by Jesse Jordan
“Ask Joey where he gets his guitar strings?” Harry teases with a smile. “But seriously....”
Polly, the office receptionist, interrupts coming up with something behind her back, and a barely controlled smirk on her face. “Oh, Andrea.... got a delivery for you.”
“For me?” I ask, a little worried. Polly's got a gleam in her eye, and I know her sense of humor, I'm a bit worried. “Uh... should I ask?”
“It's from Chad,” Polly says, pulling out a white cardboard box that's a little over a foot high and maybe about eight inches wide. It's definitely a gift box, or maybe one of those that people but small cakes in. “I looked inside, but... well, you open it.”
“Do I really want to?” I grumble, but still, I open the envelope that's attached to the big box, finding a card. “Hey sweet cheeks, let's get together and put these to some use. Is he kidding?”
“Didn't you break up with that guy back in like, June or something?” Harry asks.
I sigh, rubbing at my temples. I don't need this shit, not right before a chance at a big interview. “He just won't get it, it's over between us. I mean, he wasn't a great boyfriend, to begin with, but then when the rape accusations came out... no way, buddy. Harry, would you do me a favor and open it for me?”
Harry shrugs in good humor while Polly tries to control her laughter, and I wonder what I just asked him to do. Harry pokes around and finds the tape point on the side of the box. The box is angled so that I can't see anything, but Harry's turning pinkish red, trying not to laugh. “Well,” I finally ask, “what is it?”
“'Dre, I don't think I could use this even if I hooked up with all of those K-pop girl groups that came through town for the Far East Pop Festival at the same time,” Harry says, turning around the box to show me the gift. A condom tree. Dozens of colorful packages in red, green and gold adorn the tacky wire frame, and at the bottom...
“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter, taking a ball pen and fishing out the twisted-up pieces of 'clothing.' “Candy lingerie?”
Polly laughs, picking it up the bra when I toss it on my desk. “Hey, I didn't know you were a C cup.”
“Very funny,” I groan, taking my pen and tossing it in the trash. “There, that'll at least minimize the chance of slime spreading. Polly, if I were you I'd wash your hands. With alcohol spray and maybe some anti-bacterial gel. Keep the creep off you.”
Polly smacks her gum and shakes her head, grinning. “Hell no. I know this ain't your thing, but if you're going to throw this out, Nick and I can put this to good use this weekend. And I know the tag on this thing, these are at least... well, they're safe, if not classy.”
“Take the tree too if you want,” I snap, pushing the box away and huffing. Polly, who's a natural 'dirty flirt' but is pretty decent at heart, sets the candy down on the neighboring desk and gives me a commiserating look. “What, Polly? He's an asshole.”
“No class too,” Harry adds. “There's a time for a condom tree, you know? Bachelor party, Earth Day at the Playboy Mansion, stuff like that. But trying to get back with a girl, with his trouble? You're better off without his dumb ass.”
“He's right,” Polly adds. “Sorry, Andrea, I didn't mean nothing by it.”
I smile, shaking my head. “I know, Polly. Listen, take anything you want, have fun with it. Have Nick eat it off you, you eat it off Nick, whatever. Pitch the rest, if you don't mind.”
“Not a problem,” Polly says.
“Whatever. Listen, I gotta get ready for my interview this afternoon, so while this is a blast, I think I'll actually try to be a reporter for once this week,” I reply, my mood ruined. “Just get that fucking thing out of here.”
Polly picks up the box, closing it first before leaving, understanding what's pissing me off. Harry watches her go, then leans down. “Hey 'Dre, don't you worry about Chad. Just nail your work, and later, if you don't have plans, the two of us can go get a beer and laugh about his dumbass.”
I grin, giving Harry a sideways look. “Your wife won't mind? Taking out the blond co-worker for drinks could get you neutered.”
Harry's wife, Ahn-soo, is a Vietnamese immigrant, and the two of them are the office's lovey dovey couple, so Harry knows I'm joking. He laughs, shaking his head. “Nah, Fridays are her painting classes. I'll be honest with you 'Dre. This guy's sense of persistence and his total lack of taste creeps me out a bit too. Seriously, you watch your ass.”
“I watch my ass every day, Harry. But thanks. As for the beer, we'll see. But if there's time... sounds good.”
Harry leaves, and I start gathering up my stuff for the interview. I think I'm ready. Just then, my desk phone rings, and I sit back down, grumbling. “What the hell is it now?”
I pick up the phone, but before I can even greet whoever's on the other end, I'm cut off. “Good afternoon, honey. How's your day going?”
Dad. Not what I needed right now. “Dad, I asked you not to call me at work anymore. If everyone sees me talking to the owner of the whole Coates Media Group, it's hard for me to be taken seriously as a legitimate reporter.”
Dad chuckles that special laugh he has when I know he's just humoring me, the laugh that says he doesn't understand why I insisted on starting at the entertainment desk of his papers and working my way up. Still, it irks me, and his attitude is just one of the reasons I insisted on living in the dorms at college, one of the few concessions he'd given me, but another one of his pieces of freedom that came with plenty of strings. “Come on honey, I'm just on the phone, who's going to know I'm talking to my most special girl?”
“Daaad....” I fume, trying not to whine. I hate some of his nicknames for me, they make me sound more like his girlfriend than his daughter, and that's just... icky. “What are you calling about?”
“I just wanted to see what you were up to this afternoon, that's all. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time to see show me how the prettiest reporter at the paper is doing?”
“Dad, I'd love to, but I've got an interview in like thirty minutes that I still need to get to,” I answer, hurriedly putting my bag together. “And I've got to fight traffic all the way out there still.”
“Who with?” Dad asks, ignoring my protest. After all, he's Darren Coates, people go by his schedule. If he wants to make people wait, he can.
“Joey Rivera, the lead guitarist for the Fragments,” I reply. “He's making a special effort to come in late this afternoon over at the studio and meet with me, I'd like to not keep him waiting.”
“The spic?” Dad asks, setting my teeth on edge. Does he really think that sort of attitude and language works in the twenty-first century anymore? Especially in California? “I figured they'd assign that to one of your... less capable co-workers.”
Less capable. Right up there with 'lazy,' 'urban,' and 'slob,' it's one of Dad's euphemisms he uses when he's not flat out calling someone a racist name. He thinks that anyone that wasn't born to a trust fund and all the advantages that come with it and is somehow just not working hard enough. Why else did I insist on going to UCLA on an academic scholarship instead of having my way paid, even if he does provide a lot of other things that I don't turn down, but at least acknowledge is unfair compared to some of my co-workers?
“Dad... I asked for the interview,” I reply, holding my tongue. “Joey's one of the hottest guitarists on the rock scene, and his band is making waves. Unless you think having George T behind you means you're a scrub.”
“Just means that you're liked by men,” Dad laughs. He and George T have a pretty intense rivalry, and I don't think I've ever heard him say anything nice about the man.
“Yeah well... I've gotta go either way Dad. I'll call you later.” Before Dad can answer, I hang up and grab my bag, half running for the elevator. Pulse and Beat are on the tenth floor of the Coates Building, and I've still got at least twenty minutes of downtown traffic to get through before I can get out to Gashouse Studios.
I feel like a hypocrite getting behind t
he wheel of my three-year-old Lexus that is pricier than anything anyone not on the editorial desk or higher drives. Here I am, complaining five minutes ago about my father's elitism and his all around prejudice against anything not one percenter WASP, when I'm driving a freakin' Lexus and live in a luxury condo building in Santa Monica, conveniently located near the freeway. The fact is, while I draw a standard reporter's salary, thirty-two thousand dollars a year, I live a six-figure lifestyle. Even the jeans I'm wearing and the shoes I've got on are out of my salary range.
At least I've got the respect of Harry and some of the other reporters in the office. I earned it the hard way too, buckling down and taking the hard jobs and grinding, spending hours at my computer typing until the letters swam before my eyes and my head throbbed from the constant light. I earned it by listening when they dropped knowledge, by learning how to ask the tough questions to the right people and to dig my stories as hard as any other reporter. And yes, I earned it by being able to take all that work and turn out good stories too, stuff that gets readers interested and getting clicks on the Pulse website.
Still, I feel guilty when I'm able to shop every week at Whole Foods while Polly comes in with a Tupperware of beans and tortillas because she can buy a big can for five bucks and be able to make it stretch for most of the week, and Harry drives a tiny Ford that truly does give life to the old taunt 'Fix or Repair Daily.'
I put all my doubts out of my mind as I head to the 101. I get off near the airport, double checking my directions on my in-dash navigation and get onto San Fernando before turning off and making my way to the Gashouse building.
You'd think that with one of the hottest acts on the music scene, Gashouse would be bigger, more luxurious perhaps. A plane from the airport that's less than a mile away rumbles overhead, and the neighborhood is totally blue collar. Stucco dominates the outer construction, and unless you know what Gashouse is, you'd easily confuse it with perhaps a slightly upscale construction company by the cars that I see parked out front. At least my Lexus doesn't look out of place here, but I do notice that the other side of the lot has more normal cars, stuff that you wouldn't look at twice if it passed you on the freeway. I wonder which side of the parking lot Joey's car is parked on?
I get out of my car and go into the studios. The receptionist is dressed in an old t-shirt from a Korn tour and ripped Levi’s. He looks up from his magazine, chewing a wad of gum, things that would have gotten Polly fired. I'm used to it. “Hey, whatcha want?”
“Hi, I'm Andrea Coates, I'm here to interview Joey Rivera?” I reply, showing my ID. “Is he here?”
“Hi,” a quiet, kind of shy voice says behind me, and I turn, struck by the guy in front of me. I'd expected the rocker, the guy that Harry called the Dark Prince... but what's standing in front of me is a normal guy in a t-shirt and some jeans, with dark hair and big, beautiful brown eyes. Normal? I take that back, Joey Rivera's handsome as all get out, and when he smiles, he's got a row of perfectly even, gleaming teeth that fill a friendly smile. “I'm Joey.”
Joey offers his hand, and I have to swallow, my throat is suddenly dry. “Uh... hi. I'm Andrea Coates.”
Joey and I shake hands, and I swear he actually blushes a bit when he grips my hand in a sure, but not crushing grip, what a real handshake should feel like. I'm feeling it too, it's way too hot in the corridor of Gashouse records, and I'm trying not to bite my lip and bat my eyes when our handshake lasts just a little longer than what would normally be done. Joey pulls his hand back slowly, then starts, like he just woke up from a dream. “Uh... would you like to see the studio? It's soundproof, we can talk there.”
“Sure,” I say, clearing my throat after I rasp at first. “Uh, where is it?”
“Just over here, studio three,” Joey says. “Rocky and Ian aren't in today, so James just booked the smallest studio for me. Sorry if it's a little tight. He knows I like to just mess around a little sometimes, and well... I'm babbling, aren't I?”
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “But that's okay.”
We go into the studio, which is small, barely eight feet wide, a sort of solo booth where Joey's set up his guitar in the corner. Joey sits down on a stool, and even sitting, he looks cute, sort of boy next door type, and then he laughs, that smile still so bright and handsome. “What?”
“Nothing,” I reply, shaking my head and taking out my voice recorder and notes. “Uh... let's begin, shall we?”
Chapter 2
Joey
“Oof!” I grunt, lifting the box out of the truck and carrying towards the four-bedroom house in Simi Valley, just on the border of Thousand Oaks. It's up in the hills, and while it's not quite as big a spread as some of the people in music have, it's quiet, and it's a great home. It also, as of one week ago, belongs to my bandmate, blood brother, and all around best friend, Rocky Blake and his soon-to-be wife, Cora Clearwater. “Hey Cora, just because Rock and I lift some doesn't mean you can make the boxes a thousand pounds each!”
Cora, her strawberry blond hair pulled back into a high ponytail, laughs around her own armload of stuff. “That's Bella's clothes, Joey. The heavy stuff is later.”
“Dios mio,” I complain, making Cora laugh. I don't speak Spanish with my friends a lot. Even though Rocky is nearly as fluent as I am, it just doesn't feel normal. Mama loves chatting with Rocky totally in Spanish though, she even jokes that Rocky's got a better accent than I do. I can't really defend myself. I didn't grow up on Puerto Rico like Mama did, I speak with too much of a California Mexican accent for Mama's taste.
“Hey, Cora,” I ask as we put down our boxes inside what is going to be Bella's room, “thanks for agreeing to have Mama and Maria watch Bella when she's not in school. It means a lot to me.”
“Joey, you know that your family is our family,” Cora says. Around back, I can hear Rocky and Ian working hard at putting together the swing set that Ian surprised Bella with, something any soon-to-be first grader would love. “Besides, it's not all purely being nice anyway. Maria's charging less than it would cost to send Bella to the afterschool center. Teresa's agreed to do school pickup too, and I know that my daughter's going to get all sorts of experiences she wouldn't in this neighborhood.”
I chuckle, thinking of the house that I just signed the papers on for Mama and Maria. It’s my house too, the bank insisted that I had to live there to qualify for the loan, but that's okay, it's only about fifteen miles away from here, officially in Thousand Oaks itself. Close enough that Rocky and I can still hang out when we want to, or have our family time if we want to. “You mean your daughter's going to learn how to make the best platanos con leche on the mainland.”
“That too,” Cora laughs. “But really, thank you for asking us. I think watching Bella with Angel is amazing. He's such a great little kid, and it gives Bella lots of practice on dealing with younger siblings. Watching them play in the yard was great.”
I smile, thinking about my little nephew. Four years old and one of the biggest joys in my life, he's finally starting to get a chance to live a little of the lifestyle that I want for him. Our family struggled for years, Mama and I having to stretch our budget. Angel had to wear a lot of Goodwill and church charity clothes until recently, and only now am I feeling like we can really get out of the debt that we were slowly drowning in. “Well, as long as you don't mind Angel coming up here occasionally to play on that swing set, I think we can call it even.”
There's a crash of lumber in the back yard, and suddenly Ian's cursing, yelling in his deep voice. Cora and I exchange a look and I run around the house, Cora walking a little more slowly since she's nearly four months pregnant. I find Rocky and Ian in the backyard, Ian sucking his thumb and Rocky trying not to laugh his ass off at our giant friend. Ian curses around his thumb, tears rolling down his face. “Fuck! Shit! God fucking dammit!”
“You still gotta work in bitch, cunt, ass and cock,” I joke, Ian flipping me the bird as he pulls his thumb out. “What happened?”
&nbs
p; “Loverboy here's grip slipped,” Ian complains, showing off his thumb which is starting to turn already purple.
Rocky holds up his hands, still grinning. “Don't blame me, man, I told you to be careful with the hammer. You hit your own damn thumb. Besides, you're the one who insisted on nailing it first to try and set the pieces beforehand.”
I look around at the array of lumber on the grass, as well as the half load still inside the borrowed pickup truck that Ian brought for the move, scratching my head. “You know guys, this doesn't look like any sort of swing set I've ever seen before.”
“That's because it's not,” Ian says with a touch of pride, shaking his hand. He and Rocky have always blamed each other back and forth without really meaning anything, it's probably a side effect of them living together for a few years when the Fragments were just getting going. “My little niece isn't getting some lame-ass kit from the store, man. So, I looked up the plans and had them cut by a carpenter.”
“Well, can I see the plans?” I ask, holding out my hand. “I leave you two back here alone much longer, and I'm going to be doing a one-man show starting in Atlanta once the spring comes.”
Rocky passes over the paper, and I take a look, whistling. I hand it over to Cora, who blinks before passing it back to me. “Glad we've got a big back yard.”
“Yeah, this is going to be a multi-day job,” I comment, passing the plans back to Rocky. “How about we get the lumber and stuff unloaded first, then we can work on it bit by bit?”
