Swan Song by Tracey Ward Page B

asks bluntly.
    “No,” Lucy replies, not looking at her. “We’ve never kissed.”
    “Uh huh.”
    Lucy glares at her again. “What?”
    “Nothing. I just wonder about a fella that doesn’t even try to kiss ya. Maybe he doesn’t like women.”
    “He likes women fine,” Lucy says hotly. “Especially me.”
    “Sure sounds like it.”
    “Do you have a likeness?” I ask, hoping to stave off a war. Lucy and Alice have never gotten along terribly well. In fact, Alice doesn’t especially get along with anyone.
    “I do,” Lucy tells me happily, standing up from her seat.
    She goes into the living room where she pulls a shoebox out from under the couch. It’s dusty and worn with use, but when she opens it I can see letters upon letters in neat little envelopes, all in a row. She pulls out a small rectangle and carefully lays it flat in her palm.
    “Here,” she says, showing it only to Rosaline and I.
    In the photo is a likeable looking fellow with light hair and a rounded, baby face, but he’s smiling honestly and there’s something approachable and easy about it. I can see why Lucy likes him.
    “He’s handsome,” I tell her.
    “What’s his name?” Rosaline asks.
    “Robert.”
    “Bob,” Alice mutters.
    Lucy shakes her head. “He hates the name Bob. His family calls him Robby.”
    “What do you call him?” I ask as she takes the picture back to the living room.
    “Rob,” she replies. “He asked me to call him Rob.”
    “And now he wants you to meet his family. In New York City. It must be serious.”
    “Maybe. I guess I’ll have to wait and see,” she replies carefully, avoiding the New York topic.
    Am I jealous? Absolutely. Of the relationship with likeable Rob I’m not so sure, but of the trip to New York in an airplane, yes. I’m blind with jealousy. I’m boiling over with it to the point where I’m like a teakettle that needs to be taken off the burner before I start to scream bloody murder. But I keep it all inside because Lucy is my friend and I don’t want to sour this for her. She looks so sublimely happy that I can’t imagine taking any of that joy from her, no matter how much I want to claw at my hair and shout to the rafters that it’s not fair. I console myself with the fact that she won’t go to the Cotton Club. Not a chance. And she won’t see Drew. Not that it matters. Not to her. And it shouldn’t matter to me, but it does. It definitely does.
    Drew is like a song I heard being sung one night on someone else’s radio. One I caught enough of to know I liked it, liked it a lot and wanted more of it. But the street noise blocked it out, cars whizzing by taking the sound with it, and when everything finally settled down again the song was over. I never got to hear the rest of it and I never got the title or the singer. Odds are I’ll never hear it again and the part that I did get is on permanent repeat in my mind. It’s short, sweet, and driving me mad.

 
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
     
    “Stop! Stop!” I shout, waving my hands at the stage.
    The men in the orchestra look at me out of the corner of their eyes, their real focus on the end of the chorus line.
    “Whatsa… whatsa matter now?” Alice slurs, waving from side to side like she’s on a boat.
    “Alice, for the love of—How much have you had to drink today?” I demand.
    She shakes her head loosely, her eyes splashing around in their sockets. It’s unlike her to get sloshed like this. She can usually hold her liquor better than the best of us and I honestly don’t remember seeing her drink that much today. I wonder briefly if she’s on something else. If the headaches that have continued to plague me are still bothering her as well.
    “I have… hardly any.”
    The other girls look at me doubtfully.
    “Well you’re hammered. Too hammered to work tonight, that’s for sure.”
    “You do—ya don’t know me,” she stutters. She’s staring at the floor now and I wonder if she even hears