Then he spoke, “Don’t know Caitlin Mason. But I ‘spect, she’s anything like her brother, you go back in time eight years, sit her down, tel her this was gonna happen, I know what she’d say to you.”

“What would she say?” I whispered.

“She’d say ‘be happy’.”

I knew what he was trying to do.

I also knew it wasn’t going to work.

It wasn’t that simple.

Nothing about this was simple.

I shook my head and the second wave of tears that hadn’t yet come stung my eyes.

Duke continued, “You’re right, Stel a. This is eatin’ him.

You say they were close and that’s proved true by the way he’s torn apart by this. But any sixteen year old bal erina who loves her brother wouldn’t want her spirit to haunt him.

She’d want him to let go of those demons and be happy.

Your job is to make him understand that’s what she’d want.”

“How do I do that?” I asked, feeling the wetness start to rol silently down my cheeks.

“By making him happy. You do that, it’l come. He’l let it go.”

I shook my head again.

This was not something you let go.

I could make Mace breakfasts of eggs benedict and Belgian waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream and homemade blueberry pancakes smothered in warm maple syrup and apple coffeecake with a thick crust of brown sugar crumble (or whatever) every morning for the rest of his effing life and it would never make him happy enough to let this shit go.

Duke grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Trust me, girl. I know what I’m talkin’ about. I been watchin’ the way he is with you. Don’t know it al . Don’t know what happened to him after it went down. What I do know is he hasn’t let anyone in. Not until you. You work at makin’ him happy, he’l let it go.”

For some reason, that’s when I remembered what Mace said to me onstage after I sang “Black”.

I can’t be the star in your sky when you’re the only star left shining in mine.

I wondered what he meant by that.

The only star?

How could I be the only star?

Mace was a good guy. Understandably intense and maybe he had a short fuse but al the Hot Bunch respected him. More than respected him, they liked him. They weren’t col eagues, they were friends.

He had to have a life back then, before that happened to Caitlin.

He had to have people he cared about who cared about him.

He had to have other family.

Friends.

His Mom.

His Mom.

He never talked about his friends, his past, his Mom.

Ever.

And it hit me then.

I knew.

I knew because he was like me.

He was black.

He left his career as an athlete and became a private investigator.

He left his life behind, shut it out, moved on. Everything before Caitlin was gone. He’d pushed it away.

I knew this because I’d done the same thing.

That’s when the idea came to me and my back went straight.

I pul ed my hand from Duke’s, wiped my eyes and asked, “Duke, can you do me a big favor?”

“Anything, love.”

“I need Mace’s Mom’s name and her phone number. But I don’t want Mace to know you gave it to me.” Duke stared at me a second.

Then he smiled and said, “You got it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Crazy Honkies

Stella

“I saw it first!” Leo shouted.

“I don’t care, this tee is mine!” Pong shouted back.

I was standing with Indy and Al y and at the shouts, the three of us looked across Head West to see Pong and Leo standing by a round clothing rack fil ed with t-shirts. They looked like they were playing tug of war with a rainbow, tie-dyed tee stretched tight between them.

Beautiful.

My effing band.

From the look of it, Annette’s store opening was a smash hit. There were people shoulder-to-shoulder, al of them consuming cashews, olives and Ritz crackers spread with squirtable cheese and drinking Fat Tire beer like these were the finest of delicacies. A lot of those people carried brown paper bags with “Head West” stamped on the side of them in old Wild West style lettering, bags that held tshirts, bongs and posters, amongst other things.

It had been fun (thus far) and it was taking our mind off things which we al needed. That day, Shirleen had been shot at (and lost her couch) and my world had been rocked by al that had happened to Mace. A party, even if it had the weird mixture of olives, squirtable cheese and bongs (though the bongs weren’t in use), was exactly what we needed.

Annette was happy as a clam and sifting through the crowd, looking kick-fucking-ass in a cream boat-necked hemp top and khaki loose-fitting hemp trousers. Her feet were bare, al her toes painted in different colors of the rainbow. A thin cream, khaki and green hemp scarf was wrapped around her blonde hair but lots of that hair was poking out here and there, some of it twisted, some of it braided, some of it curled, some of it just hanging.

The store was one day old but looked like it had been there since the 60’s. The wal s were covered in Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead and Jim Morrison posters and big blankets decorated with Celtic symbols or pot leaves.

There were five big, round clothing racks fil ed with t-shirts, sarongs and hemp clothing. There were three flipping poster displays showing posters of rock bands, she-devils riding tigers and psychedelic everything with rol ed up, plastic-covered posters in numbered slots beside them.

There were shelves fil ed with books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Jerry Garcia biographies.

There were glass-topped and sided display cases along the front and down one ful side of the store chock ful of bongs of every shape, size and color, one-hitters also of every shape, size and color, Zippo lighters, bumper and other stickers, incense of every scent known to man as wel as a variety of incense burners, candles and an assortment of other head shop paraphernalia.

The Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch were al in attendance except Mace who, Luke told me, was working and, for the benefit of the Rock Chicks (something Luke didn’t tel me, I just knew), keeping a distance.

The boys were there for security purposes and made this plain by having holstered guns at their belts alongside walkie talkies. Not to mention wearing identical “Don’t f**k with me” expressions on their faces (and, for your with me” expressions on their faces (and, for your information, these expressions were Hot Bunch Universal and, with the wide berth they were al getting from the customers-slash-partiers, effective).