Chapter Ten
DNA structure magnified, light hit: Pictures of Earth
Maurice was already at his drum set when Sandrine emerged from the wings and picked up her guitar.
We screamed along with the crowd, and suddenly, there was a blaze of strobe lights, pink and green and orange, as everyone began to dance.
Began—like a bursting. The room filled with heat, a solar flare.
You lifted me off my feet. We nearly fell.
You weren’t much taller than me, so we wobbled, but then you jammed your face on mine, and we kissed to “Baby, You Got Me.” We were at Chop Suey that night, but we’d also watched Solar Flare perform at another all-ages club, El Corazón.
They’d been playing at bars we couldn’t get into, too—the Tractor, Darrell’s, Sunset Tavern.
Maurice was looking exhausted, to be honest. They were getting so many gigs, and he was also working at Papa Angelo’s.
We both had our secrets, but not from each other.
I could feel something imminent, forces pressing on two sides.
There was that audience and their need, but I understood very well how hard my father could press, as well.
He’d run those same Papa Angelo’s ads for years, the photos of him and Arthur and George and Maurice, all lined up in front of that brick wall, wearing those vintage caps and looking like a family of charming gangsters.
The group mattered, the whole group, four men.
I guess Maurice himself, the pressure inside of him, his own need, would have to be the one who broke the stalemate.
What a position to be in, disappointing people either way.
Sometimes, your own disappointment doesn’t feel all that important against someone else’s, though.
At least, you try to trick yourself by saying so.
But your own disappointment has a power of its own.
Of course, I had it, too, the forces pressing on both sides.
My own need versus some idea of who I was supposed to be.
My father didn’t require my loyalty to Papa Angelo’s; he just required my loyalty to him, Angelo, to some idea of young womanhood that had a long history going back to Catholic roots and male dominance, even if no Vittorio had been Catholic for years, aside from maybe on Christmas.
I knew you’d be a problem, in other words. A big problem.
My dad and mom still didn’t know about you yet.
The press, press, pressing of my worrying and hiding—how long could it go on?
We were spending so much time together that I could feel Mom’s suspicion turning into an investigation.
She’d been asking more and more questions about “Addison.” Her voice even had the air quotes.
The only thing saving me was that my mother hated a confrontation.
She couldn’t do that thing where you stood up and forcibly used your voice, making a demand.
Her worst quality was working in my favor for once.
Meanwhile, Addison herself kept complaining about how the summer was almost over and we’d barely done anything.
How we only went to Shilshole once, Green Lake, too.
We went to see a movie with Priya and Maddie the day it was, like, a hundred degrees out, too hot to be outside, but that was all.
I was being one of those sucky people who ditched their best friends when a guy was in the picture, and Addison would have protested louder if she hadn’t been spending so much time herself with Liam and his friends.
They all went camping together in the Cascades, even, she and Liam cracking up over how they pitched their tent next to that old RV with the license plate that read Captain Ed, belonging to an old couple who rocked it all night long to the beat of sixties hippie music.
If Dad knew that Addison and Liam were alone in a tent for a weekend, he would have been shocked.
The few times Asher came over, we had to keep my door open, and he patrolled back and forth, like we were going to do it right there in my room.
Same as Maurice, I was getting tired, too.
Of not being out in my world with you. I wanted to just tell my parents about us.
I wanted to talk about you all the time, really—if NOVA was on, I wanted to say that it was your favorite, and when Mom offered me a Popsicle (she was always trying to feed people, even if she wouldn’t have one herself), I fought the urge to tell her that you liked ice cream sandwiches best. Just, I wanted your name to fall out of my mouth all the time, whenever I wasn’t with you.
It was time to face the wrath and get it over with.
Then again, the wrath, you know. It might mean the end.
I couldn’t even imagine you and my dad in the same room.
In some ways, a lot of ways, my dad would appreciate a guy like Asher more.
Alpha gorilla and mini alpha gorilla, versus you, a quirky, intergalactic light, not an animal.
I was sure my dad never really saw me, even when I was right in front of him, but maybe I was wrong, because he was suspicious, too.
One time, in the middle of August, he’d gotten home early.
I was on the phone, lying on my bed, chatting.
He barged in and grabbed it. What are you doing?
Who is this? Hello? But that time, it really was Addison.
What the hell? Can you imagine? Addison was like, God, Margaret!
You poor thing! But my father was right.
He could feel it: I was moving away, from him, from them.
In my mind and heart. My body, too. If I had a fast car, and a ticket to anywhere, I might have taken it, if you were with me.
I didn’t tell you about that, my dad and the phone call. One, you were starting to complain, rightly, about being a secret. But also, I couldn’t tell the whole truth about him, my father. Sometimes, it’s hard to understand why you protect a person’s reputation. It’s complicated.
At Chop Suey that night, Sandrine put down her guitar and sang “Infinity.” You and I kissed during the whole thing.
Things were hot between us, after we’d had sex and gotten better at it, those times at the houseboat when your mom was at work.
We had to tell each other, we had to promise, that when we were together, we’d just talk sometimes.
Remember that? We could forget to talk, because we’d get so wrapped up in kissing and stuff, and we wanted to make sure we kept finding out stuff about each other.
I even made you sit across the room that time, so I could concentrate on your story about that ER visit with your mom after what-was-his-name Abadias took off.
I think it was Mr. Abadias. I kept getting the boyfriends and husbands mixed up, but I never could’ve forgotten what you said about finding her in the bathroom, the blood on the bathtub edge and on the mirror.
You were ten. Ten, and she called you the man of the house.
A nurse gave you a tiny Despicable Me Minion to play with while you waited in the hospital.
It was still there, on your bookcase, next to the rocks and shells.
You said you couldn’t get rid of it, even if it had bad memories attached.
It was a silly little yellow toy, but it was important to you.
You told me that it reminded you how people are still there for you, always, even when you feel alone.
That night, during “Infinity,” though, we kissed away, pressed together in that jam of people.
After “Infinity,” they did two fast songs—“Speed of Light,” which Maurice actually wrote, and “Radio Signals,” one of Sandrine’s.
Maybe the crowd didn’t love Maurice’s as much as Sandrine’s, but it was so cool that he was starting to write his own stuff.
And then came “Loved and Missed,” another ballad.
When Sandrine sang, you could feel her soul.
I still didn’t know her all that well, even though we’d seen her a bunch of times, either at the concerts, or with Maurice, or that day I went to your aunt Gwen’s house in North Bend to pick up an old microwave of theirs after Janite’s broke.
Sandrine made us her signature chicken salad–and–avocado sandwiches, set on paper-towel plates with a side of chips, as Aunt Gwen made sure the old cheese was scraped off the inside of the oven.
I still felt shy with Sandrine, the way you do when someone is just so awesome, you don’t want to look foolish around them.
But I was proud of her up there, too, playing her guitar and giving the crowd her heart.
She was so brave, just showing her real self in front of all those people.
I couldn’t even show myself in front of my own family.
Sandrine caught Maurice’s eye, and he nodded to tell her he understood what she wanted him to do next. She plucked her T-shirt and fanned it, mouthing, “Whew.” When he grinned back at her, I could tell how proud he was, too, of her success.
Love wasn’t just the gossip and breakups and drama I saw at school.
Love was private and powerful, generating heat from inside, like stars.
Lily, at the astronomy meetup, explained the color of stars to me, blue being hottest, then white, then yellow, orange, and red, exactly the opposite of what you’d think.
The bluest, she told me, are hotter than the sun, and larger, too.
Hotter yet are the violet stars. That night, we were bathed in violet light.
Maurice and Sandrine and Dre were, up on that stage, but so was your ecstatic face as we danced.
If I had a fast car, and a ticket to anywhere, I might have taken it, if you were with me. But what was even more dangerous…You might have, too.