celestine allison argent (lovesthechase) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-01-07 23:46:00 |
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Doing book readings got easier over time, his fear of public speaking long since passed after the first book tour Colin went on. This was the third one, and by far the most popular. It wasn't just his fellow nerds that showed up to the reading; this was a much more eclectic bunch, fans of literature and literary theory as well as science fiction. Las Vegas was his last stop for now, but a long few months didn't tamper his enthusiasm. Colin was a vibrant reader, since he was a fan of storytelling devices both on paper and in oral tradition. Once the chapter was over he smiled at the applause, and the audience was told to disperse. There would be book signings in a little while. The braver fans came over to say hello to him, and that part would never get easy for him. He was nervous once the book ended and he - the author - began. Still he chatted amiably if a little too quickly at people and he couldn't help it, his eyes kept wandering around the faces, looking for Aran. He picked that chapter at least in part due to her promise she'd be there, since he knew she liked the parts with the most imagery and visual description. Which he convinced himself wasn't inappropriate, because though he was trying to impress her, he respected she had a boyfriend now and would not act like an awkward spaz around them. Probably. He also didn't shave because she suggested he stay scruffy. Colin hoped for the best, meaning this would not be one of those social situations where he cursed himself hours later and said he shouldn't be allowed to talk to other people. Anyway Colin smiled and broke away from the fans, going solo back to the table he was speaking from so he could put his notes back into his book bag. Work had gotten the best of her, so Aran had opted to meet Jack at the reading. Blood beneath her fingernails, and she needed to rush home and shower the memories of the day away. Rush always reminded her of home, that crisp air against skin and the weight of time against her shoulders. She liked it, that feeling of home, and the only thing missing was the creak of wood and the smell of salt on the air. The desert wasn't good at providing either, but she could supply the memories, rich and thick and the heavy weight of nets being pulled from the water. You could never tell what you were going to get in a net, not until it was up, because the ocean was heavy without anything in her arms. And those were the thoughts that carried Aran to the reading, her belly flopping over like fish on a dock. She hadn't seen Colin since she'd left him. She'd liked him too much, and there were layers of reasons why that had been a bad idea. But here she was. Here she was. And she'd never met Jack, but she had a mental image of a pale academic, one that spouted poetry like breathing. She imagined verses tumbling from his lips, a sweater, a vest, a scarf. She imagined glasses and perfectly combed hair that refused to behave in the wind. Thin, thin wrists and little strength, and these were the things she imagined. And, of course, she had been wrong. And Aran was silence during the reading. Jeans and a black hoodie and her messy hair pulled back, she looked older than her twenty-two years, the ocean having leathered her skin to something more wise. She listened, rapt, and she loved words that fell like water; she always had. She had very few words herself, and she was trying to remember how to write them out, the things she thought, but habits were hard lost, and she was still Ahab seeking a better voice. When the reading ended, she stood, and she nudged Jack in front of her in a wordless you go first. Brains beneath her fingernails, and this scared her. Jack wasn’t a hundred percent sure why he’d so readily agreed to come. He liked Aran after speaking with her through the journals, liked her terseness in conjunction with an affection for poetry. It wasn’t hard to win him over, once poetry was in the mix. He hadn’t known what kind of a face to put to that sort of short, beat by beat phrasing, but she wasn’t what he’d expected, all the same. They’d got each other wrong. He had been expecting someone physically harder, more angular, fewer soft lines and soft brown hair. She did hold herself with an erectness that seemed utterly appropriate. He imagined she was hard to shake. That made it just that much more of a mystery why she would feel the need to borrow a temporary boyfriend, like chips against a bet she’d made. Who was this man to her, that such a thing was necessary, and that she seemed as nervous as a lover? There was a lot going on that he simply couldn’t know, and all he could really do was hope he was making the right decision, not making a bad situation worse by helping. The nudge earned her an incredulous little grin, but he moved toward the writer ahead of her. He didn’t read much in the way of science fiction, but the man’s name was a little familiar in that itching, heard-it-somewhere kind of a way. There was nothing of the nervous energy of the fan about him when he approached, and he offered a hand to shake. “Jack,” he said. “I think you already know Aran.” Colin was organizing when he sensed the people coming up, and his quick glance was hopeful. At first friendly but distracted, when he focused on Jack, and he automatically reached out to take his hand. But by then his attention moved on to Aran and his smile was quick, probably too bright and brittle. He was no good at hiding his thoughts, an open book, and it was only Jack's presence that snapped him back to reality. He was too polite to stare adoringly at her with her boyfriend standing right there. "Hey, thanks for coming. I'm Colin." He knew when he rushed to get to Vegas it was probably a bad idea to contact her. She left without warning and made no move to talk to him, and he could take a hint. Sometimes. It just seemed like fate he needed to stop by Vegas for the book, and they also shared these strange journals, this whole situation. That was his ridiculous fantastical mind talking though. The reality was she moved on, and Colin was going to suck it up. Jack was probably a great guy, to get a girl like Aran. "So, did you like it? Was it too much? I usually pick another chapter, but mixing it up is good. Or is it?" He made a self-mocking face and chuckled downward. "Sorry, I ramble, not just when I'm nervous, basically all the time." He was explaining for Jack's benefit, since Aran was already aware of it. He talked too much and she talked too little. Aran knew. She knew that Colin talked like breathing, and she'd always liked that about him. There was nothing he thought that he didn't say, that didn't spill out of him without being processed over and over. Most people took care over each word, chewed and chewed until all the vulnerable things were eked out and only the safe things remained. She didn't talk much, but even she measured and measured. Really, her lack of words had come from measuring those spoons into verbal cups, trying to decide how much was safe without her voice being noted as too low or too rumbling or not girl enough. And written words, she hadn't done that since she was a girl, legs tucked beneath a school desk and taunts taking the form of letters on paper airplanes that flew and tangled in her hair before recess. She smiled, and her dark gaze slid over to Jack. Arm wound in his, because touch was sold and added to the facade. And she knew about facades, about illusions. Most days, she felt like an illusion, one she didn't even dare look upon herself. Lies, and it was easier that way. "Colin always talks," she told Jack, sharing an old and familiar truth in a fisherman's New England rasp, and then she turned her attention back to the reader, the writer, the man who thought dragons and elves should live on Mars. She grinned at him, and then she looked over her shoulder, over Jack's shoulder, through the crowds. Then back at him, her smile wider. "No elves?" she teased. "It was wonderful." It was. She wasn't lying. She'd always loved his words. “No need to apologize,” Jack said. “You clearly have a facility with words.” He watched Aran for a moment, watched her watching Colin, and he wondered, yet again, what had happened. He turned a smile back on Colin. “It was very good,” he offered. Not his usual cup of tea, but delivered with real skill. The number of people who had come to hear Colin read had to be a testament to that, if nothing else. He was doing his best to be unobtrusive even as a stand-in boyfriend. This wasn’t about him. This was about the two of them, and whatever still lay between them. He was just the convenient obstacle that would prevent them from talking about whatever that thing was, exactly, there to trip them up if the conversation turned that way. He was there to make small talk and be an impediment, and not much more. It was a part to play, which he could do. He wasn’t much good at hiding what he felt, but Colin seemed like a nice enough person - it wasn’t difficult to extend as much kindness as he could to try to make the situation just a little less awkward. “How is Las Vegas treating you so far?” he asked, amiable as could be. “Have you been out to the casinos yet? Done a lot of partying?” Obviously a gentle joke, since Colin didn’t exactly look like the hard partying type. Colin was trying to see them as a unit, and Aran tucking her arm in with Jack helped that. It was easier. And harder. He grinned ruefully and rubbed a hand against his scruffy jaw, shrugging one shoulder. "No elves. It didn't suit this story. But I was trying to find reasons, believe you me." It became necessary at some point in his teenage years to just accept he was going to be a geek. It was try to be mainstream and be bored and unhappy, or be himself and hoped it turned out a little more satisfying. It was rare to find someone who genuinely didn't seem to mind … but she looked good. She looked content. "Thank you, really, it's all more than I expected to be honest. You should've seen what I was used to more before. The odd classical nerd, yeah, but mostly people with capes and D&D dice, which isn't a problem. They're my people, but … okay just sticking with thank you. And then quiet." Jack seemed nice, and he was clearly trying to be nice, it was more than a lot of people would do around their girlfriend's ex. Maybe he'd been hoping the guy was a jerk, just a little bit, but it was better that he wasn't. That wouldn't be right for Aran. "Oh yeah, some … walking around. Does walking around count?" Colin chuckled and spread his arms out as if to say 'what can you do?' He left the partying to the people trying to mimic the Hangover. "Got any tips? How long have you been around?" He knew how long Aran had, or at least he assumed it was right after she just went silent on him one day. His eyes kept trailing back to her, like it was magnetized. "Thought there was always a reason for elves." The quip was husk-soft, and Aran leaned against Jack's arm when she said the words, as if the touch of shoulder to arm would counter any softness in the teasing. She felt better there, stronger for the pillar at her side. Like an anchor on a choppy night near craggy rocks, and yet praying the rope didn't snap. She'd never slept during those toss-turn nights on the water, the moon overhead and salt and death sloshing over the side of the old downeaster. She'd read. She'd lost herself in maybe, and this was different. There was no maybe here, no matter how much she wanted it. Like the fish that refused to line her dad's net at the mouth of winter, some things just wouldn't come, no matter how you wished for them. And she was confusion standing there. Confusion in a hoodie, and that itch had been tormenting her since Christmas. Boy, and she hadn't been one in so long, and now there were meetings and talking and doubts. She was embarrassed to tell Sirius she was a girl, and yet she was embarrassed to tell either of these men that she wasn't, and that left her nowhere. Adrift, and the ocean was vast. But she smiled, catching the tail end of their discourse, willing herself back into the conversation with all the strength she could muster, and were Colin's eyes always that blue? "Walking doesn't count." She could chime in easily there. "Raves. Raves count." She'd never taken Colin to one in New York, though she'd threatened. "Jack likes poetry better." And thank god she knew that small detail, because she didn't know the answer to the other question. She had no idea how long Jack had been in Las Vegas, and she turned her face to look at him, curious and listening and shhhh. It occurred to her that she wanted to know. "I think it does," Jack said, in response to Colin's assertion that he had walked the strip rather than gambling on it. "A couple years, now. I don't know if I have any tips to offer, though. I'm not much of a gambler myself." No, Jack was an odd fit for Las Vegas, and it wasn't a place he could see himself living for the rest of his life, certainly. For the time being, though, his friends were here, the people who he'd built into a ramshackle family, and he wouldn't leave them. Jack looked over to Aran and saw her eyes drifting. He wondered where she'd gone when she snapped back to attention. Maybe, when all of this was over, she'd be willing to divulge a little more about what was going on. "I've never been to a rave," he confessed to Colin. "Maybe we all ought to go to one. Get some glowsticks and some candy necklaces. Those are rave things, right?" Raves were a little beyond him, really. When Aran mentioned poetry he looked back at her again, and smiled a little. That, at least, was a true thing, and he took her assertion, making it real. "I've always liked poetry better than parties," he said. "Not very exciting, I know." No, Jack seemed the picture of boring, with gentle, polite words and a nice smile, if a little on the scruffy side. Nothing to see here. "Look at you, keeping me honest to my elf-loving roots. I should be ashamed of myself." Colin loved when she teased, because she did it unlike anyone else he met. She was soft about it, a whisper or humor, and he had to look for it, he had to really listen. Aran slowed him down, he practically screeched to a stop so he could wait for her to talk, to joke, it was all special. If they were cornered into friends, he was going to make the transition, so he could have little moments like this. "Uh oh, here come the rave threats," he laughed, and playfully checked his watch. "That took no time at all." Colin would've been persuaded into going to one eventually. It would just end up embarrassing, since his lack of rhythm was a common family joke, but hey, he'd try anyway. He smiled at Jack. "I haven't either, although I think in college we tried to pretend a few of our dances were rave-like. Glowsticks and maybe glow in the dark t-shirts, there's a lot of color, from what the interwebs tell me." He went to a small school where everyone knew everyone, so they could collectively agree to believe in their coolness. Aran knew raves better than he did, so he figured she'd correct them. "Poetry is exciting, but you're talking to people who love words here." Colin pointed to himself and Aran, since they were both openly into language and the written word. "Have you ever been to a slam poetry session? I figure they must have a pretty good scene around here, the bigger cities usually do." It wouldn't be anything like New York City, but it didn't need to be. "If you ever decide to read in public, let me know, I'll come and have my snapping fingers ready." Because snapping was the same as clapping, or at least in his circles it was. Jack didn't seem boring in the slightest to him. "Does not," Aran said, a playful protest to Jack's agreement with Colin that walking counted. "No ganging up." And she felt better now, a boat on a glass-calm sea, and this would work. This plan conceived of selfish hope and the desire to retain Colin as a friend, would work. Oddly, she didn't concern herself with the rest. With work, and the blood that she'd had to clean from beneath her nails with a toothpick. Bleach scent, and the ability to name tissue against Glidden's Stone White. That was out there, in the murky waters, and nowhere near this clear lake, and she smiled when Colin teased about the elves. Quirk brow, and that was all, and her arm wound tighter through Jack's, because that was anchor. "Not a threat," she said of raves, louder and huskier in protest. "Can feel the music in your stomach. Can stop thinking about everything while it goes through you." And the only other thing that had that effect was the water, but she was far away, and longing wouldn't bring her any closer. "Just stubborn," she said of both of them. "Not about the drugs or the lights or the glowsticks. About the music, and people moving like waves. One thing, instead of a bunch of little things." But music wasn't words, and even poetry couldn't do it justice. "Will have to come out. You'll see." And raves made her think of Charlie, and she really needed to check on her. "My friend Charlie. She loves raves." Aran had a real affinity for slam poetry, words that sounded like music, rhythm and feeling. The topics always resonated, made her bones tremble and quiver. "Miss slam poetry," she said with honest feeling. Did she ever. These days, when the world was muddled and she couldn't see through the pane of glass that was her own gender, she would have loved to find a good dark club and just listen to other people's feelings, a coke sweating against her palm. But she hadn't found that here, and there hadn't been time. "Find one," she challenged Colin, brow quirk and bossy grin. And she had no idea if Jack recited. If he liked his words on paper, where they couldn't jump up and challenge him with their emotion. Her expression turned questioning, asking without really asking. Jack laughed a little. "I won't forget. I always wish I had more snapping fingers on hand." He shook his head. "No, I'm not a poet. I just like to read the stuff, not make it myself. I tried, once, and it was unfortunate for everyone involved." He felt Aran's arm wind through his a little tighter and wondered if that meant a threat to her calm, implied or felt even though Colin seemed the same as he had a moment ago. He listened to her talk about what a rave was actually like, and despite his opinion of them as being loud and neon colored and chock full of affectation, the reasons she liked them tumbled out of her mouth like a good poem. "She's the one who ought to write," he said, and the touch of warmth there wasn't faked. Then she mentioned Charlie, and that brought Jack up short. He tried to hide his surprise. Jack the boyfriend should know Aran had a friend named Charlie. It couldn't be the Charlie he knew. Then again... This place was coincidence and small world interweaving every single day, and he'd stopped believing in random chance when it came to people connected to the hotel. Later on, he'd have to ask her. For now he smoothed the surprise away. "I've only been to one or two slam poetry readings," he confessed. "They're interesting, and I do like them, there just wasn't a lot of that around when I was growing up." He smiled. "If you do find one, as the lady has ordered, give us a call. I'm interested to give it another try. Listening, mind you, not performing." When Aran started talking about raves, his attention was fully captured by her, by the description she was giving. Blue eyes stared at her, unblinking, and his smile was hesitant, a little bit like wonder. It did sound much better the way she described it. He was picturing a lot of noise and people in bright colors, bouncing around, he figured that was true. Now he had images of people like waves in the ocean, crashing together instead of a shore, and Colin was sold on the idea, simple as that. "Yeah, I'll have to see for myself," he said, absorbed in the moment, and right, hey, remember the really nice guy who liked poetry standing there? Ha ha yes, definitely. He shook himself out of it. "If, uh, you two don't mind someone coming along who knows the awkward dad shuffle as a signature move." He assumed of course Jack was already invited, being the boyfriend. He'd be a tag along. "She should write, definitely. Now we've both said it, Aran. The gang up continues." Colin didn't pick up any of the surprise from Jack. He was an observant guy, but the problem usually was in connecting observations to conclusions. The latter he wasn't good at. He might've just not known Charlie liked raves. "I'll do that. I'm around for an undecided amount of time. Both my sisters actually live here, well one of them just moved." He also wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere considering his mind was now full of one snarky, immature prince, and he had no answers as to why or how it happened. He might've brought it up to Aran, but he wasn't sure if Jack knew anything about it, so he kept quiet. "I have an in with the literary community now." He gestured around, there were plenty of people for him to ask about the native scene here. "So I'm sure I can find one we can check out. No performance required, hopefully. Prose isn't a strong suit of mine either." And at least with his novels he obsessively went over each sentence. Doing anything live without practice would give him an anxiety attack. Colin realized he bumbled himself into an invitation to two dates of theirs, which was probably rude. Unless it was one of those situations where people said they were going to do something, but never went through with it. He hoped that wasn't the case, rude or not. "You could invite your friend Charlie too. Make it an outing." Didn't need to be awkward, right? Aran listened. She listened, and she noticed, and it was a change. Work was about not seeing, not remembering, and she was careful not to do either. Their clients were nameless, the victims too, and the scenes were nothing and never existed. She was out of practice noticing, but she noticed. Rusty, like an old chain on a bike that had been left out too long, but she noticed. She wondered who Jack had written poetry for, because his face was lined with feelings, and she didn't think he'd written down words for the sun in the sky. And Colin was as he'd ever been, bright blue eyes that saw wonder in a world that she'd never found wonderful. "Just getting back into the habit," she said of writing. Put words down on paper, and she still never remembered that it wasn't her voice. That the sentences could be longer without sound, that they could be more. But she'd gotten used to quiet and thoughts, and stringing words together like popcorn on a string, it wasn't something that came naturally anymore. Once, maybe, when the ocean had listened and she hadn't worried about its judgement. But that was another world, one as distant as Colin's worlds of elves and dragons and creatures from space. When Colin mentioned that his stay was for an indeterminate time, Aran leaned against Jack's arm and lowered her voice, as if the book-reading masses might listen in and hear their secrets. "Colin is like us. Has a book." And perhaps those things were meant to be unshared, but Aran didn't see the point in it. The girl in her head was a slip of a thing, melancholy and quiet, and she couldn't see a reason to make a secret of that. Adolescence, and apparently even pretty blonde girls felt the pains. "Can invite Charlie," she added, and that was a double-edged sword. Charlie was her best friend, her glowstick in an ocean of bouncing bodies. But Charlie was also lined kohl eyes and bad habits, men wrapped around her fingers like remembering strings. But she nodded. "Charlie's new here. Doesn't know people. Will be good for her." Truth and friendship, and she would tell Charlie later, tonight, when she whispered to her about Colin and Jack, their backs flat on the RV's bed and giggles smooshed in the space between them. "Is he?" Jack asked, as Aran leaned against his arm in a way nobody had in who knew how long. So Colin had a book, and there were no coincidences, not in this world. He accepted Colin's kind words and his genial stammering with an agreeable smile. He glanced over at Aran when she agreed that she ought to invite Charlie. Later, he would ask. For now, he only nodded, as if he'd always known that she and Charlie were very good friends. "I think Charlie would have a lot of fun at a reading, actually. She's such a good musician, and the two go hand in hand, really." It was all gentle small talk, but also a stab in the dark. If he was right, if he'd guessed the right Charlie, there would be some indication, wouldn't there? And filling in the details made the lie a little more believable, at any rate. Jack glanced behind, and saw a group of three girls, all clutching their books and talking quietly to each other, watched them light up when he looked their way, anticipating that he was ready to break off the conversation so they could cut in. "But I think there are some other people who are looking forward to your company, for the moment," he said. He pulled Aran's entwined arm a little closer. "It's been nice to meet you." "I am. I feel like we're a part of some secret society." He had a lot of questions too, but this wasn't the time or place to ask them. Colin didn't think he'd ever stop wondering about what the book was, where it came from, how it was all possible. His mind could come up with an endless supply of possibilities, and he loved to think about all of it, but an answer would be nice too. Any kind of one. Unless there was a group strain of psychosis from Vegas water. So that was how Aran knew Jack, she probably met him on there. Maybe if Colin came there earlier, if he opened the book sooner … well there was no use in that day dream. "Great, we'll figure that out, I'd love to meet her." He didn't notice the girls waiting to get his attention until Jack said something, looking over their way. That was still strange to him, after the years he spent being ignored by them. "Yeah, I'm supposed to do an actual signing now. My hand has yet to cramp up, I'm hoping it'll survive this last go. Or I'm going to have permanent signature fingers." Colin showed them, his hand in the poise of a pen within it, and smiled warmly. "Thanks for coming out. I really appreciate it." He was not great with social interaction, especially the ins and outs of a conversation, so he wasn't sure if he should offer his hand or just nod his head. This was how he ended up getting hugs out of people who only leaned the wrong way at the wrong time. "And now we can talk on the … journals, right?" When Jack mentioned music, Aran wondered if the ocean wasn't as vast as she'd thought it was. Colin had crawled out of it, dragged himself onto the sandy desert shores. Then Charlie had come in a bus chased by swells and flashing lights. And now Jack, and his words, and a mention of music that led her to believe he might know her Charlie. Charlie, who shone brighter than any light in a rave. A lighthouse - her lighthouse. "Charlie and that old guitar. Never lets it out of her sight," she said, and she watched the way she didn't watch the splatter patterns at work. Curious, and she would ask Charlie when she issued the invite. Do you know Jack, with the words and the curls and misery sitting on his chest like a vulture that picks at his fake smile? But with fewer words. She looked at the girls, Colin's flock, and she wondered if they drank down his words like water, parched and desert and an oasis made of paper and binding. "Go," she told him, a motion of a hand and her fingers long and capable and devoid of daintiness. "Talk on the journals," she agreed, her nod quick and easy, effortless, and it should be safe now, her alibi established and no danger in spending time. She believed it, and she was not a trusting thing. She hadn't been, ever, not even when her legs were encased in boy's jeans, and her hair cropped short at the nape of her neck. She almost hugged, an abbreviated move forward, but she didn't pad these days, and she stayed where she was, flat-chested and long legged. "Nice seeing you again," she said honestly, and there was no lie there, the husky words honest and true. She pulled on Jack's arm, twined her fingers in his, and her palm was bleach-raw and calloused from years of fishing line and rope and net. "Bye," she said, the word directed at the man with the book and the words, memories of New York and leaving behind. Another tug, and she pulled Jack toward the door, through the girls and their pitter-patter hearts. Not looking back, and she shoved the door open, the desert air devoid of all the ocean's humidity. She breathed it in, and it scorched her lungs, and she regretfully closed this book. |