She shushes me with a finger to my lips.
Vauxhall tastes of coconut.
On our way to the theater she fills me in on who we’re meeting.
She tells me I’ll love them, Clyde and Ambrosia, and that they’re from her other school, the one she ran away from. And Vauxhall tells me that Clyde is really into the occult. She says, “You two will really hit it off.”
“Sounds like someone I know.”
Clyde is five inches taller than me and has hair all the way down to his ass, slick like a horse’s tail. He’s super friendly and Vauxhall was right, within minutes the two of us are laughing loudly about palm readers and pyramids. Ambrosia looks like her name, all long curls, narrow Eurasian eyes, and a nose ring. She talks slowly like she’s drugged and touches my elbow or arm or shoulder every time she speaks.
Both of them smile big at me. Clyde even gives me a hug.
He says, “Been a while, dude.”
“-”
“Right?” Clyde screwing up his face.
The way I look at them gives them pause. Clyde shrugs to Ambrosia. Ambrosia shrugs back, this their little private language, and then we head into the theater. I overhear Clyde whispering, “Looks just like that one guy, doesn’t he?”
Before we sit down, Vauxhall tells me she saw this movie the first time with Ambrosia. She tells me they were both really toasted. “Ambrosia was freaking out about it for like a month,” she says.
Clyde says, “First time I saw it I freaked too.”
I ask if I’m the only one who hasn’t seen this more than once and Vauxhall pats my head and tells me that it’s okay. She tells me that it was a rite of passage for them. She says, “You’re lucky to be seeing it for the first time. I wish I could see it over again like that.”
“Hope I’m impressed,” I say, and then the lights go dim. I lean over and ask Vauxhall if I know these two. Like, “Have I ever met them before? They’re acting like I have.”
She says, “I’m guessing they’re just stoned.”
The movie has something to do with a bookstore owner and a gangster. The bookworm is having an affair with the gangster’s bruised wife and there’s a chef. The whole thing is very arty and colorful but gruesome as well and I’m pretty sure one of the main characters is eaten. I don’t really watch the movie because I’m too busy watching Vauxhall watch it.
Every time there is a scene shift and a flash on screen, as the light changes, in that brief moment I watch Vaux smile or frown or look concerned. She’s seen this movie before, but you’d never guess that from her expressions.
Twice she catches me watching her.
Twice she smiles and blinks and grabs my hand and squeezes it hard.
After the movie we sneak up onto the roof of the theater where we can lie down on the pea gravel and watch the moon spin toward the mountains. Vauxhall and Ambrosia talk about the movie (Vauxhalclass="underline" “If only Gaultier designed costumes for all movies.” And Ambrosia: “Wait until you see his baby movie.”) while Clyde grills me on the whole divination scene.
He lets me know he met my ex once. Says Belle came on to him. Says, “She’s crazy.” And then he props himself up over me like he’s going to try and kiss me and whispers, “She’s kind of hot too, though. In that crazy kind of way, you know?”
I mention to him that Belle and I dated. That she’s crazier than he knows.
Clyde nods and lies back, chew it over, and then asks, “Tell me about seeing the future? You do that with psychedelics or some combo of designer stuff?”
“Who told you that?”
“Only everyone, dude.”
“And you believe-”
He jumps in. “Cut the crap. Just tell me how.”
“Just hit my head is all.”
“Must be hardcore side effects.”
“I guess.”
Clyde laughs, this chest-deep hearty grandfatherly laugh, and then he’s like, “Dude, I met you at a party last summer. We totally talked for like two hours. I can’t believe you don’t remember any of that. You told me all about your head injury vision thing. Seriously, dude, you don’t remember that at all?”
I explain that I don’t. It’s true. Sitting up and looking closely at Clyde, there’s nothing remotely familiar about him. And what’s odd about it is that he’s an instantly memorable character. Someone you would never forget. Ever.
Slapping me on the back, Clyde says, “Concussions. Can’t be good, dude.”
We go to Watson’s, this ice-cream parlor/soda fountain place that’s supposed to be like something in the 1950s. Vauxhall shares a float with me. The two of us like the dogs in that Disney cartoon drinking from the same frosty mug. She laughs so loudly that it startles me when she does. We laugh so much that by the time we say bye to Clyde and Ambrosia, my sides are aching and my throat is dry.
I drive to Wash Park and we walk around the lake. There are other people out even though the moon has vanished. Near the playground we sit on a bench and Vauxhall asks me about why she was in my vision. She says, “Tell me why you think it was me?”
“Destiny? Fate?”
“You believe in those things?”
Ducks spin lazily in the lake. Bats dart above us. Cars backfire.
“Not really. You?”
Vaux mumbles something. Her face smooth like it’s under filigree.
She asks me if I’m disappointed.
“With?”
“Me. Two years you’ve been waiting and here I am. Me, not your dream girl.”
“You’re even more amazing than I imagined.”
“And?”
I shrug. “What else?”
She reads my sincerity, smiles. “Nothing. Give me a hug.”
And what’s crazy is that all we do is hug.
It’s brief, but just having Vauxhall’s body that close to mine is exhilarating. Feeling the warmth of her, the shape of her, pressed against most of me, I never want the moment to end.
Vauxhall says, “It’s so private. The most private thing.”
I realize she’s talking about the other guys. All the other guys.
“You love any of them?” I ask.
Vauxhall shakes her head. “In some way. That bad?”
“No. I don’t-”
“It’s the stories inside them. Each and every one has something hidden, something like a tumor inside them that’s eating them alive only they don’t know it. Me, I find that tumor, I bring it to light. I change their lives. And these guys, most of them just melt into nothing. They become children again.”
“And the Buzz. The high.”
“Right.” Vauxhall smiles and closes her eyes briefly. “The high.”
“If you didn’t have the high. Would you…?”
“-”
I clear my throat. “I don’t want to end up eighty by the time I’m thirty-five. I don’t want someone to be changing my diaper. I want to remember all this.”
Vauxhall looks at me, her bottom lip trembles slightly like she’s going to say something heavy but then she swallows that back down and says, instead, “Are you asking me to stop?”
I shrug. “I’m just telling you what I’m doing.”
“I’m happy for you, Ade. Really happy.”
“But you’re not going to…?”
Vauxhall looks like she’s holding back tears. Her face is all scrunched the way a dam scrunches into a valley to hold back a river. She shakes her head. Says, “I’m not sure I’m ready. I want to be. Really want to be. But-”
“Vaux, those guys, you ever think that maybe what you tell them they don’t really want to know? You ever think that stuff’s hidden for a reason?”
Vaux shakes her head. “Not at all.”
“And how about the fact that maybe they don’t care about what you tell them? Maybe they’re just happy to get laid? Maybe they just want to grab your tits and… I know it’s harsh, but maybe they-”
“You haven’t seen their eyes,” Vaux interrupts.
“Okay. You’re right.”
Vaux, “Ade, it’s beautiful. Not about the sex. Or the high.”