Full Tilt Duet Box Set

by Emma Scott

  I showed Jesse the tiny black stars smattered over my middle and ring finger. “This was my first. I got it in San Diego. Pacific Beach.” I flipped him the bird. “I chose that finger in particular. A big fuck you to my dad.”

  “Nice.”

  I traced the vines up my arm. “This one came from a place in San Diego too.”

  “So you do remember,” Jesse laughed.

  “Honey, you buy another round, and I’ll remember anything you want me to.”

  I would’ve cringed to be on the receiving end of such sloppy, fake flirtation, but such is the beauty of being drunk—it’s so much easier not to give a shit. The only beauty, actually. The one and only shining truth.

  Jesse bought another round. I got drunker and we compared ink like soldiers comparing battle scars. He lifted his dark blue T-shirt to reveal a nicely sculpted chest and abs, though he could’ve been covered in moles and boils for all I cared. He turned in his seat to show me the coppery Saints football helmet inked on his right shoulder blade.

  “This was my first,” he said. “From Jake’s up on Canal Street.” His eyes drifted blearily to my bare right collarbone bare. “Show me another, Kacey,” he said, in what he probably thought was a seductive voice. Hell, in another life, it would have sounded that way, and I’d have climbed onto his lap until Big E kicked us out for inappropriate PDA.

  I played along and rubbed my chin on the bare skin of my shoulder. “I can’t,” I said. “Not without taking something off.”

  Jesse’s blue eyes glazed over. “I can deal with that.”

  “Mmm,” I said, closing my eyes against the spinning room. It wasn’t cool to lead him on like this. I should stop. I have nothing to give him.

  “I have nothing,” I muttered, the words falling off the train of thought chugging sluggishly through my whiskey-soaked brain. “I was supposed to have one here.” I nudged my bare shoulder with my chin again. “But I never picked one out. I left before I got my tattoo from Teddy.”

  His name made me flinch, and I kept talking to drown it in a sea of meaningless words. “I didn’t know what I wanted so I left it blank. I left with nothing. I have nothing. Because I left. I was supposed to stay but I left.”

  The tears were welling in my eyes. Drowned Girl fame or not, crying in the middle of being hit-on is a big turn-off. Jesse rubbed his hand over his lips, none too sober himself and unsure how to proceed.

  “Hey, it’s okay. So…” His smile was obscenely bright. “You like football?”

  Big E leaned his bulk over the bar, looking more like a bouncer at a motorcycle club than a bartender at a jazzy dive. “She’s done, man,” he told Jesse. “You get me?”

  Jesse nodded and slipped off the barstool with a sour expression. He’d blown $20 plying me with top shelf whiskey, but he didn’t argue with Big E. Not many people did.

  The bartender turned his gaze to me, his features softening under his rust-colored beard. “Call you a cab, sweets?”

  I nodded and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Big E got the bar-back to cover him, and half-carried me and my guitar through the dim confines of Le Chacal to the curb outside. Our own Thursday night routine.

  The New Orleans night was cool and breezy, the neon sign of Le Chacal bright against its brick façade. I tried to muster a shred of dignity as we waited for the cab, but the sidewalk kept slipping out from under my feet. One more drink and I might black out. I wondered what would happen if I did? Would I end up in the back of Jonah’s limo?

  “Put me there, Big,” I slurred. “Where he is. It’s the only place I want to be.”

  “Teddy?”

  “No.” My shaking head stilled. “Maybe. I miss him too. I miss them all. But I left and…that’s the end of the story.”

  Big E tightened his grip on my waist as the cab pulled to the curb. “You came here from Las Vegas, right? I think you said so once.”

  “So?”

  Ignoring my question, he told the cabbie my address and helped me into the backseat. There was something about Big E’s cool expression I didn’t like. Even drunk out of my mind, I could sense he was up to something.

  “What, are you going to tell Rufus about this? Lose me my gig?”

  “Never,” Big E said. He leaned his bulk into the open door. “But I told you, sweets. I’m not giving up on you.”

  He shut the door and banged the roof of the cab to tell the driver to head out. I slumped back in the seat, a vague sense of disquiet humming along my nerves, making me itchy.

  The French Quarter was a murky blur on the other side of the taxi window, giving way to the darker rows of shotgun houses in my Seventh Ward neighborhood.

  Vegas had been brown. Beige. Pale yellow and light blue. New Orleans wore the colors of time and vibrant history. Chipped paint in red and white. Green everywhere: the greenish-brown river, green bayou, green air thick with humidity. Green plants and bushes and weeping trees.

  I stumbled up the short walk to my front door. It took three or four tries to get the key into the lock because the porch was dark.

  Jonah’s whiskey lights had long since burnt out.

  Inside my tiny shotgun, I dropped onto the couch, my bag and my guitar hitting the ground with a twang. My head sank against the cushions and my eyes closed.

  There is beauty everywhere, even in the things that scare you the most…

  I came awake with a gasp. Sprawled on my couch. Not Jonah’s. No ugly green and orange afghan on my shoulders, no glass art on the coffee table. The clock on the wall said I’d been out for twenty minutes. A sobering twenty minutes. Or maybe it was Jonah’s words echoing in my ear.

  Beauty in the things that scare you the most.

  What scared me the most was letting the pain in. Or out, rather. It was already in me. It lived in me. I had to keep it down deep, drown it, so it didn’t break me apart into tiny pieces.

  I went to the kitchen to make my nightcap. A shotgun house is aptly named: in days of old, you could aim a shotgun from the front door and shoot it straight to the back door. Every room in my small house was lined up in a row: Living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. A straight line to the back porch. A simple route, easy to stumble along. Important details in the home of a 24/7 drunk.

  I opened a cabinet holding more bottles than food. My nightcap was vodka over ice with a splash—a tiny splash—of water. I carried the glass to my bedroom.

  Like the rest of my place, the bedroom was filled with second-hand furniture. Pieces I’d picked up from yard sales when I’d first fled Vegas for New Orleans. It had a ‘shabby chic’ charm the home and garden shows were always crowing about, but mine was more shabby than chic.

  I needed a couch to sit on—sometimes sleep on if I didn’t make it to the bedroom—and so I bought a couch. In orange. I needed a chair so I bought a chair. It was blue. The area rug over the hardwood floors was multicolored. Hell, even the exterior of my house was painted in sea green with sky blue trim and a maroon door. Colors everywhere, like the rest of this city. Except for one place.

  I shuffled into the bedroom and flicked the small lamp on my nightstand. My bedspread was white, the universe orb Jonah made me set at its exact center. A dark ball of shimmering black and blue and glowing stars. A black hole in the center of a white universe, sucking me in. The orb drank in the pale yellow lamplight. The planet in the center shimmered red and green.

  “It was a good night tonight,” I said, kicking off my shoes. I lost my balance but caught it again after only spilling a tiny bit of vodka on my wrist. “Four hundred bucks with tips. The place was packed. You should’ve seen it.”

  In the bathroom, I set my cocktail on the sink and used the toilet, then washed my hands. The reflection in the glass was a ghastly mess of smeared mascara, tangled hair and pale skin.

  Jonah would hardly recognize you.

  The small, weak thought spoke up from the place that hated what I’d become. A stubborn, self-preservationist instinct that tried to snap me
out of my inebriation. It never worked.

  “Jonah would recognize me anywhere,” I snapped, and snatched my drink off the counter. I drained it as I went back into the bedroom. Ice cubes clinked as I set the highball glass on the nightstand. The alcohol slipped coldly into my gut, sloshing around with everything else I’d consumed today and tonight, and all the days and nights of the last few months.

  The room spun faster now. I’d hit the sweet spot where alcohol would drop me quickly into sleep, and where any dreams I had would be too slippery for me to grasp when I woke.

  I made sure the flask in my drawer had enough to start my morning—or early afternoon, depending on how late I slept. It was easy to get bombed at a party or after a show. I would know—I used to do it after every concert with Rapid Confession. But there’s a science to staying drunk all the time and still being able to function.

  Sort of.

  I sort of functioned. I held jobs that didn’t require sobriety. I kept to my routine, part of which was downing a nightcap, checking the morning flask, and curling up next to the orb to tell Jonah about my day.

  I lay down on the bed, my body feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. I rested my aching head on the white duvet and curled my body around the orb. Knees up, arms curved, I pulled the universe snug against my chest, cradling it to my heart.

  “Rufus, the owner…he says they want me at Le Chacal more than once a week. Word’s gotten out. But I have a routine, right? Four different clubs, four nights. No getting too attached to any one venue.” I closed my eyes for a moment as the shame swamped me. “But I can’t do more. I can’t keep going like this. It’s killing me. I have to quit, don’t I? But I don’t know how.”

  Help me, Jonah.

  “Big Easy…I told you about him, right?” I sniffed, wiped my nose on my sleeve. “He’s the bartender at Le Chacal. Remember? I call him Sherlock sometimes, because he’s always trying to find out about me. Asking about friends or family. He worries about me. He wants to know where I came from or who…who to call. He wants to call someone. I know he does. He thinks I need help.”

  I closed my eyes to hear the words aloud and tried to press them down with everything else.

  “There’s no one to call. It would only worry them. Or mess up their lives.”

  What a crock. Henry and Teddy and Beverly were probably already worried.

  I focused my bleary gaze to the orb. As always, I felt myself being sucked in, lost in the dark expanses of stardust and the glowing swirls of illumination ringing the lonely planet. I searched for Jonah there, held the orb tighter in my arms as the tears fell unheeded.

  Unending.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my voice a watery croak. “I left. Your mom…and Teddy. I didn’t want to. People shouldn’t leave, I know that. I should know better than anyone. But I couldn’t stay. And I’m so sorry. For leaving and for failing you. I am the drowned girl. I’m drowning, Jonah. I need you back. Please come back…”

  My stomach clenched at the effort it took to hold back the grief, terrified of what would happen if I succumbed to it.

  I wrapped myself tight around the orb, completing the last step of my routine. Every night I held the orb and begged Jonah to come back, tears leaking from my eyes as if from a dam that was ready to burst. I cried and begged until the booze dragged me down into the black depths far beneath the surface.

  Every night, I called one final thought into the deep darkness: Come back to me.

  And just before the dark consumed me, a whisper returned: My angel, let me go…

  Theo

  Friday afternoon and Vegas Ink was as packed as the tiny place could get. Zelda, Edgar and I worked nonstop, the buzzing of our needles competing with pulsing electronica music—Friday was Zelda’s turn to pick music.

  Vivian manned the front desk, answering calls and setting up appointments for walk-ins that might or might not come back. Las Vegas was saturated with tattoo shops. Most of the turned away would probably go somewhere else.

  “You got any plans this weekend, T?” Edgar asked when we were both between clients.

  “Got a hot date?” Zelda asked from her station. The words were sharp but a hunch in her shoulders made the lie on my tongue hesitate. Behind her luminous green eyes, I could see a flicker of pain, strangely familiar to my own.

  “Nothing major,” I heard myself say. “Lot of studying to do.”

  “Come out racing on Sunday,” Edgar said. He finished his Red Bull, crushed the can and lobbed it at the trash basket. “Me and some buddies are going to rent ATVs.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Maybe.” Edgar snorted. “Come on, man,”

  “I got three midterms next week,” I said, crossing the black and white checkered floor toward the restroom behind the reception desk. I gave Zelda a nod as I went by.

  Sorry, Z. I’m running on empty.

  I had to wipe my hands on my jeans after washing them. “Viv, we’re out of paper towels,” I said as I emerged from the bathroom. She was on the phone and only raised her chin at me. I started to walk away, right at the moment the music on the sound system faded to a low pulse. Above the quiet beat, I heard Viv say, “Teddy? No, no one named Teddy here.”

  The name slugged me in the back. I whipped around, my heart pounding out of my chest, yelling, “No,” as Vivian lowered the phone to its set. “Viv, don’t…”

  I raced forward and yanked the receiver out of her bewildered hands. I put it to my ear and said in a rush “Hello? Don’t hang up.”

  My ears burned, poised to hear Kacey’s voice—rich and clear, with a little gravel at the edges.

  “Is this Teddy?”

  It was a man’s voice. Disappointment caved my chest in.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I said, turning away from Viv’s raised brows. “Who’s this?”

  “Name’s Mike Budny. Listen, this might be a long shot, but do you know a girl by the name of Kacey Dawson?”

  I froze. She’s dead.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I know her. She was my brother’s girlfriend.”

  “Thank fuck,” the guy said. “I been making long-distance Hail Mary calls all day, looking for a tattoo artist in Vegas named Teddy. Do you have any idea how many tattoo shops Vegas has?”

  I squeezed the phone. “You found me. What’s going on?”

  She’s dead.

  “Yeah, listen, do you know her family? Or a friend? Someone who can help her out?”

  “Me,” I said, like staking a claim. “I’m a friend. Where is she?”

  “New Orleans. I’m a bartender at a club called Le Chacal. She sings here every Thursday night. You getting all this?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I fumbled around Vivian’s desk for a pen and paper, ignoring her frantic gesture at three other calls flashing on hold. “New Orleans. Chacal. Thursday nights.” I scratched the words down stupidly, as if I’d forget where Kacey was now that I’d found her.

  “How is she?” I asked at the same time the bartender said, “How soon can you get here?”

  The panic in my chest ignited and tightened. “Fast. Tomorrow if I have to. Why? What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

  “No, man.” The sigh he exhaled was somewhere between relief and resignation. “She’s pretty fucking far from okay.”

  I hung up with Mike feeling like a runner at the start of the most important race of his life. Vivian was yammering at me, but I hardly heard her. My heart was pounding and my stomach twisted as I made a mental list of all the stuff I had to do to get to Kacey as fast as possible.

  In New Orleans.

  She went halfway across the country to drink herself to death.

  “I gotta go,” I said, snatching my black jacket off the coatrack. “Cancel the rest of my appointments.”

  Vivian stared. “Cancel your… Where are you going?”

  I headed for the door. “Call Gus for me. Tell him I gotta leave town for a few days. Family emergency.”

  “A few days? Gus
’ll lose his shit. He’ll fire you.”

  “Just call him, Viv, okay?” I pushed out the front door without waiting for a reply.

  I raced to my truck and sped down the Vegas streets, equal parts frustration and relief. Cursing at every red light while wanting to cry like a baby because I’d found her.

  The rest of my conversation with Mike Budny echoed in my head: Drunk all the time… Keeps to herself, no friends… They call her the Drowned Girl, and man, it’s true. She’s fucking drowning.

  I had a second chance to make things right.

  I hit another red light and slammed the heel of my hand on the steering wheel, then honked the horn. The sound howled in the desert air, then faded away to nothing.

  Back home, I fired up my laptop to search for cheap flights. Tuition for UNLV had eaten a good chunk of the money Jonah left me, and I obsessively guarded the balance, thinking of my future shop. Round trip to New Orleans with no advance would eat up $700 of my savings, and required a return date.

  I hesitated. I had the money, but no idea what would happen when I saw Kacey in New Orleans or how long I’d be there. Or if I’d come back alone.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I muttered. I looked for one-way flights and found a redeye leaving tonight, arriving in New Orleans 11:00 tomorrow morning. A shitty option with a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth, but it was the soonest they had. In fact, it departed in less than two hours. This was going to be tight, but if I waited even one day, I’d go fucking crazy.

  I rushed to my bedroom, dragged a rolling suitcase out of my closet and started throwing clothes into it. I juggled my phone in the other hand, scrolling through contacts as I made a mental list of people to call before I skipped town. My parents. Oscar. I should call Gus personally so he wouldn’t fire me.

  I hit ‘call’ put the phone to my ear, and kept packing. The voice that answered stopped me cold.