Spin

by Colleen Nelson

  “Did you watch the show?” she asked. Was she making conversation, or did she really want to know?

  “Most of it,” I said. My voice was thick and it didn’t sound like my own.

  “What’d you think?”

  I tried to still the trembling of my hands as I reached for the box of wipes. “You were amazing,” I answered honestly.

  “Thank you,” she drawled, the tail of the word nothing but a whisper.

  She shut her eyes and leaned her head back in the chair. I was supposed to wipe the makeup off, but that meant standing right beside her, touching her. She wasn’t a mythic singer anymore, she was a real person, my mom, inches from me.

  She opened one eye a crack. “It’s okay, honey. I won’t bite.”

  I gave an awkward smile. The bright lights of the dressing room illuminated her shoulders, bare except for the halter strap of her dress. Her skin was creamy.

  “What’s your name?” She turned her head to see me better.

  Now was my chance. I opened my mouth, but there was a knock at the door. She pursed her lips. “Who is it?”

  “Trudy.”

  Georgia shot me a look. “Checking up on you?” she said to me. “We’re fine,” she called back.

  “Who do you have in there?”

  “Your girl, the new one.” And in a quieter voice to me, “What’s your name?”

  I swallowed. Trudy banged again. “There’s no new girl. What are you talking about? Georgia! Open the door.”

  The smile on Georgia’s face disappeared. She sat up, alert and wary. Outside the door, I could hear Trudy calling for security. In a second, they’d burst through the door, locked or not.

  “Who are you?” Georgia asked.

  “Delilah. I’m Delilah.”

  Every molecule of air between us froze. She stared at me. “Delilah? Del—?” She knew the answer. She didn’t have to ask.

  In a flash, she was at the door, the red fabric of her dress whipping past me. My stomach fell. This was it. She’d call security herself and have me removed from her room. I’d gotten this close to her, though. I’d met her, talked to her. She knew who I was, that I couldn’t stay buried in her past.

  She opened the door, only a crack. Enough to poke her head out. “Everything’s fine,” she called. “Trudy, I was joking. You all took so long, I’m taking the makeup off myself! That’s what I meant by new girl. Honest to goodness, you people are jumpy.” She gave a forced laugh.

  I imagined the security guards had carted Maya off somewhere, probably to the exit doors. What would they do to me if they realized I’d made it all the way to Georgia’s dressing room?

  A few more reassurances to Trudy that she was fine, and Georgia shut the door and locked it. Outside, the bangs and scrapes of the stage being dismantled filled the silence as we stood staring at each other. “Delilah,” Georgia said softly. “I can’t believe it.” She looked at me in wonder, shaking her head. “My god.” She looked me up and down, drinking me in. “You were just a little bitty thing last time I saw you. How’d you get so big?”

  “It was ten years ago,” I answered.

  Her face fell. “I guess it was.” She stared at me with open-faced curiosity. “How’d you get past security?”

  That’s what she wanted to know? “My friend, Maya, she distracted the guards. I–I followed you.”

  She nodded. I didn’t know if she liked hearing it had been that easy or was still shocked that I was in her dressing room. Either way, she sat down and gestured for me to do the same. It felt formal, as if we were about to start an interview.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “It’s been so long. What about Lou and Ray? Are they here, too?”

  I swallowed. We were having a conversation. Talking about things so matter-of-factly. I struggled to string the words together, my heart hammering in my chest. Her eyes travelled over me, taking in every curl, every eyelash.

  “They didn’t want to see you.” I wondered how she’d react to those words. There was a flicker across her face and she murmured something I didn’t hear. “We thought you’d try to see us, like you did last time.”

  Georgia’s mouth tightened. “I wanted to. That was my plan, and then —” She set her mouth and looked away, levelling her gaze at the mess of makeup on her dressing table. “I wish it were easier,” she murmured. “They pack the schedule so tight …” She let her voice trail off.

  I frowned at her. “So, you weren’t going to?” Disappointment left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “Like I said, the schedule. It doesn’t leave much time for —”

  “Was it worth it?” I interrupted her. “Leaving us? For this?” It wasn’t what I’d planned to say, not even close, but the words burst forth.

  She didn’t answer. I could hear her breathing, deep, controlled inhalations, like she was fighting to stay calm. Her eyes met mine. Like dark, fiery diamonds, they flashed at me. “Don’t judge me, Delilah. My life is more complicated than you can imagine.”

  I raised my eyebrows and stared at her in shock. She thought her life was complicated? What about Dad’s, raising two kids on his own? Or mine, not knowing why she’d left or why she didn’t want anything to do with us?

  There was movement outside her door, footsteps and talking. “Look, I can’t do this here —”

  “You’re sending me away?”

  “I just can’t have this conversation. Not now.”

  Anger rolled through me. Whatever I thought our meeting would be like, this wasn’t it. I reached into my bag and saw her stiffen. I pulled out the envelope with USB of my mixes and the photograph of me as a baby. “I brought this for you.”

  She stared at it on the table. “What is it?”

  I wanted to cry in frustration. The woman beside me was nothing like the one I’d imagined. She was hard, stubborn, and unbending. She hadn’t touched me once. No hug, no hand-holding; as we’d been speaking, she’d moved farther away as if I was something to be guarded against.

  How could I explain that my mix wove all the parts of our family into one song? And the photo was proof that I existed. Once upon a time, she’d held me, a little baby, against her chest and felt something. Love? Tenderness? These things had the power to undo her or tie us closer together. She stared at me, waiting for an answer, but the words were stuck in my throat.

  “What is it?” she asked again, but made no move to reach for it.

  In that instant, I realized she would never be the person I imagined. There had been a reason she’d left, but it wasn’t me or Lou or Dad. It was her. Nothing I could do was going to change what mattered to her. I erupted from the chair and strode to the door. Fumbling with the lock, I flung the door open and raced down the hallway. A man was outside; he jumped in surprise and shouted for Georgia. His voice echoed against the cement walls.

  “I’m okay,” I heard her tell him. “Leave her.”

  Yeah. Leave me. That’s what you did fourteen years ago and then ten years ago. That’s what you’re good at, Georgia. The person I’d seen on stage, the woman who sang to children and brought magic into people’s lives, wasn’t the same one I’d met backstage. The person on stage didn’t exist; she was someone for the fans to believe in. She wasn’t real.

  I almost tripped over a cord half-wound up in a coil. There were roadies working, but no one gave me a second glance. I raced toward the corridor, running upstairs, taking them two at a time to put as much distance between me and Georgia as I could. No one had come after me. Maybe she was reaming out her security guard for slacking off, calling the arena to complain that a determined fifteen-year-old had found her way into her dressing room. Or maybe, she called off the dogs to protect me. Whatever the answer was, I needed to find Maya and make our way home. I texted Maya, praying she’d turned on her phone. Where are you?

  West doors, she texted back.

  I sent her a sad-face emoji and walked through the desolate stadium corridor to fi
nd her. Each footstep echoed in the emptiness. I felt like an idiot. Everything Dad and Lou had said about her was right. She didn’t want anything to do with us. To her, we were just complications that she wanted to leave in the past. Dad had been right to sign those papers.

  Maya was in a vestibule near the main doors, a guard hovering over her for fear that she’d make another attempt at getting to Georgia. I grabbed Maya’s arm, propelling her away from the guard. “Where were you?” he barked at me. I ignored him, but caught the warning look he threw our way as he went back inside the arena.

  “What happened?” Maya asked.

  “I got into her dressing room,” I mumbled.

  “Oh my god! Dizzy!” she gasped.

  But I shook my head. “It wasn’t — she didn’t care, Maya. She said she couldn’t talk about it, that her life was complicated. That was her reason for not coming to see us.”

  Maya’s face fell. “I’m sorry.” She put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me against her.

  “Can we get out of here?” I wanted to put as much distance between me and the arena as I could. Maya and I hustled through the doors to an almost empty street. The crowd that had filled the street three hours ago when we’d arrived had disappeared. Crumpled bits of paper and garbage littered the sidewalk, blowing in eddies around our feet. A lone man pushing a cart walked on the other side of the road. Gravel cracked under the cart’s wheels. I looked at Maya, suddenly feeling scared and alone.

  - 39 -

  Ray

  I wasn’t surprised that Dizzy had gone to the concert. She was determined, that girl of mine. But it broke my heart to know she’d gone behind my back. Guess I hadn’t left her any other choice. After Lou and Olivia left, I stewed about Dizzy. Tried calling her cell again, but it went to voice mail. I hoped Lou would find her and get her home safely. Two girls who didn’t know their way around the city was an invitation for trouble.

  I opened a beer and sat in my office with the music turned up, but I got antsy worrying I wouldn’t hear the phone ring.

  Even the beer wasn’t doing what it was supposed to, and when I’d finished one, I didn’t bother opening another. All I wanted was for Lou to call and say he’d found them.

  I got a sharp pain in my chest like my heart was squeezing into a fist. I took a long, slow breath and closed my eyes. The song that came on was an old one — something Georgia and I used to listen to.

  A memory from a long time ago, one I hadn’t thought about in years, flashed into my head. Maybe I’d buried it deep on purpose. It was when we were living in that place in Switzerland. We’d settled down for a while, took a break from touring to have Dizzy. A friend of ours had offered his chalet to us, so we holed up there for a few months. It had these big doors in the bedroom that opened up to a view of the mountains. After Dizzy was born, we’d pull Lou into bed with us, too, and all four of us would wake up to the crisp mountain air blowing in. We were cozy under the quilts all together. I remember waking up surrounded by these kids and this beautiful woman and thinking, “Man, what did I do to deserve this?”

  So what’s better? Having that moment and losing it, or never having it at all? Should I be grateful to Georgia for sharing a small part of her life with me, or hate her for leaving?

  - 40 -

  Dizzy

  “Dizzy!” From across the street, Lou’s voice. I turned. Dad’s car trundled along the curb and then pulled over. “Dizzy, come on!” A line of cars, headlights blazing, waited at a red light a block away. Maya grabbed my hand and we ran across the street.

  “Lou!” Maya shouted, relief filling her voice.

  He cut her off, climbing out of the car and pulling the front seat forward so Maya could squeeze into the back. I started to walk around to the front of the car when I noticed there was someone sitting in the passenger seat. The girl from the bus. Lou’s girlfriend, Olivia. I got in on the same side as Maya and met Lou’s eyes. He didn’t say anything and neither did I.

  As he got back into the driver’s seat, the light behind us changed. Blazing headlights drew closer and Lou pressed on the accelerator. “This is Olivia.”

  “Hi,” Maya and I said quietly. Olivia turned to greet us with a shy smile. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet Lou’s girlfriend. My emotions hovered just below the surface. I wanted to tell Lou I’d met Georgia, but the words stalled on my lips. He’d brought Olivia, a stranger. Did she know why I’d had to go to the concert? How much had he told her?

  “So,” Lou began, cutting the silence. His voice was cold. “Was it worth it?”

  “Was what worth it?” I tried, but my voice trembled. He didn’t answer my question but raised an eyebrow at me in the rear-view mirror.

  I looked out the window, gritting my teeth against the memory of Georgia’s aloofness. Too tired to play coy. “No,” I whispered. Regrets pulsed through me. I wished I hadn’t gone to the concert. Living with the questions was easier than dealing with the answers.

  “Olivia knows,” Lou said. He turned around and glanced at Maya. She was thumbing a text and didn’t look up.

  “So does Maya.” We sat in a heavy silence until Lou turned on the radio. One of Georgia’s most famous songs blasted out of the speakers, the movie theme song that had made her into a household name. He turned it off, but her voice lingered, filling up the car with her presence.

  “She was nothing like I thought she’d be,” I murmured.

  “She was performing —”

  “No, not when she was on stage. I got to her dressing room. I talked to her.”

  “You what?” Lou’s jaw dropped, his eyes flashing at me in the mirror.

  Before the concert, I’d imagined bragging about this moment, telling Lou that I’d sorted things out with Georgia, that things were going to be different from now on. Instead, I took a shuddering breath, wincing at how cold she’d been when she realized who I was.

  Olivia frowned and shifted in her seat so she could talk to me. “She must have been shocked to see you.”

  “She called me Delilah.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Lou sounded angry. “She doesn’t know you, Dizzy. She’s not your family.”

  It was the truth, but hearing him say it was like a kick in the stomach.

  “Can we not talk about it anymore? Please.” I didn’t want to have to face Dad. I wanted to crawl into my bed and hide under my covers for as long as it took for this feeling to go away.

  “Yeah,” Lou muttered under his breath. “No problem.”

  We pulled up to Maya’s townhouse. The light was on above the front door. She’d groaned at the string of texts from her mom when she turned on her phone. They went from concerned to angry as the night wore on. Lou let the car idle while he walked Maya to the door and rang the bell. Maya looked like she wanted to bolt, and I felt like a bit of a coward sitting in the car while my best friend faced her mom. After all, she’d sold her clothes and lied to her mom to help me.

  Olivia looked at me from the front seat. “You okay?” she asked.

  I knew she was trying to be nice, but all I could think about was what I was going to say to Dad when I got home. I nodded and watched as Carla came to the door and held it open for Maya. She and Lou talked for a minute longer.

  “How mad was she?” I asked when Lou got into the car.

  “Not as mad as I expected, to be honest. I mean, I don’t think you and Maya will be hanging out for a while, but she wasn’t going ballistic or anything.”

  “It’s kind of funny how moms can be so different,” Olivia said, more to Lou than to me, but I knew she was right. Even though Carla drove Maya crazy sometimes, at least she knew her mom loved her. Her mom wouldn’t ditch out and not want to see her for ten years.

  “What’s your mom like?” I asked Olivia quietly, curious.

  Olivia made a snorting noise. “You don’t want to know.” But then she turned and looked at me. “She’s not very supportive and she drinks too much. I guess that’s the short version.” She gl
anced at Lou and he reached across the console and held her hand.

  Dad was looking out the front window beside the lit-up Closed sign when we pulled up. “I’m going to drive Olivia home,” he said. I took my time unbuckling. “He’s not mad, Dizzy. He’s just … worried.” I gave a resigned sigh and opened the car door. Dad held the front door open for me and waved to Lou and Olivia, mouthing, “Thanks.”

  I stood waiting for Dad to say something, but he just looked at me, like I should be the first one to speak. “Well?” he finally said.

  “Well, what?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “What happened?”

  I didn’t get a word out before tears sprang to my eyes. “You were right. You were right about everything and I’m an idiot. I should have listened to you. Is that what you want to hear? Is that what you were hoping for? Because that’s what happened. I wish I’d never gone to see her.” I stomped past him and up to my room.

  I flopped onto my bed and listened to Dad’s footsteps move down the hallway, stopping outside my door. I squeezed my eyes shut as Dad nudged the door open. “Dizzy?” He didn’t sound mad, just tired. I was facing the wall, trying to keep my breathing even. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, tickling my nose. I wiped them away and he moved into my room, sighing as he sat on my bed.

  “I talked to her,” I mumbled into my pillow. “For like two minutes. I told her we were waiting for her to come and see us. She didn’t care, Dad. She was never going to come.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah. Figured.”

  I rolled over and looked at Dad. “I hate her.” He winced and reached out to wipe a tear, but I jerked away from him.

  Dad caught his breath. “Dizz —”

  “No, I do! I hate her.” My face felt hot and tears prickled behind my eyes. “I wish you had told us the truth. It would have been easier to just hate her, instead of wondering why she never came back for us. If I’d known that all she cared about was herself, it would have been better!” I threw off the covers and stomped to my dresser. I caught my reflection in the mirror, the flaming-red hair, the pale skin — all from my mother. A new anger surged in me.