Ten Miles Past Normal

Chapter Seventeen


The Girl with the Lizard Tattoo





I have never been anywhere with Emma Lyman where she didn’t spend most of the time reading or else staring moodily into space. Minivan rides to theme parks and history museums, shopping trips to Creekside Mall, and two frozen hours at the Ice Capades every year since Sarah and I were seven, you could always count on Emma’s reading and staring. But so far today, I’ve visited the home of a civil rights hero with Emma and eaten pizza with Emma, and now I’m sitting at Sid’s about to hear an old-time fiddle and retro jazz band with Emma, and not once has she pulled out a copy of Trout Fishing in America or searched the ceiling for something more interesting than the current company she’s with.

We’re sitting next to each other in a booth close to the stage waiting for the waitress to bring us some coffee, which Emma seems to consume by the gallon. Across the table, Sarah is writing like a madwoman in her little notebook, holding up a “wait just a sec’” finger to anyone who tries to talk to her. “I’ve got to copy over my notes from this afternoon,” she explains when I ask her what she’s doing. “This is amazing stuff, just amazing. Imagine it! Our soccer field was sacred ground, and we had no idea. There ought to be a memorial plaque up or a statue or something.”

Then a feral look enters her eyes, and there can be no doubt that Sarah is going to be standing in front of the town council at its next meeting, demanding that a statue of Septima Brown and Hazel Pritchard be erected in the middle of the Mason Farm Road soccer fields pronto. As in now.

“So you and Monster,” Emma says when Sarah returns to her feverish scribbling. “You’re a thing?”

I look over at her, surprised at the sheer, well, high schooliness of this question. We spent two hours this afternoon with a woman who not only was on a first-name basis with Martin Luther King Jr., but actually chastised him for not putting more women in leadership positions. We have been riding around in a VW Bug with a man who got members of the Klan locked up behind bars at a time when hardly anyone was convicted of crimes against blacks.

All afternoon we’d listened to stories of people walking three miles at night to get to the school, eighty-year-old men writing their names for the first time in their lives, and people getting shot at but still coming just so they could have the right to vote.

And now Emma wants to discuss my love life?

Emma shrugs, as if she’s read my thoughts. “Maybe it’s trivial, but I just happen to think you and Monster make an interesting pair. I mean, you’re basically young and unformed, and yet you have the good sense to hang out with Monster Monroe. I never would have predicted it, to be honest.”

I frown, feeling slightly offended. “You don’t think I’m good enough for Monster?”

“I’m not sure you’re cool enough for Monster,” Emma says matter-of-factly, taking the cup of coffee our waitress holds out to her. “Though after today, I’m reconsidering that opinion. I mean, those boots seriously rock. You always did have good clothes, though. Very original.”

I stick a purple-cowboy-booted foot into the aisle for all to admire. “I bought these on Zappos.com,” I tell her. “And Monster and I are just friends.”

“You’re an idiot then,” Emma says, pouring cream into her coffee. I wait for further commentary, but she appears to have lost interest in me.

I’m saved having to contemplate my idiocy in solitude by the entrance of Todd the Biker, who slides into the booth next to Sarah.

“Hey, little sister,” he greets her, then reaches across the table and chucks Emma under the chin. It seems like something you might do to a two-year-old, especially when Emma bites Todd’s finger in response.

“I’m Sarah,” Sarah says, offering her hand to Todd. “We’ve met.”

Todd dislodges his finger from Emma’s incisors and shakes Sarah’s hand. “On several occasions. Or at least once.” He turns back to Emma. “Hey, babe, sorry I’m late.”

Todd and Emma proceed to have a very adult-sounding conversation about Todd’s long day at work. The phrase “like an old married couple” springs to mind. I have to say that wild child Emma has not been living up to her billing today.

As the first act—a trio of guitar players in overalls and feedlot baseball caps—tunes up on stage, Todd asks to switch seats with me. He asks politely, almost gallantly, in fact. Up close, he’s not as scary-looking as he is when perched on his bike—his hog?—dressed from head to toe in black leather. He has a square jaw and gentle blue eyes, and is, in fact, quite hunky, I see now that I get a chance to truly eyeball him.

As he slips in next to Emma, he pulls a copy of The Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot out of his back pocket and puts it on the table. “You’re going to have to explain that whole time present/time past thing to me, babe,” he says, giving Emma a kiss on the cheek. “It’s twisting my brain around.”

Consider my brain twisted as well.

Sarah finishes her notes with a flourish, then looks around and asks, “Why hasn’t the waitress been by yet? I need some coffee, and I need it now.”

“She’s been by three times,” I inform her. “I think she’s given up on you.”

“Maybe she’ll give me another chance,” Sarah says, and waves down our server, who has the sort of bleached-blond crew cut I wish I had the nerve to try and a tattooed lizard peeking out over the neck of her T-shirt.

Sarah raises her eyebrow at me, nodding almost imperceptibly toward the lizard. One of our inviolable agreements is that neither of us will ever get a tattoo. We believe strongly in funkiness, in great shoes, fabulous clothes, and excellent, preferably vintage, accessories, but tattoos reek of trying too hard to be cool.

Authentic funkiness means never trying too hard.

I feel good, back here in the land where Sarah and I are friends and have understandings and inviolable agreements. In fact, I feel so good, I decide it’s time to share the bad news about Jeremy Fitch. He’s unromantic, a cheapskate, and—if we want to be totally honest here—not that great of a guitar player. I noticed yesterday at Jam Band that he lost his place in songs a lot and sometimes was fake-strumming instead of actually playing along.

“So I never told you about Jam Band,” I begin, and Sarah scootches a little closer to me, smiling, ready to hear some great Jeremy Fitch story. But just as I’m about to break the bad news to her that the Jeremy who has lived all fall in our imaginations doesn’t actually exist, the real, live version appears.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Jeremy stands beside our table and grins his big, charming grin, brushing his hand through his bangs to get them out of his eyes. “Awesome!”

I can feel Sarah staring—at me. Which may have something to do with the fact that I’m the one Jeremy appears to be directing his comments to.

“Yeah, we’re here,” I stammer. “The whole gang.” I lean toward Sarah, wishing like anything that Jeremy would acknowledge her.

“Hey, Cheryl,” Jeremy says, picking up on my cue. “Glad you could make it.”

“It’s Sarah.”

Says Emma.

Sarah and I whip our heads around. Emma is glaring at Jeremy. “Why can’t you ever get anybody’s name right? Ever since eighth grade, you’ve been calling girls by the wrong name. It’s like some bizarre power play.”

“I know your name, Emma,” Jeremy says. He’s smiling, but there’s something unpleasant beneath it. “How could I ever forget it?”

“Man, I hate charming guys,” Emma mutters. She turns to Todd. “Don’t get me wrong, babe. You definitely have your charms. You just don’t wield them like a weapon.”

“I’m uncomfortable with weapons,” Todd admits, wrapping a large hand around his coffee mug. “With violence in general, actually.”

Emma gives his arm an affectionate squeeze. “‘Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong,’ babe.”

“Man, I love Gandhi!” Todd exclaims. “Except for that diaper thing he wore. That kind of freaks me out.”

Jeremy leans down so that we’re face-to-face. “Come find me after our set. I want to hear what you think.”

“What was that about, Janie?” Emma wants to know as we all watch Jeremy walk off in the direction of the kitchen. “You’re not—? I mean, you couldn’t possibly—?” She turns toward Sarah. “Tell me Janie doesn’t have a thing with Jeremy Fitch.”

“How should I know?” Sarah has pulled herself into a small, miserable ball in the corner of the booth. “Janie seems to be very socially active these days.”

“You know I don’t,” I tell her. “In fact, I think he’s a creep. He made me pay for gas.”

Emma raises an eyebrow. “He made you pay for gas? Do tell.”

“Yesterday, after Jam Band. He offered me a ride home, but when he realized how far out I lived, he sort of implied that I should chip in for gas. I offered him five dollars, but I didn’t think he’d take it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sarah insists. “I mean, you should have offered to pay anyway, right? Unless you thought you guys were on some sort of date. Is that what you thought?”

“Hey, Cinderella,” Emma says, leaning over to tap Sarah on the wrist. “It’s the last stroke of midnight, come back to Realityville.”

Sarah jerks her hand back. “What do you mean by that?”

“Jeremy Fitch is lame, okay? He lives to flirt, hates to commit. The more girls in love with him the better. And, hey, he’s cute, I admit it, but life’s too short. You guys deserve somebody better, somebody with some substance. Somebody like Todd.”

Todd waves his copy of The Four Quartets at us. “I’m a keeper,” he says with a goofy grin.

Then Emma looks across the room and her face lights up. She turns to me. “You deserve someone like Monster Monroe,” she tells me, pointing at the doorway.

And there he is, Monster, tall and broad-shouldered, bass in hand, fielding greetings from all over Sid’s.

And there’s Verbena, right behind him.