As much as I enjoy writing all the drama, and violence, and chaos of my series, be they biker or dragon or vampire, there's something really special - to me at least - about writing the domestic details of a story. That's where I sometimes-sneakily, sometimes not-so-sneakily work tidbits of my own real life into a story that is otherwise not at all about me.
I like to think it was a universal Nineties Kid experience to go to the roller-skating rink. That was Sparkles where I grew up, which serves as the direct inspiration for Stardust in College Town. All the local schools had their own designated night, and inevitably, without fail, I woke the next morning with a horrific stomach bug. It turns out that if you skate around for hours holding a boy's sweaty hand, you will wake up puking later that night. Worth it.
Sparkles gave me rotavirus, but it also gave me the incredible childhood memory of my friend Drew trying to show off, slipping, and falling butt-first into the fluorescent-orange cheese of the nachos he had set aside for safe keeping. Oh, Drew. Poor Nacho Butt. Wherever you are out there in the grownup world, I hope you haven't fallen into any more Velveeta nachos.
College Town was, overall, a real Nineties Kid experience, and more than a little bit of a current "what am I doing with my life writing books?" experience, too, and that's part of what makes it special for me.
It took two whole weeks for the Cattaneo twins’ story to come out: hinted at in fits and starts by Noah, while he went pale and rubbed at the back of his neck, and finally revealed in full, in a very flat voice accompanied by an uncomfortable little shrug by Tommy when Lawson tried to invite him to Stardust Roller Rink for Eastman Middle Night.
“Everyone goes, not just me and Dana. We take our own rollerblades, but you can rent skates for free on Middle Night if you’re not afraid of catching gangrene and losing both feet.”
“What? Gangrene, that’s not how…” Tommy sighed and shook his head, and glanced away down the sidewalk as they walked toward the buses. “Whatever. I’ll…” The shrug. “I don’t know if my mom will let us come. She’s been…” A fidget of his backpack strap.
Lawson was trying to watch him only in his periphery, trying not to stare, but he turned his head when he caught the shift in his voice. The way he went airless, and uncertain; that clench of pain low in his throat. “What?” he prompted, as gently as he knew how.
The shrug came again, and Tommy took a deep breath that he let out in a rush. After, as if by rote, without any emotion, he said, “You know how we moved here from New York? Well, the reason was because my dad died, and my mom got scared, and moved us all the way out here, and now she’s really overprotective of us, and wants us to come home right after school. And.” He stalled out, and chewed at his lip.
Tommy’s hand swung along at his side, small and curled-tight and lonely-looking.
Lawson said, “Hey, man, that’s okay. Even if you can’t make it, I still wanted to invite you.” When Tommy glanced over – brows lowered, skittish – he offered his best smile, and after a beat, Tommy’s brow smoothed, and he returned it, crookedly.
Later that night, Lawson tried and failed to prove that he could skate backward, landed hard on his butt on the polished wood of the roller rink, and felt his face go up in flames. Mark and his friends laughed and whooped as they flew past, and Dana shot them the bird before she offered Lawson a hand.
When he was upright again, he turned, face still hot with shame – and then hot for another reason, when he saw a familiar pair of figures at the carpeted bench that ran the length of the rink. One tall, one short, both with brown hair gleaming green beneath the neon lights. Both were in the process of tugging on pairs of shitty rented skates, but Tommy paused, and caught his gaze, and grinned, still a little crooked, but wider this time, eyes big and black in the dimness of the room.
“Oh,” Lawson murmured, before he could catch himself. “They came.”
Dana dug her knuckles into his spine. “Don’t just stand here. Go tell him hi.”
He did.
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