Drawing Amanda (22 page)

Rungs adjusted the receiver between them on the car seat.

“So now will you admit that you
like
like her?” Rungs asked.

Inky nodded and broke into a huge grin. His face felt funny—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled that way.

Inky heard rustling coming from the speaker. It was no louder than the muted phone conversation the driver was having. Rungs turned up the volume and they heard the sounds of the street. Inky closed his eyes and was able to pick out the sound of Amanda’s footsteps. The footsteps of the girl he’d kissed.

Say something, Inky thought. Describe what you’re seeing. As if he’d willed it, he heard Amanda’s voice.

“So this is it.” Amanda was speaking softly in a voice that could be mistaken for her talking to herself. He heard the sound of the door opening, then the street noise was muted as it closed. “Megaland Studios.”

Chapter 36

Justagirl in Megaland

A
MANDA HIT THE BUZZER
. “Who’s there?” came right away, as if someone had been waiting by the buzzer expectantly. Even through the muffle of the intercom, Amanda could tell that Woody was smiling.

“It’s me, Justagirl.” It felt weird saying her screen name aloud.

“I’m coming right down.”

Her stomach did a flip. The voice was raspy but melodic. She thought she heard the same local accent that one of the doormen in her building had. She wasn't sure what he’d look like based on hearing his voice. Inky was probably good at that. Inky, who she’d kissed in the car. The thought made her smile. Her first real kiss. Already it had been quite a day.

Amanda heard footsteps. For a moment she wanted to turn and run. “Oh god,” she said. He was moving quickly down the stairs. Her heart raced. His steps seemed light. At least he’s not fat, she thought, or he’s an awfully quick fat man.

What was she going to say to him? They’d practiced a couple conversations to be sure she didn’t give away any information about herself, or about Inky and Rungs. But knowing what she couldn’t say wasn’t the same as knowing what
to
say. And things didn’t always go as planned.

Amanda tapped her purse as a reminder that Inky and Rungs were listening. The footsteps were louder, closer. Amanda looked out the glass building door, even though the car was parked out of view, halfway down the street.

She saw his tan Frye boots and acid washed jeans first. The jeans were carefully pressed, which somehow made her feel better. He was tall, slim, and as she looked up, she was surprised that he was handsome, in a weathered, fatherly kind of way, with long salt-and-pepper hair, very old school, but carefully trimmed. The wrinkles around his eyes made them seem happy, twinkling.

“Is it really you?” he said, smiling down at her. He opened the inner door wide and half bowed to her. “I told you you were beautiful.

“Come in, come in. I’m Woody,” he said, sticking his hand out.
Bien élevé
, she thought. He has good manners.

“Glad to meet you,” she said, echoing his politeness. She was glad that he didn’t look like a monster. In fact, he didn’t look dangerous at all. Maybe Inky and Rungs had been wrong. “I’m Justagirl—but my friends call me Amanda.”

Woody gestured for Amanda to head up the stairs. She thought she felt him looking at her as she climbed. At the top of the stairs was a long carpeted hallway. The blue-flecked carpeting was frayed. She could smell cigarettes. Amanda looked at the gold records on the wall. She didn’t recognize any of the songs or band names.

“Are these real gold?” she asked.

“They’re real gold records. All these bands recorded here. Megaland was a happening studio back in the day.” He winked at her. “The plaque is just a vinyl record dipped in metallic paint.” He was charming, much in the way that Hawk exuded personal power, which both scared her and made her envious.

Woody opened the door to the studio lounge. Above the black leather couch were framed pictures of Woody looking hip and mugging it up with various skinny-legged guys with big hair and cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

“Some set of pictures. A different world. Sometimes it feels like it was a different planet,” Woody said. He hadn’t stopped looking at her.

Amanda giggled. The pictures were funny, like caricatures almost. But the giggle continued for too long, riding on a wave of relief, and threatened to go out of control. Amanda pinched herself to stop.

“Let me show you the rest,” Woody said, not commenting on her giddiness. He put his hand on her shoulder to lead her. It was a polite, chivalrous gesture. It gave her the creeps.

The main room was a huge space with some smaller rooms off of it, one of which appeared to be where he slept. “This was the control room. The board—all the faders and dials and knobs—used to be here. Now it’s my work room,” Woody said as he pointed to several computers lined up on a workstation. Amanda noticed a blue velvet curtain suspended in an area in the corner.

Woody pointed to the old overstuffed armchair across from the workstation. “Have a seat.”

She tucked her purse at her side and shifted in the chair. Woody sat in one of those fancy computer chairs across from her. She felt like she was in her father’s office.

“Can I get you something to drink? Lemonade? Hot cocoa?” He walked over to the kitchen area and held up the packet of cocoa. The packet shook. He was as nervous as she was, she thought. This mattered to him, too, but she didn’t know if the reason should make her feel worried or flattered. Maybe he just liked her.

“How about some tea?” he asked, definitely trying to please her.

It would be the polite thing to do to say yes, but she remembered what Rungs had said.

“I’m not thirsty now. I had a big soda on the way, but maybe later.”

“Here, pick some music,” he said, pointing at a case of CDs next to her chair.

She leaned over and scanned the band names: Nirvana, Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Crack the Sky, aware all the while that he was looking at her. “I don’t listen to any of these bands.”

“Must seem like dinosaur music.”

“I missed a lot of music—haven’t really lived in the States.”

Woody picked a U2 CD and popped it in the CD player and walked over to the velvet curtain. He reminded her of a lizard scurrying about. “At least I didn’t show you my record collection. So, am I what you expected?”

Amanda didn’t see that question coming, even though Rungs had warned her that Woody would make the conversation personal. She felt her cheeks flush. “I don’t know. I just met you—well, not really. Kind of. You’re, I don’t know. Uh, cool.” Was that the right thing to say? She was so uncertain, and knowing that Inky and Rungs were listening in just made her even more tongue-tied.

“I have a present for you,” he said, reaching behind the velvet curtain.

“A present?”

Woody brought her a large rectangular box in silver and purple wrapping paper. It looked like it came from a fancy boutique.

“Pretty wrapping paper,” Amanda said.

“Open it,” Woody said as he darted back behind the curtain. Amanda stared at the box. She didn’t want to open the present while he wasn’t in the room.

“G’head. Open it,” he said, popping out from the curtain with a professional-looking heavy black camera in his hands.

Amanda’s hand shook as she tore the wrapping away. It was the thick kind, the kind her mother would keep in a box when they were in Nairobi to reuse for other gifts or for school projects.

“I’ll take your picture while you open the box. Sometimes candids are fun, too,” Woody said as a flash went off in Amanda’s face.

* * *

Inside the car the sound of the paper rustling was so loud that it almost blew out Inky and Rungs’s ears. Rungs turned down the volume. This is so creepy, Inky thought as they heard the sounds of ripping paper. He felt like he did when he was really young and listened to his parents’ conversations through their closed bedroom door: embarrassed and confused. It made him sad to think of his parents together. Rungs’s voice brought him back to the present.

“That’s a box, a lid coming off a box,” Rungs said, indentifying the popping sound they heard.

“Oh, my god,” they heard Amanda exclaim. “Is it really? They’re amazing.”

“Tell us what it is,” Rungs said.

The sound became muffled. “She must’ve put the wrapping paper and box on top of her purse. Hear how the levels changed?”

Inky nodded, but he was thinking about more than the tape sound. Whatever was in the box, he didn’t want her to like it. He didn’t want anything to tempt her to let her defenses down, and he didn’t want her to feel too kindly toward Woody. After this was over, he’d have to think of a gift to give her that she’d really like.

“I can’t believe it. They’re the same, aren’t they? They’re the boots from Megaland. The high boots from the closet dress-up game?”

“Good girl,” Rungs said. “Keep narrating. Tell us everything that’s going on.”

They heard footsteps coming towards Amanda.

“Try them on,” they heard Woody say to Amanda.

“Creep,” Inky said to the voice coming out of the receiver. “Stay away from her. Keep your freakin’ distance.”

“Quiet!” Rungs said.

They heard more rustling. Amanda’s voice was harder to hear. “Size eight,” she said.

“She must be bending over. See how her voice changed,” Rungs said. Glad he’s enjoying this, Inky thought, then felt badly for thinking that. Rungs was good at this, and if it weren’t for him, they might never have come up with this plan to begin with.

“How’d you know?” Amanda asked Woody.

“That’s the box you clicked on in the dress-up closet in the game. I guessed you might pick your real size.”

“Whoa,” Inky said. “Clever bastard.”

They heard some shuffling and then Amanda’s voice sounded farther away as she made appreciative noises about the boots. Then they heard the electronic sound of a camera.

“Yuck,” Inky said. He looked down at his artwork, carefully rolled, sitting on the floor of the car. He wanted to deliver it now. He wanted all this to end.

“They’re perfect. I love them,” Amanda said.

“G’head. Walk around. Let me see for sure that they fit you—you know, like how you do it in the shoe store,” they heard Woody say.

They heard footsteps, softer footsteps than before. Footsteps walking away from the microphone. Amanda’s footsteps. Why’d she have to be so cooperative? Inky thought.

“Are you ready for some posed pictures? I have a lot of costumes and props.” Woody’s voice seemed louder.

“Sure,” Amanda said, from what seemed to be more of a distance.

“C’mon, talk to us, tell us what you’re doing,” Rungs said.

Inky heard Amanda’s soft footsteps. “Back here?” she said.

“Behind the curtain,” Woody answered.

When Amanda spoke again, it sounded even more distant, her voice subdued, like how a color was diluted when he added water to an ink wash.

“Wow. You have some unusual clothes here,” she said.

Inky opened the window, but the outside noises made it too hard to hear the transmission of what was going on in the studio. He closed the window again. The driver glanced back disinterestedly and turned back to the action scene on the DVD he was watching.

Inky heard a scraping sound and closed his eyes to try to get a picture. Hangers, it was the sound of hangers on a rack.

“This is better than my mother’s closet ’cause they’re all cute.” Inky hated that Amanda sounded like she was having fun. He thought of how Woody had been so charming and so supportive, when all he really wanted was to use Inky’s artwork to lure young girls. Yuck. Now he was being charming with Amanda. And she was up there alone.

Inky looked over at Rungs. “That’s enough. I’m gonna ring the buzzer.”

“Not yet,” Rungs said. “We need him to take a couple of pictures.”

“Shh!” Inky said. He had to hear what Amanda said next. He didn’t want any of Rungs’s reasoning.

“Ooh, a Halloween costume. Is this a maid’s outfit?”

“I gotta go in there,” Inky said.

Rungs pressed his arm against Inky and held him back. “Soon. Very Soon.” Inky sat back halfway.

“Ooh, look at this.” Amanda sounded like she was faking enthusiasm. Or maybe he just wanted to hear it that way. “I love the beads and the V neck.”

“Hold it up against you,” Woody said to Amanda. His voice sounded more muffled. He must be standing closer to Amanda, Inky thought.

Inky pushed Rungs’s arm away and reached down for his artwork.

“That’s lovely,” Woody said. “It looks really sophisticated. It’ll show off your long legs. Let me take a picture of you in it. Here, you can change behind this curtain. The catch can be tricky. I’ll help you with it.”

Chapter 37

Picasso2B in Megaland

I
NKY’S HAND WAS ON THE CAR DOOR
handle. He pressed down halfway and it clicked. The driver looked up from the DVD player on the front seat, turned his head halfway, gave Inky a disinterested glance and turned back to his DVD.

Rungs stretched out his arm and held Inky back. “Let’s call it in first,” he said as he picked up Hawk’s cell phone and dialed.

“I’m counting on caller ID here,” Rungs said, and dialed the Midtown North precinct, a couple of blocks away.

Counting on Hawk was more like it. But Inky knew this time she’d come through. While her mother was so sick, her father still traveled a lot. It fell to Hawk to supervise her mother’s care, and that, he knew, had included several emergencies.

“An officer is needed, six hundred block of West 53. Request arrival without lights or sirens,” Rungs said in a put-on adult voice that almost convinced Inky. Rungs was also mimicking the trace of a German accent that Hawk’s father had.

Rungs gave Inky a thumbs-up. Inky assumed the officer on the other end had asked about the nature of the crime.

“Level 2 sex offender, William Turner, ID number 28292, in violation of parole; violation of the no-contact with minors clause, possible intent to engage in questionable activity with a minor. Request caution, minor present,” Rungs said, the fake accent less pronounced.

Just as Rungs finished with the police, Amanda’s voice came through the receiver. “I can do this myself,” she said. Her voice sounded wobbly.