STAR (A 44 Chapters Novel) Read online

When the escalator deposited us at the bottom, I felt like I’d stepped through a wormhole into another time and place. We were at the end of a long brick-paved street, concrete and exposed beams overhead blocking out what had once been bathed in sunlight. Storefronts lined both sides of the lane, their exposed brick facades and hand-carved wooden archways protected from the elements for over eighty years. Antique streetlights illuminated our path, and kiosks made from old horse-drawn wagons dotted the center of the lane.

  Within a few steps, the sound of distant jazz music filled the air, and the smell of candied pecans being sold from a wagon cart filled my nostrils.

  The urge to hold Hans’s hand grew with every step I took deeper into that romantic, forgotten city beneath a city. I needed to smoke. I needed to do something with my hands before my hands did something stupid.

  At the first intersection we came to, a man was standing on the corner, playing the saxophone right in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating. Well, as outdoor as you could get underground. I didn’t know what kind of food they served, but there were ashtrays on the tables, and that was all I needed to know.

  A sign told us to seat ourselves, so I chose a table in the back corner of the patio area where the saxophone music wasn’t so loud.

  A waitress came out and brought us menus and a basket of chips and salsa.

  It was a Mexican restaurant.

  I lit a cigarette and immediately felt myself relax. Having a table in between our bodies and a Camel Light to busy my wayward hands calmed my nerves dramatically. I thought of something else that would help me chill out even more.

  “Do you think they’d card us here?”

  Hans chuckled. “Me? No. You? Fuck yes.”

  My mouth fell open. “I don’t look that young.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Hans pursed his lips, trying to suppress a smile.

  “How old do I look?”

  Hans tilted his head to the side and appraised me, narrowing his eyes so that the blue was overshadowed by a canopy of thick black lashes. He looked sinister when he looked at me like that. “Seventeen.”

  I huffed out a sigh. “But I’m here with you, and you look twenty-seven, so doesn’t that make me look older by association?”

  Hans’s mouth pulled up on one side. “If you say so. Wanna try it?”

  “Really?”

  Hans shrugged and pulled a pack of Newports out of his pocket. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Right on cue, the waitress came back and pulled a pad of paper out of her apron. She looked to be in her early twenties, and she seemed a little apprehensive about approaching us—probably because one of us was a gorgeous raven-haired giant with an evil face and even scarier tattoos. She was also wearing Keds and a scrunchie. If anybody was gonna serve alcohol to a couple of teenagers, it was her.

  “My name is Maria. I’ll be your server today. What can I get you to drink?”

  Hans and I shared a glance. Then he said, in a voice even lower than normal, “We’ll have a couple of Coronas, please…Maria.”

  The swarthy, lopsided grin he gave her had me seeing red and cracking my knuckles under the table. I knew he was just trying to get me a beer, but still, did he have to do it like that?

  Maria smiled and dropped her eyes, pretending to write down Hans’s order. When she recovered from his smolder, she looked at me and asked, “May I see your ID, please?”

  Bitch.

  I grabbed my purse, pulled a stuffed monster truck out of it, then fished out my wallet.

  You want an ID? I’ll give you a motherfucking ID.

  Pulling a card from one of the slots inside, I handed it to her with plenty of extra salt.

  Poor Maria glanced at the card, then at me, then back at the card as confusion marred her already-anxious face.

  Hans kicked me under the table. I met his look of confusion with one of triumph.

  “Um, ma’am, I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look like you.”

  “I know. I cut all my hair off and bleached it blonde.”

  “No, ma’am. It says here that,” Maria looked at Hans, then leaned over, and whispered in my ear, “you weigh one hundred and eighty pounds.”

  Adrenaline surged through my bloodstream. I knew Maria was just doing her job. I knew anyone would question a girl who could eat cereal out of the divots behind her protruding collarbone if she produced an ID saying she weighed almost double, but I didn’t fucking care. Maria had questioned my weight and flirted with my soul mate, and for that, she must die.

  I snatched the ID out of her hand and spat, “That picture was taken over five years ago. I went on fen-phen after high school, okay? I was sick of being teased about my size, okay? I’m not proud of it, okay? You don’t have to rub it in my face!”

  Maria held her hands up in defeat, then placed one over her heart in an act of genuine remorse. “I am so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t—I shouldn’t have—I’ll go get your drinks right now. I apologize.”

  And off she went.

  I should have felt bad—I’d behaved like a total asshole—but I didn’t. I felt like a champion. Nothing made the spoiled only-child in me happier than getting my way.

  I smiled to myself and went to put my ID back in my wallet when Hans held his hand out and flicked his long fingers at me. “Uh-uh-uh. Let me see that thing.”

  I smiled in amusement and handed over the plastic card.

  Hans burst out laughing. “Who the fuck is this?”

  A huge grin split my face. “I have no idea. My best friend, Juliet, found it in a bush outside of Kroger. She would have kept it for herself, but she’s black and Japanese, so it doesn’t look anything like her.”

  “It doesn’t look anything like you!” He cackled. “I can’t fucking believe you just bought beer with this thing!”

  Hans handed the driver’s license of one Jolene Elizabeth Godfrey back to me, respect and delight shining out of his otherwise dark features. I beamed with pride as I tucked the ID back into my wallet. Then, I pulled my irritated scowl back on when poor, sweet Maria returned with our beers.

  Hans tried to feign seriousness as he ordered enough tacos to feed a small army, then burst out laughing again as soon as Maria was out of earshot. Holding up his Corona, he said, “To Jolene.”

  I smiled and clinked the neck of my bottle against his. “To Jolene.”

  I took a victory swig and let out a content sigh.

  What a difference a fucking day had made. Before Steven and Goth Girl’s party the night before, I’d been a shell of my former self. My buzz cut had grown out so much, my head looked like a mushroom. I hadn’t worn makeup in weeks. I had been depressed, bored, and nursing not only a few broken ribs, but yet another broken heart. But I’d picked myself up, chopped my hair off, and rejoined the land of the living with gusto. I’d gone from staring at the same four walls every day to waking up in a strange bed with a strange man, driving his BMW downtown with the sunroof open, getting the VIP treatment at a monster-truck rally, and teleporting back to the 1920s. We might not be at a speakeasy, but I did manage to buy alcohol illegally.

  That reminded me. “How do you know so much about this place?”

  Hans was absentmindedly biting his thumbnail and looking at something over my shoulder. His eyes snapped to mine when I spoke. “Huh? Sorry, I was listening.” Hans gestured toward the saxophone player behind me. “He’s really good.”

  “It’s cool. I was just asking how you knew so much about this place.”

  “Oh, I dunno. I’ve just always been into history. It was the only class in school that I didn’t have to cheat to pass. Besides music.”

  I laughed. “That’s funny. History was the only class that I did have to cheat in. I just don’t fucking care about what a bunch of angry old white men did hundreds of years ago. Like, I get it. They were dickheads. Let’s move on.”

  Hans snorted into his beer. I loved making him laugh. He had pretty teeth. And pretty lips. His smile wasn’t some big, megawa
tt movie-star smile even though that was how his presence felt. His smiles were small. Shy almost. So fucking cute.

  “So, Jolene,” he teased, “what do you care about?”

  Your face.

  I took a swig of my beer while I tried to come up with a better response. What did I care about? Boys. Cuddling. Sex. Art and music and movies. Psychology, helping people, women’s rights. My parents, my dog, my friends. I liked to read and write and draw and paint. I wanted to travel. I loved fashion and photography. I loved drinking and smoking and breaking the rules. So many things floated into my consciousness all at once that I just blurted out, “Everything. I care about fucking everything.”

  “Everything, except for angry old white men who act like dickheads.”

  “Correct.” I smirked, pointing a finger gun at him. “Except for those. And, also, Chumbawamba.”

  Hans laughed again, and the sound made me feel like the fizzy beer bubbles in my stomach were dancing throughout my entire body. I noticed that he always looked down when he first started laughing, just for a second, just long enough for his thick inky-black lashes to soften the rest of his hard, brooding face. It was also just long enough for me to sigh without him seeing it.

  Hans grabbed his pack of Newports from the table and popped one into his mouth. Just before lighting it, he paused with his cigarette between his teeth. Hans looked at me, all traces of amusement disappearing from his too-serious face and said, “Are you going away for college?”

  Now, it was my turn to snort. “Fuck no. I’ll be right here.” I pointed in the general direction of the Georgia State University campus, which was only a few blocks away. “I got the HOPE Grant, so as long as I stay in-state, my tuition is covered. I’ve already got some credits from my AP classes, so if I keep busting my ass, I should have a bachelor’s degree in psychology before I’m old enough to drink.”

  Hans smirked and nudged my foot under the table. “You might not want to say that too loud, Jolene.”

  Warmth spread from the tiny spot on the side of my foot where our shoes were touching, up the inside of my pleather pants, and shot straight to the apex of my thighs.

  “Oh, right.” I blushed, looking around to make sure Maria hadn’t been within earshot. “I mean, I’m totally already old enough to drink.” I raised my voice loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear.

  Hans nudged my foot again to quiet me, and I almost came.

  “So, are you going to college in the fall?” I asked, trying hard to focus on his answer rather than the fact that his foot was still touching mine.

  “Nah.” Hans finally lit his cigarette, then held his open pack out in a silent offering.

  I took a menthol from him and leaned in so that he could light it for me. The flame warmed my face, and the first drag made my throat tingle.

  “I’m just gonna focus on my music for now. My parents want me to go to college and even offered to send me to this fuckin’ crazy expensive music school in town, but I don’t want to learn somebody else’s style. You know? I want to find my own.”

  I nodded with a new appreciation for the man sitting across from me. Hans wasn’t just another wannabe rock star. Hans was an artist. The realization made me a little sad. I knew that affliction. Both of my parents, my uncle on my dad’s side, my aunt on my mom’s side, a few cousins, and both of my grandmothers were artists. You would think that, in a family full of poets, painters, and piccolo players, I would have been encouraged to let my own artistic tendencies flourish, but no. Being born with the need to create was seen as a burden in my family. It wouldn’t pay your bills; it would only break your heart.

  My father and his brother, who had grown up playing in rock bands together, were consumed by depression as adults. They couldn’t make enough as musicians to meet even their most basic needs, so they worked soul-crushing retail jobs during the day that broke their sensitive spirits. My father used to stay up late into the night, drinking and playing his electric guitar for no one, the amp volume turned down low. His rock-and-roll spirit all but neutered.

  “Being smart, now, that’s something you can build a future on—not your talent and damn sure not your looks,” my father had preached.

  “Smart beats pretty every time,” he’d whispered in my ear every night before bed.

  “Art will only break your heart,” he’d warned.

  “In this day and age, you have to have at least a master’s degree. Bachelor’s degrees are a dime a dozen. Get a job with good benefits, maybe a pension. Then, you’ll be happy,” he’d promised.

  Please don’t turn out like me, he’d begged with his eyes.

  I didn’t want to turn out like him either. Being a starving artist held no appeal to me. I knew how poor my family was. How depressed and stressed they all were. I wanted to help people like them, not become one.

  Hans certainly seemed to be starving. That motherfucker ate more than anyone I’d ever met. Maria returned with plates of tacos stacked up her arms like porcelain staircases and two more Coronas in her fists—a peace offering.

  I took my beer with a genuine smile and decided that I liked Maria after all.

  She tried to put a few of the plates in front of me, but I shook my head and directed them all to the other side of the table.

  Hans was already polishing off his first taco by the time the last one was set down. “Go ahead.” He gestured toward the school of tacos on the table.

  “I’m good.” I held up my hands, cigarette in one, beer in the other. “Got my dinner right here.”

  Hans stopped eating and stared at me with his serious face again. The face that reminded me that he might still be a serial killer. “You’re not gonna eat?”

  “I’m still full from lunch. That burger was huge! Thanks though. Hey, after this, do you wanna go walk around Georgia State on our way to the Tabernacle? I still don’t know my way around the campus, but the idea of taking one of those guided tours makes me stabby.”

  Hans smiled and took another bite. “Sure,” he murmured with his mouth full, following my change of subject without a second thought. “I wanna see it too. Hey, maybe I can come down here and meet you for lunch sometime. These tacos are fucking amazing.”

  “Yeah.” I took a swig of my beer to hide the shit-eating grin that was threatening to take over my whole face. “Maybe.” I took a drag from my cigarette. “That’d be cool.” I exhaled.

  Oh my fucking God, I screamed on the inside. Hans wants to see me again!

  Hans paid the check without even looking at it, just handed Maria a credit card. For a starving artist, he sure didn’t seem to be hurting for money. I wanted to ask him if he had another job besides being a bass player in a band no one had ever heard of, but I didn’t want to get too personal about his financial situation when I hadn’t even known the guy a full twenty-four hours yet.

  We time-traveled back up the escalator, going from the dark, romantic Atlanta of the 1920s to the blistering hot, noisy-as-shit Atlanta of 1999 in just a few seconds. The contrast was jarring. Not only did we have to raise our voices to hear each over the cacophony of sirens and car alarms, but we were also approached by at least five panhandlers in as many blocks on our way to Georgia State University.

  My dad had always told me never to give homeless people money. He’d said that they would only use it to buy drugs and booze. Evidently, nobody had ever said that to Hans because, by the time we reached GSU, he’d given away all his change and half of his remaining cigarettes.

  The Georgia State campus wasn’t so much a campus as it was just a loose cluster of old, mismatched buildings on the south end of Peachtree Street. Hans and I poked around, trying to get into locked buildings and taking random stairwells just to see where they led. Normally, I might have been a little overwhelmed at the sheer expansiveness of my new school, but I had the perfect two-beer buzz going, so nothing was going to bring me down.

  The only common area we could find was a large cement courtyard about two stories above
street level. I liked it up there. Hans and I were completely alone yet in the middle of everything. The courtyard was flanked by the library, a bunch of buildings that were probably named after angry old white men, and the College of Arts & Sciences.

  I elbowed Hans in the ribs, another excuse to touch him, and pointed at the building across from us. “You know, if you’re gonna come down here to have lunch with me anyway, you might as well just enroll. Look, our majors would even be in the same building.”

  Hans squinted at the Arts & Sciences sign, which was being hit directly by the sideways rays of the early evening sun.

  “We could carpool!” I chirped. “Wait, where do you live?”

  Hans turned away from the building and faced me, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. “On Lake Lanier.”

  “On Lake Lanier? Like, on Lake Lanier?”

  Hans laughed, turning away from the sun. We kept walking. “Yeah.”

  “First of all, damn. Those houses are super nice,” I said. “And second of all, that’s like forty-five minutes north of here.”

  “An hour with traffic,” Hans corrected.

  “And you’re gonna drive down here just to have lunch with me?”

  Hans shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Why not?”

  I squinted up at him, my heart fluttering faster than hummingbird wings. “You hate to drive.”

  Hans smiled and looked down at me. Two dimples cratered his stubble-covered cheeks. Midnight-black lashes rimmed his blue-jean-colored eyes. “Yeah, but those were really good tacos.”

  There was something in his voice, his delivery, that told me he liked more than just the tacos. My legs turned to rubber, and I had to cross my arms over my chest to keep from wrapping them around him and never letting go. I opened my mouth to say something—probably something stupid like, Hey! I know! You should tell your girlfriend to go fuck herself and get an apartment with me and go to college with me and go everywhere with me and marry me and give me tall, black-haired babies!—when a fire truck, ambulance, and police car rounded the corner and blasted us directly in the face with their flashing lights and screaming sirens. It was a regular occurrence downtown, but the timing couldn’t have been better.