Rude.
At the girls’ door, I was greeted with pop music and the aroma of freshly-baked cookies that they must have cooked in the floor’s common kitchen. I could eat the air, it smelled so tasty.
“Goody, you’re here. We’re going to have a makeover,” Teresa said as she pulled me inside and placed a sugar cookie in my hand. The butter and sugar melted on my tongue and the flavor reminded me of Christmas, which made me happy but also a little bit sad.
“Delicious,” I said, wanting to smell and devour it all at once.
“You look like a delinquent,” Artemis said to Cipher, which was true, but I kind of liked the bad boy look.
He rubbed one hand over top of his short hair, and said irritably. “Just take care of Kitten, please. I’ll be in the laundry room.” He leaned down as if to kiss me, then decided against it and patted my butt instead. “Be good,” he said.
The first order of business, after setting me down in a straight-backed chair, was to smear mayonnaise over all my hair, gobs and gobs of it, in order to smother the lice to death. Teresa gave me one of her many stuffed animals to hold onto to make me feel better. I asked her where she got all the toys, and she said there was a church nearby that gave away toys and child-sized clothing. It was rare to see a child these days, even rarer to see a baby. The playgrounds were empty, as were the schoolyards. A lot of children had died when the plague first spread and a lot of elderly people too, those with weakened immune systems as well as those who couldn’t get away from the Rabids. We had listened to the news reports with our doors locked, my dad in his recliner with his gun in his lap.
Many more children were orphaned or abandoned. Several died from common illnesses and other diseases because they couldn’t get to a hospital, like my friend Lucas. A few others were bitten by Rabid family members. I couldn’t remember seeing any Rabids in the neighborhood myself, but there was a crew of men, my father included, who patrolled our streets at night and were sent to infected households. When I’d asked about my friends, my parents told me they moved away. Then my father died, and within the span of a couple years, we were the only ones left.
“Can cats get lice?” I asked them since Little Miss Purrfect liked to lay across my shoulders, which was definitely in the danger zone.
“No,” Artemis says.
“What about dogs?”
“Nope. Just humans get human lice. Animals have their own set of parasites to worry about.”
After the mayonnaise treatment, they wrapped my hair in plastic to suffocate any surviving bugs.Die, jerks,was my attitude about it. No mercy. The girls pulled out a bottle of pink nail polish and we took turns painting each other’s fingernails and toenails. I liked the way it looked, all sparkly and lavish like that outfit at Pink Pony.
“Pink is my favorite color,” I told them. I’d been toying with the idea for years and decided it was finally time to make it known.
“Mine too,” Teresa said.
“Mine is purple,” Artemis said.
“Dark purple?” I asked.
“More like lavender, like the color of dawn just before the sun comes up over the horizon.”
“I know exactly the color you mean.” I thought about why I’d never shared my true favorite color before. When anyone ever asked me, I’d always said it was blue. “Do you ever feel sometimes that you have to choose? Like, pink is for girls, so if I like pink, then I must be girly.”
“What’s wrong with being girly?” Teresa asked.
“Nothing. I like being girly, and I like hanging out with you two, but I also want Cipher to respect me as a boy, as a man. And Macon too. They’re big, you know, and I’m not. I’m not very good at fighting or hunting. I can’t split a log with one blow the way Macon can. I can’t even fix things like Gizmo, and I cry a lot. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
I chewed on my lower lip, getting lost in my thoughts, and Artemis said, “Always comparing yourself to others will make you crazy. You should like the things you like and not worry too much about what other people think. We all like you for who you are, and so does Cipher.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“I hunt and fight and rarely cry,” Artemis said. “Does that make me manly?”
“No, it makes you badass,” I said and she smiled.
“Just be you, Joshua. And fuck all the haters.”
“Yeah, fuck the haters,” Teresa said, then covered her mouth.
“Fuck the haters,” I said and hoped my mother wasn’t listening.
They passed around Cokes next, ice cold from the refrigerator, and we toasted to the color pink. The soda was just as sweet as I remembered, and it burned my throat going down but in the best possible way. Their radio was the same one Gizmo had been tinkering with for the past few weeks, but now it was plugged into the wall, which meant we didn’t have to worry about the batteries running out. I recognized most of the songs and sang along. I started feeling a little nostalgic for the Before, when everything was easy and carefree, and we didn’t have to worry about Rabids or raiders or getting sick from the plague. I’d had a family who loved me and friends to play with and we all went to school. My mom and dad took care of us, and even when they argued, you could tell they still really loved each other.
I thought of my brother, who was somewhere in this city right now. What if he was hungry or in pain? What if he needed me?
