FOUR
Dark and Cold
The windows are going to explode. Blake has the bass setting on his stereo way too high. When we pull up to the curb before his loft, the cab seats vibrate from the volume as Michael Jackson sings “Smooth Criminal.” Quinn gets out first and pays the driver, adding a nonchalant “Keep the change” like any Fifth Avenue regular.
I open my door. Take a deep breath. I can do this. I can become more familiar with The Perks of Being a Wallflower for a few hours while Quinn mingles with guys way too old for us. Of course, who am I to talk? I’m in love—was in love—with Joshua, and he just turned twenty-one in September. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I do need to have some fun for a change. Or, at the very least, I need the distraction. It will give me time to figure out how to find Makai anyway.
I rise from the cab and tie my sweatshirt around my waist, then tug my tank top over my jeans so my midriff doesn’t show. This is the exact opposite of being invisible. Thankfully, the purple cotton neckline brushes my collarbone. The trivial modesty does nothing to pacify my rock ’n’ roll nerves. Someone could plug me into an amp for all the reverberations under my skin.
The renovated firehouse is plain and out-of-date on the outside, but once we pass through the garage, climb the stairs, and enter the loft, it’s like stepping into an Upper East Side apartment. Everything from track lighting to custom crown molding screams money. This kind of place is Joshua’s utopia. As an architecture major at Columbia, he loves taking something most people would see as junk and rendering it beautiful again.
Too bad I’m not a building.
“Hey, you made it.” Blake Trevor in the flesh greets us with outstretched arms and a sloshed grin. Wasted already. Where are his parents? Would they even care to learn their teenage son is a lush?
Quinn pushes him against his chest. Her black fingernails dig lightly into his fitted polo shirt. “Of course. We wouldn’t miss it.”
Blake smiles wider, then turns his attention to me. His smile scrunches into a sneer.
I hug my chest and shift.
“Well, if it isn’t Bloody Mary.” Blake slurs one of the many nicknames he’s used for me over the years.
“Blake, be nice.” Quinn tosses out the comment. She’s standing up for me, but she’s not. Maybe she only brought me because she knew I’d be sober enough to call a cab at the end of the night.
Blake belches. This dude has no shame. “C’mon, Quinny. I was jus’ havin’ some fun.” His letterman jacket has a beer stain on the front, but he doesn’t seem to notice—or care. Plastered much?
I can’t stand here any longer. “I’m going to get a drink.” I have to yell over the music. “Do you want anything?”
“I’m good.” She links one arm through Blake’s, and they disappear into a swarm of alcohol-infused partyers. What does she hope to gain from hanging with a guy like him?
Music is my thing, but the heavy metal garbage now blasting from the speakers isn’t music. Mom always said if you can’t understand the lyrics, it’s just noise. So true.
I meander through the crowd. Dancers holding red plastic cups of skunky amber liquid bump me as I pass. When I finally exit the maze of bodies and reach the kitchen, I feel as if I’ve been hula hooping for all the twisting and turning I’ve had to do.
I open the fridge and scan the drink choices. All two of them—beer and light beer. Gross. I grab an empty cup and fill it at the tap on the refrigerator. The cold water soothes my throat after the hot coffee. A stack of pizza boxes sits on the counter. My mouth waters. I can’t put it off any longer. I open the top one. Yuck. Nothing but grease-caked cardboard and stringy bits of cheese.
The next two boxes, same thing. In the fourth I find a few slices of cold pepperoni. It’ll have to do. One by one I pick off the processed-meat circles and toss them onto a napkin. When I take my first bite, I sigh. It might be cold, but my stomach doesn’t care. When was the last time I ate?
Once I’ve finished my slice, a guy with an Amazin’ Mets tee layered over a long-sleeved thermal, horrid acne, and a mess of blond waves joins me. “Anything good left?”
Out of habit I angle my face so my hair falls over the right side. “I only got down to the fourth box.”
He searches the stack. An entire pie topped in veggies lurks at the bottom. “You want one?”
I glance at him past a curtain of dark locks. “Sure.”
He leans against the counter and hands me a slice. “I’m Ky.”
“El.” I take a bite. Much better.
He smiles and chews. “You go to Upper West Prep with Blake?”
I nod. “Yeah.” Unfortunately. “You?” I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he’s new.
The volume lowers a smidge. U2’s “With or Without You” combines couples across the loft.
“Blake and I share a mutual friend. I just started at NYU.”
A college guy? I guess it’s the acne that makes him seem younger.
Ky shifts. “You wanna dance?”
I consider him, waiting for the punch line. No one has ever asked me to dance. Even those considered freaks and geeks tend to avoid me. I am literally the last person on anyone’s dance card.
Except, this time, the punch line doesn’t come. Ky just smiles crookedly, waiting. Confidence emanates from his relaxed posture. In the way he doesn’t hide. It’s as if he doesn’t care what he looks like. So I find myself saying, “Okay.”
Before he takes my hand, he reaches forward and tucks my hair behind my ear. His bold move stops my breath in my throat. “Cool tattoo.” He smiles. Doesn’t flinch.
Cool tattoo? What planet is this guy from?
On the edge of the floor, Ky wraps his arms around my waist, and I put my hands on his shoulders. We sway in silence, which is fine by me. I’m not up to talking. When Bono’s voice trails off, we part and stand there. Ky clears his throat, rocks back on his heels. We open our mouths in synchrony.
“Go ahead,” he shouts over the vocal stylings of Jimmy Eat World.
“I’m going to use the restroom. Do you know where it is?”
He points toward the loft’s north wall. A line has formed in front of what I assume is the bathroom door. Great.
“I’m gonna grab a drink. Meet me outside? This music is going to make me go deaf.”
I nod. What else do I have to do while I wait for Quinn to have her fill of this scene?
I make my way back across the ocean of gyrating bodies and stand in line behind a girl doing the potty dance. Hilarious. I’m probably the only one here who needs to pee out from under the influence of alcohol.
The line moves at a larghissimo cadence—or as Mom would say, “Slower than midtown traffic during rush hour.”
I pull out my phone and dial Information.
The operator’s nasal voice grates through the speaker. “City and state, please.”
“Manhattan, New York.”
“What listing?”
I enunciate each syllable. “Muh-ki Ar-cher.” I wait with suspended breath for her response.
“I’m sorry. I’m not showing anyone by that name.”
“Can you try Brooklyn?” The line inches forward, and I move with it.
Another beat. “Nothing in Brooklyn either.”
“Try Staten Island.” I visually rummage the crowd for Quinn. It’s impossible to tell who’s who in this jungle.