Page 68

“When I resurfaced, they told me Larry was dead. They said it was suicide.

“ . . . likely.

“So I got better, and moved away. You wrote for awhile, and I appreciated it. Then, eventually, you stopped.

“I wasn’t too surprised.

“I went to Toronto, and I was fine for a long, long time. I lived in the waking world, and brushed my teeth twice a day. I thought bright little thoughts which flashed once and were gone, just like everybody else. I went to school. I even had friends.

“Years slipped by.

“Until—it happened.

“Again.”

* * *

Across the street from the Meat Market, Adage leans against a lamppost, waiting for her evening’s prey to reveal itself. It’s finally stopped raining. The gutters overflow with light.

At 12:22, a girl in a tight pink plastic slicker breaks rank—struggling, briefly, with some unseen partner—and jumps the last two steps, falling into her customary strut as she clicks away.

Sherri, Adage thinks with a little stab.

She didn’t expect it to be her tonight.

Other—worthier—candidates still linger outside the Market’s doors: That older woman, whose smile seems penciled on over a lipless slash of a mouth. The boy in the leather jacket, whose ears are fringed with tiny silver rings. The girl with a freshly-bloodied nose, whose pendant proclaims her to be a HOT CHICK.

But take what you can get, babe, and count yourself lucky.

Adage lets Sherri’s footsteps die away before rising to follow.

The moon sees her coming, and narrows appraisingly.

* * *

“Graduation night, I let a boy I barely knew drive me up the hill to that spot we’d all heard so much about. And we sat there, side by side in the car, staring at the city below. He shuffled his feet, and coughed, and finally put his arms around me. And there in the dark, between the bars of a Depeche Mode song, I felt something change. A key in a lock. A red river rising, a hot red tide finally coming in, high enough to drown us both.

“And when he turned to kiss me, he sniffed the air and gagged.

“And I just smiled.”

Then, in a whisper:

“And it was so sweet, Mike. Like sex. Only so much better.

“Like Larry.

“And I remember it all.”

* * *

Pushing her way past the Totally Concerned With Sex Shop, Sherri hangs a right in front of Girls! Live! Girls! Nude! and disappears. Her scent remains, though fading fast.

Adage swallows, tasting dust.

It’ll be ove

r soon enough, she thinks.