“Yep.”
Later, when Zoe fell asleep on the couch, there was nothing but peaceful blackness. She didn’t dream at all, or if she did, none of it was important enough to remember.
That Monday, while Zoe was getting ready to go back to school, the insurance company called. They’d located her father’s paperwork and were finally processing the claim. Considering how important that had been to her at one point, it felt sort of weird and anticlimactic.
They didn’t bother with the story about a sick relative. Zoe was still bruised and scraped enough when she went back to school that her mother gave her a note about a car accident during a family road trip.
“I hope everyone is all right,” said the woman in the school office who took her note. She was a nice older woman who wore a gray sweater over a white blouse covered in small yellow flowers. Pinned to the blouse was a silver rhinestone pin in the shape of a fluffy cat. Two greenish-yellow rhinestones set into the cat’s face served as its eyes.
“That’s a nice pin,” said Zoe.
“Thank you, dear. It reminds me of my poor deceased kitty, Fuller.”
“I once saw a snake with green eyes like that.”
The woman gave a shudder. “Oh,” she said, “I don’t like snakes.”
“Neither do I,” said Zoe.
The school day passed in the same vague way that they’d all passed before she’d left. The classes weren’t bad. They just hadn’t become any more interesting while she was gone. Besides, she knew she could pass most of them by reading the textbook the night before any big tests, so she didn’t worry about it. The teachers were all coolly polite when she handed each the permission slip allowing her back into each class. Some clearly didn’t remember that she’d even been in their class, which, she had to admit, made sense considering how much school she’d cut in the weeks before she’d followed Emmett into the sewer. The good news was that since she’d allegedly been in a car accident, she was exempt from making up all the homework she’d missed. Each teacher gave her an outline of what the class had covered during her absence. None of it looked very hard. Zoe had no doubt that she could get caught up with most of her classes by the weekend.
Mr. Danvers’s class was in the afternoon and she was nervous about going back. Did he know that she’d stolen from him? She hoped he wouldn’t make a scene in front of the whole class.
He’d just finished taking the roll when she entered the class and handed him the permission slip. Zoe kept her gaze on his desk until he spoke.
“Our wanderer’s returned. How are you doing?” he asked. When Zoe looked up, he was smiling down at her.
She relaxed a little. There wasn’t going to be a scene after all. “Pretty good, thanks,” she said.
“You look like you were doing stunts for the next Mad Max movie.”
“I feel like it, too.”
He signed her form and handed it back to her. “I’m glad you’re okay, Zoe. It’s good to have you back.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll get you the information on what you missed after class. Stick around for a couple of minutes, okay?”
“Sure,” she said, and headed for her seat in the back of the room. She didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone else in class, so she looked at the anatomy charts on the back wall. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Absynthe and turned to give her a rueful little smile. Absynthe had added purple extensions to her hair while Zoe had been gone. They looked really nice over her blue hair. Absynthe pointed to her face and lifted her hands to mime What happened? Zoe mouthed, “Later,” and sat at her usual seat in the back.
After class, Zoe hung around while Mr. Danvers copied some notes from his lesson plans for her. When he handed them to her, he said, “Don’t go getting in any more accidents for a while, okay? You don’t talk much in class, but it’s nice to know that at least someone smart is out there listening.”
She tried to suppress the smile that wanted to break out on her face. Instead she blushed and said, “Thanks. I’m not going anywhere for a long time.”
After stashing her books in her locker, she went outside and around the corner of the building to Absynthe’s secret hangout. The other girl was there already, smoking a pink Sherman Fantasia.
When she saw Zoe, she jumped down from the steps and hugged her, then took her hand and looked her over appraisingly at arm’s length. “Let me get an eyeful of you,” she said. After checking Zoe out for a minute, she said, “Scars on children are wolves in their skin; the scars of young lovers are the moon shining in; old scars are the damage and the medals we win.”
“Who said that?” asked Zoe.
“Nick Valéry, an old poet who wanted to fuck Patti Smith. It didn’t work.”
“What does it mean?”
Absynthe drew her over to the steps and they both sat down. “It means you’ve got a story to tell me,” she said. “What the hell happened to you? I was starting to think you were dead or kidnapped by a satanic cult or something.”
It made Zoe happy when she heard the genuine concern in Absynthe’s voice. It was funny. Absynthe didn’t seem quite so formidable anymore, or her look and public persona something to aspire to. Yet Zoe found that she also felt more affection for her now that she didn’t see her as the zenith of cool, but just another high school kid trying to figure out how to cut through the boredom, frustration, and bullshit of it all.
“You sound like my mom,” said Zoe.
“Oh no,” Absynthe said, wagging a black nail-polished finger at her. “Don’t change the subject on me, young lady. Tell me a story.”
“I want to tell you the truth,” Zoe said, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and wincing a little. Her shoulder still hurt, but she refused to wear the sling the doctor had given her to school. “But I’m still trying to wrap my brain around some of it and I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about everything yet. I hope that doesn’t sound too weird.”
“From the way you look, I know it will be a hell of a story. I’m cool with waiting,” said Absynthe quietly. Then, in a more serious tone than Zoe had ever heard her use before, she asked, “What’ll it take for you to know when you’re ready?”
Zoe thought about it for a minute and nodded to Absynthe’s necklaces. “All that stuff you wear, the crosses and pentagrams and magic symbols. Do you really believe in any of it?”
Absynthe took a puff of her cigarette, held it, and let the smoke out slowly. “Sometimes.” She shook her head. “Sometimes not. I’m not really sure.”
Zoe sat back on the stairs, using her finger to loosen the tops of the new, used leopard-print Chuck Taylors that her mother had bought her at Goodwill over the weekend. “When you know and can tell me absolutely truthfully, I’ll tell you everything. Okay?”
Absynthe nodded thoughtfully. “Deal,” she said.
“Some friends from my old neighborhood, Julie and Laura, are coming to town this weekend. They’re having a punk night at an all-ages club downtown. You’re invited, too, if you want.”
Absynthe looked at her appraisingly. “Sounds like fun,” she said. With two fingers, she flicked the remains of her cigarette away. “So, do you ever listen to music recorded in, I don’t know, your lifetime?”
“Not so much,” Zoe said. She’d been so nervous about going back to school that she’d only had some toast for breakfast. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. “Do you want to get some lunch?”
“Sounds good,” said Absynthe.
Zoe stood up and said, “I guess I don’t know that much about any new bands.”
Absynthe smiled one of her big feral smiles and looped her arm in Zoe’s. “Will you let me play you some? As much as I love old-school punk, living in the past is kind of a dead end, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Zoe. “I’d really like to hear something new.”