“What did you do?”
“My parents took me to a therapist, and then the therapist referred me to someone who could prescribe meds, because the attacks kept coming.”
“And the medicine worked?”
She nods.
“That must have been hard,” I say. “To go through all that.”
“It was just that before sixth grade everything in my life was good, and then suddenly I learned all of these things. That I was going to lose someone I loved forever, and that someone I trusted might not have been that great of a person after all, that there were things that I just couldn’t do right, no matter how hard I tried and worked at them. It was a lot to take in at once. And maybe most of all it was that I had this problem, you know? That I couldn’t handle hard things on my own.”
She looks into the black water; her brow furrows. Then she looks up again and smiles. She presses down the edges of her bandage.
“But from now on it’s all about sunrises and rainbows.”
She says this with such conviction that there is nothing I can say in return. So I lean back and close my eyes, slide farther into the warm water, listen to the sounds of life outside, and try to believe her.
Getting dressed in the shed after Meg has left, I pick up my phone and see that I have a voice mail from Jasper.
“Hey, bro,” he says. “So Spider remembers the guy. Dude was the friend of this lady Spider used to date, who is also the mom of a girl I went to high school with. So I just have to get a hold of this chick Sadie and get her mom’s number, and we should have a name. I’ll get back to you. Oh, and tell Meg that it’s time to take the bandage off if she hasn’t already. Wash it with her hand and that soap I gave her, and then put on the ointment. And remind her to stay away from Saran Wrap. If I find out she’s been suffocating my art in plastic I will be seriously pissed. Make sure to tell her that. All right. Peace, bro.”
I set the phone back on the wooden bench and pull on my cutoffs. Then I think I hear Bev’s voice.
“Whatever, it’s fine,” I hear her saying. “I just wanted to look at the downtown area before we have to check into the hotel, and we have to set up at the bar and I need to change my clothes. We have a lot to do and we just didn’t have time for you and Colby to hang out in the hot tub for an hour.”
“Thirty minutes,” I hear Meg say. “And the bar is super close and it’s on the same block as the hotel and we have two hours until the show starts.”
I stand still and listen for what will come next.
“Obviously,” Meg continues, “this is not about schedules.”
I push open the door to the shed, and there they stand in the garden. Bev squints through the sun at me, startled.
“Hey,” I say. I drop my keys in my pocket, and in the time it takes for me to pull my T-shirt over my head, Meg has walked away, leaving me and Bev alone together.
“I didn’t mean to be an asshole in the bus,” I tell her.
She nods, looks down at the dust.
“You heard Meg and me, right?”
“Yes.”
“I got jealous,” she says, and when she looks up at me, there is more openness in her face than I’ve seen in weeks.
“Why?” I ask. “Jealous of what?”
My heart pounds hard. Maybe this will be the moment.
“Jealous of Meg,” she says.
I take a step toward her, but she turns, almost imperceptibly, away from me. My heart keeps pounding, but now for other reasons.
She reaches into her bag for her pack of cigarettes. I watch her light one and try to sound as calm as I can when I say, “What is this about?”
She sucks in smoke, waits for me to explain.
“This,” I say, pointing to her cigarettes. “And the not answering the question, and the lying about college, and lying about Stewart, too.”
She looks a little lost, a little scared, so unlike herself.
“What’s going on?” I ask her.
She shrugs, but not like she doesn’t care, like she really doesn’t know the answer, or maybe just doesn’t know how to tell me.
“I thought we could talk about anything.”
I’m trying to stay calm and steady, like I’m coaxing an animal from a hiding place, but I watch as her face hardens. Soon, here it is again: the distance between us.
“I already told you about the application,” she says.
“Yeah, but it didn’t take twenty minutes. You need recommendation letters. You need to write essays. You need a portfolio. It takes planning.”
“I meant the form, the online part.”
“You were trying to make it sound like it was this casual, simple thing, but I know that it wasn’t.”
I watch her face as she searches for some way to defend herself.
I search, too, for new words to ask her to explain.
The light is fading; a breeze picks up. She finishes her cigarette. The cat from inside appears and brushes against my leg. I lean over to pet her for a while. When I stand again, Bev looks at me. I look at her.
We both give up.
We park on the outskirts of the square, in front of an abandoned building. Meg applies her bright red lipstick, Alexa combs her hair. I get out of the bus and lock the driver’s door, lean against it and study the brick wall in front of me. Last year I did a research project on graffiti artists and it’s cool, now, to look at the tags spread out on the wall and know something about them. Some of them are familiar, from groups of people who tag the same name, and some are new to me.
I follow a few tags across the wall, up to an expanse of whitewashed brick.
“Hey, you know what would be so cool?” I say. They’ve all gotten out of the bus now and come around to my side, looking where I’m looking. “If we graffitied The Disenchantments picture up here.”
“Oh my God,” Meg says. “That would be awesome.”
We envision it, where each eye would go, how the tear would settle into an area of the wall where a few bricks are missing in a shape that’s already almost tearlike, how we would paint the letters of the band name across the top.
“We should do it,” Bev says.
Alexa nods.
“All we need is spray paint,” I say. “I could stand on top of Melinda and you guys could stand on both sides of the block to let me know if anyone’s coming. It would probably take around an hour,” I say.
“Let’s do it after the show,” Meg says, and we all agree.
The square is pretty cool—grass and park benches, a few trees, old-fashioned streetlamps—and the buildings that surround it look like they’re out of a Western. An American flag flaps above us.
Meg points out a record store. “Let’s go in,” she says.
“Sure,” I say, but Bev wants to sit in the grass and carve, and Alexa sees a shop that sells hemp clothing and incense and tells us she’ll meet up with us in a minute.
A bell on the door chimes as we walk in. I start at some Bob Dylan records, and recognize a few of them from my parents’ collection.
“Colby, look at this.” Meg holds up a Supremes record. “Look at Diana Ross’s eyeliner.”
I nod. “Cool.”
She widens her eyes as if I’m crazy and pushes the record closer to my face, so I peer at it and say, “Oh my God, you’re right. The way it starts all thin and then gets thicker. And, whoa,” I grab at my heart. “That slight curve up in the corner . . . How will I ever draw again after seeing a line like this!”
“That’s more like it.” Meg puts the record back in the rack and flips to the next.
“You like The Supremes?” The girl who works there leans over the counter, closer to us. She’s dressed similarly to Meg in a short strawberry-printed dress. She has long bangs swept to the side of her face and bright pink lipstick, and looks just a few years older than we are.
“They’re my favorite,” Meg says. “I just made ten playlists and every one starts with a Supremes song.”
“Every one?” I ask.
br /> The record store girl laughs. “That’s so cool,” she says. “Have you heard The Chiffons?”
Meg shakes her head, no.
The girl strides over to the C section and flips through a few records.
“I like your dress,” Meg says.
“Yours, too,” says the girl. “Oh, too bad. I guess someone bought them out since my last shift. They were recording at the same time as The Supremes, but they were on V-tone instead of—”
“Motown,” Meg says, grinning. “How about The Marvelettes?”
“Love them,” the girl says. She leads us to the Ms and selects an album: Please Mr. Postman.
“I know that song,” I say.
“It’s sooo good,” Meg says.
The girl nods. “Yeah, this whole album is fantastic. They came first, you know. Even before The Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas. I love Gladys Horton’s voice.”
Meg is so excited that her head moves like a bobble-head doll’s. “I know, me too! It’s like a little smokier than Diana Ross’s, right?”
“Yeah. It’s so sexy. So are you guys just passing through?”
“We’re in a band,” Meg says. “Well, I am, not Colby. It’s a girl band. We’re playing a show at The Alibi tonight.”
“You should come,” I say.
“Yeah!” Meg says. “You should so come.”
“I wish I could,” the girl says. “But my baby is with the sitter and I have to go straight home when my shift is over.”
“That sucks.” Meg looks away from the girl, crestfallen, but then her eyes focus on the record in her hand and she gets a little brighter. “I’m going to buy this,” she says, and sets The Marvelettes record on to the counter.
“You’ll love it. I have all of their albums. The Supremes’, too. I even have all the EPs.”
“Wow, really?”
She nods. “And some other groups.”
“So you’re a collector?” I ask, flipping through a stack of postcards as the girl rings Meg up.
She nods. “Yeah. It’s why I got the job here. I needed the store discount. Plus sometimes it’s hard to track down the rare recordings, so it helps to know all the distributors.”
“So do you keep your collection at your house?” Meg asks.
“Yeah.”
“Do you live close?” Meg tries to act casual, but it’s clear she’s looking for an invitation.
“Yeah,” the girl says again. “Just a few blocks away. Are you sticking around for a couple days?”
Meg and I shake our heads. “We have a gig tomorrow,” I say. “In Weaverville. An afternoon show.”
I choose a postcard to send to Dad and Uncle Pete, a photo montage comprised of a bald eagle, an American flag, and a forest. It’s so random and dramatic—I know they’ll love it. I get out my wallet but the girl tells me not to worry about it, so I slip it in my backpack.
“God, I would love to see those records,” Meg says. “They’re, like, the original albums? From the sixties? Do you have Meet the Supremes?”
“Yeah, I have all of them.”
“Where Did Our Love Go?”
She nods. “I have two. One of them is autographed.”
Meg’s eyes get wide. “Who signed it?”
The girl smiles.
“Florence?”
She shakes her head, no.
“Mary?”
No, again.
Meg looks like she’s about to pass out. She opens her mouth, but it’s like she can’t even bring herself to say the name.
I help her out: “Diana?”
“Yeah,” the girl says. “I had to save for months. Here you go.”
She holds Meg’s record out to her, now packaged in a flat, square paper bag. Meg says thanks and reaches for it, and for a moment they are both holding the record at the same time without letting go.
Then the girl releases the bag and steps back.
She nods and her eyes get far away. I can tell she’s considering something, probably counting hours and reviewing her work schedule and wondering if she really wants to have us over.
Finally, she says, “It’s great to meet someone else who loves The Supremes. Don’t forget to look up The Chiffons, too. They’re a really good group.”
“Okay,” Meg says. In spite of her attempts at nonchalance, she shrugs like she’s a little pissed off. She manages a smile, and pauses in the doorway.
“‘Come See About Me’ is my favorite.”
“Really?” the girl asks. “It’s mine, too.”
Meg waves good-bye, and we walk out into the late afternoon sunshine. Alexa has joined Bev already, so we go sit with them on the grass. Meg tells them the whole story.
“It’s so disappointing,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I mean, how often do you meet someone who not only has the exact same favorite group as you but also the exact same favorite song by that group?”
“Yeah.”
“And it was so obvious that she wanted to invite us over and I clearly wanted to see her record collection. I’ve never met anyone, except your parents and their weird friends—”
“What are you talking about? Our friends are great.”
“—who even has a record collection at all. I even bought this record from her and I don’t have a record player.”
“It seems like it was almost a spiritual connection,” Alexa says.
Meg scowls. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
Bev takes a break from carving to look up and ask, “Why’d you buy a record if you don’t have any way to play it?”
“Because,” Meg says, “that’s what you do when someone tells you something is great. You take that risk.”
“And at least now you’ll have something to put on if you do get a record player someday,” I add.
Bev nods like I’ve made a valid point, and turns back to her work. Her hand is covering most of the figure, but the size and wild hair makes me pretty sure it’s Walt.
The show is in a bar called The Alibi, which is next door to another bar, The Serenader, and next door to that is our hotel. We check in, carry our bags up three fights of wide, red-carpeted stairs, and then try to enter the bar. Alexa explains to the bouncer that we are the band. She’s already told us that, according to California law, you have to be eighteen or older to perform in a bar that does not also serve food, so we pull out our IDs. Mine, Bev’s, and Meg’s are real. Alexa’s once belonged to Jessica Perez, who graduated a year ahead of us.
He lets us in and we carry all of the equipment past a group of guys and girls who barely look older than us, dressed in corduroys and flowy skirts and sandals, and then past older people with bad teeth and loud voices, until we reach the stage in back.
For a while, the girls just move around on the stage, taking instruments out of cases, plugging things in. I take a seat at the bar and Meg strums a low note; Alexa pounds a beat on her drums. Bev sings a phrase into the microphone, then steps back, picks up her guitar, and tunes it with her ear to the wood. A huge, porcelain mermaid looks over the stage with seaweed hair and a gold tail and glossy, white skin. I start to sketch the stage and the mermaid, but before long I’m just sketching Bev as she leans against a wall and waits for the rest of them to finish setting up. All the men in the bar are watching the three of them move. There is the promise of something good.
They start to play, and the bartender remains impassive.
Bev shouts the opening lines to their first song. A balding guy with a ponytail thrashes his head to what should be a beat. “Yeah!” he yells with what I think is complete sincerity. He continues to thrash for so long that I wonder if he might be hard of hearing, but a little after the second song begins—“Silence on my mind, silence on my mind/You interrupt me, all the time, all the time”—he gives up and returns to his drink.
We stay at the bar for a while after the show. I sit with Alexa and watch Bev from across the room as she talks to a girl with long red hai
r. The redhead throws back her head when she laughs, and she laughs often. She is the kind of girl that I would think was hot if she weren’t hanging on Bev like an accessory. If the sight of her hand on Bev’s waist didn’t make my stomach hurt. Bev leans over the pool table and moves the cue back and forth between her fingers. I think of this song they keep playing in the car about a girl who watches constellations change with the pool balls, and the redhead leans over to whisper something in Bev’s ear, and I feel so ready for something new.
So I leave Alexa and sit up at the bar and talk shit with the bartender. I’m such a cliché except for the fact that he’s pouring me soda waters instead of shots and doesn’t seem all that sympathetic to what I’m going through.
“Just one drink,” I plead.
“The only drink you’re getting from me is one I’d give to my five-year-old.” He slices a lime and sticks it on the lip of my glass. A consolation prize.
“You’re with the band?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Just you and those girls?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you score that?”
“I wouldn’t say any scoring took place.”
I squeeze the lime into my drink. Sip. It does nothing for me.
“Just one,” I say again. “Then I’ll leave you alone, I swear.”
He leans on the counter, close to me.
“Compel me.”
This guy has huge shoulders and arms and a tight motorcycle shirt. His thick neck is covered in skull tattoos, but there is something in his face. Openness, maybe. Or just something kind. So I lean forward on the bar stool until our faces are close and I don’t have to shout, and I say, “I just graduated from high school. I don’t have a job or a car or an apartment. I’m not going to college. And I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.”
He shakes his head with sympathy.
“That’s part of it,” I say.
“What’s the other part?”
I turn to look for Bev, who is now making out with the redhead in the corner, point, and say, “I’m in love with that girl.”
He squints to see better.
“Shit,” he says.
I nod.
The bartender shakes his head again, says, “Kid, you’re killing me,” and pours me the biggest shot of whiskey I’ve seen in my eighteen years on Earth.