Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) (4 page)

“Hi,” I said. “I'm Margaritte.”

“I'm Mike.” He put his hand out and we shook. “You know, I've seen you around.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Reading in the stairwells outside.”

“I do that,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” he said and laughed. I laughed too, though I felt like a jackass.

“So what do you like to read?”

“Stephen fucking King.”

“Jesus, Margaritte,” Julia said, looking at me. I shrugged and started sweating. I never did do that well with guys unless I was related to them or they were gay. Mike looked taken aback for a minute and then started laughing.

“Well, I read too. Though not Stephen fucking King.”

“Well, what do you like to read?”

“Well… a lot. Though my favorites are Salinger and Carver,” he said, running his hand through his hair.

“Anyway!” Julia said. “I'm in track with Mike and we started talking and so I told him he should hang with us. That is, if you don't drive him away.”

“No, no,” Mike said, “not at all.” And he smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back. A few seconds later, I could hear Jake coming down the stairs, his giant, lanky frame making them creak loudly.

“I found some Doritos,” he said, Treena behind him. She was rubbing her stomach, her eyes at horny half-mast, and looking up at him. I rolled my eyes. That girl's a fucking nutcake.

“You guys all met upstairs?” I asked and Jake nodded. He didn't look too happy about Mike, for obvious reasons.

"Mike runs track and just moved here from California," Julia said. She scooted closer to him on the futon they were sharing and Jake narrowed those big black eyes of his, his gaze hovering over Mike like a storm gathering.

I was sitting in an old rocking chair. Jake stopped staring at Mike and sighed, a heavy, wet, male sigh and fell into a shaggy, chewed up green and black La-Z-Boy that looked like it'd been through a meat grinder. We used to have a bunch of dogs, and that chair had been like a giant chew toy, as far as they'd been concerned. There was a ridiculous amount of old furniture downstairs. It was like a warehouse. My dad never got rid of shit, and my mom hated it. It was yet another part of their eternal, pathetic struggle.

Treena tried to wedge her body onto the armrest of the La-Z-Boy and Jake rolled his eyes and tried to scoot as far away from her yawning ass crack as possible. I looked over at Julia and Mike. She was laughing uproariously at something Mike had said. He had an amused, indulgent expression on his face. The thing was, guys loved Julia. She was cute but a lot of it was her charm, you know, that thing some chicks have that dudes just find really fucking irresistible.

“How you liking Idaho Springs?” Jake asked Mike. Jake was leaning back into the La-Z-Boy, trying his goddamndest to look cool. It wasn't working.

“I like it a lot, so far. Colorado's pretty. I like to ski and hike so I'm really glad to see those mountains.”

Jake nodded. “You know, I've thought about track, but I've always been really into my bike. That and... other stuff.”

“Really?” Mike said. “Actually, I like to bike too, we should bike together sometime.”

“Sure.” Jake reached into the bag of Doritos with one of his humungous hands, scooped out a huge fistful and then started eating that pile with his other hand. “How many pounds is your bike?”

“I don't know… fifteen?”

“Fifteen?”

Julia broke into amused laughter.

“What?” Jake asked.

“Jake is talking about motorcycles—and Mike about like, you know, bikes—like bicycles.”

“Now I feel like a twelve year old,” Mike said.

“No, no, bro. It's cool, it's cool. Nothing wrong with that.” Jake started stuffing more chips into his mouth from the bag. I could tell he felt bad.

I looked over at Mike again. He was so little and cute compared to my big, burly, motorcycle-riding cousin. Jake finished his pile of chips, wiped his hands on the legs of his ancient looking black jeans and smiled.

Mike laughed again but he looked uneasy. I figured this was probably the last he'd hang with us. He was too… clean.

“Well, I like to bike. I can't afford anything else,” Julia said and looked over at Mike meaningfully. I figured they'd set a date right then and there, to bike and fuck to their hearts' content until Mike joined the upper social ranks, but he just looked over at the TV uneasily and ran his hand through his hair.

“Yeah… definitely. Biking is cool. Well, I like it. It gives me time to be alone, away from my friends, my family and just, you know, sift through things,” Mike said, looking over at me.

I nodded.

“You know what I mean?”

“I do.”

Julia sighed. “I'll be upstairs.” She got up. Treena followed her
.

Mike looked over at me and shifted a little. “So, ever thought about reading anything other than Stephen fucking King?”

“I sure fucking have.”

“Well… I propose a trade.”

“A trade?”

“Yes. I'll give you a copy of my favorite book, and you give me a copy of yours.”

“OK,” I said, and pulled a copy of
Different Seasons
off of my bookshelf. I handed it to him and he looked at it and put it in his backpack, pulling out a copy of a white book with a rainbow on the front. I set it down on the end table and looked at Mike thoughtfully. I'd screwed around with a few guys here and there, but nothing serious. There had been this one guy about a year back that I'd liked but he'd turned out to be lame as fuck. I'd met him at one of Julia's friend's parties. I started talking to him 'cause he was somebody's cousin and he seemed OK. He was this short, lanky Navajo guy who kept saying, “Ya'at'eeh billyganna!” every time a white chick would come up to talk to us, and I would laugh like crazy. But he was also cynical as hell about being Native—didn't buy any of that cheesy new age shit that so many Natives buy into. Also, he said he liked art. So, we sat in a corner drinking and talking and then he asked if he could kiss me. I figured I'd give it a whirl. It was OK. Then he asked for my phone number and I gave it to him. He said he would be around for the week. We hung out a little, but every time we hung with guys, he wouldn't really look at me and wouldn't laugh at my jokes. So I'd pretty much given up on him when he calls this one night, says he thinks I'm a really cool girl and asks if I want to come over. And, because I'm fucking retarded, I say sure. We end up at the house where he's staying, getting drunk and fucking, his wide purple-brown face sweating over me for all of five shitty minutes. Then he fell asleep right after, so I left. And I never heard from him again. And I was totally paranoid that I had gotten pregnant for forever.

“What are you guys up to tonight?” Mike asked, leaning back and putting his slender brown arms behind his head. He looked at me curiously, coolly. It was my turn to look at the TV, although it was off, devoid of any distracting, dreamlike images. There was something different about him. He was mullet-less, for starters. But it was more than that, more than the obvious fact that his family had money. He was like a pool of water at night, reflecting only silver, some kind of mysterious, angry life beneath.

“Well… ” I said, looking at Jake. “I'm grounded but that's never stopped me from fucking my life up before.”

“Really?” Mike asked, and Jake laughed.

“What are you grounded for?”

“Well, I did get stabbed yesterday.” I lifted my sweatshirt and tank enough so that he could see the wound, the stitches. I had taken the bandage off earlier. He looked at it, and though I thought perhaps he would be shocked, would make some sort of pronouncement, he stepped closer and brushed it gently with his fingertips, fascinated. I shivered.

“Hmmm,” he said. He had noticed my shiver, and his fingertips had lingered because of it. He looked at me and sat back. I could see that his eyes were even darker and more slanted than my own.

“And how did you get that?”

I looked over at Jake. He looked uneasy.

“Well, there was a meth-head. He didn't like the looks of me so much,” I said.

“I'm getting the feeling that you might be the right person to ask this question.”

“What question?” I asked.

“I've been meaning to ask someone who I could buy weed from.”

I laughed. “You're looking at her.”

“I thought as much,” he said.

“Now what would make you say that?” I asked playfully, reaching for the bag of Doritos. I scooped a few into my hands and offered him the bag. He shook his head, laughed.

“You know, you should take me with you when you make sales.”

I looked at him cynically, assuming for a moment that it was some sort of masculine gesture but realized quickly that it was not.

“Oh yeah? Why should I?”

“Well, it sounds like you lead a hip and dangerous life,” he said, and looked at me with his head slightly cocked to the right.

“Indeed I do.”

“So, why'd your parents want to move here?” Jake asked.

Mike sighed. “Well, I think they were sick of California, of the suburbs in L.A. And my dad works for this big engineering company, and they said that they would transfer him to Denver, if he wanted. And he said yes, because he knew he could live someplace like here and commute. My dad's from Montana. His parents were ranchers and I think he misses that, though he always talks about how boring it was for him, growing up.”

“Well, unless you're into meth or having sex with people you're related to, you'll find shit's pretty boring here. How do you think I got into my hip and dangerous lifestyle in the first place?”

“Well, I'll just have to get into meth. I've heard it's really good for your teeth.”

I laughed. “Oh yeah, it's delicious and nutritious. They should put it in cereal.”

“I'm just going to stick to good old-fashioned marijuana,” Jake said.

“Well, I have to get home, but, tonight?” Mike asked.

I looked at Jake. “Well, we were thinking about doing something fun tonight. Something a little different.”

Mike looked interested. “What time?”

“Midnight OK for you?”

Mike stood up and I reached for a pen and paper so that I could write the address down. I finished and handed it to him, his fingers lingering on mine.

He looked down at the piece of paper and then tucked it into his back pocket. “Cool. Well, I wish I could stick around and just go with you but, uh, my mother is a little… well, let's go with, uh, high maintenance?” Mike said, laughing.

“Sure,” I said, though I was thinking that was a little weird.

“See you,” Jake said and we watched him go up the stairs.

A few minutes later, after Jake and I had turned the TV on again and had flipped through practically all of the channels, Julia came down the stairs with Treena in tow. Treena was looking grumpy, as usual. Jake turned the TV off.

“So, Mike left.” Julia said, sitting down on the futon, Treena sitting down next to her, staring at the TV and not saying a word. She thrust her hand into the bag of Doritos, pulled as many chips as she could in one go, and started crunching loudly, staring over at Jake like he was an episode of
The Real World
. Jake looked uncomfortable since Treena was known for getting drunk and aggressive with the dude nearest. Jake had been the nearest dude on multiple occasions. And she was downright fucking creepy about it. She'd always get this look in her eyes, start rubbing her belly and saying shit like,
Yeah, I can fuck the shit out of a guy, if I want to
.

“He said he had to get home.”

“Oh.” Julia leaned back. “Well, he was kind of weird anyway.” She moved the bag of Doritos closer to her and took a few. Treena eyed the bag and as soon as Julia was done, moved it closer to her again and started eating, pulling one handful out of the bag after another.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Yeah, he seemed like a pretty cool guy to me,” Jake said, looking over at Julia and grabbing one of the bags of chips and sitting down with it.

“Well, like all of that reading, I mean… I read for school, but he reads for fun,” she said, looking over in my direction. “Well, I mean, he reads school stuff for fun, not like you, Margaritte. You read Stephen King, that's actually fun.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Well, what tribe is he?”

“The hot tribe,” Treena said, between crunching.

“You were over at the coffee shop with both of them?” I asked.

“Yeah, I was there when Julia was hitting on him.”

“I was not!”

“Yeah, right.”