Part 70 (2/2)

Well, Em thought girl, but the woman might have been thirty. Or twenty-five under a lot of makeup. Women spend our whole lives trying to look older or younger. What is that s.h.i.+t?

Why was it, indeed, that no matter what you were it was never good enough? Did men get that too, or was it a feminine affliction?

Seth's death-fouled body, twisting from a noose improvised from telephone wire. No, she rather thought intimations of lethal inadequacy were a human condition.

”I'm Sanya Poe,” the blonde said. ”I'm the keyboardist and singer for the opening act.”

”Objekt 775.”

”You remembered. Impressive.”

Em rummaged in her pocket for a handful of supplements, and washed them down with the wine. ”I never forget a band name,” she said. ”The High Numbers, The Small Faces, Objekt 775-”

The blonde laughed hard. ”Oh, from your lips to G.o.d's ears.”

”Don't say that too loud. He might hear you. Are you here to receive my blessing? Because I left my sack of indulgences in the car.” Em was, apparently, drunk enough to let herself sound smart. Always a surprise when that happened, though why it should be, she was never certain.

”No,” the blonde said. ”I just wanted to say thank you, actually. This is a s.h.i.+tty business to be a girl in, and you were an inspiration to me when I was a kid. I mean, you were just as good as the guys, and just as hard as the guys-” She shook her head. ”You made it okay for chicks to be rock stars first and chicks second. And you had the sense to walk away at the top instead of taking the long slow spiral down. It's more important than you'd think.”

Em stuck the wine gla.s.s in her left hand and stuck her right one out. ”Pleased to meet you, Sasha Poe.”

”Sanya,” she said, and grabbed Em's hand. ”Seriously. You rock. You always rocked ... but I kind of wonder what you'd do if you picked up an axe again.”

”Same old s.h.i.+t,” Em said, and Sanya laughed warmly. ”It's not like I've learned anything this decade.”

The small talk was as awkward as small talk always was, and Sanya excused herself after a minute or two. Em shook her head. It wasn't like she was going to be around long enough to mentor any starry-eyed young hotties, she thought, watching Sanya pick up the arm of a tall man who looked mixed-race. Maybe black and Latino? Em, warmed by the wine, smiled after her benevolently and turned to resume the previous conversation, but the guy from Rolling Stone had wandered off, and Graham was at her elbow, smelling of Bordeaux and carnauba wax. ”Come over here,” he said. ”The wife wants to see you.”

When Em woke up in her own bed in her own home-to which she had been taxi-delivered a little before sunrise-it was after noon the next day. One of the blinking lights on her machine was a call from Ange, inviting her to the Los Angeles show on Friday night. The other one was from Em's oncologist, expressing concern that Em had missed another appointment. She wanted Em to start chemo last week, if not sooner, and she was concerned about diagnosis-related depression. She thought Em should see a psychiatrist- Em hit delete on that one halfway through and walked away from the machine with her pajamas swis.h.i.+ng around her ankles. The depression had nothing to do with the cancer; if anything, the cancer was a welcome solution to a depression that had been lingering since long before Seth's irrevocable decision.

”You b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Em said, only half out loud. ”You were supposed to take me with you, you son of a b.i.t.c.h.”

She dropped to her knees beside the liquor cabinet and fumbled it open. Gla.s.ses were on the top shelf. One of the wolfhounds came over and poked a cold nose into her ear while she rummaged; rather than pus.h.i.+ng his head aside, she hooked her arm behind his ears and hugged his brindleand-white neck. He huffed at her and pushed her over sideways, and while he stood over her, she lay on the floor on her back and scratched behind his jaw.

By the time she was halfway through her second breakfast Talisker, she was in the guest bath, eyeing the electric razor.

Ange clutched her forearms, forehead wrinkled hard enough to crack her foundation. ”What on earth?”

”What, you've never seen a shaved head before?” Em smoothed a hand against the soft p.r.i.c.kly bristles decorating her scalp. ”I just wanted to see what it would look like.”

Ange glowered over crossed arms. Behind her, the backstage bustle redoubled. ”Em. What is it that you're not telling me?”

And dammit, Ange was not supposed to be that perceptive. She was supposed to be shallow and self-absorbed.

Em, Em realized, was not the only one who could pretend to be stupid when it suited her. ”I came to LA to see you,” Em said. ”Not to get quizzed about my haircut. Look, I was drunk, it seemed like a good idea at a time. At least I didn't shave my eyebrows off.”

”So that's one way you're up on Bowie.” Ange stepped away. ”If you're not going to tell me, you're not going to tell me. Graham's gonna ask you to play again, you know.”

”I know,” Em said. ”Anything to get on YouTube, right?”

”Right,” Ange purred, grinning. ”What are you going to tell him?”

”I'm going to tell him yes.”

This time, Em watched the opening act from backstage. Objekt 775 was a five-piece: Sanya on keyboard and vocals, two guitars, ba.s.s, and the tall mixed-race boy on drums. They were loud and crude and they didn't suck at all, and there was one other girl besides Sanya, even. Through most of the six-song set, Em surprised herself by paying attention.

Enough attention that she didn't notice Graham at her shoulder until he cleared his throat with precise timing, in that fraught and ringing silence between songs. ”Good, you think?”

”Good enough,” she said. ”The rhythm section doesn't f.u.c.k around.”

”You got that right.”

She turned to him. He was in stage clothes, except the flannel s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned over his bare chest for warmth he wouldn't need when the spotlights. .h.i.t him. The skull ring glinted on his hand. ”Hey,” he said. ”I like the hair. Or lack of it.”

”I said I'd play,” she said. Her fingers already ached from an hour's fumbling, but she had surprised herself with how fast it came back. ”One last time.”

”Yeah,” he said. ”Look, about that-”

It startled her that her heart sunk. ”I don't have to. It's all right.” His stare, the twist of his lips, could not have been more nonplussed. ”I talked to the guys,” he said. ”We want you to do two songs at the top of the first half. One of 'em a Warlords tune.”

”Graham-”

He rolled over her as if she hadn't even opened her mouth. ”How do you feel about 'Galleons Gallant'? Then we'll jam on the Dylan while the band takes a p.i.s.s break, and then you can hit the showers?”

”The band takes a p.i.s.s break? What about you?”

”I don't p.i.s.s,” he said, and grinned at her. ”Look, Em. I know you hate me-”

”Hate's a strong word.”

”Shut up and let a man talk, would you?”

Startled, she held up a hand. Talk, then.

He took a breath, and held it in a longer time than she would have imagined. He touched her wrist. His hand was strong and cold. ”Ange thinks you're dying.”

And Em, who had been seven kinds of weak in her life, but never a coward, looked him in the eye and said, ”I have a grade four astrocytoma. Inoperable. My doc wants to try radiation and chemo.” She shrugged. ”I've gotta decide if I want to live that badly. And that poorly. If I lived.”

His eyes were bottomless in the backstage dark. ”What are the odds?”

She turned her head and spit behind the Marshall stack.

He said, ”Suffering for nothing.”

”Pretty much,” she answered. Oh, sure. There was hope. While there was life, her mother used to say, there was hope. And if hope seemed more like a punishment than a protection, that was hardly G.o.d's fault, was it?

He let his hand slide away, soft as a breeze. Even in dim light, veins and tendons stood out like a relief map under papery crumpled skin.

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