Page 97 of Musical Games
‘And does it have a title?’
‘Yes.’ Crystal lowered her voice further. ‘Bonfire of the Manatees.’
Sam was suddenly back in Kinloch, imagining Jamie’s reaction to Brad’s latest project. Even though he was thousands of miles away, Jamie felt far more real than this moment, sitting across from Barbie’s younger sister on a sticky plastic sofa in LA.
‘Let’s go introduce you to Th.’
Sam unstuck herself and followed Crystal through a series of doors into a small studio. In the centre of the room, facing the glass wall of the control room, was a tank of water. Inside – a naked man. He had his feet hooked under straps at the bottom and was completely submerged. He was banging on Tibetan singing bowls that were suspended in the tank and making noises into a microphone.
Sam glanced into the control room where two men sat; one twiddling knobs, the other holding a stopwatch. They were nodding their heads up and down in time to the beat. After a minute, the man stood up out of the tank, breathing hard. He looked at Sam and held out his hand.
‘Hey, you must be Sam. I’m Th.’
27
Sam’s social media life in LA was perfect. She tapped the hashtags #YOLO and #LivingMyBestLife so often she almost believed them herself. She may not have been able to talk about what she was doing, but she could wax lyrical about trendy yoga classes, green smoothies, rollerblading along the boardwalk at Venice Beach and attending the most exclusive parties every evening as she rode the coattails of Brad’s patronage.
Each morning she got up before dawn to attend the most physically intensive exercise class she could find, then arrived early at the studio to try and come up with ideas before Th arrived. Making music with him was like cooking a meal with helium and the letter ?. If Brad was eccentric, then Th had grabbed the bonkers baton from him and run with it off the crazy cliff.
Sam approached each day as a ten-hour improvisational comedy performance with a stoned Yoda. She soon got used to his nakedness, although she drew the line at getting in the tank with him. During lunch she ran around the corner to attend a hot yoga class and every evening she ate out with her new friends and went to a party to make more.
She only briefly messaged with Zoe. Any spare minute was spent online, posting pictures and interacting with the hundreds of close personal friends she’d never met in real life and undoubtedly never would.
By the time she arrived back at her apartment, she was too tired to dream. She hadn’t slept in the bed since the first night and kept the door to the room closed. She just curled up on the sofa under a blanket, closed her eyes and knew the next thing she would be aware of would be the sound of her alarm the following morning.
One thing she couldn’t ignore, however, was the fact that her sister was in LA presenting her paper at a conference. Esther had delayed her flight home and insisted Sam spend Saturday with her. They met outside the Getty Museum and Esther frowned as she held Sam at arm’s length.
‘You look ill.’
‘Nice to see you too.’
‘I’m serious. You’ve lost too much weight and the make-up doesn’t hide how tired you are.’
Esther picked up Sam’s hands and inspected the white spots growing up her nails.
‘You’ve got leukonychia. Most likely zinc and calcium deficiency.’ She tilted Sam’s head up, pulling her lower inner eyelid down. ‘And you’re already borderline anaemic. Have you stopped eating red meat?’
‘I’m eating clean.’
‘You’re malnourished. What did you have for breakfast?’
‘A green smoothie.’
Esther rolled her eyes. ‘That’s a toxic sludge of oxalic acid. If you keep that up, you’ll have kidney stones by Christmas. You need to be eating—’
‘Okay, stop!’
Esther pressed her lips together, as if fighting to keep them closed.
‘Can we just go and look at some art and pretend we’re normal?’
Esther sighed. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I just haven’t seen you for a few weeks and you look very different. Hug?’
Sam let herself be pulled into her sister’s arms, tensing as she felt Esther’s fingers feeling their way across her back ribs. She disengaged.
‘Esther! What the fuck?’
‘Sorry, force of habit. But it confirms what I thought. You’re underweight.’
