So Pretty It Hurts

In desperation I thought of pounding on Landon’s door, but it wasn’t fair, considering his head cold, to subject him to more pathos about my love life. I thawed a chicken cutlet in my microwave and cooked it halfheartedly to within an inch of its life. A few times I felt an overwhelming urge to call Beau, but I fought it off. Why should I be the one trying to make things right?

At eleven I considered hitting the sack, but I knew it would be pointless. I could already envision the horrible bout of insomnia that lay ahead of me tonight. A thought suddenly snagged my brain. This might be a good time to reach Tommy. He hadn’t answered or returned my calls, but at this hour I might catch him off guard. From what I remembered from the weekend, he was nice and loose as midnight rolled around.

I was right. He answered hello with the deafening sounds of live music and bar yell behind him. And, surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind hearing from me now; that was a nice change of pace.

“I’ve been wondering how you were doing,” I half shouted.

“Well, ain’t that sweet of you to be concerned,” he shouted back.

“I’d love to get together and talk—I have some information I’d like to share with you.”

“Is that right?” The music had subsided and been replaced by the sound of a car zooming by. Wherever he was, he’d managed to step out onto the street, away from the epicenter of noise.

“It’s about Devon. I think you’ll want to hear what I’ve learned.”

“No time like the present.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said there’s no time like the present. I’m at the Living Room. A dude I know is performing here. Why don’t you mosey that cute little butt of yours down here?”

I knew the Living Room. It was a bar on the Lower East Side, known for showcasing emerging bands in the back room. I’d been there a few times over the years, but not lately. The Lower East Side, once a ghetto for European immigrants in the 1800s, was now a hip area filled with wine bars, boutiques, and trendy restaurants, and it tended to attract mostly twenty-somethings. At my age I now felt like I needed to obtain special clearance to go down there. But that didn’t matter tonight. I was anxious to see Tommy and promised to be there within thirty minutes.

I left on the jeans and V-neck sweater but added a black leather jacket. I also swiped on black eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss, hoping it would assist in the extraction of info.

I figured it would take a while to find Tommy in the dense crowd of the bar, but when my cab pulled up, he was standing out in front with the smokers, dressed in just a T-shirt and black jeans, sucking on the last of a cigarette. From the look on his face, he appeared to have a nice buzz going.

“That was fast,” he said. “You must be just dying to see me.” He flicked his butt into the street. “Why don’t we go inside, and you can buy me a drink?”

“You’ve got it,” I said. I loved the idea that the drinks would be on my tab. Maybe Tory was right—the last album had really tanked.

The place was packed and smelled of beer, sweat, and dampish wool coats. Somehow we managed to find a space to stand at the end of the bar. The band was obviously on a break, though I could see lots of people milling around in the back room.

Tommy asked for a Maker’s on the rocks, and I ordered a beer for myself. He gripped his drink with long, slim fingers that must have served him well on the guitar. Though we’d had a couple of brief conversations at Scott’s, this was the closest I’d ever been to him. He was way too bony and inked for my liking, but his gray eyes were compelling. Maybe that’s what had hooked Devon and Tory.

I flashed him a friendly smile but tried not to seem too flirty, knowing that if I gave off the wrong vibe, he’d start talking about turning me into a human hot fudge sundae.

“How do you know the band?” I asked over the din.

“What?” he asked.

“The band. How do you know them?”

“The drummer is the brother of a buddy of mine. They fuckin’ stink—but I promised to show tonight.”

“That’s nice. I mean, it must still be pretty hard for you right now—with Devon’s death and all. As you told me, Devon was your lady for a while.”

“Yeah, I’m a big hero, aren’t I?”

“I suppose you’ve heard the news,” I said. “That it was definitely Devon’s eating disorder that led to her death.”

“That’s what they tell me. But like I said to you last weekend, she never pulled any of that stuff on my watch.”

“The night she died, she was obviously suffering the side effects of losing vital nutrients—like potassium. It’s that loss of nutrients that leads to a heart failure.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’m not an M.D.” I almost laughed out loud. That had to be the understatement of the year.

“When you lose potassium, it also affects your muscles,” I explained. “That was probably why she seemed dizzy before she went back to her room. And by one o’clock she would have been feeling pretty awful.”

He drew his upper body back, as if I’d just spattered something on the bar.

“I can tell you’ve got a point to make,” he said, the friendliness dissipating. “Why don’t you just come right out and make it.”

“Okay. Devon was flirting with you last weekend, and she may have even invited you and Tory up there just so she could try to win you back. I think you went to her room Saturday night.”

He smirked and shook his head.

“Who told you that—Tory?”

“Tory said you were missing in action for over an hour.”

“Yeah, I was missing in action. I was sick of her bony-ass whining.”

“So you went to Devon’s room. Why didn’t you notice how ill she was? Surely you must have seen it.”

“Because I didn’t go to Devon’s room. I hooked up with that little redhead waitress who helped at dinner. She was giving me the eye the whole night.”

“Laura?” I exclaimed, not able to contain my surprise.

“Was that the chick’s name? I didn’t ask. Anyway, I’d overheard her say something to that other woman—the one with the tooth you could carve up a cow with—about staying in the garage apartment rather than driving home. I decided to pay her a little visit.”

“Was it around one fifteen?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t keep a log on my sex life.”

My mind raced, reviewing the details Laura had shared with me that night as well as the guilty aura she’d displayed. I’d assumed at the time that she’d felt troubled about having fallen back to sleep after Devon called, but that’s not what was nudging her conscience. She’d promised to bring water to Devon, but when the visiting Rock Star had showed up—probably moments later—she decided to attend to his randy needs instead.

“Did you call Laura’s room later—after you got back to yours?” I still had no clue who had made that second call.

“Call her?” he said, snickering. “You mean, like, Hey, that was special, let’s do it again sometime? I don’t think so. Why all the fascination with some townie? I’ve got better stories to share than that one if you want a little fun.”

“Why my fascination? I’m just a little surprised—I could have sworn things were starting to heat up with you and Devon again,” I said, refocusing. “I heard she’d been pretty upset when you two broke up, and it looked like she was hatching a plan to get back together again.”

“I guess she was bummed. But I wasn’t interested in having a ball and chain wrapped around my dick.”

“You met last February?”

“That’s when we hooked up. But we’d actually met a few months before at some party.” He shrugged. “She told me later that it was like being hit by a thunderbolt when she met me. We got into a serious make-out session, but she was a little coy about going any farther. Then she secretly hatched this big plan to meet again, like, two and a half months later—she got friends to bring her backstage after a concert.”

“Do you think she wanted to restart things last weekend?”