by Amber Burns
“Jesse was our fourth-year TA for Philosophy 101.” Dan slaps the table, jabbing a finger at Jesse. “And you failed me, almost.”
“Because there were strong signs of plagiarism, and the Prof was going through all the corrected papers, double-checking for fair grading.
“Can you imagine what he’d think if I passed on blatant copy-and-paste tactics?” Jesse shakes his head like the supposition scared him. I can’t see why not?
Graduating summa cum laude didn’t fall into his lap – he’s pretty smart for a guy who still dresses like he lives in his mom’s garage, but living the dream of a rock star...as a rock star.
“So I forgot to mention names when paraphrasing, it still doesn’t justify the D-minus,” Dan sniffs. “Friends don’t do that to friends.”
Seeing this is standing on bad ground, and feeling the tension skitter through Astra to our connected hands and straight to my heart, an arrow of dread to my vitals.
I break up the age-old argument between them – more of an argument for Dan than Jesse, but I can’t count that the slimmer man’s cheeks are redder than our bassist and back-up vocals.
Right on cue too.
Tzatza is back and spritzing the air with her perfume. She punctuates her steps with new heels.
The T-strap, rock-studded red and black heels clack over the tiling, her asymmetrical cut glittery red skirt hugging her slim, toned legs, exposing an expanse of flesh which was more than necessary.
“Sorry for delaying the feasting,” Tzatza sweeps into the chair at the head of the table beside me and the empty seat she would have taken if her husband was showing up. Sure enough Tzatza says, “My dear husband won’t be joining us tonight.”
Only I’m perceptive of her stealthy glance at the empty chair and the brief longing that softens her sharp cheekbones, puffy lips and darting eyes.
The food isn’t too long after that. There are more staff milling about tonight than the usual. The cook lives in the mansion, but the three waiters had to be hired out for the evening.
Not that there aren’t wait staff around the Lopezes on a more than normal frequency. It’s all background noise to me.
So I’m swept up in Astra’s reaction to the young gentleman juggling their appetizers, main dishes and desserts. Holly is taken with the extra care lay people aren’t used to. Astra is about as taken by everything except for the wine.
“No, thank you,” she smiles up at the waiter in the midst of pouring her the expensive grand cru Chablis.
“Don’t you drink?” Tzatza’s nails are curling over the side of her coupe, the white chardonnay swishing about the glass. She taking a sip as Astra says, “No, not usually. But especially not tonight as I’m not feeling well.”
“A cold,” I offer, voice a little hoarse, abrupt. Tzatza’s gaze flickers between us. Under the table I feel Astra’s hand slipped away. I grasp at her fingertips, desperate to hold onto her. I squeeze in an effort to calm her.
Tzatza can’t hurt her, not with me here.
A distraction comes dressed in a white shirt, black coat and tie. Dessert arrives in the same silver-lidded reveal.
“It’s gelatinous fruit cake, Miss. There are citrus accents and that’s spring grass.” The youthful waiter is kind and patient with Holly’s questions over the dessert choice.
Astra is having difficulty getting her knife to slip into the small round cake for a sample.
“Here,” I grab her plate and exchange it with mine, her protest minimal with Tzatza watching us like a hawk – a hawk with smoky, cat’s eyes.
Murmuring her ‘thanks’, Astra takes the piece I sliced off and enfolds her smooth, glossy lips around the tip of the fork. She chews a bit and swallows, humming her approval.
Jesse is doing the same for Holly, save he’s actually sidling closer to reach for her fork and slicing the cake for her.
“You,” Tzatza hooks one of the poor unsuspecting waiters. “What does Senor Vega think he’s doing?” she’s switched to Spanish, at least having that decency.
Too bad I understand her fully.
Jesse, a bit fluent in Spanish himself, meets my gaze between helping Holly and I give a slight shake, the exasperation lowering my shoulders.
The waiter apologizes, and this drags Dan and the ladies’ attentions. Tzatza waves him off, mumbling, “Basta ya.” Enough.
She smooths her ruffled feathers, engaging me and the guys on Lola’s birthday plans, leaving Astra and Holly with their palpable confusion.
Newly changed she might be Tzatza could have tried at altering her attitude, too.
“Band?” Holly whispers to Jesse once she has his attention, her voice carrying across to us.
Jesse sets aside his puzzled look and reveals the truth. I garner a look at Astra when our locked hands grow tighter.
Understanding that to be my cue to keep her knowledge about Tense Finger a secret from Holly and everyone else, I match Jesse and explain, even allowing Dan to hop in with his bit.
For my benefit Astra plays her role perfectly; her shock tempts me to laugh and break our cover.
“A rock band,” Holly’s genuine surprise lowers her fork from her nearly cleaned plate, the dessert becoming a fast favorite despite all the extra work. My compliments to the poor chef and wait staff chewed out by their hormonal employer.
Speaking of the rearing ugliness of said employer, Tzatza sits up straighter, deciding perhaps she’s had enough of not being the center of attention.
“Do you not listen to music?” she’s brisk, demanding, rude.
Holly is onto her. “Yes. Not rock music though,” she casts an apologetic look around the table.
“That’s cool.” Dan shrugs. “I’ve got my preferences, too.”
Jesse is agreeing and Holly’s shoulders are relaxing from their position to her ears at Tzatza’s insinuation.
“And you, Dr. Olsen?”
“I listen to more radio news than music,” Astra says after displacing her napkin from wiping her mouth of moist cake crumbs.
“You don’t say.” Her dismissal touches a frown to Astra’s expression.
Tzatza forks a dainty helping of fruit cake into her mouth, dabs her poufy lips and taking a sip from her drink, turns to inquire about Dan’s parents and their snow birding experience at Dan’s farm-turned resort in NorCal.
Dinner comes and goes too quickly for my liking. Soon I’m walking Astra and Holly to the door with an entourage. Tzatza bids them farewell on her ascent up the stairs.
Dan rushes up with Holly’s cell, catching her warm smile and particularly falling over himself on fumbling through a less-than-smooth comeback.
More refined, Jesse offers her her jacket.
“Wait,” I say, unable to swallow the idea of Astra leaving the house. We could head to hers, but sex couldn’t possibly be healthy for her, not in her fragile state.
The warmth of the house alleviated her symptoms, yet it’s obvious there’s a frailty to her steps and her breathing is softer, shallower, smiles weaker.
“Just for another half hour, maybe less, to give you a private showing,” I go on, trying to rile the guys into helping. Meanwhile Jesse’s blond brows meet in the middle, intrigue narrowing his eyes and likely keeping him from responding.
Not going to get help there. At least not without a trade-off and I’m not ready to delve deeper into whatever spell Astra’s woven around me, through my firing blood and my waking, unoccupied thoughts...forget about my dreams.
Tucking his thumbs under the pits of his long-sleeved stripped Henley, Dan spaces his legs, limited edition orange Chucks grounded. It’s like he’s prepared for battle save that large, toothy grin erasing the martial part of my assessment.
“Yes,” he hisses, bobbing his head wildly. If his hair hadn’t been tied back in a bun, like it usually is off-stage, the long dark blonde strands would be doing the windmill from his enthusiasm. “We have to do this, and I’ll be damned if you two aren’t rock converts by the time we’re th
rough.”
“That and we could use more fan girls,” he mumbles through a feigned cough seconds later.
My champion and I persuade Astra and Holly to follow us, Jesse closing our rear. I try to ignore his intent stare. We’d clearly be having a talk at some point.
But not now.
Now I’m busy admiring Astra’s thrall in our impromptu studio.
From his days dabbling in music production, Custodio built a soundproof room for the business venture that hadn’t really taken off past Tense Finger’s debut.
Of course there was the severance pay and fat check he got on signing us off to our current label.
I grit my teeth at the memory. Decades later and it still bites. I won’t let it sour tonight though.
“Are you really going to play for us?” Holly’s voice comes through the speakers in the recording room. We’ve shown the girls how to use the microphone in case the music overtakes us and they need something.
“Yeah, apparently,” Jesse shrugs, easing behind his drum set. His sticks are out of his pocket in his hand. For the only one of us three to eat and breathe his music, he sounds reluctant.
“He thinks the floor toms might have been raped by the airport handlers. Not that rape is a light matter.” Dan lopes his bass’s strap over his shoulder, fingers already plucking several notes of one of our songs.
“Stickler.” I say over my shoulder, feeling Jesse’s glower.
“Whatever,” he does that shrugging thing again. “Are we playing or not?” And to punctuate his point he belts out a two phrases, unloading the fill like the pro he is.
The cymbal crash has Holly and Astra sitting up.
Through the glass my girl is watching me string up. I do my usual test, tuning to as near perfection for the mellower piece. Though not our usual stuff, I like the song.
We don’t have to speak to know what we’re playing. One of us always gives a hint by starting off the notes. It’s Dan who sets us in motion; Jesse and I are along for the ride in as much as we let the music move us.
“Dragging, sucking, infiltrating – empty walls of writhing limbs; altar spices, final, glass sacrificing, we’re ready to take the climb...down,” I hold the note of the final verse, Dan backing vocals into the chorus.
Lyrics finished, we belt a final riff and close with Jesse’s cascading symphony of cymbals.
“Can we come in?” Holly asks, and at my thumbs-up, she leads Astra inside the wood paneled room. “That was amazing.” Her loud sigh says enough.
Astra is more timid, less forthcoming with her opinion until Dan’s in her face. “Well? Are you thirsty for more?”
His wording bunches my muscles, readies my fists – the instinct to knock his teeth scares the shit out of me, and I nearly miss hearing Astra’s response.
“It was...passionate,” astutely ignoring Dan’s phrasing, she blinks to set her gaze on me and I know the small smile is secreted for me.
Jesse drums a four-beat measure and basic fill. “Best critique I’ve ever heard, I think.”
Not to be bested, Dan peels a riff, his finger slide ending in a flourishing bow. “‘Thank you, thank you very much’.”
Holly laughs at that, unknowingly inflating Dan’s ego as he grins stupidly.
Though who am I to blame Dan? I’m falling dumb over a woman myself.
Astra keeps her smile frozen, unable to do much more. The tip of her nose is alluring. And the fullness of her bottom lip, chewed to redness, steams my blood molten hot.
I’d love to kiss her.
I step in her direction, replacing Dan when he draws Holly away to show her a few more of his moves.
“Passionate? That’s your final answer.” I’m speaking lower, to keep suspicion from others and in reaction to the darkening of her eyes and parting mouth, the heated charge leaping in the small space keeping us separated. “Do you want an encore?”
“From the band?” Astra lowers her gaze, her tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip. “Or from you?”
Jesse’s drumming and cymbal crash gets a mixed reaction from me. On the one hand he saved me from jumping Astra’s bones right there, yet my boner disagrees and prompts the stiffening in my spine.
Feeling my stare, Jesse looks at me and tilts his head.
I’m about to say something mean because my dick is hard and Astra and me are in this weird no-man’s land – and I just want her so fucking bad…
The thought alone has me jizzing.
“I can’t believe I’ve never heard of you,” Holly’s glancing up from her phone. I seize onto the distraction. I’m getting a lot of them, but I’m starting to sift through the good ones and the cock-blocking ones.
“You guys have been playing since ’97.”
“Mostly off-scene, yeah,” Dan answers her.
“That does sound about right. I’d finish college at the end of that summer.” Jesse’s tone is whimsical.
“Are you planning to take a break, or is it go-go-go?” she asks.
Jesse is drumming restlessly. Dan looks a bit down also; his fingers go slack on his guitar, gaze cast to the studio’s sleek maple flooring.
Holly senses the mood change and leaps into an apology. With the guys out of commission, I allay her fear of having stepped over a boundary or touched a nerve.
“Funny you mention that. We’ve been thinking about it lately.” I say.
“It’d give me time to write my own music, travel, breathe,” Dan adds, his smile small, especially under his dark beard.
Jesse scrunches his brow with thought. “I guess I’d probably head home. I haven’t seen my mom since Christmas.”
“Yeah, that’d be two months ago. Dude, I like your mom too, but man,” Dan chuckles.
“So? I can’t help it if my family’s awesome. And my sister just had her first kid.”
“I think that’s sweet,” Holly presses a hand to her chest. Dan’s bravado cools at her favoring Jesse.
I look to see Astra doing pretty much the same. What is it with women and babies?
Still, I get a brief flash of Astra with her own kid. Her belly swollen, heavy and round, her cheeks glowing from motherhood: It’s a glorious image, fleeting but glorious.
“Where would you travel, Dan?”
Perking up now that he has Holly’s attention, Dan scratches his beard. “Like everywhere,” he drops his hand. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“I wish I could travel everywhere,” Holly sighs. “But motherhood calls, and speaking of motherhood, I’ll probably have to head home soon. I can’t expect the teen-sitter to stay the whole night. I can wish though.” She tosses a sheepish grin over to Astra.
That would be my cue to end the night, see the ladies home and do the gentlemanly thing of leaving Astra at her front door.
“What are you going to do?” Astra’s question, directed at me, catches me off guard. If we were alone I might have answered differently, but on the spot in front of the guys and Holly, too, I blank.
Or is it because you really have no clue, the annoying thought goes all-caps in my head. I concentrate on forming a response.
“I don’t know.”
Dan breaks the short silence that feels much longer to me. “Boring,” he sings. “You have all this time and that’s what you’re going to do with your life? Life of the party, that’s what you are, my man.”
Jesse laughs with him, and when I chuckle it cues Holly to loosen up and laugh with the guys. Astra isn’t so easy to allay.
She’s studying me silently, blinking awake when I say, “Let’s get you home then.”
After dropping off Holly, Astra lingers in the car, and when her hand finally unstraps her seat buckle, I call her back. “I really don’t know.”
She’s quiet, waiting for me to continue.
It takes a moment, but I have my scattered mind in a coherent enough order.
“I know Dan and Jesse would like the hiatus, but is it selfish of me to say I don’t? We’ve never talked about i
t. Out of mind, out of sight – the truth is I just wouldn’t know what to do with all that time. Write new music? Sure. Maybe consider the solo thing for a bit? That’d make my manager, label and fans happy, I think.”
I sigh, ripping the tight grip off the wheel and hazarding a glance to my right. “Pretty pathetic or what?”
Astra’s hand falls over the console, squeezing my hand and warming my whole body from the contact alone. “Some decisions can’t be made overnight. It’s all about the process.”
