Punk and Zen (31 page)

“What?” I asked, grinning. I couldn’t help that.

“
Sie hat dich gern
.” Dee Dee smiled at me.

I gave her a puzzled look, not understanding what
she’d said. I hadn’t gotten really past the basic greetings yet—but I was
trying.

“She really likes you,” she translated, her eyes
sparkling.

“Well,” I glanced down at the books before us on the
bar because Dee Dee’s regard made me feel a little shy, “I certainly hope so.”

“Love is a very strange thing, Nina,” Dee Dee said
solemnly, “and it makes us strange even to ourselves.” She paused, then grabbed
a few glasses from under the bar. She poured cream into one, juice into
another, vodka into the third, and plain old soda into the last one.

“Which ones would you absolutely not mix together?”
she asked expectantly.

“Cream and juice.”

“And why is that?” she prompted.

“It’ll curdle the cream, of course,” I explained,
puzzled. I knew she knew this; she was a chemistry major.

Dee Dee promptly mixed some of the juice with some of
the cream in a separate glass. “And you are right, of course,” she said as we
watched it transform into cheese. She held up the glass to show me the results,
then deftly flicked it away under the sink. “But,” and she held up her index
finger to make her point, “watch this.” She strained some vodka through ice and
carefully mixed it with the cream and the juice. Even though I was watching, I
can’t tell you exactly how she did it—but a few good shakes later, she poured a
thick and creamy mixture that looked exactly like a pale orange shake.

“Try it,” she urged, so I did. Jerkster came bopping
over from the corner where he’d been sitting, and I offered him a sip, too. It
was very nice, actually—smooth and cool, velvety and light, with a summery
orange taste. It tasted just like a…

ABC

“A Creamsicle!” Jerkster announced, and I agreed.
That’s exactly what it tasted like, a grown-up Creamsicle with just the
lightest of kicks.

“How did you do that?” I asked Dee Dee, smiling. “That
was some trick!”

“Ah, nothing,” she said, waving away the compliment.
“You like?” she asked Jerkster, raising her eyebrows at him.

He peeped over the straw he joyfully sucked on.
“Uh-huh,” he said from around the plastic. The cup started to make that
burbling sound as he got to the bottom, and he bopped happily off back to the
jukebox.

Dee Dee observed him for a few more moments, then
returned her attention to me. “It’s…it’s a lot like love, Nina,” she said,
pointing to the two empty glasses. “In the first example, we have two
items—mutually exclusive, so different, and when they mix? One tries to become
the other or the other tries to absorb the first to such a degree that they
create something useless—and both are ruined. But, in our second example?” She
paused and smiled. “There’s something else—a catalyst that shares elements of
both, yet it is separate, different. When it is used in the proper way, all
these pieces give up a part of themselves, yet here they are, uniquely
themselves, and together, something uniquely different—each a contributing
element.”

I got it, I really did. “It’s a bit like being in a
band.” I nodded. “Everyone does their thing, but together…” We both looked over
to the jukebox where Jerkster was dancing, badly. “You know what I mean.” I
grinned at her.

“I know what
you
mean,” Dee Dee smiled back,
“but do you know what
I
mean?”

I reflected. I thought I did, but maybe I’d missed
something. I scratched my chin. “You know, Dee Dee, I’m not sure,” I admitted,
paying her the serious attention her tone deserved.

Dee Dee pinched my cheek. “You should never, ever,
give anything to the point you are lost. Your life will become dreck, useless,
and you,” she pinched me again, “have too much to offer to waste it.”

Her regard was so genuine it embarrassed me, and
because I’d freshly cut my hair I knew she could see my ears burn as I dropped
my eyes to the bar.

“So,” I said as she let go, “does that mean I should
be more like vodka than cheese?” I gave her my biggest grin and jumped away
from the towel that flew at me.

“Wisenheimer!” She laughed. “Nothing cheesy about
you!”

“You missed!” I laughed back.

She fixed me with her bright green ABC eyes.
“I miss on purpose,” she grinned, “or you’ll spend another hour on your hair.”

I clutched my chest like I’d been mortally wounded.
“Oh! You’re killing me!” I mock-complained, then straightened up and put my
hands on my hips. “Hey, I
like
my hair!” I told her, half joking but
serious.

Dee Dee smiled at me again. “I like your hair, too,”
she nodded in agreement, “but it’s your face that makes you money.”

“And all this time, I thought it was my sparkling wit
and conversational skills,” I countered.

“
Ja
, there’s that too,” Dee Dee said as she
wiped the bar, “but you must know by now how stunning you are, no?”

“Uh, no?” I answered as I walked back to the bar. I
sat on a stool and pulled the books she’d left on the counter back to me.
“People always say it, but it’s, like, just bullshit, you know?” I started to
review the numbers. “It’s just what people say because they want to fu—um, have
sex,” I corrected myself, “right?”

“There’s always that,” Dee Dee said, and straightened
from her task, “but someone’s done you a great disservice.” She waved her rag
at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. I mean, yeah,
sure, people said I was cute or whatever all the time, while the ones that said
I was beautiful were the ones actively trying to get me into bed.

To tell the truth, sometimes it seemed like everyone
was always trying to touch me; I was starting to find ways of walking around
them without any contact—I couldn’t bear it anymore. I was even occasionally
uncomfortable with Fran and just didn’t want to be held. But I figured people
did that because they were, you know, rude, grabby, and horny—there was nothing
real behind it except their physical need.

And as far as those who said I was cute (and I could
swear the breath of cold air that whispered beside me for a moment was the
touch of Trace’s gray eyes), went, well, I’d never heard cute equated with
stunning before—unless it was a cartoon and someone was dropping a brick on
someone’s head—now
that’s
stunning. I said as much to Dee Dee, well,
except for the part about touch avoidance, and she frowned at me.

“No, Nina, you’re wrong, quite wrong,” she told me,
her voice husky and low with her soberness. “People don’t do that to
everyone—they do it to
you
because they want to be near someone with
your kind of—ah!” she grumped, obviously frustrated, groping for the right
word. “Light, Nina. They want to be near your light.”

Now I was really confused—what the hell did that mean?
“What?”

Dee Dee poured herself a soda and mixed some cranberry
and orange juice for me. “Here,” she said, sliding the glass to me, ABC Page
155“listen.”

“Thanks.
Salud
!” I smiled as I lifted it and
took a sip.

“
Prost
!” Dee Dee returned. She put the glass
down with a bit of force. “Let me see your eyes,” she asked abruptly.

I looked straight into hers, letting her search for
whatever it was she wanted. I loved Dee Dee’s eyes—the startlingly
amber-to-green combination that tonight shone a mellow grass color. Finally she
nodded.

“Your heart is always in your eyes, Nina, and that’s
what they want, the part they want to touch,” she told me, “the part you never
share.”

I had no idea what she meant—she’d lost me somewhere
between heart and touch.

“Even I feel that, but I don’t want to
fuck
you.” She grinned and pinched my chin this time.

“Okay,” I said slowly, “I’ll keep that in mind.” Yeah.
Now I was
really
confused.

Dee Dee shook her head and chuckled as I got out of my
seat.

“I’m going to go check the lines,” I told her, meaning
the vast cylinders in the basement that hooked up to the tap lines in the bar.
“We’re getting something weird from the soda gun.”

“Okay, go check,” she agreed, outright laughing now.
“Too much for you, huh?”

I grinned back as I felt a slow burn rise up my neck.
“Something like that,” I agreed good-naturedly, still not knowing what I was
really agreeing to. She’d given me a lot to think about, but no matter what
anyone said about my heart, I knew Dee Dee had a good one. I was glad she was
my friend.

A kink in the soda line was forcing it to send out a
less-than-ideal mixture of syrup and carbonated water. I spent a good ten
minutes wrestling with the valve seal so I could unhook it, straighten it out,
then hook it up again. It was a good thing I knew my way around a wrench, I
thought as I wiped my hands on a nearby rag.

I locked the storm gates behind me and walked back
into the bar proper. Fran had arrived, which made me smile, but what I saw through
the windows erased that.

One of our regulars, Yvonne, had probably had a little
too much to drink. She wouldn’t be the first, or the last, to do that, but I’d
be damned and double damned if she thought she could cause a problem in the
place I worked—especially not with Fran.

I didn’t know what it was about, and ABC I
didn’t care. Yvonne’s arms were flailing, and she spoke vehemently to Fran, who
had taken a step back and squared herself off in a defensive position.

In two steps, I was there and stepped between them,
facing Yvonne. “Hey hey, cool it…what’s the matter?” I asked her. She glared at
me, put a hand on her hip, and shook her head, gazing silently at the floor.

I checked on Fran. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “it’s all—” Her eyes widened and
she pointed behind me. “Look out!” I twisted my head to see what she meant, and
as I did, a thousand points of light exploded in my head.

I rocked on my heels a bit as the explosion faded.
Fuckin’ stupid. I’d let myself get coldcocked by a fuckin’ amateur.

Deliberately squaring my shoulders and hips, I smiled
and faced Yvonne, who took a step back, breathing hard.

Warm moisture fell in a tickling run from my nose and
lip, a sensation I knew too well. I wiped my fingers across my face, looked at
the blood that covered them, and considered Yvonne coolly. “First one’s free,”
I told her, then sucked the blood off my fingers. I never took my eyes off her,
but I glimpsed Jen coming up the walkway as I waited to see what would happen
next.

Yvonne seemed shocked, and her eyes flickered with
something that might have been remorse, but I knew, in the same way I knew I
wouldn’t want to be in her position, that pride was about to overtake common
sense. Her face hardened. “This one will be worth the price, then,” she snarled
and swung.

Too easy, way too easy. Her swing was wide, and I
caught it with a simple forearm block, while my palm went straight to her
shoulder. I could have easily gone for her chin, but it wasn’t necessary—that
was overkill, while a chest shot would have just pushed her farther into the
bar. Besides, I already knew I’d win in a fight if it came to that—and I wasn’t
going to let it come to that. The move I chose used her own motion to spin her
around and helped me propel her, one arm locked behind her back, to the door.

“
Aprèz vous
!” Jen said sweetly as she held the
door wide open. She gave a slight bow as I shoved Yvonne through it, then she
tossed the door shut. I knew Yvonne was not one of her favorite people to begin
with, and she’d been longing for a reason to ban her from the bar. This must
have been a pretty sweet moment for her.

My blood sang in my ears even as it dripped down my
face. Jen grinned at me. “Nice one, buddy!” she said as she clapped my
shoulder.

“Thanks,” I said shortly through the pounding in my
head.

Fran rushed over, and Dee Dee tossed her a clean bar
rag that I was pretty sure had been soaked in ice water. I shivered violently
when it touched ABC my face as Jen and Fran forced me to sit on the
nearest bar stool.

Jerkster came over and started singing, and I burst
out laughing when Dee Dee joined him on the chorus of “Berserker.”

“Hold still!” Fran admonished, because I’d made a bit
of a mess when I’d laughed—my nose was still bleeding.

“Hey, glad you’re on our side, kid,” Jen said, still
smiling. She patted me on the shoulder again, and this time the “kid” thing
didn’t bother me. She was all right, you know?

“Ow…” I complained when Fran moved the towel. It was a
mess. Dee Dee took it and replaced it with another.

“Are you guys trying to tell me something?” I asked,
my voice muffled through the cold, wet towel.

“
Ja
, Nina.” Dee Dee smiled. “That was—”

“Totally cool!” Jerkster jumped around, “you were
soooo cold, dude. You were laughing!” His eyes were wide, and his arms
windmilled as he mimed what he’d seen with such enthusiasm that I was afraid
someone else was going to get whapped in the face.