Lyra Aquilina Campbell (lyra_yes) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2021-10-31 22:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | little john, lyra campbell |
WHO: Lyra, Little John
WHEN: From Sunday 24th to Saturday 30th
WHERE: Brooklyn
WHAT: The week after the fight
WARNINGS: None
Lyra felt worse and worse, the closer to home she got. The thought of running into Rosario again paralyzed her cuz she didn’t have a clue how either of them was gonna react to seeing the other, and that paralysis broke her heart. Predicting what Rosario was gonna do had never been hard, but right now? She had no idea. She didn’t even know what she’d do. Yell? Cry? Ignore? As Lyra walked the last half block in sight of their building, her mind was begging, dredging up every possible thing she could think of to throw at Rosario to beg Rosario to believe her. But she had nothing new to use, and knew in her heart it’d only go the same way as last night. But she had to go home. She couldn’t, like, sleep at Avery’s forever. And right now, as much as she was dreading the possibility of running into Rosario, she was really hungry. Food first, and then she’d find some way to spend the rest of the day that didn’t involve moody stewing or verge-of-tears distress. As soon as she opened her front door, though: “Lyra!” Jem demanded, waving her hand in frustration at her mother, who was sitting on the armchair with Jemma in her lap, book open in front of them. “Get in here and tell your grandmother what a real woman is!” “Well, don’t that feel some kinda trap?” Lyra quirked her eyebrows at her mother, closing the door behind her. “Whassgoing on?” “I’ll show you,” Jem stepped around the coffee table and leaned over Jocelyn’s chair, turning back a page in the book. Lyra’s stomach did a flip in recognition; it was her book of saints. The book had really puzzled her. Jocelyn hadn’t recognised it, at all, which put to bed Lyra’s theory that her funny sense of connection to the book came from memory. Which meant that… well, it could only mean something else was going on. “Saint Ita and the six virtues of womanhood,” Jem read from the page, deeply unimpressed. “Wisdom, purity, beauty, musical ability, gentle speech, needle skills? What sort of example is this setting for Jemma, mom?” “You could be a little more gentle in your speech, dear,” Jocelyn said mildly, stroking Jemma’s hair as she looked up from adult to adult. Jem narrowed her eyes at her mother, and dropped the book roughly onto the coffee table. “Don’t read her this junk,” she said, ungently. “Hey–” Lyra protested, stepping toward them, around a basket of laundry. “I paid good money for that!” “Why?” Jem turned back toward her daughter, sensing betrayal from all sides. “Don’t tell me Avery’s a Catholic too.” “I am not that susceptible!” Lyra protested even more strongly. “But no, for your information, he ain’t. I bought it cuz I wanted it, so stop throwing my shit about.” “Language!” Jocelyn said, at the same time as Jem huffed “You should’ve saved your money.” Jem folded her arms, shaking her head like she’d never understand what had possessed Lyra to do such a thing. To be honest, Lyra wasn’t sure herself. Okay, so it was about saints. There was that. Saint’s blood, holy blood. But it wasn’t like it was a roadmap to her bio-father. Wasn’t like it was a book on how to, like, summon them. Wasn’t a book explaining how any of them could goddamn father a child. Lyra clambered across the living room and sat on the arm of Jocelyn’s chair, slithering down onto the seat and forcing Jocelyn to shuffle over. “Want me to read a story, Jemma?” Lyra asked, pulling her frantically nodding little sister into her lap with a bright and sunny smile to cover up how fragile she was feeling. “Aight, which saint chu wanna know about?” “I give up on all y’all!” Jem protested, throwing up her hands. “I’m going out! Give me strength!” “Who do you think she’s asking for strength, there?” Jocelyn asked, grabbing a fistful of her long cardigan and yanking it out from under Lyra’s butt. Lyra snorted in amusement, and kissed both Jocelyn and Jemma, keeping them both snug tight in her arms. She clung tight onto Jemma, the rest of the day, cuz she didn’t want to worry Jocelyn by being OTT when it came to how much she wanted someone to hug her. But Jemma? Jemma was three and utterly thrilled to be able to ride on Lyra’s shoulders or be carried around upside down any chance she got. As much as Lyra knew Jocelyn loved her, her grandmother could be a little repressed. She didn’t go in for big displays of emotion and a lot of Lyra’s ability to tough anything out had come from watching Jocelyn do it, though Jocelyn could brush off the worst shit with something resembling poise, and Lyra had never really managed to work out how to do poise. The repression had come from Jocelyn’s parents, Lyra figured. Both had freshly immigrated to America and both had been determined their daughter wouldn’t grow up a foreigner, so while her dad was fluent in German and her mum in Cubano Spanish, Jocelyn was taught neither, and never managed to get over the emotional hurdles of learning either as an adult. All the Spanish Lyra knew had come from being practically an honorary Ortiz and from growing up in Bushwick, not her family. There were a few other emotional barriers going on inside Jocelyn, and it did mean that Lyra attaching herself to her grandmother like a limpet and clinging as much as she felt she needed to cling would set off some alarm bells. Jocelyn had given her quite the worried look when Lyra had snuggled deep into the armchair with her, and Lyra kept thinking about how Rosario had encouraged her to tell Jocelyn what she’d been through... And what Lyra would do if (when) Rosario was so worried she told Jocelyn on Lyra’s behalf… And how that cramped her stomach with dread, and forced her to pull back, putting up her own kinda barrier. It sucked. It sucked hard, and it kept her up, long into the night. It made her wish she’d stayed at Avery’s another night, just to exist in a place without secrets. (Even if, yeah, Avery had a few emotional barriers of his own up, too. But that was different; they were having sex, and one of the best parts of sex was being totally naked and alone with someone, when you could pretend like there weren’t no barriers between you at all.) Monday morning, Lyra’s alarm ripped her from a rocky sleep, and in between sorting out her hair and inhaling breakfast she dialed the blacksmiths, hoping someone would be there bright and early. To no avail; all she got was a recorded message with their opening hours. Yeah well, if she had the good fortune of her own workshop and her own business, she wouldn’t be answering calls outta business hours too. Lyra sighed a rough, annoyed, totally understanding sigh and hung up just as Jocelyn poked her head into Lyra’s room. “I sent you an email about a job,” she said, with a pleased smile on her face. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” “Thanks, grandma,” Lyra shoved her foot roughly into her shoe and kissed Jocelyn on the cheek. “I’ll look at it on the bus, I gotta bounce.” She did gotta, cuz she didn’t have her own workshop, or business, or any of that shit, and if she was late she was gonna lose what she did have, and if she lost this job – or even if she was late – then there went a good reference for the next one. Jocelyn’s find had been a good one (Lyra hadn’t been watching job listing, lately, too distracted) for a junior position in framework construction and it was what Lyra wanted so much but it closed tonight and – and – And Lyra had a plan, okay? Call the blacksmiths when she got her lunchbreak, find Johnny, meet up with him and Elaine again, plead for some way to prove her story was true and find her father to explain her blood. But junior positions in framework construction didn’t come along all that often, especially ones that specified own transport not essential, which, till Lyra hit some kinda jackpot and managed to get her own car (and the money to run it, and fill it, and park it) were the only ones she could apply for. And on the company’s website there was a photo of the staff and there were two women among the score of men and that was a shitty ratio, sure, but Lyra had looked at dozens of these kinda jobs and more than half the time there weren’t any women at all. But – that application was something she was gonna have to work on later, cuz next free moment she got she was calling that blacksmith. It was near two, by the time she got her break, and pacing round the sunny spot of a courtyard to keep warm, while eating a sandwich to keep going, Lyra called him. A woman picked up, gruff but in the same way most of the older women down on her course in Tennessee were gruff. “Hey,” Lyra said, giving her name, friendly and chill. “Can I talk to Johnny?” “Johnny who?” Turned out, Johnny had left that place before he’d started his travels across the country, sometime deep in the bowels of last winter. Krissy didn’t know him, she’d joined the small team after, but Lyra wasn’t gonna give up at her first Johnny who, was she? She stuck as close to the truth as she dared, a short story about how she’d met Johnny a few months ago and he promised he’d help her out on a project but she’d lost her phone, and any chance of calling him. But the project! Krissy seemed the type to innately understand about the importance of a project, and went out the back to talk to a guy called Cesar, and Lyra watched the minutes of her break tick by as she listened to their distant voices talking in the workshop, tried not to listen to her credit trickling away. Maybe she should’ve stressed how urgent! Super super urgent! this was or maybe that woulda raised red flags, Lyra didn’t know. What if Johnny was as cagey as Archer? But nah, she couldn’t believe that. Nothing about Johnny had screamed cagey. “Last I heard–” a man had picked up the phone now, Cesar, she figured “–Johnny was doing some contracting with Charlie y’know Charlie? Y’don’t? Ay, thought everyone knew Charlie. Finch Construction, up in Masbeth.” “Thank you,” Lyra said, already heading back across the courtyard cuz the other guys were heading back toward the scaffolding, stubbing out cigarettes and buckling hard hats back on. “Thank you thank you thank you.” She managed to google Finch Construction in Masbeth before she reached the others, seeing enough of the info to see they were open till four thirty. Fuck, she wasn’t gonna get another break to call them before then, not unless she begged a bathroom break in an hour or so but – already she had to dismiss that idea. They worked in pairs, on a building like this, and if she took a bathroom break that’d force Jamal back down to the ground too and Lyra wasn’t about to risk pissing everyone off so she could hide out in one of the port-a-loos and talk on the phone. That was another sure-fire way of shooting dead any chance of a good reference. Finch Construction was bigger than the blacksmiths; they had their own receptionist, one who was less inclined to go out the back and chat to see if anyone knew who she was talking about. Lyra thanked god that Johnny had been so massive, so distinctive, but in the end it didn’t even matter. Even if they did have an eight-or-something foot tall man called Johnny on staff, they weren’t going to pass over any contact info, and the girl on the phone wasn’t about to just ‘pass on a message’ to ‘some contractor named Johnny’. Before her Taco Bell shift on Wednesday, Lyra went down there to linger round. Just— fuck, just cos what else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like the company listed all their contractors on their website, and she’d scoured and scoured facebook for any Johnny who’d listed Finch as their place of work, and that had given her too many names to sift through. It wasn’t so much a dead end, as a whole mass of different ends, all of which could turn out to be dead. But it had been the same with Archer, and nothing had stopped Rosario, had it? So Lyra tried her luck, absolutely brimming with a fierce hope and a bright determinism. But it was brittle— the place was too big and no one knew Johnny or had time to talk to her and her own time was ticking away— it was brittle, and she didn't have Rosario with her, and Lyra felt the shards of it digging into her chest. The lingering around came to nothing. No luck, no Johnny. Just a splattering of rain and a rough wind yanking at her hair, at the Halloween decorations up in shop windows all the way up and down the street. She scrubbed the fuck outta the kitchen that night, scrubbed the fuck outta it and tried not to cry, cuz she wasn’t a crier, and hell, especially not at work. It was real late by the time she go home. The clouds were parting over Bushwick, and Lyra had to pause across the street, hand braced against a lamppost, and look up at the sky. Was Rosario up on the roof, watching it too? Had she worked out that flaw in her telescope and was she taking pictures of Jupiter— that was Jupiter, that bright one, wasn’t it?— the granddaddy of planets? Was she aiming her telescope at the Lyra up there in the sky and was she thinking bout her, right now? What if Lyra went up there, to check? What if she sat down on the chair beside Rosario without a word, and what if the silence between them was a soft thing, a traversable thing. What if the terrifying gulf between them was all in Lyra’s imagination? What if she could just... will it all away? Lyra swiped her sleeve across her face. It fucking wasn’t all in her head. The things she’d thrown at Rosario and the things Rosario threw back were the realest things there were. Lyra stormed up to their floor, and started to thump violent past Rosario’s door— but paused in front of it all of a sudden. She wasn't intent on torturing herself but... that's what it felt like, standing in front of the door, her heart in her throat. Lyra knew every chip on this door, every flaw in the paint, she even recognised the Halloween decorations from last year and the year before that and the year before that, though Chicky had given them a fresh spin. Oh god, Chicky. They were supposed to be doing Halloween together this weekend, but now? God, there was no way, and didn't that make Lyra feel like guilt folded upon more guilt? Poor Chicky, fuck... Back in her own apartment, Lyra crawled miserably into bed and messaged her, trying to figure out a way to lighten the disappointment. And that was when Chicky told her that Rosario had actually left town to get away from her. Not that Chicky put it that way. Not that Chicky even meant it that way, and maybe even Rosario hadn't meant it that way, maybe she just need some space, but— But, well, it wasn't the first time in Lyra's life someone'd left town to get some space from her, and when her mom had done it, she hadn't come back for three years. It took all of Lyra's strength to stay calm on the phone with Chicky. To ask, calm as she could, for Chicky to let her know when Rosario was back. This was her own, personal, stupid, overwrought, misplaced fear and dumping it on Chicky wasn't fair, at all. So calm, calm, she told herself. Tranquillo, baby, don't freak her out. But after Lyra put down her phone, she buried her face deep in her pillow, and silently-as-she-could, sobbed herself to sleep. I gotchu, sis– Morning came, and rough-eyed Lyra woke with a jerk, Rosario’s voice echoing in her head and hurt aching in her chest. I gotchu sis. Every time she remembered those words they unleashed another waterfall of longing emotion, one that was quickly cut off by the slam of you bitch! Both emotions, still, vied for dominance, and neither was winning but neither was backing down. She was sick with it, to her goddamn bones. And the gotchu, that hurt so much cuz the truth of it was: what Lyra wanted most of all was someone to have her. Just have her, and never let go. Never leave town on her. She shoved herself out of bed, pulled on a hoodie over her pyjamas and slumped through to the living room. Jocelyn’s door was already open, it was Saturday morning and she'd taken Jemma down to the park, leaving Lyra alone with her mom. Jem had fallen back to sleep after they'd left, and she blinked very sleepy eyes open as her adult daughter crawled into bed with her. It’d been years since the last time Lyra had tried this, long years. Jem, confused and a little hungover but not about to deny an out of character regression to childhood, shuffled over and wrapped her arm around Lyra. “Whassup, baby?” she asked, stroking her hand over her thick coils of hair. Lyra hoovered in a deep breath, and tried to let the terrible feelings start to seep out of her as she breathed out. She wasn't a crier, but something about being held in her mom's arms drew the urge to the surface, like she'd never grown up at all. “Had a fight with Rosario,” Lyra said, her eyes closed like that’d help bury her further into her mother’s arms. “Oooh, dontchu worry about that, I’m sure she’ll forgive you. It'll be over and done, this time next week,” Jem pressed a kiss to Lyra’s forehead, and it was only that that stopped Lyra protesting what makes you think it was my fault!? She was glad she held her tongue. Lyra absolutely didn’t want to get into the content of the fight, cuz ‘I tried to tell her something important and she didn’t believe me’ came with a whole truckload of implications, none’ve them reflecting well on Rosario. And then her mom’d wanna know. And Lyra didn’t know how to go bout telling her mom or her grandmother what had happened. It had to come after proof, didn’t it? After how it all went down with Rosario, there was no other option. “Hey, mom?” Lyra murmured, her arm over her mom’s stomach. “D’you… really not know what my dad’s name was? Was it really just a one night stand?” She didn’t open her eyes, so she didn’t see the look on her mom’s face, only felt the tensing of her body beneath hers. Maybe she should’ve looked, but then her mom would’ve seen the look on her face, too, revealing how much was riding on this question, and Lyra didn't know how much more vulnerable she could let herself get, right now. “Why’re you worried about that?" Jem said, cagey about it, the kind of cagey that came with old guilt she didn't want to dig out again. "You’ve done great without a dad in the picture.” Alright, maybe she should be looking at her mom. Lyra tried to steel her face as she pushed herself up on her elbow, and Jem squinted up at her and rubbed some sleep out of her eyes. “S’not what I’m asking,” Lyra said. “I just wanna know, mom, what’d’you really remember about him? If you saw him again, would you know him?” “Lyraaa,” Jem complained, in an it’s-too-early-for-this kind of voice, but Lyra kept watching her, waiting. “I remember his hair,” she said grudgingly, reaching out to squeeze a curl of Lyra’s. “Brighter than yours, and straighter. Longer than Avery’s,” she added, veering away from grudging and toward cheek. “Oh god!" Lyra pulled away in horror. "Why you gotta compare them like that?!" She rolled onto her back with her hands covering her face. Jem laughed, finally waking up a bit, and Lyra kicked her under the covers. Well— there was the risk of vulnerability gone, at least. Laughter was good like that. “Ow– ratbag! You asked me,” Jem said, shifting onto her side, her head pillowed on her arm. “He was a white boy with red hair I knew for a few hours at a parade. We had fun, and then you came along. That’s all there was to it.” That was definitely not all there was to it. “Was he Irish?” Lyra asked, dropping her hands from her face, thinking about her book. “D’you remember his voice?” Jem shook her head, a shake that said there was no way this line of inquiry was going to lead anywhere. “Babe,” she said. “It was St Patrick’s Day. Everyone was Irish. Hey– where are you going?” she asked, as Lyra hastily scrambled back out of the bed, heading for the door. “Ly! Put some coffee on!” Nuh uh, Lyra thought, bolting. Nuh uh and no way. That was too much of a coincidence, wasn't it? St Patrick's Day? Saint's blood? Is that all it meant, that she was conceived on St Patrick's day? Or— or was there more to it? Lyra had to get out of the apartment, into the air. Had to get down to the local park where she could lean up again one of the bigger trees, catching her breath. The saint's book, her blood, Saint Patrick's Day… how did it all… was the book even a sign or was she seeing things she wanted to see? Rosario would say she was seeing patterns and links that weren't there, making a narrative outta them cuz that's what humans did, make narratives, that's what Rosatio would say, and Lyra bit her mouth shut and sank down to sit in the grass, pajamas be damned. She knew what she'd seen, with Archer. He'd definitely shoved that bone back into Ricky's arm. But this saint stuff? Could be she really was seeing things. Like faces in the clouds, like— like constellations. Up there in the sky wasn't really a picture of a bear, and down here on earth wasn't really some saint-shaped pattern trying to lead her somewhere. Her hands were anxiously and thoughtlessly pulling up grass, one strand at a time as her mind tried to wrestle with the concepts of sainthood and fatherhood and saint's blood and parades and— Lyra's fingers grabbed a slightly thicker stem, a round one she rolled in her fingers, spinning the plant in fast tight circles. She looked down, and her breath caught, goosebumps chilling over her the same way they had so often, these days, whenever something that couldn't happen went and happened anyway. Lyra stared at the clover, her face a mask of alarm. What– what? Just… what?! Lyra yelped when her phone started to ring, her hands shaking so much she dropped both the shamrock and her phone into the grass. She scrambled for it, frantic. Please, please be Rosario, please, saints, anyone— It wasn't Rosario. "Mornin', is that Lyra?" The voice was deep, and warm, and British, and for the second time in a minute and like the millionth time this year, Lyra was struck dumb. "Ye-yeah?" She managed to stutter out, not wanting to let herself believe it, not even when the voice said "Well hey, it's Johnny. How're you going?" Lyra was glad she was sitting down, is how she was going. It felt like the earth was tilting underneath her butt. "How— But I've been trying– How did you find– what?!" "Bit of a funny story. Ran into my old mate Cesar yesterday, selling spoons down the farmer’s market. He said some girl had rung up looking for me the other day, some girl who wanted help on a project, and Cesar, his passion is other people's projects. Can't finish one of his own for the life of them, that's why the best thing he makes is spoons, but other peoples? He'll do anything. So you must've stuck in his mind, and then, when he mentioned your name I figured it was important. Headed round to see if Krissy'd taken your number. She hadn't, but she remembered what day you called and I got your number from their cell. You alright?" This was impossible. But it was impossible like faeries and Archer were impossible, like finding the saint’s book and the key to Archer’s secret draw was impossible; impossible like it was about damn time Lyra redefined that word. "I– no, no I– things are coming apart, Johnny," Lyra blurted, on the verge of tears (maybe she was gonna have to re-evaluate the whole 'not a crier' thing too.) "My best friend doesn't believe anything that happened to me and we're not talking and I can't live like that and I need help and I need to find my dad and you and Elaine, you're the only people I know who– who might know how to help and I shoulda got your number when you dropped me off but who was thinking, just then?? Not me!! But—" "Hey, hey hey," Johnny soothed. "Take a breather. Yeah? You good? You good. Arrighty, why don't we meet up, hash this all out in person?" Lyra was nodding, nodding and nodding and trying not to cry. "Yes— yes please— yes." "Free this afternoon?" This afternoon!? "Yes! No— fuck, I got work, till late." Leave it! Quit! Nothing is worth missing this! "That's all gravy, I'm not going anywhere,” Little John promised, easy as anything, and Lyra tried to corral herself into believing him and believing in things like you good. It sounded believable, in Johnny’s deep voice. “When's good?" "Tomorrow? Could we do tomorrow? Is Elaine—?" "Yeah, we'll both be around. I got a show my mate is hosting, tomorrow night, but how's the morning?" "Mornings good!!” Lyra felt like she was having a heart attack. “Morning’s really good!" “Easy, then. You’re up in Bushwick, ain’tcha? We’re not too far, down in Greenwood Heights. Why don’t you come round for brunch?” Lyra had her hand pressed heavy against her chest like her palm would keep her heart centered in her chest, and she was nodding rapidly, half sure she must be dreaming. “Brunch! Brunch is perfect, thank you, thank you, oh, my god—” “I’ll text the address so you don’t lose it. You gonna be alright till then, duckie?” “Duckie,” Lyra echoed, hovering somewhere on the verge of hysterical giggles. “I mean, I mean yeah. Oh, my god, thank you, thank you for calling! Thank you, oh my god.” “Big ol stomach breaths,” Johnny said, and she could hear the amusement in his voice, and felt ridiculously pleased when he said “Attagirl” after she took a huge breath in. The breaths didn’t help instill any sense of calm; as soon as they’d said their goodbyes and the call was over, Lyra burst into a peal of gasping, teary laughter. |