Better Than Running at Night Read online

  "Is a good thing I gave you those old clothes," she said. "They were crowded in my closet, and I would have taken them to the Goodwill."

  "Glad I could save you the trip."

  She laughed. "And is there a young man in your life?"

  "Oh, not really."

  "No? An adorable girl like you?"

  "I'm not in a big hurry."

  What did she want from me? I hadn't even been here a week yet. Grandma must've been fast back in the day.

  "I don't want to be keeping you long," she said.

  "I like talking to you."

  "Well, we're getting going for brunch."

  "Okay," I said. "Thanks for the clothes."

  "You're welcome," she said. "Good luck and good-bye." She made a kissing noise.

  I kissed back. "Bye Grandma. Have fun at brunch."

  I hung up the phone and fell back to sleep hugging my pillow.

  The sun's elongated shadow lines crept across my bed.

  Most Individual

  A rapping on the window made my heart jump. Nate's face grinned through the bars. I leapt out of bed.

  "Not up yet?" he yelled. His face was faint. Only the high points of his nose, cheeks, and chin were illuminated by a light on the side of my building.

  "I didn't leave your place until three in the morning!" I yelled back. "And I had trouble sleeping!"

  "Well rise and shine and let me in!"

  He was right. I should've been up. It was four o'clock.

  When I got to the door he was already there, leaning on the door frame as if he'd been waiting for hours. His face, no longer red and shiny, was gentler than I'd expected. His features were angular, but they looked like they'd be soft to touch. I had an urge to run my fingers through his staticky looking hair.

  A huge scar began under his chin and ran along the base of his jaw.

  "So this is where I live," I said as he entered.

  I was hungry and didn't feel like making small talk.

  He looked around, surveying the scene. "Just moved?"

  "Yeah."

  He walked over to the kitchen. "Hey, champagne!" he said, lifting the bottle from the counter. "We'll have to celebrate sometime!"

  "Okay," I said. "I'm saving it for a special occasion."

  "That's cool," he said, putting the bottle down. "What do you want to do tonight?"

  "Tonight?"

  "What, you're sick of me already?"

  "No," I said. "I just didn't know we had plans. I've got to get ready if we're going out." I pointed at my pajamas.

  "Who needs plans?" He grinned. "We can make it a night in."

  "Well, okay," I said. "But I still have to shower. If you want to stay, you can."

  "I think I will." He jumped backward and landed butt-first on my bed. The mattress springs squeaked.

  In the shower I remembered how he'd said "You're not ready," and I didn't need a mirror to know the color was rushing to my cheeks like a shark to a flesh wound.

  I turned the temperature to cold for a three-second jolt before shutting the water off and dressing in the bathroom. I heard my Soundgarden CD, Superunknown, blasting in the bedroom.

  When I came out, Nate lowered the volume. My high school yearbook was in his lap.

  "I hope you don't mind me looking at this," he said. "It was at the top of this box. I couldn't resist."

  "It's all right," I said, turning down the music even more. "What've you found?"

  I sat beside him on the bed. My hair cooled my head and dripped on my shoulders, leaving wet spots on my shirt.

  "Well, I think I found you," he said. "Yelinsky, right?"

  "Right."

  "Except it looks nothing like you. What's with all the black? And the cropped hair? And the makeup? It looks like a clown painted your face at a funeral."

  "Thanks."

  "No, I mean you look so much better now. Whoa! Is that a tear penciled in at the corner of your eye?"

  "Yes," I said. "It took me a long time to perfect that look."

  Nate nodded his head along with the repeating bass riff on the CD. "I would think so," he said, flipping the pages. He stopped to look at the Superlatives page. "Hey, that's you!" He pointed at the picture labeled Most Individual. "You must've been popular."

  "Not at all," I said. "I think they chose me because of my paintings and my style. I was always the first in my grade to discover the latest."

  "Like what?" he asked, brushing a few strands of hair out of my face.

  "Like dyeing my hair blue-black. And shaving the lower half of my scalp. Like thermal underwear beneath T-shirts. Safety-pinned patch pants."

  "That doesn't sound so crazy," he said. "Aren't you from New York?"

  "Yeah, I didn't stand out in the city, but my school was pretty preppie."

  "So where are your piercings?"

  "Don't have any," I said. "I guess I have a low threshold for pain. But mostly I can't stand talking to people with spikes and hoops sticking out of their face—it's so distracting. I always want to tell them to brush it away, like it's some leftover piece of food."

  He laughed. "You really are Most Individual, aren't you?"

  On the Floor at McDonald's

  That night I'd been planning on cooking a real meal with a little of each food group, since my fridge was stocked with ingredients for the quick and easy dishes my mom had taught me before I left. But sleeping all day had killed my motivation. My droopy muscles begged me to take them back to bed. So I only made it through the pasta group, which we ate directly out of the pot. And thanks to Nate and his fake ID, we also covered the alcohol group. Carlo Rossi Burgundy, one of those huge jugs.

  Nate filled two water glasses practically to the top with wine. "Who needs wineglasses?"

  We sat on my living room floor, leaned up against a couple of book boxes, pasta pot between us.

  "Are you a freshman?" I asked.

  "Nope, sophomore," he said. "I transferred from the Art Institute—you know, the one in San Francisco. Started here last semester. How 'bout you? I don't remember seeing you before last night."

  "Freshman," I said. "I haven't even started yet. I was deferred."

  "Oh, so you're new!" he said. "That's good. I wouldn't want to think I'd overlooked such a cutie."

  He poured us both more wine. I hadn't finished my first glass yet.

  I fidgeted with my fork.

  "You need some wall decorations," Nate said. "Empty white walls make me nervous."

  "Yeah, you have lots of pictures up, don't you."

  "Gotta have stuff to look at."

  I plucked at my fork prongs.

  "So who was the guy in the picture on your night table?" I asked, even though what I really wanted to ask was, Who were those girls on your wall?

  "That's the last picture taken of my dad." All giddiness dropped from his face and I was afraid to ask my next question.

  "You mean last picture because..." I began.

  Nate closed his eyes. "Because he died," he said quietly.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want."

  "It's okay." He opened his eyes and turned to look at me. "It was a long time ago."

  "How old were you?"

  "Almost two. So I don't remember him. Sometimes I think I do, but really my memories are all from photographs."

  "Maybe you don't want to answer this," I said, "but how did he die?"

  "We were out sneaker shopping," he said. "Me, my dad, and my two sisters. He had taken us into McDonald's for lunch."

  I dropped my fork and it clanged against the side of the pot.

  "He had a heart attack. Collapsed dead right then and there, on the floor at McDonald's. He was holding me and when he fell his arms were still wrapped around my body."

  "Wow," I said. "I'll never think of McDonald's the same way again."

  "Neither did I," he said. "I won't set foot in any fast-food places."

  "That's awful," I said. "To have something
so traumatic happen when you were so young."

  "I never knew who my dad was," he said. "And I never will."

  He wrinkled his forehead as he talked about it. There were two deep creases between his eyebrows. I told him I wanted to get into his head, to smooth the grooves from the inside. He told me that was possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to him.

  I'm not somebody who's often described as "sweet."

  He swigged the rest of his wine, then poured himself another glass and gave me what he called a "warm up."

  I retrieved my fork from the pot. Sauce got all over my hand. I licked it off.

  Nate was smiling at me.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Nothing." He shook his head.

  "Come on, tell me."

  "It's just ... you looked really cute cleaning the sauce off your hand."

  "Thanks, I think," I said. "I don't really know what to say to that."

  "You don't have to say anything."

  "Are you done?" I pointed at the spaghetti mound in the bottom of the pot.

  "Couldn't be more done!" He patted his belly. It made a hollow popping sound.

  I got up to bring the pot and forks to the sink, but he stood and pushed me back down by my shoulders. "No, allow me," he said.

  The wine had made me sleepy. I brought my glass to my bed. Walking made me lightheaded. Seated on the floor, I hadn't noticed that I was getting drunk.

  The sink splashed and the pot bonged each time it hit the faucet.

  When Nate finished washing, he flipped off all the lights except my bedside lamp. I had finished my wine and was lying on my side. He lay down, mirroring my position.

  His hand ran over my face a few times from top to bottom. Then he kissed the tip of my nose. He dragged his fingers in tiny circles on my neck.

  Goosebumps rose on that side of my body.

  Nate reached behind him and switched off the lamp.

  Before my eyes adjusted to the dark, he was like an invisible phantom stroking my skin.

  I massaged his scalp beneath fistfuls of hair and our faces got closer. He put his cheek against mine. Then he moved his face lower so his forehead was in my eye socket. And his eye socket cradled my cheek. My zygoma.

  "This fits," he said.

  He was right; it felt like our faces were meant to be attached in precisely this manner.

  I couldn't get his father's death out of my mind.

  In my drunken state, Nate's pain seemed tangible, like I might be able to actually rub it out of his skin into a ball and throw it through the window. It would be easy; the window was just above my head.

  But heavy sleep made my fingers forget, and my hand fell on his chest.

  A little later, when it was still dark, I woke up remembering that I had been on a mission. Both his hands were clasping mine. I don't think I moved, but he must've sensed that I was awake because he started whispering to me.

  "I dig you, Ellie Yelinsky," he said, so softly I barely heard it.

  I nodded.

  "I dig you too, Nate Finerman," I said back to him. I had never used the word dig like that.

  I was tempted to write down what we talked about because I knew I'd forget everything in the morning except his lips moving against my ear.

  He squeezed my hand against his chest so hard I could feel his heart pounding, like it wanted out.

  I wished we could've stayed like that forever: on the border of sleep and sunrise, not quite making sense and a little dizzy.

  But it would've been awkward if I had stopped him from putting the moves on me.

  Regular

  "Do you want any coffee?" I asked him the next day.

  He was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding his head. His hair was flat on one side.

  "Please. Regular." He nodded his head without raising it and left it heavy in his palms, pushing his elbows into his thighs.

  When the coffeemaker let out its last gurgles, I went to the kitchen. From the bed, Nate watched me through the doorway. I was about to pour cream in his cup, when his head jolted and he asked, "What are you doing!" as if I had dumped the coffee all over his face. "I said reg-u-lar."

  "Exactly," I said, "cream and sugar."

  "Don't you get it? Regular: nothing in it."

  "In New York, regular means cream and sugar. If you want it black, just say so."

  "Of course I do. None of that sweet stuff."

  I apologized. I didn't feel like fighting both him and my hangover.

  "That's all right," he said, laying his head back in his hands.

  Unpacked

  "Did I unpack!" I screamed into the receiver as soon as he picked up. I had meant to sound more reserved than that.

  "You found it," he said calmly.

  "What's this supposed to mean?"

  "First: relax."

  "I am relaxed," I said between clenched teeth.

  "I just want you to try it," he said. "Try it with some new friends."

  "But I don't want to. I'm throwing it out. Right now. It's in the garbage." I held the receiver over the wastebasket so he could hear my foot slam the pedal on the metal trash can. The baggie crinkled when it dropped.

  "Great idea," he said. "Now, if the cops find it in your trash, it'll have your fingerprints all over it."

  I snatched it out. "I have another idea."

  "So do I," he said. "Smoke it."

  I got an empty jar from my painting supplies box. It was meant for turpentine. "I'm emptying the contents of this bag into a jar," I said. "And I'm putting the jar on my spice rack." I placed it next to the oregano.

  "How will you label it?"

  "Poison. Do Not Use." I found a Sharpie and drew a skull and crossbones on the glass.

  "Will you at least drink the champagne I gave you when you got your acceptance letter?"

  "I'm saving it."

  "Listen, if you don't get this out of your system now," he said, "imagine what you'll be like when you're forty."

  "I can just see it," I said. "I'll be a sober, lively woman. And everyone will say, What a shame she turned out that way."

  "Look," he said. "These things happen at one time or another. It's better to try it now with the rest of the kids than to end up a lone junkie. You're a girl who likes to keep to herself. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but those morbid paintings you make, and those pictures of skinned cadavers you love have me worried. And not that I liked that morose look, but you're dressing all normal now. You're trying to grow up too soon. You need some sort of release."

  "Art is my release."

  "Ellie, everyone experiments with danger at some point, and the way I see it, the most harmless way to do it is at an early age. That way you outgrow it before it's too late."

  "I'll find my own way of having fun, Dad."

  "That," he said, "is exactly what I'm afraid of."

  Some Good Dope

  Ever since I graduated from high school, my dad kept telling me he could hook me up with some good dope. I never thought he'd actually follow through.

  He never understood that I didn't get my thrills out of getting high; I got my kicks from oil paint. And not from sniffing it, just using it.

  I was always painting screaming heads strangled by boa constrictors, mangled bodies pinned to bleeding walls by arrows through the heart, vultures devouring the brains out of lost souls on scorching sand.

  During free periods, while other kids hung out in the cafeteria or did homework in the library, I would set up a canvas and painting supplies in an empty art room. Teachers would poke their heads in, and when they saw what I was up to they would back away slowly, as if any sudden movements would cause my picture to attack. "Why don't you ever paint anything nice?" they'd ask.

  "Because," I'd tell them, evoking an evil smile, "I don't think anything nice."

  But when my peers came by, they were full of compliments, full of awe. "You have the best ideas," they'd say. "It's like you can see our souls." That's exactly how I wante
d them to think of me: as a painter for our generation, as a teenage soul psychic.

  Once school ended, I painted at home. My dad would ask questions like, "Why a vampire?" and "Do people's faces really turn that green when they're dead?" I got sick of telling him I had artistic license to paint whatever I wanted, and that I exaggerated on purpose to heighten the sense of pain in the picture.

  I started to avoid these confrontations by spending time looking at art by other people—something I hadn't done much before. I'd go to the Met and stay there for hours, copying paintings with a pencil into my sketchbook. One painting I always went back to was of a beheaded martyred saint. His head lay beside his body and a thin stream of blood spouted from his neck. This depiction of death was a little too conservative for me, but still it was fun to copy.

  Christ's Descent into Hell was more to my taste. It was painted by an unknown artist, in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, and was full of fiery scenes. This painting took me the longest to draw because of all the figures and hellish details.

  One day, I thought, I'll paint an image of hell so horrifying, people will feel tortured just looking at it.

  Ivan the Terrible

  When I wasn't in the museum, I'd be at the library, copying Leonardo's drawings of cadavers. I wished I could understand his writing, but it was all in Italian and backwards. Leonardo's dead people looked so—well, dead. If only I could learn to draw like that, I thought, my paintings would be more powerful; I could show real emotion, real agony, real fear. Somehow, I needed to get practice painting realistically.

  In the library I came across Ilya Repin's Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. A portrayal of the Russian tyrant cradling his son and only heir after having murdered him. The gory picture was said to have made ladies faint.

  But it wasn't the amount of blood gushing from the young Ivan's head wound or his father's fingers' inability to stop the leakage that frightened me. It was those eyes. The look on Ivan's face that said, "Holy shit, I just did something that can't be changed. My life will never again be what it once was."

  I wanted to erase time for that man, no matter how "terrible" he was.