Chapter 19

Nat had a gross sneer on her face as she was kicked out of the bedroom. Her skin was clammy and her heart hurt. So many girls measured their boyfriends up to the examples set by their fathers. Brothers. No one would measure up to Richie.

She understood that.

He refused to.

She stuffed her tits back into her bra and shrugged her blouse up onto her shoulders. The doorbell rang a second time. Nat shouted out a “Coming!” with Perla echoing her. Nat flicked her hair, as she cast a grimace up the staircase and finished fastening the bottom button as she opened the door.

“Goddammit!” Mary Cowie groaned and sneered at Nat’s blue bra. “Didn’t your parents teach you any sort of self respect?”

“Nothing that stuck.” Nat proceeded to button up her shirt.

Perla’s orgasmic shriek screamed throughout the house.

“Lily’s not here,” Nat said, flatly.

“I know. She’s babysitting,” Mary said. She tapped her own elbow. Nat was swaying from foot to foot. She seemed to want to rush back into the house.

“I was hoping to talk to Dick and Sheryl,” Mary said. “I called and–”

“The house phone?” Nat said, looking over her shoulder. “They’re still down at The Marriott. Or, rather they are again. Rats.”

“Rats?” Mary’s lips crinkled. What was happening to this town? Darlene was having the same problem.

“Fuck me! Fuck me!” Caitlin eagerly bleated.

“Jesus Christ...” Mary said, turning a little green. “Look, I was hoping to recruit in Dick’s help with this, but more than anything, I want to sit down and talk to Richie.”

“He’s indisposed.”

Mary’s lips twisted in frustration and a sense of betrayal. That was Harper’s boyfriend and Harper’s best friend. But then, it was Harper who had run off with ... With someone she needed to ask Richie about. She took a deep breath, hoping to retain some calmness. She took a second.

“Here,” Nat said, growing impatient. She grabbed a post-it note and pen from the little table that never held her father’s house and car keys. She scribbled down the digits and a name. “This here’s, um–”

“I know the diner,” Mary said, reading the name.

Caitlin was calling in choppy rhythmic chirps. Mary ground her teeth together.

“The number’s actually Mom’s cell phone,” Nat said to Mary. “I’ll make sure Richie gets freshened up and we can all meet there.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mary said.

“Besides, I gotta remind Perla she’s gonna be late for work,” Nat said, smiling.

Mary felt the impolitic words burning in the back of her throat. Why did her daughters have to be so sex-crazed? Why did that lead them to picking these friends? But the door closed in Mary’s face. She needed a moment to stretch her fingers out of her fists. She turned to walk to the car.

“I should call the cops,” Mary said, buckling her seatbelt. “Maybe I should’ve days ago.”

She picked up her phone and groaned. This was Harper. She could be recalcitrant and stubborn for weeks. If she had run off with some strange guy, she’d be finding every shortcut and excuse not to focus on what she did.

Her new beau was probably loving it.

But it still felt wrong.

Harper was fiercely loyal to Richie.

Who the fuck could–

“Sheryl! Hi, it’s Mary.” Mary’s demeanor shifted the moment the connection was made. She had a job to do and it wouldn’t help tearing at every loose thread until she herself became unraveled. “Yes, I am calling about Richie and Harper.”

“And Harper...” Sheryl’s voice was so cold and awkward. “I know Richie’s done something ... Some things stupid. Very stupid. I hope Harper’s OK. We’ve always loved her and–”

“No, no, I’m not calling to have it out about Richie! I haven’t heard from Harper in a week! From everything that’s been going on, she’s left Richie for some other guy.”

Mary frowned as the woman on the other end collapsed into motormouthed apologies and excuses.

“Sheryl! Sheryl! SHERYL! Thank you,” Mary said, when the woman finally shut up long enough for Mary to get a word in. Sheryl seemed to have not heard one word about Harper leaving Richie. “I’ve agreed to meet Richie at Alice’s. No, no, the one by the Burger King. Right. I’d like you to be there as well. Dick too, if that’s possible. We need to get to the bottom of this. Besides, I could really use a slice of pie and it sounds like you could use one too. My treat.”

“You are the big rich lawyer woman,” Sheryl said. “That sounds like something we can do. You’re awfully together. I honestly think my son’s lost the love of his life and is now turning into his sister.”

“I can keep it together with a plan. How about in forty five minutes?” Mary said, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

“We went all the way out to The Marriott. Bit of a drive. Call it an hour? That’ll make it what? 6. Is 6 good?”

“Perfect. I’ll see you there.” Mary said. She tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. She knew better than to be driving on her phone. Still, she slumped inside her bucket seat. For just a moment. Then her mind clicked. She sat up straight and scanned the road.

All the cars coming back into the neighborhood, she could’ve wrapped herself around a tree like Caitlin.

“Harper ... You miserable wretch. Why couldn’t you have been Mama’s best friend? Like your father.”

Maybe Mary should’ve called Aaron too.

She didn’t reach for her phone.

“Check! Microphone stage left! Check! Check!” The roadie flashed Gabrielle a thumb’s up. She smiled and took the headset off and handed it to her manager. This part of the job, she didn’t hate.

There were other parts she liked more. Performing. The energy of the crowd in a good show was addictive. But what if the show sucked? What if the crowd wasn’t feeling it? What if? Fuck that! Horseshit! She’d done enough bar shows and garbage venues to know what dying on stage felt like. The kind of lows worth slogging through to get to the highs? Worth it. This tour had been incredible. Her worst show, Regina, had still been lightning in her veins. When five thousand people came out to be entertained, they fed and engulfed each other like brushfires building into an inferno.

It was harder to fuckup than a bar show to sixty people who would’ve been out that night without the musician.

She never felt that energy until after she got out on stage. If she thought too hard on it, she was certain it would never be there.

Songwriting, when it worked, was one of the most fulfilling things she’d ever done. When it didn’t, when it felt fake, cowardly, plastic. The eighteen songs on her setlist, she’d written number six. Where Have You Been And How Will I Get There: no one’s favorite but hers. The rest of the songs she’d written, they were all juvenile and lonely and forgettable. The ones that had been written for her, energy and brightness that refused to stop digging into your ear.

Those songs were fun. She loved energy and brightness. She fit the role and it was great. Still, the songs felt like dressup. With the three costume changes the choreography called for, they looked like dressup.

Where Have You Been And How Will I Get There

She couldn’t let herself neurotically burrow into all the thoughts about the show tonight. Thus soundcheck. Prepare and rehearse. Her backup dancers were in the back room, clearing their jitters with marijuana and cocaine.

Gabrielle cleared her jitters with work.

The roadies were happy to have her. The stadium held sixty-five hundred people. Sold out for months. Then finally Newfoundland and she’d be on her first international tour.

Another thought to terrify her.

Another thought to try and break her show for tonight.

It was her show. Her face, her body, her voice, and hell, her fucking song. So it was the slowest point of the show. A moment of uncertainty and maybe heartbreak queuing up an anthem for reclaimed power and showing the world!

Her show.

“Hey, Gabrielle,” one of the roadies pointed to the standing mics for her backup singers. “You want to get those?”

“Course I do,” she smiled. “Got any requests?”

“How about a few bars from Hate Me Like You Love Me Like You Hate Me? It’s my favorite.”

“Yours and everybody’s, Curtis,” she said, smiling radiantly. “Not too many people get a one on six show, boys.”

At least not anymore. She smiled, remembering the shows to family and friends, where not even all of her family could make it. A crowd of six thousand immaterial faces. A bar of sixty strangers who didn’t give a shit. Six roadies and security guards she’d worked with for the last few weeks.

It was dressup.

She smiled her way through a chorus and walked over to the second mic. This time she licked her lips and tried Where Have You Been And–

“We’re all good Gabrielle!” Curtis flashed his thumbs up before she’d finished the first words.

Her smile was for the stage. And that’s where she left it when she headed to the dressing room.

Perla dragged Richie into the shower hopping and swinging her hips. Caitlin was still in the bedroom, fucked senseless. That’s what she claimed.

“I’m fucked senseless! Go away! Shower with the perfect ass!”

Senseless. Nothing left in her at all.

Perla was picking bottles off the shelf. Nat had good taste but, sniffing Richie’s Old Spice body wash, having that smell follow her all shift would be heavenly. She shook her head, watching Richie’s body run with showerfall as he stayed under the spray.

“Are you excited for tonight?” she asked. She tried to smile, it wasn’t difficult. Her heart and mind were still floating with post-coital bliss.

“Are you?” he asked, keeping his head under the water.

She immediately ran her hands up his back while singing Hate Me Like You Love Me Like You Hate Me. He turned around. He had a grin on. Dangerous. Driven. Doomed. If her pussy wasn’t already a mess of herself and him, she’d have wetted up instantly. He grabbed her hair and her shoulder. He pushed her back against the tiles. He grabbed under her ass and hefted her up the wall.