Honey Girl(36)

Sani wrinkles his nose and stares warily at the cards being thrown in front of him. His long hair hangs in his face. “I don’t know,” he says, collecting his pile. “There are other things to do when you grow up on a reservation. Egyptian Rat Screw was not one of them. Blame your government for not giving us access to your weird-ass settler card games.”

He looks up when silence falls. “What? Too deep?”

Fletcher sighs. “No. Go on, do you want to give Porter the speech? She’s never heard it.”

Sani sniffs, offended. He’s like a cat, all long, stretchy limbs and wary affection.

“What’s the speech?” Grace asks. “I didn’t know you grew up on a reservation.”

“Well, I did,” he says. He cuts his eye at Grace. “Are you going to ask me what it was like?”

“I’m only half-white,” she argues. “Give me some credit for sensitivity.”

Sani lets out a surprised laugh, leaning into Grace’s shoulder. “You’re not so bad,” he says, resting his head there. He looks at Fletcher. “Teach us how to play this game. We’re going to kick your ass.”

“No kicking any ass,” Yuki says suddenly, looking up from her phone. “I won’t be here to supervise.”

“Can I come with you?” Grace asks, feeling courageous. She wants to see Yuki work. She wants to watch the stories come to life as they move through radio airwaves.

Yuki blinks. “You want to? You’re actually asking to come?”

Grace stares. “Why do you sound surprised? I like hanging out with you.”

“Oh,” Yuki says. “I think I’m having an emotion.” She disappears into her room.

“Rain check on Egyptian Rat Screw?” Grace asks, the three of them staring at Yuki’s closed door.

Sani waves her off. “Go, go,” he says. He throws the cards behind him. “We,” he tells Fletcher grandly, “are going to play Uno to the death.”

Grace leaves them. She knocks carefully on Yuki’s door. There’s no answer, so she lets herself in slowly.

Yuki sits on a small pillow in front of her altar. She has two little crystals in her hand, quartz and another one Grace doesn’t recognize. The room smells like the ocean, like Yuki, like her basil and herbs and little green flowers she lets grow wild on a sacred tabletop.

“Hey,” Grace says softly. She sits down, careful of the crystals and the plants and the magic and reverence that seem to hover here. “Talk to me?”

“I’m sorry,” Yuki says. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It was a rough day at work, and I realized I just wanted to come home and—”

“And what?”

“You make it feel easy,” Yuki says, “and it terrifies me a little. I had a rough day at work, and I wanted to come home and see you. I wanted to kiss you, and touch you, and, I don’t know, maybe even fuck you if the mood was right. I wanted to let you in.” She presses the two crystals tight into her palms. “I almost wish you would stop making it feel so easy.”

Grace bites her lip. The words warm the pit of her stomach and make her throat dry. She did not just leave Portland because she wanted time, perspective, a breath. She also wanted a girl singing a song that drew her in. “I think it’s a good thing.”

“Do you?” Yuki asks.

“I was scared to come to New York,” Grace admits. “Terrified. But from the first time I heard your voice on the radio, I knew you were a good thing.”

Yuki lets out a long, slow breath. Her flannel shirt hangs off her shoulder. Her hair sticks to her forehead. She is a prickly cactus flourishing in desert heat. “Terrified to come here,” she starts, turning to look at Grace, “but not terrified of me, right?”

Grace folds herself up, knees to chest. Yuki has all sorts of quartz on her little altar. Rutilated quartz and pink quartz and smoky quartz. Quartz is supposed to be a healing crystal. She doesn’t know if all the quartz in the world could heal two lonely creatures in the dark. She hasn’t kissed Yuki yet, not here, because she feels too much like the things in the shadows. Like she could draw blood without trying. She hasn’t kissed Yuki because she is still learning how to be this lonely creature.

“I don’t know yet,” Grace says. This close, Yuki’s eyes are black, glittering pools. Her arms, like armor, guard her heart and her ribs and her soft parts, like she is scared, too. Grace doesn’t want either of them to be scared. “But I wasn’t scared of you in the desert when we put flowers in each other’s hair. I wasn’t scared when a man in a fucking glitter suit asked if I wanted you as my lawfully wedded wife. I wasn’t scared when I said yes.”

Grace reaches out, hoping desperately that Yuki will reach back, and she does. She does. Yuki opens her palm, and Grace takes one of her crystals. “I don’t want to be scared of you, Yuki Yamamoto.”

“Then don’t be,” Yuki says, voice quiet and low and reverent. “I looked it up, you know. I looked up how to get an annulment. Printed out the paperwork and everything. Even filled it out and signed my name. But then you called me, and I ripped them up.” She places her crystal on the altar like an intention. “I don’t want to be scared of you, either, Grace Porter.”