The Girlfriend Stage

by Janci Patterson

  Gabby scrunches up her face. “Whaaaat?” A piece of sauce-covered broccoli slides off her fork and onto her jeans, and she frowns at it. “There’s no way.”

  “I’m serious. You know, from Alec and Jenna?”

  “I know AJ,” Gabby says. “They’re Anna-Marie’s favorite. She played their first album on a loop for three months.”

  Ah. Anna-Marie is Gabby’s best friend. They were roommates before Anna-Marie moved in with her fiancé and Gabby moved in with Will.

  “But she definitely did not hit on you,” Gabby continues. “Jenna and Alec are like soul mates.”

  I stab my fork into a chunk of bright yellow chicken. “Well she was definitely hitting on me. She talked about my straddling and my fingering. It was crazy.”

  Gabby rolls her eyes, and wipes at the stain on her knee with one of the paper towels we’re using as napkins. “That’s just music talk.”

  I glare at her over a bite of chicken. “That is not how musicians talk. We don’t sit around the cello section complimenting each other on our straddling.”

  Gabby still looks skeptical, which is a little insulting, but whatever.

  “She asked me to audition for her band,” I say.

  Her eyes widen. This she seems to believe, at least. “Her band. She wants you to audition to play with AJ.”

  “That’s what she said.” I toss her Jenna’s card, and her jaw drops.

  “Jenna Rollins gave you her card.”

  I smile. “And hit on me.”

  Gabby throws the card back at me. “She did not hit on you. You’re just desperate. And you’d better remember that or you’ll blow your audition.” She grins, though, and squeals a little. “My brother could play with Alec and Jenna! Anna-Marie will die.”

  I give her a wry smile. “Anna-Marie doesn’t know me as anything but a junkie.”

  Gabby wrinkles her nose. “She does remember you as the guy who broke into her apartment, but if you get to play with AJ, she just might forgive you.”

  I groan and flop back on the couch. I don’t love being thought of—even rightfully—as that guy, but that’s not what’s consuming my mind right now. I just keep seeing Jenna’s gray eyes, and the dress riding up her thigh. And god, that laugh . . .

  “You should have seen how hot this girl was,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s been a month and a half. I need to get laid.”

  Gabby eyes me over her broccoli beef soft taco. “Try twenty-three years.”

  I groan again. “Where’s the sympathy? You have to know someone you could hook me up with.”

  I both do and don’t mean it. Since all of my friends have either left the area for college or are off getting high without me, I have quite literally no one to spend time with besides my immediate family, and since my other sister Dana won’t let me see my nephew Ephraim for “a reasonable waiting period” out of rehab, not even all of them. I’m dying for some human connection, but I don’t exactly want to hook up with random girls anymore. I’m trying to move past that, and besides, I didn’t enjoy it that much, even before the drugs.

  Jenna, on the other hand, didn’t feel random.

  Gabby points her fork at me. “I don’t feel the need to know the girls you’re hooking up with. And no, I don’t have any available single friends.”

  “Come on,” I say. “You have to know somebody.”

  “Anna-Marie is engaged. I’ve been hanging out with her fiancé’s best friends, but they’re both gay and married.”

  “Do your gay friends have any female friends? Come on, Gabby. I’m desperate.”

  Gabby rolls her eyes again. “Felix, I really don’t want to know how horny you get after just a month and a half. You’re barely out of rehab.”

  She’s right, but I’m on a roll now, and I can’t stop until I’ve garnered at least some pity. “Plus,” I say, “sex on drugs kind of sucks, so it feels like a lot longer.”

  Now she looks interested. I figured that would do it. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Half the time you’re too high to get it up, and the other half you can’t finish.”

  She cringes. “I did not need to know that about my brother.”

  She looks a little sorry for me, though, so I take that as a win and bite into my breakfast roll, which tastes like a cross between a pot-sticker and an Egg McMuffin. From what I heard in rehab from some of the veterans, being on Suboxone can be just as bad for your sex life, so I hope I’m one of the lucky ones whose symptoms get better and don’t drag on for years, even off the H.

  “Ooh!” Gabby said. “I could set you up with Sheena from work! But you’d have to be nice to her because she’s the RN in charge of the whole shift schedule, so I really want to stay on her good side.”

  Gabby hasn’t gotten fired from a job since she started nursing two years ago, but apparently she still worries about it. “I’m nice,” I say. “And even Jenna Rollins thinks I’m hot.”

  “She does not,” Gabby says. “You’re cute, but Alec is a million times hotter.”

  I pretend to be offended, and maybe I mean it a little bit. When I was waiting for my pill at the clinic, I Googled Jenna and Alec, and scrolled through all their couple photos like a Facebook-stalking ex.

  They do look cute together, and I hate him for it.

  “I have to warn you, though,” Gabby says. “Sheena is really fond of her hamsters. She’s given them all personalities and matching little felt hats.”

  “The hats match the hamsters?” I ask. “Or—”

  “The personalities. Like one is Napoleon, and another is wearing a fedora—”

  I at once want to see these hamsters and am very afraid.

  “They run in tubes through her house,” Gabby says, “so they have access to all of the rooms. She drilled the holes and installed the whole thing herself, like one of those ball machines where the balls roll all over and then get lifted up to the bottom to go again.” She pauses. “Except with hamsters.”

  I grimace. “Do the tubes run through the bedroom? Is this a sex thing?”

  Gabby shakes her head. “Jeez, I hope not. But given the things I’ve seen come out of people’s asses at work, I can’t say I would be surprised.”

  It’s my turn to point my fork at her. “Find out.”

  “Done,” Gabby says.

  “If it’s not, you can set me up with her.” This Jenna thing is not happening. I know it isn’t. Even if she’s in an open relationship, I really do not want to get in the middle of that—especially not with a girl with a laugh like hers.

  Gabby’s right. In a pissing match between me and Alec, I’m not going to win.

  “I’ll try,” Gabby says. “But if you screw her over I’ll be working graves for the rest of my life.”

  I’m doing Gabby’s dishes—the least I can do since she bought dinner—when my phone rings next to the sink, and my heart climbs into my throat.

  Every time the phone rings, I’m afraid my dealer or one of my old drug buddies has somehow found my number. I called them all before I left rehab and told them I was done, and most of them were cool with it. A couple of them swore at me over the phone, which actually helped, but if any of them get my number, they’re bound to start inviting me back to parties, trying to get me to hang out, even if I don’t use.

  I can’t do that. I’ll never be able to do that, even if it means resigning myself to the company of Sheena the hamster-hat lady for the rest of my life.

  I dry my hands and turn my phone over. It’s a number I don’t recognize—not my dealer, then, unless he got a new phone. I take a deep breath, and answer.

  “Hey, Felix?”

  I recognize Jenna’s voice instantly. And now my heart’s in my throat for an entirely different reason. “Yeah,” I say. “Is this Jenna?”

  Gabby looks up from the couch, where she�
�s thumbing through the Writer’s Digest website on her phone, trying to find markets for Will’s novel. “Really?” she mouths.

  I nod.

  “Yeah, hey!” Jenna says. “I know this is kind of last minute, but the band’s getting together tomorrow and I wondered if you wanted to come to the studio to audition.”

  “Sure,” I say, before I can think about it. “I mean, I’ll have to check with Johnny, of course. He schedules me pretty tight.”

  She pauses. “Oh, is Johnny your agent?”

  “No,” I say. “Johnny Cash. I’m booked for his star for the rest of the week.”

  “Ah,” Jenna says, getting it now. “Well, if Johnny can spare you, we’d love to see you around three o’clock. I’ll text you the address.”

  “I’ll be there,” I say. And I expect her to say bye and hang up, but she hesitates. Gabby’s leaning toward me, as if she’s torn between giving me space and coming over to press her ear to the phone.

  “So how’d you get into busking?” Jenna asks.

  “Oh, you know. Between tours with Springsteen and returning Clapton’s calls—”

  She laughs. “All right, fair enough. If that’s my competition, maybe we’d better audition for you.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I think I can squeeze you in.”

  Gabby stares at me wide-eyed. I’ve been unconsciously smiling while I’m talking and I turn around so she won’t see.

  “Good,” Jenna says. “Can I ask where your last job was?”

  “You mean in music? It’s been a little while, but I’ve played Carnegie Hall and with the LA opera—” I cringe. Not exactly the most exciting credits for an audition with a pop band.

  “That’s awesome. Don’t worry if you haven’t worked in music lately. I used to work as a roller-skating waitress. And I was horrible at it.”

  I smile, picturing her wobbling around on roller-skates in one of those god-awful diner uniforms. And looking cute as hell doing so. “But I bet you got a lot of tips.”

  She laughs. “Mostly from people who felt sorry for me, though there was the occasional guy I spilled on and had to help wipe down.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Ha. Sadly, yes.”

  I wait for her to gracefully make her exit, but she pauses again. I turn around and find Gabby leaning against the counter, her curiosity apparently overcoming her good manners.

  “I’m really looking forward to playing for you,” I say.

  “Me too, Felix,” she says, and the sound of my name from her mouth gives me chills. “See you tomorrow.”

  I hang up and try to shake off the goosebumps, but Gabby is staring at me.

  “You’re going to audition for AJ,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

  She lets out a squeal higher-pitched than any note ever played on a cello, and throws her arms around me again.

  I need this job. I know I do.

  But what makes my heart hammer is the thought of seeing Jenna Rollins again.

  Three

  Felix

  Alec and Jenna’s studio practice space is in a flat-topped building in West Los Angeles, across the street from a Sprouts and a yoga place. I recognize the neighborhood—my last dealer liked it for its many small alleys, and I force myself not to look for his car.

  Somewhere around two AM last night, when I was lying awake trying not to think about using, it occurred to me that joining a band might be hell on my sobriety. Not the music or the job, both of which I need, but the associations. So many people in music use that it’s better than even odds someone playing for AJ is an addict—bonus points because their last cellist left them when his own addiction took him off the rails.

  The idea of playing, traveling, staying at hotels with someone who’s using was enough to break me out in a cold sweat. The long nights on the road or catching red-eye flights, the backstage parties, the appearances at clubs with people using in the corners—

  I couldn’t do this. I knew that I couldn’t. Give me a week and I’d be flying high again, and I knew exactly where that led.

  God only knew who I’d get killed this time.

  It was only thoughts of Jenna that got me out of bed this morning—or, more accurately, hauled my ass off of my dad’s fold-out couch. I’d showered and dressed and driven out here—listening to Kurt Cobain’s rendition of the Vaselines’ “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” and humming along to Lori Goldstein’s cello part—all the while telling myself it isn’t hopeless. I’m not trapped in a world with dealers on every corner. I can stay safe and stay clean.

  Even if I feel like I can’t.

  When I knock on the studio door, my palms are sweating. I’m greeted by a woman with cotton-candy pink hair, shaved on one side, wearing converse sneakers and a little girl’s jumpsuit-style dress made entirely of shiny black leather. I can’t tell if the look is missing a whip or a Hello Kitty backpack. “Hey,” she says. “Judging by the size of your instrument, I’m guessing you’re Felix.”

  “Um, yeah,” I say. The size of my instrument? God, maybe Gabby was right. Maybe pop musicians do just talk that way. But the way Jenna said it . . . I force myself back to the present. “And you’re . . . Roxie?” I don’t mean to sound unsure. I Googled the band last night to learn about all of them. Roxie is the drummer, and she signed on with the band right before they recorded their second album, less than a year ago, when their original drummer quit to spend more time with his family.

  Roxie doesn’t notice my hesitation. She’s already turned around and beckons me to follow her. We head down a set of stairs and through a set of sound-proof doors, into the basement studio. It’s a fully-equipped, professional setup with what looks to be all the latest gear—not that I know a ton about sound equipment. There’s a black leather couch and a couple matching chairs on one side of the room. Roxie’s drums are set up in the corner, and a guy with spiky blond hair and a tall pair of cowboy boots bends over an amp next to it.

  Leo. The bassist.

  “Hey!” he says. “Help yourself to some jerky.” He straightens and yells through a doorway to the back. “Jenna! Your boy’s here!”

  I lean my cello against the wall and rub my hands on my jeans, trying not to react to being called Jenna’s boy. The jerky he’s referring to is sitting on top of a speaker, long strips of pale meat, almost like bacon.

  “You might want to pass,” Roxie says. “It’s home-cured alligator. No telling what you might catch.”

  Leo shakes his head. “Just because you’re a vegan doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us.”

  “Vegetarian,” Roxie says. “It’s different.”

  Leo picks up a strip of alligator jerky and takes a big bite. “Either way, you’re missing out.” He holds out a piece to me, and I’m trying to figure out how to politely decline—drug-laced alligator jerky might be a stretch, but it still puts me on edge—when Jenna breezes through the door. She’s wearing more makeup than yesterday, and a skirt that shows off her long legs. Her t-shirt fits tight around her waist and I can’t help but stare.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says back.

  She’s watching me as intently as I’m watching her, and I look away, sure Leo and Roxie have noticed. But Leo is sitting in the corner next to his bass guitar, tugging off his cowboy boots. He’s not wearing socks underneath.

  “Ew, Leo!” Roxie says. “Put your boots back on. We don’t need to smell your feet.”

  Leo shakes his head. “I can’t play with my shoes on.”

  Roxie’s brow furrows. “Since when?”

  “Since I realized it ruins my acoustics.”

  There’s a pause, in which Roxie just stares at him. “Dude,” she finally says. “That’s insane. Besides, you’re not playing. You’re listening to an audition.”


  “Still. Got to get in the right frame of mind.”

  Roxie groans. “I apologize for him,” she says to me. “He’s the weird one.”

  “Keep LA weird, man.” Leo leans back against the wall.

  Roxie closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’ve told you a thousand times, that is not a thing.”

  “How do you know?” Leo asked. “Ever been there?”

  Jenna turns to me with a small smile. “According to Leo, LA is Louisiana.”

  “It’s not just me,” Leo insists. “Ask the post office.”

  Roxie groans. “Just put your damn boots back on.”

  Leo wiggles his toes in her direction. “Hey, if you’d air out your toes once in a while you wouldn’t have foot fungus.”

  Roxie looks offended. “I do not have foot fungus!”

  “You do,” Leo says. “I saw it last week when you were wearing those strappy shoes. You know how your left big toenail’s lifting up? Foot fungus.”

  “Ew. No.” But Roxie eyes her sneakers warily.

  I realize I’m still standing there like an idiot. I turn back to Jenna and catch her checking me out again.

  I’m wearing jeans that are just tight enough without being trendy, and a t-shirt with a fit to match. I almost always wear slacks and collared shirts to audition—I’m a big believer in dressing for the job you want. But when that job is with a pop band, I figure dressing down is the look, and Leo’s t-shirt and jeans tell me I’m not wrong.

  Still, it’s nice to be appreciated.

  “Sorry,” Jenna says. “We’re a little scattered today. And Alec is late. This is . . . pretty much normal for us.”

  I smile. “No problem. Mind if I tune up?”

  She smiles back. “Of course,” she says. “Have a seat.”

  She gestures to a chair against the wall that I’m guessing used to be Mason’s. It’s covered in stickers, most of them from metal bands. I pull June out of her case and get her ready to play. Jenna sits on the couch across the room, her legs folded to the side, and I feel her watching me as I play a few notes, my nerves vibrating like the strings.

  Fingering.

  Focus, I tell myself. I am going to jack up this audition before it even gets started.