Veer shrugs and follows her friend, but she’s easy enough to track among the other dancers, her white tank top stained blue by the lights. She whips in tighter and tighter circles, wild and feverish, and when the song slows, I watch the ecstatic heave of her shoulders as she catches her breath.
She glances back at me, her gaze like searchlights tracking the night sky. Like I’m a skeleton key, and she’s a door that’s never been unlocked. Like something I could reach out and grasp, if only I were willing to put my hand out for it.
8
VEER FINDS ME AGAIN WHEN THE SONG CHANGES. WEgo back to the kitchen, and she makes me another drink. Mostly tequila, with only a splash of orange juice.
“I can’t stay much longer.”Can’tis easier thanshouldn’t.
Veer’s face goes expressionless. She thrusts the cup under my nose. “Don’t break my heart, now.”
It’s a cramped kitchen, made even more cramped by the cups scattering every surface like shiny red boils. There’s nowhere to retreat.
I take a sip. Taste wet earth with a muted citrus sting. She’s still watching me.
I want to see if I can still get it right, if I can prove to her I’m someone worth remembering. I press the pale plastic rim to my lips and hold her gaze and swallow the rest of the drink without pausing to breathe. Her eyes glitter like pools of ink, like twin oil slicks.
“I didn’t see you last night,” I say, swilling saliva over my tongue to dilute the harsh alcohol aftertaste.
Her crooked canine flashes. “Quiet night. We parked outside a McDonald’s and did nothing for, like, three hours.”
“Hanging out in a parking lot? What are you, fifteen?”
She snorts. “And who are you, the downtime police?”
“Where wouldIfind the time?”
I forgot that I knew how to do this. Or maybe she just makes it easy.
Veer leans back against the counter. “Okay, so you get it. Nap or whatever when you can, right? I mean, I nap. Rodriguez studies.” She bends a little to scratch at her hip with her elbow. I’m not sure she even knows she’s doing it. “Philosophy.”
“No shit.”
Her eyebrows spring up, and she makes a face. “I guess that joke only works if you, like, know him. No, he’s getting a degree in computer science, gonna ditch me to be a software engineer or something.”
“He’s smart, huh.”
She bristles. “Paramedic cert isn’t easy.”
“Yeah, I know. I wasn’t saying that.” She grimaces as if to say,Sorry, I know. “But computer science is totally different, right? Lots of math.”
She wiggles a finger at me. “Hey, we do lots of math. 0.01 milligrams epinephrine per kilogram, which is 2.2 pounds, so the average anaphylactic ten-year-old takes, uh . . .” The noise of the party swallows the rest of the sentence, and she sticks her tongue out. “Okay, fair, Rodriguez is really smart. So smart I get a little jealous sometimes.”
“Because of the math? Or because of the philosophy?”
“That’s my partner you’re talking shit on.” But she’s laughing. “And it’s not real philosophy. He just says crazy stuff sometimes.”
I shift, and an empty beer can topples over on the counter behind me. “Crazy how?”
Her face goes serious for a second, and she drops her voice to mimic Rodriguez’s even tone. “Don’t waste your life trying to be good, good doesn’t exist on a personal level any more than evil does. One person’s good deed might inadvertently generate a fuckton of evil in the world. Same deal with one person’s evil deed. It’s all, like, cosmic. Or karmic.” She runs a finger around the rim of the nearest cup. “He gets weird after midnight.”
“He sounds like my uncle.”
“Does he get weird after midnight too?”
“I don’t know. Probably.” I remember his jabs about what I should do with my mom. How I’d better quit trying to be a good daughter and get it done. My eyes feel shiny and clouded, and then I realize it’s because there are tears there, out of nowhere. I’m suffocating very, very slowly, like gauze is being wadded up in my windpipe one strip at a time.
Veer makes a concerned noise in the back of her throat, and the gauze melts. “Hey. I didn’t mean…” A twitch in her cheek. “Do you want something to drink?” She glances at the empty orange juice container, then the various glass bottles surrounded by red plastic bodyguards. “Somewhere quiet? Fresh air?”
