Ever After (Dirtshine Book 3)

by Roxie Noir

Get on the train from LaGuardia to the subway. Switch lines. Switch lines again, finally get out and walks the blocks to my tiny studio, where I collapse on my bed, clothes and shoes still on, teeth unbrushed, face unwashed, and fall asleep almost instantly.

  It’s still half-dark outside when my phone rings, jolting me awake. I roll over and grab it, bladder excruciatingly full and mouth disgusting.

  A strange number with a +44 country code. My heart pounds.

  Finally.

  “Hello?” I answer, raspy and groggy but hopeful.

  “Darling,” says Alistair’s voice. “Where are you?”

  I flop back onto the bed and stare at the cracks in my ceiling. He must be calling from a landline or something, that’s why his name didn’t pop up. Tears spring to my eyes, despite myself.

  Why does he have to care suddenly?

  “I’m home,” I say.

  There’s a long, long pause.

  “By home, do you mean...”

  “I mean my apartment. In Brooklyn. Home, the place where I live?”

  “You’re in New York?”

  I don’t bother answering.

  “You were serious? Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

  I cover my eyes with my arm, bent at the elbow. Alistair sounds hurt — not smug, not like an asshole, just hurt, and I’m starting to feel guilty. After all, I’m the one who flew to another continent without telling him.

  “No, I don’t think that,” I say, my voice sounding tired and resigned, even to me.

  “We had a fight. Couples have fights sometimes, it’s perfectly normal.”

  I swallow hard, because he’s still not wrong. He’s somehow almost never technically wrong, always exactly on the correct side of that line, something he’s never failed to point out to me.

  I don’t know what to say. My mind’s gone blank, because it’s too early in the morning and I’m too sleep-deprived and somehow still-hungover and, oh yeah, I went and immediately had a ton of sex with someone else the second I left him.

  “I meant everything I said,” I say quietly.

  “I was just winding you up,” he says, his voice perfectly calm. Like it’s obvious. “Dry British humor is all.”

  There it is again. He’s explaining why I’m wrong and he’s right, but this time it does nothing to me. I’m here, in my bed, in New York, and what he does doesn’t affect me anymore.

  “I’m American, not stupid,” I say. “Give me a day and we’ll talk or something, okay?”

  “Françoise—”

  I hang up. Thirty seconds later, he calls back and I don’t answer. Then again in thirty seconds, a minute, five minutes, until I finally turn my phone off so I can go about my day.

  I should feel bad. I know. I should feel confused and conflicted and maybe sorry for everything that just happened, but all I feel is guilty about Alistair and a little hurt about Liam.

  And like I want to sleep for a week, but I can’t. I have to get up, I have to hustle, I have to head to my waitressing job and pay the bills and stay up late sewing.

  Fuck, I have to go to the pharmacy down the street and pay $40 I don’t really have for the morning-after pill, because even though I’m on birth control I didn’t exactly remember to take it while I was blitzed out of my mind.

  I can’t even think about STD testing yet. I can think about that tomorrow, because every time I try I just start crying about how stupid I was for fucking someone I didn’t know without protection and he hasn’t even called.

  God. I sound like a bad Lifetime movie.

  Days go by, and then a week. Every morning I wake up with the same thought: I wish I’d said goodbye. I wish I hadn’t just left a note.

  He’s not gonna call. I’ve got that message loud and clear. I don’t know why he’s not going to call — maybe that was enough for him, maybe he’s angry that I didn’t say goodbye, could be anything — but it’s not happening.

  Alistair calls, though. He calls repeatedly, and sometimes I talk to him and sometimes I don’t. He tries to change my mind. He swears he wants me back.

  Sometimes I cry when we hang up. I feel bad about how I left him, how I didn’t tell him to his face. There’s a part of me that does mourn the life we almost had together, that’s strangely sad I’m not going to learn to ride a horse and gallop over the English countryside.

  But I’m not exactly sad about Alistair. It’s hard to go from knowing what you’ll be doing in five years to suddenly having no clue, like being tossed into the ocean all of a sudden and told to swim. Even if you know how, the cold water is a shock and for a few minutes, you splash around like you’ve forgotten how to use your legs.

  I know it wouldn’t be the worst bargain. I’d get a life of ease and comfort in return for dealing with his shit and turning a blind eye. I could fly first-class all over the world, have servants to do my bidding, never work another goddamn waitressing shift again.

  But I can’t do it. I can’t. It’s not even some romantic bullshit idea that I have about the world, it’s just that the thought of paying for that with my soul turns my stomach, so I keep turning him down and then crying about it.

  A few more weeks crawl by. Alistair calls less and less, and at last, three days go by without him calling at all.

  It’s a relief, even though Liam never does call.

  But it doesn’t mean I stop thinking about him. I wish I did, but I don’t. The tests all come back negative, and I get to heave a sigh of relief, promise myself I’ll never be that stupid again.

  And then, late one night, I finally decide I’m going to do it. I get home from a double shift at the restaurant where I waitress to pay my bills, pour myself a glass of $2 wine, and finally Google Liam Fenwick.

  I think it’s going to take some digging, that I’ll have to spend some time figuring out which Liam Fenwick is the one I want to find, but instead his face pops up right away.

  Holy shit.

  He said he was in a band. He didn’t mention that the band was a huge fucking deal. For a second I don’t even believe my eyes, I think I must be somehow getting the Liam Fenwick, the drummer from Dirtshine, confused with another guy also named Liam who also played the drums and has a few pictures on the internet, but I’m not. There he is.

  Liner notes of their first two albums, there he is.

  Concert photos, there he is. Rolling Stone cover, there he is. This is fucking unbelievable. I’ve got one of Dirtshine’s albums. When it first came out I used to listen to it all the time, walking around campus up at Yale.

  That was Liam. That was him, and I never even knew.

  I should have known. Was I supposed to know?

  Is he not calling because I had no idea who he was?

  Does anyone in Shelton know who he is?

  It’s not like I’d recognize the band members if I saw them on the street. I mean, obviously I didn’t.

  Maybe the lead singer, but beyond that I’m clueless. I’ve never seen them in concert. I’m not in their fan club or anything.

  Or, I wasn’t. Apparently, I’m in their drummer’s fan club now, except he’s not their drummer anymore, is he?

  There’s another lie. The band didn’t break up. The band is fine, he’s just no longer in it.

  I read article after article, press release after press release. Some of them mention his drug problem directly, some of them dance around it, but it doesn’t matter. It’s there, clear as day: Liam was a junkie. A bad one, the kind who lived for the hole in his arm and not much else.

  It’s why he’s not in the band any more. One night, before they were supposed to play a show in Seattle, Liam, Gavin, and a roadie named Allen shot up like usual.

  Only that night the heroin was way stronger than they thought, and they all OD’d.

  Liam and Gavin lived. Allen didn’t.

  Then Gavin got clean, and Liam didn’t.

  I’ve got one hand over my mouth. I’m stock-still. I feel like I’ve swallowed a cannonball, but I can’t stop r
eading.

  I went on a two-day bender with a junkie.

  Maybe he hasn’t called because he’s dead, because you got him high and drunk and then left without a word. Maybe he went back to heroin and it’s your fault for not bothering to say goodbye.

  I feel like I’ve turned to stone, like reality’s turned itself inside out.

  How could he not tell me?

  How could I do that to someone?

  I grab my glass of wine, take half a sip, and then nearly spit it at my computer because what the fuck am I doing right now? I dump the rest out in the kitchen sink, jam the cork back into the bottle, rinse my mouth out with water.

  What did you do? I think, over and over again.

  At least I think he’s not dead, because it seems like there would be something, somewhere, about it, but now that the door is opened I can’t stop.

  There’s videos, taken on grainy cell phones by fans and sold to gossip websites, of him drunk and high. There’s interviews where he’s clearly strung out. There’s a series of photos, taken from far away, of him and someone else — the lead singer, Gavin, I think — throwing every piece of furniture from a hotel room off the balcony into the pool below.

  There’s even a couple of shots of him, naked and asleep, apparently taken the next morning by some groupie he banged. I scrutinize those for a long second. He’s skinnier in them, not as built as he is now, though his tattoos are the same.

  Then I click past them as fast as I can. I don’t like the pictures of Heroin Liam, and I especially don’t like that they were taken by some other woman who fucked him and then sold him out for money.

  And then, there’s the video. I don’t know why this stupid paparazzi video stands out, but it does. He’s got a bottle in one hand, he’s shouting at someone. It’s poorly lit and raining, low-res, and I lean in so far that my nose is inches from the screen.

  A strange, cold feeling grips the back of my neck. It sends shivers cascading down my spine, and I start wondering if I’m actually asleep and dreaming, because this is all too weird.

  I think Liam is the guy from the bridge.

  The one I shouted at one night, a year ago, when Alistair and I were visiting the east of England and I couldn’t sleep so I went for a drive.

  The guy who snarled at me that he wished I hadn’t stopped.

  I slam my laptop shut, get up from my chair, pace my tiny apartment for far too long. I don’t believe it. Of course Liam’s not the guy from the bridge, that’s way too weird a coincidence. Stuff like that doesn’t happen, and whoever it was that day is probably dead by now because he really did jump in front of a train.

  Only I don’t believe it. Once I realize that that was him, I can’t shake it. Logic doesn’t work right now, only pure feeling, and I’m certain of one thing: that was him.

  And I fucked him over. Okay, that’s two. He’s a famous drummer and junkie and I fucked him over and now I’m never going to see him again.

  At least now, I know why.

  Then, somehow, a month’s gone by. Liam’s never called. I don’t know how to call him, and I wouldn’t know what to say if I did.

  Mostly. I still wonder where he is and what he’s doing at random times during the day. He’s hard to shake, and every time my phone rings, I still wish it was him.

  Especially when I’m alone at night, just my trusty vibrator for company. Those two days get a lot of replay.

  Alistair keeps calling, but less and less frequently. He’s back in Manhattan, working the ‘finance’ job his father’s connections got him, but despite the phone calls he hasn’t made it out to Brooklyn to see me in person.

  I’m fine with that. We’ve talked more than enough, as far as I’m concerned, and he still insists he doesn’t understand why I broke things off. At this point, he’s clearly never going to.

  One day, I’m in the middle of my shift at Bobbie Sue’s Burgers, and my phone rings. A Los Angeles area code, and my heart skips a beat. A few days ago, I applied for a costuming gig out there on one of those sweeping historical epics, never thinking that I had a chance.

  I hold up five fingers to my manager, who shrugs, so I dart out the back door into the loud alley, and answer the phone.

  “Hi, this is Adara Montclair calling from Windswept Productions. Is this Françoise Strauss?”

  “Yes,” I squeak.

  “Your application for the costume assistant position caught our eye. Are you still available January through March of next year?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Liam

  Sheila’s nice enough to get me a job at a bookshop in another town because she feels so bad about the Winsteads. My license is revoked, obviously, so I purchase a bicycle. It’s miserable to ride it around in a northern December, but I haven’t got much of a choice, have I?

  Working at a bookshop has its benefits. For one, I get to keep approximately the same working hours as the rest of the world.

  Not that it particularly matters to me. It’s not as if I was keeping regular hours when I was with Dirtshine, and I’ve never exactly had a regular job.

  Still, it can be nice to be home by eight instead of midnight. For one, when I get back to my cottage, some of the sheep are still awake and stare at me over the stone wall that separates my cottage’s yard from their paddock.

  They still jump it sometimes, the pillocks, but they mostly want to eat the few flowers still growing out front, so we get on all right.

  Tonight, one glares at me beadily as I pull up, not breaking eye contact as I get out of the car. He — she? I can’t tell with sheep — keeps glaring as I walk to my front door, opening my mail box on the way, pulling out mostly junk and my latest royalty payment.

  I roll my eyes at the thing, because thanks to a lawsuit that I settled, the building I nearly burned down while drunk and high a year and a half ago gets the majority of my earnings. Yes, I know it was my own fault; yes, I know I ought not have nearly caught a building on fire.

  But I could still use the money. After losing my bartending job, which was considerably more lucrative than the gig at the bookstore, I had to turn down Gavin’s wedding for lack of funds. I feel fucking rubbish about it, particularly now.

  We’ve been talking again, a few times a week even, and it feels good. He’s been my best mate for nearly my whole life, ever since the two of us worked together in grade school to save a cat from the schoolyard bullies who were tormenting it.

  Dirtshine’s taking a quick break from work right now, he’s told me. They just finished a massive tour and are going to start recording again after Gavin’s wedding, and after they find a new drummer.

  We don’t talk about Dirtshine finding a new drummer. We don’t talk about any of their drummer problems at all. Gavin brings their lack of percussion up as little as possible, and even though I well know that door is fucking closed, anytime he steers close to that conversation I want to stand up, wave my arms in the air, and shout.

  Me. It could be me, I’m right fucking here.

  Dirtshine was supposed to be the two of us. That’s how it started and that’s how it was supposed to stay, and even though I know perfectly well that everything happened for a reason, it still feels like a betrayal that Gavin and I had the same problem, only he got to keep his life and his band and everything he loved, and I didn’t.

  He’s still out there, on massive stages, playing for fans.

  I sold my drum kit right after my second stint in rehab, the first one in England, to pay for a bus ticket home. I got far less than I should have for it, and then I spent most of that on smack anyway. Took one more go at rehab before it finally stuck.

  Anyway, none of it’s his fault. It’s mine, and though I do want to go to his wedding in a month there’s simply no way I can.

  I toss the mail on the kitchen table, between the purple wine stain that’s never going to come out and the scorch marks that I still haven’t dealt with. I’m not sure how to remove either, and frankly, they’re consta
nt reminders of what my problems have cost me.

  Any time I want a drink these days, I just look at the kitchen table and the temptation vanishes. I’ve not had a drop in over a month, and believe it or not, that’s a record.

  I put the water on, let it boil, make tea, lean against the counter and open junk mail while I drink it. All bullshit. I tear open my latest royalty check, fingers silently crossed.

  I just want it to be enough to cover the gap in my rent this month. Even with the bookstore job I’ll come up a bit short, and even though I’ve looked I’ve not found a second job yet. There’s simply nowhere around here to work, and though in theory I could move to a larger city, that comes with its own set of problems.

  Not to mention the £5,000 fine that comes with a DUI conviction. My court date’s not for two months yet, but I’ll be properly fucked when it does.

  But then I see the amount on the check. I frown. I blink. I look away from it and then back, count the digits that precede the decimal point.

  Mother of God, a miracle.

  They must have stopped docking my royalties. This will cover my rent. Fuck me, it’ll cover my entire rent near twenty times over.

  I could move to a flat where my neighbors aren’t sheep, I could maybe even buy another drum kit and start playing again.

  I could go to Gavin’s wedding. I could see the rest of Dirtshine for the first time in a year and a half, apologize in person, see what’s changed. Apparently, Darcy and Trent have started dating, or started admitting to everyone else that they’re together — I know I was usually high but I’m almost certain something was going on there — and that ought to be interesting.

  Then another thought stops me short.

  I could go to New York.

  It’s not the first time I’ve considered it, but it’s the first time it’s been a real possibility. I could go to New York, stay until the royalty check runs out, and look for Frankie until I’ve got to leave.

  It could work. Maybe it could work, and at least I’d be doing something about the hole in the pit of my stomach rather than trying to find her using every detail of her life that I can possibly remember, because that’s turned up nothing.