Just Keep Your Head Above

Rotate left, rotate right, rotate up. I thought, gazing intently at the Rubix cube in my hands. I had been sitting at the front counter for a good hour and a half, staring at the small, colorful squares in my hands fixedly. Rotate down, rotate left, rotate right, rotate up, rotate down, rotate up, rotate left, rotate up, rotate right, rotate left, rotate down, rotate right—

“Hellooo?” a hand waved itself in front of my face, large and masculine. “Earth to Piper?”

I looked up to see a man, about thirty years old, with sandy blond hair that grew a little past his ears and twinkling green eyes. He had two small hoops hanging from his left ear and thin lips that stretched into his dimpled cheeks when he smiled. His teeth were white pearls against his faded tan, and his cheekbones sat high atop his visage. He was extremely good looking, like a mixture of Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy, any woman with hormones and a sex drive could testify to that fact. The man’s most striking feature, was not, however, his eyes or his lips or his teeth or his facial construction. It was the massive display of artwork covering what seemed like every part of his body. From his neck down, all the eye could see were tattoos. Tattoos of cartoon characters (Betty Boop as a mermaid, Scooby and Shaggy, The Pink Panther, The Flintstones, Max and the Wild Things, ect), tattoos of lyrics, tattoos of people, tattoos of animals, tattoos of places, humorous tattoos, ironic tattoos, depressing tattoos, optimistic tattoos. Tattoos tattoos tattoos. They crawled up his neck, inched down his arms, swirled around his ankles, vibrant, intricate, and commanding displays of an inner creativity that was rarely, if ever, seen.

“Oh hey, Mac. You look especially straight-laced and hackneyed today. Late night with your calculator and accountant’s ledger again?”

“You’re funny, kid.” He said, ruffling my hair. “In a cynical, sardonic way, of course, but still, funny.”

“I try my best, old man.” I replied, smirking.

I can say with absolute certainty that there has never been another person alive on the planet quite like Mac. He manages the store for Linda, who travels quite often. He handles finances and the responsibilities that such a tedious and monotonous job entitles. You’d think that, by definition, he was a boring, priggish, balding man who wore suits and told a lot of really bad puns. You’d be wrong. Mac was the exact opposite of his boring, priggish, balding stereotype. What I’d discovered in the past four years was that: aside from some bouts of temporary insanity, McCall Ademson was incredibly funny and incredibly sweet and incredibly interesting. He was like a much older, much wiser brother to me, and I wouldn’t trade his presence in my life for the world.

“Old man? Watch it, squirt. You work for me; I could fire you in a second.” He mock-threatened, pointing a jesting finger at me.

“Actually,” a sing-song voice called from the front door, “she works for me, and I could fire you in a second.”

“Linda!” I shouted, whirling around so fast that I got dizzy. I sprinted for the gray-haired woman standing in the threshold, bare-feet poking out from the bottom of her billowing tribal-printed dress.

“Hey, Pipe” she smiled warmly, welcoming my barreling body with open arms. I squeezed her tightly, holding her small, skinny frame against mine.

“How was Africa?” I mumbled, inhaling her scent. A scent that was so purely, simply Linda that it was impossible to attain and impossible to describe. She smelled of a mixture of gin, incense, cigarette ash, and something else. Something indefinable, inexplicable, ethereal. Something sweet and soothing, something that wrapped itself around me, surrounding me in a cloud of warmth and comfort and—home. She was my home. Her laugh, her smile, her smell, her everything. She everything I had, and I had been missing her since she left.

“Hot.” She replied, stepping out of my embrace so she could properly examine me. “But I didn’t fly all the way back here to talk about myself. Let’s discuss more interesting things. Brittney Spears? Politics? Jennifer and Brad? The economy? Or how about the fact that you got skinnier, which indicates to me that you did not attend numerous keggers in my absence, as I had explicitly instructed.”

“I was busy!” I cried, feigning indignation.

“There is never anything more important than reveling in the joys of doing things you should not be!” She announced, grinning devilishly.

“Words of wisdom from our resident Yoda,” commented Mac, nodding somberly.

“Thank you, young grasshopper.” She laughed, pressing her hands together, prayer-style, and bowing, before wheeling on me once again. “As for you,” she said, pointing a finger at me, “You’re in luck. I’m much too tired to yell at you for not being rebellious and teenagery. So I’m going to go nap, and take a shower—“

“—Thank god.” I interjected playfully, holding my nose in faux-disgust.

“—and in the meantime,” she continued, “you’re going to compile a list of every interesting thing that happened to you while I was away, be it life-altering or irrelevant, so you don’t leave out a single thing when we catch up over linner.”

In case you were wondering: Dinner + Lunch= Linner. Back before Linda had hired Mac, a couple years after I had moved in, the store had experienced some financial troubles, because, although she was musically and charismatically gifted, Linda was a financial dunce. Most nights, she’d stay up for hours, trying to sort through the avalanche of bills that had begun to pile up on her desk. Inevitably, she wouldn’t actually end up eating dinner ‘till two or three in the morning. So at first, we had coined the term “linner” in joking reference to the times where she had the time to eat dinner before midnight. But after the economic crisis had passed, we used the term to refer to any time we wanted to catch up over a meal. It was a sacred Piper-Linda tradition, and one of the things I had missed most about her.

“Deal.” I replied, grinning happily.

&&&&&&

After hauling Linda’s seemingly interminable amounts of luggage up two full flights of stairs (that’s 87 steps. I counted.), Mac and I trudged down the stairs, winded and panting. We each settled on a stool, facing one another, just shooting the shit. My hands flew over the rows of brightly colored tiles again, twisting and contorting the small cube as Mac scribbled feverishly on a piece of paper in front of him. We sat like that for a good two minutes, just lazily enjoying one another’s company. It was peaceful, something that you didn’t feel often in the store.

That is, until we heard an extremely loud, extremely worrisome crash from the floor upstairs. The crash, worrisome as it was, was followed by a loud ring of laughter and the scamper of feet, which I found to be even more worrisome. In the time it took for me recognize that Mac’s fearful expression mirrored mine, we had each jumped out of the comfort of our stools and begun a harried sprint towards the staircase leading upstairs. We took two steps at a time, throwing our bodies forward at such a feverish pace that it would have been comical under any other circumstances. When we reached the apartment, we were both panting.

“Note to self:” I managed to gasp as Mac lifted his arm wearily to knock on the door. “I am really out of shape.”

Apparently, Mac’s knock did not warrant a reply, because even though we could still hear the scuffling feet and the hushed, frantic whispers from inside, we did not receive any response.

I knocked again—this time a more harried and rough rap on the wooden surface. “Linda?” I called, worry lacing my voice.

As the seconds passed, what was initially a faint, nagging uneasiness tugging at the pit of my stomach had quickly become a full-fledged, nauseating monster of apprehension and worry. Mac had moved to the opposite wall, ready to charge full speed at the door, and, hopefully, break it down. He looked about ready to begin, when I cut him off with a wave of my hand. I motioned for him to listen.

The scurrying feet were nearing the door. They were much too lithe and agile to belong to Linda. Mac and I exchanged a frightened glance, and he moved to stand between me and the door.

The stranger’s footfall grew closer still.

Now, normally I am a fairly cool, collected person, but with a nameless, faceless prowler a mere turn of the doorknob away from me, any and all rationale that had been previously instructing me to stay calm and hope for the best flew right out the window. In the moment, all I could focus on was the image of me being brutalized by a sadistic psychopath in a clown mask. Don’t ask me why he had on a clown mask, because I had no clue. All I knew was that he did, and it was horrifying.

But when the footsteps finally reached the door, and the knob turned, it was not a sociopath in a frightening mask that emerged from behind the creaky door. It was Christine Smith.

You know the school slut? The one who never finds the time in her invariably busy schedule to put on underwear? The one who spends most of her high school career beneath the bleachers, or in the janitor’s closet? The one who wears less clothing than you do when you go to the beach? For Dulaney High, that position is filled by the infamous Christine Smith.

The tramp in question was standing before me, all but naked, save the minuscule towel wrapped around her slender body. There was a whole aisle of Sephora dripping down her flushed cheeks, and her normally pin-straight, bleach blonde hair was frizzing at the roots, and I could see drops of water sliding down her wavy tendrils.

Involuntarily, I snorted. I opened my mouth to give her a shamelessly gleeful piece of my mind, but I didn’t get the chance, because before I could even blink, she had taken off. She flew down two flights of stairs, sprinted across the hallway, skittered across the floor, bolted past the counter, shoved out of the doorway and clambered into her car, where she proceeded to fumble for the key, and, before the engine had revved, she was peeling out onto the street.

“You know,” said Mac, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “I don’t think prostitution was the right career choice for her.”

I raised my eyebrows incredulously. “You don’t?”

“Nope. Did you see her? She totally missed her calling in the world of track and field.”

I laughed. “I think it was more adrenalin based. Plus, without the hindrance of clothing, it’s fairly easily to do a sprint-of-shame.”

“I’ll try and remember that for next time.”

“Did you guys see the naked chick?!” We turned to see Carter, Ollie, and Mara trampling up the stairs, all sporting matching amused expressions. Since our impromptu jam-session a few days earlier, Mara, like Carter, had been assimilated into the The Store Which Currently Has No Name family, which meant that like Carter, she practically lived here. Even though both remained relatively enigmatic when it came to their personal lives and their past, we didn’t really mind their omnipresence. We had quickly discovered that they were honest-to-goodness, off the wall, oddballs—qualities that we were all quite fond of. Maybe a little too fond , I thought amusedly, watching as Ollie leaned into Carter’s torso, giggling girlishly at a comment he had made about creepers in my shower. I shot a questioning glance at Mara, who in turn wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and began thrusting lewdly in the couple’s general direction. I choked back a laugh.

The phrase “never judge a book by its cover” had never rung as true as it had when it came to Mara Finner. Her—ahem—“humble” stature and big, soft brown eyes radiated innocence. She was the picture of genuine naiveté. Although she may have looked like every parent’s dream, we had quickly come to realize; she was anything but. It had taken us a while to coax her out of her shell, but we as we had discovered, the girl was a riot. Currently, she and Jack were having a who-can-come-up-with-the-most-dick-jokes contest. Her lewd sense of humor and perverse comments had us in tears from day one, and she was quickly becoming one of my favorite people to hang out with. She was a walking, talking party, and it was practically impossible not to be smiling when you were around her. Still, every time I played witness to her perverted debauchery, I found myself just as shocked and thoroughly amused as I had been the first time.

Suddenly, a figure came trampling out of Linda’s bathroom, snickering. The person in question was wearing a pair of low-slung Superman pajama pants. His boxers were peeking out of the top of his nightwear, contrasting sharply with his tanned and very, very shirtless torso. He had his signature fuck-the-world smirk painted onto his face, and his typically messy, angular locks were soaked and dripping, leaving a trail of water droplets down his chest and back; winding, snaking remains of a failed sexual transgression. Failed as it was, his happy expression and jaunty demeanor suggested that the action of getting caught was more amusing to him than the actual sex, something that seemed a little worrisome to me.

“Well,” he observed, eyeing my disgusted expression bemusedly, “that did not go as planned.” The group laughed at his flippant attitude, but I continued to glare at him.

“Alex,” I hissed, “please tell me you did not have shower-sex in Linda’s bathroom.”

His smirk grew. “Piper, I did not have shower-sex in Linda’s bathroom. I almost had shower-sex in Linda’s bathroom, but, unfortunately, I was rudely interrupted."

“Honey.” Linda walked out of her bathroom, laughing. “Did you see the state of that girl? I just saved you from about a million STDs. You should be grateful.”

Alex chuckled. “Well in that case, thank you, Linda, for saving my phallus from many a painful infection, and thereby aiding me in the continuation of my quest to sow as many of my wild oats as possible.”

“Anytime, kid. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need you to get the fuck out, so I can try to sleep off the disturbing visual I just witnessed.” She slammed the door shut, smiling.

As we made our way down the stairs, Ollie and Carter walked closely together, as Ollie explained who Linda was and where she had been. Mac and Mara began a deep, lengthy discussion about music, and so I was left to walk beside Gaskarth. I huffed, irritated. But as we slowly loped down the stairs, I found myself fixating on the beads of water slipping down his locks. I watched as they slid down his neck, rolled onto his still bare chest, splayed out across his back, glided down the taut muscles of his lean, muscular arm—Get a grip, Piper. This is not okay. You cannot be thinking these things. Especially not about him. He’s a manwhore, he’s an asshole, he’s a douchebag, he’s—

“Hey, Piper?” Ollie’s voice, blessedly, broke through my trance.

“Yes?” I answered quickly, grateful for the distraction.

“Carter and I were wondering, how old is Linda?”

I thought about it. Linda had opened the shop in the early seventies, to coincide with the rise of the punk scene. She had opened it as a safe haven for the not-yet-popular scene. But as far as I knew, nobody had any idea how old she was when she had done so. Her aged features contrasted so sharply with her fiery, arresting demeanor that it was impossible to accurately estimate her age.

“I dunno. I don’t think anyone knows.” I replied after a moment.

“She’s fucking timeless, man.” Interjected Alex from his place next to me, as he loped down the final steps with a dreamy grin painted on his face. “You don’t find women like that anymore.”

I snorted. “You mean women are totally okay with you breaking into their homes, invading their personal space, and bringing disease ridden women with you, all so you can ‘sow your wild oats’?”

For a moment, his expression changed. His irritatingly familiar smirk was gone, replaced by a strange, unusual visage. He looked, almost—apologetic? But I didn’t care, I couldn’t care. He was selfish, and shallow, and quite frankly, I was tired of his spontaneous moments of unruly raunchiness. He thought he could do whatever he wanted, and he’d be able to charm his way out of it. If there was one person on this earth that I would never, ever see eye to eye with, it was Alex Gaskarth, and nothing he said or did would change my opinion.

“Piper—“he began, but I cut him off with a quick wave of my hand.

“Save it, Alex. I know you have excuses, and jokes, and witticisms. But, candidly speaking? I don’t give a flying fuck. Have your fun, sow your oats. I honestly don’t care what you do. But next time, do me a favor, and keep Linda out of it.”

And just as quickly as sincere, conciliatory Alex had arrived, he was gone, replaced by his usual, unperturbed self. “Whatever you say, princess.” He replied, the typical smug look painted across his face once more.

Angrily, I opened my mouth to retort, but I was quickly cut off by Mac, who had played the silent onlooker through the whole debacle. “Okay,” he said, stepping between us, “I think I’m just going to wave the figurative white flag here.”

He motioned for us to stay put, then walked quickly to the back lounge. I whipped back around, throwing Alex a silent glare. He, in turn, reciprocated by waggling his tongue at me.

“How adult of you,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I try.” He replied, smirking.

“Alright, Dumb and Dumber, put the claws away.” Interjected Mac, returning with a clip board and a pen. “I need your help.”

Alex and I both groaned. Aside from managing the day to day goings-on at the store, working through the finances, and helping put on the concerts downstairs, Mac also managed to find the time to help organizations and bands put on festivals, charity events, and all night concerts. And where there were big musical events, there were also booths to set up, merch to sell, and equipment to prepare. All of those things required people, and when in doubt, Mac always turned to the trusty employees at the store to volunteer their abilities. Free of charge, of course.

“Pleaseeee?” He begged, jutting his lip out into a pout. “You know I’d only be asking if I really needed this. The Merry in Maryland festival is next week and I’m short two people to work the booths”

Finally, it was Alex who relented. “Fine, I’ll do it.” Mac gave a loud whoop of happiness. “On one condition.”

“Anything for you, sweet cheeks.” Replied Mac, winking at Alex suggestively.

“You buy me lunch.”Alex replied, laughing.

“It’s a date.” Mac laughed, sending Alex an air kiss.

I watched their witty exchange silently. This was all wrong. I was way more invested in the store than Alex was, I was Mac’s go-to-gal when it came to these things, I worked harder than Alex, I worked longer than Alex did, I put my heart and soul in this store. If anyone should’ve been helping out, it should’ve been me, not Alex.

“Alright, sign me up.” I said, interrupting their mindless chatter.

Mac turned to me, grinning cheekily. “VICTORY!” He bellowed, throwing both hands in the air.

“But…”

His he dropped his hands, his grin falling. “Uh-oh. But what?”

“My terms of agreement are conditional, too.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course they are.” He sighed. “Alright, c’mon, let’s hear it. Whaddya want? Money? Food? Clothes? Concert Tickets?”

“My condition,” I began carefully, “Is that you don’t put me in the same booth as him” I said pointedly, looking at Alex.

Gaskarth broke out of the daze he had seemed to be in, his eyes flashing.”You know, you’re much more attractive when you’re not speaking,” he sneered at me.

“Yeah? Well you’re much more attractive when you’re not breathing.” I retorted, glaring.

Mac huffed exasperatedly, throwing his arms in the air in defeat. “Oh, get a room. The sexual tension between you two,” he said, waving his hands wildly at the space between us, “is strangling all the oxygen out of the air.”