Ironside

Chapter 4

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

—Pablo Neruda, "Love So

The ride on the subway was awful. Kaye felt the iron all around her, felt the weight of it and the stink pressing down, suffocating her. She gripped the aluminum pole and tried not to breathe.

"You look kind of pale," Corny said as they climbed the concrete steps to the street.

She could feel her glamour being eaten away, weakening with each moment.

"Why don't you kids walk around awhile?" Ellen's lips shone with gloss and her hair was sprayed so thickly that it didn't move when the breeze hit it. "It'd be boring watching us set up.”

Kaye nodded. "Also, if I would just see how cool New York was, I would move up here instead of wasting my time cooling my heels in Jersey?”

Ellen smiled. "And that.”

Kaye and Corny walked a little ways through the streets on the edge of the West Village. They passed clothing shops displaying ruffled hats and plaid shorts, tiny record stores promising imports, and a fetish shop featuring a vinyl ball/gag mask with cat ears against a backdrop of holiday red-and-white velvet. A guy in a torn army jacket stood near a corner playing Christmas carols on a nose flute.

"Hey," Corny said. "Coffee shop. We can sit down and warm up.”

They walked up the stairs and through the gold-stenciled door.

Café des Artistes was a series of rooms leading one into another through large passageways. Kaye walked past the counter and through a doorway into a chamber that featured a mantel covered in melted white candles, like a monstrous sand castle eroded by waves. Dimly lit by black chandeliers that hung from a black tin ceiling and reflected in the glass of the aged prints and gilt mirrors, the rooms felt shadowy and cool. A faint and reassuring smell of tea and coffee in the air made her sigh.

They sat down in ornate gilt armchairs, worn so that white molded plastic showed on the hand rests. Corny picked at a golden swirl, and a small piece chipped off with his fingernail. Kaye idly opened the drawer of the small cream-colored table in front of her. Inside, she was surprised to find a collection of paper—notes, postcards, letters.

A waitress walked over and Kaye pushed the drawer shut. The woman's hair was blond on top and a glossy black underneath. "What can I get you?”

Corny picked up a menu off the middle of the table and read from it, as though he were picking things at random. "An omelet with green peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms, a cheese plate, and a cup of coffee.”

"Coffee for me, too." Kaye grabbed the paper out of his hands and ordered the first thing she saw. "And a piece of lemon pie.”

"Real well-balanced diet," Corny said. "Sugar and caffeine.”

"There might be meringue," Kaye said. "That's eggs. Protein.”

He rolled his eyes.

As the waitress walked away, Kaye opened the drawer again and picked through the cards.

"Look at these." Girlish handwriting described a trip to Italy: I couldn't stop thinking about Lawrence's prediction that I would meet someone in Rome. A card with a hastily drawn mug in one corner had words written in blocky print with a pencil: I spit into my coffee and then switched with Laura's boyfriend so that he would taste me in his mouth. Kaye read the words out loud and then asked, "Where do you think these came from?”

"Garage sales?" Corny said. "Or maybe these are notes people never mailed anywhere. You know, like if you want to write something down, but don't want to let the person it was intended for read it. You leave it here.”

"Let's leave something," Kaye said. She fumbled with her bag and pulled out two scraps of paper and an eyeliner pencil. "Be careful. It's soft and it smears.”

"So, what, you want me to write down a secret? Like, how about I always wanted a comic book villain for a boyfriend, and after Nephamael, I'm not sure a nice guy is ever going to do it for me.”

A couple at another table looked up as though they had caught a few of the words, but not enough to make any sense of what he'd said.

Kaye rolled her eyes. "Yeah, why would one sadistic lunatic put you off sadistic lunatics in general?”

Smirking, Corny took the piece of paper and wrote on it, pressing hard enough that the letters were fat and smudgy. He spun the slip in her direction. "'Cause I know you're going to read it anyway.”

"I won't if you say not to.”

"Just read it.”

Kaye picked up the paper and saw the words: I would do anything not to be human.

She took the eye pencil and wrote hers: I stole someone else's life. She turned it toward Corny.

He slid them both into the drawer without comment. The waitress came with silverware, coffee, and cream. Kaye busied herself making her coffee as light and sweet as she could.

"You thinking about the quest?" Corny asked.

She'd been thinking about what he'd written, but she said, "I just wish I could talk to Roiben one more time. Just hear him say that he doesn't want me. It feels like I got broken up with in a dream.”

"You could send him a letter or something, couldn't you? That's not technically seeing him.”

"Sure," Kaye said. "If he got mail that wasn't, like, acorn-based.”

"There's stuff you still don't understand about faerie customs. Everything that happened—it might not mean what you think it means.”

Kaye shook her head, shaking off Corny's words. "Maybe it's good that we split up. I mean, as boyfriends go, he was always busy working. Ru

"And he's too old for you," Corny said.

"And moping around all the time," Kaye said. "Too emo.”

"No car, either. What's the point of an older boyfriend with no car?”

"Hair longer than mine," Kaye said.

"I bet he takes longer to get ready, too.”

"Hey!" Kaye punched him on the arm. "I get ready fast.”

"I'm just saying." Corny gri

Across the room, a group of three men looked up from their cappuccinos. One said something and the other two snickered.

"You're freaking them out," Kaye whispered.

"They just think we're plotting out a really bizarre book," Corny said. "Or roleplaying. We could be LARPing, you know." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Now I'm obfuscating, and you have to pay for my di

Kaye caught the eye of a girl hunched over a table. The tips of her stringy hair trailed in her coffee and she was bundled in a series of coats, one layered over another, until it seemed like her back was hunched. When the girl saw Kaye looking, she held up a slip of paper between two fingers and slipped it into a drawer in front of her. Then, with a wink, she slugged back the last of her coffee and got up to leave.

"Hold on," Kaye said to Corny, rising and crossing to the table. The girl was gone, but when Kaye opened the cabinet, the paper was still there: The Queen wants to see you. The Fixer knows the way. Page him: 555-1327.

Corny and Kaye walked over to the club just as it started to snow again. The building had a brick front, papered over with posters in tattered layers worn by rain and dirt. Corny didn't recognize any of the bands.

At the front door, a woman in black jeans and a zebra-print coat took the five-dollar cover charge from a short line of shivering patrons.

"ID," the woman said, tossing back tiny braids.

"My mom's playing," Kaye said. "We're on the list.”

"I still need to see ID," said the woman.

Kaye stared, and the air around them seemed to ripple, as if with heat. "Go right in," the woman said dreamily.