She sucked the sauce of her finger. He looked at her and smiled.

"Good?"

"Very good."

They sat in the deli just a ways away from Central Park. She dragged him there every time he was in town. They'd talk about their parents or how tour was going or how her work was coming along.

"It's about woman who date men and then cheat on the men with women."

"Bisexuality?"

"Sort of, but the thing is, the men knew going into the relationship that the woman they were dating had a girlfriend."

"How'd you come up with that idea?"

"Erica dumped Swing a few days ago."

He raised his eyebrows. "No way!"

"Yes."

"She was bi?"

"Yes."

"No, kidding?"

"It's very true, Chris. Swing was dumped because Erica found another woman."

"Are you trying to say that Swing is a girl?"

"No, I'm just saying he acts like a woman."

"He's your friend."

"He's one of my best friends, I have the right to make fun of him."

"Benji likes to make fun of me."

"Does he?"

"Yes."

Chris was in a band, Good Charlotte, with four other guys. He was the new guy, but they treated him like he had been there since the beginning. It was all new to him, the touring part. He didn't know how to react to being away from a grounded home and family.

Family was the hardest since he never had any friends that really cared about him much. Jaya was his best friend and his sister. Whenever he was in New York City, he'd visit her.

"Do you not like it when he makes fun of you?"

"No, not really. I can tell it's a joke, and it actually is funny."

"Oh, well, that's good. I was going to beat him up for you."

"Billy thinks you're beautiful."

"Beautiful?"

"Yeah."

"I bet he didn't say 'beautiful'. Guys hardly ever use that word to talk about a girl they barely know, Chris. They say 'hot'. 'Wow, that chick is hot.'"

"No, he said beautiful. Joel said 'hot'. Paul said he didn't want to look at the picture."

"Why?"

"He said he didn't want to risk the temptation, he has a girl friend. He also said that if Billy and Joel both agree that a girl is either 'hot' or 'beautiful', that girl must be something."

"I am something," she laughed a little and smiled at her brother. He rolled his eyes at her joke. "Shut-up."

"How's Swing taking it?"

"Okay, I guess. He's more pissed than anything. I made a CD for him with 'aggressive' music."

"I bet Good Charlotte was on there a lot." He laughed. He knew that Good Charlotte was looked down upon in the music world, but he loved the sound and he hoped to take it a little further with the next album.

"Blood For Blood." She sucked the sauce that had dripped from her sandwich off her finger again. "Blood For Blood was on there a lot. There's this one song, So Common So Cheap. Yeah, he liked it."

"Never heard it."

"It starts out, "Fucking your pussy was like fucking a wound from..."

"Jaya!" Chris screamed, leaning over the table and covering his older sister's mouth with his hand. She had been sort of yelling. "There are people in here!"

"Yeah?" She shrugged. "There are always people. It doesn't matter, this is NYC, Chris. Not Provo."

She was right, horribly right. Jaya and Chris had grown up in Provo, Utah. It was a conservative town that made Jaya's skin crawl. She worked hard and graduated with full honors from her high school and got into Stanford. Since Chris was only two years younger than her and had no serious plans, their parents made Chris live with Jaya in college while they moved to northern Canada.

He was fine with living with his sister while she went to college. She'd take him to clubs and rock shows around the college town. Jaya would even drag him down to San Diego or San Francisco every now and then. She didn't care that she had to watch out for her brother, she always had to. He was her brother and that was her job.

After Jaya graduated and moved to New York City to be a columnist for SPIN magazine, Chris moved back to Provo to try and get a job. He ended up getting the night shift at 7-11 and she ended up getting a major salary.

"So, back to Swing."

"Yes, back to Swing."

"He's doing alright, right?"

"He's alright with it all. He'd be worse off if she had left him for another man."

"Damn, they were supposed to get married."

"Yeah."

Swing was a long time friend of Jaya's, since she was fourteen. His real name was Zac Swing, but everyone called him Swing. He was a weird kid who loved to be weird. He was a postman and loved it. He sagged his shorts and wore his knee socks really high and often abused his rights as a postman.

"What are you doing on Halloween?"

"I don't know. There's probably some party."

"There's a big party. You do remember where this big party is, don't you?"

He let his mind sort through a mess of dates and times and numbers until he remember just what Halloween was. Halloween had become a tradition to Jaya. She lived for October 31st and he knew if she had it her way, she'd never let the tradition die. "Italy."

"I need to know if you're going this year. You didn't go last year. You missed out. It was a good one last year. On the seventh night, things happened. You missed out. You can't miss this year, Chris. It's too good to miss this year. Swing is finally single, there will be debauchery. He's calling this time, "The Debaucheries". You can't miss this, Chris."

"I was touring."

"You're not touring this year, are you going?"

"Who else is going?"

"The Coalition."