The Accidentals(74)

“That’s not…” I clench my teeth. Fair? True? I can’t think. All I know is that I’m so embarrassed I’ve begun to sweat. I jump to my feet, and so he stands up too. He moves close, as if to hug me, but I spin around and leave his room, flying down two flights of stairs and back into my own.

Aurora isn’t home, and so there’s nobody to hear me cry.





Chapter Twenty-Five





Instead of studying, I sit in the back of the bus, watching Vermont go by.

“You can bring Aurora to the concert,” my father offered yesterday. “There’ll be two beds in your hotel room.”

“I think she’s busy,” I’d told him, although it isn’t true. I’d wanted to go to a concert with him so badly, for so long. I wanted this trip to be mine alone.

Only it isn’t. I should have known better.

Norah has come along too, and it’s her first concert and her first time meeting the band. Naturally, they’re enthralled with her. Even before we’d boarded the bus, Ernie, Henry, and the rest circled Norah with the same curiosity they’d shown me, but with none of the strained awkwardness.

Across the aisle from me, Norah spreads a document on the bus’s back table, then pulls a calculator from her bag. “Sorry, I don’t usually geek out during happy hour,” she says. “But I owe someone a response by five o’clock.”

Ernie plops down next to me. “Don’t apologize! We’re fascinated. Freddy’s girlfriends don’t usually come with calculators.”

“Freddy’s girlfriends don’t usually come with brains,” the keyboardist puts in from one row up.

My father makes an irritated noise.

Henry hovers in the aisle. “What can I get everybody to drink? Norah, a beer?”

“Seltzer?” she asks. When Henry goes away, she drops her voice. “I might as well wear a sandwich board that says ‘pregnant girlfriend.’”

“Well, gosh,” I hear myself say. “There’s never been a pregnant girlfriend around musicians before.”

Frederick’s laugh is a bark. “Good one, kid.”

Norah’s eyes flash in my direction. But I just look away.





Four hours later, we pull up at the hotel, and everyone gets off except for Henry. “The rez is in your name,” he tells Frederick.

“Where’s Henry going?” I ask.

“We’re a little late for our load-in,” Frederick says, without bothering to explain what that means.

“Bonjour,” the doorman calls. I’m about to discover how disconcerting it is to ride a few hours north and find that everyone speaks French.

“Good afternoon,” my father says to the woman at the desk. “Reservations for Ricks.”

“Oui,” she says, typing furiously into her terminal. While everyone watches, she frowns into the screen.

I see Norah duck into a door marked Femmes. And when she returns a couple of minutes later, the people behind the desk seem no closer to handing out keys. A manager has swooped in to assist the desk agent, and Norah puts an elbow on the counter to listen to their rapid French.

“Excusez-moi,” Norah breaks in after a minute. “Le nom est R-I-C-K-S, ne Riche.”

“Ah, merci!” the manager exclaims.

A minute later, six room reservations are located.

“I guess they’re not fans of yours, honey,” Norah says over her shoulder, while the band gapes at her.

“Gawd,” Ernie says. “Freddy’s gone upscale. First a smart kid, and now a girlfriend who speaks French. I fear for my own job security.”

“Trust me,” Norah says. “This is a rare use of my expensive education. I’m useful in Germany too.”

“Really? I didn’t know you spoke German,” my father says.

It’s Everyone-be-Gaga-Over-Norah Day.





I’m given the hotel room adjoining Frederick and Norah’s. Even after I close the pass-through door to change my clothes, I can hear muffled voices from the other side.

Frederick sings to himself, warming up. Then he breaks off to say, “Damn, you look sexy in that. How am I going to keep my mitts off you?”

“Just keep two hands on the guitar, cowboy.”

I go into the bathroom and turn the water on full blast.

Eventually my father knocks on the connecting door. “Rachel, Henry says the opening act is half done. Let’s head over.” The venue is just across the street.

I open the door. “Coming.”

He puts something in my hand, two little plastic balls with tubes in them.

“What is this?”

“Earplugs. You need to wear them if you’re hanging around me.”

“Really?”

“Don’t want to damage your hearing. I wear them too.”

Norah holds an identical pair. “We can look like aliens together.”

“Also, you need these.” He gives us each a lanyard with a pass on it.

“Thanks,” I say as casually as possible. It says, BAND. Tomorrow, it will go right into my keepsake drawer.

We cross the street, where Henry stands tapping his foot outside the back door of the theater. “Let’s go,” he says, leading us inside and then through the bowels of the building. We sail through a green room. The last door has STAGE printed on it. Then suddenly I’m standing in the wings of an enormous theater, with a roaring crowd filling every seat.