“I’m not dressed for it—”
He cut her off. “I’m sure you look great. It would really mean a lot to me.”
She sighed.
“Come on. You need a night out.”
“I’ll let you know later,” she said. “I need to think about it.”
Before he could try to convince her further, she hung up. It hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped, but he had to believe she would come. The last time he had performed sober had probably been in high school. Knowing he played better sober didn’t make it any easier for him to perform sober, especially since he hadn’t been on stage at all in three years. But Maggie hadn’t seen him on stage since they were teenagers. She knew he could do it, and do it well, with no mood altering substances. She had always been his biggest fan. She had never missed a play or concert.
In fact, Nathaniel could think of only one thing she had ever done to disappoint him: She got married. He’d been calling her Maggie Monahan, but he realized now that he had no idea if she kept her maiden name. He hoped so. He knew he couldn’t hold her marriage against her, and she seem to have made it through the divorce all right. She hadn’t become one of those jaded, bitter women who are afraid to trust a man or one of those wild women who use divorce as an excuse to act like a 21-year-old. She seemed hardly changed at all. Hers hadn’t been a real marriage, he thought. It had been a starter marriage—brief, ill-conceived, and easily abandoned. It was little more than a break up arbitrated by lawyers. Maybe, he thought, if he and Abby had gotten married, it would have been easier for them to break up instead of maintaining their gray-zone relationship for years. Divorce, it seemed to him, was so clear cut.
Around three-thirty, Maggie texted him again. “See you at 7:30. Bringing a friend from work.”
How foolish of him to think she would come alone. Of course she didn’t want to sit at a bar alone all night. She was coming. That’s what mattered. It would’ve been nice to bring her back to his place after, but that wasn’t why he invited her. He invited her to be his good luck charm.
PART THREE:
Three’s a Crowd
Maggie
Vanessa said yes practically before Maggie could finish asking. Yes, she would drive to Somerville with Maggie. Yes, she would see Nathaniel’s band. Yes, she would meet the idiot Maggie wouldn’t stop pining over.
“You need to go get something else to wear,” Vanessa said, when they made the plan. “Go down to Juniors.”
Maggie looked down at her black slacks and purple sweater. “I’ll need shoes, too,” she said, taking in the round toes of her loafers.
Vanessa nodded.
She settled on a chambray shirt-dress with a wide belt, black leggings, and black ankle boots. At Vanessa’s insistence, she bought some funky earrings and cheap bangle bracelets, and she let Vanessa do her makeup.
“Now you look like a girl who’s going to a bar in Somerville on a Thursday night,” Vanessa said, when Maggie was fully assembled.
As they drove, Maggie half listened to Vanessa’s chatter about her roommate woes. She wanted to be sympathetic and attentive but all she could think about was the sound of Nathaniel’s voice when they talked. Something was wrong. He didn’t sound like himself. Nathaniel was nothing if not self-assured and charming, but today on the phone he sounded nervous and strained. The question was, was it good that he sounded nervous? She wanted him to do something he’d never done—to see her as the woman for him instead of just as his friend. With that logic, acting in an unusual way was a good sign. But she also wanted him to be the cool, confident person she fell in love with. What if the cost of his love was learning that he wasn’t who he’d always seemed to be?
Maggie and Vanessa emerged from the subway station and stepped out into Davis Square. Maggie looked around the tree-lined streets, shop fronts, and passing pedestrians to orient herself and spotted Nathaniel standing near the door of the Somerville Theatre. She led Vanessa in his direction.
Nathaniel’s face was thinner than the last time she saw him, and there were dark circles under his eyes, but he greeted her enthusiastically, almost giddily. When he hugged her, he smelled like coffee, and as he pulled away she noticed sweat stains under his arms.
Maggie made quick introductions and Nathaniel apologized for the fact that they needed to rush right to the bar.
“Sound check,” he said, picking up his guitar case, and turning to lead them through the square.
Vanessa caught Maggie’s eye and raised an eyebrow in a quizzical expression and Maggie shrugged. As they walked Nathaniel didn’t say much, except to apologize a few more times for not being a better tour guide and for having to hurry. He hardly looked at Maggie, and when he did, he didn’t meet her eyes, which was strange, but she figured he was nervous for the gig. When she stopped think about it, though, that didn’t make sense either, because Nathaniel was never nervous for a gig. He was a natural performer. He came alive on stage.
O’Grady’s was one of the last businesses on the street before it became residential. Along the sidewalk were big sliding windows that could be opened in nice weather, giving the impression of a European café. Inside, the bar ran along the right wall. All the tables were two- and four-person high-tops. Two guys, presumably Nathaniel’s bandmates, were setting up equipment on a small stage. Instead of introducing them, Nathaniel ushered Maggie and Vanessa to a table in the center of the room with. It wasn’t crowded—not yet anyway—so they had their choice.
“I think the sound will be best here,” Nathaniel said pulling out a chair for Maggie and then for Vanessa. Maggie watched him wipe his sweating hands on his pant legs. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, heading over to the stage.
“Jesus, is he always this nervous?” Vanessa asked.
Maggie shook her head. She watched him gesture towards them as he talked to the other guys. One was tall like Nathaniel with shaggy brown hair and hipster-nerd glasses. The other was shorter with a beard and light brown hair.
“The one with the glasses is cute,” Vanessa said.
“I haven’t met him before.”
A waitress came by and put menus in front of them.
“This is a nice place,” Vanessa said.
The walls were paneled with dark wood and the ceiling was stamped tin. There were a few old Guinness ads on the walls but not too much of the kitsch that often adorns Irish pubs. It was nice. Maggie understood why Nathaniel was so excited for a gig there. This was clearly a trendy spot, not a hole-in-the-wall dive bar.
Maggie watched as the guys tested the microphones and the volume levels of their instruments. The guy with the glasses played the bass, and the other one played keyboards and apparently the hand drum that sat beside his bench. Just as the waitress returned with their beers and the nachos that Vanessa had ordered, Nathaniel appeared at the table with the other two guys.
He introduced them, Charlie and Jeff, the superb talents behind the Latecomers. They barely said hello before going to the bar to get drinks before the show. Maggie thought there was something unfriendly in the way Charlie looked at her, which puzzled her. Seldom did men greet her with anything less than smiles and pleasantries. She was accustomed to being liked by men, and every now and then when she met one who for no apparent reason seemed hostile, she was always overwhelmed by the need to prove to him how likable she was.
“I thought you didn’t know them,” Vanessa said when they walked away.
“I don’t.”
“Charlie acted like he knows you,” Vanessa said.
“Yeah, that was weird.”
“Some fling you forgot?”
Maggie shook her head. She never had any flings to forget. Where would she even have met him before?
She watched Charlie and Jeff each carry a shot glass and a bottle of beer back to the stage. Nathaniel, on the other hand, just had a glass of clear l
iquid with ice. Water? Maggie wondered. Surely not vodka. He told her he didn’t drink liquor anymore.
Promptly at eight, the music began. Nathaniel dedicated the first song, a cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” to Maggie. Once he began to play, Nathaniel relaxed visibly. He seemed at home with the guitar in his hands, and he didn’t just sing the lyrics, he performed them. He became the person in the song. Vanessa leaned over a few songs in and said, “I get it now.”
By nine, the place was crowded, mostly college kids, Maggie guessed. The band was in the middle of a soulful rendition of Aerosmith’s “Chip Away,” when a group of girls entered in a loud gush of laughter and clatter of heels. Maggie watched as one of them, a tiny blonde in an absurdly small jean skirt and black tank top, waved at Nathaniel, catching his attention. For the first time all night, he fumbled the chords and it took him a moment to recover.
“Who’s that?” Vanessa asked.
Maggie shrugged.
The girls gravitated to the bar and Maggie studied them.
“Maybe one of his students?” She said after a moment. After that, Maggie caught herself looking at the door, studying people as they came in. Did Nathaniel have some cadre of groupies? A fan club of young, giggling girls? But most of the people who entered barely glanced at the band.
Then she noticed two women enter, a tall, busty woman who tossed her thick dark hair over her shoulder as she scanned the room, and a short woman in black yoga pants and a baggy button-down shirt. She was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way, but her sloppy attire struck Maggie as odd. She obviously wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Unlike Maggie, she felt no need to look like a girl hitting the town on a Thursday night. Maggie wished she felt half as comfortable as the girl looked. Her new shoes pinched her toes and she had to keep fidgeting with the dress and belt to prevent it from getting too blousy. Maggie was still studying the girl when she heard Nathaniel flub the lyrics of the Beatles song he was playing.
“The only excuse for wearing yoga pants to a bar is pregnancy,” Vanessa said, following Maggie’s gaze.
The song ended and Nathaniel announced, rather frantically, Maggie thought, that they would be taking a break. Jeff and Charlie looked at each other, confused. Nathaniel pulled his guitar strap over his head and set the guitar on the stand without looking. It wobbled precariously until Jeff grabbed it. Nathaniel stepped off the stage and pushed his way across the room without so much as a glance at Maggie. Instead he strode over to the little blond girl who had waved. They were too far away for Maggie to hear them, and Nathaniel’s back was to her, but she watched the girl smile and fidget with her purse, and then her smile faded at whatever Nathaniel said to her.
Then to Maggie’s surprise, the girl in the yoga pants walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and took her elbow and led her out the door.
“What’s going on?” Vanessa asked.
Maggie had no idea. She shook her head. “I’m an idiot. I think we should leave.”
Abby
Abby had no idea what was happening. She and Breanna walked into O’Grady’s in the middle of “Here Comes the Sun,” and just as the door shut behind them, she heard Nathaniel goof the words and then the chords. He skipped a whole verse and barely managed to get it together to end the song. Abby had heard him play that song dozens of times, and she’d never heard him screw it up before. She wondered if he was drunk. She wondered if the entire set was going so badly.
Then he did something else she’d never seen: He rushed off the stage. Nathaniel was always one to milk the applause at the end of a song. He would linger on stage after a set. He did not fling down his guitar and storm across the room. She watched in astonishment as he pushed his way to the bar and began speaking to a tiny blonde in a slutty skirt and tank top. Abby’s heart raced. She should not have come. She had made a terrible mistake.
As soon as Charlie told her about the show, she knew she would go. She hadn’t talked to Nathaniel in almost two weeks. She hadn’t seen him in person in a month, since she had decided that the best strategy to get him to see the light was to give him space. And now she saw how well that tactic had worked. She gave him just enough space to find himself a little whore.
She hadn’t called to say she would be at the show, although Breanna had counseled her to do so. The problem with calling was that since January pretty much every phone call between them had ended with shouting and tears. She was done with shouting and tears. And what if she called and he told her not to come? She needed to see him in person, face to face, to see if he was okay, to see if he missed her, a fact he could hide on the phone, but not in person. But she should have called. That was clear now.
“Who’s that?” Breanna asked, looking over Abby’s shoulder towards Nathaniel and the blonde. She practically had to shout into Abby’s ear because the minute Nathaniel had left the stage, someone, probably the manager or bartender, had put the stereo back on, as if loud chirpy pop music would conceal the awkwardness of what just happened. Abby glanced around the bar and saw that the strategy seemed to have worked. Most people were happily drinking and snacking and shouting to each other over the din. Charlie and Jeff stood against the wall near the stage, looking like kids who weren’t sure they had come to the right party.
Abby shook her head, and then she walked away from Breanna towards Nathaniel. She stopped behind him and tapped his shoulder. He turned and looked at her, swiveled back to the girl and said something Abby couldn’t quite make out, and then pivoted, grabbed Abby’s elbow and brushed by her, pulling her along towards the door. Outside, he let go of her arm and walked to the end of the block and around the corner, stopping to sit on the stoop of an apartment house half way down the block. He put his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands. Abby watched as his fingers massaged his forehead. Then he rubbed the heel of his hands into his eyes, dropped his hands back to a prayer position, and looked up at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Great question, Abby thought. “Hello to you, too,” she said.
“So, what? You don’t call for weeks and then you ambush me like this?”
“I’m not ambushing you. I wanted to see you play.” This was true. She wanted to see him play. She wanted to believe he was still the guy she fell in love with. In half a song, she understood that he was not. In fact, she was beginning to think the guy she fell in love with never existed.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I didn’t want to fight with you.”
Nathaniel looked at her dumbly. “You don’t want to fight. You just want to ruin my show.”
Because it’s all about you, she wanted to say. Every day, everything is all about you. “I like to see you play. I thought...” She drifted off. What did she think? That it would be like old times? That she’d see him with the Latecomers and everything would be fixed?
She saw Nathaniel’s eyes drift from her face to her stomach. Protectively, she placed her hands on her belly. Her doctor had told her to expect about a pound a week now, but with all the weight she’d lost during the morning sickness of the first trimester, she was still small. Her belly was a slight swell, but her baggy shirt hid it. A stranger still might not guess she was expecting, but she knew that was changing by the day. Literally every day her body felt a little bigger, a little less familiar.
“You look good,” he said. “Do you feel okay?”
“I feel better than the last time you saw me. I’m not nauseous all the time any more, and I’ve gotten my energy back.”
“That’s good. You have to take care of yourself.”
Abby nodded. She studied him for a moment. His face was thin and there were deep circles around his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “What about you? You okay?”
“I’m sober, if that’s what you mean.”
Abby didn’t a
sk how long he’d been sober. She didn’t have to. She knew it was less than a week. Nathaniel’s mother had called a few days earlier to say she had received the shower invitation. When Abby had learned that Nathaniel had not told her about the pregnancy, she felt all the rage she’d been swallowing boil back up, but when his mom spoke about how upset Nathaniel had been, how obviously drunk, Abby’s anger was tempered with concern. She had almost called him then, but instead she called Charlie, expressed her concern and asked him to call if he thought Nathaniel was in trouble. She told Charlie everything. He was kind and attentive. He asked what he could do to help. Nothing, she had told him. Nothing except look out for Nathaniel. The next day Charlie called to say that Nathaniel had seemed fine when they got together to rehearse. Nervous but sober, Charlie had said.
“Who’s that girl?” Abby asked.
“A student.” Nathaniel ruffled his hair and sighed. “She has a crush on me. She’s practically stalking me.”
Abby didn’t believe this, but she let it go. She wasn’t here to fight, she reminded herself. She was done fighting with him. Her anger was turning her into someone she did not like, and so she was taking some advice her brother had given her: How do you drop a hot coal that’s burning you? You open your hands and let go.
“I know this isn’t the best time, but we are going to have to talk,” Abby said. “To sort things out.”
Nathaniel nodded.
“We’re going to have to be friends.”
“You aren’t going to cut me out of his life?”
“I don’t think you should be so certain it’s a boy,” Abby said, rubbing a hand across her stomach and smiling despite herself. He wanted a son. He wanted to be a father to a son. The longing and fear in his eyes nearly broke her heart.
“We’ll see,” he said. He stood up. “I’m going to have to get back in there. I can only hope Jeff and Charlie haven’t given up on me already.”
The Latecomers Fan Club Page 18
