Suzie Troll's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Suzie slid into the back booth of the diner before sunrise. Mollie was already there, hands wrapped around a cold mug. She talked fast and low. Mic had split the girls up. He was sending them to the new studio across town, not their old room. He'd given each of them a leather-bound journal and told them to write only the version of the story he approved. Mollie pushed her own journal across the table. Suzie read a page. Then another. It was Mic's words in Mollie's handwriting. Suzie felt her stomach drop. She thought of the book Mic had written about her uncle — the one she'd stayed up reading. It wasn't about music. It was about a man who couldn't stand being smaller than Billy. Now he was doing the same thing to her. She drove straight to the new studio. The old crew was waiting on the rusty iron gate outside, sitting on it like a row of birds. They didn't wave. They watched. Mollie nodded once. That was enough. Mic met her at the door of the private booth. He smiled the way he smiled in photos. He held out a fresh leather journal with her name pressed into the cover. "Write it the way we talked about," he said. "Keep it clean. Nothing about the early days. Nothing about Billy." He paused. "You say the wrong thing, you lose the deal. Simple." Suzie looked at the journal. She looked past him at the booth, at the red light waiting. She thought about the crew on the gate. She thought about every week for the past year she'd picked the easier silence. She set the journal down on the console, unopened. "I'm not writing that," she said. "I'm recording the truth. All of it. The early days. The cut. What you did to my uncle." She stepped into the booth and shut the door behind her. She pressed record. She said their names — every girl, every song, every room before this one. When she came out, Mic was gone. The crew was still on the gate. Mollie stood up first. She didn't smile. But she walked toward Suzie, and the others followed.