22
Her face went horrified when she saw me. She put the guitar down and hopped to her feet.
“Oh my God, what the hell happened to you?!”
“Well,” I said, tossing my keys in the basket. “Hello.”
“Were you in an accident?!”
“Of course, you might be an optical illusion…”
“Adam.”
“Naw, you look too good to be an illusion—how’d you get in here?”
“Me? The nice old man downstairs showed me up. I told him I was your sister.”
“But—he already knows my sister.”
“Well then, he must be very confused at the moment—what happened to your face?”
“My face? Oh, yes, my face. I…I’m a bit old for skateboarding, I realize that now.” I faked a balancing act.
“It’s kinda gnarly, Adam. Do you have medical insurance?”
“Who do you think I am, Jeff Bezos?”
“Well, is there any Neosporin in this place?”
“Neo what?”
“Hydrogen peroxide?”
Soon she was seated next to me on the bed, daubing the cut on my lip with a Q-tip, and we were very close. But her expression was stern.
“You don’t strike me as the daredevil type.”
“What type do I strike you as—ouch.”
“Don’t smile.” She gave me the dubious once-over. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I looked you up. Not that I’m stalking you or anything.”
“Oh. That’s…I’m flattered. Find out anything good?”
“Well, you live in a recording studio for one.”
“Yeah—it’s, uh, affordable.”
“Do you play those instruments?”
I froze. “No. I mean, I know a few chords but, no, they just keep those here.”
“I didn’t find too many music articles by you, but I did see an article about you. They said you solved a homicide?”
“Oh that, that was just—that was a flukey thing, one of my riders. Yeah, that was awful.”
“But are you really writing about that band or what?”
“Yeah.”
She gave me the big unbelieving eyes.
“Well…no, okay, not exactly. But I didn’t lie to you, I just—” I scrambled for a half-truth. I knew I had to toss her something.
“Is it for a magazine?”
I paused. “No.”
“Are you a journalist?”
“Barely, sort of. Once I was, barely, but no.”
“So…what’s it about?”
“That’s just it, Endi, I’m not sure I should talk about it.”
“Are you doing something illegal?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Another half-truth.
