Oh, shut up. Before you get on my ***** about me fabricating a story about my dad being dead to make Kit pay attention to me, just acknowledge the fact that I haven’t seen the man since I was a kid and for all I know, he could be dead. And to hear my mom talk, he’s dead to her anyway, so it’s not so much a lie as it is a simple stretching of the truth.

Kit took one of my hands in both of hers and shook her head slowly. “I am so glad…” she began, slurring. Wow. She was wasted. “I’m so glad that I can help people out like that. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said quietly. The crowd was breaking up a bit because it was obvious to most people that Kit Porter was pretty engrossed in her conversation with me. “But sometimes it still-” I broke off to allow myself a moment-”hurts.”

“Oh, girl, you know it’s like what you said,” she said, leaning in close. Her breath smelled like liquor, and I did a decent job of making my grimace as a result of said liquor-breath look a lot like I was holding back tears. “They never really leave us, you know? An’ I’m cool with just doing my part to help you out.”

“Thank you,” I sniffled. Yeah. ***** sniffled.

“Is there anything I can do?” Kit asked. “I mean, tissue or something?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said, wiping my eyes of their… total dryness. “Well, maybe…”

“What?” Kit put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s cool, just ask.”

I sighed. “It’s stupid. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t put you in this situation.”

“Girl, what is it?”

“This was dumb,” I said quickly. “I knew I couldn’t pull this off.”

“Oh, *****,” Kit said, waving her hand dismissively. “Just spit it out.”

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans and cast a look around the street, the glittering lights of Sunset, the cars held up in traffic. I looked at Kit Porter and smiled slightly. “I’m a… freelance journalist. And I was thinking of writing up an article about this performance and… I don’t know, I always figured my dad would be so happy if he knew that I had written an article about, you know, his favorite singer ever, but I just…” I spared another glance at Kit, and she was smiling. “I just, if I could snag a quick interview, I just know it’ll make my dad happy. I bet he’s smiling down on me right now.”