A couple people at the counter heard him and glanced over at us.
“Stop,” I said.
Mikel turned in his seat, as if trying to find a waiter, raising a hand, snapping his fingers silently. “Pardon, garçon? A bottle of Cristal, if you please?”
“Knock it off, Mikel.”
“A dozen white roses with which to adorn her hair.” He turned back to me, really amused, the grin making creases around his eyes. “The purest mountain spring water to bathe her fair and adored flesh.”
I tried to glare him into silence, to really ratchet it up, but his smile did it, and I cracked, started giggling. Our plates came and I poured syrup on my pancakes and Mikel dumped most of a bottle of Tabasco on his scramble, and I waited until the waitress had departed before speaking again.
“I’m not a prima donna,” I told him.
“You want me to cut that for you? I’d be happy to slice it into perfectly uniform bits, then feed them to you with a caviar spoon.”
“You don’t even know what a caviar spoon looks like.”
“For one such as yourself, such a failing on my part is inconceivable. I shall throw myself into traffic at once, of course.”
“But who will I get to cut my pancakes?”
He laughed again. “Okay, I’ll let you feed yourself. But if Vanessa asks about the syrup, I’m telling the truth.”
“Fuck Vanessa,” I said, with sincere bile.
Mikel stopped his fork halfway to his mouth. “What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“So why should I rush out and fuck Vanessa? Not that I’d mind, of course.”
“She sent me home.”
“You’re not back on a break?”
I shook my head, used my fork to cut a not-very-uniform piece of pancake. “They’re in New York. She’s replacing me with Oliver Clay.”
“Who’s Oliver Clay?”
“You haven’t met him. He’s a session guy, out of Seattle, we used him for backing tracks on ‘Energize’ and ‘Tomorrow-Today-Tonight.’ He’s taking my place for the rest of the tour.”
Mikel ate a bite, then a second one, studying me. I pushed my pancakes around, suddenly not wanting them.
“At least I don’t have to worry about Van telling me to watch my figure,” I said.
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing, I told you.”
“You have a fight?”
I shook my head.
He set his utensils down, leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Mim?”
“It’s exhaustion,” I said. “They’re making the announcement sometime today. Saying that I’m taking the rest of the tour off.”
“Exhaustion.”
“Yeah.”
“Miriam?”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
He didn’t move, keeping his head close, and I kept looking at my plate, at the islands of pancake and the sea of syrup. I knew what it was he was thinking, I knew he suspected. He quit drinking in his late teens, and I could feel his judgment, and I thought about calling him a hypocrite.
We finished eating, but the conversation went shallow, mostly Mikel asking questions about the tour. We’d hit Japan before Australia, with two nights in New Zealand in between, and he was curious about Christchurch. He knew a couple of software people who’d had protracted stays in New Zealand while working postproduction on a series of films, and apparently all of them had raved about what a great place the country was.
“Nice crowds,” I told him. “Nice hotel. Venue was cool, very modern. Great acoustics. I broke three strings on the Tele the first night and had to finish the second set using my alternate, but I don’t think anyone but me and Fabrizio noticed.”
“Fabrizio?”
“My guitar tech. Nice guy. Fat little guy. But nice.”
“That’s all you can say about New Zealand?”
“That’s all of New Zealand that I experienced. If you want more, I can try to remember the hotel room décor and what I ate for dinner each night.”
We finished eating and the check came, and I snatched it before Mikel could, and he tried to go all big brotherly on me.
“Give it.”
“No.” I dug around in my jacket for my wallet.
“Give it here, Miriam.”
“Are you rich?”
“I’m comfortable.”
“Yeah, well, I have been told that I am stinking rich,” I said. “My treat.”
It was hard for him to argue with that. We paid and went outside, and the rain had stopped. The sky was the color of a muddy sheet. Mikel waited while I lit a cigarette, then asked what my plans were.
“Home,” I said. “Sleep.”
“You sure you want to go home?”
“Don’t know what else my choices are. I mean, I either go home, or I never go home, right?”
“I’m just asking if you’re up to it.”
“I’m upper to it now than I was before I called you. Daylight makes it better, I think. I should probably do some shopping, get some groceries in.”
“I’ll keep you company.”
I glanced at him suspiciously. “Overprotective much?”
“Only when you let me.”
“Mikel.”
“Let me keep you company,” he said gently. “We’ll go shopping, I’ll go back to your place with you, I’ll look around, we’ll call the Scanalert people and tell them to turn your system back on. It’ll make me feel better.”
I thought about protesting, but didn’t really want to. I didn’t want him to see that I thought he was being really sweet, either, so instead I shrugged and headed back to my Jeep, telling him I wanted to go to Fred Meyer. He followed me down Sandy Boulevard, and when I checked in my rearview mirror, I could see him behind his wheel, watching my progress and the traffic, all the while talking on his mobile phone. He caught me looking at the light and gave me a grin.
I grinned back and shook my head. For all his many faults, I adore my brother.
He almost makes up for our fuck-awful parents.
We stopped by the bank first, so I could get some cash out of the ATM, and I checked all my accounts, not just my savings. It was the first time I’d actually seen my balance in months, and I was a little surprised at the numbers. According to my checking balance alone, I was maybe a very rich girl, indeed.
The machine only let me withdraw four hundred dollars, and I took it to the Fred Meyer on Broadway. Freddy’s is a mammoth combo-store, groceries and clothing and household supplies, and a couple of them even have electronics and jewelry departments, and I’ve never been in one when it wasn’t busy, no matter what time of day or night. Freddy’s also has the slowest checkers in the world, which doesn’t help things. But for one-stop shopping in the Portland metro area, it can’t be beat.
We were there about an hour, getting everything I needed or might need to reactivate my life at home. It would have taken less time, but I got cornered early in the cereal aisle by three teens, two girls and a guy who should have been in school. Either the news hadn’t broken yet or they hadn’t heard, because they immediately started looking for Van and Click, as if we all three did our shopping together.
I asked them their names and introduced them to my brother. We talked about how amazing Van and Click were, and then I told them that I had to get back home because it was past my bedtime. They laughed.
“You’re my favorite,” one of the girls told me. “You kick total ass.”
They went away, toward baking supplies. Mikel was smiling slightly.
“It’s not a thing,” I told him.
“You can be very nice when you want to be. Very gracious.”
“They’re not asking for much.”
“Suppose that depends on where you’re standing.”
I dropped two boxes of shredded wheat in the already full shopping cart. The baking supplies aisle was down below our position on cereal, and I could see the three kids picking out bags of chocolate chips. One of them was looking back at me, speaking to the others, and she waved when she saw my look, so I waved back, then turned away.