someone hosting an entire community gathering. Stuart wondered if she’d been sampling Dr. Conway’s merchandise. Stuart certainly had. He’d been eating pot cookies nonstop. And he was still jealously curious about the connection between Peaches and Roy Clarke. Then again, Mandy was probably wondering how he’d become so friendly with Peaches himself. She was a very friendly person.
“I should text Greg,” Peaches muttered to herself and pulled out her phone. He never went out and this was so low-key. Although he hated crowded rooms full of noisy, talking people. It aggravated his tinnitus.
Stop by Monte after your music group if you can. Fun times.
“How’d you two meet?” Stuart asked, slouching casually in her direction.
Peaches pressed her beer bottle against her flushed cheek. “Who, me and Greg?” she asked. “He’s not here. He’s not into crowds.”
“No, you and Roy Clarke,” Stuart clarified. Only when he said it did he realize it was a weird question. How did anyone meet anyone, and what business was it of his? Roy Clarke was helping his wife and Mandy pass out containers of food. He was a congenial man, he was famous, and he was around, it seemed like, all the time. Why wouldn’t Peaches have met him?
Eat pot cookies now my brain’s all sweaty
Staring at the nurse like she’s Apple Brown Betty!
Was Stuart Little jealous of Roy Clarke? Peaches wondered in amazement. Oh yes, he was. Even in the throes of Elizabeth’s crazy artist weirdery, Peaches found she could still flirt with him.
She cocked an eyebrow. “It’s a pretty small neighborhood.”
* * *
“Um, what exactly are we protesting again?”
Liam lay on his back, shirtless, while a woman named The Professor painted a giant “tattoo” on his bare torso.
“Is the tattoo words or pictures?” he asked, as if it made any difference.
“Both.” The Professor tucked one paintbrush into her purple-and-gray dreadlock bun and extracted another. “You don’t work out or wax. I worship that. In a model, I mean. Model boys all look the same, all muscular and hairless.”
“Thanks.” Tears streamed from the corners of Liam’s eyes. She was hurting him, but he didn’t think he could say anything. He turned his head to glance at Ryan, stretched out on his back beside him. The Professor had already painted a tattoo of a bleeding tiger cub all over his entire torso and the words ENDANGERED SPECIES across his chest. He was waiting for the ink to set, his shoes off, eyes closed. He seemed to be in his element.
“Hey,” Liam whispered at him.
Ryan opened his eyes. “Hey,” he said back. “You’re cool,” he added, as if sensing that Liam was uncomfortable. “Remember, we could be doing something really boring right now like playing Fortnite.”
If only, Liam thought. He lifted his head. His chest was painted with a neon-red target. The word BULLSEYE was written in black glitter paint above it.
When the ink had set and The Professor had gelled their hair and applied lip gloss, concealer, face powder, eyeliner, and mascara, and they had donned their sneakers and shrugged on their new Sublime apparel over their bare, tattooed chests, the boys were released outdoors. There was a flash of cameras.
“Models, hello?” Trey clapped his long, thin hands together, as if to signal that he meant business, they were working. Liam elbowed Ryan hard in the upper arm, but Ryan refused to look at him. Ryan looked like a total freaking pro in his baby-blue parka, unzipped to reveal the bleeding, flaming orange-and-black tiger cub on his chest, his cheeks glittering with gold makeup. Liam was pretty sure he didn’t look quite as good.
“The boys lined up out here think they’re waiting for a drop. Really, they’re props. We’re staging a protest to advertise the merchandise and feed the frenzy on social media, etcetera. You two are the leaders. You rile them up. The photographers take pictures. You look perfect.” He nodded at Liam. “Love the pimples. Now go. Go.”
Ryan dashed fearlessly into the crowd. Liam had no choice but to follow him.
“What are we doing?” he shouted.
Ryan stopped halfway down the block next to the long line of boys waiting to get into the store. He planted his feet and fanned out his baby-blue Sublime parka behind him like a peacock’s tail, flexing his chest muscles.
“Fucking A!” one of the boys in line cheered loudly. “No more fucking guns!”
“Bullseye!” another boy yelled and pointed at Liam. “Bullshit!”
Liam wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.
“No more bullshit. No more bullshit!” the photographers chorused as they