She didn't feel hungry as she followed Jed out, just kind of sick, as if she'd bitten into something moldy. How could it be a game if the rules kept changing? No one ever stopped play in a soccer match to tell the players they had to run in the stands instead of on the field.
She couldn't talk, her feet ached every time she settled in a spot for more than fifteen minutes, and she didn't really know where she was going. And now she couldn't even give anyone her name. Except for Jed, who already had it, so she had three days to leave him or risk something bad happening.
What would happen if she stayed? Not that she would, because the point of everything was to find Cass, not to become a groupie to some band called Mr. Chicken.
Was it possible she was imagining everything? After all, if the devil was working as a cashier in the co-op, there should have been more suffering there.
She tried a spoonful of soup. It was better than she expected, and she ate slowly, dipping the bread into the cup and taking small bites to make it last.
"So, you should totally come tonight. Bet'll think it's fun to have you along, and you can crash with us. She's taking care of her aunt's place while she's away, and there's tons of room. How many days have you got, to get where you're going?"
She held up three fingers. It made sense to go with Jed to Albany, and it couldn't hurt anything to crash one night there and skip paying for a motel room.
"What do you say, then?"
She gave another thumbs-up. Her voice had been gone less than two days and already she hated the gesture. She needed a reversible sign: yes on one side, no on the other.
"Cool. I'm excited for you to see us play."
He turned the music back on, and the miles rolled away.
Bet's aunt lived outside of Albany, in an old farmhouse surrounded by trees stripped bare for the coming winter. Blue shutters flanked its windows, and flower beds full of dry brown stems followed the winding driveway. As they pulled in, the door of the side porch flew open and a woman came running out.
Bet laughed breathlessly as Jed picked her up and spun her around. She was small and curvy, like a snowwoman with curly brown hair and glasses. She was a good six inches shorter than Jed, and when they kissed, she stood up on her toes and leaned against him, his hands on her hips.
Blue looked away. She always noticed details even when she felt she shouldn't. Big Eyes, Cass had always called her, circling her own eyes with her fingers. "You're like an owl, always watching." And Blue would raise her shoulders as if fluffing her feathers, until Cass would laugh and call her a freak.
"The guys aren't here yet?" Jed took a step back from Bet, hands still on her hips.
"Vik said they'd be here by five. We've got the place to ourselves." She put a hand on the flat of his stomach. He took another step back.
"Bet, this is, uh—" He waved a hand at Blue and she emerged hesitantly from the car. "This is Blue. I picked her up near Boston. She was hitching with a guitar, and she's got laryngitis, so she can't talk. I told her she could crash here, that you'd be totally into it."
For a moment, the look in Bet's eyes was anything but inviting. It passed quickly, though, and she smiled. "Totally. That's cool. Blue, right? I love your name. You really can't talk at all?"
Blue pulled out her notebook.
Sorry! You really OK with me staying?
"You kidding? It'll be fun to have company. Have you heard their music? They're so good."
In the car. They're great!
"Great" might have been an overstatement. Mr. Chicken sounded good in a forgettable way, everything clean and lacking in what Mama would have called a beating heart. "Someone really good," she'd always said, "someone who's making art, not making noise, you can hear the rhythm of their heartbeat under the music. They leave something of themselves in the lines, enough that you have to open yourself up to hear it."
What Jed had played for her had been smart and catchy, but it hadn't caught hold of her and demanded that she listen. Not that she'd ever say that to a musician, especially not before a gig.
"I think they're about to break through. Really." Bet's eyes shone. "They so deserve it."
Deserve. Whatever it took to make it big, Blue didn't know that deserving played a part.
I hope so! I them.
Interesting how much easier it was to lie on paper than it was to lie out loud.
Bet set her up in a guest room with a single bed covered by a white cotton spread. There was a print of a Wyeth painting on the far wall, and a braided rug on the floor.
"This is the quietest room in the house, in case you want to sleep before four in the morning. They get pretty buzzed after a show." She paused, ran her hand over the nubbly bedspread. "But maybe you know what that's like."
She'd fallen asleep more nights than she could remember with Mama still awake and talking with Tish, her feet propped on the old lobster trap that served as one of their few pieces of furniture. "Takes a while to come down, if you do your show right," Mama had said. The coming down, Blue had loved it. It hadn't mattered where they were; it just felt like home.
You don't play? Sing?
Bet smiled, as if at a joke. "Me, up onstage? No way. They'd laugh."
Just 4 fun?
"Nah. I don't have anything when it comes to music." There was another pause and the sound of a door creaking open in the space between them. Blue thought of the flyer, of Jed's summary of Bet's thoughts on art and categories.
You drew the rooster?
A wide smile, a pair of dimples deepening in her cheeks. "Did Jed say something?"
She wanted to say yes. Jed had said plenty of things about Bet, just not that one.
It looks like you. Not that you look like a rooster! Just like something you'd draw. Make sense?
"Cool." She looked a little sad, but mostly happy. "Mr. Chicken really did look like that. He had this long green tail. He was a hero. He died trying to save the hens from a couple of dogs running loose."
So good! Do any other stuff?
At the sound of a car on the gravel drive, Bet slipped away to the door. "That'll be the rest. I should go see them."
Blue didn't follow her out. She heard whooping, the thud of doors closing, and a drumroll of skin on metal as someone played the hood with her hands. Her window looked out over the backyard, though, and she was content to watch the stretch of shadows across the lawn.
After a while, Blue went looking for everyone. She counted five newcomers in the living room. The three guys blended together, and in her head she labeled them by their instruments rather than their names.
The backup singer, Jill, was striking—tall, with high cheekbones, and long silver earrings; her straight black hair looped back from her forehead in a pair of thin braids. She sat between Bet and the lead guitarist's sister, Meena.
Meena wore her thick black hair loose and smoked one cigarette after another. "You a cheerleader tonight?" she asked Blue, knocking ash into a plastic cup filled with water.
"She can't talk. She's got a sore throat," Bet filled in for her.
"Well, you can be the one that does tumbling instead of cheers," Meena said.
"Tonight. You. Me. Right?" The drummer pointed at Meena with a drumstick.
She blew smoke out in a long, steady stream. "Jesus, not as long as there's breath left in my body."
Jill rose. "I'm going outside. Too much crap in the air in here. Want to come, Bet?"
Bet hesitated, then shook her head. Blue followed Jill out onto the back deck instead.
Jill lay back in a lounge chair, one long jean-clad leg crossed over the other. "Chris is an ass, and his drumming sucks. Jed only keeps him around because they went to high school together. You know how those things go." She waved her hand in front of her face. "You really can't talk?"
Blue shook her head and pulled out her notebook.
Just a temp thing.
Jill studied her. "You must be a singer if you're that protective of your voice. Most people would whisper anyway."
She shook her head again, then touched her hand to her throat. She imagined the emptiness beneath her fingers and suddenly longed to sing. Jill reached out and took Blue's hand, turning it over to look at her ring. "That's pretty."
Tx! It was my mom's.
"Jed said you were a musician. What do you play?"
Guitar.
"What kind?" Jill kept her pale blue eyes focused on Blue's face.
Guild.
With that, she'd passed some test. Jill nodded. "Nice. Year?"
1968.
"These guys … Jed has real talent. The others …" She shrugged. "I deserve something better than backup for them, but it's tough for a woman singer, unless you're lucky. You know all this shit, right?"
Jill didn't watch for an answer—just leaned her head against the cushion, her eyes on the sky as it deepened to purplish blue.
