A Fistful of Rain (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

For a minute after the cops pulled away, I just kept watching the street from the living room window. Rain was still falling lightly, my apple trees drooping from the weight of the water. Not much more to see beyond that. Silhouettes of parked cars in front of houses still sleeping, and a darkness that was heavy and wide. Irvington has few streetlamps.

The house creaked, then went silent again. It was a new noise to me, and I had to think it through before deciding that it was nothing to be alarmed about. My home had been built in 1923 in what was called locally the Portland craft style, and which I supposed up in Seattle was referred to as the Seattle craft style. It was barely two stories, a portion of the attic having been converted into the master bedroom with a bath. There was another full bath on the ground floor, near the guest room, and then the kitchen and the living room, some pantry space. The basement had been finished when I purchased the place, and I’d left detailed instructions on how I wanted the space converted into a music room, but I didn’t know if the contractors had done as asked. I didn’t feel much like finding out.

I’d closed on the house only two weeks before the tour had begun, and since then had been home only three times, the longest for a stretch of seventy hours back in July. We’d returned for a show out at the Gorge, about ninety miles east of Portland, one of those multiband, all-day affairs hosted by the local alternarock station. The gig had sucked, but those radio-hosted megashows always do—too many bands all vying for the limelight, and never a chance to get a decent sound check, so you never know what you’re going to be stepping into. When you play live and loud, there are monitors set up on the stage—essentially small speakers—positioned so the musicians can hear themselves. Kinda crucial.

That day the monitor mix had been awful, and after the sixth song the jackass on the board still couldn’t get it right, and we had no idea how we were sounding, but each of us was pretty certain “awful” might come close. Van finally stormed off the stage after “Broken Nails,” giving the finger to everyone in the audience.

The crowd had loved us anyway. They’d have loved a mechanical monkey clapping cymbals.

But that had been almost four months ago, and between travel, setup, and the show, I’d been in my home only long enough to sleep and do laundry, and even that had been difficult, because the contractor and the electrician and the plumber all wanted to talk to me about the work I was having them do. I’d barely even seen my brother, spending most of my remaining time with Joan and Steven.

Which was what made me remember that Steven was dead. Not remember, really; more, bring back the reality of it, solidify the fact. Claimed by that modern classic, complications brought about by cancer of the throat and mouth.

I felt supersize guilt. I hadn’t talked to Joan since the day after he’d died, since I’d told her I wouldn’t make it to the funeral. I’d have to see her. I’d have to explain myself.

I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to.

The headache was still with me, though now I didn’t know if it was from the drunk, the lack of sleep, the pure terror of the truck ride, the frustration of the police, or all of the above.

The house creaked again.

Maybe it hadn’t been a big deal, maybe the cops were right, it was just a mugging gotten out of control, a criminal biting off more than he could chew, then not knowing what to do with the leftovers. A mistake, nothing more. Maybe the thought that I would be stalked at all was ludicrous. I wasn’t the one pouting and preening onstage, I wasn’t the public face of Tailhook. That was Van, always was, always would be. If anyone was looking to sniff a pair of panties, they’d go after hers, not mine.

I didn’t want to be alone.

I let the curtains drop back over the window and grabbed my coat off the bag still in the hall. It took me a minute to search the drawers in the kitchen before I located my car keys in the back of the knickknack drawer, along with my garage opener. I couldn’t remember where anything was, and that only made me feel all the more disconnected with the space, all the more anxious to get out.

The garage was off the side of the house, pushed back about twenty feet from the street, freestanding, and my Jeep was where I’d last left it. Mikel might have used it, but he had his own car, so I figured he’d left mine alone. I climbed in and tried the engine, and the battery was weak on the ignition, but it caught after a long crank. The tank read just below half. I backed down the drive, switched on wipers and lights, closed the garage door after me, and headed the twelve blocks to the Plaid Pantry on Broadway, telling myself I would get some cigarettes and that was all.

The lot was illuminated and mostly empty, and I parked right out front. The clerk behind the counter looked up at me from his reading as I came inside, eyes on me all the way to the wall of refrigeration. I spotted the beer and pulled at the handle, but the door didn’t budge, locked.

“Not until seven,” the clerk said.

I glared back at him and he shrugged and resumed his reading, and I gave the door another protest tug, then got myself a can of Coke, instead. Portland goes dry from two-thirty until seven in the morning, no alcohol can be sold, and trying to convince the clerk to make an exception wouldn’t work, no matter who I was. Portland PD is serious about its alcohol enforcement, if not about its stalker laws.

Paid for the soda and two packs of Spirits, and it took the clerk until he was handing me my change before he raised an eyebrow and asked if he knew me.

“Where’d you go to high school?” I asked.

“Grant. You go to Grant?”

“No, I was over in Hawthorne.”

“Huh.”

“Oh, well,” I said, and went back out to my car. I opened one of the packs of smokes and lit a cigarette, then decided I still wasn’t going to go home, so I got out of the car again and went to the pay phone next to the entrance, trying to decide who I should call. Joan was pretty much straight out. Foster mother dispensation would get me a lot, but the guilt payback would be brutal, and I couldn’t do that to her.

So I started dialing Mikel’s number, thinking that, at the very least, I could determine whether or not he was renting out my home to any of his more disreputable friends.

It took four trills before he answered.

“Mikel? It’s Mim,” I said.

“Mim?”

“Your sister.”

He cleared his throat, coughed, rustled. I imagined him switching on the lamp, wondered if he was sleeping alone, or if Jessica was in bed with him. “Jesus, it’s not six yet. What time zone are you in?”

“Your time zone. Listen, brother dearest, and understand I ask this only because the cops put it in my head, but do any of your dope-fiend buddies own a big Ford pickup, maybe green, maybe blue?”

“Cops?” he asked, immediately alarmed.

“Yes, they wear uniforms and carry guns and—”

“I know what a cop is.”

“And I’m very proud of you for that. Answer the question, Mikel.”

“I’m not sure what the question is.”

I spoke slowly. “Do any of your drug-taking, dope-dealing, party-all-night friends own a big Ford pickup?”

“No. Why the hell are you even asking?” He coughed again, then added, “Wait, did you say you’re in my time zone?”

“I’m at the Plaid Pantry on Broadway and Sixteenth. Cold, tired, in the rain, and frankly still scared out of my mind.”

“What happened?” The hint of annoyance that had crept into his voice disintegrated. “Mim, are you okay?”

“I got home tonight and some guy pointed a gun at me and he made me get in his truck and . . . and it’s fucked up, it’s seriously fucked up, and I called the police, and they didn’t believe a word I said—”

“Go back inside,” Mikel said. I could hear him moving, getting out of bed. There was nothing else in the background though, so I guessed that meant he’d been sleeping alone. “Go back inside and wait for me, all right? I’ll be right there.”

“I’m all right now,” I said. The lie didn’t even sound believable to me.

“You’re always all right. Go back inside, I’ll be about ten minutes.”

“Mikel,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

It took him closer to fifteen minutes before he parked his Land Rover beside my Jeep. I’d spent the time drinking my Coke and smoking my cigarettes, standing by the pay phone, and when Mikel hopped out he was wearing a scowl, but he didn’t say anything until after he’d wrapped me up in a big hug, and I gave it right back, pressing my nose into his chest. I hugged back harder than I meant to at first, but it felt good and it felt safe.

“I told you to wait inside.”

“And I always do what you tell me,” I told his chest.

He let me go and looked me over, showing me the worry in his eyes. Mikel is three years my senior, just touching thirty, and every day he looks more like I remember our father, big and strong. We have similar features, but I got my mother’s body type, which makes me pretty small. Mikel’s got straight black hair and an angular face, blue eyes, broad shoulders. He looks like he could be in construction or some sort of physical labor, but that would require too much work, and one thing Mikel hates is work.

When pressed, he tells people that he’s in computers, doing Web design and software work, but that’s only half-true, and certainly doesn’t earn enough for a Land Rover. What earns enough for the Land Rover is selling pot and X and coke to the hip urban professionals who live on the west side of the river. He doesn’t use. He doesn’t take anything stronger than caffeine, ever. But he’s more than happy to sell.

He was dressed very Gap casual, hastily assembled, a sweater and corduroys.

“You should have waited inside,” he said.

I shook my head, not wanting to explain my reasons, not wanting to say that the clerk had figured out who I was, and that had I gone back into the store I’d have been trapped in twenty minutes of pretending to be nicer than I really am. Maybe it was selfish, but maybe I was entitled a little bit, and it wasn’t something I wanted to defend.

Mikel sighed, world-weary with his sister’s strangenesses. “What happened?”

“Not here,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it here. I want to sit down someplace warm and drink coffee and feel safe.”

“You have breakfast?”

“They fed us on the plane, just before we landed in L.A.,” I said. I didn’t add that I’d thrown it up shortly thereafter.

“You up for some Strong Bread?”

“The one on Sandy. Not the one near your place.”

“Why not the one near me?”

“Because I get recognized more at the one near your place.”

“Poor little princess,” he said, but he said it with a smile, and I wasn’t sure what was teasing and what wasn’t.

CHAPTER 5

The sky was lightening, but the rain was still falling when we reached the Cameo Café. I parked behind him about a block from the restaurant, and we scurried from the wet into the warmth and noise. On weekends it can take up to an hour to get a seat at the Cameo, especially in good weather, but even though it was noisy inside, the restaurant wasn’t full, and Mikel and I got a table near the back. It’s cramped inside so that when it’s really hopping, even someone of my size feels that she has to walk sideways to work her way between the tables, but once you get a seat, it’s pretty comfortable. The grill is right behind the counter, so all conversation is accompanied by the sizzle and smell of cooking food.

One of the Korean women who run the place dropped menus in front of us and gave us cheerful good-mornings along with two mugs of watery coffee. I drank mine greedily, as Mikel doctored his own cup with cream and sugar.

“So what happened?” he asked.

It was harder to tell it to him than it had been to tell it to the cops, maybe because I knew how he’d react to certain parts. I told him about my stalker who the cops were certain wasn’t a stalker at all, and he listened, fiddling with his silverware and watching me intently the whole time. His face tightened when I told him about the back of the truck, but it smoothed when I told him what the police had said.

“They don’t believe me,” I finished.

“I’m not sure I do, either,” Mikel said, slowly.

“How can you say that? Jesus Christ, Mikel! The guy could have raped me!”

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but why didn’t he?”

“I don’t believe you just said that.”

“Stop being such a Drama Queen and think about it. It doesn’t make much sense, does it, Mim? You said your stuff was on the porch, yet it’s inside when you come home? You say you got kidnapped and stripped at gunpoint, but you don’t have a mark on you?”

“Would you rather that I’d called you from the fucking hospital?”

“Mim, you’ve been lying your whole damn life. You can’t expect me to take this one at face value.”

I got up, but he reached out for my wrist as I was squeezing around the table, taking hold, his fingers digging into me.

“Don’t run away from me,” Mikel said.

I yanked free. My voice was tight when I spoke. “I’m not lying. I’m not a liar. It
happened
. And I’m not going to sit here and have you tell me it didn’t.”

Mikel glanced around, then back to me. “For someone who doesn’t want to be recognized, little sister, you’re making a very big scene. Sit back down.”

I checked, saw that he was right, that heads had turned my way and were staying there.

“Sit down, Mim.”

“You’re a bastard.” I sat down.

“I am well aware of your feelings about our father.”

“You’re more like him every day,” I said.

It was a bald-faced lie, but it scored a point, and it forced silence for almost a minute.

“You said the alarm was off?” he asked.

“Not off, in reset.”

“See, that I believe.”

“Oh, just that?”

“Well, that’s my fault.” Mikel looked at his menu, then back to me, embarrassed.

“How is that your fault?”

“I had it shut off in August.”

“I was out of town and you had my damn alarm shut off?”

“The contractors kept setting it off when they were working.” He sat back, getting defensive. “I’m on the contact list. Whenever it went off, I got called.”

“Because you’re supposed to be looking out for me!”

“I
was
looking out for you. Every time there’s a false alarm, there’s a fine, Mim. It went off six separate times—that’s over two grand in fines—before I called and had it disconnected.”

“But they finished, the contractors finished.”

“Yeah.” He frowned. “I forgot to have it reactivated.”

I stared at him, and then the waitress came and we each ordered breakfast, Mikel asking for the Korean scramble, and I asking for the Strong Bread pancakes, which are full of all sorts of wholesome grains which are supposed to make you strong, at least according to the menu. They also sell Strong Bread by the loaf, but it’s harder to justify putting syrup on a loaf of bread, so the pancakes were the better choice.

The waitress left and Mikel excused himself, telling me he’d be right back, and then he headed outside. He was pulling out his mobile phone as he went through the door. It didn’t mean he was working a sale, but I couldn’t help assuming that he was.

I drank a second cup of coffee and half a glass of apple juice and tried not to be angry at Mikel. But when he came back to the table I was still feeling sulky.

“Sorry about that,” he said, taking his seat.

“Business good?”

“Wasn’t business.”

“Doesn’t answer the question.”

He shrugged.

“You should stop.”

“Why? To protect your good name?”

“Maybe to protect yours,” I shot back at him. “You’re gonna get caught, and you’ll end up like Tommy.”

“I’m never going to end up like Dad. I don’t drink, I don’t use, and I’m pretty fucking smart, if I may say so myself.”

“Smart would be not dealing.”

He looked at me pointedly. “See, and I’d think smart would be not using.”

“I don’t use.”

“You’re still drinking.”

“Look, if you’ve got somewhere to be, I don’t want to keep you.”

“Mim, you’re being an ass.”

“I wouldn’t want you to miss an opportunity,” I said.

“Now you’re being a passive-aggressive ass.”

“I just don’t want to inconvenience you.”

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he raised his hand, leveling his index finger.

“Rock Star!” Mikel bellowed in his best evangelical imitation. “I know thy name, demon, and it is Rock Star! Begone from this place!”

A couple people at the counter heard him and glanced over at us.

“Stop,” I said.

Mikel turned in his seat, as if trying to find a waiter, raising a hand, snapping his fingers silently. “Pardon,
garçon
? A bottle of Cristal, if you please?”

“Knock it off, Mikel.”

“A dozen white roses with which to adorn her hair.” He turned back to me, really amused, the grin making creases around his eyes. “The purest mountain spring water to bathe her fair and adored flesh.”

I tried to glare him into silence, to really ratchet it up, but his smile did it, and I cracked, started giggling. Our plates came and I poured syrup on my pancakes and Mikel dumped most of a bottle of Tabasco on his scramble, and I waited until the waitress had departed before speaking again.

“I’m
not
a prima donna,” I told him.

“You want me to cut that for you? I’d be happy to slice it into perfectly uniform bits, then feed them to you with a caviar spoon.”

“You don’t even know what a caviar spoon looks like.”

“For one such as yourself, such a failing on my part is inconceivable. I shall throw myself into traffic at once, of course.”

“But who will I get to cut my pancakes?”

He laughed again. “Okay, I’ll let you feed yourself. But if Vanessa asks about the syrup, I’m telling the truth.”

“Fuck Vanessa,” I said, with sincere bile.

Mikel stopped his fork halfway to his mouth. “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t
do
anything.”

“So why should I rush out and fuck Vanessa? Not that I’d mind, of course.”

“She sent me home.”

“You’re not back on a break?”

I shook my head, used my fork to cut a not-very-uniform piece of pancake. “They’re in New York. She’s replacing me with Oliver Clay.”

“Who’s Oliver Clay?”

“You haven’t met him. He’s a session guy, out of Seattle, we used him for backing tracks on ‘Energize’ and ‘Tomorrow-Today-Tonight.’ He’s taking my place for the rest of the tour.”

Mikel ate a bite, then a second one, studying me. I pushed my pancakes around, suddenly not wanting them.

“At least I don’t have to worry about Van telling me to watch my figure,” I said.

“What’d you do?”

“Nothing, I told you.”

“You have a fight?”

I shook my head.

He set his utensils down, leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Mim?”

“It’s exhaustion,” I said. “They’re making the announcement sometime today. Saying that I’m taking the rest of the tour off.”

“Exhaustion.”

“Yeah.”

“Miriam?”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

He didn’t move, keeping his head close, and I kept looking at my plate, at the islands of pancake and the sea of syrup. I knew what it was he was thinking, I knew he suspected. He quit drinking in his late teens, and I could feel his judgment, and I thought about calling him a hypocrite.

We finished eating, but the conversation went shallow, mostly Mikel asking questions about the tour. We’d hit Japan before Australia, with two nights in New Zealand in between, and he was curious about Christchurch. He knew a couple of software people who’d had protracted stays in New Zealand while working postproduction on a series of films, and apparently all of them had raved about what a great place the country was.

“Nice crowds,” I told him. “Nice hotel. Venue was cool, very modern. Great acoustics. I broke three strings on the Tele the first night and had to finish the second set using my alternate, but I don’t think anyone but me and Fabrizio noticed.”

“Fabrizio?”

“My guitar tech. Nice guy. Fat little guy. But nice.”

“That’s all you can say about New Zealand?”

“That’s all of New Zealand that I experienced. If you want more, I can try to remember the hotel room décor and what I ate for dinner each night.”

We finished eating and the check came, and I snatched it before Mikel could, and he tried to go all big brotherly on me.

“Give it.”

“No.” I dug around in my jacket for my wallet.

“Give it here, Miriam.”

“Are you rich?”

“I’m comfortable.”

“Yeah, well, I have been told that I am stinking rich,” I said. “My treat.”

It was hard for him to argue with that. We paid and went outside, and the rain had stopped. The sky was the color of a muddy sheet. Mikel waited while I lit a cigarette, then asked what my plans were.

“Home,” I said. “Sleep.”

“You sure you want to go home?”

“Don’t know what else my choices are. I mean, I either go home, or I never go home, right?”

“I’m just asking if you’re up to it.”

“I’m upper to it now than I was before I called you. Daylight makes it better, I think. I should probably do some shopping, get some groceries in.”

“I’ll keep you company.”

I glanced at him suspiciously. “Overprotective much?”

“Only when you let me.”

“Mikel.”

“Let me keep you company,” he said gently. “We’ll go shopping, I’ll go back to your place with you, I’ll look around, we’ll call the Scanalert people and tell them to turn your system back on. It’ll make me feel better.”

I thought about protesting, but didn’t really want to. I didn’t want him to see that I thought he was being really sweet, either, so instead I shrugged and headed back to my Jeep, telling him I wanted to go to Fred Meyer. He followed me down Sandy Boulevard, and when I checked in my rearview mirror, I could see him behind his wheel, watching my progress and the traffic, all the while talking on his mobile phone. He caught me looking at the light and gave me a grin.

I grinned back and shook my head. For all his many faults, I adore my brother.

He almost makes up for our fuck-awful parents.

We stopped by the bank first, so I could get some cash out of the ATM, and I checked all my accounts, not just my savings. It was the first time I’d actually seen my balance in months, and I was a little surprised at the numbers. According to my checking balance alone, I was maybe a very rich girl, indeed.

The machine only let me withdraw four hundred dollars, and I took it to the Fred Meyer on Broadway. Freddy’s is a mammoth combo-store, groceries and clothing and household supplies, and a couple of them even have electronics and jewelry departments, and I’ve never been in one when it wasn’t busy, no matter what time of day or night. Freddy’s also has the slowest checkers in the world, which doesn’t help things. But for one-stop shopping in the Portland metro area, it can’t be beat.

We were there about an hour, getting everything I needed or might need to reactivate my life at home. It would have taken less time, but I got cornered early in the cereal aisle by three teens, two girls and a guy who should have been in school. Either the news hadn’t broken yet or they hadn’t heard, because they immediately started looking for Van and Click, as if we all three did our shopping together.

I asked them their names and introduced them to my brother. We talked about how amazing Van and Click were, and then I told them that I had to get back home because it was past my bedtime. They laughed.

“You’re my favorite,” one of the girls told me. “You kick total ass.”

They went away, toward baking supplies. Mikel was smiling slightly.

“It’s not a thing,” I told him.

“You can be very nice when you want to be. Very gracious.”

“They’re not asking for much.”

“Suppose that depends on where you’re standing.”

I dropped two boxes of shredded wheat in the already full shopping cart. The baking supplies aisle was down below our position on cereal, and I could see the three kids picking out bags of chocolate chips. One of them was looking back at me, speaking to the others, and she waved when she saw my look, so I waved back, then turned away.

“I’m twenty-six,” I told Mikel. “I own a house, I could buy five or six others just like it. I own more guitars than I could ever need, more amps than I can possibly use, I’ve got a platinum American Express card life. I don’t have to look at the prices when I’m shopping for groceries at Fred Meyer, because they will
never
stock something I can’t afford.

“That’s all because people like them like Tailhook enough to pay eighteen bucks for an album, or eighty for a seat at a concert, or twenty for a forty-five-minute compilation of very bad, very overproduced music videos.”