All Our Pretty Songs

“Tell me where you are,” he says, the sleepiness gone. “And don’t go anywhere until I get there.”

Raoul rubs my back while I throw up in his toilet, and I am so miserable I don’t even feel shame. When I’m done I curl up on the floor of his bathroom and whimper.

“Come on, kiddo,” he says. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Your bathroom is very clean.”

“I like to maintain an appropriate convalescing environment for underage substance abusers at all times.” He tugs me to my feet and steers me back to the couch, covers me with a blanket, brings me water. Throwing up has made me feel only marginally better.

“Your apartment won’t stop moving. I’m going to die,” I wail.

“Eventually,” he agrees, “but probably not in the immediate future.”

“I want to die.”

“That’s different.” He strokes my forehead and the coolness of his touch soothes the throbbing. “You want to tell me about it?”

I tell him. I tell him everything. About the deer dress, the ice-eyed man. The black birds that came out of nothing. Cass’s amulet saving me. The valet and his forked tongue. When I’m done, Raoul is silent.

“I was really drunk,” I say. “I’m still really drunk.”

Raoul nods. “You are very drunk.”

“You think I’m making it up.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t.” Raoul doesn’t know Aurora well, although he’s met her a few times. He’s never liked her parties, says he doesn’t feel safe. I never knew what he meant until now. “There are different kinds of real,” he says. “For now, I think you should get some sleep. And I would like you to promise me you will never drink that much again.”

“I will never drink that much again. Will she be okay?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know. Maybe not.”

I left her there, I think. I left her there. Like Cass. Scorched earth, cut and run. Cass’s amulet got me out, but it sure didn’t do much for my friends.

“Raoul, what do you do if you fucked up and you don’t even know how?”

He kisses my forehead, straightens the blanket. “You’ll figure it out. I know you. Now go to sleep. When you wake up I’ll make you breakfast.”

“When I wake up it will be the middle of the afternoon.”

“Breakfast is a state of mind, not an hour.”

“I love you, Raoul.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“I’m scared.”

He takes my hand. “It’s always okay to be scared,” he says. He holds my hand until I fall asleep.

No hangover in my life has ever compared to the staggering misery that greets me the next day. The light streaming through Raoul’s open windows pierces me like a hundred terrible knives. The clank of Raoul’s spatula against his frying pan is as loud as a freight train derailing. I moan feebly, shielding my eyes from the sun’s blinding assault, and Raoul peers over at me. “How are we feeling?” he asks cheerily.

“Why are you shouting,” I croak.

“My goodness,” he says. “You really did have a lot to drink.”

“I am definitely going to die.”

“Have some potatoes first. It’ll help, I promise.” He brings me a plate piled high with greasy breakfast delights. The smell of food nearly sends me running to his bathroom again. Raoul offers me a forkful of potato and chilies. I open my mouth obediently, manage to gum the potatoes into a paste and get them down. He’s right; they do make me feel better. “Do you need to call your mom?”

“It’s fine. She thinks I’m at Aurora’s.” Raoul feeds me more fried potatoes until I can sit up, cradling my pounding head in my hands.

“Do you want to call Aurora?”

“What time is it?”

“Not that late. Around one.”

I nod without thinking and the pulsating effects of the movement make me groan aloud. Raoul does his best not to laugh at me as he brings me the phone. “Shut up,” I say, and dial Aurora’s number. To my utter surprise, she answers on the first ring.

“Babycakes! What the hell happened to you last night?”

“I got—” I got what? The raging heebie-jeebies? An invisible burn from Aurora’s new buddy? I saw some chick in a steak dress and freaked the fuck out? “I got sort of drunk. Are you okay?”

“Why would I not be okay? I’m great. God, that party was so much fun. I can’t believe you left. Jack played for so long, and it was so good and everybody loved him, and Minos loved him, and Minos’s boss loved him, and it was seriously like the best thing ever. I almost threw myself off the roof at the end it was so good. You know when something is so good and you think, ‘Shit goddamn, girl, that’s it, the pinnacle of your life has been achieved and it’s all downhill from here’?”

“Are you on meth?”

“What? No. Haven’t you ever felt like that? Anyway, come over. I need help decorating and Jack has big news.”

There is so much to unpack in that statement that I settle for dealing with the information most relevant to my immediate interests. “Jack’s at your house?”

“Where else would he be? Do you need me to pick you up?”

Where else would he be. Right. I make a steering-wheel motion at Raoul. He rolls his eyes and nods. “Raoul can give me a ride.”

“Wicked. Come over whenever.”

“I guess she’s fine,” I say to Raoul when I hand the phone back to him. But I can’t shake the feeling that something has been set in motion that can no longer be undone. I wish I knew what really happened last night. What I saw and what was because of Minos’s sketchball homebrew. I remember the euphoric feeling the drink gave me, that perfect moment of joy. If that’s how Aurora feels around him, no wonder she won’t shake him loose. I do know what she meant. I’d wanted to jump off the roof, too.

“Are you ambulatory?” Raoul asks, interrupting my reverie. “I have to go to work in a bit, so if you want a ride I should take you now.”

“You are a saint,” I say. “A saint among mortals.”

“The company you’ve been keeping lately,” he says, “I don’t know if you want to be joking about saints and mortals. Come on.”

When I let myself in to Aurora’s house I hear piano music. I follow the source, expecting to see Jack. But it’s Maia at the dust-covered grand piano. Her back is to me and she doesn’t hear me come in. Silent, I watch her play.

Her hands move over the keys like liquid, drawing out a tide of swirling notes. I can feel myself sinking into water, some blue country where the light splinters blue-green overhead, and though I can reach for the fragmented rays I can never touch them, lost as I am in the deep. Maia’s body sways as though she’s possessed, caught in the same heady current that washes us both where it will. The melody sings against a flurry of chords, the strange rhythm carrying us both far out to sea. I have no idea how long she’s been playing when she leans back, hands raised. I open my eyes, blinking at the suddenly unfamiliar world of Aurora’s house, thinking she is done; but she brings her hands down in a last furious surge, music spilling out in a massive wave, her hands sweeping across the keys and coming to rest at last on a single perfect chord.

I let out my breath in a huge sigh, and Maia jumps, turns to face me. She’s out of breath, her cheeks flushed.