Sorta Like a Rock Star(58)

“That’s a start.”

“It’s something.”

“So?”

“I would like to visit Joan of Old,” I say.

“You sure? I haven’t been to see her yet, but I hear she’s in bad shape.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say.

I follow Old Man Linder through a bunch of depressing hallways full of mauve wallpaper and mauve carpets—finally, we arrive at the hospital wing, which is just another mauve hallway with special hospital-looking rooms.

When a nurse pops out of one of the rooms, Old Man Linder says, “Excuse me, but do you know which room is Joan Osmond’s?”

The nurse doesn’t answer, but points to a door down the hall, so we walk toward it.

Joan of Old is a tiny mountain range under a sky-blue blanket—her sunken pink wrinkled face sticking out, her small head resting on a pillow.

“Can I get a few minutes alone with Joan?” I ask Old Man Linder.

My manager says, “Sure. I’ll wait out here for you.”

I walk into the room and close the door behind me.

I pull up a chair next to the bed.

“Joan?” I say.

Joan of Old doesn’t move.

I can hear her struggling to breathe.

Her mouth is open slightly.

I reach under the blanket and hold her hand.

It’s freezing cold.

“Squeeze if you can hear me,” I say.

Nothing.

“I guess you heard all about my mom and my depression. I’ve been in a room for months, pretty much being a bitch to everyone. I’ve been crying a lot too. True. But what you probably don’t realize is that I cried a whole bunch before my mother was killed too. The Amber you saw during our battles—that was all an act. I’m not very strong. I’m not very hopeful. I’m not very much of anything. I’m just a stupid girl who can tell a few good jokes at pivotal moments and knows how to work a crowd. If you only knew how much I internalized all of your insults. Word. You really have me thinking I have a dinosaur face, which freaks me out a lot. True.”

Joan of Old doesn’t squeeze my hand at all.

I can still hear her breathing.

“I’m starting to think that you are right about life, Joan. Maybe it’s all meaningless? I mean—I still dig JC and all. I still pray, and I still believe in certain people. But that guy who killed my mom—he’s not human, and he scares me, because he is human, and yet he did what he did, which will never make sense, no matter how long I think about it. It’s so random. So vile. It makes me get why you are so mean and cranky. I bet you weren’t like that before your husband died, right?”

Suddenly, Joan of Old squeezes my hand and scares the hell out of me.

“Why are you telling me these things?” Joan asks.

“Were you awake that whole time?”

“Yes.”

“You rotten old lady! Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because I’m gathering information for our last battle—when I will finally make you cry.”

“You can’t be that evil,” I say.

Joan of Old smiles up at me from her pillow, and her wrinkly pink eyelids bore through my forehead.

I shiver.

“Why’d you really come in here, Amber?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Are you going to die?”

“We all die eventually,” Joan of Old says. “That’s just about the only thing God got right.”

“Okay,” I say, “I think I’m going to leave now.”

“When do we battle next? My doctors say I could die any day now.”

“Sorry, I’m retired,” I say.

“You have to give me one last shot at the title.”

Suddenly, Joan of Old just seems too absurd for me to handle, so I walk out of the room.

“Amber? Amber? Amber?” Joan of Old says as I walk down the hall with Old Man Linder.

“What did the old broad say to you?” he asks me, dragging his oxygen bottle behind him.

“She faked like she was sleeping so I would tell her personal things that she could use against me the next time we battle.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

“Because I’m retired?”

“Because she’s going to die any day now. And ding dong the wicked witch will be dead.”

“You know what’s the weirdest thing about that?”

“What?” Old Man Linder asks.

“I’ll miss her.”

“I miss everyone from my past, Amber. I really do. It’s the curse of old age.”

We walk the rest of the way in silence, and just before we reenter the common room, I say, “Will you and Old Man Thompson sing one of your songs at The Bobby Big Boy Variety Show?”

“No one wants to hear two old men sing forgotten songs, Amber. Especially one who needs bottled oxygen to breathe. Singing’s a young person’s game. Who would want to hear me sing?”

“I would.”

Old Man Linder smiles at me all grandfatherly, but his eyes get misty and sad.

When he doesn’t say anything, I give Old Man Linder a kiss on the cheek, and then—in the common room—I make the rounds with BBB, allowing everyone to check out his scar while they give him a pet on the head.