The Lock Artist (27 page)

He paused and took another sip of champagne.

“We play it all the way through. Right in his face, all the way out the door.”

The ladies came back to the table. Ramona grabbed Julian like she had no plans to let go that night. Lucy bent over and wrapped her arms around my neck. I was overwhelmed by her hair, by her scent, by the feel of her skin against my cheek.

She was just playing her part, I knew. But still.

“Have some more champagne,” she said to me. “It’ll numb the pain.”

I wasn’t sure what pain she was talking about. The pain in my body from everything I’d done that night? The pain in my heart? Or something else entirely.

Either way, I drank some more champagne. In this nightclub in this city on this night, with these lights flashing and this music pounding away on the dance floor below me . . . I couldn’t help wondering what would happen next. With these strange, beautiful people . . . it seemed like it could be
anything
.

Wesley came back. His face was red and his ponytail was undone. Julian gave me a quick wink as he stood up. Then I watched the two of them go at it. Wesley waving his arms around, Julian sticking his finger right in Wesley’s face. The upstairs bouncer had to step between them, and all hell broke loose for the next minute until we were all stumbling down the back steps and out into the night air.

Julian hailed a cab and we all squeezed into the backseat. Ramona gave the driver an address and we were off, rolling down Sunset Boulevard. Between the champagne and the company and the night itself, I was starting to feel disoriented.

Then we were going east on an expressway. The lights whizzing by us.

Then we were crawling slowly down a narrow street where people were dancing. They had to move to let us pass, one by one, inch by inch.

Then we were out of the cab and going into another club. This one was called El Pulpo. It was crowded and it smelled like spicy food and everyone was speaking Spanish.

Then I was dancing. Me. Actually dancing on a dance floor. I stopped dancing and drank a bottle of Mexican beer. Then I was dancing again.

I was dancing and feeling warm and almost good. Almost wonderful. As close to wonderful as it was possible for me to ever get, in my whole life.

All these strangers around me, speaking a language I didn’t know. Yet I felt like I belonged there. There was nowhere else to be that night except this sweaty little crowded nightclub in East L.A.

Lucy was in front of me now. Her arms in the air, a distant smile on her face. She was dancing, and it felt good to be close to her. I reached out and touched her. One hand on each hip.

Another man put his hand on her shoulder, turned her toward him, and said something into her ear. She took his hand and with one smooth motion twisted it all the way around until he was down on his knees. She kicked him once in the stomach and let him go. He crawled away, and she turned back to me like nothing had happened.

The music got louder. People were shouting.

More dancing. The way I felt connected to Lucy now. In a way I hadn’t felt since Amelia. Not just her but Julian, too. And Ramona. Even to Gunnar, still wiping the sweat from his face now, back at the house. Counting all that money.

More shouting. Louder and louder.

A thought came to me. If I ever talk . . . it’ll be on a night like this. I’ll just open my mouth and—

Lucy was saying something to me. I leaned in closer to hear it.

“You’re one of us now,” she said, her lips touching my ear. “You belong to us.”

Even now, when I think back on that day . . . the day Amelia gave me that last page . . . that hope I felt, for the first time in my life. That’s the part I want to remember most. That hope that was so real it was like something I could touch. Like it was right
there
in front of me. Those few hours I spent with nothing more than that one piece of paper in my hands. Waiting for the night to come. Being scared and unsure of myself, and having absolutely no idea about what would happen. But having hope that it would be as good as I could possibly imagine.

The sun went down. I waited for midnight to come. Then one o’clock. I made myself wait, told myself that I couldn’t afford to go any earlier than normal. Who knew how late anyone stayed up in that house? Two o’clock had been safe before, so that’s the time I would go.

I left at one thirty-five. I drove over to the house. I had my tools with me, of course. I kept telling myself, relax, calm down, or you’ll never be able to open the back door. But when I finally got there, the door was unlocked. Another new thing, this little message to me. I listened for a few minutes. Then I opened the door and went in.

Through the kitchen, to the stairs. Quietly up each step, into the hallway, to her room. I tried her doorknob. It, too, was unlocked. I turned the knob, but I did not press the door open. I stopped dead.

It was my last moment of doubt. Because this whole idea . . . it was obviously too good to be true. It was all a setup. A hoax. There’d be a movie camera on the other side of this door. The lights would snap on. Maybe all four of the art mafia would be there waiting for me.

Do I open the door or do I turn and run away? This was the moment.

I opened the door.

It was dark in her room. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. I stood there for a long time, waiting. I had the envelope with me, my new page added to the rest. I put the envelope down on the dresser in its usual spot.

“It’s about time.” A voice in the darkness.

I didn’t move.

“Did you lock the door behind you?”

I reached around and locked it.

“Come closer.”

I took a step toward the voice. I couldn’t see her yet. My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the dark.

“Over here.”

There was a soft click. Then a thin beam of light hit the ceiling. I saw her sitting on the bed, holding the flashlight.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come tonight. I fell asleep.”

I stood there, six feet away from her. I didn’t move.

“Are you going to sit down, or what?”

I sat on the edge of the bed. She was wearing shorts and an old T-shirt. Same as ever.

“I won’t bite.”

I slid down a little closer to her.

“I guess I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen,” she said. “Ever since the first time I saw you. But now that you’re here . . .”

She repositioned herself, sitting Indian style now. Her bare knees just a few inches from me.

“I guess this is a little weird, huh?”

I put one hand on my chest, then gestured to the door.

“No. You don’t have to leave. I mean, I haven’t seen your new page yet.”

I stood up, took the envelope from the dresser, then gave it to her. I watched her open it. She held the flashlight with one hand as she paged through the comics with the other. When she got to my new page, she picked it up and looked at it carefully.

“This is . . . me.”

She moved the flashlight back and forth across the page. On this drawing that had come from somewhere inside me.

A mermaid, with Amelia’s face. Underwater, her hair free and floating with the current. One arm crossed over her chest, for modesty’s sake. Her tail curving into a long U shape.

I closed my eyes. Somehow I had done the impossible, with a drawing that was both childish and salacious at the same time. The most ridiculous thing ever put on paper.

“I don’t even know what to say.”

That you hate it? That I should leave immediately?

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s amazing. How did you know?”

I opened my eyes.

“How did you know I’ve always had this thing about being a mermaid?”

She looked up at me. The flashlight made a deep shadow across half her face.

“Is this how you really see me? When you’re dreaming about me?”

I nodded. Just the slightest movement. I looked at her mouth.

“If you want to kiss me, you better go ahead and—”

I put one hand on the back of her neck, drew her mouth to mine. No other thought in my head except for how much I wanted to do that, without waiting another second. She slid her arms around my waist, pulled me closer. I felt us both slowly tilting toward her bed. Then falling. Her tongue touching mine and then everything melting. A word I’d read in how many books, melting, when two lovers come together, and yet this is exactly what it felt like. Both of us stretched out on her bed now, wrapped together, our hands finding each other’s, clasping and almost pushing away, like it’s all too much.

“Oh God.” Her voice close to my ear. “You have no idea how much I wanted this to happen.”

I was seventeen years old, remember. Before this night, I had kissed one girl for about two seconds. It had been over before I even knew what was happening. Now I was
right here,
in Amelia’s actual bed. I knew how everything else was
supposed
to work, and God knows I wanted it to, but I had no practical idea of exactly what to do next.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. She sat up.

“I promise I won’t ever ask this again . . . Can you really, really not say a word to me?”

I shook my head.

“Not even a little sound?”

I swallowed hard.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. I think that just makes you more amazing.”

We were both silent for a while. The flashlight was lying on the bed now,
the thin beam bouncing off her wall and casting a pale glow on both of us. Amelia’s face half hidden behind her hair. She drew closer to me again. I kissed her, slowly this time. The taste of her. The smell of her. This was really happening. She pulled me down again, and a dozen different thoughts ran through my head at once. What might happen next. What was
going
to happen next unless one of us did something to stop it.

Then we heard the noise. In the hallway, footsteps, then the creak of a door. Amelia put one finger to her lips to shush me, then seemed to realize how little sense that made. “Just wait,” she whispered to me. “It’s my father.”

We listened for the sound of the toilet flushing, then the footsteps again as Mr. Marsh made his way back to his room. I couldn’t help wondering what he would have done to me if he had woken up a little earlier and found me sneaking around in his house. I wondered further what kind of prison I’d get sent to, and if they’d be able to accommodate the fact that I’d have been crippled tonight and forever confined to a wheelchair.

We waited a few more minutes, long enough to make sure he had gone back to sleep. By then, the spell seemed half broken. I wondered if that would be it. For tonight, anyway.

Then she stood up. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Her skin was glowing in the window’s faint light. I swallowed, reached forward to touch her. I put both of my hands against her collarbones. She put her hands on mine, slid them down to her breasts. She closed her eyes.

She reached for my shirt. We pulled it off together. Then my pants. Then my underpants. She pulled her shorts down and kicked them away.

She took my hand and led me back to her bed.

“This is crazy,” she said. Afterward. “You don’t have to creep into my room in the middle of the night anymore. Even if I’m strange enough to actually like it.”

She pulled me to my feet. We stood there in the middle of her room with our arms around each other. The room was so dark, with the wooden floor painted so black it seemed like we were floating in outer space.

“My summer just got a hell of a lot more interesting,” she finally said. “Will you keep drawing for me?”

I nodded.

“I will, too. I guess it’s my turn.”

She kissed me again. Then she let me go. She went to the door, opened it a few inches, and looked into the hallway.

“It’s clear,” she said, “but be careful.”

I slipped past her, took a step onto the thick carpeting like I was coming back to earth. When I was halfway down the stairs, I heard a sound behind me. I stopped dead, expecting to hear Mr. Marsh’s voice. Hoping he didn’t have a gun in the house. When I turned, I saw Amelia looking down at me. She gave me a little smile and raised one eyebrow a quarter of an inch. Then she waved good night and shut her door behind her.

From one summer night . . . to the very next morning. How quickly the whole world can turn on you. How much I’d give to stop everything right there. Those few hours in Amelia’s bedroom. Finish my whole story on that note. Close the book. The End.

But no.

That’s the one thing prison teaches you. You can close your eyes and dream about the way you wish things could be. Then you wake up and everything comes back at you at once. The isolation and the locked doors and the crushing weight of the stone walls all around you. It all comes back and it feels worse than ever.