“Yeah, morning, Nicky,” A.J. mumbled. He was so utterly tired he was finding it hard to see straight, but still not tired enough to skip a chance to needle Nick by calling him ‘Nicky’.
“Where’s your stuff?” Nick asked, sauntering up to A.J.
“In my room,” A.J. sighed. He stopped trying to work the lock and just stood staring blankly at the door.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked, taking the key card from A.J.’s limp hand and opening the door for him. “You really don’t look too good... Jesus, wreck the bed much?” The bedclothes were all over the place, anywhere but on the bared mattress.
“I’m not sleepin’ real well,” A.J. managed to say. He scooped up his shaving kit from the bathroom floor and shoved it into his oversized carryall. It was already spilling over with dirty clothes and CD’s and other miscellaneous items. When he hefted the bag to his shoulder, it tipped and most of the contents fell to the floor.
“Jesus, Aje...” Nick began to laugh, but when he looked at his friend, he saw a tear trickling out from behind A.J.’s omnipresent sunglasses. “Hey...” He took a step forward and A.J. lurched back, then fell to his knees and began scooping his things up to jam them into the bag. “Aje, give it a rest,” Nick insisted. He got down beside him and grabbed his wrists.
They all had bad days, and this was one of A.J.’s, obviously. The work, the constant moving from city to city, the interviews, the fans, and the pressure got to all of them.
“I’ll do it. You got too damn much shit... ever think of throwing something out?” he tried to joke.
“I dunno,” A.J. mumbled. His head was pounding. He needed to get some sleep, and was hoping to do just that on the bus that was taking them to the next city on the tour schedule. As discretely as possible he wiped at the few tears of frustration and fatigue that had escaped from his eyes. Fuck.
Nick gathered up the mass of laundry, noticing the musty odor coming from it. This was so not A.J. He was always pretty clean, okay, very clean, and he certainly wouldn’t go around stinking in his clothes, but some of his stuff reeked. And, yeah, Aje was sort of messy, but they were all sort of messy, except for Howie, but, Christ, who in the hell just about alphabetized their socks? But anyway, this kind of messy was something none of them had done in years.
“You wanna grab a quick coffee?” Nick asked, forcing the zipper closed on the leather bag and lifting it along with his own. He put an arm around his more diminutive friend’s shoulders. “C’mon, we gotta few minutes before the bus leaves.”
“I just had some,” A.J. told him. He didn’t shrug off Nick’s arm the way he might have otherwise. It felt good having it there and he appreciated it.
“Well, what about some cocoa?” Nick offered. A.J. peered at him from over the rims of his sunglasses. Nick smiled back even though the sight of A.J.’s bloodshot, darkly rimmed eyes worried him.
“Cocoa? Whatthefuck is with cocoa?” A.J. asked him, smiling weakly back at Nick. He couldn’t help it, in fact he wanted to smile. He wanted something to smile about, something to lift him out of the dark mood he was in. Something to alleviate the fear that was slithering around in his belly.
“Warm milk? A beer? What?”
“Cocoa. Jesus, when did you turn into my mother?”
Nick didn’t say anything, just led A.J. down the hall to the elevator and the waiting buses.
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Kevin and Brian sat at a small table on the bus watching A.J. twitch in his sleep. Nick and Howie were out like lights, sprawled on the comfortable reclining seats near the back of the bus. Normally they wouldn’t ride all together, each of them having their own bus, but if it was only a matter of a six hour or less drive they might gather together on one bus just for the company. Especially when they all had to be in the same place at the same time when they reached their destination.
This wasn’t exactly the case. All of them had clamored onto this one bus, Brian’s bus, without invitation and without reservation. And none of them had questioned the others about it as well.
“What’s with that?” Kevin asked Brian, with a shrug of his in A.J.’s direction.
“Ah don’t know. Nick said something about him havin’ sleepin’ problems.”
“He looks terrible,” Kevin mused, and then he turned away and resumed leafing through the magazine in front of him.
‘So do you,’ Brian thought to himself, but said nothing. He watched as Kevin leaned his cheek on one hand, how his eyelids would droop, fall, then snap back open. He, himself, was feeling none too chipper. He’d been dreaming heavily for about a week and hadn’t had an undisturbed night of sleep for maybe twice as long. That in itself was odd, all of them slept like stones, usually in the most uncomfortable of places, too.
Howie laid still with his eyes shut, pretending to sleep. He couldn’t force himself to drift off into oblivion anymore, and he didn’t know how much longer he could pretend to be himself when he felt decidedly different. There was no peace for him in sleep anymore. Although he religiously got himself into bed at a decent hour every night, every morning he found himself awake in a different spot, be it a hotel cafe, another part of his room, his bathroom, anywhere but in bed.
***~~**~~**~~**~~~*~~~**~~**~~**~~***
Nick turned and looked up at the sky. It was blue and something on his back itched. He wriggled, satisfying his discomfort, then sprang to his feet, all four of them, shook himself violently, and took off rooting through soggy piles of leaves for food. In the distance, he spied a lean jack rabbit, and in a flash of speed, burst through the thicket he’d been sleeping behind to chase his chosen prey.
A.J. remained low behind the very same thicket, only his snout protruding to catch the scent of the rabbit that Nick was chasing. He closed his feral eyes at the moment that Nick made the catch, but gratefully partook of the freshly killed flesh when Nick returned it to their lair. As they feasted, the others slept their dreamless sleep, waiting for the night to return. And when they were done, the two gray wolves licked at each other’s bloodied muzzles until they were clean. Nick curled to his companions side, and A.J. felt that he could finally, peacefully, sleep.
***~~**~~**~~**~~~*~~~**~~**~~**~~***
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Geneviève, walked from room to room, supervising all the preparations for the arrival of her guests. Elle would be the first to arrive, and that would be soon; the others would arrive later that day, all flying in from various points north and east of Louisiana.
“Giselle, please make sure that all of the bedrooms on the third floor are ready,” she reminded one of her two French maids. The pretty girl nodded silently, and took off up the winding stairway that led up to the second floor and beyond.
Geneviève loved her old house. She’d lived at Vieilles Chantantes forever, since she was a very little girl and her Aunt had taken her in. She didn’t remember before then, and no one talked much about the death of her parents. It no longer concerned her. All she knew was this house, the river beside it, the woods and swamps and rice fields surrounding it, and the City that was not so far away from her. She had spent her requisite years away; schooling was not so good in the back woods so she had attended New England boarding schools and college, but the house drew her back, always.
Françoise was in the kitchen. She was a fixture in Geneviève’s life, as old as the house, the land, the earth. Her face, dark, and deeply etched with time, was all smiles when her ‘Missy Vee’ entered the steaming room. Dozens of oysters were soaking in tubs of water, champagne was chilling, the red wine was breathing and pots were simmering on the large stove. She could smell chickens slow roasting in the oven.
“Everything under control?” Geneviève asked.
“And when is it not, Missy?” Françoise asked with a hearty laugh. She handed her a steaming bowl of grits, Vee’s breakfast food of choice. “Here you, go now and eat or you won’t have an ounce of strength.”
“Yes ma’am,” Vee said with feigned meekness, a tiny smile gracing her lips. When Tante Celeste had passed away, Françoise picked up where she had left off. She sat at the kitchen table and looked at the pile of chicken feathers there. Françoise used only the freshest of ingredients.
“How long are your guests stayin’, Missy?”
“For a while, Françoise. I’m not sure. And there may be more,” Vee told her.
“Well, I ‘spects so, now, and wouldn’t you be telling me if ‘twer otherwise, then? Hmm? I just need to know what to order, and what to need.”
“Hmm, I’ll need eggs and more chickens, for sure, and maybe another case of champagne. And you maybe could get Giselle or Colette to go to town and pick up a few things, some shrimp and plenty of greens, fish maybe,” Vee mused aloud.
“Humph, and I ‘spect you’ll be needing a moon cake, Missy, if your guests are staying that long.”
“Of course.”
“Of course. As if I can make one materialize from nowhere.”
“Why, I thought you could, you old voodooienne,” Vee said with a laugh. She accepted the cup of chicory laced coffee from Françoise, and the soft pat on the cheek the old woman gave her. “Thank you,” Vee said softly, and went back to her own thoughts.
Eventually she left the kitchen, knowing all was in good hands and that Françoise would be concocting her own brand of magic for them, while they concocted theirs.
The rest of the house was almost silent, with only the hum of the fans placed in the high ceilings to keep her company. She wandered the drawing rooms, arranged the fresh flowers there. She tweaked the drapes, drew the blinds, shuttered the French doors and the tall windows to keep out the sun yet let in the humid air. She wandered to the upper floors, seeing that each bath was equipped with necessities and luxuries, that each bed was freshly made. Colette and Giselle were just descending from the attic, where they had been retrieving some special items, when Vee charged them with going to Françoise for further instructions. Then she locked herself in the master bedroom on the second floor and began to prepare herself.
Ritual cleansing could be so time-consuming.
She sighed as she poured pure sea salt into her large, deep tub, then immersed herself and began to think about the upcoming evening. In the midst of her thoughts she found herself dozing and let herself be carried away by her dreams.
She wandered through the foggy bayou, or rather crawled, because she was on her hands and knees, unable to see above the tall swamp grass. Her hands sank into the mud. She could feel the dusky air closing in on her as she made her way to a place she knew, but didn’t know. All her senses became acute, her hearing picking up everything from the chirp of crickets and frogs to the rustle of each leaf. Slowly she parted the tall grass and came upon a small clearing, where five wolves peacefully slept, one on top of the other, their varying pelts mingling. One lifted its head and sharp aquamarine eyes, as clear and fathomless as the island seas, looked into hers, and she swore that the wolf smiled.
Vee awoke with a start, and then settled back in the warmth of the water, letting her body float on the salted ripples.
***~~**~~**~~**~~~*~~~**~~**~~**~~***
Brian sat straight up in his seat. The bus was pulling into a subterranean garage. They had arrived in New Orleans. All he could see, though, was a pair of green eyes staring into his... the eyes of a gray wolf.
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© 2002 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2002 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
