Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(9)

He wore an expression both shocked and ferocious. I swung a full bottle of beer at it. The bottle didn’t break, but it hit his temple with a thok. I lost my grip, and inertia pulled the bottle out of my hand and onto the ground. It landed at my feet in a sunburst of suds.

Kevin was crouched, holding his bleeding head. I didn’t know whether to help him or run away. I was shocked into inaction until he came at me. Then I ran.

I ran into the studio, through the kitchen and his workroom, past the installation in its finished form, down the hall, and out the door. When I got to the front, where my car was parked, the metal front door didn’t slam right away. He was right behind me, his gorgeous face smeared with blood.

“Kevin. Stop!”

He didn’t stop. He grabbed my arm and threw me against my Honda.

Fuck.

My keys were in the studio.

I swung. He ducked. I had my opening. I ran down the block and didn’t stop until I heard music.

CHAPTER 6.

MONICA

Like any self-respecting Angelino, I kept my phone in my pocket. The party I’d found was hopping with kegs and disorganized bottles on a paper-covered table. Art covered the warehouse walls, some of the silkscreens tilted from encounters with drunken partiers.

I called work when I found a quiet corner..

“Hi, Debbie? I can’t make it tonight. Something happened.”

“What’s ‘something’?”

“It’s personal.”

“If you’re screwing my girls over, I get to know why.”

I didn’t want to go through the whole thing. I’d already shown my manager enough unprofessional behavior. “I left my car keys behind a locked door. I’m trying to get my roommate on the phone, but he’s not picking up. I don’t think he’ll get here in time to get me to work.”

She sighed and covered the phone to talk to one of the staff. “Where are you? I’ll send Robert.”

Shit. I could feel my face throbbing where Kevin had hit me. I couldn’t go to work like that. “No, Debbie. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell the whole thing. I was in a fight. I’m not presentable.”

“Stop arguing and text me where you are.”

She hung up.

My face was throbbing with the bump of the music. The warehouse space had been coopted for the night by German Benefactors, an artist’s cooperative just starting to make waves. The place was huge, and packed, and smelling of piss where it was dark. Though two outstanding DJs had been hired, no one had thought to bring in a Port-a-Potty.

So I was forced out into the light, clutching some reddish drink, putting the cold plastic up to my face, avoiding people I might know.

Which didn’t work. Ute Graden, a struggling actress of German descent with naturally white hair, found me sitting on a cinderblock wall by the street, watching my phone and the road for Robert. She and her four friends milled around, sipping, laughing, and talking about their work and dreams. They were part of my crowd. My world, and I felt so out of it.

Ute and I made small talk about our careers, where I mentioned nothing about a song I had to pull from Carnival because I’d promised my ex-lover I would.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“Fell on some bad sidewalk. Fucking Frogtown’s falling apart.”

“Looks nasty.”

“Hurts, too. Hey, what ever happened with that indie film you were doing? About the prostitute with the kids?”

“Ran out of money, like, midway through. I’m ‘on call’ but...oh hello.”

She was looking over my shoulder. I followed her gaze, and once a crowd of boys in turned caps and low-slung skinny jeans passed, I saw Jonathan across the street, waiting for cars to pass.

“Oh, f**king f**kery,” I said.

“Yeah. Head to toe. That’s a man.”

“If nothing else.” God damn you, Debbie. You are such a yenta. What was her deal? Was she my boss or my mother? I was going to have to have an honest, respectful, non-job-losing conversation with her.

As he strode across the street, I saw what Ute saw. He had on simple trousers and a sweater with a leather jacket. In contrast to the rest of the men at the party, who spent hours looking as though they didn’t care what they wore, Jonathan looked neat and put together, as if he cared. He was tall and lean and straight, with his hair brushed back off his forehead. He owned the world and everything in it. The difficulty of staying away from him was so past his looks, so past any single physical attribute, and fell into a new, undefined category of “right.”

I set my back straighter and tilted my chin up. I thought Debbie would send Robert, but instead I’d have to pretend I was fine and my face wasn’t pounding.

“He’s coming over here,” said Ute, brushing her hair flat.

“He’s my ride,” I said.

Her eyebrows arched.

I paused. Jonathan liked blondes, if his wife was any indication. Ute was beautiful. She’d do well with him.

I thought about adding a short explanation. Maybe ‘I’m in love with him, but I left him’ or ‘he was my lover, boyfriend, master, king...’ None of it worked, and by the time I came up with ‘we were together for a while,’ he was upon us.

“Hey,” he said, and that voice went right into my gut and ripped stuff out.