Robinson is not waiting for me.
I climb the stairs. Her bedroom — her bed is a fluffy white confection — is empty. I find her in a second bedroom (a real estate agent would call it a “home office”). She’s changed into these flouncy strawberry shorts and a heather-gray T-shirt: the shorts suggest sex, but the shirt suggests television. She’s staring into a computer monitor—arghh, she’s logged into CrossTracks. Before I can see what she’s reading, she turns the monitor off. She takes my hand and leads me back downstairs. The guest room is a still life — a bed, a ladder-back chair, a spray of dried flowers erupting from a vase that sits on a Federal-style desk. Robinson draws back the top sheet.
She says, “In the morning I’ll feed you.”
Had a person spent as much time on the road as I had, had he walked away from half the things I’d walked away from, had he come to believe it was his lot in life to be a constant stranger, that man could understand my gratitude. I thank her.
“You called me Robinson,” she says.
“Robinson.”
As she draws the door closed between us, she says, “It’s Rosalyn.”
46
Cross planted himself at the head of the stage and thrashed his guitar. He and his men had the high ground. They used their strategic advantage to punish the crowd. What, Peter wondered, had the city of Pittsburgh done to deserve this? Peter wasn’t sure he liked what they were up to, but he couldn’t help but feel awed that a seventy-year-old man could be responsible for such noise.
He watched the faces in the first rows — it was impossible to tell whether they were singing or screaming.
Wayne cupped a hand around Peter’s shoulder. Then, leaning close, he said, “Allie wants an adjustment.”
“I’m not a chiropractor,” Peter shouted
Taking a step back, Wayne raised his hands, a mock surrender. His body said, Don’t shoot the messenger! “He’s waiting for you downstairs.”
“Fine,” Peter said, though not loud enough to be heard. He’d been wishing that he could have gone out into the audience. He wanted to be able to see Cross’s face instead of the audience’s.
•••
Peter followed a set of stairs beneath the stage and under the orchestra pit. Near the end of a concrete hallway, he discovered the cramped, subbasement dressing room that Alistair had commandeered. Cross’s son sat on the makeup table, his back against a large mirror, a ring of frosted bulbs haloed his body. His bare feet hung off the edge of the table, as white as peeled potatoes. Maya sat in front of him shredding buds of pot on the face of an ebook reader. Both occupants looked like they’d been teargassed.
“Herr Doktor,” Alistair said, “welcome to our salon.”
As Peter watched, Maya pinched the weed into a corncob pipe, licked a finger, and swept the gizmo’s screen clean.
“I think I’ll come back later.”
Alistair said, “But you’re the missing ingredient.”
“When’s the show start?” Maya asked.
Peter was sure he could still hear the music. “He’s already playing. Listen.”
“That’s the radio,” Alistair insisted.
“It’s not.” Peter would stand for reason, hopelessly square reason.
“Are you avoiding him?” Maya asked, sucking the lighter’s flame into the bowl.
When she’d finished, Alistair grabbed the pipe and held it, ready, in front of his mouth. “I’m not avoiding anyone.”
“Says the guy in the basement.” A thread of smoke spun up from the corner of her lips.
Peter still couldn’t pin down her accent, some remote British colony. He refused to ask her where she came from. He didn’t want to seem interested; that strategy had worked for him in the past. “I should go,” he said, not moving.
Alistair took another hit. “This is just laundry-folding pot.”
Maya shook her head. “It’s weaponized.”
Alistair tapped the pipe on the table before shoving it and the lighter into his pants pocket. “Do you ascribe to doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“Do I ascribe to it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Wayne said you wanted me to take a look at your back.”
“Fine,” Alistair said, scooting off his perch.
Peter glanced at Maya; at that moment, it appeared she was trying to read her own bare hand.
“She can stay.”
“So we’re clear, I’m not a chiropractor.”
Alistair took a sip from a plastic cup. “Good, I’m not a patient.”
Peter found his stethoscope, pressed the diaphragm against Alistair’s damp and pale wrist. The man’s heart cantered along at 80 bpm. His blood pressure registered on the high side, though within range.
When he palpated Alistair’s lower back, the man winced. Peter lifted the hem of his shirt — the skin around the lumbar vertebrae appeared mottled. “Is this where it hurts?”
“You’ve found the Forbidden City.”
Peter had Alistair do some basic stretches to gauge his flexibility. “It’s probably a mild muscle strain. You should take Advil and try not to irritate it.”
“Do you think I have to be told not to irritate it?”
Peter suggested he try alternating warm and cold compresses.
Alistair rolled his eyes. “I assume that’s if I want to feel more uncomfortable.”
It seemed that Alistair had sent for Peter because he’d wanted to be entertained. This suspicion was strengthened when Alistair suggested that the three of them find a restaurant.
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” said Maya.
“Perfect,” Alistair said. “I saw a pierogi place nearby. We’ll drink vodka and have donuts for dessert. It’ll be an all-potato meal.”
Peter couldn’t sneak out. He wasn’t merely on call — he’d agreed to be embedded and he needed to stay embedded. “I can’t leave the building.”
“My father won’t fire his new pet for insubordination.”
Peter decided to take the high road — he’d seen what happened when Dom had tried to quarrel with Alistair. He didn’t want to be humiliated in front of Maya.
“We can bring something back for you,” she said, which he found encouraging.
And he really was hungry. Since lunch, all he’d had was an oatmeal cookie. “It’s up to you,” he said, “I guess I’ll be backstage.”
“We’ll bring you something,” Alistair said, “but wait here. If you head upstairs, I’ll have to deal with people and I’m not in the mood for that sort of hassle. The place is only a block away.” With the pipe staked in the corner of his mouth, Cross’s son looked like the love child of General MacArthur and Genghis Khan.
“What can we get you?” asked Maya.
“Surprise me.”
Maya said, “We’ll be quick.”
“He literally said, ‘Surprise me,’” Alistair was talking to the girl.
WHEN PETER LEANED his head against the wall he could hear something, but he was no longer sure if he was listening to the band or the audience or the building itself.
He hoped Alistair had given up on the pierogi place and brought him back a cheeseburger. If he was getting into shape, then his muscles needed protein. Not if he was getting into shape — it was happening. He’d never been able to stick with an exercise program; he’d always found it a little vain, like tanning. He suspected Lucy had slipped that notion into his head. Or, who knows, maybe Judith had made some offhand remark that stuck with him. How much of who he was had he cribbed from other people?
Up on the ceiling a red light flashed intermittently; Peter kept losing it and finding it again. He couldn’t be sure if it belonged to a smoke detector or a camera.