A Song for Julia

tears running down her face.
    As the last notes faded, I looked up. Jon gave another thumbs up through the window, and then I noticed, standing further back in the studio, behind Jon near the door: Ron Murray. Head of the label. I tensed up. What did he think? Was it good? He hadn’t walked out of the studio, so that was a good sign. He wouldn’t waste his time if he didn’t like the music. I could see Jon and Murray talking to each other, but the mics in there were off, so I didn’t know what they were saying.
    None of us spoke a word. Serena met my eyes and crossed her fingers.
    Murray walked to the door of the sound booth and opened it up.
    “So you guys are Morbid Obesity? I’m Ron Murray, I run Division Records.”
    At first we were all silent, then we all tried to answer at once. Finally the others shut up, and I said, “Yeah, we’re Morbid Obesity. I’m Crank … this is Serena … Mark … Pathin.”
    “I love the song,” he said. He held a card out to me. “Have your manager call me, today, if not sooner. We’ll do a single and see where that goes.”
    I nodded and said words that rarely if ever come out of my mouth. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
    Murray turned and walked out of the room. The second the door was closed, Serena let out a loud scream, and then we were all yelling and laughing and cheering all at once.
    After a few minutes, Pathin said, “One problem. How are we going to pay a manager? We can’t even pay our rent.”
    We all looked at each other and Serena said, “Crank, what about your girlfriend? You said she’s a business major or something? Didn’t you say she did an internship here?”
    They all looked at me. I shrugged. “I’ll talk with her. Not promising anything.”
    Serena put her hands on her hips and gave me the look. Yeah, that look. Like she was my mother. “I want to meet her. Bring her around tomorrow?”

    You’re Being Dramatic (Julia)
    On Tuesday, after I got out of class, I walked the six blocks over to the Charles Hotel, where a rental car was waiting for me. It was handy having parents with a lot of money and a good insurance policy, but it was really too bad that Crank wasn’t able to get a rental car right away. His insurance wouldn’t cover it. In any event, I picked up the car, put my directions from MapQuest on the passenger seat and headed out to Roxbury.
    It took about thirty minutes to get to Crank’s place. When I got there, I wasn’t sure it was the right place. The building had the look of an abandoned warehouse in a bad neighborhood. Half of the place was covered with extensive, colorful graffiti, and several windows were broken out, replaced with plywood that had greyed with time.
    I parked the car in the little side lot and locked it, then walked to the steel door. This had several locks in it. I knocked and opened it. A dark hall stretched away, with a couple of apparently abandoned offices to the left.
    “Hello?” I called out.
    “Back here!” a female voice called out in an Indian English accent. That would be Serena. I walked down the hall to the end, where another door was cracked. Inside was the main warehouse floor, about forty yards long. The band’s equipment was set up at one end, surrounded by four electric space heaters, which looked to have been picked up at a flea market in the 1970s.
    Pathin, who I’d seen a couple of times now, was sitting at the drums. Mark was lounging on a couch, tuning his bass. Serena stood, a guitar hanging from its strap, and she looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite interpret. Her eyes scanned me: calculating, thoughtful. Crank approached quickly and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then pulled me toward the group.
    “Mark and Pathin, you’ve met Julia. Serena … meet Julia.”
    “Hello,” I said. This was the closest I’d seen Serena. She was stunning, with black hair parted severely in the middle and tied in a low ponytail. She didn’t look like most of the Indian girls I knew … or really, any of the girls I knew. She wore a short leather jacket with spikes embedded in the lapels. Underneath, a white camisole, with bold black letters reading “Alpha Female.” A green and blue tattoo of a snake rose from her chest and wound around her neck. Black jeans ended in gleaming black leather boots. Another tattoo, of a butterfly, graced her forehead just at the tip of her left eyebrow. She was incredibly sexy.
    “It’s nice to meet the girl who managed to steal Crank