Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil

Author:Michelle Ruiz Keil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2021-05-26T15:38:15+00:00

10

The Stars

Would Gape

Orr sits on the sofa tuning Jane’s acoustic guitar while the band fights in the kitchen.

“For fork’s sake, Allison!” Jane is angry because Allison broke her hand and can’t play bass until she gets the cast off. They’ve also decided to not to swear so much in front of young Orr. A joke, considering who raised him. “Why’d you have to hit him so hard?”

“I don’t do dick in the wild,” Allison says. “He, like, whipped it out of nowhere. I didn’t think—I just clocked him.”

“You should’ve kicked him in the balls,” Mika says. Her high voice and small body make her look as young as Orr. In reality, Jane, Allison, and Mika are all twenty-four. The age Mom was when she had Iph.

Mom. It’s weird thinking about her here in this living room with its wallpaper of band flyers and postcards and rough wood floors prickly with staples the girls didn’t bother to remove when they pulled the carpet up after one too many cat accidents. Orr still hasn’t seen the cat that made them.

“He’s a lounger agent,” Allison told him when he asked about the housemate responsible for the smell. Finally, he realizes who she sounds like—the girl from Clueless, one of Iph’s favorite movies. It makes sense. Allison says she’s a real-life Valley girl, born and raised in LA.

“He’s for sure some sort of spy,” Mika says. “Does nothing but lie around for weeks, then goes off on some secret mission out of nowhere. Clearly, it’s when his handlers activate him. Comes home dirty and exhausted and sleeps for days.”

“Either that, or he gets locked in people’s garages. He’s a little . . . decorative,” Jane says. “Not the brightest kitty in the caboodle, if you know what I mean.”

The girls deny you can still smell the cat pee, but they’ve let Orr scrub every floor in the run-down, hundred-year-old house, happy to buy him the Murphy Oil Soap he asked for and watch as he dumped pail after pail of black water into the backyard to quench the summer-dry jasmine.

“The issue remains,” Jane says, carrying two Slurpee cups full of iced tea into the living room—one for her and one for Orr—and settling beside him on the sofa, which Orr has covered with a paisley tapestry he found in the basement. “We finally have a chance at a decent gig, and now we can’t even do it. I mean, you guys, Dead Moon! And it’s a benefit for the hos!”

“I know that girl—from Shiny Dancer? Kind of a babe,” Mika says.

“It sucks that the Meow-Meows broke up.” Allison lights up a cigarette. Mika instantly jumps up and opens a window. “But dudes, their loss has got to be our gain. We can’t afford to pass this up.”

“You don’t mind if someone else plays bass?” Mika says. “Be honest.”

“I mean, ego-wise, a little. But band first. I mean, I can at least shake a tambourine while I do my vocals.”

The girls start making lists of possible substitute bass players.

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