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Bliss always had to control herself in crowds of people; the desire to hip check them out of her way was hard to resist. She shifted her heavy duffel on her shoulder, the olive drab bag covered in the patches of every team she'd ever played, and she couldn't help hoping that it gave her some punk cred. She had only just gotten off her plane and already New York was intimidating. The crowds moved quickly and she didn't see a smile on any face in sight, much different than friendly-to-a-fault Texas. Or maybe she was just projecting, she realized, since she was strangely nervous about seeing Pash again. They'd been separated by college for an entire year, an eternity. Bliss had spent the whole year scraping up enough money to visit her friend, longing for the two of them to go back to normal, together again. But now that they were about to meet, her nerves were jangling and Bliss realized that this reunion wasn't normal after all, that somewhere along the year, normal had quietly become thousands of miles apart.
The crowd finally dispersed and Bliss broke free of her planemates when the narrow hallway opened up into the terminal,where a new mass of people waited for her. Bliss looked from face to unfamiliar face, listening for the sound of her name. Anticipation twisted her stomach, and then she saw the sign lifted above the crush: "Her Excellency, Madam Ambassador of Oink Joint." Bliss grinned as the sign bobbed towards the front and Pash pushed her way out of the crowd; she looked exactly the same, which was a relief, but it made it all the more surreal to see her somewhere foreign. Bliss dropped her bag on the ground and ran forward, grabbing Pash and spinning her up into the air, making her shriek a little.
"I can't believe you're here! You're actually here!" Pash exclaimed, squeezing her back as hard as she could. "Finally!!"
"Finally?" Bliss couldn't help retorting. "Where were you over Christmas? I can't believe you let me go back to Bodeen alone!"
"I was ice skating in Rockefeller Center, and it beat the crap out of Bodeen," Pash grinned. "I can't wait to take you there! And the Empire State Building! And CBGB! Well, that's a clothes shop now, but I know you'll still want to go! Where to first?"
"Home?" Bliss suggested, lifting her bag.
"Yes, duh!" Pash slapped her head. "I can't wait to show you my shithole! There are roaches, Bliss, actual New York roaches! Isn't that classic?"
Bliss laughed. Pash looked just as frantically happy as Bliss felt, and it melted all her anxiety away. "God, I missed you," she said.
"So did I." Pash threw her arms around Bliss again, accidentally squeezing a fresh bruise on her ribs, but Bliss couldn't have cared less.
They took the Brooklyn Bridge on the taxi ride home. Bliss wasn't sure, but she suspected it was out of the way and Pash had only taken them that way to show it off. Not that she minded; Bliss pressed her face to the window to take in the whole skyline, and she could see the pride in Pash's reflection.
"Isn't that the most gorgeous sight in the world?" Pash said. Bliss wholeheartedly agreed.
The streets got narrower and the buildings closer together on the other side of the bridge, and the taxi meandered through some crowded neighborhoods before dropping them off at a row of gray buildings, each with a classic stoop in the front and a surprisingly sweeping canopy of trees.
"Home," Pash said proudly, and Bliss shook her head in awe.
"It looks like a movie."
"The Left Hand, right?" Pash grinned. "They filmed it here! This is where that guy ran out of the hooker's place and got shot in the street."
"Really? You never told me that!" Bliss said, impressed.
Pash grabbed Bliss's bag and bounced up the steps, keyed a code into a filthy pad and let them in. The inside of the building smelled like onions, dust, and a century of cigarette smoke. It took the gritty charm a little to the other side of disgusting, but Pash still looked so proud that Bliss didn't know if it was okay to make fun of it or not. They climbed up the iron stairs to the third floor and Pash let them in to her apartment with a flourish.
"Ta-da!" She swept a hand from the tiny kitchen to the tall, narrow windows to the plaster walls painted with homemade graffiti. It was about half the size that Bliss expected, and twice as cool. "What do you think?"
"It rocks," Bliss said, spinning around to take it in.
The door in the back hallway opened up and a tall guy walked out, eyes pinched and hair mussed like he'd just woken up. He was shirtless, and his low-slung jeans showed off some pretty nice abs. Bliss raised an eyebrow at Pash; she'd seen pictures of her roommate before but never with so few clothes on. Pash just rolled her eyes back.
"Hey, you're Travis, right?" Bliss said.
Travis stopped and looked at her, looking bleary and a little confused. "Uh, yeah. Hey."
"Oh my God, you idiot," Pash said. "I told you a million times Bliss was coming for the weekend. Don't you remember?"
A dim light went on and Travis chuckled, then continued shuffling to the kitchen toward the coffeemaker. "Oh yeah, the country cousin. Howdy," he said in an accent right out of an SNL Bush sketch.
Bliss bristled and gave Pash a look. "I didn't call you that!" Pash protested. "He just loves giving me shit about being from Texas."
"It's not all bad," Bliss said, wondering why she felt so defensive. "I mean, a lot of it sucks, but Austin's cool."
"Austin? Never heard of it," Travis shrugged with supreme disinterest.
"It's the capitol," Bliss said in disbelief. "University of Texas? Austin Film Festival? Live music capitol of the world?"
Travis snickered smugly. "Yeah, it sounds like a cultural mecca."
Bliss opened her mouth, then closed it and turned to Pash before she let her violent side out. "Hey, show me your room."
Pash happily obliged, pulling Bliss into the last room in the hallway. The walls were painted black, but they looked more sophisticated than the mottled black bedroom she'd pissed her parents off with at home. There were concert posters taped all over the walls, which Bliss recognized from the pictures Pash had sent before, but looking closer at them, she saw that they were all local and recent.
"You went to all these shows?" Bliss said, amazed. She didn't think Pash would even have had time in the single year she'd lived here.
"Yes! It's crazy, I know, isn't it? But there are so many great bands here, I can't help myself. I'm going to spend every last cent I have, but I'll go to the streets happy."
Bliss smiled vaguely, trying not to let the needling jealousy in her stomach get to her. She couldn't remember the last time she had gone to a concert. Lately, it was all derby practices, derby scrimmages, derby parties, and if there was any free time, derby flyering. The girls always laughed about The Life with the predictable "What free time?" jokes, but Bliss had started to get just a little tired of it. She'd figured this trip had come at a good time, to give her a break and let her miss derby a little, but being reminded of her first true love of music wasn't helping her there.
"The Dictators?" She'd made a slow circle to the other side of the room and spotted one of her favorite bands on the wall over the bed. "You saw The Dictators and you didn't even tell me?"
"Oh my God, I forgot!" Pash said. "It was spur of the moment, but I thought of you the whole time I was there. They were fantastic; God I wish you could have seen them!"
"Yeah, me too," Bliss said glumly. She tried to think of a way that Pash could possibly have forgotten to tell her. Even if she didn't call her the instant she got the tickets, or even the next morning, she still saw the poster every time she walked into her room.
Bliss looked back at her best friend, at the face she'd known since first grade, the wild hair that she'd coveted just as long. She'd known absolutely everything about Pash for so long, that now that she saw the gaps beginning to form, an unsettling wave came over her and made her wonder if she really knew anything at all.
"Hey, are you all right?" Pash said. She looked concerned, and it was a familiar enough expression to snap Bliss out of it.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She knew she couldn't lie convincingly, at least not to Pash, so she stuck close to the truth. "I was just thinking about what a big douche your roommate is."
Pash laughed. "Yeah, isn't he? He thinks he's such hot shit for being a native New Yorker, but he doesn't even do anything in the city. He just smokes weed with his dumbass friends and hangs around the apartment with his shirt off. Captain Bohemia." She rolled her eyes.
Bliss laughed too, feeling a little better. "Man, what a waste. If I lived here, I wouldn't waste a second of it. Like you haven't."
Pash grinned. "Then let's get going while I have you."
They spilled out of the room and left shirtless Travis lounging on the couch. Pash threw him a "So long, pardner!" as they headed out the door and they both giggled down the hallway.
Out on the curb, Bliss gazed up at the tall buildings and breathed in the smell of the street. The city wasn't nearly as dirty as Serpico had led her to believe. Whenever she got jealous of Pash, she'd always reminded herself that at least she had clean air and trees, but that was little consolation. Austin still may have been technically prettier, but Bliss was never much for pretty anyway.
"All right, first stop, this awesome thrift shop that just opened," Pash said. "It's right down the— oh, hey!"
Bliss turned around to see who Pash was waving to. Two guys were coming down the sidewalk, one with a mass of wavy brown hair held back by a headband, the other with a black watchcap pulled low over his ears and a killer peacoat. They were led by a gorgeous, platinum blonde girl wearing a tight turquoise top and those huge sunglasses that Bliss found a little ridiculous, even though she had to admit that this girl could pull them off.
"Hey, Pashmina, what's up?" said the long-haired guy.
Bliss gave Pash an incredulous look. Pashmina? But Pash just ignored it and said, "Hey guys, this is Bliss, from back home. Bliss, this is Gavin, Jon and Adrianne from the film school."
"Hey," Bliss said, a little awkwardly. She'd gotten over a lot of her insecurities, but new people nervousness died hard.
"Bliss? Cute name," Adrianne said, which Bliss expected to sound sarcastic coming from a seven foot tall model, but she was surprisingly sincere. "Where are you guys going?"
"That thrift shop by Zoma. They blessed me with these boots, and now I've got to get that jacket I saw there," Pash said. Bliss looked down at her boots; they were amazing, perfectly worn black leather with thick buckles that went all the way up the calf. She couldn't believe Pash had never shown them to her before, and that thought rekindled the hurt from the apartment.
"Hey, I've been meaning to go there too," Jon said. "I need to get an old military jacket for the film I'm shooting. Can we come with?"
Pash glanced at Bliss expectantly, who gave an imperceptible shrug back. What could she say?
"Sure!" Pash said. Adrianne slipped her hand into the crook of Pash's elbow and fell into step with her. Pash gave Bliss a self-conscious little shrug and took her arm too, so that they spanned the sidewalk like it was the Yellow Brick Road. After bouncing along for a few out of sync steps, Bliss gave up and let Pash's arm drop.
"So what's your film about?" she asked Jon, giving the new friend a try.
"Man, I don't even know any more," Jon said, and the others smirked like they'd heard this complaint many times before. "It started off as this Existentialism 101 piece of crap until I stepped back and realized what a cliché it was. I mean, just because it's a student film doesn't mean it has to look like one, right? So now I'm trying taking it down this surrealist path, but not like Lynch; more like Richter. Playful, you know? But now another guy in the class is going all Arrabal with his, so I don't know how the hell I'm going to make mine stand out without falling right back into the clichés I was trying to avoid in the first place."
Bliss let that fail to sink in. "Uh, okay. So where do the old military jackets come in?"
The group chuckled like she'd said something witty, and Pash said, "Jon puts a lot of symbolism in his films. I'm only in the intro classes, so I'm still learning about it all, but it's pretty cool."
Bliss felt mildly annoyed. It wasn't a dumb question; so it was a symbol, fine. Why did that need a translator? The four of them chatted some more about the film and their classes in general, and Bliss only tried to keep up for a while. Her mind kept returning to the disturbing jealousy that was rising inside her. Pash isn't doing anything wrong, she kept reminding herself. Why are you being so pathetic?
Then another voice came into her head, Pash's voice. That girl looks familiar. Oh yeah, I used to be her best friend. Bliss remembered that day, unrolling her very first roller derby poster to Pash's thinly veiled resentment. But that was different. Yeah, they'd had a rough patch, but when Bliss joined derby, she didn't change who she was; she just became more herself than ever. This wasn't the same thing at all, was it?
Bliss glanced over into the group. Pash looked back and a spark lit her eyes, just for Bliss, without ever interrupting her diatribe about how Fellini fans were a bunch of unoriginal assholes.
The film talk mercifully stopped once they made it into the shop and everyone made a beeline to the racks. Bliss noticed with slightly sour amusement that Pash was checking out coats exactly midway between Bliss and Adrianne, and she wondered what would happen if they both got out a treat and called to Pash at the same time. Much to her annoyance, Adrianne chose that exact moment to tug a pink and lavender scarf over Pash's hair and say, "This is perfect for you! Isn't it, Bliss?"
Bliss stared skeptically, wondering how to ask if she was joking or not, but was saved by Gavin shouting, "Hey Pash, I found your jacket! This is it, right?"
Pash disentangled herself from the scarf and ran across the store to grab the jacket from his hands. "Yes, that's it! You're my hero!" she cried and crushed him in a hug, making him bend over as she hung from his neck. Bliss watched awkwardly, then bent down to pick up the forgotten scarf and tried not to draw any parallels.
"What do you think, Bliss?" Pash slipped on the black vinyl and spun in a circle, beaming at her. "Isn't it perfect?"
Bliss couldn't tell anymore; she had no idea if it was something she would have picked for Pash or not, if she would have known without Gavin's help. All she knew was that Pash looked gorgeous. "It's perfect," Bliss said. "It's you."
Pash smiled a little unsurely at her, and then suddenly her face fell. "Shit, I forgot! We're late," she said, looking at her watch.
"Late? For what?" said Bliss.
"We're supposed to meet up with some guys from my Lit class at 3." Pash turned apologetic eyes onto her friends, who all had armfuls of their own clothes now. "Sorry, can we catch up with you later?"
"Sure," Adrianne said and brushed an air kiss near Pash's cheek. "It was nice to meet you, Bliss."
"Yeah, you too," Bliss said, still a little puzzled, and followed Pash out the store after she quickly paid for her jacket. They'd made it down two blocks and turned the corner, when Pash stopped suddenly and turned to Bliss.
"Okay, where to now?" she asked.
"You tell me," Bliss said, confused. "Where are these guys we're meeting? And who are they?"
"I made them up," Pash said, waving the question away. "Obviously. So what do you want to do now?"
Bliss instantly felt guilty; she thought she had been hiding her frustration better than that. "You didn't need to blow them off for me. I mean, they're nice and all, it's just that—"
"—that you have three days and you don't want to waste them with other people," Pash finished for her. "I know; I don't either."
Bliss felt her shoulders relax, thought she didn't know how tightly she was holding them, and her chest warmed with relief and affection. She grabbed Pash's hand and said, "Take me somewhere I'll love. I trust you."
Pash only had to think for a minute, then she grinned and dragged Bliss away with renewed purpose. They stopped in the liquor store that was known for never carding; it was just a dingy hole in the wall with dusty bottles and a creepy looking clerk. Pash bought a cheap bottle of red wine with a twist cap and stuffed it into Bliss's pack. Next stop was a pizzeria that took two subway exchanges to get to, but Pash swore it was worth it. They took their pizza in its greasy box back onto the subway, but Pash refused to say where they were going next. "You have to see it for yourself," she said.
When they finally walked out into the daylight, Bliss saw the green expanse open up in front of her, and she smiled. She hadn't known that that was exactly what she wanted, but Pash did.
"Ta da!" Pash crowed. "For your real New York experience, I'm going to get us mugged in Central Park."
Bliss laughed, but she had to ask, "It's not really dangerous, is it?"
"Of course not," Pash said. "I've got pepper spray in my purse and a derby girl bodyguard. No one's messing with us."
They headed into the park, which was surprisingly huge once they got into it, and Pash led them on a long walk that finally ended in a wide open lawn with a view of Madison Avenue rising up in front of them. It was the same view Bliss had seen in a million movies, but it was different in real life. More impressive, but more intimate at the same time. They spread out their makeshift picnic on the lawn and dug in; the pizza was incredible and the wine was awful, which only made it more appropriate that they had to share swigs straight from the bottle since they had forgotten cups. They didn't say much, but it was a happy silence, like they'd never left each other after all and had nothing to catch up on.
Pash licked the last bit of pizza grease off her fingers and flopped back onto the grass. Bliss curled up next to her, laying her head against Pash's shoulder and letting her curls tickle her cheek. She let out a small sigh and melted into the familiar smell and shape of her best friend, but almost as soon as she felt completely at ease, a lick of urgency awoke in her chest. She'd worried so much about regaining that closeness that she'd forgotten how soon she'd have to give it up again, just three short days. And then who knew how long it would be until the next visit? Or the one after that? Bliss had the troubling sensation that Pash was slipping away from her again, even while their faces touched.
"You know my mom's friend, Joan?" Bliss said suddenly. The thought had just occurred to her, and it came out without her intending it to.
Pash thought for a moment. "That one who always comes out in the summer?"
"Exactly," Bliss said. "They used to be like sisters, and now that's the only time they ever see each other, one girls' weekend a summer. And whenever they talk on the phone, my mom uses her Phone Voice. Seriously, I can't tell when she's calling the church phone tree and when she's talking to her best friend."
"That really sucks," Pash said. "But you know that will never happen to us."
Bliss didn't say anything, and when the silence stretched out too long, Pash frowned; Bliss could feel her friend's jaw muscles moving against her forehead.
"You think it will, don't you?" Pash said, hurt. "How could you even think that?"
Bliss hesitated, but it came spilling out anyway. "Because it's already happening! Because you have all these new friends who talk about Fellini and you're going to concerts without me and not telling me about them, and these boots!" Bliss nudged Pash's feet with her own. "Why didn't you send me a picture when you bought those? You would have knocked on my window in the middle of the night to show me those back in Bodeen."
"I don't know," Pash shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm really sorry about The Dictators, but I guess I just didn't think the boots were that big a deal."
"And they're not, but they are, you know?" Bliss was aware of how scattered she sounded, but she was only just putting it together herself. "The small things matter the most. I'm afraid that when they go, then so does everything else. First we don't talk about our awesome shoes. Then we skip over the guys who don't last more than a week. Then months go by and eventually we're down to bullet points. 'So what'd you do this summer?' 'Oh, joined a band for a while, met Iggy Pop, did some nude modeling. You know, whatever.'"
Pash knocked her head against Bliss's. "You're crazy, you know that?"
"Yeah," Bliss said. "But I'm right."
Pash didn't say anything, she just wrapped her arm around Bliss's shoulders and squeezed. "You know, you never sent me a picture of this jacket," Pash pointed out.
Bliss looked down at the vintage patched jacket she'd picked up on a thrift marathon with Malice. She adored it, and she'd showed it off to everyone in the league locker room the next day. "I guess I didn't think about it," she admitted sheepishly.
Pash let out a little sigh that sounded just the way Bliss felt, and it was enough to make her feel less clingy, but more worried.
"It's not going to happen; we won't let it," Pash said firmly. "I swear I'll never talk to you with a Phone Voice. You'll never be my yearly friend."
It sounded good, but it also sounded hollow and doomed, like the guy in the horror movie who says, "I'll be right back, I promise." Bliss knew Pash heard it too, because when she spoke again, there was more sadness and resignation in her voice.
"Why can't you just move out here?" she lamented. "You would love living here. New York is made for you; it's made for both of us! And we could be together forever."
"I could even move in with you," Bliss offered. "Would you kick Travis out?"
Pash snorted. "Are you kidding? He'd be gone."
Bliss thought about it for a minute. "I am deathly afraid of cockroaches."
"Wuss," Pash said. "There's not that many of them anyway."
"Maybe not," Bliss said. "But, of course, there's roller derby…"
Pash let out a huffy little breath, barely caught in time, and Bliss heard a flicker of the old resentment that she thought was long gone. "Yeah, I know. Your 'tribe.'"
Bliss looked at Pash's face, so close to her own, at the familiar constellations in her freckles and the troubled creases in her forehead. Bliss knew exactly what she wanted, and in that moment, she knew that nothing else really mattered.
"But there's roller derby here, too."
Pash abruptly sat up straight and stared down at Bliss. The amazement in her eyes gave Bliss a giddy, triumphant feeling that left her with no doubt in her heart. "Are you serious? Are you actually considering moving?" Pash demanded.
"I could transfer my credits," Bliss went on. "I know I can't get into Columbia, but a 3.5 in basket weaving's gotta get me into JC at least."
Pash grabbed Bliss by the shoulders. "Do not fuck with me! Are you serious?"
Bliss grinned and put on her thickest beauty pageant drawl. "If yew wouldn't be ashamed of yer country cousin."
Pash shrieked and grabbed Bliss in a crushing hug, squealing a warm rush of words into her ear. "Oh my God, I wanted you to come out so bad but I never thought you'd leave your team, and I've missed you so much and now I get you back all to myself! I'm going to have you all the time! I swear to God, if you're getting my hopes up for nothing, I will destroy you!"
Bliss just laughed with the small bit of air left in her lungs and let Pash's weight cover her like her oldest baby blanket. A sprig of her curls tickled Bliss's nose; she blew them away and they landed right back in the same spot.
"Take me out, we need to celebrate," Bliss grinned, and pointed to the half-empty wine bottle. "With something better than that."
Pash bounced upright and pulled Bliss up by her wrists. The smile across her face was so big and so right that Bliss couldn't help bouncing on her toes like an eight year old at her birthday party.
"The Pyramid Club!" Pash said gleefully. "I think of you every time I go there; they've got this kickass band on Thursdays. And we can go there together now, every week!"
"Perfect!" Bliss said. "And I want to check out Manitoba's, too. Show me everything! I want to explore my new home."
Pash grinned at her, a burst of pure happiness, and Bliss knew that that's really what it was: home. Pash hadn't left home last year; she'd taken it with her. And now, as they walked arm in arm under the dawning city lights, Bliss knew she was going back where she belonged.