“Have a great show!” the blonde woman says. “You look amazing, by the way. I love your toga.”
“Love and luck!” says her blue-haired sister. They leave, and before Orr can think about what they’ve told him, the blue-haired one is back. “That bowl should be dumped out—like down the drain—but we have to go. Can you tell somebody?”
“What is it?”
“Mushroom tea,” the woman says. “Don’t get rid of it outside. I heard about someone doing that and feral cats getting to it. It really messed them up.”
3
Neon Glitter
“It’s time,” Jane says.
Orr’s mouth is still contracted from the bitter tea in the blue bowl and Plum’s strawberry lip gloss. He was thinking of her when the thirst came on, worse than ever before. Did the bowl really glow? Did the tea actually call to him? When Plum found him, he was licking the bitter dregs.
“Jane’s on her way, crazy boy,” Plum said. “I wanted to give you this for luck.” Orr held out his hand, but Plum pushed it away, standing on tiptoe to kiss Orr on the mouth. His ears had filled, wings beating, hoofbeats, blood. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.
Now he follows Jane to the stage and waits at her heels. He can see the crowd from here. So many people!
Allison is on the mic brandishing her cast. “So he whips his dick out,” she says. The crowd is roaring. “Who knew his dumb face would be so hard when I hit it?”
“Next time aim lower!” someone yells.
“That’s what we told her,” Jane yells back.
“All right, animals!” Allison says. “Simmer down. I wanna introduce my new friend Orr! This boy genius started playing the bass like five days ago, and he’s already got me out of a job. Give him a warm Portland welcome!”
Jane pushes Orr up front and he feels it then: the forest swelling toward him, sweet pitch, wind in his face. He’s supposed to be moving into his spot in front of the drum set, but he’s standing there, staring at the crowd. Jane laughs and leads him to the amp. Allison plugs him in while Jane greets the audience. Then there’s a fizzing moment of silence before Mika counts out the beat.
“One, two—one two three four!”
4
Charisma
The minor sparkle of the mushroom tea is nothing compared to this boy. Her brother.
Orr is stunning. The lead singer of the Furies, impressively tattooed and legitimately hot with a Joan-Jett-meets-an-avenging-goddess vibe, is reduced to a bit player, singing the words so Orr can bounce them back to her with effortless notes from the bass while he stands there in his eyeliner and red toga and rose crown, looking like a young god visiting from Olympus or Chichén Itzá.
“Your little brother is a total rock star,” Lorna yells into Iph’s ear.
All Iph can do is watch, mouth open like she’s trying to drink the music. Like that will somehow explain this phenomenon. This human who she’s bathed with, who slept in her bed until he was five, who’s needed so much from her his entire life, is thriving without her. In this chaotic space, Orr has found balance. His rhythm is generous—steady and loyal, like he is. Iph is crying. She always cries. Love and loss mix and cleanse. The bread-crumb trail has finally led her back to Orr. Soon, this chapter of their story will be over.
“You okay?” George’s mouth is on her ear. Iph turns her face to meet those lips. George pulls her closer. Tears, tongue, a hand to her neck. It’s a light kiss that knows there are many more to come. Iph takes a deep breath and smiles to show George she’s all right.
“I’m taking her out,” George says.
Iph touches the messenger bag to feel Scout inside. Her little body is tense.
They talked about this earlier. That for Scout’s sake, George would probably listen from outside. That they wouldn’t leave without each other, no matter what happened with finding Orr. “I’ll find you or you find me,” George says, giving her one last kiss.
Iph turns to look for Lorna, but Lorna is gone.
Alone in the crowd, she imagines that Orr is gone as well. “The tea was strong after all,” she’ll say later to George as they sprawl upstairs together at Taurus Trucking. “Maybe we’ll find him tomorrow.” As the traitorous thoughts unspool, Iph tries to wind them back. But there are no do-overs here. The truth is, she’s not quite ready to be anyone’s big sister again.
“I abandoned him,” she says out loud to no one in particular. “I abandoned my brother for lust.”
The guitar solo eats her words and flings them back to her. There’s no room for recrimination now. Lust is fine with this music. And if she abandoned Orr, look who picked him up! A pack of tween girls have commandeered the front of the stage and are dancing like dervishes. Little trails spark from the tips of their fingers and the ends of their hair as they spin. They crash into one another, laughing, drunk from the movement. Just like that, Iph lets go. Mind off.
And here is Lorna, shimmying around like a baby horse on her long graceful legs. She isn’t slinky here, but awkward in a way that is a gorgeous contrast to her it-girl perfection. For a second, Lorna’s just-rightness wraps around Iph, and every move she makes is glorious. A split second later, Iph sinks into herself, so heavy she can’t move.
She will never be beautiful like that. Never so light and lithe. So perfect. Never, her heart wails. Never ever! The mushroom tea plays cat’s cradle with the string of thought. Never. Never ever.
Iph can usually tame these voices with Mom’s rabid feminism or the wise words she’s read in riot grrrl zines. But it takes energy. And so much precious time. It seems like it will never end.
The song is reaching a distorted crescendo. The audience screams. Iph screams with them and feels a little better.
The next song creeps in as the band is tuning up with a sneaky drumbeat and slow simple bass. The X-Ray Café inhales, a dumpster-dive creature made of glitter, trash, hormones, and magic markers. Jane whisper-sings into the mic.
Don’t be sorry
Don’t say sorry
Don’t be sorry
Don’t say sorry
Iph steps a few feet back from the stage because Jane is up there reading her mind. The music builds and the front-loaded chorus repeats, getting louder each time. Iph is singing with her now. The entire audience is.
Don’t apologize
Blood in his eyes
I’m not sanitary
Not your Virgin Mary
Look at me
A delicacy
It’s that time babe
You can eat me
Orr yells this last line with the rest of the band and the crowd yells it back, and someone pogos into Iph, and she’s laughing and dancing. Orr is dancing, too, headbanging with Jane and Allison and the joy onstage is a slow-motion firework, sending tails of light out into the crowd.
The Furies are Iph’s new favorite band, her brother her all-time favorite bass player. Their music is hard like punk but a little slower, with a bluesy feel that takes hips into account. The lyrics are total riot grrrl, personal and political. The songs pile up one after the other with almost no breathing room in between. After the friend breakup and abortion and period songs and a very short song the drummer dedicated to someone named Red that is basically the band playing the Batman theme but screaming Fuck You every time you’d normally say Batman, there are two longer songs. One is slow, about a friend dying—just Jane and her guitar and the rest of the band humming behind her, a container for her sorrow. Here Jane shines, and Iph can see the craft she’s put into this lo-fi, seemingly thrown-together show. She is open-eyed and breathtakingly present. This, Iph thinks, is how you do it.
They wrap up with a surprising slow-funk seventies groove and announce that people can make an extra donation to Shiny Dancer at the table in the back. Glow comes onstage in a pink plastic raincoat and monster silver patent leather
platforms and shares the mic with Jane to do an excellent rap about stripping.
She walks right up to those neon lights
Gonna make her rent in just one night
She’s knows it’s not her clothes or her smooth young skin
It’s how she moves with what she’s in
She shakes it hard, she’s got a plan
You know that she knows what the men don’t understand
You call her a slut, call her a ho
But she knows a little secret that you don’t know
The audience is howling. The song ends, and Orr scans the crowd. Iph jumps up and waves. “Orr!” she shouts. But he’s not looking her way.
No, her brother is looking stage left, smiling like a googly-eyed cartoon character. Iph follows his gaze. Dad mentioned a girl, and this has got to be her. The entire family has wondered for years if Orr would ever have a type, but if they’d just stepped back and pictured it, it totally would be someone like this—waist-length wavy dark-red hair worn with a Halloween devil-horn headband, a black leotard under a frayed denim miniskirt, black Converse, sparkly striped knee socks, and a furry blue Cookie Monster backpack. Iph already loves her.
5
Stag of the
Stone Forest
Orr’s playing is like breathing. One long breath sipped from Plum’s lips, a radiating warmth, a sure path through a grove, a roving, ramping lust.
It is the belly of a bear. He is a beast being born.
His shorn head buzzes with a crown of bees, and Plum in the front of the crowd is the honey.
When the music finally pants to rest, he is sweating and thirsty, and the room is a mush of color and muffled sound. Then he sees the Furies. They are haloed as he imagined them before the show. Allison, Patron Saint of Knuckle Sandwiches, is holding him as they jump up and down together. Even Mika comes to join the hug. Jane waits for the others to step away.
“Babe,” she says. She means, You were good. She means, I am proud. She hugs him.
People worm into their pack with more hugs and congratulations. The next band is setting up. The Furies scatter. Orr stands alone on the stage.
Where is Plum? She said she’d find him. Fear sprouts. His head twinges a migraine warning above each eye.
“Orr!”
He looks around the room, but there are too many possible sources.
“Orr!”
The stage tilts and begins to revolve, a slow orbit around the throbbing pulses in Orr’s head. The singer for the next band, a slight pale girl with big dark eyes and curls like Iph’s, comes over to adjust the height of a mic stand. He moves out of her way to stand at the edge of the stage. Where is he supposed to go now?
Then, somehow, with no warning at all, his sister is standing on the stage beside him.
Iph? Is his mouth moving? Did he say her name or think it? His heart is racing. “Iph, I’m kind of spinning.”
She smiles. “You, too?” She puts her hands on his shoulders to steady him.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” he says back.
Iph. It’s Iph.
“You were beautiful up there.” Her face is shining. Her curls are full of roses. She smells like herself but different.
“Iph?” Orr says. “Is the stage tilting?”
“Little brother,” Iph says in a bad British accent that means he’s stumbled onto one of their many private jokes. “Did you, by chance, drink any of that tea?”
“Iph,” Orr says, “we’re on drugs. Are you even here right now?”
She laughs and Orr’s head stops pounding.
“We have to get off the stage,” he says. “I need to find Plum.”
“I’d be offended that finding some girl is all you can think about after this crazy week, but I have to find someone, too.”
“A boy?” Orr asks. “A girl?”
“Yes,” Iph says. “Named George. And a pocket pit named Scout. Now take my hand. We’re gonna walk to the edge and jump off together.”
Hand in hand, they’re laughing like hyenas. That’s what Dad always says when his children get started and can’t stop. They jump on the count of three. The distance is short, but time stretches and they land softly, like the floor of the club is a pile of September leaves.
When Orr looks up, Plum is there. He looks from her to Iph. He should say something out of politeness, blah blah blah. He’s laughing again. Plum’s face is slow-motion starting to frown. Iph saves him because she’s his big sister.
“I’m Orr’s sister,” she says. “Iphigenia.” Why is she giving her full name? Orr swats away the thought of alien abduction in favor of mushroom tea. Or maybe this week has changed Iph as much as it has changed him.
“I’m Plum,” Plum says, and Orr can only think of kissing her again. “And that,” she says to Orr, “was fantastic. FANFREAKINGTASTIC. I’m almost mad at you, it was so good.”
“Why mad?”
“Because you’re a maniac rock-star man cub, that’s why.” Plum grabs his shoulders and shakes him a little. “How did you learn to do that?”
“Iph,” Orr says, “we’re not on TV.” Iph is standing there staring, like she’s watching Bringing Up Baby or My So-Called Life. She has that same smile.
“Sorry,” Iph says. “Do you want to come outside and meet my friend George? And I’d love to meet the band—”
Feedback screeches, penetrating Orr’s earplugs. Nails on a chalkboard amplified all the way up. Up to eleven, Orr thinks—Dad’s dumb joke from some old movie. It squeals again, and the crowd seems to double. Orr remembers, something about the next two bands. They are popular, better known than the Furies. Iph is talking to Plum, who is pointing out Mika. Orr puts his hands over his ears. Where is backstage? Is there a quiet place here? Allison warned him about the bathroom—too gross even for her, she says.
Orr does a therapy technique, looks for the corners of the room. Velvet-painted Elvises and glamour girls stare back. A table of poker-playing dogs look suspicious as he tries to scan the room’s perimeter. His head hurts. He needs air.
Then Plum is there, leading him outside, around the corner. “Your sister’s going to meet us out here,” she says. It’s still loud, but quieter. The moon is high and the cool is good. Plum leans against the building. Orr looks down at her. When did he get so tall? He touches her hair, something he’s longed to do. Bunches it in his hands.
She closes her eyes, lifts her face. They are kissing now. A real kiss. Plum is pulling him closer. A car speeds by, honking. He startles, pulls away. Plum laughs, but her face is distorted like she is underwater. Orr’s head aches. It hurts so bad. He’s holding it. He is so thirsty. He presses his forehead to the side of the building. The rough brick is a poultice. He’s tapping now, rhythmic hits against the bricks. Plum is saying . . . something. Pulling at his arm. Everything is hushed except for the sound of his forehead hitting the wall.
“Orr!” Iph says. “Stop it!”
Your sister is in charge. That’s what his parents always say when they go out. Listen to your sister.
“Stop it right now!”
Dad’s voice.
No, it’s Iph channeling Dad. And it’s enough. He stops. Turns.
Plum is crying.
Humiliation falls like poisoned rain. Or is he drenched in sweat? He won’t look at Plum. Can’t bear to. Can’t even look at Iph as she pulls him away from the wall. Then he sees it in the glass of a shop window.
The boy in the mirror is gone, and so is Orr’s pain.
In their place is a tall lanky creature with two small mossy horns peeking from his forehead.
He stomps his foot. Once, twice, three times.
This is not a place for him to be. Not anymore.
Orr steps back, clear of Iph and Plum. Then he runs.
6
Inne
r
Psychological
Drives
Iph is in front of the X-Ray yelling her brother’s name, but he is so fast. She wishes for George, for the bikes. She can barely see him now, already blocks away and still running down Burnside.
“Iph!”
She turns. Not George, but Josh—no Shakespeare now, all business.
“Cait’s getting her car. I’m gonna run ahead and see if I can at least keep sight of him.”
How are Josh and Cait here just when she needs them? She remembers hearing people call Portland a big small town. Josh takes off fast, but not as fast as Orr. Iph squints to see the red toga now. And where is George?
Plum takes her arm. “What can I do?”
A honking BMW sedan turns the corner. “My friend is here somewhere. George—with dark hair and a mohawk, carrying around a little pit named Scout.”
“I saw them earlier! I’ll tell George where you went,” Plum says. “Do you want to meet somewhere later?”
“Back at Taurus Trucking,” Iph says. “George will know.”
Cait pulls up in front of the club. Iph climbs in the back seat. Somehow, Lorna is in the passenger seat. “Thank you, Plum,” Iph calls out the open window. “Tell George I’m sorry!”
The car is silent as Cait drives down Burnside. Iph doesn’t see Josh or her brother. Cait speeds up. There, on the corner in front of Powell’s, is Josh, doubled over. Cait pulls into the bus stop, and he gets in the back with Iph.
“Your brother is hella fast,” he says, panting. “He went thataway.” Josh points past Powell’s. “Down 12th.”
“Thank you,” Iph says. “I didn’t even know you were at the show.”
“I got there late. George heard your brother ran off and sent me.” He leans forward, hands on the two front seats. “Greetings, George’s exes.”
“Shut up,” Cait and Lorna say in unison.
Summer in the City of Roses Page 22
