Tiger Milk by Stefanie de Velasco Page A

to her, I’m feeling better.
    Nico smacks me on the ass as he walks by.
    What’s wrong with you, I say.
    There was something on you.
    Haha very funny, I say even though I do think it’s funny.
    Did you ever notice, he says putting his arm around my shoulders, that they’re all stupid, we’re the only ones who aren’t he says snorting like a horse grazing in winter. Nico doesn’t smell like Weleda, if he smells of anything at all it’s Nivea but first and foremost he smells like alcohol and cigarettes. Weird, for some reason all the men I like smell like alcohol and cigarettes. Papa smelled that way too when he came home from work in the evening and drank a beer in the living room while I sat in his lap, my nose buried in his clothes, that’s exactly the way he smelled.
    Where is Jameelah, I ask.
    She’s up there with whatshisname.
    His name is Lukas.
    I have no idea what his name is but he’s a poof no matter what Jameelah thinks.
    You can’t say that. Anyway we’ll see, there’s something brewing today.
    That’s not your type right?
    What do you care, I say punching him in his side.
    As if, says Nico grabbing my leg and throwing me over his shoulder.
    I scream like an idiot but Nico doesn’t put me down until we reach the door to Viovic’s house. There’s already a lot going on inside, people everywhere you look, even Apollo and Aslagon are there sitting on a giant leather sofa in the living room. Apollo has a porcelain doll in his lap and is bouncing it on his knee like a little kid.
    I had one just like it, he says, I was just a little kid and my mother smashed it.
    Why, I ask.
    I have no idea.
    His lower lip is trembling.
    Maybe you deserved it, says Aslagon taking the doll and tossing it into the corner before spreading a big piece of paper across the coffee table.
    Give me a hand instead, we have stuff to do.
    I’m still pretty high. I squeeze my way through the packed kitchen to the refrigerator and grab a beer and head to the basement. The rehearsal studio is bursting at the seams. Viovic have a couple of go-go dancers on stage, sweet thin boys who strip while Viovic play. Lukas and Jameelah are jumping around in the front row. I try to fight my way over to Jameelah but there’s no chance, zero, and anyway I’d probably just be bothering them if I did make it over there so I stay near the door and take a big gulp of beer. For the first time it occurs to me that Lukas and Jameelah kind of look like each other, the same dark hair, same dark eyes. Lukas reminds me of someone else too.
    Whenever my beer is empty I go upstairs to the kitchen and then back down where I stand next to the door and every time I see Jameelah and Lukas again I think it will come to me. But I can’t think of who it is he reminds me of, not through the entire concert though it could also have something to do with the fact that now I’m not just high I’m totally drunk.
    This is our last song, says Viktoria smacking the go-go dancer next to her on the ass just like Nico did to me before, and you, you get back to my dressing room, she says and everybody shouts.
    People clap and howl and shout encore and Viovic bow. I clap and look over toward Lukas and Jameelah but I can’t make them out in the crowd. Instead I see Anna-Lena standing against the wall next to the stage. She’s glaring at the dance floor with a horrified look and when I follow her gaze I see why. Right in the middle of the crowd Jameelah and Lukas are hooking up. I jump up and down and clap like crazy for Viovic but really only for Jameelah because Viovic played as bad as they always do and as I’m clapping it hits me who it is, Lukas looks exactly like the boy in the black and white picture on the shelf at Noura and Jameelah’s place, the photo of Jameelah’s brother Youssef, and then I stop clapping because I get a tight feeling in the pit of my stomach but it could just be from all the beer.
    The house is absolutely jammed but Viovic just disappear. In