* * *
It was two-thirty in the morning, and Trixie was bluffing. By now, the party had wound down. Only four people remained: Zephyr and Moss and Trixie and Jason. Trixie had managed to avoid finishing out the Rainbow game by playing Quarters in the kitchen instead with Moss and Jason. When Zephyr found her there, she had pulled Trixie aside, furious. Why was Trixie being such a prude?
Wasn't this whole night supposed to be about making Jason jealous?
And so Trixie had marched back to Moss and Jason, and suggested the four of them play strip poker.
They had been at it long enough for the stakes to be important. Jason had folded a while ago; he stood against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the rest of the game develop. Zephyr laid out her cards with a flourish: two pairs - threes and jacks. On the couch across from her, Moss tipped his hand and grinned. “I have a straight.”
Zephyr had already taken off her shoes, her socks, and her pants. She stood up and started to peel off her shirt. She walked toward Moss in her bra, draping her T-shirt around his neck and then kissing him so slowly that all the pale skin on his face turned bright pink.
When she sat back down, she glanced at Trixie, as if to say, That's how you do it.
“Stack the deck,” Moss said. “I want to see if she's really a blonde.”
Zephyr turned to Trixie. “Stack the deck. I want to see if he's really a guy.”
“Hey, Trixie, what about you?” Moss asked. Trixie's head was cartwheeling, but she could feel Jason's eyes on her. Maybe this was where she was supposed to go in for the kill. She looked to Zephyr, hoping for a cue, but Zephyr was too busy hanging on Moss to pay attention to her.
Oh, my God, it was brilliant.
If the goal of this entire night was to get Jason jealous, the surest way to do it would be to come on to his best friend. Trixie stood up and tumbled right into Moss's lap. His arms came around her, and her cards spilled onto the coffee table: two of hearts, six of diamonds, queen of clubs, three of clubs, eight of spades. Moss started to laugh. “Trixie, that's the worst hand I've ever seen.”
“Yeah, Trix,” Zephyr said, staring. “You're asking for it.” Trixie glanced at her. She knew, didn't she, that the only reason she was flirting with Moss was to make Jason jealous? But before she could telegraph this with some kind of ESP, Moss snapped her bra strap. “I think you lost,” he said, grinning, and he sat back to see what piece of clothing she was going to take off.
Trixie was down to her black bra and Ace bandage and her low-rise jeans - the ones she was wearing without underwear. She wasn't planning on parting with any of those items. But she had a plan - she was going to remove her earrings. She lifted her left hand up to the lobe, only to realize that she'd forgotten to put them on. The gold hoops were sitting on her dresser, in her bedroom, just where she'd left them.
Trixie had already removed her watch, and her necklace, and her barrette. She'd even cut off her macrame anklet. A flush rose up her shoulders - her bare shoulders - onto her face. “I fold.”
“You can't fold after the game,” Moss said. “Rules are rules.” Jason pushed away from the wall and walked closer. “Give her a break, Moss.”
“I think she'd rather have something else . . .”
“I'm out,” Trixie said, her voice skating the thin edge of panic. She held her hands crossed in front of herself. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would burst into her palm. Suddenly, this seemed even worse than Rainbow, because the anonymity was gone. Here, if she acted like a slut, everyone knew her by name.
“I'll pinch-strip for her,” Zephyr suggested, leaning into Moss.
But at that moment, Trixie looked at Jason and remembered why she had come to Zephyr's in the first place. It's worth it, she thought, if it brings him back. “I'll do it,” she said. “But just for a second.”
Turning her back to the three of them, she slipped the straps of her bra down her arms and felt her breasts come free. She took a
deep breath and spun around.
Jason was staring down at the floor. But Moss was holding up his cell phone, and before Trixie could understand why, he'd snapped a picture of her.
She fastened her bra and lunged for the phone. “Give me that!” He stuffed it in his pants. “Come and get it, baby.” Suddenly Trixie found herself being pulled off Moss. The sound of Jason's fist hitting Moss made her cringe. “Jesus Christ, lay off!” Moss cried. “I thought you said you were finished with her.” Trixie grabbed for her blouse, wishing that it was something flannel or fleece that would completely obliterate her. She held it in front of her and ran into the bathroom down the hall. Zephyr followed, coming into the tiny room and closing the door behind her.
Shaking, Trixie slipped her hands into the sleeves of the blouse. “Make them go home.”
“But it's just getting interesting,” Zephyr said. Trixie looked up, stunned. “What?”
“Well, for God's sake, Trixie. So he had a camera phone, big fucking deal. It was a joke.”
“Why are you taking his side?”
“Why are you being such an asshole?”
Trixie felt her cheeks grow hot. “This was your idea. You told me that if I did what you said, I'd get Jason back.”
“Yeah,” Zephyr shot back. “So why were you all over Moss?” Trixie thought of the paper clips on Zephyr's backpack. Random hookups weren't random, no matter what you told yourself. Or your best friend.
There was a knock on the door, and then Moss opened it. His lip was split, and he had a welt over his left eye. “Oh, my God,” Zephyr said. “Look at what he did to you.” Moss shrugged. “He's done worse during a scrimmage.”
“I think you need to lie down,” she said. “Preferably with me.” As she tugged Moss out of the bathroom and upstairs, she didn't look back.
Trixie sat down on the lid of the toilet and buried her face in her
hands. Distantly, she heard the music being turned off. Her temples throbbed, and her arm where she'd cut it earlier. Her throat was dry as leather. She reached for a half-empty can of Coke on the sink and drank it. She wanted to go home.
“Hey.”
Trixie glanced up to find Jason staring down at her. “I thought you left.”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right. You need a ride?” Trixie wiped her eyes, a smear of mascara coming off on the heel of her hand. She had told her father she would be staying overnight, but that was before her fight with Zephyr. “That would be great,” she said, and then she began to cry. He pulled her upright and into his arms. After tonight, after everything that had happened and how stupid she'd been, all she wanted was a place where she fit. Everything about Jason was right, from the temperature of his skin to the way that her pulse matched his. When she turned her face into the bow of his neck, she pressed her lips against his collarbone: not quite a kiss, not quite not one.
She thought, hard, about lifting her face up to his before she did it. She made herself remember what Moss had said: I thought you were done with her.
When Jason kissed her, he tasted of rum and of indecision. She kissed him back until the room spun, until she couldn't remember how much time had passed. She wanted to stay like this forever. She wanted the world to grow up around them, a mound in the landscape where only violets bloomed, because that was what happened in a soil too rich for its own good.
Trixie rested her forehead against Jason's. “I don't have to go home just yet,” she said.
* * *
Daniel was dreaming of hell. There was a lake of ice and a run of tundra. A dog tied to a steel rod, its nose buried in a dish of fish soup. There was a mound of melting snow, revealing candy wrappers, empty Pepsi cans, a broken toy. He heard the hollow thump of a basketball on the slick wooden boardwalk and the tail of a green tarp rattling against the seat of the snow machine it covered. He saw a moon that hung too late in the sky, like a drunk unwilling to leave the best seat at the bar.