-96- Oyster Shell

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I met her by chance, the way you find a five dollar bill when you’re looking for spare change.  Wings protruded from her shoulder blades, a little matted, a little dusty, but white as an angel’s, beautiful.  And as the world turned around her, I could feel her stillness.  A kind of quiet sorrow warmed her like a thick winter coat, even though it was the middle of autumn.

My first gift to her was a smile, and a tip.  For the pretty cashier, I said.  She smiled, half mechanically, half embarrassed, half angelic, and said, Thanks.  Her smile haunted my dreams for a week after that, a welcome phantom in my attic.

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The thing I remember most was his smell.  It was sweet, but bitter, sitting atop the thin wall between tea and coffee.  He was so close that his scent infected the air around me, enveloping me like a beautiful, cancerous cigarette smoke.  I think he must have come before that day, because he seemed so familiar.  And when he leaned in close, all I could think about was how much I wanted to bury my face into his chest or his neck and inhale deep, breathe in all that he was.  It rained the night he asked me out, as if washing away the desires I had ever felt for anyone else.

I didn’t tell anyone about him because I wasn’t sure how.  This guy asked me out yeah he’s cute really cute I think he really likes me yeah I like him a lot too when well I don’t know just yet.  Nothing seemed right about it.  At the same time I wanted to yell to the world how I felt about this mysterious boy, I wanted to lock him away in my jewelry box, next to the old clip-on earrings from my grandma and the little ballerina with the faded tutu who could no longer dance.

I thought of him every time the bell on the shop’s door rang, drunk on hope.  But no, that little jingle bell just kept shrilly announcing the arrival of another Not-Him.  I waited a week and a day, still watching the sidewalk outside hopefully, thinking that maybe he’d pass.

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That night, I met her in the park across from the coffee shop.  She must have waited a while, because her cup of hot chocolate or mocha or something was nearly empty.  I checked my watch; I was five minutes early.

Ready to go? I asked.  Her cheeks were flushed when she looked up at me, the blush hiding a host of brown freckles.  She looked at me as if she’d been ready for years.  She smiled and my heart flew.  Our hands clasped, she said, Yeah.

My second gift to her was a worn corduroy jacket, to shield her from the wind by the bay.  She hummed a tune I didn’t know and my heart sang along, as if it knew all the words.  If she had been any other girl, I would have taken her home and fucked her until she screamed with pleasure.

But not Penelope.  That night she left with my kiss on her cheek.

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The first time I called him, I was wearing his jacket.  It wasn’t cold because I had the heat up—in fact, I had already gotten four nosebleeds that week—but it still clung to me that night, and I to it like Linus and his blanket.

I hadn’t needed him before.  I’d wanted him, sure; every so often my eyes would drift from the t.v. or the stove to the little scrap of receipt with his cell number on it.  Just a cell, seven numbers.  No home, no hotel, no e-mail, just one number and Kaeli, scrawled across the top in that big, chicken scratch handwriting.  Monstrous K, little a-e-l-i.

Three rings.  Then, What’s up?  He said it nonchalantly, as if my own heart wasn’t pounding.  I took a deep breath.  Penelope?  And I took another.  Hello?  What’s wrong?

I threw up the words: My best friend is dead.

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Her voice was dry and cracked, like an old vase.  All I needed was I need you and I was at her place in fifteen minutes.  When I got there it was a mess of paint and oils, pots and pans, sanity and rationality.  The door was unlocked.

I asked, Penelope?  A cloud of incense smoke; mourning black.  There was a gentle clink of glass on glass, a thud.  Then, she shouted, Up here.  She sounded like she was dead already.  She was sitting on the floor, dark mascara trails running down her cheeks like soot, burn marks from images she had seen.  Want a drink? she asked, giving me a weak smile and gesturing to a few turned over bottles of cheap beer.  Her hand shook so she lowered it to her lap, something low and collapsed and holding photographs.  She said, I know this guy who owns a convenience store.  He sells it to me even though I’m underage.

I sat down next to her.  How many have you had?

She took a sip from the bottle in her hand and sniffed loudly.  I don’t know, just a few.  She looked at me, pleading.  Her wings had shrunken to the size of pins, just decoration, just a memory.  She said, Why the fuck did this happen?  I know she wasn’t my family or anything, but I loved her, you know?

I know, I said, because I did.  Then I didn’t say anything, because I knew that angel who had tripped me was far from where Penelope and I sat.  I could feel the sadness of the scared little girl next to me as if it in the air conditioner.  Nostalgia pulled at her hair and her clothes, seeping deep inside her, caressing her throat and her stomach and her tongue and cutting her open from the inside out.  It was just the victim who became the bully and started yet another endless cycle.  Life, death, life, death, pick her up, push her down.  Then I was just the air, and I held her as tight as I could, trying to absorb all her sorrow like a sponge.

Please, don’t.

She clutched my shirt in her fists with the French-tip manicure bitten to the bone.  She said, What’s wrong with me, Kaeli?  I felt her cry into me, though she pretended otherwise.  She took a deep, shaky breath.  What am I doing calling you over in the middle of the night?  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  I felt her chest rise and fall.  I didn’t say anything.

She pulled away from me, looked into my face, still touching my chest as if desperately trying to get a grip on something—someone.  Her eyes were read and swollen, tired like October after a heat-wrenched summer.  I must look terrible, she said and averted her eyes, apparently preferring a staring contest with her lap.

You’re still the prettiest girl I know, I whispered, truer than anything I had ever said before.  I ran my fingers through her soft, poppy-red hair, still smelling as alive as spring.  You couldn’t ever look terrible.

She was silent, lost in her head somewhere, and I wondered if the place she was in was more comforting than me.  Then she sniffed loudly, drawing back her tears, and looked up.  Thanks, she said, for coming for me.  She wrapped her arms around my neck, great wings,  strong and white, that must have been invisible before.  Then she kissed me, letting me taste the blood and alcohol still stuck to her lips.  And all at once, every impure desire I had ever felt fell off my shoulders like shirt two sizes too large.  Deep within my chest, something stirred and bloomed; the sun was still setting.

She rested her cheek on my shoulder, letting her breath caress my neck like gentle rays of light.  I love you, she said, voice aching.

And I just wrapped my arms around her, feeling her through every pore, holding her through every piece of myself.  The silence pressed in around us, warm as summer.

I love you, too.