Wild Awake

kitchen mixing orange juice and brandy and vodka and Perrier because the Universe demands a ritual dram. I pour it into a pink frosty mug I find in the freezer door. I declare a toast to the Universe and drink the ice-cold witches’ brew standing right there in the kitchen in my boots. I mix another one. But once I’ve drunk the second drink, I still don’t feel ready to go, and the words drunk and drink start a little war in my head, drink-drunk-drank , then morph into raindrops that plink and plunk like a toy piano.
    It comes to me in a flash. The shoes! Sukey’s silver shoes. I wrestle off the boots, scamper upstairs, grab the shoes, and sit on the stairs, strapping them onto my feet. The high heels make it hard to wobble down the stairs, but I do it with the grace and poise of a young Marilyn Monroe. I grab my iPod, bust through the garage door, and crash around in the garage, trying to find my bicycle in the dark because the motion-detecting light refuses to come on and I’m too busy to find the button that turns it on manually.
    There’s a strange music surging out of my bones, the rhythm pulsing, the volume getting louder and louder. Maybe it will drown me out if it keeps going.
    Maybe I don’t care.
    When I put my hands on the metal post of my bicycle, it’s like getting an electric shock. The cold flashes through me, touching a match to the weightless golden kindling that’s been building up inside me all night, and I feel such a burst of delight I let out a high animal yip that reverberates circuslike on the cement walls. I wheel my bike out through the side door, not bothering to lock it. When I swing my leg over the frame, it’s like that moment in Frankenstein when the monster comes alive: I feel my bicycle tense slightly, ready, alert, its honed aluminum heartbeat syncing up with my own.
    It’s windy tonight, damp gusts filled with raindrops. As I charge down the street, the leaves shimmy in the treetops and the stop signs flex and bang on their poles. Sukey’s silver shoes are slippery against the pedals. Wind reaches down to tug my hair out of its updo. As I ride along the beach, I greet the lampposts and street signs and telephone booths as if they’re everyone I know lined up to see me off.
    Why, good evening, Nelson Chow, fancy seeing you out here! Fancy seeing you as a lamppost, a straight and tall and devious disguise .
    Lukas, hello, you street sign! Kelsey Bartlett, hello, you sewer grate! Skunk, you lovely caterpillar, hello!
    I go through everybody, one by one. I chatter to the streetlight of Petra, the phone booth of Dr. Scaliteri, and the construction pylons of my mom and dad.
    Soon I’m at the bridge. Soon I’m at the top of the bridge. Soon I’m over it and down the other side.
    I save Sukey for English Bay, and for Sukey, I don’t address a streetlight or a concrete bench. I save her up until I spot the magnolia tree.
    Sukey —
    I pedal hard, keeping my eyes fixed on the magnolia tree. It breezes, sighs, as if it’s thinking about what it wants to say.
    Come on, Sukey. Come on .
    I push, I pant, I pedal, I strain. The magnolia’s scent pulls me closer, reels me in.
    All at once it happens: The magnolia tree erupts into light. I lift off from the ground and cartwheel in slow motion through the rain. My bicycle tries to split away, but I clamp my legs around it and we fly through the air like conjoined twins. The streetlights and street signs all lean in like a crowd of people pointing at a strange object streaking across the sky. My bicycle and I flip once. The Sukey-tree leaks into an ice cream swirl of pink and white. For one sparkling moment we hang halfway between heaven and earth.
    Then gravity wins. My bike and I fly apart, briefly careen through the night sky alone and land with a crunch on opposite sides of the road.
    My head whips back from the impact and my ribs twang like a dropped guitar. The sky spins above me like a penny. My bike has dematerialized, and my iPod is strewn across the intersection in a million glittering pieces. When I try to move, ten different parts of my body light up at once, like someone’s pressing all the buttons at an anatomy exhibit. The magnolia tree blows me a kiss of perfumed air, and I can’t decide if what I’m feeling is incredible bliss or excruciating pain. This might just be the greatest moment of my life. It’s possible. If it is, I don’t want to waste it lying around in the middle of the road. For a single, golden