Lourey was groaning before I’d even finished.
“What?” I demanded.
“That excuse is getting so old,” she said.
“We allknow,” Suzy said, giving Lourey a look, “that you’ve been knocked off your feet. We heard about Joey—”
“Not fromyou,” Lourey said.
“From thenews,” Rooster said. “Dude.”
“It’s really hard to lose someone,” Suzy said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I am.”
“Your boyfriend just died,” Shanny said. “Maybe he was in the middle of breaking your heart, but it’s fine to take a little time—”
“I don’t need time,” I said. “I don’t. I’m fine. Joey and I were, you know. What we were.”
The image of Heather and Sachin on their couch came to me, their thumbs just barely touching.Theirhearts were not stretching thin between one place and the next. Alex was sure about Oona. How did you get to besureabout anything? Ever? In your whole life?
Shanny and Rooster exchanged a look.
“And that was… what?” Shanny ventured.
“Joey and I kept things rock ‘n’ roll,” I said.
“But what does that really mean?” Suzy asked. “That you didn’t think there was a future with him? That you don’t care that he died?”
“That he was just more background furniture on the Doll Devine Show?” Lourey said.
“I care, okay? But I don’t need to—to shut down over it. I’m mourning him.” I remembered the feeling of that wailing note sung to the empty street rising up from within me, a plaintive song without words. “But I’m doing it the way I need to. I just need to keep—”
“Rock ‘n’ roll?” Lourey sneered.
“—moving,” I said.
“What happens if you stop moving?” Rooster said, a small voice that somehow sliced through all the other noise.
I barely had to imagine it and the gaping blackness beneath my feet was there. It was always there but I never acknowledged it, never looked its way. I could be swallowed. I would be swallowed, whole. How did people survive the worst things? The cruelties, the knowledge that we were all out here on our own, barely scraping by? Barely holding on?
I knew how I did it. By knowing who I could rely on, and that was me. “Maybe you were right, Shanny,” I said.
“About needing some time?” Shanny said. “We understand.”
“About going solo.”
Rooster meeped. Suzy looked away. The storeroom settled into stillness, silence.
“Well, that’s okay,” Lourey said finally. “Because we think you already did, a long time ago.”
They turned back to sorting the gear. I started for the door, picturing how it would go. They would gather the cases and Abbey Road-march through the pub and across Milwaukee Avenue, out of the band, and out of my life. But—
I remembered the stretched, monstrous shadow on the wall of the Addison Rose. Me, alone. I had never wanted to be alone, not really. Not again.
“Wait.” I turned back.
Lourey stood up from where she’d been crouching among the cases. “What now?”
