Catherine by April Lindner

spell.

Chelsea

    In the privacy of my mother’s room, I toasted some Pop-Tarts and settled down in front
     of my computer. As it turned out, a search for
Jackie Gray
turned up a mere thirty-two thousand hits. I scrolled through the list, looking for
     clues to which one was my mom’s Jackie—a New York address, maybe? That narrowed it
     down to about five hundred. It was all so frustrating. Hence could have told me which
     one was my mom’s friend, but I wasn’t ready to face him again just yet. Coward that
     I was, I munched my Pop-Tarts and scrutinized the faces of Jackie Gray the biology
     professor, Jackie Gray the screenplay writer, and Jackie Gray the financial strategist,
     willing them to come to life and give up their secrets.
    The music started around eight. I’d given up on the Internet and had taken down a
     stack of my mother’s books to browsethrough when the bass started thumping from downstairs. So far I hadn’t found much
     of anything new—just some doodles of men with curlicue mustaches and women with elaborate
     beehives.
    Close to giving up hope, I paged listlessly through another book, then another, and
     finally found something on the first page of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s collected sonnets:
     my mom’s name doodled many different ways—curly script, balloon letters, zigzag letters.
Catherine Eversole
for a quarter page, and then, over and over,
Catherine Hence
, filling the rest of the flyleaf. So my mother had daydreamed about marrying him.
     It wasn’t terribly useful information, but it was one more tiny piece of evidence
     that Catherine Eversole had once existed, had been about my age, and had lived in
     this bright little apartment with her lace curtains and books. Had she been kept awake
     by the endless pounding bass guitar, and by drums I hadn’t noticed before but that
     seemed to have gotten louder? Had she been tempted to dress in her best clothes, make
     herself up to look older, and slip downstairs to blend in with the crowd, just to
     see what all the fuss was about?
    Because, come to think of it, I was tempted.
    Not that I had brought much in the way of clothes. I did have my best pair of jeans
     with me, a pair of boots, a purple T-shirt, and some dangly earrings. I had lip balm,
     and some smoky eyeshadow that might make me look a bit older. I dressed slowly, unsure
     if I was really going to go through with the plan blossoming in my mind. I bent over
     at the waist and brushed my hair upside down so it would look fuller. I took a deep
     breath and stepped out into the hall, locking the apartment door behind me.
    The elevator’s creaking was, luckily enough, drowned out bymusic that grew louder as I drew closer. When the door slid open into the gray hall
     at the rear of the building, I looked both ways, then hurried down the hallway and
     into the main room, which was almost full and buzzing with conversation. The blue
     neon cast its otherworldly spell on the room, and bartenders in black vests waited
     on the gathering crowd.
    An audience pressed in close to the stage. On the room’s fringes, people were gathered
     around high tables. I found a spot in a dark corner off toward the side and watched
     the band, a trio of skinny dudes in matching snakeskin boots. The music was jittery,
     full of jagged edges—not my usual taste, but catchy. From the edge of the room I could
     watch the bassist joke around with the rhythm guitarist, and take in every emotion
     on the lead singer’s face; I could even catch his eye from time to time. Did my mother
     get to do this when she was my age? And how had she not missed living over The Underground
     after she married my dad and moved to suburbia?
    Once the song ended, I thought to check the room for Hence. When I didn’t see him,
     I slipped closer to the stage. Just then, Cooper passed by carrying a bin of empty
     bottles and glasses. He looked shocked to see me there and shouted something in my
     direction. I couldn’t