Paint It Black by Janet Fitch Page A

wonder why the fuck his house was full of people he’d never liked. Ben Sinister picked up Josie’s blue child-sized guitar that Michael had given her last Christmas, and played a few Bowie songs, “Suffragette City,” “Spiders from Mars.”
    Paul sat down at Michael’s old battered upright and put his hands on the keys and started to play, softly, something she recognized but couldn’t name, and then she could, the slow opening chords to Patti Smith’s “Birdland.” He sang it all the way through. It was about a boy whose father died, and the spaceships that were going to pick him up, with his father at the controls.
Take me up, Daddy
. . .
don’t leave me here alone
. . .
    It was exactly what she wanted to hear. She went and sat in Michael’s chair by the window, looking out at that light-spiked view they had so loved they never had curtains. The lights on the side of the glen, Silverlake, Hollywood. She ran her hands over the torn upholstery, where he’d picked at it, staring out the window, late at night, drinking his red wine, brooding. She’d tried to cheer him up. Sitting on the arm of the chair, pressing her face to his, looking out at the same view, these same sparkling lights. “Look, it’s beautiful, Michael,” she’d say.
    “It’s like something from Bosch,” he’d say.
    And it fucking was.
    Ben started playing “Satellite of Love” and Paul joined in on the piano, everybody knew the words, but Josie wasn’t really in the picture. How could she pretend she hadn’t seen it coming? Now she couldn’t help but see. Bosch was everywhere. In the Astroturf at Mount Sinai, in Michael’s blown-out eyes. In
I hope you find someone who can meet your needs better than I could.
It was here in the living room full of people who clearly cared about her, though God knew why.
    The phone rang, and Pen answered it, her Camel Straight dangling from her lip like a dame’s in a noir film. “Hello? Well fuck you too.” She slammed the receiver back on the cradle. “It was that bitch again,” she called over to Josie. “Your ex-future-mother-in-law.” Josie watched Pen in the window’s reflection, as her friend came over and sat on the torn arm of Michael’s chair, held her against her T-shirt, stroking her dirty hair. “Look, Josie. I talked to Maddie this morning.” Maddie, the models’ booker at Otis. “Phil Baby needs a model Tuesday, a sitting with Callie McClain. I told her you’d do it. No, don’t say no. It’ll be good for you, believe me.”
    How like Pen. Just sign her up, without even asking. Josie sat there with her eyes closed, leaning against her friend, the hands stroking her hair. She knew there were reasons to stay home, good reasons. She could barely stand upright, or take a full breath. She had forgotten her name, how to button a button. She was so transparent, they might not even be able to see her.
    And yet, when would it end? She would still have to pay rent, and eat. And Michael would still be dead. He was dead everywhere.

6
    Otis
    J osie drifted down the hall at Otis, paced by her own ghostly image reflected in the display of student work—her clumpy unwashed hair and pale face, her yellow fur coat. She felt like a hyena, ugly, outcast, a disease. Only the familiar smell of the drawing studio soothed her, the charcoal and sweat, the sound of graphite on paper, Phil Baby bent over some girl, pointing out a problem, and she knew Pen was right, it was good to be here, in this grimy studio where she’d posed so many times. This was real. Phil Baby looked up, his eyes round in surprise, though they were always round, it was the little glasses that did it. He hurried to her. “My God, Josie, what are you doing here?” he whispered, taking her hand in his. Pen named him Phil Baby because he looked like a beatnik, the glasses and beret and pointy beard threaded in gray. Sweet Phil Baby. She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, she couldn’t stand anybody to be nice