Page 9 of Dead Rockstar

“How much did you drink last night?”

“I dunno, a couple. You're the one who kept pushing glasses into my hand.” I poured myself a cup and added two heaping teaspoons of sugar. “I haven't been sleeping well.”

“Tess?”

No point in lying. “Yeah,” I confessed. “Ever since you told me he's back I can't seem to stop thinking about him. I wonder if he's going to come back here.”

“Don't take him back, Storm.”

“I won't!” I said, irritated. “Anyway, he has Roberta.”

She leveled her eyes at me. “I'm serious, dude. You've been all over the place lately. Drinking too much, this weird spell shit...” I opened my mouth to protest and she cut me off. “I think you're allowed a little crisis after all that fucker put you through, but I'm just saying, you're vulnerable right now and people like him prey on weakness.”

I sipped my coffee and said nothing. It chafed that she was talking as though she knew him better than I did. Like she knew me better than I knew myself. Like she didn't have her own giant turd of a situation to navigate. People like him, she’d said. Something about the judgement in that turn of phrase bothered me. “It's only been a few months,” I said finally. “I'm doing the best I can.”

“It's been the better part of a year,” she argued. “Just don't leave yourself open. You know?” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Don't let bad stuff in.”

I smiled at that and she brightened.

“So, what are we doing today, Brain? Trying to take over the world?”

“I hadn't got that far,” I said, still drinking my coffee. “I'm barely awake.”

She looked me up and down, taking in my rat's nest hair and worn, faded Motley Crue t-shirt. “Throw on some pants and let's head over to my booth,” she said. “What you need is a makeover. It'll perk you right up. Cut and color, and I'll thread your brows, because they are a total mess-”

“No, no, Sloan,” I protested. “Not the fucking brows again. For the last time, I don't want them threaded. You know I don't care about that stuff. And anyway, I can't afford you.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” she said. “You feed me every other day. It's free, dipshit.”

“Sloan-”

“Fine, I won't thread the brows. Just let me pluck them a little. I swear, it's like you're a cave person. I can't keep looking at them like that, I'm sorry.” It was true, I never did anything to them. Didn't have the slightest notion how to use a brow brush or pencil and only plucked them once in a blue moon. They were thick and unkempt, and I really didn't give the first shit, which made Sloan crazy, since beauty was her business. Her own brows were perfectly arched and filled in with a specific shade of brown-black that she bought in bulk from the beauty store just in case it was ever discontinued.

I sighed. “Maybe just a little haircut. Just a trim.” If I was going to ask out the avocado guy, I should spiff myself up some.

She nodded excitedly. “A trim, maybe some bangs? Add a few low-lights? And I've got this new gloss-”

I groaned. There wasn't enough coffee in the world.

Hours later, I let myself back into the house and sighed, slumping down on the couch with my newly shaped brows, trimmed hair, bangs and violet low-lights, and a foundation on my face that seemed a shade too light for my skin, but Sloan insisted made me look “fresher.” As much as I loved her, I was glad that she hadn't come back with me, instead opting to go out with Dan again (so much for her “I probably won't see him again”). I was tired, and more than a little down in the dumps. All my mantras from the day before had gone right down the drain. I'd never even made it back to the farmers market to flirt with avocado guy.

The entire time she'd been making me over I'd been thinking about Tess. What would he think of my hair, would he like the winged eyeliner, would he...? And hating myself for it. Who cared what he thought? He was a cheating, drugged-out bastard. And anyway, he had a girlfriend, and if he had brought her back to our hometown, he obviously was serious about her. I needed to just let go.

So why couldn't I?

I rarely allowed myself to think back to the time Tess and I met. I'd been a total mess then, having just emancipated myself from my parents’ home (they would divorce less than a year later; turns out I had been the glue holding their dysfunction together), staying with Sloan and her parents and trying to figure out what to do with myself. Seventeen and newly homeless, I was vulnerable and scared.

When I'd seen the pool guy, shirtless and grinning, one afternoon at Sloan's house, his brown hair falling over one eye as he bent over to skim leaves from the water, it had been love at first sight. For me, anyway. It had taken a few weeks for Tess, who was nineteen at the time, to work up the nerve to ask me out. Once he did, we were inseparable. I'd never forget that summer, newly independent and full of possibility, cruising with Tess in his pickup to go bowling, play pool, frolic on the beach...he'd taken me to shows, out to dinner, and we'd spent more nights than most making out in the bed of his truck, parked in the pine trees, with only the stars to keep us company.

Only Tess and Sloan knew about my past, about my horrible, abusive parents and the abject poverty I'd grown up in. Only the two of them knew my darkest secrets and had loved me anyway. I’d never forget the first time I’d brought Tess home – first I’d taken him to my mom, who still lived in the trailer park where I’d spent most of my childhood, and he’d sat dutifully on her threadbare couch while she’d chain-smoked, chugged Natty Lights and regaled him with stories of my childhood. I’d been red-faced and embarrassed as she related how, at eight years old, I’d peed my pants from fright at a school assembly when I had to get up and speak. Tess had held my hand, laughing kindly, and leaned over to kiss my cheek. He’d drank several beers with Mom, let her bum smokes all afternoon, and left with her red-lipsticked seal of approval on his cheek. Shortly after, I’d taken him to Dad’s to meet my glossy, born-again new stepmom, Dee, and the baby girl that had arrived two and half months before their wedding. Dad now lived with Dee and Shably (that poor kid, she’d spend her whole life telling folks that her name was not Shelby, but that she was named after a misspelled, cheap wine) in Panama City Beach, where they had an apartment just one street up from the water. Tess had been a good sport when I’d complained the whole time, mocking the clean white beaches and clear, blue expanse of ocean, preferring the murky, swamp-like seas of Jekyll, and insulting the tourists. He’d been well-behaved, respectful and engaging when Dad had taken us all to a fancy steakhouse for dinner, trying to show off his newfound money, and he’d hugged Dee goodbye when we left. They’d loved him, too. Even Sloan had loved him, and she didn’t love much of anybody.

Tess had come into my life at a time when I'd needed him. He had embraced my family, my issues and quirks, and I'd loved him with my whole heart for over a decade. I thought back over those years, unable to make sense of how he'd become such a totally different person, and how on earth I hadn't noticed my husband slowly becoming another version of the past I'd run away from.

I shook my head, determined not to do this now. I wouldn't spend one more night in a shitty slump, brooding over my pain. I had a new 'do, my house was freshly cleaned, and I had a Sunday evening free with no plans. I'd make the most of it. I'd put on some music and do yoga. Improving myself starts now.

I threw on a pair of tight-fitting yoga capris and left on my faded, baggy Motley Crue shirt. I pulled my hair up in a loose ponytail, careful not to mess up Sloan's hard work. I always waited a day after a new hair-do before washing it, just to get some extra enjoyment out of it. I passed by my little makeshift altar on the way to the stereo and made a mental note to clear all of it away; my failed attempt at a spell. I felt mild shame that I'd even done it in the first place. I really had to get my shit together.

What to listen to...Outkast? Too upbeat for yoga. The Cure? Too depressing. Ah, I knew. Siousxie and the Banshees. But as I turned on the stereo and clicked through the changer, it was the Bloomer Demons I settled on, as usual.

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