Fear and Laundry (6 page)

Roy studied the flier. “Gee, kid, under other circumstances I might say yes, but I just booked this date. The 50s Housewives are playing that night.”

Lia’s eyes lit up. “Even better,” she said. “We’ll open for them.”

Roy tilted his chin down and looked from one to the other of us over the tops of his black-framed glasses. He made a throaty noise that sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a laugh but then, seeing the look on Lia’s face, stifled it. “I don’t know,” he said apprehensively. “I’d told Ridley Electric Torch could open for the next out-of-town band that came through here. I was gonna give her a call this afternoon.”

I grimaced as he said the name, knowing Lia’s reaction to it wouldn’t be good. Eugenia Ridley (no one who knew what was good for them called her Eugenia – even the school teachers called her Ridley) played lead guitar for this other local band, Electric Torch. She and Lia had become fast friends when Ridley first transferred to Carreen High last year, prompting Lia to give up trying to keep her own band, which had been floundering at the time anyway, together in favor of fronting Ridley’s new project instead. But having two alpha females in the same band had turned out to be a bad idea. It hadn’t taken long for Lia to butt heads with Ridley a few too many times and get herself thrown out. Soon after, Lia claimed Electric Torch had kept the songs she’d written while she’d sung with them and continued to use them without her permission. Ridley, who wrote a zine called
Torched
, retaliated by running a piece calling
The Blank Slate
a “pitiably sophomoric rag.”

If Lia could be said to have a nemesis, it would have to be Eugenia Ridley.

“Electric Torch?” Lia blinked in disbelief.

Behind the counter, Roy seemed to shrink a few inches. He worried the corner of Lia’s flier between his fat fingers. “They’ve, uh, gotten really good. They’re popular with the kids.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet they are,” Lia bit out the words. “Thanks to
my
songs! You know, Roy, I don’t see any copies of
Torched
sitting on your counter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Eugenia Ridley has ever...”

“Lia,” I interrupted.

“Not now, Vee.”

“Lia.”

She whipped her head around to look at me. I leaned over and whispered into her ear. When I backed away again, I saw her lips had gotten really thin. “No,” she said, “Uh-uh.” I stared at her until she let out a frustrated sigh. Turning back to Roy, she said four words that doubtlessly caused her enormous pain: “Jake’s in our band.”

“What?” Roy leaned forward.

“I said Jake’s in our band,” she said louder, resentful of having to repeat it. “He’s filling in for Sierra.”

The trepidation fled Roy’s features as I’d known it would, replaced by what could only be described as overwhelming joy mixed with relief. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” His eyes got a faraway look as he reminisced, “You know, Burro Bruto always drew in such
huge
crowds. We used to have to turn people away. And they wouldn’t leave. They’d just sit out on the sidewalk and listen through the door. Remember that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lia snapped her fingers to regain Roy’s attention. “But this band’s going to be so much better. We already
are
better.”

Roy looked at her askance. You’d think she’d just told him a flying saucer had landed on the White House lawn and the President had invited the alien pilots in for lemonade.

“So what d’you say?” Lia pressed. “Is Impressionable Youth opening for The 50s Housewives? Or do you wanna miss out on the biggest debut of the year?”

Roy hesitated only a moment more before nodding gravely and holding his hand out to shake hers. “Gig’s yours. I’ll look forward to it. But, Lia...” He paused, frowning in distaste at the poorly drawn flier. “Veronica’s gonna re-draw this poster for you, right?”

Lia snatched the flier back and turned to me, saying we should head back to her house for more practice. I was about to agree when someone shouted Lia’s name, making us both turn.

***

“L
ia!” Our friend Katrina Sampson had just run in the building’s back entrance and now trotted up to us with a cigarette glowing in her hand. She wasn’t alone. Dustin was right behind her, his backpack hanging off his shoulder and his eyes avoiding mine.
This is new
, I thought, and wondered if he actually, maybe, felt bad about my seeing him with Paige the other day.     

“Jesus, Kat, what is it?” Lia asked.

“Have you seen the new issue of
Torched
?” Katrina panted. As she jogged closer, I saw her usually pale face was flushed, strands of her bobbed, chestnut-colored hair sticking to her cheeks.

“Why would I read that piece of garbage?” Lia snapped.

Katrina coughed, clearing her smoker’s lungs. “So you haven’t heard about Clyde?”

“Heard what about him?” Lia’s voice was sharp, instantly wary.

“Show her,” Katrina slapped Dustin’s arm with the back of her hand and he obliged, reaching into his backpack to produce a folded copy of
Torched
. “I can’t believe it,” Katrina went on while Dustin shook out the zine and extended it to Lia. 

I felt nauseous even before Lia finished scanning the page and looked up at me with concern. “What is it?” I was afraid to know.

She gripped the edge of the counter with one hand and held the zine out to me with the other. I snatched it from her shaking fingers. Roy leaned across the counter, adjusting his glasses and trying to read over my shoulder. 

Torched
had gotten hold of a museum memo confirming Clyde’s appearance at the exhibit dedication on September fourth, I said, reading as fast as I could. “Clyde’s coming back to Carreen,” I added, unbelieving. Not even the newspaper knew about this yet. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the scoop Ridley had managed, though I knew Lia must be devastated by it.

Katrina took a drag and let the smoke out of the corner of her mouth. She was a small girl and the cigarette looked all wrong waving around in her little child-like hand as she chattered on excitedly about the “great news.”

“I can’t believe Ridley knew about this before you did,” Dustin said to Lia. I shot him a dirty look and thrust the zine back at him.

All the color had drained from Lia's face. "Yeah, well," she said. "Big deal."

“Yeah?” Katrina tilted her head skeptically.

"Yeah." Lia paused, looking at the floor. “I mean, it’s nothing compared to what I’ve got lined up for the next issue of the
Slate.
”

Dustin and Katrina exchanged glances. “What are you talking about?” asked Dustin. I wondered what she was talking about, too, and felt my stomach tense up.

“Think about it, you guys. Wouldn’t it be cool to see an interview in the
Slate
?” said Lia, looking back up, but not at me. “I mean, an interview with
Clyde
himself
?”

Oh no
, I thought.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying you’re going to interview Clyde Kameron?” Katrina leaned over to grind her cigarette out in a plastic ashtray on the counter.

No, no, no
.

Lia skirted the question, asking “Well he’s coming back to town, isn’t he?” and telling her she “wouldn’t want to miss” the next issue.

Dustin looked impressed. “No shit?”

Lia didn’t answer him. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to me, sliding off her barstool.

“Wow. Congratulations,” Katrina said to her. Then she shook my arm with those teensy fingers of hers. “What’s the matter with you, Veronica? Aren’t you excited?”

“She’s probably just in shock,” said Roy amiably, swiping at the lunch counter with his dishrag. “She’s waited for Clyde to come back for a long time, same as Lia.”

I was in shock, alright. I nodded slowly, but was incapable of saying anything. For a moment I thought I might not be able to move, either, but then Lia hooked her arm through mine and pulled me, stumbling, toward the front exit. 

“You alright?” she asked when we were back in the Dart.

“How could you say that?” I asked, staring dumbfounded out the windshield. “How could you tell them you’re running an interview with Clyde in the next issue when you know you’re not?”

“I didn’t
say
that, exactly.”

I looked at her.

“Well, I had to say something,” she replied in a practical tone. Then, muttering something about not being able to believe her mother hadn’t told her the news, she started the car.

***

A
t the Mlinarichs’ house, we found Lia’s parents in the kitchen. Elyse sat at the table with the telephone to her ear, a legal pad on the table in front of her and a pen between her fingers.

“What’s going on, girls?” John, a freshly poured iced tea in his hand, pulled a chair away from the table and settled into it beside Elyse. Lia’s father had a graying variation of his children’s rusty brown hair color and was responsible for Jake’s height. Their mother was blonde, had Lia’s pointy chin and Jake’s nose, neither of which precluded her from being pretty attractive.

Lia opened her mouth, about to answer her dad or, more likely, demand to know why she hadn’t been informed of Clyde’s imminent arrival, when her mother’s voice interrupted.

“Alright, Janice, thanks,” Elyse said into the phone and hung up. “Glad you’re here!” She chirped at us, the familiar sparkle in her eyes warning us she was about to lay out a scheme and make us part of it whether we liked it or not.

Lia’s mom didn’t have a day job, but was busier than just about any person I’d ever met. She was always organizing some charity event or other, and usually roping us into helping her with it. Lia and I’d stuffed so many envelopes and collected so many signatures door-to-door, I’d lost count. Her latest project, however, was more personal.

“Veronica-honey,” said Elyse. The endearment seemed irrevocably linked to my name in her mind; I didn’t remember her ever calling me anything else. “You’re still planning to be at Johnny’s and my twentieth, right?”

She meant the vow renewal ceremony and party the Mlinarichs were planning in honor of their twentieth wedding anniversary in a few weeks. They’d eloped the first time around and been too poor to afford a honeymoon, so now they were throwing a big celebration followed by a two-week vacation to Cancun.

Even as I nodded, Elyse went on. “It’d mean the world if I could put your name down next to a few of these things on my list. I just know I’m going to be swamped with errands the closer the party gets. And you’ve always been such a good little helper.”

“Mom,” Lia warned.

“We didn’t like any of the Country Lake’s cake samples, did we, Johnny?” Elyse glanced briefly at her husband but then went on talking, not giving him a chance to answer. “So we’re having the Teacup Bakery make us up something special. Only, I need someone to pick it up and bring it to the banquet hall. Oh, wait, Veronica-honey, you don’t drive yet, do you?” She gazed at the legal pad, frowning at the partially crossed-out to-do list scribbled across the top sheet.

“
Mom
.” Lia dropped into the chair opposite her mother and waved to get her attention. “Hello? We talked about this, remember? No more bullying my friends into volunteering away their weekends. It’s not cool.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not bullying.”

“Just because you’re
polite
about it doesn’t mean you’re not being
pushy
,” said Lia. I glimpsed a smile on John’s lips before he brought a hand up to cover his mouth and looked off to the side, pretending to yawn.

“Veronica-honey,” Elyse looked at me again. “You don’t think I’m pushy, do you?”

“Um. No?” I shot a helpless glance at Lia, who dropped her forehead into her hand.

“What’s she gonna say, Mom?
Yes
?” Lia explained I was “too nice” to ever do such a thing.

“Well, maybe you could take a lesson from her.” Elyse flipped through the pages of her legal pad, determined to find me an errand.

“Mother.”

“Uh-oh. She’s calling me ‘mother,’” said Elyse, amused. “Now I know I’m in trouble.”

“How long have you known Clyde’s planning to be at the exhibit dedication? That he confirmed his appearance in writing?” Lia demanded. At almost the same time, Jake came into the kitchen from the hall, reading Ridley’s zine.

“Lia,” he said, holding up the zine in one hand and flicking at it with the other. “Have you seen this? I picked it up at U.C. Clyde accepted the museum’s invitation. He’s coming to Carreen.”

Lia glared at him.

“What? Thought you’d be happy. Ecstatic, even.” He came up beside me, bumping his arm against mine in greeting.

“It does seem like good news for you, honey,” said Elyse.

“It is!” Lia shot to her feet, almost upending her chair. “Okay? It’s great news. That’s not the point. The point, Mom, is that you’re on the museum planning committee.”

“Charitable fundraising committee,” Elyse corrected.

“Whatever. You must’ve heard about this. But you didn’t say a word to me. Even though I’ve been asking you about it for months!”

“And I’ve been trying to
tell
you for months that I’m not exactly an insider, honey. I didn’t know.” Elyse spread her hands and tried to look innocent. But her facial expressions and mannerisms were so similar to Lia’s, I could tell when she wasn’t being completely honest. Lia could too, and she stared at her mother until she broke down and confessed. “Well, I didn’t know for sure,” she murmured. “Until recently.”

Beside me, Jake said “Uh-oh.”

“How recently?” Lia’s voice had quieted and lost a measure of its frenzied edge. It worried me more when she sounded like this: apparently calm, but really gearing up to explode.

Elyse closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“How recently?” Lia asked again.

Elyse looked trapped, as though she knew no matter what she said, it’d be the wrong thing. “I don’t know. The committee was briefed a few weeks ago...”

“Weeks!” Lia gasped.

“I was practically sworn to secrecy,” defended Elyse. “Everyone was told to keep quiet until the official announcement was made. At Clyde’s own request, I might add.”