Page 104 of Charm City Rocks
Rebecca shuffles in her Chuck Taylors, and Margot knows the girl well enough by now to know that she’s nervous to show them whatever’s on those boards. “I mean, they’re just mockups, okay?” Rebecca says. “Like, ideas. Jumping-off points. Axl just thought, like, directionally speaking, this is where we should be right n—”
“Becca,” says Anna. “Enough. We know the deal, babes. Let’s see ’em.”
Rebecca fiddles, unrolls, stalls for time. She looks for a clear space to display the artwork. All the while, Margot absorbs the dread in the room, like inhaling steadily rising smoke. When the boards are up and on display, no one says anything for several seconds. Wave puts his hands together, nods vigorously. “Yeah, shit, that’s right,” he says.
“Is this some kind of joke?” asks Jenny.
“What the fuck?” says Anna. “Becca, I’m gonna choke to death on a shrimp right now if you tell me you’re being serious.”
Margot wants to defend Rebecca—the messenger here—but she’s briefly unable to speak. The layouts before them represent the worst possible outcome. There’s no other way to categorize them.They look as if Anna, Jenny, and Margot had been asked to describe the exact opposite of what they wanted and then Axl’s team of designers got to work making it happen. The proposed album cover is an image of a giant Nikki Kixx in a crop top, her stomach photoshopped, holding a microphone in the air. The rest of them, Jenny, Anna, and Margot, are behind her, blurred to the point of indecipherability. As terrible as the graphics are, the worst part is that Margot isn’t at all surprised. The same, however, cannot be said for Jenny and Anna.
“Reunion my. Fucking. Ass,” says Jenny.
“This is just another goddamn solo album for you, isn’t it?” says Anna. “We’re just your new hired backing band.”
“What?” asks Nikki. “No. We can mess with the scaling—shuffle stuff—but, like, look at the flames. They’re cool.”
“They’re hot!” says Wave.
“Yeah, theyarehot,” says Nikki.
“And your body’s bumpin’ right here,” says Wave, pointing at Nikki’s navel in the photo. “For real. Dat tummy. This’ll jump offa iTunes like a motherfucker. You kidding me?”
“Oh, shut up and pull your head out of Nikki’s ass, you fucking dork!” Jenny says.
Wave holds his hands up. “Hey now, girl.”
“I can’t believe this,” says Anna. “I flew all the way to New York to live in a hotel room to be a blurry ant-size blip on an album cover behind your stupid ass?”
“Oh right,” says Nikki. “Like you had sooooo much else going on. Axl told me you answered on the first ring.”
“Bullshit. I’ve got my own—”
“What? Bluegrass album in the works? Nobody gives a shit, Anna. I don’t even know what bluegrass is.”
“Fuck you.”
Jenny is standing now. “Guess what, Nikki. Your solo albumssuck. Everybody knows it. Shit sounds like you’re diddling yourself next to a drum machine. This was our chance to do something g—”
“Ourchance?” says Nikki. “Ours? Get off it, Jenny. You and Anna can go to hell. You bitches hid behind me for years. Margot’s the only one of you who has any actual fucking talent. And she’s the dullest woman in the history of rock music.” Nikki turns around and points at her own rear. “You think this ass is stupid? You…need…this…ass! You needme! And all three of you know it!”
In the control room, Chuck watches with his mouth open. Rebecca and Wave have been steadily backing up as if an alligator has been released into the studio. Poor Rebecca is covering her ears. Nikki, Jenny, and Anna continue shouting. Their insults turn more and more jagged—the sorts of things none of them will ever be able to come back from. Jenny throws her chopsticks across the table. Anna spills a carton of kung pao shrimp.
The first time Burnt Flowers broke up was like a business meeting. Four women signed documents separately in a conference room at Stage Dive Records. This time their breakup is a screaming match.
No one notices when Margot walks across the room. They continue not to notice as she passes her own drum kit and picks up Jenny’s Gibson electric guitar and puts the strap over her shoulder. They do, however, notice when Margot unleashes a power chord. She strums the same chord again, hitting the strings so hard that the tips of her fingers burn. Wave winces. Jenny, Anna, and Nikki finally shut up. And then Margot shouts the lyrics to the song she started writing in a hotel room in Baltimore.
Chapter59
“You’re not, like, dying, are you?”
“No,” says Billy. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, good,” says Caleb. “I get the Champagne Supernova if you do, though. Cool?”
Billy watches his son consume bread the way a dinosaur might, and he longs once again to stop time. His son, dressed in baggy shorts and aGame of ThronesT-shirt, ravaging his food, forever and ever.
“Billy?” says Robyn. “What’s up?”
