Lunatic Fringe (9 page)

“
Sharm!” Hazel bolted to
sitting and slapped Sharmalee on the arm.

“
Ow! What?”

“
That’s fucked up,” Mitch
chuckled from Blythe’s lap.

“
That’s hella rude,” Corwin
said.

“
No it’s not! There are a
lot of trailers around here! I’ve never seen so many
before!”

“
You’re from India!” Hazel
shouted.

“
They don’t have trailers
in India! And it’s not like I’m from
Dharavi
.”

“
I grew up in a house,”
Lexie said.

“
See?” Hazel said,
declaring herself the moral superior.

“
Oh. Cool. I didn’t mean--”
Sharmalee said.

Lexie smiled and waved away her
apology.

“
Oh!” Sharmalee
straightened, as if struck with a great epiphany. “We should get
Lexie to help us with the werewolves!”

“
Hey, shut it!” Renee
said.

“
Renee . . .” Corwin
scolded.

“
Don’t silence me,” Renee
shot back.

“
You were silencing Sharm!”
Hazel shouted.

“
Sharm was speaking out of
turn.”

“
There are no turns here,”
Jenna said.

“
Christ, I’m trying to
protect us.”

“
Lexie’s one of us,” Jenna
said. “Or at least she could be.”

Blythe remained silent as the girls’
exchange played out. Renee laid back in a huff, downing the final
sip of wine.

After a long and disconcerting silence,
Lexie asked, “Werewolves?”

Hazel leapt up. “Let’s play a game!”
Blythe rolled her eyes and Mitch groaned, burying his face in
Blythe’s arm. Lexie tensed.

“
What do you think,
Blythe?” Corwin said. “Lexie can know, right?”

Renee bit her lip.

“
Let’s just enjoy ourselves
tonight,” Blythe said. “We’re having such a nice time. Let’s not
bring all that darkness in right now.”

“
But tomorrow--” Sharmalee
said.

“
Later,” Blythe
interrupted. She smiled at Lexie. “But I’d also like Lexie to be
around more.”

“
How about Truth or Dare?!”
Hazel said.

Lexie’s neck grew hot and her vision
narrowed as she said a silent prayer to any deity that might have
been listening. Thor or Zeus, perhaps, since the lightning was
cracking on unabated.

“
That’s dumb, Hazel,” Renee
replied. Lexie relaxed. “The whole point of Truth or Dare is to
mack on the people at the party. I’ve already slept with all of
you. Where’s the excitement in that?”

“
What about the newbie?”
Hazel pressed.

“
This newbie,” Renee
replied, nodding her head toward Lexie, “doesn’t need a game to get
what she wants.”

Lexie froze. Renee cast her a
flirtatious smile.

“
Oh yeah?” Hazel
teased.

Renee rolled her eyes, then looked
directly at Lexie. She spoke in a voice just loud enough for
Hazel’s benefit. “Lexie?” Renee smiled at the implied dare. “May I
kiss you?”

Lexie didn’t know the right answer. She
had just been scolded for being unwilling to say no, but now the
rules of the game had changed. Renee smiled, politely waiting for
her answer. Lexie whispered, “Sure,” lowering her gaze to avoid
those darkly probing eyes.

Renee captured Lexie’s chin again and
pulled their faces together. Her lips brushed against Lexie’s,
sending tiny, tingling bolts up and down Lexie’s back. The skin
behind her ears tickled as warmth spread from her lips to her
cheeks, then to her neck and the tips of her ears, until finally it
washed across her chest, warming her completely.

Hazel harrumphed. “Screw you guys,
then. I’m dancing.” She leapt to her feet, dancing before the music
even started.

“
Turn it up,
Corwin!”

“
I’ve only got fifteen
percent battery left.”

“
So?! What else are you
going to use it for, checking the weather?”

Corwin rolled her eyes and raised the
volume.

Hazel cheered and ran in place as the
electroclash banged out of Corwin’s tinny laptop speakers. She
burst into a flurry of drunken movement, waving her hands above her
head like a go-go dancer. Sharmalee giggled and jumped up to join
her.

Renee leaned in to Lexie. “That was
nice,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

“
You’re welcome,” Lexie
said, unsure of what else to say.

“
Good,” Renee said, setting
the glass on the table with an empty clink. “In that case, may I
kiss you again?”

Lexie’s mouth was already half open;
she licked her lower lip. Renee grinned and leaned in again,
pressing Lexie back onto the carpet. On the ground Lexie was cozy,
warm, and slightly drunk. Renee’s soft, black hair filtered the
candlelight in strange ways, the flickering light peeking through
her tiny curls like sunlight through tree leaves. Renee traced her
mouth down Lexie’s neck, her hands feather-touching the bare skin
above the collar of Lexie’s shirt.

Lexie grasped Renee’s hips. Though
Lexie was shorter than Renee, she felt solid, sturdy, compared to
her. Renee was built like an egret, with delicate bones and long,
thin limbs. There was a word for Renee’s body, but Lexie couldn’t
come up with it. As Renee stroked her body and kissed her neck,
Lexie struggled for the word. It started with an “S” or maybe a
“C.” Lexie’s mind derailed in an endless loop of language. She lost
herself in the search for the right word, forgetting Renee’s touch
and the effects of the wine and the setting. Mulling the word that
clung to the tip of her tongue, begging to be identified, she
placed in the folder in her head that held all of the things she
was learning about Renee.

Renee pulled back, the corona of light
flaring behind her hair, wrenching Lexie from her
reverie.

“
You okay?” Renee asked,
looking at her askance.

Lexie rose to her elbows. “Yeah,” she
said.

“
Your head’s somewhere
else.”

“
Oh,” Lexie paused, waiting
for a clearer cue on how to proceed. Renee didn’t seem inclined to
offer her any.

“
I’m sorry,” Lexie said.
“I’m just feeling . . . a lot.” It wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t
cover the whole truth of the situation, either. The problem was,
Lexie didn’t know the truth of the situation. She just knew that
everything was beginning to teeter out of balance. She felt like
she was diving too quickly into an irrevocable choice of alliance
to an alien culture. Yet she felt as though she could belong here,
that she could find among these women a place for
herself.

“
See?!” Renee pointed.
“There you go again.”

Lexie snapped back to Renee’s face.
“Oh,” Lexie said. “You’re right. I’m kind of out of it.” She
fumbled for an excuse. “I’m just . . . a freshman.”

Wow, that was lame. Lexie
cringed.

“
Wow. That’s lame,” Renee
laughed.

“
Yeah.” Lexie smiled
another apology. “But it feels kind of true right now, weird as it
sounds.”

“
Listen,” Renee whispered,
her lips grazing Lexie’s ear. “You want to go upstairs? More
privacy?”

Lexie shook her head again, biting her
lip. She hated to disappoint this brash and beautiful girl, but she
knew that no was the only answer. Renee stroked the long, fine
hairs framing the left side of Lexie’s face, pushing a lock behind
her ear.Lexie shook her head and gave a small smile.
“No.”

Renee held her hand to Lexie’s cheek.
“I’m glad you spoke up,” she said with a wink. “You should try that
more often.” It was a sisterly gibe, but it unsettled Lexie,
anyway.

“
It’s all good,” Renee
said, sighing long and deep. She leaned in and kissed Lexie gently.
“Do you want to dance?” she asked.

“
Not really. Should I?”
Across the coffee table, Lexie caught a glance from Blythe. Blythe
looked away before Lexie could read her, returning her attention to
Mitch.

“
Nah, Hazel’s life
is
Flashdance
.
She’ll be at this all night.” Renee stroked Lexie’s face. “It’s
late. I’ll grab us some blankets for now and walk you home once the
storm breaks.”

Chapter 6

The streets were strewn with the
wreckage of the prior evening’s squall. Though it had sounded
fierce at the time, seeing the littered streets in the new morning
light made Lexie realize just how much damage had been done. A tree
limb dangled overhead, entwined in sagging power lines, and a car
sat stalled in a waterlogged dip in the road. Brown leaves
plastered the sidewalks and the storm drains roared. It was
painfully early, not even seven a.m. The sky remained overcast with
a layer of grey cloud, unmoving and impenetrable.

Renee walked her to the sidewalk that
unofficially divided the north side of campus from the south. They
stood together on that invisible boundary, Lexie conscious of the
effects that drinking all day and staying up all night must have
wrought upon her face. She wanted to hide, but the cold glare of
the overcast morning bathed her in grey light. Renee kissed her
goodbye before turning back towards the Den. Lexie dragged feet
back to her dorm.

She wore that kiss on her lips for the
rest of the walk home, her mind racing with memories of the
previous hours. She kissed a girl. She got a little drunk. Both
were for the first time and both easier and more fun that she had
anticipated. Yet, she had declined Renee’s invitation to her room
which contradicted the collegiate vision she had created for
herself. She wasn’t winning her game of “yes” and promised herself
to recommit to her efforts.Rounding the corner to her dorm, the
noise of a crowd tore her from her thoughts.

Clumps of students in bathrobes and
pajamas stood bleary-eyed and confused on the dorm’s front lawn
beyond a perimeter of yellow police tape. A fire crew, a handful of
police officers, and five helmeted utility workers huddled around a
massive oak tree that had crashed through the roof of her
dormitory. Milton College’s president, a short-haired academic
named Suzanne Fern, paced beyond the crowd, a cellphone pressed to
her ear. She wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt instead of her
usual pantsuit, likely due to the hour and because it was Saturday.
As Lexie rounded the crowd for a better view, she recognized the
tree. It was the one outside her window, and it was lodged squarely
in her room.

The ancient oak rested in a violent,
U-shaped gash of plaster, cement chunks, and wood, as if an errant
monster had bitten a chunk out of the roof and wall of the
building. Through the hole, she saw the poster she had affixed to
her wall when she moved in: a glossy full moon shining on Haystack
Rock. The oak lounged in the gash, branches like capillaries
stretching in every direction. Orange leaves sprouted from the roof
and fluttered like the theatrical flame effect of crepe paper and
fan.

Lexie wandered, dumbfounded, to stand
with her classmates. Brian Dalton, captain of the soccer team and
president of Phi Kappa Phi, stood in his khakis, a t-shirt, and a
varsity jacket, looking as though he was either just arriving or
just leaving.

“
That’s your room, isn’t
it?” he asked as Lexie approached, her eyes fixed to the wreckage.
She nodded, unsure whether to gasp or cry or just walk away. “I bet
this will get you out of homework for at least a week,” he
snarked.

Two of the crewmen struggled to wrap a
pair of canvas straps around the bulk of the tree’s trunk. A crane
waited nearby, its wheels sinking into the muddy lawn.

“
Oh my God!” Anna shouted
from the crowd as she spotted Lexie, energized by the sudden import
of her otherwise meaningless vocation--her usual duties consisted
of holding the hair of vomiting freshmen and negotiating standard
roommate bitchery. She ran towards Lexie, embracing her with all
the maternal warmth her healthy frame could conjure.

“
Oh my God, oh my God!
Thank God you weren’t home last night! You could have been
crushed!”

Lexie stared at the damage, wondering
if that were true. She wriggled in Anna’s grip. She really didn’t
want Anna clutching her or the looks the R.A.’s panic was
attracting.

“
Yeah,” said Brian. He
crossed his arms in front of his chest, emblazoned in burgundy with
the word “Exeter.” “Good thing you’re such a slut.” His sleazy grin
held steady as he raised his eyebrows. She had met him only a week
prior and now he was calling her a slut. Charming. Lexie rolled her
eyes, ignoring him as best she could.

“
Where were you last night,
heartbreaker?” he asked with a nudge.

“
I got stuck at a friend’s
house.”

“
Riiight,” he prodded.
“Which ‘friend’?”

Lexie sighed, far too exhausted for
this sophomoric repartee.

“
Blythe LaCoste,” Lexie
replied with raised eyebrow, as if the name alone could call forth
the sassy comebacks and vigorous defenses of the Pack.