He’s the only person here I’ve never seen before. I walk over and take the empty spot beside him.
“’Scuse me?” I ask, resting my back against the wall and pulling one knee up while I wait for him to clarify.
“Stars.” He gestures to one side of his eye. “And stripes. On your face. Is that on purpose?”
Sharp. Observant. He does attend Berkeley. Stands to reason.
“I never claimed to be subtle,” I say with a tight smile.
“Yeah, I picked up on the not-subtle part at the protest,” he says with a straight face, but with eyes twinkling the tiniest bit.
I don’t feel like discussing my complex relationship with this nation’s forefathers and their twisted definition of “we the people.” I settle for the simpler answer to his question. “The stars are for my second name,” I tell him.
“Second name?”
“A medicine man came through our reservation when I was a little girl, and gave me my second name: Girl Who Chases Stars.”
“Wow. That’s some name.”
“Tell ya a little secret.” I lean closer. “I think it may have been rigged.”
“Rigged?”
“When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut. Well, at first I wanted to be a clown.”
“Obviously. Who didn’t?”
“You, too?”
“No, they’re creepy as fuck. What a weird kid you were.”
“This we can all agree on.” I laugh, surprised that I can laugh in a jail cell having this strange conversation with a guy I met not much more than an hour ago. “So around five or so, I decided I’d be an astronaut instead. Everyone knew it, so maybe the medicine man was simply giving the people what they wanted, so to speak. Chicken, egg. Earth, moon.”
“So if Girl Who Chases Stars is your second name, what’s your first?”
“Lennix. With an ‘i’ because I know you’re thinking ‘o.’”
“Lennix.” He rolls the syllables around on his tongue, and something about the way he seems to test the name, taste it, sends a shiver down my spine. I’ve never been around a guy like him before. Correction. A man. The guys at school leave me cold—cold and uninterested and unimpressed. This guy? Warm, interested. Way impressed.
I’m distracted when the cell door opens and a woman teeters in on skyscraper heels. Her blue wig is longer than her dress, which I’m sure was a cocktail napkin in another life. I think I’ve seen her a few times on the rez and in town, too. She’s Native, and I bet if you sandblasted her makeup off, she’d be quite pretty.
The cell door bangs closed behind her and she scowls, her gaze roaming the crowded cell and stopping on Berkeley. A smile creeps over her lips and she takes the empty-ish spot on his other side, bumping his neighbor over with one curvy hip to make room for herself.
She drags her eyes over all the things I noticed right away—his lean muscles, strong chest, and dark hair. When he stares back at her, letting her look her fill, I want to rip that blue wig off her head and stomp on it.
Real mature.
“Well, well, well,” she drawls, licking her glossy red lips. “Ain’t you something?”
To Berkeley’s credit, his eyes never drop to the breasts bulging at the deep slit of the microscopic dress’s neckline. He looks at her unblinkingly, almost as if waiting for her to go on.
“Didn’t expect to find the likes of you in here,” she says. “Must be my lucky night.”
She reaches up toward his face, but he catches her wrist before she touches him. Her long talon-like nails hang inches from his jaw. With what looks like some gentleness, he pushes her hand back and drops it.
“Oh, it’s like that?” she demands, the dark eyes hard and glassy like pebbles. “Your loss. I could do it like you never had it before.”
“I’m all set,” he finally speaks, a small quirk at the corner of his lips, “but thank you.”
“You think you are.” She leans forward until I’m sure her poor neckline will rip open any minute now. “Ever had your dick sucked with Pop Rocks?”
Berkeley coughs into his fist, but I detect the smile he’s hiding. “Excuse me?”
“Pop Rocks,” she says with a smile wide enough to reveal a missing tooth near the back. “The candy. It’s one of those ‘kids, don’t try this at home’ kinda things. You need a professional for it.”
“Um, I don’t . . . use professionals,” he says. “So I wouldn’t know.”
She flicks a glance over at me and narrows her eyes. I narrow mine right back, a silent dare to mess with me. She rolls her eyes and stands with a flourish, making sure to run those gold-tipped talons over her body before walking across the room and sitting down beside another unsuspecting man.
“Well, well, well,” she drawls to him. “Ain’t you something?”
Berkeley makes a choked sound and I swing a glance back his way.
“What are you laughing at?” I ask, even though my lips are twitching, too.
“Pop Rocks,” he whispers, grinning. “Who knew?”
We’re both sitting on the bench, leaned back, our shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Humor crinkles the edges of those beautiful eyes, and I’m suddenly sad I’ll probably never see this man again. I know it’s crazy. We’ve only shared a few words in not much more than an hour, but I’m the kid so often trapped between worlds, split in two and finding my place. On rare occasion, you come across someone who just gets you, and you don’t have to figure out your place. Wherever you are is okay.
I think he could be a “wherever you are” person.
His laughter fades, too, and I don’t know how long we stare at one another, but the seconds stretch into a perfect tension. Not uncomfortable at all. It’s a just-right tautness that draws between us and sends fireflies over my tingling skin, lighting me up.
“Did your daddy know you were protesting today, Lennix?” Mr. Paul asks.
His pointed question shatters the tension and scatters the fireflies. Berkeley blinks, looks away, and folds his arms over his chest. Mr. Paul flicks a suspicious, avuncular glance between Berkeley T-shirt and me.
Wow. I think calling my elementary school teacher a cock blocker goes a little far since I’m barely flirting with this stranger, but still . . . did he have to bring up my “daddy?”
“Uh, he knew I was speaking today, yes, sir,” I reply.
Not exactly what he asked, and the look he gives me says he knows it.
“Will your father be upset that you protested?” Berkeley T-shirt asks.
“Probably.” I release a not-so-long-suffering sigh. “He’s super-protective since . . .” Since my mom disappeared.
She left like she had a dozen times before, off to a protest in Seattle, and then . . . nothing. And ever since, my father has tried to roll me in bubble wrap and cotton, but I’m not having it. He’s right. This world is not a safe place, but playing it safe all the time is not how I make that better.
“Sorry about your mom,” Berkeley says.
I glance up to find sympathy darkening his eyes to forest green. I’d forgotten he would have heard me talk about her today.