“Trip? Here’s your juice.”
A gloved hand pushed something across the table and he took it, drank it, but tasted nothing. He heard nothing, saw nothing except the girl staring back at him with such wild intensity that his face flushed and he could feel himself growing hard, so hard so suddenly that he moved awkwardly to hide it and nearly spilled his drink.
“Trip? You okay?” Nellie’s voice dipped in concern. “We could do this tomorrow—”
“No—no, this is good, this is fine…”
If he had looked up, he would have seen a flicker of satisfaction in Nellie Candry’s dark eyes as she glanced from Trip to the blond girl, and heard a very soft sigh as she leaned back in her chair. Somewhere in his head a lisping voice warned him: fear the beguiling, hypnotizing phantoms of the Kali Yuga…
But it was too late. He was bewitched.
They talked. Rather, Nellie talked, Kabuki makeup belying her excited tone.
“You know, I was at Todd and Haiko’s show, when all the girls were wearing these—” She held up the mandrill mask, made a face, and laughed. “I mean, talk about revolt into fucking style! The Surgeon General oughta give those guys a medal—you know, fashion fucking matters. It can save lives.” The mask fluttered in her hand as she motioned for their waiter. “Do you have irradiated skim milk? Trip? More juice?”
Trip nodded. Ceaselessly, restlessly, after a while not even pretending to look at Nellie or pay attention: he was simply riveted by the blond girl. She sat scarcely two feet away from him, but he might have beheld her upon a television screen. She seemed that distant, that detached; that unreal. She continued to stare at him with those feral eyes, every now and then tilting her head to regard something else, a slight movement in the lush branches above them, the clatter of a dropped glass like a gunshot at another table. But mostly she just stared back at him: two enchanted children, and not a word between them spoken.
“Well, Trip,” Nellie Candry said at last. Her gaze lingered on the boy. It was a look Trip might have recognized if he had seen it, a certain affinity with Lucius Chappell’s avid gaze; and if he had been less moonstruck, he might have wondered, too, at the mandrill mask, the discreet tattoo of a running antelope revealed on Nellie’s wrist where the silk glove cuffed above a spur of bone. “This has been enlightening. I guess I’ll just have Legal call someone tomorrow at Mustard Seed. You said you didn’t know who—”
“I’m sorry.” Trip wrenched his head around, forcing himself to look at her. “I mean, probably I could get a name for you—”
“Please. Not to worry.” Nellie’s fingers curled around a blinking plastic chip: somehow the check had been taken care of, his second empty glass replaced with a full one, and all without him noticing. “This will work out fabulously. Now—”
She slid the mask over her face, immediately was transformed into a simian goblin. As she stood Trip found himself stumbling to his feet, his hand outstretched imploringly; not to say good-bye but to beg her to stay, to leave the girl at least for another moment—
“Marz, would you mind waiting for me a few minutes?” From a pocket in her loose dress Nellie pulled a phone. “I’ve got to send a message. Trip—”
She turned to him. The rubber mask muffled her voice. “It’s been great talking to you.” Her hand when he shook it was small and fine boned. She lifted the mask so that he could see her smile. For the first time, Trip realized that the heavy makeup covered a network of scars, gashes that began beneath her eyes and extended to her jaw. Petra virus. Embarrassed and slightly horrified, he looked away as Nellie went on. “I’ll touch base with you tomorrow. And Marz—right back.”
Immediately he slid into her empty chair, the one nearest to the girl.
“Hey,” he said.
The girl smiled tentatively. “Hi.”
“So.” Trip cleared his throat. “She’s, like, your mother?”
The girl stared at the empty glass in front of her. Her expression clouded, and she brought a hand to her mouth, started nibbling at her thumb. After a moment she spoke, in a sullen tone. “Yeah. She’s okay, I guess.” Her voice was heavily accented; it made his skin break out in goose bumps. “I am supposed to be dead, you know.”
“Oh,” said Trip.
He was close enough that he could smell the sweetish fragrance that clung to the fine white hair brushing the nape of her neck. Without thinking he took one of her hands. The other remained at her mouth, where she continued to chew her thumbnail. In the room around them Trip could hear soft voices and the sleepy twittering of caged finches, the plink of water in the fountain. He thought that probably he should say something but had no idea what. He had practically no experience whatsoever with girls, except those heavily chaperoned at church outings; a big deal had been made of his signing a vow of celibacy along with his morality contract. Virginal as a nun at twenty-two, Trip Marlowe had never really understood what the big deal was all about.
Until now.
He squeezed the girl’s hand. She didn’t squeeze it back, but smiled at him with devastating sweetness. Her skin was the bluish white of skim milk, the hollow of her throat lavender-gray. When she tilted her head her eyes caught the light and glowed violet. “So,” Trip coughed self-consciously. “Marz. Your real name is Marzana? Is that, uh, Polish?”
She shook her head. “They called me the hyacinth girl.” Her voice was raspy, with a slight lisp. “So—just Marz. Okay?”
“Sure. Listen—” He took her other hand, the thumb still damp, and held it tightly on the tabletop. “Could you—you want to do something? Like see a movie or something?”
Marz laughed. “It’s kind of late—”
“I mean tomorrow. I could meet you somewhere, pick you up. John Drinkwater could come with us, from my church. So you can tell her—Nellie, your mother—”
“I don’t know.” The girl slipped her hands from his. She looked away, very deliberately. “Plus I just met you. I like your video, though. But yeah, okay.”
He met her the next afternoon in the city, in Nellie Candry’s office at Agrippa Music. He told himself he couldn’t believe it was so easy. In fact it was almost the hardest thing he’d ever done. He lied to John Drinkwater and Jerry and Lucius, telling them he wanted to go to the city to visit one of the museums, the one with the dinosaurs. John was surprised but not suspicious, and instantly said no.
“By yourself? You crazy, Trip? You never been in the city by yourself.”
“I won’t walk—I’ll take taxis everywhere,” Trip protested, trying not to sound desperate. He’d been up all night, figuring out what he’d say. Now his heart was beating so hard he was afraid John would hear it; he was afraid John would know he’d jerked off three times already, thinking of her. “Or get me a driver like we did in Austin—”
“You want to go to the city?” Lucius raised his eyebrows. “By yourself?”
The manager looked over at John Drinkwater and shrugged. “Hey, there’s always a first time, right? I turned Alabaster Jar loose in San Francisco once, turned out okay. And Trip’s not like Jerry. He’s not gonna get in any trouble.”
He turned back to Trip. “Sure, you can go, man. I’ll call Skylark Limo and get you a driver. Just—I dunno, don’t flash it all around who you are, okay? And don’t make a big deal out of it with the others. And definitely don’t tell Mr. John Paul Tightass Joseph.”
To Trip’s amazement, John Drinkwater sighed and agreed. “Okay. You’re a big boy now, you can take care of yourself. I guess. Here—”