Silk

“That’s good,” she said. “I was go

The new bedroom would be the room that had been Spyder’s parents’ and then just her mother’s, the room where Trisha Baxter had died. It had been Niki’s idea, and she didn’t know, like Robin and the basement, and Spyder had surprised and frightened herself by saying yes, yes Niki, that’s a good idea. It was much bigger than her old room, crammed full of boxes and crap, most of which she could just set out on the curb for the garbage-men. Old newspapers and clothes, magazine bundles and broken furniture, an old television that didn’t work. They could get a bed from the Salvation Army or the thrift stores and import stuff from other parts of the crowded house.

And then Spyder had Niki drive her downtown, and she made a sign from poster board and a squeaky purple Magic Marker, taped it to the window of Weird Trappings-“Closed Until Further Notice”-had shown Niki around the shop, picking out a few things to take back to Cullom Street with her.

It was Niki’s idea to go to the Fidgety Bean afterwards, wanting to keep Spyder out a little longer, wanting to see Daria and be out herself. Spyder shrugged and nodded yes.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she said.

“Not ever?” Niki asked, incredulous, and suddenly she was thinking about Da

“It always makes my stomach hurt. Makes me nauseous, sometimes. Big-time handicap for a member of the caffeine generation, I guess.”

And then the alley opened, released them to the cobblestone street, and they were under the dreary sky again. Three doors down to the Bean, and Niki changed the subject, talked about going thrifting for a bed, tomorrow perhaps, and maybe a new lamp, too.

Early afternoon and the coffeehouse was almost empty, nobody but a rumpled wad of slackers in the back smoking and talking too loud. Niki sat down at the bar before she saw Daria, bleary-eyed and a big coffee stain down the front of her little red apron. She smiled, a genuine glad-to-see-you smile, and put down the tray of glasses she’d been carrying. Spyder took the stool next to Niki and stared out through her dreads.

“Hi there, stranger,” Daria said and hugged Niki across the bar and a cautious “How you doin’, Spyder?”

“Okay,” Spyder said, and turned her attention to a jar of chocolate biscotti. “I want one of those,” she said.

“Sure,” and Daria reached beneath the counter for metal tongs, the lid off the jar and then a big piece of the biscotti on a napkin sitting in front of Spyder. “You go

“I never drink coffee,” Spyder said again.

“Makes her barf,” Niki added.

“How about some hot chocolate or tea?” But Spyder shook her head, and then she took a loud, crunchy bite.

“Christ, Spyder,” Daria said. “You’re go

Spyder smiled, and there were cocoa-colored crumbs on her lips.

“And you want a Cubano, right?” she asked Niki, who was examining the long list of exotic coffee drinks chalked up behind Daria, neon chalk rainbow on dusty slate.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure, and I want you to make Spyder an almond milk.”

When Spyder started to protest, Daria held one finger to her lips, shhhhh, “I promise, it won’t make you barf. Just steamed milk and a shot of almond syrup. Unless you’d rather have hazelnut or caramel, or vanilla.” And Daria pointed to a row of tall bottles behind her, lurid shades of Torani syrups, and Spyder looked at Niki.

“Almond’s fine,” she said, mumbling around her second noisy mouthful of biscotti.

“Coming right up, ladies,” Daria said and turned her back, went to work with coffee grounds and sugar, almond syrup and the shiny silver Lavazza machine.

“So,” and Niki wasn’t looking at Spyder, speaking to her but watching the kids at the back table. “How’d you get the shop going, anyway?”

Spyder wiped her mouth with the napkin, picked up stray crumbs from the polished countertop, each one pressed down until it stuck to her fingertip and then transferred them to her tongue.

“A friend helped me,” she said.

“But didn’t you have to get a loan from a bank or something?”

“No,” Spyder said. “I tried, to start with, but nobody’s go

And Niki was looking at her now, a soft smile on her Asian lips, and now she was holding Spyder’s hand again.

“A friend who loaned you the money?”

“No, a friend that died and gave me the money,” she said, and Niki’s smile faded a little.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That your friend died, I mean.”

“Yeah. He could look just like Siouxsie Sioux, except you never called him a drag queen. You had to call him a ‘performance artist’ or a ‘female illusionist’ or he’d get pissed off at you. Andy hated to be called a drag queen.”

Too close, sick irony or coincidence, and Niki hoped nothing showed on her face. “You guys were real close?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” and Spyder released Niki’s hand, laid both hers palm-up on the counter, empty offering to no one and nothing in particular. “We hung out at Rush-ton Park when I was still a kid, you know, hanging out on Highland with the hustlers and runaways. It was nice, in the summer.

“Andy didn’t hustle, though. He had money, money his mom had left him when she died. Just enough to keep him going until he started getting sick…” and she paused, looked up at the ceiling, ornate plaster molded and painted a green so deep it was almost black.

“Andy’s mom was great. She knew he was queer and all, that he’d gotten AIDS, but she was still great. She used to cook us these big-ass Sunday di

“Yeah,” Niki said, and how many months now since she’d seen her own mother and father, anyway? She’d called her mother twice from motel rooms, just to let them know she was okay, but never stayed on the line long enough that home could sneak its way through the co

“Anyway, he left me a whole bunch of money when he died, enough to start Weird Trappings and keep it going a while…

“I stayed with him, you know, at the end. He went blind finally and toxo got his brain. But he’d made me promise that I wouldn’t let him die alone, and he didn’t.”

Niki swallowed and wanted to hold Spyder, but instead her eyes wandered away, afraid: Daria noisily steaming milk, an old photograph of a trolley car on the wall, finally down to her lap. Anything but beautiful, unfathomable Spyder, simple as a single thread knotted over and over and suddenly too much to grasp, like particle physics or her own mortality. And then Daria was setting their drinks on the bar, Niki’s in a crystal demitasse, pitch black and a perfect skim of créma on top, Spyder’s in a tall glass and the color of a quadroon’s skin.

“Hey, you guys okay?” she asked, and Niki nodded, but Spyder only looked out at the street and wrapped her tattooed hands around the warm glass. “Christ, it’s this fucking depressing-ass music,” and Niki noticed it for the first time, blues she didn’t recognize. Could tell from Daria’s eyes that she knew it had nothing to do with the music, but she changed the CD, anyhow. Exchanged the blues for Joan Jett, and one of the kids in the back stood up and yelled, “All right! Goddamn right!”

“Dork,” Daria muttered under her breath.

“Thanks,” Niki said.

“No problem. Listen, how’d you guys like to come to our show this weekend? We’re part of this big deal at Dante’s Saturday night, in Atlanta. Three or four bands, and someone from Atlantic is supposed to be there, so I’m fucking freaked, you know? It’d be really cool if you guys could come. I’ll put you on the guest list.”