Сара Пинскер - A Song for a New Day

“No, I’ll stay here,” Rosemary said. “What does Alice have against me, though?”

“Now, or before? Because now she’ll add sneaking past her to the list. Before, I think she didn’t trust you. Now I’m guessing she really doesn’t trust you. Hang on—let me find you some clothes.”

Luce washed her hands, then left Rosemary in the bathroom. Rosemary listened to footsteps down the hall, then to a hollow knock in the pipes under the sink.

Luce returned with a small pile of clothes. “Shorts or sweatpants? Anything else I own won’t fit you.”

“Sweatpants, thanks.”

Luce handed her Option B and left Rosemary alone in the bathroom to peel off her ruined pants and ease the sweats over the bandage on her leg. She washed her face and dried it with toilet paper to keep from bloodying a towel, then made her way out to the living room, where the musician had collapsed across the couch. There were two water glasses on the table. Rosemary assumed the fuller one was for her, and drained it in a single gulp. She chose a worn velour recliner and sank into it.

“Don’t get too comfortable. We’re staying up.” Luce’s voice came from deep within the couch.

It took the kid so long to change and make her way out of the bathroom that I almost went in again after her. It gave me enough time to wonder what I was doing. I should have insisted on taking her to the hospital; it was the responsible thing to do. When I thought back on mistakes I’d made, more than one had started from not taking somebody to a hospital when they needed it. Still, she was so insistent. Terrified. So I settled into the couch to wait, and eventually she wandered out of the bathroom, downed a glass of water, and sat. I told her we were staying up.

“Is that medically advised? Is that a thing people do?”

“What some people do is go to the hospital and get a CT scan, but I get the not-wanting-to-go-to-the-hospital part. Hence my solution.”

“Isn’t there a concussion app I can use?” She reached for a Hoodie she wasn’t wearing, a panicked expression crossing her face. She definitely wasn’t operating at full capacity.

“Anything like that depends on knowing your baseline function, sweetie. I’m guessing you don’t have that recorded anywhere.”

Rosemary shook her head, then stilled it, looking like she regretted the motion.

“If you think you might puke, I’ll grab a bucket. Anyway, the staying-up thing’s probably been disproven for twenty years, but I think the main point is to make sure your brain isn’t swelling or bleeding, by interacting with you. If you start slurring or dropping thoughts, I take you to somebody who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“You sure there’s no such thing as an online CT or something else from this century?”

“There’s no such thing as an online CT. Anyway, if you disappear into one of those ridiculous hoods, I won’t be able to tell how you’re doing. So, Rosemary, tell me about yourself. What are you doing here in our fair city?”

Rosemary picked gravel from her palm. It left tiny indents. “I’m here for the music.”

“Why here? Why not New York? You could see a dozen bands a night.”

Rosemary shuddered.

“Ah. Too many people? That’s why you left the other night, too?”

“I thought I’d be able to handle it. I need to hear the bands. I had no idea…”

“That’s what Joni said.”

“Joni mentioned me?”

The kid looked delighted; she didn’t have much of a poker face.

I wasn’t about to tell her Joni had said she was cute. “She said she didn’t know how you were going to reconcile your issue with crowds, but you seemed cool unless you’re a cop.”

“You people take a lot of convincing. I’m a little sick of the questioning. Tell me…” Rosemary scanned the walls, clearly looking for a change of subject. “…How did you end up here?”

I rolled back to a sitting position, debating what to say, as I usually did when anyone asked anything remotely personal. Even now, after all this time, it felt too raw. “After the… After we couldn’t tour anymore, I was at a low point for a while and I wanted to find a way to be useful. Then there was a bump in my royalties, enough to buy this place, and I found a way to be useful that was a little more my style.”

“You own it? The whole building?”

“I do,” I said, with no small pride. “It’s nicer than it looks. Good bones. I keep it a little decrepit for deception’s sake, and I bought the vacants on either side so there’d be nobody to complain about noise. Anyway, music doesn’t make any money anymore if you don’t do StageHolo, so I thought I’d give nursing a shot. Except I wasn’t much good at it. I could handle the people part, but not the chemistry and math.” At Rosemary’s obvious alarm, I added, “And the practical. I was good at the practical part.”

“So what did you do instead? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“A bit of this, a bit of that. I work a few days a week taking care of two adult brothers with developmental disabilities. Nothing as secure as nursing would have been, but I’m still here, and I still have this place, so I guess I’m doing okay.”

“You’re doing okay ? What you’ve got here is amazing.”

I smiled. “Thanks. It makes me think I’m making a difference.”

“Making a difference?”

“For the music. For the city. For the people who come twice a week looking for connection.”

“Is that why they come? Connection?”

“You tell me. You came here from wherever you’re from, looking for music you’d never heard before. Maybe that’s about songs, but you can get songs online if that’s all that matters to you. You’re here for something more, the same as we all are. A chance to create something.”

As I said it, I thought it was true. I found myself deeply curious; as curious as I’d been about anything for a while. She’d clearly stepped out of her comfort zone, and it meant enough to her that she hadn’t let Alice dissuade her. Something about her made me feel a kinship. I was pretty sure she was a lot older than I’d been when I left home, but she came across every bit as cloistered. Did you feel it, too? Did a song call you and claim you for its own? I’d met a lot of musicians since then, but none of them ever used those words.

“What’s in it for you?” Rosemary asked.

Her eyes were closed, or she would have seen the disappointment in my face; she’d asked the wrong question. “I thought I said. The people. The connection. The music.”

“Sorry, that came across strangely. I guess I’m asking this because I’m not a musician myself—do you play to make them happy, or do you play because it makes you happy?”

“I guess… it’s… it’s a little of both. I love to play. I love connecting with other musicians onstage. I love that the audience pushes me to write new material because it’s the same people week after week, and they trust I’ll never bore them, but I do miss the new audiences. I miss winning over people who’ve never heard me before. So I guess I play to make these few people happy, and sometimes if I’m lucky it wears off on me.”

“When you were onstage tonight you looked like you were exactly where you were supposed to be. Like you were a character in a video game who absorbed every single bit of energy you were offered, and you were all powered up, and it was just sitting there under your skin ready to be released. I looked at you tonight and I thought, ‘I’ve never been that complete in my entire life.’ I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.” It was an intimate admission. I could tell if I mocked her now, she’d leave and never come back.