She avoided the question and nuzzled herself closer toward me. “You make me feel like I can lose a backpack with all my most precious things inside and you’ll know exactly how to find it,” she said.
I liked that, and I liked that her eyes didn’t scramble around my face now. It was the first time she had looked at me that way. But I was annoyed at the compliment. I propped myself up on the bed and told her about how I’d spent my last weeks chasing her and how difficult it had been. When she was in Montana she was always busy. She never called me back. Still, I made up a big excuse with my parents just to get her where she wanted to be for her birthday. I pretended to like a guy I wanted nothing to do with. I dragged him out to the desert and left him in the middle of nowhere. I’d been heartless and took drugs that I couldn’t handle, all so I could see her again. It was hard to understand how to be with someone who didn’t want to be seen, who never told you how she felt and always ran off to the next hiding place. Deva looked down and said something about how going to Montana had drained her. Her brother and father and her had built a recording studio almost from scratch. It took longer than they expected.
“But why does he need a recording studio in Montana? You guys live here,” I answered.
She shrugged her shoulders.
I tried to be severe and hold my ground, but I realized as I spoke to her that I was completely enamored. She could have done anything she wanted with me. She could have abandoned me, not returned any of my calls, and I would have still been there on that bed that morning, happy just to be in her presence. I would have ditched a thousand sad Alos with holes in their throats, just to spend a night with her.
She moved across the wooden bed. Specks of light filtered through the trees outside the window and fell in streaks over her messy hair, settling on her clavicles. She hopped off and stood at the end of the bed, observing me. She removed my knee-highs. My feet were black with desert dirt. She kissed them. Her small, round head was silhouetted by light. It burst out of her margins like an electric halo.
“I was afraid you were in love with me and I didn’t want to be responsible for that,” she said, looking straight up at me.
I pulled her in and brushed my fingers over her chest. “I’m in love with you, yes,” I replied. “So what?”
She pressed her body against the wooden footboard and kissed me. I pushed her away defensively, but she kissed me again and let out a gentle moan, something that said she was sorry. She took her clothes off and got back in bed, leading the way. She licked my lips and cheeks. I licked her back, eyes, and hair and anything in the way.
“It’s okay,” she said as she pulled me to her. “I want to be with you too.”
My hands pressed onto her hot, bony frame. I finished undressing her. I took her in my arms and we made love. It wasn’t like on the merry-go-round when we had spun around like nocturnal wind-up toys, coming fast and unexpectedly, never talking about it again. This was a declaration without words.
We were together for hours, kissing and spacing out from the drugs then reaching for each other again. Our fingers traced the outlines of each other’s bodies, from inside our legs back up to our breasts and lips until every crevice was memorized. I didn’t know girls could have so much liquid inside them. I had never gotten that way with a guy, but by late morning the bed was so damp, it looked like we’d spent the night peeing in it. Sand granules from the desert cluttered the inner corners of Deva’s eyes, forming a bright yellow mucus like that of a kitten. Radiant dust particles deposited on her ribs and belly button. Her small breasts, illuminated by the suncatchers that hung in the window, were the last things I saw before I closed my eyes.
23
We hadn’t slept long when we heard the bang on the door.
Deva poured water from a bottle and splashed it on her eyes so she wouldn’t look sleepy. Her father barged in and looked at my muddled face, confused.
“Well, happy New Year to you, Italian lady. What did you girls do last night?”
“Eugenia’s mom cooked an Italian dinner for me. Her parents just dropped us off so she could come on our birthday hike with us.”
“What did she cook?” he asked, suspiciously.
“Veal parmesan,” Deva improvised.
I’d never heard of such a dish. My mother would have rather killed herself than make something like that.
“Happy birthday, girl.” He hugged her. “I remember when—”
“When I was just a little ball who rushed to come out into your arms…The opposite of my twin brother who wanted to stay right where he was.”
His eyes relaxed when he heard her say this. She hadn’t forgotten their rituals. Their inside jokes were intact. Things were okay.
“Is brunch ready?” Deva asked, faking enthusiasm.
A wider smile opened up on her father’s pinkish face. He was drunk. I smelled it now. From the night before and starting again in the morning.
“I doubt my food will be as good as your mother’s,” he said, glancing over at me.
“I’m sure it’ll be even better,” I replied.
We went to the main house. The birthday brunch table was set up with banners and balloons on the terrace overlooking the oak tree expanse. There were no folders on the work desk inside, no beeping fax machines or glossy portfolio pictures. The computer monitor was turned off—the house clean. The furniture looked dead, as if it had stopped breathing when the family had left for Montana.
Chris appeared on the terrace with longer hair and a backwards cap that made him look thinner, like he was fizzling out instead of growing into a man. A gaunt, transparent creature.
“Happy New Year,” he greeted me with a soft, sterile hug.
“Happy birthday,” I replied.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Deva and I don’t celebrate on the same day. Dad wants to make sure he gets alone time with each of us. I’m surprised he let you come.” He arched his brow at me.
Bacon and eggs fried inside.
We took our places. Deva’s father poured us orange juice, then leaned into her, hugging her from behind.
“We’re on TV next week. How’s that for a birthday present?” he whispered.
Deva blushed and reached her arms behind to hug him back.
“A great one.”
He perched in Deva’s shade like a fixture to her presence, seeping into the space around her. Deva contorted her pose to seal him off, but he overspread. I’d seen him do that before. Devour her with his presence until he made her look like a little thing.
I looked over at Chris. The banners hanging on the terrace all spelled his sister’s name. I wondered whether their father would create the same atmosphere for him the following day. From the look on Chris’s face I knew that wasn’t going to be the case. They’d have leftover cake, melted birthday candles, cold bacon. I wondered how it made him feel to know he was not the chosen one. To be asked to step aside on the day of his birthday so his dad could have alone time with his twin sister.
Deva’s father placed a wrapped gift on the table by Deva’s fingers—a black Montblanc fountain pen.