In the Absence of You (12 page)

AISHE

“S
handor.”
Troll’s voice is sterner than I’ve heard in a while. “I’m sorry we’ve had to send home the second drum tech in a row, but I count on you. You
are
being paid extra, let the records show.” He stares around him for agreement. We all look away, not wanting a part in this uncomfortable conversation. “Now, what made you think Troy doesn’t need backup drumsticks tonight? He. Breaks. Them. Remember? You
know
they splinter all over the place. Once we get to ‘Fuck you,’ we’ll be toast!”

This arena is enormous. We’re at The Aurora in Portland, where Moksha, one of Emil’s favorite bands, had their breakthrough a decade ago. It is incredible to have been invited to play here. Even Troll with his twenty years of experience hasn’t worked this venue before.

“I’m sorry,” my cousin murmurs. “It’s been one of those days. I should have thought of it when we picked up guitar strings this morning. I have a few backup sticks left, five maybe, but there’s still time to get—”

“Five? You kiddin’ me? And no; we need you in the back!” Troll shouts. Then he whips around and yells to a stagehand. “You. Do we have a runner who can go to the Guitar Center at this fucking hour?”

Troll isn’t the only one who’s on edge. Locked up in the small bathroom at the far end of the backstage area, Emil screams out song after song. Troll has stopped interfering. He knows it’s because Zoe has arrived. She’ll be in the front row of the audience instead of accepting the band’s typical side-of-the-stage seats for girlfriends, and Emil is a mess.

He needs to be with me. Because his ex is nuts. Plague aside, I’m pretty sure I’m better suited for Emil than she is. I’ve already been through harder moments with him than a single slip-up where he let some girl suck him off. How long were they together anyway? If
I
know him well enough to understand that there’s more to the story than what the Internet tells us, shouldn’t
she
? I want to pump him for details.

I haven’t seen Zoe in person yet. Nadia isn’t backstage either. Bo mentioned that they’re having a burger and catching up outside the arena. It’s okay. I really have enough to worry about with my butterflies over Chavali. I don’t know what to say to her tonight.

It’s surreal that she’ll be here. Emil was too busy with his own misgivings, and he doesn’t ask me about mine unless they’re obvious and related to him. Shandor keeps saying we’ll be fine, that to catch up with Chavali will mend broken days and years, and that love between sisters doesn’t actually die. But I’m not so sure about that.

“Is Bo back yet?” Troll shouts, losing it a little bit at a time.

“Troll. Man. Take it easy. I’m here. We’ll get through this, okay? We’re ready for Portland. We’re going to knock them dead. Whatever the hell you want to happen, will happen, all right? Don’t fret.”

I watch as Troll’s face turns a light pink at being called out on his level of stress. But it’s Bo who’s talking him down, so he can’t really cuss him out. Bo stares, frosty greys undaunted, an island of peace in the middle of the tension around us. “Take a seat. I’m getting you an O’Doul’s.”

“No! No, no. I’m fine. I’ve got to get the duct tape replaced for lines two and fifteen at front-of-house.”

“Cool, I’ll call in the order.” Bo pulls out his phone and keys in a series of digits. “The house guy’ll fix it. You’re too important for us to go down with a heart attack.”

“Bo, listen—”

“Sure, the arena’s sold out,” Bo cuts in, unruffled as he waits for the sound engineer to pick up, “and we only have a few backup drumsticks. But sound check fucking rocked, we’re on schedule, and everyone’s accounted for. Emil’s got his voice. No one’s even drunk. So take a breather, Troll. You’ve worked your ass off since five this morning, and to be honest, we all need a break from you to focus on the show.” Bo’s smooth expression tilts into a one-sided smile at the last admission.

I leave the backstage area as Troll accepts the chair Bo points at.

The Aurora is an amazing venue. I climb the dozens and dozens of steps to the exit at the top of the auditorium seating and push through the door to the second story to find rows of simple, elegant bars and restaurants.

Intermingling with souvenir stores and merchandise boutiques, the miniscule eateries give off an international airport feel. My booth is double the size of my regular Clown Irruption merch stand, and three teenaged girls man it, courtesy of the venue. I’m supposed to supervise them, but their expertise is already beyond mine; you can tell they’ve worked with bigger acts than ours. It’s good. Tonight, I don’t mind feeling obsolete.

The walls of The Aurora stretch abnormally tall, glass screens doming into pointy angles twenty feet above me. I head to the windows, thumbs latched into the lining of my skirt, and I look out.

Below me, the crowd waits in front of the ticket booths. Doors aren’t open yet, but the fans are there ready to be first in line. The sea below me is diverse, in all colors and ethnicities, the only common denominator being their age. My cousin might be right; the concertgoers seem to be predominantly students. Though Clown Irruption’s music could attract older listeners, the band is too new to branch out past the college crowd.

I realize that I’m scouring the lines for a mini-me, someone a few years younger with long, black hair and enormous eyes. She’d be an inch or two taller than me by now, I suspect. It’s the law of life—the younger ones grow taller.

There’s a tug in my chest. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a band being pulled and causing ripples of longing along the inside of my ribs. For a second, it makes me pause, because, really: what we humans go through. The bonds we feel with others.

I don’t see her down there. Maybe she chickened out and isn’t coming to the concert anyway. I can be mad at Shandor all I want, but deep down, I can’t deny wanting to see for myself that Chavali is all right. Hell, I’m fine with admitting that I never stopped loving her despite how she treated me. Doesn’t mean I’ll forget what happened.

I’d love to scrutinize her life from up close for a moment. I think I’d bounce in and interrupt things if need be. Yeah. If I ever were to kill someone, I’d do it to that old fart who took my sister as his wife and extracted her from her people, because Chavali should have remained where she was.

Me, I was born a rebel. Shandor and I are the same that way—why we became self-made outcasts, leaves blown off on gusts of air.

My cousin, being a man, and I, because I left too early to leave unpardonable mistakes in my wake, we never caused the ire of our microsociety. Our families still talk to us, still love us, and want us to come home.

Many before us have left our community for short periods of time. If they haven’t committed deadly sins against the
Rromanip
é, they’re welcomed back like lost black sheep. But my sister broke the rules—Chavali smashed the
Rromanip
é in unforgivable ways. First, to avoid being married off to someone other than her love fire, she tried to blow out the flame of her own life. Then she survived and took
him
as her husband instead.

I’ve seen people that remain safe from the plague. Not many, but they exist. I used to think Chavali would be one of them, impervious to boys as she seemed. Never did I see her send long looks after anyone. Nor did she appear affected by their interest in her.

When we were little, Chavali and I shared all secrets, with the exception of the darker ones I kept to myself as a teenager. Older, wiser, I’d guard deep emotions my baby sister wouldn’t be able to absorb. I kept mum to curb her from worries, because I didn’t want to expose my mini-me to the fears of adult life.

Who knew she’d hide darker secrets than mine?

I was always there, ready to listen, to love on my doll no matter what she did. I was the perfect mom, nothing like our mother. Even so, without a single emotion revealing her state of mind, Chavali melted to one with her love fire.

If it weren’t for
him
, Chavali would not have done what she did. She’d have married Kaven, the flaxen-haired boy with confusion tinting his eyes. She’d have followed Romani tradition and had my nieces and nephews. She’d never have faced the plague. She’d be safe, content. Like Kennick, Kaven’s father, used to be.

What am I going to say to her tonight?

“Do you want the double ex white T-shirts with gold laminate on the front up on the display?”

I bounce back to the present when one of my employees for the night asks for instructions. “No, let’s just put a few of them on the table. They take up too much room on the board, and they don’t sell well.”

Oh Chavali. You cheated on us.

We were sisters.

EMIL

Nadia isn’t in
her usual spot at the side of the stage overlooking her man. I know why. She’s keeping Zoe company in the first row of plastic bucket seats behind the mosh pit.

Zoe used to love being on stage, my exhibitionist girl. It’s a stab in the gut that she doesn’t want to be up here with me.

I belt out “Bullshit” for the first time, killing it and destroying the fans. On the slow parts, they hold up their phones, fake lighters flickering, and on the wild parts, the phones disappear and the pit explodes with movement.

I’m dripping with sweat, staring into the lights, unseeing of anything beyond the first dancers. Elias butts up against me, grinding his bass into a rhythm that has my pulse racing. Dude fucking rocks. Then again, we all do.

I’ve wanted to play “Bullshit” for a while. It makes me crackle with energy to finally play this song live. What better occasion than right now when I need it to remain sane?

I’d like to run off the stage, into the rows, find Zoe and squeeze her so close I’d bruise her. She’d push me away, disgusted. My Zoe, I hope she hears what I roar into the blinding, blizzard-white U.F.O. lights of the audience—

Give me a break—

Hear me out—

Stop—stop running away—

Have mercy, for
love’s
fucking sake!

It’s after the show,
and she can’t be absent anymore. It’s nuts how skinny she is. She never had much flesh on her, but now her cheeks are hollow and her tits almost gone. Lord, I remember her soft, sweet boobs. I’d cup them, kiss them. They were mine.

I stand in the green room, hands hanging and watching. I feel my jaw slack, but I can’t keep up appearances when I see she who haunts my dreams for the first time in months and months.

How can I take my eyes off her again?

Don’t leave me.

She doesn’t look at me, no, she chats with Nadia and Bo. She accepts a Corona, making me think of green tea ice cream and she-male porn at gas stations. I grab whiskey and flood a cup of ice with it. Her eyes go to the bottle, watching me pour, and for the first time since she entered, she lets her stare glide up to me.

It’s accidental. I know it is. She didn’t plan to meet my gaze. Her brows contract, and in lieu of a greeting, her sweet lips crack, saying, “On a binge, Emil? If you don’t keep your drinking under control you’ll be a washed-up has-been in no time.”