Beautiful Boys by Francesca Lia Block Read Free Book Online Page B

asks.
    “Genies?”
    “Weetzie tried to tell me once, something about three wishes and a genie? I believed in my monsters but not creatures that take care of you and grant wishes.”
    “Weetzie says people can be their own genies,” I tell him.
    “Well, you do look like a genie child to me. What would you do if you were a genie?”
    Make Angel Juan come back.
    “I think if you were a genie you’d live in your globe lamp and you’d ride this carpet everywhere taking pictures. You could get some pretty amazing shots from a magic carpet. You could go to Egypt and take pictures of kids riding the Sphinx. In Mexico you’d take pictures of kids in Day of the Dead masks running through the graveyards. And in exchange for letting you take their pictures you could grant their wishes.”
    That doesn’t sound too sludgy. But it would have to be me and Angel Juan together.
    Charlie laughs his crackle laugh. It reminds me of the sound of me eating the fortune cookie. “You should see yourself sitting there cross-legged,” he says. “You look about to take off. Is there a mirror in here?”
    We both look at the broken pieces.
    “I was never into mirrors either,” he says.
    “Now you’re only in mirrors.”
    “Maybe you could put that one back together again so you could see me. Don’t you have some glue with you?”
    I roll my eyes. Is he a clutch or what? How is gluing a mirror together going to help? But I get the glue from my bat-shaped backpack, pick up all the pieces from the mirror and start sticking them to the wall like a big starburst thing. It takes a while. Charlie whistles the theme to I Dream of Jeannie . Mr. Goof.
    I look into the glass. Like that—all close together—the pieces break me up into a shattered Witch Baby the way I wanted last night.
    “But you’re not,” Charlie says. “You’re all one Witch Baby. And you are very beautiful, you know.”
    And there he is hovering just a little above me in the pieces of mirror. I think about the mannequin in white and Charlie calling me away, twinkling ahead of me as we went down into the subway dark.
    “Good night, Witch Baby,” Charlie says. He leaves the mirror, turns back into light and flash-dashes into his leather trunk.
    “Good night, Charlie.” My voice echoes—ghosts of itself—in the empty room.
     
    I wake up to horns honking, tires screeching, snarling and yelling in the street.
    At home Angel Juan and I used to wake up to the tartest summer-yellow smell of lemons and the whisper of the slick lemon leaves and the singing birds in the tree outside the shed. We named the birds Hendrix, Joplin, Dylan, Iggy, Ziggy and Marley. But here I haven’t heard a bird the whole time. Not even a Boonebird or a Humperdink bird or a Neil Sedaka bird.
    I want to go someplace where there are trees today. And mostly a boy living in the trees.
    “I’m going to the park,” I say.
    “I took Weetzie and Cherokee to the park,” says the only sunbeamer in the city flying out of the trunk in the corner. He always has to talk about Weetzie and Cherokee, Weetzie and Cherokee.
    But then he says so soft and sweet, like he’s talking to Josephine Baker or Weetzie or something, “May I escort you?”
     
    In Central Park the trees are scratchy from winter. But they are trees at least. I follow the paths for a while—Miss Snarly Skate Thing—while Charlie flies around in the branches—Star Helicopter on Speed.
    “Weetzie loved it here,” he says. “It was spring. Weetzie took Cherokee running with her in a stroller. I thought they were like the flower goddesses bringing spring to the city. I couldn’t keep up with them. Weetzie thought that kids who grow up seeing the world from a running stroller would be less anxious.”
    I wish Weetzie had taken me running in a stroller through Central Park with Charlie panting behind us, probably wearing his oxfords, baggy pants, his shirttails flying out. The world rushing by. Flowers in our hair. Leaves on the trees