by Clea Simon
“Aha! That’s not an answer, Theda Krakow. I hear everything, down in the bowels of the Mail .” So someone had spotted us having coffee together. So what. “That boy—and I use that word for a reason—is no good for you.”
“I know, I know.” At least, I told myself I did. “The stuff with Bill is something different, Bunny. This has been brewing for a while.”
“Well, I’ve already told Bill to expect an invitation. We consider him a friend.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll play nice.” The thought made my stomach sink. “He’s a good guy.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“That’s the wine asking, Bunny. You know sometimes these things just don’t work out. Ouch.” I reached down and detached a set of claws from my knee.
“Ouch?”
“Sorry, Musetta has developed a new habit. She’s taken to using my leg as a scratching post. I think she wants my attention.”
“And maybe she’s just too short to slap some sense into you.”
I reached down to the plump kitty and pulled her into my lap again, thus reinforcing the behavior. “I’ll stick with the former. Hey, are you going to see Violet tonight?” Knowing that Rick might be there, I held my breath for her answer.
“If I’m awake at eight, it’ll be a minor miracle.” I exhaled, and heard Bunny rouse herself. Cheddar cheese rice cakes to go with the wine was my guess. “Between my mom and the job, I’m wiped.” She crunched. I was right. “Give her my love, though, won’t you? And tell her that once this planning is over, I’ll be myself again.”
“I hope so.”
“Hey, we can’t all be freelancers, can we?”
Something Rick had said tickled the back of my mind. “I’m thinking of calling myself a ‘feral,’ instead.”
“Like the Fauve painters, huh?” I tended to forget that Bunny had an arts background. “Not quite socialized, a tendency to bite. I can see it. But Theda?”
“Yeah?”
“When you find the right hearth, you’ll make a very happy house cat. Believe me on this one. I know.”
“Goodnight, Bunny.” My friend had clearly had too much wine. “Love to Cal.”
“Goodnight, Theda. Blessed be. And have some fun.”
***
A nap, a bath, and a Lean Cuisine topped off with the rest of the leftover ice cream worked me back into a state where I could envision fun being possible. By ten, I was ready to make it happen and, pulling on my turquoise ostrich cowboy boots, felt I even looked the part. Jato’s was somewhat more upscale than my usual haunts—the Casbah, Amphibian—plus it was a Saturday night. Dressed in my club best, I angled to see myself in my tiny bedroom mirror. I looked good: black jeans, black silk shirt, black leather jacket that wouldn’t be warm enough going to the club and yet would be much too warm inside. Like a creature of the night, all that black made me feel independent, self-contained, a little dangerous—predator, not prey. Feral. I let the word roll around my mouth. Well, maybe I was.
***
The club was crowded, a warm and sweaty contrast to the nippy night outside, and a low roar of conversation and laughter greeted me as soon as I pulled the heavy wooden door open. Already, all the tables were taken, late diners hunched over the remaining candles, drinkers filling in the spaces between and lining the old-fashioned curved bar. I thought about checking my jacket, but I liked the look reflected in the mirror behind the bottles. As I hesitated a voice called out to me.
“Theda! Over here!” Tess and some of her buddies had a table over in the corner, where the bar looped back to the wall, defining a protected alcove. I recognized a few of the faces with her, and worked my way across the floor to join them.
“Hello, ladies.” I ordered a beer, and found myself in several conversations at once. Tess’ supervisor, someone else’s day job. One of the dinner hours’ remaining candles flickered between us, flashing off smiles and eyes and various piercings. Tickets to an upcoming concert, a new band someone had just heard, and a political email going around. We were all talking at once, the volume growing louder, until Dena, a bright, beefy blonde, held up a hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, what did I just say ‘yes’ to?” The ensuing round of laughter won us stares from our compatriots at the bar’s edge, but none of us cared. Much as I liked feeling independent, there was something to be said for the comfort of friends.
“So, no Bill tonight?” Tess was looking right at me, the candlelight reflected off her big brown eyes.
“This isn’t his thing, really.” I looked down, felt the warmth of the small flame on my face. “I mean, he likes Violet, but his taste in music runs more toward jazz and acoustic. The kind of music you play, actually.”
I was hedging and she knew it. But before she could press, she had to field a question about an upcoming gig and the conversation moved on. But even as she answered queries, Tess kept her eyes on me. I felt bad, but if I couldn’t explain the situation to myself, what could I say to her, especially in a noisy, crowded club?
We held onto our real estate through the opening band by ordering another round. The waitress took our candle with our order, but having a table and the solid bar at our backs was worth the extra expense. We were out for fun, anyway. Once the openers, a power trio that revelled in feedback, ended, we turned back toward each other, picking up the threads of half a dozen conversations.
“I hear they’re hiring.”
“She’s not still seeing him, is she?”
“If I went back to school in January…”
I started to tune out, wondering when Violet’s set would start. “So, what are you working on?” Beni, a friend of Tess’ from work, was asking.
“Nothing too exciting. A couple of short profiles.” She nodded, and I noticed she was drinking Perrier with a lemon slice squeezed into the bottle. “For City magazine.”
“Oh yeah. Cool Coolidge told me she was going to be in that.” My eyebrows must have gone up because Beni raised her green bottle slightly. “I know her from around. You know?”
“Oh, yeah.” I took the non-alcoholic beverage as a cue. But just because they both went to meetings, I couldn’t assume Beni knew about the blackmail. “It’s good to have her back.”
“That it is. Oh, hey!” Beni was waving and I saw Sunny working her way through the crowd, hindered only slightly by the bulky camera bag around her neck.
“Hi, Theda! Hi, Beni!”
I was in the mood to be generous, plus I was cornered between table and bar. “Evening,” I nodded. “What’s your poison?”
“Nothing, thanks.” She swung the bag from under her arm and fiddled with a lens. “I’m working.”
“On assignment?” I hadn’t heard that Violet was getting any press.
“For my portfolio. But hey, you never know.” I watched her weaving her way back toward the stage and felt my breath catch. “Be right back.” I put my beer down and stepped into the crowd. There, against the one bright stage spot still shining, I’d seen a familiar cowlick and the toss of a head: the kind of thing you remember without realizing it. The heat as people pushed together, closer to the stage, amplified my buzz and I felt every one of the two and a half beers I’d finished. Still, was I right? Yes. I squeezed between two tattooed shoulders, earning the glares of a pair of punk girls, and looked up into Rick’s smiling face.
“Hey, girl! What brings you here?”
“Me? I’m the one who told you about this gig.” I hadn’t known if he’d be into it, really, his bias running more toward the rough, garage-rock sound and boys with lots of guitars. But I had played up Violet’s talents, wanting her to get the attention of course.
“That’s right.” He smiled down at me. “I knew someone whose taste I trusted had turned me onto it.”
Just then Violet and her band took the stage. Rick put his arm around me to pull me closer to the front. Sunny would’ve nabbed my chair by now anyway, so I let myself be carried along and beamed up at my friend on stage. Hair freshl
y dyed a violent orchid purple, sleeveless black CBGBs T-shirt revealing the Celtic bands winding around her biceps. With the spotlight on her she looked every inch a star.
“One, two, three, four!” The drummer crashed down and suddenly the room was in motion. The song was one of my favorites, an upbeat political number that relied as much on heart as intellect, and I yelled along as Violet’s half-screamed vocals exhorted us to stand up. For ourselves, for our sisters, for our world. Maybe not the most profound sentiment, but it was the texture, a throaty growl, that got me, that got all of us, as she screwed her face up toward the balcony and the balcony roared back. Even if we couldn’t hear the lyrics, the shout-out chorus giving way to an incoherent roar of vocals, we felt the pull: Violet’s voice grabbed us, her guitar forced us to our feet, and the bass kept us steady, the frantic rhythm enticing and receding as the drums built up power.
“This is killer!” Rick yelled in my ear. I nodded back, my damp hair falling into my face. This was what it was about. The next song had us in a sweat as we all bobbed in place, desperate to move. The third calmed us down, letting the bass take a meandering lead that I could feel in my belly as well as hear, with the club’s giant speakers right beside us. I wiped a sweaty curl off my forehead and closed my eyes, swaying into the sound, trusting the crowd around me and loving the sensation. When the next song started us all dancing again, I looked up and couldn’t help but notice how close Rick was. Even in the sweaty heat, I could feel the extra warmth of his body beside me and see the perspiration gluing his hair to his face, just like mine. This was his music, too. This was what we had shared. Would Bill and I ever feel this close? Did we need to? I must have been staring because I realized Rick was looking back at me, that quirky cowboy grin all confident again. This music, this night: this is where we’d always come together.
He pulled me toward him and I looked up, trying to read his face. All around me was motion, people dancing. I thought I saw Tess waving, her long slim arms reaching over the crowd. Then the band broke, Violet handing off her instrument to take up a second guitar, and Rick kissed me. He felt sweet, and he felt familiar. But as his mouth opened onto mine, my body stiffened up. There was too much history here, too much that would need to be said first. I pushed him away.
“What?” I saw his mouth form the question in disbelief, his lips still smiling and still moist. Why did all the men in my life assume so much of me? I shook my head, the magic of the music broken, and began to edge away.
That’s when I saw Tess again. She was definitely waving to me, jumping around in an agitated manner. Catching my eye, she then glanced at the exit and that’s when I saw him: Bill. Hunched over so his usual height could barely be made out among the revellers, those still caught up in the sway, he was pushing through the crowd, toward the door, and out.
I made my own way through the crowd and to the door.
“There’s no readmittance.” The doorman put his arm up to stop me. I shoved by him.
“Bill!” Out on the sidewalk, I was glad for my jacket. The night had grown frosty and hard, my sweat suddenly cold. “Bill!” I looked up and down the street, trying to figure out which way he was headed, but all I saw was empty sidewalk. A late-night bus careened away from the opposite curb.
“Bill!” He was gone.
Chapter Twelve
The rest of the night passed pretty much in a blur. Perhaps because he could see how distraught I was, the doorman let me back in, and I found my friends. Tess had figured out what was up and greeted me with a hug, which helped. Rick, as had been usual for him when we were together, had disappeared. He never did like dealing with me when I was upset. I didn’t seek him out.
The Violet Haze Experience had brought the crowd into a frenzy, and objectively I know the rest of the set sounded as great as those first few numbers. But even as Tess’ watchful eye was distracted from me, was taken up by the whirl of color and sound our mutual friend made on stage, I couldn’t get back into the groove. When the set ended, I made my farewells and headed home. Tess would let Violet know why I wasn’t waiting around. Nobody else would care.
Nobody but my kitty, that is. Or so I thought the next morning, when I awoke strangely early and strangely stiff. Even her rounded black back leaning up against me couldn’t keep the memory of the night before from crashing down.
“Musetta, it’s just you and me again. Just you and me.”
She grunted in response, stretched a white mitten out in a yawn, and went back to sleep. So much for empathy. On such a cold autumn morning I should be grateful that she sought me out for warmth.
I willed myself to go back to sleep, since nothing much else was happening, and must have succeeded. When the phone rang, the clock said noon. A reasonable time.
“Hang on,” I said to nobody, but the cat looked at me as if I’d insulted her and jumped off the bed.
“Sorry,” and then, into the phone: “Hello?”
“Hey, Theda! What a show last night! That crowd was something. And weren’t we hot?” Violet’s energy level didn’t sound at all diminished from the night before, and I wondered if she’d slept.
“Hey, Violet. Yeah, you were. The new drummer is amazing. She had this crazy polyrhythmic beat going that had everyone dancing. I thought the roof was going to come down, the way the place was moving.”
“I know, I know. Caro was right up front and she said she was checking the pillars, just to make sure.” Violet laughed.
“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t hang around after your set.”
“No problem. Tess told me something came up with Bill. And Caro saw you with some other guy, a blond? What’s the story with that?”
I reached over and pulled the blanket up around me. “Rick. My ex. He’s back in town.”
“Uh huh?” Quiet now, she waited. I had to explain.
“There’s nothing there. At least, I don’t think so. But we always shared the music and I’d told him about your band. We were club buddies once, you know?” She didn’t answer.
“And I don’t know what’s going on with Bill. Sometimes I feel like he’s making too many assumptions about us. That I’m being carried along in something that I didn’t agree to, and it pisses me off.”
“So you get back with the ex you don’t feel anything for? I wonder if that knock on the head did more damage than we thought.” I hadn’t realized Violet liked Bill that much. Either that, or she’d heard more of my stories about Rick than I’d realized.
“I’m not back with him. I was dancing with him. We were hanging out.”
Silence.
“And then he kissed me. Just as Bill came in, I guess. But I didn’t want him to. I mean, maybe things aren’t cut and dried but there’s too much that we haven’t spoken about, you know? I mean, why am I always supposed to follow their agenda?”
More silence. “Violet? You there?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Theda. I really don’t. I sort of feel like you just gave me a cue to bash men. Like I’m supposed to go on about their insensitivity and all that. I can’t say I want to defend the madness that the XY chromosome drives men to.” Here I heard a little bit of a laugh sneak back into her voice. “That’s not my trip, either. And I don’t know this guy Rick. But it just seems to me that if you’re not feeling heard, there might be another reason behind it. Maybe it’s time for you to speak up and say what you need.”
I did not need this. “Thanks so much, Dear Abby.”
“C’mon! Cut it out. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, you can have ’em both. But on your terms. Let them know what you want, girl.”
“But that’s the problem, Violet. I just don’t know anymore.”
“Well, I do. For a start, anyway. Coffee.”
I grudgingly agreed to meet her in a half hour at the Mug Shot and somehow crawled out of my nest. A shower helped, as did a good petting session with the cat. But I still felt raw. Maybe I did need to express myself better. With that in mind—thinking “express
, not explain”—I tried Bill’s number. I didn’t want to apologize, just to talk. But when I got his voice mail my mouth went dry. Coffee first, I promised myself, and hung up without a word.
***
Caffeine did help, and after about a half hour Violet’s leftover energy became more inspiring than annoying. I still felt like the sludge on the bottom of the pot, but at least I was warmed-up sludge, and so I let her drag me back to the shelter. The lure was a visit with the fluffy mystery kitten, the sib of the two who’d gone missing. The still-nameless baby was a healthy little furball now. The Siamese-like points on her paws and tail and ears had darkened to a delicious chocolate against her creamy fur, and playing “bat the feather” with her was good for what ailed me. But work, Violet had decided, would do the rest, and she set me to laboring with paste, scissors, and paper. She and Caro were putting together materials for the Halloween open house.
“Hand me the glue, will you?” Her denim carpenter’s overalls sparkling with green and gold glitter, Caro had taken over decorating the “fun facts” fliers she and Violet would be handing out. I was in charge of the pumpkin, bat, and cat cut-outs that we’d be hanging on the walls. Already, two glittering piles of black and orange paper had grown between the three of us, as we sat cross-legged on the living room floor.
“We’re going to need more for the masks,” Violet noted, a slight edge in her voice, and I saw Caro write something on a somewhat sticky pad to her left. I made my own mental note to be a little less generous with the gold glitter, and swept some of the purple back into its tube. Bats didn’t need that much highlighting, and I wanted to be supportive. This was a new venture, the holiday party, but Violet was committed to having everything be perfect from the start. She’d already explained her plans for the day, which she hoped would draw children and their parents from around our Cambridgeport neighborhood. A little talk about Halloween superstitions and where they came from would start the party. From there Violet would lead into pet overpopulation and the need to spay and neuter, even the “neighborhood” cats that nobody owns. With the heavy stuff over, she’d made a countdown list of how cats help us. “I mean, if you have a choice of a cat or bubonic plague, which would you choose?”
