Rare (25 page)

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—
J

Goddammit!

The next morning, eleven long days after Pete went to stay with Maggie, I left her place at 7:00 a.m. to take the L across the city to the GED testing center. On the way, I considered blowing it off. Ted would understand, and I think he half expected me not to show up anyway. I deliberated all the way south to the Loop, but in the end, I pictured Pete’s face when I told him I’d agreed to take the test and dragged myself into the test center.

It was a decision I came to regret when I was confronted with pages and pages of questions I didn’t have the first clue how to answer. It reminded me of the health department test I’d taken for my tattoo license, but unlike then, I hadn’t prepared for the GED exam at all. Ted had scheduled study groups and Pete had promised to help me at home, but when he got hurt, I’d forgotten all about it, and I
knew
he had. I remembered him telling me that most of the test would be common sense… stuff I already knew, but as I stared at the very first question, I couldn’t see how that could possibly be true.

I considered cutting my losses and going home. Then quasi-Pete popped into my head again.

You’ve got nothing to lose by trying, fucker.

Perhaps he was right.

The test went on forever. I was exhausted by the time it was over, and disheartened. Even if I passed, which was highly unlikely, there went seven hours of my life I’d never get back. I could’ve done with going home and collapsing on the couch for a few hours, but even though I’d spent the whole day in the test center, I still had somewhere else to be.

I made it to the new college I’d enrolled in just in time for the induction workshop. I wasn’t in the mood to interact with people I didn’t know, but it was a mandatory requirement. I slipped into the back of the small lecture hall as the leader of the volunteer-run college began to speak. I tuned him out and glanced around me. The college was a cool place, a community project rather than an actual school. It was more relaxed and less intense than the school I’d attended before, and I fit in a lot better. The class I was taking was loosely based on street art, but there were no restrictions on the mediums you could use. That suited me. My own street-art days were behind me. It had been a long time since I’d picked up a box of chalk.

After the welcome speech, I spent some time with my mentor before I followed his advice and took a look around. There was plenty to see as I drifted through the converted warehouse. The front of the building held the public galleries, and at the back were big open studios with huge drafting tables and every material and tool you could think of. Writer’s workshops made up the third floor, and music and dance studios the basement. It seemed the “collective,” as my mentor had called it, had something for everyone.

I was staring around the photography gallery on the second floor when I spotted Danni. She stood by the biggest piece in the room, with her back to me. I recognized the style of photograph she was scrutinizing. I hadn’t taken much in the night Pete and I had gone to her apartment—I’d been too intent on rejecting every effort she made to engage me—but despite my best efforts, I’d walked away with her work indelibly stamped on my brain. I didn’t know much about photography, but the stuff on her apartment walls blew me away. The piece she stared at now was no exception, and my eyes were as drawn to the black-and-white image of a sleeping old man as they were to her.

Naturally, she spun around in a swirl of vanilla-scented hair before I caught myself. “Ash? Hey, I was going to come and see you later.”

“Saved you the trouble.” I came to a stop beside her. “Is this yours?”

“Hmm.” Danni frowned. “It is, actually. I’m not sure I like it anymore, though, so I’m resisting the urge to rip it down.”

It was a feeling I knew all too well. “What’s stopping you?”

“What little dignity I have left, and the fact that it doesn’t belong to me anymore. I donated it to the collective.”

“You’re a student here?”

Danni opened her mouth to answer, but she was cut off by her cell phone. She pulled it out of her purse and pressed a few buttons. “Shoot, is that the time? Listen, I’m due downstairs, but I won’t be long. What are you doing now? Do you have a class?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t start for a few weeks. I was just taking a look around.”

“I’ll be done in an hour. Wait for me?”

She did that chick thing with her eyes, and lacking anything better to do, I agreed to go and find her in the music studios when I was done looking around.

Twenty minutes later, I found myself observing her from a distance in much the same way I had the first time I’d laid eyes on her. I felt a little stupid when I realized what she was doing. She was twenty-five and she’d just picked up a master’s degree. I should’ve figured she was a teacher, and I’d forgotten she was a musician as well as a kick-ass photographer.

I slipped into the small studio and slid into a seat at the back. I pulled out a sketchbook to keep from staring. When I sat back twenty minutes later and frowned at the page, I found I’d missed Danni’s lecture on American Blues and drawn the piano she sat behind.

Dazed, I shook my head and gathered my stuff together. The class was beginning to filter out as I shoved the book into my bag. I considered attempting to sneak out with them, but Danni was beside me before I could even stand up.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

I got to my feet and stretched. “Got nowhere else to be.”

“Pete doesn’t need you?”

“Um… not right now.”

Danni shot me a look as she shoved a stack of papers into her purse, but she seemed to accept my answer. “Let’s go grab some dinner, then.”

She took my arm and pulled me toward the door. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t hungry, but as luck would have it, she turned to me the moment we hit the street. “You know what? I don’t think I want anything heavy right now. Can we get some ice cream instead?”

Ten minutes later, we slid into a booth of a diner Pete and Mick often frequented when they came off shift. It felt weird to be there, like I was intruding on something sacred. Sensing my discomfort, Danni ordered for me, but with Pete on my mind, the dessert turned my stomach when it was placed in front of me. The sketch stuffed in my bag came to my rescue when I couldn’t find the words to fill the inevitable awkward pause that came next. “You play the piano?”

Danni stuck her spoon into my untouched dish. “My dad taught me for years until I went to an arts academy instead of high school. I play jazz, mainly, but I’ve been dabbling in some more contemporary classical recently.”

I made a face to tell her I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “Charlie plays jazz guitar.”

“I used to play gigs with Charlie in Philly. That’s how I met Joe.”

A distant bell rang somewhere in my head. I felt like I’d heard the story before, but I couldn’t quite remember the details. “Do you play in Chicago?”

“Not really. I play at the collective sometimes when I teach, and I think I might play at the arts festival in the spring, but I’ve been a little distracted since I got here.”

The source of her distraction was obvious. I ducked my head and looked away. “Um, what are you going to play?”

Danni reached for her cell phone. “Funny you should ask, actually. I’ve got two pieces I can’t choose between. Do you have an iPod?”

“Nope.”

“What about your phone? Does it have an MP3 player?”

“I have no idea.”

“Pass it over.”

I duly did, and I watched, mystified, as she fiddled with her phone and mine.

After a few minutes, she handed it back. “There you go. I recorded these tracks yesterday. Have a listen when you get home and let me know what you think. Do you have headphones?”

I didn’t, but I knew Pete had some in the box his cell phone came in. When he left, all he’d taken was the meds for his liver and some clothes, so I figured they’d still be there. “Did you write them?”

Danni shook her head. “No. I don’t write. I’ve tried, but I’m terrible at it. Anything I play back makes me cringe.”

I found it hard to believe she was terrible at anything she tried her hand at, but I kept quiet. I checked my phone for the call I knew wouldn’t come and shoved it back in my pocket.

“What about you? Your class will be exhibiting at the festival too. Have you thought about what sort of pieces you’re going to submit?”

“Hmm?”

She spoke again, but her words floated over my head as I realized I was staring at the lines of ink I could see through the white fabric of her shirt.

Danni frowned. “Is my tattoo really that bad? I know it’s a little close to home for you, but you keep glaring at it like it’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen.”

“What? Oh, no, sorry… it’s…. Can I see it again?”

“Sure.”

She shrugged out of the shirt she was wearing. It left her in a sleeveless white vest. She didn’t seem to notice the stares of every guy in the busy diner, but I did, and the growl that bubbled up in my chest surprised me. It took considerable effort to shove it down and focus on the design she’d revealed on the inside of her arm.

Weird.

I leaned forward, tracing my mother’s date of birth with my fingertip. Pete had ink on the same part of his body in memory of his father. Whenever I saw it, I felt a rush… a flood of emotion I didn’t quite understand. I’d never known Pete’s father, and recent events had shown me that perhaps I didn’t know
Pete
as well as I thought I did, but the dedication on his arm always stirred something in me, like I wanted to hold him so tight all the pain behind the ink would fade away.

Danni’s tattoo meant nothing to me, and I couldn’t figure out why.

We spent the rest of the evening alternating between watching ice cream melt and engaging in conversation that fluctuated from effortless to downright awkward. Danni didn’t seem to consider any subject off-limits, and it felt cathartic to talk about things I’d only ever discussed with my therapist. It seemed Joe’s loose tongue had done me a favor. Danni accepted the weird parts of me for what they were. No explanations, no disappointments. To her, I was who I was. She didn’t know me as anything else. Even my favorite phrase—
psychotic depression
—didn’t seem to faze her.

We talked about everything, or rather, she talked and I choked out a sentence from time to time. Her past, my past, and the past we shared. She told me about her parents and the death of her mother; I told her about my life in Philly and what had brought me to Chicago. She didn’t find my life on the streets as horrifying as Pete always had. In some ways, she seemed fascinated.

“You don’t sound all that Southern,” she commented when I’d told her about the few good things I remembered of my childhood in Texas.

“Not anymore,” I said. “When I ran away from foster care, I cut all my hair off and started speaking like a northerner. I think I figured it would make me harder to find.”

Danni touched my hair. “What did you cut it with?”

“A razor blade.”

For the first time all evening, Danni’s eyes grew tight. She stared at me for a long moment until she sighed and offered me a wry smile. “All these years I was searching for a cowboy, huh?”

I wondered if she could tell that I’d never told a soul what I’d just told her, not even Pete. For a brief, dark moment, I was transported to the dingy bathroom at a truck stop in Oklahoma City, until her hand on my arm brought me back.

“Stay with me, Ash.”

The waitress was beginning to give us dirty looks when the giant elephant I’d hoped to avoid made itself known, bizarrely by way of a conversation about blood. We were both type AB, which, according to Danni, meant we were creative, unpredictable, and mysterious.

She made a face at my disbelieving snort. “Okay, let’s try it this way. What about Pete? What type is he?”

“O.”

Danni pursed her lips, fighting a smile.

“What? Why’s that funny?”

“Type O’s are kind, curious, and stubborn. Sound familiar?”

It did, but it also sounded like Joe. Danni laughed when I said as much. “Too true. How is Pete, anyway?”

I felt my humor evaporate. “You probably know better than me.”

“Not really,” Danni said. “I haven’t seen him. Joe said he was pretty stressed, so I figured I’d give him some space. I was planning on bugging you instead, but you, mister, don’t ever answer your front door.”

“I don’t always hear it.”

It was true. I spent my nights at Maggie’s. If Danni had called during the day, I’d probably been asleep, on the roof, or hiding under my pillow.

Danni sighed. “It’s okay, Ash. I expected you to ignore me. I…. God, I don’t know. I know you told Joe to give you some time, but I didn’t want you to be on your own.”

I twirled the straw in my empty soda cup. “Sometimes it’s better that way.”

“No, it’s not, you just think it is because you’ve forgotten you know any different.”

T
HE
APARTMENT
was dark and dim. The TV was on. I couldn’t really hear it, just a few distant voices, but I stared at it for a long time. Let it consume me while my bones grew heavy. My perspective was off: slanted… tilted. It probably should have made me dizzy, but the world wasn’t moving fast enough for that.

The couch shifted. A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. It felt like the earth vibrated, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“You still on that badass med? I thought you were done with that.”

I rolled my head to face the body slumped next to me. Joe stared right back, his eyes wide and green. “It’s kicking your ass, huh?” He sighed. “Dude, it won’t be for long. Pete said just for a few days, so you can get some rest.”

Rest. Fuck, if only they knew. I liked downers: junk, benzos, but the pills I was swallowing these days were something else. There was nothing restful here, no relief or gentle, consuming oblivion. Instead there was nothing… nothing but an abrupt, black hole where my consciousness used to be.