“You’re a real bitch.” I pushed by her and headed for the door.
“Maybe I am,” she said, grabbing my arm, “but I’ll be the one who’s leaving with you on Monday.”
I shook loose. “Go to hell.” But even as I said it, I knew that I was the one heading there. There was no avoiding it. I’d made a deal with the devil—something I knew the minute I’d allowed myself to be enticed into Kitten’s bed—and now I was simply paying the price.
The unholy trinity had been shattered.
I WALKED BACK through the lounge to the stage, suddenly sick of the stink of beer and cigarettes, tired of the loud music and drunken voices, angry at everyone, especially myself. Bikers patted me on the back and offered me beers, but I didn’t care. So much for the power of the Universal Chord. Could the moment last? Did the chord really exist? Had I really thought it possible? What a stupid shit.
I stood alone on the stage, my back to the crowd, waiting for the rest of the band to return for our next set. I popped a couple more cross-tops—how many had I taken?—then closed my eyes and tried to block out the noise. I pictured Nita driving back to Seattle, leaving me like everyone else who had left before and would leave in the future. Leaving me like Dad, like Kevin, like Rob.
Mick appeared at the edge of the stage with his usual entourage of Evangeline and Yogi and stepped up onto the littered platform. “Waiting for the professionals to take over again, are you?”
I glared at him. “Think you can handle it?”
His eyebrows arched up. “You O.K., mate?”
“Sure. Just don’t fucking faint on us again, O.K.?”
“My, my.” He turned away and bent to readjust his mike stand.
From across the stage, Rob strapped on his bass and wandered over to me. “Nice job on the songs, man.”
“Thanks.”
He glanced out into the lounge. “I guess it should be easier from here on out. They seem to like us now.” He grinned and pulled a fat joint from the pocket of his shirt. “One of them gave me this.”
I tried to smile. “Guess it beats having bottles thrown at us.”
“Sure does.”
“So, are you still going to quit?” I hadn’t meant it to sound like a challenge, but an ugly edge had worked its way into my voice.
He apparently caught it and his grin disappeared. “Nothing’s changed, man.” With that, he palmed the joint and slid back over to his side of the stage.
I shielded my eyes and peered out into the blur of the crowd, knowing that Nita wouldn’t be there, but I saw Evangeline standing near the edge of the stage. She caught my eye and waved me over.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked. “I thought I’d sit with her.”
“She’s gone.”
“Oh.” She gave me a worried look. “For good?”
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “Looks like it.”
She frowned. “That’s too bad. I liked her.”
“Me, too,” I said as I faded back toward my amp.
For what it was worth, Rob was right: We now owned the place.
Every time we started a new song or one of us stepped forward for a solo, a roar would come from the tables beyond the dance floor. Beers kept arriving at the edge of the stage. Even the occasional screwup didn’t break the spell. Rob’s mike stopped working, and later our stage lights blinked out, but it didn’t matter to the crowd.
And, for once, it didn’t matter to me. I was numb to it all. Part of me, lit up by my cross-tops, buzzed and tingled, shook and sweated, but everything from my skin outward had become distant, apart, as if I were watching it on TV I played our songs, heard the music, saw the dancers, but I felt none of the intensity from earlier. And as we worked through the next set of covers a muted desperation grew within me, a hollow fear generated by the knowledge that when the drugs wore off, I’d be alone again, with the Real Me. Nothing had changed, man.
We finished the night with Won’t Get Fooled Again—Pete Townshend’s unneeded reminder to me that I was a fool to buy into the lie that everything could be different, that things would be better. But as I angrily bashed my way through the chords, taking out the ultimate frustration of the night on the strings of my guitar, the song, as always, worked its way under my skin. Slowly but surely, I felt the irrational hope that lurked somewhere beneath Townshend’s cynical lyrics build within me, lifting me up on the rising tide of Townshend’s impassioned insinuation that things could change. In the midst of the song’s chaos, I closed my eyes and heard Townshend’s whispered voice, telling me: You can’t change the world, mate, but you can change yourself. At that moment, I understood what he meant. And shortly after Mick let loose with the second of the song’s two screams, I realized what I had to do.
23
IT WAS A FEW MINUTES after two and raining when I made it to the phone booth down the street from the hotel. Breathing in the cold, leaden air, I looked up the number, ripped the page out of the phone book, and rolled a dime into the slot.
The phone rang at least eight times before an annoyed voice answered, “Puente Harbor Travel Lodge.”
“I’m trying to reach someone there. I don’t know her room number.”
The operator sighed. “Name?”
“Nita Annstrom.” I spelled it for her.
“Hold on.”
I waited, hoping Nita hadn’t checked out, knowing that she could’ve without telling them. The voice came back on. “I can patch you through.”
“Hold on. Look, I just realized how late it is. I’ll call back tomorrow. What’s her extension?”
Another sigh. “One-fifty. Goodnight.”
Without a jacket to protect me, I ran through the rain to the parking lot behind the hotel and slid into the Blue Bomb. While the engine warmed, I looked up through the wet windshield and watched the silhouetted figures of the band and whoever else they were drinking with pass back and forth behind the blinds of the room. When the sound of the engine dropped down into its normal sputter, I let out the clutch and pulled into the alley.
The asphalt of Puente Harbor glistened in my headlights. I now knew these streets, and while they looked strange in the dead-of-night stillness, I had no problem finding my way across town. Three turns brought me to the highway along the waterfront, and I turned east before slowing as the lights of motel row came into view. The Travel Lodge had the largest sign, lit in yellow-and-blue neon. I drove through the parking lot and found Room 150 on the ground floor at the end of the east wing. With my heartbeat accelerating, I shut off the headlights and pulled into a parking spot almost in front of the room. Thinking about my next move, I cracked the window and lit a cigarette, wondering if Nita was still here.
Exhaling smoke through the window opening, I saw an orange 280Z parked two cars over. Looking at the darkened window of her room, I considered just leaving a note on the windshield of her car, but then I pictured Nita simply scrapping the wet paper off the glass in the morning without bothering to look at it. And, anyhow, what the hell did I have to say that could be put into a nice, neat little note? Shivering, I ground the cigarette into the ashtray and got out.
For a long moment, I stood beneath the shelter of the second-floor balcony thinking about what I’d say to her. Finally, I knocked softly on the door and stepped back, watching the curtained window for any sign of light or movement. Seeing nothing, I took a breath and knocked again, this time louder.
A dim light switched on, and a moment later “Who’s there?” came from behind the door.
“Nita, it’s me, Daniel.” I waited for the door to open.
“It’s late,” she said through the laminated surface. “Please go away.”
“I need to talk to you.” I moved closer. “Can’t you open the door?”
There was a long pause. Then, quietly: “It’s not your fault. I made a mistake coming here. You should go back to your hotel.”
Something in the sleepless tone of her voice betrayed an opening. “I’ll leave if you want me
to, but I need to say something first. And I can’t through this door.”
No answer came back, but a moment later the door cracked open the width of the security chain, and a sliver of her upturned pale face glinted through the opening. “What is it?”
I started to speak, but a light flicked on and a curtain moved in an adjacent room. “Look,” I whispered, “I’m gonna wake up everyone in this place if you don’t let me in.”
One of Nita’s brown eyes blinked. “Hold on for a minute. I’ll come out.” The door shut, and I lit another cigarette and waited. After a few minutes, Nita slipped out, clad in her black jacket and jeans.
“Let’s talk in the van,” I said.
Her eyes moved from me to the van. “No. Let’s walk.”
Without waiting for my reaction, she started into the parking lot, sliding through the shadows with quick, stiff steps toward the highway. I caught her at the sidewalk, and side by side we headed in the direction of town. Nita swept at her disheveled hair and kept her eyes straight ahead, as if trying to see something off in the distance. The rain had lessened, turning into a heavy mist, and a car roared by us through the shimmering moisture. I breathed in, tasting its fumes.
I tried to order my thoughts before speaking, but Nita beat me to it. “We don’t know each other very well, do we,” she said, maintaining her forward gaze.
I wasn’t sure if she was asking a question or stating a fact. I glanced at her. “I guess not.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking coming here. After what happened with my father....”
“Look, Nita—”
“Let me talk first.” She shoved her hands down into her pockets and rushed on. “It wasn’t fair to you, showing up without telling you first. I know that. But I thought I saw something at the party, and—” she paused for a moment “—I always trust my senses.” Then with one swift, heart-wrenching shake of her head she added, “But I guess I was wrong.”
I took a quick breath. “Let me explain about her.”
She took a step ahead of me. “No, don’t. You don’t owe me anything. I’m the one who showed up unexpectedly, and—” She stumbled on a crack. I caught her arm, but she wrenched away. Watching her put space between us, a wave of fatigue swept over me. I turned my face upward into the falling mist and let the moisture hit my eyes. Thinking through what I could say, voices filled my head, calling out words, suggesting lies, concocting excuses. Sorting through them, I searched for my own voice. There was something about her that demanded the words that lurked below the surface, the ones I knew I didn’t know how to say. But I had to find a way to say them.
I caught up to her. “Nita, there’s something I should tell you.”
She glanced at me. “Do you mean about the drugs?”
I stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“I have friends who do uppers. I can hear it in your voice, Daniel. I’m not being critical. How could I? I smoke grass. I just guessed that you do ’em.”
My stride broke and I fell a step behind again. An echo of a voice came from way back in my head: She sees the real you, mate. Tell her the bloody truth.
I took a deep breath and lengthened my steps until I was beside her again, searching for a way to get a handle on the truth. “Listen to me, Nita. That’s not what I wanted to tell you. I don’t know how to put it, but have you ever listened to Quadrophenia, the Who album?”
“Quadrophenia?” She squinted at me like I was crazy. “I know it, but what about it?”
I swallowed hard. “I know this sounds stupid, but sometimes I think I’m like the kid in those songs on the album. It’s like I ... it’s like I can’t seem to find myself. Like there’s nothing there but these fragments of other people, these pieces of things. Like I’m four people at once, and they’re all about to fly apart.” I shook my head. Could this make any sense to her? “I guess what I’m trying to say is that music’s the only thing that holds me together.” I shrugged. “And the drugs—well, they do sometimes, too.” I got in front of her and faced her straight on. “Do you understand?”
She stopped and looked at me. “Are you trying to explain why you were with that ... that woman? You don’t have to make up excuses.”
“Christ, I’m not making up excuses.” I clenched my fists in frustration. “I’m telling you that there’s something wrong with me. That’s why everything I do, except the music, gets messed up.” I realized my head was violently shaking back and forth. “I can’t explain it.”
Her eyes strayed from my face. “We all do things we don’t mean to do.” She gazed down the street. “You know, Daniel, you don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to explain it to me.”
I rubbed at my damp forehead, realizing once again that the truth was no good. But I also knew that nothing else would work with her. “Look,” I said, searching unsuccessfully for the right way to put it, “I slept with Kitten. I know it was a big mistake. But at the time it made some kind of weird sense. I mean, no, that’s not what I mean. Look, she got us a gig opening for Heart. They’re playing here. Tomorrow night. She has connections. She knows promoters, people in the business who can help us. This gig is really important, and she—” I shut my mouth, realizing I was going on like a speed freak.
Her eyes latched onto mine. “You’re opening for Heart tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. At the fairgrounds. And Kitten got us the gig, and—I don’t know—one thing led to another. I screwed up. It was like this other part of me took over....”
Her eyes broke away. “You can sleep with anybody you want. I don’t make those kind of demands on anyone, especially someone I hardly know.” She started back toward the motel, then abruptly stopped again. “Daniel, I, well, I don’t care that much that you slept with her—it’s not important to me—but I hate thinking that you would compromise yourself, your music, just to get better gigs. That’s what you did, isn’t it?”
With amazing clarity, she saw what lurked beneath the surface. I posed like an artist, but at the first opportunity I was willing to sell out. And Nita knew it.
“Yeah,” I said, “I guess that’s what I did.”
She started down the sidewalk. Stuffing my cold hands into my pockets, fingers touching the comforting glass of my vial, I followed her. The rain suddenly started again, bringing with it the earthy smell of her damp leather jacket. I caught up with her and looked at her face. Streaks of water ran down her cheeks, looking like tears, but I guessed this time they weren’t.
“Nita.” I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at me. “Look, you said that you didn’t know me, but you do—you really do. That’s why I came here tonight. I need to be with someone who really sees me. And you do. You know all about the drugs, you know about the music, you know I’m screwed up.” My voice, high and breathless, scared me a little; but I pressed on. “You know all that, so why’d you come here?”
She snuck a look at me and lowered her chin. “Because I trust my heart too much.” She said it in a voice so muted that I barely heard her, but I was immediately struck by how much her words sounded like Evangeline’s from earlier in the night. At least we were in agreement on one thing: Trusting your heart, like telling the truth, was a bad idea.
We walked on in silence, and my legs, which I realized I’d been on for hours, ached. Still, I watched her out of the corner of my eye, seeing her transparently blonde hair, as if by magic, stray from yellow to blue to red, reflecting the neon lights of the motels we passed. I shivered and rubbed a sleeve across my face.
Nita glanced at me. “Don’t you have a coat? You’re getting soaked.”
“I forgot it.”
“You should go back to your hotel and get dried off.”
We turned into the parking lot of the Travel Lodge. Breaking apart from each other, we circumvented puddles and cars on the way to her door. My mind raced for something more to say, but only echoes of fragmented thoughts bounced around my skull. The only concept that blazed out w
ith clarity was that Nita—this girl who somehow saw the Real Me—was going to leave me and that I would be alone.
She unlocked the door and turned toward me. “Daniel, I came here because my father didn’t tell me the truth. I was ... well, I simply needed someone to—” She shook her head. “I see it wasn’t fair to lay it on you.” She tilted her head back, looked above me. “Dishonesty, it always makes me do crazy—”
“Nita, I’m being honest with you.”
She sighed. “I know that. But right now, I need to go back to Seattle and get things straightened out with my father.” She put a hand on my arm but pulled it away after a moment. “Good luck with your music, Daniel. You have a lot of talent. Just stay true to it.”
She turned and disappeared into the room, and the void she left in her wake was immediate. I felt myself slipping into it, knowing that words—my words—were weak and useless. Music was the only way I could connect with anyone. Suddenly remembering the Heart tickets in my back pocket, I pulled one out and knelt down in front of her door. “Nita,” I whispered as I slipped the ticket under the door, “don’t go back yet. Come see us play tomorrow night.”
I waited for something, anything, but there was no response. I stood outside in the boundless darkness until the light shut off in her room.
Finally, I lit up my last cigarette, pulled myself into the Blue Bomb, and headed back through the rain to the hotel.
24
THE POUNDING at the door—thump, thump, thump—was another one of those weird déjà vu moments.
I shot straight up in my sleeping bag as Mick and Sam did the same thing. We all looked at each other as the pounding continued.
“What the fuck,” Sam sputtered from the roll-away. “Who’s that?”
“Hey!” Mick yelled at the door. “Sod off!”
After a pause, the knocking started again. This wasn’t the sharp, nervous rap of Mr. Tom; this was the measured thump of authority. I crawled out of the sleeping bag and pushed off the floor. Sunlight filtering through the window blinds created a series of wavy gray-and-white bars across the floor, and I hip-hopped across the streaks and cracked open the door. Peering out, I looked directly into the big, square face of a cop, a face blurry with heavy, sandy-colored eyebrows and a thick mustache. Behind him stood a shorter, dark-haired policeman.
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