The Bad Decisions Playlist

by Michael Rubens

  I move in the direction where I think I spotted her, but then​—​“DUUUUUDE!”​—​Mohawk Patrick is in my path, engulfing me in a bear hug so intense that there’re popping and cracking noises and I fear my internal substructure is going to give way. When he releases me, I realize his face is wet with tears. “Duuude!” he repeats. “That was incredible! Incredible! You friggin’ made me friggin’ cry! That’s the power of music, straight up, yo!” He grabs me again and crushes whatever is left uncrushed inside me, and by the time I’ve escaped and reinflated my lungs Josephine is nowhere to be seen. Then Amy snags my arm and gives me a hug​—​“What a fantastic surprise!”​—​and there are more hands to shake and people to meet and I give up on Josephine.

  We spill out onto the sidewalk, everyone milling about and talking and laughing and smoking, then Shane emerges with his guitar and ignores everyone else and comes straight up to me and grabs me in his own huge bear hug, his voice warm in my ear as he says, “Great job, kid. Great job. Great job.” And it’s euphoria on top of euphoria. There are more hands patting us, people pulling Shane’s attention away, and I’m still twisting and turning around and searching for Josephine, even though I know she’s long gone.

  Then I see her.

  First I see the people in formalwear who are streaming slowly out of the fancy restaurant a few doors down, stopping to chat on the sidewalk, a parallel-universe version of our group, older and wealthier than ours. Then, wait, is that her sister? It is! It’s Jacqueline! Then an instant later a woman emerges who just has to be their mother: a senior version of Jacqueline, blond and tan, a woman who’d be introduced as the wife of senatorial candidate Gerald Lindahl, and you’d say, Ah, yes, of course she is.

  Mother Lindahl is pretty, or could be pretty, but right now her face is deformed into an angry snarl. She’s in snippy-hissed-lecture mode, and her target is Josephine. Josephine is walking a step or two behind her mother with the pinch-lipped, eyes-front glare of any kid on the receiving end of that sort of talking-to. I see her make a few attempts to say something, each of which her mom shuts right down. Father Lindahl is unaware of or ignoring the whole thing, focused on glad-handing and schmoozing with the other formalweared folks. Jacqueline, though, might as well have a bag of popcorn, enjoying the fireworks with the sort of venomous, satisfied grin that makes you yearn for a voodoo doll.

  They’ve all paused on the sidewalk so Gerald can continue his handshaking. Josephine has her arms crossed, jaw set, while her mother repeatedly performs an amazing feat: alternating between sniping at Josephine and then turning to deliver a dazzling smile to whichever VIP has wandered within reach​—​handshake, hug, kiss-kiss​—​then right back to vicious sniping with about as much transition as a light blinking on and off.

  Other people are talking around me, maybe to me, but I’m oblivious to it all, watching Josephine. Then she sees me.

  It happens during one of the more extended hug-hug kiss-kiss interludes. Jacqueline is taking the opportunity to talk to her sister now, or talk at her. Josephine doesn’t answer or even glance at her, she just pivots a quarter turn away, which leaves her facing me. She still has her arms crossed, her face locked in the same expression, but I know she sees me. She’s looking right at me, not moving.

  Her sister is still yip yip yipping into her left ear from close range. Now her mother is turning from the elderly couple she was talking to, her smile instantly extinguished, and she says something sharp to shut Jacqueline up so she can resume her tirade.

  So now Josephine is flanked by her mother and sister, like a boxer getting an angry between-round lecture from the trainers. Jacqueline keeps trying to insert her own bits of wisdom, Mom Lindahl cutting her off. Josephine is still gazing right at me, stony-faced.

  Her arms uncross and lower to her sides.

  We stare at each other.

  I raise a hand, cautious, hesitating, and hold it up in greeting.

  She doesn’t wave back. She doesn’t move. Until she starts walking toward me.

  Again the feeling that I’m dreaming. The way she separates herself from her mother and sister and glides away from them, wordless, still focused on me.

  I can’t hear her mother, but I can see her hissing through clenched teeth, “Josephine. Josephine!” Then some woman is touching her on the shoulder and there’s a flash of murderous annoyance at the interruption, instantly replaced with that smile, and Mother Lindahl is forced to turn for the hug-hug kiss-kiss while her daughter escapes, crossing the no-man’s land between their group and ours, Jacqueline staring after her open-mouthed.

  When Josephine reaches me, she stops.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi.”

  Behind her, I can see her mother and her sister conferring, her sister pointing toward us. Josephine notes the shift in my gaze but doesn’t turn around. “It’s a fundraiser for my dad,” she says. “I just had to get out of there, and then I randomly wandered over and saw the name posted outside and remembered you mentioned it . . .”

  I nod.

  “Anyways, that’s why all this,” she says, and sort of indicates her dress.

  “You look nice,” I say, because she does.

  She shrugs, and I wonder if I’ve somehow insulted her.

  “The singer,” she says. “He’s . . . ?”

  “Yes. My dad.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, me neither, until a couple of days ago.”

  “Ah. The one who was dead, and then got better.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Sounds like an interesting story.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

  Her father has now joined her mother and sister, and a family confab is going on, still interrupted by handshakes and hugs. This time Josephine twists to glance at them for a moment.

  She sighs.

  “You’re in trouble,” I say.

  “Little bit, yeah.”

  “I’m not unfamiliar with that feeling,” I say.

  She almost smiles.

  Behind her, I can see that a family decision has been made, that Jacqueline is being prepped to go retrieve her wayward sister. Josephine seems to sense it without looking.

  “I should go,” she says.

  “Okay.”

  She doesn’t, though. Instead she examines me, brow furrowed. Like she’s revisiting a complicated math problem and is finding a different answer than she first expected.

  “Austin,” she says finally, “you were really good.”

  “Aw . . . thanks. Whatever. You know.”

  “No,” she says firmly, shaking her head, rejecting my deflection. “You were really good.”

  I drop my gaze. “Thanks,” I say again, quietly. I don’t want it to feel this gratifying to have her compliment me.

  She looks to be about to say something else, then seems to change her mind.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Nothing.”

  “Austin, you ready? We’re heading over.”

  It’s Shane, starting to move down the sidewalk in the opposite direction with a herd of people.

  “I’m coming,” I say. Then to Josephine, “Everyone’s headed to some bar.”

  She nods. Jacqueline has broken off from the other group and is stalking purposefully toward us. Josephine glances back, sees her, turns back to me.

  “Time’s up,” says Josephine.

  “Austin, come on!” Shane again.

  “I’m coming!” I shout over my shoulder.

  Amy shouts, “Bring your friend!”

  I look at Josephine. This time she does smile, just a bit. She says, “We’re not actually friends.”

  While I’m opening my mouth to answer, she says, “I have to go,” and turns and walks away, brushing past Jacqueline without a glance.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Cheers. To a great musician, a great show, and many more of them.”

  “Hear, hear!”
<
br />   We clink glasses and beer cans.

  “And to Austin Methune!” says Shane. More cheers.

  We’re at a bar, squashed into a booth and extra chairs, me and Shane and Amy and Justin and Ed the engineer and some label rep named Drew, and Patrick the giant punk rock miscreant.

  We’ve been sitting and talking for an hour, reviewing the show, discussing music, toasting, the grownups referencing people and places I don’t know, but I still feel part of it all. Shane is the center, full of stories and life and joy, keeping everyone laughing, clapping his hands on people’s shoulders, high-fiving, half standing to give hugs. The bonfire around which we’re all gathered, everyone focused on and nourished by his energy and warmth, everyone delighted.

  At one point I catch Ed observing me, nodding to himself.

  “What?” I say.

  He shakes his head, and I think he’s not going to answer. Then he leans in and says, “You have something, okay?” Then he rejoins the flow of conversation.

  Now Shane is finishing a story about a disastrous gig at a farm festival, the livestock outnumbering the audience five to one, all of us laughing. There’s a moment of contented silence, the point that signals a new chapter in the night. Then Ed says, “Well, I’m heading home. Shane, we’re getting back in the studio, right?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “I’m serious, Shane. Lots of good stuff, but lots of work to do.”

  “I know.”

  “Amy, you make sure he stays on the straight and narrow,” says Ed.

  “Can’t promise that,” says Amy. “But I’ll make sure to get his ass in the studio.”

  More laughter. Ed hugs Shane, gives a salute, and departs. The others drop away one by one, Patrick grabbing my head between his hands and kissing me on the forehead before he leaves. Finally it’s just me and Shane and Amy, and Amy says, “Babe, I’m taking the truck home. You get to cab it.”

  They kiss, she gives me a big hug​—​“You star!” she whispers in my ear​—​and she walks out, pausing to blow another kiss at us.

  We watch her go. Now it’s just the two of us in the booth. It’s one a.m. Shane is sitting across from me in late-night bar pose: one elbow planted on the table, propping up his head with the palm of that hand; the other forearm resting on the scarred, sticky surface, fingers curled lightly around a can of beer. I’m going with my own variant of the bar pose, slumped back into the corner of the booth, hands clasped on my lap.

  Shane just looks at me, idly pivoting the beer can back and forth a few degrees, shish shush. Shish shush. Joe Henry’s “Trampoline” is playing on the jukebox. I return Shane’s gaze.

  “Cheers,” he says finally, and slides his hand forward across the table, knocking his beer can against my can of Coke.

  “Cheers,” I say, and pick up my Coke, and we drink.

  “You did great,” he says.

  “Thanks. It was really fun.”

  He nods.

  “Amy’s really nice,” I say.

  “Yeah, Amy’s the best. And you should hear her sing. There’s a talent, I tell you. Gonna be big.”

  “You ever record with her?”

  He laughs.

  “Naw. I’d prefer we stay on good terms.”

  He sips his beer.

  “So who was that you were talking to after the show?” he says.

  “Her? Just some girl.”

  “Huh,” he says, and scratches at the stubble on his jaw.

  “What?”

  He shrugs. “Dunno. Some girls are just some girl, like some guys are just some guy. But she seems like she’s more. The kind of girl who knows who she is.”

  I look at him sharply.

  “What?” he says.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Which part of it?”

  “That she knows who she is.”

  He shrugs again. “You look at her and you know it. You like her?”

  It doesn’t sound exactly like a question.

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Okay. She like you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  We’re quiet a bit longer. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “Austin . . . I’m sorry.”

  I look at him, confused. Or maybe knowing what he’s saying and not wanting to acknowledge it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m sorry,” he says.

  “For what?”

  He snorts. “Where to start. For being me. For being a mess. For not being there.”

  I shrug, take another sip.

  “No biggie,” I say. He doesn’t answer for a moment and I sit there, looking at the top of my soda can, squeezing the aluminum so that it makes crunching noises.

  “Nah,” he says, “it is a biggie. It’s about as big a biggie as you get.”

  I shrug again. “Whatever. It never bothered me that much.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I guess I’m glad to hear that. But it bugs me. It bugs me a lot. I can’t go back and change anything, but it’s important for me to tell you how sorry I am. That’s all.”

  “No worries,” I say, dismissive, wanting to move on to the next topic. I’m still looking down at my drink, plucking at the pull tab with my index finger. Boing. Boing. Boing. He’s silent long enough that I finally look up. He’s watching me in that way he does, intense, that mix of longing and pain and grim humor.

  “Well,” he says, “I’m glad we got to meet.”

  “Yeah, yeah, me too,” I say in the same light tone, and then goddammit out of nowhere something inside me gets knocked loose and I give a sound like a hiccup and start bawling.

  Sobs. Wrenching. Wracked by them.

  Ambushed by sixteen years of sadness and need in the booth of that bar, sadness that I didn’t even know existed. I’m crunched over in my seat, hands clapped tightly over my face like that will somehow keep it all inside, my palms wet with tears and snot. I don’t want to be crying, so of course that makes it worse, each exhalation a cramped hhnnnhhh that clenches me into a tighter ball, followed by that explosive hiccupy gasp as I suck air in again.

  I feel Shane’s hand on my shoulder from across the table and boom, I’m ambushed by another unexpected explosion of emotion. Rage.

  “Don’t!” I say, and whack his hand away. “You don’t friggin’ know me!” I say, or as close to that as I can muster through the sobs. He’s sitting back in his seat, hands up at chest height like I’ve got a gun pointed at him. I wipe my nose with my forearm, like a little kid, try to control my voice. “You don’t get to do that!” I say again, and jab a finger at him. “You don’t. You don’t friggin’ know me!”

  I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know where this came from, all that joy converted to this ugliness. I clumsily work my way out of the booth and to a standing position, tears still streaming down my cheeks.

  “Austin,” he says.

  “Shut up,” I say, and let out another honking sob. “I wish you’d never come back.” I turn and push my way through the bar to the exit, aware that the remaining late-night drinkers are all gawking at me.

  “Austin!” Shane calls, but I’m already out the door and kick-starting my bike.

  “Austin!” says Shane, emerging from the bar, but I’m gone.

  Is there sunshine on your side of the river /

  ’cause since you crossed there’s been nothing here but rain /

  let the waters rise, let them sweep away the memories /

  wash clean the ledgers of all we lost and we gained

  “You’re late,” says my replacement tutor.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  My replacement tutor shrugs. “She said you would be,” he says.

  “Josephine?”

  “Yes.”

  My replacement tutor is sitting in the spot where Josephine was when I first met her. He’s a skinnyish, solemn-faced kid who looks to be about thirteen years old.


  “I’m only about five minutes late.”

  He cocks his head slightly.

  “She said I’d say that, too,” I venture.

  He doesn’t respond, but I gather that I’d guessed correctly.

  “Right,” I say. “I’m Austin.”

  “I know. I’m Isaac. Isaac Kaplan.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I got the email.” Is he thirteen? Younger?

  “I’m in college-level calc,” he says, either because he just read my mind or because I’m still hesitating in the doorway.

  “That’s impressive,” I say. “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen. Well, I will be soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s math, not arm wrestling,” he says.

  “You could probably beat me there, too,” I say, and toss my bag on the table and take a seat.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  It’s been two days since the show. I haven’t heard from Shane since then, and I haven’t tried to reach him.

  I don’t know why I reacted like that in the bar. I just did. Everything had been so good, so perfect, and then it all broke and I hated Shane and felt like I was never going to stop hating him or being sad. It was worse because I was supposed to be happy​—​I had performed on stage, with my father, and everyone saw, and Josephine was there and she saw me and told me I was good, and all I was feeling was anger and darkness.

  When I left the bar I was shaking so hard it was difficult to pilot my bike, the tears not helping much either.

  I tossed and turned in my bed until five in the morning, feeling like the world had started and ended over the past twenty-four hours. Then I had a sweaty, fitful sleep, dreams of Shane and Josephine, a series of incoherent scenes and images with an unsettling musical score lurking underneath.

  When the alarm woke me up, I was greeted by a thudding headache and exhaustion and my mom hectoring me, Where were you, where were you, all while I tried to eat breakfast and make a sandwich and get out the door.

  I checked my email before I left and felt a burst of excitement and got angry at myself for feeling it: There was a new message from Josephine. Then I realized it was simply a forwarded message from Isaac Kaplan, who was agreeing to tutor me in her place. No extra message from her, nothing about seeing me perform, nothing.