"Alex isn't spooky," Roland said. "He's the most normal person here."
"Don't give me that," Jerith replied. "I saw him this afternoon. When he was singing…it was like he was some kind of wraith. That's exactly the word, a wraith."
"You're confusing Alex with the Singer," Roland answered calmly. "Alex is a regular guy; the Singer is something else." He busied himself with dabbing at a clot of mud that clung to the snarl of wires he was cleaning, then added, "The Singer is spooky as hell."
Jerith stared at Roland for a long moment. "Are you talking split personality?"
"I asked a psych-tech about that once," Roland answered. "She laughed at me. Everyone knows split personalities only exist in low-budget grislies. These days, potential splits are detected in childhood and sewn right back up. Oh yes, that perky little psych-tech had herself a real giggle over my naïveté."
"Sorry," Jerith said. From the tone in his voice, I guessed that our resident archaeologist had also been laughed at by women sometime in the past.
"I went to school with Alex," Roland said, making a show of attention to his work. "Good guy. Everybody's friend. Not too bright…not very bright at all…" Roland slapped his brush roughly at the dirt. "But he was everybody's friend. Women loved him." He looked up at me accusingly. "What do you think of Alex, Lyra? Not the Singer, but Alex. Kind of cute, kind of helpless, right? Sweet lovable guy?"
"I like Alex," I replied, trying not to sound defensive. "What's wrong with that?"
Both men looked at me silently. Neither one came close to Alex's easy charm. Roland, overweight, his hair thinning though he was only twenty-five, and his lips too red and blubbery. Jerith, with his droopy face and weak chin unsuccessfully hidden by a patchy blond beard, uncombed and scraggly…no doubt he'd known people like Alex too, and…
Jerith turned quickly away from me. His hand went reflexively to his beard. I told myself I must have been staring and I felt like shit.
"There's nothing wrong with Alex," Roland said quietly as he went back to cleaning his artifact. "I admit, the problem was mine. I envied him like hell. Especially back when we were starting our band. Eighteen years old, both of us, playing school dances and grotty little booze bins. Me playing keyboards, writing all the songs, doing the work!" He dug the brush into the gap between two metal tubes and twisted it hard. "Alex sang my songs, my songs, every word mine, not his…but who did the women steam for? Pissed me off, pissed me right…" He stopped and calmed himself. After a moment he said, "These days I can handle it. I'm not writing to impress people, I'm not writing to get laid." He gave me a pointed look. "I'm writing to say something and the message is what counts. If the only way to be heard is putting my words in the Singer's mouth, so be it."
There was a lengthy silence, a painful one. I felt guilty without knowing why, like I'd been accused of some crime…as if I were a slut waiting to fall at Alex's feet just to spite Roland. I wished Jerith would say something, anything to ease the tension.
And he did.
"You still haven't talked about Alex and the Singer," Jerith said, sounding like the words came awkwardly to him, but clearly doing his best to break the silence.
"Oh, that," said Roland. "Do you believe in possession?"
"No," I answered, though the question was directed at Jerith.
Roland laughed without humor. "I don't believe in it either. But I'll tell you, when Alex and I first started performing, we stank. I have no idea why—he had a decent voice, and I knew the songs were brilliant…" He laughed again. "We just didn't have the chemistry, that's all. Then one night in this ratty blow-bar called Juicy's…one night this woman came to see us backstage between sets. An older woman, maybe as old as thirty. Hey, I was eighteen, she was ancient. I thought she was a hooker and I was prime self-righteous the way only teenagers can be, so I made some cutting remarks and stomped out for some air. What you'd call a very pointed exit.
"By the time I got back, she was nose-to-nose with Alex, talking about ways to improve the act. That pissed me off, this woman telling us our jobs. I grabbed Alex by the arm and dragged him off toward the stage, but she called to Alex's back, 'And undo your shirt. Strut the flesh, for Christ's sake. Put some groin into it. When people watch the stage, they don't want the boy next door. They want a goddamned performer.'
"Well. We hit the stage for the next set, and Alex started trying stuff. Rolling his eyes, swiveling his hips…completely forced, and embarrassing. He wasn't that kind of guy—not a drop of sleaze in him. When he tried it, I'm telling you, he just had no clue! I told him to smarten up, but that woman was watching from a front row table, and Alex must have figured he could get lucky if he played up to her.
"The mood of the bar shifted from bored to hostile; we'd been mediocre before, but now the act positively turned your stomach. Even Alex sensed how ugly the crowd was getting. One guy, built like a tank, dressed in leather from head to toe, this guy pulled out a switchblade and started clicking it in, out, click, click, making sure we saw him. I broke into a cold sweat, and Alex, he panicked completely. Panic was the only thing that could have made him unbutton his shirt, because believe it or not, he was shy about his body, showing it in public.
"He started unbuttoning in the middle of this long instrumental break, after the chorus of 'A Short Spell of Rain'—first cut on our first album, you should know it. And with every button he undid, it was like something rewiring itself in his head. Like a puppy changing into a wolf. When the instrumental break was over and he started singing the next verse…God, my hands were shaking so bad I could hardly play. The room fell absolutely still—not a whisper, not a glass tinkling. The bouncer outside the front door came running in, pulling on his brass knuckles like he expected real trouble; but he stopped in the entranceway, just froze there, with the brass knucks dangling on his fingertips, and he listened to the rest of the song. And the next song. And the next. Until we'd run through our whole repertoire. We left the stage, we went to the dressing room, and I buttoned up Alex's shirt without looking into his eyes. Then we both had terror-fits for a few hours."
Silence. Nothing but the swish of our three brushes sweeping old grit and dirt.
"I take it the woman in the audience was Helena Howe?" Jerith asked at last.
"You got it," Roland nodded, setting down his brush. "Our very own manager, director, and ballbreaker. And yes, Alex did get lucky that night. Or unlucky, depending on your point of view. He says they're in love." Roland wiped his dusty hands fiercely on a rag he picked up from the workbench. "I've never found out whether Helena makes him unbutton his shirt in bed. Interesting question, don't you think? Alex is easier to control, but the Singer would be more…volcanic."
He threw the rag down on the workbench and strode out into the gathering twilight. He didn't look back at either of us as he let the door click shut behind him.
Jerith let his breath out slowly. "I think I need a walk," he said. "How about you?"