“Just put it in the goal, baby,” he told me.
The next day was hell.
We had a live set to be played on local radio, and that had to be canceled, but there were two television appearances to do, and there was no way out of those. Graham had slept in my room, dozing in the easy chair by the desk, and every time I’d woken to vomit or use the bathroom, he’d been there.
The first television spot was live, for an audience, and when I saw myself on the monitors, I knew the makeup chair hadn’t been enough. I looked awful, and even though my hands knew what to do, Van froze me out during the set, and even Click kept his distance. The worst part was that after we’d finished playing “Queen of Swords,” the host wanted time with Van in the chair, and that meant that Click and I had to stay on the stage, beneath the lights. It took supreme effort to keep from being sick again.
Then we changed studios and did another set. This one went a little better, but not much.
As soon as we were finished, Graham carted me back to the hotel, and put me back to bed. The good news was that we had the night off. The bad was that we were flying to New York in the morning, to do an MTV gig, and that we were all supposed to meet in the lobby at six.
I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might be sober by then.
I was, but not enough that I realized what I was seeing when I reached the lobby the next morning. I had my bags and my flight case for the Tele, and I came out of the elevator and into the lobby with the dawn just starting to stream in through the hotel’s windows, bouncing harsh off the marble floor. Beyond the service counter there was a little sitting area, and they were all already there, Van, Click, and Graham, seated around a little coffee table.
Click saw me making toward them first, and he reached out and tapped Van’s bare knee through her torn Levi’s, said something. She and Graham both looked my way, standing up, and Click followed to his feet a second later, slower.
None of them had any bags visible, and I supposed it could have meant that they’d already loaded them, but even as I thought that, I knew it wasn’t the case. A weird tightness crawled across my chest, as if trying to squeeze, but from the inside, and I could feel my heart beating, not like it was faster, but as if it had suddenly grown larger, as if each pulse threatened to rupture my chest.
Van had one of her trademark tank tops on, a black one with a silver logo in its center. The logo was an image of a stylized, almost Art Deco, woman, standing in a swirling G, and beneath the letter was the word “Girlfiend.” It was the name of a lesbian boutique in Los Angeles, on La Cienega, though Van didn’t wear the shirt because she was advertising a preference; she wore it because it made the boys crazy. Her skin was clear and her eyes were bright, and her hair professionally unruly. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, and when she smiled, her lips seemed to almost pale away against her face.
“Mim,” she said, and for a moment I thought that I could get forgiveness without asking. Then the smile went away, and I wasn’t going to see it again.
“This is ominous.” I tried to make it sound flip. It didn’t.
“We’ve got to talk about some changes.” She was watching me closely, not quite staring, but really focusing. Then she gestured at the seat that Click had vacated and added, “You want to sit down?”
I looked at Graham, but Graham wasn’t having any, focusing instead on the leather portfolio he was holding in his hands. Click barely gave me eye contact before looking away to Vanessa.
“You’re canning me?” I directed it at Van, trying to keep my voice strong. It came out too loud, and bounced around the lobby. Early risers glanced our way.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Van motioned at the chair again, then fell back into hers.
I stared at her, but she was only giving me her profile now, facing the empty seat. Neither Graham nor Click made a move or a sound.
I had to set down my bags to take the chair, and it was clumsy, and humiliating.
Van waited for me to get settled. “You were really fucked-up yesterday.”
“Are you canning me?” I asked again.
Van shook her head slightly, as if to say that I had her wrong, that wasn’t what this was about at all. “Been a long tour, Mim.”
“Why won’t you give me an answer?”
“Gonna be even longer, now that we’ve added all those European dates.” She glanced past me, around the lobby. Out the windows, you could see the harbor and the opera house. “I’m not sure you’re up to it.”
“What—I don’t even understand what . . . what are you saying, Van?”
She focused on me again. “Your drinking’s way out of control.”
Heat flared in my cheeks and neck, and I realized the humiliation I’d been feeling had simply been the orchestra tuning up, going through their scales. We’d hit the overture now. I opened my mouth and couldn’t find my voice enough to respond.
“We’re worried about you.”
“You bitch,” I said.
“Mim, you were so drunk the second night in Melbourne you barely made it through the encore.”
“My playing stands,” I said. “My playing is solid, this is not about my fucking playing!”
“You don’t need to shout.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this! You didn’t have shit to sing before I came along, you were an actress with a rhythm section, that’s it! Now you’re cutting me loose because I drink? At least I’m not chasing dick onstage, Vanessa!”
She pinked up, and maybe was rethinking her choice of setting for the scene. “What I do in my time has never gotten in the way of the band.”
“You’re full of shit,” I said. “This isn’t about my drinking, that’s just your fucking excuse. This is about that fucking Stone piece, that’s what this is about.”
“What?”
“You don’t want me eclipsing your light. You don’t want anyone looking past you and your bass to see me on guitar.”
“Jesus, are you still drunk? You’re not threatening me, Mim, and you never have. You can’t, it’s not in you. I’ve never argued that you weren’t the better musician, the better writer. I’ve never pretended that wasn’t the case. But if you were up front, Tailhook would never have come this far. Because even though you can play like fire, you’re a crap showgirl.”
“Fuck you—”
“This is about the band!”
The shout shut me, and everyone else in the lobby, up.
Van wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, lines digging in around her eyes. “Graham has a check for you. What you’re owed from the last four gigs. He’s got a ticket for you, too, back home, the flight’s in a couple hours. I’ve talked to A&R and the label, and they know the situation, and I’ve told them that we’re replacing you for the rest of the tour.”
“You tell the press that I got canned because of a drinking problem, I will personally run a truck over you first chance I get.”
“Jesus, Mim, I’m your friend, I would never do that!” She shook her head slightly, as if she couldn’t believe I could be so hurtful. “There’ll be a statement, saying that you’re wasted from the tour, that you just need some time off. We’ll be back home in June, and we’ll talk then, see if we can’t give it another try.”
I stared at her, disbelieving. Graham had come over to my side, was crouching down on his haunches, opening the portfolio. He took two envelopes and tried to hand them to me, and when I wouldn’t take them, dropped them in my lap. He murmured something to me, but I didn’t hear it.
“You’re really doing this,” I said to Van.