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“Florence! I’ve been trying to reach you. I saw the post you sent me.”
Florence’s lips tilt into a smile, hearing her own giddiness echoed in her mum’s tone. “Yeah?”
“It looks like a tight schedule. When are you leaving, then?”
“Tour starts on the twenty-seventh.” Only nine days. Somehow, it feels more impossible the closer they get. “The first stop is in Paris, so we’re leaving on the twenty-sixth.”
“Paris,” her mum repeats, a touch wistful. Florence can picture her sitting in her office in Oxford, glasses pushed to the top of her head while she takes a break from grading papers. “When are you getting back?”
“We have a one-week break in the middle. So we’ll be on the road for three weeks, then come back to London, and have another two weeks touring in the UK and Ireland.”
“Oh? Is that standard procedure nowadays?”
“I don’t think so.” Florence shields her eyes with one hand as she tips her head back against the wall of the pub. Above her, the sky is a spotless blue. “Juno’s manager told us that Juno has a teenage daughter. She doesn’t want to leave her for an entire month.”
The answer comes with a bitter taste in her mouth.
As if reading her mind, her mother asks, “Did you hear anything from your father?”
“No.” Her message has been left unanswered for the last week. It shouldn’t surprise her, at this point, but Florence still hasn’t quite learned to ignore the acrid disappointment in her gut. If not even this—the biggest achievement of her fledgling music career—gets a reaction from her father, what will?
“Prick,” her mother says, sudden enough to draw a startled laugh from Florence.
“Yeah.” A pause. “I can get you tickets to our London show, if you want? It’s in Hyde Park. Miray’s parents will be there as well.”
“Of course,” her mother says immediately. “I would love to come. You know I would follow you all over Europe if I could.”
“Yeah. I know.” Florence bites her lip. She knows it’s not what her mum intended, but she can’t stop the guilt from welling up in her throat. It’ll be the longest she’s ever been away from England, and the farthest too. Once they’re on the road, she won’t have much time to speak to her mum—or anyone else, for that matter. “Mum, I have to go now. We’re in the middle of practice.”
“Always working,” her mother says, and Florence can’t tell if she sounds fond or chiding. “I’ll let you go. Say hi to Miray from me. And Earl, of course.”
“I will.”
“Oh, and Florence?”
“Yes?”
“Do call me when you’re on tour. I want to hear what you’re getting up to.”
Florence lets out a slow breath. “I will. Bye, Mum.”
Hanging up, she drops her head back against the brick wall behind her and shuts her eyes. She stays there for a few more minutes, gathering the courage to return to the basement and the tormenting sight of Luca’s arms.
SETLIST
1. a ballad for big teeth
2. swallow me
3. a ballad for bruised knees
4. alexandria
9
“You really don’t talk much, do you?”
Luca blinks, startled. Toni is looking at her, head tilted to the side. “Sorry,” Luca says lamely, drawing herself up straighter. They’re leaning against the counter at a guitar shop in Shoreditch, waiting for the owner—a friend of Toni’s—to find something in the back. “I was just thinking about tomorrow.”
