Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [18]
“I don’t know if Jude can come tonight,” he said. Eliza could hear him swallow. “And I don’t know if I could just take off with you. I feel bad enough we’re doing this.”
She gave his shin a gentle kick. “What are we doing?”
He laughed nervously. “Standing around like retards.”
Eliza reached for her backpack again and began rummaging around in it.
“What are you doing?”
She fished out her makeup bag and unzipped it. “I have a little something in here.” After fumbling for a moment, she produced a razor and a small plastic bag. She was glad she’d saved some.
“Jeezum Crow,” Teddy said.
Eliza laughed. “You’re so country. Haven’t you done this before?”
“Uh-uh. Only thing I ever snorted was ground-up chalk.”
She tipped the powder onto the counter and gathered it neatly with the razor’s edge. Then she took a bill out of her wallet and rolled it up. She did the first line, and then Teddy copied, expertly. After a few seconds, he staggered back and leaned against the wall. He nodded rapidly, eyes closed. Then he looked at her and grinned. He had very, very white teeth. They each did one more line, then finished Eliza’s beer.
“Let me see this,” Teddy said. She felt his cold fingers on her clavicle, the weight of the chain snaking against her skin. He cupped the charms in his palm, jiggled them like a pair of dice. He inspected the locket, the Star of David, the keys, then tucked them back inside her coat. “Neat.”
“I like yours, too,” she said. She tapped a finger on the cool disk around his neck.
“It’s for the subway. My brother sent it to me, for when I go to New York.” He looked down at it, holding it just under his nose. “It’s missing the silver circle in the middle, so my brother says it’s lucky.”
“It must be,” Eliza said. “I’ve never seen one like that.” Teddy let the token hang. “How do you feel?” she asked him.
“Now? Wicked. How come you didn’t tell us you had this before?”
“I was saving it.” She crammed the plastic bag into her makeup bag and the makeup bag into her backpack. “We should turn the lights off again.”
“We should do that.”
They were little kids, playing a game. She turned the light off, found Teddy’s cold face in the dark, aimed her mouth at his, and kissed him. It was so dark she was asleep, dreaming. It was a dreamy kiss.
“So are you Indian?” It seemed safe to ask, now that they were in the dark. He was shaking a little. It was probably, she realized, his first time. This made her want to pull him close and pat him on the back, which she did.
“Yeah. Gandhi, not Geronimo. But my mom’s white.”
They kissed again, leaning forcefully into each other. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” They kissed until a knock sounded at the door. Eliza and Teddy held their breaths, trying not to laugh. The doorknob rattled, and the visitor disappeared.
Teddy whispered, “He’s looking for us.”
“Who?”
Teddy didn’t answer.
“I don’t think he’d mind,” Eliza said, but maybe she wanted him to. Maybe she wanted Teddy to tell Jude. Maybe she wanted Teddy to pass her on like Bridge Fowler had, like an expensive new drug. Try it, you’ll like it.
She peeled off her coat, and the coat, electrified with static, zapped the air. A shock of blue sparks sputtered between them. “Whoa,” they said together. She found her way up onto the sink again. His cold hand found her knee, and then her hip, and then the long, goose-bumped length of her arm, and then the sleeve of her T-shirt, and then darting through this opening, the hand swallowed a breast whole.
Les was wrong. She wasn’t young. She didn’t want to save anyone; she wasn’t in love with other people’s suffering. She wanted to be consumed by it, eaten alive.
Jude roamed. They had split up—Teddy upstairs, Jude downstairs—but Jude searched upstairs, too, wandering the hall, trying doorknobs, looking not only for Eliza but now for Teddy, Delph, Kram, anyone but Tory, for beer, for the bathrooms, all of which seemed to be locked. He drank a watery centimeter of beer from an abandoned cup, but it only made him