About a Girl

chapter thirty eight

April 9, 1993

Kurt, Lily, Dave, and Krist spent most of the day before the show at the Cow Palace wandering around San Francisco, taking in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the city. Lily, who had never been outside of Washington before, had all but decided that it was her new favorite place on earth by the end of the day and had only half jokingly begged Kurt to move there. He had just laughed, knowing that she had a tendency to fall in love with whatever it was she was experiencing at any given moment in time. Whether it was the last book she read or the newest movie she had seen or a record she had just bought and listened to a million times, Lily was always choosing a new favorite. But in the end, she would always come back to The Bell Jar, Labyrinth, Let It Be by The Replacements, and Seattle.

When the sun started to set a little before six, the group made their way over to the venue to start getting ready for the show. They got backstage and Lily took a set on the side of the stage and read while the guys rehearsed a little and got their equipment set up. When everything was ready to go, they retreated to the dressing room to get ready. Seeing as how the guys were planning on wearing their normal clothes for the show, "getting ready" mostly consisted of smoking cigarettes, a little weed, and hanging out. Lily and Kurt sat curled up on the couch in the dressing room while Krist and Dave passed a joint back and forth. Kurt only took a few hits to calm his nerves, not wanting to be too stoned to play. There was a knock on the door at around 8:00, which was weird because the show didn't start until 9:00.

"Hello?" called Dave.

The door opened and an unfamiliar face poked into the room. "Hi, my name's Ivano Leoncavallo," said the stranger. "I was wondering if I could do a quick interview?"

Dave looked to Kurt who shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so," he sighed, sitting up a little straighter.

The reporter came in and sat down, closing the door behind him, and pretty quickly jumped into the interview. He asked how they were feeling about the show tonight, how it felt playing arenas and bigger venues compared to the smaller clubs they started out in, how things were coming along with the new album, what people should expect from the new album, etc etc etc. Lily had to try hard not to laugh as the guys answered the questions; not one of them took it remotely seriously. That is, until the reporter turned to Kurt and Lily and started asking them questions about their relationship.

"So, how did you meet the Kurt Cobain?" Ivano asked, looking at Lily with a strange mix of curiosity, suspicion, and skepticism.

"Uhhhh, he showed up at my front door when I was 3 or 4 looking for my older sister because he wanted to play Batman and Robin," she answered honestly. Kurt, Dave, and Krist cracked up and the reporter just stared at her, dumfounded.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, not sure what to think.

"Yeah, I don't know why he wanted to play with her either," Lily continued. "Especially since she always made him be Robin."

The reporter, still stunned, scribbled something down and tried to reconcile this information with what he was expecting from Lily. He thought – everyone thought – she was just some groupie that had gotten lucky and would probably be gone in a matter of weeks. The only reason he was even acknowledging her presence in the dressing room was because the teenage girl demographic of NIRVANA fans would be desperate for information about Kurt's new girlfriend.

"So, uhm, you guys are childhood friends?" he asked.

Lily nodded. "He and my older sister were friends when we were kids and they always let me tag along with them, even though I was younger. Late last year, Kurt and I got back in touch and things just progressed from there, I guess." She said simply. Kurt had made sure to instruct her to tell the truth to reporters but the very bare minimum of the truth, because they would take everything you said and twist it into something else. He reached over to her now, taking her hand in his and squeezing it reassuringly to let her know she was doing a great job.