Roof Rules

"Took me long enough?" you say. "You're the one who's been pretending I'm furniture."

Ravn turns the pick over in his fingers. The star catches the light again, and he closes his fist around it like it might fly away.

"Pawn shop," he says.

"What?"

"Found it in a pawn shop. In Tacoma. Bin of old picks by the register. Fifty cents." He shrugs, one shoulder, the leather creaking. "Thought the star was cute."

"You're lying."

"I'm a frontman. It's basically the job description." He tilts his head at the ledge beside him, an invitation that pretends not to be one. "You can sit. Roof rules, though."

"There are roof rules."

"There are now." He holds up a ringed finger. "One. Nobody talks about music up here. Not the set, not the tone, not the crowd, not the business. Down there it's all music. Up here it's not."

You should go back downstairs. You should find Ksenia and drink the warm beer in your green room and not sit next to the man who kissed you at sunrise and then put a different person in his song.

You sit. The ledge is wet. The concrete is cold through your jeans. Your shoulders are a foot apart and you are aware of every inch of the foot.

"What do we talk about, then?" you ask.

"Anything else." He looks at the city, finally. "Best gas station snack."

"That's your opener?"

"It's a serious question. You can tell everything about a person from their gas station snack."

"Sour gummy worms. The ones that taste like a battery."

He turns his head slowly, like you've said something holy. "Okay. Okay, that's a real answer. Mine's the hot dog that's been rolling since the Clinton administration."

"That's not a snack, that's a dare."

"Life is a dare."

You laugh before you can stop yourself. It comes out of you like it's been waiting. His mouth does the thing again, the almost-smile, and this time he doesn't kill it.

You talk about the worst city either of you has ever played (his: a bowling alley in Ohio, three people, one of them asleep; yours: a wedding in Gary, Indiana, where the bride's uncle tried to sing "Free Bird" with your band). You talk about where you're from. He says Maine, a town called Stonington, his mom runs a lobster pound and thinks every musician is one bad winter away from needing a real job. You say Chicago, your mom still lives in the two-flat you grew up in and still asks if you're eating vegetables. He says his mom asks the same thing, and that he lies, and that he thinks she knows.

He never says the word Driftwood. Neither do you. It sits between you on the wet ledge like a third person.

A door bangs open behind you. A freckled woman with a Telecaster slung on her back sticks her head out into the drizzle.

"Drummore. Six minutes. If I have to come up here again I'm throwing you off."

"Cassia," he says, without turning around. "My guitarist. She loves me."

"I tolerate you," Cassia says. Then she sees you, and something crosses her face, fast, there and gone. Surprise. Then something softer. She looks at Ravn. Ravn does not look at her.

"Six minutes," she says again, gentler, and goes.

Ravn stands. He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, pick and all.

"Portland's got a better roof," he says. "Fire escape. You can see the river."

"Is that an invitation?"

"It's a weather report." He walks backward toward the door, watching you. "Nice playing tonight, by the way."

"Roof rules," you say. "No talking about music."

He stops in the doorway. For a second he just looks at you, wet hair, rings, that face, and you think he's going to say something real.

"Good," he says. "You were listening."

Then he's gone, and a minute later eighteen hundred people scream like the building is coming down.

Bus 1 leaves at 1:40 a.m. You have the third bunk on the left, which is the size of a coffin and smells like a new mattress and an old band. Ksenia is asleep with her headphones on, snoring through them. Haruto is doing a crossword by headlamp.

You can't sleep. You go up to the front lounge.

Daria is there, legs folded under her on the bench seat, a mug of tea steaming in both hands. The highway slides by in orange streaks. Up in the driver's seat Zoltan hums something Hungarian under his breath and doesn't turn around.

"Chamomile," Daria says. "There's more in the pot. It's terrible."

You pour some. It is terrible. You sit across from her, your knees almost touching hers under the little table, the way they did a thousand times on a thousand drives when she was your road manager and your girlfriend and the person who knew where your passport was.

"Good first night," she says.

"Good first night."

She looks into her tea. "Can I say a thing? And then I'll never say it again unless you ask?"

"Daria."

"I'm not over you." She says it plainly, the way she'd tell you load-in got pushed an hour. "I've been in therapy for a year. I figured out a lot. I figured out I managed you like a show day, and you felt like a line item, and I'd do it differently. I also figured out that's my work and not your problem." She meets your eyes. "So. I'm here. I'm good at my job. I'm not going to make it weird. If you ever wanted to try again, I'd want to. If you don't, I'll still be the best road manager you ever had."

The bus rocks over a seam in the road. Your tea sloshes.

You don't know what to say. You loved her. You did. You loved her for three years and then one morning you woke up and realized you didn't know which parts of your own life were yours.

"Thank you for telling me," you say finally.

She smiles. It's a real one, a little sad. "That's very you, Ethan. Okay. Go to bed. Load-in's at noon."

You go. You lie in your coffin and listen to the road and think about two people: one who knows exactly who you were, and one who pretends not to know you at all.

The Lantern Room in Portland is a converted church with stained glass behind the stage and a bar where the altar used to be. Load-in is chaos. Ksenia's amp head is missing. Haruto has found it and is already sitting on it.

You're carrying your bass rig up the ramp when Hollow Saints' production manager, a heavyset man with a gray beard and a headset he never takes off, holds the door for you.

"You're Velvet Static," he says. "The bass player."

"That's me. Ethan."

He nods like he's matching a face to a file. "Heard you were good. Glad it worked out. Took us long enough to book you."

"Long enough?"

"Ravn turned down six openers." He holds up six fingers, in case you need visual aid. "Six. Label sent him a list of bands that would've sold more tickets. He kept saying no. Then he hands me a name on a napkin." He jerks a thumb at you. "Velvet Static. And under it, in capitals, he wrote: MAKE SURE THE BASSIST COMES."