He told himself, Forget her, give it up. He didn’t have to work so hard. There were plenty of girls in Mill Valley.
But then one day, for no apparent reason, she said yes. That morning he’d been made to see his dad and so was feeling particularly shitty; he’d asked her to dinner out of habit, not expecting to hear yes, not even really caring. They went for tacos and beers and he saw why she had been so careful—because as soon as she allowed herself to give him something, she gave it all. She told him everything, about her school, her friends, her parents and five sisters in Visalia—some dusty-sounding place between San Francisco and L.A.—and her religion, which she’d found a year ago, how she’d felt so lost in the city, anxious and alone, until she’d found His Universal Love Ministries and found herself, for the first time in weeks, able to draw a full breath.
Then it was Nick’s turn to talk. He didn’t mean to lie to her; the stories came so easily they were almost unconscious. He was in his second year at City College, majoring in English. He shared a shitty apartment in the Tenderloin with four guys from school, an apartment chaotic with comings and goings, where there was pot smoke in the air vents and pee rings in the toilets, trash in the hallway, moldy dishes in the sink.
“You wouldn’t want to see it,” he told her. “Where’s your place?”
—
After taking Dave Chu’s SAT, Nick went to meet his supplier in Dolores Park, and then on to Sarah’s apartment. He knew it well by now.
She lived in a falling-down Victorian on Valencia. Painted red and pink with lacy wooden trim, it looked like a cake designed by a five-year-old. But he liked it, because it was ancient and crappy and no one had come in with a crew and a pile of money to fix it up. It was allowed to exist.
He climbed the stairs. The wood felt soft, gnawed on. Her studio was at the top, a wood-floored room with scuffed beige walls and tall ceilings, a sink and hot plate in the corner, a narrow doorway leading to a tiny bathroom tiled pink. In the main room were two huge windows she kept uncovered, and outside a view of Valencia, crowded stucco storefronts and patchwork Victorian fa?ades, and Muni wires sketching geometric patterns on the sky. Packs of twentysomethings roamed in and out of taco joints and bars, and there was the steady thrum of traffic and people passing on the street. As night fell, fog settled over the city, misted the streetlights.
And Sarah. She sat beside him on the couch, which was draped by an ugly flowered sheet that looked a thousand years old and had the falling-apart softness cotton got when it had been worn and washed a million times, like his favorite Tshirts he’d had since elementary school that his mom was always telling him he didn’t need and should let the housekeeper use as rags.
Sarah nestled into the corner of the couch and turned toward him. Unwinding her long gold scarf, she nudged her stockinged toes under his thighs. “This city is always so cold,” she said. “Have you noticed that? Even when it’s warm, there’s cold underneath, like the fog is just waiting to roll back in.”
“I’ll keep you warm,” he said.
She grinned. Pulled his face to hers and kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his forehead. He closed his eyes and she kissed each eyelid, then pulled his body over hers. He felt her moving underneath him live and warm and open and he could fall into this softness, he could disappear inside it. His blood resounded in his ears. She pushed him back, she laughed. Her laugh was loud and full, rolled over him, and he laughed too. There was no talk of love. With focused blood he unwound her layers of skirts and scarves like she was a present, her flesh glowing pink in the light of the lamp. Her freckles were cinnamon on the caps of her knees and along her arms and she was wearing nothing fancy, a white cotton bra and briefs that shouldn’t have turned him on (the Mill Valley girls wore tiny lace thongs from Victoria’s Secret) but did.
After, they lay together on the couch with their legs hanging over the edge, and he wanted nothing in the world but sleep. But she was restless.
“Wait, I’ve got an idea.” She jumped up and ran naked to the bathroom, flesh bare and trembling. Seconds later she returned in white panties, hands up, dental floss stretched thumb to thumb.
It was weird, but he lay back and let her do it—rested his head on the arm of the couch and opened his mouth.
Sarah stood over him, frowning in concentration. Her hair waved over her shoulders and chest. “Close your eyes.”
The glossy ribbon, laced with mint, slid between his teeth and wiggled into his gums. It felt good. It tingled. It hurt.
“Oh!” she said. “You’re bleeding.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasted liquid metal. “Keep going,” he said. He heard her steady breathing as she worked the floss between his teeth, pressing into the tissue.