“A memorial concert,” I echo.
In a cautious voice, Mom adds, “It’s where they’re kicking off their tour.”
Theirtour. Every molecule of oxygen disappears from my lungs.
“Alice? Are you there?” Mom asks, and I find a breath. Dive bars and Parliaments.
“So they, uh…they found a new lead singer?”
“Seems like it, yes,” Mom says.
My fingernails dig into the steering wheel leather. I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew it was inevitable. The band was—and is—far bigger than just my dad. So long as there are bills to pay and fans buying tickets, it’s only logical that the show goes on. But logic can’t fix a feeling, and when I picture The Handful taking the stage with a replacement Ricky Pierce, it feels like a bent nail is being hammered into my chest.
“We should go,” Mom says after who knows how long of a silence.We should go.NotI want us to go. NotWill you go? Should.It’s the right thing to do.
“Yup,” I choke out. “We should go.”
There’s relief in Mom’s voice. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
Glad.I shiver. I want to be glad, too. I guess I am, deep beneath all the heartbreak. I’m glad that the band is honoring Dad in a place that meant so much to him. To all of us. Joy and grief are two thin gold chains running down my spine, tangled in an impossible knot right where my shoulder blades meet the driver’s seat.
“Well, check your schedule when you get home,” Mom says. “The show is the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. Maybe we could go up earlier that week to get the house in order before the band stays there.”
By which she means we need to make room for Dad’s replacement.
“Alice? You there?”
“Y-yeah,” I stammer. “Sorry. I’ll check the dates.” I blow out along, leveling breath. “But is there, like…is there an update on the house? The legal stuff?”
To my dismay, Mom feeds me the same old line. “The attorneys are still working on it.”
I picture a group of strangers in suits huddled around a single sheet of paper for months, working it out like a word problem: If Richard Pierce is part owner of The Handful Group LLC, containing a half dozen subsidiary companies, one of which owns the Outpost, then what the hell happens when Richard Pierce no longer exists?
I pull off the highway, and Mom and I say our goodbyes, then swapI love yous before ending the call. The parks along the lakeshore are a peaceful stretch of green, breaking up the concrete with baseball fields and gardens, and I roll down the windows just enough to breathe in the spring breeze off the lake. I love Chicago, but some of my favorite places in this city are the ones that make me forget I’m in a city at all: the urban forests and parks and less touristy stretches of lakeshore, places where I can find a little quiet.
At home, I peel out of Gin’s gunshot-wound dress and slip back into last night’s pajamas, which wait in a heap on my bathroom floor. The sun hasn’t even set, but I get ready for bed anyway, then crack a window, compromising the silence for a little fresh air. In spills the soundtrack of the neighborhood: The L rattles down its track. A woman yells her half of a phone call. In the distance, a car alarm has either just started or else has been blaring for hours. I don’t often mind the noise of the city, but when I’m fresh off the suburbs, I feel stuck inside the sound.
While last night’s pasta reheats, I cross-check my phone calendarwith the paper calendar on my fridge, like I told Mom I would. August has a big empty stretch of days leading up to Dad’s Gone Day, so I have no excuse. It looks like I’ll be joining Mom to clean out the Outpost, and I’ll be dreading it every second until then. I envisioned myself returning to Galena on my own terms, however felt right to me—but life has hardly ever played out the way I envision it.
I bring my pasta to the couch and browse the photos Gin has tagged me in from today. Among them is the bridesmaids’ selfie: In it, three out of four of us rock big toothy grins—say Rishi!—but my gaze pulls toward Renee, whose soft closed-lipped smile bridges smug with seductive. My teeth lock together, grinding my first bite of rotini to a paste. Of course she justhadto be different, didn’t she? Or maybe I’m just a little raw on the subject of Renee Roberts.
I sigh and tap my thumb, summoning a dark-gray bubble over each of our faces, each with a tagged account: mine, Chrissy’s, and Renee’s. I’m surprised Renee hasn’t blocked me or abandoned social media for a superior hobby like reading personal-development books to orphaned kittens. I thumb open her profile, which is public, thank God, and set my hardly touched plate on the coffee table, tucking my legs beneath me.
@TheReneeRob has a pretty bare-bones account. Her bio is plain, just two emojis: the comedy and tragedy masks and the red heart. Of the half dozen posts on her grid, the most recent is from her work holiday party with the caption “Merry, Bright, and Blomquist.” I swipe through several group photos before I land on a solo shot, and it hits like a shot of good tequila, sending a hot, buzzy burn down my throat. Renee’s bloodred satin dresshugs every delicious curve of her hips and the neckline dips to tease an irresistible shadow of cleavage. With her blond Hollywood waves and wintry blue eyes locked on the camera, she’s a real-life siren. How could one person be so mean and so hot?
I swipe one last time, and in the final photo, Renee is joined by a living Ken doll in a charcoal suit. They’re side by side, each with one arm tucked behind the other’s back in a way that provides no hard evidence about the nature of their relationship. Not that I care. I tap the picture once, then again, hoping his account will solve the question ofSiblings or dating?Instead, a pink heart bubbles up from the bottom of the photo.
“Shit!”
My pulse takes off like a rocket, matching the speed of my phone as I lob it across the room. It lands with a stutteringth-thudon the living room rug, the sound of me hammering the final nail into my own coffin.Shit shit shit.I just Liked Renee’s photo from five months ago.
My brain blue screens, and when I scramble to retrieve my phone, I know there’s only one reasonable thing to do: I hit the follow button, then close the app altogether, waiting for my heart rate to agree that this is totally fine and normal. It is normal, right? To follow someone and also like their most recent picture? I guess it’d probably be more normal had I done those two things in the reverse order, but maybe Renee won’t notice. Or maybe she will. Maybe she’s texting Gin separately right now, askingWhat the hell is up with your ex?And maybe I’m overthinking all of this.
I abandon my phone on the charger, cutting myself off from my screens and worst-case scenarios, apart from one final checkbefore bed. My only new notification is an email from Renee, and I wheeze a disbelieving laugh at the subject line.
FROM:Renee Roberts
TO:Christina Amato, Alice Pierce
