I lit a cigarette and looked out the window, watching the blue sky tear under the weight of pink. When the blue bounced back, it was bruised and damaged, five shades closer to black than it had been before. The keyboard whirr emanating from the practice space beneath the sidewalk offered funereal condolences on the sky’s loss. Suddenly the music stopped. The grating on the sidewalk scraped, clanged, and opened. Into the semilight blinked Asian, fumbling in his pocket for a Marlboro.

Cigarette in mouth, he looked at the stars. I stared hard at him, ten feet away, but he did not lose his concentration and he did not stop staring at the sky until the moment he took the last drag on his cigarette. Then, as if snapped out of a slumber, as though all the stars had been turned up like bright lights signaling closing time, he jolted back to life. He stubbed the Marlboro underfoot and headed back into the basement, pulling the grate closed behind him.

Without stopping to consider whether or not he wanted to see me, I paid the bill and left the bar. I didn’t bother to check my reflection on the way out. If I had, I would have seen a mad woman, although I might have dismissed that as bad lighting.

I tapped on the grating but there was no response. I knelt down, the concrete kissing my knee lustlessly through the rip in my jeans. With all my might, I lifted up the grating and followed the stairs down toward the sound.

The keyboard stopped. “Who’s there?” asked Asian.

“It’s me.” He offered no recognition, so I added, “Ruby.”

He nodded but did not reply.

“How are you doing, Asian? Long time no see. The rest of filming went really great. I wish you could have come to the wrap party. I hear you’re really good in it.”

Aslan, whose name was the most nervous-sounding part of my terrified sentence, went back to playing his keyboard and I stood there feeling sick and stupid in the dark. Because there was so little light in the basement he could not see me clearly and I turned my weirdness up louder so he would know he had to help. If he heard, he didn’t help. He just turned the keyboard up louder and kept playing.

I sat miserably on the bottom step and tried to will myself into another attempt at conversation. Every time I opened my mouth, I felt his dislike slap hard against my teeth. My God, I cringed, Asian is a flower child. Asian hates no one. He’s famous for it. He loves the wind and the trees and the flowers. But the wind and the trees and the flowers are a whole lot easier to love or even to like than I am.