Tart Read Free Page B

suck.”
    â€œOh, man,” I say. “I hate weddings.”
    â€œJesus, if I have to play ‘You Are So Beautiful’ one more time I’m going postal.”
    â€œI think our generation’s way too jaded for marriage. It should seriously be outlawed. Forget the whole same-sex marriage debate.” I lean into the table. “Let’s do away with the whole institution.”
    He looks amused. “Now, that’s something I can drink to,” he says, raising his beer bottle. We toast, and a vision of his mouth on the nape of my neck makes me feel suddenly much drunker than half a vodka tonic can account for, even on an empty stomach.
    â€œSo what are you doing in Santa Cruz, anyway?” he asks.
    He keeps turning the conversation back to me. He’s probably a serial killer. People who murder for a living tend to be rather private. One more reason not to go home with him.
    â€œHow do you know I’m not from here?” I ask, twirling my straw in my drink and looking coy in spite of myself. Stop. Flirting. Stop. Flirting.
    â€œI had the dubious pleasure of growing up in this vortex. I can spot an outsider by now. Besides, your license plate said Texas.”
    He’s an undercover cop. Oh, God. I can already feel the cold steel of the cuffs against my wrist bones.
    â€œYou okay?” He reaches across the table and gently touches the very hand I’m busy morbidly encasing in restraints. Please, Jesus, don’t let him be a serial killer undercover cop.
    â€œSure. Why?”
    â€œEvery once in a while you get this wild gleam in your eye—”
    â€œWild gleam?”
    â€œThe same look Medea shot me when I unstrapped her from my bike.”
    I laugh, though even to me it sounds strangled. “Yeah, well, I’m a little off today. I don’t routinely rise at four in the morning, drive six hundred miles, then blow up my stolen vehicle to unwind in the afternoon.” Listing the events of the day makes me feel the wild gleam coming back, so I try to steer us toward safer topics. “Um, let’s see, what was your question?”
    â€œSanta Cruz—what brings you here?”
    â€œRight. I’ve got this university gig teaching theater.”
    â€œWow.” He looks impressed, and maybe a little bit skeptical, which only confirms my suspicion that I am not professor material.
    â€œYeah, well, they were hard up,” I explain. “Some guy faked his credentials so they had to fire him. I’m the only person they could drag here at the last minute. They made it clear that I’m just a stand-in—you know, one year and then, unless I turn out to be the next Stanislavski, I’m on the street.” The combination of my nerves, three days on the road alone and this dreamy vodka tonic are making me babble, but I hardly care. It feels good to talk to somebody other than a pissed-off, stoned cat. “I’m a total perennial student— I fell in love with the endless adolescence of college—so I figured a university’s the only place I stand a chance. Except I’m not so sure about the professor thing. I suspect I haven’t got the wardrobe for it.”
    He waves a hand at me dismissively. “At UC Santa Cruz? You could walk on campus in a garbage bag and by the end of the day you’d have a following. Lack of fashion is a fashion here.”
    â€œYeah. Well, good.” There’s an awkward pause; we end up looking at each other for too long, and this makes me so edgy I blurt out, “Christ. I can’t believe I actually stole my ex’s bus.” He looks a little unsure about how to respond, andI realize I’m starting to monologue in a dangerously unchecked fashion. “Sorry. Very long day, as I mentioned.”
    â€œSounds like you could use another drink,” he says, rising. Very carefully, like one parent transferring a sleeping child into the lap of the other, he hands