The Commodore Ballroom

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July 20th 2012 

i) 

 The Commodore Ballroom was a significant step up from the assorted bars and clubs that had hosted their performance over the past nine months. Their “band” consisted of Margie, Tess, and Raf, and had performed under a completely different name across nearly every establishment in Vancouver that would deign to let them grace their stage with their low-budget, no clout indie act. Raf enjoyed it. There was an amusing novelty to being regarded as an unknown, untested musician. Initially, the management of each establishment haggled, scoffed, and finagled with him in a manner he’d never been faced with before. They negotiated as though it was a tremendous burden to host musicians on their stage, but that they were doing a good, charitable turn, putting themselves out for the sake of promoting “local talent”. Apparently, this position helped them feel justified in extending the most dog-shit agreements he’d ever had the misfortune of navigating. Commonly, they were willing to grant him the privilege of covering venue costs in exchange for a pittance of ticket sale profits. 

 “Venue costs” usually only ensured that the stage would be vacant for them to use, with no additional services provided. Yet often, venue staff fees were included in the cost. Their agreements often took care in detailing that refunds on ticket sales would be available, but on a few occasions, Raf had to negotiate a no-refund policy when a venue tried shunting that burden entirely onto the band. It would have been fine if the math added up to something resembling a financial profit for them, provided they could secure a sizable attendance. But even the most rosy projections would only allow them to make even on their total costs. Some were better, others were much worse…in which case, discouragement was probably the intention. Each time, Raf accepted the offer with a smile and a warmly delivered, “Marvelous, I thank you. But under those conditions, this will be the last time we perform at your venue.” 

 Perhaps this was unfair. After all, musicians were a dime a dozen, and the amount of acts looking for a venue vastly outnumbered the amount of venues that existed to host them. Raf was able to bag gigs because he could afford to let these no-name pubs rob him and his bandmates out of a livable cut. He wasn’t doing it for the money, he was doing it because Margie really, really wanted to play at venues. She’d do it for free–but Raf knew better than to let her pursue that route. And so, he pitched their music to venues across the city and treated himself to the special challenge keeping his name out of the negotiations. The venues had no reason to assume that they were hosting a celebrity act. He wanted to see how an unagented indie band might get along–and found it an extremely humbling experience. The management of venues that’d even let him present his music to them regarded him with about as much respect as they’d regard a stray dog on the street. A little bit of pity, a tremendous amount of wariness, and the constant measuring of whether the interaction was worth their time at all. It didn’t matter if the music was good, what mattered was that Raf could promise to pay, up-front, the costs of hosting the show. That latter part was par for the course. But, in combination with the “take-it-or-leave-it” atrocious cut on the profits, Raf found it difficult to imagine how someone like Margie could have been able to afford taking the live venue route towards finding her audience.

 How many other Margies were out there?

 Nevertheless, they played the same gig under a new name at a new venue on a semi-consistent basis over the past months. In that time, a growing number of people had begun to recognise him. He woke up to that fact back in May, when a previous venue rang him up offering to book a weekend with “him and his band”--and under a much sweeter arrangement. There was a certain satisfaction in telling the man, “Appreciated, but our previous experience with your venue’s management has discouraged us from performing there again.” Tactless perhaps, but oh…it felt very good. 

 This small win, however, was overshadowed by the looming inevitability that had hung over him since the very start of his little charade: the jig was up. People had figured out who he was, and he was unlikely to meet any more petty squabbles from the uncharitable management of dingy venues. That being the case, Raf elected to, more or less, stop soliciting venues to host their performances.

  That was until Margie dismissed his assertion that the ambiance of a proper venue like, say, The Commodore Ballroom, would provide the legitimacy to their live performance that she felt they were lacking.

  “Hah! No, that’s not what I mean. Raf, our band doesn’t even have a name. It’s fine, we’re not like–an actual band. It’s a fun hobby thing, not a Commodore thing.”

 She hadn’t meant it as a challenge–but Raf took it as one. And, truth be told, he was fond of The Commodore as a venue. It was one worth throwing his weight against…just to see.

  Against his better judgement, he armed himself with Nels, whose strong business connections worked smooth as butter to put Raf in front of the people he needed to speak with. The rest was easy. Funnily, Raf had worried that he was, perhaps, overestimating his clout. By all definitions, he was a “has-been”. His name hadn’t held industry significance for over a decade. But he carried himself like a millionaire and oozed charisma with practised ease. Where industry relevance failed him, money and his implicit connection to the Ephrem brand did the lifting. Not only would he bag a favorable time slot with all the included amenities at the venue, he was able to negotiate an agreeable percentage on the profits as well. All he had to do was let them use his name and likeness in the advertising, and recklessly, he agreed to it under the condition that his name appeared alongside that of his bandmates, presented with the same level of emphasis.

  It wasn’t until after their agreement had been secured in writing that Raf’s anxiety caught up to his brashness. This was the first time he had put himself out there to such a capacity in…a long, long time. And there was a reason for that.

  There were predator eyes scouring for him from across the ocean. It was only just a year ago that he discovered he had narrowly missed encountering his father. The man had apparently arrived in Vancouver to take care of some business pertaining to his late Uncle Bill, and Raf had only avoided him by the good fortune of living on Cortes Island at the time. The terror of returning after a year away from the city and learning that his parents had not only encroached upon Hi-Note Studio, but also set foot inside the building that was to become his home felt violating in a way that made him want to claw his way into the earth’s molten core.

  According to Nels, it was only his father who arrived to manage business related to him and his deceased brother. Raf didn’t buy it. Where his father was, his mother was always very near. But if they had hoped to find him, they only wasted their time. Still, his therapist got a lot of money out of him for two months following his return home. It took even longer still for Raf to look at Nels and feel anything resembling fondness for the man who allowed his father to trample the sanctity of his turf. Truth be told, Raf forced himself to go out and solicit venues as a direct countermeasure against the overwhelming instinct to hide himself away. Away from Hi-Note, away from Nels, away from the home his Uncle left to him, away from Margie…

  He still might have if Tess hadn’t acquainted him with “Anxiety Beach”. 

  Between Tess smoothing the wrinkles in his brain and his own desire to feel anything but terror, Raf had gotten a little carried away in reclaiming some semblance of control over his environment. And apparently, that took the form of antagonizing random venue managers for fun over the course of three months and then landing a gig at The Commodore out of sheer spite. 

  Well, of all the potential ways he could have acted out, this was possibly the least damaging. 

  More than that, the consequence of his atypical outburst was a Margie thrilled to bits. Both he and Tess quietly basked in the excited vibrations emanating off her as they lounged idly inside The Commodore’s “Green Room”. 

Quite literally, she vibrated.

She sat comfortably sunken into the cushions of the sofa, but her legs both bounced, her left leg playing off-tempo quarter notes to the right leg’s tireless sixteenths. Independently from that, her upper body swayed side-to-side at a more leisurely pace while her right hand stirred a straw in the mai tai she held with her left. This much wiggling could only have been driven by nervousness in equal parts to eagerness.

  Without asking permission, Raf leaned over to put the straw in his mouth and steal a small sip of the sunset colored beverage before scrunching his nose at the uncanny sweetness that failed to mask the burn of alcohol.

  “Oof, that’s strong.”

  “Not strong enough!” Margie drew in her own much larger mouthful of candied liquid courage through the straw of her drink, “Raf, I’m so nervous. We’re like a garage band pretending to be Nirvana.”

  Raf recoiled with mock disdain, “We’re–what?” He held out a finger. “First of all, we don’t have a garage.” 

  “Raf-!”

  “Secondly,” he lifted another finger, “No one’s expecting Nirvana. That guy’s been dead for, like–”

  Margie threw a hand in his face to silence him, and giggles warbled her words. “You know what I mean!”

  Raf smirked against the palm of her hand before waving it out of his face. Leaning into her, he planted a firm kiss against her jaw before speaking with a quiet, certain tone into her ear, “We’re exactly what we need to be, right where we need to be.” He sat upright again before regarding her with an encouraging smile over an inquisitively lifted brow, “Trust me?”

  She pulled her knees up so that her feet perched on the edge of the couch and returned a sheepish smile to him from over the rim of her glass. She provided no obvious answer to his question–which was an answer in itself.

  He reached over to pick his half-empty bottle of water up off the coffee table, bringing it to his lips before uttering, “You’ve got more skill in your little finger than at least half the talent that has sat here in the past, I promise.”

  As he washed down the residual sweetness of the mai tai with a hearty gulp of water, he watched Tess nudge her shoulder and sign additional assurances to Margie.

  “The reality is that both you and Raf are riding on my success, and that’s ok. I’m happy to have you here.”

  He drained the last drop of water from the bottle before flinging it limply at Tess’s head. “You’re so humble. And kind.” He accented his delivery with a “mean girl” sharpness and a wrinkle-nosed sneer, but his smirk betrayed the jest.

  Tess only turned her palms up in a most demure and saintly shrug, while a quiet string of giggles bubbled steadily up from Margie.

  Outside, the din of the opening act fell quiet and then quickly picked back up again as one song transitioned into another.
  Raf checked the time on his phone, “Another ten..fifteen minutes?”

  Margie threw her head back with a groan, “This is so painful. Head empty, on stage–that part’s easy! But this is the worst.”

  Standing up with a sharp, determined breath, Raf sauntered over to where Margie’s belongings had been tucked away into a small bundle in the far corner of the room. He fished her white, lensless hipster framed glasses out from within it and brought them to her. Without so much as a flinch, she let him slide the empty frames gently onto her face.

  He opened his palms as he withdrew, as if presenting a magic trick. “There. Now we can say we left Margie at home. What we have with us here today is Margie, trademarked. This is the Margie that everyone out there will meet, and none of those people will ever even know the Margie we left at home. The actions of Margie, trademarked, do not reflect the actions of Margie at home, including–but not limited to–any catastrophic failures performed on stage. I mean, it’s obvious they’re two completely different entities. After all, Margie at home doesn’t wear glasses. Everyone knows that.”

  He watched Margie place her drink down onto the coffee table before sinking back into the couch and curling her fingers around the glasses’ outer frames in a relishing gesture.

  “That actually helps.” Her self deprecating laugh carried itself on a sigh. “Thanks, Raf.” 

  He opened his mouth to reply, but a knock at the door cut him off. He responded with a curt, “Yep?” before moving to answer the door properly.

  On the other side, a well dressed man met him with an amicable nod and held out a white sealed envelope. He wasn’t a member of Hi-Note’s sound crew, nor did his attire match that of the venue’s backstage staff. He certainly wasn’t a member of security. But if he was able to access this corner of the venue, it was because he was someone with the clearance to do so.

  If Raf’s bewilderment was legible on his face, the gentleman didn’t acknowledge it.

  “An esteemed guest has asked me to deliver this to you, Mr. Ephrem.”

  Raf couldn’t prevent his jaw from clenching under a pang of annoyance, but he put on his best showman’s smile. “Oh, cool, cool. Didn’t know this place offered fanmail service.” His amicable expression did a lot of heavy lifting to dull the sharp sarcasm in his tone. He had already begun tearing open the letter as he dismissed the man with a dull, “Thanks.”

  During their initial negotiations, the venue had requested to grant backstage “VIP” passes, and Raf had vehemently disallowed it. He loved his audience, but his relationship with them needed to begin when he took the stage and end the moment he stepped off it. This felt like a violation.

  The sound of the door closing obscured his bitter mumbling, “If our “esteemed guest” isn’t fuckin’ Beyoncé…”

  He pulled a folded letter out of the envelope, unfolded it, and instinctively bounced his gaze away from the note’s contents the very moment his eyes met the fine cursive lettering.

  No, what? That’s not what it is. Come on.
Be real.

  Conscious thought requested his body to read the note, but against those desires, the hand holding the letter crushed it within a tightly clenched fist and dropped it into the bin as he passed by it.

  His mouth was dry–he was thirsty. That wasn’t good for his throat. The performance would suffer. He needed water. There was water in the mini fridge. He grabbed one of the small bottles, but as he attempted to open it, he found no strength in his fingers, and the sweat of his palms only complicated the task further. His throat was dry. He couldn’t swallow.

  His throat was dry.
  The performance would suffer.

  “--You alright?”

  He turned to see Margie, her hand had been on his back but she withdrew it the moment he moved to face her. She had said something prior, but her voice struggled to be heard over the deep, warm whooshing noise that muffled his ears.

  “Yeah,” He replied, pointing to the unopened bottle of water, “I just–uh…the alcohol was strong.” 

  Margie’s brow wrinkled. “The…mai tai?”

  “It’s nothing bad, I just need, uh.” His mouth wasn’t dry anymore, and a sudden caustic ache in his jaw spurred him to abandon his efforts with the water bottle. “Gimme a sec, kay?”

  There was a skip in his vision, a blink and he found himself doubled over a sink, ejecting the contents of his stomach.

  A sink’s not the place to be doing this. 

  He was in a bathroom. The door was closed. There was a toilet. Why’d he pick the sink?

  Which bathroom was this? He felt hot. Sweaty, even. Did he pass out? No, I’m standing over a sink. I should turn the water on. He did.
What am I doing? 

Performance. 

Right.

  His throat burned.
He needed to drink some water.
His throat was dry.

 The performance would suffer.

ii)

  Margie felt the temperature of the room drop almost as soon as she heard the door close. The chill of Raf’s silence put her immediately on edge. Characteristically, he would have turned to them with a lopsided smirk and an informative quip about the word he had just received. Instead, he remained still with his back towards them for just a moment too long. When he did move, it was to discard the letter he received and b-line towards the refreshments with a tense stride and a blank expression on his face.

  “Hey,” She prodded him verbally from where she sat, “what was that about?” 

  She kept her tone light and airy, in case she was misreading his body language. But, as he picked out a bottle of water from the fridge, he kept his back to her and failed to acknowledge the question. 

  “Wuh-oh, what happened? Is everything alright?” She didn’t pause for a response before turning to Tess, “Everything chill–?” 

  Tess remained reclined in her seat, but her gaze was locked onto the back of Raf’s head like a setter locked onto birds in a bush.

  “Alright…” Warily, Margie stood up and approached him. “Raf, what’s going on, hon?” She placed a hand on his back to rub it reassuringly, leaning carefully forward to catch his eye. “What’s up? Are you alright?”

  With a jolt, he turned to face her, startling her into withdrawing her hand from him. The features that met her gaze painted a picture of terror. His dark eyes were uncharacteristically wide under a tense, heavy brow. His mouth was set in a straight line over clenched teeth and a tight jaw. His warm skin tone had lost its color. He was alarmingly pale.

  “Yeah.” Despite how he appeared, his voice was calm and steady.  “I just–uh…the alcohol was strong.”

  What alcohol?

“The…Mai tai?” Margie felt her brow knit with bewilderment. A sip of booze did not do this to him.

  He held up a hand to assure her, but the gesture failed to reach the expression on his face. “It’s nothing bad, I just need, uh.” He swallowed and licked his lips. His gaze lost its focus. “Gimme a sec, kay?”

  Before she could utter, “Sure,” he was already pushing past the bathroom door. No sooner did it close behind him than she heard the sound of him retching.

  Oh no, he’s actually genuinely sick.

  Immediately, she began filing through her memory for a list of things he may have eaten.
Or his medication, maybe? 

 He often took anxiety meds before a show–maybe the alcohol interacted with that…even just a sip.

 She stood there peeling at her fingernails as she struggled to come up with something helpful to do.

  Oh, water!

 She fetched the bottle he had left on the counter and opened it for him. As she did, there was a pause in the commotion outside the Green Room. The opening band had ended another song on their setlist.

  “Tess, if he’s feeling this sick, I don’t want him to go on stage.”

  Tess hadn’t removed her gaze from Raf, even as a door blocked her line of sight to him. And without looking at Margie, she signed to her, “He’s not.” 

  “Not what? Sick?”

  A slight lift of the chin was all Tess provided in response–a nod, probably.

  Margie’s tense shoulders drooped. “...Okay. But–”

  The sound of the bathroom door opening cut her off, and she turned to see Raf emerge, clearing his throat with a soft grumble and pressing a knuckle to his lips.

  His eyes turned up to see her watching him. “What?”

  “Are you…alright?”

  “Yeah.”

  He was looking in her direction, eyes half lidded in his usual resting expression…but there were muscles or–something–in his face that still shadowed his features with the terror they had worn just moments ago. Or maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t quite…looking at her. Not through her, either. Or–maybe he was looking at her, but he wasn’t seeing her. Or–

  “I don’t think you are, though.” Margie didn’t wait for him to argue before she held out the bottle of water to him. 

  There was a pause as he stared blankly down at her offering.
 “Oh, perfect. Thanks.” He took the water and drained it with a series of steady gulps.

  And she couldn’t explain why–but the whole exchange felt…bad. Like he was extremely stoned, or drunk, or…concussed.

  With a tremendously weary sigh, Margie looked to Tess for a further read on the situation. But Tess’s intense, inky gaze only continued to bore itself into the side of Raf’s skull.

  In a desperate bid, Margie signed to her, “Are you gonna weigh in on this!?”

  “Chill,” Raf interjected, “I’m just thirsty.” He tossed the empty bottle into the bin from where he stood, and managed to hit his target. “How long ‘till we’re on?”

  “I don’t–like–five minutes or something? The knock at the door–was that the cue guy?”

  “No. No one knocked yet. Can I see the setlist again?”

  “Then wh–” the rest of her question dissolved in a sigh. Holding Raf within a measuring stare, Margie hesitated before pulling her phone out of her pocket and brought the document up onto the screen. 

  Handing it to Raf, her jaw clicked nervously. “Your stomach’s okay? You’re sure you’re alright?”

  His eyes looked over the contents on her phone, and he provided a small snort of laughter. “Yeah. Are you?”

  There was a smile on his lips, and his tone was warm and even–but something about the delivery felt…wrong. Like a poorly rehearsed line on a sitcom.

  Or I’m just a ball of nerves.

  No, she was feeling crazy. Raf’s stilted behavior and Tess’s…weird lock onto him made the entire atmosphere of the room feel rancid. But frustratingly, she couldn’t pinpoint what–or why–with words that actually meant something. Neither of them were saying anything about it, either.

  I fucking hate this. I hate this so much.

  In a last bid to ground herself with some context over the situation, Margie walked over to the bin and fished out the letter Raf had discarded. She uncrumpled the note and squinted at the pen-written cursive.

  “God damn it, why is it in French?”

  The only words that made any sense to her were “Salut Rafael”, “Live Nation” and “Bonne chance”. At the very least, Margie knew “Live Nation” was referring to the company that owned and managed The Commodore. But aside from that, she could glean nothing from what was written. There wasn’t even a proper sign-off at the end.

  “Raf, who wrote this?”

  A knock on the door denied her an immediate response, but this time a voice called out before anyone motioned to open it.

  “Ready in there?” The door opened, and the head of a rather squat man in his late forties poked through. “They’re wrapping up. You guys are on.”

  Right on cue, the harmonious cacophony of sounds from the stage outside the Green Room arrived at its cymbal-smashing conclusion. It was immediately replaced by the expected uproar of audience applause.

  Stepping past Margie, towards the door, Raf provided the affirmative. “Good to go.”

  “Wait, Raf–!” Margie’s effort to reach Raf before he swept past her was halted by Tess’s hand from behind. It reached over Margie’s shoulder and closed itself around the letter in her grasp. Crumpling it, Tess tossed it unceremoniously back into the trash can.

  As she rounded to Margie’s side, Margie grabbed her arm. “Could you read it?”

  Tess nodded.

  “Who was it from?”

  Tess signed the word, “Parent.” before bringing a finger to her own lips in a shushing gesture.

  Margie obeyed only in so much that she kept her voice to a whispered shout. “I fucking knew it! Why!? Are they here? They’re not here, are they?”

  She had seen Raf in a panic before. It was upsetting to behold and, in the thick of it, she had always felt helpless to do anything for him. But there had been pacing, there had been muttering, things said and repeated, catastrophic predictions, distressed lamentations, truths called into question, drastic measures, hurtful proclamations, the works. In panic mode, Raf couldn’t laugh at himself. He couldn’t laugh at anything. Not unless he was wielding it with a scathingly sarcastic coldness. A panicked Raf wanted–needed–time to himself or else, like a cornered and wounded animal, he’d thrash and rip and tear into everything…everyone…around him. He begged to be left alone. So that when the panic faded, the only wounds he had to reckon with were his own.

  The Raf that made his way now, to the front stage of The Commodore, was a different kind of Raf. She wasn’t crazy for thinking that. She was right. The thing she hadn’t been able to put her finger on was the feeling that there were…dimensions…missing from him.

  He hadn’t involved them with the message at the door, he hadn’t enacted his feelings. He wasn’t taking inventory of the people around him or the things being said. He wasn’t trying to figure out why she was concerned for him. He wasn’t involving Tess in convincing her that things were alright. He didn’t even tell her that he just needed time to process. He didn’t check to make sure she and Tess were ready to take the stage. No thoughts, no actual feelings, no considerations, no presence of mind.

  Like a PC that booted up in “safe-mode” after a bad crash.

 He had thrown up. 

 “Tess–”

  Tess was already following Raf towards the stage, and Margie hastened her pace to catch up with her.

  “Tess, I don’t think Raf should go on. He’s not–” She rotated her open palm around the side of her head, “–all there.”

  Before stepping onto the stage, Tess turned to Margie and deftly signed. “He won’t listen. It’s okay, you’ll carry. Don’t forget to breathe.” 
 Her hands then cupped both sides of Margie’s jaw, and she leaned forward to press a kiss atop her forehead.

  In response, all Margie could really provide was a nervous, obliging nod.

  As Tess left her side to take station with Raf on stage, Margie released a held breath with a huff, drew in a sharp gasp, held it, sighed deeply, and then closed her eyes to steady herself before walking to where her keyboard awaited her. 

 Settling into her little nest of wires, pedals, and keypads, she looked out across the stage, warily eyeing the back of Raf’s head. She scanned him for any reassuring sign that he had enough presence of mind to put on a passable show, and only then realized that he stood there without his hat and star-framed shades.

  Oh, fuck me. Okayyy… Do your best. Do your best. It’s music. It’s fun. It’s just music. It’s just for fun.

  Was she having fun?
Raf sure as hell isn’t. And there’s no possible future where he’s ever gonna wanna perform on a stage like this with me again. Not if his parents are here. 

The sudden wave of self pity that washed over her was rivalled in its intensity by the pang of guilt that immediately followed. It was a selfish thing to think, and yet that thought alone filled her with more despair than anything else possibly could have.

The first and last time I’ll ever get to perform with him in a place like this, and it fucking sucks.

  The lighting cue hadn’t occurred yet, and in an effort to shake the misery out of her fingertips, she took the chance to play a few quick notes on the keyboard. Functionally, she wanted to ensure that the levels sounded about the same as they had been during the earlier sound check. A kick and snare from Tess’s drumset followed her example, and Raf plucked three aimless notes on his bass before raising a quick hand gesture to the lighting crew.

  With that, the stage came alive. A swirl of color ushered in a spot light that lit up Raf’s figure.

  “Good evening!” His voice, picked up by the microphone, rang out over the crowd. 

  The Commodore Ballroom was, by many definitions, an “intimate” venue. Despite all its prestige, its capacity was under a thousand people, and Margie had seen school assemblies with a higher turnout. That was by design. Raf’s fondness for this place, he had said, was partly due to how well the venue’s design safely accommodated audience interaction. 

  Looking out over the shadowy contours of heads and seated bodies, she could appreciate what he meant. They weren’t a full house, but were near eight hundred in attendance. Despite this being the largest audience she had ever played for, the way the venue had organized it's seating allowed for a wealth of extra space and made the crowd look more sparse than that of previous shows she had played. 

  It looked comfy.

 “Good evening, good evening beautiful citizens of–and gorgeous visitors to–our humble little township on the best coast, west coast, Vancouver!”

  Raf’s swooping, open-armed greeting was met with uproarious applause.

  “Hope you’re all doing well, hope you’ve all had time to slam back some drinks. It’s an honor, friends, standing on this stage before you, here, tonight. And ideally,” theatrically, he held up a finger before leaning forward towards the audience with an exaggerated, conspiratorial air, “the night will go so well that none of you will remember it in the morning.”

  That line won a round of cheers as well and, as intended, served to obscure the follow-up line of, “Or so help me, we might never live this catastrophe down.” 

 He allowed the applause to wane naturally before finishing his introduction.

  “We’re…” A pause.

  He always came up with the band’s “name” on the spot. This show, however, had been advertised under a predetermined name.

  “Of No Consequence!”

  And that was not it.

 “We are–! I promise we are. Of consequence, I mean. It’s just–that’s just the name of the band.”

  Raf, no…that was the name of our band last show.

  Propelled by cringe, Margie didn’t wait to hear the crowd’s response, and she slammed her fingers down onto the opening notes for the first song of the set.
  All she could do was play the music with a supportive ear for her two bandmates. If Raf couldn’t remember the lyrics, there was nothing she could do to save him from it.

  He belted out the opening lines with his characteristic, buttery voice and Margie let out a sigh of relief. 

  Good. Thank God.

  He was on beat, in tune, correct words. That’s all he needed to be. She could work with this. But, while his vocal performance was relatively smooth, his bass lines were inconsistent, at best. They fell off so frequently, Margie wondered if he was struggling to remember that there was an instrument in his hands.

  That was alright. She had vacant pedals that were up to the task of filling bass lines for him. It took a bit of clever work to seamlessly play a single line of bass notes, on an appropriate keyboard setting, before assigning it to an unused pedal programmed to loop the recorded sequence. She was able to repeat this process for virtually every song, and improvised during parts that’d usually be filled with unique bass progressions.

  As they played through their setlist, Margie dreaded every rehearsed pause that was planned for audience banter. But Raf avoided justifying her anxiety. He filled the time between songs with amicable quips and dialogue. During the first pause, he introduced her and Tess before introducing himself, which was–he once told her–an extremely important order of things. His jokes landed, his gestures carried, The audience responded to him well.

  But it was all very rote. Raf delivered lines strictly to script. There were none of her favorite moments of candid improvisation or cute responses to fun audience mischief. In fact, Raf’s gaze seemed to favor the horizon and failed to find the audience at all. On frequent occasion, she watched his chin tilt upward to turn his eyes directly towards the beaming stage lights. At first she thought nothing of it. But, she soon realized that he was pausing to stare at the lights after every single song.

  Did he…forget his shades on purpose? Is he trying to blind himself?

  That was so stupid. It was so stupid, and she hated the implications of it.

  It was a long, long hour and a half marathon of nerve-fraying performance before they chewed all the way through their main setlist. Following the end of the final song, Margie  desperately hoped that Raf would deliver a proper closing farewell for the night.

  Blowing a kiss and raising hands to the audience with a, “Thank you for coming! You’re wonderful, thank you! Good night!” Was not the level of finality designed to tell an audience that the show was well and truly over. But, it’s what Raf elected to provide; indicating to the audience–and to her–that there would be an encore as they had initially rehearsed for.

  Margie couldn’t remember a time in the past when she wished she could stop playing, but she was certainly wishing for it now.

  She blew her kisses to the crowd with an enthusiastic two-handed wave, and the widest smile she could fake before following her two bandmates off the stage. As expected, the audience's applause continued even after they retreated into the Green Room.

  Margie closed the door behind her so that she could, perhaps, steal a conversation before they had to retake the stage again.

  “Raf, we can just go home. An encore doesn’t need to happen.”

  Raf was already helping himself to another bottle of water. “We rehearsed it.”

  “Y-yeah, but that was before your parents reached out.”

  Margie didn’t have to see it, she felt Tess’s stare bare down on her from somewhere in her peripheral vision. She did, however, see Raf pause mid-drink and stand very still for a moment with the bottle held to his lips.

  Oh…I messed up.

 He lowered the bottle, his gaze with it, and fastened the cap. His forelocks fell in a manner that attempted to obscure his eyes, but there was very little that could hide the crushing sobriety and leveled upon his shoulders.

  “Mmhm.” He half-dropped the bottle onto the countertop.

  “We could sneak out now, and have Vic and Herb to–”

  Closing the distance, Raf closed the palms of his hands around the sides of Margie’s head, bracing her against the swoop of an aggressively intense kiss. Too startled to return it properly, she balled her fists around the shoulders of his jacket and didn’t release them even after his lips broke away from hers.

 Likewise, the fingers he pressed and tangled into the curls of her hair didn’t withdraw as pleaded to her. “Three more songs with me. Can we do that? Can we have fun, please?”

  His eyes held her with all the conscious intensity that had been absent over the last two hours.

  Her hands loosened their grip on his shoulders and dragged down the length of his arms until they rested gently in the crook of his elbows. “Ye…ah. Yeah, of course. Of course! …Tess?”

  Margie turned her head in time to see Tess provide a lackadaisical thumbs up.

  She doesn’t seem too put-out by any of this. Either she doesn’t fully understand what’s going on here…or she’s decided it’s not that big a deal.

  There was never a doubt in her mind that Tess cared tremendously about both her and Raf, but sometimes the language of her affections were difficult to interpret. She had the ability to soothe Raf’s anxieties in incomprehensible ways, and yet she made no effort to do so the entire night while Raf endured the single greatest nightmare of his life.

  It kinda…made her angry.

  “Oh…kay.” She drew in a deep breath. “Let’s um,” This isn’t fun. “play some music.”

  The three of them retook the stage to respectable applause, and without any preamble, they jumped immediately into the first encore of the set.

  It was Raf’s vocals that rang the first notes and cued Margie in. If she held any hopes that he'd be back in peak form for these last three songs, they were immediately dashed as she watched him realize, too late, that he had failed to pick up his bass from the side of the stage. At least this time–the first time the entire night–he glanced back at her with apologetic relief as she scrambled to produce a looping bassline to cover for him. Her automatic response was to reassure him with a wink and they carried out the encore smoothly from there.

  In contrast to the painful drag of the main setlist, the encore was over before she had even realized that her fingers had danced over the closing notes of their final song. She felt it difficult to smile as the audience applause washed over her.

  That was it. It was over. Now they’d leave the stage, wait for the venue to clear, and then–

  And then what?

  Raf delivered a proper closing farewell this time. She could tell by the length of it–but missed hearing what was actually said. Her mind was too preoccupied with trying to imagine how the rest of the night would go after they stepped off the stage. Were Raf’s parents at the venue? Would he be able to leave without running into them? Were they waiting to meet with him somewhere else?

  Were they waiting for him at home?

  It took a moment for her to notice that Raf was turned towards her, extending a hand to escort her–a little gesture he always performed after each show. With a startled little jump, she skipped over the bundle of chords that lined her musical nest and joined up with Raf, taking his hand and meeting with Tess on their final stroll off the stage.

  She glanced up to Raf as they walked back to the Green Room. “What now? Just the same ol’? Or–?” 

 She paused for an answer and saw Raf draw in his lower lip between his teeth.
It was a moment longer before he replied, “I don’t know.” Terse and short.

  Right. Don’t ask him to make decisions after the show. He’s–oh, fuck. Of course.

  Raf never usually suffered the same pre-performance jitters she did, but the end of every show had always been rough for him. He’d become very quiet and reactive–as though he were waiting for something terrible to happen. Like a child who had broken something valuable, awaiting punishment.
  “PTSD,” he had told her. 
  Though she had never done anything to upset him after a show, the memory of old patterns still haunted him like a ghost. The post-performance routine of his previous management, whatever it was, had apparently left its cavernous scars upon his psyche. 

  His ‘previous management’.

  His mother.

  The encore–the way he pleaded for it made better sense to her, now.

  Margie offered a smile and an attempt at brevity. “Maybe we hold off on the half-hour of quiet time, slip out of here real quick, get home, and Tess can put you into a nice–”
  She had reached out to open the door of the Green Room, and was the first to find two unfamiliar faces staring back at her from their place on the sofa.

  No–not wholly unfamiliar.
  She recognized the old man–from youtube videos.

  “Oh, hello-!” If words could be crumpled up and chucked at a person, the greeting Margie yelped would have struck with impressive velocity. 

  In the center of the couch, the two sat a few inches apart from one another. The man that Margie recognized as Raf’s father occupied the right. To his left was–

  Her?

  It was difficult to tell her age. She looked comfortable in her seat, reclined slightly, but not at the cost of her good posture. Her slender face was composed of a softly curved jaw, a dainty chin, and a browline that curved innocently upward over the bluest, softest eyes Margie had ever seen. The wrinkles on her face were modestly distributed and folded in a way that recalled a warm, open smile–even in its absence. Her skin was so nice, she had to have been wearing make-up, but it was subtle in accenting the natural beauty of her contours. Silky, soft, chunky ringlets–so platinum blonde that they appeared almost white–framed her jaw and spilled generously over the front of her shoulders. Wispy bangs that fluttered at the slightest breeze fell just short of her eyebrows. She wore a white dress with a white shrug made of the same material; its immaculately clean edges tailored to outline her form with sharp elegance. Her fingers, tipped with red lacquered nails, held a glass of white wine by the stem. The only jewelry she wore was a gold wedding band, a slender pendant hung from a thin, gold chain around her neck, and a matching bracelet on her wrist. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, wearing shoes that matched the clean, white simplicity of her dress. Her open-armed posture welcomed her guests.

  She looked really nice.

  She looked kind.

  Margie wasn’t granted much time to puzzle over whether this was Raf’s mom, or someone else entirely. The woman’s twinkling gaze glided over Margie’s head to land upon her object of desire.

  “Bonsoir, mon Rafael.” Her voice was soft, airy, and crystalline in how clear it sounded. Like delicate wind chimes in a breeze. “Comment vas-tu?”

  “ Ç…ça va.” Despite the initial hesitation, Raf's voice carried a low, even tone.

  Margie turned to him with a concerned, measuring stare. He looked exactly as he usually did right after a performance.
 Haunted.

  Neither she nor Tess had been able to protect him from the very real spectre that sat now before him. But it–she–his mother–hadn’t done anything to him yet…could do nothing to him.

  Margie gave her head a mental shake.

  Raf was a man in his thirties. Unless his mother was packing heat under that perfectly tailored, breast-length shrug, there was no actual danger here. Just a room full of adults…with some history. 

  “Wow, wild!” Margie threw her palms open in a gesture of greeting. “Raf’s parents?” She strode into the room, flinging finger guns at the old gentleman. “His dad. Right? I recognize you from Youtube! Which means–” Halting to stand in front of the blonde woman, Margie loomed over her, “you gotta be mom,” and thrust a hand at the level of the woman’s face, palm extended for a hand shake. “Hi, I’m Margie!”

  Something resembling a bewildered chuckle emerged from Raf’s father as Margie’s energetic gestures startled the woman into flinching backwards in her seat. Careful not to spill the wine in her grasp, she recovered quickly, her free hand lightly touching her collarbone as a disarming smile swept the tension off of her face. The light, voiceless gust of laughter she let out preceded her hand reaching up to daintily grasp the tips of Margie’s outstretched fingers. She gave them a gentle–coy–little shake.

  “Oh, yes? Hello, Margie.” The thickness of her french accent made itself immediately apparent. “My name is Evelyne. Or, if you prefer it, yes, Rafael’s ‘mom’.” She hummed a soft, quavering laugh.

  She appeared unconcerned with the way Margie stood over her, making no effort to move herself out from under Margie’s shadow. That and a firm handshake were, really, the only things Margie knew about establishing ‘social dominance’. And now, staring down this woman’s placid, accommodating smile, Margie felt a small tingle of shame warm her cheeks. She took a step back, putting a polite distance between the two of them.

  “N-nice to meet you.”

  The woman broadened her smile sweetly at Margie in response before turning her focus back towards Raf. With a small scootch to her left while gesturing to her right, she beckoned her son. 

  “Rafael, mon chou, viens t'asseoir près de moi.”

  Margie glanced back in time to watch Rafael chew hesitantly on his bottom lip before providing a small nod and obliging his mother’s request.

  Tess followed closely behind.

  “Oh, mon fils,” Raf’s mother reached up to brush the hair out of his face as he took a seat beside her, “tu es trop vieux pour faire ce genre de grimace devant nos invités.”

  After letting Raf take his seat, Tess grasped Margie’s shoulders from behind to gently steer her out of the way so that she could stand where Margie had been.

  Catching the older woman’s eye, Tess signed to her, “We’re family.”

   Mrs. Ephrem knit her brow with a bewildered, “I’m sorry–?”

  “Oh!” Margie interjected, “This is Tess! She wants you to know that we’re a family.”

  There was a brief second where the woman’s eyes widened with surprise before her expression dissolved into a warm chime of laughter.

  Gesturing to Tess, she turned tot Raf. “Et qu'est-ce qu'elle est, exactement?”

  Raf didn’t mirror his mother’s apparent delight. “Ma copine.”

  Surprise on the side of pleasant disbelief painted his mother’s features. “Ah bon?”

  “Oui.”

  She turned back to Tess, placing a hand lightly upon Tess’s arm as her gaze measured her up and down. “Ouah, tu as bon goût, au moins.”

  As this exchange went on, Margie could only echo a quiet trill of laughter, stupidly, when it seemed appropriate. She understood nothing.

 Tess pointed down to the couch–at the slender space between Mrs. and Mr. Ephrem–and directed them to make space with two flicks of her hand. It spurred Mr. Ephrem, who had been a quiet observer thus far, to mutter softly, “Ah oui–yes, of course.” as he moved to the far side.

  Tess took her seat, close enough to Mrs. Ephrem that their thighs were flush against one another. If the infringement upon her personal space bothered her, Mrs. Ephrem made no indication of it.

  “Sorry, yes–” Mr. Ephrem’s hand tapped the back of Margie’s arm. “Margie?” He rose to his feet, “Please, sit.”

  Margie jolted at the gesture. “Huh–what? No, it’s okay, I’m–” 

  “I’ve been sitting all day,” he insisted, “and I remember how my feet used to hurt after a long performance. Please.”

  He sounded exactly the same in person as he did in Leo’s videos. His strong, careful enunciation made him relatively easy to understand despite his heavy accent. In fact, his English was arguably more intelligible than Mrs. Ephrem’s, if for no other reason than the fact that he took care to give each syllable its own space. Though his expression looked critical and harshly discerning, his tone of voice was rather warm.

  As she obliged him and began to take the seat offered to her, he extended his hand. “As you’ve already known, I am Rafael’s father. Mr. Ephrem, or Yves. Whichever suits you.”

  She took his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  He provided a strong grasp and a firm shake that she wasn’t quite ready for–but he released it before she could properly reciprocate. Instinctively, she sunk back into the couch and brought up her knees so that her feet perched on the edge of the cushion. She tried hard not to fidget.

  “Did you, uh–enjoy the show?” Margie wasn’t sure if they had even watched it.

  To her relief, Mr. Ephrem leaned to a half-sit against the arm of the sofa, crossed his arms over his chest and provided a nod.
 “It was not bad! Only three people, it is difficult to produce a full sound. But you had an interesting set-up with all the–erm…” He swept one hand in a gesture regarding all her keyboards and keypads, unable to find a single word for them.

  “My gadgets!” Margie grinned. “Yeah! I’ve got a lot going on back there; two different grid controllers, my mini keyboard, my actual keyboard, pedals for the live loops, sound board, laptop…”

  “Yes, I was watching quite intensely because the music you have is very dynamic. I would think, ‘oh, this is a pre-recorded sound’ but then there would have a slight, slight imperfection. Like a note too soon, yes? And usually, that would detract from a performance. But for this, I think it was critically important to hear the imperfect hand. I almost didn’t want to believe it–that you were touching all these musical elements at once. Quite honestly–it is like a…like you are….a juggling act! Juggling the sounds of several different musicians at once. It should not be possible like that, the multi-tasking!”

  Margie smooshed the tips of her fingers against her cheeks in effort to physically suppress the enormity of her smile. It felt wildly inappropriate to beam at the praise of a man who had, apparently, never given his eldest son the same kind of validation. “It’s just muscle memory, really. A lot of repetition. Anyone can do it.”

  He lifted a finger at her. “Ah, yes! I say this, too! About any instrument. Theoretically, it can be done with enough repetition. But in practice, it is more complicated than that. I have learned this after working with him.” Mr. Ephrem’s eyes flicked upward towards Raf, accompanied by a finger pointed in the same direction. “There were things that should have been easy that he made impossible. There were things that should have been impossible that he made easy. Sometimes, it is not just repetition. There are other things at play that dictate the limits of our abilities.”

  Margie’s gaze followed Mr. Ephrem’s and landed on Raf across the couch. To her surprise, a small smirk had established itself on his face while Cortes seemed to be contributing something to their conversation. Though Margie couldn’t make out what Tess was saying, she was able to catch Raf’s eye for a brief second. She offered an assuring smile–but almost as soon as she had done so, his gaze flinched away from her. She watched his smile disintegrate with a hard swallow and the tensing of his jaw.

  “Yeah he, uh…” Margie turned soberly back to regard Mr. Ephrem. “He really wore himself out for you guys.”

  “Yes. And now I see he is wearing himself out for you.”

 Mr. Ephrem’s bemused chortle was wholly ignorant to the cold chill that rattled Margie’s spine. “Huh?”

 “Rafael. He is always like this,” he continued. “The growth of his skills depends so heavily on who he is trying to impress. I think it must be because he cannot impress himself, no?”

 “N-no?” Her response came before she even had an explanation for it. “Wh–he–Raf’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever met. He knows. He doesn’t have to prove it.” Not to me. 

 “Ah,” Mr. Ephrem leaned towards Margie inquisitively. “But did you ever get to hear Guillaume play before he passed? Rafael’s uncle?”

  Margie hesitated before replying, “Yeah, he taught me some things.”

  Mr. Ephrem nodded as his gaze left her in search of an old memory. “He played for himself, because he loved to hear the music. Did you notice? The way he made it look so easy and sound so natural?” He sighed. “I think, when people speak about ‘talent’, that is what they must mean, no? Guillaume had ‘talent’; a loving ear and a loving hand for music and for making the music. I do not have talent. Unfortunately, I love too much the analysis of music; the math and the theory of music.” He laughed, “I love music, in theory. Only in theory. Rafael is the same. There is no way to teach someone to have a loving ear and a loving hand for the music. The music, specifically. He loves something else when he plays. And, unfortunately, you can hear it.”

  “I don’t–I can’t. At all.” Oh…she really didn’t want to argue with this man.

  Mr. Ephrem exhaled a small laugh before turning a sympathetic smile to her. “Well, no. In order for you to hear it, he’d have to actually play during the performance.”

  A small nudge from him prompted her to join in on a polite chortle at the lighthearted comment. The reciprocating smile arrived on her face before she had processed the meaning behind his remark.

  “Wait, wait–no–that’s not–!” She waved her hands in a halting gesture. “He did really well today! It’s just–”

  No he didn’t. She picked the wrong words for the sentiment she wanted to communicate. Objectively, this was the worst performance she had ever seen from Raf–but it was an incredible performance considering the circumstances. How was she going to tell that to his father? That the circumstances leading to Raf’s ‘poor’ performance was the attendance of him and his wife?

  “You guys just kinda spooked him, is all.” The words fell dully out of her mouth.

  “Mm.” He ran a thumb thoughtfully over his bottom lip. “May I suggest–instead of insisting to him that he did well, ask him instead what he thought.” Mr. Ephrem’s eyes caught her gaze and held it. “He will not trust your opinion any more after praising him for a poor performance.”

  After a wary pause, Margie relented to provide a small nod. At least on this matter, Mr. Ephrem understood his son perfectly.

  “But–!” He opened his palms to her with a renewed smile, “We must give praise where praise is due. I think most of the audience couldn’t not tell that anything was amiss. You and your beautiful–ah–machines, your gadgets! They picked up the slack quite seamlessly, no?”

  “Th–thanks.” She didn’t want to talk about the performance anymore. 

  “Uh, so–you um…you both came here all the way from Monaco?”

  “Ah, oui. Evelyne heard from the grapevine that Rafael was performing, and we have not seen him in…” He jutted out his bottom lip to release a calculating sigh, “Ouah waoh, I think it must be more than ten years, now. And–he is so hard to reach.”

  Magritte felt her brow knit together as she tried to puzzle something together.

  Does he…not know that Raf’s been deliberately hiding from them?

  “Yeah,” she let out a nervous laugh, “he’s uh…he doesn’t want to be dragged back to Monaco.”

  “Hah!” bemused, Mr. Ephrem flicked a wrist in a dismissive sweep. “Who is dragging him? He is a grown man, he’ll go where he wants. That is not the matter.”

  A genuine smile found Margie’s face over that sentiment.

  “Truth be told,” Mr. Ephrem continued, “it was easier to get news to him through my brother. But–ah–now we have no way of telling him, well…things relating to the family.  Anyways, that is why we are here. Not long, though. Maybe we will have another dinner together with him before we leave. Eevie has business in New York the day after tomorrow. And so,” he provided a cross-armed shrug, “that is just how it is.”

  “On the subject of leaving,” Mrs. Ephrem’s gentle voice rose to interject itself between Margie and her husband, “we should not take up so much time with our unexpected visitation. You must all be very eager to rest after such a busy night. I know  my husband would like to continue talking your ears off, Margie, but I hope you do not mind that I collect him from you.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Ephrem lifted himself up, away from the arm of the chair. “But it is too soon, no? I wanted to talk to you more about your instruments, Margie. That talent I was talking about–you also have it, I think. It doesn’t surprise me that Guillaume wanted to teach you. I will–here.” 

  He fished into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket, producing a card that he began extending before stopping himself. “Ah, non, that is the wrong…here, this!”

  He replaced the card with another from his pocket–and committed fully to handing it to her. “It is my personal contact. Please, I would love it if you could send me an email. I want to learn more about your set-up. My youngest has been telling me about loop pedals and gadgets that I am too old to understand. But I would like to learn about what they can do! Clearly, it’s much, much more than I had even imagined. And so, maybe we can exchange some knowledge together, hm?” 

  “Oh, uh–” She took it from him, “O-okay, thanks”

  Mrs. Ephrem placed fingers lightly upon her husband's elbow and waved a little farewell with her other hand. Allowing himself to be escorted by his wife, Mr. Ephrem turned towards Raf.

  “Rafael,” Mr. Ephrem caught his son’s gaze and lifted his arm to provide a single, curt swoop of a wave.

  Wordlessly, Raf returned a more diminished version of the same wave and–with a click of the door closing behind them, his parents were gone.

  Silence settled upon the three of them like an oppressive blanket, and for a long while, none of them said anything.

  It was an extremely brief visitation, especially considering that it had been at least ten years since Raf and his parents had last met. Raf’s father hadn’t even addressed him until he was leaving. And Raf’s mother, she…
 Margie had heard bits and pieces of Raf’s conversation with his mom, but had largely tuned it out. The parts she did catch had been completely indecipherable to her. Throughout it, she hadn’t heard Raf’s voice much–if at all.

  The whole meeting had come and gone without any hugs. No kisses, nothing resembling an “I love you”…none of that stuff.

  Despite that, his mom at least seemed…soft mannered? Receptive? Agreeable? Something along those lines–that Margie hadn’t expected. Was that not how she behaved usually?

  His dad unsettled her, no question about it. He was undoubtedly trying to be kind…but…

  It was a lot to process. 

  Finally, Margie nervously leaned forward to look at Raf. He sat with an elbow on the sofa’s armrest and the knuckles of his hand pressed against his lips. His tense, heavy-browed gaze bore into a spot on the ground, behind the coffee table.

  “How’d it go?”

  For a moment, Margie wasn’t sure he had even heard her. But, just as she considered saying something else, Raf drew in a long, tenuous breath. Without looking at her, he replied.

  “I have to go back to Monaco.”

iii)

  When Margie opened the door to the Green Room, Raf’s life effectively ended.

  It came a lot quicker than he had expected. Whether in the venue or at home, he knew they’d corner him. His mother wouldn’t have risked it with the letter if she thought there was any chance that he’d be able to avoid her. Still, he thought he’d have more time. 

  The two reapers sat stiffly beside one another. His father’s sunken, heavily lined features of his face, and his fully gray, thinning, receding head of hair didn’t surprise him. Or, at least–not as much as it would have if he hadn’t previously seen the man featured on his little brother’s youtube channel. Despite this, something about the way he appeared now, right in front of him, struck Raf in a disquieting manner. His father’s typically immaculate posture was subtly oppressed by a slight, slumping curve of his shoulders that had never been present before. His well-tailored suit drew artful contours around his form, but could not obscure the diminishing mass–the lean frailty–of the proud man it dressed. As he lifted a hand to provide a small, polite wave, Raf could see the slight tremor of his narrow, wrinkled digits.
 A strange melancholy joined the feeling of suffocating dread in his chest.
 God, he looks old.

  “Good evening,” the sound of his mother’s voice jolted him with the same painfully shocking chill as a handful of ice cubes forced down the back of his shirt, “my dear Rafael.”

  She delivered her greeting in French, but language barely registered in his brain. Her stare held him down, while the sound of his name from her mouth locked shackles upon him.

  “How have things been?” Her question was delivered languidly. Now that she had him, she could take her time.

  “It’s–it’s been going.” There was no point in insisting they converse in English. He replied in French.

  Don’t argue, don’t talk back, don’t try to be smart with her.

  Whatever she wanted, she’d get. It was predetermined. His behavior only determined the difficulty. If he made it difficult for her, she would make it difficult for him.

  Judging from the near-imperceptible sigh and the slight wilting of her shoulders, Raf was already putting the wrong foot forward. But, before he could correct himself with a more amiable tone, Margie barreled forward into the room.

  “Wow, wild!” Margie opened her arms energetically to greet them. “Raf’s parents?” She threw finger guns at his father. “His dad. Right? I recognize you from Youtube! Which means–” She rolled to a stop in front of his mother to lean over her, “you gotta be mom,” The hand she extended forward nearly connected with his mother’s face. “Hi, I’m Margie!”

  Raf couldn’t have stepped forward to join her even if he wanted to. Terror rooted him in place as he watched his mother recoil at Margie’s audacity. She recovered with the warmest smile she could weaponise, but refused to dignify Margie with a proper handshake. Mère did not want to even touch her, and provided only the barest minimum contact with Margie’s hand that she could get away with.

   “Oh, yes? Hello, Margie.” Her words chimed swiftly. In English, this time. “My name is Evelyne. Or, if you prefer it, yes, Rafael’s ‘mom’.” She dismissed Margie with a close lipped hum.

  Margie, thankfully, took the cue and stepped nervously away from her. “N-nice to meet you.”

  The smile his mother bared at Margie barely hid the clenched-tooth sneer that would have betrayed her irritation for having her time wasted.

  “Rafael,” She cut straight back to her order of business, ensnaring him again with her oppressive gaze and returned to speaking French with him, “sweetheart, come sit next to me.”

  She shifted to make sure there was enough room between herself and the arm of the chair for only him to fit. With his father sitting next to her, she was ensuring that he’d be separated as much as possible from Margie or Tess. The other chair closest was an unwieldy loveseat that Margie likely wouldn’t have been able to drag closer, and Tess was unlikely to bother, either. They were not invited to accompany him. That they were even here at all was a great inconvenience to her.

  Because, of course, he was her Rafael. 

  Don’t be difficult.

  With a reluctant nod, he obliged her order.

  Tess’s continued presence at his heels despite his mother’s obvious desire to isolate him came as a surprising, if temporary, relief.

  As he arrived to take his seat, his mother tutted at him with a disappointed frown, and reached out to swipe away his last pathetic little barrier of protective comfort against her. Her fingernails raked back the forelocks that hung sparsely over his eyes and smoothed them over the top of his head.

  “Oh, my son,” she sighed. “you’re too old to sulk like this in front of our guests.”

  Tess caught her attention with a fingersnap before asserting, with a deft combination of hand gestures. “Actually, we’re his family.”

  Once again, his mother traded her French for English as she regarded Tess with bewilderment. “I’m sorry–?”

  Margie impulsively chimed in. “Oh! This is Tess! She wants you to know that we’re a family.”

  The expression that crossed his mother’s features as her gaze shot from Margie, back up to Tess, was indecipherable to him. It soon dissolved into a lush, derisive laughter.

  She pointed a discourteous finger at Tess, and turning to him, with laughter still warbling her voice, she asked, “And who is she to you, exactly?”

  French again. She most certainly knew that it was locking Margie out of the conversation. No doubt, that is why she insisted on it.

  Raf loathed playing this game with her but toothlessly provided his responses in French to oblige her. “My girlfriend.”

  His mother brought her palms together, mocking a pleased gesture. “Oh, Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned to Tess, brushing fingertips against her arm as she looked her over with an eye of genuine appraisal. “Wow, you certainly have good taste, at least.”

  Raf was unsure whether that remark was intended for him or for Tess. Tess didn’t wait to find out. While she still held his mother’s attention, she pointed down at the space between his two parents and instructed them to move with a sweep of her hand.

  His father, who had been silent thus far, obliged the request, and Tess took her seat. She squeezed in close, leaving no gap between her and his mother. Placing a casual hand on his mother’s knee, Tess leaned across her lap and signed at Raf with her free hand. 
“Catch me lifting the mood by making moves on your mom.”

 Her jape came at the same time as his father offered Margie his seat, engaging her with a conversational air. It was lost on Raf entirely.

  In a series of distracted, automatic gestures, Raf replied to Tess.
“Make them leave. Please just make them leave.”

  “Are we speaking in sign language?” If his mother was bothered by Tess’s invasion of her personal space, she gave absolutely no indication of it. Instead, she reclined against the back of the couch and rested the top of her knuckles idly against the side of her jaw.

  Raf forced a smile under the icey jab of an entirely new fear. “Do you understand it?”

  His mother mirrored his smile and measured him with her gaze for just a moment too long before saying, “No, but it’s a wonderful skill to have. Did you learn it just for her?”

  It was safest to assume she was lying and there was a very, very good chance she’d bring it up again at the worst time. “We learned it together, yeah.”

  “Oh, that warms me.” She turned her eyes to Tess. “My son has always been one of the most capable people I’ve known. The things he can do with just the right motivation are, well…I’m sure you’ve seen it for yourself, no?”

  “Mère,” His smile remained stiffly fixed on his face, “why are you here?”

  Her smile wilted. “To see you. Rafael, it’s been over ten years! A decade, and not even a phone call? Why?”

  His gaze flinched away from her to land on Tess–who’s large dark eyes only reflected a vague, misshapen image of himself back at him.

  “Rafael,” his mother vied for his attention, “look at me.” She reached out with her hand to touch his jaw to pull his focus back to her, but as soon as her red fingernails entered his field of view, he recoiled from them before they even registered in his consciousness. 

 And, just like that, he had lost.

 He had played his role just as she hoped he would, and now it was her turn to perform the part she had been waiting so long to play.

 After a moment of ‘stunned’ silence, she withdrew her hand and sank back into the couch with a wounded expression. Her upper teeth bit daintily into the red paint of her lower lip before she brought her glass of wine to her mouth and took a long sip.

  He watched her, unable to say anything–unwilling to assume he knew the angle she was about to take. She always came equipped with several scripts to pick from. If he predicted one, she’d make him appear unreasonable and cruel by asserting another.

  It was much better to stay silent–and wait for her to commit to one approach or the other. 

  Finally, she asked, very quietly. “What have I done to you?”

  “What have–what?” His heartbeat throbbed very loudly in his ears suddenly, and the corners of his vision grew splotchy.

  “What have I done for you to behave like this upon just seeing me? I’m only sitting here, Rafael, and you’re looking at me like I have a gun pointed at you.”

  Tell her.
She’s banking on your shame.
Just tell her.
  Tell her.

 “No, I’m–” the sound of a weak, placating laugh filled his head, “I just don’t want to deal with the Label and” his placating laugh, “I’m not ready to go back to Monaco.” 

  Coward.

  “Is that what has you so frightened?”

  You fucking coward.

   “Yeah.”

   No.

   “Is that all?”

  No.

  “Pretty much.”

  The sound of his mother’s relieved laughter coaxed a similar sound from him. He didn’t know what expression he was wearing. He couldn’t feel it.

  A glint in his periphery drew his gaze, and for a split second, he recognized Margie’s smile. It felt miles away, and that distance bit through his fear and filled his chest with a burning melancholy.
  He swallowed it down.

  “Rafael,” his mother’s voice filled the air around him again, “I am not your manager anymore. I can’t tell you what to do or where to be, you have to make your own decisions. Rafael.”

  The warmth of her hand as she touched his face jarred him–but he hadn’t even the capacity to flinch.

  “In truth, I was looking forward to seeing you, yes. But I would not have ventured to disrupt you like this if there wasn’t a need to contact you. And you are not an easy person to get in touch with.”
 She paused, but not long enough for him to form a response.
 “Your grand-mère was diagnosed with stomach cancer shortly after you left for school. She’s been in remission for several years since then, but very recently, it’s come back and we’re told that she’ll likely be gone within a year’s time. It could be longer, but more likely, she has a few months left with us.”

  This.

This was what she came armed with.

  “You and dad need to leave.”

  The words fell out of his mouth like blocks of lead.

  Her hand withdrew from him. “Your father and I were hoping that we might be able to have a din–”

  “No.”

  “...Will you be visiting–”

  He wasn’t aware of the look he cast upon her just then, but it was enough to end her questioning.

  The silence expanded across seconds that spread out like oceans between them. Until finally, she relented. “I’ll give you space to process the news.”

  There was no reason for her to waste anymore time here. She had gotten exactly what she came to get, and she knew it.

  Raf felt the weight of her focus lift away from him as she turned her attention to the other side of the couch. 

  She traded her French for English, apparently interjecting in on the conversation between Margie and his father. “On the subject of leaving, we should not take up so much time with our unexpected visitation. You must all be very eager to rest after such a busy night. I know  my husband would like to continue talking your ears off, Margie, but I hope you do not mind that I collect him from you.”

  Raf was numb to the parting conversation, and the dialogue washed over his ears as vague, indecipherable noise.

  “Rafael,” his father’s voice yanked his attention and Raf registered the gesture of his father’s curtly waved farewell just in time to respond with his own vapid imitation of it.

  There’s a chance she’s lying about grand-mère…but with something so easy to verify, it’s unlikely. 
 He would verify, but…
She’s in late eighties now.

  His mother was right. If his grandmother had cancer, she was probably going to depart sooner, rather than later. Which meant that if Raf wanted to see her one last time before she passed, he couldn’t put it off for long.

  I can choose not to go. Grand-mère, of all people, would understand.

  …Would she?

  His grandmother had been the only person during his upbringing who had cared for his well being enough to stay with him and grant him glimpses of what childhood was supposed to look like. She had allowed him a space to indulge frivolous hobbies and behave rambunctiously. She took him to parks and parties where he had been able to meet kids his age and form fleeting little friendships. Children who didn’t know the difference between a recital and a concert, who were more preoccupied with organizing sleepovers than they were with practise and study. Children who didn’t worry about a career, but believed they could become anything they wanted. Real children with real childhoods.
  His grandmother let him eat fast food, and play games, and watch television. He had never taken full advantage of it. There were many times when his anxiety disallowed him from indulging in the child-like things that his grandmother encouraged.

  There were times when his mother had found out, and fell into hysterics over his apparent disinterest in the career path she had painstakingly set up for him. Times when she couldn’t even look at him without crying because she felt the future she envisioned was jeopardized by his “waning” interests… Because she could not stand to suffer the idea that her son could find joy in anything unrelated to music and performance. Times when he had to assure her again and again that he loved music and he loved performing, and he loved her. 
  Times when he was terrified that she’d take away all his opportunities to do the one thing that made her love him back. 

  Always, it was his grandmother who’d step in to end the hysterics and allow things to return to normal for a time. Even during the times when she had no hand in the events that led to it. His grandmother had worked so hard to give him something, anything, that resembled a childhood.

  She had stomached more for his sake than even his uncle had been willing to do.
Would she really understand if he refused to see her one last time?
Was it fair to do that to her?

  Margie’s voice cut through the cacophony of noise in his head. “How’d it go?”

  Suddenly, he was aware of just how quiet the space had become. His parents had left. He drew in an unsteady breath.

  “I have to go back to Monaco.”

  “What?” Margie stood up from her seat. “No you don’t!” She turned to Tess. “No he doesn’t!”

  Tess leaned back with an infuriating apathy, and when Raf didn’t immediately respond either, Margie threw her hands out at him.

  “Why?”

  “I have to see my grandmother before she passes. She’s uh…Not doing well.”

  Margie’s posture wilted. “Oh.”

  She soberly dropped herself back down onto the couch, electing to fill the vacant space between him and Cortes.Raf felt one of her hands slip under his arm, wrapping around to meet her other hand at his shoulder. “Okay, well. That…sucks. It’s just a visit, though. Right?”

  He didn’t want to explain this to her.

  “There’s no ‘visiting’ Monaco. As soon as I step foot there, it’ll be one thing after the other forcing me to stay.That’s just…how this kind of thing goes.” He thought to turn his eyes up and look at her, but his head was much too heavy and he…just...

  There was a lot in Monaco to tie him down with. Especially after his grandmother passed, matters surrounding the company, alone, would provide his parents with everything they needed to make sure he could never responsibly leave. It would grant his mother far more time than she needed to dig her hooks into him again. Maybe he’d be able to leave Monaco physically, but only on the shortest leash. Margie and Tess, and his life here would become a closed chapter. As he always knew it would be.

  “Take us with you!”

  Margie’s suggestion smacked him with enough force to stun. “What?”

  “Let us come with!” She dropped her chin down atop the hand on his shoulder. “Tess and I will make sure you come back home. We’ll drag you kicking and screaming if we gotta!”

  Raf finally lifted his head to shoot an incredulous glance past Margie and at Tess.

  Tess didn’t even look at him as she signed. “I am so good at dragging.”

  “You’ll go to Monaco?” His falling tone laid bare the lack of faith he had in this matter.

  “Yeah, sure. The Mediterranean's okay.”

  “What passport are you flying with, Tess?”

  To that, Tess sat up and, if she had glasses, the downward tilt of her head might have been deep enough for her to stare over the rims. “I can swim.”

  That gave him pause.

  Tess wasn’t confined to the west coast of Canada, after all. She wasn’t even confined to the laws of human civilization. Somehow, he had forgotten this.

  “Tess…you could have made them leave. Hell, you could have sent me to Anxiety Beach, and none of this would have even happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wh–why didn’t you do something?”

  This whole night hardly felt real for how overwhelming it was in its constant stream of terror. And yet–no one, not even himself, made any motion to rescue him from the situation. They all just…let it happen.

  Tess’s hand reached out behind Margie to give him a light shove, making sure she had his full attention before she signed to him.
  “Do you think I made a mistake?” 

  There was a choppy terseness to her gestures that made the question read more like an irritated dare to him. She dared him to believe that she was capable of error.

  “I–” Margie’s voice rose up meekly from his shoulder. “I wasn’t very helpful, either. I don’t know…I was expecting your parents to be like…cartoon villain levels of evil or something. I wanted to do all the talking for you so that you didn’t have to deal with it but then your mom just kinda…and your dad just wanted to talk about music…”

  “Yeah, that’s how they get you,” Raf sighed. He didn’t even have the energy to be angry. “They’ll make you feel crazy.” 

  There was a very stubborn corner of his brain that wanted to rile him up over the fact that neither Margie nor Tess had his back, that he couldn’t rely on them to protect him from the ghosts he had been warning them about for so long. That he couldn’t rely on them for being there for him when he needed them the most.

  That was the feeling. It didn’t even have words in his head, it was just the truth that he felt.

  But… 
 A small voice–not a feeling–made space for itself in his brain.
 They were there. They sat right beside you. One was pushed out of the conversation and expertly redirected, and the other…did what was best. They were there. They are still here. They will stay with you. Can that be enough? Do you want to imagine that things will be better if you begrudge them and push them away for doing too little?
You actually can’t anymore, can you.

 He felt the warmth of Margie’s weight as she leaned bodily against him. “Take us with you. I promise, I promise, I promise–we’ll bring you back home and it will be okay. Okay? I promise with everything I’ve got. Through hell or highwater, remember?” She jostled against him lightly. “I’ve done the highwater part, so I guess it’s just time for hell.”

  She would have won a smile from him if all the other emotions didn’t feel so oppressive. Instead, he scooped her up into a hug and buried his eyes into the auburn curls of her hair.

  “We have time to talk about it more.” Margie spoke into the crook of his neck, her arms curled tightly around his back. “But for now, let's just get out of here. This show’s over.”