Read Online Just Like a Musical by Milena Veen - Free Book Online Page B

against his shoulder. He kissed my hair. The night was green, the town looked like a post-apocalyptic movie scene, and his skin smelled of oranges. The lamp post turned off, trembled for a second or two like a child when he tries to shake off a bad dream, and then turned on again. A white cat ran across the street, her tail bristled.
    “I want to do all the wrong things,” I said, raising my head from Joshua’s shoulder.
    “Like what?”
    I spread my arms out to the sky.
    “I want to smoke, and drink, and scream, and eat ice cream until I throw up, and rob a bank, and run away to Canada…”
    “How long can you go like this?” he laughed.
    “Forever.”
    “I’m not sure about the bank, but I think I can help you with other things,” he said. “Wait here, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
    I sat on the edge of the sidewalk, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and turned it off. The sound of blinds lowering rattled through the night. The shadows on the building across the street were so deep that I almost expected the noir film crew to emerge from behind it.
    It took Joshua a little more than ten minutes to come back, but when I jumped into the car and took a look at the back seat, I could see the reason, and it was a good one – a bottle of silver tequila.
    “The cigarettes are in my pocket,” he said.
    “How did you this?” I asked, still looking at the bottle on the back seat.
    “I have a fake ID.”
    “Clever,” I said. “Where are we going?”
    ***
    We went to the Crater Hill, a place where the full moon shines like a giant light bulb above the world. Joshua pulled out a blanket from the trunk.
    “Okay, let’s have a little picnic,” he said, spreading it under a sycamore tree.
    “It’s checkered,” I said.
    “What?” His eyebrows drew together.
    When a happy movie family goes on a picnic, its members usually lay their happy bottoms on a checkered blanket. And the sky is blue, and the grass is soft, and children quietly play by the lake. My mother and I never went on a picnic. Because of the ticks, of course. As for my father, he was always too busy when I was visiting him in Chicago. I used to think I would never lay my bottom on one of these checkered blankets. I guess life carries many surprises.
    We opened the bottle of tequila. The liquid slid down my throat with unexpected ease.
    “You’re a natural,” Joshua said, lying down and putting his head on my lap.
    “Can you believe that I’ve never had a drop of alcohol?” I said. “I mean, I’m seventeen.”
    Streetlights twinkled in the distance. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, but when I tried to move my hand, it remained deadlocked between my yearning and my chickenheartedness. If only I had experienced something similar before, I would have known what to do. But, no – I had never been on a date, I had never been kissed, I had never had someone’s head on my lap. How was I supposed to know what to do?
    “Can I have a cigarette now?” I said, rubbing my palm against the dewy grass.
    He reached in his pocket, pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes. He lit a cigarette and handed it to me.
    “So you smoke?” I asked him, exhaling.
    I felt the sudden urge to throw up. My stomach lurched monstrously.
    “No, I don’t, actually,” he said. “Well… sometimes.”
    “This is my first cigarette,” I said proudly.
    “Yeah, I can tell,” he laughed, taking his iPod out of his pocket. “Give me your ear, please.”
    “My ear?”
    “I mean, literally.” He straightened up, moved a strand of hair out of my face, and put one earbud in my left ear and the other one in his right. “I heard this song yesterday and thought that you might like it.”
    Do you know what perfection is? It’s Bill Callahan’s voice in your ears, plus Joshua Peterson’s breath in your hair, plus starlight above you, plus the taste of freedom on your palate. Reality broke into pieces and put itself together into a beautiful kaleidoscope of