The Accidentals(76)

I watch Norah dart away. The sudden motion makes me feel more than a little nauseous. When Norah returns, I let myself be led away. Outside I gulp cold air, and Norah helps the situation immensely by not trying to talk to me. The hotel is only across the street, and I soon find myself in an overly bright elevator, the floor moving unevenly beneath my feet.

“I don’t feel good,” I say.

When the elevator stops on our floor, Norah scrambles toward our rooms. She flicks her key card against a door and sweeps it open for me.

I press my lips together and move as quickly as I can. But Norah’s room is the reverse of my own, and it’s confusing enough to delay my voyage toward the toilet. At the last second, Norah puts a wastebasket under my face, and I vomit into it.

“Shot scored,” Norah remarks.

“Oh, hell,” I groan.

“Been there,” Norah says with a sigh. “Come on. Let’s go to your room.”

When I cross through the adjoining doors and sit down on my own bed, I feel the slightest bit better. I hear Norah go into the bathroom and dump out the basket. She fills it with water from the bathtub and then dumps it again.

“Where’re your PJs?” she calls.

I wobble toward my bag. I can’t let Norah do everything. Although it takes forever to change, since any quick movement makes me want to throw up. “I think it might happen again,” I say in a small voice.

“The wastebasket is right here,” Norah says. “Or you could always try the toilet.”

“Oh,” I moan. My stomach feels foamy and hot. I stand up and take myself into the bathroom just in time to puke again. I wipe my mouth with toilet paper and flush twice.

“All right.” Norah sighs. “You’re going to be fine. It’s not the most memorable ending to your first concert, but everybody does it at some point.”

“It’s not,” I say. It’s bitter medicine to be cared for by Norah.

“It’s not what?”

“My first concert.”

“My bad.” Norah is giving me a wide berth, but I don’t take it.

“I was thirteen. He played Orlando.” I open my eyes to find Norah watching me, curiosity written all over her face. I close my eyes again. “I spent all my money on a scalped ticket.”

“Oh Rachel,” Norah whispers.

Unfortunately, that’s only part of the story. First, I’d begged my mother to get tickets. The concert had been in June. “For my birthday,” I’d bargained. “My only present.”

“Well, that’s just pathetic,” my mother had said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to pay for tickets to his concert.”

“Then ask for them,” I pleaded. There was a P.O. box number on the checks. My mother always said she didn’t know where he was, but I knew it was just an excuse.

“You know I’m not going to do that,” she’d said. She wouldn’t even speak his name, let alone ask him for a favor.

I’d expected my mother to cave in and buy me a ticket. But she didn’t. For my birthday, I received a pretty dress from Abercrombie and an iTunes gift card.

“You went to the concert by yourself?” Norah asks me now. Her voice is cautious.

I burp before answering her. “I was grounded for a month afterward.”

And it hadn’t even been worth it. I was high up in the second balcony, and Frederick was a tiny Lego minifigure below. Every fantasy I’d ever had about meeting him was shattered that night. Somehow, I’d expected that he would notice I was there, or someone would spot me and alert him.

I was only thirteen. That night, I’d felt lost in the crowd of thousands. The cheering mob, concert T-shirts I couldn’t afford, and a long bus ride home afterwards just added to my misery. And the funk had lasted for months, souring my interest in everything.

Norah’s voice cuts through the fog in my head. “Rachel, did you ever tell your father about that?”

“No.” My voice sounds like gravel. “And neither will you.”





I throw up only once more, after which there’s a lull in my misery. Then my head begins to ache. I lay alone in the dark. The doors between our rooms are left ajar, and I can hear Norah turning the pages of her book.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I register my father’s voice, he and Norah are arguing in the dark.

“Why didn’t you come and get me?” he asks.

“There was no need. It’s not a big deal.”

“Like hell it isn’t! There are creepy guys who work these things. If she wants to come along on junkets, this can’t happen. I have to be able to turn my back for a couple of hours without hiring a nanny.”

The sound of his voice comes closer, and I flinch.

“You wait a minute,” Norah’s whisper is a hiss. “Calm down first. There’s something you don’t understand. Not all of us are used to sitting at the cool kids’ table,” she says. “This is all pretty hard to take. And I have a question.”

I stop breathing. I’d been stupid to confide in Norah. But the temptation to shock her had been too strong.

“What?”

“Have you ever had a serious argument with Rachel? Has she ever challenged you in any real way?”