Chapter 39
I stood aside and let the girls in, knowing I was in for it.
They filed into the pub stamping their feet and blowing on their hands. Suzy had left her kitten ears behind in favor of a winter hat pulled low. Shanny wouldn’t look directly at me, but when Rooster did, her eyes were wide and hurt.
“You guys are a little early for the Christmas Eve show,” I said. “There are three shopping days left.”
“You’re the one whose timing is off,” Lourey said, squaring up to me for a fight. At least she’d dropped the accent. “Weren’t we supposed to see you yesterday? Saturday, that was the date we agreed on.”
Ned lifted his head over the pass-through to see what was happening.
“Yeah, look, something—”
“Came up, right,” Lourey said. “We came for the gear.”
“Which gear?” I asked, looking at each of the girls in turn. “What do you mean?”
Lourey took off toward the storeroom, and the others followed. “Shanny financed the monitors and mics,” Lourey called back over her shoulder. “So those are hers. And Suzy needs the rest of her kit.”
“Come on,” I said, trailing along after them. “Let’s talk about this.”
At the door to the storeroom, I stopped and watched them sort the cases and bags.
“This isn’t about missing practice. You heard I got onstage with that other group, right?
It was just a couple of songs,” I said. “Matt, that drummer Suzy knows. He pulled me up. I didn’t go to that place looking for an opportunity. ”
“The opportunities just seem to find you,” Suzy said.
“Just you,” Lourey said. “Word is you’re also hanging with talent scouts now?”
“I ran into Bern there,” I said. No one looked up from what they were doing. “Bern Kowalski? I told you about him, remember? He’s interested in the band.”
But that gonged up against what Bern had told me at the Addison Rose, about cleaning house. Had he meant the set list? Or personnel, too?
“Are you sure, Dahlia?” Shanny asked. “It seems like you might be going solo.”
The rest of them got still, waiting.
“Did you guys take a vote or something?” I said. “Seems like I’m getting kicked out.”
“You missed the meeting,” Suzy said. “Where we were supposed to be getting serious about writing a song. And you didn’t even text us you couldn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry about that. My phone is still…”
Lourey was groaning before I’d even finished.
“What?” I demanded.
“That excuse is getting so old,” she said.
“We all know,” Suzy said, giving Lourey a look, “that you’ve been knocked off your feet. We heard about Joey—”
“Not from you,” Lourey said.
“From the news,” Rooster said. “Dude.”
“It’s really hard to lose someone,” Suzy said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I am.”
“Your boyfriend just died,” Shanny said. “Maybe he was in the middle of breaking your heart, but it’s fine to take a little time—”
“I don’t need time,” I said. “I don’t. I’m fine. Joey and I were, you know. What we were.”
The image of Heather and Sachin on their couch came to me, their thumbs just barely touching. Their hearts were not stretching thin between one place and the next. Alex was sure about Oona. How did you get to be sure about anything? Ever? In your whole life?
Shanny and Rooster exchanged a look.
“And that was … what?” Shanny ventured.
“Joey and I kept things rock ‘n’ roll,” I said.
“But what does that really mean?” Suzy asked. “That you didn’t think there was a future with him? That you don’t care that he died?”
“That he was just more background furniture on the Doll Devine Show?” Lourey said.
“I care, okay? But I don’t need to—to shut down over it. I’m mourning him.” I remembered the feeling of that wailing note sung to the empty street rising up from within me, a plaintive song without words. “But I’m doing it the way I need to. I just need to keep—”
“Rock ‘n’ roll?” Lourey sneered.
“—moving,” I said.
“What happens if you stop moving?” Rooster said, a small voice that somehow sliced through all the other noise.
I barely had to imagine it and the gaping blackness beneath my feet was there.
It was always there but I never acknowledged it, never looked its way.
I could be swallowed. I would be swallowed, whole.
How did people survive the worst things?
The cruelties, the knowledge that we were all out here on our own, barely scraping by? Barely holding on?
I knew how I did it. By knowing who I could rely on, and that was me. “Maybe you were right, Shanny,” I said.
“About needing some time?” Shanny said. “We understand.”
“About going solo.”
Rooster meeped. Suzy looked away. The storeroom settled into stillness, silence.
“Well, that’s okay,” Lourey said finally. “Because we think you already did, a long time ago.”
They turned back to sorting the gear. I started for the door, picturing how it would go. They would gather the cases and Abbey Road-march through the pub and across Milwaukee Avenue, out of the band, and out of my life. But—
I remembered the stretched, monstrous shadow on the wall of the Addison Rose. Me, alone. I had never wanted to be alone, not really. Not again.
“Wait.” I turned back.
Lourey stood up from where she’d been crouching among the cases. “What now?”
They’d all come here today. Even though two people could have picked up all the gear, they’d all come out in the cold to do it.
“Should we not at least play Christmas Eve?” I asked.
“Or we could spend Christmas Eve with our families,” Shanny said.
But she’d always meant to play Christmas Eve.
She played it every year. And she’d always shown up to practices and shows, always helped pack up even though she’d miss bedtime with her kids again.
And Rooster, even though she had this new relationship, this big love, so distracting, she still put in the time.
Suzy worked all day at her regular job, total pro, then put on cat ears.
Thursday mornings must have been rough for her, all this time.
And Lourey. Lourey could have done anything she wanted to do, but she’d done this.
Every Wednesday, nudging me toward something that mattered, something better.
“I think…”
They all waited.
“I want to spend Christmas Eve with my family,” I said. “I think that might be you? My family? I just don’t know how to be in one.”
Shanny, Suzy, and Rooster all waited to see what Lourey would say.
“Ghosting us, forgetting we exist, treating us like accessories,” Lourey said, ticking them off on her fingers. “I guess that does sound like family, sometimes.”
“And very rock ’n’ roll,” Shanny said.
“One more show, though,” Lourey said. “What’s the point?”
“Bern will be there,” I said. “He wants to hear an original.”
“I told you,” Lourey said.
“I know. You were right, okay?” I took a deep breath.
“I was … No, I am, am scared. Of this. Of trying to do the one thing I love, like really trying. And failing, you know?” Rooster nodded.
“It’s the only thing I’m even a little good at.
What if I really put myself out there, like, my real self, and people would rather I was Patsy Cline?
If I can’t do this, I … I don’t know. I don’t know who I’ll be. ”
We all stood still. The only movement were dust motes catching light from the high glass-brick window.
“Oh, Doll,” Shanny said.
“I get that,” Suzy said. “We all get that. Right?”
“Doll,” Lourey said. “You complete twit. Being yourself has to be easier than trying to be Patsy Cline.”
“She’s dead, dude,” Rooster said.
“And someone already did it,” Shanny said.
“But no one’s ever been Doll Devine before,” Suzy said.
“And as for whether or not you can do this,” Lourey said, “you’re already doing this. We. We are already doing this.”
“But—”
“I know what you mean. If we’re going to make records and go on tour and shoot out the moon, right? But if we have any chance at that, we have to do this, here. The work. Day in, day out.”
“Respecting the process,” Shanny said.
“And each other,” Suzy said.
“And then maybe it’s this guy … Bernie?” Lourey said.
“Maybe it’s him who takes us to the next level.
Or maybe it’s not. Maybe we never shoot out anything.
Does that mean you don’t want to try? If you can’t sell it, you don’t want to sing it?
Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t believe you could shut up to save your life. ”
She was laughing by the end of this, and so was I.
“So…” Rooster said.
“One more show?” Suzy said hopefully.
“If Shanny’s still in for Christmas Eve,” Lourey said.
We all looked at Shanny. “Dave already said he’d fill the girls’ stockings,” she said. “I’m in. But what do we do about that original song?”
“Write a song before Christmas Eve?” Rooster squeaked.
Lourey was looking at me, an eyebrow lifted. “Three shopping days left, Doll,” she said.
“I … might have something,” I said.