Penelope never comes back up to the roof. I’m lying on my back when the person who does come up there, does. My head is on the lip at the edge of the building. The gate’s cracking and smashing back, someone slamming the steel aside. I figure it’s Mick, sent up by Liz, to get everyone off the roof. Of course it’s Jules.
“Penelope sent me.” She pronounces it “penna-lohpe”, for fun.
“Do you know Penelope?”
“I do now.”
“I saw your show tonight.”
And Jules sits down. She’s wearing a sari, some tight shirt. I can see her breasts, her arms, her armpits, her nipples. Her hair is up, tight, off her face. I like it wild. I can see her face, though, everything of it, with her hair like this, every part of her eyes, all that skin connected, from ear, to eye, to cheek, to nose.
“Did Penelope see the show?”
“No. She and Chad came late so they met us after.”
“Who is ’Chad’?”
“The one with the long hair. You remember Chad—“
“The one you like?”
“—from the party, yeah..I guess he is the one I like.”
“Are you and Ashley still together?” She just jumps right on it. Right on it.
But she looks away when she says it, and I’m leaning toward her.
“We’ve been split for a while. We still do some things together..like the Naughty. We just like to collaborate. We’ve been trying to create the perfect party.”
“You’re doin pretty good,” she says, still not looking at me.
“Are we?”
She turns back. “Yeah. You wanna dance?” She invites me.
I stand.
“But not down there,” she says. “It’s kinda loud.”
I take her hand, and we do a little faux-ballroom thing for about two seconds, which morphs into us standing four feet apart and me attempting some kind of a club dance—I don’t really dance—I just do my own thing when I come here. That morphs into us both facing the same direction with my hands on her belly and her hands on my hands and my face is even over her neck but then she turns and pushes me away.
“That’s too soon,” she says. “I know what you want.”
“And what do you want.” I look straight at her and don’t give her any chance for escape.
She turns on one heel. “Maybe I want the same.” She does that shy-girl thing, but not too exaggerated.
“You wanna go downstairs and dance, where we can be chaperoned?”
She frowns. She goes to the edge of the building, puts her foot on it. Her head is down. When I go to her I see she’s very sad—almost crying!
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. She wipes away a tear. Then she looks over at me with this doubtful, doubtful look, like I’m her kid and she’s my mother and she just found out that I robbed my own father with his own gun and took his money to buy my first hooker. It’s that kind of look she gives me. Like she knows me! I just met this girl. She doesn’t deserve to give me that kind of look! But that’s the look she gives me.
“What is it?”
It’s like I’ve hurt her—before I’ve even known her!
I just stand there, and I look over the edge. My car is still there. I might be the one leaving early tonight. I can’t do this sort of thing. This is not what I signed up for. I want to help, but if I don’t know what’s going on with you, I can’t help.
“I just don’t know you very well,” she says. “I don’t know anything about you.” She’s looking straight at me.
“Ok,” I say.
She’s waiting for me to say something. Or she’s done saying what she had to say.
I’m looking at this girl’s eyes. One is slightly green. One is slightly grey. It’s not contacts. That’s how her eyes really are. Her green eye eats spinach. Her grey one eats coals. When she moves one, the other stays still. She’s done crying, but clearly she could cry at any moment. She could cry when she wants to.
I say: “What do you want to know?”
“You can start..” she’s digging in her pocket “..by telling me..” she’s digging more “..what this is.”
She drops two ecstasy pills in my hand, which I guess Penelope gave her.