Page 83 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

So, one final time, I’m your host, Go. Henceforth known only as Margo Anderson.

This is it.

The end.

Thank you for listening to Seven Rules.

CHAPTER29

ONE MONTH LATER

Margo: Where is the green room?

Concertgoers spilled out onto South Grand Avenue. I fought against the current, a salmon swimming upstream toward the gleaming steel building, lit by purple spotlights in the dark. A massive, curved installation like a flag frozen in the wind welcomed visitors to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The underground parking beneath the building was packed to the brim, so I ended up paying thirty dollars for two hours at an open-air lot a few blocks away.

Trees lined the avenue, but all except the lanky palms were stripped of their leaves by the gusting Santa Ana winds—a good indicator that fall had touched down in Los Angeles. I typed out a quick follow-up message as I jogged up the steps and set foot in the cool, modern foyer, still buzzing with people after the show had ended.

Margo: I’m here. Not sure where I’m supposed to be going.

I tucked my phone back into the pocket of my moto jacket. In the short time we’d been working together, I’d learned that Erin would answer, eventually—she just had a habit of taking her dear sweet time doing it. I approached an attendant in a black vest, the concert hall’s insignia machine-stitched over his breast in gleaming gold thread. “Excuse me. I’m supposed to be meeting Marcus Kowalczyk in the green room, but I’m not sure where I’m going.”

His eyebrows lifted in a way that suggested he did not, under any circumstances, believe that I was there to meet with one of the most prominent up-and-coming conductors in the nation. I was suddenly feeling severely underdressed in my tattered jeans, a threadbare Guns N’ Roses T-shirt peering out from beneath my jacket. “I’m Margo Anderson,” I explained. “From the Charting the Chorus podcast. I’m a friend of Erin Walsh?”

“If someone is planning to meet with you, they’ll have to meet you out front,” he said in a bored voice.

There was no such thing as flashing a wristband for a free drink around here. I mumbled some excuse about finding a restroom and slipped down one of the halls, but I was no closer to locating the green room here than when I was standing outside. After a couple minutes of aimless wandering, my phone buzzed.

Erin: Sorry

Erin: Just come to the stage

Erin: Things are a little hectic down here

Relief swept through me and I headed to the nearest set of doors leading into the concert hall, only to be halted by an usher. “Concert’s over.”

“I’m not here for the concert, I’m here with—” Beyond his shoulder, I spotted a curtain of sleek red hair. Erin was talking to someone up on the stage. “There she is, that’s her. Erin!”

The skirt of her asymmetrical dress whirled as she turned, shimmery green fabric catching the overhead lights. Crap. I was definitely underdressed. “Let her through,” she called to the usher with a wave.

The usher stepped aside and I slipped into the colossal concert hall. The seating was constructed arena style, rising like cresting waves on all sides of the stage. I met Erin down in the Front Orchestra. On stage, a handful of men and women in formalwear—employees or members of the orchestra, I wasn’t sure—were clearing away the chairs. “Where’s Marcus?”

“He’s around somewhere,” she said, distracted. She whipped her phone out of her clutch without looking at me and shot off a quick text. “Just have a seat real quick. I’ll see if I can find him.” With that, she scurried off.

I knit my brow and sank into a chair in the front row, shrugging off my leather jacket. My dynamic with Erin was mostly professional, but even if we weren’t friends, we were at least friendlier than this. To be fair, we were meeting well outside of our usual safe little sound booth at Allegro Records. But when she’d offered to introduce me to Marcus Kowalczyk—who wasn’t even one of her clients, more like a friend of a friend—I figured I could step outside of my comfort zone for a bit. And besides, I’d always liked concert halls. Even when there wasn’t a concert happening, there was something a bit awe-inspiring about the sheer size of them, the way music could bring so many people together under the same roof. Right now, though, the hall was looking a bit rough in the wake of the crowd. A half-finished cocktail in a plastic cup was balanced on the arm of a chair a few seats away, and stray popcorn littered the floor, trampled flat by the dress shoes of the workers coming and going.

This was supposed to be a casual meeting. No interview yet, just some basic introductions to see if we meshed well enough to record together for half an hour or more. Maybe casual didn’t mean jeans and a T-shirt, though. I picked at loose threads around the hole in my jeans, wishing I would have thought ahead. Even during my high school performances, we’d dressed better than this, so I should have known everyone performing here would be in black tie. Maybe I’d gotten a little too comfortable recording podcasts in pajamas or old workout clothes with sweat stains under the arms.

I extracted my phone from my pocket. I had resisted the urge to search for articles about the final season of Seven Rules, despite the tenth and final episode going live a few days ago. It didn’t really matter how it performed, so long as I’d dropped Castaway Catalina’s name often enough to get Jo off the hook and gotten my own version of the GossipHub story out into the open. The people who cared enough to listen would listen, and the ones who wanted to believe the worst wouldn’t have heard me even if I was standing right in front of them shouting. That was just how things were, and it was easier to accept that when I wasn’t obsessing over our analytics or reading through comments. Instead, I opened a message with Jo and initiated a game of Cup Pong.

Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that someone was cutting through the front row of seats and I tucked my legs in out of habit. There was plenty of room to just go around me, but I felt like I should be making myself as small and inconsequential as possible before someone decided I didn’t belong here and kicked me out into the street.

Jo: Trying to distract yourself from checking Twitter?

Margo: Trying to look like I’m busy. It’s only workers here right now. And Erin, but I don’t know where she went.

Jo: Best two out of three?

Margo: You’re on