Punk and Zen (45 page)

You’d think that normally, between the lights and the
crowd, anyone onstage could barely see people, never mind recognize an
individual, and normally? You’d be right. You can’t really see beyond the first
few rows or feet from the stage unless the lighting levels out for a moment or
you get a flare across an area.

But halfway through the encore, I saw her—that
unmistakable flash of Blue—and I’d seen it plenty of times before in lower
light than this. Her eyes locked onto mine, green glowing through the smoke and
haze as she cut through the crowd the way I swam through water—smooth and fast.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Graham give me
a sharp look, but we finished the song just fine, thankyouverymuch. However, by
the time Graham got to the final introductions and the required “thanks and
good night,” I’d lost her when I smiled and waved at the crowd.

Lights came up, curtain came down, and I turned to
Graham.

“Great show, Graham, that was a lot of fun. Thank
you,” I said as I hugged him.

“Wonderful job, Nina,” Graham returned, slapping my
back, “just perfect. Splendid, even.”

I took a step back and beamed at him. Paulie-Boy
stopped over. “Nice job, Nina.” He grinned and gave me a high five. “Great
show, Graham, really great show.”

They smacked each other on the arm. Funny how it is
that a band is like an athletic team—win or lose, the team supports each other.
I like that. I grabbed my guitar from its leaning post on the wall and slipped
it into its case.

“Well, Graham, I’d best—”

“Have a drink with me,” Graham interrupted. “I’d like
to speak with you.” He smiled as he said it, but I heard something serious in
his ABC tone.

I thought about it. If I went back to my room, there’d
be Stephie, probably crying about John—not that I blamed her, mind you; it was
just sad to deal with—or sleeping. The other likely scenario was Jerkster
either passed out or trying to rent porn. I hadn’t heard anything from Samantha
yet. I’d checked with the front desk so many times that the clerk announced “
no
hay mensaje
”—there’s no message—whenever he saw me.

Despite the intensity between us, Samantha and me, I
mean, I was still more than occasionally confused by how I felt in general. I
missed Fran, horribly. Without her, I felt somehow naked. Next to Samantha, I
felt raw, as if the skin I lived through had been removed. I hadn’t really
given her an answer before I’d left—it was all too fast and too soon, you know?

And…I felt guilty. Fran had broken up with me, not the
other way around, and that just fucking hurt, because I’d never considered what
we’d had to be “borrowed time,” as she’d put it the last time I saw her.

She’d repeatedly said that Samantha and I should
absolutely be together, and now, after the fact, even though I mostly agreed, I
still thought that we might have been completely happy and hated the fact that
she’d possibly been right—again. It made me think she should have been named
Cassandra—you know, the prophetess doomed by Apollo to speak words that no one
believed until it was too late? She’d been unhappy in her life, mythic as it
may have been. I didn’t want to make Fran unhappy, I didn’t want to hurt her.

Fuck it. I didn’t want to spend all night thinking
about it, and besides, Candace was lurking out there somewhere. Well, Samantha
had warned that she’d probably find me first anyway.

A drink with Graham sounded like a good idea. Besides,
we were taking a ferry over to Ibiza, and Paulie-Boy had warned us that it
would be about a nine-hour float. I’d sleep on the boat.

“Sure, Graham,” I smiled, “why not?”

“Great, then.” He smiled back and clapped a hand on my
shoulder as we walked to the stage exit.

“Find us a table, I’ve got some things,” and he waved
his hand to indicate the general area, “I’ve got to straighten out for
tomorrow.”

I understood. “Fine, then, I’ll see you out there in a
few,” I agreed as I shifted my case. I walked out and through the hallway, away
from the corridor that led back to the hotel proper and instead made a sharp
right to a door that would lead back into the club itself.

Quite a few people still milled about talking,
drinking, enjoying themselves. A few smiled at me as I walked past them, but no
one bothered me. Cool music flowed through the room as I wandered about, looking
for a table.

I found one finally, about two-thirds of the way from
the stage, and quickly claimed it. No sooner had I sat down and settled my
guitar next to me than a waiter appeared out of nowhere, handed me a menu, and
asked me what I’d like.

Oh, how awesome—food. I loved when we played at places
that served food. Even more important than getting paid sometimes, we got to
eat.

I took a quick glance at the menu, but it required
more thought. I asked the waiter for a few minutes, a glass of water, and a glass
of sangria. Hey, I was in Spain. I wasn’t going to skip the sangria.

“Can I join you?” Candace’s green eyes shone at me
through the haze.

I nodded and indicated a seat to her before addressing
the waiter.

“I’m expecting another. Can I have two more glasses,
and make that a pitcher instead of a single?”

He agreed, then walked away.

“Thank you.” Candace smiled at me. “You’re looking
better than ever.”

I reached over my gig bag and into the front pocket to
retrieve my cigarettes and lighter. Taking one out for myself, I mutely asked
her if she wanted one. She smiled her thanks again, and I slid my pack over to
her, then lit her cigarette when she pulled one out.

I sat back and straightened up, still unsure what to
say. I felt incredibly blank, caught between hot and cold, as I took a good
long drag.

She wore her hair differently, long and loose with a
bit of a wave, and she’d modified its color. There was a lot more red in it
than last time. Her blue and black bodice-like top still fit her exactly the
way it was meant to—like a second skin that held her breasts up to inspection.
She was as beautiful as ever and I remembered—everything. And still I felt
nothing, nothing at all. I had wanted her so much then, and now, well, she was
as absolutely attractive as ever and I still loved that beautiful accent.

Could I have possibly loved her then, I asked myself?
No, yes, maybe, but that wasn’t the way it felt at the time. Had I liked her?
Yes, I honestly had because she was so much more than incredibly attractive; she
was bright, and funny. We’d had some very good conversations; we’d had really
good sex.

Candace allowed the inspection, smoking wordlessly, a
tiny grin, almost a smirk really, playing around the edges of her lips, lips
that I knew tasted like cherries and something else, but always cherries, and
technically skilled.

The waiter came back with three glasses and the
pitcher of sangria—and ABC I still hadn’t picked anything to eat yet. I
told him I would wait for Graham as he poured a glass for each of us, then
left.

Candace leaned across the table and stared, hard, at
the jewelry I wore, then sat back.

“So,” she said softly, “no words for me now that you
carry both of them with you?”

That bothered me. It bothered me that she knew what I
was wearing, that she knew who they were from. No, I did have words, one
specifically. “Why?” I asked her, leaning across the table. My glass remained
untouched. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell any of us?” I exhaled
and waited for her answer.

“You’ve changed,” she commented quietly.

I gave an ungracious laugh. “Who wouldn’t?” I asked in
return, not expecting an answer. Not that it was fair, the way I was behaving,
not that it was her fault, not really. But everything was so twisted up for me,
and somehow, in my head, Candace was at the bottom of it. That might not make
sense, but it doesn’t have to—most feelings don’t. If they did, they’d be
called logic, and probably? Life would still be as hard.

Candace sighed and stared down at the table, smoothing
the cloth with her fingers.

“Look,” she began, “I went to New York last summer for
two reasons: one for work and the other specifically to find out if that
cock-and-bull story Annie had been fed was true. I mean, it was a fine story to
tell a young girl, and it would have worked, except it didn’t really make
sense, to me, anyway,” she said in utter seriousness. “Believe me, I was
surprised to find you as easily as I did.”

I stared at her, hard. “Then why—”

“Please.” She held up her hands to stop me. “Let me
tell you the whole thing before you ask your questions. When I’m done, you can
love, hate me, or,” and she smiled a sad little smile at me, “you can invite me
to your room.”

I gave her a small smile of my own in return; we both
knew that wasn’t going to happen. But still, I had been “rather fond” of her,
and we’d been pretty hot together. We’d had nice chemistry.

“I do want to hear what you have to say,” I told her
softly, because I wanted to understand.

She took a sip from her glass, then reached across the
table to lay a hand on mine. “I was going to tell you, Nina. I was going to
tell you that night at the Red Spot, until your friend barged in.” She watched
me expectantly.

“I remember the night,” I said as neutrally as
possible, “but then, why didn’t you say anything later?” I took my hand back
and hit a drag off my neglected cigarette.

“You were living your life, Nina, on your path. Do you
really think you’d be here, now?” and she looked around us, waving a hand to
take it all in.

Yeah, right. I wasn’t buying it.

“That’s bullshit, Candace,” I countered.
“Fran…Samantha—”

Candace nearly jumped across the table. This time she
grabbed my wrist—not painfully, but firmly. She leaned in to me closely, her
eyes barely five inches from mine.

“Died, Nina. Samantha
died
when she thought you
were gone. Do you understand that? Have you seen the scars on her wrist? Felt
them? There’s a reason we call her Ann. There’s a reason I didn’t tell her what
I was doing. Think, Nina,” Candace shot vehemently, “would I risk her for
anyone
?
What if you weren’t who she would have wanted you to be? What if you weren’t
what she thought? Or what she needed? There’d be no one to save her this time.”

I was shaken, shaken by the strength of her words and
the memory of those scars under my fingertips. I’d known, but then again, I
hadn’t, not really, not so concretely. I narrowed my gaze at Candace,
considering. There was more to what she was saying, because her words implied
something deeper, and I spoke it as I thought it. “You love her—”

“That’s neither here nor there.” Candace waved
impatiently. “I had to know if bringing you back into her life was worth the
possible price that she, not you, would pay.”

Now that? It really pissed me off.

“So…you had to, what, fuck with me a few times to see
if I was worthy or not?” I pulled my wrist away from her, pushed my chair back,
and stood up. “So worried about
her
, right? So worried, so concerned,” I
sneered, “that—what was it you said? Oh yeah, it was—”

I stopped myself. That was going too far. I wasn’t
going to do it, I refused to do that—I wasn’t going to become an asshole like
everyone else. But boy, did I want to. Tonight, I decided, discretion was the
better part of valor. I was going to leave this alone before I said something I
truly regretted.

I plucked my cigarettes from the table with one hand
and grabbed my gig bag with the other, then slung my guitar over my shoulder.

“Drinks are on me, as always,” I said coldly,
politely.

“Nina—wait, that’s not—” Candace began, but I ignored
her.

“I hope you got the answer you were looking for. You
certainly did your research thoroughly. Please tell the gentleman who shows up
I had to leave.” I gave her a little half bow and walked away. What the fuck,
she probably knew ABC him, too. Wonder if she’d slept with him too, I
thought, but then, that wasn’t worthy of me, and frankly? It wasn’t any of my
business, either. I didn’t care.

I found the waiter on my way out and told him Candace
was with the band so that she wouldn’t have any hassle with a check. Hey, I
wasn’t a total asshole. When I went out into the main lobby, I didn’t go to the
elevator. Instead I went down to the other end of the corridor where rumor and
the layout map said there was an outdoor pool. Both were right.

A row of chairs circled the pool, with two tables
holding neatly folded towels at either end. I found myself a lounge chair and
propped my guitar on one, pulled out my cigs and threw myself on another. I was
angry, absolutely fuming, disgusted with myself. I’d almost reacted like my
father, verbally vicious in anger. I was sorry I’d left before finding out what
Graham had wanted to discuss, but I’d apologize when I saw him next. Right now,
I really didn’t trust myself, my feelings, or my words.

Dammit. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke float
up into a star-filled sky. I’d never seen such a clear sky in anything but
winter; it was as clear as a windless January night, when it’s so cold and
crisp you can hear your breath crack—only here it was about eighty degrees out.
I wished I’d brought the sangria with me, but then, no, I didn’t. I wanted to
be completely clearheaded. I chuckled at the smoke as it floated above me. Here
I was, a thousand and more miles away from home, and I was angry with my
father, of all people, angry because he had told that stupid, stupid lie, just
to be vicious—angry because I wasn’t any different.