“It wasn’t funny. No one thought it was funny.”
“Well, congratulations. You’ve finally kicked your sense of humor into submission.”
We go underground. I lead us silently to the Brooklyn-bound track. The news has been threatening a heat wave all week. The air presses down on us. We wait.
“All right,” Mel says. “Fine. Don’t talk.” She walks to the edge of the platform, leans out to look for headlights. Jingles the change in her pockets. Finally tugs her Moleskine from her bag and kneels down. The picture spools out quick and dark: an enormous Hispanic lady in a muumuu. I glance down the platform. The lady is there, flapping a copy of The Watchtower at her face, unaware that Mel is drawing her.
Mel rears back, takes a long look at what she’s done. Retouches something small at the top. I look over. Little men dressed as bank robbers run from the lady’s ear. The lady stares dead-eyed into space. Below her, in bubble letters:
DER.
Mel scratches it out. Tries again:
DURRRR.
I unclench my jaw long enough to say, “Why didn’t you back me up when she said that thing about me being an enigma? About what kind of stake I had in this? What the fuck was that?”
“She wanted to know more about you because you are interesting, Sharon,” she says. “Not that you make that easy for anyone.”
“We’re supposed to be a team. You would have remembered that if you hadn’t walked into NPR so fucked up your blood alcohol level could have powered a commercial jet.”
She snorts. “If your writing was that colorful, I wouldn’t have to live and die in the studio every day.” Her mouth clamps down in regret as soon as she says it.
“I’m sorry. This, coming from someone who hasn’t worked a day in two months?”
She lifts her arms, lets them fall to her sides. “The studio’s not the most welcoming place right now. There’s not much I can say to you that doesn’t piss you off. I can’t win. This is why people don’t get married.”
“This is why people like you don’t get married.”
“Well, hell’s bells. I could have told you that.” She’s standing now, pale and sweaty. I can see cracks in her lips.
“You’re an alcoholic,” I tell her.
“Oh, come on.” She flaps around in a circle. “Shut up, Sharon.”
“No one except an alcoholic gets up and makes Irish coffee at eleven in the morning. No one except an alcoholic gets wasted and strips at a panel discussion. Normal people don’t do that. People with drinking problems do that. And I think the movie pushed you into a bad place. I regret having any part in this.”
“I don’t see you turning away the checks we’re getting. I don’t see you turning down NPR interviews. But hindsight’s twenty-twenty, isn’t it.”
“I have a standard for how I should be treated,” I say. “And you just went way below the line.”
She rolls her eyes. “Where’s this standard with the dipshits you date?” Draws a smoke out of her pocket. Lights it. There aren’t many people on the platform. She gets a few dirty looks, but only a few.
“You started out charming Glynnis,” I say. “She liked you, not me. But then you ran it into the ground. She’s probably lucky you didn’t take off your shirt and slap the sound engineer with it.”
Mel leans over the platform again. “You’re never going to let that go, are you.”
“If I left,” I say, “no one would blame me.”
“You can’t do this without me,” she says. “You know you can’t.”
It knocks the breath out of me. It’s a long moment before I can even speak again. “There are people who would actually appreciate working with me,” I tell her. “Do you know how many calls I’ve deflected from Brecky Tolliver this summer?”
Mel opens her mouth. Shuts it. Crosses her arms over her chest.
“Yeah. Ever since the panel discussion. She tried to hire me while you were buzzing around hitting on coeds.”
“Wow,” she says. “Look at you, whipping Brecky out like that. What, are you trying to make me jealous?”
“I’m letting you know where you stand,” I say.
“Typical,” she spits. “You’re doing this like a total girl, parading it around. You gonna pick another dyke to buddy up with, Sharon? Someone you don’t have to compete with?”
It’s mean—a meanness she was searching for, somewhere down in the dregs of herself.
“You know what,” I say quietly, “why don’t you keep the ugly shit to yourself for once instead of pouring it out all over me. I’m tired of this.”
Mel blinks at me, breathing hard. Then lifts her hands. Yells, “You know what? Fuck this.” She starts for the stairs, cigarette clamped between her teeth, and bounds up, her back growing smaller and smaller until she’s gone.
HER NAME WAS STARLA