There’s water, tiny beads of rain, drip-dropping onto my face.
I open my eyes, and tiny beads of rain are drip-dropping on my face.
I don’t remember who I am, or where or when, as tiny beads of rain are drip-dropping on my face.
The sky’s trickle joins in a burbling brook of tears that come fast down my cheeks. Zoë, she’s here somehow and she’s propping me up, my pulse in my head thundering a hurricane. Her lips are moving and I’m in some strange dream.
“Lu?” she says, as if through a tunnel. “C’mon, Butler, snap back to me.”
And I crane my head over to catch the crazy fear in her eyes. Somehow, for some reason, I smile. And then my stomach is lurching, skipping, jumping ship. Mutiny.
And my battered body is heaving forward, thick waves of golden Corona mixed with Reese’s and Marta’s hippie nut patties hurl from my wide-open throat, out, across the driveway in a magnificent arc. As if in slow motion, I watch as it fans and then finally splatters all over shiny blue paint, slowly revolving chrome rims.
“Jack!” Zoë howls, covering her mouth, and I’m doubled over, gagging, gasping, waves of nausea rippling tides over my skin. And I’m soaked in sweat again, drenched. My innards clench and I hurl again, hit her whip again. This time, it sticks, slides down so, so slow. And I’m pretty sure now this isn’t a dream. This is real. I retch, cough, spit.
And Zoë’s behind me, gripping my hair. “She shoots, she scores,” she says soft and a giggle from somewhere deep within my toes surfaces.
“Rinse and repeat,” I manage to choke, hacking out gooey strands of saliva, wiping at my face with the front of my shirt. My shoulders shake with a deep-down laugh and Zoë rubs a warm hand over my back.
“Truer words.”
“What the flip just happened?” I say, my words massive slow.
“You passed out?” she says, and I slump down onto my knees. “And then you woke up, grinned, and yakked all over my whip.” I look at her. “It was massive intense. Massive.”
“You mean, I didn’t die? I’m not actually dead?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, Jack. Not this time.” I clutch my ribs. They feel bruised, beaten, bloodied. “And I’m not sure, but you maybe just saved your Oma’s goddamn life.”
“I didn’t save her life. Just shot her some happy juice.”
“Whatevs. It was total gladiator. Like, whoa.” She steadies me by my arms and we stand together. “Think you’re maybe done, there, champ? Giving the whip an ole-fashioned power wash?” and I manage to smile. She leads me to the stairs and we sit. My head drops in my hands.
“Lu,” she says. “I gotta ask. Did you take something, pills, anything? Are you back on the kick?”
I shake my head. “No, Jack. I promise. Sauce, yes. But nothing hard. I swear. I think I had a panic attack. Or something. Marta was getting them as a wee-Jack. Right after Mom left. Terrifying.”
She sighs. “You certainly had something.”
“And now everything smells like vomit.”
“Sure does.”
I look at her and there she is, right by my side. “I can’t believe you’re here.” She smiles. “Seriously, thanks for showing up, Zo. You really came through.” My eyes fill again, bottomless wells of self-sorrow.
“Course,” she says, slipping an arm around my shoulder. “That’s what apple-Jacks are all about.”
I breathe in, feel the spin of the world, the tilt of the axis, the distant pull of the sun. I close shut my eyes.
“Zoë,” I say, realizing what I’m about to say before I have time to stop.
“Jack?”
It’s now or never, do or die.
“Zo, I think there’s another reason I had the attack. Like, not just ’cause of Oma. And it’s why I’ve been MIA and a lame-as-ducks apple-Jack.”
“’Kay.”
I take another breath, push my fingertips into the pounding rhythm of my temples.
“I’m in love.”
She laughs. “That’ll do it.”
“With Eve Brooks. Zo, I think I love her.”
Silence. And more silence. I spit a few remnant chunks of dinner into the shrubbery.
“And she broke my goddamn heart.”
The line goes total dead. Crickets and tumbleweed, the whole nine.
After lifetimes, centuries, Zoë speaks.
“One thing about you, Butler…” I swivel, look at her. “You never cease to surprise.”
“Word?” I choke out.
“Word.”
Zoë calls Maya. She rallies the troops. They’re an army for my one and my flag beats the wind at half-mast as Taps and a twenty-one gun salute pounds in my ears and I’m a prisoner of my own war. I spill the whole damn story, from Raine Hall to Ms. Hayes, the whole, pathetic reel of my secret, sad-sack, so-called love life. I say I haven’t told this stuff to anyone. That maybe I got used to it, to being secret and alone. And then I plow onward, to my present descent into wretchedness and Eve’s illicit dinner with Nate Gray, ending it all on where we began, the infamous e.p.t. in the betties’ bathroom. I tell them they can never tell a soul about the e.p.t. and Zoë says, straight-faced, “Her secret is safe, Jack, as we are your bosom friends. The friends of your bosom.”
And Maya doesn’t even blink. Until she does and she’s crying all over the goddamn car, saying how massive sorry she is for me, about everything, about how hard it’s been and how she loves the gays and thinks each and every one is a special angel. Which is … interesting. She takes it all on, feeling for herself every blip and blunder along my windy, wayward way. And I don’t even tell her to can it. ’Cause that’s Maya, bleeding heart and all.
Then Zoë gets hooked on Eve cracking on me and calling up Nate Gray. For that, she says, Eve Brooks must die. I don’t even tell her how much I disagree. ’Cause that’s Zoë—a tough nut, hard as rocks. My rock.
Then I’m thinking of Eve and Oma, and my hands start shaking again. Maya gives me a hug, says she wishes I’d told them sooner. Zoë gets quiet and says she wonders if maybe I didn’t tell her ’cause she’s always acting a flap-Jack, saying that’s gay and all, and she looks about ready to cry. I smile, squeeze her arm, and say, “I forgive you, Jack, as you are my bosom friend. The friend of my bosom.”
And I know the Cats are gonna be okay.