My Tiki Girl by Jennifer McMahon Page A

long time ago.”
    Jonah snorts. “And I suppose you’re gonna tell me he was really a normal guy, too?”
    “He wasn’t a little creature with pointed ears, if that’s what you mean,” I say, then Dahlia shoots me a look to tell me to leave it alone, to let him believe what he wants, so I don’t argue. It’s a free country. We’re all entitled to our own little delusions.
    As we clamber down the bank, we can hear a truck pulling out, can faintly smell the diesel of the engine. I wonder if Jonah thinks there are little pointy-eared men working the foot pedals of the truck, pulling the cable that sounds the horn.
    Jonah moves quickly but carefully along in front of us, his wand in one hand, the other making magic signs in the air. He’s drawing symbols with his pointer finger, letters maybe, then he uses his whole hand to wipe away what he’s written like he’s erasing a blackboard.
    We stumble down the hill, blue-robed magician in the lead because he knows the way. Dahlia is second, breaking twigs and branches that threaten to jab her. She’s the one who makes all the noise and leaves signs that we were here. Dahlia leaves traces of herself wherever she goes, the way a shooting star leaves a streak of light behind it.
    The ground is thick with thorny raspberry bushes and skinny maples that whip at my face. It’s steep and rocky and only Jonah seems sure-footed, Dahlia and I stumbling down behind him, slipping, causing little avalanches as we make our way along what seems to be a seldom-used path. My leg is throbbing, and I know my father would kill me if he could see what I’m doing. The doctors and physical therapist said to take it easy, that if I don’t give it time to heal, the bone could reshatter.
    “You okay, LaSamba?” Dahlia’s beside me, looking vaguely concerned.
    “Fine,” I lie, cold pain-sweat gathering between my shoulder blades. “Come on, we’ll lose Jonah.”
    The boy wizard has trotted off ahead of us like some kind of hound on a String Man hunt.
    I hear running water in the distance, the sound of the stream that gets closer as we keep going down.
    The slope levels off, and we’re in a thicket of tall weeds and saplings. It smells rich and loamy here, and all the fallen rotting leaves under our feet are spongy. When we reach the stream, we follow it up a little ways to a clearing. In front of us, the stream opens into a large pool before narrowing again. If we look up to the right, the railroad bridge hovers a good thirty feet above the water. Beside the pool, on its sandy bank, are the remnants of a campfire. There are empty beer cans and bottles scattered around, brown glass smashed against rocks. Cigarette butts are everywhere. A glossy magazine lies open to a naked girl on a motorcycle. The only thing she wears is lipstick and plenty of it.
    Dahlia catches me looking at it. My face burns and I turn away.
    It’s not like I’ve never seen a magazine like that up close before. Sukie and I used to steal porn magazines from under her brother’s mattress and hide in her closet with them, giggling over the pictures. Our favorite part was the letters people wrote in about their supposedly true experiences. They usually started out something like “I never thought anything like this would happen to me, but . . .” and go on with some totally unrealistic story, involving a hot stewardess or twin sisters. Sukie and I were pretty sure the guys who wrote in probably made it all up, but there, straining to read in the dim light of Sukie’s closet, the stories left us feeling flushed and embarrassed and we just couldn’t get enough of them.
    I wonder, was I a lesbo then, too?

    “Teenagers, probably,” Dahlia says after assessing the scene, kicking at the glossy magazine. She says it with disgust, like she’s not a teenager herself. Like she’s something else altogether. She spits, then takes a clove cigarette out of her coat pocket and lights it. “Bet this is a great swimming spot