Beatrice let her hands drop. For a moment she felt poisoned. But it was no use explaining that violins and guitars don’t go together. She knew what he would say, serenely: “It’s an electric violin.”
She wheeled to face the mirror hanging over the sink. “Give me a sword,” she said.
“Viking, Roman, or Greek?” Calvin asked.
“Viking!” Beatrice said. Her brother returned with the sword. Wielding it over her head, she studied herself in the mirror. Her arms, raised this way, looked thinner than they did when just hanging at her sides. She wondered what other reasons she might find to assume this position. “Tremble!” she said, to no one in particular.
Calvin wedged himself between her and the sink, so that he could brush his teeth. He brushed his teeth many times a day because he was concerned about plaque. On his birthday their mother had given him a kit containing a special yellow solution and a special handheld light. You sloshed the solution inside your mouth, made the bathroom completely dark, flicked on the special light, and saw, in beautiful and arctic blue, all the plaque that was slowly encrusting your teeth.
Beatrice staked her chin atop his head and made a totem pole. “Hermano hermano hermano,” she said. Calvin was learning Spanish at school; she was helping him.
“Loggia,” he said indistinctly. He was still brushing his teeth.
“Aren’t you finished yet?” Beatrice asked, leaning upon the sword just as a very tired and very bored old lady would rest upon her cane.
“Don’t do that!” Calvin said, his mouth full of blue. He cherished his swords; he had three complete sets of armor and weaponry from three different periods of history. They were made of very durable plastic, but still: their mother had damaged the Roman-centurion one while trying to teach a lesson to the large raccoon that lurked about their driveway. Now, when brandished, it drooped in a pitiful way.
Beatrice turned on the bath. “Could I have a little privacy, please?” The bathtub was held up by four claws that looked as if they belonged to an eagle, or a big hawk. It was long enough so that you could submerge yourself entirely and still not feel anything pressing against your head or your feet. Beatrice and Calvin loved the bathtub. On Christmas they gave each other fat glass jars filled with bath beads, shining like jewels. Beatrice gave Calvin Peach Passion. Calvin gave Beatrice Gardenia. These she now deposited into the water. “I need to relax,” she said.
“So do I,” said Calvin mysteriously, as he retrieved his sword and floated out of the bathroom. The bathroom had two doors: one leading to his room, and the other to hers. In this way, it was like a joint.
Beatrice turned off the lights. She stepped into her bath. “I’m in my bath!” she called out. She splashed about in the darkness, and then she was still. She felt everything around her: boughs brushing against square windows; the large raccoon lurking; a hawk skimming right over the roof. Things were astir, things she couldn’t see. Out in the night, animals prowled and crept. Much farther away people were creeping about, too, making drug deals, going in and out of apartment buildings. The word, the idea—apartment—was enchanting. But she lived here, in the trees, at the very top of the house. Beneath her a gardenia bath bead dissolved, releasing its oil and its peculiar scent.
“IS ANYONE LISTENING? Anyone at all?” The radio spoke, glowing from her bookshelves.
Beatrice sat up in her bed. She was listening! In defiance of everyone: her mother and father, who fancied her asleep; her friends at school, who liked Prince and choreographed sexy dance routines to his songs; her piano teacher, for whom she played inventions and fugues, all the while thinking about an amplifier, a fuzzbox, a roadie. She didn’t exactly know what all of these things were, but she wanted them. She knew they existed, because visitors to the Rock Hotel would mention them in conversation. There was a band, for instance, called We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It, which was a mouthful, but that was the point. She was listening. She knew what to say. Not group: band. Not concert: show. You did not buy a ticket; you paid a cover at the door. Beatrice was paying attention, so that she would be prepared.
“Am I talking to myself?” the voice asked. “Am I the last person left?”
There was a long pause. “If you can hear me, I don’t care who you are, you have to pick up the phone and call me. Now. Make a request. Win a prize. I don’t care. You know what the number is.”
Beatrice did in fact know the telephone number. She often practiced dialing it but never considered doing it for real. The DJ tended to criticize those who called up the Rock Hotel. His name was Shred. He would make fun of people’s requests or else refer to them as psychopaths. “There are a lot of weird people out there,” he would murmur. “And they all love to call me.” But now he sounded lonely, and possibly like he was losing his mind. Beatrice wondered if she should reach out to him. Maybe in this vulnerable state he was less likely to belittle her.
She padded over to the radio and found the pocket diary she kept there, a gift from her mother, identical to those belonging to her brother and her father, in which they were each supposed to keep a growing list of Things to Do. In this diary Beatrice had written the names of the bands that she heard on the Rock Hotel: Squirrel Bait. Agent Orange. Pussy Galore. Angry Samoans. Big Black. Mission of Burma. The Cramps. She liked to copy these names in clean bold letters onto her school binders, and would be surprised to learn, at later points in her life, that these names were often attached to real things:
