“Sorry,” I say, wincing a bit at her choice of words, though she doesn’t seem to notice. I walk over to join them, eyeing a skillet on the floor before glancing up. There’s a steady drip of rainwater erupting from a damp spot in the ceiling, each drop landing on the cast iron with a rhythmic plink. “Is the power out?”
“Has been all day,” Sloane says, a sheen of sweat across her upper lip.
“Next door, too?” I ask, sitting down, wondering why they aren’t over there. They’re always over there, all four of us are, especially on gloomy days like today.
“No, but Nicole and Trevor are fighting.”
“When are they not fighting?” Lucy adds, and I can see Nicole’s jaw clench in the dark.
“I told you you could go without me,” she cuts in, but Sloane just leans over and nudges her shoulder, smiling, before turning back toward me.
“We didn’t want to go anywhere without you,” she says. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” I say, a little bubble of warmth blooming in my chest.
“We could go to Penny Lanes,” Lucy suggests, her eyes still trained on the flame.
I had learned about Lucy’s job earlier in the summer and something about it caught me off guard. Admittedly, Nicole and I don’t have to work. Our parents provide our rent and tuition, and while Sloane spends most afternoons doing admin for the registrar, Lucy devotes four nights a week to a hybrid bar and bowling alley downtown. It seemed so strange the first time she told me; I couldn’t picture her gliding around in retro roller skates with plastic cups of beer balanced on a tray, her skin slick with French fry grease as she cleaned up other people’s messes. Sneaking into the walk-in freezer, maybe, dragging her finger around the rim of a Jell-O shot before popping it into her mouth. From the outside, it always looked like the world was just given to Lucy—like she was owed it all for simply existing—so the mere suggestion that she had to actually work for something like everybody else was a contradiction so jarring it left me unmoored.
“It’s ten o’clock on a Sunday,” I say at last, looking around for confirmation before remembering all the clocks have stopped. Nobody answers, the room silent other than another crack of lightning followed by a low, slow rumble. “Isn’t it closed?”
Sloane smirks and I watch as the three of them exchange glances, something unsaid traveling between them, before Lucy leans over and purses her lips, a stream of breath extinguishing the last of the light between us.
CHAPTER 16
We sprint the four blocks to Penny Lanes, our feet damp and dirty by the time our sandals slap against the puddles in the parking lot. It’s only drizzling now, but my skin is still clammy beneath my raincoat, my hair wiry from moisture. The outside air musky and vegetal, smelling of wet grass and churned-up dirt, and I inhale it slowly, a welcome change from the stuffiness of my bedroom.
We approach the building and I start to walk toward the front door, but instead, Lucy grabs my hand and leads us into an alleyway and I watch as she hoists herself on top of a dumpster, shoes squeaking against the wet metal.
“What are you doing?” I ask, although it’s obvious from the second I see the window just above, too tiny to fit most adult bodies but perfectly adequate for someone as small as her.
“Getting inside,” she says, so matter-of-fact, standing on her toes as she pushes it open. I watch as she pulls herself over the ledge and slithers into the building on her stomach, disappearing in the dark like a burrowing snake.
“They don’t lock that?” I ask, addressing no one in particular, my neck swiveling as I check our surroundings.
“They do,” Sloane says, turning to look at me, eyes wide and blank. The insinuation is clear, what she’s saying. They lock it, but Lucy unlocks it.
Sloane and Nicole lead me back around to the front and we wait for what feels like an unusually long time, though I don’t want to keep asking questions, appearing concerned when nobody else seems to be. Finally, I hear the sound of the door unlocking and watch as Lucy pushes it open from the inside, lifting her arms above her head like a magician reappearing after her final trick.
“How often do you do this?” I ask as I step inside, simultaneously anxious and impressed. I watch as she flips on the lights, bracing myself for an alarm to blare.
“Special occasions,” she says, walking past me before squeezing my arm.
Everyone disperses slowly and I watch as they fall into what feels like a familiar rhythm: Sloane walks over to an old jukebox in the corner, sliding in her spare change and flipping through song selections before music starts to trickle out of the speakers above. Nicole plops down on one of the leather benches, bright red and ripping at the seams, while I take in the gumball machines and other dispensers pushed up against the wall, the kind that trade quarters for cheap jewelry trapped inside plastic capsules. There are racks of multicolored shoes stiff from foot sweat and sanitizer; arcade machines and basketball hoops and long wooden lanes leading to pins arranged in perfect arrows.