My Tiki Girl (22 page)

Ever the curious girl, I put down my books, leave my wet shoes by the door, and dig a dime out of my pocket. Dahlia smiles, gives me a wink before Jonah drags her off to the kitchen, explaining that confessions are private things. I push aside the scarf and crawl into the dark box. There’s a small window on the side with another black curtain in front of it. Beside it is a slot labeled DEPOSIT 10¢ PLEASE.

I kneel in front of the window and put my dime in the slot. A light comes on behind the curtain on the other side, and the curtain is pulled away. There, in the window, is the plaster Mary figure held up by Leah’s hand.

“What is your confession, my child?” she asks in her Mother Mary voice. It’s a firm way of speaking she has, each syllable carefully enunciated. Mary sways as she talks, bobs around in Leah’s hand.

“I’m not sure.” I don’t know what she wants from me, where she’s going with this game.

“Have you sinned?”

“Maybe.”

I’m getting a little uncomfortable now, thinking about Dahlia, wondering if what we do in her room is a sin. Wondering if Mother Mary would see it that way, or if she’d understand. I suddenly have this absurd fear that Leah’s heard Dahlia’s song and knows who she wrote it for.

“Do you know what sin is?”

“I think so,” I answer, treading carefully. I think of the kiss on the stairs, how I can still taste Dahlia on my lips and tongue.

Could Leah know somehow?

She makes a tsk-tsk sound, tongue against teeth, scolding, as she waves the doll more violently around in the air. “Mother Mary sees you know the answer to the question but are afraid to answer. Mother Mary sees all. Remember that, LaSamba. Don’t think you can hide from Mother Mary. I am Keeper of the Dolls, LaSamba. I control your fate. Don’t you doubt it.”

My heart jumps up into my throat. Mother Mary turns in Leah’s hand, sways a little. I hear a small clinking sound, the rattle of ice cubes in a glass.

“Say ten Hail Marys and pray for clarity,” Leah says at last.

I scramble out of the confession booth, mumble my Hail Marys, and practically run to the kitchen, where Jonah is playing with Mr. Twister and Dahlia’s just hanging up the phone. I’m about to tell her how truly weird the whole thing was and ask if she thinks it’s possible her mother knows, but I don’t get a chance.

“That was Troy,” she reports. “He says he’s sorry for being a jackass. And that he was just joking around about being in love with me.”

“Yeah, right. I guess he was joking around about smashing his guitar to smithereens like that, too,” I say, taking the cigarette from between her fingers and having a drag. My fingers are shaking a little.

Does Leah know about us somehow? Does she suspect? Or, worse yet, is what she promised true; does she control our fate? Are we just life-size versions of our little dolls, marionette girls being pulled with invisible strings?

“That’s not all, LaSamba,” Dahlia says. “Troy had this great idea. He wants to have a huge party at his place. His parents are going to Spain next week. So we’ll have this big blowout kegger, invite the whole school, and The Paper Dolls will play. Just wait till they hear us, LaSamba! We are gonna blow them away!”

I nod and smile. I’ve been a star before. It doesn’t interest me now. All I want now is Dahlia.

“There’s more,” Dahlia says, her voice almost shaking, she’s so excited. “Troy says he’ll invite that Phil guy, the manager over at Terrapins, and if he likes what he sees, he’ll get us a gig! Whaddya think?”

What do I think? I think we’re better off staying the hell away from Troy, but I see the glow in Dahlia’s eyes and know I can’t disappoint her. I read in one of those teen magazines Sukie used to get that one of the keys to a successful relationship is being willing to make sacrifices.

“I think we have a lot of rehearsing to do,” I say.

“Yeah, we’ll start tomorrow after school. No more messing around. This is serious. If we can get that gig at Terrapins, we’re on our way!”

21

We have a
total of five songs to play. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. We’ll open with “Dead Aunt Mary.” Then a song Dahlia titled “LaSamba Blues,” all about a girl trapped inside a sad, rag-doll clown, which features a long, jazzy clarinet solo by yours truly, LaSamba herself. We’ll follow this with “The String Man’s Cave,” which tells the story of meeting Joey. “Sylvia’s Garden” is Dahlia’s ode to her second-favorite poet. We’ll close with “The Mermaid Song,” which is definitely our hottest tune and my own personal favorite, not just because it’s secretly about me, but because Dahlia rips herself open and bares her soul each time she sings it.

We have been practicing day and night. We pile into Troy’s Trans Am after school and go to his place, where we play until eight or nine at night.

It’s Friday afternoon, which means it’s our last day to practice. Tomorrow is the big night. When Dahlia, Troy, Joey, and I walk out to the parking lot at school, Sukie and Heather are waiting by Troy’s Trans Am. A few other girls are milling around, pretending not to watch, but it’s clear everyone is hoping for a catfight.

“Hey, Heather! Hey, Sukie!” says Dahlia, like they’re the best of friends. She knows she has an audience, and she’s playing the scene for all it’s worth. She’s gotten used to all the attention she gets now from hanging around Troy. It’s been a crazy thing, but all of a sudden, it seems like everyone wants to know her, especially since she was on the front page of
The Chatterbox
. Our table at lunch is always crowded, and sometimes when I meet her at her locker, she’s got a group of kids standing around her while she entertains them with one of her stories. She shoplifted a couple of packs of T-shirts from the 5 & 10, and then stenciled the Paper Dolls logo on them. She’s been selling them for five bucks each, and even before anyone’s heard us, we seem to have our own fan club. The truth is, I think if there was an election held today for most popular girl in the tenth grade, Dahlia might actually win. And she’d pretend not to care, but secretly, she’d be overjoyed.

“I need to talk to you,” Sukie says to Troy.

“We’re kind of on our way to rehearsal,” Troy says. “Have you heard about the party tomorrow night? You guys should come.”

Sukie just nods. Of course she’s heard about the party. It’s all anyone’s talking about.

“So spill it. What is it that’s so important?” Troy asks.

“It’s kind of private,” Sukie says. She gives Dahlia the evil eye. Dahlia just smiles and touches Troy’s arm.

“You better go ahead. Maybe she’s gonna tell you she’s knocked up or something,” Dahlia says.

Troy gives a surprised snort, and a couple of the girls pretending not to listen snicker.

“Oh,
wait
,” Dahlia says, touching her forehead, like she just remembered something important. “It couldn’t be that. You guys only went to first base. You’re saving yourself for marriage, isn’t that right?”

More snickers. Sukie turns really pale, then really red, and I wonder if she’s going to take a swing at Dahlia. Troy grabs Sukie’s arm and leads her away, back toward the school. Heather follows. We watch Troy and Sukie have an animated conversation in hisses and whispers, while Heather stands guard. They keep stopping to look at us.

“My ears are burning!” Dahlia singsongs.

Troy walks back, looking like he’s eaten something sour.

“What did Miss Stick-up-her-ass want?” Dahlia asks.

“Come on,” he says, opening the driver’s-side door. “Let’s just get to rehearsal.”

So we all pile in, and Troy doesn’t say anything the whole way to his house. He just sticks a Hendrix CD in and cranks it. Dahlia looks at me, shrugs, rolls her eyes.

He’s been on his best behavior since he confessed his love for Dahlia and trashed his guitar. He went out and bought another Strat, a dark violet one that he’s named Purple Haze after the Hendrix song.

We run through our songs and Troy seems to relax a little, but he still seems quieter than usual. He shows Dahlia the best way to play an F chord.

“It’s like this,” he says, moving her fingers on the fretboard.

Dahlia strums and sings, “F, F, F. F is for fusion, fickle, flashy, filly.”

“Flabbergasted,” I add.

“Finest fancy fish frolicking flagrantly,” Albert says.

“Fork,” Joey says.

“Fork you, too,” Dahlia says, and we all laugh, even though it’s a pretty bad joke. I catch Troy watching me and I’m suddenly self-conscious, like maybe I’m laughing a little too loud for how dumb a joke it was.

We take a break at dinnertime, and Troy microwaves us some pizza and egg rolls. We drink Cokes, then get back to work. Troy gets me a stool to sit on because I can’t stand long on my bad leg.

We’ve learned all kinds of weird things about each other this past week: like that Joey can’t stop laughing when he’s tired, Troy can belch the national anthem, and Dahlia has a secret passion for anchovies.

It’s getting late, so we run through “The Mermaid Song” one more time. When we’re done, Troy goes over the list of stuff he has to get for the party.

“So are you coming to my house?” Dahlia asks me as she puts on her coat.

“Can’t. My dad’s been all cranky about how I’m never home. I promised I’d come have a late-night pizza dinner with him.”

Dahlia leans in and whispers in my ear, “Tiki wants to lay you down on the sand and lick the salt off your skin.” I smile, but I can’t help but notice Troy watching us. His brow is furrowed and he looks like he wants to say something, but instead he turns away and puts Purple Haze in its case, taking special care to snap each clasp firmly closed, like the guitar is going to try to make an escape.

“So are you guys all ready for the big night?” my dad asks. He’s putting two slices of pizza on my plate, and I don’t have the heart to tell him that I already ate.

“As ready as we’re gonna be, I guess.”

I don’t know if we’re really ready to play for an audience, and to tell you the truth, I’m kind of worried. I mean, what if we suck? What if the whole school comes, and that Phil guy from the club, and we make total fools of ourselves?

“Maggie, I know you’ve been really busy getting ready for this party. And I know how important it is with the manager from Terrapins coming and everything, but starting next week, I’d like to see you home a little more. I’m worried you’re not getting enough time for your homework. I’m really happy about your renewed interest in music, but I don’t want to see your grades slipping.”

“My grades are fine, Dad.”

The truth is, I failed a quiz on
Macbeth
in English, and in Earth Science, No-Neck Knapp pulled me aside and asked if I was having some kind of personal trouble that was keeping me from getting my homework passed in. School seems so totally unimportant now that I have Dahlia and the band, now that I am finally starting to feel like maybe my freakish Frankenstein self fits in somewhere after all.

“And you’ve been doing your leg exercises?” my dad asks.

“Of course.”

“And taking your medicine?”

“God, Dad. What am I, five years old? Yes, I’ve been taking the pills.”

Another little white lie. I stopped taking my antidepressants a couple of weeks ago. My Tiki girl is the only drug for me.