A N G E L (Roger Daltrey)

Seven

Janice's POV

I woke up at the crack of dawn to knocking on the door.

Roger was completely wrapped around me. I sighed, slithering out of his hold, trying hard not to wake him.

"Heather, Heather, noooo!" He whined. He curled up in a little ball and mumbled some random sounds.

Who the hell is Heather?

I grabbed a hotel robe off the floor and shrugged into it, tying it up as I walked to the door.

I opened it up to find Nancy standing there, pale as a sheet from lack of sleep. Her long hair was in tangles and her floral dress was crumpled up. It hung limply on her like she was a store mannequin. She was holding her shoes in her hand and her big orange sunglasses were nowhere to be seen.

"Janice," she began, her voice rough with the morning, "we gotta jam, man. Get your clothes on."

"What?" I asked. My head was swimming. I was so tired.

"We've gotta book. Now. Unfortunately, my mom actually, like, cares where I am, ya know?" She smacked at her dress, a hopeless attempt to straighten it out a bit.

I sighed. "Uncalled for. Get in here."

Nancy stepped around me into the room.

"Be quiet, there's rockstars at rest," I whispered.

I picked my way around the room, searching for my belongings. Then I remembered they were probably in the bathroom. I walked in and saw my clothes lying in a heap.

Quickly, I dressed myself, eyeballing my reflection in the smudgy mirror. I combed my fingers through my hair, trying to get it into some sort of order.

Luckily, there was a hairbrush lying on the edge of the bathroom sink. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. It looked like there was something engraved in the handle. I held it up to the light and saw "P.T." Interesting.

I shrugged and brushed my hair with Pete Townshend's hairbrush, then tossed it to Nancy so she could fix hers too.

"Okay, are you finally ready?" She asked.

"Yeah. Wait, shit, did I leave my purse in your car?" I scanned the room for the macrame bag.

"You did," she said, "now come on, we gotta motor. My mom's gonna hang me when we get back."

"Okay, just one more thing." I scurried over to the bedside table and pulled out the pad and pen that lived in its top drawer, scribbling my home phone number down and sticking it to the phone.

Then, as an afterthought, I leaned over and kissed Roger's forehead. A smile flickered over his lips.

"Janice!" Nancy whispered frantically.

"I'm coming!" I scampered back to the door, stepping into my shoes on the way out.
- - -
"Can you put the radio on?" Nance asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Sure." I pushed the power button. "What to?"

She yawned. "Anything that'll keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. My mom would really kill me if I died in a car crash. Well, I guess she'd have to raise me from the grave first, but then she'd really kill me, ya know?"

I shrugged. "Can't say I do. Hey, don't you wanna talk about Keith?"

"There's not much to say. We did it, and it was great, but we had to stop halfway through because I remembered I had to call my friggin mother. So that dampened the mood a little. And then he finished and passed out. So. Anyway, how was old Roggie?"

"Really groovy, he's actually a cool cat. And we had, like, this soul connection. I think I'll probably see him again, I just have that feeling. But, uh, basically I sucked him off in the shower and then we did it in the bed afterwards. It was better than I expected, someone told me Roger Junior was little, but it was memorably average. Pete was on the balcony the whole time smoking like a chimney. I think he knew what was up and preferred not to watch."

Nancy blew out a puff of air. "John walked in on me 'n Keith naked. While I was on the phone with my mom."

We laughed.

"Hey, we've got some good stories to tell for posterity." I giggled.

"Yeah, 'cuz we're going to tell our children about that time we fucked The Who." She said sarcastically, sending us both into laughing.
- - -
Nancy dropped me off at my house at about noon.

Surprisingly enough, my mother was awake and waiting for me.

"Where have you been?" She asked, more out of curiosity than the typical 'where have you been, young lady' tone.

"What do you care?" I answered her question with a question, walking upstairs to my room.

"Point taken. Good night." She called after me.

"It's noon!" I called back.

"You're going to sleep aren't you? You look like a ghost. What do you want me to say, good morning?"

"Meh." I waved my hand in dismissal.

I grabbed some cotton shorts and a t-shirt out of my room and sauntered into the bathroom for a hot shower. I felt like a grease bucket.

After I was clean, I climbed into bed, flopped my wet hair over my pillow, pulled the quilt over me, and immediately fell asleep.

I woke up at 6:30 PM, starving to death and insanely thirsty. The summer sun was still streaming through my windows, and I had to pause and ask myself what decade it was.

I pulled my heavy head out of bed and stumbled downstairs to get something to eat and drink, like, a gallon of water.

I poked around in the fridge and found some spaghetti from two days ago. I downed a glass of water while it heated, and then sat down and ate it with a Coke. I stared off into space for a while before finally deciding to go back to my room and sort my clothes.

On my way back upstairs, I eyeballed the phone. I wondered if Roger would call me.