This Lullaby(9)

“Watch it,” Chloe said to Jess, her arm jerking as she poured some rum into my Zip Coke. It was one of those little airplane bottles, which her mom regularly brought home from work. Their liquor cabinet looked like it was designed for munchkins.

“Oh, settle down,” Jess replied, crossing her legs and leaning back on her palms.

“It’s always like this when Lissa isn’t here,” Chloe grumbled, opening up another bottle for herself. “The balance of weight gets all out of whack.”

“Chloe,” I said. “Give it a rest.” I took a sip of my Zip Coke, now spiked, tasting the rum, and offered it to Jess purely out of politeness. She never drank, never smoked. Always drove. Being a mom for so long to her brothers made it a given she’d be the same to us.

“Nice night,” I said to her now, and she nodded. “Hard to believe it’s all over.”

“Thank God,” Chloe said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Not a second too soon, either.”

“Let’s drink to that,” I said, and leaned forward to press my cup against her tiny bottle. Then we just sat there, suddenly quiet, no noise except the cicadas starting up in the trees all around us.

“It’s so weird,” Chloe said finally, “that it doesn’t feel different now.”

“What?” I asked her.

“Everything,” she said. “I mean, this is what we’ve been waiting for, right? High school’s over. It’s a whole new thing but it feels exactly the same.”

“That’s because nothing new has started yet,” Jess told her. She had her face tipped up, eyes on the sky above us. “By the end of the summer, then things will feel new. Because they will be.”

Chloe pulled another tiny bottle—this time gin—out of her jacket pocket and popped the top. “It sucks to wait, though,” she said, taking a sip of it. “I mean, for everything to begin.”

There was the sound of a horn beeping, loud and then fading out as it passed on the road behind us. That was the nice thing about the Spot: you could hear everything, but no one could see you.

“This is just the in-between time,” I said. “It goes faster than you think.”

“I hope so,” Chloe said, and I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.





By the time we got to Bendo, it was nine o’clock and I had a nice buzz on. We pulled up, parked, and eyed the bouncer standing by the door.

“Perfect,” I said, pulling down the visor to check my makeup. “It’s Rodney.” “Where’s my ID?” Chloe said, digging through her jacket. “God, I just had it.”

“Is it in your bra?” I asked her, turning around. She blinked, stuck her hand down her shirt, and came up with it. Chloe kept everything in her bra: I.D., money, extra barrettes. It was like sleight of hand, the way she just pulled things from it, like quarters from your ear, or rabbits out of a hat.

“Bingo,” she said, sticking it in her front pocket.

“So classy,” Jess said.

“Look who’s talking,” Chloe shot back. “At least I wear a bra.”

“Well, at least I need one,” Jess replied.

Chloe narrowed her eyes. She was a Bcup, and a small one at that, and had always been sensitive about it. “Well at least—”

“Stop,” I said. “Let’s go.”

As we walked up, Rodney eyed us from where he was sitting on a stool propping the door open. Bendo was an eighteen-and-up club, but we’d been coming since sophomore year. You had to be twenty-one to drink, though, and with our fakes Chloe and I usually could get our hand stamped. Especially by Rodney.

“Remy, Remy,” he said as I reached into my pocket, pulling out my fake. My name, my face, my brother’s birthday, so I could quote it quick if I had to. “How’s it feel to be a high school graduate?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, smiling at him. “You know I’m a junior at the university.”

He hardly glanced at my ID but squeezed my hand, brushing it with his fingers as he stamped it. Disgusting. “What’s your major?”

“English lit,” I said. “But I’m minoring in business.”

“I got some business for you,” he said, taking Chloe’s ID and stamping her hand. She was quick though, pulling back fast, the ink smearing.

“You’re an *,” Jess told him, but he just shrugged, waving us in, his eyes on the next group of girls coming up the steps.

“I feel so dirty,” Chloe sighed as we walked in.

“You’ll feel better after you have a beer.”

Bendo was crowded already. The band hadn’t come on yet, but the bar was two deep and the air was full of smoke, thick and mixed with the smell of sweat.

“I’ll get a table,” Jess called out to me, and I nodded, heading for the bar with Chloe behind me. We pushed through the crowd, dodging people, until we got a decent spot by the beer taps.