Stories (Jerry eBooks) by Elizabeth Bear

Author:Elizabeth Bear [Bear, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2015-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

By the time she was halfway through her second breakfast Talisker, she was in the guest bath, eyeing the electric razor.

Ange clutched her forearms, forehead wrinkled hard enough to crack her foundation. “What on earth?”

“What, you’ve never seen a shaved head before?” Em smoothed a hand against the soft prickly bristles decorating her scalp. “I just wanted to see what it would look like.”

Ange glowered over crossed arms. Behind her, the backstage bustle redoubled. “Em. What is it that you’re not telling me?”

And dammit, Ange was not supposed to be that perceptive. She was supposed to be shallow and self-absorbed.

Em, Em realized, was not the only one who could pretend to be stupid when it suited her. “I came to LA to see you,” Em said. “Not to get quizzed about my haircut. Look, I was drunk, it seemed like a good idea at a time. At least I didn’t shave my eyebrows off.”

“So that’s one way you’re up on Bowie.” Ange stepped away. “If you’re not going to tell me, you’re not going to tell me. Graham’s gonna ask you to play again, you know.”

“I know,” Em said. “Anything to get on YouTube, right?”

“Right,” Ange purred, grinning. “What are you going to tell him?”

“I’m going to tell him yes.”

This time, Em watched the opening act from backstage. Objekt 775 was a five-piece: Sanya on keyboard and vocals, two guitars, bass, and the tall mixed-race boy on drums. They were loud and crude and they didn’t suck at all, and there was one other girl besides Sanya, even. Through most of the six-song set, Em surprised herself by paying attention.

Enough attention that she didn’t notice Graham at her shoulder until he cleared his throat with precise timing, in that fraught and ringing silence between songs. “Good, you think?”

“Good enough,” she said. “The rhythm section doesn’t fuck around.”

“You got that right.”

She turned to him. He was in stage clothes, except the flannel shirt buttoned over his bare chest for warmth he wouldn’t need when the spotlights hit him. The skull ring glinted on his hand. “Hey,” he said. “I like the hair. Or lack of it.”

“I said I’d play,” she said. Her fingers already ached from an hour’s fumbling, but she had surprised herself with how fast it came back. “One last time.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Look, about that—”

It startled her that her heart sunk. “I don’t have to. It’s all right.” His stare, the twist of his lips, could not have been more nonplussed. “I talked to the guys,” he said. “We want you to do two songs at the top of the first half. One of ’em a Warlords tune.”

“Graham—”

He rolled over her as if she hadn’t even opened her mouth. “How do you feel about ‘Galleons Gallant’? Then we’ll jam on the Dylan while the band takes a piss break, and then you can hit the showers?”

“The band takes a piss break? What about you?”

“I don’t piss,” he said, and grinned at her. “Look, Em. I know you hate me—”

“Hate’s a strong word.

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