Chapter 36
Hannah
We’re halfway through recording our new song, “A Fever I’m Learning to Live With”—I’m belting the climax, “You’re a dream I’ll never touch, an idea that will haunt me,” Kenny’s wailing on the snares, Ripper’s killing it on lead guitar—when Theo bursts into the live room, clutching his phone, his face a vicious shade of red. Kenny, Ripper, and I falter.
“What’s wrong?” I take an instinctive step toward him. Theo’s whole body is transformed—his shoulders high and tight, his jaw clenched, his hazel eyes radiating anger. He lifts an accusatory finger, pointing it at Ripper, and I freeze.
“Outside. Now.” We’re standing in the middle of Studio C in the famous Paramount Recording Studios in Hollywood, and the acoustics sharpen Theo’s words.
I look back and forth between the men. “What’s happening?”
“Hey.” Kenny slides around his drum kit and approaches Theo, hands up. “Let’s practice some peaceful breathing exercises, yeah?”
Ripper is the only one who doesn’t seem surprised by Theo’s outburst.
“You going to man up and step outside?” Theo asks.
We all turn to Rip.
Ripper yanks his guitar over his head and drops it on the hardwood floor, so forcefully the microphone stand beside it falls over. “No need. Say what you want.”
Theo’s eyes gleam. “Fine. How dare you threaten to leave the band?”
“Hold up.” I muscle off my guitar. “Ripper did what? When?”
“We got Ripper on a podcast called Musicians on Musicians—”
“Oh, I love that show,” Kenny says cheerfully.
“Where he proceeded to hint about leaving us behind, after talking shit about the band. The episode just dropped. It already has a couple hundred thousand downloads.”
My stomach drops. Neither Ripper nor Theo will look at me.
“Rip?” Kenny’s voice is gentle. “What’s going on?”
“I didn’t talk shit,” Ripper says through gritted teeth. “I told the truth.”
Ginny appears behind Ripper. Thank god she’s solid this time, no more of that strange fading.
Theo holds up his phone. “Ripper says, and I quote: ‘It’s been hard to watch Hannah grapple with losing her and try to lead the band at the same time. I don’t know how well it’s working.’”
I take a sharp breath. Ripper still won’t look at me.
Theo scrolls his phone. “Booker Morris asked Ripper if he thinks Hannah sees him as a threat—” “Wait, our friend Booker?” I’m confused. “From Dead to Rights?” Theo glances at me, and his anger softens into something like re
gret. “Ripper said yes.”
I whirl to Ripper. “You think I view you as a threat?”
He finally looks at me—only to stab his finger in the air between me and Theo.
“Of course, out of the entire interview, the only parts you care about are the parts about Hannah. I bare my soul, talk about my family and how I’ve leveled up—which you fuckers have barely even acknowledged—but who cares if it’s not about her, right? ”
“But did you say you were leaving the band?” Kenny asks. “You didn’t, right?”
Ripper’s silence is damning.
Ginny walks in a circle around him. “I think Rip is just reacting to grief differently than the rest of you. Maybe you should cut him a break.”
I ignore her because Ripper chooses that moment to shout, “I’m so sick of Manifest and the paps and the entire internet acting like Hannah’s the only reason we’re successful. I’m not a side character in this band, and neither is Kenny.”
“Hey, man.” Kenny folds his arms over his chest. “Don’t drag me into this. I have no desire to get hounded by photographers or be Roger’s pet.”
His words lance me. “Wait, you think I’m Roger’s pet?”
“Aren’t you?” Ripper seizes on it. “When was the last time Roger said a word to Kenny or me? Does he even know our names? We might as well be invisible. Life’s too short to accept that.”
“Back off,” Theo warns. “Hannah has no control over what Roger does.” “Oh, life’s too short?” I snort. “Thanks for reminding, Rip. I’d forgotten.” “Poor Hannah,” Ripper says, in faux-sympathy. “The only person here who lost someone.”
“That’s enough.” Theo’s voice turns menacing in a way I didn’t know he had in him. He takes a step closer to Ripper. “You’re going too far.”
Ripper kicks the fallen microphone stand so it hurtles into Kenny’s bass drum, denting the metal.
“What the fuck?” Kenny yells. “What did I do?”
“I thought you were supposed to be a manager for all of us,” Ripper says to Theo. “But she’s so obviously your favorite. Like we don’t know why.”
“Rip, what did I do?” Kenny’s staring at Ripper like a lost dog.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Theo says, but I can see his pulse jump in his throat.
Ripper snorts. “Oh, sure—”
“You think you’re the only one who can mess with equipment?” Kenny picks up Ripper’s guitar and throws it across the room. It cracks against the wall, strings popping. Ginny gasps. He turns back to Ripper. “There you go, tough guy. You wanted some attention.”
Ripper’s mouth drops open, and a red flush climbs his neck. It’s so unlike Kenny it floors us all for a moment.
Ripper recovers first. “None of you respect me as a musician.” He looks at me. “You destroyed my Jazzmaster onstage in Vegas without asking.”
“You and that fucking Jazzmaster, give me a break.”
“Excuse me for wanting to do something bigger with my life while I still have the chance. Ginny would’ve supported me. She would’ve cared.”
“Let’s keep the conversation to the people in this room,” Theo says.
“Ginny is in this room,” Ripper cries, and for a second, I’m so stunned that he can see her, too, that I simply gape.
“You don’t get it, man. Look at her.” Ripper points at me and Theo instinctively looks.
I wrap my arms over my chest. “Do you see what she’s wearing?
Fresno Science Camp. That’s Ginny’s T-shirt.
Those bracelets? Ginny’s. Every interview we do and every song we sing is about Ginny.
She’s more a star in this band than I am. ”
I can’t help it—it’s so cruel I laugh. “You’re so selfish.”
“Not all the songs are about Ginny,” Kenny says. “‘Shrines’ and ‘Fever’ are about Theo.”
An uncomfortable silence falls. I turn to Kenny. “Will you please stop saying that?”
“But it’s true—”
I don’t know why I do it—the adrenaline, maybe, or the fact that I’m desperate to make the point. I kick his bass drum with every word. “No—it’s—not.”
“Hannah, stop.” Theo moves toward me to what—seize me? I keep kicking, wanting to do anything I can to keep him at arms’ distance.
Kenny rushes past me and hurtles into his drum kit, pushing the high hats over. They crash to the floor, and then he shoves the toms, the snares. He’s laying waste to his own instrument, the kit he calls Baby. I stop kicking and just stand back and watch.
“Why do you two have to ruin everything?” Kenny shouts, picking up the second microphone stand and throwing it across the room. He kicks the cymbals and Ripper and I leap out of the way. “There you go. It’s ruined. There’s nothing left for you to do.”
Kenny stops and looks up at us, his face red and his blond hair sweaty. We’re all breathing heavily. I struggle to collect myself, make sense of the way we seem to be coming apart no matter how hard we try to stay together.
But nothing hurts worse than the look on Ginny’s face as she surveys the damage.
When she was alive, we would’ve killed for a chance to record an album at a studio like Paramount, killed to have a hotly anticipated record.
We’re making a mess of the thing the four of us and Bowie built, the thing we used to love most.
“You didn’t use to be like this,” Kenny says quietly. Somehow his gentler tone is worse. “I don’t know if it’s success or sadness making you two toxic.” He takes a step over the snare drums toward the exit. “But call me when you remove your heads from your asses.”