Where the Staircase Ends(10)

Sunny laughed and passed me her cigarette, this time free from lip gloss slime. “You should ask him to give you a light. Any time a guy lights your cigarette it’s an easy excuse to touch his hand and give him the sex glare.” She touched my hand and gave me her own version of a smoldering stare, lowering her chin so she could look up at me through her lashes. I doubted I could achieve the same combination of sexy and wicked, but it was a decent trick to keep in my back pocket.

“Yeah, that’s good.” I agreed, flipping down the vanity mirror so I could check my makeup for the fiftieth time.

Sunny passed me the drink again, but I shook my head, too nervous to put anything in my stomach. Instead I leaned my head against the window and watched as the city swam into focus, the approaching lights a welcome distraction from the two competing voices heatedly arguing inside my head.

Justin likes you! He has to, otherwise why does he keep looking at you that way?

No he doesn’t, you delusional idiot. He would’ve said something by now if he did.

At least the night would hopefully give me some closure. Justin may have given me mixed signals inside school walls, but I was determined to wade through the ambiguity and get to the bottom of the riddle, even if I had to throw myself at him to finally get an answer.




*




We arrived at the club as the opening act finished their set. The space was smaller than I expected, with a single standing-room-only section in the front and a smattering of small cocktail tables shoved against the back wall. Most people were milling near the stage or the bar, their faces hazy behind the thick cloud of smoke hovering in the air like morning mist.

“I’m going to the bathroom to wipe this hideous thing off,” Sunny said, showing me the thick black X the bouncer scrawled on her hand. “Do you want to come with me, or do you want to make the rounds for Justin?”

I surveyed the crowd, trying to spot his lean silhouette among the bodies gathering near the stage. Most of the people there were notably older, which gave me hope he’d be easy to identify among the throng of men and women who looked like they’d popped out of a different decade.

“I’ll do a quick once around and then meet you in there.”

Sunny headed toward the neon sign pointing to the ladies’ room while I slunk my way through the crowd, attempting to look like I belonged. The space was dark, and the black painted walls only added to the dim, grungy feel. In between the swaths of black paint, old concert posters hung crooked around the room, some of them glowing against the black lights mounted on the ceiling.

Onstage, the crew swapped out the opening act’s instruments for the headliner’s, a piercing thump, thump, thump cutting through the din of chatter as someone sound-checked the drums and mics. I scanned the swell of people, spotted a baseball-capped head hovering near the front of the stage, and felt my heart catch in my throat. He was the same height and build as Justin Cobb.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled, pushing my way through a group of burly-looking men sporting Grateful Dead T-shirts to get to who I hoped was Justin Cobb. His back was toward me, a black shirt stretching across a taut set of shoulders.

I put on the warmest smile I could manage and stuck my chest out just enough to get noticed.

“Hey! I thought that might be you—”

My smile disappeared when the mustached face of a man in his late twenties turned around in response to the hand I placed on his back. His eyes dropped down to my chest and his mustache tipped up in a Chester-the-Molester smile, revealing crooked yellow teeth and a piece of something resembling corn stuck to his right incisor. His eyes, still glaring greedily at my chest, told me he wasn’t the kind of guy who asked for permission.

I ran toward the women’s restroom before I could hear whatever pervy words he was about to say to me, shame washing over me at the idea that I mistook him for my Justin.

“He might as well have tattooed this Goddamned thing onto my hand,” Sunny said when she caught sight of me standing behind her in the grimy bathroom mirror. “Since when did being underage make you a leper?” She paused to examine the top of her hand, the skin red and raw from her vigorous attempts to scrub away the X. “No luck finding Justin, huh?”

I shook my head and joined her at the sink to start working on my own X, scrubbing until it faded from dark black to a muted gray. I didn’t think I could get much more of it off without removing a layer of skin. “He’s probably waiting until the main band comes on.”

“I think I got it all.” Sunny proudly displayed her angry pink skin in triumph. “You want to come to the bar with me so we can get someone to buy us shots?”

I shrugged, not feeling like doing much of anything until I found Justin. But at least it would kill time until then.

We headed for the bar, and I broke away for an empty cocktail table so I could keep an eye on the entrance. In typical Sunny fashion, she commandeered two shots and several admirers after only twenty minutes. I watched in awe as a circle of guys danced around her like moths circling a flame, each fighting to get closer to her as she tossed her hair and grinned back at them mischievously.

The band took their places on stage, announcing the start of the show with a few screeching guitar chords as they launched into their first song. When I turned back toward the entrance, I saw Justin’s friends making their way inside the club.