“I’m Sean,” he says.
“Well, Ellie and Sean, I understand why something like that might not be for sale, however, you might be open to a trade, right? Any reasonable person would be.” Jamie-girl reaches into Jamie-boy’s back pocket and takes out a homemade-looking duct tape wallet. She opens his wallet and removes a folded piece of paper. She leans in toward me. “Okay, like just the fact that I am even showing you this is a big deal and seriously there are people who would probably pay serious cash just for a tiny peek at this but…” She unfolds the paper, glances to her left and her right. “There. There it is. This is the drawing that’s going to be on the cover of their new album.” She holds it out in front of her with a proud smirk on her face.
I raise my hand up to my mouth, inhale sharply. My heartbeat starts playing in fast-forward.
There in the center of the paper is a photocopy of a drawing—a girl with her hands on her head, her feet spread apart, her head tipped back, screaming.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper. A Nina Wrigley original. I can feel Sean pressed against my arm. His heart is pounding, too. “Where’d you get this?”
“We’re just really well-connected,” Jamie-girl says. And then she shrugs as though she doesn’t think this is a huge deal, but clearly we’re supposed to. “This is just a copy of course, we keep the real one locked up. But if you’ll give me that photo, I’ll let you have this.”
I stare at the drawing, I can barely even process what she’s saying as my mind opens up to hold all this new information. Nina wasn’t just some girl who tattooed them. She was probably someone they knew. Might still know. They might even know where she is.
“I need to meet them,” I say. I look up. Jamie-guy is still staring at me, his tongue protruding ever so slightly from between his chapped lips.
Jamie-girl lets out a snorty little laugh. “Well, unless you have a way to get to Phoenix by tomorrow night, that’s not gonna happen, girly. That’s the last show of their American tour before they go to Europe for two months.” She takes the drawing and folds it back up and puts it back in Jamie-boy’s wallet, which she then puts back into his pocket. “If you’re such big Monsties, how come you don’t already know all this?” I’m about to explain that really we’re just looking for my sister, but before I can say anything, Sean starts talking.
“We just heard them for the first time the other day,” he says. “But right away it was like one of those things where you just connect to the music. You know how it is.” Sean turns toward me and winks. “So, what about this Phoenix show tomorrow night? Where exactly is it?”
“This underground place that doesn’t technically have a name,” Jamie-boy says. “But everyone calls it Spit Pavilion, because it’s really dusty out there in the desert and the dust makes everyone have to spit all the time. It’s intense.”
“You’ve been there?” Sean asks.
“Well…no, but we read all about it on this Monster Hands online forum,” Jamie-girl says. “And it’s not just a regular forum anyone canjoin, you have to be invited. Anyway, good luck getting in at this point without a ticket or some serious connections.” She makes a little noise in the back of her throat. “Oh, and you’d also need a car because this place is basically in the middle of nowhere.” She crosses her arms and smirks.
“Well, what if we have one,” Sean says. “A car, I mean. And what if we were willing to drive out there…”
Jamie-girl leans forward. “Well then, maybe we could work something out…” She’s trying to sound calm but under all her eyeliner her left eyelid starts to twitch. “Because we just so happen to have those very special connections one would need to get in last minute. We were planning on going but then smoochy-face’s car broke down. But if you give us a ride there and throw in the picture of course, we might be…” She’s starting to smile, she takes a deep breath and forces the corners of her mouth down. “Well, we might be willing to come with you to Phoenix and help you get in and help you get backstage. We’d have to leave, like, now though.”
“And we’d have to stay overnight somewhere,” Jamie-boy says. “Y’know, all together.” He grins, still staring at me. “You guys in?” He sticks his hand out to shake. He has bits of green ink on his fingers, too. Jamie-girl glances at him and opens her mouth slightly.