“Yeah, I know Firing Squad. Did you really come here to talk about music? I’m not sure I have all my synapses working on that topic right now.”
“You know how Firing Squad just lays it all out there, like they kinda sound like they’re crying out all their wants and fears right there in the music?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I think I can do that now. With my art. Something clicked and now I feel—” I don’t know. Powerful? Changed? New? All those words are suddenly huge to me again, like it would wake everyone up if I tossed even one of them out into the quiet night. “I feel like me, I guess.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “What’d you say this place was?”
“Um. It’s more like a state of mind.”
Tall Jon studies my face. He pushes his pack of cigarettes toward me, but I wave it away.
“You look like you’re gonna cry,” he tells me.
“I’m fine.”
“Because, from my perspective, you’ve reached some kind of new metaphysical plain, where the inspiration flows freely and the nights are long. Does that make sense? Shit, I’m tired.” He gets up and opens the balcony door. “I think you’re going to come out ahead in this one, Moreno.”
“Maybe so.”
There’s a weird commotion in the living room. Not a piano. Not the thud of my strange new neighbor becoming a presence in my life. Something that seems more alien than both of those things right now.
It’s the TV.
Angela has the morning news turned up to a horrifying volume. She sits in front of it, while drinking a huge glass of my orange juice and eating cereal. The stock market is up (UP!), and apparently I’ll never guess which celebrity just donated a hundred thousand dollars to a dog park.
I sit beside her on the couch. She doesn’t look at me.
“I want to list all the lies I had to tell Mom about you last night,” she says, her words weaving underneath the pumping music of a Cadillac commercial. “I’ll just write them down sometime today, because I don’t really feel like talking to you.”
The remote is in its usual place between the couch cushions. I grab it and click mute. “Fine. Make a list. Tape it to my door or text it to me or whatever. What did Mom say about Abuela last night?”
“Why are you asking? It doesn’t even seem like you care.”
“Because,” I whisper, “I felt something so strongly about her last night. I was in this . . . place, and I was thinking about her, and it was clear to me that she’s getting stronger. Getting better.”
“Mom didn’t say anything about Abuela. She went on a fifteen-minute monologue about having to walk the dogs, and then she asked me a bunch of questions, which of course resulted in a bunch of lies.” Angela finishes her orange juice. “Why would you even say that you think she’s doing better? How would you know?”
“I can’t explain it yet.”
A thud outside. A taxi has pulled up in front of our mailbox, and Lilia is home. She’s got the rumpled look that anyone who works a night job probably has, but the effects of the Estate cling to her, too. There’s a brightness to her hair and face, like she’s speaking a secret in a language that so few of us can understand.
She sees me.
Our eyes lock.
She’s my neighbor. Rex likes her. We all live within the same walls. She used to live in Miami. (I’ve been to Miami!) She takes taxis and probably watches the news sometimes and maybe cares a little about which celebrity donated to the dog park. She drinks coffee, for fuck’s sake. And I told her about the secret painting.
I push away from the window, stubbing my toe on the piano as I do.
“Gonna get ready for school,” I say, hobbling out of the living room. “I’m sorry if we’re late today.”
I grab my army jacket from where I hung it over my desk chair a couple of weeks ago—the day before the piano arrived, actually. We sit together, the jacket and me, on the floor next to my bed. My knees pulled to my chest, I settle the jacket over them like a blanket and put my face in it. I bought it right after I broke up with Bill, and it was perfect at the time, like every time I put it on I was wrapping myself up in myself.
But it’s not comforting now. For one thing, it smells like stale popcorn and needs to be washed. For another, wrapping up in myself seems uncomfortable and paradoxical today, and maybe every day from now on.
Angela knocks on my bedroom door. We need to get to school. I throw off the jacket.
Sometime this morning, Angela stuck a note inside my backpack. During first period, it flutters out onto the Orange Table:
Lies I Told about Mercedes:
She’s home right now.
She’s just working on a painting.
Yes, it’s that one she left on the porch.
Yes, she’s taking good care of me.
And at the bottom:
Mom wants us to get Abuela a special pillow for her hospital bed after school today. No lie. This pillow better be special.
“Listen to this, Ange. His voice cracks here and it drives me nuts. Like, the first few times I heard it, I thought he was doing it on purpose. But now I don’t think so. I think he just can’t hit the note.” It’s Firing Squad track four, “Head on a Train,” maybe the only good thing about this drive from school to an appropriate pillow-buying location. “It’s cool. I mean, I still like the song. But it’s weird to hear someone’s mistake like that, over and over.”
In the passenger seat, Angela shuts her book. She’s reading A Separate Peace for freshman honors English. It’s one of those hardcover books the school loans out. Someone who probably graduated ages ago drew pointy ears and fangs on the characters on the cover, and so now Angela is stuck carrying around Gene and Finny’s devilish counterparts.
“I never liked that book,” I say. “Needs more girls.”
“It’s set at an all-boys’ school,” Angela says, not looking at me.
“Hey,” I say. “You said something earlier that was really hurtful. You told me it doesn’t seem like I care about Abuela. But that’s ridiculous. You know that Abuela’s one of my favorite people in the entire world. You know that.”
Angela picks at the spine of the book.
I luck into a parallel parking space with no one in front of or behind me. It’s been a shaky day, and I wouldn’t trust myself to use my Advanced Parking Skills right now. “What you meant,” I say carefully, “is that it doesn’t seem like I care about you. Is that right?”