Apple, standing to my right, squeezed my hand. Her favorite may have already been dead, but she was still a fan of The Ruperts as a whole, and seeing the band this close was doing a number on her. I knew this because despite everything that had happened, it was doing a number on me too. My guts seized up at the sight of them, and I squeezed her hand back.
I waited for the boys to notice the big dead mess left gift-wrapped for them in the middle of the room, but Rupert X. and Rupert L. seemed more interested in finding the closest trash bin. They didn’t lose stride as they marched up to it and dumped all of the fan gifts they’d been holding into it. A teddy bear bounced off the top of the pile, and Rupert X. bent down and picked it up.
“I love you!” the toy squealed. Rupert X. stuffed it face-first deep into the wastebasket. It was only when he was done that he looked up and saw him.
Then Rupert L. saw him.
Rupert K. was reading one of the notes from his stack of fan gifts, still clutched in the crook of his arm. Even in all this craziness he was all shine. There was a slight smile on his face, interrupted when Rupert X. threw the plush bear from the trash at his head.
“I love you!” the bear said again as it bounced off Rupert K.’s head and fell to the floor.
Rupert K. finally looked up, and for some strange reason I was grateful that he was the last one to see Rupert P. He got a few extra seconds to be a normal person instead of someone whose friend was dead in his room. But in the end, the few extra seconds were useless, because I could tell he understood first. He knew, before the other Ruperts did, that Rupert P. wasn’t just sitting in a chair. Rupert K.’s hands flew up to cover his mouth, all his fan gifts falling to his feet. I could only see his eyes, bulging and green. I couldn’t say “I’m sorry” out loud, but I thought it, and I hoped he felt it.
“What’s the matter with you?” Rupert L. said to him.
“Oh shit,” Rupert X. said. He got it too. “Oh shit oh shit oh fuck!”
We could always rely on Rupert L. to be the slowest of the bunch. He looked at his friends and then followed their gazes to Rupert P. He walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. The two other boys watched, horrified, as Rupert P. did not respond. “Pierpont,” Rupert L. said. “P. Hey, P. P. P. P.”
“Rupert, stop,” Rupert K. said. “Can’t you see he’s dead!”
Rupert L. took his hand back like he’d just scorched himself, yet he still shot Rupert K. a disbelieving look. “No, he’s not.” He took a thumb and lifted Rupert P.’s eyelid and still didn’t seem to get it, but Rupert K. came and yanked his hand back, forcing him to stop touching Rupert P.
“You can’t be serious,” Rupert L. said. “Is he really dead?”
Rupert K. placed two fingers under Rupert P.’s jaw and waited. After a moment he said, “No pulse.” He touched the pink tights, obviously confused. That was the thing about Rupert K.—you could always see what he was thinking and feeling right there on his face.
Rupert L. started pacing circles around Rupert P.’s beanbag. He walked over to the wall and threw himself against it, rubbing his palms and cheeks all over it. And then he fell to his knees and broke down. He screwed his face up until tears squeezed out, and I’ve got to say it shocked me. I never realized he was so sensitive. It was probably all the muscles that made me think he was a tough brute, but obviously, underneath all that, there was a warmhearted softie.
“I always wondered when the band would break up,” he said.
A selfish softie.
“I’m not ready for it,” Rupert L. went on, dragging his palms along his temples until they met behind his head. “We all know what’s going to happen. K. is going to go solo and make it big. X. is going to attempt it and fail.”
“Hey!” Rupert X. said. But Rupert L. was totally right. Out of all of them, Rupert K. was the only one with the talent to have a great solo career. Rupert X. would try it, just to stay relevant. He’d probably end up with a gig hosting a celebrity dance show or something, but that wouldn’t happen until he was thirty, and by then he’d be ancient anyway.
“And me? Nobody’s going to want to see me go at it alone,” Rupert L. said. “I’ll be a has-been. I’m too young to be a has-been.” He was crying so hard. As hard as a child cries when he drops his ice-cream cone on the floor. “Sales for the watches haven’t been great, you know. I’m apparently in the red—which my accountants tell me is a very bad color to be in. And Ashley’ll surely leave me. She was going to show me how to tell time using the sun.”
“Don’t mean to interrupt your existential crisis, mate, but our friend is dead,” Rupert K. said. “What the bloody hell happened?”
“I’ve got a hunch,” Rupert X. said.
“You do?” said Rupert K.
“Yeah, and you know what it is—we’re all thinkin’ it.”
“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ it too,” Rupert L. said.
I squeezed Apple’s hand harder and sneaked a look in her and the other girls’ direction. Did the boys’ minds automatically go to “crazed fans” whenever something went awry? Were we about to be found out?