A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

Author:Sarah Pinsker
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

19

LUCE

Where Is My Mind

It took the kid so long to change and make her way out of the bathroom that I almost went in again after her. It gave me enough time to wonder what I was doing. I should have insisted on taking her to the hospital; it was the responsible thing to do. When I thought back on mistakes I’d made, more than one had started from not taking somebody to a hospital when they needed it. Still, she was so insistent. Terrified. So I settled into the couch to wait, and eventually she wandered out of the bathroom, downed a glass of water, and sat. I told her we were staying up.

“Is that medically advised? Is that a thing people do?”

“What some people do is go to the hospital and get a CT scan, but I get the not-wanting-to-go-to-the-hospital part. Hence my solution.”

“Isn’t there a concussion app I can use?” She reached for a Hoodie she wasn’t wearing, a panicked expression crossing her face. She definitely wasn’t operating at full capacity.

“Anything like that depends on knowing your baseline function, sweetie. I’m guessing you don’t have that recorded anywhere.”

Rosemary shook her head, then stilled it, looking like she regretted the motion.

“If you think you might puke, I’ll grab a bucket. Anyway, the staying-up thing’s probably been disproven for twenty years, but I think the main point is to make sure your brain isn’t swelling or bleeding, by interacting with you. If you start slurring or dropping thoughts, I take you to somebody who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“You sure there’s no such thing as an online CT or something else from this century?”

“There’s no such thing as an online CT. Anyway, if you disappear into one of those ridiculous hoods, I won’t be able to tell how you’re doing. So, Rosemary, tell me about yourself. What are you doing here in our fair city?”

Rosemary picked gravel from her palm. It left tiny indents. “I’m here for the music.”

“Why here? Why not New York? You could see a dozen bands a night.”

Rosemary shuddered.

“Ah. Too many people? That’s why you left the other night, too?”

“I thought I’d be able to handle it. I need to hear the bands. I had no idea . . .”

“That’s what Joni said.”

“Joni mentioned me?”

The kid looked delighted; she didn’t have much of a poker face.

I wasn’t about to tell her Joni had said she was cute. “She said she didn’t know how you were going to reconcile your issue with crowds, but you seemed cool unless you’re a cop.”

“You people take a lot of convincing. I’m a little sick of the questioning. Tell me . . .” Rosemary scanned the walls, clearly looking for a change of subject. “. . . How did you end up here?”

I rolled back to a sitting position, debating what to say, as I usually did when anyone asked anything remotely personal. Even now, after all this time, it felt too raw. “After the . . . After we couldn’t tour anymore, I was at a low point for a while and I wanted to find a way to be useful.

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