No answer.

“They didn’t like the first episode?” I knew they had. “They didn’t like Jeremy?”

“I didn’t mean for this to be a NARKOTIKA reunion show.

Is Victor going to appear out of the woodwork?”

I could feel the song drain out of me. “I can pretty much guarantee that is not going to happen.”

There was a very long pause from behind me. I heard Baby tapping away at her electronic life while I flicked on the speaker and concentrated on making the biggest, fattest, meanest synthswell this apartment had ever heard.

The chord grew and grew until I was imagining the album cover and the number of tracks on the back and the feeling of releasing it out into the world to sink or swim — only they always swam; it was only ever me that sank — and wondering what in the world I would call myself if I wasn’t called NARKOTIKA.

Finally, Baby said (loudly, to be heard over the biggest, fattest, meanest synthswell this apartment had ever heard), “Here is the deal. You aren’t going to take Chip back?”

I released the chord I’d been hitting. The sound slowly trailed off. “Who the hell is Chip? Oh. No. I’m sticking with Jeremy.”

“Then here’s the deal,” she said again. “This is yours now.”

I turned. In her outstretched hand was a phone. “What’s this?”

She didn’t answer until I’d taken it, reluctantly. “Your new work phone. I just signed you up for every social media avenue on the Internet. And I told the world you’re going to be handling all those personally. You want to be able to call the shots on the band? You’re going to have to work twice as hard for it.”

I stared at the phone in my hand. “You have murdered me.”

“You would know if I’d murdered you.”

I groaned.

“Don’t even,” Baby said, standing. “Don’t act like I’m your jailer. Because we both want the same thing. This show does well, I get to do another one. This show does well, you don’t have to tour for the rest of your life. So get to work and don’t forget you have studio time booked for this afternoon.”

I got to work.

Because she was right.

Chapter Seventeen

· isabel ·

“What’s the next meal?” Cole asked me.

“Lunch,” I replied. I glanced at the classroom door to make sure it stayed closed as I walked in the direction of the girls’

restroom. Bathroom breaks were the only allowed excuse to escape my CNA class, a fact that seemed to trouble only me.

The other students in the class seemed genuinely engaged, a concept I could only understand if I told myself they hadn’t read the textbook closely enough to note the redundancies in their learning experiences.

In any case, Cole’s number on my vibrating phone screen was more than enough to make me play the bathroom card. In the hallway, I tried to breathe through my mouth. It takes a certain sort of intestinal fortitude to willingly enter another high school after you’d graduated from your own. The sheer smell of the hall triggered a variety of feelings, any one of which would have been a good topic for a therapy session.

Cole said, “Tell me you want me.”

I pushed into the bathroom. “I have a very short lunch break.”

“I forgot that you were being educated. Teach me something you’ve just been taught.”

“We’re working on professional courtesy. It turns out that no matter how friendly you are with the clients, you’re not supposed to call them sweetie.”

“You are going to make a great C-A-N. C-N-A. Right?

Although you do have a great C-A-N.”

In the mirror, my mouth smiled. It looked mean and happy.

“Doctor,” I replied. “I am going to med school. This is just a necessary evil.” Although that wasn’t strictly true. I could probably get into a fine premed program without it. But I didn’t want fine. There was very little point to fine.

“Come get me,” Cole said piteously. “In your car. My car makes me look like a loser.”

“That’s not your car,” I said, and Cole snickered at himself.

“I’ll come get you. But I’m picking the place this time.”

I hung up. I didn’t want to go back into class. I didn’t want to do my clinicals this week, either. I didn’t want to roll old people over and clean whatever was left beneath them. I didn’t want to be told by my instructor that I needed to smile when I introduced myself to clients. I didn’t want to have to put the gloves on and have that gross hand-glove feeling that happened after I pulled them off. I didn’t want to feel like I was the only person in the world who hated people.

You’re taking a class in this.

You’re going to be a doctor.

This is life.

In the mirror, I looked stark and out of place in front of the worn stall doors. I wasn’t sure if that was actually how I looked or just how I stood, with my elbows tucked so that nothing in the room would accidentally touch me. That was the rule: Nothing was to touch me.

I didn’t know why I kept letting Cole break it.

An hour later, Cole and I were headed to lunch at an obscure L.A. food establishment.

I wasn’t sure why people still got credit for “finding” obscure places to eat. Friends of your parents took you and your mother to some tiny place that made great omelets or something, and the friends preened as if they’d invented omelets, and your mother’s all, “How did you ever find this place?!” I could tell you the answer: the Internet. Five minutes, a zip code, and cursory access to the Internet would grant anyone the secrets to culinary obscurity.

It pissed me off when people called common sense a magical power. Because if it counted, I was the most magical creature I knew.

I took Cole to a place that I’d discovered with my magical powers, a hole-in-thewall pie shop that was easy to drive by if you didn’t know where you were going. Outside, the front was painted a deep purple. Inside was L.A. at its most visually appealing. The skinny eat-in area was concrete floors, sparse white walls, and reclaimed wood benches. The air was coffee and butter. The ordering area was tiny and quaint: a cooler with interesting drinks, chalkboard menu, a pie case full of delights.

I had tried them all, from the velvety citrus tarts to the salty caramel drizzle chocolate pies.