“They haven’t had a falling-out.” Irritating. “It’s just that—”
“Well, I’m sure everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
She says this. Always. I know she’s trying to be reassuring, but sometimes, like now, it feels more like she’s just bored with my problems.
“How’s your dad? And your sister?” she asks.
“They’re fine. Jilly likes her roommate, and her classes. Dad has a lot of clients.”
“I’m glad to know that.”
It was a mistake to call, and I don’t want to be talking to her anymore, but I don’t want her to think I’m ending things because she asked about Dad and Jilly, either. Dad and Jilly aren’t exactly fans of my mom. Mom tried at first to be Dad’s friend after she left, sending postcards and calling every week and things like that, but now Dad only talks to Mom when he absolutely has to, and he’s still kind of curt when he does. Jilly’s a little better with her—I think she and Mom talk every few months now—but after Mom’s shouting and weeping on the phone on Jilly’s seventeenth birthday, things between Jilly and her have been pretty broken. This means I’m the one who has to tell Mom what’s going on with them, and I don’t like being in that position.
“How about you?” I ask, just to say something else.
“Oh.” She sighs. “Really busy, actually. I’ve been doing a lot of painting, still, and some pottery, too. I’ve got a show coming up.”
“Really?” This is supposed to be more exciting than she sounds about it. Apparently shows are harder to come by than she thought they’d be when she left us to become a real artist.
“We’ll see how it turns out.” Still so breathy. “It’s a lot of work right now, and the gallery owner isn’t exactly what you’d call cooperative, but it’s a show.”
“It’s what you went out there for. It’s great.”
“It is a really good, well-established gallery,” she goes on. “Downtown and everything. It’s promising. And the other artists are all very good.”
“Not your own show?”
“Well, no.”
This explains her lack of enthusiasm. Mom’s done group shows before, and they haven’t gone quite the way she hoped. But maybe that’s because they haven’t been in good galleries, like this one sounds.
“Well, I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, honey. That means a lot.”
There’s a small pause between us. She isn’t, I notice, asking me to fly out for it.
“I should let you get back to work, then,” I say.
“Okay, hon. Well, good luck with the songs. I’m proud of you, too.”
It’s stupid but it does feel good, hearing her say that. Just good enough to get past my earlier funk, but I’ll take it.
Chapter Three
Four guys respond to the audition flyer. Three of them are bassists. Only one does synth stuff. During lunch period Friday, Oliver and I talk over our possible backup plans. Redoing the poster, putting yet another call out on Facebook, and waiting for another week (Oliver’s ideas) are all out. Trying to get Trip back, and seeing if our school’s band director has any suggestions (mine) are out, too. Eventually we settle on finding out how good these four guys are, and then looking for alternatives if we have to. I’m not excited about this plan, but by the end of the day Oliver’s no-worries attitude has, as it usually does, bled onto me and I feel decent.
I’ve been home for hours and it’s almost time for Trip to pick me up for our Mexican feast when Oliver texts with the second part of the conversation—the stuff he “forgot” to ask me earlier.
Can u send everybody directions to my house?
You haven’t responded to them yet? Stupidly, I haven’t checked the band email in the last couple of days. I thought Oliver wanted to be the one “in charge” this time.
I’m taking 3 APs man.
Yeah ur a genius. But you couldn’t do it earlier?
Whitney and shit.
Come on.
It feels like it takes ten minutes before he responds: My Dads got this thing I have to be in a tie for in 5 mins.
I hope you choke on that tie.
I know.
Another wait.
It’s cooler if the manager does it. Makes us more professional.
I have to pause a bit before answering. Because it does. Look better. And Oliver still doesn’t know the names of half the streets in our neighborhood. It’s amazing he gets anywhere.
So, will u? comes in.
U aren’t the only one w/ plans 2night.
Their #s are in the email box. U can just txt.
“Ergh,” I growl, checking the kitchen clock. Ten minutes before Trip shows up.
Fine, I type back.
Righteous.
What time shd I come over tmrw? I am still huffy. I wish he could see that clearly in a text.
2:30?
I’ll see you at 2.
Cool.
Though I can’t hear it, I know he is grateful, and I know he needs me to do this.
Cool.
I hit Send right as Gretchen and Darby thunder down the stairs.
“Remind Mom I’m at Melissa’s. Darb’s getting a ride home from the movies,” Gretchen tells me.
“You tell her—” I shout behind them, though the slamming door cuts me off.
How everyone—Gretchen, Darby, Oliver—just assumes I’ll take care of everything is really annoying. But since there’s no one else to do it, I check the computer and gather the numbers from Oliver’s exchanges with the band guys. After that I write a note to Dad and Hannah, explaining where their children are. Then, on the couch, I compose a decent-sounding text with Oliver’s address and the audition time, debating how exactly to sign it. Manager? Charlotte? Charlotte, the Manager of Sad Jackal? As I do this, I wonder what Lish would say about me texting four different guys I’ve never met before. I can almost feel her gripping my arm, can hear her elated squeal. I debate calling her. I mean, it’s not like we can’t still talk. But just then the doorbell rings (Trip) and my phone chimes with another text from Oliver. Apparently, I’ve got plenty else going on already tonight.
It’s much calmer in Trip’s car. Drifty, soft-voiced singing is coming through the stereo, and being in this incubator with him, and this music, chills me out, regardless of everything else. I ask who’s playing.
“You’ve heard them before. Come on.”
I twist my face. “No fair.” But then I try to listen. “Lavender Concrete?”
“They sound similar,” he says, nodding. “But they’re more acousticky than this guy. Which is, I have to say, a really big hint.”
But I am truly horrible at this game.
“Um, Three Barn House?” It’s a random one I remember.
“You’re being silly.” He punches the volume up a bit from the steering wheel. “I went to see him play? When he came to town?”
“You go to see everyone play.” The music floats around us. It’s really pretty. “Come on, I want to know. I’ll remember, I promise. They’ll be our nacho dinner band.”
“Hey, baby,” he jokes. “That’s nacho dinner. It’s mine.”
“Exactly, see?”
“Lorrie’s Castle,” he says.
I punch my own thigh. “Oh god, I knew that. I really did. But now I will remember them as Nacho Castle.”
He rolls his eyes, but in a fake you’re annoying way.
After eons of trying to find a parking space, both of us are really hungry, and as soon as we get seated we dive into the menus, which are taller than our heads. Nachos, obviously, we agree right away. A mountain of them with everything possible. While we’re trying to decide what else, a server walks by with sizzling plates of fajitas, and we make immediate We need that too eyes at each other.
The nachos come fast, and we dig in. From watching both Lish and Gretchen in front of their various boyfriends, I know girls are often uncomfortable eating in front of guys. The two of them always pick at the
ir food, because they don’t want their guys thinking that they’re pigs or something. But I am not like them. Partly because I don’t know how to eat like a bird—food is just too good to take only two bites and leave it at that. But I’ve also seen how guys eat: both the sheer volume and the fingers-into-face-as-fast-as-possible method. There is no way, if there’s food in front of him, that a guy—not a high school guy, anyway—is going to pay a lick of attention to how much or how little you’re eating, except maybe to eyeball your barely nibbled-at plate and say, greedily, “You gonna eat that?”
So I don’t worry about it, either with how many nachos I’m eating (I have to move fast, anyway, to keep Trip from getting all the jalapeños) or what I pile on my plate when the veggie fajitas come, about ten minutes later.
By the end of dinner, we’re both greasy-smiled and utterly stuffed.
“Fried ice cream?” Trip asks, eyebrows jerking up and down.
“Not even I can accomplish fried ice cream right now,” I groan. “And besides, you promised me Zesto later.”
“Did I really promise?”
“Maybe not promised. Indicated. Hinted. Teased.”
He holds his hands open. “What baby wants, baby gets.”
“Not right now, though, god. Let’s go on a walk or something first.”
We settle the bill (nicely cheap for each of us, thanks to that Scoutmob Mr. Brewer gave to Trip) and decide to stroll down to Criminal Records, to do some browsing. Which means, for a while, I’ll lose him to the vinyl section. But that gives me a minute to stand in an inconspicuous corner and reply to the texts from the audition guys. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it from Trip, exactly, but I also don’t want to superfocus on the whole Hey, we’re going to replace you element of tomorrow. All four have confirmed they’ll be there, though one guy asks what color the house is and what to look for in the yard, which for some reason strikes me as really cute.
God. New guys in the band. And what if they are cute? It hadn’t occurred to me that one of the new players might actually be interesting. The idea gives me a hot feeling around my neck, makes my jaw pop around in a circle on its hinge. So to stop thinking about it, I flip through the giant bins of used CDs, letting the stream of names fill my head, laughing at myself for only recognizing the cheesy, embarrassing ones.
When I get to the end of the bin, Trip’s head-bent over the “New Releases” racks, so I entertain myself by leafing through some of the magazines I wish I had a subscription to. I’m lost in an interview in Bust when Trip slides up next to me, so many CDs and records picked out that he had to get a basket.
I arch my eyebrow. “You think you got enough?”
“Utter goldmine,” he practically gasps. “I don’t know why I don’t come over here more; it’s not that far.”
“Because then you’d have to get a job.”
He mock shudders, eyes rolling back.
“You good?” He is clearly not impressed with my two-disc selection.
I blink up at him sweetly. “Why should I buy music when I’ve got you?”
“Sheesh.” But he is smiling.
After shopping we walk the rest of the way down Euclid, laughing together over the ridiculous outfits in the windows of all the specialty boutiques. Trip says he’d be embarrassed to go out with a girl who thinks leggings are pants, and I think—to myself—that on my short-waisted body, most of those wide belts would serve better as push-up bras. When we get down to the apartments of Bass Lofts, though, we gaze covetously at the lit-up windows and the cool people milling around inside, and fantasize about having our own places.
“I’m not sure I’d want to live in an old high school, though,” he says. “I mean, the one I’m in is bad enough, right?”
“Well, let’s try to find something better for you, then.”
So we walk farther, down by the park, looking at the houses lining it. We take the next side street, to keep wandering, and then another turn, and another after that. We move deeper into a neighborhood of huge, beautiful houses: gables and deep porches and painted brick. Houses perched on tiny fenced yards, some covered in ivy, others dotted with ornamental bushes and crossed with rock-lined paths. Everything is honey-lit, everyone inside unconcerned about what’s happening outside.
“Can you imagine living in a place like that?” I nod toward the biggest one: a literal mansion hulking across the entire corner of one intersection. It’s the perfect setting for women in hoop-skirted dresses and wide-brimmed hats. Men with gardenias tucked into their buttonholes.
“Maybe with a bunch of friends it would be cool,” he says. “But with my dad? Probably we’d keep half the rooms closed off, to save money on heat.”
I picture him and his dad in the two-bedroom house they live in. Secondhand furniture. Not much on the walls. Trip’s room, crowded with his music equipment. All the weekends Trip spends at Oliver’s house— its open, stylish-but-comfortable rooms, Mrs. Drake and her perpetual hostessing.
Trip interrupts my thoughts. “Do you know where we actually are?”
I peer into the shadows between the pools of street lamp light. “Um, no.”
He heads for the next intersection. “Let’s see what’s up here.”
We squint at the names of the streets, then each other. We don’t recognize anything. We bust up laughing.
I slowly turn, straining to hear signs of any kind of traffic, any indication of which way we should go.
“How about—this way?” I point at the road that heads gently downhill. “Didn’t we walk up a hill to get here?”
“Atlanta is full of hills. Hills on top of hills. With more hills in between.”
“Well then, genius, you pick.”
“I say . . .” He puts his hands over his eyes, spins around and around in a circle. When he stops, he points. “Come on. This is it.”
He grabs my sleeve and pulls me down the very hill I pointed at.
“Oh, you needed your little dreidel trick to figure out what I already told you?”
“Second opinion is all,” he teases.
But at the bottom of the hill the road ends, teeing off either left or right. We have no idea, so we choose right. And then when another street comes up, left. Then right again. Still, only houses and houses. No sign of Little Five Points anywhere. No brightening lights.
“You know, we could just be walking deeper into nothing,” I say, starting to feel unsure.
“We could be halfway to Cabbagetown.”
Which doesn’t help. “Wouldn’t we see the MARTA, then? Or at least hear it?” The thought of being near the MARTA, though, makes me—it’s not fair, but I can’t help myself—worry we could get mugged.
He can see that I’m uneasy. “Come on.” He offers his elbow for me to take. “It’s this way.”
He leads me off to the right again, chattering about how he used to ride his bike all up and down these streets when he was a kid. Even if he doesn’t remember exactly, he insists, it’s a muscle memory for him. We’ll be there in no time. I decide to let him go on with his joke, and not point out that he grew up in Tampa.
But after a couple more turns, we find ourselves walking up the back side of the same gigantic mansion on the corner.
“Um,” he says.
We both just stand there. I take my phone out, check the time. It’s 10:42.
“You’ll make your curfew, don’t worry.”
“But we don’t know where we are.” I’m starting to feel a little panicked now.
“Well, obviously, we need to head back down that way.” He points down the street in front of us. “Because we came up this way, right?”
I gaze down the street. “Yes.”
“And then we’ll just look for more houses we recognize. They’ll be our Hansel and Gretel crumbs.”
“That’s a good name for a song,” I say, automatic.
He peers down at me with this look on his face that makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Valued. Or more like . . . treasur
ed. Or something. But then he turns and faces the street, squares his shoulders, and starts us down again, arm in arm.
“Tell me how it would go, this song,” he says.
“I wasn’t being serious. I just—”
“Stepmom didn’t want us; Daddy was too weak!” he explodes, loud and drawly and low, like some country singer in a bar. Or someone at bad karaoke.
I giggle.
“Come on, songwritin’ girl. What comes next?”
“She kicked us out of Dodge,” I try. “She threw us to the streets.”
He nods. We are bouncing now, to the rhythm of this crazy made-up song.
“And outside there were wolves, my friend,” he booms. “Witches and goblins to run from . . .”
Immediately, I know what comes next: “But tucked safe in our pockets . . .”
Together we holler, both our tunes going off in different directions, “were our Hansel and Gretel crumbs!”
We’re laughing at ourselves, but also because right then we see a house we recognize and a street we know to turn left down. This gives us immense confidence, both in ourselves and in the song. So Trip hollers out the rest of the chorus and the next verse, with me butting in every now and then to adjust a line. We actually get the chorus pretty good—“I’m winding a trail through the woods while you sleep”—and sing it over and over, like some kind of talisman. I catch myself being a little curious if the people in these houses think we’re together: me and him skipping and singing in the middle of the road, but just then we pass a house surrounded by tons of security lights. Behind it we can see the edge of the park we passed to get in this neighborhood.
“Look at that,” he says, panting a little.
“Wow,” I gasp. “It really worked.”
He crazy-grins at me. “Come on.” Grabbing my hand, he runs through the unfenced yard. Another motion-detecting light springs on, but we quickly break into the safety of the park— neutral territory—both of us breathing hard.
“We did it.”
“Of course we did.” He winks.
It’s ten after eleven—only twenty minutes until my curfew, which Dad still refuses to extend to midnight. Trip and I move fast and don’t talk.
Being Friends with Boys Page 4
