Page 103 of Charm City Rocks
The studio mics are hooked into the control room. Chuck looks startled. He’s not used to the band talking to him directly. He touches a button. “What’s up, Margot?”
“Who’s playing?”
“Um, pardon?”
“The game. Behind you. Who’s playing?”
Chuck turns to the monitor. “Oh, right. Yeah. Yankees-Orioles.”
Margot wonders if Billy is watching the game, too. She misses the gentle murmuring of baseball, like the comforting hum of an oscillating fan. “Who’s winning?” she asks.
Jenny hugs her guitar. “What the hell, Margot? You’re, like, into sports balls now?”
“Just wondering.”
“Well, the Yankees, obviously,” says Chuck. “I mean, Baltimore sucks, right?”
Margot knows he’s talking about the baseball team, but the sentiment hurts, because…no it doesn’t. Margot actually likes it.
The door from the lobby opens and Rebecca Yang enters. She’s carrying a few bags of Chinese takeout in one hand and some rolled-up poster board in the other. “Hey, ladies,” she says. “Got a sec? Are we breaking?”
The smell of food does them all in. Jenny and Anna set their instruments on their stands and head for the table at the back of the room.
“What time is it anyway?” says Jenny.
“Something in the p.m., I’m guessing,” says Anna.
“Good,” says Jenny. “I’m more talented at night. Rebecca, if I open my mouth like a baby bird, can you pour caffeine into it?”
“Stop harassing Becca,” says Anna, who has taken to calling Rebecca “Becca.”
The guitarist and bassist eat, both wielding chopsticks. Nikki picks up a fortune cookie, and Margot watches an Oriole at bat through the control room window. He smacks the ball between two Yankees and trots to first base.
“All right, so, I’ve got some layouts for you all to look at,” says Rebecca. “Cool?”
Anna’s mouth is full of noodles. “Layouts of what?” she asks.
“Album covers, for starters. Tour posters, too, if you’re interested.”
“We don’t even have an albumtitleyet,” says Jenny.
“It’sBurn It Back,” says Nikki. “Didn’t we all agree on that?”
“So, like, we’re all in on burn puns, then?” asks Anna.
“Yeah, isn’t that a little on the nose?” asks Jenny. “Why notBurn Baby Burn?”
“Flower Inferno?” says Anna, pointing with a chopstick.
“Fuck yes,” says Jenny. “Rebecca, write that down on the brainstorming board. And I wasn’t kidding about the baby bird thing. Can you get me a Red Bull?”
Nikki starts pacing. “Burn It Backis perfect, though. We talked about this for an hour and a half the other night. It’s not a pun, it’s a statement. It’s the whole point of this. We’re back.”
“In fairness,” says Anna, “youdid most of the talking. The rest of us just kinda made disapproving sounds the whole time.”
Nikki crosses her arms.
“Let’s just look,” says Margot. “Maybe it’ll sound better if we see it laid out, or something else will come to us. Rebecca, go ahead.”
