Chapter 6 Jessa #2
“Hey, woman,” she says, clicking her tongue ring against her bottom teeth. “Show’s about to start, how about after it kicks off, so Jeremy won’t catch us?”
Jeremy doesn’t actually care that people smoke pot in the bathrooms, his rule is just an excuse to confiscate teens’ stashes and add to what must be a mountain of fucking weed at his home.
“Sounds good,” I say, wishing we could spend the rest of the night in the bathroom getting wasted and giggling.
I’m sure someone if not everyone will be reciting poetry about suicide, cutting, madness—all the classics they know jack shit about.
I found Mack bleeding in the bathroom once; it wasn’t something I’d chant out in the phony soft urgent poet voice all of them use.
It’s something my mother would probably break her “Thou Shalt Not Kill” vow over and take a knife to me if I ever mentioned it in public.
It’s something we don’t talk about at all and supposedly the not talking is helping it not to happen again, but I think we’re running a flawed system, and soon enough something worse is gonna hit the house of Papadopoulos.
Natalie looks over at Dade and Kayla, now seated in an overstuffed armchair and attempting to meld into one another. “Dude, that’s AIDS central.”
I give it a half laugh, even though I know AIDS isn’t really a laughing matter, and pretend to stick my finger down my throat. “It’s a serious problem,” I shout, trying to get Dade’s attention. “We need to call the Centers for Disease Control!”
“Okay, woman, I’m gonna get back to my table, but cruise by the bathroom soon.”
I nod, hoping she’ll kiss me again. Unlikely, but lesbians need tongue too.
I make it back to our table as the lights dim, some people clap, and Jeremy, of the long gray hair and Deadhead T-shirt, comes onstage to announce the first poetry reading of the season.
There will be more. Every Saturday. Fuuuuuuuck.
“And first up, I am pleased to announce, recently returned from the New England Young Writers’ Workshop, Elizabeth Nardino.”
Up walks a girl with thick dark curls, the kind you’d expect on a Greek goddess, and curves that beg for hands to grip her waist, her back, her anything.
I feel my breath catch a bit. Her lips are a deep red shade and her eyes smoked with mascara; it gives a hot, mysterious air to her.
She’s gorgeous. I mean, beyond Michelle Pfeiffer (my dream woman, meow) and hotter than Alanis…
It’s a unique beauty, something maybe not everyone might see at first when they look to that heroine-chic style… I definitely dig it.
Then she starts to speak, sort of quiet and shy at first—I’m prepared to hate it, but there’s something so damned attractive in the demure nature of her whole way, and I do not usually go for that.
But then she’s building into bravery and maybe even…
pride. The words in her poem, they’re something more than just playing off perceived pain or longing.
There’s some kind of love lost. There’s depth there.
It’s real. “Because you said I’m your favorite animal…
” Oh my god, why did that line just jolt my heart with adrenaline?
This is definitely not excruciatingly bad teen poetry.
It’s almost excruciatingly good. Damn, it could be a fucking song, it could be a hit.
I feel myself leaning forward as I listen, smiling because it seems like she’s forgotten we’re here, like she’s just talking to herself.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Kayla has found a seat other than Dade’s lap. I try to catch his eye, but he’s busy deeply ignoring the stage. I pinch his arm.
“Sonofabitch, Jessa, that hurt!” he hisses.
I whisper back, “Shut up, wimp, look at Poetry Girl, she’s hot as hell.”
Dade looks up and starts laughing quietly, a little cackling wheeze. He leans in close to me and says, “Yeah, she’s got a great set of poems on her,” and scoops his hands under his nonexistent boobs. I nearly choke on my coffee, promptly punching him in the arm.
“Fuck off,” I say, still grinning until I realize the poetess is now looking right at me, talking through her shit.
I can feel my face flush and it’s not just embarrassment.
I like her eyes on me. She delivers her final line: “A secret I forgot to tell: You were my favorite too.” And then steps down, walking toward me while people are clapping.
Damn, is she actually into me? Did I finally get the I think you’re hot look nailed down?
She walks straight up to the table, and a cloud of horror passes over me as Kayla hops up, gives her an overexaggerated hug, and then introduces us. “Y’all, this is Bird.”
Crap on toast… This is the Bird, the bestie of my nemesis.
I am not supposed to insta-crush on her, I’m not even supposed to like her.
Overwhelmed by the mix of attraction and confusion and that the dream-girl fantasy my stupid brain has conjured is most definitely not about to play out in real time, I need an escape.
I jump up, knocking the already precarious table, and say, “I gotta take a piss,” before running off to the bathroom without looking back.
God bless it, the skunky smell of Natalie’s dank flower is hanging in the air.
I knock on the wall of the handicapped stall, even though there’s no door.
“Welcome to my home in the clouds,” she says, and leans in to gunshot me.