wasn’t enough, he had to get in some other way.
The shower rod had broken, and she could feel more breakage on the way. It was time to get out, but her next situation had to be something different. No more Linas, no more Wills. She was done playing a rag doll, whether she got tucked in at night or thrown against the wall.
Anyway, the band was starting to get too popular. At almost every show now, she saw a few glowing rectangles held aloft to record, and she didn’t like it. She knew she’d have to plan tight and move fast, because these days Will never let her out of his sight for long. When they were all on the road together, he played her guardian angel, meaning she and Will had a cheap motel room while the rest of the band crashed on sofas. One day soon he’d start making her crack the door open while she peed, and she’d never be alone again, not even in the john.
She started drinking a beer with the band before the show, in the round on the house that took the sting out of dismal pay. Will liked her taking part in this pre-show ritual; he’d warned her enough times, crushing his fifth or sixth empty while she kept herself sharp, not to act any better than she was. The tide would eventually turn, of course, but she thought she knew approximately how much longer she could drink with the guys before that happened. She snuggled up closer to Will to buy herself a little more time, ignoring Dave and Len as much as she could with them all crammed into a booth together, and made sure everyone saw her hit the ladies’ room just before they all went onstage together. Will laughed and said it was stage fright, but when the time was right, missing this step would give her an excuse to disappear immediately after the set.
Every time they played Seattle she felt like a kid on a swing, scanning the ground as she whooshed forward, looking for the perfect moment to jump off. She didn’t know exactly who she was looking for until she saw him: a man in the audience at the Ploughman she’d seen before, always alone. Just a man, but that night onstage, as the hot red lights lay on her face like a mask she could slip out from under, she sensed him like a wet stain on the front of a blouse, felt him watching her, and when she saw his dark face ringed by lighter faces, a hole in the pale crowd, she knew. She closed her eyes, let her voice hover in the alto register for a few lines, and then reached out for him with her soprano, scaling the stage lights with her voice and bursting upward into the quiet dark at their center like a surfacing diver.
That night in October, with the mantle of drizzle descending again, a curtain that wouldn’t lift for the next seven months, she jumped.
6
By the time I get home, I’ve forgotten all about the video and Gretchen Farber, because she’s gone, Julie is gone.
I want to scream at Tom for letting her leave the house. Of course, he doesn’t know about the miscarriage, he doesn’t know she’s supposed to stay off her feet for twenty-four hours. He doesn’t know she might be bleeding, she might be hurting. But still—when I get home, she has been gone for five hours with no word, and he is frantic. We drive up and down Memorial, stopping in coffee shops and stores, asking if anyone has seen her. One barista at Starbucks says he thinks he saw her get into an SUV outside.
We aren’t so crazed that we don’t think of Jane, out somewhere in Tom’s SUV. When Jane’s phone goes straight to voicemail, the way it does when it’s dead, that’s when the scenarios begin to spiral out of control. Some men from Mexico have been looking for Julie and have finally found her, perhaps when the girls were together, and they’ve taken both of them, or it was Jane who picked Julie up, but they were T-boned at an intersection and are now lying comatose in a hospital; catastrophic scenes tantalizing because they’re impossible, like lightning striking twice in the same spot. I yell at Tom and Tom
The shower rod had broken, and she could feel more breakage on the way. It was time to get out, but her next situation had to be something different. No more Linas, no more Wills. She was done playing a rag doll, whether she got tucked in at night or thrown against the wall.
Anyway, the band was starting to get too popular. At almost every show now, she saw a few glowing rectangles held aloft to record, and she didn’t like it. She knew she’d have to plan tight and move fast, because these days Will never let her out of his sight for long. When they were all on the road together, he played her guardian angel, meaning she and Will had a cheap motel room while the rest of the band crashed on sofas. One day soon he’d start making her crack the door open while she peed, and she’d never be alone again, not even in the john.
She started drinking a beer with the band before the show, in the round on the house that took the sting out of dismal pay. Will liked her taking part in this pre-show ritual; he’d warned her enough times, crushing his fifth or sixth empty while she kept herself sharp, not to act any better than she was. The tide would eventually turn, of course, but she thought she knew approximately how much longer she could drink with the guys before that happened. She snuggled up closer to Will to buy herself a little more time, ignoring Dave and Len as much as she could with them all crammed into a booth together, and made sure everyone saw her hit the ladies’ room just before they all went onstage together. Will laughed and said it was stage fright, but when the time was right, missing this step would give her an excuse to disappear immediately after the set.
Every time they played Seattle she felt like a kid on a swing, scanning the ground as she whooshed forward, looking for the perfect moment to jump off. She didn’t know exactly who she was looking for until she saw him: a man in the audience at the Ploughman she’d seen before, always alone. Just a man, but that night onstage, as the hot red lights lay on her face like a mask she could slip out from under, she sensed him like a wet stain on the front of a blouse, felt him watching her, and when she saw his dark face ringed by lighter faces, a hole in the pale crowd, she knew. She closed her eyes, let her voice hover in the alto register for a few lines, and then reached out for him with her soprano, scaling the stage lights with her voice and bursting upward into the quiet dark at their center like a surfacing diver.
That night in October, with the mantle of drizzle descending again, a curtain that wouldn’t lift for the next seven months, she jumped.
6
By the time I get home, I’ve forgotten all about the video and Gretchen Farber, because she’s gone, Julie is gone.
I want to scream at Tom for letting her leave the house. Of course, he doesn’t know about the miscarriage, he doesn’t know she’s supposed to stay off her feet for twenty-four hours. He doesn’t know she might be bleeding, she might be hurting. But still—when I get home, she has been gone for five hours with no word, and he is frantic. We drive up and down Memorial, stopping in coffee shops and stores, asking if anyone has seen her. One barista at Starbucks says he thinks he saw her get into an SUV outside.
We aren’t so crazed that we don’t think of Jane, out somewhere in Tom’s SUV. When Jane’s phone goes straight to voicemail, the way it does when it’s dead, that’s when the scenarios begin to spiral out of control. Some men from Mexico have been looking for Julie and have finally found her, perhaps when the girls were together, and they’ve taken both of them, or it was Jane who picked Julie up, but they were T-boned at an intersection and are now lying comatose in a hospital; catastrophic scenes tantalizing because they’re impossible, like lightning striking twice in the same spot. I yell at Tom and Tom
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