I had a feeling Noelle was a lot like me though. She looked hard on the outside but the shell was frail and easy to crack.
I went back in the stall and pulled out a few rounds of toilet paper, wadded it up, and placed it in her hand.
“Here, this is softer,” I told her. “The paper towels will just make your face red.”
She nodded painfully and brought the tissues up to her face, wiping away the black tears. I stood beside her, leaning back along the counter, not in any hurry to get her talking. The last thing I wanted was to be seen as a nosy journalist. I just wanted to be, and to be distracted by someone else’s feelings other than my own.
After a few more sniffles and when her breathing calmed down and she wasn’t shuddering, she opened up.
“The guys said you were in the dressing room,” she said, folding the wet, blackened tissue over in her hand.
“That I was.”
She shot me a shy look. “You know it’s not like this every night.”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I have zero expectations now.”
“I’m not trying to make excuses,” she said, clearly about to make an excuse. “But it’s always kind of wild the first night of the tour. You don’t understand, we were all really nervous about this show. We all thought it was a lame idea to begin with, but Sage thought it would be good for us. Whatever.”
A wave of defensiveness rolled off her and she turned to face the mirror again, examining her tired, sad, make-up smeared face. She was so pretty, even when she had been put through the ringer.
“Hey, you’re Hybrid,” I explained. “You’re one of the next big things, if not the big thing right now. You’re, like, the heaviest band out there and you seem to be groupie central. It’s okay if things get wild. I mean, look at Zeppelin.”
“Yeah,” she said with an edgy laugh. “But there are no pretenses in Zeppelin. We got to open for them once. I saw how they operated. It’s all on the table, you know? No one is pretending anything. Page doesn’t try to be someone he’s not. No one tries to get their girlfriend out of the dressing room, no one pretends that they aren’t fucking random sluts when they clearly are.”
She spat out the last words like they were rotting in her mouth.
“Does…did Mickey and a groupie hook up?” I asked, not knowing the delicate way to put it.
She laughed again, the black eyeliner sinking into her crow’s feet. “You’re going to have a hell of a time with us, you know that don’t you? Bet you didn’t think your article on Hybrid would turn into a juicy expose.”
She was right about that. Me with my small-town, idealistic views of rock and roll. I knew debauchery existed but not in a world that I could ever be a part of. Now Noelle had brought up a great point. I wanted to write this article to bring Hybrid to the world, to earn respect for myself and the band. If what I saw tonight was an indication of anything, the article was going to come across as a tabloid, celebrity scandal fodder.
Now we both found ourselves sighing and looking at our reflections in the mirror. I was startled by my own appearance—I looked older and just as tired. My red hair was frizzed out to the sides, and my beige, suede, fringed top was speckled with spilled whiskey. My high-waisted jeans were covered with potato chip residue where I had wiped off my hands. My face didn’t look as rock and roll as Noelle’s, but the mascara I put on earlier had smudged underneath my eyes and my lipstick was long gone. So much for trying to look pretty.
“Ugh,” she said, giving herself one final look. “I’m going to the bus. I think we’re leaving in the next half hour, so I’d book it soon if I were you. That’s if you still want to join us. I won’t blame you if you leave. I would.”
I gave her a questioning look. “Are you in cahoots with Sage now? As I told him, I’m not running away.”
She opened the door to the washroom and shot me a wry look over her skinny shoulder. “We’ll see.”
She left, the door swinging in her place. I sighed again and ran the tap and splashed a bit more water on my face, trying to fix myself up before bed. Speaking of bed, I had absolutely no clue where I’d be sleeping. On the bus? Where? Was there room? Were we staying in a hotel? Or driving all night? There were so many questions, and at the moment, any answers were beyond my capability.
I eyed the half drunk bottle of Jameson, wondering if they’d get mad if I left it behind, and proceeded to slurp water out of my cupped hands. I heard the door swing open again and looked up, expecting to see Noelle.
My heart seemed to stop pumping.
It wasn’t Noelle, but the tall, thin and deathly pale girl from the crowd. The one that looked familiar. The one with the long sheet of white hair.
She was standing in front of me, dressed in a pure white dress that hugged her every curve. Up close I could see her hair was the palest shade of blonde and as straight as a ruler. Her face and skin was an enviable, creamy sort of pale, like full-fat milk. Her nose was long, her lips plump and perfectly formed. Her eye color itself was lavender—a full-on, opaque mix of purple and pink—and her eye shadow was an iridescent gold that seemed to move and shimmer on its own, like it was a living, breathing thing.
She was eons from the face I had imagined in the crowd. And yet, there was something not right about her. Something about her gave me the absolute chills. Perhaps it was the way she didn’t seem to blink.
She smiled, normal, straight teeth, and pointed at my face.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she said in a voice that sounded metallic bouncing off the tangerine bathroom walls.
I quickly put my hand to my nose and lifted it away. Ripe blood shone from the side of my finger.
I’d never had a nosebleed in my life.