Part 2 ~ Aftertaste

Sidonie stepped out onto the sidewalk and shrugged as she put her hands in her pockets.  It was early in the fall, the weather mostly summerish, but the breeze was chilly.  She still wore her high school uniform; a neat white blouse with blue tie, a blue and white checkered knee length skirt, with white tights, and black buckled shoes, new enough to still squeak if she didn’t walk carefully.  She had walked carefully out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and down the hallway past where Miss Smith sat reading one of her mother’s books in the living room.  Sidonie was good at that.  As far as Miss Smith knew, she was still in her bedroom, and the front door had never opened or closed.

She loosened her tie and unbuttoned the two top buttons of her blouse, and the breeze blew cold against her skin.  Perhaps she should have taken her sensible school jacket off the back of her chair.  Perhaps not.  Her hair, shoulder length, dull brown, blew in front of her face.  She shoved it behind her ears and walked on, listening to the dull hum of traffic in the city, and the occasional car passing by her on the quiet residential avenue.  She headed toward the humming traffic, though she didn’t know where that would lead her.  She had twenty-five dollars in her small purse, slung over her shoulder and bouncing against her back.  She could buy a bus ticket out of town for that much, and still have some left over for . . . something.

She could also buy a bus ticket across town, and visit the other side of the tracks.  The Bromian Ghetto was on the other side of the train tracks.  No bus from uptown would actually go there, but it could get her near enough to cross over before dark.  Going into the Bromian Ghetto after dark was insane; no one did it beside the broms, but they lived there, they liked that sort of thing.  Sidonie rather liked the idea of doing something insane today; her mother would have been proud.  Maybe.  Her mother had been to the Bromian Ghetto after dark, many years ago, before she was married and had Sidonie.  It was research for her first novel, the one set in the Bromian Ghetto, the one that had “made her”.  People from uptown Rivalie liked to read about the places they would not go.  Her mother had been quite a daring young lady.

What was the worst that could happen?  She could die, but that wasn’t so bad.  She could become a gibbering madwoman.  That didn’t seem so bad, either.  Maybe she’d be attacked by junkie broms, maybe raped or something terrifying like that.  Didn’t seem so bad, at the moment.  Not to her.  There are certain kinds of people in the world who can go through life very safe, living in a safe house in a safe neighborhood, keeping to themselves very safely, until one day they snap.  Just snap.  The opening lines to her mother’s third novel.  Sidonie would like to be that kind of person today.

She could get there before dark, if she made up her mind now.  If it wasn’t so bad she might stick around, if it was she might buy that bus ticket out of town.  She turned a corner, left her avenue and continued down toward the busy parts of town.  There’d be a bus stop in two blocks, and it could take her cross town.  Might take an hour to get to the nearest stop to the Ghetto, and then it would take a few more minutes to cross the tracks, but then she’d be there and it would still be light.  She’d walk around, look at the places her mother had set scenes in her first novel.  After that, who knew.

A man on a motorbike chut chut chutted by her, and she smelled the exhaust in the air.  She considered, briefly, taking a bus down to the intersection, the crash site.  But no, she’d go to the Ghetto instead.  That had been her mother’s crowning achievement, none of the other books had been quite as good or sold quite as well.  After marriage and motherhood she’d mellowed and begun to write books about uptowners who were so rich they didn’t have to work and had nothing better to do than have sex, get married, have affairs, get divorced, and sometimes kill each other.  You write what you know, and her mother knew plenty of people just like that.  Perhaps not the killers, but she had to spice up the neighborhood somehow.  She only ever wrote one book about the Bromian Ghetto.

Before Sidonie got to the bus stop, she saw a young man walking up the sidewalk toward her.  He was wearing a leather jacket and very old looking blue jeans, and smoking a cigarette as he walked.  His hair was cropped very short and was whitish blonde, though his eyebrows were dark black and he wore a small black goatee.  Maybe she’d say hello to him as they passed; it was not the sort of thing she usually did.  She’d never been much for greeting people she knew, much less a stranger smoking a cigarette.  Maybe she’d take a deep breath and get a nice whiff of secondhand smoke, too.  Just snap, in baby steps.

She didn’t say hello when they passed.  But instead of staring at the ground she kept her head up, and made eye contact.  “Hullo,” he said with a puff, and she shrugged, looking at the ground.  Maybe she’d say hello to the next person she passed.

“Sidonie, is it?”

She stopped, and turned around.  She’d taken a few steps down the sidewalk away from him, but he was standing still.  “How do you know my name?” she asked.  She hadn’t been on TV for anything, and he didn’t look like anyone from her high school.

He dropped his cigarette on the ground and flattened it with his shoe, grinding it into the pavement.  Then he looked at it, as if he would read the ashes like tea leaves.  “I guessed,” he said.  “I was going to your house.  Didn’t expect to see you down here, but you have that look.”

“What look?”

“That look.”  He waved his hand toward her, looking a bit as if he was used to holding a cigarette between the fingers and felt empty.

“Do you—did you know my parents or something?” Sidonie asked, hoping she wasn’t supposed to know this person from somewhere.  It was always embarrassing to forget someone she’d met before.

“No.  Well, I’ve read your mother’s book.  The one about the Ghetto.”

“Oh.  Old Bromia.”  Sidonie nodded.  “You’re a fan of hers?” Her mother appeared in a picture on the backs of her books; maybe that’s what he meant by “that look.”  Not that Sidonie looked much like her mother, but it was a start.  She was still trying to figure this out; she knew it had to make sense one way or the other.

“Sure.”  He smiled briefly, and she figured he was just saying it.  She didn’t bother telling him she didn’t really care if he’d liked the book or not, that she just wanted to know.

“Well, if you’re coming by for an autograph or a picture or something . . . ” Sidonie paused and looked away.  She’d been taught to say Mom wasn’t at home.  “ . . . She’s not at home.”

“That’s actually why I was going to your house.”  The young man stepped toward her.  She found this somewhat interesting and did not step back, though she thought he smelled a little funny—like smoldering vegetables.  Not bad, but . . . .  She wondered what had been in that cigarette.  “We heard about your parents.  Sorry about that.”

“Oh.  I think the funeral’s going to be private, if you want to pay respects you could have just sent a card.”  Sidonie realized that what she was saying was inane, and she doubted he really was a fan or had come for any sort of vigil.  But she couldn’t imagine what else this was all about.

His dark black eyebrows went down in a moment of confusion, then he nodded.  “Yeah . . . I was just . . . .  Well, anyway, so where are you going?”

“The Bromian Ghetto,” she answered without hesitation.  She didn’t think he’d believe her.  Saying “the Bromian Ghetto” usually just meant “none of your business so don’t ask.”  No one really went there.

He surprised her.  “Oh, well, hey—” his face brightened “—just came from there, myself.  To see you.”

She didn’t know which to be more surprised about, that he came from the Ghetto or that he’d come to see her.  She decided to be equally skeptical about both, and replied, “I’m not sure you realize this, but I don’t know you.”

“Oh I know.”  He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets with an easy smile and began to walk back down the way he’d come, the way she’d been going.  Sidonie found herself keeping pace with him, and he asked, “So, what takes you to the Ghetto?  A death wish?”

“Are you a brom?  And what’s your name?” said Sidonie, feeling that it was somehow impolite to ask, but wanting to know.

“Alex, if you want.”

“What if I don’t want?” she asked curiously.

“You don’t have to talk to me at all if you don’t want, so if you don’t want you don’t have to call me anything.  But if you want to, it’s Alex,” he explained.  Then he stuck out his hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

She wondered if it really was nice to meet her, but she shook his hand anyway.  “You too, Alex.  So I suppose you are a brom.  I’ve never met one before.”

“I think you have.  But yeah, I’m a brom . . . direct descendant of Brom himself, incidentally.”

“There was no ‘Brom himself,’” Sidonie pointed out.

“Oh well.”  He shrugged.  “I guess you’ve read your mom’s book.”

Sidonie nodded.

“It impresses most people.”

“I see.”  She didn’t, really, see what was so impressive about being descended from someone who didn’t exist.

“You didn’t answer my question before,” he said.  They were nearing the bus stop.

“About the death wish?  No of course not.  Not really.  I was just curious,” Sidonie told him.  “I’ve never been curious before, but today just seemed the right time to start.”

“Sounds like a death wish to me.”

“Think what you want.  I suppose you’re heading back to the Ghetto now that you’ve seen me?”

“Yep.  I didn’t come to just see you, though, I was supposed to bring you back.  But this makes it very convenient for both of us, doesn’t it?  I don’t have to bother talking you into it and you don’t have to change your plans,” he reached into an inner pocket and took out a small carton of cigarettes.  It looked old and battered, as if he’d been reusing the same carton for different cigarettes, and the brand name was worn off.  “Smoke?” he asked.

“No thank you.  Can I ask why?”

“Habit.”

“I meant—”

“Oh, that.  I’m just the errand boy.”  He shrugged, pulling a thin white roll from the box and sticking it between his lips.  She realized that the cigarettes were homemade.

“So you’re saying you don’t know?  How were you going to talk me into it, then?”

“Sharp one, aren’t you?” he commented, producing a lighter from another pocket.

“Not really.”

“I do know, but it’s a waste of time to ask me, you’ll want to hear it from Dan or you won’t believe it.  Still might not anyway.  That’s why I’m glad you’re heading that way anyway, I didn’t know how I was going to convince you.”  He flicked at the lighter a couple times before a small flame leapt up.

“Is Dan a brom too?”

“Yep.”  He lit the joint and took a puff.

“Is that pot?”

“No.”  He sounded a little insulted.  “That stuff’s bad for you.  Tobacco too.  This is Bromian leaf, only thing worth smoking.”

“It’s illegal.”

“So’s pot.”

He didn’t stop at the bus stop, but turned the corner and began to walk east.  The Ghetto was north of the rest of Rivalie, but it was downhill.  In more ways than one, Sidonie thought.  “Where are you going?  Bus stop’s here.”  She pointed.

“I’ve got a car.”  He kept walking.

“Where?”

“Somewhere.  He’ll find us.”

“The car?”

“No—there it is.”  He waggled the cigarette towards a beat up Cadillac creeping out of an alley up ahead.  It was brown and dented, or perhaps that was the dirt.  The windows were tinted so she couldn’t see inside, and Sidonie wondered if she was to be killed.

The car eeked across the street at an angle, and Alex took the cigarette from his mouth with an impatient expiration of smoke, beckoning to the car with a nod.  The traffic swerved and honked, but the Cadillac pulled up to the curb safely, with the faintest squealing of the brakes.

Alex yanked open the back door and motioned for Sidonie to climb inside.  She realized it was just about the craziest thing she’d ever done, and smiled faintly as she sat down.  “Scoot over,” he directed, and she did so, looking ahead at the driver.  It was dark in the car, and all she could see was the back of a head with dirty blond hair, and the reflection of sunglasses in the rear view mirror.  Alex got in the back beside her and shut the door.

“Nice,” he said, rolling down his window slightly to let the smoke escape.  “Really stealthy, there, Grandma.”

“What?” the driver responded.  He didn’t sound like a grandma.

“Just drive, and don’t cause a traffic jam,” said Alex.  Sidonie looked around for a seatbelt, but there wasn’t one.

“So,” said the driver, “that was fast.”  Sidonie could tell he was looking at her, though she couldn’t see his eyes or read his expression through the darkened glasses.

“I’m lucky.”  Alex shrugged, relaxing back into the seat, resting his arm across the back.

Sidonie perched on the edge of the seat, away from his arm, a little closer to the dirty blond hair.  Or was it light brown?  Hard to tell, in that lighting.

“Hullo there.”  There was a smile in the voice.  “Gullible type, eh?”

“No.  I was going to the Ghetto anyway.  I appreciate the lift,” Sidonie said, wondering why her voice wavered.  “Are you Dan?”

He laughed.  “Nope.”

“What is your name?” 

“Would you believe that it’s Apollo?”

Trick question?  “No.”  A guess.

“Bobby, then.  But it really is Apollo.”

“What am I supposed to call you?”  She felt confused.

“Stud muffin.”

“What?”

“Ignore him,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.  “Call him Bobby, if you have to, otherwise ignore him.”

“Okay,” Sidonie agreed, relaxing a little.  She wondered again if she was to be killed, and if Bobby was the kind of person to laugh as he killed her.  Unlikely, if they were just the . . . what had Alex called himself?  Messenger?  Delivery boy?  “Who is Dan?” she asked, hoping she sounded nonchalant.

“You were supposed to tell her all that stuff,” Bobby said before Alex could respond.

“I didn’t have to.”  Alex shrugged.

“Huh.  You have no idea what this is about?” asked Bobby.

Sidonie shook her head, then added, “That’s right.”

“That’s interesting is what that is,” Bobby mused.

“Hey, she told you, she was going our way already.  Weren’t you?”  Alex waved his cigarette between them.  She was starting to really dislike the smell.

“That’s right.”

Bobby nodded, thoughtfully.  “So it is true.”

“What’s true?”

“The Ghetto calls you home, no matter what.  It’s what everyone says.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Dan’ll explain,” Alex assured her.

“Who is Dan?”  Sidonie started to think she really ought to have asked this stuff before getting in the car.  Bus tickets weren’t that expensive.  But, she decided, this was more dangerous and still pretty interesting.  Her mother would have been proud.

“He’s a friend of ours,” Alex said.

“Of yours,” Bobby corrected.

Alex rolled his eyes and puffed.  “Ours.”

“What about me?”

“Okay.”  Alex shrugged.  “He’s your brother.”

“Half-brother,” Bobby corrected again.

“Whatever.  A brother’s a brother’s a brother,” Alex replied.

Sidonie remained silent.  She didn’t think they were really talking to her.

“Anyway.”  Alex looked at her.  “I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Well, I don’t have a brother,” Sidonie said, apologetically.  Now she saw it; they must have mistaken her for some other Sidonie . . . some other Sidonie who lived on her street, whose mother had written Old Bromia and died in a car crash that morning.  Okay, maybe not.  They were mistaken about something, anyway.

“I’m pretty sure you do,” Bobby replied.  She looked into the rear view mirror but still couldn’t see beyond the sunglasses.  She couldn’t tell if he was serious.

“I don’t think this is funny,” she said.  “You know it’s not very funny to joke about that sort of thing.  I thought you were sorry to hear about my parents,” she glanced at Alex.

“Your mother,” Bobby corrected.

“Stop that.”  Sidonie directed her first frown his way.  He shrugged.

“I told you,” Alex maintained.  “Should have just waited to talk to Dan, he knows more about it.”

“Then why isn’t Dan here?”

“Dan doesn’t go out.”

“Oh, I see.”  She didn’t, really.

“You still want to come?” asked Alex.

“I suppose.  How is Dan my brother?”  She decided to keep playing along.  It still didn’t seem so bad.

“Well . . . ” Alex paused, then turned and flicked his cigarette out the window, waving the remaining smoke after it.  “I guess you could say your mother and his father got along pretty well.”

“I am seventeen, I know about sss-stuff.  That stuff.”  Sidonie looked out the window.  She supposed they thought she was younger, most people did.  Bobby chuckled from the front, as he pulled to a stop behind red lights.

“So you mean . . . my mom had an affair, and had Dan, and left him in the Ghetto?”

“No, I meant your mother had an affair and had you, and took you away from the Ghetto,” Alex said.  “Right?”

“Right.  That’s what Dan said,” Bobby confirmed.  “When she was there researching her novel . . . .”

“So you’re saying that Dan’s dad is my dad too, and my dad wasn’t my dad,” Sidonie said it aloud, to see if it sounded true.  She thought of her dad.  If he wasn’t her father he must not have known.  Or maybe he did and that’s why he was always so nice, much nicer than her mother, who had always been disappointed in her and not afraid to show it.  Maybe he felt he had to be extra supportive to make up for it.  Her parents had gotten into lots of arguments about her over the years, and they’d said lots of things when they didn’t think she was listening.  Yet they’d never brought this up.  It was getting very confusing.

“I guess I don’t believe you,” she said, feeling relieved.  “But I still want a ride to the Ghetto.  I’ll have to tell Dan he’s mistaken.”

Bobby snorted and jerked the wheel a little.  Alex lifted his hand to his lips before remembering he’d thrown his joint away, and said, “You do that,” as he reached into his pocket for a replacement.

“I think I’m starting to a get a headache from your Bromian leaf stuff,” Sidonie said.  He hesitated, patting his pocket regretfully, but didn’t take out another smoke.  She gave up the idea that they might want to kill her—somehow she figured it wasn’t a good idea to kill Dan’s sister.  Even if she was just a half-sister.  Maybe she shouldn’t tell Dan he was mistaken.

Bobby turned into a gas station and pulled up next to a pump.  He and Alex opened their doors at the same time, and then Bobby opened hers.  “Wanna buy donuts with me?” he asked, and she stared up at him blankly.

Alex, who was busying himself with the gas pump, remarked, “Maybe you should let her be, Bobby.”

“No, I have to stretch my legs,” Sidonie said, lurching out of the car.  She felt as if she’d been inside longer than she had.  Behind the tinted windows she’d almost forgotten that it was still bright and sunny outside.  She followed Bobby into the convenience store, glancing around at the people inside, wondering if they knew she was with a brom.  Who knew, maybe they were all broms, too.  You could never tell.

Bobby went straight for a display, which proclaimed its contents to be Doogie’s Damn Good Donuts.  “Can’t get stuff like this in the Ghetto.  I mean, it’s okay, but it’s not Doogie’s.  What kind you want?”

Sidonie stared at the assorted donuts lined up in rows inside the glass case.  “My dad liked donuts,” was all she said.  She watched as he shook open a bag and started picking out donuts with the plastic tongs connected to the display case.  There was something kind of funny about the sight, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.  Maybe it was that he kept his sunglasses on all the while.

“How many are you getting?” she asked after a moment.  Her mother’s book hadn’t mentioned that broms had a special weakness for donuts, but he looked to be intent on filling up the medium sized bag.

“Gotta get one for everyone: Dan and Grandmarie and the girls.”

“The girls?”

“Yeah.”  He held up a plain donut and said, “Alex’s girlfriend doesn’t like any frosting or filling or anything.  Weird girl.”

“What about you?”

“Summer likes the éclairs.”

She stared at him blankly, then said, “I meant, what kind do you like?”

“Oh.  Any kind.  They’ve got a new flavor—raspberry cream with chocolate sprinkles.  I’m trying it.  So what about you?  What can I get you?”  He clacked the tongs together.

Sidonie shrugged, looking at the floor.  “I’m not hungry.”

“But these are Doogie’s.”  He stared at her, mouth open in surprise.

She took a step backwards, “I need to use the bathroom . . . ’scuse me.”  She turned, looking around.

“That way.”  He pointed with the tongs.

She saw a sign with the silhouettes of a man and woman and headed toward it.  There were people in the bathroom, so she locked herself in a stall and stared at the shredded bits of toilet paper on the floor for a moment before covering her face.  Her dad really had liked donuts, Doogie’s damn good ones in particular.  He’d never get to try out the new kind, now.  Last time Sidonie’d had one was Sunday.  She didn’t think she’d ever want to eat another one again.

Her mother might have been proud of how daring she was being (though she didn’t feel daring, really, and she wondered if bravery counted when you didn’t feel scared) but she knew her father would be horrified.  Getting into a dark car with two strange men, half-crazy broms, going to the Ghetto?  Leaving the house with her tie crooked and without her jacket?  What was she thinking?  At least she’d taken her purse, and it had her school ID tag shoved in it, they’d be able to identify her corpse if it came to that.  But all her other clothes were back at home, with her toothbrush and hairbrush and other stuff she should have taken with her.  Totally unprepared.  Not thinking ahead.  No imagination, as her mother would say.

Sidonie started to cry in the bathroom stall.  She hadn’t cried at all that morning.  She hadn’t felt much of anything when she was called to the principal’s office and told about the crash.  The man who had run the red light was still alive, and she thought she should hate him, and maybe she would.  But later.  She’d stopped feeling anything, and had simply gone home with Miss Smith, a woman from the church her family had rarely gone to but had friends from anyway.  She only half listened to what Miss Smith said to her.  Aunt Megae, Mother’s sister, was notified and would be flying in that evening.  She’d take care of everything, as the next of kin, the only close family Sidonie had left.

She came out of the stall and stood in front of the mirror, looking at the gangly reflection staring weepy-eyed at her.  It was a slovenly sight, clothes and hair askew and eyes and nose red.  This wouldn’t do.  She splashed her face with cold water and smoothed down her hair, using the comb from her purse.  She buttoned up her blouse and straightened her tie, and ignored the looks from the others passing in and out of the bathroom.  No one spoke to her though all could see she’d been crying.  She left the bathroom feeling cold.

For a moment she didn’t recognize Bobby, because he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.  He looked very normal, standing by the magazine rack paging through the goods with one hand.  She would have walked past him if she hadn’t noticed the sunglasses and bag of donuts in his other hand.  He looked up as she approached, and she noticed that he had two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue.

“Thought you’d drowned in the toilet,” he said cheerfully, slipping his sunglasses back on.

“No.”  She looked away.

He laughed, then was silent for a moment.  His voice came back, more cheerful than before.  “Okay, right, let’s go, then.”

They left the store and found Alex sitting behind the wheel of the Cadillac, smoking and looking impatient.  He tapped his hand against the wheel and said, “How long does it take to buy your stupid donuts?”

“I take offense; my donuts are very intelligent,” Bobby replied, as he pulled open the passenger door.  Sidonie got into the back seat quietly.

“Look, the sooner we get back, the happier Dan will be,” Alex said, twisting the key impatiently.

“Hey—” Bobby was unfazed “—picking out the right donuts for the pack is an art.  Don’t mess with the process.”

“I had to use the bathroom and I took a long time,” Sidonie said, gazing out the side window as they pulled from the parking lot.  Bobby didn’t need to cover for her.  That was stupid.  It wasn’t a big deal.  None of this is.  It’s all just aftertaste.