Roman Holiday

chapter Twenty-Five

You know how in every cop drama the police station is always busy no matter what hour of the day? Yeah, they all lie. As we're processed into the system—mug shots, fingerprints, the whole nine yards—I can count the number of officers in the building on one hand. One hand.

"It's a Thursday night," our police officer, a guy named NESKY with a handlebar mustache, shrugs off. "We got public drunks to apprehend."

"It's six-thirty," I say.

"It's the beach."

Maggie nods in agreement. "He's got a point, bb. I mean, they probably do more than chase beautiful half-naked women around cemeteries." She bats her eyelashes at Officer Nesky who isn't swayed in the slightest. He tells Maggie to face the other direction and takes her last photo. "This is my best side, anyway. I'd look better in chartreuse, though. You got any chartreuse shirts back where you pulled these hid-vicious gray things from?"

The officer rolls his eyes. "No."

"Do get a lot of people like us?"

"Streakers?" he clarifies, filling in the rest of the paperwork, before motioning for us to follow him through the door to the holding cells. "Yeah, we get a few. You're in luck. There aren't many felons here yet. Later tonight though, mind your elbows."

He opens the cell door for us and takes our handcuffs off as we go inside. I rub my wrists where the metal indented into my skin, hoping it won't leave any bruises. Officer Nesky nods to the guard on duty by the desk, and I begin to ask him when we're getting our clothes back when he shuts the door behind him, leaving us with the guard.

Maggie sits down on one of the benches. "You know, I didn't think I'd be free-tittin' it either, bb. I hope RoMo and Boaz are halfway to China by now." She gives two men on the opposite side of our cell a sharp glare. She snaps her fingers towards them. "Hey—Hey, my face is up here. Creep."

Our guard has his back turned to us. He has a box of pizza open, but only the crusts are left, as he watches the small TV up in the corner of the room. Of course, it's turned to the live coverage from the cemetery. The candle lighting is supposed to commence any moment now, but they keep replaying the moment a particularly burly policeman grabs me by the shoulder just after we've surrendered at front gate and pushes me to the ground. There's a scrape on my knee from that.

"At least they're classy enough to blur us out," I comment, leaning back against the cold wall.

Maggie groans. "Yeah, but it makes my butt look so gigantor."

"At least you don't look like a crazed fan. What's up with my facial expression?" I try to mimic it, tongue splayed out, eyes rolled up, and Maggie giggles so hard she has to clutch her chest.

"Oh my God, don't do that! I might pop myself a black eye!" she howls. One of the homeless men wiggles an eyebrow, and her face quickly falls. "Not in a million years, you homeless perv."

"We're not homeless," the pervy guy's friend argues. He scratches his scruffy brown hair. They're probably in their mid-thirties, crinkled clothes, dirt smudges. One of them is even missing a flip-flop. If they aren't homeless, they could definitely win a Halloween contest looking like that. "I was trapped on a roof."

"And I was too drunk to find him," the pervy buddy adds.

"Oh, well isn't that just so presh." Maggie wrinkles her nose. "I mean, hello. You are obvi-dirty. Ever heard of a shower? Bath and Body Works? Soap?"

"Don't feed the buzzards."

"He started it!" she whines. When I mock her, she elbows me in the side. The TV blips back from a commercial to Nick Lively. She perks. "Ooh! Guard-man!" she calls to our guard, who doesn't even acknowledge us, "Turn it up, please!"

"Quiet down!" He snaps, grabs the remote, and turns it up. Maggie sticks out her tongue behind his back and nudges me to get up with her. We walk over to the side of the cell closest to the TV. I press my face between the bars because the cool metal sooths my sunburned cheeks.

Nick Lively must be in his media van since he's standing in front of a black backdrop where my face, and a very old image of Roman—when he still had mocha-colored hair and no tattoos, are superimposed beside each other. Between them, Jason Dallas slowly fades in, his black hair pulled back behind his head. I never noticed before, but his eyes are slanted, and his face is long. Like a fox.

Maggie squints at the news banner zipping across the bottom of the screen. "I think they're talking about the concert next Saturday—oh, I'd give my right ovary to go to it!"

This time, the guard turns around, his bushy black eyebrows furrowing, like two emo caterpillars in heat. "Shhhhhhh!"

We hold up our hands instinctively. "Sorry," I mouth.

He turns up the volume, and slides back down into his comfy chair. I strain my ears to listen.

"...Talk about one hell of a roman holiday,” Nick Lively tries to joke with a bleached white smile and forces a laugh so that even if you don't get the joke, everyone will laugh at the poor attempt.

Maggie just scowls. "You'd think he'd have better material."

"I'm just surprised he knows what a roman holiday is."

She raises her first in agreement, and I fist-bump it.

Nick Lively goes on, “Jason Dallas, a fellow singer who has crossed one too many paths with Roman Montgomery in the past, is live from New York City where he’ll be performing next Saturday night—a concert which, any Holidayer would know was originally Roman Holiday’s first Madison Square gig and reportedly Holly’s long-time dream. How do you feel about it, Jason?”

The screen splits open, and the pallid face of Jason Dallas blips up. His hair is pulled back into a tiny ponytail, a leaf of jet-black bangs feathering into his eyes. “I feel fine. How about you, Nicky?”

"He's totes gorg," Maggie tells me, off-handed. "I wouldn't say no."

"If you could pick between him and Boaz..." When she mocks aghast, I bump her in the shoulder. "Oh come on. Like I didn't see you making your sex-kitten eyes at him."

"I do have a think for men in kilts..." The scary thing is, I don't think she's kidding. Not that we'll ever see them again, but I make a mental note to tell the next guy she dates to wear a kilt. She'd go nuts.

Nick Lively cuts in with a harsh laugh. "Oh, Jason...you're a riot." His lips spread over his teeth in a pained smile. “Roman suddenly resurfacing is a little unnerving, isn’t it?”

Jason Dallas quirks a black eyebrow. The ring on the left side of his lip glistens as he grins. “Unnerving? Nah.”

“After Roman Holiday fell into oblivion without its two lead singers, you were quick to fill their place at the Gardens, were you not?”

“We're under the same label. We have the same manager. So listen, if he decides to pay me a visit, I’ll be glad to fight him for the stage. He still owes me fifty-five dollars for a f*ckin’ game of strip poker.” He pauses. “I wasn’t supposed say 'f*ck,' was I?”

Nick gives another nervous laugh. “You’re something else, Jason. So what are your feelings about the streakers at Holly Hudson's vigil?"

Jason Dallas shrugs. “Don't care. The black girl's got nice tits."

Maggie jumps up and down excitedly. "Nice tits!" she echoes. "Jason Dallas says I have nice tits!"

"Yeah, you do," one of the homeless men baits, and we blindly throw back a middle finger together.

"Don't you think it was a little rude?" Nick tries to egg, but Jason shuts him down.

"What I think is rude, Nicky—"

"Nick."

"Bless you. What I think is rude, Nicky, is you sniffing for trouble on the anniversary of the death of a friend of mine.”

Nick blanches. “Of—of course, and she is sorely missed. So, you and Roman used to bump heads…”

Jason murmurs something underneath his breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said,” he pulls himself up in his chair and narrows his eyes. They match the deep blue sky in the Starry Night replica hanging above his head. “Nicky—”

“Nick.”

“Whatever. I don't have time for you. So, yes, I’m playing next Saturday night at eight in the Gardens, and I’m going to rock the whole f*ckin’ house—or you know, maybe I won’t. And yeah, that’s a challenge. So I expect Roman to show up for the fight.” He reaches his hand forward and his screen goes dark.

Nick's smile is beginning to strain the Botox around his cheeks. "You heard it here first—it's a challenge!"

"Too bad he wont show up," I reply, stepping back from the cell bars, shaking my head. Roman's probably halfway to Charlotte by now, or Charleston, or Columbia, or Raleigh—anywhere, really. He could be anywhere at all. I feel tired just thinking about it.

"At least Roman's got the memory card," Maggie points out, pulling her dreads over one shoulder, giving the guys in the corner another stink-eye.

"If he doesn't chuck it first."

The iron door to the room opens, and Officer Nesky comes back in. We instantly perk up, thinking that someone's paid our bail, but he just shakes his head when he sees the hopeful gleam in our eyes. "Junie?" He asks me and I nod. "Someone's here to see you."

"Really?" My heart leaps out of my chest in a moment of complete insanity, thinking that it could be Roman...until I remember what happened in the cemetery, and suddenly I don't want to leave the cell at all. He unlocks the cell door, and with a hesitant glance back at Maggie, I follow him out of the room and down the hallway into a small interrogation office. I don't notice who's waiting for me until the door closes. Suddenly, it's very, very hard to breathe.

"You," I gasp.

John Birmingham grins.