The smart thing to do would be to ask her friends to loan her some money. She hated asking for help so much that dumpster diving actually sounded more appealing, but she was in trouble here. Real trouble. It might be time to suspend her first commandment, from the Book of Zhi-Left-You-All-Alone-in-the-World: Thou shalt not rely on anyone ever again. Can a girl get an amen? The only problem with asking for help was it would require turning on her LFD, which could bring Palingenesis’s wolves down on her again. Laleh’s parting words echoed in her ears: Anonymity is not your friend right now. Con was starting to see the wisdom in that. She needed to be seen and to establish that she existed in this world. So how could she kill two birds with this stone? Who did she know who lived around here?
Kala Solomon.
Con practically did a little dance of excitement. Kala lived nearby in Silver Spring, a neighborhood just outside the city in Maryland. Providing she hadn’t moved in the last eighteen months. Con didn’t know her exact address, but she’d been there a couple of times, so it should be easy enough to find. And Kala was a friend and would help. She had better, after all the times Con had bailed out her band.
Kala lived in an enormous house that she shared with a revolving cast of transient roommates. None of the people who had signed the original lease still lived there, but at any given time, there were between eight and twelve tenants. The ancient house had probably been a showstopper in its day, but that day was likely in another century. Years of neglect had left it in a state of indifferent decline. The landlord lived in Canada somewhere and did only the bare minimum maintenance to keep the rent flowing. White paint curled up in parchment rolls to reveal red brick beneath, and the front porch canted to one side like a ship in a storm. Con cut across the front yard, through the knee-high grass turned brown straw in the merciless summer sun, and rang the bell.
After a minute, a young white guy in a too-tight Knicks jersey and cargo shorts opened the door. He stood there holding a bowl of cereal under his chin waiting for her to identify herself. When she asked if Kala still lived there, he held up a finger and shut the door in her face. Damn. She checked her reflection in a window. By the most charitable of definitions, she was not having a good hair day. Gingerly, she extracted a candy wrapper that must have gotten stuck there while she was sleeping. Wonderful.
Before Con could finish finger-combing her hair into some semblance of order, the door reopened. Kala stuck her face through the crack. When she saw who it was, she made an expression that fell somewhere between irritation and indigestion.
Kala rested her head on the doorframe and waited. Con had a whole speech prepared, but she went immediately off script.
“Hey,” she said instead.
“Hey,” Kala replied, returning serve and nothing more. She looked surprised to see Con, but not you’re-supposed-to-be-dead surprised. Maybe she hadn’t heard the news.
Not knowing what else to say, Con repeated herself, only in more words. “How’re you doing?”
“How am I doing?” Kala parroted. “I just got home from work, and I got to get to bed. That’s how I’m doing.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s really early, but it’s kind of an emergency.”
“Isn’t it always with you?”
Her tone took Con aback. This wasn’t Kala being tired and grumpy after a long night. She was angry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kala sighed. “What do you want?”
“Look, I’m in kind of a jam.”
“So you came to me?”
“I really need your help,” Con said.
“Bitch, are you kidding me right now?” Kala said, face going slack in disbelief. “You think I’m going to help you?”
Con felt like she was missing a page of the script. Obviously, Kala was pissed about something, but about what? And where did she get off, after all the times Con had bailed out Weathervane when Kala’s lead singer was too hungover to go on? A familiar defiance welled up, the feeling she got when someone jumped to conclusions about her or heard some secondhand gossip and assumed it to be true without asking her to her face. She’d never taken that shit well and wasn’t about to start now.
“What the hell is your problem?” Con snapped.
Kala’s eyes widened first in shock, then fury. The front door opened the rest of the way, and she stepped out onto the porch. Her family was Samoan, and even barefoot, she had six good inches on Con. She jabbed a finger in Con’s face.
“Don’t play that with me,” Kala said. “You know exactly what my problem is.”