The girl adjusted her pink floral headband and sipped a Diet Coke. She was in black jeans, not too tight – yay! – and a white sweater. Michelle was in blue jeans, tighter than her daughter’s, though that was a symptom of exercise failure, and a red silk blouse.
‘Mom. San Francisco this weekend? Please. I need that jacket.’
‘We’ll go to Carmel.’ Michelle spent plenty of her real-estate commissions shopping in the classy stores of the picturesque and excessively cute village.
‘Jeez, Mom, I’m not thirty.’ Meaning ancient. Trish was simply stating the more or less accurate fact that shopping for cool teen clothes wasn’t easy on the Peninsula, which had been called, with only some exaggeration, a place for the newly wed and nearly dead.
‘Okay. We’ll work it out.’
Trish hugged her and Michelle’s world glowed.
She and her daughter had had their hard times. A seemingly good marriage had crashed, thanks to cheating. Everything torn apart. Frederick (never Fred) moving out when the girl was eleven – what a tough time for a break-up to happen. But Michelle had worked hard to create a good life for her daughter, to give her what had been yanked away by betrayal and the subsequent divorce.
And now it was working. Now the girl seemed happy. She looked at her daughter with moon eyes and the girl noticed.
‘Mom, like what?’
‘Nothing.’
Lights down.
PA announcements about shutting off phones, fire exits and so on were made by the owner of the club himself, the venerable Sam Cohen, an icon in the Monterey Bay area. Everybody knew Sam. Everybody loved Sam.
Cohen’s voice continued, ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, Solitude Creek, the premier roadhouse on the west coast …’
Applause.
‘… is pleased to welcome, direct from the City of Angels … Lizard Annie!’
Frantic clapping now. Hooting.
Out came the boys. Guitars were plugged in. The seat behind the drum set occupied. Ditto the keyboard.
The lead singer tossed his mass of hair aside and lifted an outstretched palm to the audience. The group’s trademark gesture. ‘Are we ready to get down?’
Howling.
‘Well, are we?’
The guitar riffs started. Yes! The song was ‘Escape’. Michelle and her daughter began to clap, along with the hundreds of others in the small space. The heat had increased, the humidity, the embracing scent of bodies. Claustrophobia notched up a bit. Still, Michelle smiled and laughed.
The pounding beat continued, bass, drum and the flesh of palms.
But then Michelle stopped clapping. Frowning, she looked around, cocking her head. What was that? The club, like everywhere in California, was supposed to be non-smoking. But somebody, she was sure, had lit up. She definitely smelled smoke.
She looked around but saw no one with a cigarette in their mouth.
‘What?’ Trish called, seeing her mother’s troubled expression.
‘Nothing,’ the woman replied, and began clapping out the rhythm once again.
CHAPTER 2
At the third word into the second song – it happened to be ‘love’ – Michelle Cooper knew something was wrong.
She smelled the smoke more strongly. And it wasn’t cigarette smoke. Smoke from burning wood or paper.
Or the old, dry walls or flooring of a very congested roadhouse.
‘Mom?’ Trish was frowning, looking around too. Her pert nose twitched. ‘Is that …’
‘I smell it too,’ Michelle whispered. She couldn’t see any fumes but the smell was unmistakable and growing stronger. ‘We’re leaving. Now.’ Michelle stood fast.
‘Hey, lady,’ a man called, catching the stool and righting it. ‘You okay?’ Then he frowned. ‘Jesus. Is that smoke?’
Others were looking around, smelling the same.
No one else in the venue, none of the two hundred or so others – employees or patrons or musicians – existed. Michelle Cooper was getting her daughter out of there. She steered Trish toward the nearest fire-exit door.
‘My purse,’ Trish said over the music. The Brighton bag, a present from Michelle, was hidden on the floor beneath the table – just to be safe. The girl broke away to retrieve the heart-embossed bag.
‘Forget it, let’s go!’ her mother commanded.
‘I’ll just be …’ the girl began and bent down.
‘Trish! No! Leave it.’
By now, a dozen people nearby, who’d seen Michelle’s abrupt rise and lurch toward the exit, had stopped paying attention to the music and were looking around. One by one they were also rising. Curious and troubled expressions on their faces. Smiles becoming frowns. Eyes narrowing. Something predatory, feral about the gazes.
Five or six oozed between Michelle and her daughter, who was still rummaging for the purse. Michelle stepped forward fast and went for the girl’s shoulder to pull her up. Hand gripped sweater. It stretched.
‘Mom!’ Trish pulled away.
It was then that a brilliant light came on, focused on the exit doors.
The music stopped abruptly. The lead singer called into the microphone, ‘Hey, uhm, guys, I don’t know … Look, don’t panic.’
‘Jesus, what’s—’ somebody beside Michelle shouted.
The screams began. Wails filled the venue, loud, nearly loud enough to shatter eardrums.
Michelle struggled to get to Trish but more patrons surged between them. The two were pushed in different directions.
An announcement on the PA: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a fire. Evacuate! Evacuate now! Do not use the kitchen or stage exit – that’s where the fire is! Use the emergency doors.’
Howling screams now.
Patrons rose and stools fell, drinks scattered. Two high-top tables tipped over and crashed to the floor. People began moving toward the exit doors – their glowing red signs were still obvious; the smell of smoke was strong but visibility was good.
‘Trish! Over here!’ Michelle screamed. Now two dozen people were between them. Why the hell had she gone back for the damn purse? ‘Let’s get out!’
Her daughter started toward her through the crowd. But the tide of people surging for the exit doors lifted Michelle off her feet and tugged her away, while Trish was enveloped in another group.
‘Honey!’