structure that stood on it. She’d had all sorts of headaches from the local homeowners and the county—Lake Oswego is in Clackamas County, unlike Portland, which is in Multnomah—but in the end, being Van, she’d won out. Her lawyers shouted louder, perhaps. Or maybe she just crooned at them with the mike.
Whatever the case, when I pulled up, I could see that the majority of the work had been completed. The house was bilevel, built onto the slope, so that the entry floor was actually the second, with another below, closer to the water. The drive down from the road dipped sharply before winding through the trees, and it provided a nice curtain of anonymity. But when I hit the bottom of the drive I could see the lights on, and over the Jeep’s engine, I could hear the music. There were already two dozen cars parked all around and along the driveway, and I could see some late-arriving guests making last-minute adjustments in rearview mirrors.
I parked and got out, and the music was louder. Van was still on the Radiohead kick. The song was “You and Whose Army?”
Seemed a fair question, and I just stood by my Jeep for a couple minutes, smoking a cigarette and trying to screw up my courage as each new arrival pulled up. “Keeping it small” meant only about fifty to seventy-five people were expected. Van’s really big parties drew more than two hundred. Sometimes it seemed like the only thing you needed to get invited was to be able to find the place on a map.
I didn’t want to ask Van for money. I didn’t want to be at a party. I didn’t, especially, want to be at one of Van’s parties. The last one I’d attended had been the night before we’d left on the most recent leg of the tour, and I’d spent almost the entire night getting drunk out on the balcony, throwing things into the lake.
“Mim?”
It was Click, and he’d come up behind me, and the surprise had my heart checking the exits. If he’d bothered to dress up for the party, I couldn’t tell. Maybe he’d changed to his really good Winterhawks jersey. The Chuckies were still mismatched.
“Just me,” he said mildly.
“You.”
“I said your name twice, nothing.”
“Lost in thought.”
He came up beside me with a chuckle, looking at the house and pulling his rolling kit from his back pocket. “You’ve got a lot of those to be lost in at the best of times.”
“Goes with being The Brains.”
“I’m just the central nervous system, I wouldn’t know about that.” Click rolled himself a cigarette, and I lit it for him, and he thanked me and blew out a plume. “Surprised you came.”
“I need to talk to Van.”
“You’re not going to change her mind. I already tried.”
“It’s not about the band.”
“No? Then you better get to her early. She’s gonna be busy tonight.”
“Fleet week already?”
Click made a grunting noise, like I’d socked him. “Rose Festival’s not until summer, you know that. Might want to check your claws at the door.”
I dropped my butt and stomped it out. He was right; if I was already this defensive and Van wasn’t even present, things weren’t likely to go well once we got face to face. I was going to have to get that under control, and fast.
“Heard about the album?” Click asked.
“Graham says it’s at seven.”
“Must feel strange to you. Feels fucking strange to me.”
“It does,” I agreed.
He was still watching the house, smoking his hand-rolled. “Don’t change the fact that it’s a good album.”
“Guess not.”
“Might want to keep that in mind, that’s what I mean.” He flicked his cigarette down the driveway, toward the house, and it sizzled out in a puddle. Then he offered me his arm. “Let’s wow the little people, what do you say?”
“How can I refuse?”
“Oh, hey, so it turns out we’re sleeping together,” he told me when we were halfway down the walk.
“No shit?”
“Turns out that’s why you’re on hiatus. We had a messy breakup, you and me. Apparently I’m seeking solace with Van.”
“Brutal.”
“Tell me about it.”
A haze of smoke was leaking out of the house as we reached the door, a mix of cigarette and pot, and the music was louder, almost to the point of distortion. We stepped into a crowd of men and women, most of them in our age group, and I instantly realized the small-party estimate had been off, and that there must have been more cars parked outside than I had noticed.
There were hip-hopsters and punkers and retro grungers and people like me and Click, who’d decided that what we wore would be what we wore. I’d defaulted to my band outfit, just cargo pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, but only because it was too cold to wear the tank.
A couple of people shouted at us when we entered, waving hands or bottles, but their voices were swamped by the music, and Click and I just smiled and waved back. He dropped my arm and shouted in my ear.
“I’m gonna get a liquid. Catch you later?”
“I’ll be around,” I shouted back.
Click headed in the most likely direction of the kitchen. I worked my way past the entry crowds, down the stairs to the main room on the lower floor. Several people broke their conversations to watch me pass, and most even said hello. What they were actually thinking as I passed was anyone’s guess.
The living room space was a cavern, two stories high and long, and most of the party had moved there, doing nothing to defeat the size of the room. Another stereo was going down here, fighting with the music playing above, blasting dance remixes. A cluster near the far wall writhed, shimmied, and ground to the beat. On a big-screen television, one of the guests was playing a video game. The volume on that was cranked up, and the explosions on the screen seemed to keep fairly good time with the surrounding music.
Graham was with the dance contingent, grooving away, and he saw me come off the stairs and raised a hand, and I raised one back, then did a double take. My eyes were playing tricks. I looked hard, saw it again, and this time I was certain.
Dyke Tracy was dancing with him, her hair slicked back, working up a sweat. The outfit was new, not the work clothes and not what she’d worn when she’d grilled me in my kitchen the previous night, very casual, this time, just the jeans and the tee and the sneakers. Graham said something to her, and she shot a look my way and grinned.
I didn’t know if I should panic or laugh. Both seemed reasonable options.
Marcus wasn’t on the floor, and I cast around for him, trying to find him in the corners or on the stairs, but he wasn’t there, either. I took that to mean Hoffman was here on her own accord, not on the job, but that didn’t raise my comfort level.
Time to do what I came to do and get the hell out.
I stopped and listened at Van’s bedroom door, and didn’t hear anything like sex going on, so I figured it was safe to knock.
“Who?”
“Mim.”
There was a pause, and then the door swung open and Van stood there. I’d interrupted her halfway through makeup, and she’d done her eyes, but everything below the nose was still untouched. She didn’t look surprised or thrilled to see me, just turned and went back to her makeup table.
“Would you close it?” she asked.
I shut the door and took a moment to appreciate the room. It was large and white and functional. A big bed,
