When she hung up the phone, she was smiling bigger than I’d ever seen before.
I can’t say I shared her elation.
“Jesus, Blondie, you look like you got plowed over by a steamroller.”
I glared at her. “…thanks.”
“And you sound like you gargled a razor blade.”
“…yeah. Thanks for that, too.”
“No problem.”
“…how can you not have a hangover? You drank, like, four times as much as I did… and I’m gonna die any second now.”
“Oh, I got a hangover. I just don’t wear it as bad as you.”
“…great.” I looked around. “Where are we?”
“Oh. Yeah, you were pretty trashed, and it was pretty fuckin’ late, so I just got us a place around the corner.”
My skin crawled as I looked back into the room at the faded stains on the bed sheets. “…I hope I didn’t catch anything…”
“Give me a fuckin’ break, Blondie. Don’t be such a pussy. This place is better than half the places I grew up in.”
That gave me a whole new appreciation for certain aspects of our conversation last night.
At least you were fully clothed while you slept, I reminded myself.
Too bad you weren’t wearing a hoodie.
I wanted to ask her about her phone conversation, but this was the second time I’d unintentionally eavesdropped on her.
However, as I stood there in a world of pain and heebie-jeebies – all thanks to Riley and her Night of a Thousand Shots – I decided I didn’t give a fuck about feeling guilty.
“…who was that on the phone?”
“Hm? Oh.” Her earlier smile came back full-force. “That was my sister.”
“…Megan?”
“Mm-hm. She just found out she got into med school. Georgetown.”
My eyes opened a couple of millimeters wider – which, for me at that moment, was practically bug-eyed. “…holy shit… that’s awesome, Riley…”
She absolutely could not have looked prouder. “I know – isn’t it?”
“…sorry to be so personal” (no I wasn’t) “but… did I hear you’re gonna pay for it?”
“Fuck yeah. Once the band took off, I made sure she didn’t have to work anymore so she could go to school fulltime. She transferred to NYU, graduated with a 3.9. I paid for that, too.” She nodded slowly, somberly, but the smile on her face was pure joy. “She’s gonna be a doctor. She’s gonna be somebody important.”
At first I smiled with her, because she seemed so damn happy.
But something in what she’d said sounded… off.
“Riley… you know you’re important too, right?”
Her smile faded, and she looked away as she took a drag on her cigarette. Shrugged. “I’m just some chick in a band, that’s all.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Riley, you’re a female drummer in the biggest band in the world. You’re one of the most famous women musicians alive, doing a job normally only men do – and you’re better than all of them. And you’re doing it without shaking your ass, or wearing skimpy little costumes onstage – you’re doing it your way. There are millions of little girls who’re watching what you’re doing… and they know that if you can do it your way, they can do it their way, too. That’s important.”
She stared off into the distance with a sad, resigned look on her face. For a second I saw her the way she must have appeared to her foster sister so many years ago: a tiny child with delicate features, alone and lonely in the world.
“Nobody’s ever gonna remember me,” she murmured.
“What are you talking about?! Of course they are!”
She shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off the horizon. “They only remember the ones who die. John Bonham… Keith Moon…”
Her words sent a shiver down my spine.
They only remember the ones who die.
We had just officially crossed over into a Very Dark Place.
But I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to ask her about that. I couldn’t. Not now. Not the way I was feeling, like my insides were about to come up any second.
So I struggled to think of another famous drummer everybody knew. “What about – what about Ringo Starr?”
She finally gave me a look, and it was a withering one. “Okay, number one, not one of the greatest drummers of all time. Number two, he’s a fuckin’ Beatle, Blondie. Of course everybody’s gonna fuckin’ remember him. Jesus.”
“Well, then… just get as big as the Beatles,” I joked.
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”
But the old Riley was back. The dark spell was broken.
…I thought.
But there was one more moment of melancholy as she flicked her cigarette over the railing and into the empty parking lot. She watched it spark briefly on the pavement, then roll and die away.
When she spoke, she did it without looking at me again.
“C’mon, Blondie, I’m starving. Let’s go get some breakfast.”
We had eggs and bacon at a nearby greasy spoon. She was somber and pensive the entire time. I tried to get her talking about her past, the way we had last night, but she wouldn’t go there again.
The interview was over.
99
We were hurtling towards the end of the tour like a runaway train.
Things became a blur. One night of partying blended into the next; the concerts seemed to be one unending performance; one city transformed into another. I could barely distinguish between what happened in Vancouver versus Boise versus Denver. The only way to differentiate were things that were vastly out of the ordinary, like my interview with Riley. I’ll always remember Seattle because of that night. But otherwise, the only indicators were different skylines and the weather, and when you spend most of your time inside hotel rooms or concrete stadiums, every city looks the same.
There were things that stood out, of course – both good and bad.
One of my favorites was the time we were walking down the street on one of the band’s nights off. I don’t remember what city; it doesn’t even matter. But Derek, Ryan, Riley, and I were passing by a karaoke bar downtown when we heard somebody inside start singing one of Bigger’s hits.
“HEY!” Riley yelled, drunker than usual. “That’s our song!”
Ryan seemed to have an almost telepathic ability to tell what she was thinking. “Riley – no – ”
But it was too late. She was already inside, up on stage, and grabbing the mic away from the startled singer.
“That’s not how you sing that song!” she yelled. “THIS is how you sing that song!”
As we raced inside after her, she launched into one of the worst renditions imaginable.
It became readily apparent why she was the drummer.
Only a handful of people knew who she was. They cheered and took pictures – but the rest of the place was mystified at who the tiny punk-rock pixie was butchering ‘Go All Night.’
Fifteen seconds later, Derek bounded up on stage and grabbed the mic away from her.
“That’s not how you sing that song,” he said in his rumbling voice. “This is how you sing that song.”
Then he proceeded to give one of the most awesome mini-concerts in the history of the world.
The entire place knew who he was, and they went INSANE.
Then some people recognized Ryan, and he was thrust up onstage, protesting all the way. So it turned into Derek singing the main lyrics to three Bigger hits, Ryan singing backup, and Riley drumming on the speakers with a pair of spoons she stole from the front row of patrons.
It was fucking awesome. And news of it basically blew up Twitter and Instagram over the next fifteen minutes.
Now that was a good memory.
A not-so-good memory was when Derek asked me what I talked about with Riley on our wild night out.
After relaying several of the things I’d learned about her, I happened to mention the whole thing about Ryan writing the melodies to the songs.
Oh boy.
Derek immediately went cold and angry. There was a palpable temperature drop in the air.
“Well, that’s a load of bullshit.”
I tried to clarify. “She wasn’t saying he wrote all the songs – ”
“I know exactly what she was saying,” Derek seethed, “and she’s wrong. She doesn’t know shit. Ryan and I work on stuff all the time when she’s not around. She’s a fucking drummer, for God’s sake. She doesn’t know shit about songwriting. It doesn’t matter who comes up with – you know what, fuck that, at least half the melodies are mine. I come up with just as much shit as Ryan does. And he doesn’t come up with any of the lyrics, so fuck Riley.”
Jesus.
“I think she just meant – ”
“I don’t give a fuck what she meant. If she wants to be a fucking idiot, then good for her. But I’d be careful what you print from her, because she obviously has her head up her ass.”
All I thought was, I’m glad I didn’t tell you the part about how you turn into a dick if your ego doesn’t get stroked.
He even lit into her about it at the next band meeting.
While he was yelling at her and Ryan was trying to calm him down by agreeing with him that, yes, Derek did write half the melodies, Riley looked over at me.