“Where is Guy, anyway?” says Howdy Doody.
“L.A.,” I say. “Working with Aimee Mann.”
A chick with shiny jet-black hair, dressed in a flowing black outfit, sits down next to Howdy Doody and kisses him on the cheek. Then she smiles at me. “It’s our little rock-star-to-be,” she says. It’s strange, but I keep thinking I see a stud in her nose, or her eyebrow, or her lip, but I don’t. She leans across the table, putting her chin on her hands, and smiles at me. “Yeah,” she says, and sits up. “You’re you.”
I laugh. “Well that’s good to know.”
“I’m the one who does that column at Hits.”
“I vanna be adored,” says Howdy Doody.
“What?”
“That’s the name of her column. Ivana B. Adored.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. I guess I haven’t really seen it.”
“I’ve been faxing your mentions to Guy,” says Howdy Doody.
Then he puts his finger to his lips. “Sorry,” he says softly. “You’ve been in the column a lot lately.”
“Oh,” I say. “I hate to be, like, totally clueless, but I don’t really know what Hits is.”
Ivanah and Howdy Doody look at each other.
“We should live in Boston,” says Ivana.
“It’s one of those glossy music industry rags,” says Howdy Doody, “full of radio play lists and who’s liking what and what’s cool and what sucks and basically, you know, gossip.”
“I’ve been putting you in, in that one-to-watch sort of way,” says Ivana.
“You gals need drinks?” says Howdy Doody, and he heads to the bar.
Ivana is smiling, looking at me funny. “So,” she says, “do you remember me?”
“Sure,” I say, because I feel like I’ve met everyone in the world.
She squints at me.
“Not really,” I say.
“We went to college together,” she says.
“We did?”
“We had a class together.”
I only remember about six people from college, and Ivana isn’t one of them. “Which class?”
Ivana mimes picking up a phone. “Hello, Oberlin Travel,” she says.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
Ivana grins. “Electronic Music 101 with Mr. Standish.”
I put my head down on the table. “Tell me this isn’t happening,” I mumble.
Of all the artsy-fartsy things I’ve done in my whole life, “Hello, Oberlin Travel” has to be the artsy-fartsiest. It was a “spoken word piece” based on my going to the local travel agency to buy a plane ticket home so that I could go see my high school boyfriend, Joe. Oh-so-cleverly interspersed among the exchange between Becky the travel agent and me — over the clacking of computer keyboards and the whirring of printers — were my thoughts about me and Joe having sex.
becky: And what day will you be departing, Jennifer?
me: Wednesday afternoon on the third would be great.
whispered thinking: Oh please, yes yes —
background noise: CLICKETY CLACKETY WHIRR
WHIRR
becky: Would you like a window or an aisle seat?
me: Window please.
whispered thinking: Yeah, window, please, just like that —
The piece droned on, with the “whispered thinking” growing throatier and more desperate-sounding — Yes, yes, Joe, I’m coming, I’m coming — and Becky’s Hello, Oberlin Travel becoming louder and louder, until the piece abruptly ended.
Get it?
My head’s still down on the table, face against my arms. “I think I’m gonna kill myself,” I say.
“Kill yourself?” says Ivana. “I loved that piece.”
I pick my head up.
“Hell,” she says, twirling her black hair in her fingers. “At least you were getting laid.”
...
We tear through the show. This song! That song! Feedback! Wah-wah! More feedback! More wah-wah! I’m sweating and panting as we pull into the last song and by the end, there’s a big fucking roar of applause, enough to warrant a big fucking roar of an encore.
Dave and his college band are at the lip of the stage, pounding and clapping. I push my hair out of my face, wipe the sweat from my brow, and dive into “If I Had Anything to Say (Don’t You Think I Would Have Said It All?).” Way back against the far wall of the room, I see them: Cliff and Peter from Q Prime, smiling, nodding, leaning into one another and pointing up at me.
That’s right.
I’m a crazy-ass motherfucker.
...
At 1 a.m., I’m scurrying through the bowels of the club, edging my way down the rickety stairs, peeking behind drop cloths and knocking on creepy doors.