My first memories of my parents together come later, when my mother would drop us off at my father’s old place on Ninety-Sixth Street, thrusting a bag full of snacks and books at him. After kissing us good-bye, she’d just sort of disappear behind us on the sidewalk. A few times, some random passing music nerd would recognize both my parents at the same time—maybe seeing them in context helped—and his head would explode. This ended with my father signing an autograph and my mother stalking off toward the train station.
My father would take our hands and lead us slowly up the stairs to his apartment, which was open and bright and full of records. He’d play us songs all afternoon. I don’t remember him telling us much about the bands, but it’s possible that some of the information I attribute to my mother having taught us actually came from him. And later, he’d take us for hot chocolate or milk shakes, depending on the season, and French fries or pancakes for dinner. My mother would pick us up outside his apartment before bedtime. I remember him standing there waving as we walked away down the sidewalk, and the fact that he’d stay there until we reached the corner.
I asked Luna once what she thought had changed between them, why they’d gone from getting along to barely speaking.
“Mom was probably just pissed that she had to do everything by herself,” Luna said. “I’m sure it was really freaking hard.”
Maybe she’s right. In the beginning, maybe my mother saw the divorce and Shelter’s breakup as her own choice. She wanted a different kind of life for us. But as the years ticked on and she ended up doing almost everything alone, she must have gotten angry. I can see that. It drives me crazy, though, that I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t remember a time when things were good.
Luna and I ride the 5 train back to Brooklyn, then walk for blocks down Court Street to BookCourt, her favorite bookstore. I buy a black Moleskine notebook and a tiny, beautiful paperback copy of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. We read it last year and it’s my favorite play, with its gender-bending heroine and tales of mistaken identity and improbable love. At six, when the sun is still hot but a little lower in the sky, and guys in suits start to come out of the subway stations, blinking like animals who live underground, we walk back to Brooklyn Heights. We eat falafel at a Lebanese place off Court Street with deep orange walls stenciled with a lattice pattern.
“Is this what you do, all day every day?” I ask.
Luna shrugs. “I read,” she says. “I do yoga.” She folds her hands into prayer position. “We played a couple of shows with this singer who told me she never eats before she performs.” She spears a falafel with her fork. “She says it makes her nauseous. Better to do it on an empty stomach, is her theory.” Luna tilts her head to the side, considering this. “I would never make it. I need the calories if I’m going to do all that jumping around.”
I dip a piece of pita bread into the bowl of hummus in the middle of our table. “Makes sense to me.”
Luna smiles. “That girl’s band is called Poncho, so she’s not showing good judgment in other areas either.”
I hear my phone chime in my bag just then, but Luna doesn’t notice. I slip it out and look at the screen, hiding it under the table like girls at school do, with varying degrees of success, when they’re trying to keep the teachers from seeing. It’s a text from Archer: Ready for another real-life sighting of each other tonight?
What’s the collective noun for butterflies? Because a whole flock—flutter?—of them have taken up residence in my belly.
We get back to the apartment after dinner, and a half hour later I’m kneeling on the floor in front of my suitcase, trying to decide what to wear. I’ve been taking out dresses and shirts and laying them out on the couch, but nothing seems right.
“Just go into my closet,” Luna says. “Borrow something of mine.” I’m frowning, looking at the couch, where it seems like a bunch of mildly fashionable teenage girls have been Raptured off to heaven, leaving their outfits behind.
“Seriously,” Luna says. “You’re making a mess.” She scoops up a dress and a couple of shirts and drops them back into my open suitcase. She turns and crosses the living room.
I follow her into her room. She opens her tiny closet as wide as she can and sits down on the edge of her bed.
“I’ve already picked out my dress.” She motions toward a black one laid across her pillow. “Take whatever you want.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll avoid black.” Luna laughs.
The problem with that, I quickly see, is that almost everything in her closet is black.
“You’d think you were some kind of Goth girl,” I say, pulling a few hangers out. “A Victorian widow in mourning.”
“Rock and roll,” Luna says. “It looks good onstage, especially with pale skin like mine.” She looks at me. “Ours.”
“Right,” I say. “That’s why I don’t want to match you.”
The space is crammed with clothes, so it takes me a while to flip through. Eventually, somewhere in the middle, I find a sleeveless, jewel-toned green dress with a drawstring waist. I pull it out.
“This,” I say, holding it up.
“Okay,” says Luna.
I strip off my own shirt and shorts and pull the dress over my head. It flutters down over my hips. When I look at myself reflected headless in the vanity mirror I can see that the dress fits perfectly. I tie a bow in the drawstring and sit down on the stool.
Behind me, Luna swoops my hair into an off-center ponytail at the nape of my neck. She pulls too tightly and I wince.
“Ouch,” I say.
“Beauty hurts,” says Luna. “Now turn around and close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“I’ll do your makeup,” she says. “Just like old times.”
Luna used to practice on me when we were younger. I was just ten in the beginning, when she’d sneak handfuls of our mother’s makeup from the bathroom and spread it out over the quilt on her bed. Later, when she had her own makeup, and even later, when I did, I’d sit in Luna’s bedroom in front of my grandmother’s beautiful old vanity table from the forties, the wood lacquered to a high gloss, lipstick spread like candy on a glass tray.
Now I can feel the eyeliner pencil just above my lashes, a soft, gentle pressure.
“I’m trusting you not to poke my eyes out,” I say.
“I’ll do my best.” She dabs shadow on my eyelids, and then runs a soft brush over my cheekbones. It’s hard to keep my eyes closed, but I do it because I don’t want to see until she’s finished.
“There,” she says finally.
I open my eyes, and in the big oval mirror, I study my face. I’ve always seen myself as a less-pretty version of Luna. We both have my mother’s ivory skin and blue-green eyes, but her cheekbones are higher, her face less round. Her hair is thick and wavy in a well-behaved way, while mine is wavy-curly-can’t-decide-what-it-wants-to-do. But I like the way I look now, glowy and shimmery and sure of something.
“It’s a teen-movie makeover miracle!” I say.
“Whatever,” Luna says, shaking her head, her smile small and true. “You always look pretty.”
She unzips her jeans, peels them off, and throws them on the bed, then pulls her black dress over her head. She stands there for a minute, spine completely straight, looking into the mirror.
“Do you think I look a little fat?” she says. She pulls her dress tight at the waist.
This is weird, because Luna has never been one of those girls who worries about her weight. My sister has always been thin. She’s always been beautiful.
“Um, no,” I say. “Not even a little.”
She stands there, looking, for a few seconds more, and then she sits down at the dresser to do her own makeup. I wander away into the living room.
There’s a light breeze coming through one of the windows and I sit on the floor below it and open her guitar case. I hold it the way I’ve seen my sister do a hundred times: left hand on the neck, fingers between the fret
s, pressing down on the strings. The other hand down low on the body of the guitar. I strum so lightly almost no sound comes out, just a tinny collection of notes that don’t quite form a chord. It seems like this should be natural for me, should be encoded in my genes or sprinkled like calcium in my bones, but it isn’t. I put the guitar down and go sit on the couch.
When Luna comes out of her room, her eyes are outlined in smudged black liner and her hair is loose over her shoulders. She’s wearing that black dress, which turns out to be a tank dress made of jersey and panels of raw silk. I don’t say it, but she looks like our mother on the cover of SPIN, without the ’90s makeup. She looks like our mother—but she won’t ever be her, I realize, because if Luna manages to make it as far as our mother did, she won’t give it up.
seventeen
MEG
MAY 1995
AT A BOUTIQUE IN SOHO, Kit was holding an emerald-green dress in front of her.
“Too Kermit?” she said. She furrowed her brow.
“That’s an entirely different shade from Kermit,” I said. “Don’t you know your Muppets?” I stopped to consider the dress.
“Well,” Kit said, “I’ve heard that it’s not easy being green, so I’m feeling a little cautious.”
“I like green,” I said. “I wore it at Lollapalooza last year, remember? One of only three dresses I wore.”
“Well, if Meg Ferris wears it, then I guess it’s fine.” Kit was smiling but I saw a spark of something like hurt in her eyes. “If you’re famous,” she said, hanging the dress back on the rack, “you can wear whatever you want.”
“Come on, Kit,” I said. I pulled a charcoal-gray sweater off the rack. It was so light and gauzy it felt like a spiderweb in my hand.
“I’m just saying.” Kit shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind being famous myself.”
“You practically are. You were in the Post just last week.”
“My sleeve was,” she said. “My elbow. Next to your whole body.”
“Well,” I said, “you have a very famous elbow.”
At the counter, the two salesgirls were leaning together, whispering. I scanned my eyes quickly past them, the way I always did when I wanted to pretend I didn’t notice people noticing me.
She held up her bent arm. “I do,” she said. “It’s a nice elbow, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Very.” I put the sweater back. “Anyway, sometimes it’s shitty,” I said.
“What is?” Kit asked. “My elbow?”
I laughed, but it felt off-kilter. “This,” I said. “Fame?” It came out like a question. “I was Meg Foster, art student and girl in a band, and then I met Kieran and became Meg Ferris, famous person and Girl in a Band.”
“When is it shitty?” Kit asked, not because she didn’t believe me, but because she wanted to know.
When everything is different, I wanted to say. When the person you love changes and you’re not even sure how. That would make a decent song, actually, I thought, but I’d need a metaphor. Something about disguises, or doppelgängers. Or alien body snatchers, though I didn’t think the people at the label would like it if I suggested a sci-fi concept album. But I didn’t tell Kit any of this, because I didn’t know how to say it out loud. Words failed me sometimes when I was not speaking through a song.
“It’s just . . . not always as great as it seems. That’s all.”
I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I turned toward the salesgirls and shone my smile their way. The dark-haired one came out from behind the counter.
“I have to ask you,” she said. “Are you Meg Ferris?”
I nodded and tilted my head just slightly to the side like I was posing for a photograph.
“Oh my god!” She turned to the blond girl still at the register, leaning on the counter. “Alexis, I told you!”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We can totally hook you up,” she said. “Our boss loves it when famous people shop here. Would you let us take your picture for the wall?”
I looked behind her. The photos were Polaroids, so they were small, but still I could see one of Courtney in her red lipstick, hamming it up as usual, and another of Kim Gordon, looking cool and intriguingly beautiful. I could do something like that.
“Of course,” I said. I grabbed Kit’s wrist in mine and pulled her up to stand next to me. “This is my sister, Kit.”
The girl nodded and smiled. “I’m Leah,” she said. “Pick out something to wear.” She gestured toward the racks. “You can totally keep it.”
I took that gray sweater and a short black dress off the rack and Kit went back for the not-Kermit. She shimmied out of her jeans right in the middle of the store, so I did the same.
We stood and we posed.
Voilà—fame, of a sort, for my sister, and some new free threads to go with it.
Sometimes this is so hard, and sometimes it’s so easy. Maybe Kit is right. Maybe there’s something to be said for being known, even if you feel like you’re only playing a part.
“Thanks,” Leah said, fanning the undeveloped photo in the air. “Our boss will go nuts.”
She set the photo down on the counter and I stood there with Kit, my shoulder pressed to hers. We leaned on the counter, elbows on the glass, waiting to see ourselves appear.
eighteen
AT EIGHT, WE’RE OUTSIDE Borough Hall under a sky that’s orange around its edges and still blue gray overhead. The buildings are radiating heat, so we duck inside, happy to find shelter. Luna carries her guitar and a black bag over her shoulder and I have my bag too, the copies of SPIN and Catcher tucked inside.
There’s a long hallway to the train platform and it’s even more humid underground. Luna’s dress taps against my thighs as I walk.
“Why don’t you let them take your guitar?” I ask. I touch the tiled wall without meaning to, and it feels smooth and glassy.
“It’s a ritual,” she says. “Whenever I take the train to a show. Just me and my guitar.” She swings the case a little and its tip points toward the ceiling. “Or in this case me, my guitar, and my little sister.”
When the 4 train comes, the air inside is so cool and fluorescently lit it feels like a refrigerator. The car we choose is only half-full, and we find a row of empty seats across from the door. I drop my purse down on the seat between us, and Luna holds her guitar case between her knees. The train’s doors slide closed with a whoosh of air.
“Where are we going, anyway?”
“It’s called the Tulip Club. Weird name, but everyone plays there. It’s in the Village.” She pulls out her lip gloss and takes the cap off one-handed, holding the neck of the guitar case with her other one. “We can walk across Washington Square on the way.”
Borough Hall is the first Brooklyn stop, so the next one is in Manhattan, on the other side of the river. The train lurches and screeches. Outside the window opposite us is only darkness, but all I can see is my reflection, not Luna’s. I close my eyes so I don’t have to stare at myself, and don’t open them again until we’re at Brooklyn Bridge and we get off to switch to the local.
As Luna said, the club is a few blocks from Washington Square Park, and we walk through the park even though it seems like it’s a little out of our way to do that. I think about what James said about being on time, and I know we won’t be. Luna stops for a moment at the fountain in the center and we lean together against the stone wall, watching the water and the people around it. There’s a bulldog playing in the water, putting his big face right in the spray in the center. He’s soaked and ridiculous, his open mouth a big grin. Seeing him makes me miss Dusty.
I look at Luna—to tell her that, I guess—but she’s staring up at the sky. She sees me looking at her and drops her head.
“I feel nauseous,” she says.
“That’s probably normal,” I say. “You’re about to perform.”
Luna shakes her head. She crosses her arms and hugs herself, and when she looks at me, her eyes are shiny with tears. I actually g
asp a little when I see it. Luna doesn’t cry. She never, ever cries.
“Hey!” I say. “You’re okay. Don’t worry! It makes sense that you’d be nervous.”
Luna tips her head backward, trying to blink the tears away.
“I don’t get nervous,” she says.
I don’t know what to say. I put my hand on hers and squeeze it. We sit for another minute or two, staring ahead. The bulldog has left the fountain, and now there’s just the water, spraying up in a constant stream.
“All right.” She takes a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
She stands and I follow her, knocking my knee against her guitar case. We walk out of the park and down West Fourth, then stop at a pink neon sign that reads TULIP CLUB. There’s a pointy blossom at the sign’s end, and when I turn away from it, the shape lingers on my retinas.
There’s a standing chalkboard on the sidewalk near the curb. TONIGHT, it reads, LUNA AND THE MOONS. The door is open and by the door there’s a guy reading one of the newspapers handed out for free on the street. He looks at us with only a little bit of interest.
“We’re the band,” Luna says. He nods. I wait for him to ask what I play (possible answers, considering my musical talent or lack thereof: Tambourine? Triangle?), but he doesn’t ask for any more information. Luna walks past him and I follow as if I know what I’m doing.
It’s dim inside, mostly empty, lit by big gold bulbs on the stage and the hazy neon of beer signs scattered around the walls. Speakers somewhere—everywhere—are playing the Stones’ “Beast of Burden” and I feel like I’ve walked right into the song.
The boys have already loaded in and are setting up their gear on the stage. Luna heads toward them, but I hang back by the bar for a moment. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do while I’m waiting. I perch on the edge of a stool and watch Luna hop up on the stage and kiss James on the mouth.
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