash. But quit hiding in the library at lunch. Mary and I both know you’re freaking out about something, so just tell us what it is.”

Mary’s sitting with us at the table, being careful not to comment. This week has been complete torture, and I appreciate her silence hugely. Dad gave me a ride every day, and that was hard, but it was easier than going with her or Logan. I’ve been afraid to talk to either one of them about what was—or wasn’t—going on between Bo and me, worried that I’d start crying, or begin babbling about Bo’s voice, or worse, his wings.

Logan’s going off again: “So today, Miss Rush, Mary and I decided we should perform a little family intervention.”

“He means
friendly
intervention. As in, we’re you’re friends.”

“Whatever. You need to talk to us.” Logan reaches across the table—and with a gentleness that surprises me, brings a finger beneath my chin, lifting it until I look at him.

If there’s a jackpot anywhere, his smile is it, but below his pale eyes, his skin is smudged with shadows, and one cheekbone wears a plum-colored bruise. The idea of someone hitting him makes my stomach tighten—I want to know what happened, who did this to him. But I don’t want to encourage any more questions. I jerk away from his touch.

Mary takes a bite of her burger, appearing nonchalant, but as she puts it down, her hands aren’t quite steady. And it’s this, Mary’s trembling, that makes me realize how selfish I’m being. She watched Logan plunge into the depths of despair after Nick died. I don’t want her to worry about me too. Same goes for Logan. It’s not fair.

“It’s—” A sudden pain pulses at my temples and I wince. “Bo.”

“I knew it!” Logan slaps a palm down hard on the tabletop. “I told you, he—man, I’d like to get that guy in a headlock. What did he do?”

“Logan, take it easy,” Mary says. She looks past him to where her Kevin’s walking toward us with a full tray. The other two Kevins are right behind him.

“Mary’s right, Logan. You don’t have to—” The pain comes again.

“Yeah, I do! Like I’m gonna watch you walk down a dark alley and not say anything? Tell me, what did he do? Did he—”

“He didn’t
do
anything.” My head aches. I want to lie down. “It’s what he didn’t do.”

Logan looks genuinely puzzled, but Mary—despite the cacophony of the Kevins as they sit down around us with a clatter of trays—gets it. She squeezes my thigh under the table.

The arrival of the Kevins means the end of our lunch period. Mary kisses Kevin and gathers her things.

“Ready?” she asks me.

My headache is slowly subsiding, but my pulse is fluttering fitfully. Still, I nod, then for good measure—yank Logan’s hair.

“What?”

“Walk with us?”

He blows out a breath. “Sure.”

On the way to class I tell the two of them about the club I came across. “You know about it?”

Mary shakes her head. Logan says, “Never heard of it. Must be new.”

“Actually, it’s old. It used to be called Pine Lodge. Then it was nothing, closed. The new owners are from New York. I looked it up online. Two Portland bands are playing this weekend, and a couple national acts are booked for next month. Wrist, and . . . Sugarcoat, I think. And Favorite Way to Die.”

“Favorite Way to Die? Really? They’re pretty hardcore.” Logan purses his lips. Then he says, “My brother was into them.” The three of us walk in silence for a minute or two.

“Sunday’s open mic night,” I say. “I—I think I’m feeling better, you know? I think I want to go. It’s random draw, but if you get picked, they let you play a short set, not just one tune—which really only gives you time to suck. Not that a set can’t be a train wreck, but at least you have time to redeem yourself.”

“Ah. So that’s why we haven’t heard you play.”

“
Pff.
What are you talking about?”

“Hey, I’m not going to say it if you aren’t. Don’t want to give it any power, right?”

“Give what any power?” Mary asks.

Logan mouths the words:
Stage fright.

“I do not have stage fright.”
I have real things to be afraid of.
“And what do you know about performance anxiety, hmm?”

“Not a thing, Rush. Come over today. I’ll show you just how little I know about that—”

“Logan plays drums,” Mary says, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Played,” he corrects, tapping out a quick rhythm pattern on her shoulder.

“You’re a drummer? How come you never told me? Although, it makes total sense.”

“Really. And why’s that?”

“Duh,” Mary says. “She knows you love music—”

“Actually, I was referring to the fact that he likes to hit things.”

“You kill me, Rush. Shoot me the link, will you? You need a ride, or just a roadie?” He slants a salacious look down at me. “Or a groupie?”

“All of the above,” I surprise myself by saying.

Logan grabs me around the waist.

Mary rolls her eyes. “You two. When’s it gonna happen? Look, I’m taking Arion early, so she can scope the place out.” She jabs a finger at Logan. “You—get to carry her stuff.”

CLUBBING

“Does this place have food?” Logan asks as we stand outside the club.

“Don’t know,” I say, shifting my guitar case from one hand to the other.

“Just wondering if I’m going to be eating my dinner or drinking it.”

I look Logan over. He’s tall, maybe he won’t get carded, but Mary and I will. Luckily, we both have fake IDs.

“Man of many talents,” Logan said with a shrug as he gave them to us earlier.

He opens the door and the three of us step into a dark, crowded entryway. Immediately, my ears start ringing, but the song thudding against my chest makes me grin.

“One of your favorites, huh?” Logan asks, eyeing my hips, which have started swaying slightly all on their own. I nod happily.

There’s a knot of people in front of us arguing with a guy who’s standing with his arms crossed. He’s wearing the coolest shirt—twining lines of color, like a curling road map—and is obviously the bouncer, because now he tells the group that the club is filled to capacity.

One of the boys argues that they’ve driven from Portland. “C’mon! You gotta let us in—”

The bouncer takes a step closer to the boy.

The group leaves.

About to tell Mary and Logan that we don’t have a chance, that we should go too, my eyes snag on the crowd beyond the bouncer. Waitresses wearing identical short puffed black skirts with black tights are everywhere. Most of them have dark hair. Chestnut brown. Inky black. But no matter the color, the style is the same: every girl has her hair piled up in a beehive. But weirder than that—

“What the heck,” Mary says, following my gaze. “Would you call those, like, fur
accessories
?” Every waitress is wearing bits of fur: fur collars, fur cuffs, fur
anklets
. All of it is a rich-brown color—it might be mink, but I don’t know. It looks real, though. Then there are the waiters, just a few, dressed all in black, and sporting tall turbans, or top hats. One waiter is wearing a toque. “He could be the chef,” Mary says, like she’s hoping such a good-looking guy has an excuse to wear such a bizarre-looking hat.

More people arrive, squeezing in behind us, and Logan says something to the bouncer, who, I realize now, isn’t wearing a shirt at all, but is bare from the waist up, his skin covered with tattoos. Mr. Tattoo shakes his head.

“But we’re locals,” Logan says, his mouth set in an impatient line. He and Mary both turn to me and say something at the same time.

“What?” I shout over the music pouring from the club.

“He says he can’t let us in.”

“Why, we don’t have the right clothes?” I nod toward two girls with super high beehives and fur-trimmed poodle skirts who’ve just appeared from behind the doorman. One of the girls is unnaturally pale and leans heavily on the other as they push past us, heading outside.

“Wasted,” Mary says, looking after the girls.

But I’m the one who stumbles suddenly as the crowd shoves me from behind.

“Whoa.” The bouncer catches my elbow—and I catch my breath. His tattoos—they seem to shift, writhing before my eyes. When I look up into his face, I find he’s staring at me too. The entryway seems to spin as my ears fill with dark music that’s definitely not coming from the speakers inside the club.

His voice too, is music, as he asks, “You here for the open mic?”

“Let them in, will you?” This voice is soft, but has an edge that cuts through the music and the noise of the crowd like a shark through water.

My stomach plunges.
Bo.

“Friends of yours?” asks the bouncer.

“Close enough.”

Mr. Tattoo grabs my hand and slaps a gold plastic band on my wrist. Blinking, I squint at the wristband. Although the bouncer has let go of my hand, I haven’t quite claimed it, and it floats at the end of my arm, hovering between us.

The bouncer looks amused. Bo does not. Logan really does not, and Mary just looks as confused as I feel.

“C’mon,” Logan says. “Let’s go in.”

But I don’t move, just look back and forth between Bo and the bouncer, then down to my wrist, where letters seem to undulate across the band until finally, they come into focus.

HIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVEHIVE

There are more words, but I can’t quite make out what they—

Logan snatches my hand, lightly twisting my arm until a blush spreads up my neck as I read the words that had been upside down.
MINOR—N
O
S
ERVICE
. He pulls me into the throng where Bo vanishes as suddenly as he appeared. Mentally, I probe my emotions the way someone might touch a bruise to see if it still hurts. It does. And my head feels . . . cloudy. As if I’d just gained a little extra space in there but it’s filled up with undesirable weather.

“Maybe you need to get one of those.” Logan nods to a door on our right with a neon sign above it that reads,
TATTOOS
. “Since you suddenly seem so enamored with them. Plus, those sharp needles might wake you up enough to, you know, hop out of that rabbit hole Summers just knocked you down. How’d he know about tonight? You told him, didn’t you? I should’ve known you would.”

Watching the waitresses hurrying back and forth, I shake my head. “I didn’t.” They’re very attentive to each customer and very . . . beautiful. In fact, everyone in the club is beautiful, and . . . vibrant. There’s a buzz about the place, about the people here. Maybe this is why the club’s called Hive.

A waitress passes wearing a fur choker and Logan glances at the deep V of her neckline. Mary shoves him. I refrain from rolling my eyes, continue looking around.

The walls are black, striped here and there with the same cyber yellow that trims the outside of the club. The ceiling is gold. The floor, littered with glitter and flower petals. Everything shines, including the song that plays now, a pop confection that pulses through the club, luring quite a few people onto the dance floor. There, poodle skirts and beehives give way to T-shirts and torn jeans, combat boots and piercings. Fishnets, flannel, bare chests, loaded smiles, and enough black eyeliner for everyone.

People stand three deep at the bar, a polished slab of wood that runs along one side of the room. It looks like someone has cut down one of the grand evergreens, split it, and sealed it. Despite the high-gloss finish on the bar, the whole place reeks of pine. I inhale deeply—the air smells fresh, even though there has to be a couple hundred people in this front room alone. Where did they all come from?

Opposite the bar, a stage is set for a full band. So where do they hold the open mic?

I find out when one of the fur-studded waitresses beckons us to a second room and gestures to the only table that isn’t taken. Here, the stage is smaller, backed into a corner.

The room is packed with musicians; they easily outnumber the audience. The majority of them appear to be guitarists—who are probably also singers—although there are a couple of people with hand drums, and one boy who’s struggling to set up a synthesizer onstage while his friend plays around with a laptop. A girl who’d been at the back of the room a minute ago talking to the guy behind the soundboard is passing a bucket around.

Logan leans back in his chair, hands linked behind his head. A poorly angled ceiling spot above the next table shines straight into his light eyes, and they glint as he studies me.

“Better put your name in the hat.”

“There are so many people here,” Mary says, looking around. “Are you nervous?”

“No, but—”

A burst of applause comes from behind a closed door just beyond our table. Apparently the club has a third room where a private party is going on. Now the door opens and Bo comes through, carrying four champagne glasses. His cheeks are hectic with color, and he’s smiling uncharacteristically.

“Ever been here before?” Bo asks Logan as he puts down the drinks, pulls up a chair.

“That the best line you’ve got?”

Bo lifts a glass. “Touché.” He hasn’t even said hello to me, though now he nods at the guitar case and asks, “Are you going to play?” He’s wearing a black T-shirt that hugs the contours of his chest, and when he speaks, the desire to put my hands on him stuns me into silence for a second.

“Hope so,” I say just long enough after he asked to make the moment completely awkward. Choosing a glass, I take a sip of the slightly cloudy amber liquid, mostly so I won’t reach over and touch him. The drink is delicious, tastes like honey, and melons. “What is this?”

“Hive’s Honeywater,” he says. “Specialty of the house.”

“It’s great,” Mary agrees. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Bo replies.

Logan makes a disparaging sound. “Whatever, let’s get to the important shit. Why is this place such a twisted retro nightmare? What’s with the hair and the hats?” He empties his glass and waves at one of the waitresses.

Marveling at the height of her hair, I unlatch the guitar case and pull out my Martin, walking my fingers through a few chord progressions and a couple of scales. Not that I can hear anything over the punk anthem that blares from the speakers now, but it feels good. At least my hands will be ready.

The waitress comes by and takes Logan’s order. Glancing at Bo, he pushes some bills into her hand, then picks up the square of paper she’s left on the table and passes it to me.

“What’s your lucky number, Rush?”

Flipping it over, I suck in a breath. Bo’s gaze turns hard.

“One.”

Mary hoots. “Yes! Because, man, there’s no way I want to hang out here all night.”

“Drink your Honeywater,” Logan says to her, raising his glass in an exaggerated imitation of Bo’s earlier gesture. “It’ll make you feel like you’re part of the freak show.”

But Hive doesn’t feel like a freak show to me. With the Martin in my hands, I feel almost fine. An atmospheric song—all keyboard pads and soft vocals—floats through the speakers. The sound guy gets up onstage, adjusting cables, setting up a mic stand.

My hands are warmed up. In a minute I’ll be singing. The hard part is over.

Continuing to run my fingers over the fret board, I watch Bo get up and move to the back of the room. Inside, a sharp little knife comes to rest at the top of my rib cage. The way he’s acting, it’s like he doesn’t even know me. Like he doesn’t
want
to know me. The two of us, standing together in the ocean, communicating telepathically . . . it’s like it never happened.

Mary gives me a sympathetic look. I shrug. It’s better this way.

The atmospheric song fades away until the only sound is the clinking of glasses and the whispering voices of waiting musicians.

Somebody closes the door to the front room of the club and the lights go down.

Two warm spots light the stage, then a low voice comes through the speakers.

“Good evening. Welcome to Hive . . .”