The People We Keep(53)

I choose a tiny fake emerald stud.

“Wicked color,” Carly says, nodding her approval. She’s not acting like I wimped out, and it makes me feel better.

“Birthstone.”

“Diamond is the birthstone for April,” she says.

“My birthday is in May,” I tell her.

She laughs, squeezing my hand as the needle goes in. “I love it.”



* * *



Bodie asks to see my tattoo when we get back to Decadence and Carly says, “You wish, Bodie. You wish April would show you where it is.”

Bodie touches his finger lightly to my new emerald stud and says, “Maybe I do,” before he goes back into the kitchen. And even though I don’t want him, even though I’m with Adam and I’m happy that way, the whole thing leaves me blushed and buzzing.



* * *



At six, right before Adam gets home, I get so nervous. Maybe he’ll be mad that I got a nose ring. What if it’s a totally amateur move—this stupid immature thing that’s going to make it obvious that I can’t possibly be nineteen? Or maybe he’ll think I’m a totally different person than he wanted me to be. I stare at my nose in the mirror, like maybe if I look hard enough it will be undone. My nose is red around the stud, so even if I take it out, he’ll still see what I did.

When I hear the downstairs door open, I slam the bathroom door shut. I hear Adam’s footsteps on the stairs. The door to the apartment opens and closes. I have no choice but to confess.

“I did something stupid,” I call from the bathroom.

“April?” he says, like there might be someone else in here yelling to him.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just stupid.”

“What did you do?”

“I don’t want to show you.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Did you cut your hair?” He sounds amused.

“No.”

“Dye it purple?” He’s laughing.

“Uh uh.”

“Volunteer for a medical trial?”

“No.”

“Get a tattoo of a screaming eagle across your butt?” I hear him snort.

“Adam!”

“Did you eat at that truck stop by the interstate? Because that would be stupid. Those hot dogs look like they’ve been there since—”

I open the bathroom door.

He stares at me for a second, like he hasn’t quite picked out what’s different.

“Oh,” he says, touching the side of my face. “It’s not stupid. It’s really hot.”

Making love on the bathroom floor is actually a lot sexier than it sounds.





— Chapter 26 —


Adam has finals to grade before winter break, so I’m home by myself a lot after work. It’s funny, I spent so much time alone in the motorhome and I was used to it, but now, when I’m alone in Adam’s apartment, I can’t stand how empty it feels. I tell Carly how I get antsy while we’re refilling the milk thermoses during a lull at the cafe. She says, “Let’s go out tonight. Cat Skin is playing at The Haunt. You’ll love them.”

And even though the shit Carly listens to makes me want to puncture my eardrums, I say yes, because the prospect of going out is too hard to pass up. She makes me sign a napkin:

I, April, promise to rock hard.

She pins it up next to Bodie’s anti-manwhore proclamation and the stack of other vows we’ve taken, promising everything from the courteous replacement of register receipt paper to the finding of existential enlightenment on one’s own time.



* * *



There are no nightclubs in Little River. And it’s not like any of us could have gotten away with chalking a license and going to Gary’s bar. He knows which kid belongs to which parent and nine times out of ten the parent is already sitting at the bar. Going out in Little River meant the deer blind with flashlights and a nicked six-pack, or hanging out in the gas station parking lot, watching the boys flip their skateboards. I was always just a hanger-on. I came as a package deal with Matty. No one ever invited me out. Margo took me to the movies in Springville sometimes, but that’s different.

I tell Carly about how there are no nightclubs in Little River and she gets it. Where she grew up isn’t much different. So she tells me to come to her place before and she’ll let me borrow some of her clothes. That’s even more exciting than going to a club.

This girl in my class, Ashley, had a big sister who would let her borrow clothes all the time and even do her hair and makeup in the schoolyard before the first bell. Heather would hold Ashley’s face with one hand to steady it and tell her to suck in her cheeks so she could brush blush in the hollows. I wanted to be Ashley more than I ever wanted anything else.

I walk to Carly’s new place, because she said she’d drive me home after. The Haunt is closer to us than to her. She answers the door wearing boots that lace up to her knees, cut-off red plaid pants with ripped tights underneath, and a black t-shirt that says Nipplehead across the chest. Her eyes are rimmed with sparkly black and purple eye shadow. When she turns around, the back of her shirt looks like a werewolf clawed her, and the blue creature on her back stares out through the rips in the fabric. I still don’t know what it is, but it has a big round eye. Her hair is extra spiky like maybe she cut some chunks out of it, but it looks good. It’s very Carly.