Pointing at me.
“We got Cold Sweat royalty in the house tonight. Can we get a spotlight on this lil lady right here?”
In my mind, I’m already running away, sprinting down the block without looking back. I’m in another city. On another planet. I am so far away from this moment that I couldn’t feel it if I tried. But my actual, physical body doesn’t move, and I’m swallowed by a flash of bright-white light.
“Let’s hear it for Alice Pierce, the founding bassist of Cold Sweat!”
I’m frozen in the spotlight. Around me, the crowd cheers, and someone squeezes my shoulders. A nearby stranger daps me up. People pull out their phones, most of them clearly unsure why I’m important.I’m not, I think, but they take my photo anyway, just in case I matter.
I give Solas a weak wave, desperately trying to smile.
Solas smiles back, then sucks his teeth and yanks the mic from its stand. With a voice like he’s biting down on gravel, he says, “I’ve got a story about Alice.”
My neck goes hot. My sweat might boil on my skin.
“When we were just starting out as a band, when Cold Sweat was playing smaller shows…those smaller venues will give you drink tickets, right? ’Cause they can’t pay you in dollars, but they can pay you in booze.”
The crowd whoops. My pulse surges.No.
“And our entire first tour, our first time on the road, all of us.” Solas motions to the rest of the band. “We all kept losing our drink tickets. Alice too. It was crazy, right?”
No no no.
“Come to find out, she’s a little thief. She’s stealing everybody’s drink tickets and playing along like,Oh no, mine are missing too!”
The crowd laughs. Solas cracks a lopsided smile. Then Renee’s hand is back in mine, and her touch is the only good thing about existing in this moment, the cool slivers of her rings the only thing about me that’s not burning up.
But Solas isn’t done.
“So when we were cutting demos at a studio here in Chicago, we found out that our girl Alice works there now.” He’s pacing the stage now, holding the mic like a stand-up comic, and I’m the unwilling subject of his roast. “So we taught the engineer a little joke the guys up here have. When you can’t find your beer, we say,All right, who’s pulling an Alice?”
I feel like I’m melting inside my own body, my soul reduced to a muddy little puddle as Solas describes someone I’d like to forget I ever was. As I realize—everything I’ve been worried about is true. The person I used to be is alive and well in the memories of people like Solas Callaghan. I’mstillthat person, so far as the band is concerned. My reputation is a virus; it doesn’t need me as its host.
For a moment, I wish we could trade places, Solas and me. That I could be the one playing for a packed house and he was here in the crowd, having his worst self put on parade in front of a thousand fans. Maybe then he’d know how it felt to be a cautionarytale, a parable of what not to do if you wanted to make it as a musician in this city. But I know I was never cut out to be onstage, and that’s why he’s up there and I’m out here. Everything I practiced, everything I wanted to say, falls apart on my tongue. I won’t get the chance to say it; even if I did, I know now that I wouldn’t be heard.
“So this next one’s for Alice Pierce.” Solas plunks the microphone back in the stand. He finds my eyes in the crowd, cracks open a stage beer, and raises it high. “If you see her, maybe get that girl a drink.”
The second the spotlight shuts off, I’m gone. Pushing through the crowd. Elbowing my way out. I hear the faintest shred of “Alice, wait” from Renee, but I can’t look back. I have to keep pushing. I have to get out of here. I stumble down the stairs and out the door onto the rain-slick sidewalk, pulling out my phone to call a car. I don’t know if it’s rain or tears on my cheeks, but I have to get home.
I hear the door swing open behind me, and Renee rushes through, straight to my side. “Alice, hey.” She’s breathless, eyes sad and sorry. “Are we leaving?”
“I’mleaving. You can stay if you want.” I don’t really mean it. I can’t bear the thought of riding home without her, trying to cry softly enough that the driver doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.
Renee opens her umbrella, shielding us from the rain. When I look up from my phone, she holds me in her gaze, soft and sweet and blue.
“I don’t want to be anywhere that’s not with you right now.” Renee’s voice barely hovers above a whisper, so small that it might wash away with the rain, but she stays with me. With her, I’m okay.
It’s a short ride home, and neither of us says much until we’reboth safe and dry inside my apartment. The moment my door closes behind her, Renee announces, “Solas Callaghan is a fucking douchebag.”
I sit on the floor to tug off my boots, then tip back and starfish across the hardwood, blinking up at the ceiling.
“He’s not a douchebag.” I sigh.
“Well, he sure had me fooled considering the stunt he just pulled.”
“It wasn’t a stunt,” I grumble. “He was just doing crowd work.”
“Crowd work? Humiliating you in front of a thousand people is crowd work?”
