Ten a.m., and I’d left Jaspreet at eleven p.m. I searched for her number in my cracked phone and realized I didn’t even have it. We weren’t friends. I’d told her to call if she needed anything, but I didn’t remember leaving my number. I called the hospital and asked them to connect me to her room. Waited to hear that she hadn’t survived the night.
“Hello?”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Hey, Jaspreet, this is Luce. I’m just checking you’re okay. You’re okay?”
“Tired as fuck. They wake me every two hours for one thing or another. Blood, temperature. But yeah, otherwise okay. The fever is lower, and they have me on something for the nerve pain. The spots itch.”
“I’m so glad.” She couldn’t have understood the relief in my voice, and I wasn’t about to tell her. “Glad the fever is down, I mean, not the itchy spots. Listen, I realize I said last night for you to call me, but I didn’t leave you my number, so I thought I’d give it to you. For anything.”
“Sure. My brother is coming in a little bit, but thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you for bringing me in last night when nobody else could.”
“No problem.”
I hung on the line for a few more seconds, then said I had to go.
April and I had mostly spoken on the phone or in person. Our only text messages consisted of my last several attempts to reach her. I scrolled through the tour pictures on my phone; there weren’t many. A couple from the backseat of the van to the front, a couple from the front seat to the back. One in a diner where she posed with an enormous banana split. She had her sticks in her hands in every picture, even with the ice cream.
She wasn’t the best drummer I’d auditioned. Second best, but I’d liked her more, and I’d decided compatibility mattered more than perfection. We roomed together for eight months with no complaint, and I’d still held her at arm’s length. Why?
I plugged my guitar in and sent silent apologies to the other sick roommates. Cranked the gain and the distortion, turned it up until the room hummed with potential noise. I stared at the neck, waiting for something that wanted to be played. Finally, I hit an E minor chord, all six strings, a wave, a wall. Hit it again and again, noise layered on noise, until it drowned out my head. Somewhere in the middle, the downbeats started sounding like words. Nobody is coming to save you, the chord told me, over and over again. Nobody is coming to save you. Chorus and verse.
I played until my B string snapped, slashing the meat of my right thumb, and kept playing with blood running over the pick guard. Didn’t stop until my left hand was too sore to press the strings anymore, and my right hand’s cuticles were seeping and raw. It felt good to bleed. Punishment for being the one left standing.
When I couldn’t play anymore, I left a message for the entertainment lawyer who’d vetted the label contract for me, asking him to help me get out of the rest of the contract.
If the big clubs were closed, I’d play small ones again. I’d busk on the street. I’d open my own club if I had to. If having a label meant sitting on my hands I didn’t want a label anymore. Whatever it took. I was a lousy friend, and I didn’t know how to sit still. If all I was good at was being a vector for noise and hope, I’d be a vector. If nobody was coming to save me, I’d have to figure out a way to save myself. If I was lucky, I could do the same for some other people along the way.
And first, I was going to go downstairs and make a big pot of chicken soup for my sick roommates. This might have to be home for a little while.
10
ROSEMARY
Who Can You Trust
The online training modules could as easily have been done at home, but trainees were supposed to finish them on campus. Maybe so you’d still be there for them to call back in if you failed one, so they could offer you a different job or send you packing.
Rosemary didn’t mind working in the private dorm room she’d been assigned. Instead of inspirational slogans like the ones Superwally issued, the posters depicted SHL musicians. The bed sagged, but not too badly, and the desk chair was comfortable. Nice view, too.
They’d even provided free Veneers! She’d never tried a Veneer before, since her old Hoodie didn’t support the tech. Rosemary spent ten minutes cycling through the options for the room (monk’s cell, tropical gazebo, Versailles bedroom, a dozen more) before settling on one called “Chelsea Hotel 1967.” Now when she observed the room with her Hoodie on the next setting up from clearview, the threadbare red carpet became a scuffed hardwood floor. The plywood headboard looked like wrought iron, velvet curtains filtered the sunlight, and every surface was draped with jewel-toned scarves. Given more time, she might have found one she liked more, but six years at Superwally told her not to waste company time on it, even if they offered the option.
Rosemary dedicated herself to doing well on her modules. She knew she’d made the right choice to take this job; now she had to prove it to them. It helped that the modules interested her, or some did, anyway, the ones that weren’t about avoiding inappropriate relationships or how to log your expenses. She learned how to read a map, how to navigate interstate buses and city buses and trains, where to find information on schedules and safety. A training on what to wear would have been nice; she still didn’t want to ask.
They had techniques for how to approach a band, how to recognize if a band had SHL potential. That part came down to, “We hired you to know it when you see it.” There were a few suggestions about tip-offs for musicians who made bad SHL artists. They said not to waste time on alcoholics or drug addicts; now that Rosemary had seen the precision necessary to run an SHL concert, she understood the need for reliable talent. Nothing too political. Bring excitement, personality, charisma, the ability to connect with an audience, mainstream appeal, whatever that meant. Maybe it was code for some demographic? An age group, an economic class? If she had to guess, it was tied to the apolitical. They wanted excitement but not edge or danger or anything offensive.
The rules for contact were similar to the Superwally Ethics & Values Code, but less concerned with ethics than with line crossing. You are not there to be anyone’s friend. Observe. Don’t be a stranger to them, but don’t get too involved. There’s always a temptation to sign acts because you like them. Sign them because we need them, because the world needs them, because they’re wasting their talents in that dump they’re playing. No taking money or gifts from musicians you were pursuing. No promising attention in exchange for sex or favors. She wondered how many rules were based on experience.
Rosemary waited for them to tell her how to discover her exciting, personable, charismatic performers. When that information didn’t come, she searched for a missing module, but the only clue she found was the line in the code of conduct that said “wasting their talents in that dump they’re playing.” Where was she supposed to find that dump?
“So… where do I go first?” Rosemary wrote to her new supervisors in Recruiter Management. She was too embarrassed to use the live interface. They had been sending her encouraging messages all day long, telling her no question was too basic, but this one might be.
“Anywhere you want!” came the unhelpful reply. Slightly more helpfuclass="underline" “There’s a map”—a link lit on her screen—“showing where the current recruiters are. No sense duplicating their effort, but anyplace else is fair game. You let Logistics know, and they’ll book your travel. Pick wherever your favorite band is from and start there. Or start with whatever’s local to you.”