Sing

“Monica?” Andrea came up behind me, her hair dyed blue that week. It was always something new with her, and I seemed to have missed this change, because the color was already fading back to green.

“Hey, how are you? Love the color.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s my shift.”

She rolled her eyes and twisted her mouth around. “Uhm, we’re kinda in the habit of swapping you out. So, I’m working.”

“No,” I heard the squeak in my voice. “I need the cash.” God, I hated sounding like that. I hated whining about money.

She shrugged and walked out to the floor. I went to Debbie’s office.

“Come in,” she said after I knocked. She was alone, behind her desk, shuffling through God-only-knows. She looked up as if she was pleased to see me, standing and putting her arms out for a hug. “Monica. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I came to work, but Andrea says she’s got my shift?”

“You’ve missed five shifts, Monica. And you were out the week before. I need to run the floor.”

“I need my shift.”

She put her hand under my chin. “You’re in no condition to work. You lost weight. You have circles. A little lipstick?”

“Please.”

“What’s happening? Sit. Tell me.”

I lowered myself in the leather chair. Debbie sat on the arm of the one next to it. The nightly mist that descended on Los Angeles dotted the window. It was the wettest year in history. The bar would be slow, tips scarce, tourists who had nowhere else to go and regulars who came out of habit. The Hollywood hitters would be in clubs Downtown or Silver Lake venues.

“They’re trying to stabilize him so they can do a valve graft,” I said. She looked at me blankly, as if she was waiting to understand what I’d just said. “He damaged his heart when he was sixteen—” I stopped abruptly. I knew Debbie and Jonathan had been close, but I couldn’t be sure he’d told her about the fistful of drugs he’d taken. He hadn’t known he was broken. He’d been fine, until the stress of the past weeks broke him.

“Here,” Debbie said, handing me a tissue. “Go ahead.”

“They have to replace parts of his heart.” I felt strongly that I didn’t know what I was talking about, because I didn’t. “He hasn’t been stable enough for the surgery.” I pressed the tissue to my eyes. It came back with blobs of mascara. Now I really couldn’t work the floor. “I go in every night and talk to him, but I need to work tonight.”

“No, you need to go in to him.”

“I need the money. I’m sorry. I know it seems gross.”

“He can’t give you money?” She seemed shocked at the idea, as if he wouldn’t, which wasn’t the case. Money would sully the sunshine and rainbows.

“I don’t want him to worry.”

“What about his family?”

“Outside of Margie, they all tolerate my existence. Which is fine. But I’m not asking.”

“He hasn’t given you something you can sell?”

Had he? The title for the Jag, which was my only transportation, had been in the glove compartment when Lil drove it to me. The platinum lariat that symbolized our bond twisted around itself on my dresser, binding sea and sky between it. The diamond navel bar was where he’d put it when he committed to me.

“No,” I said. “I have nothing to sell.”

Debbie got up and walked behind her desk. Bending at the waist, she opened a drawer and pulled out her wallet.

“I don’t usually do this,” she said.

“Don’t. I’ll manage.”

She took a pile of bills out and folded them once, coming around the desk.

“We can cover your shifts another couple of days before we have to put you on personal leave. That’s unpaid.” She picked up my hand and slapped the bills into it. “Figure it out.”

I squeezed the money. I couldn’t refuse it, and taking it meant I could see Jonathan.

“You’re very nice to me,” I said.

“Jonathan helped a friend of mine through a rough time. You make him happy. So helping you, is helping him. Now go. I have work to do.”

CHAPTER 3.

MONICA

One hundred fifty seven dollars in smallish bills. God bless Debbie, I loved her. I put gas in the car, first thing. Then I bought a container of cubed cantaloupe at Ralph’s for dinner. I parked three blocks away so I wouldn’t have to pay for the lot, and walked. Night was falling and it was getting cold. I was bundled in a scarf and light coat, having forgotten a hat in my rush to get to work.

Sequoia was huge. Half the babies in LA were born there, and everyone else managed to die there. The charge nurse in the cardiac unit knew me by sight, and nodded at me and my cantaloupe.

“Hi,” I said when I walked into the room of bland pinks, beiges, hard edges and the smell of sickness and alcohol. I’d gotten him a little light-up Christmas tree for the table by the bed, and every night he made sure it was on.

“I thought you were working tonight,” Jonathan said. He was sitting up, reading by a single lamp. I’d seen him in that bed every might for the past week and a half, and he’d gotten better and better. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t let him just walk out with a pat on the head.

“It’s raining. Debbie didn’t need me.” I sat on the edge of the bed taking his hand in mine while trying not to disturb the IV in it. Machines beeped and hummed. The stylus scratched on paper, tracing the lines of his heartbeat. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to punch someone. You?”

“The contracts are signed. Margie was a hero, seriously. I couldn’t have done it without her. I’m finalized to record tomorrow. I’m singing Collared with full production value.”

He took the cantaloupe container from me. “They getting the LA Phil in?”

“I know you’re joking,” I said, compulsively putting my hands out to help him open the container. But in the past couple of days he hadn’t needed me, so I pulled them back. “But yeah. Fifteen pieces. String-heavy. Like, real. Then, next week we’re doing Craven. I laid down some scratch on a few others and they’re going to pick two more for an EP.”

He plucked out a piece of melon and held it up. I leaned forward and opened my mouth. He brushed the juice on my bottom lip before letting it touch my tongue. “Orchestras cost a lot of money,” he said. “They must believe in you.”

I took the cantaloupe gently into my mouth and closed my lips around it, catching his fingers, sucking them on the way out.

“We’ll see.”

“Is this what you brought for dinner?”

“I ate stuff at home,” I lied. If he knew my fridge was empty and I didn’t want to spend Debbie’s money getting takeout, he’d worry. Or he’d lose his shit all over the hospital room. He’d already had a code blue over his mother trying to shut me out.

“You’re supposed to have dinner with me,” he said, feeding me melon. He wasn’t mad or scolding. He missed me during the day when his family was here and I hung around in the shadows. That was the deal. I didn’t have to be front and center with his sisters and mother, but I came to him at night, alone.