by Yvonne Prinz
“What took you so damn long?” I yell at her over the music. I feel violent with fear and anger but I also want to cry with relief.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry. There was a security guy standing in front of the door. I finally told him someone was getting beaten up in the men’s room so he’d move.”
We walk along the perimeter of the club to the back and sit down at a table in the shadows. Kit goes to the bar to get us sodas. I slowly start breathing normally again and watch Niles on the stage. He’s wearing a plaid kilt and a black T-shirt with the sleeves jaggedly cut off and work boots. His short black hair shoots out in every direction. Right now he’s doing a bit of a partnerless polka, hopping from one foot to the other for a two beat. The crowd loves the band, and the jam-packed dance floor moves in unison. Auntie Depressant has a semi-Celtic sound that features a great fiddle player named Jude who’s really ripping it up right now. Jude has long golden corkscrew curls that fly around when he plays and enormous blue eyes that guarantee him adoring groupies every night. My focus moves back to Niles and I follow his gaze to the dance floor. He seems to be making eye contact with someone. I crane my head to get a better look. He’s grinning at a girl who’s dancing with abandon and grinning back. It’s clear that they know each other. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they really know each other. Her hair is divided into two long mahogany-colored braids that fly out from behind her as she gyrates her hips in time to the music. Her body is entirely different from Kit’s. Kit has a sort of a Parker Posey thing going on: cute, a bit pixieish, and thin. In the museum of body types, this girl’s body is on an entirely different floor. She has rather large breasts and a long torso with a very curvaceous butt, which is currently encased in a very tight pair of jeans. Her bare, tattooed arms are over her head and she moves like a girl who’s very comfortable being looked at. I search for Kit at the neon-lit bar. She’s on her way back to the table and she’s watching exactly what I’m watching. I cringe.
“Lying, lying shithead,” declares Kit as she sits down at the table with two Cokes. She’s mesmerized, as though she’s watching a movie, hoping for a different ending.
“Have you seen the size of her breasts? They’re as big as honeydew melons,” she says, without taking her eyes off the girl.
“Uh, no. They’re not that big,” I say, but they are pretty big, and Kit, being obsessed with the smallness of her breasts, is unlikely to let go of this . . . ever. “Hey, maybe they’re just flirting with each other. You know how it is with musicians. Maybe it’s not what you think.”
Kit slowly turns to look at me. “Don’t be an idiot, Allie. It’s exactly what I think.”
“We should go,” I suggest. “Don’t you think you’ve seen enough?”
“I’m not leaving till after the first break, like we said.”
But we don’t have to wait long for that. As soon as the song ends, Chad, the singer and lead guitarist, tells the crowd to stick around ’cause they’ll be right back. We watch Niles unplug his bass and lean it against his amp. He’s barely gotten one foot off the stage when she descends on him like a vampire. The girl with the braids—Chelsea, I presume—is all over Niles. Not in that “gee, you played really well” way either. More in that “gee, I’d really like to have sex with you right now” way. I look over at Kit. She’s watching quietly, blinking tears away. Niles and Chelsea disappear out the back door of the club, arms wrapped around each other. Whatever they’re going to do, Kit surely doesn’t want to know about it.
“Okay, I think I’ve seen enough. Let’s go.” Kit stands up, her chair clattering to the floor behind her. She can’t get out of this place fast enough.
I follow her out the front door of the club. She stands on the sidewalk in front of the club, trying to catch her breath.
“Oh, Allie,” she says softly, “I feel so stupid.”
I wrap my arms around her and she finally breaks down, sobbing. Small groups of people smoking cigarettes watch us with interest.
“C’mon, let’s go home.”
But we don’t. We take BART back to the Embarcadero stop. On the way, we take off our disguises and stuff them into Kit’s enormous handbag. I wipe off my makeup with tissues and unpin my hair. After we get off, we walk to a dance club in North Beach where Kit actually does know the doorman. He lets us right in ahead of all the people in line who protest loudly. We drop our stuff on a chair and head straight for the dance floor. Kit closes her eyes and loses herself in the throbbing house music, oblivious to everyone around her, and we dance like that till we have to run up the street to the BART station like Cinderellas at the stroke of midnight and catch the last train across the bridge to Berkeley.
Chapter 7
I completely forgot that I told my dad I would have breakfast with him on Sunday. I’m lying there in a coma, my body desperately clinging to sleep, when my mom flings open my bedroom door. “Your dad,” she says, and thrusts the phone at me as though the phone actually were a six-inch-high version of my dad.
“Hello,” I say groggily, knowing that I should know what this is about.
“Still on for breakfast? I’m almost at the Bay Bridge,” he says. I can hear wind in the phone.
“Yeah, where?” I rub my eyes.
We decide to meet at the Hideaway Café, a ways down from Bob & Bob’s on Telegraph; it’s a sort of weird, sort of cool greasy spoon. By the time my dad pulls up in his old Thunderbird convertible (Kee Kee drives a Mercedes), I’m on my second cup of the worst coffee ever, poured by the most annoyed waitress ever, who hates me. I watch out the window while my dad parks the big car, gets out, goes back once for his phone and then again for his wallet. He finally opens the door of the café and spots me. He walks over and kisses me on the cheek (since when?).
“Hey, you look great, Al.”
Not possible. My hair, which seems to have rebelled against last night’s wig, is pulled back from my face with a bandanna, and three pimples have sprouted on my face overnight, one on my nose and two on my forehead, all of them roughly the size of New Hampshire. It’s probably from all that makeup. Today’s outfit was pulled partly off my bedroom floor and partly from the laundry basket. I look down at my T-shirt and notice a big oily-looking stain.
I look at my dad. “Wish I could say the same about you,” I say moodily. His rugged rock-star looks have faded noticeably since he discovered the good life in Santa Cruz. He looks tired and older somehow. His brown hair is slowly losing the battle to gray. The little gold hoop in his earlobe doesn’t quite work for him like it used to. The waitress seems to feel differently. She’s magically transformed from annoyed to flirtatious. She hovers with coffee, batting her eyelashes. My dad accepts the coffee she’s offering and she’s close to walking off with the pot till I clear my throat and point to my cup. She fills mine, embarrassed. I glower at her.
“What’s good here?” he asks, looking down at his laminated menu after he gives the waitress his winning smile.
“Nothing. I’m going for eggs and greasy hash browns.”
“Me too then . . . and bacon. Kee Kee won’t let me eat meat.”
“How are things on the compound?” I ask after the waitress takes our order, helpfully suggesting fresh-squeezed orange juice. We both decline.
“Good. We just got back from Mendocino.”
“What’d you go there for?”
“A yoga retreat.”
“You do yoga?”
“Nah, I went kayaking with Moose. Remember Moose, the roadie?”
“Of course I remember Moose.” Back when I was a kid, he was a happy, smiley guy with apple cheeks and a ZZ Top beard. He was about the size of a refrigerator and he used to give me licorice and airplane rides. “Does he live up there?”
“Yeah. He has for years now. He got himself a great little place and he’s semiretired. He works a bit on a whale-watching boat in Bodega.”
Whales make me think of the TV show we watched the other day, which makes me think of Kit. I haven’t spoken
to her yet this morning. I didn’t want to risk waking her, although I doubt she slept much.
“So, was it fun?” I ask.
“Kayaking was great. The yoga heads I could do without.”
We make small talk about nothing that either of us is really interested in until the smiling waitress puts our food down in front of us. She’s making me miss the annoyed version of herself.
“Anything else? More coffee?” She looks directly at my dad as she says this.
“Can I get some Tabasco sauce?” I ask.
“Of course.” She grabs a bottle off the next table and puts it down in front of me without taking her eyes off my dad.
We dig into our breakfast and I tell my dad about the avenue robberies. He feigns interest but he seems distracted. I was planning on telling him all about the blog and the fanzine, something I know he’d be keen on hearing if he were plugged in, but I change my mind. I quickly checked my blog before I left the house. I’m checking it obsessively now. Two comments had appeared on the Janis Joplin blog: one from a girl in Japan who went on in limited English for a while (but I got that she loved Janis) and one comment from that same creep in Seattle who said, Downloading is king. Long live the king! What an asshole.
My dad and I watch out the window as a young woman walks by with her arms bent at the elbow and her wrists hovering limply in midair. She holds a sparkly leash in her dangling fingers with a tiny dog at the other end. The other hand holds a cigarette. Her body language is strange, as though she’s at a very chic cocktail party or else the Westminster dog show.
“Hey, Al,” says my dad, turning his attention back to me. “I’ve sort of got some news.”
“Yeah?”
“Kee Kee’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“Jeez, Dad, weren’t you using birth control? That’s crazy. So what are you going to do? Is it too late for an abortion?”
“No, Al, she wants this . . . we want this.”
“Oh.” I certainly didn’t see that coming. Is it my imagination or are both my parents turning into adolescents?
“Be happy for me, Al. It doesn’t change what you and I have.”
“Well, that’s a relief, ’cause I’d sure hate to miss out on all this.” I wave my arm casually around the café.
“Al, c’mon, honey.”
The truth is, I don’t really care. I’m discovering that once somebody physically moves out of your life, it’s impossible for things not to change no matter how hard you try to keep them the same. The place you keep in your heart for that person is always there but it gets smaller and smaller, and I just moved my dad from a spacious loft to a cramped studio. The fact is, he has to make room in his heart for a new baby, and I suspect the place in his heart for me will get smaller too. How could it not?
“Can I tell Mom about this?”
“Sure, why not?” He winces slightly.
“She’s seeing someone, you know.” I throw that in for effect. Now he’s paying attention.
His eyes change. “She is?”
“Yup.” I twist the knife.
“What’s his name?”
“Jack.”
“What does this ‘Jack’ character do?”
“I dunno. I do know that he’s not a drummer, though.” I look at him squarely.
“What’s he like?”
“He’s great.” I refuse to divulge details. What he’s probably imagining is much worse.
“You like him?”
“Sure,” I lie. I don’t even know him.
“Well, good for her. I want her to be happy,” he says weakly with a thin smile. He excuses himself to use the restroom.
While my dad’s in the bathroom I grab his cell phone off the table and dial Kit’s number. She picks up on the first ring. Her voice is thick with crying.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Oh, hi.” She sniffs.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“No.”
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Chelsea’s number and hanging up when she answers.”
“You want me to come over?”
“Nah. I think I need to be alone right now. How about later?”
“Sure.”
I click the phone off and place it next to my dad’s congealed, half-eaten breakfast. He emerges from the bathroom and walks toward me. He still has the swagger of a rock star. His low-slung jeans fit his lean frame perfectly and his belt looks stolen from Mick Jagger’s wardrobe. Old habits die hard. The waitress brings the check and she’s conveniently included her phone number on it next to a smiley face.
I stand next to my dad’s car with him. I always dread the good-bye part of the visit. It’s horribly awkward, even after a year, and we both seem to feel obligated to act as though we’ll see each other really soon, like tomorrow, or later that day, when we both know that our visits have to be planned and carved out and arranged ahead of time. I can even hear him explaining it to Kee Kee: “Hey, I gotta go see my kid.” My dad goes in for a hug and I try to meet him halfway but it comes off weird and uncomfortable. We try to get away from each other as fast as possible so we don’t have to do it again. Even when we were allegedly happy, my family was never that touchy-feely. There were hugs in all the obvious places but my dad was far more likely to get close to me by putting on some music and saying, “Al, listen to this; you’re gonna flip.” And I’d listen, and I’d flip.
I take off on my skateboard up to Shattuck and turn left. I continue down Shattuck for a few blocks to the Sunday flea market in the Ashby BART parking lot. Even though I’ve never seen M in this neighborhood, I keep an eye peeled for him. It’s a habit I’ve developed. I wonder if M likes kids. I wonder if he’s ever thought about having them. I’m never having children. I’d only screw them up.
The flea is huge and you can pretty much get anything there from a bag of oranges or a kitten to leopardskin car seat covers or a ratchet set. A good crowd of fleagoers meanders from one stall to the next, but I navigate around them and proceed directly to the Dean twins’ stall. Don and Dave Dean are identical twins who sell collectible vinyl. They dress exclusively in vintage rockabilly outfits and they sport matching honey-colored pompadours. They always smell slightly of mothballs. I honestly can’t tell them apart so I rarely call them by their first names.
“Mr. Dean, Mr. Dean.” I greet them as I jump off my skateboard.
“Hey, Allie,” they say in unison.
“Anything new?”
“Yeah, check it out, we picked up a box of Japanese imports in Bakersfield you might be interested in,” says Don or Dave. He points to a crate on the table.
I flip through them. There’s a guy flipping through the crate next to mine. He has vertical hair and very pale skin. He looks older than me but not by much. He’s wearing a bowling shirt that says FELLINI PLUMBING across the back and JIMMY on the pocket. He has a small pile of LPs put aside. He goes to the pile and starts pulling out each LP and scrutinizing its condition.
He holds up a Flaming Lips album, Oh My Gawd!!!. . . The Flaming Lips on clear vinyl. “Will you take five for this?” He says this with a heavy New York accent. He must be new around here or else visiting.
Don and Dave look insulted. “Can’t do it; that’s the original 1987 pressing. It’s twenty bucks on eBay. I’ll throw in a dollar LP for free if you take it but I can’t lower the price,” says one of them.
The guy looks torn. He studies his pile again . . . and again. He ends up putting the ten-dollar LP back in the crate. What an idiot. I can’t help myself. I swoop in.
“That’s a pretty righteous LP you’re putting back. You sure you wanna do that? You don’t see it around much. It’s totally collectible. If you don’t take it I will. Even though I already own it.”
He regards me from behind his Buddy Holly glasses like I’m an alien. I get that a lot. Guys don’t expect a girl to know that stuff, especially out on the street like this.
Don or Dave winks at me.
The guy takes the LP back out of the box and adds it to the pile. The Deans total up his pile and he digs around in his pockets for the money.
“Hey, thanks.” He grins at me.
“Don’t mention it.” I fake a curtsy and he disappears into the crowd.
I settle on a Japanese import of Roxy Music’s Manifesto that they have marked for ten bucks but they give it to me for eight. The discount is my take for selling the guy on the Flaming Lips.
I suddenly remember my fanzines and I unbuckle my messenger bag and take out a stack.
“Hey, do you think you guys could give these out to your customers for me? I started a blog called ‘The Vinyl Princess’ and I’m trying to drum up some readers.”
Don and Dave each take a copy and flip through it. “This is awesome, Allie,” says one of them.
“Cool logo,” says the other.
“Hey, I’ll tell you what. If you distribute these for me, I’ll give you an ad in next month’s issue for free.”
“Sure, cool,” says Don or Dave.
“Deal,” says Don or Dave.
I bid the Deans a good day and get back on my board with my new LP under my arm and weave my way through the market and back up Shattuck, headed for home. I turn right on Dwight and I’ve gone a couple of blocks when I spot the familiar late-model BMW with the fancy rims, parked against the curb next to a plumbing supply store. The black-leather-jacket guy with the bling is leaning up against the car with his arms crossed. No one else is around, the block is deserted, but he keeps looking nervously up and down the street. When he sees me approaching, he gives me an intimidating stare. I zip past him with my eyes to the ground and cross the street on the next corner. That was weird.
