Ecstasy Read Free

Melting Rock campground and… it looks like
     he never showed up yesterday.”
    “So spike the story,” I said. It turned out to be a poor choice of words.
    “What are you, deaf?” Marilyn said, segueing to something resembling a snarl. “We
can’t
spike it. Don’t you think I wish we could spike it? Chester’s really got his undershorts in a twist. He thinks it’s gonna
     be the goddamn miracle cure for our circulation with the under-thirty crowd. He’s been flogging this thing all over cable
     commercials and house ads and mother-humping rack cards. …Don’t you even read the paper?”
    “Er…Yeah, sure I do. I guess I’ve been kind of busy.”
    “Okay, here’s how it is,” she said. “Chester’s been promoting this package like it’s the Second Coming, you got it? Marchesi’s
     AWOL, so somebody else’s gotta cover it. And that somebody would be you.”
    “Why me?”
    Another arm squeeze from Sondra. “Because,” she said, “you’re a really good feature writer. I mean, I know you mostly cover
     news, but you always have lots of great color in your—”
    “Give me a break.” I glanced out the window, which is not the kind you can open. Leaping to my death did not appear to be
     an option. “Listen, like I said, I gotta do some follows on board stuff, so—”
    Marilyn didn’t even blink. “Give it to Brad.”
    “
Brad?
You gotta be—”
    “Anything else?”
    “Um…Yeah. There’s gonna be another town meeting for Deep Lake Cooling on Friday night, so I really have to—”
    She turned to Bill. “Who’s weekend reporter?”
    “Madison.”
    “Perfect. He’s been covering the science end anyway. Hand it off to him.” She turned back to me. “That all?”
    “Er…” I racked my noggin for something good enough to spring me, and came up short. “I guess so.”
    “Super. So be a good girl and go put on your love beads and get the hell out there.”
    “But why can’t we just—”
    “Stop whining and hop to it,” she said.
    I’m not kidding. That’s actually what she said. I decided to get the hell out of there before she told me to shake my tail
     feather, or worse.
    Bill, being no fool, beat a hasty retreat to his office. I followed Sondra back to the arts-and-leisure desk, which is at
     the opposite end of the newsroom from Marilyn’s domain. The commute took ten seconds, during which Sondra said, “This is going
     to be just great!” more times than I cared to count.
    Sometimes I think that journalists, like double agents, should be issued a suicide pill.
    You may be wondering just why I was being such a baby about this. To put it succinctly: The Melting Rock Music Festival is
     my idea of hell. Until I was conscripted by the
Gabriel Monitor
’s editorial staff, I’d been there exactly once, and for a grand total of four hours.
    It was the summer I’d moved to Gabriel five years ago, back when I didn’t know any better. Melting Rock sounded kind of charming,
     and…well… this cute Canadian grad student in materials science asked me to go with him. So I put on a flowy skirt and a tank
     top to get into the spirit of the thing, and proceeded to experience what was, at least at that time, just about the worst
     day of my life.
    First off, the guy’s primary purpose for attending the festival proved not so much to be rocking to the groovy beat but hunting
     down his ex-girlfriend, whom he’d met there the year before. He didn’t actually inform me of this at the time, though I had
     a sneaking suspicion something was up since I spent most of the afternoon looking at his back as he dragged me from stage
     to stage.
    You might think, therefore, that my negative feelings toward Melting Rock amount to sour grapes. But the fact remains that
     the whole event gave me both a stomachache
and
a migraine. I’m not quite sure what my personal “scene” is, but I can tell you this much: Whatever it is, Melting Rock is
     the opposite.
    So what’s it like? To start with,