Part 13 (1/2)

Daria opens her eyes and squints at the dazzling slivers of sunlight leaking in around the edges of the thick hotel drapes. Alex must have drawn them. She can hear him snoring softly behind her, hogging most of the bed. And she can hear someone b.u.mping about in the hall outside the room and tries to remember if she hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. She blinks at the light, unable to recall any details of the nightmare that woke her. She used to write her dreams in a notebook, because Dr. Dalby said there might be something that would help Niki, but she stopped doing that a long time ago.

Daria looks at the clock radio and is relieved to see it's still early, still five minutes till noon, so there's plenty of time for her to get her s.h.i.+t together, maybe even eat some-110 thing before the Tower Records thing. If she's lucky, she might have another twenty or thirty minutes before Jarod starts calling to make sure she's up and moving, to make sure she's sober and in the same city, the same state, the same time zone, as the rest of the band.

She pushes back the blanket and sheets, the heavy down comforter, and sits up, naked and s.h.i.+vering, wanting a cigarette but needing to p.i.s.s worse, wondering where her clothes have gone. Alex's faded Pixies s.h.i.+rt is tangled in the covers, so she slips it on and then goes to the bathroom without trying to wake him. Alex sleeps like the dead and wakes like a grizzly bear on crack, and she knows better than to try to get him moving before there's lots of strong black coffee on hand.

Daria flips on the bathroom light and almost manages not to see her reflection in the big mirror above the sink until she's wiped herself dry and flushed. Then she sits on the toilet, still s.h.i.+vering, staring back at her face, and wonders what kind of fool would want to see themselves taking a squirt first thing in the morning.

”You look like h.e.l.l,” she whispers. ”You know that, don't you? You look like death on a bad day.”

Through the bathroom wall, she can hear the barely m.u.f.fled roar of a vacuum cleaner from the room across the hallway and thinks about offering the maid a fifty to find some other room to clean, another room at the other end of the hall or, better yet, on another floor altogether.

It's hardly been eighteen hours since she left the house on Alamo Square, and already it seems like another life, someone else's life, almost as unreal now as the forgotten nightmare. That house and Niki, something she keeps trying to wake up from. She thinks about Alex, asleep on the bed, Alex holding her in the night, the solid, undeniable fact of him, and the thought brings hardly any guilt at all. Ten years of her life spent watching out for Niki, and she wasn't lying when she told Alex that she still loved her. Ten years making sure Niki was safe, that she was taking her meds, that she didn't hurt herself, and there's nothing left. No more 111.

she can do. Nothing but regret that what she did was never enough, and there's no way she can ever save Niki Ky.

Need and desire are not enough. There was a time when she thought they could be, somehow, if she believed, if she gave everything she had, but that time's pa.s.sed, and she knows that it'll never come again.

”Hey, you stole my f.u.c.kin' s.h.i.+rt,” Alex says, mumbling around a cigarette, and Daria wonders how long he's been standing there in the doorway, watching her. He's naked, and she smiles at the small tattoo on his left hip-a grinning, winged cupid armed with a machine gun. He got that years before they met, the price of a bet he lost to some former girlfriend or another. Every now and then, he talks about having it removed, but she doubts he ever will.

” 'Hey' yourself. I thought you were asleep,” she says.

”Yeah, well, you p.i.s.s louder than any woman I've ever known.”

”You're saying I woke you up taking a p.i.s.s?”

”Sounded like G.o.dd.a.m.n Niagara Falls in here.”

”Shut up and give me a cigarette,” she says, and he takes another long drag, then gives her his.

”What are you doing in here, anyway?” he asks and then ma.s.sages his bloodshot eyes.

”Niagara Falls, remember?”

”I'm gonna call room service and get some f.u.c.king coffee and s.h.i.+t,” he says. ”You want anything?”

”I should probably eat something.”

”Yeah, you probably should. You're skin and bones, you know that? Want a m.u.f.fin? I bet they have m.u.f.fins.”

”Yeah,” she replies. ”A m.u.f.fin would be good,” but her stomach roils at the thought of solid food.

”Well, if they ain't got m.u.f.fins, you want some toast and jam?”

”Sure. Whatever.”

Alex nods his head, scratches himself a moment, then turns around and disappears into the darkness.

”And turn on a light,” she shouts after him, ”before you trip over something and break your neck.”

112.

A few seconds later, she hears him pulling the drapes open, and he curses as the bright midday sun floods the room. Daria looks back at the mirror, at her pale face and matted, bleach-stripped hair. Her face that looks like it's aged ten years in the last five, and she wishes she could go back to bed, back to Alex, and forget about the signing and the show and everything else.

She stands up and turns on the tap, icy water gus.h.i.+ng into the marble sink, and sets her cigarette down on the edge of the counter. Daria splashes her face and the back of her neck, gasping as the cold stings her skin, dragging her the rest of the way awake. She bends over and dunks her head into the basin, slos.h.i.+ng water out onto the floor.

The gurgle from the tap is so loud that she can't hear anything else, and she holds her breath and keeps her head in the sink as long as she can stand it.

The white hotel towel smells too clean, like detergent and fabric softener, but it feels good against her face, against her scalp, and when she's done, most of her hair is standing straight up.

”They have m.u.f.fins,” Alex shouts. ”You want blueberry or bran?”

”Blueberry,” she shouts back, reaching for her cigarette.

It's a little damp, but she hardly notices, the nicotine just about her best friend in the world right now.

”They say they're out of blueberry,” Alex yells.

Daria frowns and drops the wet towel on the tile at her feet. ”You just asked me which I wanted.”

”I didn't know they were out. He just f.u.c.kin' told me.”

”I f.u.c.king hate bran m.u.f.fins. Everyone hates bran m.u.f.fins.”

And she hears him ordering her toast.

”You want blueberry or strawberry jam?” he shouts.

”Surprise me,” she mutters, just loud enough that she won't have to repeat herself, no longer interested in trying to eat. She turns off the water and flicks the b.u.t.t of her cigarette into the toilet. It drowns with a faint hiss. She steps out of the bathroom, and the sunlight through the balcony doors is disorienting and hurts her eyes.

113.

”He didn't tell me they were out of blueberry,” Alex says again, stepping into a pair of boxers. ”I don't know why he didn't tell me that to start with.”

”It doesn't matter. I'm not hungry, anyway. If I tried to eat right now I'd probably just throw it up. I need a drink.”

Alex stops rummaging through a navy-blue backpack and glances at the pint of Seagram's still sitting on the floor near the foot of the bed. ”Try to eat some of the toast first, Dar,” he says. ”Just a few bites? Maybe a cup of coffee, yeah?”

”Let's not start in with that right now, Alex. I'm not in the mood for mothering. My head hurts, and I'm cold, and my stomach's killing me, and I want a drink, not a lecture on nutrition.”

”Put on some clothes if you're cold.”

”Just lay off, okay?”

He sighs and goes back to digging through the backpack. ”It's your funeral, love. Just don't expect me to hang around for the service, if you get my drift.”

”I get your f.u.c.king drift,” she says and sits down beside his guitar case. ”No one's asking you to hold my hand. I need a lover, not a nursemaid.”

”That, dear, is a matter of opinion.”

While Alex dresses, Daria sits on the floor drinking bourbon and staring at the city and the gray-blue sky beyond the balcony doors. For a moment, she can't remember what month it is, what season, summer or spring or autumn, but the confusion pa.s.ses, the way it always does.