Background Music

by J. R. Rogue

  I started walking around the couch to get to her but my face gave me away. Kat laughed and reached for a top, throwing her robe down, slipping it over her head, all while walking backward and staying out of my reach. When she was fully dressed, I booed her and pouted. She laughed in return and everything was right.

  I came to Kat’s for a reason. I wanted to take her to a place that was important to me. A place I ran away to as a child, after my stepsister, Sera, had moved away for college, when my father would just royally piss me off.

  I would walk the blocks between my home and our town square to a building with a long ladder attached to the back. Up the ladder was a roof covered in green, and quiet, and the kind of beauty that inspired me.

  My mother was the one who encouraged my artistic side. She bought me my first guitar, and then my second, so that I would have one for her house and one for my father’s.

  My dad had an office at home, because work was his obsession, and it was right next door to my bedroom. I would like to find the person who drew up our floor plan and punch them in the face. You should never put the office of a stuffy disapproving father next to that of an only child who loses himself in art.

  After school, I had various responsibilities. Baseball practice, band practice (I played the drums, surprisingly, but it never stuck). So when I made it home it was time for dinner, and after that, homework, and by the time I was free to practice my guitar, my father was in his office and my racket was disturbing him. So during the months of the year when the sun stayed lazily in the sky until nine p.m., I would go for a ride on my bicycle with my guitar, and I would always end up on the roof so close to us.

  In my excitement to get to the location so close to us here in the present, I hadn’t thought things through. I didn’t tell Kat that a skirt was probably not a great idea but the flashes of skin I had been able to catch a glimpse of as we climbed from roof to roof made me a little less sorry.

  It would have been easier to climb down to the ground and walk to the building but I remembered from my childhood that you could get to the roof by climbing over the small town business rooftops. I turned around and found Kat trailing me, looking up at the sky.

  “You gonna make it, Red?” I teased. She would probably roll her pretty little eyes right out of her head one of these days at my countless nicknames, but I couldn’t help it. She was better than every little silly endearment I could drum up, and more.

  Jumping from roof to roof along Commercial Street was an idea that had never popped into my head, and why would it? I was not wild, I was not a trespasser, I was not a dare devil, and quite honestly I was very afraid of heights. Yet here I was, gripping Andrew’s hand, letting him pull me up onto the roof of yet another building. We had made it one block down from my home and I was sweating. The topography of the buildings looked a little like the top of a Tetris game. Up and down we went, hopping down, then scaling upward. My skirt was dirty with tar and grime, and my hands felt absolutely icky. But, I was having the time of my life, and Andrew seemed to be enjoying himself as well.

  “How many times have you done this?” I shouted at him as he jogged across another rooftop ahead of me. My question stopped him, the desired effect, and he turned to me. I took advantage of the moment, catching my breath.

  “Maybe once or twice,” he said, smirking. “One of my buddies, he showed me the way up here.”

  “Chace?” I asked, my breathing beginning to even out.

  “Nah,” he said. “Chace would never do something that wasn’t socially acceptable. He would never ‘act out’ so to speak.” Andrew turned around again and extended his arm upward to the building roof just within his reach. “It’s up here.”

  I scurried to catch up to him, reaching my own hand up to his after he had situated himself above me and reached down to help me. When my eyes made it over the ledge, I saw what he wanted to show me. Up above the city street was a garden, one I never knew was there. I walked to the ledge of the building and looked at the street below, wondering which building this was. It was a tall black brick building situated between a jewelry store and the office for the local paper that had been abandoned for years. When I spun around to take in my surroundings again, I noticed the small details.

  The garden was lush and green. It hadn’t been tended to in years. Vines at the back spilled over the edge like a waterfall. Andrew was watching me from the center of the roof, sitting on a bench in a round circle covered in gravel. Green grass was sprouting through the rubble.

  I made my way toward him, still surveying it all as I walked slowly. In the corner was a birdbath, a concrete cherub was standing below the basin, the nose worn off by weather and the blazing Ozark sun. I wondered how often the rain left it full. It had been a dry spring. The red blooms of a rosebush caught my eye behind it. The leaves surrounding the blood red flowers were dark; when I got close enough to it I saw how dry and brittle they were.

  I wanted to wake in the morning and crawl over to this haven. I wanted to water it all. But I had no idea how I could do it. I couldn’t scramble over buildings all by myself with pails of water. How could I get a hose over here? I wanted to protect this place, to bring it back to life, to run away here, when everything closed in.

  I turned and walked back to Andrew, still sitting on the bench. I placed my hands on his shoulder when I reached him, running them inward after a moment, climbing them up his neck, into his hair.

  “God, that feels good.” He exhaled, leaning his head back farther into me.

  I leaned forward and placed my chin on his forehead that was facing the dying sky. “Thank you for showing me this,” I said.

  He reached back then, his hands finding my waist, running under my shirt.

  I pulled away from his touch, causing him to twist in his seat. I laughed at the face he aimed at me. “I’m just coming around to you, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down, woman,” he joked.

  When I made it to the front of the bench I climbed onto his lap, straddling him. My knees dug into the metal bars and I flinched a little, causing Andrew to reach down and situate my legs into a more comfortable position.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  “Of course,” he said, his eyes smiling at me.

  This was dangerous. We were skating the edge of a physical line. Should we just have sex? I was arguing the pros and cons of each option constantly. While I was at work, while I was asleep, while I was at lunch with his sister. It was ridiculous. I felt like I was a sixteen-year-old girl, one week away from prom night all over again. Except now I couldn’t agonize over the decision with my best friend. This decision involved her brother and I didn’t think she wanted to be in a conversation about whether or not her brother would be getting laid.

  I normally decided on the side of no sex; that was what I had landed on for prom night. And I did not regret it. I graduated high school a virgin and now, at thirty years old, the thought of teenagers having sex made my skin crawl a little. I can see now how young and innocent I was back then, and I didn’t want a single kid to lose those parts of them any earlier than they had to.

  I was certain most days that there was very little innocence left in me to give to another, but I could see it in Andrew. When he laughed and when he made a ridiculous joke. So it had become natural for me to reach out and touch him, hoping to soak some of it into my skin. His decision to take me here threatened to make me stumble a little more into something similar to more-than-a-crush and not-quite-in-love with him.

  I placed my palms on his cheeks then, curving his neck so that he was looking right at me. I couldn’t keep the smile from my face and it made one bloom on his.

  “What?” he questioned.

  “Thank you for showing me this,” I said.

  “You already said that.” He smirked.

  “I know, shut up.”

  “I knew you would like it,” he said. “I haven’t been here in years. I actually forgot about it. Then I w
as driving past your house, which led to fantasies about you naked, and before I knew it I was daydreaming at a stoplight and some dude behind me was honking his horn because the light was green and I wasn’t moving. So of course, even though I knew I was wrong, I whipped my head around and was face to face with the front of this building. I just knew I had to bring you here as soon as I got the chance. I had no idea what condition it would be in, and honestly I didn’t care.”

  “I want to stay here forever.” I sighed, rolling off him and onto the bench. I let my legs rest in his lap, closing my eyes when his thumbs started to trace circles on my calf.

  My father often told me that he believed places held memories. It was a beautiful thing to believe, and I couldn’t help but agree. Good or bad, places held onto them. They were impartial.

  I wondered what memories lived here, that were separate from the one we were leaving now. I leaned down and placed my hand on the ground, then closed my eyes. No, I couldn’t feel it. Places did not gossip. They didn’t give away memories to strangers. You couldn’t reach out and pull someone else’s memory into your skin. The thought made me smile a bit, and I pushed myself up, back onto the bench, into a normal position.

  “What were you doing?” Andrew asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, not wanting to let him in on my silly thought. I changed the subject. “I want to see you again tomorrow night. Are you free?”

  He smiled, his blue eyes crinkling up. “For you, Red? Of course.”

  The guys and I had never done a local show, because well, there really wasn’t any place to do them in our one horse town, not anywhere that felt worth it anyway. Our small town was full of dingy bars for the most part, but while I was away, a new one had opened on the outskirts of town. The guys set it up, and they said it was a brand new building with flat screen TVs lining the wall for Sunday football in the fall and a small stage in the corner. It was clean, and the money was good.

  I used to spend a lot of time at the bars here. Too often, I woke to my pillow reeking of cigarette smoke and no memory of the night before. Walking into this new building, that had no trace of my past staining its walls, somehow still brought those memories forward.

  The bodies lining the barstools looked the same. It was always the same. The same people, the same sad stories, the same tired eyes. The same bar fights, the same hookups, the same cocktails.

  Everyone in the bar turned our direction as the guys and I started walking in with our gear, letting the waning sunlight in with us. I recognized the bar owner standing behind the counter talking to a tall female bartender. He briefly broke conversation with his employee to nod a greeting at me and pointed to the stage. I gave him a thumbs up and led the guys to our destination.

  It was hard to maneuver our equipment through the bodies in the building, too many high tops. They really should have told us to use the back entrance.

  Quite a few people were in the room for it only being seven o’clock. The guys and I were set to go on in an hour. After a while, the bar owner came out, shaking hands with the band members as he made his way to me. When he reached me, he extended his hand and I grasped it.

  “Hi, I’m Sean. Andrew, right?”

  “No,” I said, my jaw tight, feeling a little like someone had punched me in it. “Reese.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought Andrew was the singer.”

  “No, sir, not anymore.” I cleared my throat. No point in getting into details. No more Andrew. No more bullshit. This was a new leaf for us, and that was the band name we had settled on. New Leaf.

  Our old name, BTPCM, was gone. I had gone back and forth with the guys about it. It was argued that we should keep the old name because people knew us by it, and it was fun. It stood for “Band That Plays Country Music” and people got a kick out of it, but I wanted to leave that behind with the rest.

  As we set up to play, the bar began to fill up rapidly. I was impressed with the turnout. The math didn’t add up in relation to our small population. Maybe the owner often saw out-of-towners coming in, and the rural, even smaller towns surrounding us, they had nowhere to go.

  It was nearly time for us to begin our set when I saw him. Kat’s ex-husband, Chuck, was in the back of the bar playing pool with a group of people. I didn’t see him come in and hadn’t seen him there when we walked in.

  He had a beer in his hand and a girl between his legs. He was sitting on a stool in the corner with a pool stick stuck in between his arm and his body. The girl was so close to him I wondered if she was hoping to crawl into his body and just live there.

  The image of his jaw connecting with my fist flashed into my head just as his eyes met mine. He looked away quickly like the coward he was. He had to have known I would be here. The bar’s social media had been posting about our presence for the past forty-eight hours. Maybe he didn’t follow them on Facebook. Maybe he had a death wish. Or maybe he thought I had gone soft since I didn’t deck him when I saw him both times at the office, like we both knew I wanted to.

  Alec’s voice next to me pulled me from my thoughts. “Don’t,” he said.

  I turned to him and gave him a grim smile. “What?” I asked with a forced laugh.

  “Don’t waste your time with that guy again,” he edged.

  “I didn’t know he hung out at the bars.” I ignored the reminder of the past.

  “Only recently,” Alec said, picking up his guitar and slinging the strap over his shoulder. “I think it’s because he’s dating Caroline and she loves bar hopping.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the PDA. “Caroline who?”

  “You know, what was her name, Mathers? The one Chace dated for a minute a couple of years ago.”

  “No fucking way, really?” Small towns, they killed me. Nothing but couple swapping and soap opera drama.

  She was the one who split my friend Chace and Sera up for a while. The girl loved drama in high school and still held onto it. She was one of those people who posted vague “look at me, I’m sad” status updates on Facebook. I finally had to delete her before I slipped and commented on one about her attention seeking bullshit. She left a bad taste in my mouth after everything she pulled two years ago. Her coupling with Chuck would be a match made in heaven in my eyes if I didn’t know the truth about him.

  If I had it in me to end one life on this planet, it would be his. I hated to have such a dark thought in my heart, but it was true. This world failed too many innocent women. Maybe I would pull Caroline aside and talk to her after the show.

  We opened to a crowded room and were closing to a sweaty, sweltering drama session waiting to happen. I was helpless on the stage, singing and simmering as it all went down.

  The songs flew by, and the bodies started to sway. Shy girls transformed and scared men turned bold. Chuck was no longer avoiding my gaze; now he was holding it. Liquid courage could transform cowards into punching bags. That’s what he was doing, he just didn’t know it.

  He had been staring me down while I was laughing in my head at the absurdity of it all until Kat walked in. She looked like a lost doe in an open field. She had her arms linked with a girl I recognized as an employee at her store when she made her entrance.

  She found me on the stage and smiled when my eyes met hers. Then the two girls made their way toward the bar. It was almost time for our set to end, and I wasn’t sure I could get through one more song let alone the one I was belting out at the moment. My mouth and hands were on autopilot, singing lyrics and strumming chords that were nowhere near the front of my mind. It was all background music with her in view.

  I knew, without a doubt, that she didn’t know he was there. She wouldn’t have shown up if she knew. Somehow, she found out I was there and that’s why she came. I wasn’t a narcissist, well, not much of one anymore, but I knew that was the only reason she would be at a local bar.

  My eyes darted to Chuck in the back corner, and my stomach knotted when I saw his eyes on her. Caroline was still in his arms but sh
e had nothing on Kat. No one compared.

  After Kat and her friend got drinks at the bar they made their way toward the stage, farther from her ex and closer to me. I looked into her eyes and she winked at me. The girl fucking winked. I blushed like an idiot. This role reversal was still so confusing to me.

  I made sure to keep my eyes on her through the end of our song and on into the next. I didn’t want her looking around, taking in any of her surroundings. She swayed to the music. Her pale pinks lips moved in time with my words, the ones she knew, the ones she had heard in the past at our shows and the one at the lake recently.

  When the last song ended, I pulled my guitar strap over my head and beckoned her to me from the stage. When she made it to the small platform, I reached out and pulled her up close to me. I put my mouth close to her ear and felt her breathe out when my hand reached the small of her back. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  She turned and spoke into my hair. “I heard you would be playing. Why else would I be here?” She pulled back and stuck her tongue out playfully.

  “Did you drive?” I ignored her teasing, her flirting, like the killjoy I now was.

  “No, I rode with my friend,” she said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb at her companion, who was now chatting with a group of people my age at a high-top table in the middle of the crowd.

  “Okay good, we’re going to pack up, and then you’re coming with me.”

  She didn’t ask why, she didn’t ask if I wanted to have a drink with her, she didn’t question me. She just lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree and I hated it. Then I hated myself for not really hating it.

  She was leaving with one guy who had hurt her so he could rescue her from the other guy in the room who had hurt her worse. My sins were nothing compared to that monster but I was still no good for her.

  She walked back into the crowd to tell her friend goodbye then sat quietly on a barstool by the stage while the guys and I packed up our shit. I chatted with her while I worked, never looking in Chuck’s direction for fear that her eyes would follow mine. I could feel his stare burning into me.