Moonset - Scott Tracey

“Your friends are leaving.” Immediately I wanted to kick myself. That was how I opened a conversation?

Her smile widened. “Maybe they’re not my friends.” She ran a hand through her hair, and I … forgot what I was going to say. The cold didn’t matter, the people coming in and out around us weren’t important.

“My name’s Justin,” I finally called out, during a particular rush through the doors.

She touched a little old lady in a tan coat on the shoulder and laughed. Then she looked back at me, shaking her head. “I didn’t ask.”

Right about now, Malcolm would be sliding in with some completely inappropriate line. Or

Cole would be too busy staring at her butt to really pay attention. I just … kept holding the door. I’d used up all my know-how with girls right off the bat. My brain couldn’t form words.

Make talky hard.

“You’re gawking.” She had a tinkling kind of laugh, like someone running fingers down the piano.

I shook myself, and shifted so I was holding the door with my foot. “Am not.” Great. I’d regressed to kindergarten, thirty seconds away from kicking her in the shins and running away.

The last of the line finally dissipated. She gestured again, this time a flourishing move with her arm. My feet remained rooted in place. She smiled again, her eyes searching mine. Then she finally let go of her door and started walking towards mine. After a second’s hesitation, she opened the other half of the double doors and exited through that one.

“Come on, puppy,” she said with a backwards glance at me. “I’m going to let you buy my coffee.”

I remained where I was. “Puppy?”

“Could’ve called you kitten,” she said over her shoulder. “Keep it up, and maybe we’ll work our way up to ducky.”

“I have a name,” I replied. But before I knew it, I was following her.

I could practically hear the amusement dripping from her words. “Still didn’t ask.”

“You know I’m a stranger, right? You always go around asking strangers to coffee?”

She walked into the street and nearly into a car as it drove past. A moment later, as I started to lunge forward, I realized she was in no danger. The car passed, and she moved behind it easily, her movements timed perfectly.

“This is Carrow Mill, porcupine,” she said, and then grimaced. “No, definitely not porcupine.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised when our trip for “coffee” led us instead to a smoothie shop.

“Do they even have coffee?” I asked skeptically.

“You know that was just an expression, right?” Her eyes said I should have. Small children in

Botswana probably knew it was just a euphemism. “If I’d said ‘Hey, let’s go have a couple of

Green Giant smoothies with extra ginseng and wheat grass,’ you’d have looked at me like I was some sort of crazy person.”

“That’s still on the table.” It was honest, but probably the stupidest thing I’d said so far. I tried to open the door for her, but she opened her own for the second time.

“Lucky for you, your opinion is invalid.” She sauntered over to the counter, smiling at the guy dressed head to toe in orange. He couldn’t have been much older than either of us, but he was a little taller and rounder than I was.

“Hey, Cal.”

Cal looked at the girl, then glanced over at me. “Hey,” he said tersely. “Who’s this?”

“Stray I picked up.” She leaned on the counter, whispering conspiratorially, “Would you believe he was selling his body for concert tickets.”

Cal didn’t look fazed. “What kind of concert?”

“Something boring. European clog dancers?” she replied. “I’m saving the boy from a life less tragic.”

I snorted. Did I look like someone who needed to be saved?

Finally Cal started to smile. “So you want the usual?” She nodded. “And him?”

She turned to me. “What are you in the mood for? Lunch smoothie? Vitamin blaster? Post-

Workout Indulgence?” She recited smoothies off the menu board faster than I could read the ingredients. “Or maybe the Just For Boys smoothie with a little extra gingko?”

“Uhm,” I said, drawing it out and trying to read the board. Didn’t they just have like … strawberry smoothies? Or how about coffee? I would have settled for actual coffee.

“He’ll have the Lunch smoothie with a shot of whey and a double of gingko,” she said, ending my hesitation. And then she stage whispered, “I think he needs the brain fuel.”

Cal pulled two cups off the stack and grabbed a magic marker. “Name?”

I looked to her first, but Cal sighed. “I already know her. What’s your name?”

“Justin.” I waited, wondering if he wanted a last name too. But the first name seemed to cover it, and after he’d scrawled a totally illegible version of my name on the cup, he set them both down and started to press buttons on the register.

“Eleven ninety.”

I pulled out a twenty, which Cal nearly snatched out of my hand.

“Don’t worry, it’s worth it,” she said.

“Oh, thank god. For a minute I thought I was wasting all my money on a bunch of fruit and milk tossed in a blender.”

She tilted her head to the side and looked up at me thoughtfully. “Yeah, no. Sarcasm’s not a good look on you. You’re definitely more of a winter. Smolder in silence.”

“Are you always this bizarre?”

She ruffled her hair and smiled slowly, offering no re-sponse.

“So when do I get to know your name?”

“Patience is a virtue, my little mango.”

“Mango?”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Couldn’t think of another animal,” she admitted. Her eyes strayed over the counter to the piles of fruit on display. They’d been selected for their coloring and possibility their alliteration: kumquats and kiwi were arranged together, along with sliced cantaloupes and carrots.

“How about Pissed-off Panda Bear?”

She didn’t laugh. In fact, that got no reaction at all. She looked me over. “You’d think the new boy would be a little more genial. Not quite so … ” she mused over it for a minute.

“Cantankerous.” Her smile brightened. “SAT word.”

“I’m not … ” I hesitated. “How’d you know I’m new?”

“You think you’re living in the big city? Everyone knows everyone around here. Besides, Maddy said you were. And she knows all.”

“Maddy?”

“The brunette with the Mean Girl complex?”

Cal finally came back with the drinks, setting the pair of medium-sized smoothies down in front of us and moving on to the next person in line. The girl called out a cheerful, “Thanks, Cal,” before walking off. I followed. I wasn’t sure what else to do. This girl clearly lacked sanity. But there was something fun about her, drama free and exciting. I was fascinated.

We stepped out onto the street, and I strained to decipher the scrawl of her name on the cup. My concentration was broken by a very loud, very angry scream. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Jenna. Of course. Her “Justin was having a good time without me” senses must have been tingling. I turned back, followed the sound of her voice and found her standing at the corner across the street with a hand on her hip. She didn’t move, just stood there and waited.

Expected me to run right over. I almost wanted to turn around and walk away with my mystery girl, just to see how Jenna would react.

“I’ve gotta … ” I wasn’t sure how to make the excuse. Deal with my potentially psychotic sister? Fix whatever problem she’d managed to get into in the last half hour? Talk her down off a ledge that would lead to another move? Stave off the inevitable explosion? Waiting would only serve to piss Jenna off more than she already was.

“Wow, your girlfriend is pissed.”

That caught me off guard. Jenna? My girlfriend? “Now who’s digging for information?” I said, trying to sound teasing but a little afraid it just came across as desperate.

The girl snickered, shaking her head and looking away. “So far off, cowboy. Besides, most sisters I know don’t yell at their brothers like that.”

“You haven’t met my sister,” I muttered.

“Love to,” she announced as if that had been an invitation. Then she hopped off the sidewalk and made a beeline for Jenna.

Seven

“Everyone knew Sherrod was the leader. But Cy Denton and I grew up together. He controlled the school. Everyone wanted to know him. He was the star of every play, the one who threw the best parties, and the funniest guy I’ve ever met.”

Sara Bexington (S)

Personal Interview

“Who is this?” Jenna demanded, once I caught up. The girl just stood there while Jenna’s glare homed in on me. Jenna would rip out her spine and dangle it out of reach like a cat toy if I didn’t interject.

“What happened?” I countered.

“I asked you—”

I cut her off. “What. Happened?”

“Bailey’s … upset,” was all she said. Her eyes flicked to my mystery girl (when did she become my mystery girl?), and I realized that there was a whole undercurrent to the situation that she wasn’t going to reveal in front of a stranger. That’s what you get for thinking you could have an afternoon free, I thought, actually able to feel my blood pressure rising.

“What did you do?” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jenna’s bad mood was her way of overcompensating.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, her voice growing more shrill. In other words, she had

GUILTY written across her forehead in big black letters.

“Fine, then Bailey took something you said out of context. Just tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what happened,” she snapped. “We were in the store trying things on, and Mal and I had this tiny little disagreement, and when I walked out of the dressing room, Bailey had taken off.”

“Taken off?” My stomach sank.

“Yeah, like gone. Ran away, planning on never coming back.”

“Well it’s good to see you’re not being overdramatic about it,” the girl suddenly chimed in.

Jenna whirled on her. “And who the hell are you?”

“Jen—” I tried to grab her arm, but she threw me off. “Leave her—”

“My name’s Ash,” the girl said. I probably looked like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, the way I gaped. After struggling for half an hour, she offered her name up to Jenna in the first thirty seconds? As casual as can be?

Jenna didn’t understand the significance. “Better question, why are you butting into our conversation?”

“Because you’re making a scene,” Ash said. At some point during the conversation, she’d pulled out her phone and was texting casually, her eyes barely glancing over the screen. “I figured if you stop yelling at your brother for a minute, maybe you’d realize that.”

Jen whirled on me. “Who the hell is this girl?”

“We met at the bookstore,” I said. “And then we went out for coffee.”