THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, while Bette and Simon were cleaning up after an early dinner, Kevin actually picked up his phone to tell Simon the concert had been outrageous. Kevin was so excited that his words skimmed against one another, but Simon felt numb. Kevin said Rick had introduced them as one of his greatest influences. He had even stepped up and played with them on their last song.
“What, you’re not psyched?” Kevin said. There was laughter in the background, the clink of glasses.
“Who’s there?”
“Everyone—Ruby, the band, some other guys—a manager, too, I think—maybe I can grab him—”
Simon couldn’t concentrate. Kevin’s voice seemed to echo, and he gripped his phone harder.
“I’m sorry. I’m just so exhausted,” Simon said.
“Well, wake up, buddy, because this is happening and I don’t want it to happen without you. When are you coming out here? Rick wants us on the whole leg of the tour!”
“What? He does? He knows I’m still here?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure he knows, and he feels bad. Whenever you can come, come.”
What did that look like, he wondered, Rick feeling bad? No one other than Kevin had called him.
“Where’s our songs?” he said. “You know that you can pull your weight from the East Coast.”
“Kevin,” Simon said. He shut his eyes. A headache pounded.
Then there was a jolt of silence. Kevin cleared his throat. “How’s Stella?” he said.
“The same.”
“Oh, man,” Kevin said, his voice trailing, but he didn’t offer any help or supply suggestions. Instead, there was just the silence, stretching out like a straight line.
“I’ll do what I can,” Simon said.
He hung up the phone. Bette was now settled on the couch, knitting something that looked like a blanket out of soft blue yarn. She looked at him but said nothing, and when he didn’t say anything about the call, she went back to her knitting. Stella had told him that when Bette designed a dress, she paid attention to every detail, right down to the extra stitching on the hemlines, but this knitting looked uneven, and there was even a hole or two that he could see. Bette must have felt him watching her because she laughed. “Oh, I can do better than this, honey,” she said to him. “If I wanted to. This is just Zen. It soothes me to knit, and when I’m done, I’ll rip it out and start all over again.” She slid the stitches off the needles, balling the yarn. “It calms the mind,” she said.
But Simon’s mind couldn’t calm. He tried to imagine Kevin and the band out there in the sun, or working in the studio, Kevin bossing everyone around as usual. Or maybe that was what Rick did now. Maybe they were all bonding into pals, the age difference nothing because the music was what mattered.
Simon went to the computer and looked up the review of the concert. In the early flush days, the band had gotten reviews, and then they had petered out, but none of them had cared really. Not as long as they still could get gigs, still play in front of people.
As soon as he saw the review, he felt a pull. There was a photo of Rick, triumphant, hands waving toward a huge crowd. Simon scanned:
Opening for Rick Mason were veteran performers Mighty Chondria, whom Rick introduced as “my biggest influence.” Though Mighty Chondria haven’t been in the foreground of the music scene for years, they proved they can still grab an audience and hold them hostage, especially charismatic front man Rob Cross, who reminded everyone why he was once a major player—and could be again—reprising his old hit, “Charlatan Eyes.”
Simon felt nauseated. “Charlatan Eyes” was his song, not Rob’s. Simon wasn’t mentioned in the article at all. Nor was the bass guitarist they had hired to replace him, but that didn’t count. Simon wasn’t missed. He shut off the computer. Kevin had told him that Simon could still be a part of the band, writing songs, feeding them material until he could get there himself. But could he?
He picked up his guitar from the corner of the room, but it felt wrong, like he had never played before. G sounded like F. E-flat was now sharp. The notes seemed to have escaped or tricked him. He picked the strings, but he couldn’t even manage a simple scale. Everything he had ever written a song about—sex, music, cars, even love—seemed like lousy subjects, unworthy of anything or anyone, and instead of feeling soothed, he wanted to jump out of his skin. He put the guitar back into its case, which was covered with stickers from all the places he had been while touring, all those shiny cities, all the applause and autographs.
He snapped the case shut. Bette looked up at him. “Come on,” she said quietly. “Let’s you and me take a walk and clear our heads.” She chose one of Stella’s warmest coats and bundled it around her.
He liked walking with her. They headed down Seventh Avenue to Le Pain, where they had tea, and then back to the apartment again. She didn’t comment on how stressed he was or how dire Stella’s condition seemed. Instead, she told him how nice it had been to have tea with him, to hear him play his guitar. “I’m glad you have something to occupy you now,” she said.
“My band doesn’t seem to need me anymore.”
“Oh yes they do,” she said, and he started, because she had never been so kind to him before, and then he thought, Well maybe she knows that she needs me as much as I need her.
But it wasn’t just kindness. Maybe he had misread her before, because she brightened in the morning when she saw him, and it was clear that she genuinely wanted to be with him. “Come on, I’ll teach you rummy,” she told him, and the two of them sat at the dining room table, her keeping score, playing for hours. She never let him win, and he never let her win, and he liked that. It showed that they each respected the other.
Later that day, Bette went to the hospital with him. She held Stella’s hand and told family stories. The stories bolstered him. When Bette stopped talking and began to nod off in her chair, Simon texted one report to all their friends: Stella’s the same.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, he was at the hospital without Bette, who was still asleep in the apartment. He walked to Stella’s room, and there was Libby in purple scrubs, a red bandanna tied about her hair. She glanced at him.
“You’re here again,” she said evenly.
“Of course I am.”
“You getting everything done that you need to get done? Are you taking care of yourself?”
She was staring at him now. He saw a glittering white stud in her left ear, poking out from the fire of her hair.
“I don’t. I just come here.”
He thought she was going to tell him again that he should go home, pay the bills, and go to work, that it was important to act normal, even when you didn’t feel that way. Instead, her eyes narrowed. “For how long?” she said quietly, and then she walked out of the room.
As soon as she vanished, he felt irritated. How fucking dare she talk to him like that? Like she expected him to be one of those guys who run when there’s trouble? Like she knew him? Well, she didn’t.
He pulled out a chair and sat next to Stella. Someone had drawn her ringlets into a pineapple at the top of her head, tied with a ribbon. She’d never wear her hair like that in real life. She hated hair decorations or fuss, but the ribbon was what kept him from undoing it. Someone else besides him cared about Stella enough to give her a ribbon, and that had to matter. Her lids fluttered, but with what? Dreams? A simple neurological sensation? “Stella,” he said.