Tonight the Streets Are Ours

Lindsey handed over the markers, and Peter turned to Arden. He looked at her really intently, like he was surveying a blank canvas. She felt herself turning red, but forced herself to be still, to submit to his gaze, to take in the feeling of his eyes on her body. And suddenly she was glad she hadn’t mentioned Chris.

“Okay, I have a vision,” Peter declared. “Get your hair out of the way.”

Arden swept it up in a ponytail, and he uncapped a marker and stared to write on her. She shivered as the pen tip touched her chest bone.

“That is going to be a bitch to wash off,” Lindsey said, sounding respectful.

“Lose the coat,” Peter told Arden.

She pulled off the kelly green spring jacket and held it in her hand, stretching her arms out so he could reach her triceps, her clavicle, her shoulder blade. She felt cold in the nighttime air, but inside she felt like she was burning up. Lindsey was right that this was going to be a bitch to wash off. She didn’t care.

When she looked at her extended arms, she saw that Peter had covered her in his words. The text wrapped around her wrists, across her shoulders, and down her back, at all different angles, so she couldn’t read all of it, but she did make out I miss you I miss you I miss you, and the only one, and to linger too late, and, gigantic on her forearm, loneliness.

“I don’t know what the hell to do with markers,” Peter explained, handing the markers to Arden. “I’m not really an artist. The only thing I can draw are words.”

“Words are enough,” Arden said. And Peter’s words were, as always, perfect. They made her feel less alone, more connected, and understood in a way that was giddily palpable. Having his words on her body made her feel like she was wearing armor.

By the time they reached the door, all three of them were covered in marker. They didn’t look a thing like enchanted forest creatures. But they looked weird, Arden could say that for sure.

“Twenty dollars each,” said the guy working the door, who looked to be a few years older than they were, and who was wearing a full-body chipmunk costume.

Hanson and Trotsky both vaguely patted at their pants, as though they couldn’t quite figure out where they’d put their wallets, before Peter stepped forward and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” He handed the door guy a hundred dollar bill and waved off Arden’s offer of cash.

Hanson opened the door, leading them into a basement that was designed to look like a—well, like an enchanted forest. Potted bushes lined the way, with silhouette cutouts of tree branches on the walls. Sculptures of fairies dotted the room, and giant colorful mesh butterflies hung from the ceiling. Eerie ambient music echoed around them.

“Whoa,” breathed Lindsey. She squeezed Arden’s hand, and Arden felt the remaining bit of the annoyance she’d felt at Lindsey, which had been hanging over her head like a dark cloud since their car ride, dissipate at last.

“It’s an art,” Arden said simply, and Peter burst out laughing.

“It’s wild,” he said. “It’s like you’re part of my brain.”

“Have you never met one of your readers before?” Arden asked.

He shook his head. “Not like you.”

“So what is the deal with this place?” Lindsey asked, stopping to study a blown-glass orb. “Is it like a nightclub, or…?”

“It’s an apartment, if you can believe that,” Peter replied. “Well, it wasn’t built to be an apartment. But it got converted a while back. And then a bunch of kids from Pratt—the art college, you know?—they rented it out. Every room in here has been passed down from Pratt student to Pratt student over the years.”

“Like a fraternity,” Arden said. “An art fraternity.”

“A fart-ernity?” Lindsey suggested, and the girls giggled.

“Sure,” Peter said. “It’s called Jigsaw Manor.”

“Jigsaw Manor?” Lindsey’s giggles grew even louder. “That is so random. Why?”