Girl in Snow(28)

“Doggie style,” Cameron answered.

“My mom reads Cosmo,” Ronnie said. “There’s some seriously kinky shit in there. I mean, you gotta see it; I’ll bring it to school tomorrow. This one article talks about how you should freeze fruit and run it down a girl’s body—like, can you imagine a frozen fucking banana . . .?”

There was an oak tree on the right side of the fence that separated the playground from the Thorntons’ yard. Even from the distance of the swing set, the bark curved in a way Cameron wanted to remember, burying its roots in the ground and snaking up like vertebrae climbing toward the base of a neck. The oak looked hundreds of years old, out of place in the painted metal playground, grinning and jeering at him, crying and pleading with him, touching Cameron in places he had not been touched before.

“Let’s be real though,” Ronnie said. “Beth wouldn’t fuck either of us, would she?”

The wet wind pushed the branches to the left, blowing damp green leaves onto the Thorntons’ lawn.

Ronnie bit the end of the Bic, and ink bled blue all the way down his chin.





Jade





“You’re late,” Aunt Nellie says.

“Sorry.” I don’t sound very convincing.

“You hear about that girl?” Aunt Nellie says. She stands behind the concierge desk, hands on her hips. Her eternal post. I swear, Aunt Nellie will die behind that desk someday, with a handful of Life Savers Mints stuffed in her uniform pocket.

“What?”

“The dead girl.”

“Yeah, of course I have. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“You think he did it? That neighbor boy of hers?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t think he did.”

“Well, you’re one of the few. Anyway, you’re late, and the guest for Room 208 is waiting to check in. Hop to it.”

After cleaning Room 208 (where someone has crushed a trail of M&Ms into the carpet), I take my break behind the kitchen dumpsters.

Melissa, the housekeeping manager, only lets you take breaks if you’re a smoker. This seems backwards to me, but I own a single pack of Virginia Slims for this purpose. I forgot them today. I wind through the kitchen and mime a smoking signal: Melissa wears a hairnet as she unpacks grocery-store croissants from the freezer, preparing for the morning’s continental breakfast. She nods permission. Sometimes she’ll join me outside, and I’ll light one up just for show, but I always end up coughing my brains out. Last time, I nearly puked in the rot-lined dumpster after Melissa had gone in for a room-service call.

I’ve stashed a Coke in my apron pocket to get me through the last two hours of this shift. Tonight feels particularly desolate. Cars whoosh by on the highway across from the hotel; garbage wind wafts over me. When I came outside, the sun was still glowing amber over the foothills. Now, I can barely see its forehead. I crack open the can of Coke and lean against the wall.

Halfway through the can, I notice that I have company.

Querida stands a few feet away, shimmering in the kitchen light that filters through the open door. I clear my throat, announcing myself in the shadows.

“Ah,” she says. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” I stammer.

Querida’s jeans tent over her calves in an outdated bell bottom. Her waist bulges a bit beneath a zip-up sweat shirt. She has an accent—I’ve never heard her speak before. Spanish, maybe.

“Is it okay if I smoke here?” she says, though she’s already flicking a lighter. She tosses a tangle of long black hair over her shoulder and inhales, shoulders slumping as smoke fills her lungs.

“Do you want one?” she says, passing me the pack.

“No, thanks,” I say, and take a sip of flat soda.



WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY BUT CAN’T WITHOUT BEING A DICK

A Screenplay by Jade Dixon-Burns

EXT. HOTEL—NIGHT

Celly stands by the dumpsters behind the building, the highway just feet away. Cars whoosh by, a noise like a sea. Celly takes a drag of a cigarette and exhales the smoke coolly. WOMAN (28, beautiful) stands beside her.





CELLY


Will you tell me how it feels?





WOMAN


I’m sorry?

Celly blows a thin line of smoke away from Woman, then turns to face her.





CELLY


To be loved like that. How it feels. I can’t imagine.



“I am sorry?”

“What?”

“Did you say something?” Querida exhales a plume of smoke from the pursed corner of her mouth.

“No, I—”

“You asked how it feels.”

“Oh,” I say. “I mean, how does it feel to be loved like that? Like you and that guy upstairs?”

I can’t believe I’ve actually asked her such an idiotic question, this pretty woman in casual jeans, cloaked in her misty aura. Lust. Querida takes another drag; I wish I’d accepted a cigarette. I feel like a child, swirling around the last sip of flat Coke in a can.

“Wow,” she says, with a laugh. “This is a question.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”