Purple Hearts(8)

“Thank you,” I called, chest heaving. I stepped back from the mic, grabbed Nora’s wrist. “Be right back.”

Nora swallowed, stepped up to the mic next to me. “We’ve got EPs for sale back at merch, and thank you to Les RAV for having us . . .”

Panic struck. Darkness rimmed my eyes as I left the stage, holding on to whatever I could to stay steady as I found the door to the greenroom.

“Are you okay?” Toby’s voice sounded behind me.

I didn’t answer. My legs started to give out, so I knelt, too hard, bruising.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I heard him step closer, and he held my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not feeling good, T,” I tried to say, the words slurring together. I crawled toward the wall.

“Should I get your mom?” He was next to me again, kneeling, too, soft blue jeans. I was covered in cold sweat.

“No, no.” I flopped my hand, dismissing, embarrassed. “It’ll pass. Go back out there.”

I opened my eyes—when had I closed my eyes?—to Toby’s face in front of mine, in a haze. He looks like white Jesus, I thought. How had I never noticed this before? Brown hair, reddish beard, blue eyes. Not Cat Stevens.

He felt my forehead. He had taken out his phone. “Should I call 911?”

“No, no, no, no, no,” I said. The room tipped again. No money for the ambulance. “Just stay here for a second.”

Toby scooted next to me.

Through the wall, I heard Nora tell the audience to have a good night. What was happening? This seemed like more than skipping lunch. This was serious. I fought the urge to cry.

“I’m calling 911,” I heard Toby say. I saw black rain, felt my neck go slack. I couldn’t answer.

? ? ?

Mom had ridden with me in the ambulance. I’d blinked in and out until I was awake enough to drink some orange juice. The paramedic had said it was likely a blood sugar issue. Now we were at Seton Northwest, waiting for the doctors to release me.

“You used to be such a good eater.” Mom sat next to me between blue curtains in the ER. She took her thumb and scraped under my eyes, frowning.

“I’m still a good eater.” I was grateful she wasn’t there to see the worst of it.

She clicked her tongue. “Your makeup makes you look like a streetwalker.”

“That’s not nice.”

Considering my mother dropped out of college to live in Austin with my father out of wedlock, she was three thousand times less Catholic than most Puerto Rican mothers, but she still had a mean streak.

She tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “You’re making yourself sick. You need a stable job.”

“I want music to be my job. That’s why I invited you.”

“Oh, boy. Cass. Come on. You should have been in bed,” she said, shaking her head. “Not out in the middle of the night. It’s ten thirty.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Any good feeling I had gotten from the crowd, from Toby’s surprising attentiveness, had faded. “I poured my heart out onstage and that’s all you have to say.”

“Ch, ch, ch. Don’t get riled.”

A nurse walked by. We both looked up. She passed. Not for us.

“Your drummer was nice to call,” Mom said, a tone in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said, and stopped myself before saying more. It wasn’t worth the hassle. She was already on my case about the band. Might as well save what “friends with benefits” meant for another time. Toby and I had a history of landing in all sorts of situations, many of them involving a bed, but fainting was a first. He was probably freaking out. Nora, too.

“You’ve got to take it easy.” She took my hand, stroking my forearm. “You’ve got a brain. This is a good hobby. You haven’t signed up for the LSAT course, you haven’t dropped by to pick up the prep books that I bought for you. Instead you’re doing this, passing out all over the place. I can’t help but wonder why, Cass.”

I pulled away and bit my thumbnail, because if I didn’t, I’d start yelling at her. Finally, I muttered, “I’m trying to show you why.”

“Sorry.” She sighed. “I just don’t see why you can’t do a good job singing and go to law school at the same time.”

I was forming a retort, but a doctor in a white coat entered.

Mom took a breath and pursed her lips. I took her hand again. We weren’t stay mad people, Mom and I, we were just get mad people. We learned this as we grew up together—it’s hard to stay angry at the person who is also your only entertainment.

“Cassandra?” the doctor asked, adjusting her glasses as she looked at a clipboard.

“Cassie,” I corrected.

“I’m Dr. Mangigian. So we’re here today because you lost consciousness?”

“Yeah. I got all shivery and blacked out.”

“Mm. Yeah. I’m looking at your chart here . . .” She paused and looked at me. “Do you find yourself having to frequently urinate?”

I thought of moments in traffic, or at band practice, when I would have to leave in the middle of a conversation, practically sprinting up Nora’s stairs. “Yes. I’ve always had a small bladder.”

“Do you experience thirst and hunger at a high degree?” I recalled chugging two Gatorades the other night, craving a third.