Betwixt Page 4

  By the time six-thirty rolled around, she had a guest list and ideas for food she and Morgan could make in a few hours, both pages dotted with butterflies she couldn’t quite remember drawing. Sighing, she put a curlicue doodle on one of them, which had taken on the face of one of the girls in her dreams. The face was peaked and pretty, black haired, with delicate dark eyebrows and a pointed chin. The eyes were light but focused, the mouth narrow. Not selfish, just small. A tooth, just the slightest bit sharp, stuck out from under a thin, puffy lip.

  “Morgan!” she whispered to herself, and laughed as she headed for the shower.

  MORGAN D’AMICI APPROACHED HER FACE IN THE MIRROR as she might any problem. She studied it, sized it up, memorized its strengths and weaknesses, then set about making it better. It was not a bad face. Two sky-blue eyes (so innocent!) under whips of black brow. A sprinkling of freckles across the pert little nose. Her cheeks were a little full, her lips a slice too thin. Her hair was good. Thick and black — thanks, she imagined, to her Italian father, though he was blond. She figured it must have skipped a generation. She admired her neck, and her fine collarbones under luminescent skin, and the hollow where they met, like a sand dune. Morgan was a lovely almost-eighteen-year-old. A lot of people told her that.

  A lot of people couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth. Only she knew where the small imperfections were: the too-thin lips, the cowlick she hid behind a wash of thick bangs, the scar at the base of her pinkie finger. Morgan knew she was far from perfect. So she set about changing it. And here, in front of the mirror — the single place of solace in the vinyl-sided hell that some cosmic joke had made her home — was where she practiced.

  Morgan picked at a small and fine eyebrow hair. She was having trouble grabbing it, though she’d spent half of last week’s coffee-slinging tips — she was a barista at Krakatoa, Southeast Portland’s busiest coffeehouse — on a year’s supply of wax and a deluxe set of Tweezermans her mom got her at cost.

  “Everything still where you left it, honey?” Yvonne D’Amici entered the frame. She hummed to herself, walking back and forth across the space between the laundry room and the bedroom that Morgan had occupied for her vanity. Yvonne was used to her daughter spending at least an hour every evening in front of the mirror, but still couldn’t let it pass unremarked.

  Morgan flicked her eyes back to the glass.

  “I would think you would want me to look my best, Mom. You always said you wanted better for me than you had.”

  Yvonne set the white plastic basket atop the washing machine and looked out the window of the little house she and her daughter and son, K.A. — after Kevin Anthony, Yvonne’s father — lived in. The sun was setting, a toxic orange blob sinking into the forest.

  That was a cut, she knew. Yvonne had been pretty in her day. Not as pretty as Morgan, but enough to win her a place in the 1986 Rose Festival Queen competition and catch the eye of the — jerk — son of one of the judges, Phil D’Amici of D’Amici & Sons, Oregon’s biggest grocery store chain. And she had wanted better for her kids. 14460 Steele Street was a crappy strip of tarmac laid down across a depressing swath of Portland’s far southeast quadrant. They’d started there when Phil Jr. was still working as a stock boy, waiting for his legendarily miserly father to die.

  Then, he’d said, things would be different. They had been. The new girlfriend’s boobs, for example. The plugs for her ex’s early-onset male-pattern baldness. And the convertible red BMW to show off both. By the time the elder D’Amici had his first heart attack, the bastard had already taken off. The divorce went final just two weeks before the old man died, which meant that Yvonne and the kids weren’t entitled to a penny of it.

  Most of the houses around them had wheels, but Yvonne paid her rent and she scrimped to send K.A. to soccer camp, and no matter what she said, Morgan had gone to France the summer after sophomore year. It wasn’t easy after Phil Jr. took up with a Portland Blazers cheerleader a few years older than their daughter, making it clear that he’d pay the minimum in child support. He wanted his kids to work for what they had, he said, just like he had. Right, Yvonne thought, but she had made it. She loved and was proud of her kids. Morgan’s insistence on perfection had made her a straight-A student and upcoming senior-class president, and K.A.’s talent had won him a slot on McKinley High’s state-champion soccer team.

  Still, there was something frightening about her daughter’s will. It was just that Morgan was so — flawless.

  Yvonne cleared her throat: “Morgan. Sweetie. You know I think you’re beautiful.”

  Walking over to the vanity where her daughter sat straight backed, Yvonne rested her hands on Morgan’s shoulders. She stiffened but let them stay.

  “You just always did like the mirror a lot.”

  Morgan smiled and touched her mother’s hand.

  “And I think you’re wonderful, Mother. Especially after what Dad’s been doing —”

  Yvonne cast her tired blue eyes to the ground.

  “She’s almost my age!” Morgan sighed and shook her head — though not, her mother couldn’t help noticing, hard enough to mess up her hair. “Anyway, you know K.A. and I appreciate how hard you work for us.”

  Yvonne crossed her arms, shivering. “Are you cold? Feels like it’s gotten cold in here.”

  Her daughter’s smile, faked or real, disappeared. “Maybe it’s menopause.”

  “Please, Morgan. Can’t you be civil, just once? I’m not old enough for menopause. And anyway, menopause is hot —”

  “Little mother-daughter bonding time?” K.A. D’Amici walked in and both women’s eyes moved from the mirror to the tall, wavy-haired boy standing with a glass of orange juice in his hand.

  “Speak of the devil!” Yvonne smiled and turned to her son.

  “Well, if it isn’t my brilliant brother,” Morgan replied. “Kaka, did they let you dribble around the cones at soccer practice today? Or are they still waiting for you to be able to learn your right and left?”

  K.A. grinned. Morgan could do no wrong in her sixteen-year-old brother’s eyes. It was she who had come home from school and played with him when Yvonne was at the salon and Phil at the store; she who tucked him into bed when their parents were fighting, before the divorce; she who helped him with his homework.

  “Nah.” K.A. stood behind his sister. “We just braided each other’s back hair.” He picked up a tube of lipstick, opened it, and put some on. Then he rubbed his cherry-stained lips as his sister might have and lowered his face to meet hers. Though they looked nothing alike — K.A. was tall, softly blond, and baby faced; Morgan petite, dark haired, and rather pointy — something about their twin beauty cemented the fact that they were siblings.

  He pursed his lips and vamped. “I think I’ll wear this to Ondine’s tonight.” Turning the tube over to inspect the label, he asked, “What’s it called? She-Devil? Perfect!”

  Yvonne laughed. “K.A.!”

  Morgan affected a yawn and nudged her brother out of the mirror.

  “How did you find out about Ondine’s? You don’t actually think you’re coming, do you? It’s only for upperclassmen, you know.”

  “What’s this? A party at the Masons’?”

  “Just for kids, Mom. The Masons left for Chicago today.”

  “Yeah,” K.A. chimed in. “We don’t need any more replays of you being the last person to stay at their Christmas party.”

  “And the food! She wrapped up those spinach pies and put them in her purse!”

  “Trish told me to!” Yvonne grimaced but laughed too. “All right, all right. I know when I’m not wanted.” She tousled her son’s hair and retreated into the kitchen.

  Morgan had progressed to her eyeliner. Out of the corner of a black-lined lid, she shot her brother a death stare.

  “I hope you don’t think you’re bringing that juvenile delinquent friend of yours.”

  K.A. smiled lazily. “Nix is cool. Anyway, what do you care? Ondine’s not going to mind.”
>
  “He’s a loser dropout, K.A.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “Why are you wasting your time?”

  He ignored her. “He quit today.”

  “Señor Stoney has a job?”

  “I work with him. I told you that. Anyway, the word would be had. He walked out. Jacob said he thought there was something wrong with him.”

  “There is.” Morgan tapped the side of her head. “It’s called inbred IQ deficiency. It’s in the water up there.”

  “Jesus, Morgan. Just because he didn’t finish high school doesn’t mean he’s not smart.”

  She shrugged.

  “Anyway, are you bringing Neve?”

  She undid her hair and it fell to her shoulders. Her brother was referring to her new friend Neve Clowes, the latest in a string of cute, shy girls Morgan always trailed behind her. Neve — funny and tough — was different, and stood up to her a bit more. Morgan was beginning to tire of her.

  “Neve is off-limits, little bro.”

  “Whatever.”

  “She’s my friend, Kaka. I don’t like mixing. There are about a hundred chicks at McKinley you could date. Why don’t you pick one of them? Anyway, ever heard of not shitting where you eat? Clowes wouldn’t be too pleased to have you dating his daughter.”

  Here K.A. had her. He smiled at his sister, his lips still red.

  “Jacob Clowes loves me. I’m his right-hand man. I’m his team leader. He’d love it if I dated his daughter. Save her from all those bad seeds out there who just want to you-know-what.”

  Morgan closed her eyes and tightened her jaw. Neve’s lacy blond hair, charmingly disheveled, pulsed behind her eyelids. That and her expensive clothes, the navel ring that poked from a stomach that stayed flat and hard no matter how much pizza Jacob Clowes fed her. The Cloweses were rich and spoiled Neve, though she never seemed to take anything too seriously.

  “You always do this, K.A. You always get involved with one of my friends and then you break up with them.” She turned in her chair. “Besides fucking over a number of very nice girls at McKinley, guess who else gets screwed?”

  K.A. bent down and put his hand on her knee. A radio went on in the kitchen and the siblings could hear their mother humming along to Journey, washing the dishes. Both knew it would be another solitary night for Yvonne: Will & Grace reruns, a plate of leftovers, maybe a call to a girlfriend or a visit to her younger boyfriend at the bar he worked at down the road. Then sleep, and the whole thing would start over again the next day.

  Morgan’s head fell. K.A. moved his hand to her shoulder.

  “I’m not going to leave you alone, Morgue. I would never do that.”

  “How can you say what you will and won’t do? You don’t know. He didn’t know.”

  “Dad’s an ass.” K.A. held his sister’s chin and kissed her on the forehead. “And I’m not him.”

  Morgan looked up.

  “Yeah.” He nodded again, smiling his She-Devil smile. “Who loves you?”

  “You do.”

  “I do.”

  She nodded and whispered, almost too quietly for her brother to hear: “I do.”

  CHAPTER 4

  IT WASN’T HIS FAULT. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. With every step of his holey brown boots back through the forest toward downtown Nix repeated the mantra to himself: Not my fault! He said it so many times he started to halfway believe it. Still, Nix knew he’d blown it — big time. Finn Terwilliger had kicked him out of the squat soon after Tim Bleeker left. He hadn’t said much — just got up from his stump, gave Nix a hug, and walked away. It meant Nix had to go. Theirs was a clean squat. Finn had told him that from the beginning.

  Evelyn couldn’t be around Tim Bleeker when she was still so fragilely sober. So why had Nix brought the dealer there? He’d known it would mean getting kicked out and he’d done it anyway. Everything he had been working on in Portland for the last year was falling apart. And despite his mantra, Nix knew it was his own damn fault.

  He made it to a grassy clearing and sat on a bench. All of Portland spread out before him — the silver snake of the Willamette River, the little houses as far as he could see, and the dome of Mount Hood in the distance, so much like an active volcano that he almost expected a wisp of smoke to swirl from its pointed peak. He ached for his mother, for his uncles and aunts, for Daddy Saint-Michael, for the cousins he’d left behind in Sitka, and for the island itself — the fish and the trees and the wind and the ocean.

  The mountains before him stretched all the way home. He thought of his grandfather, pointing to them, then pointing to Nix. Trying to get him to understand something. What was it? What was in those mountains? What was under them, waiting to come out?

  A few families sprawled on the grass picnicking; a couple of kids Nix’s age played Frisbee. A boy kicked a Hacky Sack around. They seemed so carefree, so happy. Nix wondered what separated him from them. He thought again about his dreams, and dust, the lights he saw around people, the mess he’d made of his life. There was something wrong with him — something broken. Was he crazy? Like the bums he saw on the Burnside bus, talking to themselves, reading their Bibles in the hopes that a key to their madness would be hidden there? He felt like a pariah. A marked man hunted by a vision of light that didn’t make sense, that was so awful and cruel that it must mean he was crazy.

  Yet he didn’t feel crazy. What he did feel was old.

  The sun dipped lower in the west. Out there was the ocean. Ninety miles away: bays and shoals and beaches and cliffs and the wide-open sea. Nix had heard there were tunnels under Portland that led out to that ocean. Evelyn had told him about them late one night at the squat. Shanghai Tunnels, they were called: underground passages from the days of the Chinese railroad workers and opium dens and ships that left to fur in Alaska on the way to the Far East. It was hard to get sailors to volunteer for the years it took for a China voyage, so crooked captains stole people. They’d get some poor chump drunk or drugged up on opium and smuggle him down through the tunnels and onto waiting boats — shanghai him, basically. When he came to, he’d be far out at sea, stuck for years sailing the Pacific. Evelyn said she’d even gone down into them, one night when she was high. She didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but she told him one thing: there were people down there.

  “With sharp teeth,” she had whispered. “They had sharp teeth. I remember that.”

  The sharp teeth he wrote off to Evie’s habit, but the tunnels … Nix understood why she was captivated. Being shanghaied didn’t seem so bad to him, sharp teeth and all. It seemed the perfect solution to the mess he was in. He’d take one of those tunnels and go off into the sun and never come back. Out to some place you could never return from. A place where there weren’t lights or dust. A safe place, where dreams and waking were the same.

  A voice startled him.

  “You’re early.”

  He turned. A spare young man, square shouldered and long legged, had sat next to him on the park bench, his face obscured by a black hoodie and black wraparound mirrored sunglasses. Nix might have been surprised had he not been waiting for him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Something happened.”

  The hooded man nodded, keeping his face turned so all Nix could see was the long nose and the tuft of his dark brown soul patch jutting out past a full lower lip.

  “You got kicked out.”

  Nix bristled. “Fuck! How did you know that, man? That happened like less than an hour ago.” He shook his head. “I don’t know who you get your information from, but you can tell that mofo to get his head out of my ass.”

  The man did not turn, but his voice softened. “It’s not important. What is important is that you decided to call me instead of Tim Bleeker. This is a very good step —”

  Nix had heard the spiel before from his mysterious companion, whom he had met a few times. He was a dust dealer someone at Jacob’s had recommended one night Bleek was up in Seattle. His product was cheaper than Bleek’s, but he would meet Nix
only here, in the open, in the park overlooking the city rather than in the seclusion of the forest Nix preferred. Though the mysterious stranger dealt in dust — nothing heavier, which Nix appreciated — he didn’t like to use him. Something about the guy scared him. The way he spoke to Nix as though he knew him, which, in a way, he did. He knew Nix was from Alaska and that he lived up at the squat with Finn and Evelyn. He knew that he washed dishes for Jacob, and he spoke to him like a brother might, as if he almost cared about him. Yet Nix didn’t even know the man’s name. The imbalance unnerved him. The stranger never showed his face and always wore the same hoodie, the same dark jeans, the same wraparound black glasses. All Nix knew about him was his cell number and that he had a soul patch and a tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. A tiny blue X, small enough to be hidden by the band of a watch. Nix had seen it once, when the man had passed him his dust, his sleeve riding up just enough to expose his pale skin. He never saw it again.

  “A good step? Man, you don’t even know me.” Nix took his wallet out, passed the man the same bill he’d tried to give Bleek. He was irritated at him for knowing so much. “Here’s your twenty. And keep the fuck out of my shit. I gotta go.”

  He started to get up but the man extended his right hand — the one the tiny X was on — and Nix felt impelled to sit down again.

  “Just relax.” The man took the roll out of his pocket and passed it to him without taking the twenty. “This is on me.” He stopped. “Under one condition.”

  “No, man. I’m not helping you drum up new clients —”

  The older boy shook his head. “Listen before you speak.” He put his hands back in his sweatshirt pockets. “My condition is that you must not, under any circumstances, take any of it tonight.”

  “Condition?” Nix almost turned to look the man in the eyes, but the stranger averted his face, looking east toward the plains. “Are you kidding?”