Lighthouse Nights

7

“emma?”

“yeah?”

“remember when you were just a kid and too stupid to know how bad life really is?”

“i do...”

“i want to find that moment tonight. for a few hours i’d like to forget why i’m here. i think if we can do that, we’ll have the best night of our lives.”

online, emma was a status-update cliché with rhyming poetry and lyrics that hinted—not so subtly—at her desolation. in person, she was that solitary girl with headphones glued to her ears, intentionally downtrodden, lifting hazel eyes only to peruse passing boys. she wasn’t fat, but a wannarexic pudge of a girl; a pro-ana bracelet squeezing her wrist and boasting something she could never achieve. bark-brown hair with expensive streaks of blond—a mother’s attempt at normalcy—now bounced untamed through the lamplit streets of chicago.

jules was “delilah” tonight. trevor chose the name at random, and when emma called her, jules forgot to look.

the girls dashed across the wabash bridge. the placid stream borrowed the rational light of the waterfront restaurants and, like a kaleidoscope, bent and twirled the colors into new organic forms. the warm breeze tugged emma’s simple cream dress in slow-motion ripples.

jules followed a pace behind and opened her lungs to the fresh air. her heart pumped to the beat of their galloping duet.

the “magnificent mile” closed in thirty minutes. jules stopped to catch her breath beneath a lavish window display with plastic mannequins in designer outfits. she panted, then nodded to the store. “wanna browse?”

emma seized a cramp and braced herself on jules’ shoulder. “i have mark’s credit card,” she said and her smile grew wide with mischievous delight. “for. emergencies. only.”

the girls dashed inside and shopped until the storefronts dimmed and iron gates fell into place. jules suggested they withdraw cash from emma’s bank account. “as much as the atm allows!”

“for the woman’s shelter?” emma asked.

“for the woman’s shelter,” jules replied.

trevor-rule number five: atm machines have cameras. while emma punched her pin, jules took a bathroom break.

“it only gave me four-hundred,” the girl said when jules returned.

“how long ‘til your parents get home?”

“three hours. at least.”

“should we head back?”

emma shook her head. “not yet.”

a sixteen-dollar cab ride dropped the ladies at navy pier. emma led the way through gardens and boats and kiosks selling paper lamps in the shape of stars.

emma’s bliss was purchased for ten dollars. she clasped jules’ hand and helped her aboard a candy-red carriage on the navy-pier ferris wheel. they were the last customers before closing, so they rode alone.

paper bags at their feet and a poem on emma’s palm; she read it aloud in the criss-cross sanctuary of gliding metal bars. “streets like veins pumping with life. my father, the mean one, causing our strife.”

“it’s beautiful,” jules whispered.

emma nodded and her eyes fell to the obsidian lake. jules watched the reflected strips of ferris-wheel lights inside those distant orbs.

at the peek of their circular journey, when an outstretched arm could reach the highest building, jules felt emma’s fingertips against her cheek and followed the gentle pressure into a kiss. she allowed the embrace long enough to smell the peroxide on the girl’s cheek and to taste the salt on her tongue, then she broke it off and turned away.