Part 6 (1/2)

He paid her under the table for playing records at the club a few nights a week. That and the monthly checks from her grandmother were enough to live on. Or would have been if she spent her money wisely. She was crazy with cash. She bought records and music magazines and clothes. She spent way too much money on pot.

”Okay if I watch from up here?” Sometimes it was nice to groove in her own little world, to fall into the music without someone slamming her across the floor.

Jan shrugged. ”Yeah, whatever.”

He climbed down the ladder and, staying close to the wall, made his way back behind the bar.

Trudy sank back into the music, spellbound by Peter Murphy's voice.

Tonight's band was new. They'd performed a couple of times already-at parties and at a larger twenty-one-and-over club across town. Rumor had it that they were good enough for Atlanta, good enough even to attract sniffs from big city talent scouts. Columbia could be the next big scene.

The song ended. Trudy turned away from the dance floor, took the record off the turntable, and slid it into its sleeve. Down below, the dancers cleared the floor and the band fiddled around onstage with speakers and wires and instruments.

The club had become Trudy's life. She arrived almost as soon as it opened and stayed till it closed. She knew all the regulars like Johnny Fad, who pretended to be in love with Ca.s.sie, even though he was gay, and Jeff, the David Bowie lookalike who was a fry cook by day, but a mysterious object of allure by night as he sat at the bar in a black hat like a South American cowboy might wear. Trudy loved talking to him. Their conversations were peppered with allusions to Marguerite Duras films, Baudelaire, and Jim Carroll. Jeff was going to be a writer and Trudy felt sure she'd be a character in one of his books.

Then there was Keith, who always wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, and spoke in a whisper. He was an artist. He painted icons like James Dean and Jackie O, which Trudy thought was cool, but she was pretty sure her heart couldn't take another tortured artist. She wanted a musician.

The band was onstage now-three guys and a young woman with long straw-colored hair. She had a guitar slung across her body. Trudy could see that she was barefoot. A granny dress swept against her ankles.

Trudy felt a flash of envy whenever she saw a girl in a group. Girls stood out because they were so rarely in local bands. Everyone noticed them. Up in the DJ loft, Trudy was like a phantom. She wanted to be onstage, sucking up the energy of the crowd. And she would be, as soon as she and Ca.s.sie found a couple more members to round out their band.

”Hey.” The lead singer stepped up to the mic. His red hair blazed in the lights. Round tinted gla.s.ses hid his eyes. He was tall and thin and androgynous. Trudy leaned over the side of the loft to be closer to him. ”I'm Noel,” he said. ”This is Wendy, John, Alan. We're Ligeia.”

Ligeia. That was something from Edgar Allan Poe. Trudy had read the poem, had even been to the coast to see the island he'd written about in ”The Gold-Bug.” She liked the band already.

Their sound made Trudy think of a funeral in a Gothic cathedral, or the spooky look of the Low Country at dusk, Spanish moss hanging like cobwebs, bats flitting around. Noel's voice was low and menacing. He stood at the center of the stage, his hands cupped around the mic. From time to time he pressed his palms to his temples as if he were trying to quell demon voices. Although he barely moved, his body was tensed. Trudy expected him to pounce into the crowd like a panther. She kept her eyes on him for the entire show.

Afterwards, she climbed over the side of the loft and descended the stairs. She found Noel lounging against the wall in the Pink Room, smoking a cigarette.

”Hey, why don't you move around a little more onstage?” she said. ”You looked like an old man hunched over the microphone.”

He reached up slowly and pushed his gla.s.ses down his nose far enough so that she could see the contempt in his eyes. ”What's it to you, little girl?”

She wondered if she would see all that pent-up energy let loose then. But no. He looked at her for a long moment, repositioned his gla.s.ses, and flicked the ash of his cigarette on her. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

Trudy had felt something crackle between them and she couldn't stop thinking about it. It was like a live wire, flailing around, spewing electricity into the universe. A force that could be guided and harnessed and used for something spectacular.

She had to have him.

Over the next week, she carried out her recon mission. There was nothing coy about her questions. It was clear to all she asked that she had designs on that thin, white body, those long bones.

”Forget it, Trudy,” Johnny Fad advised. ”He's living with the ba.s.s player. I think they're engaged.”

The story about Wendy was that she was a witch. She was working some kind of juju on Noel. She belonged to a coven. Well, Trudy had some tricks of her own and she wasn't above making her own gris-gris.

She went home that first night, her s.h.i.+rt still smudged with ash, and wrote him a letter: ”You don't know me, but we are like meteors hurling toward each other. Meet me tomorrow night on the fire escape of the Heart of Dixie Motel and I'll tell you your future.” She didn't sign her name. Mystery would work in her favor.

He was there, as she knew he would be. It was dark, the night sky clouded, not even a moon. All she saw at first was a red ember as he sucked in smoke. As she moved up the iron stairs, she imagined she was in a movie, a camera following the sway of her hips, the way her hand trailed the iron railing. And then, face to face, she felt shy. There was a force field around him-she could feel it-and she had to push her way in.

He blew a stream of smoke into her face. ”What do you want from me?”

And she said, ”Everything.”

It wasn't as if she wanted it for free. She was willing to barter. She reached into her pocket and took out a tape.

”Bootleg Joy Division. Taped live in Manchester. The only copy in the world.” She waved it slowly under his nose. Her investigation had revealed that Noel wors.h.i.+pped the ghost of '70s legend Ian Curtis, the band's suicidal genius.

He seemed unimpressed. Took another drag. But then he reached out for the ca.s.sette and examined it in the borrowed light of a street lamp. ”Is the sound quality any good?”

”You'll have to give it a listen and find out.” Trudy knew from the way that his eyes, and then his feet, followed her down the clattery steps that he was at least intrigued.

Back in her room, they cleared away circles of carpet and propped themselves against the wall. Trudy jammed the tape into her boom box and they sat there, deep in the music.

”Wow. This is good stuff,” Noel said after the first song. ”It almost sounds professionally recorded. Where'd you get it?”

”From my dad. He's got a great music collection. There's more where this came from.” Trudy could see the points stacking up in her favor. ”So what are your parents like?”

Noel told her that he'd been disowned.

”Yeah, me too, more or less.” Trudy said. So they had something in common. ”What did you do you?”

”They caught me with a guy.”

Uh, oh. ”You mean ... you're gay?”

”Naw. I prefer women.” He gave her a long look, and once again she felt the air crackle. ”It was just a one-time thing. I was curious, that's all. But my mom and dad thought I was the Antichrist after that.”

Trudy sometimes wondered what it would be like with another girl. She'd once had a dream about kissing Ca.s.sie, of all people. In the dream, Ca.s.sie had been fleshy and voluptuous like Marilyn Monroe. In real life, her type would be someone thin. Like Noel.

”You have star quality,” Trudy told him. ”I feel it here.” She pressed a hand against her belly.

Noel snorted. ”What do you know about it?”

”My dad was in a band. He knows lots of famous musicians. They came over to our apartment and with some of them you could feel the air changing. It was like weather. I'm telling you, you have it.”

He stared at the ceiling. Trudy couldn't tell if he was musing or s.p.a.cing out. She decided to go on. ”But I think you should get rid of Wendy. There's something creepy about her and she's so ... retro.”

He didn't answer at first, but then he rolled his head to look at her and raised an eyebrow.

”I can play the guitar,” she said.

And she could, a little. Her father had given her a few lessons on his acoustic guitar, back when she was still living with him. She'd been practicing on her own, too. So far he hadn't noticed his guitar was missing. He called her every now and then, and he hadn't mentioned it yet. Jack was more into African rhythms these days. He had a set of drums handcrafted by a Yoruban tribesman.

”You'd probably destroy the stage,” Noel said. He knew all about her.

Trudy laughed. ”Flatter me some more.”