“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But I was more concerned about Alexander’s safety. Even though he and Jagger had reconciled, I wasn’t sure how Jagger would react to our presence in the club. “I just saw…” I began. “I mean, I think I saw…”
“Saw what?”
“I just saw Jagger!”
Alexander paused. “Here, in the club?”
I nodded. “When I visited Hipsterville a few months ago, I first encountered Jagger sitting in the balcony when I thought Romeo was leading me to you. That’s where Jagger is right now.”
“What’s he doing up there?” Alexander asked.
“I was afraid if I told you Jagger was above us on the balcony, you’d never come back to Dullsville. But if he saw you dancing here when he thinks you’ve left town, I don’t know what would happen.”
Alexander led me back underneath the balcony and leaned against one of its pillars.
“It’s okay,” he said, brushing my sticky hair away from my face. “I’ll go back to Dullsville whether Jagger is here or in Romania.”
I lit up. “Really?”
“You have my word.”
I pulled him into me, my fingers wrapped around his T-shirt, and kissed him with all my might. I stared into his dark eyes. Maybe it was time to tell Alexander about the real Coffin Club. “I have something to tell you.”
“I do, too. I’d rather Jagger not know I’m here.”
“But after all you’ve done for his family. The least he could do is buy you a drink. I really need to—”
“Let’s not tempt fate. It’s best that he thinks I’m back in Dullsville.”
“Uh…okay.”
“Now, what were you going to tell me?”
“It’s time for another dance.”
8
Inner Goth
After Alexander gave me a kiss good night outside Aunt Libby’s apartment, he admitted he had prior plans with Jameson and wouldn’t be able to meet the following evening. I was disappointed, but since I hadn’t given Alexander any warning of my arrival in Hipsterville, I tried to be mature. Though I was totally bummed out my boyfriend and I would have a night apart, I hadn’t spent any time with Aunt Libby. We were due some family bonding time.
The following day, as usual, I got up late. Fortunately for me, Aunt Libby was not a morning person, either. By the time I woke up and dragged myself out of the cozy confines of her down comforter, I found my aunt wearing a knee-length kimono robe, drinking herbal tea, and listening to NPR.
“It’s after two,” I said, noticing her stove clock. I was shocked I’d slept as long as I did but even more surprised that my aunt was still not dressed.
“Well, you had a particularly long day yesterday. And I chose to have a lazy day, too.”
Aunt Libby poured me a cup of coffee and fixed me a veggie sandwich.
“I have the perfect place to take you tonight,” she said, placing the plate in front of me.
“You don’t have a hot date tonight with Devon?” I teased.
“Not until tomorrow night. And I told him you were coming with me.”
“Not on your life!”
“Sorry, but he’s taking us both to the Summer Arts Festival.”
“Well, you have twenty-four hours to convince me that that is a good idea,” I said between bites. “So what are we going to do?”
“There’s a club here in town that has teen night from nine until eleven.”
I rolled my eyes. I imagined a Chuck E. Cheese’s with a disco ball.
“It’s called the Coffin Club,” my aunt exclaimed.
“Excuse me?”
“It has your name written all over it. I don’t mean the coffin part, of course. But it’s very goth and I think you’d enjoy it.”
“I’d love to go!”
“I’m a bit old to be hanging out there, but hey, why not?”
That’s why Aunt Libby was so special—she didn’t care what people thought. Ever since I was a little girl, my aunt marched to her own drum, African or not.
“So we have a few hours to find something appropriate for me to wear,” my aunt stated. “I don’t have anything darker than yellow.”
Whatever my Aunt Libby did, whether it was drumming so hard she got calluses or performing so much she lost her voice, she put forth 110 percent. Hanging out at a nightclub with her sixteen-year-old niece was no exception.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we hopped into her car. “Hot Gothics?”
Aunt Libby let out a loud laugh. “I have to find something that I can fit into, right?”
A few minutes later, we were driving into a gravel parking lot and walking up the stairs of the vacant elementary school, which was now home to the Village Players Theater.
Along with a car key, mailbox key, building key, and door key, my aunt possessed a Village Players Theater key. It took her a minute or two to figure out which key opened the front entrance door, but she eventually found it.
We sauntered down the main hallway, passing Village Players posters of West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, an empty principal’s office, and a cafeteria.
We passed a tween-sized water fountain, which still had a wooden step stool placed before it, and stopped in front of a door marked “3.” What was once a classroom for ten-year-olds now had a sign above it that read: COSTUME SHOPPE.
The blackboard and filing cabinets were still in place, but the teacher’s and child-sized desks had been removed, perhaps sold at an auction or sent over to the new elementary school. Dozens of boxes, labeled BROACHES, HATS, SCARVES, sat on the floor in the front of the classroom, while racks of dusty costumes were lined in rows where the students’ desks once belonged.
The room was filled with the combined scents of thrift store clothes and textbooks.
Aunt Libby and I stepped over boxes and dug our way through the old clothes with the sole purpose of bringing out my aunt’s inner goth.
“This is so awesome,” I said as I began looking through a rack of clothes. “I don’t know anyone else who would do this for me.”
“Are you kidding? I live for this stuff.” My aunt beamed as she sifted through a rack of dresses. “That’s one of the reasons why I love acting. I can always wear a different style than what I’d normally wear. I’ve been stuck in the same look for decades.”
“I couldn’t imagine you any other way. The way you dress is who you are. It’s more than beads and bangles. You aren’t doing it to be like someone else, or fit in.”
“I gave up fitting in years ago,” my aunt said with a laugh.
“That’s what my mother doesn’t understand about my lipstick and dark clothes. I don’t wear tattoos to freak her out; I wear them because I have to. It’s me.”
Aunt Libby paused.
“My mother never understood my inner style, either,” she confessed. “That’s what it is, really,” she said wisely. “It’s not about designers or labels but about self-expression. And attitude.”
I smiled inside as well as on the outside. Aunt Libby and I dressed as differently as day and night, but we shared the same values.
“It took me years to figure out who I was,” she said. “But really, I’ve always known who I was, since I was your age. It was just that so many people around me wanted me to be like them and tormented me when I wasn’t. Your dad grew up and blended in nicely with the establishment. But I always kept my hippie beads, Pink Floyd albums, and left-of-center ideas. I eventually found people who dug me the way I am.”
“That’s why it’s so cool and meaningful to me for you to change your image for one night on the town together.”
“Well, now we’ll be more alike than ever.” My aunt smiled.