Body and Bone (6 page)

part

ground

roll

vine

old

water

rosie

She stared at her screen in disbelief, an electric buzz covering her skin.

A quick search confirmed it.

Norah Jones's “Rosie's Lullaby”; Tom Waits's “Rosie (Closing Time)”; Jackson Browne's “Rosie”; AC/DC's “Whole Lotta Rosie”; and Neil Diamond's “Cracklin' Rosie.”

Rosie.

Nessa's real name.

 

Chapter Eight

T
HERE WAS SIMPLY
no chance someone out there had figured out who she was. Or, more precisely, who she used to be.

Nessa had taken every precaution to make sure her photo was nowhere on the Internet, no link between her current identity and her birth name. She had it written into her Altair contract that they were prohibited from using her photo in promotions, using the excuse that it helped retain an air of mystery. If she wrote about John or Daltrey, she referred to them as J and D. She used Hushmail for email, Tor software that allowed her to browse and post anonymously, and the Tails OS, an operating system that prevented anything being written onto her computer's main drives. Everything was designed to mask her IP and leave her untraceable by anyone except security experts.

She had a flash of John's abandoned truck. Were these two things connected somehow?

She dismissed this as paranoia of the most insane kind—­bipolar, crack-­addict paranoia. No. It was a fluke that the commenter had come up with this particular trivia question. It didn't mean he knew Nessa had been Rosie in another lifetime. There was no traceable connection between Rosie and Nessa. They were two different ­people. She had to believe that. She had to.

She looked at the question again, and the name attached to it was of course Anonymous. Maybe she should make signing comments mandatory, but that would cut way down on interaction if ­people had to identify themselves, and it was her numbers that kept her sponsors paying her.

It was just a coincidence. A very specific coincidence.

Nessa had to try and work, even though her concentration was shot full of holes. Too many things crowded into her brain. But with or without concentration, Nessa had to finish and put up a post before midnight, and nothing could get in the way of that. Her advertising agreement demanded she put out three posts a week, even if her estranged spouse was missing or dead, even if she was encapsulated in an iron lung, even if she was off-­planet. Advertising marched on.

She sat down at her desk in front of the window that looked out on the hops vines and opened her laptop. Best thing to do was start typing. But she was interrupted by a quiet gasp from Isabeau.

“Hey, boss, I need to show you something.”

Nessa swiveled in her chair as Isabeau picked up her laptop, walked over to the couch, and sat down. She beckoned to Nessa, who got up and sat next to her.

“What is it?” Nessa said.

Isabeau set her laptop on the coffee table and tapped the trackpad.

“Okay, so I know you don't do social media and all that, but I thought it might be useful to see what's going on in the 'sphere, see if you're being talked about out there. I know your advertisers are always looking for ways to increase your exposure, so anyway, I created a ­couple of Google alerts—­with search terms like
Nessa
,
radio
,
Altair
,
deep cuts
. That sort of thing. So I got a ­couple of alerts this morning—­”

Isabeau typed into the address bar and pulled up her Google alerts page.

“So as it turns out,” she said, “you have a Twitter account. Where ‘you' tweet all kinds of really idiotic shit. No offense. And from the bad grammar and the weird topics, I don't think Altair is responsible.” Isabeau typed on her keyboard. “I'm pulling up Twitter and searching for @RadioNessa.”

Nessa's cell phone rang. Her contact at Altair. She let it go to voicemail and pocketed it before looking at Isabeau's screen. A Twitter profile page appeared with the bio:
Obamma was born in Kenya. He has no right to be the presdient. Someone should assinate him.

Nessa whipped her head toward Isabeau, her mouth so wide she could swallow a dinner plate. “We have to delete this.”

“We can't,” Isabeau said. “It's not your account. It's not, is it?”

“Of course not! Look at the spelling!”

Was that really what she was so twisted up about? The spelling?

“I voted for Obama,” Nessa said, the defensiveness in her voice making her cringe. “Both times.”

“Oh,” Isabeau said. “I didn't. Not crazy about his foreign policy. But I definitely don't want him dead.”

“How do we get this taken down?”

“We can't. Unless we can prove this person meant you harm, meant for ­people to think this is actually you.”

“Of course I can prove it. Look at my voting record. Look at my
spelling
, for God's sake.”

Again with the spelling.

“Anyway,” Isabeau said, “I don't think that's going to be enough to persuade a judge to issue a take-­down order. But I'm going to report it to Twitter.”

Who was this girl? Where did all this knowledge come from?

“Keep reading. It gets worse.”

Nessa read through some more politically incorrect invective, and then she saw this:

The earthquake in Java was retribushon for legalizing gay mariage.

Nessa groaned. “Enough,” she said. “I can't read any more.”

“Well, you obviously haven't gotten to the worst one. You need to see it.”

Nessa kept scrolling until she got to a highlighted tweet, one that was twice the size of the others, and it was one of “hers.”

Thanks to vacines, my son can't speak. He'd be better off dead. Don't get your kids vacinated!

Nessa's skin tingled. She'd never mentioned Daltrey wasn't talking yet on the blog or on the radio. She was certain of it. She normally didn't talk family on the radio and only rarely on the blog, and only as it pertained to whatever music she was discussing.

But . . . John had endlessly speculated on Daltrey's lack of speech, although he'd never said Daltrey would be better off dead. Had he? Of course not. But John had bought into the whole vaccine conspiracy movement, no matter how many articles she'd shown him debunking this ridiculous myth.

“You don't believe that, of course,” Isabeau said, as if to reassure herself Nessa wasn't a crackpot.

“Of course not.” Nessa regarded her. Did she think Nessa was doing all this to generate publicity or something? What did Isabeau think, and how could she possibly ask Isabeau to be real with her when she had no intention of being real in return?

“I didn't think so,” Isabeau said.

“Are you sure you didn't think so?”

“Yes.” But she wouldn't meet Nessa's eye.

Nessa's computer dinged from her desk. She brought it back with her to the couch, sat back down, and opened Hushmail. There were several messages from Altair and a ­couple from sponsors.

She clicked on the one from Rick's Music Shop and Guitar Ser­vices:

Dear Ms. Donati,

We are sad to say we are pulling our sponsorship from your blog
Unknown Legends
due to the offensive nature of your recent tweets. We wish you the best of luck.

Nessa typed a reply to Rick's:

Dear Rick,

The Twitter handle is a malicious spoof account. I can see how some ­people might become confused, but this happens all the time. If you're in the public eye, you attract haters, and those haters do what they can to destroy your credibility. If you'll notice, the spelling is horrendous, and mine is not. I of course know how to spell
Obama
and
president
. ;) As you know, I've never made any of these kinds of comments before, and now there are many, obviously an attempt by someone to discredit me.

I hope you'll reconsider. If not, I understand.

Best, Nessa

Nessa then got on her blog and whipped off a quick note to her subscribers and sponsors explaining what had happened and asking them to hang in there with her while she sorted the insanity out.

“I have one more thing to show you,” Isabeau said. “So you read about the Air Capital plane crash over South Dakota over the weekend, right?”

Of course she had. There'd been no survivors, but in a bizarre twist, much of the baggage was intact.

“Well, as it turns out, you also have a Facebook fan page. And here's the most recent thing ‘you' posted.”

#AirCapital597 Glad the valuble stuff survived!! Who's going with me to the auction??

“Good God,” Nessa said. This was the kind of thing that ruined ­people's reputations forever. She remembered the story of the PR exec who posted a thoughtless tweet and had to change her name and move.

“Trolls, right?” Isabeau said. “Nothing to do but sit in their parents' basements and smoke weed and anonymously heckle ­people who are actually trying to create something. I'll bet this guy's some jealous asshole who's trying to spook your sponsors. He probably has a shitty music blog with two subscribers—­his mom and a girl named Desiree who keeps asking him if, for just $24.95, he'd like to take a look at some of her nude photos.”

Nessa laughed. “You really think that's all it is?”

Isabeau rolled her eyes. “Probably,” she said. “If you ignore him, he'll probably get bored and try to find somebody more fun to flame.” She stretched. “Hey, I'm going into town here in a little while—­meeting some friends for dinner and a movie. I should be home about ten. Cool if I bring my stuff with me and do a little move-­in?”

“Oh, sure,” Nessa said. “Have fun.”

Isabeau closed up her laptop, slung her purse over her shoulder, and went out the back door.

Nessa spent the rest of the afternoon calming nervous and angry sponsors and her Altair bosses, then made a stir-­fry for herself and Daltrey for dinner.

After they ate, the two of them went out back to walk their property with Declan MacManus. The dog cavorted happily, running to and fro, barking over his shoulder at them as if they were an irritatingly slow tour group and he was their guide. They walked into the wooded area beyond their outbuildings, and Nessa pointed things out to Daltrey as they passed them. “Look,” she said. “A sunflower. Sunflower. Tree. That's a tree. It's an oak. Weeds. Those are weeds.”

The sun dipped below the horizon, and Daltrey looked happy to be outside in the warm dusk later than she normally let him stay out.

Finally, what she'd been waiting for happened, and a tiny light ascended from the tall grass.

“Look, Daltrey! A firefly! Can you say firefly?”

His eyes grew bigger and his mouth dropped open, as more and more of the lightning bugs appeared and rose in the air around him.

Daltrey and Declan MacManus chased after the fireflies and leaped at them. Daltrey finally twirled, his arms overhead, never letting go of the toy car, his eyes closed in rapture as the tiny lights floated all around him.

She wished Isabeau were here to see this. She wished John were. And she was crying again.

After Nessa put Daltrey to bed, she sat at her desk and paid bills until Isabeau returned at nine-­thirty, suitcases and a few boxes in tow for her move-­in.

“You should have let me help you do this,” Nessa said.

“I only have a few things,” Isabeau said. “No biggie.” She dragged everything up to the guest room and Nessa could hear her putting things away in dresser drawers.

Nessa felt relief at having another adult in the house, and she knew she'd made the right decision. She went upstairs and knocked lightly on the guest room door. Isabeau opened it and threw her arm out wide as if she were welcoming a treasured guest.

“Do you have everything you need?” Nessa said.

“I think so. You going to bed?”

“Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow.”

Nessa closed Isabeau's door and went to check on Daltrey. He was sound asleep, still clutching the car. She eased it from his hand and looked at it. It was a Hot Wheels replica of a Tesla Model S, which had been John's current dream car.

“Good on the environment,” he'd told her, “but still hot.”

She placed the Tesla on the top shelf of Daltrey's bookcase next to the Fender guitar pick and the other artifacts John had hidden for him.

She gazed at Daltrey's lovely face, thinking,
My dad went out of his mind and all I got was this lousy toy car.

 

Chapter Nine

Sunday, June 5

N
ESSA SAT AT
her desk after dinner while Daltrey and Isabeau played Legos and wrote her Monday blog post.

The Disintegration Loops
is a four-­volume album by William Basinski, and I don't know when I've been so disturbed by a piece of music as I was when my friend Marlon, who knows all the freaky stuff out there, even though he's middle-­aged (or maybe it's
because
he's middle-­aged) played it for me. . .

She gave herself a chuckle, calling Marlon middle-­aged even though he was only in his thirties. She knew he'd have plenty to say about that at their next sponsor meeting.

She finished up the post, proofed it, changed a few phrases, and cut a few words, then attached
The Disintegration Loops
' cover art as the featured image, added tags, and posted it a day early. Good for her.

Nessa navigated to the front page of her blog to read the latest comments. Most were nice, some were thoughtful, funny, interesting. But there were also the odd nasty, profane, personal, ugly comments from trolls. And then there were the Beatles Avengers, who could never let go of her apathy toward the all-­time greatest band the universe had ever known. When she felt like punishing herself, she read these brilliant, witty ripostes like
You're writting sucx
. This served a three-­fold, evil purpose—­it stirred up angry feelings, put a sword through her already aching heart, and made her feel superior all at the same time. Today's gem:
Your mind is so small, you probably like Norman Rockwell.

That made her laugh. She did like Norman Rockwell. Fuck 'em.

After Daltrey went down, Nessa and Isabeau watched a movie in the living room, a romantic comedy, which didn't help distract Nessa because of its utterly predictable storyline. Isabeau went up to her new room about ten minutes after the movie ended, and Nessa followed her upstairs to check on Daltrey, who was sleeping peacefully, then washed her face and put on her pajamas before returning to the living room. She made herself a cup of green tea, got out her vapor pen, and opened her laptop, ready to do her inventory.

But first she refreshed her blog and saw the Basinski post already had several comments below it.

Awesome! Next time I have +7 hours to sit still and think about collapsing buildings I will know what to listen to.

Posted by Anonymous | June 7 7:38
P
M

Beatles rule

Posted by Anonymous | June 7 7:46
P
M

Profiting off of the worst day in American history FTW

Posted by Studtman | June 7 7:55
P
M

7:55 go back to sleep DAWG

Posted by Anonymous | June 7 7:59
P
M

Great records! I love this stuff. BUT, if want music for sitting around thinking about “collapsing buildings” as 7:38 suggested, I would obviously be playing Einstürzende Neubauten.

Posted by Anonymous | June 7 8:02
P
M

remember the days when ­people actually wrote songs instead of hitting three notes on the “strings” setting of a synthesizer and then repeating it for 11 minutes?

Posted by LIghtning! | June 7 8:02
PM

This was the type of comment she felt duty-­bound to respond to.

So it didn't strike you . . . that's fine. But for me, TDL is the very definition of art. It provokes a response. It disturbs, it delights, it wears brand-­new neural pathways in your brain, and redistributes the chemicals. It changes you. TDL changed me, and for that I thank William Basinski.

Some of the comments on her blog were so brainy and well-­reasoned she wondered if Marlon wrote them, like the Einstürzende Neubauten comment (which, she learned, was a German industrial band—­thank you, Interwebz). But she didn't dare ask, because she didn't want to sound like a self-­obsessed me-­monkey, as if he spent all his time pondering her brilliant words and thinking of pithy comments to add.

One more comment appeared:

What you need is another good raping.

Posted by DeadJohnDonati | June 7 8:37
PM

Nessa choked on her tea, which sent her into a violent coughing fit.

She heard a door click open upstairs.

“You okay down there, boss?” Isabeau called.

Nessa continued coughing, and Isabeau appeared in the doorway, then charged into the room when she caught a glimpse of Nessa's face. “What is it?”

Nessa turned her laptop toward Isabeau and pointed.

“What is—­oh, my gosh,” Isabeau said, her hand over her mouth. “What kind of sick asshole would do that? I mean, that is just beyond the pale.”

The commenter's handle scrolled through Nessa's brain like a Times Square news ticker marquee:
DeadJohnDonatiDeadJohnDonatiDeadJohnDonati.

“TOS violation,” Isabeau said. “We're banning this guy from the blog. That is unacceptable. But first I'm going to screenshot it.” She did so, then sat staring at the screen. “Another. Why does this guy use ‘another'?”

Another
good raping
?

Nessa fought down the panic that rose in her chest. She'd been so shocked by the handle that she'd missed it completely.

It didn't mean anything. It was just another anonymous testosterone-­fueled hate message.

It didn't mean anything.

“Boss?”

Nessa's breath came quick and shallow, depriving her of the oxygen she desperately needed to stay conscious. She bent forward and willed herself to breathe deeply.

“Go on to bed, Isabeau,” Nessa said. “I'm okay. Just go on to bed.”

“But—­”

“Please, Isabeau!” Her voice was high and sharp, and Isabeau obeyed.

What you need. . .

What she needed was for all this stress to stop. What she needed was for John to come back, alive and drug-­free.

What she didn't need was another raping, good or otherwise.