Second Star

19

I blink away tears as I drive down the reed-covered road that will lead me out of Kensington. The plants fold under my car as though I didn’t just crush them a few hours ago when I was driving in the other direction.

I should have known from the instant Belle told me they were a couple that he was not to be trusted. I should have been able to see through his lies. I’m a straight-A student, a good daughter; I’ve never cut a single class, not even on senior cut day. I’ve never lost track of a goal before in my life. I wanted to pass my driver’s test, I did. I wanted to be the editor of the school yearbook, I was. I wanted to get into Stanford, I did. I wanted to find my brothers—and I failed.

What kind of name for a wave is Witch Tree? Who knew that waves even had names? Maybe you’re supposed to capitalize it, like a proper name. In my mind’s eye, I see a bare white tree rising from the crest of a wave, its branches grabbing at surfers like greedy hands, pulling them under. Wherever the hell Witch Tree is, it’s where I should be headed now, too.

But just as the road turns from dirt to concrete, I slam on the brakes. Jas’s house is right in front of me; this close, the music is so loud, I can barely hear myself think. My brothers lived with Pete, but they were dusters. Are they still surfing, or has the drug taken over their lives completely? I try to picture them skinny, the muscles they built up after years of surfing atrophied to nothing, their skin pale from spending all their time indoors.

There’s only one place in Kensington where you can get dust.

Only one person who can answer my questions.

Instead of making the right turn that will lead me out of Kensington, I shift my foot from the brake to the gas and pull straight into Jas’s driveway, almost hitting one of the cars that’s already there.

“And just where do you think you’re going, little lady?”

I raise my eyebrows at the punkish kid standing at Jas’s door. “Don’t you think you’re a little young to be using terms like ‘little lady’?” I ask, emboldened by my anger.

He smiles slowly, like he has all the time in the world. “Age ain’t nothing but a number, sister,” he says, and I bristle at the word sister.

“I need to talk to Jas,” I say finally. “I only need a few minutes,” I add when he begins to shake his head.

“You can take all the time you need,” he says, and I reach for the doorknob, but he blocks my way. “You just have to pay the fee first.”

“Listen,” I say, “I just need to talk to Jas. I’m not here to party.”

“Everyone’s here to party,” the kid answers, and like a magician he pulls a tiny white pill from thin air and holds it in his palm right beneath my chin. “Either you party or you don’t get inside.”

“What is that?” I say, even though I know the answer.

“If you don’t know what it is, little girl, then you’re at the wrong place.”

“No,” I say shaking my head. “I need to see Jas.”

“Well then, you know what you need to do,” he says, grinning. I look down at the ground, noticing that his feet are bare. I wonder if he was a surfer before he fell into Jas’s world; wonder if his feet are rough with calluses from running barefoot over hot sand.

I eye the pill in his hand. It doesn’t look like much of anything at all. It could be anything—ibuprofen, a decongestant. There’s nothing to it that makes it look any more dangerous than anything in the medicine cabinets back at home.

It’s just one little pill, just for one night. I’ve never heard of a drug that you can get addicted to off of just one hit. Not that I’ve ever heard much about drugs at all. Sure, I’ve been at a party or two where someone was lighting up, and I learned to recognize the smell by Fiona’s giggles and the stupid jokes Dax made about the skunky scent in the air. I’ve never even been drunk, not really. I’ve sipped the beers that boys have handed me over the years, but I just didn’t like the taste enough to drink much. I always thought that I’d get around to it later.

I never meant to become such a Goody Two-shoes. I’m not sure exactly when it happened. Right now, that seems beside the point. Because this little pill is the price of entry, and I’ve got to get inside. I’m not leaving Kensington without talking to Jas, that much I know for sure.

“Fine,” I say, swiping the pill from his hand, which I can’t help noticing is hot and clammy.

“All right,” the boy says, grinning. He actually seems proud that he’s done his job. “Let’s get you hooked up.”

“Do you have some water?” I ask, lifting the pill to my mouth.

“Nah,” he says. “Kicks in faster if you chew it up anyway.”

I bite into it and almost gag. “Tastes like shit,” I say as a bitter flavor fills my mouth, the pill chalky and dense, sticking between my teeth. Maybe this is why they call it dust; it literally coats your mouth.

“Remember that taste for next time. It’s how you know you’re getting the real thing.”

I shake my head. “There won’t be a next time.”

The kid laughs. “I’ve heard that before,” he says, his voice fading into a singsong as he finally opens the door for me. “Just remember,” he adds as I step inside the house, “only the first one’s free.”

Even though Jas’s house is a mirror image of Pete’s, this place doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve ever been before. To begin with, there’s the smell. It’s like a physical assault: salt water and sand, smoke and liquor, sweat and skin, all lingering together into something else entirely, something hot and dark and overwhelming. Trying to take deep breaths only makes it worse.

The sliding doors that lead to the backyard are wide open; the yard is lit up like it’s on fire. Floodlights, I realize. There’s a DJ spinning records behind the pool; he has strobe lights and steam machines. He must be using a generator; Jas must have this whole place running on generators, like we’re survivors of some natural disaster.

From here I can see the pool, filled with cerulean water, brighter and bluer than the water crashing onto the beach below. People are floating through the pool fully dressed, in bathing suits; someone is even naked. They’re dancing, making out, laughing.

The smell, the blinking lights, the pulsing music—they fill me up so that all I want to do is run away, back to the cliffs, back to Pete, where I was only aware of the ocean and our breath.

This place is a madhouse. No wonder drugs are the price of entry. Anything to quiet the sounds, to get some peace from the beat that’s as steady and unrelenting as a pulse.

I try to imagine my brothers walking into one of these parties. Maybe, like me, they didn’t come here looking to get high. Maybe, like me, they were willing to take a pill just to get inside. Maybe, like me, they never intended to take dust a second time. Maybe they just wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

I walk through the crowd to the very edge of the backyard, squeezing my way between hot bodies and cold sweat, stepping on cigarettes that are still burning on the dry grass—fires waiting to happen—skirting puddles of sticky alcohol from cups that have been dropped, forgotten, on the ground.

Maybe I can get out of here before the drug even kicks in. I’ll keep to the edges, making an enormous circle around the party until I spot him. Methodical, like this is an assignment from a teacher. Find Jas and get an A. And I always get As.

I stick my hands into my pockets. I’ve never been good at parties. Never wanted to head for the dance floor or take shots of whatever cheap vodka had been snuck inside. Once, at a party on the beach last fall, I poured beer from my can when my date wasn’t looking, just so that I’d be able to ask him to get me another can, and then another, and then another. By the end of the night, he thought I’d had more to drink than he had, and he couldn’t stop talking about how high my tolerance must be. When I told Fiona, she thought it was hilarious. Dax thought it was a shame to waste all that beer.

It’s hard to make out faces between flashes of the strobe lights. I gasp when someone trips, falling into the pool, but he resurfaces laughing, even though his lip is bleeding.

What does dust do, exactly? I shake my head, and as I do, the lights from the floodlights seem to drag across my field of vision. I guess I’m about to find out.

My circle halfway complete, I stop behind the DJ’s table, even though here the music is so loud I can’t hear myself think. I stand on my tiptoes, craning my neck to see over bodies bouncing up and down with the beat. A shirtless boy carrying a skateboard looks like Michael from behind, but then he turns and I see his eyes are a dark, muddy brown—nothing like my brother’s. I hear a laugh that sounds like John’s, but I can’t for the life of me find the person it’s coming from.

Suddenly, the music stops—a break between songs, something even the worst DJs know to avoid. But I’m grateful for the silence, for the way the bodies stop dancing, for the stillness that allows me to look around in peace. There, directly opposite me, clear across the party, is Jas, leaning against the side of the house. He raises his eyebrows when he sees me staring, and I immediately drop my gaze, looking at his shoes—boots that peek out from under dark, tight jeans, standing out against the sea of flip-flops and sandals and bare feet.

The music starts up again, louder than before. When I look up, Jas is gone. Shit.

“Wow,” I say, and the word feels sticky in my mouth, like I’ve just swallowed a spoonful of syrup. “Wow,” I say again, slower this time, remembering what the boy at the door told me: take all the time you need.

All the time I need for what?

To find Jas, that’s right. I smile. Wait, I was already smiling. I’m smiling so wide my jaw hurts, but then it doesn’t hurt. The ache is sweet. I press my hands to my cheeks, soft as silk. Soft as a kiss. Even my teeth feel like satin.

I shake my head.

I’m looking for Jas. I’m looking for Jas. I’m looking for Jas.

“No need to shout, sugar,” someone says.

I look up and see a boy wearing a T-shirt and board shorts, like almost everyone else here. He’s got a beer bottle in one hand, and his other arm is slung around a bikini-clad girl. I didn’t realize I was shouting. I didn’t realize I was saying a word out loud.

“He’s right over there.”

“Where?” I say, looking in the direction in which he’s pointing. There are those blue eyes again, so bright even in the darkness. I wonder what it would be like to stand close to those eyes. Would it feel warm, like standing next to a fire, or cold, like standing beside an enormous block of ice?

Jas is right where I saw him, leaning against his house. Maybe he never moved. Slowly, careful not to blink—I don’t want to lose sight of him again—I begin making my way across the backyard to Jas. My feet feel fuzzy on top of the wooden porch—wait, when did I take my shoes off?—and then it feels like I’m weightless, like gravity stopped existing at all and there’s nothing, not a thing, tethering me to the ground, and I’m floating toward the handsome boy with the dark jeans and the black boots. But without gravity, there wouldn’t be any waves, and even with the music pounding in my ears, I can still hear the waves crashing against the beach below.

“Where are my brothers?” I shout, and Jas’s blue eyes narrow in confusion. I say it again. I say their names. I say Witch Tree. Or maybe I don’t say anything. It doesn’t feel like my mouth is moving. I try again: brothers, John and Michael, Witch Tree. But the look on Jas’s face doesn’t change, doesn’t shift with even the slightest hint of recognition. Instead, he reaches for me.

“Wendy, how much did you take, sweetheart?” He pulls me close, and his hands are cool against my skin, refreshing as rain.

I let myself be folded in against him, my back against his front. I close my eyes; it feels like Jas is going to take care of me, wrapped around me like a blanket. He smells delicious, like Tide and salt and beer.

“Don’t worry, it’ll wear off eventually,” he says, whispering the words into the back of my hair, his breath soft and cool and soothing, his voice deep.

How does he know my name? I never told him my name. Wait, that’s right, Belle told him my name. Belle, who knew my brothers, knew they were dusters. And Jas supplies the dusters.

“No,” I say, shaking my head and disentangling myself from him, even though the minute my body separates from his, I miss his touch. What the hell is in this drug that it makes me long to be close to the person who sold dust to my brothers?

“No,” I repeat, more certain this time. I say the words again: brothers, John and Michael, Witch Tree. But this time, when Jas reaches for me, I manage to dance out of his reach. I can feel my face falling, crumbling up like it’s made of paper and someone has thrown water on it.

Not water. Tears. I’m crying.

But the tears feel so good on my skin that soon I’m cooing like a baby.

“You can’t catch me!” I shout, gleeful as a little kid playing tag. But then I trip, hitting the ground hard.

Jas steps forward, concern knitted into his brows, but I want to tell him it’s okay. The fall didn’t hurt. Even the gravel against my cheek feels good. I taste something I don’t recognize, not at first. Blood. I must have bitten myself. It tastes as good as chocolate cake.

I stand up; it feels like I’m bouncing off the ground.

Jas reaches for me again; I think maybe he’s going to catch me, but I dart away. He reaches for me again, wrapping his arms around mine. The muscles in my arms ache deliciously, sore from all the paddling I did this afternoon. Was that just this afternoon? It seems like a million years ago.

There’s no reason for me to stay here with Jas, not anymore. He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about, doesn’t even know my brothers’ names. But I don’t want to leave either. Not when everything here feels so good.