Beige (6 page)

I wrap my special knit blanket around me, savoring the one puzzle piece I have now, one thing that clicks into place. I think about everything, and before long, I fall asleep.

“Do you know what I like best about us?” Mom says.

I do know, but I like it when she tells me. I like to hear her say it.

“I like that we’re friends,” she says.

“Me, too.”

“It took me a long time be friends with my mother,” she says.

The fan in the apartment just moves the hot air around. It’s so hot I don’t want to eat lunch.

“Don’t you have air-conditioning?”

“No. It’s only really unbearable in August,” The Rat says.

He’s sitting on the couch with his drumsticks hitting on a practice pad.

“It’s unbearable now,” I say.

“At least it’s not humid,” The Rat says. “God, I hate humid.”

“But it’s still hot.”

Hot as Hell,
I think.

“Go take a swim,” The Rat says without looking up from his
SPIN
magazine. “Knock yourself out.”

I wonder if he really means,
Get out of here — I’m reading.

I leave my lunch on the table and head to my room to put on my bathing suit. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I can tell one thing for sure: it’s a good thing I’m not staying here for too long, or I’d be an embarrassment.

I’m sure I look West Coast terrible.

I’m paler than pale and I have no boobs to fill the top of my swimsuit. Leticia calls them speed tits.

She calls hers bodacious tatas.

She always rubs it in. She looks like a woman, and I still look like a little girl.

When I go back to the kitchen, The Rat hasn’t moved. I open the freezer and get a piece of ice to suck on, then I go to the balcony and check out the pool action. I don’t want to go down there if that boy is swimming. I don’t want him to see me in my bathing suit. But he’s not there. There’s only a lady sporting a big orange hat, sunning herself in one of the lounge chairs.

I pop the ice out of my mouth and rub it on the back of my neck and my wrists as I head down to the pool.

The woman looks up at me as I open the gate.

“You must be Beau’s girl.”

“Yah. Katy.”

I start to put my foot in the pool.

“I’m not going to be responsible for you,” she says, eyes on her magazine.

“Excuse me?”

“No minors can swim without adult supervision.” She points at a sign.

I look to where she’s pointed and she’s right: tacked onto the gate is a sign that says no minors are allowed to swim without adult supervision.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Not my problem,” the woman says, still not looking up.

I consider going upstairs to get The Rat, but for the first time since I’ve arrived in Los Angeles, I’m alone, and I want to keep it that way for just a bit longer.

I could disobey the rules. I could just swim anyway. I could be the kind of girl who would break the rules. But I know I’m not. I just sit down on the edge of the pool and slip my legs into the cool water and then lie back onto the cement and look up at the blue cloudless sky.

A silver glint catches my eyes, and I scan the balconies facing the courtyard. My eyes fall on the swimmer from the other day. He’s sitting on his balcony, talking on the phone. I watch him as his mouth forms O’s as he speaks. He looks exactly like the kind of boy that you would meet in California. He’s tan. He’s fit. He’s beautiful.

If I could meet him, I could go back home with a real story. He could save me from having a bad time here. Like a knight in shining armor. Maybe he’s a TV star. He’s that dreamy. I could just say he was. I could brag about it to Leticia. My time in Hollywood hanging out with a famous actor.

“People make the best sunshade, don’t you think?” A woman holding a toddler towers over me, effectively blocking the sun. She is wearing a black vintage swimsuit and a straw hat and cat-eye sunglasses. Tattooed around the entire top of her right arm is a ring of fairies afloat on a field of flowers, and on the bicep of her left sits a mermaid. She has an anchor tattooed on her forearm.

“Do you want to swim?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll watch you.”

Her baby is blond and bubbly. He reaches for me.

“Mine,” he says.

“This is Auggie. I’m Trixie. You must be Katy.”

“Yeah,” I say, getting up to shake her hand.

She puts down Auggie and opens up her bag, which is covered with a skull-and-crossbones motif, unlike any diaper bag I’ve ever seen. She pulls out a little life vest and straps it onto him.

“Go ahead. I’ll watch. Besides, as long as Leo is up on his balcony, we’re all safe,” Trixie says.

Leo. The boy’s name is Leo.

“He can’t dive from up there. He’d hit his head on the bottom of the pool,” the woman in the orange hat says, still not looking up from her magazine.

Trixie looks at me and rolls her eyes. I roll my eyes right back. We both smile.

I dive into the pool and let the water slide over me. Trixie hangs out by the steps with Auggie as he splashes the water and squeals with pleasure. Little kids are so easily amused.

After a couple of laps, I swim over to Trixie.

“I’m glad you were out here. I was going to come over and say hello. Beau had mentioned you were visiting,” she says. “I’m his girlfriend.”

“Oh.” He seems to be so open with everything else, I wonder why he didn’t mention a girlfriend. I thought he was a loner. I never heard him ever mention any woman except for my mother. I try to picture him attempting to woo someone. I can’t.

I must look surprised, because Trixie shrugs and laughs again. “He’s probably still working up the courage to talk to you about it. Men. They are so strange.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Don’t you have boyfriends?” Trixie asks.

“No.”

“What about your mom? She must have boyfriends.”

“No,” I say.

“Not ever?”

I wonder if she’s fishing for information. I want to tell her to mind her own business. I want to tell her to talk to the hand.

“No,” I say.

“Hmm,” Trixie says. “That’s a shame.”

No, it’s not,
I think. My mom doesn’t need a man to make her happy. She’s happy by herself, with me.

Auggie slaps the water with his hand and squints his little eyes and smiles. Then he reaches for me.

“He likes you!” Trixie says. “I think that means we’re going to be great friends.”

I look at her. She’s not even like a real person. She’s like a person who’s stepped out of a 1950s movie. I wonder if she dresses like that all the time.

“Anyway, Auggie’s a good judge of character. Aren’t you, Auggie? Aren’t you?” Trixie grabs Auggie’s little body and blows a raspberry on his stomach, which sends Auggie right over the moon.

Watching Trixie with Auggie makes me hurt for Mom. I wonder what she’s doing today. I wonder if the site is everything she’d hoped. I wonder if she’s missing me. I dive back under the water so that even I don’t know if my face is just wet or if I’m actually crying.

I pull myself out of the pool and grab my towel and head upstairs. I don’t want to hang out here.

“See you,” I say, not looking her in the eyes.

“Welcome to Grunge Estates, Katy,” she calls after me.

Someone is leaning on the unbearably loud buzzer at the door.

“Katy, can you get that?” The Rat says. He’s in the bathroom. Taking a long time. Stinking it up. Reading magazines. The Rat poops more than anyone I know.

“Who is it?” I say through the door.

“It’s Lake,” I hear that cartoon-voice say. It still makes me want to laugh.

Lake’s hair is greasy and glinting in the sun. Her eyes are covered by too-big Gina Lollobrigida sunglasses. Despite the heat, she is wearing all black.

“Hey, Beige.”

“My name is Katy,” I say.

“Right,” Lake says. “But you’re still
Beige.
”

She just doesn’t want to use my name.

She’s calling me Beige for a reason.

It’s an insult.

I can’t imagine that she is visiting me because I was such a great companion at the Fourth of July party. It’s more than obvious that she doesn’t think I’m cool.

In my mind, I slam the door in her face, go back to my bedroom, pick up my book, and continue reading.

But I don’t kick her out. I open the door wider. I let her in.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“According to the deal I have with The Rat, I’m supposed to take you ‘under my wing,’” she says, coming into the apartment and scanning the place. She sits down on the couch and kicks her long legs on the table.

She’s not interested in me. I’m just part of the “deal.”

“And what do
you
get out of it?” I ask. And then it hits me. “Are you getting
paid
to hang out with me?”

“Bribed, not paid. It’s kind of like a summer job, only not. Besides, everyone I know is . . . at
camp
. . . and you’re here for how much longer?”

“Twelve days,” I say.

“Exactly my point.”

“Why aren’t you at camp?” I ask.

I’d rather be at camp. In Rimouski. On a lake that looks like a mirror. In a place where I can see the stars at night. Where there is no smog. A place where if I’m lucky, like I was two years ago, I can lie on a rock near the lake at night and watch the green curtains of light the aurora borealis make as they chase each other across the sky.

“I have better things to do than archery and water sports,” she says. “Repeat this to yourself ten times, Beige. Camp is for losers.”

The word comes right into my head. A word I don’t normally use. BITCH. I want to tell her she’s a
bitch.

“What are we going to do?” I ask instead.

“Shop, for me,” she says. “My bribe from your dad was a gift certificate to Guitar Center.”

We’re sitting on the Number Two bus heading west, and I watch the palm trees go by. They are so tall that they bend like Q-tips, leaning gracefully in the windless Los Angeles day.

“Does this bus go all the way to the ocean?” I ask.

“Yeah, this is the Two. The Four goes all the way, also,” Lake says.

“All the way to the Pacific?”

“No, to the Indian Ocean,” Lake says, rolling her eyes. Maybe they will get stuck in the back of her head like that, she does it so often. “Yeah, to the Pacific. The last stop is like one block away.”

Let’s go to the ocean, I think. Forget about Guitar Center. Let’s go dip our feet in the western water, the same water that touches the coast my mother is on. Let’s squish our feet in the sand. I haven’t even been there yet. Maybe I
want
to go there. Maybe I want to go because The Rat says he never has time to go to the ocean. Isn’t that what’s supposed to be alluring about Los Angeles? That it’s near the ocean? Maybe seaweed will wrap around our calves. Maybe we’ll see dolphins. Maybe I’ll get freckles. Cute ones. Or sun-kissed blond highlights in my hair. Then I could e-mail Leticia pictures of me all tanned and California cute. That would be something to write home and not be embarrassed about. Let’s go to the beach and look at boys who surf. Normal, hot, sporty-looking boys with blond hair and sand stuck on their backs. Boys like Leo. I’m sick of The Rat’s neighborhood, being told it’s so hipster. Hip is not my aesthetic.

Lake pulls out her iPod and pops her earbuds in so she can freeze me out. Her head bounces up and down. She plays air guitar discreetly in her lap. I stare out the window at the endless strip malls. Los Angeles is the ugliest city I’ve ever seen.

“Here’s our stop,” she says, pulling out an earbud and grabbing my hand to pull me off the bus — like I won’t be fast enough, like she has to help me keep up or I will be left in the dust.

The bus leaves, tearing off westward. Secretly, I’m still on it. I’m still on my way to the ocean.

When we walk through the sliding-glass doors of Guitar Center, everyone inside is talking in hushed tones, like it’s a museum. There are guitars on all the walls behind glass displays. Lake kisses her fingers and then touches the glass in front of one. I hang back a bit and read the name. I don’t recognize it. I don’t recognize most of the names, and I don’t say anything about the few I do because I notice that those are the displays Lake breezes by without so much as a second glance.