I couldn’t just flee the hotel. I wanted to, but I couldn’t leave things the way they were: a boy dead in our room and my friends in the lurch. But I also couldn’t just sit there and watch them play around with someone’s death.
Perhaps the bar wasn’t the best place to clear my head, though. It was fuller this time of night. Beyond the windows I couldn’t see anything but Strepurs, just piled on top of each other, pressed against the glass. They were the rolling fog in horror movies, the ever-expanding dark blob in The Blob (the 1988 remake). I thought back to what Erin said, about those girls being zombies, and now it was all I saw. It was in the glazed-over look behind their overtired eyes; their open mouths, silent from where I was sitting, but eerily cavernous; the drool that fell limply from the corners of them. Were those girls my peers? Was I kidding myself into thinking there was more than just glass doors that separated us?
You could put up a few stanchions, post a pair of guards at the front, but nothing you did could really stop them. It felt like I was the only one who knew the unique and undeniable truth that the only reason this hotel was still standing was because the Strepurs outside of it were feeling merciful. For now. The moment they all decided that nothing would stand in the way of them and The Ruperts, people were going to fall and walls were coming down.
There was a stool open at the bar. I sat in it a second before realizing I’d have to see the Civil War Bartender again. He showed up immediately. Even his beard wasn’t enough to obscure the smugness behind it. “I heard about what happened.”
I sat up straighter, alarmed. Did he know Rupert P. was dead? Did the girls call the police after all? “I’m—I’m sorry.”
“I bet you are. A Rupert quits the band. Smartest guy in the group.”
Oh. “You know about that?”
“It’s all over the news.” He took his phone out and flicked through some things on the screen until a blue glow reflected off his face. He showed me the screen. It was the signature royal-blue background of Isabel’s site. If someone as civilian as Civil War Bartender was on it, it had to mean she was getting crazy traffic, which meant she was probably raking it in too. Rupert P.’s death might end up being the best thing to happen to Isabel.
“Come to drown your sorrows?” Civil War Bartender said.
“Will you serve me alcohol if I said yes?” I didn’t know how drinks worked exactly. I’d never had any alcohol before, but if movies and books were to be believed, there was a chance I could black out, maybe forget whole parts of the day. Suddenly alcoholism didn’t seem like an altogether bad way to lead a life. A drink sounded like just exactly what I needed.
“Still no.”
“I’ll have a cherry Coke.”
He poured me a glass and watched as I gulped it down. I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until some of the Coke spilled down the front of my sweater, the ivory cable knit soaking it up like a towel. “Damnit.”
“You’re really upset about this,” Civil War Bartender said.
Why was he still here? He handed me a stack of napkins, and I dabbed them on myself in a futile attempt to get clean.
“Chaos for a boy band is always a good thing,” he said. “Shakes things up a bit. It’ll either make them stronger musicians or they’ll disband altogether. Any way you spin it, it can’t be bad.”
He was starting to sound like Erin. How could two people so different have the same opinion on this?
“Rupert Pierpont was the weakest link anyway,” he said. “Wasn’t he, like, the one who juggled all the time?”
“For someone who despises boy bands so much, you seem to know an awful lot about them.”
“I can’t shut my eyes to the world around me. As John Lennon once said, ‘Living is easy—’ ”
“ ‘With eyes closed.’ I know. What I don’t know is what the fuckall that quote has to do with what we’re talking about.” I kept dabbing the stain, which seemed to only be growing, in proportion with my annoyance. “Don’t you have a Kickstarter to fund or something? I don’t have to sit here and listen to you. You don’t know anything. You think you’re so cool with your beard and your dollar-store philosophies about boy bands and life? You think you have anything to say about the experience of the modern American teenage girl? You have no fucking clue what it’s like to be me or my friends. You don’t know what we’re capable of. So why don’t you kindly fuck off!”
I didn’t know where any of that had come from, but it felt good getting it out. Is this what it felt like to be Erin all the time? To always make an impact? The few people sitting next to me at the bar gave me long looks before vacating their stools. Even Civil War Bartender took a step back.
“Wow,” he said. “Fans, man. You’re all crazy.”
“Yeah? Write me an open letter.”
His gaze left mine to look at someone behind me. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be way over there if you need me.”