chapter 24
One step and then another. We’re almost into view.
All my confidence disappears. Total terror. I can’t go through with this. I hate parties. Social stuff makes me break out in hives. The costume that a minute ago was elegant and irresistible feels silly. Worse than silly. I’m basically naked.
I consider fleeing back up the stairs. But Stephanie reaches over and takes my hand, presses it tight against her side. The rough, satiny fabric of her wings rubs against my bare arm, and that is the exact sensation I need right now. There’s strength and comfort in it. Alix takes my other hand. We need each other. We have each other. What am I afraid of? I encourage myself with Ambrosia’s instructions: Accept it. Flaunt it. Embrace it.
As one unit, the three of us override any hesitation. We are the Furies. We are powerful. Together we can deal with a teenage party. Of course we can!
Another step and another.
Alix’s feet laced in leather, Stephanie’s vine-covered ankles and my purple-painted toes land at the bottom of the stairs in perfect rhythm. And when they do, it’s like we flipped an attention-getting switch. There’s a final cymbal crash and the band goes silent. People stop talking and flirting.
At every party there’s one group that all the energy orbits around. Obviously I’ve never been that center. I’m lucky if one nerd even talks to me one time. But now we are that center. I hear all the spoken and unspoken questions: Is that who I think it is? Where did they get such great costumes? When did she get such fantastic hair?
I never realized how starved for this kind of attention I am. I love it. But it’s also freaking me out. Being noticed comes with its own pressure. Whom should I talk to? What should I do with my hands? What about Brendon? Where is he? Was the whole romantic cave scene just a fluke? I’m supposed to be irresistible tonight, but I’m sure that I am going to blurt out stupid, lame things.
There’s another cymbal crash that signals the start of a new song, and the void fills at once with guitar licks, drum rolls, talking, singing, laughing, eating, dancing. I need some space to get my bearings. I look for a quiet corner to duck into. Perfect. It’s a corner with a table full of alcohol. I need alcohol desperately. I find a bottle of the licorice drink and take another shot to steady my nerves. This time I’m ready for the kick, and it burns only a little going down. Warmth spreads through me. I remove my mask.
Alix, I notice, is having no such trouble handling all the attention. She’s just fine. That’s because, basically, she’s oblivious. When there’s this much free food and booze in a room, it’s impossible for her to think about anything else. A wide path clears as she takes giant steps to the buffet table, humming happily as she piles a plate high with chicken wings, cheese, ribs, and desserts. All the ultra-skinny, anorexic girls are staring with envy at her appetite, wondering how her stomach remains so flat with all the food going into it. They aren’t the only jealous ones. A group of buff guys from the weight-lifting and wrestling teams are openly admiring Alix’s six-pack framed by her high midriff top. Their own muscles don’t measure up.
Stephanie, too, seems relaxed with her drawing power. I guess it’s easier for her because she’s always been okay with making a spectacle of herself. She strolls the perimeter of the room, showing off her wings and telling people that their beer bottles need to be recycled and that their plastic cups should be refilled and reused. I do notice a phenomenon that Stephanie isn’t aware of. Whenever she sashays past a group, something amazing happens. People in the middle of talking, joking, arguing, eating, whatever, stop cold. They take long inhales of her perfume. Each face gets the same expression, and the only way to describe it is to string together adjectives that don’t normally go together—lost, eager, hungry, hopeful, like they’re on the verge of recalling some old memory that they need urgently to remember.
I take another shot of alcohol, and this time instead of burning my eyes it opens them. I notice how lots of girls are admiring and are even jealous of my costume and makeup, and guys are checking me out in a whole different way than I’ve ever been checked out before. For example, hanging out by the band, there’s this semi-popular senior who I know never noticed me in school. He’s dressed as a farmer (cutoff overalls, straw hat) and he seems positively hypnotized by me. I test out my effect by walking across the room. Yes, I’m sure of it now. His gaze tracks me with complete devotion, like he’s never seen anyone walk before. And when I smear some dip onto a cracker, he’s fascinated, like cracker eating is the latest extreme sport and I’m world champ of the event.
Why am I hanging back? Why am I acting like the old, insecure Meg? Flaunt it, embrace it.
One more drink to steady my nerves, and as I head toward the semi-popular farmer I take a lesson from my costume and mimic the flow of the fabric. Elegant, classy, irresistible. And hot, definitely hot, because when I get to him I say something totally bland and random—“Good band”—which sends his whole body into happy twitches.
He shifts his weight back and forth between feet, reaches out to touch me on the shoulder but draws back as if I sent out an electric shock. Then he lets loose a torrent of compliments, as if Good band is the funniest, smartest, wittiest, most amazing insight that he’s heard in months.
“Yeah, good band. Do I know you? You want something to drink? You have good taste. In music, I mean. Well, you have good taste in drinks, too. Hahahahaha. Really good music. Excellent taste. So, you like music? Who are you? You go to Hunter? I like music. Hahahahahaha. Wanna go hear more music with me sometime?”
And on and on and on.
I can’t believe it. This is happening. I’m doing this. I’m flirting and it’s working. Is it the makeup? The costume? The power of the Furies?
Is it me?
I don’t care about the reason. I just want it to never stop. I like being the me I always wanted to be, the me I always hoped was buried inside.
I am beautiful and sexy and strong and nobody can hurt me anymore.
I can do what I want and fulfill every desire. Why stop myself?
I leave the farmer looking sad and lonely. Who cares about him?
I want Brendon.
* * *
Picture the face of every prince you ever heard of. Not the real-life hemophiliac ones, and those with genetic insanity or horsey features because of too much royal inbreeding. Picture Princes Charming, Eric, Caspian, the Beast, and the Frog (post kiss).
Now join it to the picture of another Prince. Long purple velvet jacket, white shirt with a bib of ruffles tucked into the waist of tight black pants. Lacy cuffs and a panel of silver sequins at the shoulder. Black high-heeled boots, a white guitar slung across his chest on a leopard strap.
Enter Brendon, flanked by Gnat and Bubonic, who are decked out as hyperactive drummers, and Pox in another rock star getup. Behind them, doing the Twist, the Double Ds are dressed in mini-skirts and white go-go boots, tambourine-shaking dancers from the 1960s.
“‘Purple Rain’! Let’s Go Crazy!” Rat Boy, another vintage musician, shouts. “Party like it’s 1999. Or 1969.”
Gnat immediately starts sucking on a bottle of whiskey and Bubonic is making crude comments to some unpopular nerdy girls. I note with irritation that our Fury lesson has worn off on him. Pox, too, is acting like an ass. And the Double Ds clearly need a refresher course.
I’m also annoyed that Brendon has decided to come with his moronic friends. This isn’t the way I imagined our second date to be. But Ambrosia invited everyone, so I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re here. Plus, I remind myself, all those guys have been surfing together since kindergarten, and loyalty to friends, even obnoxious ones, is a commendable trait.
I guess.
I position myself in an uncrowded corner where I have an unobstructed view of Brendon. He untangles himself from his group and stands off to the side. I could wave to him or go over. But I hold back. I like watching how his gaze methodically circles the room, landing on one girl after another. I especially like how he dismisses each one with clear disappointment. They don’t measure up to a goddess. They aren’t me.
“I see London. I see France.” There’s a familiar voice coming from behind me. I tell myself to ignore it, but there’s no way to escape the hand that lands on my shoulder. I swing around, not at all unaware, or unhappy, that if Brendon does look in this direction he will see the flip side of me—the easy-to-undo bow and the way the flesh-colored fabric clings to my newly improved ultra-firm bottom.
It’s Raymond, of course, and he’s dressed in his color guard outfit of broad, royal-blue-and-white stripes. As part of the costume, he’s painted his face half white and half blue in honor of the Greek flag. He greets me with a bow, his hand cascading like a Slinky from forehead to ankle.
“You walk in darkness. But honey, so much of you is showing in the light.”
Suddenly I’m thrown back into the old Meg world of self-doubt. “Too much? I knew it! I look ridiculous.”
“Not at all. You look spectacular! Your outside beauty now matches your inside beauty.”
I wait for Raymond to turn that last statement into a joke, but he doesn’t. “I need to look irresistible. Really, really irresistible. Speak truth! Do I?”
There’s a full glass of alcohol in my hand. How did it get there? I don’t remember picking it up. I must have poured it. Oh well. Might as well drink it. Down it goes.
Raymond takes the empty glass from me, sniffs, then pretends that the smell sends him stumbling backward. “Watch this stuff. It’s lethal. Sneaks up on you slowly. By the time you feel it, you’ve already drunk too much.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Bartender? You don’t even drink!”
“Neither did you until tonight. Go easy, okay?”
“I promise.” I wonder, though, if it’s a little late for this particular promise, since the room makes a sudden tilt at a strange angle. I grip Raymond for support until the walls and floor steady themselves again.
“Oops! Nipple alert!” He adjusts my top and spreads my hair like a curtain over my chest. “This is Ambrosia’s fashion sense, am I right?”
His question rubs me the wrong way. I fling the hair away. “Why do you say that? You don’t believe I could have come up with…”
What I see in my slightly drunken peripheral vision puts an end to this part of the conversation. Purple velvet approaches. I press my hand to Raymond’s epaulette and plead with him. “Nothing embarrassing from you. Remember how I always support you with your crushes.”
“Sadly, it’s slim pickings for me here at Hunter High.”
“This is important. Please?”
Before I get an answer, I pivot on my toes and come eye (mine) to collarbone (his) with Brendon. I lift my head until I’m looking deep into his pupils, which are green with little squiggly veins of gold running through them.
“I know you,” he says.
“You do?”
“Great costume. You are supposed to be a…”
I’ve been practicing for this moment, going over my line, adjusting it and reworking it until I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I would say it. But now that the opening is here, should I? Could I? Dare I? My lips separate. My mouth starts to move. I’m still at a point where I can stop it. But I don’t. I let the words come up my throat and out into the air.
“A goddess. A hot goddess. For you.”
“Oh brother,” Raymond says.
I flash him another pleading look. He pretends to fix something on my costume, but it’s an excuse to lean over and whisper into my ear: “Just remember who you are.”
Then he cups his hand to his ear, looks out into the distance. “What’s that I hear? The nonalcoholic punch bowl is calling out: Raymond, drink me! Well, well, then, I will leave you two to your romantic clichés.”
With three marching steps he’s out of earshot, and that’s a relief. Flirting shamelessly is hard enough without seeing myself through Raymond’s amused eyes. I play with my hair—flip, flip. I feel a flush of heat, then slightly dizzy but in a good way. Raymond is right about the alcohol. It comes on slowly, and now it’s untying any knots of awkwardness or reserve left in me.
I let myself have a good time. I bounce to the music. I sing along to the band. I flip my hair. I laugh at anything anyone does. I’m having a really good time. I use the word you continually and touch Brendon softly every time I do.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “Did you drink a lot?”
“I am most excellent.”
I am glad, though, that a slow song comes on and I can collapse into his arms. Standing upright in a wavy room has gotten challenging. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulls me close, and holds me there for the entire number. It’s a very long song. I hear his breathing in my ear. I feel the velvet of his jacket on my arm. It’s like being in a perfect dream, except that I’m sweating underneath his hands and worry that I might be a little stinky. I hope he doesn’t notice.
When the music stops, he picks up one of my hands and kisses the back of it gallantly. My knees buckle and I grab onto a nearby table to keep from sliding to the floor. “I need another one of those scrumdelicious drinks.”
“No, you don’t,” he says, playfully but firmly. “You’ve had enough. You should cool it for a while.”
“Yeah,” I admit. I wipe my forehead, which has a layer of sweat. “I should lie down for a minute.”
He takes me by the hand, slowly steering me away from the crowd and through a set of double doors and along a corridor of precious vases and glowing pumpkins. Until we’re alone at the foot of the stairs.
I mumble something.
“Huh?” he asks.
I motion with my index finger for him to come closer, and when he does I stand on the bottom step so we are nearly the same height. I press my mouth to his. He makes a sound, a cross between an intake of surprise and a moan of pleasure. His tongue darts and circles the inside of my mouth. But just as suddenly, he seems to remember something and backs away.
“I don’t think we should do this,” he says, his voice throaty.
“Why not?’
“Because…” He makes a drinking motion. “I like you. A lot. You’re in no shape to know what you’re doing. Ambrosia was worried about you. She told me that if you drink too much, I should take you to her room and let you sleep it off. She showed me where it is.”
I recall Ambrosia’s offer—the promise of privacy in her empty bedroom. Clever Ambrosia. Good Ambrosia. Dear, dear Ambrosia. “She is a very, very good friend.” My words are slurred slightly. “Ambrosia watches out for me.”
I let Brendon lead me up the stairs, and smile at our reflection as we pass the big hall mirror.
Meg and Brendon. Brendon and Meg.
Fulfill every desire.
We enter the bedroom. When I lock the door behind us, he starts at the click. I giggle at that. Many familiar things welcome me: the jack-in-the-box with the broken neck, the snow globe filled with tortured people, and the bed. I throw myself onto the pile of pillows and soft, all-white sheets.
“Want to tuck me in?” I ask.
When he’s standing over me, when I see those eyes looking down on me, I take his hand and don’t let go of it.
A questioning expression from him. Am I sure? A nod of certainty from me. I’ve never been so sure. A shy smile in return as he switches off the overhead light.
We cuddle, and then we kiss. One sweet, tender kiss before diving into each other like we’re competitors in an old-fashioned pie-eating contest, wet and messy and tasting of berries, peaches, and licorice. His tongue is warm and his lips are a little cold.
I know I’m drunk, but I can’t pretend that I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve kissed like this before. There was a boy in my seventh-grade class and another in eighth, and after that a boy in my last foster home. But I always got scared and pushed them away. Tonight is a turning point for me. I can decide that all of this is a big, fat mistake. I can return to start, return to being familiar, safe Meg.
But I don’t want to! I’m a Fury. I’m powerful. I get what I want, and what I want right now is this. I’ve been thinking about it from the first time I saw Brendon. My body—this new body—has its own mind and it knows what it wants, what everyone talks and dreams about. I want to lose control and be swept away with this intense feeling.
He’s the one who’s a little shy and hesitant at first. I encourage his hands to wander the length of me, rubbing the back of my neck, palms sliding down my chest, fingers dancing on my back under the bow. I roll over. His knees straddle my legs and he massages my back. “You like that?” he asks into my ear.
When I nod, he says, “Tell me what you like. What else do you want me to do? I want to make you happy.”
Before I can answer he kisses my neck, a dozen nibbles. How did he know exactly what I was thinking before I even had the words for it?
I’m on my side now. We are two spoons fitting perfectly together, my breasts in the cups of his hands. The room is spinning; we are spinning.
No holding back. I point to my ear. “I want … your tongue. My ear.”
He follows my orders and I moan. I move under him, like a sea creature that’s one with the flow of the current. I stay with it. I go with it. It all feels so good—the spinning, the piney smell of him mixing with my smell, hearing myself moan aloud and not be ashamed—good like nothing else in my life has ever felt.
I begin to unknot the bow of my costume, and he reaches out to stop me but I push aside his hand. “I don’t want to stop. You don’t want me to stop, do you?”
In response we fall back to the mattress together. I feel a moment’s flush of shyness to be naked to the waist in front of him, even though it’s so dark I know he can’t see much. I squirm slightly under the pressure of his weight. In the dark I add the expressions that I want, that I hope are there on his face: longing for me, admiration, wonder, and yes, lust. And love.
He leans in and whispers: “I think … maybe … I love you.”
In my mind, I hear all the warnings. Don’t trust him. Don’t lose your heart. I feel him waiting for me to respond. I try to hold back, but I don’t want to. I take the leap and let go of any hesitancy, any distrust I ever had for him. “Me, too. I love you, Brendon.”
That’s when it happens. There’s an explosion, a brutal blast of white radiation that cuts through me like a knife entering my stomach and exiting through the small of my back. And a sound that pounds my eardrums. I swear that the sudden violence of it lifts me off the bed and drops me back down, battered.
The radiation is the overhead light snapping on.
The sound is laughter. Many voices. From the closet. From under the bed. Gnat. Bubonic. Pox. Rat Boy. All the Plagues. The Double Ds. So many hateful faces from the halls of Hunter High.
“Your tongue. My ear,” someone says in a falsetto.
Another fake girlish voice: “I love you, Brendon! Stick it to me, big boy. I want it all!”
My hands flail. I try to cover myself. Too late. A cell phone is aimed, a picture snapped. More laughing. More pictures.
On the side of my vision, a blur of movement, a morphing shape. Brendon.
“Way to go, bro,” someone congratulates him.
Do something! I plead with him in my mind. Hit someone! Defend me! Pay them back! Get revenge for this crime! Get even! Destroy them!
But he only hands me a sheet to wrap myself in. He is numb, dumb, useless.
I was warned. The ones who care about me told me to keep up my guard. It was a setup. How could I have been so stupid? I scream in Brendon’s face: “Liar!”
His look bounces quickly to his friends, then back at me. “No, Meg.”
“Yes!”
“Meg, I didn’t know.”
His words lie. His coal-dense eyes lie.
Who led me up the stairs? Who took me by the hand? Who is still not defending me? Case closed.
I curl into a fetal position, and while they continue to laugh and lie, I drain myself of trust. It pours out of me. Gone! Next to leave are understanding and forgiveness. When I’m empty of all that worthless stuff, I even let go of embarrassment. Who needs it? Who wants it? It all dies in a split second. And in the hard, empty place that’s left, something else is born in me.
Fury—pure, hot, and undiluted.
I uncurl from the fetal position.
I unwrap from the sheet.
I rise.
Standing on the mattress, I tilt my head to the ceiling and, like an animal with no compassion for my prey, I unleash a roar as naked as myself. It comes from deep in my belly and my past.
“Oh shit! She’s slutty and psycho. I’m outta here.” Pox pushes Gnat out the bedroom door. Others follow, nearly falling over each other, a few snickering nervously, more looking back with genuine worry.
In the chaos, Stephanie and Alix force themselves against the human tide into the room. I don’t know if they actually heard my scream or if they’ve come because I summoned them in a way they couldn’t ignore.
It’s only us and Brendon now, and he is still trying to apologize and defend himself.
Look how his lying mouth moves. Listen to the meaningless flow of consonants and vowels. I am immune to this backstabbing prince, deaf to anything that his deceitful lips can say.
He has no name.
Stephanie spreads her wings to block his exit. The jewelry around my neck opens its golden serpents’ mouths. I hear the hisses and smell the venom. I see the flicker of three tongues tracking their quarry.
I move in. We sing.