Fear and Laundry (24 page)

“You don’t know what it’s like. The last two albums tanked. The label’s been riding us hard,” he said. “Saying if we don’t put out a hit record, they’ll drop us anyway. I don’t need that kind of pressure.”

“You have two gold records,” I said. “I’m sure you could switch labels, sign with someone else.”

He smiled tiredly. “That was a long time ago. But even if I could switch, I wouldn’t want to. I’m tired. Burnt out.”

Lia sniffled louder. Remorse flitted across Clyde’s face when he saw the tears start to roll down her cheeks.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, closing up the water bottle and dropping it onto the bed beside him. “This was all really fun in the beginning. The tours, the money, the chicks.” He looked at us. “And the fans, of course. But for a while now, I’ve just felt...I dunno...” He ran a hand through his hair. “Empty.”

Great
, I thought. On one level, I sympathized with him. I really did. But on another, I was getting a little fed up with talented geniuses having existential crises. Was it going around? I wanted to take him and shake him, force him to be grateful for who he was and what he was capable of.

He was lonely, too, Clyde continued dejectedly. Everywhere he went, people fell at his feet. “But none of them really
know
me,” he lamented. “You know?” He toyed with a studded bracelet on his wrist, repeatedly undoing the clasp and then fastening it again.

“I know you,” said Lia. She dropped to her knees beside him and laid her hand on his leg. “I know that your biggest musical influences are The Beatles and The Knack. That you got your first guitar when you were eleven after your neighbor decided he didn’t want to learn how to play it after all. And that you shoplifted a radio just so you’d have something to trade him for it. And that that guitar was the only thing you took with you every time you moved to a different foster house.” She thought for a moment. “Oh, and that your favorite show so far was the one where you filled in with AC/DC at that place in Europe...” She snapped her fingers, trying to recall the name of the venue.

Clyde witnessed the regurgitation of these and more facts with amusement. “Wow. You are a fan,” he said, wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb. He looked at her fondly, but he’d paled a little. And his voice sounded funny.

“Clyde?” I asked, watching his face. “What’s the matter?”

He frowned. “I dunno. I don’t feel show good,” he slurred. His eyes rolled back slightly, showing the whites. Then he collapsed backward onto the bed.

***

“C
lyde?” Lia shook his thigh. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked me.

“How should I know?” I stared down at Clyde’s motionless form. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open. I knew he was breathing because his chest rose and fell, but his color didn’t look too good. “What were those pills he took? He said they were new; maybe he’s having some sort of reaction to them.”

She snatched up Clyde’s water bottle, twisted off the cap and sniffed the contents. “Vee,” she said, holding it out to me. But I could smell it from where I stood. I’d thought he’d been drinking water, but it was some sort of clear alcohol. Vodka, maybe. Or gin.

“We’ve gotta call an ambulance!” Lia wailed.

I cursed, knowing she was right. There was a chance Clyde had simply passed out and would come to later, perfectly well again. But what if he didn’t? Lia and I’d watched him mix drugs and alcohol and there was evidence he’d been drinking even before we’d arrived. I didn’t feel right just leaving him lying there unconscious under those circumstances.

There was a knock on the door and Lia and I jumped.

“Rhett,” I said, remembering the bodyguard.

“Mr. Ecks,” Rhett boomed through the door. “I’m back with your Mango Madness and your Whatachik’n.”

I went to the door and flung it open. “Hey!” I yelled. “Mr. Ecks needs an ambulance.”

Rhett dropped the drink and Whataburger bag and barreled past me into the suite. I didn’t realize there was someone else in the hallway until she said my name.

“Veronica?” It was my mother, passing by the room with a clipboard in her hand. The two-way radio clipped to her belt crackled and she reached to lower the volume. “What are you doing here?”

***

M
y first thought was that Alma’d turned me in, summoned my mother to the hotel to see what I was up to. But it turned out Mom had agreed to give up her day off and cover another executive’s “Manager on Duty” shift when they’d called in sick. George had given her a ride over.

It was a good thing, really, because in the end she’d been the one to call the ambulance. Rhett had tried unsuccessfully to wake his client while I’d stood by the door with Lia, holding her as she cried inconsolably. Then my mother had insisted Lia and I take off the laundry uniforms and clear out. The police would probably show up along with the paramedics, since it looked as though Clyde may’ve overdosed, and she wanted us out of the Crawford before that happened.

We’d done as Mom instructed, Lia leaning heavily on me as we walked back to the car. Jake was gone when we got back to Lia’s place and I’d waited with her in the empty Mlinarich house until my mother, driven by George, showed up to collect me.

Neither my mother nor Rhett, she told us, had mentioned anything about Lia or me to the police. Mom had convinced Rhett to tell them it’d been she, my mother, who found Clyde unconscious. But there was still a chance Clyde would say something about us when “or if” he woke up.

“You really think he might
not
wake up?” Lia wept.

“I don’t know,” my mother said coldly as she pulled me out the front door.

***

I
t’d be unfair to say Mom didn’t understand. She listened while I explained Lia and I’d been caught up in a moment; that we hadn’t set out to do any harm. She seemed to believe me, and even to appreciate my motivation to spare Jonathan’s involvement in Lia’s machinations. And she acknowledged that if Lia and I hadn’t been in Clyde’s suite at that moment, he might not have gotten needed medical attention. But none of that excused the fact I’d lied to Alma, using her trust in me against her, and jeopardized Mom’s job.

I was grounded for the first time in my life. I wouldn’t have cared so much except it meant I had to miss the Lynch’s benefit. On Sunday, I was allowed to talk on the phone with Lia for ten minutes, just long enough to let her know I wouldn’t be going anywhere but school for the next two weeks.

I told her about twenty times I was sorry for not playing the show, and that I’d totally understand if she and the rest of the band went on without me, assuming they could find a fill-in on such short notice.

“Forget it,” she said glumly. “Doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, startled. I wasn’t used to hearing her talk like that.

“I wanted to have the benefit coincide with the museum dedication because I thought Clyde might show up. But he’s in the hospital. And even if he wasn’t, I doubt he’d come. You heard the way he talked. He doesn’t care anymore. Maybe we shouldn’t either.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, growing angrier at Clyde than ever. “Who cares how he talked? The point of the benefit was to raise money for Lynch’s. That still matters to you, doesn’t it?”

“I dunno. Maybe Clyde’s right. Who do we think we’re kidding? We’re not real musicians. We don’t have a scene. We’re not anything but a bunch of stupid, spoiled kids from some crap-hole town. We ought to just stop deluding ourselves.”

“Stop it,” I told her. “That’s B.S. and you know it.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

She was quiet for a beat.

 Maybe I was right, she finally muttered. Maybe she was just depressed. “Doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “There’s no way Impressionable Youth would ever play without you, Vee.”

“You’re sure?”

“Hell yes, I’m sure. We’re sitting this out and I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it.” We would play some other night, she said. Or, even if we didn’t, we’d at least have gone out in style – just the one show, which everyone would always associate with that awesome fight.

I wanted to tell her I appreciated the sentiment, but my mother came and took the telephone away from me. She told Lia I had to go, and to please let Jake know I wouldn’t need a ride to school for the next couple of weeks because she’d be driving me herself. And then she hung up the phone.

***

I
swear the universe was aligned against me.

When my mother picked me up from school on Tuesday afternoon, she told me she’d gotten a call from Principal Herrera. Mr. Borland had turned in eight tardy slips for me in the past two weeks. Tardiness was a “level one” school conduct violation, normally warranting only “mild disciplinary action.” But given my history of truancy (and the rumors Herrera’d heard about “the crowd I was hanging around with lately”) the administration recommended putting me in ISS for a couple of weeks to try and head off what they saw as “a potentially bigger problem.” Whatever that meant. My mother had agreed, explaining to me she thought it’d be a good idea to keep me away from Lia for a while.

I argued with her, telling her Lia wasn’t a bad influence at all, that she was my best friend in the whole world, the only person who cared enough to push me to try things I never would on my own and with whom I’d always had the most fun.

“I don’t blame Lia,” sighed Mom, adding that she knew me and how stubborn I was. She was reasonably sure my stupid decisions were all my own fault. She just thought I needed to be punished, and separating me from my friends was one way to do it.

Then Mom showed me a newspaper item explaining how the museum had opted, in light of his alleged overdose, to not include Clyde in their exhibit after all. It also said Clyde had regained consciousness and would probably be fine, but was still in the hospital under suicide watch. He wasn’t being allowed visitors.

***

I
SS stood for “in school suspension.” Instead of going to their usual classes, ISS detainees went to an isolated room where they sat alongside other screw-ups and worked quietly on their assignments, not allowed to speak to anyone or even go to the cafeteria for lunch. It was horrible.

Being grounded sucked, too. When I wasn’t at school, I was stuck in my room and Mom had taken the VCR and television out of there, so I couldn’t even curl up with a good horror movie. The weekend was the worst. At least at school I had assignments to keep me busy. Saturday I stayed in my room, unable to focus on the book I was trying to read, and only came out to eat. Mom had invited George over for dinner and the meal was tense.

George made some comment over the enchiladas, about my “stunt” at the Crawford having been predictable given my lack of discipline and a father figure.

What was he talking about? Mom challenged him.

“Oh, nothing,” said George.

“No, really,” my mom insisted. “Enlighten me. Just how
should
I be raising
my
daughter?”

Well, I should have a job, he told her, totally missing Mom’s sarcasm. My grades should be better. I should be made to keep my room clean and learn to get places on time. I definitely
shouldn’t
be allowed to hang around a run-down Laundromat with a bunch of disreputable musician-types. “You’re not doing her any favors by spoiling her so much, you know,” he said. “She’s going to be out on her own soon and should learn some responsibility before then, or she won’t have a clue how to take care of herself.”

 At about that point, I started to cry and Mom sent me to my room.

“It’s none of his business how I raise you,” she’d said later, when George had left and she’d come in to check on me. “He doesn’t even know you. You’re a good kid.” She’d sat with me on my bed, stroked my hair and smiled, trying to look convincing. But I knew better.

Poor Mom. She’d sacrificed a lot for me. And George was right: she hadn’t really gotten much return on her investment so far, had she?

***

B
y the second Wednesday of my grounding I’d spent ten days practically alone and was sick of myself.

But at least my grades had improved. I’d concentrated harder on school work than ever before in my life, if only because I had no distractions at school and nothing else to do while I was stuck at home, either. Which I supposed was the point.

I’d never finished cleaning my room after starting on it a few weeks ago, but now I renewed the effort out of sheer boredom. While emptying out a desk drawer, I found the silver watch my grandmother had given me just before she’d died two years ago. It brought to mind what George had said about my always running late. Lia was forever on my case about that too, and it
was
what’d gotten me thrown into ISS, so maybe he was on to something.

The watch had quickly gotten lost in my messy room and I hadn’t seen it since soon after I’d received it. Amazingly, the battery still ran. The band had caught on something in the back of the drawer, though, and one of the chain links was all stretched out. I used pliers to squeeze it closed again and then clasped the watch around my wrist.

***

O
n Thursday, the girl sitting beside me in ISS suddenly started trying to get my attention. At first I ignored her, assuming she couldn’t really be trying to reach me. What could she possibly want? No one in here knew me. And if I talked to her it’d only get me into trouble.

But she didn’t give up, eventually stretching her leg across the aisle to kick at my shoe. I looked up from my Spanish assignment, keeping my expression guarded.

The girl blinked back at me and pointed surreptitiously at the door. It was closed but there was a window in it, halfway up. I looked through it and was shocked to see Jake standing in the hallway. As soon as our eyes met, he pointed to his right and walked away in that direction.

The ISS monitor, Mr. Stanley, was reading a newspaper and didn’t notice any of this. I put my pen down, cleared my throat and raised my hand. When he acknowledged me, I told him I needed to go to the bathroom. Someone in the back of the room made a rude noise. People laughed, and Stanley warned them to be quiet, but by then I was already heading out the door with a hall pass.