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Michael the Girl demonstrated, again (fifth time so far), how to use the shirt folder. Even Sandy got it right after three. And Sandy was the family’s Special Ed superstar.
“Just forget it,” she said, with a sigh. “Things are going to really pick up soon, and we’ve got enough shirts folded to last.”
“I’ll get it,” Gabriel said, stubbornly. He unwadded the black shirt he was working on. He smoothed it out, pulled the corners of the collar down. “It’s just not how Nona does it...this is wrong.”
He looked about ready to strangle the shirt. Michael the Girl laid an arm around his shoulders.
“You could just admit that they got to you.”
“What?”
“Beelzebub. Just admit it.”
“That person did not get to me. I’m going to fold this fucking shirt.”
“Woah. Big spender.” Michael the Girl said the same thing anytime one of her cousins uttered that particular swear. “Nona’s Swear Jar thanks you.”
Gabriel glowered at her.
“Gabriel, I’ve known you since you were born,” Michael the Girl said, yanking the shirt folder out of his hands and rescuing the innocent black polo that he’d been venting at. “I know things.”
“What do you know?” he said, with a shake of his head.
“Things,” she said, folding the shirt folder and slipping it into its cubby.
Michael the Girl leaned down, resting her elbow on her cousin’s shoulder. She cupped her chin in her hand, and regarded their reflection. They could be a fashion poster, him seated on one of the shiny chrome stools and glaring at her with a great deal more fury than this situation warranted. Her standing behind him, leaning on his shoulder, bemused by the fact that she had never seen her cousin this undone by anything nor anyone.
She smiled at Gabriel in the mirror. “I know...just as an example of my powers...I know you think Beelzebub is cute.”
Gabriel stood up so quickly that Michael the Girl had to jump back. “That miscreant is not CUTE,” he said. “That is a...a public menace.”
“Really? Tell me more.”
“Do you really buy all that crap about their corporate office?” Gabriel asked.
“Actually, yeah. I mean, what control do we have over our music?”
“I don’t know. I’m not the manager!” Gabriel exclaimed. Like all Italian guys, he talked with his hands. Big, expansive gestures. “Look, they’re playing verbal diarrhea over there. It’s obscene. The music here is...well, it’s nice. I mean, kids might be listening to that metal crap!”
Michael the Girl sighed and pointed up. Through the white, cubey speakers, Shaggy sang about his girl watching him bang the neighbor on the bathroom floor. RikRok insisted that he say, “It wasn’t me.”
“What...this song? Really?”
“We play it,” Michael the Girl said, crisply. “Don’t you know every word to ‘Back Dat Azz Up’?”
“Yeah. It’s a New Orleans staple. It’s...unpatriotic...if I didn’t know THAT song! So?”
“That’s your moral high ground, then?” Michael the Girl blew him a kiss. “Anyways, that’s got nothing to do with whether you think they’re cute.”
“I do not--“
“I really thought that the two of you would get along.”
“Wha--? Why?”
“You’ve got a lot in common. You’re both nerds and you’re both athletes--“
“Athletes? Him?” Gabriel laughed.
“Beelzebub isn’t a boy.”
Gabriel gave himself away when he blushed. “That’s a girl?” he asked.
“They’re intersexed.”
“Is that even a real word?”
“Yeah, it’s a whole medical condition,” Michael the Girl said.
“What do THEY play, then? Chess?”
“Chess, yeah, actually. It wasn’t what I was thinking of, but yeah. They’re internationally ranked.”
“Chess is not a sport.”
“ESPN disagrees,” Michael the Girl said. “As for their other athletic pursuits...I’ll let you figure that out.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure. I don’t intend to spend any extra time with the freaks at Hot Topic.”
“Your loss, and I mean that,” Michael the Girl replied. “They’re weird, but they’re nice. All of them.”
“I was going to fold that shirt.” Gabriel grumbled.
“Later. It’s showtime.” Michael the Girl shoved her statistics textbook into her backpack.
Newt Pulsifer was unlocking the main doors. A few eager kids began to trickle in, as the Silver Sneakers left.
Michael the Girl looked across the hall to see Dagon watching them trickle in.
There had been three girls since Dagon broke it off after Mardi Gras. There could have been ten girls. Dagon would still be “the ex”.
The other girls that Michael the Girl played with were dalliances. Dagon could have been something. Could have been The One.
But a creature like Dagon shouldn’t have to be anybody’s secret.
The sunlight, filtered through clouds and skylights, glimmered in the dark red of her sleek hair, and Michael the Girl longed to feel that hair sliding through her fingers again. Longed for the kisses and the touches. Dagon had skill, precision, but more than that--Dagon had reverence. She had touched Michael the Girl the way pagans touched their idols. The way that she, Michael the Girl, had touched the statue of Mary in her grotto as she and her classmates readied her for the May Crowning.
“Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today! Queen of the angels and queen of the May!”
Nobody would touch Michael the Girl that way again. Nobody else would kiss every freckle, find the sensitive skin over her hipbones and worry at it with gentle teeth. Nobody would ever leave her sweaty and breathless in a rumpled bed, to cook for her.
She missed Dagon’s garage apartment, with the whole wall aquarium. The light shifted through shades of blue and green, fiber-optics, and pragmatic Dagon grew lobsters there. When they were big enough, she cooked two of them for Michael the Girl. They’d eaten them on the floor, in front of the aquarium, in front of future meals. Dagon took great delight in teasing the lobsters, who (thankfully) could not speak English. Michael the Girl spent a languid hour taking sweet white meat from Dagon’s fingers, sucking on them.
Dagon whimpering, kissing Michael the Girl’s neck.
Whispering, over and over again, “Perfect.”
It was not her first time, not even her first time with Dagon, but that evening in the blue-green light of the aquarium captured Michael the Girl. It returned to her in dreams, waking and sleeping.
Two weeks later, there had been an ultimatum. Dagon asked her, begged her to move in. To live life in the sun. A life of lobsters and kisses and reverence.
Michael the Girl said no. Two letters. One word. The hardest thing she had ever done.
There had been three other girls. She could remember the names of two of them. Dagon was still The Ex.
So it went.
So it would go, until Michael the Girl found a spineless boy, probably as queer as she was, to marry and make babies with. And then? And then?
Customers stepped into the store, demanding Michael the Girl’s attention. That was good. Less thinking.
Thinking was bad for a DiAngelo.
Fuck, she should not have ribbed Gabriel over Beelzebub. Even if there was something there (and there WAS, Michael the Girl felt it in the marrow of her bones), it wasn’t going anywhere.
God knew, they both deserved a little happiness. Beelzebub, always looking vaguely malnourished, perhaps tragically tubercular in spite of their remarkable athletic prowess. A need, never voiced and certainly never met, for a certain kind of human contact--it rode them like a terrible physical hunger.
And Gabriel, nothing but rage and anxiety. Never allowed to be a child, just a DiAngelo--THE DiAngelo. The next Gabriel, a somber little prince who breathed loneliness and lost his last molecule of serotonin before puberty.
But, where Michael the Girl might crumble inside without Dagon, might just build her inner world and live there, her prickly cousin was likely to explode.
A clot of snotty looking girls in Archbishop Chapelle shirts went through the racks, gossiping loudly about some other girls who’d been expelled. Smoking, said one, and another said they’d been caught kissing.
Nobody liked lesbians unless they were wanking to them.
Michael the Girl felt tired. She sought her cousin out. He was standing behind the cash register. She knew he had no idea how to use it; he just thought that’s where he ought to be.
“Sorry,” she said, softly. “You’re right. You should avoid the Hot Topic crew. They’re dangerous...”
Reaching out, she found his hand and grasped it. She hadn’t done that in a few years, but she needed the contact. The kindness. Something like love from her own blood.
He looked down at their hands, linked like they were going to cross a busy street. Like she used to when she was the taller one, the responsible one.
Gabriel was confused, but he didn’t pull away from her.
Michael the Girl couldn’t stop the tears. They fell for both of them, for all of them. For generations of deferred dreams, unmet needs, longings unspeakable, and the duty that killed desire.
For Dagon, who whispered, “Perfect,” as she pulled Michael the Girl from her clothes and kissed the freckles on the back of her neck.
“Did they--did someone hurt you?” Gabriel asked, sotto. Well, sotto as he could.
“I hurt myself,” Michael the Girl said. “Don’t be like me. I...my ex works there.”
“You...have an EX?”
“I’m not so perfect. Sorry, Gabriel.”
He ran one of his thumbs over her knuckles, his face softening. He was six years old again, back when his hair was still blond, sitting on a cooler at the Irish-Italian parade. Those violet eyes staring at her with wonder after she’d snatched a flying cabbage out of the air, a bare inch away from his nose.
“Who is he?” Gabriel asked, the teenager dissolving the little boy.
“No. I’m not saying. Just...look. It’s easy to lose your head over them. They’re really...charming, okay? But they’re not Catholics. They don’t live by any kind of rules, alright? So, yeah. They’re nice. All of them, but you’re right.” She sank down on the stool, still holding his hand. Like kids. “Don’t get attached.”
She knew that he’d never seen her this undone before. Well, it was fair. She’d seen him in his moment of weakness. Why not let him see her like this? He’d have to see her walking down the aisle in a few years, facing it like a guillotine.
Smiling the whole way. The whole damned way.
The Chapelle girls needed to be rung up. Michael the Girl dropped Gabriel’s hand and handled it.
The rush began with a trickle, which was good. It gave Michael the Girl a chance to show Gabriel how to use the register. He was preternaturally good with machines. Thank God.
Sales were brisk.
Aziraphale dragged his dead Segway past the store around 11. He moved with a grim determination, the same placid look that he got when he was walking towards the end zone. No touchdown this time. He looked so disheartened, dragging the machine like a mule that did not want to move.
He offered a smile and a wave, which Gabriel and Michael the Girl returned.
The hours ticked by.
Gabriel was wilting around 1:30, and they had a break in customers. Moreover, Michael the Girl was expecting company--and soon.
“Hey, you need to eat,” Michael the Girl said, handing him a twenty. “Here.”
“What’s this?” he asked.
“We both have packed lunches,” she said. “But...I feel like being nice to you, and I get a lot more cash from my parents than you do from Nona and Papi. Go down to the Smoothie Shack. They have diabetic options. Whatever you want. And...” Michael the Girl scribbled her order on a scrap of receipt paper, definitely complicated enough to keep Gabriel busy and out of the store for a while.
“Okay,” he said. And then, “Thanks.”
Gabriel was out the door and on his way to the food court when Michael the Girl heard it. From the Hot Topic, cello and violin. She knew this song. It was “Nothing Else Matters,” covered by some Norwegian orchestral metal band.
She actually liked this one, so she moved closer to the door to listen.
Michael the Girl saw them through the doors to the Hot Topic. Dagon laughing, and Beelzebub leading her in a waltz. They moved together as familiars. Step for step, move for move. They were holding her far too close. She was laughing as they danced. As they glimmered darkly, binary black holes, swirling around each other and threatening to swallow Michael the Girl whole.
They’d known each other for years. Before the mall. It was natural. Probably for the best.
She looked in the direction of the food court and saw him. Gabriel, staring as Beelzebub dipped Dagon so low that her ponytail brushed the floor. Faces a few inches apart, Beelzebub smiling their peculiar, intense smile. Dagon looked flushed and breathless.
Yes. This was best. For Michael the Girl and for Gabriel, who was still watching as the song ended and Beelzebub and Dagon bowed to one another.
The other customers applauded. Dagon and Beelzebub bowed to their audience.
Whatever spell had kept Gabriel rooted to the cobblestones lifted, and he stalked off to the food court. He was angry. Michael the Girl wondered if he even knew why.
After he was gone, she went to the phone to page Beelzebub, but it turned out that wasn’t necessary. Beelzebub closed the space between the Hot Topic and the GAP, watching in the direction of the food court warily.
Michael the Girl fished the empty bottle of eyedrops and another twenty out of her purse and waited.
“Michael,” they said. They were still a bit breathless from the waltz.
“Beelzebub,” she returned.
They drew the bottle of eyedrops from an inner pocket of their jacket. “Here. Where’s the empty?”
Michael the Girl handed it over. And the cash.
“Thank you.” The bottle and the money disappeared into Beelzebub’s jacket. “New purse?” they asked, nodding at the white leather satchel behind the counter. It was heavily embellished in gold filigree scrollwork.
“No, that’s Gabriel’s,” she said. “Nona...our grandmother...she picked everything out for him. He’s had it since kindergarten.”
There was a spark in Beelzebub’s eyes. Something dark and dangerous.
“That’s interesting,” they said, finally.
“So...” Michael the Girl said, trying to be casual. “How’s Dagon?”
“Still cackling like mad over that cousin of yours,” Beelzebub said. “He asked to see the manager.”
“I heard.”
“He filed a complaint.”
“I told him it wouldn’t do any good.”
“I believe you,” they replied.
“But seriously...” she said, her voice tender and shakier than she would like. “How’s Dagon?”
“She’ll survive,” Beelzebub said. “She knows that you can’t change your family’s hearts.”
She nodded. “I saw you dancing...” Michael the Girl said, trying not to sound too glum. “You’re really beautiful together.”
“Thanks,” they replied, brightly. The blood rose in their cheeks a bit. “I’ve got to get back before tall, dark, and psycho gets back.”
“See you, then,” Michael the Girl said.
“Happy first day of summer.” Beelzebub turned on their heel and left the store, eyes still fast on the food court.
Beelzebub made the purest, highest quality LSD in New Orleans, and they sold it from the Hot Topic. Michael the Girl had been microdosing for the last two years. It was the only thing that got her through her day.
So much for Miss Perfect.
She’d been so concerned about Gabriel, that she hadn’t noticed Aziraphale wander into the store until he was nearly on top of her.
“Oh, Michael,” he said, clutching his lunch cooler to himself. “What did Beelzebub need?”
“So you met?” Michael the Girl asked.
“Yes,” Aziraphale returned with a sniff. “I broke up...a thing...at the Hot Topic. Something with the regional manager and his brother?"
"Raphael and Lucifer, yeah. They hate each other."
"Beelzebub, they’re...Remiel DeVille! The fencer, did you know?" Aziraphale asked, flushing.
"I did." Not you, too, Michael the Girl thought.
"Well, I like them. They're certainly different. But they seem nice,” Aziraphale finished. "What were they doing here?"
“Gabriel filed a complaint about the music, so...I think they just wanted to be sure that I understood the music policies,” she lied. “Anyways, we’ve been friends for a while now. Since Beelzebub worked here.”
“They worked here?” Aziraphale asked.
“Yeah, a few years ago.”
“Wow.”
“So how’s your first day?”
“I think I’m doing well,” Aziraphale said. “I brought my lunch. Is Gabriel around?”
“He will be. You can wait in the backroom. It’s not good to have mall security hovering around here.”
“I’m afraid that I won’t be hovering anywhere,” Aziraphale said, glumly. “The Segway Company is not joking about the weight limits on their units.”
“Oh, lord.” Michael the Girl laughed, though she didn’t want to. She waved at the door to the backroom. “Gabriel’s going to be back soon. I sent him out for smoothies.”
“Oh, lovely!”
Michael the Girl hadn’t sent him to get anything for Aziraphale, so she decided he could have hers. She honestly wasn’t much on sweets, so it was no great sacrifice.
Anyways, she owed the universe a good deed. To make up for Dagon, for the acid, for all the failures that she dropped that acid to forget.
Dagon stood between the gates of the Hot Topic, staring out at the people of the mall. Michael the Girl watched her, dark and dangerous in the dappled sun of the skylight.
Deeply did Michael the Girl want to weave a crown of roses for her, to worship the dark queen of October in her black wrought iron grotto.