Silk

“I don’t know,” Spyder said.

“Maybe you could ride up in the van with us if you wanted,” and Niki couldn’t tell if Daria was just trying to help, give them something do, another excuse to get Spyder out of the house, or if she really wanted them along. Or both, perhaps.

“We’ll think about it and let you know, okay?” Niki said and sipped her Cubano, sweet and scalding. Spyder hadn’t even tried her almond milk, just held onto the glass and stared out the window at the gray street.

“Sure,” Daria said. “Just let me know if you wa

And when she was gone, Niki took another sip of her coffee, glanced out the window, through THE FIDGETY BEAN painted careful and the letters two feet tall, words ru

“What you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Spyder said. “I thought I saw someone I knew, that’s all. But it was someone else.”

And then she tasted her milk and left Niki to stare at the street by herself.

He knew that she had seen him, that she had caught him watching her, frozen, too afraid to move, and Byron Langly walked quickly, shoes too loud (like she might hear), clothes too black (like she might see); finally stood out of the wind in one of the alleys that led up to First Avenue and Weird Trappings. His heart beating too fast, breathless, bright fear and adrenaline ache, muscles knotting like a bad dose of ecstasy or acid and now the strych was working on him.

He had not been back to his apartment in days, not since Billy said the cops had been by asking about him and maybe he should lay low for a while, and then Billy had mentioned seeing Spyder at the Steak and Egg, said he’d talked to her the day before, day after the night Byron had left Robin lying in the snow, bleeding and poisoned and helpless against the skitterers. But he had called the ambulance, right? He hadn’t abandoned her. He’d hunted a pay phone through that fucking, blinding storm, and he’d called 911, even though he’d wanted to run straight home, even though his hands and face were numb and he’d kept catching glimpses and skulking hints from the corners of his watering eyes.

“She left in a hurry,” Billy had said. “Like that girl’s ass was on the way to a fire or some shit,” and then they’d both seen the thing creeping toward him across Billy’s yellow and green candy-striped coffee table, eight busy legs and its body like a black pearl.

Billy had run to find the can of Raid he kept under the sink to kill cockroaches, but Byron had smashed it beneath a heavy ashtray, could see the widow’s ruined body pressed between cut glass and painted wood, its life and deadly juices and a little movement left in its legs. So he’d ground the ashtray hard against the table, scratching the lacquered finish, had put all his weight on the damned thing until Billy had grabbed his shoulders. And then he’d sat on the sofa, crying again, holding the ashtray like a shield, cigarette butts and ash spilled all over his lap, parts of the spider stuck to the glass and the rest smeared on the table.

And then he’d left the apartment, and he hadn’t been back. Walking the streets like a bum and lingering outside Weird Trappings, keeping track of the dark inside, living off coffee and cigarettes and junk food from the gas stations and convenience stores, sugar and salt and caffeine. Sleeping in doorways and almost freezing to death, trying not to see himself reflected in the windows he walked past.

Maybe, if he could find Walter, they could figure something out. But Walter hadn’t answered his phone and no one had seen him in days. And everything twisting inside kept telling him to run, get a bus ticket to Atlanta; there were people there he could stay with for a while, people who wouldn’t ask too many questions.

But he couldn’t run, did not know why, if he was too afraid or not scared enough, but he couldn’t. Could only wait.

When his heart had slowed, exhausted beat, and the fear faded to the steady background white noise it’d been for a week, he moved on.

2.

Finally, Niki had talked Spyder into going to the show, but only by agreeing that they’d take the Celica instead of riding along in the van. That way, they could leave when they wanted, which seemed important to Spyder, that she not feel trapped, restrained by Stiff Kitten’s itinerary, by whatever plans Daria and the band might have. That she could leave if and when she wanted to.

“No problem with the car going that far?” and Spyder had said no, that she drove to Atlanta and even as far as Athens sometimes, once all the way to New Orleans, and it had only overheated a couple of times.

So Niki had called Daria, and on Saturday afternoon, almost twilight, they met the band around back of a store that sold baby stuff. Keith and Daria were loading the van, instruments and the big rolling flight cases, amps, Theo sitting in the front seat, filing her nails and listening to a Lemonheads tape.

“You’re go

Jobless Claude was there too, watching them lug their crap out of the practice space upstairs, Baby Heaven he called it, smoking Camels and complaining about Theo’s taste in music.

When they were done, Keith locked the rear doors. Mort had been tinkering with something under the hood, and he cursed once when he bumped his head.

“Are you finished fucking around up there?” Daria shouted, and he grunted some sort of affirmation, slammed the hood closed and the whole van shuddered.

“If we don’t throw a rod this trip, it’s go

Daria ignored him, dire oracle of grease and socket wrenches, turned instead to Spyder and Niki. “Hey, do you guys mind if Claude rides up with you? It’d make a lot more room in the shitmobile.”

And Niki didn’t think to ask Spyder. “Sure,” she said. “That’s cool,” and Spyder only shrugged.

“I don’t eat much,” Claude said and laughed, clean laugh that made Niki feel more at ease than she’d felt in days, in weeks, maybe.

“Well, look. You guys just follow, but if we get separated, you’ve got the directions I gave you, right? Dante’s isn’t hard to find.”

“I know where it is,” Spyder said. “I’ve been there,” not helpful or reassuring, more like someone had said, Spyder, honey, you couldn’t find your way around Atlanta with a road map, a compass, and an Indian guide, and Niki began to wonder just how bad an idea this had been.

“We’ll be fine,” she said, and Daria hugged her, nodded, and then they were all piling into the van, Mort sliding the side door shut, and the last one in.

“And turn off that crap,” Niki plainly heard, Daria speaking loud over Evan Dando and “Mrs. Robinson.”

A few minutes later, Claude stuffed into the backseat and talking excitedly about the time he’d seen the Sugarcubes at Dante’s, and Spyder ignoring him, slipping a Joy Division tape into the deck. Niki started the car, driving because Spyder wasn’t supposed to on the Mellaril, and they followed the white van through the city toward the interstate.

Absolutely no danger of losing the van, of not keeping up, even in Spyder’s grumbling Toyota. Niki followed close behind the Ford, maybe too close, but Spyder’s silence was making her nervous. When she could read the stickers plastered all over the back doors of the van, entirely covering its bumper, she would back off. Catching whiffs of the Econoline’s dark exhaust through the window Spyder kept cracked despite the cold outside, burning oil up there for sure; she wondered if Mort was right and they’d all end up stranded somewhere, middle of nowhere, between Birmingham and Atlanta.

On their way out of town, she’d noticed the spot where the Vega had broken down, and how long ago had that been now, almost three weeks? Better part of a month, then, and how could it have possibly been that long? And at the same time, the feeling that it must have been much longer, must have been months since that night.