But then once I send it, she leaves me on read for a good five minutes.
Madeline:Are you an old-timey dia de los muertos skeleton?
Javier:Close enough
Javier:Dia de los muertos bootlegger. This is moonshine country, baby
Madeline:Is that a thing? I’ve seen Coco.
Javier:It is now
Madeline:I like it
Madeline:Does your family do the altar with the marigolds and stuff?
Madeline:Again, my main frame of reference is a Pixar movie, sorry if I’m asking dumb questions
Javier:They don’t, it’s just me. I started a year or two ago.
Javier:I tried to make sugar skulls this year but they’re pretty hard and I burned the shit out of my finger
Madeline:Oh no!
Javier:You got Halloween plans?
Madeline:Ben’s got Saturday night off and him and his roommates are throwing a pirate-themed party so I’m Madeline the Marauder, Terror of the Chesapeake
Javier:If I were a merchant vessel I’d give up all my wares immediately
Madeline:Thanks
Then she sends a picture of herself in her costume, and I almost fucking die. OfcourseMadeline in a pirate costume is insanely hot: she’s wearing tight pants and Captain Hook boots that goover the knee, Jesus Christ. There’s a red sash belted around her waist, a men’s lace-down shirt with billowy sleeves, and an eyepatch. She’s got one foot up on a chair and one hand casually on the hilt of the plastic cutlass tucked into her belt, and she’s looking at the camera like—like—I have to throw my phone onto the bed and pace my apartment for several minutes while my brain helpfully offers up several scenarios.
The one where she uses the cutlass to back me against a wall and tells me to walk the plank wins almost immediately. I don’t even know whatwalk the plankmeans in this context—like, no shit it’s innuendo, but for what?—but that absolutely doesn’t matter, it’s in my brain forever now.
“Was walking the plank even real?” I ask Zorro, who doesn’t answer but continues to watch me. Judgment radiates off his fur.
“She’s going toBen’s,” I continue, and saying it out loud only makes the unpleasant sensation in my stomach get worse. “She’s wearingthatto go toBen’s.”
Is Ben straight? He has straight vibes—whatever that means—in her Instagram pictures with him. Straight and tall and handsome and anapprentice surgeonor whatever it’s called. Of course he’s going to want her the moment he sees her tonight. How could he not? How couldanyonenot?
Javier:Shiver me timbers!
Madeline:Thanks, I think
Javier:I should probably head out, gotta tell the nice people about spooky shit and then the roller derby team is having a party
Madeline:Have fun
Javier:You too!
I very carefully save three separate copies of the photo to three separate places on my phone, then email it to myself for good measure. I have a very strictno masturbating while thinking about Madelinerule that I only break once or twice a week, so it’s not forthosepurposes, it’s just…in case. Of anything.
Hours later,I’ve mostly recovered my wits and I’m at the derby girls’ party, drinking my fourth club soda with lime. Gideon’s little brother Reid and I are talking about transferring community college credits—that’s right, I party hard—when I get a text.
It’s just a picture, no caption, no context: Madeline, still in costume, at a party, leaning into some man’s side with her elbow propped on his shoulder. His face isn’t in the picture, but I think it’s Ben, and she’s grinning saucily at the camera, tipping a pirate hat with the point of her plastic cutlass, and the lace-up shirt is unlaced far enough that I can see she’s wearing some sort of corset situation that makes her tits look so incredible it shouldn’t be legal.
“Cool hair,” Reid says, craning his neck a little over the top of my phone because everyone I know is nosy. “Who is that?”
