CITY OF BONES

Clary shook her head. “Those are both terrible.”


“Eric suggested Lawn Chair Crisis.”

“Maybe Eric should stick to gaming.”

“But then we’d have to find a new drummer.”

“Oh, is that what Eric does? I thought he just mooched money off you and went around telling girls at school that he was in a band in order to impress them.”

“Not at all,” Simon said breezily. “Eric has turned over a new leaf. He has a girlfriend. They’ve been going out for three months.”

“Practically married,” Clary said, stepping around a couple pushing a toddler in a stroller: a little girl with yellow plastic clips in her hair who was clutching a pixie doll with gold-streaked sapphire wings. Out of the corner of her eye Clary thought she saw the wings flutter. She turned her head hastily.

“Which means,” Simon continued, “that I am the last member of the band not to have a girlfriend. Which, you know, is the whole point of being in a band. To get girls.”

“I thought it was all about the music.” A man with a cane cut across her path, heading for Berkeley Street. She glanced away, afraid that if she looked at anyone for too long they would sprout wings, extra arms, or long forked tongues like snakes. “Who cares if you have a girlfriend, anyway?”

“I care,” Simon said gloomily. “Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell the school janitor. And he smells like Windex.”

“At least you know he’s still available.”

Simon glared. “Not funny, Fray.”

“There’s always Sheila ‘The Thong’ Barbarino,” Clary suggested. Clary had sat behind her in math class in ninth grade. Every time Sheila had dropped her pencil—which had been often—Clary had been treated to the sight of Sheila’s underwear riding up above the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.

“That is who Eric’s been dating for the past three months,” Simon said. “His advice, meanwhile, was that I ought to just decide which girl in school had the most rockin’ bod and ask her out on the first day of classes.”

“Eric is a sexist pig,” Clary said, suddenly not wanting to know which girl in school Simon thought had the most rockin’ bod. “Maybe you should call the band the Sexist Pigs.”

“It has a ring to it.” Simon seemed unfazed. Clary made a face at him, her messenger bag vibrating as her phone blared. She fished it out of the zip pocket. “Is it your mom again?” he asked.

Clary nodded. She could see her mother in her mind’s eye, small and alone in the doorway of their apartment. Guilt unfurled in her chest.

She glanced up at Simon, who was looking at her, his eyes dark with concern. His face was so familiar she could have traced its lines in her sleep. She thought of the lonely weeks that stretched ahead without him, and shoved the phone back into her bag. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going to be late for the show.”





3

SHADOWHUNTER


BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO JAVA JONES, ERIC WAS ALREADY onstage, swaying back and forth in front of the microphone with his eyes squinched shut. He’d dyed the tips of his hair pink for the occasion. Behind him, Matt, looking stoned, was beating irregularly on a djembe.

“This is going to suck so hard,” Clary predicted. She grabbed Simon’s sleeve and tugged him toward the doorway. “If we make a run for it, we can still get away.”

He shook his head determinedly. “I’m nothing if not a man of my word.” He squared his shoulders. “I’ll get the coffee if you find us a seat. What do you want?”

“Just coffee. Black—like my soul.”

Simon headed off toward the coffee bar, muttering under his breath something to the effect that it was a far, far better thing he did now than he had ever done before. Clary went to find them a seat.

The coffee shop was crowded for a Monday; most of the threadbare-looking couches and armchairs were taken up with teenagers enjoying a free weeknight. The smell of coffee and clove cigarettes was overwhelming. Finally Clary found an unoccupied love seat in a darkened corner toward the back. The only other person nearby was a blond girl in an orange tank top, absorbed in playing with her iPod. Good, Clary thought, Eric won’t be able to find us back here after the show to ask how his poetry was.

The blond girl leaned over the side of her chair and tapped Clary on the shoulder. “Excuse me.” Clary looked up in surprise. “Is that your boyfriend?” the girl asked.

Clary followed the line of the girl’s gaze, already prepared to say, No, I don’t know him, when she realized the girl meant Simon. He was headed toward them, face scrunched up in concentration as he tried not to drop either of his Styrofoam cups. “Uh, no,” Clary said. “He’s a friend of mine.”

The girl beamed. “He’s cute. Does he have a girlfriend?”

Clary hesitated a second too long before replying. “No.”