Punk and Zen (43 page)

I went crazy trying to find the right change per
country and figuring out the different codes I needed to call. A few times I
had to use either the bar phone or the hostel phone—and the fuckers almost
always charged me double or triple whatever the rate was.

At least I could find a Coke anywhere we went—I count
that as a good thing, really.

On the very few times I was able to get in touch with
anyone, I managed to get through to Samantha’s phone when she wasn’t sleeping
and I wasn’t in the process of racing across the continent.

“How’s it going, baby?” she asked me in that sexy
undertone that made me sweat.

Christ—it had been over a month already. Speaking with
her was worse than just missing her, because it made her seem closer than she
really was.

“How bad is it?” she asked, teasing.

“Depends,” I answered, “on whether I’m asleep or
awake.”

“Really?” she purred. “And why’s that?”

“Because when I’m asleep, I’m either dead to the world
or having nightmares—mostly about Tang,” I joked, “but when I’m awake…that’s
different, because then I’m aware of how much I miss you. How about you?” I
asked in return, pitching my voice lower. “How bad is it?”

“It’s horrible,” Samantha answered, all play and
pretension gone from her voice, “it’s been absolutely wretched.”

“Wretched, huh?”

“Don’t tease, Nina. I’ve lived in England for
years—I’ve learned to say wretched.” I could hear the smile in her voice.

“I wasn’t teasing,” I protested mildly. “I just like
the way you say it. Besides,” I added, “I don’t want you to be wretched.”

“There’s a bright side,” Samantha said cheerfully.
“I’ll be done in two weeks, and then I can come and meet you.”

That sounded great! Two weeks? Awesome! Except…

“Sam, I don’t even know where we’ll be in two weeks,”
I reminded her. “This tour seems to be a seat-of-your-pants ABC Page
218production.”

“Well,” she drawled, “I have a solution for that. Call
my apartment and leave a voice mail when you know where you’ll be. I’ll pick up
the message and come to you. Yes?”

“Yes!” I agreed immediately. “Brilliant! Two weeks,
then?”

“Two weeks and I’ll be wherever you are, and then,”
her voice dipped into a low-pitched roll, “I hope you have a few days off.”

God…just the thought of being next to her was enough
to make me want to jump out of my skin.

“Still there?” she asked.

Oh yeah. We were on the phone.

“It’s going to be a long two weeks,” I sighed.

“It’s been a long month already,” she returned.

Finally, I asked about Fran. As much as I both
relished and in some ways feared this thing between Samantha and me, so full of
beautiful, painful potential, I was still in many ways reeling from Fran—but I
didn’t want us to just drift apart, either.

“She’s…she misses you, horribly,” Sam admitted
heavily.

“I, uh, I miss her too,” I admitted.

“You would…you should,” Samantha said, her words
simultaneously sad as well as sympathetic, “you’re blood-bound.”

I considered her words. Sometimes, Sam said these
things that sounded like I should really know what they meant, like I was
remembering them or something, but they also confused me because I didn’t—not
really.

“Hey, you know, I tried absinthe—and now I’m sorry I
did,” I told her, filling in the quiet.

“Why’s that?” Samantha asked. “Bad taste? Tired of
seeing green fairies?”

I laughed at that idea. “You know, I don’t remember.
But no, it’s the nightmares.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of nightmares?” she asked, almost
too casually. I answered anyway.

“Well, I don’t know if they qualify as real
nightmares,” I cautioned. “It’s mostly just these vague images, like, ABC Page
219I don’t know, these things are trying to catch me or something.” I felt
completely embarrassed telling her that, but truthfully, they were starting to
get to me, just a little.

Samantha chuckled and the sound was reassuring through
the miles. “Well, that sounds normal enough, love. I’m sure you guys are
picking up more fans and more media attention. What’s chasing you, baby,
cameras or agents?” she asked, humor still in her voice.

“Um, honestly? They’re these huge ten-foot shadow
hounds.”

“Shit!” Samantha swore and dropped the phone. “Ow!” I
heard her exclaim in the background, along with the sound of plastic skittering
on a hard surface until she picked it up again.

“Hey, still there?”

“Still here,” I answered, bemused. “Did you hurt
yourself?” I asked, thinking of the “ow” I’d heard.

“Yeah…no, I’m fine. I just jammed my finger in a
drawer while I was looking for something,” she answered, obviously annoyed with
herself.

“Wish I could kiss it and make it better for you.”

“Me too, but at least your wish already does.”

“Does what?” I asked.

“Make it feel better.”

Silence stretched out as we both really felt the miles
between us.

“Take this number,” Samantha said briskly, all
business.

“All right, give me a moment to find a pen.” I hunted
around the front desk counter until I found one, then tested it on a scrap of
paper to make sure it worked.

“Okay, shoot!”

She gave me the numbers and I repeated them as I wrote
them down.

“What’s this for?” I asked curiously. I recognized the
country code for En gland.

“It’s an emergency number,” Samantha explained, “in
case you can’t get in touch with me—or I can’t get to you.”

“Okay…” I answered slowly, “whose ABC number
is it?”

I could hear Samantha inhale. “It’s Candace’s.”

Oh. Wait. What?

“Samantha—no, absolutely not,” I said flatly. “I’m not
calling her.”

I heard her let that breath out.

“It’s only if there’s a real problem. She will,
absolutely, help,” she said. “She
is
fond of you, you know.” She let
that sit there in the silence.

Yeah. I was aware of exactly why she was fond of me,
too. In fact, I’d been fond of her as well. This sounded like the ideal recipe
for a disaster. I promised myself that no matter what happened, that phone call
wouldn’t.

“Besides,” Samantha added unhelpfully, “she might find
you first.”

I was starting to suspect that Samantha was taking
some sort of subtle, okay, it wasn’t so subtle, pleasure at my probably obvious
discomfort.

Two weeks. Another two weeks, and I could breathe
again.

I got in touch with my parents, who spent our precious
minutes asking things like, “Are you eating? Are you watching your money?” and
my dad chimed in with, “Hey, watch out for those fast European girls—they’re
not…well…just be careful.”

I saved Coke cans with different labels and languages
on them for Nanny—she liked that sort of thing—and sent them to her when I sent
postcards. Victoria, I mean Tori (she’d hugged me tightly about the neck before
I’d left and told me she wanted to be called Tori) I sent funny little toys
that you could find in the middle of this very popular chocolate—Kinder
Chocolate Eggs—we found everywhere we went (totally addictive! But banned in
the US because apparently Americans are too dumb not to eat the toy inside),
while Elena I tried to find dolls for—those collectible ones that are dressed in
whatever the national tradition is? Your mom or grandmother would remember
them. Anyway, Nico I mailed these digest-sized comic books I’d picked up at
different railway stations. They were, every single one of them, about World
War II. The only exceptions were about World War I.

It made me wonder if Europe was like America in that
way—you know, what they say about the Civil War—how way down South in the land
of cotton, the Civil War is not forgotten? But I didn’t really get time to
ponder that too much; there was too much going on.

Nico sent me packages—books, clothes, whatever I asked
for, complete with Oreos (couldn’t find those anywhere—and I love those—Double
Stuf, please) in care of the label, who’d send it on to me. I asked him for
toilet paper in the next one.

As for the rest of the band, Stephie tried to call
John every day and cried; they’d started dating about a month before we’d
left—finally! The nerves made her throw up before every show, occasionally
several times a day, and I felt pretty awful about that. Jerkster stopped using
lines and finally got laid. It might not have been skill, though; it might have
been the language barrier, because I think that happened while I was trying to
track down strings in Belgium.

I lost weight. We all did, though I shared my Oreos
with everyone as soon as I got them, but I gave most of them to Stephie. It
seemed to be the only thing that didn’t bother her stomach.

We washed stuff in sinks, sometimes ourselves, as best
we could. I also discovered that when you wash leather pants in the sink, they
feel like gooey mush when you put them on damp—and even worse when they get
cold. The plus is that they molded to me perfectly.

Graham showed us the sights, such as they were—mostly
bars and music shops and clubs, with some very cool shopping on the very few
occasions we could get away. Of course, Steph and I started adding to our
now-collective wardrobe, and Jerkster bought a motorcycle helmet he insisted on
playing in. Ah, so what, he liked it. Then he started buying bizarre stickers
for it.

I did call Dee Dee at the bar, just to keep in touch,
and besides, I wasn’t counting on anything. Our contract wasn’t forever, and
I’d still need a job when I got home, you know? Just in case things happened
and were, like Stephie said, shit.

I tried to call Fran—and got right through to her
answering machine. I said hello and left it at that.

I started to lose track of days and started to keep a
closer eye on the money. The promoter was “forgetting” to show up—again—which
required many phone calls from me and from Graham to both labels and to a
gentleman named Enzo at Rude specifically to straighten it all out.

More and more people attended every show, and we were
starting to see more and more flashbulbs during and after. I didn’t think about
it much at the time—no one in Adam’s Rib did, anyway; we were so caught up in
the playing and the traveling. The fact is, we were getting more and more
attention, and we were a band with no product to sell—no record, no Tshirts,
nothing but a memorable show, just like a one-night stand.

We were so new to the business that it hadn’t occurred
to any of us that the combined facts of our schedule being a matter of public
knowledge and our growing fan base meant that more and more of the attendees
weren’t coming just to see the Microwaves, but us as well—and even us instead.

A band that had been even a touch more seasoned than
we were would have known that this meant negotiation, this meant a raise, that
in fact, at five and a half, almost six weeks into the tour, we deserved a
break. And Graham, even though he had his own stuff to look out for, looked out
for us in this instance.

“We’re going to Barcelona,” he announced to us while
we nodded along in the train. I glanced up from my book and raised an eyebrow
at him. Yeah, duh. That’s where we were going.

Graham cleared his throat in the resounding silence
that met his grand announcement. “Then there’s a show in Ibiza.”

I didn’t even look up from the book this time.
So…what? We knew that too—and it would be a train and a boat, or a train and a
plane. Probably train and boat, we figured, because it cost less.

“We’ll be spending a few days there—just to relax, get
drunk, get laid.”

“Yeah heh!” Paulie-Boy screamed, fist stuck straight
up in the air, the first to react. I looked up from my book again and glanced
at Jerkster and Stephie. They stared back at me, just as confused as I was as
the rest of the band jumped up and started dancing around the car.

Graham gave us each a sly smile and sat down on the
arm of my chair. He casually slipped an arm around my shoulder. “You…don’t
know.” He narrowed his eyes wickedly. “Ibiza is…
the
party capital of the
world.”

Jerkster, Stephie, and I looked at each other—we were
from New York. ’Nuff said, as far as we were concerned.

Graham understood our silent exchange.

“It’s not that sort of party,” he explained, rubbing
his hands together. “You will get to experience why,” and he stood up again and
did a little tango-style two-step, “the Latins are the better lovers and why,”
and he struck a very prim and proper pose, “we Europeans think you Yanks are so
repressed.”

Even Jerkster raised his eyebrows at him at that, and
after looking at our faces, Graham cracked up hysterically.

“You’ll see,” he said as he walked away, back toward
the dining car. “Lady of Spain, I adore you,” he trilled, waving a hand behind
him.