Even If the Sky Falls (4 page)

I
T IS CROWDED AS HELL ON
O
AK
S
TREET AS
I
NAVIGATE THE
throngs, gripping Electric Blue's hand. I should probably feel self-conscious about holding hands with a boy I just met, but the alternative would be getting lost in the sea of nymphs and jesters and the vibration of the city, a beat that practically lifts me off my feet. Plus his hand feels welcome in mine, and I hope he never lets go.

He smiles back at me as we find a semi-quiet corner where we can finally rest. We lean against the wall of the building and survey the mass of dancers before us, trying not to look at each other too much.

He smells a bit like vanilla mixed with sweat, and how did the word “delicious” just pop into my mind?

I pray he thinks the now-permanent flush across my cheeks is due to the heat and not our proximity to each other.

“You okay?” He leans into me, and I feel his breath on my cheek.

“Yeah.” I rub my forearms. “Just a bit overwhelmed.”

About this, about life, about everything.
I just ran away from volunteer work to basically frolic with a bunch of strangers.
Who am I anymore?

“Sunshine?” He draws me back from my panic. “Your first Mardi Gras?”

“Can't you tell?”

“Yeah, but I was trying to be nice.” Then there's that smile again. “I'd tell you that you get used to it, but that'd be a lie. There's no getting used to Mardi Gras, you just embrace it, you know? Let it take over—then it's smooth sailing.”

I try to push away my thoughts of home and Adam and focus on Electric Blue Boy, “How do you let it take over?”

“You know . . . you just feel.” He spreads his arms out wide as if that explains everything.

I laugh. “Right. Feel it.”

The sun peeks out before the sky dulls again; a cloud rolls through, bringing with it another quick and delicious breeze. Soon twilight will set in, making every bit of glitter and sequins reflect brighter, like fireflies in the night. Not even the threat of storm clouds will dull them. The air has
cooled down and though the music is just as loud as before, there is a calmness to it that settles in with the dimming of the sun.

“All right, all right. I'm not explaining it well enough, but it's hard to. It's like . . . you know when people tell you ‘describe yourself in three words' or ‘how would other people describe you' and shit?” His gestures are all over the place as he talks. “It's like that. You can't encompass a person in three words. And New Orleans—she's alive, she's a person. Hard to settle on how to describe her, but once you're in it, once you're here, you get it.”

He waits for me to answer, but I'm adrift in his words, how true they feel, and his brown eyes, with flecks of gold that play off his dark skin and the kinetic lights of the carnival. His smile reaches all the way to his eyes, and they crinkle at the sides; I watch the carnival pass behind me, reflected in his irises.

Suddenly he hops off the wall. “Drink?”

“Um, yes, please.”

But truthfully, no, I'd rather go back to listening to him speak about New Orleans or music or anything. Really, anything.

“I'll be right back; don't run away, okay? You looked like you might bolt when I started talking about Orleans being a person.”

Nope, just staring into your gorgeous eyes and probably looking like a dolt.
“I won't, I promise.”

“Cool.” He slips into the nearest bar, and I almost shout after him that I am sixteen and probably shouldn't be drinking anything alcoholic, but he's gone before I can and part of me kinda hopes he does bring back a beer or a
drink
drink.

I think of Adam and the swigs of Dad's whiskey and how it made him loose. How it sometimes made the shadows that followed him disappear and sometimes made them bold like the midday sun.

“You okay there, girl?” Taj settles up next to me, occupying Electric Blue's space. I realize that I know all his friend's names but not his. “You looked lost in thought there for a second, and not a very good one.”

I nod. “Yeah, more like complicated and hard to get into.”

Taj lays his buzok against his feet and holds his hands up with a smile.

Taj is the shortest of the guys, but there's something about him that tells me he's the life of the party. “Say no more, I won't pry.”

Danny bounds over to my other side, but Domínguez seems preoccupied with a particularly flirty fairy. “I'm already soaked in sweat”—Danny points to his shirt, patches of moisture visible below his armpits—“and it ain't even eight yet.”

“I told you to bring yourself a backup,” Taj replies.

I'm still in a bit of a daze from Electric Blue's comment
earlier. “Are you sure that wasn't the official parade?”

Danny shakes his head. “Nah, pre-party. People are going to get their dance on until it starts around eight. Unless the sky starts falling by then.”

“You mean the rain? Will they cancel if it starts raining?”

Taj shakes his head, a laugh tumbling out. “Then they'll start at eight fifteen!”

“But for real, Taj, you think that storm's going to hit us?” Danny tips his hat to a couple of girls as they walk by; they smile but keep on walking.

Taj looks up at the sky, and my gaze follows. The sky is darkening a hair's breadth at a time, but the moon is already out despite the daylight. Off in the distance there are long stretches of dark clouds ready to roll in; above us a few pitiful gray puffs threaten the evening.

“Nah, my dad says it's turning away from us and will probably die off before it gets any closer.”

“Plenty close,” Danny says. “From what I hear we going to feel it later in the night or early morning.”

“You think people would be out here partying it up if there was a tropical storm just round the corner?”

“Hell yeah!” Danny laughs, and soon Taj is laughing as well. The wind joins in, tussling my hair.

“Wait, I thought it was just, like, rain. There's a tropical storm coming?” I interject, realizing I probably should've paid more attention to Tavis after all. But I've found it hard
to think of anything outside my own drama for several weeks now.

Taj nods. “That's what one weatherman said, but everyone here knows tropical storms and hurricanes don't show up during Mid-Summer. It would be mad rude if it crashed.”

“Mad rude?” Danny cackles.

“Mad rude,” Taj continues, “and no storm wants to be mad rude, my friend.”

Danny nods and picks up his fiddle, playing a lazy tune as he watches the revelers go by. Soon Taj joins him. “Waste of a carnival if it did. Damn waste.”

“You're kidding, right? People wouldn't just—”

“Keep going?” Danny nods. “Of course they would. Nothing ruins a parade, even if we have to swim home.”

As if on cue the pitiful gray cloud settles above us, releasing a cooling mist on the party below. We are the only ones who give it any mind.

Taj does a quick doggy paddle in the air. “I can't swim, man.”

“I will carry you on my back.” Danny turns, patting his back. “Let's go.”

Taj bends his knees and takes a running leap, only to stop right before actually landing on Danny. Danny shakes his head in disappointment. I hold back a laugh, unsure if this show is for me or just a part of who they are.

“How long have you known each other?” I ask, trying
to fill the lull in conversation. The mist feels amazing, each drop cooling me down.

“All our lives; grew up together. Domínguez, your boy, and I have known each other since grade school,” Danny says. “Taj's family moved here like, what?”

“Two years ago,” Taj finishes, “but it feels like I was born here, you know?”

I nod even though I have no idea what he means. I've lived in my tiny little town all my life and have no idea how it would feel to live anywhere else and call it home. Not that my town feels like much of a home now.

“It's N'awlins, man,” Danny continues. “She gets into your bones and you swear you were born here.”

Soon Domínguez strolls right up, the accordion making the most ridiculous sounds because he's forgotten to lock it.

“I'm heading out,” he says.

“Heading out where?” Taj asks.

“I've met the love of my life”—he gestures back to the fairy—“and I'm not spending another second with you
pendejos
.” He looks at me. “No offense. I'm talking about them.”

“None taken.”

Domínguez is tall and muscular, unlike his friends who are of the reed-like variety. I would've never pegged him as someone who played the accordion at all, maybe football or something but not the accordion.

“Man, you just met the girl.”

“Exactly, and I want to get to know her before we never see each other again. You know how Mardi Gras is.”

Taj and Danny nod.

“Uh, what do you mean that's how Mardi Gras is?” I ask.

“It's like, something about Mardi Gras. You can be whoever you want to be and it's cool.”

“Like,” Danny elucidates, voice carrying over the rhythm of the day, “if you got a weird glass eye, it don't matter, on Mardi Gras you got twenty/twenty vision. If you broke—”

“You're still broke on Mardi Gras!” Taj laughs and punches Danny on the shoulder.

“True, but you don't feel it as much because the city is wide open for you.”

Domínguez finishes, “For one night anything is possible. Tonight, Tinker Bell and I can be whoever we want to be; tomorrow, I might never see her again if she doesn't want to.”

“That's kinda sad.”

“Maybe. Sometimes you need one night to run away from shit, you know?”

“Yeah.” I smile at Domínguez, because there it is, the answer I needed.

Weird how two semi-complete strangers can totally validate your actions.

As the mist travels on to bless the rest of the parade,
Domínguez nods good-bye and runs to his Tinker Bell, looping his arm around her waist, the accordion making another set of ridiculous sounds. They look happy as they disappear into the crowd.

We pause for a moment and I close my eyes, concentrating on the sound of the different bands swimming all around me. It feels like the sounds shouldn't mix—different beats, one fast, one slow, different instruments, each louder than the other, meeting each other in street corners and alleyways, talking to each other like old friends. It shouldn't work, it shouldn't—but it does, it totally does.

“Drinks!” Electric Blue comes back, offering me a half cup of beer. “I have a friend who works at the bar, and I sneaked this out for free, but I can get you some water if you want it.”

“No, this is great, thank you.”

“
Salud
!” he says, and we touch cups.

He pushes Danny out of the way as he sidles up beside me. Danny feigns annoyance before he goes back to people watching.

“They didn't bother you, did they?” he asks me.

“Excuse me?” Danny shouts. “How do you know she didn't bother us?”

Blue smiles, looking back at me. “I doubt that.”

Yep. Permanent blush.

“I have a weird question,” I say because his eyes, the feel of his skin against mine as he sits next to me is intoxicating.
The tiny little hairs on my body leap up, itching to be closer, and I need to think of something else.

“Perfect day for it.”

“Okay, well, maybe not weird, but I kinda wondered how, like—how did Domínguez—”

“End up with the accordion?” he finishes for me.

“Yeah, it feels like he should be catching a football somewhere.”

“Probably, if his feet were as coordinated as his hands, but they ain't.” He drinks the last of his beer and turns to give me his full attention. “Now, it would be safe to say that, like most teens, you had a period of . . . growth. Whether it was awkward or not, that's up to the individual.”

“Very awkward.”

“Me too. Same with Danny and probably Taj, had we known him back then.”

“Hey, man! I was never awkward.”

“You play a buzok, my friend, and that's all I'm going to say about that.” He turns back to me. “Like I was saying, we found solace in our friendship and our playing of ridiculous instruments. Because we were, and still are, pretty damn broke. And not like broke in a romantic way, just
broke
broke—so we played the instruments that we could get. Danny got the fiddle from his uncle, I got my guitar from a pawnshop as a birthday present, and Domínguez found the accordion in his mom's attic. So we made
the best of what we got and here we are.”

“Right, but what about the—” I point to my own arms that are devoid of any strength.

“The muscles? Growth spurt and a refusal to continue to get beat up over his love of the accordion. You aren't going to pick on a kid twice your size even if you think the accordion is funny, right?”

“Right.”

He settles back on the wall, watching the crowds as they go by.

“So where are you from?”

Here it is. Where am I from? Why are you here? Where are your parents? How old are you anyway? Oh God—I close my eyes and pretend not to have heard the question, but I know he's waiting for me to answer. I stare out at the sea of masked revelers and put myself in their place, protected from the world by a cheap plastic disguise. If they can do it, I can too. I brush my shoulder against his again, and the little hairs along my arms stand on end again. I savor the feeling and take a deep breath.

“Around.”

He laughs. “Around, all right. I like Around, hear it's a nice town full of scoundrels and hippies. What's your name?”

I laugh and make it a game. “What's in a name?”