Beige by Cecil Castellucci Page B

then he skates awkwardly away.
    What a mess he is! He didn’t even ask for my number. He doesn’t even know how to get in touch with me. He’s the biggest loser I’ve ever met. Even bigger than me.
    And now he thinks my name is
Beige.

I meet Lake by the entrance of what looks like a crappy garage. There’s an angel hanging over the entrance. She takes one of the million keys from her key ring and opens the door.
    There is musical stuff everywhere — instruments, racks of guitars, two drum kits, five amps, and a piano. A minifridge sits in the corner, and rock-and-roll action figures are strung up from the ceiling along with blue Christmas lights. There’s a beat-up couch against the wall.
    “First things first,” Lake says. “Don’t touch any of my shit. Or at least ask first. This is, like, my sacred space. And never,
ever
touch my guitars.”
    “Don’t worry — I don’t want to touch your guitars.”
    I don’t even want to touch
my
guitar
, I think.
    “Good, then I’ve communicated my feelings and now we have an understanding about it,” Lake says.
    Is she joking? She didn’t communicate anything to me except that she’s bossy.
    I sneak a peek at the guitars. I don’t want to look at them too long, ’cause I bet she’d think that my even looking at them too long would hurt them.
    I can picture Lake rocking out and picking up one of her guitars and smashing it into a million pieces. I bet she’s that kind of person, the kind of person who smashes a guitar to emphasize her point. She probably gets it from Sam Suck. It’s a gene I was born without. I wonder how hard it would be to smash a guitar. I wonder which one on the wall would break the easiest. I’m measuring them all with my eyes.
    “This is my jam space,” she continues. “This is where I come when I need to create or when I can’t take my grandma anymore. It’s like my fortress of solitude. You know, when I need to be on my own.”
    She closes her eyes for a second and does a Zen breath.
    “Don’t you live with your dad?” I ask.
    She gives me a look, so I know she thinks it was a dumb question.
    “There are no dumb questions,” Mom says. “Questions are points of entry to inquiry. And inquiry is the road to knowledge.”
    “For years my dad could barely take care of himself. You think he could take care of me?” she says. “Want a Coke?”
    That’s a question I can answer.
    “Sure,” I say.
    She opens the minifridge and grabs us Cokes. She throws me mine and I barely catch it. Lake laughs.
    “That wasn’t too graceful.”
    I shrug. Usually I’d be embarrassed, but something about the space makes it OK to be clumsy. I open the Coke and take a long sip. It buys me time to think.
    “You know, I’ve never taken anyone here who wasn’t a musician or here to jam,” she says.
    “Why?” I ask.
    “I don’t usually mix with civilians,” Lake says.
    “Civilians?”
    “Anyone who doesn’t play music.” Lake turns her back on me and busies herself with something.
    I look around again at the space. It’s messy, but the mess doesn’t bother me. It makes sense here. The place has a certain feel to it. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s that, civilian or not, somehow I don’t feel judged.
    Lake picks up one of the guitars and starts playing it. It sounds kind of nice. It sounds like I’m dreaming. But I don’t say that. I just let her keep playing and singing mumbly-like to herself. I watch her as her sturdy hands move along the neck of the guitar. Her hair spills over her face and her brow is crinkled, concentrated. I notice that she has blond roots growing out. She’s really a California blonde! That makes me want to laugh. But she would hate it if I laughed, so I won’t. But she looks soft as she plays. She looks nice, even pretty.
    She catches me staring at her. She glares back.
    “It’s not a song or anything. I’m just noodling. It helps me to think,” Lake says. I don’t know why she has to