Dreamland City. Larina Lavergne

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СКАЧАТЬ engine and put it in a new body and somehow create a new fuel source. Are you going to retrofit the fuel lines? Are we welding now? Are we going to rig up a biofuels chamber?”

      Reagan swallows. “Ah…uh….I’m sure we could look online or something…”

      Tommy has wriggled forward, and is sifting carefully through one of Reagan’s folders, the fuchsia-colored one, with his perpetually grease-stained fingers. She keeps an eye on him as if she’s afraid he’ll dirty them if he touches them for too long.

      “It’s not a terrible idea,” he’s saying slowly as he studies a diagram. “Lil’s right. It won’t work with biofuels, but I could take a look with diesel or something. It’ll still be the same principles. Just not as fancy maybe. But I could help with just building an engine. It really is a good idea.”

      I look at him in astonishment. He’s rubbing his chin, and I can imagine how his stubble feels under the pads of his fingertips.

      Reagan looks over at him, soaking up his approval. “Right? I think we could do this.” She shifts her gaze to me. It’s not so much challenging as it is smug.

      “What kind of engine?” I ask. “A car’s going to be way too complicated.”

      “How ’bout a lawn mower?” Tommy pipes up.

      “A lawn mower?” I ask skeptically.

      Reagan was frowning, but now she speaks up. “I can do a more detailed sketch,” she offers.

      I’ll bet she can whip up some lovely sketches, I think sarcastically. That’s probably all she can do.

      “And then we’ll build the fuel cylinder and connect it the engine,” she smiles prettily, as if saying it makes it happen.

      “Tommy, will you help us if we do this?” I ask before Reagan can protest that it’s not allowed. I don’t give a shit. If we’re doing this, Tommy’s doing it with us. After all, Reagan can probably research the hell out of engine building, but unless she’s a different person than I think she is, we’re not going to know the first thing about building it. Also, I can’t imagine Reagan getting her hands dirty. I mean, seriously, she must sweat pearls.

      Tommy’s still looking at the diagram—there’s that spark of interest in his eyes that I love, the spark that comes on when he’s working on stuff, building things and fixing them up. All of a sudden, I remember little Tommy with his airplanes made out of bike parts, eyes shining as he talked about F-16s and the Concord and B-52s, running around carefree and happy. That Tommy went away years ago, and it’s always nice to see him back, if only for a short time.

      “Yeah, I’ll help, if you want me,” he says uncomfortably, slowly. His gaze shifts from me to her then back again. Then, uncharacteristically shy, he leans against the counter and stares at the floor. He takes a swig of his beer; I can hear the wet swallowing noise deep in his throat.

      I smile at my Tommy, walk over to him, and give him a kiss on that lovely stubbly chin (It’s been years since I could reach higher than his chin without getting on tiptoe.) We don’t just want you, Tommy. We need you.”

      He grins.

      8

      Every day of our break, except Thanksgiving itself, Reagan comes by Dreamland. Whenever Reagan gives Tommy her designs to look over, he nodded in agreement and spent the next day out in the junkyards scavenging for parts.

      True to Anderson and Skelly trailer park tradition, we barbecue a pig in defiance of Turkey Day. Like every other time in my recent memory, Tommy, Neil and I stand shivering in front of the bonfire as Skelly and Beau hunker in front of the grill and glower at each other. My mother doesn’t make it. I watch our little circle, and wonder what Reagan is doing. I know she’s staying alone—her folks own a house in Cary, which is west of Raleigh and south of Durham, but from what I gleaned from her, they won’t be coming to Raleigh anytime soon since they spend most of their time in Atlanta.

      The second time Reagan came to Dreamland, she booked out the moment she made sure we understood how she wanted it to look, but by the third day, she was lingering, even complimenting me on my outfit and offering to help me with make-up. I told her no, thank you. She laughed then and said, “You don’t need it anyway—you’re really gorgeous.” And she seemed to mean it, which made me feel weird: What I’m trying to say is, I guess I didn’t really know her. She’s the ultimate sorority girl, she’s rich, and everything I’m not, but she doesn’t seem to mind coming to the trailer park to hang out, with me.

      I never expected to, but over the course of barely a week, I’ve changed my mind about my roommate. Most girls I’ve met at school seem to instinctively know that I’m different: they look down on me because I’m white trash; Reagan hasn’t done any of that. And although it takes a little while for us to start talking about something besides our science project, I discover that she’s not boring and picture-perfect plastic like I had imagined. We spend countless hours that week talking about Kant and Nietzsche, Alpha Centauri, the Real Housewives, and everything else in between. We argue, we laugh and we trade stories. But sometimes, it’s just her talking and me listening to the intoxicating sound of her raspy, gorgeous, Aretha Franklin voice.

      +++

      Soon, break is over. They’ve also officially cleared my dorm of bedbugs, so I have to move back in. I don’t want to admit it, but I miss Reagan, even though the Reagan on campus is a very different Reagan from the one who hung out for a week in a trailer in Dreamland City. I think she feels the same way; we agree to work on the project every weekend at Dreamland. It’s really the only time I get to spend time with her now because her sorority rush commitments seem to specifically exclude hanging out with people like me. The few times we cross paths at random events, she’s always off in the center of the room, looking perfect, talking perfect, being perfect. That Reagan is annoying as fuck and makes me want to pull her eyelashes out one by one before starting on her perfectly arched eyebrows.

      But then the weekend comes, and the Reagan who comes over to Dreamland laughs at my jokes, accepts my beer and drinks from the same bottle. I like Dreamland Reagan a whole lot more than Perfect Reagan. It’s strange because I’m used to being Dreamland Lily all the time, to everyone. It must be exhausting having to be two Reagans.

      +++

      It’s another weekend: We’re sitting in the living room, supposedly working on a script for an animated video on combustion and its four cycles that we were going to put together as an introduction of our project (to waste time), but instead, she’s playing with her phone, and I’m smoking some pot that Neil confiscated from some poor kid and sold to Tommy.

      Reagan’s been casting me some serious sidelong glances as I drink my whisky and blow smoke in the air. “Can I have some?” she asks suddenly.

      “Sure,” I say, handing over both the bottle and the spliff.

      She takes a deep drag and holds the smoke in like a pro before exhaling and handing it back. Then she takes a deep swallow of the whisky and immediately has a coughing fit.

      “Jesus, what is this?”

      I guess I only gave her the store stuff before. “Guy here makes it,” I tell her. It’s Skelly’s special brew.

      “Moonshine? Oh wow.” She looks at the bottle speculatively, and then takes another deep swallow. This time, she doesn’t СКАЧАТЬ