Sure enough, Flaca and Mitch were there when we arrived, sitting at one of the tiny circular tables that wobbled so much nobody used it to hold drinks. Tonight it served mostly as an ashtray pedestal.
“Hey, girlies!” Mitch waved us over excitedly, her heavy wallet chain clanging against a chair. A couple of other kids we didn’t know were there, and Flaca introduced them in a blur of names. All the girls from East L.A. had perfect eyebrows. They were in the middle of dissecting the latest details about some bullshit where Tower Records wouldn’t carry Fuck Your Diet albums.
“It’s racism!” Flaca folded her arms.
“They said it’s because they have fuck in their name.” Mitch shrugged.
“But everybody says fuck in their band names now. They can put little stars over it or something.” I scowled, but I was also relieved to be upset about something that wasn’t murder or my dad.
“Oh shit, it’s that dude from last week,” Flaca hissed and pointed at a guy who had arrived with a couple of friends. He looked like a Billy Idol impersonator, with spiky bleached hair and a pasted-on snarl.
“That poseur? What did he do?” Lizzy checked him out in an extremely non-covert way.
Mitch lit a cigarette and picked up the story. “He came here last week and started hitting on a bunch of girls, telling them he likes Chicanas because they know their place and understand that men are men. Usual white boy line—sorry, Marcus.” She nodded an apology to a ginger in the group and he shrugged. “But it got really fucking insane. What was that thing he said to you, Flaca?”
“He went off on how he’d treat me like a queen or some shit? He said he had a special room where I could have babies and never worry again. It was creepy as fuck. Like serial killer talk. The boy is crazy.”
Flaca’s mention of serial killers got everybody debating who was scarier—John Wayne Gacy or the Night Stalker? What about Jack the Ripper, who traveled through time to eat Victorian hookers? But Lizzy kept her eyes on the guy after the show started. In the mosh pit, she kept racing up to him then pulling back from a body slam with a little smile. He ate it up. Pretty soon he was chasing after her in the pit, delivering soft little swipes to her ass.
We were panting at the counter between acts when the serial killer decided to make his move. He leaned right up into our space and pulled the cigarette out of Lizzy’s hand.
“You’re a lot prettier when you’re not smoking and trying to push men around in the mosh pit.”
Ugh. Of course he was one of those guys who flirted with pseudo-insults.
Lizzy emitted a fake giggle and grabbed the cigarette back. “You think so? I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”
His face became serious for a minute, and I realized his pale skin was impossibly smooth. Literally no pock marks or scabs anywhere, as if he were made of plastic. “I don’t talk to girls. I talk to queens. You could be my queen.” When he smiled, his teeth exhibited the same uncanny perfection.
“Wanna talk outside? Your queen requests an audience.”
I should have known Lizzy was lying when we were at the railroad tracks. This was exactly like that night at the horrible party with Richard. Was she still carrying a knife? There was an alley behind Starless where everybody went to do drugs and have sex. Etiquette dictated that nobody looked at anyone back there—you had your dark, private spot, and you let your neighbors have theirs. It was the perfect place to murder a scumbag.
The scumbag in question gave Lizzy an appraising look. “I’m Elliot.” He grabbed her hand and lifted it to his mouth for a kiss. She reached her other hand around to her back pocket and adjusted something that had the unmistakable shape of her knife sheath. I had to intervene.
“Hi, Elliot. Wow, it’s great to meet you. I bet you are a really fun guy, but my friend is unfortunately super busy right now. Super busy. Like until the end of time.” I yanked as hard as I could on Lizzy’s arm and unglued her from the counter.
She was so surprised that I had her halfway to the door before she protested. “What, Beth? What the hell?”
“We are leaving. Now.” I was so pumped with adrenaline that I thought maybe I was having one of those moments of super-strength where people lift cars to rescue trapped children. I dragged her to the alley where I was pretty sure she’d been planning to kill Elliot and pushed her against the graffiti-caked wall. “I thought you said you weren’t doing that shit anymore. Remember how like three hours ago you said that?”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
I glared.
“I was just going to scare him.”
“No. I saw the knife in your pocket.”
“Fine. Maybe I was going to fuck with him. But you heard what Flaca said. You heard how he talked to me. That guy is a shitstain of epic proportions.”
The door to the café slammed and Elliot and his pals stumbled into the alley. One of them hooted drunkenly. “There’s your little feminazi cocktease.”
Elliot took a step in our direction then changed his mind. “Let’s go to a bar with some real women.”
“Yeah. I hate these cuck-making bitches.”
They wandered away, their insults growing fainter as the street swallowed them.
“Did he say ‘cock-making bitches’? Or… ‘duck-making’? What is that? I need to know for my research into neologisms of the asshole class.” Lizzy gave me a quizzical scientist look that used to crack me up. Now it made me tired.
“I can’t be your friend anymore.” Saying it out loud made it real at last. More real than months of pretend politeness. “I’m going to take the bus home.”
“Beth, you can’t take the bus. At least let me drive you.”
“I don’t ever want to get inside your car again.”
I didn’t care what she would say next. I didn’t want to see the expression on her face. I walked into the street and aimed myself in the exact opposite direction from the one Elliot and his friends had taken.
I wasn’t actually sure how I would take the bus home, but my mood was so big that I didn’t feel pragmatic about my situation for about five blocks. I was in a residential neighborhood with no bus stops, and I was starting to see a lot more chain link fences. Probably not a great place to be walking alone at midnight. Maybe I could use the pay phone at Starless to call a cab. I had my mom’s emergency credit card, and it’s not like I could possibly get in more trouble tonight anyway.
“Beth!” The voice came from behind me. Great. Now I was going to have another argument with Lizzy.
But when I turned around, it was Tess, in the Gunne Sax outfit she wore when I first met her. It knocked the wind out of me. “What the hell! Where did you come from?”
Before I could splutter anything else, she crushed me in a hug. “Oh my god, Beth, it’s you! You’re alive! Oh my god.” Her voice wavered and she pulled away awkwardly.
My stomach churned. Her face was so familiar, like her voice. As familiar as my own. But something had always been off.
“Why wouldn’t I be alive? You’re alive. I couldn’t possibly be dead if you are alive.” My voice sounded a lot more reasonable than I felt.
“Right, right.” Tess looked down, hair falling across her cheek. “Yeah, right.”
With a sense of dread, I realized that I already knew what was wrong. The times I’d met her before, it had been dark or I’d been so weirded out that I wasn’t thinking straight. Now I could see her clearly.
“Tess. You’re not me, are you?” I took in her skinny shoulders, and the way she flipped her hair to the side, briefly creating a mohawk-like shape over her forehead. “You’re Lizzy.”