Blues for Zoey (20 page)

64

Oceans of Applause

“Mom?”

She was in the kitchen by the window, staring out at nothing. The most recent attack, coming so
quickly after the last one, had really taken its toll. I was completely ready to drive her up to Beauhaven if only it would make her feel better.

“
M
om?
”

“Uh-huh?”

“There's someone here to see me.”

“Who?”

“A friend.”

“Calen?”

“Somebody else. She just needs to pick up some stuff. It'll only take a second.”

Mom blinked at me.
“
She?
”

“Just
a girl I know. I have something
of hers. She'll only be here for five minutes, okay?”

She turned back to the windo
w, sizing herself up in the reflection. “Can I meet her?” she asked, smoothing her hair.

It struck me as an odd request; Mom hated seeing people after an attack. “Are you su
re?”

“Just bring her up.”

Out on the street, Zoey
looked amazing. The setting sun turned her skin to gold and she
was dressed in the same clothes she'd worn the
first time I saw her. The same cut-off jeans; the same
T-shirt, still melting off her shoulder; the same
pink bra. A few dreads hung across her face like a shredded veil.

She frowned when I came out empty-handed. “Where is it?” she asked. “You still have it, right?”

“Where have you been? How come you ne
ver answered any of my texts?”

“I was in
trouble
,” she said, as if that was explanation enough. “Have you got it?”

“It'
s upstairs.”

“So are you gonna bring it down?”

“Could you come up a
sec? There's something I want to ask you.”

Her whole body twitched. “Ask me here.”

“Just come up. Anyway, y
ou look hungry. You can have something to eat if you want.
”

“I don't need food. I just need—”

“My mom said she wants to meet you.”

“She did?”

“Just come up, okay?”

Mom was still at the window, still staring out. “Hello there,” she greeted Zoey, who came in behind me. “You're a friend of Kaz's?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What's your name?”

“Zoey.”

“That's nice.” She tilted her head and pointed a finger. “I think I know who you are.”

Zoey's eyes flashed. “How?”

“I've seen you. Across the street.”

Zoey shrugged. “I play there sometimes.”

“You're very good,” Mom said.

Zoey tugged a couple more of her dreads in front of her face. “Thanks.”

Nomi came to the kitchen door but stopped on the thr
eshold, hugging the door frame. Zoey obviously freaked
her out a bit.

Mom was silent too. She was thinking about something, staring oddly at Zoey. “I dreamed about you,” she said.

Zoey made a noise like something was stuck in her th
roat. “You
dreamed
about me?”

“You were beside
the sea. You were playing your instrument, only it was falling to pieces. B
ut you still played beautifully. Even the waves clapped. They w
ent
psh-psh-psh
against the sand. A whole ocean, cheering for you.”

Zoey had no idea what to say to that. Who would?

“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Mom said. She reached out with a limp hand and Zoey took it.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Nomi was gone when we turned to leave the kitchen. In my room, the first thing Zoey said was, “Your mom's kind of … odd.”

“She's not feeling well.”

“No offense, but I think that's an understatement.”

“She's just tired.”

“Well, anyway, I like her. She's nice. Weird, but nice.” Zoey took in a quick survey of the room. “Okay. So where is it?”

“Hold on,” I
said. I had carefully replaced my dirty laund
ry, covering the rattler where it pr
otruded from under the bed. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Would you ever sell it?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really?”

“
Never
.”

“You're sure?”

“Is this it over here, under your bed?” She poked her toe into my clothes, finding the base.

“
What if I could get you a lot of money
for it? Like,
loads
of money.”

“Not everyone ca
res about money, you know.” She picked away the dirty clothes.
The rattler's chains clinked on the floor. “
This isn't something you can just sell. You
wouldn't
believe
how long it took me to make it.”

“Oh, yeah?” My v
oice came out with an edge. “How long would you say?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, a long time.”

“About how long?”

“It wasn't like I was punching a clock. I can't remember
exactly
.” She pulled the rattler all the way out, propping it against the wall. “I made it years ago.”

“Did you really?”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's just a question.” I was getting angry. All I wanted was to hear the truth. “You really made it?”

“
Yes
. And it took a long time.” She was looking at the instrument, not me. “A couple years, maybe. Y'know, to get it to sound right.”

It was so obvious she was lying. Why hadn't I seen it before?

“Maybe you'd understand,” she said, turning back to me with a look of disgust, “if you could actually make something instead of just fold towels.”

That hu
rt, especially because I knew she was lying. I
almost wanted to grab the thing and toss it out the window. But instead, very calmly, I said, “Two years, huh?”

“Y
eah, about that. Two years.”

“And you won't sell it? Not even if I told y
ou I knew someone who'd pay a ton for it?”

“Like who?”

“Maybe I know somebody.”

She sighed. “Y
ou don't get it, do you? All you
think about is money. It's not like that
for me. It's about the
who
, not the
how much
. I'd only sell it to someone I trusted, someone special to me. Somebody who would take car
e of it—
and play it
. That's what it's made for.”

“Am I special to you?”

“You were. I don't kn
ow, maybe you still are. It's
confusing.” She stared at me with her big, glittering eyes and I almost changed my mind.

Almost.

“Let me buy it off you.”

She laughed.
“
You?
Why would you even want it?”

“It's not for me,” I said—exactly the same as I'd lied to Nomi. “It's for my mom.”

Zoey didn't understand.

“You saw her. She gets depressed sometimes. And you heard
what she said. She
dreamed
about you.”
If Zoey wouldn't tell me the truth, then
I could spin my own lies. “When I was
a kid, she played in an orchestra, and when
she saw you playing, she told me she wished she
could have it. She said it would finally get her playing again. Don'
t you get it? It's not just you she dreams about. She dreams about this, the rattler. And you said it y
ourself, it needs to be played.”

“She wants to play it?”

“You can always build another one. Right?”

Zoey nodded slowly, but she seemed unsure. “It'd have to be a
shitload
of money. Music schools aren't cheap.”

I felt a jab of triumph. I had got her to admit it.
Money mattered to her, just as much as it did to me.

“Okay,” I said. “How much do you want?”

“It depends. Ho
w much have you got?”

65

The Last Time
I Saw Her, Part 1

The last
time I saw Zoey Zamani, she was boarding
a streetcar. The doors clapped shut and the iron wheels went slicing east along Steinway. When she took
her seat, she didn't look out through the
glass. She just sat there, sitting on top of
my whole life. That's because in her back pocket
there were twenty-two personal checks, each one for $500 and all signed by me. That's how Z
oey wanted it. She said it would save her some hassle. If it was all on a single check, it would be difficult to cash it.

Twenty-two little rectangles of paper
. It was everything I had.

When the streetcar vanished ov
er the rise, I went straight back upstairs and called the number on Andrew Myers's business card. There was
no answer. I waited for a messaging service to click in, but it ne
ver did. I hung up and tried again. This time, he picked up before the second ring.

“Yeah? Myers.” His voice was slower and gr
uffer than before, as if he'd just flopped out of bed.

“Mr. Myers?”

“Make it quick.” He
cleared his throat and his voice slid back to the smoothness I remembe
red. “We're just about to roll.”

“It's Kaz B
arrett.” I started explaining who I was,
but he cut in before I finished.

“Oh,
kid
! Sure, I r
emember who you are. You talk to your friend?
You got some good news for me?”

“I do. I've got it right here. The instrument.”

“Tha
t's great!”

“So can you come and get it? I'm ready to sell it to you.”

“Yes!
Totally! But not right this instant. The shooting schedule is hell for the next few days, so
… ” He paused
to think. I heard indistinct chatter in the background, the rush of wind, or maybe traffic. “Okay, what about Sunday, lunchtime? I'll swing by the laundromat before the airport
. Sound okay?”

“Uh, no. Not there.” I did
n't think he needed to know I'd been fired, but I also didn
't want him coming to the apartment. “Better if
we meet across the street. There's
a jewelry shop there called Mizra's Fir
e & Ice.”

“Sorry, where?”

“It's right where you parked last time.”

“I park a lot of places.”

“It's directly across
from the laundromat. You can't miss
it.” I had him write down the name, just in case. “Meet me there at twelve noon.”

After I hung
up, I felt relieved. The arrangements we
re made. But I also had an awful feeling like I'd never see Zoey again. When I put her on that
streetcar, what I remembered most was the look of disappointment on her face. It was as if, in some deep and unthinkable way
, I had failed her.

66

A Bit of Blue Sky

To clear my head, I went for a
walk. I ended up in Montgomery Park. T
he skinny guy in the straw hat was still there, still hawking his photographs of crumbling cathedrals.

“See anything you like?” There was a slight whistle to his
S
. It came from a black hole in the middle of his grin. All his front teeth were missing.

“Just passing through.”

“Look all you want, won't cost a dime, but stand there for too long and I start charging rent!”

I gave the guy a half-hearted laugh.

“Where's that?” I asked, pointing to the only color photograph on the blanket. It was a view from below of a crumbling
wall of red and brown bricks. The only
break from the pitted surface was a single bullet-shaped window, high in the corner. Through it,
you could see a patch of clouds and blue sky.

“Just a stop along the way,” said the guy unhelpfully. “Probably not there anymore. Would'ja believe they're gonna level the place for condos?”

“It's a nice picture.”

“Like it enough to buy it?”

Maybe
, I thought,
but not
yet
. The picture summed up how I felt: hemmed in by the walls of Evandale, but with a bright flicker of blue sky up in some far-off corner.

“Not right now,” I told the guy, “but maybe later. I've got a very big paycheck coming tomorrow.”

“Good for you. Just make
sure you come find me when your ship comes in.”

I was
walking away, almost out of earshot, when I hea
rd the guy call to someone else.

“Yo, B! Where's Razor at?”

I spun ar
ound, and there he was. The whole time I'd
been gawking at photographs, he'd been sitting right behind me, flopped on a park bench.

B-Man.

“Oh my god! You're alive.”

B-M
an shrugged as if he wasn't sure. “I'm alive.”

“Where have
you
been
?”

“Aw … ” He looked nervously up and down the street.

I sat down beside him and reg
retted it immediately. He smelled terrible.

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “Don't wanna talk about it!”

“Talk about what?”

He
winced, pulling his lips back like a snarling dog, but
the effect wasn't fierce. It wasn't
the glare of a wild animal. It made him look frightened. “Y
ou see A-Man?” he asked me.

“Not for a few days.”

B-Man shut his eyes tight. His teeth did the same, all gnashed together. “I lost it. Don't know where it is. Or else
they
stole it. Somebody stole it! Anyhow, I can't find it, because … aw, I'll
never
find it.”

This was the part when I
usually phased out, the part when B-Man flew
off to his private planet of jibber-jabber. This
time, I didn't ignore him. “You mean your die, don't you?”

B-Man nodded like a child without a to
y. My hand was already in my pocket, about to get out the die, when he said, “It don't matter.”

“How come?”

“Because
nothing
does. Get it?”

“No. I don't.”

Suddenly, B-Man started to cry
. Huge, kick-ass, full body sobs. The perimeter of people around us widened. That was them doing what I used to do, ignoring him. I
t was probably like that for B-Man all the time. So
even though he smelled like complete shit, I put an
arm around him. Meanwhile, he just sat there with snot str
eaming down his lip, panting out these fast, scary-sounding breaths.

“
R
a
z
o
r
'
s dead!
”

“What?”

“A car hit her.”

And so, just like that, the little white cube in my pocket made sense. It wasn't B-Man's blood I saw, it was Razor'
s.

“Behind the Sit 'n' Spin, right?”

B-Man was stunned enough to stop crying. “How do you know that?”

“I saw M
r. Rodolfo cleaning up the—cleaning up behind the alley.”

B-Man nodded. “The guy didn't even stop. Did
n't give a shit about neither of us.” He spat
a glob of gray spit into the grass. “That'
s where I been. I went up north to bury her. She liked it up nor
th. There's a field up there I found
where she could run and run all she wanted.
I took a shovel up there and buried her.”

“I kn
ow this might not seem like a big deal right now, but maybe it'll cheer you up a
bit.” I took the die out of my pocket and gav
e it back to him. “I found it in the alley.”

“Hey, thanks.” He stared at it
for a while, rolling it around his palm. “Cracked
the old girl's skull wide open
and just kept driving.” He closed his
fist and looked at me. “You
see a little red convertible with a bi
g dent in the front, you do me a fav
or and slash the tires, scratch the paint.
I don't care, just fuck it
up.”

“A red convertible?”

“That's what did it.”

How many shiny red convertibles were there in Evandale? Andre
w Myers had probably killed Razor.
Why would a movie producer slow down to save the life of a homeless guy's dog?

I
decided I would give some of the money to
B-Man. If he wanted to go out and buy a
thousand little dice, he could. If he wanted to get
himself a new, equally stinky mutt, I would help him find one.

“
Don't worry,” I said. “Things'll turn out okay. You
'll see.”

B-Man didn't believe me. He
turned his puffy, sunburnt, snot-streaked face away, covering his eyes with his sleev
e. “She was my pinion,” he whispered.

“What?”

“My little piece of the machine.”