CHAPTER 12
The metallic twang of an old Martin guitar being poorly tuned pulled Aria from her slumber. The sun had been up long enough that it had made the condensation on the inside of the tent tepid. She listened to whoever was playing the guitar stop and start again and again, trying to master a song that she had never heard before.
Palin stood up and stretched out across them, waking up both Taylor and Luke. Luke pulled her on top of his body, smothering her in affectionate kisses and baby talk. Palin was snuggly in the morning. She seemed to bathe in the reestablishment of closeness that took place when people came back from the short parting of dreamtime to greet her. When Luke had moved his attention to changing his shirt and pants for the day, not thinking that anyone was watching him, Palin made her way over to repeat her snuggle routine with Aria. She flicked Aria’s face with her little black nose while being prevented from licking it. Aria held her muzzle still and planted a kiss on it, making the dog exhale a little sneeze. Aria was in heaven running her fingers through her cottony hair and feeling the weight of Palin’s perfect trust against her.
Luke unzipped the tent just in time for Taylor to sit up straight and stretch his arms across both of their faces. “Who lives here?” Aria asked Luke, wanting to get a feeling for what she was about to be met with before exiting the tent.
“Well, it’s just a group of us who decided to create a little community, I guess you could say,” Luke explained. “That over there is Mike.” He pointed to the man who was playing the guitar. His white hair was tied in a ponytail behind his head and shrouded by a black trucker’s hat. “That over there is EJ,” he said, indicating a thin man who was sitting half in and half out of a broken-down black Camaro. “That’s Ciarra,” he said, pointing to a woman who was watching herself brush her hair in the wing mirror of a giant purple van. Then he pointed to a tarp on the right. It was tied between the fence and two trees. “Anthony lives there. He’s on a trip so you’ll meet him later.”
By this point, Aria couldn’t take everything in. But Luke continued anyway, and she didn’t stop him. “That place belongs to Robert. He’s a great guy, you’ll like him,” he went on, pointing to a lime-colored one-man tent with a bike near the perimeter of the lot. “Oh, and that’s Wolf,” he said, pointing to a Native American-looking man walking across the lot. “And that place over there belongs to Darren.” He gestured to an abandoned RV.
Aria counted them and said, “So eight of you live here?”
“Well, nine because Ciarra has a son, and ten if you count Palin.” Luke petted her head as an affirmation of her importance.
“Do you all know each other?” she asked.
Luke answered her with an air of humor that said everything his words did not. “Some of us did before. We all know each other now. I wouldn’t say that all of us are friends. But we’re like roommates.” He switched topics despite Aria’s curiosity. “Are you guys hungry? I know a place if you are.”
“Hell, yes,” Taylor replied, looking at Aria like he had hit the jackpot by meeting Luke. He gathered his things as if he intended to take them along.
“Nah,” said Luke, “you don’t have to take your stuff. That’s the benefit of living here – we sorta watch out for each other, ya know? You can leave your stuff here, no one’s gonna take it.”
“Oh, cool,” Taylor said and dropped what he was doing. Aria wasn’t so quick to trust the other people in the camp. There was only so much you could trust desperate people with. She pulled her backpack on and scooted out of the tent, waiting for Luke to take the lead again.
“Hey!” She heard a voice cut across the car lot. “Who you got?”
The woman who had been brushing her hair in the wing mirror was walking toward them. Aria was caught off guard by her gregarious nature. She was wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and a purple tank top. Her stringy brown hair was streaked with highlights whose roots had grown out a long time ago. Her skin was mottled with purple acne scars.
“I’m Ciarra,” the woman said, extending a stiff hand directly at Aria, like a knife meant more to establish dominance than affinity.
She accepted the handshake as fast as she could. “I’m Aria.”
“I’m Taylor,” Taylor interjected enthusiastically, giving her his hand to shake.
Ciarra turned her focus back to Aira. “I like your hair,” she said, crossing all the usual boundaries of social etiquette to touch it. Aria was noticeably uncomfortable, but let Ciarra do whatever she wanted to establish that she was not to be considered a threat.
The dance of hierarchy that so often played out between women, which was playing out now between herself and Ciarra, was exhausting Aria. She could tell that Ciarra had no interest in her except as an opportunity to establish her superiority. Luke’s voice cut through the tension. “I met these guys yesterday. They’re good people. They’re gonna stay here for a while.”
Ciarra pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, nodding up and down as if to say, “Just who do you think you are to make that sort of decision?” But she simply said “Ah, OK. Well, tell me if
