“It’s like knowing you’re about to knock on Adonis’s door, isn’t it?” Violet said, her voice quiet.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s such a…man.”
“I can’t see him in school, sitting in our desks, or ever wearing diapers. Damn. Was he ever little?”
Her diaper comment made me grin. “He’s human, Violet,” I said. “I’ve heard his heartbeat.”Felt his blood surging through mine, the pulse of it echoing the beat of my own heart.
“If you say so.” She sighed. “Do me a flavor once you’re in? Snoop! Check what kind of toothpaste he uses. Go through his underwear drawer. Does he wear boxers or briefs? Oh!” She sucked in a breath, strangling my wrist with her grip. “What if he goes commando?”
“I amnotdigging in his drawers, you creeper!”
“Why not?” She pouted. “We need proof that he’s human. Or better yet, that he has good oral hygiene. You’re nothing if you don’t brush your teeth, no matter how fine of an ass you have.”
She made me smile. I had an obsessive disorder when it came to my teeth. In fact, my mother had taken me to a doctor to see about it. He told her I was attempting to gain some semblance of control in my life. My dentist gave me sticker stars and the best toys out of the treasure box full of fake rings and bouncy balls. My mother made him stop doing this, claiming that the “treats” were rewarding obsessive behavior.
Looking back at the house, I gulped down the unease, trying to push down all of the untamed emotions. “I better get going.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait?”
I shook my head. The wrong side of the tracks was not a far walk from the dull side of the tracks. Not for me. “No, I’ll be fine.”
She narrowed her eyes but nodded.
Removing my bag from the backseat, I placed the lipstick in the front pocket. I gripped the door handle and stepped out before I could stop myself.
Now or never. I was sick of never.
* * *
Marilyn Monroe sung to me from the moment I stepped out of the car until the moment I made it to the door of the house. Encapsulated in Violet’s Mustang, I had been in current time, where the Gin Blossoms sang about whispers and rumors and schoolyard antics, but out here, in front of Brando’s house, the ’50s had made a comeback, as if Marilyn Monroe in her famous candy pink ensemble were offering the welcome.
I stopped for a moment halfway up the walk.Had Mick given us the right address? Had we found the right address?
First things first. I double-checked the door number. Correct.All right. Walking backward to the end of the driveway, I stopped at the curb and looked down the street to make sure we had the right one. Also correct.
Mick wouldn’t give up much information, so I had no idea whether Brando still lived with his parents or, like Mitch, with roommates, or all by himself.
Rain started to fall down in drenching sheets, and the wind picked up speed. The long-sleeved black bodysuit I had put on after Mitch dropped me off at Violet’s that morning clung to me like a second skin. My high-waisted jeans that flared out at the bottom were saturated with water and had turned black.
I shimmied a bit to loosen the bodysuit from my behind. As my grandmother used to say, I had a goat in the garden and was too self-conscious to get it out. The suit kept riding high. At least leotards stayed put.
The wind picked up strength and my hair pelted me with wet anger. A chill ran up my spine and a shiver tore over me. The weather was as bitter as my feelings, apparently.
I ran to the door, shoulders hunched, head trying to hide in the leather’s protective layers like a turtle in its shell. I zipped the jacket up, just realizing I hadn’t done so before. I knocked three times in a row.
The music seemed to grow louder. Instead of waiting to drown, I tried three more times, this time with enough force that my knuckles burned with the impact.
“Hello!” I put my lips to the door and yelled. “Anyone home?”Knock, knock, knock, knockuntil my hands turned red.
In response to my banging, the music reached a crescendo. I rather doubted that Marilyn had ever reached a high enough chord to consider it a crescendo, with how soft her voice was, but standing in the rain, I really didn’t feel like arguing the point with myself.
The music paused for what seemed like only a second before “A Little Girl from Little Rock” swept under the door in place of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” I took advantage of the lull by banging, but either the person inside was studiously ignoring me, or they honestly didn’t hear me—or wasn’t paying attention.
Raising my bag over my head, I turned toward the street. Violet had gone, and with her, a dry ride home. Tapping my boot against the saturated ground for a moment, I considered my options, or lack of.
“Shit,” I muttered, batting away rogue drops of rain that had adhered to my lashes. The droplets that had drifted to my lips were stalled there by the waxy texture of the lipstick. I rubbed my lips together, trying to absorb the moisture. “Looks like walking in the rain is the way to go.”The only way to go.
My heart sank and then rose—the jacket was mine for a bit longer. But then my heart sank once more. The entire time the jacket was in my possession, it had never been rained on, or if it had, not for this long, and not with this substantial amount of water.
