Dirty Wings (16 page)

 

 

She asks Maia about their money, one morning when Jason is swimming in the ocean, and Maia gets serious immediately. “We have to go home after this,” she says. “I guess. I mean, I don't know where else to go. We're almost broke.”

Cass thinks about this, pushing her bare toes through the sand. Home. Back to the squat. Maia could stay there, but would she want to? Does Cass even want to?

“We could try and get an apartment,” Cass says, surprising herself. “Somewhere. Together.”

“That takes even more money than gas.”

“We could get jobs.”

“Like this?” Maia waves a hand at herself, encompassing her dirty hair, shredded clothes.

“Sure,” Cass says. “We can clean up a little. But plenty of places don't care. Restaurants, coffee shops. That kind of thing. Maybe a bar if we're lucky.”

“We're not old enough to work in bars.”

“We're old enough to lie.”

“Right,” Maia says. She is quiet for a while. Jason is a tiny dot, far away from them, a speck of black against the glittering sea. “I miss the piano.”

“I'm sure,” Cass says.

“I want to play like those boys play. Jason's band. I don't know how, though.”

“Sure you do. You're really good.”

“But not like that. They can just make things up. Play together. I mean, of course I'm a better musician than any of them. I don't think Jason can even read music. But the way they played—it's like they were talking to each other or something. Like this language I didn't even know about before. I want that.”

“You could start a band,” Cass says. “When we go home.”

“When we go home.”

“So we are. Going home.”

“We could stay in LA.” But Maia doesn't sound serious. Cass considers the idea, discards it. California is for weirdoes and surf rats. The beach is nice, but it's no place like home. Does she want a real life, now? An apartment with Maia, a bed, a table, a bookshelf. Rent. A real stove. Things people have. Things people could lose.

“Do you want to go home?” Cass asks, tentative. “I mean,
home.
”

“Seattle? I guess I sort of do.”

“No, I mean home. To your parents.”

Maia is surprised to realize that already her parents' house is the last place she thinks of when she thinks of home. Home for her now is just a smear of grey, the choppy water of the Sound, the green trees on the slopes of the mountains. “Jesus, no,” she says. “I miss Oscar.” She stops. “I called him,” she says. “From Santa Cruz.”

“I figured.”

“He told me I was afraid of something. Something inside me.”

“On the phone? That's kind of heavy.”

“He's like that. Do you think I'm afraid?”

“Isn't everyone?”

“I don't know. I don't know what it is.” Maia's face is so fierce Cass wants to hold her tight, sing her lullabies until her scowl eases and the tension seeps out of her shoulders. What demons could a spoonfed girl like Maia possibly have? And even if she does carry some burden Cass can't see, who doesn't live with darkness in the secret corners of their hearts?

Cass picks through the various things she could say. Maybe she hasn't given Maia enough credit, these long weeks, hasn't recognized that the pieces of Maia that look like her aren't pieces Cass made, but pieces that were there already. If anything, all she's done is given them the chance to shake themselves awake.

“We could call your parents. I mean, you could.”

“Oscar said he'd tell them I was okay. Anyway, I stole their car.”

“We stole the car.”

“I'm not going to blame you for the car,” Maia says. “That would be shitty.”

“I didn't stop you. You don't want to call them just because of the car?”

“Maybe they won't say anything about the car. They never drive it. My mom has the BMW.”

BMW. Cass almost laughs.
Oh, Maia.

“We'll call them when we go north,” Cass says. “From San Diego. You can tell them you're okay. See what happens.”

“We can't keep going. We need money.”

“Money helps,” Cass agrees.

“A little house,” Maia says, dreamy. “A little house for us, on a hill somewhere. It could be brick. A big room for the piano. And we could put patchwork curtains in the kitchen.”

“I could grow herbs in the back yard,” Cass says.

“And flowers. Lots of flowers. Dahlias.”

“You could teach piano.”

“We could start a band.”

“I thought you wanted to be a real musician.”

“I don't know. I thought I wanted that, too. It's the only thing I'm good for.”

“That's not true,” Cass says. “That's not even a little bit true.”

“It's the only thing I'm good
at.
”

“You don't know that. You've never tried to be good at anything else.”

“I don't think that's how it works.”

“Sure it is,” Cass says. “Do you love it? Playing?”

“Yes. Of course,” Maia says quickly, but then she pauses. “I don't know.”

“Yes? Or you don't know?”

“I don't know if I really know what love is.”

“Maia, are you really going to marry Jason?”

“Did he tell you he asked me?”

“Did you say yes?”

Maia raises her hands in a helpless gesture, drops them. “I know it's crazy.”

“You met him
last week,
Maia.”

“You're the one who's always telling me to loosen up.”

“I didn't mean yoke your entire life to the first punk boy to come along and whisper sweet nothings in your ear.”

“He needs me,” Maia says. “He's just—he's lost. I know you don't like him, but you don't see him when we're together. When it's just the two of us.”

“All seven days you've had, to get to know each other inside and out.”
Who's lost,
Cass thinks,
him or you?
But she doesn't say it. Later, she'll wonder if it would've made a difference, if she had.

“I've always wanted to be the kind of person who could say yes to crazy things,” Maia says. “I never even had the chance before now. It feels so good, you know? To just say fuck it. Fuck all of it. What's the worst that can happen? We'll fall out of love and it'll be over.”

“Do you love him?”

Maia is quiet for a while. “I don't know. I think so. I think I could. Oscar told me so many times I don't know anything about love that I started to wonder if maybe I would never feel anything at all. I felt like that all the time until…” She trails off.

“Until what?” Cass prompts.

“Until I met you,” Maia says quietly, not looking at her. “Everything changed when I met you.”

Cass's heart is pounding so hard she's nearly dizzy with it. “I know what you mean,” she manages, her tongue thick and stupid. Maia is still looking away. “Maia, I—” She cannot get the words out; terror chokes her. All the times in her life she has been unafraid, and this skinny girl on a beach is what undoes her? It seems unfair. Maia turns to Cass at last, her brown eyes unfathomable, and Cass searches her serious face for some sign of what she herself feels reflected there, and then she thinks,
Fuck it, just jump,
and reaches forward to push Maia's hair out of her eyes, and when Maia does not move, does not say a thing, just keeps looking at her with those big dark eyes, Cass leans forward, every breathless inch a mile, and then she is kissing Maia, and Maia is kissing her back, and it is like how she imagined it and nothing like how she imagined it, Maia's soft mouth and her salt-scented skin and her hands in Cass's hair and Cass's hands against Maia's cheeks and down her shoulders and counting the notches of her ribs.
I am devouring,
Cass thinks,
I am devoured,
and Maia is whispering Cass's name against her mouth as she kisses her.

And then they hear shouting and Maia breaks away from her and Cass thinks
Oh no, oh no, oh never stop,
her heart frantic, her hands shaking, and she looks past Maia down the beach. Jason is running toward them, fucking Jason, his hands aloft, yelling. Maia licks her lips and straightens her shirt and looks up at Jason with a smile so fake Cass wants to slap it off her, and Jason is upon them, shouting “Look at this shell! You guys, look at this shell I found,” so oblivious to everything, to everything, to everything. Cass blinks hard at the tears salting the corners of her eyes, moves away from Maia, looks away from them both.

“How nice for you,” she says, and gets to her feet, and Maia does not stop her when she walks away.

THEN

The day after Maia's first punk show they sleep through most of the morning. Maia has never slept in past nine in her life and when she wakes, sees the hands of the clock marking eleven, she is filled with a luxurious and slightly guilty glee. Hedonism suits her. Who knew. The door to her father's study is shut. She knocks softly. “Dad?” But there's no answer. She opens the door a crack and peeks in. Her father is passed out on his desk, his mouth open slightly. She assumes he's still breathing. If he isn't, she doesn't really want to know. She closes the door and goes downstairs to the kitchen.

She wanted to make Cass breakfast, but she's never even cracked an egg. So it's Cass who fixes them omelets filled with cheese and mushrooms and green onion. “You never cook before?” Cass asks her, stirring butter into the pan.

“I can make spaghetti. If the sauce comes out of a jar.”

“Your mom cooks?”

“My dad does. If he isn't drin—if he feels like it. My mom's not really that domestic.”

“Her house is sure clean.”

“She pays people to do that.”

“Huh,” Cass says.

The omelet is one of the best things Maia's ever eaten. “Wow,” she says. “You're good at a lot of things.”

Cass smiles. “I only let you see my best side, princess.”

Maia shovels omelet into her mouth as though it's her last meal.

“My mom used to drink a lot,” Cass says casually.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, she probably still does. I just don't live with her anymore.”

“Is that why you ran away?”

“No.” The expression on Cass's face tells Maia not to ask anything else. She picks up their plates and carries them to the sink.

“Don't tell me I have to teach you how to do the dishes, too,” Cass says, laughing.

“Oh, come on,” Maia says. “I'm not
that
helpless.”

“If you say so, princess. Listen, I should probably go before your mom gets home, right?”

“I guess so.”

“I had a really good time this weekend.”

“Me too,” Maia says.

“I hope she doesn't kill you for the hair.”

“It looks so good it'd be worth it.”

“I don't know about that. It does look good, though. Go practice your piano, okay?”

“Okay,” Maia says. Impulsively, she crosses the kitchen, throws her arms around Cass in a bear hug. Cass holds her tight.

“You want me to take you with me?” Her tone is light but she's not joking. Maia can feel the
yes
bubbling up in her, overriding common sense and her own cautious nature. But she's not ready. She's not Cass, with nothing to lose. Not yet.

“No,” she says. “It's okay. Thank you.”

“Thank
you.
I guess I'll see you on the Ave this week.”

“That sounds good.”

Cass kisses her cheek and then she's gone, leaving a faint whiff of patchouli in her wake. Maia washes the dishes, taking more time than she needs with each plate. She's finished and about to go to the piano when she hears a car door slam in the driveway and her heart sinks. She leans her head against the refrigerator. It isn't too late to run away. She could climb out the kitchen window, take off after Cass, hang out on the Ave until they see each other next. She could be a little nomad, too, with her new clothes in a pack on her back and nothing else to her name but her toothbrush and her new boots. She imagines trying to carry the piano out the window with her, and she's laughing when the front door opens and closes. Noises of her mother taking her shoes off, setting her heels neatly side by side. Her mother's stocking feet, padding across the hardwood floor. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Hi,” she calls out.

Her mother comes into the kitchen. “Hello, sweetheart,” she says, her voice light and happy. Definitely a two-person conference, then. “How was your—” She stops short.

“Please tell me that's a wig,” her mother says. Her voice is cold. Maia takes a deep breath and faces her.

“I dyed my hair,” she says.

“And cut it.”

“And cut it.”

“What in hell were you thinking?”

“I just wanted—I thought it might look nice.”

“It looks awful.
You
look awful. Where was your father for all of this?”

“He was here.”

“Of course he was.” Her mother looks away with a pained expression, as though Maia is so ugly the sight of her cannot be borne. “I don't ask you for much,” she says.

Maia licks her lips. “I know.”

“Is it your mission to upset me? Can you not behave like a mature adult for once in your life?”

“I'm sorry,” Maia mumbles.

“You are obviously not sorry, Maia. You are not sorry at all. You are trying to hurt me, and you've succeeded.”

“I just thought it would look nice,” Maia repeats. Against her will, tears are springing up in the corners of her eyes. She wipes at them furiously.

“Is something wrong?” It's her father, standing in the doorway. “I didn't know you were back.”