Punk and Zen (48 page)

I found a vase under the sink in the kitchenette, and
as I transferred them from the paper they’d been wrapped in, the card dropped
out from the stems.

“Nina,” it read, “this is a poor substitute for being
there, I know. I will see you as soon as I can.” It had a lovely single
S
beneath it.

I stared at it for a moment and drew the
S
with
my finger. I flipped the card over, I don’t know why. There was nothing, no
actual information, time frame, phone number, anything. It was blank, as it
should be.

Yep. Fine. I was staying in. Well, I might as well get
my night started, right? I grabbed my guitar and sat down on the sofa to play.

I spent the next few days getting some sun at the
beach with Stephie and Jerkster and enjoying the hottest nightclubs I had ever
been to—before or since. There’s no real way of describing it.

And then? We were back on the road. I took a single
iris and a single tiger lily and pressed them in the back of a book so they
could dry before we left, and made a bunch of phone calls to let everyone know
where we would be. This time, I made sure to leave the label information on
Fran’s voice mail as well as Samantha’s, just in case.

Everywhere we went as a band, we tried to take in some
music—from the bars and the bands that played in them if we had free time, from
the radio, from TV—and there was the whisper of a hot band called Loose Dogs
and their lead singer/bassist, Ann R Key. Jerkster picked up their CD and we
listened to it. The people were right—the music was hot, and Stephie and I
could definitely hear what Jerkster loved about them. The bassist was
phenomenal.

“I wonder why they didn’t call themselves Cry Havoc,
or something like that,” I mused aloud. I looked up to find Stephie, who sat
across from me, and Jerkster, who sat next to me, staring as if I’d dropped my
mind off the train as we sped along the continent.

“You know, ‘cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war’?”
I asked as they kept staring. “No?” I shook my head lightly.

“No,” Stephie shook her head, “that’s why you write
the lyrics, Nina,” she said, smiling at me, “because you know shit like that.”

Considering that the lyrics we had consisted of things
like “we don’t have cable anymore—someone threw the little box on the floor.
The cat bit the wires and fried all night—Man it was terrible! But it gave
light,” FN (“Cable No!”—Adam’s Rib), I wasn’t writing Shakespeare, so I
laughed. “Whatever works,” I answered, “whatever works.”

Jerkster shifted in his seat and pulled the little
boom box we carried around from under his seat. We kept it there so we could
listen to our performances, review and dissect them, or, sometimes, just relax,
listening to CDs we picked up wherever we went.

“Hey, let’s listen to their album again?” he suggested
hopefully, waving the jewel case in the air.

We all agreed, and Jerkster carefully balanced the
player on top of the pile of stuff between our facing seats, then with a
gentleness that would have surprised anyone who didn’t know him, he put the
disc in. I settled back and shut my eyes as he hit Play.

Their music did something for me, something very
special, because it had the same sort of stirring beat that the Sisters of
Mercy had, but added to it was a heavy sensuality coupled with a desolation
that I responded to, in a very visceral way. I listened to the disc while we
rode on yet another train, my eyes closed and feet stretched over our
equipment. One particular track stood out for me.

As the lyrics and the music flooded through my brain,
the unbidden image of my lion above me, before me, shifted, shimmered, became
diamond-bright eyes and the sensuous curve of a deadly smile, deadly because it
cut right through me. So real was the sense of imminent heat that I felt my
body stretch and shift. Samantha. I missed her.

I sat up, banishing the too-real picture from my head,
but it did nothing for the heavy throb in my chest. I caught my breath and let
it out slowly, but the hammering didn’t stop either. I ran my hands through my
hair, tried to get my bearings, while Stephie and Jerkster stared at me with
concerned puzzlement. Stephie clicked off the boom box.

“What’s the name of that song?” I asked Jerkster.

He grabbed the jewel case he’d tucked next to him and
inspected it.

“Um, track four, track four,” he muttered as he
searched. “Oh, track four!” he exclaimed triumphantly, “it’s called ‘The Kiss.’
The bassist is singing lead on this one.”

I bought my own copy.

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

Bizarre
Love Triangle

Now
I’m standing here all by myself—I take the world from my shoulder

Put
my heart on the highest shelf and make my world a little colder

Make
my heart a little colder

Make
my love a little colder

“Colder”—Life
Underwater

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

By the time we returned to London, Stephie was done,
and it was a very ABC sad good-bye that led to panic—we had to rehearse
the set with me singing lead. This all went well until we arrived in Vienna
where a combination of alcohol, bad communication, and hysteria resulted in
Jerkster’s wrist getting broken—he and the wrist got sent home.

I could have packed it in, too, but I wasn’t ready to
go back broken, you know? Besides, my new contract was still good. Maybe I
could do something different, my own thing—something, anyway.

I lit out for Madrid and landed a job as a DJ at La
Santa, a club we’d played. What the hell, Spain had been the last place I’d
said I’d meet Samantha—not that I’d thought that would happen. I’d heard nothing—absolutely
nada.

No, I didn’t call Candace. That would have been too
weird.

Ah, fuck it. I lived in a little apartment on the roof
of the building and was supplied with the things that mattered: a studio in the
club that the owners, Carlos and Enrique, let me use to record in during the
day, a rooftop pool to ease tension and build my tan—the first one I’d had in
years—and time, free time to work on music,
my
music.

I celebrated my “new life” the way I did most major
changes—I cut my hair. Short on the back and sides, with long spikes on top. I
dyed the whole thing bright cherry red. What the hell, right?

I’d stopped looking, stopped caring, about anything,
really. I’d given up trying to get in touch, too. No one called anyway, except
for Graham and Enzo, the contact at Rude, and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t put the
information out there. Even Dee Dee knew how to get in touch with me, and we
spoke once every three weeks or so. She kept threatening to kidnap me back to
New York, and I kept telling her she’d never want to leave Spain once she got
there.

Once, just once, she asked me as carefully as she
could if I had resolved anything with Samantha and Francesca.

I’d taken a very, very deep and slow breath before
answering her as honestly as I could, as honestly as our friendship deserved,
before I told her I’d completely lost contact with both of them—and this time,
it wasn’t my fault. I’d tried, I’d really and truly tried.

Dee Dee was quiet. I could just picture her nodding as
she digested that information and thought of how to respond to it.

“Ah, Nina…” she sighed finally. “Maybe there are
things you don’t know about. I find it hard to believe that either one of
them…”

We chatted a bit more and promised to touch base again
soon.

It was okay, not hearing from either one of them, I
mean. I was dealing, I guess, or something like it. I didn’t understand at all,
but I also tried hard not to think about it, because otherwise, it fucked me up
and I ABC couldn’t focus, and I really needed to: I had a new contract
and a new time frame in which to put a demo together and find the musicians to
do it with.

Graham stopped by to visit, listened to some of what
I’d composed, then boasted about the work I was doing back to the London
office; they wanted me recorded and touring for the fall.

Enzo said they’d send me someone to work with, and by
the terms of my contract, I’d have to. I hoped we got along, but really,
whatever, because no one showed up for that either, so I enjoyed my life as
best I could and wrote a lot of music.

Carlos and Enrique were generous enough to let me
carve out an even larger sound studio from the DJ booth, and I spent hours
every day writing, arranging, recording.

That’s what I did when I wasn’t out scouring for new
sounds to add to my playlist or very occasionally socializing with the many
beautiful young men and women the guys constantly introduced me to, but that
was rare. It was a very focused, contained, and productive life.

I worked by myself during the siesta, the best time of
day for it, since only Carlos and Enrique or any new trainees were in the
building, so I was guaranteed the precious time I needed—I usually rewarded
myself with a swim later on.

I had just recorded a tricky section for the second
time and was listening to it back because I didn’t like it, I wasn’t happy. It
needed, oh, I don’t know, it needed
something,
and I was bouncing my
head in time to the rhythm when, for whatever reason, I looked up across the
board. Maybe it was the difference in air currents, or a different scent in the
room. But whatever prompted the impulse didn’t matter.

She was coming in from the corridor, and when she
realized I’d seen her, she jammed her hands into her pockets. I put my guitar
down safely, then cut the sound as she approached, a languid walk that spoke of
determination despite uncertainty.

Her long curly blond hair was pulled into a loose
ponytail at the nape of her neck, and she wore what most Spaniards on vacation
did—a white linen shirt over white capris. Her skin was darker, her body
thinner. Those shoulders, that jaw. I dropped the headphones and stepped away
from my workstation.

“Kitt?” I whispered, unbelieving as I walked toward
her. My hands started to tremble and the pulse beat in my neck. Even in the dim
blue light of the club, she radiated a golden light. My lion. I stood not five
feet away from her.

“Nina?” she asked softly, uncertain.

I nodded, dazed.

“You look…my God, you look amazing!” Her mouth, that
flawless mouth, smiled tremulously at me, and she closed the distance between
us. The tremble ABC in my hands became a shakiness I couldn’t control
when she reached for my face. Her thumb brushed my lip, stroked my chin, then
came to rest in that spot she had claimed as hers. I could barely breathe. My
eyes stung and I reached for her blindly, pressing her to me, and her hands
were on the bare skin of my back, holding me, caressing me.

I buried my face into her neck and kissed the warm
pulse that leapt under my lips. “God, I missed you,” I whispered, “I missed you
so much.”

“Nina, I’m sorry, I am so sorry,” she told me in
between the kisses she laid on my face. She held my face and kissed my eyes,
and it took everything I had not to break into sobs. I stepped back and away
from her brilliance before it blinded me, before it took away everything I had
struggled so hard for, the things that were mine.

“What…” I swallowed and impatiently wiped my eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I had to move, I had to get away from the warmth
that radiated from her. I stepped back to my workstation and began to randomly
organize things.

Fran sighed and lowered her head, accepting my
distance. “Your mother…your mother told me where to find you.” When she raised
her head, I could see the glint of tears in her eyes.

I swallowed against the rising tide in my body. I
wanted to hold her, I wanted to love her as I had, when she was mine and we
both knew it.

“No. I mean,” and I dashed the tears from my eyes
again, struggling against everything, “why are you in Madrid?”

And then I heard it—the
a capella
(vocal only)
version of “The Kiss” by Loose Dogs. I checked my board. Nothing was on. Was a
radio playing in the outer bar? The sound was coming from out there, and no one
was supposed to do anything to the sound system but me. I had to go investigate;
the sound had a distinct quality I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“I heard you needed a bass player,” Fran said with a
tear-filled smile as I excused myself. Fran didn’t play bass, I thought
confusedly as the melody got louder. I was halfway across the floor when I
realized the difference in the quality of the music: it was live.

This was beyond bizarre. Whoever the singer was, they
were doing a dead on-spot imitation. Did one of the guys bring in a new
waitress to train in the afternoon? I stopped and stood perfectly still,
attempting to orient on the approaching source. My heart still raced from
earlier, and when that person came around the wall, singing, walking straight
to me, those diamond-bright eyes cutting through the dim light, I swear that beat
stopped.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me!” I spit out through
clenched teeth when I started breathing again. I spun and stared at Fran, who
came up to me, crying, smiling. I stiffened, my hands curled, and the tendons
strained in my wrists.