Beautiful

By Amethyst Turner

You always said I was your

Sunset

But who turns your skies over

Now

XXX

Amethyst couldn't get enough of Piglet: his soft fur and doey eyes, gentle paws and dull, nipping teeth. As he curled against her, nuzzling under her chin, Amethyst almost wanted to cry from the sweetness of him.

She didn't think today could get any better. She felt tired but in the best way possible. Her belly was full and her mind had been lulled into a state of sweet ease by the warmth and safety of her new bed.

If she breathed in deep enough, she could smell Owl in the room, all coconut and vanilla. The scent of her came as a comfort, a warm embrace to remind Aimee that her savior hadn't left her.

Yet, she found herself thinking. Hasn't left yet.

She squeezed Piglet and then thought that maybe she shouldn't; how soon would it be before her new friend got ripped away, torn from her life like a page being severed from a book. Amethyst clung tighter to the little dog. Not this time, she begged the universe. Not again.

XXX

The ground stung Jameson's feet in sharp slaps, twisting the skin and blistering his toes. He could feel it happening, but there was nothing he could do.

Well, nothing he could do except stop dancing, which wasn't something he considered an option.

As the last notes of the song faded away, Jameson clutched June's waist and touched his forehead to her shoulder, breathing in the thick, sweaty aroma of her skin. He loved the way she smelled, that blend of weak deodorant and baby powder mixed in with the blood, sweat, and tears of dance. It came rolling off of her in such thick, powerful waves that it almost seemed he could lick it off of her if he got close enough.

"Again?" she said, voice husky and breathless.

"Just what I was thinking." Jameson grinned. He let her slip out of his grasp, thin and limber as an eel. Sweat stained her leotard in splotches like continents, tracing worlds across her back and armpits. "How's your ankle doing?" he asked.

June shrugged, hitting a button on the stereo. "Worse than yesterday," she said.

"Maybe we should take a --"

"Don't." June, remote in hand, raised her eyebrows in warning. She walked back toward him with her hips dropping in a pattern that might have been sexy, but now that Jameson knew her ankle was bothering her, he could tell she was trying not to hobble. "We have to get this right."

"Junie, we have it right."

"No, we don't. You nearly dropped me on the overhead lift." She reassumed her starting position, just in front of him with her fingertips resting lightly on her hips. She held the remote with an uncommitted hand, ready to cast it aside as soon as the song began. "Again."

Jameson sighed. "Your wish is my command," he said. The song began and he forgot.

XXX

Everyone was a little hushed today, a little nervous. They played, but they paused every minute or so to sneak a glance, to catch a glimpse at the front of the room where he sat.

He. She. Where it, they sat. Brinley didn't really know.

Kris they had written on the board. No Miss or Mrs., no Mr. Just Kris. A boy's name, surely, but then, Brinley had a cousin named Kristen who called herself Kris as well. What could this person be, and how could she find out?

They had lips that curled into a fine, gentle bow and hair short and unkempt as any boy's. They had a thin nose and slender fingers but wore a big plaid shirt and jeans, clothes Brin had never seen a woman wear, especially not a teacher. She couldn't see the usual swell of flesh that women had beneath their shirts, but she did see a jut in the hips that she had never seen before on a man.

Brinley had heard them saying good morning to some parents. They had a musical, reedy voice that seemed to belong to a man, but Brinley could imagine a woman speaking with it as well.

Kris rocked back and forth in Miss Briggs' chair, eyes closed. She would ask later, she decided. Right now, she was too uncomfortable to leave this corner of the room.

XXX

That morning, Owl used her kitchen for the first time since Amaya died. She made pancakes and eggs, blueberries spelling out hearts and smiley faces in the runny dough blobs. She scrambled the eggs and hummed along to tunes on the radio.

Amethyst and Piglet remained squirreled away in the bedroom. When Owl went to Aimee's bed to check on her this morning, she had been wound tightly around the little dog, arms encircling his ribs, their legs stretched placidly beneath the blankets.

She would have to leave for work soon, and she couldn't commission the Lewinski girl to watch her again since it was Monday and the girl had school. Owl wasn't sure what she would do. School, perhaps, but wouldn't it be unfair to spring the news that she was returning to school on the little girl with no notice at all?

The more she thought about it, the more her heart rumbled with panic. She should have considered this.

Owl thought about her neighbors. Most of them were a little too erratic to trust with a little girl. These were the ones who worked at gas stations and the post office and stayed up late into the night drinking on their back patios. Most of them didn't have kids or partners, just their drinks and cigarettes and late nights.

Flipping a pancake, Owl released a sigh. She'd just have to leave Amethyst with one of the neighbors. It was either that or leave her home by herself, which Owl would never have considered in a million years, even though the girl was so horribly used to life all alone.

XXX

June couldn't say what it was exactly that she loved about Jameson, but she couldn't seem to break away from him.

She loved the goldish-green color of his eyes, the ropy muscles in his arms. She loved the way he could sit and listen to her ramble for hours, never once sighing in exasperation or trying to weave his own problems into the conversation. She loved the torn toenails and blood blisters on his feet, signs of genuine, unhindered hard work. She loved the feeling of his eyelashes on her cheek when he got too close.

This morning, though, she hated him more than she loved him. "Get up, you lazy ass!" she kept exclaiming. "Come on! We have to get to the studio."

He only pulled his pillow farther over his face and moaned. "Why did I give you a key to my apartment?" he wondered to himself.

June tried not to look at his muscular torso, keeping her angry glare directed at his covered head. "Jameson, if you are the reason why I fail my exams, I will murder you where you stand, hear me?"

"Whoa, there," he groaned. "They're my exams, too."

"Then get out of bed, goddammit!"

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sighing as his mangled feet touched the carpet. His hair stuck up on one side and his eyes were bleary and red. Jameson took her by the waist, holding her dancing-close. She could feel his hair tickling against her shoulder. "I think we should take a break today," he muttered into her shoulder. "You're getting more uptight by the second, you know. And it's gonna catch up to you soon. Not to mention, your ankle--"

"Would you shut it about my ankle? It's fine."

"No, it's not." Jameson let go of her, dropping back into bed. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."

June forced herself not smile. Still mad, still mad, still mad. She was about to shoot back when the harsh buzz of Jameson's doorbell cut her off.

"Can you get that?" he muttered.

"Not so worried about my ankle now, are you?" she grumbled back but started out of the room all the same.

"Thanks," Jameson called after her.

June began to limp a soon as she was out of his sight range, hopping away from her right foot as quickly as she could. When she stepped on it, she could feel sparks jumping up her leg like fireworks.

She pressed her eye to the peephole before she opened the door, thinking of all Jameson's strange, perverted neighbors, the ones who watched from in front of their doors, cigarettes spitting smoke from between their fingers.

But the person outside was not a drunken man, but rather a very sober looking woman. She was tall enough that June could only catch a clip of her chin before her body turned sharply to a gracefully tapered neck and willowy shoulders. In her arms, she held some sort of bundle, but June couldn't tell what it was.

Cracking the door open, June said, "Can I help you?" She bit her tongue. She hadn't meant to sound so annoyed.

The woman gave her a sad sort of smile. Woman. Well, she wasn't any older than June herself, but she had the sort of weight to her that made her seem aged. Her face wasn't exactly pretty, but she was far from unlovely. June looked closer at the bundle in her arms and realized that the lump was moving, rising and falling like a parachute in the wind.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," said the woman. "I'm Owl. I actually live a couple doors down?" Her smile widened a little, but her lips trembled a bit.

"Okay," said June. She winced again. Nice to meet you, she could have said, or, Oh, yes, Jameson's mentioned you, but no, just okay.

The smile slid away from her face. "I was wondering if I could talk to Jameson?"

"He's in bed, actually?"

"Oh, okay. Well, are you his girlfriend?"

June blinked and her brain told her not to lie, but her mouth didn't obey. "Yeah," she said.

"Could I ask you a big favor?"

No, said June's brain. "Sure," said June's mouth. "What's the matter?"

Owl rearranged the bundle in her arms, blanket falling at the corner so June could see the tiny, porcelain-like features of a child's sweet face, eyelids folded shut like white bits of paper. June didn't gasp aloud, but she almost did.

"The thing is, she just started living with me," Owl explained, "And I haven't had time to get her into school or find a babysitter, but I really have to go to work right now, and I can't take her with me . . . again, I'm so sorry to bother you. If you don't want to--"

"No, no, of course I will." June grinned wide, holding out her arms. "Always happy to help." Maybe they could take the day off, after all. 

XXX

Forgo family, forgo friends
It's how it started, how it ends
I can't open up and cry
'Cause I've been silent all my life

-Numb by Marina And The Diamonds