“You think?”
“Absolutely. He knew all along that pass wouldn’t work. But once he got it in his head that taking you on an impromptu trip to Orlando would be the greatest thing in the world, he couldn’t shake that idea.”
“I guess I can buy that. But how did you fit into this plan?”
“I’m an excellent travel companion.” Vic slouches, and she looks at me seriously. “How much did you like him, really?”
“I liked him.” I did, even though he occupies a fuzzy place in my brain now. When I think of him, the images come at me fast and jumbled, like a movie trailer. He sees me at the Smoking Corner and smiles and rolls his eyes. Cut. I watch him badly play bad music with his bad band (and Victoria is there in the background, out of focus but empathetic). Cut. A close-up of his face: blue eyes and that indented scar on his upper lip. Cut. Obligatory sexy shot of him unbuttoning my jeans. Quick cutaway!
“He was . . . exactly the kind of person I thought I’d hook up with, or go out with, or whatever,” I tell Vic.
“Yup,” Vic says.
“Oh, you knew, did you?” I grin at her and try to kick her bare foot aside. “Did you know I was going to dump him? Did you have visions of the breakup?”
“Hmm, sort of. I mean, Tall Jon and I could see it coming a mile away. A hundred miles away. We just didn’t anticipate the reason.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
“Indeed.” She eyes me, as though she expects me to make some sort of grand, truthful pronouncement about how that moment was a victory for my whole identity. “Ugh, I cringe when I think about it. I didn’t know what I was going to tell him, and I almost texted him instead of talking to him. Telling him about girls was an afterthought. Like, I was almost walking away when I said it.”
It was a half-truth, anyway. I didn’t break up with him because of all girls but because of Victoria. Still, it was new information for Bill. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he left it lying there, flopping around. Or maybe I didn’t sense that he picked it up and threw it back at me, Oh, and I like girls attaching itself to me in the form of wings on the backs of my feet, sometimes propelling me forward and other times catching under the weight of air and stopping me in my tracks.
Like right now. And any other moment I’m with Vic.
“Were you with him when you realized that?” Vic asks.
“No. It wasn’t a realization all at once.” It was something that was always there, but was quiet in letting me know. “And I didn’t realize it because of Bill, though I remember this one day, I was leaving his house, and for some reason, I whispered to myself that I was bisexual, and it felt right.” Like putting on a shirt that fits. Like saying my full name.
Someone slams out of the apartment, and there’s the hollow clamor of empty beer cans falling to the floor. It’s possible the Drama phase of the party is happening now. I’m glad we’re out of its immediate orbit.
“Well, fine,” Vic says. “All I know is what I see or hear. I should never think I knew what was going on in Bill’s head. Or in yours, for that matter.”
I smile. “It is a bizarre and frightening place.”
Her foot touches mine again. On purpose. I think.
I leave my wall and scoot over to the other side of the hallway. Next to her. As if this is less dangerous.
The apartment door opens again. “Jon, where’d you go?”
“That’s Bill,” I whisper, my lips about two inches from Victoria’s ear. I can see her very attractive ear veins.
“Hide!” Vic jumps up and opens the bathroom door, leaving her shoes in the hallway. I rush in after her and shut us inside, in the dark, our backs against the wall. I snort-laugh.
“No!” Vic whispers. “There is a delicate art to staying hidden. We need to be quiet and still.”
“Like the shoes you left outside the door?”
“Totally part of the strategy.”
I don’t know why we’re in the dark bathroom, but I do know this is the Victoria I like best. Victoria when she’s come out from under her superhuman sense of self-control. When she’s about as far away from a performance as you can get. She vibrates differently—her voice, the way she moves, the way her hair is down and sort of frizzy and brushing against my shoulder in the dark.
This really happened.
It flashes quickly, in the mirror. It’s the only light in the room.
“Did you see that?” I ask.
“I didn’t see anything,” Vic says.
And they’re back, those same three words, lit a wavering orange, hovering in the mirror in front of me.
Vic says nothing.
I take two steps away from Victoria’s hair and reach toward the mirror. This really happened. The words flicker, but their color stays bright.
“How long do you think we could be in here before someone notices?” Vic says with a snicker.
I turn on the light. The words disappear, but my head floods with warmth. It’s like the way it feels to get into my car on the first hot day of the year—comfortable in the center, but the edges burn.
I lean over the sink and splash cold water on my face.
“You okay, dearie?” Victoria asks.
Oh, right—this bathroom remains a stubbornly towel-free place. I swipe at my face with the back of my hand, smearing my eye makeup in the process. “I think it’s time to go.”
“Back to your house?” Vic opens the door and reaches down for her shoes.
“No, not yet.” The apartment looks so normal—the framed Ramones album covers on the wall, the beer cans, the old pull-out couch, the picture of Tall Jon’s mom.
Who found me here? Was it Lilia, or was it the secret painting itself?
My hand grapples around for Victoria, but finds a wall instead.
“Vic, I’m going to show you my new project.”
It’s late. Almost one in the morning. This is the latest I’ve arrived at Lilia’s studio. Or tried to.
The Red Mangrove Estate looms above us, its windows dark. It’s an overcast night and if the clouds get any lower, I think the top floor might end up swimming in them.
“Just a second.” I pause at the glass doors, Vic ten silver-shoe steps behind me, almost definitely assuming that I’ve become a vandal. “Something weird happened when I came here with Angela last night. So we need to go inside really slowly and make sure that the building is, you know, secure.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, the foundation and shit.” My voice is a bit wavery on the shit.
“I’m sorry, should I have worn my spelunking gear?”
The door on the right opens as usual. The heavy air of the lobby, the hiss in the vents. No movement.
“Follow me.”
She does, and I wait until she closes the ten-step gap before I move toward the stairs. She stays only a step or two behind me as we head to the second floor. I am ready to grab her hand or her shoulder if anything happens.