Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,37

mouth, saliva pooling around it. Callie was waiting for a response, though, so Laura had to speak in spite of it, sort of around it.

“If you want to do it, go ahead. But I can’t. There’s no way. I’m sorry.” She grabbed Callie’s water and took a gulp.

Callie returned to her makeup. “You just need more time to think about it. You won’t pass up this chance, I know you won’t. What are you going to do, stay here and work at the bar while I go on tour? I’m not even the one who wanted to be a musician!”

“Well, congratulations on getting to be one anyway,” said Laura, then went back to bed so that she wouldn’t have to talk about it anymore.

* * *

The days got even shorter, blurred together. Laura added leg warmers to her work uniform of black skirt and black tights. She woke every morning full of a heart-racing panic that dissipated gradually as she tried to bury herself in distracting activity. She took as many shifts at Bar Lafitte as she could, hoarding the money in a shoebox under her couch-bed. The initial mood of mania dissipated quickly, but the bar stayed busy; the customers drank harder and harder.

She passed fading posters on lampposts that people had put up looking for their lost relatives and friends, with blurry color-photocopied photographs, as though the people were dogs and cats who might turn up in a vacant lot or in someone else’s home. She wished that she could mourn with all the other mourners. Maybe then her burden wouldn’t feel so huge. Dylan had been the love of her life, but he was also just a guy she’d been dating for a few weeks. She had never even mentioned him to her family. No one knew to treat her carefully. And when she caught herself weeping silent tears while walking down the street, she knew that people assumed that she was crying for one of the other dead people, and again she felt like a liar.

* * *

When she finally got around to taking a pregnancy test, it confirmed what she already knew. A secret feeling, buried deep and almost beneath the level of conscious thought, was a tiny glowing ball of happiness and even excitement when she’d seen the second line appear. Part of it was just relief; the physical and emotional strangeness she’d felt lately had a concrete cause that could be resolved. But another part of it was a feeling of escape from the finality of Dylan’s death. He was still alive, in some illusory but also real way. She remembered how he’d felt and smelled, but when she tried to imagine his face, the version she called to mind was the version she’d memorized, not his true face. A baby would not be vague. A baby would keep some part of him tethered to this world, and she had the power to make that happen.

PART II

6

Laura woke up with a panicky start. Someone in her dream had been crying. Was Marie crying, or just making impatient bababa noises in her crib? Was the hour morning-like enough that she should feel obligated to retrieve her, open the blinds, and begin the day, or should she try to lie silently and fake sleep so that Marie might learn to sleep a little longer? She wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep because she’d remembered that it was the first of the month; rent was due, and she was going to be late with it again unless she asked for someone’s help, but she was running out of people to ask.

Marie’s bababas were turning into shouts. Laura rolled out of bed and crossed the room almost at a jog. She was still in the habit of rushing, even though now that Marie was almost ten months old, there wasn’t the same risk there had been when she was newborn and her cries would escalate into raspy, full-throated wailing if Laura didn’t appear within seconds. Back then, Laura would run to her as though to a bomb that required immediate, steady-handed defusing.

Marie was sitting up in her crib, and when she saw Laura, she made eye contact and smiled as though all her most cherished dreams were all coming true at once. The black muck circulating all through Laura’s body and around her brain dissipated immediately, and she smiled back at Marie with equal radiance. They beamed at each other for a moment,