There was nothing I was conscious of except the music and the fact that Dee’s hand was in mine.
When the piece was done, she left her fingers in my hand and we clapped, stupid and silly, using one of her hands and one of mine. The ensemble played two more pieces, neither as d’oh-worthy as the first but both making me shiver, and then Dee pulled her hand from mine and whispered, “Bathroom.”
She slid silently out of her seat and left me there, my hand missing the weight of hers, cool with her sweat drying against the air conditioning.
I listened to two more short pieces, distracted, until I couldn’t stop thinking about the sweat on her hand and wondering if she’d left because of something other than having to pee. It was so cold that I couldn’t tell if the goose bumps on my arms were from the freezing temperature or the arrival of something supernatural. I felt blind.
I slid hastily from my seat and out the back of the theater, not bothering to see if anyone was watching me go. Out in the main building I glimpsed an official dude standing by the door, looking uncomfortable in a flying-monkey costume. I asked him where the bathrooms were. And then, with a flash of insight, I asked him if he’d seen Dee go by. “Dark hair, really revoltingly pretty, about this tall.”
Recognition flashed in his eyes. “She said she needed some air. She looked sick. I told her to go up to the balcony.”
He pointed up the burgundy-clad stairs to the second floor.
“Thanks, Jeeves,” I told him, and jogged up the stairs. I followed the narrow hallway, trying doors, until I found one that opened onto a little balcony with a view of the ugly alley behind the theater and the backs of several shops, and, to our left, a narrow view of the street teeming with cars. I stepped into the welcome heat and shut the door behind me.
Sitting on the floor against the wall, Dee looked up when the door clicked shut.
For maybe the first time in my life, I said exactly what I was thinking to her. “Are you all right?”
Dee looked very small sitting there against the white-painted stone wall. She reached out an arm toward me, plaintive, an unconscious or conscious mimicry of the action I’d done last time I’d found her sitting by herself, behind my dorm.
I sat down beside her and she leaned against me. Down below, a horn blared, a motorcycle engine roared, and some sort of construction equipment rattled. For the second time in my life, I said exactly what I was thinking to her, although I didn’t mean it the way she probably thought I did. “I missed you.”
“I was cold. I should’ve brought a sweater. See how I fall to absolute pieces without Mom around to tell me exactly what to do?” Her voice was ironic.
“You’re a mess,” I agreed. I had my arm around her. My heart was pounding hard as I worked up the guts to say for the third time what I was really thinking to her. I closed my eyes and swallowed. And I did it. “Dee, why did you really leave? What’s wrong?”
I’d really said it out loud.
But it didn’t matter, because she didn’t answer. She pulled out of my arms and stood up, walking over to the railing. She stood there so long, watching the cars like they were the only important thing, that I was afraid someone would miss us and come looking. I stood up and joined her at the railing, silently watching the world.
Dee looked at me. I felt her eyes on me, examining my face, my hair, my shoulders, as if she were somehow analyzing me, sizing me up. Seeing how I’d turned out after nine years of being friends.
“Do you want to kiss me?” she asked.
I took a breath.
“James,” she said again. “I just want to know. Do you want to kiss me?”
I turned to face her. I didn’t know what to say.
She made a strange, uncertain face, mouth pulled out straight on either side. “If you want to … you can.”
Finally, I spoke, and when I did, my voice sounded weird to me. Not mine. “That’s a funny way to ask someone to kiss you.”
Dee bit her lip. “I just thought—I just wanted to see —if you don’t want to, I mean, I don’t want to ruin, I mean … ”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, and I just didn’t know what to say. I closed my eyes for a second, and then I took her hand. Goose bumps raced along my arms in an instant, and I closed my eyes for another second. I had the completely obsessive desire to find a pen and to write something on my hands. If I could just write kiss or WTF or mouthwash on my skin, I’d be able to sort this out.
A car alarm went off, far away. I leaned forward and very softly kissed her lips. It wouldn’t change the world. There weren’t any choirs of angels that descended to attend our kiss. But my heart stopped and I didn’t think I’d ever breathe again.
Dee’s eyes were closed. She said, “Try again.”
I cupped my hands around the back of her neck like I’d imagined doing one thousand times. Her skin was warm against my palms, sticky with the heat, smelling of flowers and shampoo. I kissed her again, so careful. There was a long, long pause, and then she kissed me back. I was freezing cold in the hot D.C. day, her mouth on mine and her arms finally coming around my back, holding me tight as I kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. We stumbled into the back corner of the balcony, still kissing, and then I pulled away to rest my face against her hair and try to figure out what the hell was happening.
We stood in the shadows there, her wrapped up in my arms, for a long time, and then she started to cry. At first I just felt her shaking, and then I stepped back a little to see her face, and found it streaked and wet.
Dee looked up at me, her face a mess of tears, eyes desperately sad, and bit her lip. “It made me think of Luke. I thought of him kissing me. When you were kissing me.”
I didn’t move. I think she thought I was—I think she thought I was a better person than I was. More … selfless. More … something. I dropped her hands and took a step back.
“James,” she said.
I was dead inside; her voice didn’t affect me at all. Another step back took me to the door to the balcony; I fumbled with the handle. All around me, I smelled clover and thyme and flowers. My sixth sense was whispering to me, but I just wanted out.
“James, please. James. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it.” Dee’s voice broke, but she just kept saying my name. I finally got the damn door open; cold air blasted me. Dee started to cry like I’ve never heard her cry. “Oh, God, James, I’m so sorry. James.”
I went straight down the hallway, down the stairs, past the flying-monkey guy, through the door, into the parking lot, and out between the cars to where the bus was parked.
Nuala was waiting on the curb when I got there, but she didn’t say anything when I sat down beside her. Which was good, because I didn’t have any words inside me. No music either. I was nothing.
I crossed my arms on my legs and put my head down on my arms.
Finally, Nuala asked, “Are They here for you or for her?”
Nuala
This summer-sweet night is only one minute
upon another minute upon another
Beautiful cacophony, sugar upon lips, dancing to exhaustion
I thought of you, before this minute upon
another minute upon another
Until, numb, my lips fell onto the mouth of another,
and I was undone.
—from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
I left James alone after the D.C. trip. Well, not entirely. I didn’t talk to him or send him any dreams, but I still followed him. I was waiting for him to play my song again. Waiting for him to play any music again. I spent the evenings outside his dorm, sitting on the back portico where he’d found Dee that first night and listening to the sounds of human life inside. Radio Voyeur.
A few nights after the D.C. trip, well after the sun had gone down, I heard sounds of a different sort, from outside the dorm instead of inside. The faeries, singing and dancing again on the same hill behind the school. This time I didn’t approach Them, just stood under the back columns of James’ dorm and listened, my arms hugged around myself. It was the daoine sidhe—the faeries that were made of and called by music. They shouldn’t have been able to appear when it wasn’t Solstice, but there They were, unmistakable with their wailing pipes and fiddles. Was this part of what Eleanor spoke of, when she said that we were going to get stronger? The reappearance of the previously weak daoine sidhe ?
A touch on my shoulder made me start, halfway to invisible before I could figure out what was going on.
“Shhh.” The voice was mostly laugh. “Shh, little lovely.”
The laugh pissed me off first, then the pet name cinched the deal. I spun and crossed my arms. A faerie, tinted green as all the daoine sidhe when They were in the human world, smiled down at me, his hand held out toward me.
“What do you want?” I asked crossly.
His smile didn’t falter and he kept his hand outstretched. He smelled like a faerie, all clover and dusky sunsets and music. Nothing like James’ faint scent of shaving cream and leather from his pipes. “You needn’t be out here all alone. There’s music and we mean to dance until morning.”
I looked behind me at the distant glow of the faeries on the hill. I knew the words to describe a faerie dance, because Steven, one of my pupils, had written most of them as I’d whispered them in his ear: cacophony, beautiful, sugar, laughing, exhaustion, breathless, lust, numb. I turned back to the lovely green faerie in front of me. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“You’re the leanan sidhe,” he said, surprising me because he knew and had asked me to dance anyway. His eyes roved over me. “And you’re beautiful. Dance. We’re stronger all the time and the dancing is better than ever. Come away with me and dance. It’s what we’re here for.”
I looked at his outstretched hand without taking it. “It’s what you’re here for,” I told him. “I’m here for something else entirely.”
“Don’t be foolish, little thing,” the faerie said, and he took my hand, pulling it from where it hung by my side. “We are all here for pleasure.”