Necklace of Kisses Read online

  Weetzie thought about the footsteps. She found herself half-wanting to hear them. Was it true what Charlie had said? That a part of Max was following her? But why hadn’t he called her all this time? And what if she had dreamed the whole thing with Charlie? What if the footsteps were someone else’s? She jogged down the path, toward the main hotel.

  It was very quiet there. Weetzie took the stairs to the top floor. When she got to the large suite at the end of the hall, she waited, not sure what to do next. Suddenly, the door opened and Shelley stepped out into the hallway. She was wearing a man’s baseball cap with her hair tucked up inside and a baggy, dark sweatsuit. Her face looked pale and blurry, without any makeup to define it, and her eyes were red. She reached out her hand and Weetzie took it. They ran down the stairs, through the empty lobby, and into the night.

  The T-bird roared along Sunset. Weetzie wanted to tell Shelley her stories about the street but it didn’t seem like the right time. Shelley didn’t say anything, still. Every once in a while, though, she would reach out, grab Weetzie’s hand, and squeeze it so hard that it hurt.

  Weetzie dropped down onto Pacific Coast Highway, took it for a ways, and then pulled into the parking lot of a small, ramshackle surf shop with morning glory vines growing over the low wooden roof and a hand-written sign that read

  DUCK’S. Shelley looked at her, questioning.

  “Don’t worry. I have a friend who will help us.”

  Duck Drake was waiting in his yellow VW Bug outside his shop just as he had promised when Weetzie called him that morning. He wore a faded orange, long-sleeved T-shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops. His blond hair was standing on end and his eyes were bleary.

  “Hey, Weetz!”

  “Duck, this is Shelley.”

  Duck kissed Shelley’s hand, and she smiled for the first time. “Let’s go, girls.”

  Weetzie and Shelley got in the VW. Duck put on a David Bowie CD. He and Weetzie sang along. “‘We can be heroes, just for one day…’” They drove along the highway for a long time. Finally he turned off onto a dirt road, parked the car on the side of a slope above the sea, and got out. Shelley looked at Weetzie.

  “Here?”

  “No. We thought it would be better to take you somewhere more secluded.”

  “It’s a hike,” Duck said.

  Shelley grabbed Weetzie’s hand.

  “It’s okay. He knows. We’ll help you.”

  The path wound down through brambles and sharp rocks. Shelley’s feet slid on the dirt and gravel, so Duck and Weetzie held her between them, guiding her steps. Finally they reached Duck’s favorite secret beach. The slopes were covered with Mexican evening primrose and California poppies. Instead of sand, shiny black stones glimmered in the moonlight. Clear water slithered up the shore as if it were trying to pull Shelley in, Weetzie thought. And the air was full of echoing voices, but that could have just been the surf breaking on the rocks.

  Shelley took off her cap and shook out her long, greenish hair. Then she pulled off her clothes as if they had begun to itch her terribly, as if their weight was too much to bear a second longer. She stood naked on the beach with her Barbie doll body—gravity-defying breasts, tiny waist, and odd, stiff, doll legs and feet. Her eyes watched the ocean, unblinking. Then she turned and stroked her thumb against Weetzie’s lips.

  The mermaid made soft, gurgling music in her throat that echoed out toward the horizon. Before Weetzie could say anything, Shelley was stumbling over the black rocks. As soon as the water touched her feet, her whole body changed. She bent and immersed herself in the waves, wading out farther and farther, then leaping into the surf. Weetzie and Duck watched for a while, until they could no longer see her. Then Duck put his arm around Weetzie’s shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said. She wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep in his arms.

  “Hey, it’s nothing. But I hope you’re coming home now, dude.”

  Weetzie looked out at the horizon where the sun would rise in a few hours, scalding the waves with light. By then, Shelley would be deep under the water. Maybe she was on her way to her mother. Weetzie knew she should be ready to go home now, but somehow she wasn’t. She put her arm around Duck’s warm, broad back.

  “Not yet, dude,” she said.

  The End of the Blues

  Weetzie was so tired that she could feel the shape of her skull beneath her skin, her cheeks caving in, her eyes sinking deeper into their sockets. But the morning air was dewy and fresh, the sun was rising in the reflecting pool, and a flock of birds lifted off the lawn into the almost fluorescent sky.

  The valet, whom Weetzie had come to think of as Rudy, opened her car door when she arrived back at the hotel. His jacket sleeve pulled up and she saw that his arm was covered with intricate tattoos. In that jungle of ink and skin, she thought she saw a red heart with MY SECRET written on it with thorns.

  She stopped at the front desk to check for messages. The Blue Lady stepped out from behind the glossy leaves of a small potted lemon tree. She was smiling brightly.

  “Good morning. May I help you?”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine, Ms. Bat, and you?”

  Weetzie said, “Have you heard from your boyfriend?”

  The woman looked surprised. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry. I was just curious. You seem so happy today.”

  “Not a word. But I really don’t mind anymore. There are so many things to do and people to see.” Then a secretive smile crossed her face. “I do think something has changed, though.” Her eyes widened. “Maybe someone is coming.”

  Weetzie looked through the French doors into the garden. What appeared to be a large blue flower suddenly broke apart, its petals floating into the air. Weetzie realized it was not a flower at all, but a clustered flock of butterflies like the one she and Ping had seen. Who was coming? Weetzie wondered.

  “Did I get any messages?” she asked.

  The Blue Lady checked and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see anything.”

  Weetzie felt a surprising sinking feeling. I’m just tired, she told herself. Why should I think Max would call now? Why do I want him to call? She thanked the Blue Lady and went outside.

  As she stood beside the reflecting pool, gazing out over the lawn in the shadow of the pink hotel, something tickled her fingers and she looked down to see one of the large blue butterflies perched on her hand, wiggling its antennae at her.

  Things That Keep You Here

  All that day, she slept. It was a deep, daytime sleep, thick gauze wrapping her, like some kind of cocoon. When she woke, she showered and then went to her closet to dress for Heaven’s ball.

  Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets—pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself.

  Sometimes you keep falling; you don’t catch anything.

  The night before, Weetzie had put all her clothes, except for Emilia, the pink sandals, and the clothes she had worn to take Shelley back to the sea, into the white case with the gold hardware and pink roses:

  a handmade lime green, pink, and orange kimono-print string bikini

  five men’s extra-small white tank tops from the surplus store white

  Levi’s 501 jeans with a faint trace of a soy sauce stain men’s

  black silk gabardine trousers from the Salvation Army, tailored to fit

  orange-leather, silver-studded slides

  some bikini underwear and bras in black, white, pink, and lime green

  a black silk-and-lace camisole

 
; a short, white satin designer trench

  a pair of high-heeled black ankle-strap sandals

  a black-leather, silver-studded belt from a 1980s hardcore punk store called Poseur

  a white satin hand-sewn minidress that bore a slight resemblance to a toga

  a finely woven suit from Lacey’s Beautiful World Coco

  The white case with pink roses and everything in it was gone. The pink sandals were gone. Emilia was gone.

  Weetzie sat down on the floor and wept. As she cried, she clutched the necklace of kisses around her neck. Why are you crying? she asked herself. You still have the necklace. These are only clothes. You didn’t cry like this when you left Max, your secret agent lover man, the love of your life.

  This made her cry even harder.

  A Brief History of Fashion, According to Miss Weetzie Bat

  1966: You insist on wearing only a green turtleneck and blue corduroy pants, much to your mother’s dismay. You refuse the frilly pink dresses and pale blue suits with Peter Pan collars. Little does your mother know that in fifteen years you will wish you could dress like that every day (with combat boots or black stilettos, of course).

  1973: You go to London with your mother and father. The girls are wearing miniskirts, tights, purple suede platform shoes. They have false eyelashes and shiny lips. The boutiques are filled with color and music. Your father buys you some purple suede gillies and you beg your mother to shorten all your dresses to the top of your thighs. You feel you have discovered fashion.

  1974: You become obsessed with your mother’s fashion magazines. You lie on your stomach pawing through them, touching the images. The designers are Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Oscar de la Renta, Sonia Rykiel. You love the sound of their names. The models have feathered hair and wear chiffon peasant dresses covered with roses or sweater sets encrusted with jewels. In one magazine, the black-haired, blue-eyed model is photographed in the homes of the designers. The elegant men serve her wine, baguettes, and cheese, recline with her on their sofas and beds. She is their muse. You decide that a muse is what you want to be when you grow up.

  1976: You go to junior high school wearing Ditto’s jeans, Korkees sandals, and T-shirts you have adorned with rhinestones using a gun from an arts and crafts store. You have a Levi’s jacket that you cover with appliqués of butterflies. The prettiest girl in your class, Corinne Nichols, admires your jacket. You make her one. She only wears it once but it makes you feel popular and special. She appears in Seventeen magazine. You imagine that instead of being a muse you will grow up to be a designer. You sew a pink wraparound skirt and a voile blouse with fairies on it. You buy T-shirts, cut them, and sew laces up the front. You adorn them with tiny silk roses and dye them pastel colors. Some of the popular girls ask you to make them one. At the end of the school year, Corinne Nichols writes in your yearbook in round cursive letters, “Thank you for the pretty jacket.” You imagine that you, too, are popular.

  1977: How unfortunate that just as you are trying to develop breasts, tube tops come into fashion. Mortifying, actually. You cannot comprehend why anyone would want to wear a band of stretchy elastic over her boobs. These things show everything and can be pulled off with one tug! Yuck.

  1978: You are not happy about the disco trend. It’s better than tube tops but still makes you uncomfortable and embarrassed. You go to a few dance clubs wearing spandex pants, Candie’s slides, and shirts with double belts. You wish you had been born in a different era. Ten years ago you would have made a perfect flower child, part of a movement!

  1980: The popular girls do not invite you to their parties. You spend time alone, sewing, listening to music, rollerskating around the city. There is a boy in school with a Mohawk. He wears black pants with chains, and steel boots, and ripped T-shirts. You’ve never seen anyone like him. You buy some punk albums at the record store. You feel you have discovered music. You go to your first punk rock show. You come home and take everything out of your closet. You rip up all of your T-shirts. You throw away your pastel jeans. You keep only your Levi’s 501s, which you wash as often as possible, hoping they will get holes in them. You stop reading your fashion magazines. You go to all the thrift stores you can find. With just a few dollars, you buy a pair of engineer boots with steel toes, a small black-leather motorcycle jacket, a pleated red plaid miniskirt, and armloads of old silk dresses that no one seems to want. You feel that you have discovered the true meaning of fashion. You raid your mother’s closet for rhinestone jewelry, beaded sweaters, miniskirts, and pointed pumps. You go to the surplus store for boys’ T-shirts that you rip up and adorn with safety pins. You cut off all your hair and bleach it platinum. You decide to talk to the boy with the Mohawk, whose name is Dirk.

  1981: Dirk’s Grandmother Fifi dies. She leaves you her clothes—gowns, suits, hats, shoes. A genuine Chanel. A Pucci. You read about Coco and how Marilyn loved Emilio. You think that the Pucci prints are like highly magnified pictures of the inner workings of nature. These clothes transform you. They are like magic. Your treasures.

  1982: You shop on Melrose. There are stores called Vertigo and Neo80 and Wacko and Tiger Rose. Cowboys and Poodles has fifties clothes that have never been worn before. Gräu is owned by a designer with feral eyes who sits in front of an aqua vinyl curtain by a bowl of gardenias, sewing “depression wear.” Let It Rock features rocker clothes from London, including electric-blue suede “creepers” with big black rubber soles and a pink-leather motorcycle jacket that you save up for and buy. You wear the motorcycle jacket with a glittery tutu. You feel as if you are finally part of some kind of movement.

  1986: Melrose is now rows of cheap, sexy, stretchy clothes. The artists move east. You stay home, happily sewing dresses covered with pacifiers, jackets made of teddy bears, pants of white silk flowers, elaborate, sparkly costumes for your daughters. They become your muses.

  1992: You realize that you have spent the last few years in mom clothes—capri pants or jeans, flip-flops or sneakers, and tank tops—only dressing up with style when you go out at night or play a part in a movie. You look at fashion magazines again, but you are not impressed or inspired. The designers seem somehow cold and mean-spirited. You dream of having your own store.

  1995: The nineties confuse you. You recall that it began with Madonna in a bra with sharp gold cones. Somehow this was one Madonna look you were not able to embrace. You spend most of your time wearing fitted, black clothes. You see an exhibition of a female Japanese artist’s work at the Los Angeles County Museum. There is a dress made of white iron, covered with delicate, intricate wrought-iron flowers. You believe it is the perfect metaphor for fashion.

  1998: Kabbalah. Yoga. Frida Kahlo. The Goddess is coming out of hiding. You decide that you love clothing again. You can’t read enough fashion magazines. You go to cheap stores by the beach and buy Asian-print tops covered with rhinestones that you wear with jeans, and bejeweled skirts that you wear with flip-flops and T-shirts. You buy sheer, sequin-embroidered saris at the Indian shop and make them into tops and scarves. You cut up old kimonos and piano shawls and make them into jackets. You are a new bohemian. You open your store. When you walk through the French doors, you feel you are in your own little altar to the Goddess.

  2001: You are depressed about getting older. You watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch. When beautiful Hedwig’s lover reacts in horror to her naked body, Hedwig tells him, “It’s what I’ve got to work with.” Work it she does. You decide to do the same! Feeling that you have proven yourself in the trenches of thrift-shopping, hand-sewing, and bargain-hunting, you buy a white satin trench coat by a hot young designer. It costs more than you have ever spent on anything, but you feel that, finally, you deserve it. You also buy designer stilettos in black and a white bag. You tell yourself they are classics; you will have them forever.

  Events happen in the world that make you recognize the impermanence of everything. You realize that forever is not what it seems. This only helps you justify your purchases m
ore.

  2003: Your most treasured items of clothing are stolen. You try to decide if you should take this as a message of endings. Or beginnings.

  Prom Night

  Weetzie Bat went alone to Heaven’s ball. She wore a white tank top, orange cropped and zippered pants, and orange sneakers, stained from sand and mud. Around her neck she wore the necklace of kisses.

  On the way to the room in the hotel where she had attended her high school prom, Weetzie saw a large white animal. At first she thought he was a small horse. His legs were balletic, almost as long as hers. His head was noble and heavy, like a marble sculpture.

  “Hey, fella,” Weetzie said. “Hey, beautiful. Will you be my date?”

  The Great Dane pushed the top of his head against the palm of her hand. His skull felt so smooth. There was something almost prehistoric about him. He looked up at her with eyes like Quan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion.

  Weetzie and her companion walked together into the hotel. No one stopped to question her about him. He was not really like a dog, after all. He was otherworldly, like the pink hotel.

  On the second floor, a large pair of doors opened into the room with the pink-and-green parquet dance floor surrounded by tables covered with white linen tablecloths and pink-and-white stargazer lilies. Hundreds and hundreds of white balloons and an endless stream of soap bubbles hovered around a mirrored disco ball on the ceiling. There was an ice cream sundae cart, a cappuccino cart, a clown making animal balloons, and another clown painting people’s faces. The Boom Band was playing on a low stage in the back, and the guests were dancing to their hypnotic music with wild abandon. Some were doing cartwheels and hand-springs around the dance floor. They were dressed for proms and for their own weddings and for every party they had ever dreamed of attending and not been invited to attend. The twelve sisters in damask gowns and beaded flats whirled past. Weetzie looked down at her soiled clothes and sneakers.