The Ballad of Helene Troy

Leaning against the door to the roof, with a guitar case in each hand, Helene Troy growled as her cell phone slipped from her sweaty cheek and crashed into several pieces on the steps below. Living on twenty-three dollars for the next six days, she cursed the thought of the phone being ruined.

“Damn it. Not right now.”

She sat the cases on the concrete floor and leaned over to observe her latest disaster. The door opened, bumping her left hip and sending her sprawled over several steps. The tinny, girlish voice of her friend and band mate, Sadie Olivares, echoed over Helene.

“Leney! Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

Helene didn’t bother getting up. She stretched her arms over two steps and tried to put the small black phone together. She answered Sadie with an acrid tongue.

“Oh, I’m just great Sade. Darcy had our apartment phone shut off to save money to pay the power company. Of course, that money went to her loser druggie boyfriend. So, you sending me ass over elbows was just what I needed.”

Helene picked up the phone components and pushed herself up into a sitting position on the top step. She sighed and choked back tears. She wondered how to deal with an irresponsible roommate and almost no money. Sadie squeezed in next to her and tried to hug Helene.

“I have duct tape at my apartment. We’ll get your phone working and you can eat pizza at my place tonight. I paid the power bill, this time. Do you forgive me?”

Sadie’s thin lips stretched into a warm, cautious smile. She pulled strands of straight ginger hair from her mouth. Helene softened her hard green-eyed glare and faked a smile. She stood and shoved the cell phone remnants into her little black backpack. She picked up the guitar cases as Sadie opened the door. With a blistering New York City August sun shining down, the women readied to chase their rock and roll dreams.

The symphonic crunch of guitars and drums bounced around the roof of the apartment building. An hour into band practice for Helene’s four woman group, Slipper Socks Medium, produced more perspiration than inspiration. Her gray Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirt was soaked with sweat from the August heat. She stopped strumming her electric guitar and turned to her band mates.

“Hey, let’s take a break. Sadie, you want to work on some lyrics and let the other two run make a booze and food run?”

Sadie placed her bass guitar on a metal stand and wiped strands of wet ginger hair from her mouth.

“Yeah, Leney, of course. I have no money, can you spot me a few bucks?”

Helene rolled her eyes, making no effort to hide her discontent with her financial situation. She pulled herguitar strap over her head and glared at her rhythm guitar player and roommate, Darcy Bridges. Darcy knew the look well, so she sprang into action.

“I’ve got forty-three dollars. That’s should get us enough beer, maybe a small bottle of liquor for our lovely Leney, and some snacks.”

Darcy turned to the band’s drummer, Mara Vincent, who yelled.

“Darse, I can pitch in too. Don’t worry we’ll at least get through this day drunk.”

The two raven-haired players left the roof in mischievous giggles. Helene shook her head in disgust, walked over to the nearest wall and looked out into the sky. When she heard Darcy and Mara close the door to the stairs, she spoke.

“Sadie, you ever think there’s a better way to do this shit?”

She turned and watched Sadie approach in a cautious shuffle.

“What do you mean, Leney? You could never quit playing music, it’s your life.”

Helene pivoted and held her guitar in her sweat drenched right hand, unplugged, close to the roof’s eave.

“It’s been two and a half years since I moved to New York from Pittsburgh. I share an unlit apartment with a drug addict and several roaches. I had more money as a college student than I do as a musician. We can’t afford to cut our EP. No matter how cool you and I make our MySpace page or rock a club on a Friday night at 1am, we’re spinning our wheels. Sade, it just isn’t working.”

Tears formed from of her deep green eyes. She didn’t expect Sadie to have any answers or words of wisdom, she just wanted those words to be spoken. Sadie tried to comfort her.

“Leney, you’re the core of this band. You’re our Robert Plant and Jimmy Page together. I’m broke too and this is our apartment roof we’re playing on, but I believe in you. Everyone we play with or around thinks you’re fucking amazing.”

Helene took the guitar away from the side of the roof and walked to Sadie. She threw her left arm around her and the two women embraced for several seconds. Helene forced a smile and tossed her long brown hair to let some sun shine on her tired face.

“Come on Sadie, let’s go write our own Stairway to Heaven.

Helene and Sadie put down their guitars and walked under an eave to savor the small amount of shade on the building’s roof. Helene placed her black notepad filled with lyrics and chord changes on her lap. They pressed their backs against the air conditioning vents and exchanged “ahhhs” at the coolness. Sadie took her phone from her jeans.

“Darcy and Mara have been gone for almost an hour and a half. What do you think? Boys or weed?”

Helene closed her eyes so Sadie couldn’t see her anger seething.

“If I had any money I’d bet they ran into boys with weed. At this point, if they bring back bottled waters and a contact high, I’d be satisfied enough to not kill them.”

Their laughter was interrupted when the large, heavy metal door connecting the stairs to the roof flew open. It sounded like thunder rolling over the top of the building. Darcy and Mara were giggling.

“Slipper Socks Medium is drinking its lunch and smoking its dessert!”

Helene rolled her eyes at Darcy’s behavior. She leaped to her feet and walked over to her mischievious bandmates.

“Lovely Lady Leney, this is yours!”

Darcy handed Helene a small bottle of Bushmills whiskey. It was the cheapest sold in New York City bodegas. She shook her head, unscrewed the bottle and took a large drink. Mara reached inside her sleeveless vest and pulled a white marijuana joint from the inside pocket. She put her right hand on her hip and held the joint with pride in front of Helene.

“Here’s the inspiration Slipper Socks Medium needs to to get through this practice and be ready for our gig Thursday night.”

Sadie stood, picked up Helene’s notepad, and walked over to all three women.

“Leney and I worked on two songs while you two were getting high. We were already inspired.”

Helene extended her left arm and pushed away Mara’s distraction. The guilt she felt questioning the band’s future, burned away the summer heat.

Helene struggled with the oppressive New York City August heat. Sun bore down on the summitt of her friend Sadie’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment building. Slipper Socks Medium’s band practice had become tiresome. Helene glared at Darcy and Mara who lit fresh cigarettes, drank beer and talked about their plans for later.

“I’m done, girls. We got three songs down and a set list for Thursday’s gig.”

Helene unplugged her guitar. Still gripping the instrument, she walked to the chipped brick edge of the roof and peered over the intersection of 48th Street and 8th Avenue. Sweat pooled over her tired hands. She watched construction workers getting off from work walk into Social Bar. Sadie’s voice carried over her shoulders.

“From up here, this damn city actually looks possible doesn’t it?”

Helene refused to turn around for fear of crying in front of her band mates.

“Sade, this place is two different towns. One’s for the people who are trying to live here and the other one’s for the people like us, who are dying to live here. New York’s going to belong to me if it fucking kills me.”

Car horns bounced off building walls. The whistles of policeman directing afternoon traffic tweeted throughout the warm air. Helene saw a green, yellow and red Nathan’s hot dog cart.

“Come on Sadie. Let’s make those other two pack up our stuff. I’ll get a couple of hot dogs and we can work on the the lyrics we didn’t get to earlier.”

Mustard smudged the corners of Helene and Sadie’s mouths after they inhaled the last bites of their hot dogs. Sadie smiled at their messy faces. Helene pulled the half empty bottle of Bushmills whiskey from her tattered backpack. They exchanged sips while sitting on the curb.

“Sadie, I’m really glad your roommates agreed to let you keep most of our gear at your apartment. It’s getting to be like a crack house at mine and Darcy’s place.”

Sadie hadn’t swallowed enough to allow a response. After another mutual drink of Bushmills, Darcy and Mara approached. Mara tossed a black and white flyer advertising another band’s show. It landed face up on the street grate by Helene’s Doc Marten booted feet.

“Look at this bullshit. Superfluous Force is saying we’re opening for them, Thursday night.”

Helene realized Darcy had forgotten to call the club owner to secure a good time slot. If would appear to the people attending that Slipper Socks Medium was supporting Superfluous Force, a band they despised. Helene’s deep green eyes narrowed in a vicious glare toward Darcy. Darcy pulled a cigarette from the back pocket of her blue jeans then leaned within inches of Helene’s sweat glistened face. With a gentle wipe of her right thumb, Darcy removed the mustard from Helene’s lips.

“I thought you were calling them, Leney? It’s no big deal. Mara’s been fooling around Superfluous Force’s manager. We’ll figure out a way to get over on those assholes.”

Helene rolled her eyes, stood up, then collected her backpack and two guitar cases. Disgusted with Slipper Socks Medium’s slow decay, she turned her back to the women and started walking to the nearest train station. Darcy caught up to her and tried a sly smile

“Leney, come on, don’t be mad? I’ll make it up to you.”

Helene turned around, tossed her long brown hair away from her face, and grit her teeth.

“It’s bad enough I have to do everything, Darse. What’s worse is you expecting it. Don’t fucking talk to me until Thursday.”

Most nights, Helene dreamed of burning down Mickey’s Bar and Grill on 37th street.

“Honey, give me a jack and coke and tighten your t-shirt. There are college girls in here tonight prettier than you. You need the tips.”

Barfly Betty’s repulsiveness made Helene’s skin crawl but the silver haired alcoholic bus driver with a bulbous nose and filthy mouth spent most of her paycheck at Mickey’s.

The place was crowded, for a Thursday. The clientele was working class mixed with twentysomethings from a nearby University. The locals were over indulgent and impolite. The college kids were self absorbed and obnoxious. The few harmless characters made Helene feel pity.

“Why do you work here Leney?”

Just Gary asked that question five nights a week. She always answered the same.

“To make you beer for dinner and sing you to sleep.”

Just Gary guffawed and drank. Helene ran her fingers through her dirty blonde hair and rolled her sharp green eyes. She looked up and saw her boss motioning to her from the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome to Mickey’s Open Mike Thursday, our very own bartender, Helene Troy!”

She grabbed her acoustic guitar, checked its’ tabs, found her little purple pick, and walked to the wooden stool in front of the black microphone. Helene began to strum and sing. The entire tavern listened. She finished a torchy version of Duffy’s Mercy. The audience applauded. She played four more songs with similar results. Helene said thank you and walked away with her guitar toward the bathroom. Standing near the threshold was a man maybe 5 years older than her 24. Dark haired, eyed, and leather jacketed, he reached into his pocket and pulled a business card. It read Capitol Records talent coordinator.

“Helene Troy, I can change your life.”

Helene’s duct tape repaired cell phone showed 3:27 a.m.  She dropped it into her sweaty blue jeans pocket and lifted the rickety elevator. Its’ creaks grew her headache. The door to her loft was open. The body of someone she didn’t know blocked her entry .  She shoved through until a guy in his early twenties wearing skinny jeans, eyeliner, and the waft of beer, got up, then fell into her ripped baby blue beanbag.

Helene stepped over empty pizza boxes and dirty clothes. The echoes of kicked liquor bottles bounced off the bare dingy walls. She went to the closest bathroom. The broken mirror over the sink revealed dark circles under her eyes and a perpetual frown. Helene looked for aspirin but found only a newly filled penicillin prescription made out to her roommate, Darcy Bridges. She peered into Darcy’s room and saw her half naked, asleep, in the arms of a man.

Her head pulsed as she walked in her room. She turned to lock the door but the lock was broken.

“Damn everything!”

Helene peeled off her boots and damp socks then fell into her dingy twin sized bed. She reached into her backpack and took out the mail she picked up downstairs. The second envelope read eviction notice. Darcy hadn’t paid rent in two months.  Helene rolled over in bed throwing closed fists into the air. A large cockroach scurried out of the boxsprings. Helene shuddered. The business card she was given in the bar rubbed against her waist.  Helene took out her broken phone and dialed. He answered on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s Helene Troy. You said you’re a night owl so is this cool?.”

He laughed and turned down some innocous background pop music.

“I’m working, Helene. I ’m in the studio til 6 in the morning with a couple of players. It’s on 12th avenue above the Kippers bakery, across from the Fire Station. The building number is 23. It’s the loft on the top floor. We’re just playing. You want to come over a make some music?”

The question seemed unsettling to a normal person. To a starving musician who soon would have no place to live,  the inquiry fit.

“Yeah, I’ll bring my acoustic and some notebooks of stuff I’ve written. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Helene gathered her backpack, boots and guitar case. She walked through the loft over to the tiny kitchen area. Inside the refridgerator were two Pabst Blue Ribbon quart sized beers.

“Oh good god, she brought hipsters over.”

She picked up one of the quarts, opened it with her teeth, and began guzzling. The guy in skinny jeans on the beanbag rose. He scratched his wild black hair and looked at Helene.

“Where am I?”

Helene kept drinking and stared at his unkemptness. She placed the beer on the counter and took out a small pocket knife from her backpack.

“My apartment, uninvited by me. Get out before you bleed out.”

He grumbled something vulgar and walked away from the loft. She put the knife away. Beer started filling her throat again. She felt her edginess leaving. Helene ignored another cockroach crawling across the kitchen area floor. She finished the quart and walked out. She took the stairs to avoid the unwanted houseguest in the elveator. Helene made it to the building side door and opened it to into the street.

 The coolness of the early morning relaxed her as much as the beer. She took the pocket knife out of her backpack, curled it up in her left hand, and walked, pensively into the darkness.

His place was in a better neighborhood. He buzzed in Helene. She laid her guitar case and backpack in the elevator as it slowly rose. Noticing her reflection in the clean steel, she bent down and took out some concealer from her bag and dabbed over the circles under her tired, green eyes.. The door opened to the apartment, which was reconstructed into a studio. He stood in the middle of the floor with his hands on his hips staring at her. Two women and a man, all holding guitars turned to look. Embarrassed, she cooly put the makeup away.

“Hey, I’m Helene Troy. ”

Everyone smiled. He strolled over and put his large right hand in the middle of her back. She hoped he wouldn’t feel the sweat and grime of her night .

“Join us Helene. I told everyone about you. We hope you can help. This songwriting session is going nowhere.”

She put her backpack and guitar case down next to a set of old cameras. There were three of them. She removed her acoustic guitar and dug a pick from her jeans pocket and put it in her mouth while she tuned. The pick smelled like stale beer. Nausea overwhelmed her. Her knees buckled and she fell. The thud of the guitar matched the bump her head made on the hardwood floor.

“Helene, are you alright? Should we get you some ice?”

She looked up and saw one of the women.

“I’m sorry. I’m not that drunk or high or anything like that. I just haven’t eaten or slept. I guess you want to me to get the hell out of here.”

Helene recognized the woman’s face and voice.

“Oh my god! You’re Ramona Gallery! I have, like 3 or 4, 3, I only have 3 of your Cds, but I’ll get more!”

Ramona Gallery grinned. The lines around her 42 year old hazel eyes expanded. She lifted Helene up with her arms then bent down to pick up the guitar.

“I’m not that drunk either and I never eat enough. But I’m not worth fainting over. I saw your band, Slipper Socks Medium, at The Duke night before last. You guys are major.”

Helene was starstruck. She wanted to tell this nice woman how she made her love music when Helene was 10 year old, but refrained. She followed Ramona to the other musicians and began strumming with her idol.

They played guitar til the sun rose. Helene wondered if Ramona Gallery could see her staring at after each break. Eighteen years separated them. Every time Helene moved her dirty blonde hair behind her ears, Ramona would do the same with her graying red tresses. He ended the songwriting session. Helene glared, never wanting the moment the pass. Ramona rubbed her rough right hand over Helene’s left arm.

“We both look like hell. Wanna go put it in a kitchen?”

Shocked at her offer, Helene smiled and shook her head like puppy.

Ramona and the two other guitarists walked to the elevator. She said goodbye to them. He walked over to Helene and held a 100 dollar bill.

“No, I mean thanks, but playing and writing with Ramona was like winning the lottery, dude.”

He smiled, folded the money, and placed it in her guitar case.

“You’re here because of Ramona Gallery. She saw you with your band. If you want a gig playing with us , then you need to tell her so. Ramona’s weird. She won’t ask you directly.  Consider this money an advance for future work. “

To make 100 dollars as a member of Slipper Socks Medium, she would have to play three shows a night in a place that held 100 people, and abstain from any food or drinks. She had met one of her musical heroes, wrote  song for three hours, and been invited to breakfast. Before Helene had a chance to think any harder about her future, Ramona called to her from foyer.

“If you want greasy goodness, giddy-up gorgeous!”

He shook his head at Helene.

“You think you’re ready to be a real musician. You really want to make something that matters?”

She looked at the holes in her jeans, the dirt under her ugly nails, and remembered the eviction notice in her cockroached bedroom.

“What would you know about real music? You just pay the players.”

She smirked and walked toward the elevator to join Ramona. A few steps away she turned toward him.

“Yeah, I want this more than anything. I’m just not going to tell you every five minutes how much I’m dancing inside.”

The women rode to the street and walked into the urban sunrise, guitars in hand. Ramona smiled at Helene.

“There’s a place that will think we’re pretty down the street. Let’s eat like rock stars. You’re buying.”

Helene despised her hands and fingers. Fourteen years of playing guitars had left them dry, cracked, and worn. She had a mild addiction to lotion and a strange habit of examining the hands of others. As she and Ramona sat down in the diner and placed their orders, Helene stared at Ramona’s extremities. Hers moved with grace. It was as if Ramona was more comfortable with her flaws than her better features. Helene looked at her hands, ran her thumbs over the inside of her calloused digits. She smiled. Her distraction meant she didn’t hear Ramona’s question, which was repeated.

“Helene, honey, what kind of guitar broke your cherry?”

Helene jumped. Comfort with sitting across from someone she respected and glued pictures of, to her songwriting notebooks hadn’t set. She smiled oddly.

“I learned to play guitar on an electric. It was a black and white Fender. My dad was in a band. He played mostly rhythm. I was about 10 year old when I found it along with this pitchy Marshall amp in our garage.”

The waitress brought their orange juices and waters. Ramona took a large gulp of the juice and waved her authoritative right hand like an orchestra conductor. Helene continued.

“My parents divorced a couple of years later. My dad stayed in the Pittsburgh, where I was born. I moved to this town north of there called Mars.. There wasn’t a lot to do there. I think my dad was afraid I’d quit playing with him not being around every day to show me how to change from chord to chord. He gave me the guitar. He called me every other day to make sure I was practicing. I played the hell out of that thing. The first song I ever learned was American Woman by The Guess Who. I know, right? How appropriately cliche!”

They laughed at the same time. The lines around Ramona’s mouth and eyes fascinated Helene. It was the first time in her 24 years, she’d ever thought about being older. Ramona stared back. Helene couldn’t wait. She took his advice and told Ramona what she wanted.

“I would love to work with you or for you or around you or whatever would give me the chance to learn. I’m so glad you invited me to the that studio.”

Ramona smirked. The food arrived. She didn’t respond to Helene for several minutes. Helene’s nervousness increased. She knocked over her orange juice. It splashed into Ramona’s lap.

“Oh my god! I am so sorry Ramona. Oh my god, please let me get something to….”

Ramona waved her hand dramatically once more.

“Leney, and I’m calling you Leney until you make me stop, this isn’t the worst thing that’s been in my lap in the last few hours.”

Ramona reached her right hand, cracked, dry, that held her guitar pick for hours at a time across the table. She grasped Helene’s left wrist.  It calmed both of them.

“It’s ok my Leney. It’s ok. Dig into those eggs or I’m going to eat them and write a song later about being a gluttonous pig. Thanks for telling me about your dad. My older brother taught me how to play. It was an old acoustic from Sears where I grew up in Providence. I played it for five years before I touched an electric. That’s why you’re such a good player. You learned to play hard and fast then went to slow and easy. That’s how most guys play. You impress me. Although you have the table manners of a toddler.”

They smiled and laughed. Ramona kept drying her waist and sneaking small nites of eggs, toast and hashbrowns. They talked more about music, their favorite bands, and what they liked to write. Aas they finished eating, Ramona rose.

“Ok, Leney, I’m going home. I will turn into a pumpkin soon and not even you get to see that. I have your number. When does your band, Slipper Socks Medium, play?”

Helene reached into her guitar case and found the 100 dollar bill he gave her. She met Ramona at the front of the table while Ramona retrieved her case.

“We gig four days from now at the Drunk Rhino. It’s in Hell’s Kitchen, near the Actor’s Studio.”

Ramona grinned and shook her head. She ran her left hand over her graying red bands.

“Well, I happen to be a whole lot of nothing that night. The Rhino is 4 blocks from my other studio and maybe 8 or 9 blocks from my apartment. We’ll see if I see you. Tear the place up, regardless. Bye Leney, I’ll be in touch.”

They touched hands. Helene couldn’t stop thinking about her feel.

Helene was awakened by the mediocre strumming of an electric guitar inside her bedroom. It sounded like the beginning of Hole’s Malibu. She hated the song, but her roommate played it a lot.

“Darcy, hold the G and A properly and do it in another room. I can’t believe you plugged in while I was sleeping. I could kill you and New York wouldn’t charge me with more than manslaughter.”

Darcy Bridges laughed puckishly and kept playing.

“Seriously, Darse, leave me the hell alone!”

Helene threw her pillow but missed. The strumming stopped and Darcy unplugged.

“Don’t be such a grumpy bitch. It’s 1 in the afternoon. I just need to talk.”

Helene rose and sat at the edge of the bed, two feet from Darcy’s gaunt pale face dominated by large blue eyes gazing meekly..

“Darse, the next words out of your mouth better be – don’t worry, I paid rent, the eviction is a mistake and I’m leaving this guitar and amp as my apology.”

Darcy looked away. Her chopped reddish hair, highlighted grotesquely by blue kool aid streaks, couldn’t veil her guilt.

“I am leaving you the guitar and amp but shit happened, Leney. I had to bail Raleigh out, he hasn’t paid me back and I’ve been partying…”

Helene vacillated between punching her or falling back into bed. If she punched Darcy, she risked damaging the guitar, Helene really wanted that guitar. She fell backward covering her face with her worn hands.

“I hate you. I hate you. I motherf….”

Darcy put the guitar down and stood up. She started to cry.

“Helene, I’m sorry. I know I don’t say that much, but I am. I’m in a really bad place right now, but need for Slipper Socks Medium to stay together. I’ll do better with the band, I swear. You can crash at Raleigh’s brother’s. It’s not the greatest, but they worship you over there. I don’t think anyone would touch your stuff.”

Helene removed her hands from her face. Rage swept over her. She rolled off the bed, clenched her fists and jumped within inches of Darcy’s face.

“Six months Darse. Six fucking months! You couldn’t keep it together for that long? Between the Drunk Rhino, Paris, The Greek, and The Trojan Horse, we could have played an A&R showcase, or at least made an EP! We have our stuff on myspace! We have an audience!”

Darcy moved away from Helene, knowing her temper well.

“We can still do all of that. This is going to make you lose your shit even more, but I called Case Hill this morning. Me, Raleigh and some others ran into him last night. He mentioned our band opening for The Golden Apples in two weeks. Industry people follow them around. Just find a way to smooth things over with Case. He’s an ex, big deal. He’s an ex with a good band who’s hot for you.”

Helene glared and walked out of the bedroom. She stomped to the fire escape and flung the door open. The stench of the previous night’s sins caused her to gag.  Darcy appeared behind her, holding a beer.

“Drink this Leney. It will keep you from dry heaving. I did the same thing a few hours ago.”

Helene reached behind her back and grabbed the Pabst Blue Ribbon quart. She took a large gulp. It stung her throat but she didn’t feel as sick.

“Case Hill almost killed me, inside, Darse. I’d rather go back to Mars, Pennsylvania and play kids’ birthday parties for chocolate bars than ask that monster for anything.”

She took another drink of beer and walked to the edge of the fire escape. The summer air was stifling except for a slight breeze that moved dingy blonde bangs across her face.

“Stop being so emo, Leney, you know it’s not you. Case Hill is the front man of a good band. He may think he’s the next Julian Casablancas but that doesn’t make him a monster. It just makes him a douchebag. Douchebags make the music business work.”

Helene finished the beer in two more large swigs. She looked over the meat packing district and hated everything she saw. It wasn’t the New York she wanted.

“He calls me every once in a while, usually drunk. I don’t know if he thinks I’m on his booty call list or he just dials the wrong number . I save his voicemails. One day I’m going to turn them into a song and distribute it to every chick under the age of 25 in the city.”

They laughed together.

“The last three months I was with him, Darcy, I didn’t write a note, a lyric, a chord change. Nothing at all.”

 Helene wiped her tears and steeled her upper lip.

“How long before they lock us out of this place?”

Darcy walked away and looked at the eviction notice.

“Thirty days from yesterday.”

Thirty dollars bought a new black top, red bra, and two matching snap bracelets from the vintage clothing shop. Fifteen dollars purchased mascara and red lip gloss. With a five bucks left to buy a beer at the rock club, Helene’s fifty dollar rock star budget for the week was blown. She cringed at her reflection in the train window as it stopped near Greenwich Village.

“I clean up damn good, but he’ll think this is for him.”

She walked off the subway and up to the street. The summer breeze was steady and blew her well coiffed brown hair across her face. As she pulled strands from her mouth with one hand, Helene adjusted her chest.

“You look good and just slutty enough for this place.”

Her band’s drummer, Sadie Olivares spoke ,while bass player, Mara Vincent smiled.

“Hey, Darcy’s not coming. Get drunk if you can afford it, but it’s a working drunk. We need that opening gig for The Golden Apples, so try to behave.”

They slapped hands, then met bouncers under the sign of Blind Iris to find their names on a guest list. Mara leaned into Helene’s left ear.

“Are going to work the singer or the manager?”

Helene knew Mara meant to ask if she was going to flirt with her ex-boyfriend, Case Hill or beprofessional and talk to The Golden Apples arrogant representative. She was offended by the question, angry that she had to dress to kill, and the new bra was hurting her in curious places. Mara was painfully shy and nervous, so Helene sighed.

“Both.”

They were allowed entrance into the third best rock club in New York City. The Golden Apples had been signed to a major label 3 months earlier and they were releasing their first CD in two weeks.

Le Tigre’s Deceptacon surrounded Helene as she walked into Blind Iris. She loved that song.  Helene danced at the doorway then surveyed the crowd. The place held about 500 people, but with guest list invites, music business types, and The Golden Apples band and entourage only inside, current capacity was less than half. Blind Iris sweated. Heat didn’t rise there, it moved side to side. Beads of perspiration formed on Helene’s face and fidgeting fingers. Sadie and Mara walked to the right side of the first floor to say hello to people they knew. Helene strode the left side looking for her prey, using the music as inspiration. She saw him. She adjusted her bra again, looked down at her ripped jeans, pulled her new shirt in place, applied lip gloss pulled from inside her chest. Helene moved her tongue over her lips and walked confidently across the dance floor. Her intended caught the glare and tightened his shoulders and stopped his conversation with someone. Helene extended her right hand, grabbed his left arm and rubbed her body against his shoulder.

“I just need five minutes of your time.”

The manager excused himself from the tall, well built redhead and followed Helene behind the stage.

“Why are you talking to me? You think I’m everything that’s wrong with the music business. You said that to me, twice. Go to your old boyfriend. He’ll beg me to hire Slipper Socks Medium. I’ll decline. He’ll threaten to quit. I’ll relent. Everyone dances.”

Helene bit her the inside of her upper lip so hard, a trickle of blood dropped into her mouth.

“I want this to be about my band, not about melodrama. I know we don’t have a business guy, but we’re close to recording a CD. We have a good reputation in venues, you know that. We don’t miss shows. We don’t play super messed up. Slipper Socks Medium is that band that needs a break. Pulling a curtain for The Golden Apples is postive for everyone. You can pay us next to nothing. Most importantly, I can help you keep Case Hill from fucking everything up by acting like Case Hill. I’ll throw that in for free.”

The manager stared at her. He knew hunger, He lived off the desperation on the upper lips of needy musicians.

“You girls sign a one year agreement with me. I’ll promise you three opening slots for The Golden Apples in September. After that, you let me make your wild bunch of bitchy rock chicks into a real band. I’ll find you some meaningful gig. I don’t like Darcy Bridges. She’s a shitty guitar player and she uses. I know it, don’t fucking deny it. You keep her upright for those three shows with the Apples, then you ditch her. That’s non-negotiable.”

Helene clenched her fists. She knew what the manager was saying was true. Coming from her mouth, it was right. From his mouth, it was an act of war. Her stomach knotted. Helene relaxed her hands.

“I want all of this in writing by tomorrow.  Slipper Socks Medium plays the Drunk Rhino in 3 days. I’m asking, professionally, for you to be there. Let me tell Case Hill about all of this. I don’t want him thinking he was responsible.”

The manager laughed smarmily. He shook her right hand.

“Come to our studio with the other girls tomorrow after lunch. I’ll have some papers for you all to sign. I’ll make the Rhino. Don’t suck that night. It will piss me off.”

Helene turned away rolling her eyes and looked for somewhere to order her beer. Her angry tunnel vision prevented her from seeing the tall, thin man walking directly toward her. Helene’s face bumped right into the chest of Case Hill.

“Leney, babe, are you okay?”

He ran his hand down her back and pulled her into a a hug.

“Case, I’m opening for you next month. We have the same manager. Your hand on my ass wasn’t part of the deal so remove it or you’ll be the first one armed lead singer in rock and roll history.

Case ran his right hand over the left side of Helene’s face. His touch made her melt inside. Case grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from a friend and grasped Helene’s left hand. Reluctantly she went with him. He took her behind the stage into a maintenance room. They passed the bottle back and forth. Helene finally spoke.

“I just need a break.”

Case moved her against the wall, kissed her forcefully, and smiled with wickedness.

“Your lipgloss tastes like candy.”

Helene ignored the depth her desperation was taking and threw her arms around him. Their mouths devoured each other.

Helene’s body ached with every thrust. As Case tried to balance against some boxes, she ripped his shirt and pushed him down. He yelped in pain. She laughed while moving over him. Helene used his body to guide through the storm raging inside. Anger, frustration, lust swirled until she was threw. Helene fell against him. She found the Jack Daniels bottle , sat up and took a large swig. Case touched her hand.

“That was …..”

Helene’s glare interrupted him. She pulled away, buttoning her jeans.

“Mine….that was mine. I want to play onstage with you guys tonight. Make it happen.”

Helene left the maintenance room without looking at him. Case called her name twice but she ignored him with malice. The restrooms in Blind Iris were small and crowded with gossip. She walked to the bar to find Sadie and Mara, hoping to use them to fix her hair and makeup. Helene saw two members of The Golden Apples, lead guitarist, Jackson Muller, and bassist Ty Spears. They waved and motioned for her to meet them near the stage. She held up her hand and mouthed “five minutes”. Helene walked behind Mara, grabbed her beer, and took a large swig.

“How do I look Mar?”

Mara turned around, looked at her mischieviously, and folded her arms.

“Like you just had revenge sex. I’m in awe.”

Mara pulled a few strands of sweaty brown hair from Helene’s guilty green eyes. Sadie walked next to Mara and smiled. Helene rolled her eyes and returned the beer to Mara.

“Go ahead you two, have fun, call me a whore, give me your best shit, but just know that I’m going on stage later. If you two want to crash their party with me, let me know. We can go talk to Jax and Ty.”

Sadie fixed more of Helene’s hair. Mara picked up a silver serving tray and put it in front of Helene.

“See, you look great, for a no-good back room slut.”

They all laughed and slapped hands. Mara was nervous and easily intimidated by The Golden Apples band. Sadie put her arm around Helene.

“Leney, we’re always behind you. I think it would kick ass if we could watch you own those guys. No judgement from me, babe. You got what you deserved. Case Hill doesn’t know what hit him.”

Helene’s chemistry with Sadie and Mara was at it’s peak. She was glad she was in a band with them and that she had brought them to Blind Iris. They were good musicians who appreciated music as much as she did. Helene hugged them, and walked to the stage area.

Jackson Muller cut an imposing figure. At 6’3″ and over 230lbs with a full, unkempt beard and a permanent scowl, he came across as scary. People rarely engaged him in conversation. In the dynamic of a rock band he was the perfect foil for the preening, skinny, charasmatic singer, Case Hill. Fans of The Golden Apples nicknamed them Batman and Hulk, after the comic book characters. Helene knew a different Jackson. When she dated Case, Jackson became her best friend. They shared bottles of liquor and played guitar together. Jackson listened as she cried on his shoulder at whatever sin Case had committed in their doomed relationship. Not once, did Jackson take advantage.

Helene felt huge arms bear hug her. A low growling voice whispered in her ear.

“Hey gorgeous. You want me to kick his ass.”

She smiled and pushed herself out of his crushing hold.

“Nope, just did that myself. I’m in the mood to play something killer that will make us sweat and the crowd lose their fucking minds.”

Jackson motioned to Ty and a guitar tech for their band whose name she could never remember, to meet backstage.

“I have a tuned Fender Strat that you will make you fall in love.”

Helene went over song ideas and eventually had Sadie and Mara join her. They helped Helene go over chord changes. The Golden Apples took the stage to a capacity crowd. They were performing the same set Helene had witnessed dozens of times. She ignored the first two songs, playing unplugged electric guitars backstage with Sadie and Mara. The band manager appeared in front of them.

“They want you fourth song, for the cover. I hate it when they do covers.”

He turned and walked away. Sadie extended her middle finger toward him. Helene and Mara laughed and put their guitars down and walked around to watch the band play. Their set was good, not great. They were nervous because of the industry people in attendance. Helene knew playing a fun song that someone else wrote with a friend of theirs would loosen them. Case Hill finished the third song of the set with a cliche fall into the front row. Laying on several people as they hoisted him back to the stage, Case spoke into the microphone.

“We consider ourselves Lo Fidelity All Stars but another group took that name 10 or so years ago. So, in tribute to them for stealing our name, we want to play one of their songs. Hey, do ya’ll know Leney? You know, Helene Troy? Well, you will soon because she thinks she’s fucking great and so do I! Leney babe, come on, you love this song. Let’s do this!”

Helene’s eyes caught Case’s. She glared at him for his passive- aggressive drunken behavior but still jumped on stage. The guitar tech whose name was either Todd or Tad handed her the guitar she was playing earlier. Jackson leaned into Helene.

“Kill it, gorgeous, kill it dead.”

In perfect time with Case’s opening words of the song “your construction smells of corruption”, Helene laid the guitar over her right hip, threw her hair back, smirked, and hit the power chords.

The floor of the hotel was warm. The carpet was clean, possibly new, and the only part of Helene that hurt from sleeping was her head. Case was in the bed above her snoring. She muttered, “asshole” and walked naked into the bathroom looking for anything to cover her shame. Inside black suitcase, Helene found a beige safari shirt. She shook her head incredulously and thought about the time sshe and Case went to The Bronx Zoo. Case traded two of Helene’s bracelets , some eyeliner, and a Foo Fighter’s band tee for the safari shirt. Helene wanted to leave and never see him again. She needed Case Hill, The Golden Apples, the manager, and connections to make her dreams come true.  She put on the shirt and her panties, which were on the bathroom doorknob.

Quietly, she stepped toward the balcony. She scooped up a bottledwater  and grabbed an acoustic guitar next to the bed. It was mid-morning. The sun showing through the half opened grey curtains warmed her face. She stepped through the partially opened patio door and sat down at the table. Propping her feet on an adjacent chair she strummed a song from her childhood. The simple Irish melody calmed the anxiety inside. Halfway through the second verse Case Hill clumsily pushed open the patio entrance and fell into a chair.

“What the fuck are you playing?”

Helene stopped, shot a look of disgust, and repeated the first notes of the song.

“It’s Enya’s Orinoco Flow. My mom was a fan. When she got sick of hearing my dad play rock and roll, she’d play this on piano or her CDs. The woman was convinced we were Irish royalty.”

Case was looking at her legs, and the black underwear showing from the bunched safari shirt. Helene stopped playing, the moment was over.

“Hey, why did you stop? It was sexy in a boring way.”

Helene sat up in the chair and used the guitar to cover her waist.

“Case, I really came here to talk.”

Case smirked and took a drink from her water bottle.

“You talked all night.”

Helene cut her green eyes at him and his face tightened.

“That was beer and jagermeister talking. I mean, everything last night was my idea. It’s not fucking happening again. I want to work together but that’s it.  Consider the last few hours me using the way you used to use me. We’re even. “

Case Hill ran his tongue through his top lip. His long thin face, high cheekbones, and messy dark hair fell over his left eye.

“I don’t mean to to be a dick but what’s in for me? If you think I want you being jealous of every girl I talk to, ripping my songs, and talking shit about me to the guys in the band, I’ll pass Leney.

 Helene swallowed hard, strummed an F chord, and pulled her hands over her tired face.

“I can’t do it all by myself anymore, Case. Darcy’s high all the time. Sadie and Mara need to me to tell them what to do. Your manager will work with us, but only if I play nice. Without you and Jackson running interference for me, I can’t play nice with that insufferable prick. Two months is what I need Case. Let me write with you  guys, play some dates, and pick the manager’s brain. You to stay out of pants. I’ll stay out of yours. I want you to treat me like a musician.”

Helene wanted to cry. It would just make a bad situation, worse. Case was smiling. His ego was stroked.

“So. we’re not dating or fucking?”

Helene shook her head yes.

“The band and the manager think you could help with guitar playing and songwriting. I don’t think I could just work with you. I don’t think you could just work with me.”

Helene’s stare was like a sheet of stone. She wanted to hit him with the guitar. What an arrogant little boy.

“I write better lyrics than you Case. I’ll give you, without credit, two songs over two months plus play studio session guitar for your European CD remix; for scale. Just pay me for showing up.”

Case rolled the water bottle cross the table and watched it fall to the ground.

“Fuck you. You don’t write better lyrics than me, I have an English degree.”

Helene was boiling inside.

“Case, I was an English minor . I have a degree too. That means nothing. You write lyrics that are teenager’s guide to the Lord of The Rings movies. Your melodies are awesome. Just don’t read what the internet people say about your words.”

Helene got up from the table, unbuttoned the shirt, and threw it toward Case. Topless and defeated she took two steps towards the sliding door. Case met her and laid his right hand on her back.

“I miss you Leney. I was so fucking stupid before.  No one makes me feel the way you do.”

Helene stopped herself from cringing. She focused.

“The sunshine on my shoulders feels great but if reminds me of you. It’s dynamic, but always temporary. You’re still fucking stupid, Case Hill. I’m tired of being naked with you because you don’t know what it means. I’m getting dressed and going to work. I’ll see you at the manager’s office.”

She slid the door closed and turned and mouthed “five minutes” and went to find her clothes.

Helene stepped off the C Train in Hell’s Kitchen feeling nauseous. The late morning summer air was so thick, it inhibited any breeze. She put her hands on her thighs, feeling the five dollar bill in her left pocket. She had drunk earlier, for free. Helene walked into a corner bodega. She bought a plain bagel and a Coke. 

She saw two pre-teen girls, one with long brown hair and attitude, strumming guitars. Helene approached.

“You girls rock. Can I play with you?”

Helene showed them how to use their fingers,change chords, and lose themselves in the moment.

It was almost noon and Helene was just coming home from then night before. The door was open. Darcy’s key’s were on the floor with her shirt and and jeans. A stench of vomit emated from the hallway. Darcy hadn’t made it to the bathroom the first time. Helene struggled to be sympathetic. She had two hours to meet with the manager to talk about Slipper Socks Medium’s musical and business future then make it to work for a 12 hour shift at Mickey’s.

“Darse, can I get you anything? Look, I’m not cleaning that shit up. Seriously, it’s awful. So, you, ok?”

Darcy walked out of the bathroom, ashen, holding a pink washcloth to her forehead. Her thin black hair was matted to the left side of her gaunt face. She forced a childlike smile.

“Good afternoon Leney. It must have been an epic night.”

Darcy fell onto a futon in the middle of the room that acted as a couch. Helene saw the bruises on Darcy’s arms.

“Darse things can’t go on like this. You need to get it together or go home to Jersey and see if your sister can help. I love you but me and the girls scored a meeting with The Golden Apples manager. It’s in about an hour. It can’t include you, not like this. I know Raleigh is bringing you down, and that thing last month hurt but…”

Darcy rose slowly from the futon and threw the damp cloth at Helene, missing her face but landing on her shoulder. She got within a a few inches of Helene’s and pointed her skinny finger aggressively.

“If it wasn’t for me, you don’t ever meet Case Hill and that stupid band! My boyfriend isn’t some rockstar I fuck to get ahead. He’s a misunderstood artist who won’t rat on his friends. You’re such a bitch! You were going to sign with that manager without me?”

Helene didn’t try to hide. She shook her head yes and took her verbal beating. Darcy continued to hiss.

“Fuck you Leney! Fuck Case Hill! Sadie and Mara won’t do this to me. I know them. They won’t sell out a friend.”

Helene made a choice in brief moment. She looked at the puddle of puke in the hallway, the dead cockroach next to the fridge, and realized she wouldn’t have a place to live in 3 weeks.

“Get clean Darcy. You do that and I’ll promise you wahtever you want. We’re not the New York Dolls or Guns N’ Roses and it’s not 1973 or 1987. It’s 2008 and we’re just a chick band in the city that no one wants to see strung out. Sadie and Mara are with me. They want to play music to more than 10 people a night.”

Darcy walked into the kitchen and found a dingy pink towel. She liked the color pink. She stomped to the hallway and wiped up the offending mess. Still on her bare knees and beat up hands she started to cry. It turned to sobbing. Helene never moved from her area next to the kitchen. Darcy rose and tears streamed down her worn face. She looked ten years older than her age of 25.

“Don’t do this me Leney! I need the band so bad! I know I haven’t shown it because of Raleigh’s shit but I want Slipper Socks Medium so bad. I’ll do better!”

Helene’s put aside compassion and gave Darcy what she thought she needed; stark truth.

“The drugs are talking right now. I know I’m being a big, hypocritical bitch because I got liquored up and slept with my ex boyfriend last night but I still pay my bills, show up to work, and stay sober during gigs. You can’t do any of that. That might to cold but it’s not just me and you anymore. There’s other people to consider plus tomorrow and the next day to think about. You can’t get Raleigh clean if you’re not clean. I’m going to meet with the manager. It’s the best thing for Slipper Socks Medium.”

Helene walked past Darcy into her the bathroom. She turned on the shower and began to undress. Darcy pushed the door open. Helene didn’t look back as she climbed in, feeling the water bounce off her face. Darcy stood outside the opaque curtain sobbing again.

“You’re doing what’s best for Helene Troy!”

Helene hurt inside. She knew she was right and Darcy was right. For two years, she struggled to make everyone else happy. With an opportunity to make something happen with her music, she was being nakedly ambitious.

“Darse, I don’t have time to come back here to talk. I’m going straight to Mickey’s after the meeting. If you want to come by and talk, you can. You can even sit in with me for set, I’d love that. For now, this meeting with the manager is what is. I’m sorry.”

Darcy didn’t respond. Helene finished her shower and stepped out. She walked without a towel into her bedroom, dripping water on the creaking hardwood floors. There was no sight or sound of Darcy in the loft. Helene dried off and dressed. She walked into the foyer next to the kitchen to get a hairbrush from her bag. Next to the bag she saw a polaroid picture. On the back was the date, July 4th 2006. Two years and almost two months earlier, new friends, Helene Troy and Darcy Bridges, met at an early gig for The Golden Apples. That night,  drunk Helene took stoned Darcy into her band. She flipped the picture over to the front. Looking into their inebriated smiles she understood why Darcy needed her so bad. It was drunk Helene that promised stoned Darcy rock stardom. Helene crumbled the picture in her hand and tears filled her green eyes. She smoothed it back out and put it in her bag.

Helene met Sadie and Mara at a hot dog stand in front of the SoHo studio where The Golden Apples rehearsed. They were smiling with ketchup in the corners of their mouths.

“Darcy’s not coming. She’s out, for now.”

Sadie was too afraid of disappointing Helene to talk about Darcy.

“Check out our t-shirts. I’m Rancid and Mara’s Hippychick. SoHo song and SoHo band. When we’re famous, let’s get a place here.”

Helene smiled. Their silliness didn’t assauge her guilt that business was occupying music.

“I like the Rancid tee better. They never sold out. Let’s do this.”

The meeting was short. The information Helene and the manager agreed upon at Blind Iris was written over 7 pages of a contract. Another 7 page document stated an agreement for the manager to handle the affairs of Slipper Socks Medium for a period of 3 months. The manager’s lawyer instructed Helene, Sadie and Mara that Slipper Socks Medium would be paid through the manager instead of the venue or promoter. Most gigs for the band ended with Helene chasing down money , only to be told they drank their fee.

Slippers Socks Medium was guarenteed 3 opening spots at the beginning of The Golden Apples tour. There was an option to include them on four others. Helene knew in her mind signing her name was the right thing to do. Her heart sank inside of her body. Nothing felt right. Until now, Helene was instinct first, business second. She was being motivated by being homeless and desperation for a break.

The remaining three members of Slipper Socks Medium walked out of the SoHo studio stone faced. Sadie and Mara looked at each other. Mara motioned for Sadie to speak, mouthing the words, “please” and “Oh my God, just talk to her”. Helene had 37 minutes to get to Mickey’s for a long shift. Her patience was a ghost.

“Go ahead Sadie, just say what’s on your mind. I’m too fucking tired to fight, I swear.”

Sadie looked down at her sneakers, pulled her hair behind her ears and pulled Mara to her left shoulder for protection.

“Leney, we haved practiced in, like, 3 days. You hardly talked in there. We know you’ve been really busy. We heard about your side thing with that producer for Ramona Gallery. I mean it’s Ramona fucking Gallery! That must be amazing to play with her. When you get a chance we wanna know every thing about that but it’s just, you know, I mean shit, dude, we’re just worried that Slipper Socks Medium is done.”

Helene rolled her eyes and balled her fists until the knuckles looked like tiny balls of cotton. Sadie glared at Mara, angry that she’d been forced to speak to Helene, knowing the temper involved. Sadie tried one more time.

“Leney, we love you. You know that. I love you so much. I mean you got me out of that awful Lucky Sevens band in the village where I had to wear all that makeup and play pop shit for drunk stock brokers and slutty yuppie chicks. I’ll never forget that. But, we’re just scared, dude. We know Darcy has problems. I mean we should have kicked her ass months ago, so I share blame, but we’re down to three with no plan past this gig with the Apples….”

Sadie was crying. She rarely showed emotion past goofiness and drunk happiness. Tears rolled down her blotchy cheeks. Helene just wanted to go to work. Her stare was frightening. She released her fists and threw her arms around Sadie then reached out for Mara with her right hand.

“I’m figuring it out girls. I need your help. That’s all I can tell you.”

Helene let go of the two of them. She helped Sadie and Mara wipe their tears.

” Look, um, the owner Mickey isn’t going to be in tonight. I’ll talk to everyone and tell them you two are coming by around 7. You can eat for free. Bring the smaller drum kit and two acoustics. We’ll play three sets. That will get a song list and some timing down for the Drunk Rhino gig in 3 days. I’ll call the producer and see if he can let us borrow his studio for tomorrow or the next day and we’ll get some practice. Worst case scenario is we’ll rock it at my apartment. I mean, I might as well get kicked out the right way, right? We’ll kick ass Friday night, I swear. Then, we’ll figure out how we’ll take over the world one sweaty club at a time.”

Sadie and Mara looked at each other and laughed. Helene smirked and bit her upper lip as she spoke.

“The manager and the lawyer hated those t-shirts. So, I’ve never been more proud of you two that I am right now. I love you girls, too.”

Helene turned away and walked to the train. She bounded down the stairs, out of sight of Sadie and Mara. Helene sat down on a stoop and began to sob.

In the webbed pocket of her little black backpack, the duct taped repaired cell phone vibrated. Annoyed and over emotional, Helene carelessly went the phone. She retrieved it, saw the number, and gasped. She fumbled  and the phone flew from her shaking hands, down the stoop, and settled betweena  steel girder next to the turnstiles and the stairs. Helene panicked. She saw the phone open as it found it’ s place. Ramona Gallery was on the other end. Helene dove to the ground, hurting her chest against the cold concrete.

“Hello, Ramona?”

Helene called helplessly into the dark crevice as she reached her slender hand to pick it up.

“Hey dear, yeah, it’s me, Ramona. Are you working? You sound really far away?

The hard ground chilled her entire body. Beads of sweat formed over her brows as she desperately tried to reach the phone.

“Uh, yeah, I mean, no, well, I’m on my way. I’m in the train station and it’s hard to hear. Can I call you in a few minutes?”

Helene stopped trying to grab the phone and moved her arms to her sideso she could manuever the left side of her head closer to the phone. She looked like a seal sliding to catch a fish. Ramona continued.

“Well, no. I’m playing in Long Island tonight and tomorrow. but I’ll be back in the city after. I wanted to catch your band at the Drunk Rhino. I only want to see my girl, though. I’m too old for drunk dudes and shitty cover acts. I know it’s snobby but I’ve earned my old lady crotchiness.”

Helene laughed. She was thankful for duct tape and a good phone speaker.

“Oh my God Ramona, you’re not old. I don’t want to hang around drunk guys and shitt bands either. Will you meet me at the Pelican Lounge across the street at like 9:45 that night. I have to catch my train. Can I call you at this number later?”

Her head was wedged almost inside the area between the girder and the concrete floor. Ramona answered.

“Honey, I’ll call you. That sounds fine. Get a new phone. This is the 21st century. Well someone told me it was. Bye Leney.”

Helene reached into of her little black backpack and took out a t-shirt. She balled it up and used it to fish out the phone. She couldn’t stop laughing and then realized Ramona Gallery would be seeing her play. Helene couldn’t stop smiling.

On the train, Helene found the notepad she had taken from the manager’s office. In the bottom of her backpack was a broken pencil with just enough lead to write a few sentences. A melody wandered through her head. Helene clumsily sounded it out, “num nuh do dah oh, wah bah dum dah.” It wasn’t working. Helene and Sadie could strum out the melody on acoustic guitar at Mickey’s Bar & Grill later. Helene started writing lyrics.

“it’s my dream not yours, you can’t hate something that cures, the disease that wakes me at midnight, burning up from white hot light, that leaves me with scars. I’m not asking for much. I just want the sun, the moon, and stars.”

Helene put the jagged pencil to her forehead. She watched strands of brown hair fall over her hand. She moved the pencil into her left ear and grinned coyly. The train stopped and she got off a few blocks from Mickey’s. Helene sat on the silver bench next to a trash can. She found her notepad and pencil.

“failure means doing nothing at all. It’s fucking stupid to say music is my call. But I live to play, I can’t deny. Maybe I should do something else, something that doesn’t make me cry. I’m not asking for much. I just want the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

Helene dialed Mickey’s.

“Hey, it’s me. I’m going to work through my first break. I’m coming in a few minutes late. I have to do something major. Bye.”

Helene walked up to the street and down 37th two blocks. She opened the door to Ajax Tattoo & Piercing.

“I want the sun, the moon and the stars in black and white on my left wrist. I want to see it when I play guitar.”

In a musician’s life, bad gigs are deaths. The aftermath is funereal. Helene Troy sat behind the bar, hiding herself from the dissatisfied audience and her musical hero in attendance, Ramona Gallery. She went over all of her mistakes in her head, as jack daniels and coke dulled her senses.

To save money, Helene’s band, Slipper Socks Medium, used a friend to mix sound. He was too busy leering at women to notice the microphones were turned up too high. The band sounded pitchy and out of sync. The new manager suggested popular cover songs. Helene ignored him and played mostly original material. The poor sound quality just angered the crowd. The saving grace of a lousy set was a rousing rendition of Led Zepplin’s Communication Breakdown that excited the masses and lyrically symbolized the night.

The manager collected the other band members, Sadie and Mara. They found Helene, swallowing the last of her whiskey. Helene put her left hand up to indicate she didn’t want a lecture. She got one anyway.

“I told you girls not to suck and you ignored me. So guess what, Slipper Socks Medium? For the next 3 months what I say goes or we tear up the contract right now.”

Sadie and Mara looked at Helene with dark wounded eyes. Sadie spoke first.

“We sounded like shit. We’ll be better next time. I thought we closed like rock stars!”

Helene slid her glass down the wooden bar top and pointed to the bartender for a drink to go. The manager shook his head at all three women and countered.

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you all take the stage next week fronting The Golden Apples. You need set direction, a sober, professional sound engineer, and rehearsal time. This band starts tomorrow at the Soho studio. Figure out a time that works.”

Helene clenched her fists and her eyes twitched with ire.

“All 3 of us work nights and weekend days. We can practice Mondays through Thursday in the mornings. We need money for a new amp, a mixing board, and clothes.”

The manager shook his head in agreement.

“The good news is, you cleared $335. I’ll go collect that cash and I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon, Helene. Don’t suck again, girls.”

Helene, Sadie and Mara looked each other and in unison responded sarcastically.

“We promise nothing.”

The manager walked away,annoyed and found the bar owner to apologize. Sadie and Mara began worrying. Helene ignored them as she saw Ramona Gallery milling around the side entrance. Helene and Ramona walked toward each other, meeting in front of the stage. Ramona smiled. Helene looked away, embarrassed.

“You caught us on a bad night. I can’t believed you stayed. I’m so sorry Ramona.”

Ramona pulled her long straight red hair behind her ears and hugged Helene.

“Don’t be goofy, Leney. You rocked the set close. Your sound guy was staring at tits. I evil glared him a handful of times before he finally realized what was going on. You have a good chemistry with your players. I liked the originals a lot.”

Helene couldn’t speak. Just talking to Ramona was too unbelievable. Ramona looked at the plastic cup, half-full of whiskey and soda.

“Looks like my girl needs another couple of those. The White Room has better booze. Let’s go across the street and I’ll get you rolled into a cab properly in a couple of hours.”

Helene smiled , showing every tooth she had.

“It’s been a crazy last few days. I feel like I’m living in a cage.”

Sadie called out to Helene.

“Hey, we’ll get the equipment. Meet us over at Mara’s apartment tomorrow morning.”

Helene raised her left hand and waved them goodbye. She pulled her wet, brown bangs away from her face and downed the last drink of whiskey. Ramona put her arm around Helene and whispered.

“I love the new tattoo. Now, shake it off. It happens. There’s a silver lining Leney. Trust me, I know why the caged bird sings. Because she to. Let’s go get drunk and tell lies.”

Helene and Ramona laughed as they walked out of the Drunk Rhino bar.

Overhead flourescent bulb light bouncing off the white granite bar top showed Helene Troy’s smile in her glass of whiskey. Thoughts of her band’s disastrous performance minutes earlier faded. Sitting in The White Room lounge, she couldn’t grasp that the woman drinking and talking with her was the same person she grew up admiring. Unaware of her younger companion’s smitteness, or perhaps coyly ignoring it, Ramona Gallery talked music.

“You know what song I love. I mean I not only wish I’ve written it but I wish I lived it?”

Helene looked into Ramona’s unapologetic crow’s foot accentuated hazel eyes and responded.

“Please say The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Maps. I read somewhere you loved Karen O. I kind of know her. I used to open for her ex boyfriend’s band.”

Ramona smiled broadly and ran her hand through her graying red hair.

“Absolutely! I think Karen is just gorgeous and smart and sings like she’s going to die tomorrow. That song is fucking amazing isn’t it? I wish I had a song that good.”

Helene marveled at her answer. She wanted to tell Ramona how much her music meant to her. She wanted to tell Ramona how she played her songs when she cried, broke up with guys, went out with friends, and got inspired to make her own. So Helene blurted.

“Burned is better than Maps. So is Loving An Idiot. Your best song is the title track from your first solo album, Snow and Ashes. It’s art. Every line is gut wrenching beautiful poetry. I played it so much I…..”

Helene couldn’t look Ramona. She thought she had acted like a stalker fan. She was expecting her to walk out of the bar and change her phone number. Helene began fidgeting with her long brown hair.

“Thank you Leney. Rolling Stone called it art school melodrama disguised as a pop anthem. I hated playing it for a long time.”

Helene raised her brows and her nostrils falred. She became indignant.

“Are you kidding me Ramona? The line “I spread the memory of our affair over the snow like ashes from an urn of regret” is something so great Joni Mitchell probably sat in a bar with Jewel in 1995 and said “you know what song I wished I’d written? That Snow and Ashes by Ramona Gallery. She’s fucking amazing!”

Helene’s voice was rising above the jazz music being played over a loudspeaker. Patrons looked at her oddly. Ramona laughed.

“Honey, I know Joni Mitchell. She wouldn’t be caught dead with Jewel. Joni also said Rolling Stone was full of shit.”

They laughed, clicked their glasses together and swigged their drinks. Ramona looked at Helene earnestly.

“You have talent Leney. Your writing is raw and heartfelt. Your guitar playing is outstanding. I’ve told several people that I met one of the best girl guitarists I’ve ever seen. You just need to figure out what you want and go get it. We have another songwriting session in two days. I hope you can make it. I’ll make sure you get paid.”

Helene felt like she was in Heaven. She reached over the bar and waved down a young male bartender and ordered a round.

Everything is gray. Helene Troy’s business suit is the color of window putty. An expressionless man in a neutral wool suit slams a stack of colorless papers on her desk. Helene trys to touch them, then recoils in terror. Her hands are missing. Blood is everywhere. It’s gray too. Her screams echo helplessly.

Helene wakes up sweating. She removes her wet t-shirt.

“I hate that dream. “

She rises, grabs her acoustic guitar, a pencil and a small gray notebook and writes.

“I’m not scared of ghosts. Halloween isn’t a thrill. What terrifies me is being run of the mill.”

Helene Troy was an impulse songwriter. An acoustic guitar near where she slept was common. It seemed like only a few minutes since she started scribbling and strumming. Her roommate, a scorned Darcy Bridges, informed her otherwise.

“So the other day you bitch me out for playing a good song next to your bed. Now, you try some shitty Alanis Morisette reject at 8 o’clock in the morning and it’s cool?

Helene layed her bare arms over the guitar.

“I got inspired. I didn’t know you were here. I haven’t seen you in days.”

Darcy smoked a cigarette and tossed back her wild unkempt black hair.

“I heard the band sucked at the Drunk Rhino.”

Helene was separating herself. She deserved Darcy’s sniping, for now.

“Darse, we sucked because we didn’t rehearse enough as a 3 piece, not because you weren’t there.”

Darcy blew smoke toward Helene.

“We made Slipper Socks Medium, Leney. I go through some shit and you leave me far behind?”

Helene cared about the sober Darcy. The addicted one, she just couldn’t bother.

“The band signed a management contract on the condition you aren’t involved. I’ll be out of this hell hole in a few days. Close the door.”

Darcy seemed too broken to respond. Helene chose to look away. She had flicked the lit cigarette at Helene and slammed the door. The cigarette landed just short of the bed, rolling into a wet t-shirt. Helene quickly stomped the flame with her bare left foot and began to cry.

Helene picked up the burned t-shirt and used what was left to wipe her tears. She leaned back against the wall and picked up her acoustic guitar. Her fingers played angry.

“There are pictures of people in my head…….”

She repeated the line with a melody. She scooped up her chewed grey pencil and scribbled more lyrics on a notepad.

‘there are pictures of people in my head

i knew them once, then I changed

I didn’t want their usual, i wanted more, instead

tomorrow doesn’t scare me, it makes me go

what makes me shake with so much fear

is never getting better, refusing to grow.’

Helene picked up the other lyrics she’d written earlier. She pumped her right fist. It was her second completed song in less than a week. She called her bandmate, Sadie.

“Hey, did you get lucky with that bartender?”

Sadie mumbled “no”.

“Sade, I have another song. I want to knock it out before we go to work. I have enough cash for muffins and teas.”

Sadie yawned into the phone.

“The bartender was a douche. I didn’t even get drunk. I would love a blueberry muffin. Text me when you get here, I’ll buzz you up, Leney.”

Helene undressed and stepped into the dingy shower. She sang the melody as the warm water relieved the ache in her tired muscles. Helene thought about her band, Slippers Socks Medium. She wondered if she could achieve her musical dreams alone. She turned the water off, stepped out and talked into the cracked mirror.

“I can make it happen.”

She dried off and again talked to herself.

“Sunny or cloudy? I’m going sunny. “

She picked out a slightly faded yellow and blue Sunny Day Real Estate band t-shirt and some faded jeans.

The last day of August, 2008 was the hottest so far in New York City. The sun was high, hot and exceptionally bright. Helene carried her guitar case and backpack into the street, she looked into the hard sun and muttered to herself.

“I’m a pathetic musician. I don’t even own a pair of cheap sunglasses.”

Sadie lived with 2 roommates in a small brownstone, 14 blocks away. Helene felt the swelter of the morning as she walked into a Bodega. She purchased the muffins and teas. As she waited for the clerk to give her change, two grey and white kittens brushed up against her blue jeaned legs. She asked the clerk about them.

“Are these yours?”

The Bodega owner was an elderly man who spoke little english. Through Helene’s broken spanish, it was determined that the kittens were born 4 weeks earlier to the store owner’s daughter’s cat. Helene wrote down her telephone number and email, offering to take them.

She reached Sadie’s building with full hands and arms. One of Sadie’s roommates, Jamie, a 6’2″ recently released New York Liberty basketball player, was completing a run. She helped with the door and took the teas.

“Thanks Jame. I heard things didn’t work out with the Liberty. Are you going to play overseas?”

Jamie frowned.

“I have an offer from a team in Greece. The pay is average but they compensate for travel and living expenses. I think I’m taking it. I’ll leave in 10 days.”

Helene felt anxious. That would mean Sadie would need a new roomie.

“Jamie, does your building allow pets?”

Jamie used her long arm to wipe forehead sweat.

“Yeah, there’s a security deposit. You have a dog or cat or are you referring to your rocker boys as pets?”

They laughed and found themselves on the third floor where Sadie greeted them.

Jamie, we’re going dancing. Leney has some new songs.”

Jamie wasn’t a musician but liked watching Slipper Socks Medium. She was one of the band’s biggest fans, literally and figuratively.

“That’s great. I’ll dance in a few minutes after my shower.”

The roof of Sadie’s apartment building was a perfect square. It looked like a dance floor. The residents called going to the roof “dancing”.

Helene and Sadie set up their guitars. As Sadie tuned hers, she noticed Helene’s pensiveness.

“Leney, Darcy has been texting me and Mara. She tried to call Mara but Mara didn’t answer. The way Mara and I look at it, Darcy had every chance to not be a fuck up and she kept using. You did the right thing. It’s your band.”

Helene didn’t want to think about Darcy Bridges. She bit her bottom lip and shook her still damp brown hair around her tan face.

“Darcy’s gone. I told her not to use because we weren’t a drug band. She didn’t listen. I miss the old Darcy. The one that that used to keep us up all night playing music trivia and watching horror flicks.”

Helene tried to never cry more than once in a day. Yet, she teared again. She grit her teeth and spit her words at Sadie.

“Yeah, it’s my band. Let’s play these songs in this hard ass sun and not talk about her. The first song is The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars. We worked on it the other night. The second one is something I think I want to call The Fear.”

The sun blazed over them. Sweat covered their hands. Helene and Sadie lost themselves in music.

Eight empty green Heineken bottles lined the roof ledge. The sun moved to the middle of the sky. It was precisely noon. Helene Troy and Sadie Olivares looked over their small part of Hell Kitchen’s, New York City and were soaked in the moment. Sadie’s roommate, Jamie, stood. Her 6’2″ height shadowed them. She spoke sarcastically.

“I can’t handle any more of this rock and roll lifestyle. I’m going to nap, work out, then figure out where I’m playing basketball for a living. Tell your drummer, Mara, she missed the best jam session of all time.”

Two thirds of the band Slipper Socks Medium said goodbye to Jamie and strummed their acoustic guitars. A sheen of perspiration shown over both of them. Helene rose from the broken air conditioner cabinet she used for a chair and walked to the roof ledge, still strumming. Sadie looked on in admiration.

“How did Jamie get Heineken? Isn’t she broke like us.”

Sadie laid her guitar down and joined Helene at the ledge.

“Jamie got an insurance settlement from the New York Liberty. They cut her from the injured list. She gave them her playbook and uniform. They gave her a check.”

Feeling the alcohol, Helene, stopped playing and spoke without caution.

“Sade, can you talk to your other roommate and get me Jamie’s room if she leaves? In a co weeks, I’m going to need a place to stay.”

Sadie smiled and looked into Helene’s imposing green eyes.

“Jamie and I have already talked to our other roommate. She finds out about Greece tomorrow. If it happens, you’re living here. The worst case scenario is you crash at Mara’s one bedroom apartment on the grey poupon futon. I know living with Mara is like living with a militia mountain man but it will make you write great songs about your bad days before fame and fortune.

Helene liked Sadie’s sense of humor. She laughed. Sadie looked at her cell phone.

“Mara just texted me. She went into work early. She wanted to know if we’d talked about this, yet. Obviously, we ain’t letting our girl be homeless.”

Embarrassed but grateful, Helene looked briefly into the New York summer sky. Dark clouds formed in the distance.

“There’s a storm coming. I’m going to get into work a little early so I don’t have to rock the wet rat meets Axl Rose look for 12 hours.”

Sadie smiled weakly. Her reddish blonde hair and pale, freckled face grew small with nervousness.

“Leney, say what’s on your mind. It’s cool, I swear.”

Helene took the opportunity.

“Did Darcy ask you for a place to stay? I know she talks to Mara every five fucking minutes.”

Sadie walked back to her guitar and played several chords. She stopped and talked as she wrote in her notebook.

“Mara saw the eviction notice at your place yesterday. Darcy said she was going to stay with that loser boyfriend, Raleigh. Me and Mara talked about you last night after the gig at the Drunk Rhino.”

Helene didn’t answer. She leaned her guitar against the wall and started collecting the bottles. She looked back at Sadie and saw her freckled face frown. Helene shrugged her shoulders and mouthed the word “what?”

Sadie sighed and answered sheepishly.

“Don’t get pissed Leney, but I need to know, well Mara and I both need to know, if Slipper Socks Medium is going to be a thing?”

Helene didn’t want to lie to her but she had no idea how to answer Sadie. She could feel trouble coming and didn’t know how to prepare for it. She tried to make Sadie feel safe.

“As long as I can make it work. I love this band. Thanks for giving me shelter, my sweaty rolling stone.”

They laughed, finished picking up the bottles and guitars, then grudgingly got ready for their day jobs.

A second day of rain engulfed the city. Helene never used umbrellas or raincoats. She arrived at Mickey’s Bar and Grill for another 12 hour shift drenched and angry. She flipped back her hoodie and reached into her backpack. Water had seeped through a small hole in the side. Everything was damp, including the small, black cell phone held together by duct tape.

“Leney, I’ve been trying to call you!”

It was her bandmate Sadie. Helene held the slick phone an inch from her ear and panted her answer.

“Sorry, Sade. I had to run from the train.”

Sadie worked for a trucking company in dispatch. Helene could hear the hydraulic brakes of big rigs.

“Jamie’s going to play basketball in Greece. My other roommate is cool with you taking her room. I asked her about kittens. She said you’ll have to pay the pet deposit. I’ll help after we get money opening for The Golden Apples.”

Helene smiled but she was anxious because neither Ramona Gallery nor the producer had called about her coming to the studio later in the night to write and record music for Capitol Records. She thought about it more than her band.

“Thank you. I’m going to go ring myself out.”

She walked into Mickey’s, grabbed three hand towels off the bar and burst into the women’s restroom. She removed her hoodie, throwing it to the floor.

Helene looked into the mirror with defiance.

“If Ramona was me, she’d call.”

It went to voicemail. As quickly as she’d summoned the nerve to phone her musical idol, she lost it, and hung up before the beep.

She dried herself off then applied mascara and eyeliner. She poked herself in the left eye when the cell phone danced on the soap dispenser. It was Ramona. Helene answered with her eyes closed.

“Leney honey, I’m in a cab in Queens. The producer told me your bar’s on the way to the studio. We’ll drink a few beers then ride over together.”

The late summer New York thunderstorm knocked out cable service to Mickey’s Bar. The sight and sound of television snow fouled customers’ moods.

Helene stared at the clock, hoping Ramona Gallery would soon save her from a rough night. She delivered beers to a table of college guys. One of them ran his hand up her blue jeaned left leg, reaching the back of her thigh. She dropped the metal tray she carried. Helene mumbled to herself.

“Please get here, Ramona.”

She grabbed her guitar from bar, walked onstage and played the first popular song her fingers could remember.

One song moved into four. Applause grew after each of the first three. Helene Troy turned her discontent with the bar, its clientele, and her mood by blistering through an acoustic version of one of her favorite songs, Sonic Youth’s Kool Thing. She looked into frowning faces. Few in attendance appreciated her choice. She finished and muttered into the microphone “thanks, that was good for me.”

Helene left the stage and walked behind the bar to put away her guitar. Mickey the owner stood at the draft beer taps with his arms crossed.

“Helene, next time, let me tell you when to entertain. It’s Saturday night. We’re low on whiskey, the fourth beer spigot is broken, and the kitchen is backed up with food orders.”

Mickey the owner was under the impression Helene liked and respected him. He was wrong. She rolled her eyes and imagined punching her myopic boss in the face.

“Right, I just thought….”

Mickey the owner turned his back to her.

“No time to think tonight, Helene. Get whatever is written on that piece of paper, next to the register to the table of college kids. They’re spending their parents’ money hard and fast, tonight. I’m going to kick somebody’s ass in the kitchen..”

Helene unclenched her fists and grabbed the paper. She poured five Patron shots, slyly drank one, and filled six mugs of Guinness. She walked over the table, expecting trouble. She went two chairs over from the guy she thought molested her. A large male hand grasped the middle of her back. After delivering the drinks, she moved her body in front of the man, blocking his view of his friends. She pulled his hand from her sweaty back and placed it on her left butt cheek and whispered into his ear.

“Tell me what you feel?”

Embarrassed, the blonde haired, blue-eyed guy in his early twenties, stammered.

“I, I… hope that’s a weird shaped chapstick. I’m really sorry. You were about to step in the beer we spilled.”

Helene took his hand off her rear end and flared her nostrils.

“It’s a knife. If you or your buddies touch me again, I’ll show it to you. Got it, asshole?”

She walked away from the table, headed for the shelf under the bar to hide her knife and get a mop for the mess.

“Hey, it’s Helene, right? Please, hear me out.”

Helene turned around, stone-faced and ready to fight. She shrugged her shoulders, gripped the metal tray tight and mouthed “what?”

He put his hands in his blue jean pockets. Then struggled to speak.

“Listen, um, my friend back there, Kenny, he’s a stupid drunk. His girlfriend just broke up with him and he’s….”

Helene stared at his blue eyes with a look of insouciance. Her body language screamed “I don’t care”.

“I’m apologizing for him groping you. It was wrong. I told him if he ever did that again, I’d throw him out myself.”

Helene put her left hand in the air, which stopped him from continuing.

“I don’t need your help. I want you to ignore me forever and the day after that. Go away, douchbag!”

Startled and embarrassed he followed her as she stomped to the bar. One of her co-workers, the new girl, looked at Helene and said “he’s hot”. Helene shot back “shut up.”

He took a napkin from the bar, wrote something on it, and gave it to the new girl. Helene looked away and took the knife out of her pocket. She rolled it into a towel and shoved it behind her guitar. Before she could make it back to the table to clean the spill, the new girl handed her the napkin.

“If I were you, I’d be all over that. He’s sexy as hell and has nice handwriting.”

Helene glared at the new girl and read the napkin.

“I really am sorry. I love Sonic Youth. They’re amazing. So are you. Xander 412-483-4596.”

The area code was from Pittsburgh. That sat well with her. He was from her hometown. Helene walked over to the table with a mop. Xander’s back was to her. She cleaned up and leaned into him.

“What’s your favorite Sonic Youth CD?”

He turned around immediately with a large smile and stuttered.

“Uh, um, Daydream Nation. Goo’s more accessible, I guess, because of Kool Thing, but Daydream is their piece of art, I guess, maybe.”

He was scared of her. She liked it.

“Good answer. If you promise to not speak to me or touch me the rest of the night, I’ll call you tomorrow. Deal?

Xander was paralyzed. Helene liked the way he stared at her. He breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Cool, I mean Kool Thing.”

Helene turned around, smiled, bit her lip, and carried the mop back to the bar, She checked her phone. Ramona Gallery had texted her. She would be at the bar in minutes.

The rolled money inside Helene’s bra was causing her chest to itch. The new girl’s incessant talking had frayed her nerves.

“Helene, you need bigger boobs or let mine hold your money. Do you make that much every night, singing? I’m not making that much and I’m showing enough skin to work at the strip joint down the street.”

Helene didn’t waste a glare. She alternated looks between the clock, the front door, and the 3 people in front of her begging for booze. The new girl kept talking.

“I saw your band a few weeks ago at The Greek. You and your girls opened for Superfluous Force. Do you know their bass player, Vinnie? Me and him are an on again, off again thing. He told me you’re a legend in the clubs. He said he doesn’t know why you’re not famous. I talked to him last night and told him I was working with you at Mickey’s and he didn’t believe me. He thinks you fly in for shows or something. You’re normal looking to me.”

Helene filled drinks and turned to the new girl. She grabbed the girl’s right hand and leaned into her, teeth gnashed.

“Vinnie is one of the worst bass players I’ve ever heard. He’s too busy fucking skanks to concentrate on getting better. Superfluous Force will wither away in months. So, get on your knees for Vinnie, now, because soon, he’ll be the guy who goes, “dude, when I was in a band I could pull stupid chicks so easy, now I have to pay for them.” Whatever your name is, don’t talk to me anymore. In a few minutes a friend of mine, who you probably haven’t heard of because Walmart doesn’t carry her CDs, will be here. If you say my name in a sentence to her that doesn’t include how fucking great I am, I will make sure grinding your grossness for drunks down the street is the only work you’ll find.”

Helene knew she’d been cruel, but she was sick of the distraction. The new girl meekly replied.

“My name’s Chelsea.”

Helene didn’t respond. Chelsea left the bar and went into the women’s bathroom in tears. Helene thought about following her in and apologizing when the front door opened. She couldn’t contain her joy as Ramona Gallery entered, shaking water from her red mane.

Helene met Ramona halfway from the door to the bar. Ramona continued dry off. She was bare faced of makeup and her grin was comfortable.

“Hey Leney. It’s raining like a Bob Dylan song out there. We’re taking a cab when we leave. You need an ark to walk from the train.”

Helene laughed and showed her the stage and the bar. Ramona threw herself on a bar stool. Helene noticed a couple of people looking toward them. She wondered how often Ramona was recognized. Helene poured a Stella Artois draft beer in a large glass and slid it to Ramona.

“Oh my God, Leney, we’re like an old married couple. You already know my favorite beer.”

Helene smiled, slightly embarrassed. She wanted to reveal that knowing Ramona’s favorite beer came from memorizing her songs and her interviews. She said something slightly different.

“You ordered a Stella the other night. Beer drinkers are blind loyalists. I heard that in a song, once.”

They smiled at each other. Helene had just quoted a line to one of Ramona’s songs. Helene sought out her boss, Mickey.

“There haven’t had any new customers since 9:30 pm. It’s 11:25pm now. Why don’t you have the new girl help you guys close for the first time. I’ll duck out at midnight. My tips have been great.”

Mickey frowned, then saw Ramona Gallery sitting at the bar.

“I guess so. Chelsea needs a lot of work. Wait, Helene, is that ….”

Helene smiled and looked back at Ramona.

“Yeah, Mickey, that’s one of the best singer-songwriters of the last twenty years. She’s sort of a friend of mine. We have plans tonight. So can I take off at 12?

Mickey shook his head yes and walked near Ramona, waving his hand awkwardly.

Before checking on tables that needed refills, Helene stopped by Ramona.

“I’m looking forward to tonight. I have some new material I want to try for you and the producer.”

Ramona took a large gulp of her beer then answered.

“That’s great, Leney! I’ve got a business proposition for you and I really hope you’ll say yes. There’s a table of cute boys over there and one of them won’t stop staring at over here. Go make some money off of him or I’m coming out of barmaid retirement and taking more than his order.”

Helene smiled. She had never been so happy inside Mickey’s Bar and Grill.

Helene picked up her guitar and other things from the bar. Chelsea, wounded and sullen from Helene’s poisonous tirade toward her earlier, harriedly filled beer mugs. Helene opened her mouth to apologize when Ramona yelled from the door.

“Taxi’s here, Leney!”

The rain had stopped. There were several inches of water pooled in the street. Helene lost the grip on her guitar case. In catching it from hitting the wet pavement, she fell on her back. Ramona saved her backpack and guitar. Soaked and embarrassed, Helene laughed. Ramona laughed with her. The taxi driver shouted.

“You want a ride or not?”

Helene slowly got up and looked into Ramona’s wide smile. The lines around her 42 year old eyes and mouth told stories that Helene desperately wanted to hear. They climbed in the backseat and the cab pulled away from Mickey’s bar. Helene was terrified to speak. Ramona put her at ease.

“My place is closer to the studio. You’re going to be playing and writing songs til dawn. We don’t have time to dry anything but you can have some shirts. I still have clothes from my skinny bitch days.”

Helene alternated thoughts between seeing Ramona’s brownstone with a customized studio that she read about in Spin magazine, and amazed anyone thought she was skinny.

“Ramona Gallery, I’m not skinny! I’m 129 lbs on a 5’5″ frame. If I wasn’t so poor, I’d eat enough to be a cow.”

Ramona rolled her eyes and grinned awkwardly while barking to the driver.

“Take your next right! “

She stared into the New York darkness and lowered her voice to hurting cadence.

“Leney, this viscious bitch in People magazine said, reviewing my last CD, that my songs were a departure from my salad days and bumpy ride into my macaroni and cheese times. I’m 20 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago when I stuck my finger down my throat, daily”

Helene reached her left hand around the cumbersome guitar case separating them, and touched Ramona’s right hand.

The taxi splashed to a stop on a tree lined street with a quaint view of Central Park. This was the part of New York City Helene dreamed an escape to as a teenager in sleepy Mars, Pennsylvania. She stepped over a puddle and watched Ramona pay the driver. They walked up limestone steps and Ramona unlocked the oaken door..

“Excuse the mess. I hadn’t planned on your company, so soon.”

A wrought iron street light showed the way into a modest and comfortably decorated apartment. Helene stood, fixed in wonder. Ramona called from the bedroom.

Standing inside Ramona’s gorgeous New York City brownstone was surreal for Helene. Earlier in the day, she listened to Ramona’s songs in her tiny, bug infested apartment. Helene placed her soaked hoodie, worn guitar case, and torn backpack next to a mahoghany bar. Her eyes fixed on a framed gold record for Ramona’s 1991 solo album, Flirting With Failure, hung over a dining table. Her idol’s voice called from the hallway.

“Come here Leney. I want to show you something.”

Helene followed her into a lowly lit bedroom that contained a large four post mahoghany bed covered by a sheer canopy. Brown lamps with matching shades sat on each nightstand.

“I try to keep all the darkness in the world inside this room because I’m a light sleeper. I wanna show you something I got yesterday, in a Long Island record store. “

Helene never imagined what Ramona’s bedroom looked like, but what she saw seemed perfect. Ramona opened the bottom drawer of one of the night stands and pulled out a vinyl record album.

“Leney, it’s crazy what you can find out on the internet. You mentioned your dad’s band, The Articles, the other night. I looked them up, then found a store that had early 80s stuff. It was only 3 dollars, but I think’s it’s priceless to you.”

Helene slowly took the album with her left hand. She tried to say thank you but no words came out. Helene’s right hand, pruned by rainwater and roughened by 10 hours tending bar, touched the picture of her father on the cover. She smiled at then 23-year-old Zachery Troy, holding a newspaper and smirking into the camera. His three band mates in the power pop group from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania struck various poses under the title “The Articles”, but Helene couldn’t stop staring at her dad.

“Ramona, I don’t know what to say. I haven’t seen this since I was little. He told me he lost it when he moved out…, when…um, when my parents divorced.”

Helene continued to admire her father’s 1981 album cover. Ramona’s long, weathered fingers nudged strands of damp brown hair away from Helene’s face.

“Your dad’s no more full of shit than anyone else. He probably felt disconnected from his music. I’ll look at my old stuff and it seems foreign.”

Helene tilted her head into Ramona’s touch. She felt warm and safe, despite being soaked from the rain. Ramona pointed to a dresser.

“Open the bottom drawer and take whatever.”

Helene bent down and picked through bundled t-shirts. She settled on something white with black lettering that spelled out “Pretenders”.

The record album rested on the dresser, to Helene’s left hand, and the t-shirt to the right. Her reflection in the vanity showed Ramona picking up her cell phone to check a text message. Helene crossed her arms at her waist and peeled the sticky, wet shirt over her head. It feel to the hardwood floor. The coolness of the bedroom hit her shoulders and stomach. She panicked.

“Oh my God!”

Helene covered her chest and turned around. Ramona grinned.

“Leney it’s okay. Usually, when I enter this room, I strip too. I like that you feel comfortable here, with me.”

Helene felt like an embarrassed little girl. The worst thing Ramona could think about her, was that she wasn’t cool, she childishly thought. She dropped her arms.

“Ramona, I’m not much to look at, so who cares? I do feel at ease, with you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way in my life.”

Helene turned back around. Ramona walked up behind her, placing her hands softly on Helene’s shoulders . Ramona gently whispered.

“You’re beautiful in every way, Leney. I feel the same. I’m going to grab a couple of beers and call a cab. The producer wants us there by 1 a.m.. “

Helene stayed tense, holding her words inside. Ramona removed her hands and smiled. Helene relaxed, then leaned back into Ramona’s chest and spoke.

“I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

Ramona pulled away and walked toward the next room. As she reached the doorway, she turned around and said.

“I’ll call the producer back and tell him you’ll take the session guitarist gig I haven’t had the chance to mention. I’ll make it fun for you, I promise. There’s a hair dryer in the bathroom closet.”

Helene’s face exploded with joy as Ramona kept walking. Helene jumped up and down muttering through clenched teeth “yes, yes, yes!” She composed herself and went into the bathroom.

Helene pivoted the hair dryer over her damp white bra, then threw her head downward and shot warm air through her long, wavy brown hair. As she whipped her mane back into place she caught tired eyes looking back at her. She cringed at the mirror and pounded the bottom of her left fist on the granite countertop.

“You have to do this for yourself and because of yourself!”

Helene slipped on the dry t-shirt, walked out of the bedroom and dropped the wet one next to her backpack. Ramona was in the kitchen hanging up her cell phone. She offered Helene a Stella Artois beer. She grabbed it and gulped almost half of its contents. Ramona scrunched her face together with worry.

“Leney honey, are you alright?”

Helene looked at Ramona differently, this time. Her body language was confident. She curled her lips and tossed out her words.

“When you left your band, Kerouac Kids, to go solo, everyone called you crazy, right?”

Ramona turned up her beer and leaned forward against the top of the bar. Her face tightened.

“I was called a sellout, a dumb bitch, a pop princess, and a sure-fire failure. Then, I wrote my ass off for 10 years, played with every one of my idols, and sold 10 million records.”

Helene finished her Stella in two swigs and smiled at Ramona. Both women adopted determined but flirty stares.

“Ramona, you sold 14 million records in those years and you became the best fucking songwriter of your generation.”

Helene leaned forward and smirked into Ramona experienced hazel eyes.

“I want to do what you did. I don’t want to depend on other people showing up on time and not getting high, while cursing when they can’t keep up with my work ethic. I want to be Helene Troy, not Slipper Socks Medium. I want people to know me and only me.”

Helene saw Ramona look over her with pursed lips. Helene grew impatient. She walked around the bar. Ramona took one large step forward and threw her long fingers around Helene’s smooth cheeks. They ran their lips near each others, both breathing beer soaked breath around hungry faces. Helene hissed.

“Do it. I want you to.”

Ramona squeezed Helene’s face gently and kissed her, hard.

Their mouths danced with each others while the rest of their bodies became clumsy. Helene shoved the taller Ramona into the refrigerator. Ramona pushed the lighter Helene back into the bar without breaking their connection. Helene’s full lipped mouth left the lock up for a moment to yell out in pain, “ahhhh”.

“Oh Leney, are you alright? Don’t move!”

Ramona stared into Helene’s burning green eyes, re-embraced her and instructed ”3…2….1…” . Together they dropped to the kitchen floor, rolling precisely into a few feet of space. Again, they kissed passionately. As Helene rolled on top of Ramona, she kicked a cabinet and Ramona’s half empty Stella Artrois fell, splashing onto Helene’s back. She pulled away and grimaced at her wet t-shirt and the spilled beer.

“Shit, Ramona, I’m sorry.”

Ramona threw her arms around Helene’s lithe figure. She slipped her long fingers under Helene’s long brown hair, cupping the back of her head and aggressively pulling her down.

“It’s okay, just don’t stop, Leney.”

The door bell rang. They ignored it and continued kissing and touching, momentarily hitting body parts on features of the kitchen. The door bell rang again. Helene put he hands on each side of Ramona’s waist and pushed herself up, running her left index finger down Ramona’s chest, stopping at the top of her jeans.. She could barely speak between stuttering pants.

“…R…Ra….Mona, it’s the cab driver. Want…me to…”

Ramona sat up quickly, kissed Helene deeply, then released..

“Gu….Ga…Go….Go grab another shirt, Leney. I’ll open the door. There’s time for this later, I hope?”

Helene pushed herself up and stood over Ramona with a conquering pose. She bit her bottom lip, pulled off the beer stained Pretenders’ t-shirt, threw it to the floor and slowly strutted into the bedroom.

Small dark circles formed under Helene’s 24-year-old eyes. Two years and three months of living during New York nights and barely sleeping it’s days were beginning to take a physical toll. The few seconds of examination in Ramona’s bedroom vanity were distracted by the smile on Helene’s face.

“Save a smile for me, honey.”

Ramona appeared at the bedroom doorway, arms folded, holding Helene’s backpack in her left hand. She spoke cautiously.

“I hope this is alright, honey, but I tossed your wet clothes in my hamper. I thought maybe, we could come back here and you could get your album, then? The driver’s waiting outside. It stopped raining. I told him we’d be out any minute.”

Helene pulled a black CBGBs t-shirt over her sweat-glistened chest and stomach. She met Ramona at the threshold and smoothly kissed her mouth. Helene pulled away and tussled her long brown hair. Ramona kept her eyes closed, cooing a sigh. Helene whispered.

“Let’s go make great music.”

Helene took her backpack from Ramona and found her cell phone. There were several text messages. The important ones belonged to Darcy Bridges. A line reading “since ur ignoring me like a bitch, guess I’ll hav 2 die to get ur attention!!!”. Helene frowned. Darcy had always been troubled but rarely was she melodramatic. Helene silently wondered if Darcy was just high. She quickly typed a text to Sadie and Mara, “check on Darcy. She’s talking crazy. Will call you in a few hours. Recording.” By the time she hit send, her and Ramona were at the taxi.

“Everything okay, Leney?”

Helene smiled quickly, hoping to throw Ramona off of the drama. She opened her door and the two of them got in the backseat simultaneously.

“Oh yeah, Ramona. It’s just Slipper Socks Medium bullshit. We have a big show, opening for The Golden Apples on Tuesday.”

Ramona barked the address of the producer’s studio and leaned back. Helene looked at her phone and read Sadie’s response, “Mara looking for Darcy who stole drugs from boyfriend. will keep you updated. be a rockstar.” She shook her head, then felt Ramona’s left hand touch her right. Ramona smiled and spoke with authority.

“This is the first step to being Helene Troy. Don’t let the band bring you down. You’re with me tonight.”

Helene flipped the cell phone into bottom of the backpack. She stared into Ramona’s enlightened gaze and told her what she needed to hear.

“I’m with you more than just tonight.”

The taxi stopped in front of the loft. Ramona beat Helene to the driver’s side and paid him. Helene felt her phone buzz again. She read the last two texts from Darcy Bridges, “u kicked me out of the band! you ruined everythng!” “I lovd u! What happens now is ur fault!”

Helene stood in the middle of a large puddle. Water seeped over her boots. She quietly mumbled to herself, “Oh God, no, Darse. Don’t be stupid.” Ramona walked over and pulled her away from the cab and the pool of rainwater.

“You want to talk about it or keep it as band bullshit?”

Helene squeezed Ramona’s right hand.

“I made up mind on your kitchen floor, with you, Ramona. It’s time for better days.”

The loft Ramona led Helene into looked remarkably different than the last time. Three dark green couches formed an L shape looking out of the bay window. A small, square soundproof room with plexiglass walls had been constructed in the middle of the room. The producer stood inside of the odd structure with what appeared to be a sound engineer. Two sound mixing boards and office chairs crowded them. A wave of nervousness moved over Helene.

 

“Are you recording your stuff, tonight? I thought you were taking time off to write for other people? That’s what we did last time.”

 

Ramona took their respective belongings and placed them inside a small closet. Her expression was flat and determined.

 

“I’ve gotten over my writer’s block. I called Capitol Records and told them I was ready to start working on something new. That’s how I got the studio time and money to hire you and the producer. Let’s get to work.”

 

Helene removed her acoustic guitar and looked around the space. Several instruments including a full drum kit, a baby grand piano, and six electric guitars lined the largest wall to her left side. This was her first time in professional recording setting. She struggled to maintain her composure and not let on to Ramona, the producer, or the three musicians coming in the door, that she was emotionally overwhelmed.

 

Everyone exchanged pleasantries and sat down on the couches. It was the same crew from the previous, informal session. They all tuned their acoustic guitars, then the producer spoke over an intercom.

 

“Ramona, start off with that peppy Make Me Naked thing. It’s really different.”

 

The woman Helene had looked up to since she was 7 years old strummed a chord progression that sounded familiar. Helene joined in because she knew the song, well. She stared blankly at Ramona with angry green eyes and her tongue punching the roof of her mouth. The song Ramona Gallery, famous singer-songwriter, was playing wasn’t her own. It was Helene’s.

 

An hour passed buoyed by sounds of strumming and singing as a rage whirled inside Helene. She didn’t speak but glowered as Ramona ignored her. The producer gave a thumbs up to the musicians. Helene rolled her eyes and put her guitar on a nearby stand.

“I’m taking a break, Ramona.”

She stomped across the studio. A heavy wooden door closed loudly behind her. Tears ran down her face and she strode into the bathroom. A loud sniff and her teeth biting into her bottom lip held back more emotion when Ramona appeared.

“Leney, I don’t think you understand.”

Helene gripped the porcelain sink and flared her nostrils. She flipped her long brown hair back, turned around and scowled at the woman she had passionately kissed less than two hours earlier.

“I was the only person in my third grade class that brought a Ramona Gallery record to show and tell! When I was sixteen fucking years old, Ricky Messereau dumped me for Holly Gorman and I played your Hugs and Misses album for three straight days! And the only other woman I’ve ever let touch my tits and taste my tongue is knee-deep in drugs trying to blame me for her shitty life!”

Helene had moved within inches of Ramona. She was panting and crying and spitting words. Ramona stood frozen with sadness covering her middle-aged face. She extended her arms and brought Helene into an embrace. They held each other for a moment until Helene pushed away.

“No Ramona! At least that asshole Case Hill waited until he got in my pants before he started stealing! Go turn on the radio right now! You’ll hear “Why The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon”! I wrote that! The Golden Apples are going to be rich and famous and I have no place to live next week!”

Helene shook as though she was fevered. She growled.

”Why, Ramona?”

A full minute went by in silence. Ramona walked to her and they embraced. Ramona rocked their emotionally exhausted bodies slightly, then whispered.

“We’re going to make the song together. I was trying to surprise you. I would never hurt you.”

Helene pulled away again, and crossed her arms while leaning back on the sink. Ramona stepped toward her and put her long fingers on Helene’s tear-marked cheeks.

“Leney, when I heard you play Make Me Naked at The Drunk Rhino the other night, I loved how you sang it, but I thought it needed some cleaning. I’ve been working on it for the last couple of days. It’s a great song but those soul baring lyrics were lost in your punk fury.”

Helene wasn’t hearing what Ramona was saying. Her anger controlled her mouth.

“It’s my fucking song! It’s about earning my affection!”

Ramona pulled her hands away from Helene and threw her palms against her tired eyes.

“Shut up and listen, Helene!”

Helene was struck by not hearing Ramona call her Leney or honey. She calmed. Ramona continued.

“Listen, honey, it’s your song and if you can get over yourself in the slightest damn way, you can have the lead guitarist job for my new album. I’ll help you make an EP or a demo or whatever we can get done by the end of the year. Capitol wants my record in February. So both of us have a lot of work to. Let’s do a version of the song my way, then your way, then decide who’s right. Sooner or later, Leney, you have to let me earn your affection and more importantly, your trust.”

Helene dropped her head. She was overcome with fear of Ramona’s disapproval.

“I’m sorry, Ramona. Have I fucked up, us?”

Ramona touched Helene’s right hand with hers and moved in for a deep kiss.

“Honey, there were two people in my apartment earlier. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. That hasn’t changed with me, has it with you?”

Helene mouthed the word ‘no’ and placed her hands on Ramona’s shoulders, playing with the buttons on Ramona’s shirt.

“I’m sensitive with my music, Ramona. It’s all I have. My songs are like extensions of my soul. I hope you get why I’m so crazy over them.”

Ramona smiled.

“Leney, if you didn’t feel that way, I’d ban you from the music business forever and a day. Your passion is what makes me think the world of you as a woman and an artist. Now, sweetie, I need to know if I can I use ‘touch my tits and taste my tongue’ in a song?”

Helene threw her head back and laughed loudly.

“Ramona, if you don’t use it, I’m going to get back together with Case so he’ll steal it.”

They looked into each others’ eyes, kissed gently and reconnected.

 Early morning September sunlight bounced off Helene’s guitar. The rain had stopped. Exhaustion staggered Helene as she walked back inside the the studio after a short break. As unforgettable as her first professional recording session had been, she hoped Ramona would end it soon. She placed her guitar down and lifted her sore, over-worked hands to her sweat glistened forehead and ran her fingers sthrough her long, dirty brown hair. The producer emerged from the recording booth.“It’s a few minutes before six but we’ve got three good tracks layed, including Helene’s. Why don’t we call it a night and get together in two days.”Helene forced a smile and watched Ramona say goodbye to the other musicians. Gino broke away from the pack and approached Helene.“Hey, Helene. I really dig your style. You play with a lot of heart.”Gino’s feathered hair covered his left eye and his smallish hands moved with every syllable. He was barely two inches taller than Helene but he slouched so Helene met him at eye level.“Listen, my band Small Time Mooks is playing The Paris Lounge, which is like, right down the street from where your band is playing Monday night. If you can, come by. Maybe, we could get a beer or something.”Helene was too tired to reject Gino. He seemed harmeless. She looked around him to see Ramona smirking. Helene winked at her, then smiled at Gino. He had seen her in nearly nude, so she understood his forwardness.“If I can catch you guys I will. We’re opening for The Golden Apples, then there’s a party afterwards. If we don’t suck I’m sure I’ll have to stay there. So, guess I’ll go get some sleep.”Helene walked away and picked up her guitar case and backpack. Ramona walked over, crouched next to her and whispered.“Guys are so fucking predictable, aren’t they? You show they some skin and play them a song and they think you’re open for business. The bane of being a gal music worker, Leney.”Helene laughed and looked into Ramona’s tired hazel eyes.“I’m fried, Ramona. I can get my dad’s album later if you……”Ramona furrowed her brow and her red hair seemed to illuminate as a beam of sun caught it through an open area of blinds.“Leney, honey, I thought we would um….. well…..okay then.”Helene touched her cell phone inside her backpack. She knew there must be texts or voicemails from Sadie, Mara or a strung-out Darcy. If she read or listened she’d feel obligation. Either decision would hurt someone. Helene couldn’t disappoint Ramona. She released her hand from her phone.“Ramona, the sky looks amazing. Can we walk part of the way to your apartment? I love the vibe of morning sun.”Ramona’s left hand gently caressed Helene’s. She pulled away and stroked some strand of graying red hair behind her left ear.“Let me show you the way.”The women gathered their things and exited the studio. A glorious New York daybreak lit their path.For the second time, in less than a week, Helene woke in a bed that wasn’t hers. The few hours of sleep she’s gotten after going home with Ramona were an interruption. The song in her head and worry for Darcy were greater priorities.Helene felt Ramona move a few inches away from her. She pulled the beige sheet away from her legs and sat up slowly. Her toes chilled against the hardwood floor. She gave up a brief unsuccessful search for her clothes after discovering her backpack. She retrieved the beat-up black cellphone, it’s charger, and her notepad and pencil.Helene smiled when she read the phone’s time display, 11:53am, because it meant the sun beaming through a slit in the curtain belonged to morning, her favorite time. She sat on the bay window seat sideways so she could cross her legs. The sun comforted her as she scrolled through several text messages from Sadie and Mara. One from Mara was the most startling.”Found her. She’s drunk, not high. she’s ok, but she’s not ok.”Helene knew what that meant. She texted Mara.”sorry. I was in the studio then fell asleep. I’ll call you in an hour.”Then she texted Darcy.”have to close tonight. get off at 2. want to see you. please be good for me until, then. sorry, Darse”Huge tears formed in her deep green eyes. A chewed pencil with most of the eraser gone jutted out of the bottom of the notepad. Helene grabbed it and looked into the shine.

Lovers hope for full moonlight to light their way.

They cannot dream in the plain light of day.

But the moon can’t illuminate what’s held in your eyes,

And I can’t sleep again until I see sunrise.

 

chorus – Go, go tell everyone, you saw the day

Rise up from dark and go down the same way.

You know it’s no good, I will lose out to youth

Because the morning sun always tells the truth.

 

In the morning, the sun shows more than our skin

It lights where we’re going and where we’ve been.

You think you know me because you’re lying there?

You’re just passing time. I’m living in fear.

 

I can be a lot of things, I don’t want to be mean

But our night won’t survive an honest sunbeam.

 

Come on and kiss me while the stars are still out.

Love me while moonlight dispels my doubt.

‘Cause you know like I do, what at night seems to flame

In the cold light of dawn won’t even merit a name.

 

Ramona’s long fingers touched her bare shoulders. She cooed the opening lines to “Stop Your Sobbing” by The Pretenders in Helene’s right ear. Helene wiped her eyes.

“Shit, Ramona, I’m sorry if I woke you. I had this song in my head. It just had to come out….”

Helene’s nervous chatter drew a frown from Ramona.

“I love seeing you naked in my window, Leney, but what’s going on, honey?”

Helene’s realized her life was different from Ramona’s. The sobering morning sun was showing that. She feared talking to Ramona about Darcy. Too much was at stake. she assumed.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got it handled. I wrote something. The melody is my head kind of fucked right now, but you take it. It’s probably what you want anyway.”

Helene turned her back, handed to the notepad to a stunned Ramona, then grabbed her backpack and walked into the living room to find her t-shirt and jeans. As she fumbled with her bra strap, Ramona walked in tying a bathrobe around her waist.

“What the fuck does that mean, Leney? I’m getting sick and damn tired of you thinking I’m stealing your songs!”

Helene didn’t feel like arguing. She didn’t like the song. It was too emotional for her. She stopped getting dressed and slowly walked to Ramona in only bra and panties.

“I’m sorry a lot this morning. I mean I’m not sorry to be here with you. You’re amazing. It’s just I have some shit I didn’t take care of and now it’s coming down on me. I really want you to have that song. It will remind me of you.”

Helene lied to Ramona to prevent a fight. The song was Helene’s guilt for how she left Darcy in a time of need. Ramona didn’t know her well enough to see through her deceit. She leaned in and kissed Helene, then ran her hands down Helene’s weary face.

“Can we do this again in a couple of days?”

Helene ran her fingers through her dirty brown hair. She didn’t want to lie, again. She just wanted a shower with no roaches.

“Let’s not wait. I’ll race you to the shower.”

With clean hair, a relaxed body, but a cluttered mind; Helene sighed deeply on the sidewalk in front of Ramona’s brownstone. She began her 5 block walk to the train by leaving voicemails for bandmates Mara, Sadie, and their new manager. The impact of not only meeting one of her musical idols, but now sleeping with her, overwhelmed Helene. She was desperate for a distraction. While searching her purse for her card to pay for the train, her fingers pulled out the neatly folded cocktail napkin with Xander’s telephone number. She smirked and paid the fee . Xander answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, it’s Helene. I told you if you left me alone I’d call. Now you know I’m not a lying bitch.”

She heard the rustling of papers and something crash to the ground.

“Hey, wow, your voice even sounds great on the phone.”

Helene rolled her eyes and crossed her legs as she sat down on the train. She decided to have some fun.

“Tell me the first thing you listened to when you woke up this morning. “

She heard him handling CD cases. It was something she did often. It made her smile.

“Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth. I have a thing for Trent Reznor. I mean, not sexually, I’m not you know, well, I like his music.”

Helene smiled again. She could hear him muttering to himself. She enjoyed his awkwardness.

“Well that sucks, Xander. If you were into Trent like that, we’d have a lot in common. He’s yummy. Is your fraternity gracing Mickey’s bar again tonight. I’m making a 12 hour appearance, for tips, of course.”

Helene’s phone vibrated, bothered, she shot a cutting glance at the number. It was Sadie. Xander responded.

“I’m not in a fraternity. Those guys are just buddies. We go to Fordham. I’m an art major. I paint and sculpt. I was painting when you called.”

Helene was impressed. It explained Xander’s taste in music.

“Are you a night owl? I get off at 2.”

Talking to Xander on the phone made Helene wistful of her time at the University of Pittsburgh. She graduated two and a half years earlier but the grind of working in New York City bars made it seem longer. She missed clumsiness with college boys.

“Xander, is 2 a.m. past your bedtime? Can you make it?

Helene pulled the phone from her ear and saw a dropped call.

“Shit! I can’t have a normal conversation with myself, much less some cute painter.”

With an hour to get to work, Helene saw the next stop was near Sadie’s apartment and the bodega where she had offered to take in the two kittens. She got off.

As she trudged up the stairs, her phone buzzed. It was Sadie.

“Leney, I’ve got horrible news.”

She hadn’t heard from her since the Darcy drama earlier. Helene threw her long brown hair back and braced for the worst.

“Jamie hurt her knee in a pick-up basketball game this morning. We’re at the hospital. Her doctor says it’s ligament damage. She’s not going to Greece. Her room isn’t available. I’m so sorry.”

Helene felt nauseous as she reached the street. Her mouth dried and her knees buckled. She dropped her backpack to the pavement. She’d be homeless in two weeks. Tears formed in her tired green eyes as she responded.

“I’ll call you later. Tell Jamie I hope she’s okay.”

She knelt to pick up some of the items spilled from the backpack. Her pocket knife had opened slightly, enough for the top of the blade to poke. It nicked the webbing between her right index and middle fingers. Blood began to weep through her knuckles. She licked the tops of her damaged digits. The flavor of metal and salt made her cringe.

“That sexy college daydream of being a grungy itinerant musician is coming true, Helene.”

Her phone buzzed again. It was Xander. She ignored his call and walked past the bodega to the liquor store next door.

Helene was drunk at work. Several hours into her shift at Mickey’s Bar’s the bottle of Jack Daniels she hid in her backpack was empty. She felt no guilt. Business was slow and her boss wasn’t around. Helene’s booze-fueled sullenness generated enough sway to keep her co-workers distanced from her. No one, except patrons, spoke to her for most of the night. Some regulars sitting at a table close to the stage waved her down.

“Helene! You singing tonight?”

She smirked then hissed.

“Of course. Your little monkey girl’s gonna dance for you.”

She turned and bumped into a tall blonde woman. The woman’s amaretto sour spilled on Helene’s waist wetting the bottom of her t-shirt and top of her jeans. Helene cursed.

“Shit! This is the third shirt of Ramona’s I’ve trashed. Damn it!”

Helene stomped to the bar, made another drink and grabbed her acoustic guitar. Walking back to the woman’s table, she spotted Xander at the front door. She handed the drink to the woman and slinked to the stage, biting her bottom lip and smiling at Xander. Leaning into the microphone, she imagined that Xander was the only person in the room and cooed, “This is for you.”

The light strums of “Two” by Ryan Adams echoed through the hushed bar. Helene began to sing.

“If you take me back
Back to your place
I’ll try not to bother you I promise
‘Cause it’s cold in here
And I wish it was hot”

Helene saw Xander walk a few steps toward the stage area, riveted by her performance. Helene’s drunkenness overwhelmed her personality. She grinned and flirted through the song’s intimate lyrics. As she played the last chords, the bar patrons stood and clapped. She murmured “thank you” and walked over to Xander.

“Thanks for coming.”

She smiled and pulled strands of long brown hair behind her left ear.

“So, you want to go get in some trouble?

Xander shook messy dark bangs from his face, blushed and responded.

“Absolutely.”

The street light in front of Mickey’s bar was broken. A pall of darkness greeted Helene and Xander as they walked out to look for a cab. Helene’s drunkenness caused her to stumble over the curb and drop her guitar case. She laughed, shot Xander a mischievous grin and sang out.

“Dark in the city, night is wire!…steam in the subway, earth is afire!”

Her voice, despite being under the influence, was pitch perfect and rich. Xander leaned over and picked up her guitar. Helene grabbed the small end of the case. Shadows moved around their faces. Xander spoke.

“Who doesn’t love a little Duran Duran? Helene, maybe we should go somewhere and get you some coffee. We could talk about music or whatever.”

She rolled her eyes and turned her back to him with the case in her grasp. She moved to within a few inches of his face and ran her her right hand over his chest.

“I don’t drink coffee. There’s an apartment 15 blocks from here where I can drop my guitar and backpack. You want to come with me?”

Helene’s tipsiness made it hard to focus on Xander’s facial expressions. She reached out and touched his right hand and pulled him close to her body. He replied.

“That’s a great idea. Um, let’s run by your place. I can’t wait to see where you dream up your songs.”

The next block had a working street light. Helene looked over and saw Xander’s Death Cab For Cutie t-shirt. She squinted then cringed. Xander caught her look.

“What? Death Cab offends you? They don’t rock hard enough?”

Helene bit her bottom lip and wished she could have thought of a fair response. She failed.

“They really like playing their instruments, don’t they? I mean 8 minute songs about stalking is a little much don’t you think?”

She chuckled as she spoke but as the words carelessly left her mouth she could feel tension form. Xander released her hand. She braced for a pithy reply. He didn’t respond. They walked for a couple of blocks without speaking. They passed in front of a liquor store and Helene took a couple of steps toward the front window.

“I’m stopping here. You want something?”

Xander slipped his hands into the back pockets of the blue jeans and shrugged his shoulders. His dark hair flopped over the left side of his frowning face. Helene rolled her eyes again.

“What’s your deal, dude? You had balls the other night when you gave me your number after I threatened to kick your ass. That was smooth. Tonight you act like some missionary in town to save my pathetic soul. Fuck that, okay?”

Helene sighed and threw her shoulders around to walk into the store. Xander right hand touched her left arm and his voice cracked.

“Helene, I’m sorry. We’re getting off on the wrong foot here. I think you’re great and unbelievably talented and my God, gorgeous, I’m….”

Helene liked the way he touched her. His hands were warm and his skin glowed in the streetlights. She realized he wasn’t meant to be her distraction. He was better than that. She leaned into his ear and whispered.

“I’ve had a really bad day and I just need to forget it. I shouldn’t have called you.”

Helene walked into the store and bought another bottle of Jack Daniels. She walked out and Xander was waiting on the stoop. They exchanged smiles. He took the guitar case.

“You need someone to be there while you forget. I’ll take the gig. All I ask is dinner later this week, sober, with a rousing argument about the awesomeness of Death Cab For Cutie.”

Helene looked into Xander’s dark eyes and dimpled cheeks. She relaxed her body and took his free hand. They walked another block.

“You’re trying to romance a drunk girl. Consider my mind blown, Xander. Completely blown.”

A yellow cab met them at the next street corner. They waved it off and kept walking to Helene’s apartment.

A slight summer breeze accompanied Helene and Xander on their walk to her apartment. A few blocks away from her place, Helene realized she was looking more at Xander’s smile than the Jack Daniels bottle peering from her backpack. She texted Darcy several times with no answer. They walked inside her building. Helene fumbled for her keys. Xander opened the manually operated elevator. She saw him look around the dingy hallway and grimace as a roach crawled across faded blue carpet. They arrived on the second floor and opened the elevator together.

“Don’t hate on my place too much. It’s rent controlled and no one ever complains about the guitar playing.”

She walked to the door and put in the key. Xander muttered.

“That’s because your neighbors are probably hiding from the cops.”

Helene laughed to herself then turned around to shoot a glare that startled him.

“Helene, I was joking. I’m stupid. I’m so sorry.”

Unoffended by his remark, she didn’t say so. Helene preferred Xander being a little afraid of her. She placed the backpack and keys on the stained green sofa sitting in the middle of the living room. She took the Jack Daniels from the backpack and walked through the apartment. After failing to find signs of her roommate, she walked into her bedroom and put her guitar next to her bed then opened the bottle. The warm bourbon soothed her sore throat. Xander called from the other room.

“Helene, you want me to leave?”

She took another swig and closed the bottle. She placed it on the nightstand and fell into bed. Realizing how drunk she was, she played out a mischievious scenario in her head, to make him stay.

“Come in here with me.”

He appeared in the threshold of the bedroom. Helene got nauseous as she braced herself on her elbows. Her t-shirt crept up her torso revealing her stomach. She noticed Xander’s eyes looking over her lithe body arched on the queen sized mattress.

“Tell me why you paint, Xander.”

He smiled. Taking a couple of steps toward her, his face blushed through a three-day scruff. He straightened his posture and tossed long strands of black hair from his eyes and answered.

“Because painting makes me feel alive. It’s like having my soul defend me to the world.”

Helene thought it was the perfect response. Her smile was unstoppable. She saw the same passion in Xander that rolled through her.

“That’s what music does for me. I play, sing, and write because I have to. It’s how I fight through each day.”

They looked into each other eyes and exchanged broad smiles. Helene wanted to be sober. She glanced at the Jack Daniels and lost her desire to drink. She rolled her glossy green eyes back to Xander.

“My band’s opening for The Golden Apples around 9 tonight. Do you want to see me all plugged in and loud?”

Xander put his hands in his pockets and rocked in sneakers from side to side.

“Of course I do. I’ve seen you before. A couple of times, actually.”

Helene sat up in the bed and extended her crossed legs in front of her. She wondered if Xander was a fan or something else.

“So you knew me before Mickey’s the other night?”

Xander pursed his lips and looked away.

“Helene, I’m not a stalker, I swear. I was at The Greek last year when Slipper Socks Medium opened for Spoon. I’m a huge fan of theirs. You were amazing that night. I checked out your MySpace after that and admired you from afar. Mickey’s was an awesome coincidence.”

Helene liked his awkwardness. She decided to play with him, again.

“Well, I’ve shown you mine. You show me yours.”

He removed his hands from his jean pockets and struggled to respond. Helene stood, got through the dizziness, and pulled off her sweaty t-shirt.

“I’m going to take a shower. I want to remember this night. Next to the fridge is a cabinet with art supplies. My roommate, Darcy, and I used them to make flyers, posters, band logos, and t-shirts. Draw or paint something on the wall across from the bed. Whatever moves you.”

Helene caught his large brown eyes on her chest. Only a small white bra covered her breasts.

“Focus Xander.”

He blushed again, and turned around to leave the bedroom.

“Yeah, I’ll go get that stuff.”

She opened the nightstand to look for underwear and another shirt. Xander spoke from the door.

“Helene, you’re beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

She didn’t take compliments well, especially about her looks. She smiled and moved her hands over her body as she answered.

“Flattery will only get you a hard time from me.”

She bit her bottom lip and continued.

“But don’t stop, okay? Now, go in there for a a few minutes. Tickets for this show aren’t on sale yet.” 

Helene’s long hot shower wasn’t sobering but it made her feel clean and sexy. As she exited the shower, she saw her phone had fallen from the sink. She remembered the broken lock to the door bathroom. She called to Xander.

“Being a good boy?”

He laughed.

“This masterpiece is so grand, even your naked body couldn’t distract me.”

Helene liked him. She knelt down, nude and wet, to put her phone back together to check messages. She saw 3 texts and 1 call from Ramona Gallery.

“Can’t stop thinking about you. Want to see you before or after the show.”

She dialed Ramona, who answered on the first ring.

“Hi Leney!”

Helene thought about what she wanted. Then she took a few seconds to think about what she needed. Ramona felt good and she was helping her. Xander was new and would take some training.

“Ramona, if you can’t catch my show tonight, meet me at the afterparty. Then I’m yours for the night. I like your bed, my mona.”

They said goodbye. Helene felt no guilt.

She left her hair wet, ignored makeup, and wore only a pair of dirty jeans, a small white bra, and a Hard Fi band t-shirt. She hoped Xander would still call her beautiful being low maintenance. Helene opened the bathroom door and gasped.

Xander looked at Helene’s shocked reaction and stuttered.

“It’s all etchings from black crayons you had and some sepia water colors. Don’t touch it. It’s you at that Greek show. It was the best I could do in 20 minutes…I added the star tattoo as wishful thinking. I think one would look good there..”

Helene walked over to him, with tears in her eyes and threw her tired arms around Xander’s waist.

“Thank you, Xander! It’s fucking awesome and artistically brilliant! You’re so talented!

She began to cry and hugged Xander. Her tears soaked his shoulder.

“It’s my interpretation of the beast inside your beauty. And your need to feed every day. I think it’s really representative of who you are on stage.”

They woke up together. Helene was relieved to be in her own bed this time, on her left side, with her right arm draped over Xander’s chest. His phone played Social Distortion’s Far Behind as an alarm. She pulled her arm away and sat up. Xander turned the alarm off and whispered.

“I’m sorry about this Helene. I have a 10 o’clock art history class.”

Helene suppressed her ill morning temper and stood. Her t-shirt was tucked under her bra. She felt his eyes.

“Clever ring tone, Xander. At least it’s not Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”

Her sarcasm was lost in the stress of what her day held. Band practice in two hours, a conversation with her landlord about keeping the apartment, a meeting with The Manager about opening for The Golden Apples, and a half-dozen other problems that the bottle of Jack Daniels on the dresser might solve. Xander stood behind Helene and put his large, soft, soothing hands on each of her shoulders.

“Helene, I had a great time with you. I felt like you let me in a little. It was sexy as hell.”

Helene smiled and moved her head backward to feel his hug. He was tall and strong. She turned around and put his arms around her waist. She leaned in and moved her full lips over his nervous mouth. The kiss was awkward. Xander barely opened his mouth. He seemed to recoil in fear. Helene narrowed her green eyes.

“What is it?”

Xander tried to embrace her. Helene took a step back and crossed her arms.

“I’m sorry, Helene. I didn’t want to, you know, make you think…”

His stammer made Helene seethe.

“Be a big boy and use your words, Xander. I stopped drinking, let you draw on my wall, listened to you prattle on for an hour about Jackson Pollock and let you cop a feel or three then sleep in my bed. What the fuck is it? I’m not good enough for you?”

Xander looked hurt. He walked out of the bedroom. As he reached the stained green sofa in the living room he turned and yelled.

“I like the beauty more than the beast! A lot more! You surprised me! I didn’t want you to think I was trying to fuck you! If you don’t want me to come to the show tonight, let me know!”

He slammed the door as he left.

Helene choked back tears and went to the bottle by the bed. She took a drink then texted Ramona.

“I have an hour to kill. You want it?”

Helene walked into the bathroom, placed her phone on the counter then washed her face. As she applied makeup, a text came through. It was from Xander.

“I’m a damn good kisser and I’ll prove it to you.”

Helene typed back.

“You’re on the list.”

She grabbed a duffel bag from under her bed. Next to it was a plastic bin with a blue label that read “concert clothes”. She pulled out a pair of brown leather pants, two tank tops, and a couple of other shirts. Ramona called.

“Honey, I have an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I could take you by the Soho loft where you girls practice.”

Helene let out a deep sigh and fell on the bed.

“What’s the sigh for, Leney? Is everything all right?”

Helene wondered if letting Ramona know her problems would just create another. Her loneliness clouded her judgement.

“You know ‘Mona. Every guy lies or belies. Between eviction from this place and dealing with dudes like Case Hill and the manager tonight, I’m just kind of tapped out on bullshit.”

Ramona made an offer.

“How much do you need to stay in that apartment? I could pay you for the studio work up front or lend you the money.”

Helene needed Ramona’s help but couldn’t bring herself to ask. She leaned down and pulled out a cigar box full of cash she’d saved over the past several weeks.

“I couldn’t take your money, ‘Mona. Right now I just need your friendship or whatever we’re doing.”

Ramona was silent for several seconds. For a moment Helene thought she’d hung up.

“You have that in spades, honey. I’ll pay you for two months studio work. That should help get you out of hock with your landlord. If it doesn’t, tell me and I’ll make some calls. You could stay here until…..”

Helene grimaced then responded.

“No fucking way, Ramona, I couldn’t live there. You’d hate me after a week.”

Ramona laughed.

“Sigh no more, Leney. Men were deceivers ever, one hand on our hearts and one in a whore….or something like that.”

Between mutual laughter, Helene started packing.

“I’m coming over ‘Mona. You can help me dress for the show.”

Helene ended her cell phone call with the landlord standing outside her favorite Bodega. The landlord dictated terms for keeping the apartment. The two months rent that hadn’t been paid by her roommate Darcy Bridges, plus a third month, all in cash, up front. Also, Helene must sign and honor a one year lease. That meant she would have to come up with $3,300 and pay $1100 a month, by herself, until September of the following year. She currently had $2100 and the promise from Ramona of two months studio work in advance, which was $300 a session, 3 days week. She bit her bottom lip, stared into the window of the Bodega where she’d agreed the week before to adopt the two kittens and cursed.

“Damn you Darcy. It’s like I’m walking around with a fucking ghost.”

Helene smiled as she thought of one of her favorite songs, Walking With A Ghost by Tegan and Sara. She walked into the Bodega. The owner threw his hands up and greeted her warmly. Minutes later, she walked out with a bag of cat supplies and two identical twin female gray and white kittens inside a cardboard carrier.

She put the supplies down on the street corner and waved down a yellow cab. Plopping herself in the back seat, she shouted her apartment address and dialed a number on her phone. Darcy answered.

“Darse, it’s Monday morning. I want your shit out of the apartment by Friday. I’m keeping the place.”

After a few seconds of silence, Helene pulled the phone away from her face to hang up when Darcy yelled.

“I thought you loved me, Leney! I thought you loved me!”

Helene moved the phone back to her left ear and responded in calm, low tone.

“I did Darse. But you’re not the same person I loved. You’re like a ghost of that person. Goodbye, Darcy.”

The cab rolled over a pothole and the cardboard box with the kittens jumped a couple of inches off the seat then settled down. The kittens mewed. With tears in her eyes, Helene sang, with perfect pitch, the opening lines to the song in her head.

“No matter which way you go ,no matter which way you stay, you’re out of my mind, out of my mind”

She wiped her tears and looked into the small holes of the carrier.

“That’s what your names will be, girls; Tegan and Sara.”

Helene stood outside her apartment facing the bathroom window. She saw the two gray and white kittens peering through the glass panes. She turned her attention to the two thousand dollars cash in her backpack. She countered her nervousness by putting her knife in the back left pocket of her faded blue jeans. Ramona called. Helene answered with enthusiasm.

“Hey ‘Mona, I can’t wait to see you! I talked to my landlord about keeping the apartment and I have two new roommates!”

Helene could hear people bustling in the background.

“Yeah? So your band moved in with you, Leney?”

Helene picked up her guitar case and duffel bag.

“Nope, two identical twin seven-week-old kittens. They’re fucking adorable. Are you not home?”

Ramona breathed into the phone. Helene couldn’t tell if it was bother or disapproval.

“I’m getting something to eat at the coffee shop near my place. I’ll bring you a sandwich and a tea. You need more than booze in you to get through your show, tonight.”

Helene smirked at the influence Ramona was exerting. She said goodbye, shrugged her shoulders and hailed a taxi.

The door to Ramona’s brownstone was open. Helene’s hands and shoulders ached from the weight of her bags and case. She kicked open the large oaken door. Cat Power was playing throughout the apartment.

“Perfect, ‘Mona! I got kittens and you’re playing Cat Power! I love her!

Ramona appeared from behind the refrigerator door. She smiled and carried a small jar of Dijon mustard.

“I do too. She’s so sassy and unpredictable. I need another minute with this food. Why don’t you show me what you’re rockin’ onstage?”

Helene felt like a teenager. No one ever paid attention to her feminine side without ulterior motives. A few minutes later, she emerged from the bedroom in brown leather pants, a white lace top, and Doc Marten boots. She pulled her long wavy brown hair behind her ears and gave a sheepish grin. Ramona turned her head to one side and sighed.

“Well, if that’s what you’re wearing, Leney, you’ll be beautiful, regardless.”

The opening lines of Cat Power’s Free filled the kitchen. Helene stared at the hardwood floor. She felt ugly.

“It’s the leather pants, right? They’re cliché. I have time to hit my apartment after rehearsal and find something else.”

Ramona placed a pickle in left side of her mouth and began to chew. She moved her hazel eyes up and down Helene’s body then shook her head while pointing at her with the half-eaten sandwich garnish.

“I think women should be able to play in their damn pajamas if they want. But sweetie, there are going to be more judgemental music whores there that you can shake a five-hundred-dollar shirt at. I’ve got stuff from previous tours that could fit you. But, you wear whatever.”

Helene liked her low maintenance style. It wasn’t the first time she’d been criticized. Her ex-boyfriend, Case Hill, once told her she wasn’t sexy enough to be a solo artist so had to be in a band. The desire to succeed was eating at her like Ramona devouring the pickle.

“Show me what you have “Mona. I guess I suck at the whole image thing.”

Ramona smiled and walked over to her with two plates of sandwiches. She leaned in and kissed Helene softly.

“Leney, you made my day. Come on, we can eat in my closet. It’s how I get ready for concerts.”

Between bites of tuna on wheat, they exchanged negative head shakes at various pants, shirts and dresses. A decision was made. Helene walked out of the closet and saw herself in Ramona’s vanity. She slouched at her reflection. Helene placed her left hand behind her head and examined the long sleeve House of Dagmar black dress that hugged her figure. Ramona beamed.

“Leney, you look fucking amazing. Every eye will be on you.”

Helene felt uncomfortable. The dress was tight. She liked to move around when she played. The shoes, three-inch studded Louboutin heels, were gorgeous. She wore heels two or three times a year. She thought she’d fall off the stage.

“Ramona, this isn’t going to work.”

She caught Ramona’s glare and dissatisfied crossed arms.

“You’ve seen me play, I’m crazy when I perform. This is good for a video but a live show?”

Ramona walked to the dresser, picked up the crumb covered plates and retreated to the kitchen in silence. Helene knew she was mad. She followed her, briefly stumbling in the heels.

“Talk to me ‘Mona! Shit, I’m sorry! This is a little out of my comfort zone.”

Ramona placed the plates in the sink and turned around with her hands on her hips.

“This entire night will be out of your comfort zone! For three years I played every dive bar on the east coast with my first group, Kerouac Kids! I wore dirty jeans, t-shirts, and washed my hair in gas station sinks! No one gave a shit outside of booger-eating college radio Djs! Then, I slip on a cocktail dress and some hot shoes for my “On The Floor” video from that first solo record and people were so impressed with my growth as an artists!”

Ramona finished her speech with her fingers performing air quotes. Helene teared up and touched Ramona’s weathered hands.

“Leney, you are so damn talented. But you’re naive about the music business. If you can take that punk fury and bad-ass song writing ability and pour them into a dress and heels while winking at those bastards, you’ll own the world!

Helene was speechless. She let go of Ramona’s hands and wiped away tears.

“Do what you want Leney. I’m just trying to help.”

Ramona turned her back. Helene finally responded.

“I was thinking really dark eye makeup. Not like a baseball player’s eyeblack but more like a slut who would fuck a baseball player wearing eyeblack.”

Ramona turned around and smiled.

“Beautiful, Leney. You can have every ounce of eyeliner I own.”

 The sound of water bathing rattling dishes in the kitchen sink distracted Ramona to Helene’s vibrating cell phone. Helene grabbed it and headed to the bedroom to remove the dress and shoes and pack them until it was time to get ready for her show. Darcy was calling.

“Darse, what is it?”

Helene heard her whimper. She looked around the bedroom for Ramona then walked into the closet to talk to Darcy.

“Darse, this has been coming for a long time. Just do me a favor. When you get to the apartment, stay out of my bathroom. Two kittens are in there. The landlord knows.”

Through more whimpering, Helene heard Darcy utter a muffled, “I miss us Leney.”

Helene felt a hurt across her chest. She held the phone against her forehead and tried think of how she’d reply. She brought the phone back to her ear responded in a way she’d regret.

“I miss us too, but that’s not what this is about. I have to go, Darse. I’m with someone else.”

Helene hung up and dropped the phone to the carpet. She stripped down to her bra and panties and looked for her jeans and t-shirt. Ramona’s long fingers moved over the small of Helene’s back. They were cold from the kitchen sink water.

“Leney, should I be jealous?”

Ramona had heard the phone call, Helene assumed. She straightened her posture. Ramona’s hands moved to her hips. She didn’t turn around. She feared Ramona’s expression.

“I’ve moved on, ‘Mona. I really want us to happen.”

Silence moved throughout the apartment into the small closet. Ramona’s body purred against Helene as she hugged her from behind. She nestled Helene’s bare shoulders with her nose.. Her hands caressed Helene’s pulsating stomach.

“Leney, I realize you don’t have time. I just want you to know I really want us, too.”

Helene dropped the jeans from her left hand and turned to Ramona. She tossed her brown mane, smiled provocatively and answered.

 “I’ll make time.” 

Helene changed back into jeans and a black t-shirt. She placed her duffel bag next to the guitar case and backpack by the door to Ramona’s brownstone. A feeling of dread rushed over her.

“I wish you’d come tonight, ‘Mona.”

Ramona tightened the muscles around her mouth and pulled her long red hair behind her ears. Helene smiled at the lines in Ramona’s face. She admired the experience they expressed.

“Leney, if I’m there, you’ll be nervous. Your band needs for you to be a rock. I think that’s what happened the last time.”

Helene frowned and bit her bottom lip. Ramona sensed her unhappiness and walked over to her, smiling.

”Leney, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll scoop you up from the afterparty and take you to our recording session. That way, I’ll keep you out of trouble from your certain success, tonight.”

She felt patronized but once Ramona’s long fingers ran along Helene’s cheeks, she relented.

“Sounds perfect, “Mona. We can celebrate in the cab.”

Helene awaited Ramona’s flirtatious response but instead felt paper being placed into her left hand. It was check, written for three thousand dollars.

“Leney, this is for the next ten recording sessions. It was all I could get the producer to front. That should help you out of hot water with your landlord. If you don’t have a bank account, you can just sign it over.”

Helene needed to feel safe from the chaos in her life that Ramona’s affection provided. She settled for the money that Ramona paid her to prevent her being homeless.

She forced a smile and leaned into Ramona. A beep sounded from the kitchen. Ramona turned and walked away from Helene’s pursed lips.

“Spinach and mushroom panini! You’re going to be late, Leney. No one likes a band diva. Go!”

Helene suppressed her hurt and summoned strength. She realized what was ahead. Without saying goodbye, she picked up the backpack, duffel bag, and guitar case then swaggered from the apartment.

Heat assaulted Helene as she climbed the steps of the train station to the street. Her hands were covered in sweat from carrying the guitar case and dialing Ramona several times. She’d come to the final digit then shove the phone deep into her frayed left front pocket. The landlord was paid, the kittens were comfortable, but she was in turmoil. Her stomach ached from the distraction of not knowing how Ramona thought about her. She felt like a fool and she was being treated like one, too. Ramona was much older than her. She was a fling to an intelligent, experienced woman like Ramona Fucking Gallery, she thought.

“I can’t believe I’m falling in love with her.”

Helene dug out her phone and texted Ramona.

“I really hope you come tonight. I miss you already.”

She hit send and immediately hated herself.

“She’s going to think I’m out of my damn mind.”

Helene breathed in the thick summer air. Her throat tightened and she felt her backpack, unsuccessfully, for a bottled water. She tossed her wet, sticky brown hair away off of her neck and strode into the Soho Loft. She bounded up the stairs and spoke to no one as she dumped her belongings near the door.

Her bandmates, Sadie and Mara had delivered her electric guitar and amplifier. They attempted hellos but Helene ignored them and grabbed her instrument, plugged it in then shouted to Mara, the drummer.

“Stripes Girl on three!”

Her sweaty fingers barely held her favorite purple pick, dug out of her bra. With an overwhelming force she hit the guitar chords. The stress of the relationships with Darcy Bridges and Ramona Gallery fought with the heat surrounding her. Helene’s voice sounded like it had been struck by lightning. It was wicked and dangerous.

“Fell in love with a girl, fell in love with a girl, fell in love once and almost completely, she’s in love with the world but sometimes these feelings
can be so misleading…”

The thickness of the air outside followed Helene inside the loft. As her fingers recoiled from blistering through the song, she felt the uneasiness of the room.

“You’re late, damn it!”

The manager’s voice boomed from several feet away. Helene didn’t answer. She gripped her guitar with trepidation and turned toward Sadie and Mara. They sat with their instruments slack-jawed but refusing eye contact with Helene.

“I’m sorry for being so late. I had some stuff come up but I’m here and definitely ready.”

Their tandem silence startled Helene. After a few seconds, Mara pushed herself away from her drum kit.

“Yeah, you were stealing Darcy’s apartment and fucking your rockstar girlfriend! How dare we be bothered by an hour long wait?”

Mara wasn’t usually sarcastic. She was a tell it like it is woman. Helene looked at Sadie and saw no quarter in Sadie’s hard stare. Helene felt like fighting.

“We were being evicted! You try living with a druggie that doesn’t pay the bills! And, who I fuck is none of your business!”

Helene stomped to her backpack and retrieved her notebook, still clutching the plugged-in electric guitar. She returned their scowls and placed her notes on a music stand.

“Now, are we going to rock out or gossip like little bitches? Your call, girls! But, Make it now, ’cause tonight’s a big deal!”

Helene looked up at the manager, standing a few feet away with his arms crossing, shaking his head in disgust. Helene smirked and mouthed “asshole” at him. She lowered her voice.

“I want to start tonight’s set with that wicked version of Slither, Sadie and I came up with. It’ll build tension, then we’ll explode on the crowd after a minute or so.”

Sadie stared at her sneakers and plucked the opening baseline. Mara rolled her eyes, sat back down behind her kit and played the low percussion rumble. Helene absorbed their pressure and strummed the growling guitar chords.

“Stop, stop, stop!”

The manager held his hands in front of his body, palms showing, with a grimaced face. Helene rolled her eyes and strummed several chords on her electric guitar. It produced loud feedback. The manager glared at Helene then addressed all three musicians.

“What’s going here?”

Sadie took a step toward the manager, gripping her bass guitar and forcing a smile. Her pale face reddened with embarrassment and Helene shot her a look of disapproval. She still spoke.

“What do you mean, I thought we sounded great. We tore through three songs really well?”

The manager glared at Helene as he answered Sadie.

“You sounded good but the feeling in this room is awful. You girls act like you’re punching the clock. So, air out whatever this is and get back to what I used to see and hear.”

Helene turned off her amplifier, unplugged her guitar, and leaned it against a stand. She walked three steps backward, placing herself directly between Sadie and Mara, then barked at the manager.

“You’re not our shrink. That contract we signed didn’t even say you had to be in the same room with us when we rehearsed. So, give us a few minutes while we talk as band and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for you to watch us.”

The manager wiped a bead of sweat from his large forehead and ran his small hands over his gelled black hair. He picked up three sheets of off-white paper and handed them to Sadie. Sadie took one, balanced her bass guitar against her waist and handed the other two pieces of paper to Helene.

“I’m going across the street to get something to eat. That your set list. You can move Slither to the top if you want, that sounded good. You’re playing three originals sprinkled throughout seven covers. If the crowd likes you, you can play whatever the hell you want for an encore.”

He strode to the loft’s front door. Helene shook her head and shouted.

“You took off the Ramona Gallery song and replaced it with Liz Phair? No fucking way!”

The manager turned around with dark, violent eyes but before he could respond, Mara stood behind her drum kit and wise-cracked.

“Maybe you should’ve stalked Liz instead. Then we’d all be happy, right now.”

Helene threw her paper to the floor and jumped at Mara. Mara’s foot was caught inside the drum pedal and Helene’s right forearm caught Mara on her right cheekbone. They tumbled behind the drums and Helene threw several punches. Screams of “crazy bitch” and “fuck you” flew around both of them. Helene felt the manager’s arms lock around hers and she let him pull her away. Blood trickled from Mara’s mouth. Sadie cried out.

“What is the matter with you two? A week ago we were a band! Now we’re three bitchy hating little girls! Just stop it!”

Tears streamed over Sadie’s freckled, pale face. Helene knew how emotional Sadie was and disliked fighting. She often refereed Helene and Darcy’s arguments. Helene pointed her left finger at Mara but before she could answer, Sadie yelled.

“No, it’s all of our faults, Leney! All of us! We don’t talk. I know Darcy fucked up but you shouldn’t have just taken that apartment. And Mara, what do you do? You take up for Darcy and she fucks you over every time! Who cares who Leney is seeing? She was late and she sucks for that but we sound great and we’ll sound great tonight!”

Sadie was bawling. The neck of Helene’s t-shirt was stretched and the strap of her bra showed. She pulled the t-shirt up to cover herself and turned to the manager.

“Seriously, dude, just give us a few minutes. I’ll call you and tell you when to come back.”

After the sound of the loft door closing, Helene walked over to Sadie and threw her arms around her. The embrace was full. Helene craned her neck and her green eyes glanced at Mara who licked blood off of her fingers. Mara joined them in the hug. Helene pulled away and sat down on speaker.

“We can talk about Darcy until we’re all blue in the damn face but it won’t change the fact she chose drugs over us. I’m just trying to survive, that’s all. I stumbled into this great guitar playing gig with Ramona and things happened. I haven’t even figured out what those things are. But I’m committed to Slipper Socks Medium.”

Helene look at her blue and white electric guitar, standing alone in the middle of the floor. She realized she’d just told a lie.

“It was a rainy night in Düsseldorf . I was trapped between need and want. The hotel bed said do it, the hotel phone said don’t.”

Helene sang into the microphone and bent the strings of her electric guitar. It was one of her favorite melodies. Her mind settled on the original writer of the tune, Ramona Gallery, and she wanted to talk to her. The manager uncrossed his arms and motioned for her to stop.

“Helene, fine. It’s been World War 3 in here so let’s work this out. You can have Düsseldorf Rain, if I can have Interpol’s Threesome. “

She nodded her head yes and turned to Sadie and Mara to continue the song but they were standing and stretching. After two hours, everyone wanted a break. No one spoke. Tension breathed between them. Helene walked past everyone and tried to send Ramona a text.

“Shitty day. Love to talk.”

Helene gripped the phone in her left hand and stared across the street at a taco stand. Her stomach growled. As she crossed the street, her phone vibrated and she answered with enthusiasm.

“Hey you!”

It was Xander. She had sent the text to the wrong person.

“Hey back, Helene. I’m shocked you texted. I thought you were pissed at me. Am i still invited to your show, tonight?”

Helene pulled the phone from her the side of her head and thought about how wretched the situation would be if Xander was in the crowd and Ramona showed. Desperate for something positive, she responded with kindness.

“Yeah, Xander. It would be great if you came. Can I call you later?”

She heard bustling in the background. His nervousness when they talked seemed so comfortable.

“Absolutely, Helene. Listen, be yourself tonight. Just show everyone your awesome talent and have fun, okay?”

It was something she wanted to hear from Ramona. After saying goodbye, she turned and saw Mara and Sadie standing thirty feet apart on the sidewalk talking on their phones

Helene let the quiet of the Soho loft wash over her. Sadie and Mara were gone to change clothes for the show. The manager’s boots squeaked against the hardwood.

“Helene, be at the club by 9. I know you don’t go on til 10, but I want to introduce you to some people and take some pictures. The other two can be late, but not you.”

Helene waved at him with her left hand. Her right reached into her bra to pull out her favorite purple pick. It wasn’t there.

“Oh no! Where the hell did it go?”

Helene panicked and stumbled over two guitars then fell next to Mara’s drum kit. The manager appeared over her, holding the pick between his right thumb and forefinger.

“You dropped it next to Sadie’s bass.””

She refused his left hand and pulled herself up to meet his smirk.

“Helene why’s that pick so special? You can get one anywhere for a couple of bucks.”

She rolled her eyes and realized why disliked non-musicians. Their vulgar opinions about how artists lived made her angry. She acquiesced.

“If I tell you, will you do me a favor tonight?”

The manager pushed his thin lips together and nodded his head yes.

“I caught it at Ani DiFranco’s Pittsburgh concert in 2003. It was my 19th birthday present.”

Helene saw the manager glance at the door. She sighed and asked for his help.

“Ramona Gallery may be coming tonight. I don’t want to look lame by putting her on my list. Will you put her on yours? No one will ask questions.”

The manager replied, “sure” and began to walk away. As he turned the knob, he yelled to Helene.

“If I told you and the other two to wear something other than jeans and t-shirts you’d tell me to fuck off, right?”

Helene smiled and watched him leave. She strummed the acoustic guitar and passionately sang the first line.

“I am not a pretty girl
that is not what I do”

Sadie Olivares and Mara Vincent paced in an alley behind The Greek nightclub. A side door to the building flew open and Helene Troy walked out. Sadie spoke first.

“So, what did the manager tell you?”

Before Helene could respond, Mara threw down her cigarette and crushed it with her Doc Martin booted right foot.

“They want her, not us, Sade. That’s why we weren’t in on the meeting.”

Helene looked at the busted lip and bruised right cheek on Mara’s face. Sick of Mara’s insolence, Helene stared at the ground and decided to only tell half of the story.

“Fuck you Mara. Matador Records is looking for someone to take The Golden Apples spot on their roster. They’re scouting us for the next few shows. You two weren’t invited because you didn’t return my calls after I punched you in the face, Mara. I’ve got to go get ready.”

Helene flung the door open and stomped inside. She exchanged head nods with a male bartender and handed her a Stella Artois beer. She felt huge arms hug her from behind.

“Jackson, I’m going to kick your ass!”

She turned around to her friend, the large guitar player for the band she would open for,The Golden Apples. Jackson answered.

“Beautiful, you wouldn’t do that to me. If you ever do, I’ll take it with a smile on my face!”

They hugged and Helene saw a black-haired girl with pale skin staring at her, a few feet away.

“She yours, Jackson?”

He turned around and waved at the raven haired girl in a leather top and skin-tight jeans.

“That’s Dawn. She’s kinda cool. She knows bands, not too clingy, plays guitar. You’ll hate her, but you hate everybody.”

Helene laughed then frowned at her phone. The person she wanted to talk to, Ramona, hadn’t returned calls or texts.

Jackson stroked his scruffy face and asked.

“What is it, beautiful? Tell me what to do to make this your night, too.”

Helene didn’t want to wear Ramona’s dress. It wasn’t her and Ramona didn’t have the right to change Helene’s image, she thought. She looked at Dawn. Her slender figure was similar to Helene’s. She wore a brown leather halter tied around the back of her tattooed neck. Helene swigged her beer.

“Dude, I need her top.”

Jackson waved his large right hand to get Dawn’s attention. Her wide grin, surrounded by thick pink lip gloss, made Helene chuckle. Dawn met Jackson and Helene with girlish enthusiasm and a distinct New Jersey accent.

“Oh God! I was so hoping I’d meet Helene Troy! You’re like the best! Jackson and the other guys talk about you like you’re already famous, you know, like them?”

Jackson cringed at Helene’s green-eyed glare. She bit her bottom lip and engaged the girl.

“Thanks! Donna, is it? I’m sorry, its loud!”

Dawn smiled again and grabbed Helene’s right wrist.

“Oh God, it’s so loud in here! It’s Dawn, like a sunrise!”

Jackson threw his right arm around Dawn and pulled her close. He whispered in her ear and kissed her cheek. Dawn turned back to Helene and shrugged her shoulders.

“Helene Troy wants my clothes! This better get me in the liner notes!”

Helene rolled her eyes at Jackson. Dawn grabbed her wrist again and began leading her toward the bathroom.

“Oh God, Helene, I’m joking! So is that t-shirt all you have because that’s okay with me! Maybe I could help you with your wardrobe from now on like I do with Jackson!”

The women entered the bathroom. Helene shut the door and assumed an aggressive stance with her hands in front of her face.

“Dawn, all I have is a really nice dress that’s not mine and I don’t want to wear, a cute Gap tank top, two t-shirts and an extra bra. Tell me what you’re willing to trade and I’ll get my manager to buy you drinks.”

Dawn walked over to Helene’s bag and pulled out a black tank top and matching bra.

“This’ll work, Helene. Do you need makeup or shoes? ‘Cause me or my friends could hook you up.”

Helene let out a relaxed sigh and pulled her t-shirt over her head.

“Nope, I’m good, Dawn. You’re helping me in so many ways.”

After changing clothes, Dawn left. Helene texted Ramona.

“Stage call. Doing your Düsseldorf Blues at the end of the set. Hope you see it.”

She fought back tears and started applying eyeliner.

The sound of Foo Fighters’ The Pretender rolled through the bathroom as Sadie and Mara came through the door. Helene sang to her reflection.

“I’m the voice inside your head you refuse to hear I’m the face that you have to face mirrored in your stare I’m what’s left, I’m what’s right
I’m the enemy”

She heard Mara and Sadie talking in the background. Mara shouted.

“Helene, I’m sorry! You’ll have my all tonight! Sade and I will make you so proud you’ll say, thus was made the best work of their lifetime!”

Helene smiled so they could see her reflection. She picked up a tube of lipstick and slowly painted vermillion streaks over her lips, then snarled into the mirror.

“Fuck you Helene. Believe in your band. Slay this crowd. Put them in the palm of your hand and don’t let go.”

Sadie’s voice competed with the end of the rock song. Helene picked up the last part of her growl.

“…time to go Leney!”

Helene stood with perfect posture and examined her ensemble. Brown leather pants sat low on her curvy hips. The borrowed jeweled boots from Ramona’s closet hinted at glamour. She adjusted her leather halter and smiled at her dark eyes and full red lips. Helene tossed her teased, wavy brown mane and enjoyed the messy style.

She strode to the back of the stage flanked by Sadie and Mara. An over-modulated voice blared over an open microphone.

Ladies, gentlemen, music freaks! Get ready to have your faces melted by one of the hottest club bands in New York City! Slipper….Socks….Medium!

They ran to their instruments. Mara began tinning the top cymbal and foot pounding a low drum. Sadie played her thunderous bass beat and looked at Helene who bit her bottom lip then screamed “yeeeeowwww!” Their guitars barked like wild dogs running throughout the club.

Adrenaline surged through the stage as Slipper Socks Medium reveled in the crowd’s applause. Through an unstoppable smile she tossed her wet brown hair back and glanced at Sadie. who grinned and pumped her right fist.

“We did it, Leney!”

Helene turned her back to the crowd, placed her electric guitar on a stand and remembered the manager’s words during rehearsal.

“If the crowd likes you, get the hell off the stage. Make your fans beg for an encore.”

Sadie ran behind Helene, gave her a tight hug and followed the other member, Mara. They entered a clapping throng of the manager, other musicians, including Helene’s ex-boyfriend, The Golden Apples singer, Case Hill. Helene accepted a towel from a roadie to wipe the sheen of sweat from her face. Then, Helene saw her.

“What’s she doing here?”

The manager and Case tried to distract Helene but she threw their arms away.

“Why is she here?”

Mara walked over to the ex-guitarist for Slipper Socks Medium, Darcy Bridges, and defended her.

“Helene, calm down! We just had a great time! I thought Darcy should see us! She’s a huge reason…”

Helene ran to within inches of Mara and Darcy. Only Case and Sadie grabbing Helene’s flailing arms prevented a fight.

“The two of you deserve each other! Darcy tried to kill this band for months and you, Mara, tried to kill our biggest night ever! Fuck both of you!

Case leaned into Helene’s right ear and tried to soothe her hurt.

“Leney, that was kick-ass! You were magnificent and never sexier! I’ll help you with your encore!”

Helene let him have a quick hug and she looked around, without success, for the person she wanted. most, to share the moment, Ramona Gallery.

The manager was complimentary.

“Girls, that was great! Get back out there and play something, then we’ll celebrate!”

Mara began walking to the stage. Helene threw her sweat drenched towel at Mara, hitting her in the back of the neck.

“Mara, you fucking back-stabbing bitch! You thought we’d suck, and Darcy could rub it in our faces? You’re out of this band, now! “

Mara’s ashen face looked defeated. Her long arms and expansive hands reached for Helene, who backed away in disgust.

“Helene, I fucked up! I thought Darcy should be here! I’m sorry!”

Helene looked at Sadie, who shook her head and mouthed, “Leney, I swear I didn’t know”.

“Sade, I love you, but I can do this alone! If you want to come with me, great, if not, tell me now!’

Helene walked over to one of The Golden Apples’ guitar techs, muttered something then led him to the stage. Case and Sadie followed. As they walked out, the noise amplified. Chants of “Socks” and “Helene” mixed with applause. Helene picked up her guitar and shouted some instructions to her makeshift group. She pursed her lips into the microphone.

“Sometimes, your life’s a crazy dance! Right now, I’m dancin’ barefoot, just like Patti Smith.! The crowd screamed. Her fingers played the first few chords, her voice growled the opening lyrics.

Helene walked into a long hallway lit with an eerie yellow hue. Several roadies slapped her on the back and shouted words of encouragement. As she strode toward the women’s bathroom, the club’s poor backstage lighting flickered. She blinked and a sad picture of her older sister, Phoebe, flashed through her mind. Phoebe’s gaunt face, tracked arms and lying eyes were haunting. Helene focused and saw Darcy look away then walk inside the bathroom. The silence that had come between them was thicker than ice. Helene muttered to herself.

“Pheebs and Darse are the same person now. I can’t talk to either one of them. Damned drugs.”

Helene heard a female shriek and felt a large hand on her left shoulder.

“Hey Jackson, did I made you proud?”

Before he could answer, the owner of the leather halter Helene was wearing, shouted.

“Oh my god, Helene! That was the greatest! You totally ruled that stage!”

Helene smiled at Dawn. Jackson leaned into her right ear.

“You killed it, gorgeous. Now, let things work out. You deserve success.”

Helene turned and forced another smile to both of them. They responded to her ambivalent expression, in unison.

“What’s wrong?”

She pointed at the door Darcy just entered.

“I really need to pee and I really need a drink. But I can’t go in there.”

Jackson perfected his posture. His large frame shadowed Helene and Dawn.

“Dawn, get her a bottle of Jack on The Golden Apples tab. Helene, the dude’s bathroom is hell. It’s an all who enters, abandons all hope deal, you know?”

Helene laughed at Jackson’s bungling of Dante’s quote and followed her big friend inside. Jackson announced “get out, lady with an emergency in here!”

She chuckled at Jackson calling her a lady and apologized to each of the three guys who adjusted their flies and left the bathroom with awkward glances. Jackson stood at the door like a prison guard and smirked at Helene. She took her position inside the stall.

“Okay, gorgeous, tell me why you’re so sour? I heard you told Mara to fuck off. That’s cool. She’s a pain in the ass. But you were awesome out there. Your vocals and guitar playing were the best I’ve ever heard. “

She rolled her eyes and sighed. Jackson was her friend. That warranted an explanation.

“Well, if my count is right, this is the ninth time you’ve heard me pee. That means you have to keep everything I say a secret.”

Jackson’s laugh echoed through the room.

“Helene, this is like a shrink’s office. If I tell anyone anything, I lose my license to ever hear you piss again.”

She flushed and kicked open the dingy, graffitied stall door. The noise bounced off of the pipes and walls like a gunshot.

“Jackson, I have to stay with Slipper Socks Medium til December because I signed a contract with your asshole manager. But, I’d rather go play Vegas with fucking Celine Dion than be with this band, right now.”

Helene stared into the cracked mirror above a dirty sink in the rock club bathroom. She held her calloused hands under a weak trickle of cold water. A dramatic toss of long brown hair preceded her rant to her friend, Jackson.

“Sadie’s great. She plays four instruments and has an amazing ear for chord changes. She’s okay with lyrics. But the girl can’t make a decision. I’m like her mom. She leans on me for everything.”

Helene turned off the water and shook her hands dry while looking into Jackson’s scruffy face.

“Mara’s become worthless. She hasn’t written for this band in six months. She smokes pot with Darcy or whoever she’s banging, then has the balls to question me for being late or working outside the band? I want to play with a good drummer but not one that’s a hypocrite and a backstabber.”

Jackson chuckled. Helene stood close to him.

“I just don’t relate to anything we do. It’s loud, riot-grrl shit that no one cares about, anymore. We’re good, but we’re never going to be great because Sadie has no guts and Mara has no heart. Also, I hate our manager. He’s the damn devil. And not the cool kind in Slayer songs.”

Jackson unfolded his muscular arms and responded.

“Helene, you just described my band and a million others. In five minutes, I’m going to play songs I hate. Your ex, my lead singer, makes me violently angry on a daily basis because he’s a self-absorbed baby. But it’s the game, and we have to play it we want to do it for a living. Otherwise, we play bars on the weekends and get a real fucking job.”

Helene walked into Jackson’s black-shirted chest. A knock bounced off the wooden door. Jackson embraced Helene and whispered through her wet brown mane.

“You have to believe in your talent and let that give you a clean conscience. Your booze is outside this door. Drink it as good as you played tonight.”

Helene left Jackson’s hug and opened the men’s bathroom door. She exchanged smiles with Dawn, mouthed “thank you” and grasped the slick neck of the opened bottle of Jack Daniels. Waving to Jackson she watched him kiss Dawn goodbye and took a large swig. Pausing to lick droplets of whiskey from her lips, the new acquaintance flanked her left side. They strode through a busy corridor of men waiting for the bathroom and patrons milling about. Dawn leaned into Helene and yelled over the loudness of the rock club.

“I took a couple of shots out of your bottle! Consider that payment for the halter you’re wearing!

Helene grinned and looked toward the bar. She surveyed the crowd for the person she wanted to see, Ramona, and people never wanted to see again, Darcy and Mara. Dawn’s loud New Jersey dialect projected through the noise.

“If you’re looking for that guy with the gorgeous long dark hair and smokin’ bod, he’s on the other side of the bar! He’s why I wasn’t worried about you being in a bathroom with my boyfriend!”

Helene nibbled her top lip, took another drink from the bottle then yelled.

“Take me to him!”

Helene’s vision focused on Xander leaning against a bar stool. A few feet away, she caught Xander’s eye as he finished a sip of a long neck beer. He gave a huge smile.

“Helene! You were brilliant onstage!”

She looked at Dawn, who yelled.

“The final payment for that halter is every detail of the nasty things you do to him, later!”

Helene rolled her eyes at the awkwardness of the conversation. She walked to Xander’s broad shoulders and with her open hand pulled strands of long brown hair behind her right ear.

“Glad you made it, Xander! Take me somewhere before this moment gets more cheap and stupid?”

She turned to Dawn and mouthed “thank you” then touched Xander’s left hand. He grasped hers and they looked for a quieter place to talk.

They found a side door leading into a stairwell. Helene placed her bottle of whiskey on a metal step as the door closed with a thud. The sound bounced off old black metal pipes. Helene noticed Xander’s deep, dark eyes never left her face.

“Helene you’re so talented. People in the crowd were in awe of you.”

Helene ignored the compliments. She wanted to forget it all.

“Xander, you texted me how good of a kisser you were. Prove it.”

He smiled and stepped to within a few inches of her glistening face. She could feel his nervous energy so she moved in. The kiss was slow. She liked his full lips and easy style. She pulled away and admired him.

“You’re good, Xander. Don’t stop.”

As their mouths moved over each other again, the door opened. It was Dawn.

“I’m so sorry, Helene!”

Helene sighed and removed her hands from Xander’s hips. She picked up the bottle from the stairs and took a drink.

“The Golden Apples’ manager is desperate to talk to you. He said it was major so I told him I thought I knew where you might be. Hell, I’d take him in here too.”

Her flirty comment and awkward laugh made Xander smile. Helene wasn’t amused. She looked at Xander and mouthed “forgive me”. He shrugged his shoulders and said “Go.” She leaned in for another kiss then let go of his scruffy face and followed Dawn through a maze of hallways and club patrons. The Golden Apples were moments from taking the stage. Dawn pointed toward the manager, then took her place next to the stage to watch her boyfriend play guitar. Helene met the manager behind a stack of equipment bins.

“What?”

Her annoyed glare and subsequent swig of alcohol didn’t faze him. He pointed to a set of stairs and shouted over the crowd.

“Hand me the Jack Daniels and walk up there! Two reps from Matador Records are in an office anxious to speak to you! I’ll join the conversation after the Apples play a couple of songs!”

Helene froze. She thought about Sadie, Mara, and even Darcy. Nothing made sense.

“I can’t talk to them without the band!”

The manager shook his head in disapproval.

“They want you! Don’t be stupid, Helene!”

She thought about her conversation with Jackson in the bathroom, grit her teeth and spat back at him.

“You really are the devil!”

The manager took the bottle from her left hand and pointed to the stairs. Helene felt a war rage between her heart and her mind. Now, she had to face the casualties of that battle. She walked past the manager and felt her fear descrease each stair she ascended.

Not used to climbing stairs in heels, Helene stumbled three times before she reached the last step. She grimaced at her sore ankles and leaned down to massage one. The door to the office opened and a waitress ran into her as she stayed in her crouch.

“Helene? I’m so sorry! Did Jackson’s girlfriend give you that bottle of J.D.?”

Helene stood and smiled at the tall brunette, Gina Nikosta. They worked together at Mickey’s bar two years earlier. Gina, long-legged and tight t-shirted, was an aspiring dancer who often hung out with musicians. The sound from The Golden Apples headlining set, rose. Helene shouted.

“Yeah, I got it! I can’t wear heels for shit! Thanks, G!”

Gina lowered her serving tray and leaned into Helene’s chest. As they hugged, she spoke in Helene’s right ear with her Brooklyn tongue.

“This place went off for you like I’ve never heard before! Leney, you’re fucking amazing!”

Helene smiled and crept to the open office door.

Two men, one of which Helene recognized, stood over an old cherry wood desk plugging in two laptop computers. She held her hands together at her waist, hoping they wouldn’t notice her nerves. The familiar looking man, in his forties but dressed younger, straightened his posture, smiled and extended his right hand. Helene squeezed and he began to yell over the music downstairs.

“Helene Troy! What a pleasure! I’ll close that door! I don’t want to have to scream our conversation!”

The muffled sound was calming Helene. The other man, a few years younger, spoke next. He removed his round-framed glasses and smiled through pencil-thin lips.

“Well, I guess your manager told you what’s going on?”

Helene shook her head “yes” and looked around the office. The men talked more but Helene ignored them and focused on the pictures of other artists who played the club. She saw Ramona Gallery’s photo. Ramona was about her age, twenty-four, in the picture. The second man, the one Helene recognized, got her attention.

“Helene, I know your father. I met him before you were born, in 1981. I roadied for his band, The Articles, when I was seventeen. I was there the night they opened for The Police in Pittsburgh.”

Helene’s eyes widened. She smiled and ran her hands through her long brown hair.

“Really? Wait, you’re that guy that played at my Aunt’s wedding with my dad? I was ten.”

Helene liked most of the people her dad played with but couldn’t remember his name. He laughed.

“That’s right. I’m Kevin Phoenix. I liked playing with your dad. He was a hell of a guitar player.”

Helene frowned and looked away, catching a framed shot of one of her favorite bands, Luscious Jackson, then shot back.

“Still is.”

The first man put his glasses back on and typed on his laptop. Helene sat down in a brown leather chair. Kevin Phoenix began his pitch.

“Helene, Matador Records is losing The Golden Apples at the end of the year. The Apples actually recommended your band, to take their spot. We were hesitant until tonight. You were brilliant out there. Your vocals soared. Your guitar playing is outstanding. I told your manager you’re the best technical player and showman with an axe, I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever.”

Helene didn’t take compliments well. She knew the catch coming after the onslaught of flattery. Her face showed no emotion. Kevin continued.

“Helene, things happen in bands. They’re living, breathing organisms. But after a while, they reach a life expectancy and they just don’t always last.”

Her glare turned into a snarl. Just fucking say it, Kevin Phoenix, Helene thought to herself.

“We think your future is off the charts as a solo artist. You have the ability, charm, character, style, and attitude to make people care about rock and roll again.”

Helene’s imagination began to play. She thought about what it would be like to be in charge, to have her name at the top of a bill, and to not have to split a hundred bucks with three other people. She thought about Sadie, who’d done nothing wrong. Then, Ramona Gallery’s picture caught her eye again. Clarity came to her. She wanted Ramona’s success, but more of it and longer lasting.

Kevin and the other guy sat in silence. She liked their anticipation. The guy behind the laptop stood and turned his computer around and Helene saw a website. The colors purple, gray, and white, and accents of red highlighted www.helenetroy.net.

Helene tossed her hair back, narrowed her sharp green eyes and answered.

“I’m playing guitar on Ramona Gallery’s next CD. She’s paid me in advance. I refuse to quit. Also, if she doesn’t hate me after all this, I want Sadie in my band. She’s a terrific player, she can write, and she means the world to me.”

Kevin and the other man looked at each other and shook their heads in agreement. Kevin responded.

“We know about your work with Ramona. I talked to her earlier today. We think it’s a great way to promote you and help her be relevant as well.”

Helene swallowed hard and stared at Kevin.

“You talked to Ramona about me? When?”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders, looked at the other guy, and turned up his hands.

“About 6 tonight. She told me she was coming to the after party.”

Helene, who waited for Ramona’s to return her calls since hours before then, seethed.

The metal office door opened and the manager walked inside. The body language and facial expressions of the two men from Matador Records brightened. Helene looked over her left shoulder. The door slammed shut and the manager grinned.

“I’m assuming everything’s good with my girl?”

Kevin smiled at Helene who looked away.

“So far, this is a productive meeting. We’re on the same page. I think we’re looking at Matador’s next female rock and roll star.”

Helene grit her teeth at the framed picture of Ramona Gallery hanging over the three men engrossed in conversation about the her future. She thought about Ramona being her same age, twenty-four, when she left her band, Kerouac Kids, to sign with Matador Records. A loud knock startled everyone in the room. Gina entered. The sound of The Golden Apples concert rolled through the room.

“So, can I get you guys anything?”

The men declined but Helene met Gina at the door. She took two cocktail napkins from Gina’s tray and mouthed the word “pen”. Gina removed a black bic from her bra and handed it to Helene. On one napkin, using the tray as a backboard, she wrote.

“Xander,

Congratulations, you’re a good kisser. Follow Gina upstairs if you want to do it again.

Helene”

She folded the white tissue, and repeated the exercise with another napkin.

“Ramona,

I’m here, but I’ll all business tonight. Answer your damn phone, next time.

Helene”

Gina smiled and took the two folded napkins. Helene reached around Gina’s bare stomach, closed the door, then leaned into her large gold hooped earring adorned right ear. Helene watched her Gina sigh, then bite her bottom lip.

“Put these notes where you put your pen. You can read them. Give the one addressed to the guy you saw me with earlier, immediately. If you see Ramona Gallery anywhere in this club, give the other one to her. Thanks, G. I owe you, major.”

Gina smiled.

“I’ll get your bottle too.”

Helene turned to face the men. The manager spoke.

“Helene, I agree with these guys and your conditions. You’re a solo artist, long-term. If you want Sadie Olivares and Ramona Gallery, you got them. These Matador guys have agreed to let Slipper Socks Medium exist til the end of September so you all can fulfill gigs I’ve booked. If Mara Vincent gives us a problem, we’ll find another drummer.”

Helene rolled her eyes and faked a smile. The manager and the other record company guy resumed talking. Kevin Phoenix approached her at the door. His face was serious.

“Helene, we go back a long way. I promise I’ll help you through the transition. I think you have a hell of a future.”

Helene felt no emotion. Her green eyes looked down at Kevin’s right hand. It was on her right hip. Helene smirked and read through Kevin Phoenix.

The metal door reverberated from another loud knock. Helene opened it and Xander stood, sheepish but smiling. The sound of the concert below, rushed over them.

“Hey, Helene! I got Gina’s note and….”

Before he could finish, Helene turned away from Kevin and pushed her full lips into Xander’s.

Helene kissed Xander for several seconds then glanced over her left shoulder. Kevin looked away and shouted to the others.

“Helene and her friend are going to go enjoy the show! We’ll meet later!”

Helene grabbed Xander’s right hand. The Golden Apples’ concert rushed over them as they descended the stairs. Finger still entwined, they weaved through dancing bodies by the bar. Gina handed her the open bottle of Jack Daniels. Helene grabbed it and swallowed a large swig. She offered her warm mouth again, to Xander. As they finished another kiss, Gina leaned into Helene.

“Ramona Gallery is here!”

Her ey

Helene spun around, scanning as much of the club as her tired, tipsy eyes could see. Ramona Gallery wasn’t in her sight. Gina picked up her tray full of beer and several shots of tequila then waved Helene over with her free hand.

“Ramona Gallery, the singer right? Red hair, the famous one you used to talk about all the time?”

The sound from the stage increased as The Golden Apples began to close their set. Helene took a drink from her Jack Daniels bottle and shook her head yes as she swallowed and leaned into Gina as she spoke.

“She’s here, but I haven’t a chance to ask for her or give her your note! You want it back?”

Helene realized how much of a break she’d caught by Ramona not seeing her snarky message. She took the paper from Gina, wadded it in her left hand, swigged more whiskey from her bottle. She handed the Jack Daniels to Gina and shouted.

“Find a safe place for this, G. I’ll see you at the after party! You’re on my list!”

Gina smiled and mouthed “love you” and made her way to her round of customers. Helene moved her hands to her hips and wondered how to approach Ramona. As pissed off as she was, she still had to work for Ramona Gallery. Xander’s hands touched Helene’s almost naked shoulders.

“You okay, Helene? You know The Apples are good but you were so much better!”

She forced a smile but looked toward the back of the stage. That’s where Ramona would be, as publicity shy as she acted. Helene turned and threw her arms around Xander. She kissed his neck, tasting perspiration and beer.

“Xander, I need to go! I’m sorry but tonight….”

Before she could finish, Xander leaned in, placed his large, soft hands on her cheeks and kissed her, hard. He released his grip and yelled.

“This is probably the greatest night of your life, Helene! Go make deals and be a fucking rock star! I’ll be here when you get back!”

Helene felt guilty. She laughed inside at the irony of his statement. She made her way through the screaming, dancing throng and opened a door leading to the hallway she was in earlier. Her walk slowed as she heard Ramona’s voice over the music and the chatter of several roadies. Helene felt nauseous as her anger, hurt, and nervousness combined to overwhelm her. She placed her right hand against the concrete block wall and shouted.

“Ramona!”

The sound echoed through the hallway. Ramona looked up with a bothered glance and ended her conversation with two men, one of whom was Kevin Phoenix. Helene seethed but caught her bearings. Ramona walked over with her palms up, with a look of disappointment.

“Yeah, Helene, what is it?”

What is it? What the fuck do you think it is? Who the fuck do you think you are? I just kicked this club’s ass and got a record deal, you arrogant bitch! The thoughts rumbled through her foggy mind.

“Mona, I’ve been calling you for hours! I wanted you to see some of my show! I uh…..”

Helene looked away, embarrassed, She felt like a teenager with a crush. She and Ramona were supposed to be more than this, she had assumed. She watched Ramona look around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. She put out her left arm, and turned Helene toward the bathroom. Once the metal bathroom door was closed, Ramona stood against it and used her left index finger to entice Helene over. Their lips met and Ramona squeezed the back of Helene’s neck, pulling her hair hard enough to cause pain.

“Mona, I thought you were ignoring me and then those Matador guys said you talked to them about me.”

Ramona kissed her again, this time, even harder. Then she pushed Helene away and tightened her lips.

“Leney, I heard you killed. The record guys fucking love you. That’s because you weren’t worried about me. I wanted those guys to know you were solid. I think we’re all going to work together. It’ll be good, Leney. Now, where’s the dress?”

Helene felt lost and stupid. She looked down and remembered the halter that Dawn had given her.

“Mona, I’m sorry I couldn’t wear the dress tonight. This girl I met. It doesn’t matter. I’ll wear the dress next time, okay?”

Ramona crossed her arms and showed no emotion. It seemed like minutes went by before either of them spoke.

“Leney, I can’t believe you didn’t wear the dress. But the shoes look great. You look great. You taste like booze, though. Slow down on the drinking, the after party can make or break you. We’re recording tomorrow night, so be ready. I’ve got to go to some people.”

Ramona turned away and pulled the metal bathroom door open. Helene stood, frozen in disbelief and confusion.

“Ramona! Will I see you later?”

The music faded. The Golden Apples had completed their set. The screams and cheers of the crowd washed over Ramona’s shoulders at she stood at the threshold.

“Not tonight, Leney. Tomorrow, after we record. Congratulations, honey, you did good tonight.”

The door clanged shut. Helene stood in the middle of The Greek rock club women’s bathroom, in tears.

e makeup smudged by sweat and tears, Helene left the women’s bathroom to find her bag so should could fix her face. The hallways were filling with busy roadies, rock club employees, and various hanger-ons hoping to meet members of The Golden Apples after their set. Helene kept her head down and closed in on her belongings located behind her band’s equipment. A few feet away a small, cold, calloused right hand touched the small of Helene’s bare lower back. She turned and was surprised to greet Sadie’s sad face, whose pale face was puffy and her eyes were reddened from crying. Before Sadie said a word, Helene understood. The two women embraced near several guitar cases. Sadie shouted over amplifier feedback.

“Leney, are we through? You know, as a band and as friends?”

Helene wasn’t shocked by the question. She had been expecting it. She pulled Sadie close and spoke into her right ear.

“Never Sade, never! You and I are together as long as you’ll have me!”

She pulled back and looked Sadie straight in the eyes. “Understood?”

Their arms wrapped around each other and Sadie yelled another question.

“Are we getting drunk or laid tonight?”

Helene laughed through a wide smile and mouthed “both.” Sadie walked around the stage and pulled eyeliner and mascara from her own bag. Over the thunder of guitars and drums from a stage only fifty feet away, the women corrected each other’s makeup, communicating without speaking.

Helene pointed to the bar and Sadie waved her away. Sadie went toward the stage, while Helene walked to the bar in search of her well-traveled bottle of Jack Daniels. Bodies swayed and writhed back and forth. Helene ignored the beat and kept her attention on her waitress friend, Gina Nikosta. Gina’s dark eyes caught the newly drawn glare of Helene. She fetched the bottle of whiskey and met Helene at the edge of the bar.

“Helene, if you want me to take that hottie off your hands, I’m free tonight! You look too stressed out for him!”

Helene turned the bottle up and swallowed hard. The bourbon burned her tired throat. She realized Gina was the second woman in less than an hour who seemed smitten with Xander. As the song ended, a window of quiet emerged, and Helene blurted.

“G, if you want him, take him! I don’t deserve him!”

Gina rolled her eyes, loaded several beers on her serving tray and tossed a hand towel over her left shoulder.

“Of course you do, Helene! You deserve whatever you want! That guy’s yummy! Let him take you out of your head, at least for a night! Love you!”

Helene took another drink from her bottle, mouthed ”love you” back to Gina, then saw Xander dancing to the opening chords of The Golden Apples final song. Helene looked around the club but failed to catch a glimpse of Ramona Gallery. She swigged the bottle again and she strutted into the crowd toward Xander.

The Golden Apples played their final song. Helene couldn’t bear to listen. As the thunder of drums and guitar rumbled over the audience, she gulped from her bottle of Jack Daniels. Helene laced the fingers of her left hand inside Xander’s right then pulled him away from the stage. She showed him to a hallway, pushed him against a wall and bumped the heavy metal door closed with her rear end. Helene saw fear and confusion in Xander’s dark eyes.

“I don’t want to hear that fucking song ever again, Xander. I wrote it and they’re getting famous off it.”

She attempted another dramatic swig but lost her balance and dropped the whiskey on the floor. The loud clang of the glass bottle on the concrete floor changed the mood.

“That was so wrong! That was my bottle and it was half empty!”

Helene leaned down and picked it up, salvaging some.

“Helene, it’s okay. They’ll have plenty at your party. Look, I’m going to go. You need to slow down a bit, I guess, and focus on business.”

She saw disappointment in his face. They could barely hear each other over the music. After being rejected by Ramona, Helene didn’t want to feel defeated, again.

“Yeah, you’re right! Will you call me tomorrow?”

Xander smiled and leaned in to kiss her. He placed his large hands on her waist. His fingertips dug into hips. He pressed his lips against hers. Helene’s heart raced and she lost control. She spun around to place her back against the wall. She bit her bottom lip and fumbled with the top button of his blue jeans. Xander pulled away. He shrugged his shoulders and touched his face with his hands.

“Helene, no! Not this way! I wish I’d drank as much as you did tonight but I wanted to you! I’m sorry! “

Helene’s body language screamed and Xander tried to comfort her.

“What you did onstage tonight, Helene was amazing. People are going to be talking about that performance forever. Now, go make it mean something. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Helene shook her head in disbelief as Xander walked away.

She balled her fists and stared at the white in her knuckles. She picked up the bottle, swallowed more whiskey then walked to the backstage area. The Golden Apples ended their set. Helene hunted her bags. They were next to some guitar cases. She opened the larger bag and pulled out the designer dress Ramona gave her. She tossed back her long brown hair and drank the last drops in the Jack Daniels bottle.

“Fuck you Ramona! I’ll make you beg for me!”

Helene woke to the chill of the bathroom floor on her bare back and the tickle of little tongues on her damaged fingers. Her head ached from whatever happened over the past few hours. Throwing her cell phone and falling out of a cab were only flashes of recall. She pulled the grey and white kittens to her chest then placed them in front of their food bowl.

“Oh God, what did I do?”

Helene gagged from thoughts of what her thriftless drinking may have done. She pushed sore hands threw matted hair and walked naked into the living room.

The room contained an unusual smell of cleanliness. The music equipment Helene owned but stored with her band, was now stacked in the middle of the living room floor. Helene looked at two electric guitars, one acoustic guitar, two amplifiers, microphones with stands, guitar stands, a power mixer, jacks and cables.

“Damn, I really am a solo artist, now.”

Walking to the refridgerator, she tried to remember the past several hours. She grabbed a beer then looked in a cabinet for aspirin to stave off her headache. The door to the apartment opened. Helene heard two familiar voices.

“Sadie! Mara! What the hell? I’m naked!”

Helene dropped the bottled beer and dove behind the kitchen counter to hide. The unopened beer rolled on the hardwood floor toward Sadie.

“Sorry Leney. We thought you were still sleeping. It’s just me and Mara. We brought your stuff over and then we decided we all need to talk.”

Determined to find some clothes and answers, she stood and used her right hand to motion her band mates to turn their backs. They responded with eye rolls.

“Leney, we’ve seen you naked. The bags with your clothes from last night are on your bed. Dawn brought them by earlier.”

Helene glared at them as she stomped to her bedroom. The dress Ramona loaned her was balled up on the bed next to the bags she took to her concert. She opened a bag put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt then rejoined them.

“Jackson’s girlfriend was here?”

Mara stood against the closed front door looking away with her arms crossed. Sadie pulled her medium length, unwashed ginger hair back into a ponytail with an orange hairband. She handed Helene the aspirin and beer.

“Leney, Dawn’s quite the enigma. She’s really sweet and thinks the world of you. She helped us save your ass last night.”

Mara muttered.

“Sweet girl meets sour girl. That should be the opening track on your CD, Helene.”

Helene glared at Mara then turned and walked to the patio. She cringed while sliding the door open. Sadie followed.

“Leney, ignore Mara. Our manager wants to meet today so we can get paid for last night and talk about the next gig. I know you got me the job with Ramona. I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

Helene sat in the white plastic chair. She yelped in pain opening the beer. It spewed over the concrete. She raised her bare feet onto the white plastic table.

“You’re welcome Sade. Now, why are my hands are killing me?”

Narrow lanes of red and purple scrapes stretched over the knuckles on each of her fists. Tiny specks of asphalt crumbled out of her cupped hands as she moved her thumbs over her palms. Helene picked up the bottle of beer and swigged from its settled brew. She sat it down and turned to face Sadie. Morning sunlight bounced off the glass patio door. She blinked and caught her reflection through the glass then looked away feeling shame.

“Leney, I think you hurt your hands when you fell out of the cab. You were screaming at the guy to take you to Ramona’s. We wouldn’t let you. You threw your phone at me and Dawn then rolled out of the cab. I think you punched the cab too.”

Helene’s eyes moved back to her patio door reflection. She was twenty-four but looked older. Out of nowhere, Mara appeared in the door’s threshold holding the two gray and white kittens.

“Helene, I didn’t know you were a crazy cat lady! What are their names?”

Mara’s interruption caused Helene to turn around in her chair and resume drinking. Sadie took one of the kittens and the two women stood around Helene’s chair admiring them. Helene finished the beer.

“Tegan and Sara. The one with white on her belly is Tegan. I got them from the Bodega on the corner. They’re seven or eight weeks old.”

Helene put the empty bottle on the table and stood. Her knees buckled as she tried to steady herself. She clenched her fists and breathed through pain and dizziness.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking sorry. I don’t know why I lost it last night. I could say Ramona’s a bitch. I could say I was nervous. But I think…..”

She stopped as the words made her gasp and start to cry. Large tears fell from her sharp green eyes. Her head pounded from her hangover. Sadie handed one of the kittens to Mara and extended her arms. The two women hugged. Helene cried into Sadie’s left shoulder. Mara walked back inside with the kittens and closed the patio door. Sadie patted Helene’s long brown hair.

“Leney, other than whatever’s going on with you and Ramona Gallery, I think you made it out of last night alright. Jackson punched Case in front of a bunch of reporters right after you got seriously drunk. The Golden Apples fucked up a lot more than you did last night.”

Helene couldn’t stop crying. Through sobs and sniffs she caught her reflection again. She grit her teeth and swallowed, hard.

“Sade, I look like shit. Let me get in the shower, take care of Tegan and Sara, then we’ll go see the manager and get paid. You and Mara can help me buy a new cell phone.”

Sadie smiled and touched Helene’s left shoulder as she walked back inside the apartment. Helene opened and closed the patio door but refused to look through the glass.

A  peanut butter bagel and two more aspirin staved off her hangover. Helene shuffled into the Soho loft flanked by her bandmates. She expected trouble after her drunkedn behavior the previous night.

“So, let me have it.”

The manager sat behind a small wooden desk studying his laptop. Helene could feel Sadie and Mara creep behind her like scared children. She chewed on her left cheek while approaching him. The manager grinned while handing a Village Voice newspaper to Helene.

“Read the headline.”

Helene’s sharp green eyes couldn’t contain her surprise.

“The Helene Troy Revolution Has Begun, Count Us In!”

Helene felt the ink residue of a fresh Village Voice newspaper while Sadie and Mara peered over her shoulders. Helene fought a smile while reading their concert review.

“Last night, for a CD release party at The Greek Rock Club, The Golden Apples gifted the capacity crowd. Her name is Helene Troy. Amid tosses of wavy brown hair, guitar virtuosity, and an unforgettable stage presence, the stunning twenty-four year old leader of the female trio, Slipper Socks Medium, stole the show.”

Helene knew the fragile egos surrounding her. She threw her arms around both women then smiled behind their backs.