THE FIRST THING I HEAR IS MUSIC. THE FIRST thing I’ve always heard is music since the day I was born amid all those peaceful reggae sounds.
The second thing I hear is laughter and voices as a red BMW pulls around the corner.
I watch it drive by.
Then I watch in surprise and confusion as it brakes to a sudden stop and backs up.
It pulls parallel with me and stops, but I keep on walking.
The window rolls down and I pick up the pace.
“Who is he?” I hear the driver ask. “You sure you know him?”
The next voice is a girl’s. “I’m sure,” she calls out over the music. The sound of her voice stops me dead in my tracks.
“All right,” the driver replies reluctantly.
I turn back toward the car and my breath catches as the back door opens and Lea steps out. “Marley?”
“Lea! Hey.”
“Marley, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, well, I…” But I can’t think of anything to say. I’m three blocks from her house with no reason to be here. I eye the red Bimmer stopped in the road behind her. At first I figured the car was full of junior Haves, but I don’t recognize the driver, and when the guy in the passenger seat peers out at me, I realize I’ve never seen him before either.
Lea follows my gaze. “Friends from my church group,” she explains.
“Lea, what’s going on?” a girl asks, leaning out the open back door. “Are we driving you home or what?” But Lea doesn’t take her eyes off me.
“No,” she says, her brown eyes studying me hard. “I’m gonna walk home from here with Marley. I’ll see you guys next week, okay?”
“Okay, then. Later, Lea.” The back door shuts.
“Bye, Lea!” the driver calls out. He nods to me as he pulls away.
“So,” Lea says as the BMW reaches the end of the block and disappears around the corner.
“So,” I say back, shoving my hands in my pockets.
“This is twice now,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I always run into you on sidewalks,” she says.
I look around me and then back at her. “Yeah,” I say again. “But this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh?” Lea tilts her head to one side and watches me curiously. “What is it, then? No wait! First tell me what it looks like. Then tell me what it is.”
I smile. “You’re clever,” I say.
“Don’t change the subject,” she says back.
I nod. Busted. “I was going to say that I know it must look like I’m a stalker or something, me being so near your house and all.”
“I don’t think you’re a stalker,” Lea says. She starts down the street only turning around long enough to motion for me to join her.
I fall into step beside her and survey the scene—Lea looking crazy beautiful in a white pullover sweater with jeans. Me looking impossibly opposite of her in all black. The sunset, which is in full display now that it’s past four o’clock. The enormous homes rising up on either side of us.
“What are you thinking about?” Lea asks, watching me curiously.
“You,” I admit. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that I pictured you being shyer than this,” she says.
“Honestly?” I tell her. “I am. I’m usually really shy.”
“But…”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s me,” she suggests. “Maybe I bring out your bold side or something.”
“Maybe,” I say.
It’s definitely her. But I’m not sure I’m ready to say that much yet. I steal glances at her profile as we walk in silence for a while. It’s an easy silence, a good silence. Like I feel nervous to be walking with her, but also really comfortable and excited and unexpectedly happy.
It’s crazy that I’m here walking through the streets of the wealthy Fountain District with Lea Hall against a backdrop of stunningly colored sky. It feels like a movie or something. If I didn’t know better I’d say sunsets are nicer on this side of town. Or maybe it’s just that everything’s nicer over here. Or maybe it’s Lea.
“So…” she says, turning to watch me expectantly. “You’re not a stalker….”
“I swear I’m not. I was on the train and then I was here somehow. Or, I mean, I got off at Norfolk Station and started walking and ended up here. I don’t even know why.”
“I can tell you why,” says Lea. “Because you like me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You came to steal me away from all this.”
I laugh. “You’re absolutely right, Lea. I thought I’d take you away from here to a beautiful land of tenement buildings and liquor stores on three out of every four corners.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I shrug. “If I said no would it stop you from asking?”
Lea smiles. “Maybe,” she says. “Maybe not.”
“Okay then. What’s the question?”
“How is it, Marley Diego-Dylan, that you seem so shy and reserved at school, but then you get behind a set of turntables at my house and perform for kids you don’t even know like it’s nothing? You didn’t think anything of it. It’s like with your speeches—you always seem so flustered, but here with me now you’re all confident and manly.”
“Manly?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at her.
“You know what I mean. You’re like you are right now. It’s nice. I like you like this.”
“I don’t know why,” I say. “I think maybe it’s because I’m with you. Like you said before, you bring this side out of me.”
Lea smiles quietly to herself. She stays quiet like that for a long time.
I stay quiet too, not wanting to interrupt her if she wants to say more. I think instead about the fact that she’s always seemed so engrossed in that notebook of hers during my speeches, but it turns out she was paying attention all along. “Here’s what I’m thinking,” she finally says, curling loose blond strands of hair behind one ear the way she does. “What you need to do is think of your speeches as if they’re not speeches at all, but gigs. You know, DJ performances or whatever. Like you should think of each flash card as a song.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t work that way for me. When I get in front of people and have to speak I fall apart. English class only makes it worse because certain people get a sick joy out of messing everyone else up.”
“My friends.”
“I’ve always been bad with speeches, though.”
“But how is it different speaking in front of a crowd and performing in front of a crowd? I mean a crowd is a crowd, right? You just have to get it in your head that you can do it.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.” I’m not sure I’m buying her logic, but I’m loving the fact that she cares. Or at least it seems like she cares. It’s weird, really, how much she’s switched up from the way she used to ignore me.
We turn onto Lea’s street and I know I’m about to run out of time to ask her about it. It’s now or never.
“So can I ask you a question back?”
Lea watches me curiously. “Okay….”
“Well, I’ve been wondering this for a while.”
“Go on,” she urges.
“What happened? I mean, what changed between the time you came to the restaurant where I work and now? It’s like you’re a totally different person. You used to ignore me. I think it’s awesome that you talk to me now, but I can’t figure out why it is that things changed between us, you know?”
Lea puts her head in her hands and groans.
“Should I not have asked that?”
“No,” she says, “no, you should have.”
“I mean, it’s a fair question, right?”
“It’s a totally fair question, Marley,” she says. “What happened was I acted like an ass at Spazio’s. I didn’t mean to. Believe it or not, it wasn’t about you at all. But my brother totally let me have it when we left. He said you were going to feel like I was snubbing you for working there or something.”
“But you kind of did snub me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It wasn’t on purpose. I was just really upset and not talking to anybody that night. It was the day Todd Bitherman and I broke up.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. But my parents were really pissed when I told them I’d broken up with him. They’re best friends with Todd’s parents, and he’s from this really good family or whatever, and they told me they were disappointed in me and that I should give him another chance.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, it did suck,” Lea agrees. “We had a huge argument about it in the car on our way to the restaurant, and then I was just in a funk the rest of the night and not talking. I’m sorry, Marley, I should have been nicer. You didn’t have anything to do with it—you were just trying to do your job.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “All this time I thought you were ignoring me because I was working there and because I’m on scholarship or something.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what Justin said. I felt so bad. I was hoping to have a chance to apologize when you were at my house for his party, but then my friends came over and acted all bitchy and evil. They weren’t even invited. I was like, now I really owe him an apology. But what were the odds of us running into each other again? And then we did at the club and I said, this is it. You’re going to cross the street and talk to that boy. Hanging with you ended up being the best part of the night.”
I nod to show her I’m listening, but I don’t say anything. I don’t really know what to say. It never occurred to me that her not acknowledging me at the restaurant might not have anything to do with me at all. All this time I figured she was acting like her friends—rude and disrespectful and all that.
“What are you thinking, Marley?”
I pull my lid down lower over my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to get up the courage to say what I want to say next. Wondering if I have it in me. “I guess I’m thinking… if you don’t like Todd anymore…”
“Yeah…”
I take another deep breath. Then I just spit the words out before I can stop myself. “I guess I’m sort of wondering what you’re looking for in a guy. What you do like.”
“Oh,” Lea says. “I don’t know. Someone sweet, and smart, and really cute.”
“Okay.”
“I like artist types,” she continues, “because I’m an artist type so, you know, guys that are into music and art and dance and stuff like that.”
“So you’re an artist type, huh? Like that’s part of your dream you’re going to tell me about someday?”
“Uh-huh,” she replies absently, still deep in thought about the rest of her answer. “I want a guy who’s a gentleman,” she says. “Todd was never a gentleman, ever. None of my boyfriends really have been. And someone romantic. And I want a guy who works. Preferably as a busboy. That’s sexy to me.”
My mouth drops.
“And someone tall; tall is sexy too. And I think maybe someone who doesn’t drive, because I’m liking this walking thing. I definitely don’t walk enough. Was that enough of a description?”
I stare at Lea, dumbfounded.
“Marley?”
“Yeah?”
“Was that enough of a description?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Good. Because I’m home.” She gestures toward the massive four-story mansion behind her. “And that’s my mother,” she says, pointing to the first-story window where a woman peeks out at us from behind the curtain.
“Okay, then,” I say.
“Okay, then,” Lea says back.
“I guess I’ll see you at school.”
“Not if I see you first,” she says, winking at me before turning and rushing up the long front walk.
I watch as she reaches her front door, unlocks it, and pushes it open. She smiles at me before walking inside and shutting it behind her, and it’s all I can do to catch my breath.
I turn and start the long trek back to the train station once again, but this time with my heart and my head in the clouds. The sunset looks even more stunning now that the sun is really low in the sky. Yeah, sunsets are definitely nicer on this side of town. Or maybe it’s Lea. Yeah. It’s definitely Lea.
I shove my hands in my pockets and pick up the pace, gazing in awe at a sky streaked with rays of deep blue and wavering purple, a never-ending sea of gold. The colors a sunset could never be. But somehow is.
* * *
After my shift at Spazio’s, I go back home. But only to pack. I can’t stay here anymore, not after what happened. I pack records into my suitcase, throw some clothes in a trash bag, and head out into the night again.
Even though I ignore Ma and Don as I rush through the apartment grabbing my stuff, the sight of their lifeless bodies passed out on the couch brings back all the sadness and frustration I felt before running into Lea. I try to focus on thoughts of her to cheer myself up again but can’t do it. The reality that I don’t have a home anymore is hitting way too hard.
I walk the streets a long time, rolling the suitcase behind me with the trash bag slung over my shoulder. I wander around as if I don’t know where I’m going. I do know. Even if I haven’t got a clue about a long-term solution, I know what the short-term one is.
Which is why I eventually catch a late-night bus to Hawk and Hogan’s place. I have to ask them if I can crash at least some of the time.
They never lock their front door, so I walk right on in.
“Hey, it’s Ice,” Jewel calls out as I step into the living room. She skips over to me and gives me a big hug. Dana is sitting on the couch smoking a joint, choking down a quick shot, and looking pissed-off. Leon and another regular named Craig are sitting on either side of Dana waiting to see which way she’ll pass the joint. I don’t notice much more about the scene than that. The turntables draw me in like a magnet and soon I am lost in my own world, spinning away my heartache and drowning my disappointments in beautiful sound. I feel dead inside, but my music keeps me alive.
Ma and her boyfriend can’t take my dreams away, not really. They can rob me, and disappoint me, and break my heart, but they can’t get to my mind. I won’t let them. I am going to play at Fever.