Finding Jupiter, page 13
SIXTEEN
Ray
A girl who looks to be about our age saunters up to the microphone. Even though she’s dressed in solid black from head to toe, her bright, dewy face and bouncy hair make her look like springtime personified. By the time she reaches the microphone stand, the entire place has gone dead silent.
Orion gently squeezes my hand as he watches her the way the congregation watches a preacher—like he needs something from her. Like he expects something to feed his soul. In a way, I guess, that’s why most people are drawn to one art form or another. Art is soul food.
I wish I could deny the twinge of jealousy that snakes through me.
Pretending I’m cold from the AC, I hug myself, and he instantly wraps his arm around me and rubs my arm, like I hoped he would. I feel a little silly, but this strange new feeling—wanting and receiving this kind of attention—is nice.
“Last year around the holidays I changed my name to Buttercup. I know that sounds drastic to some of y’all, but I’m an artist, and sometimes we do drastic shit.” Her voice slips into an Erykah Badu impersonation when she alludes to the song “Tyrone.” The audience crescendoes into laughter and applause.
“Y’all love us for it,” she continues. “We love y’all, too. We need y’all to bear witness to our drastic shit. My name change was part of my resolve to resist the dark—to reject it.” She takes on a more serious tone.
“If Buttercup is too strange for you, you can call me B. Bees command us to bear witness too, don’t they? Bees and buttercups find their home in the sun. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago as I watched the sun rise over the river, like a bridge to heaven over troubled water. This is about love and light. It’s untitled, because it is what it is.”
She grips the mic with both hands and pauses for a long while, then raises her gaze to the audience.
You loved me deep.
Your hands caressed skin, flesh, sinew, bone, marrow, blood.
Deep.
Your mouth conjured.
Your words coaxed and conquered my soul.
Hands clenched and beckoned my spirit to rest.
An ember stoked by deep love
Made promises as sure as the grave.
Eternal fire.
Her voice is loud and powerful and defiant. Snaps erupt from all over the room to let her know we feel her. She barely moves as she performs, standing firm like a warrior. Her eyes land on mine briefly before she squeezes them closed and continues. Oddly starstruck, I glance at Orion to see if he noticed, but his eyes are still on her.
I want to go outside in the rain,
Into night so thick that it presses against my skin,
In shades of indigo that mask my blues until I believe they’ve gone away.
Dark.
Outside in the rain at midnight
Where, in the shadows,
I could offer up my self to be baptized.
Washed. Forgiven. made clean.
Cleansed until the blues that your love left behind pool at my feet and seep back into earth.
Deep.
Down where dead things sustain the living.
She’s still a rock, but the edge has left her voice—there’s despair where anger once was. I glance over at Orion and he’s watching me. He raises his eyebrows as if to ask if I’m okay, and I nod yes, less jealous now, also falling under her spell. He squeezes my arm as we turn our attention back to Buttercup.
She walks to the edge. With outstretched arms, she lowers herself to her knees and sits back on her heels.
An ember in the ashes of our past, stoked by deep love, made promises as sure as the grave.
Eternal fire.
I want to go outside in the rain at midnight, where maybe I could forgive
myself.
Where, maybe, I could walk again.
In the sun.
The cafe erupts into applause. I smile in her direction—she winks at me as she begins to make her way back to her seat, clasping her hands in prayerful thanks and bowing slightly as she goes.
Clapping for her, and looking at Orion—being in this place, so alive with energy and expression—I feel open in ways I have never felt before. I could get used to this.
SEVENTEEN
Orion
“Where are we going now?” Ray asks as we shuffle through the crowd toward the exit. The open-mic part of the night is done and we’re not staying for the cover band.
“Someplace where we can talk. I think you’ll like it.”
I lace my fingers through hers and we make our way out of the cafe.
“Aye, see you at practice. Come ready to race,” Niko says when we pass him, Hollywood, and Ahmir on the way out.
I park in the neighborhood near the river, a short walk to the top of the bluff, a steep hill that overlooks Riverside Drive. Ray helps me spread out a quilt that I brought just for this. The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge is lit, and we can see part of the Pyramid from here too. It’s perfect.
Other people are spread out, lounging on the hilltop. Ray sits cross-legged and looks out onto the river below us. The riverboat is lit up too and packed with people on the upper and lower decks. It looks like a postcard, inching toward the glittering bridge.
“You good?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She flashes an embarrassed smile. “I loved it. I just didn’t expect the open mic to get me all in my feelings.”
“Right? The poem that one guy did about being a lonely child…and Buttercup…” I shake my head.
“Mm-hmm. Can we talk about why you go to that open-mic night all the time, but haven’t graced the stage with one of your guitars?”
“I told you. I’m shy,” I say with a shrug. “Just the thought of standing on that stage makes my anxiety hit one hundred.” She looks at me like she’s trying to figure me out. I just shrug again.
We stretch out on the blanket and lie side by side. Ray’s body is warm next to mine and the tiny bumps on her arm give me the guts to move even closer. Her arms are behind her head, and I lie in the nook below her elbow.
“Do you remember the last time you played outside?” Ray asks, eyes on the sky. “Like, as a little kid. Like, the very last time?”
I think about Nora, and that day. That seems like the last time for me, but I played outside plenty with Mo and the other kids after that.
“No, I can’t.”
“Right. Cash came over the other day, and we were talking about the old days and all the ridiculous stuff we got into growing up. And I realized that one of those days was the last day we played. Everybody has one. But we have no way of knowing that that’s gonna be the last day we go inside when the streetlight comes on.”
“Cash was over there?” As soon as I ask it, Ray’s deadpan silence makes me regret it. “Naw, I mean. That’s…that’s deep. And also true. I never considered that: the day childhood ends.”
Ray shakes her head at me. “Yes, Cash was over. He lives right across the cove. Are you jealous?”
“Naw. No, I’m good,” I say, my high-pitched voice giving my lie away.
“Don’t worry, it’s not like that with me and Cash. He’s my play cousin.”
Somehow that still doesn’t settle with me, but I let it go.
“Have you ever seen the sky at night, away from the city?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I went camping with the Boys Club when I was in elementary school—a place where you can camp in yurts and cabins. I’d never seen so many stars.”
“I saw them for the first time camping with my mom. I don’t remember where, but I was around six or seven. We stretched out on a blanket, just like this. I used to think we could see more stars because the people who lived there didn’t have electricity, so they needed more stars for light.” She laughs and keeps searching the sky for the memory. “When I got older, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe there is more to the stars than we know…. I have a theory.” She looks at me expectantly.
I nod my head. “Tell me.”
She could be talking about types of mushrooms and I’d want to watch her face and learn about them all. I roll over onto my side and prop my head up on my arm, so I can see her better.
“It’s not really a theory—it’s more like a question, and I really believe in the answer that I’ve decided on. It’s totally unscientific. Mostly.”
“So…a theory…in theory. Got it. What’s the question?” I try to keep a straight face and fail. Ray rolls her eyes.
“What if we are the stars?” she says, looking up. “I read that something like forty-eight hundred stars die every second. Only four humans are born per second. That’s a significant difference, which makes for a weak theory, but if you take into account all the other living things with souls, everywhere in the universe, including parts we haven’t explored, it starts to come a little more into focus. What if every time a star dies in the sky, life is sparked on earth? Think about it. Almost every element that makes up the human body was made in a star. Fact.”
“I’m following. Nothing is just what it is with you. I think it’s dope how you see below the surface of things. Of books and stars. This what I been missing out on all these summers. You been right here.”
Her smile widens, and she looks back up and keeps talking. “And if we do come to life from the stars, as pure light, then the sky—outer space—must be heaven. Especially if we return there after we die, as reincarnated stars.” She pauses and watches for my reaction.
“Space is heaven?”
“Think about it. The conservation of energy—it’s the law of the universe. There’s no creation or death of energy, only the transfer of it. When we think about the circle of life, we think in terms of earth science, the animal kingdom—living things consuming other living things, and waste, death, and decay supporting the ecology and continuing cycle of life down here. But how are we here? And where is our energy transferred when we die? It’s all the universe, man.”
“So what about hell?” I ask, drunk on her words.
“I’ve thought a lot about that, too. I think the evil that we do here, the part of our light that fades into darkness, that part goes into black holes, where some stars go to die, never to become stars again. Dark energy is slowly transferred into dark energy. Once something gets sucked into a black hole, that’s it. It’s gone forever. What if black holes are hell, eternal death, or whatever?” She looks at me with so much wonder in her eyes. I want to kiss her. I think she senses it, because she smiles a little bit. I’d do it, but I want to hear more of her theory.
“Go on,” I say.
“Black holes are forming at a slower rate as time goes on, but the stars are steadily being born. The stars are going strong. Also, humans are killing each other at lower rates now than ever before, believe it or not, if you look at the entire history of human life on this planet. What if black holes are forming more slowly because evil on earth is slowly diminishing? What if one day, good wins, and there’s no more need for black holes because everything on earth is starlight? Maybe that will be the heaven on earth that the holy books across religions write about. Maybe The One that everyone is waiting for is actually a metaphor for goodness inhabiting the earth…through the stars…through us?”
“That’s deep as hell. Deep as a black hole,” I say.
She laughs hard. “You think I’m silly.”
“Never. I think you’re brilliant and amazing. You’re not like anybody. If you’re a star, you’re the brightest one.”
I want to say she’s the one my planet revolves around. But that’s probably too much to admit on a first date. Instead I hook my fingers into hers. Her hair is like a halo around her head against the patched blanket. I move over her, letting my shadow eclipse part of her face. She grins and it’s daylight again. Something happens in my chest. I bet this is what people mean when they say their heart skips a beat. Maybe this is where people got the idea that we love with our hearts. “Where did you come from?”
“The stars,” she whispers, and traces her finger along my nose, stopping on my lips.
A fire burns through me. All over me. In my head, I picture myself leaning down and kissing her.
I say a silent prayer and lean in.
My phone buzzes loud in my pocket, startling the shit out of me. She laughs and moves over so I can fish it out of my jeans. I sit up.
Mo: Hey Mr. Romance. U hit that yet?
“Important?”
“Not in the least.”
Ray sits up and bumps my shoulder. “Anything interesting?”
I move a strand of hair from her face and trace my thumb along her jaw. “Nothing as interesting as you.” She’s bashful and her lips part. Kiss her. Just as I lean into her, a giggling group of girls plops down right next to us on their own blanket.
Ugh. Magic. I promised her magic. This is not happening.
“Let’s take a selfie—we can get the bridge in the background.” I hold my phone up.
We spend another half hour there, mostly just watching the sky and holding hands. I tell her about the swim meet and how excited I am about nationals. The way she smiles at me while I talk about swim makes me want to qualify for the Olympics. More people have joined us on the hill—too many. So we decide to call it a night.
When we pull up to Ray’s house, neither one of us is ready for the night to be over, so we decide to go back to the tree house.
Her mom’s Jeep is in the driveway. “You sure your mom won’t care? It’s kinda late. I do have to train in the morning. We could—”
“She’s cool,” Ray says. “Come on.”
I follow her through the back gate to the tree house.
“No tears this time,” she says as soon as we’re up the ladder and on the porch. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
The streetlights beyond the back fence cast a glow over the porch, which is just enough light for us to see. Ray grabs her quilt from inside and we lower it to the floor together. Our eyes meet, and we laugh because we both know why we came up here.
She starts to say something. I’ll never know what it was, because before she can even say a word, I go for it. I don’t want to waste any more time with words. I step forward, cup her chin, and bring her lips to mine.
She deepens the kiss, opening her mouth, and every inch of me tenses up as our tongues tease and touch. I’m not even sure that I’m breathing. Ray is my air.
She breaks the kiss, looking into my eyes. Not pizza again! But the next second she’s on my lap, pressing me against the wall as our mouths move together again. She feels so good. I grasp on to her, pulling her closer to me. My entire existence right now is kissing her and holding her and wanting more of everything. And hoping that whatever that love song on the radio is, it stays on forever.
We stop to look at each other for a moment between kisses, coming up for air, before connecting again—our eyes and mouths and bodies saying everything either of us needs to know. We go on like this for a long time.
She positions my hand over one of her breasts and I feel electric. She says something with her lips still pressed against mine. A bolt of agony shoots through me because I feel her pulling away as she gently presses her hands against my chest, creating a little space between us, breaking the kiss.
Her face is glowing and we are both out of breath. I look into her eyes, wanting to ask why, then realize that she’s waiting for me to respond to whatever she said.
“Huh?”
“Are we gonna do this?” She presses another kiss against my lips and waits for an answer.
If this means what I think it means, I’m not ready to do that. I want to. Eventually. I want to…with her…but not tonight. Not like this. “Um. I want to. You have no idea how much I want to.”
She looks down and back up at me with her eyebrows raised.
“Okay, maybe you have some idea of how much I want to, but I actually should get home. I have to train in the morning.” Thankfully, she nods, understanding.
I run my hands along her thighs and hold her hips, because it feels good—her on me like this—but I know it’s about to end.
“See? I told you you wouldn’t want to stop,” I say. She chuckles.
She responds by leaning back, pulling me down on top of her, and kissing me again until neither one of us wants to stop, but one of us has to.
She stands and helps me up from the floor. I pull her into a hug.
“Um. Orion? I thought you were in such a hurry to get out of here,” she says, tapping me on my shoulder until I release her.
When we climb down the ladder out of the tree house, I kiss her one more time, just to see what it feels like again to kiss her because we both want to.
Fooled around outside awhile.
His face. His eyes. Her wish.
The evening sky, beyond blue, was noticing.
Did he mean to do this thing to her?
She could only ache. He saw it had gone far enough.
She looked hard for a sign.
A star, maybe, or the sun.
Her arms pleading, asking questions.
She had his heart.
EIGHTEEN
Ray
13 DAYS
It’s been two days since my date with Orion. I’ve become one of those girls I used to judge so hard in my head—silly and goofy-eyed over a boy. Bri teases me about it and I’m too far gone to care.
I mentioned Orion’s missed messages to Momma and she was as confused as I was about why none of his messages were recorded. When I told her I gave him my cell phone number, she seemed surprised and maybe a little annoyed that I was even still talking to him.
