by Gayle Forman
It hits me, belatedly, that Penny might not want a wheelchair ramp. But she definitely will not want the shoddy one we half built. And after years of being Lucied, maybe it’s time for me to yank the football. So I tell Ike to fix the ramp. “Just don’t expect me to pay for it.”
For the next few hours, I listen to the sound of hammering, sawing, man sounds coming from outside while inside I stew. Because I know the other shoe is going to drop. They’ll come in here in a few hours extorting large sums of money.
At five, Ira heads upstairs to make dinner, so it’s just me in the store when Ike returns, just like I knew he would. And I’m ready for him. I’ve already put aside a twenty, enough for two happy-hour pitchers at Jimmy’s. But that’s all he’s getting from me.
“We’re outa dayli . . .” Ike begins, the rest of the sentence dying on his lips as he surveys the store: the teetering piles of books, the saucepans of water, the bruise-like stains on the ceiling.
When Ike sees the collapsed shelf, he gasps. He runs his hands down the crack, frowning so deeply the furrows in his face could collect water. “Is this mahogany?”
I shrug. “I guess so.”
“Wood like that don’t splinter without a reason.”
“If you say so.”
“You gonna fix it?”
“Replace it. We have metal shelves in the basement.”
Ike literally shudders. “You can’t replace that beauty with metal. Maybe we could—”
And here it is. The revised bid. The yanked football. “Thank you for your help,” I cut him off, sliding the twenty across the counter, meeting his eye with my best tough-guy look.
Ike stares at the money, turns back toward the shelf. Then he shakes his head and, without touching the money, without saying another word, leaves.
Gone Girl
I’m closing up the following night when Chad rolls in.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Wow. You really need to improve your customer-service experience.” He looks around the store. “Thought I’d test out the ramp. It works.” He makes jazz hands, his callused fingers poking out from his gloves.
“Good to know.” I pause. “If that’s all, we’re closing.”
“Uhh, what about that book?”
“What book?”
“The Wonder Woman?”
Right. The book. Yesterday turned into such a clusterfuck that I wound up not telling Ira about selling the store. I planned to tell him all day today but he was distracted and out of sorts, so now it’s got to be tonight.
“Do you have it?” Chad asks.
Sighing, I dig under what used to be our well-organized graphic novel/media section to find a couple of Batgirl issues. “Will these do?”
Chad shrugs. “Why not?”
“You want both? They’re two bucks each.”
Chad nods, reaching into a satchel attached to his chair. It’s black and covered in skater patches. He undoes one of the Velcro pockets and pulls out a five. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks.” I put the bill in the cash register, but Chad’s still waiting. I open the door for him, figuring he might need help, but he just waits there.
“Least I could do for all the trouble you went through to put in that ramp,” he says.
“Whatever. It’s fine.” I’m not mad anymore. I’m just tired. And nervous. I can hear Ira padding around upstairs. I can feel the weight of what I have to tell him.
“Umm . . .” Chad rolls back and forth, his version of pacing, I will learn. “I gotta confession to make.”
“What?” I ask.
“See, the thing is . . . I didn’t come here for a comic book.”
“Did you want something else?” This happens, or used to happen, a surprising amount. Guys coming in making a lot of noise about political biographies they heard about but then quietly asking if we also happen to have that Fifty Shades of Grey book.
“I didn’t come for any book,” Chad says.
“What’d you come for?”
“So, this is gonna sound mad shady . . .”
I get that feeling, that midair, about-to-land-on-my-back, Charlie Brown dread.
“And like I’m hella sly,” Chad continues, “which I am, but that’s not what happened yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“See, the reason I came over was not to buy a comic book or any book or even because I wanted a ramp.” Chad inspects a stain on his pants with great interest. “I came over because after I saw you at the gig the other night I wanted to see if you wanted to go to another Beethoven’s Anvil gig. I thought you could try to sell your brother’s records again.”
“I’m not selling his records.”
“Oh. Well, either way, I thought you might want to come with me tomorrow night, which is now tonight. Right now in fact.”
I let that settle for a moment, unsure if I heard right. “You conned me into building a ramp because you wanted me to go to a music show with you?”
“Con is a strong word, wouldn’t you say?”
“Is it, Chad? Is it? I wrecked my hands.” I hold out my swollen fists. “And we got all the Lumberjacks involved and I’m pretty sure they’re going to shake me down for it.”
Chad chuckles. “Yeah, things did kinda spin out of control, but it’s cool you have a ramp because now I can come visit you and I’m sorry I didn’t just ask you if you wanted to come to the gig, but I was worried you’d say no.”
“You were scared I’d say no?”
Chad shrugs. “I don’t have a lot of friends left in town, you know. And I’ve sure as shit never seen anyone I know at a Beethoven’s Anvil show.”
“I wasn’t at the show! And Chad, you and I are not friends. We’ve never been friends.”
“Harsh!”
“You want harsh? You threw a beer can at me! From a moving car. I was walking with a girl I liked and who liked me back but after that she didn’t.”
“Oh, man, I cockblocked you . . . ?” I wait for Chad to laugh. To tell me to lighten up. Take a joke. That it’s ancient history. That I should put it in perspective because he’s in a wheelchair. But he just stares at his lap, shaking his head. “I used to be a real tool.” He looks up at me. “I’m really sorry.”
The apology catches me completely off guard. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
“That it was,” Chad says solemnly. “Anyhow, I won’t bug you anymore. I’m sorry about the ramp. And your hands. And the beer can. And, you know, all of it.”
He heads toward the door, shoulders slumped. He looks so pathetic. And Ira, well, I can tell him tomorrow.
“Hey, Chad,” I call.
He turns around.
“Let me grab my jacket.”
* * *
It’s only when we’re zipping down the interstate, forty miles out of town, that the rest of Chad’s confession comes out. “So,” he says casually. “The club we’re going to, Maxwell’s, it has some issues.”
“What kind of issues?”
“Like a couple of stairs.”
“A couple?”
“Maybe a flight.”
“A flight of stairs?” I pause. “How are we supposed to get you up a flight of stairs?”
“Down, actually.”
“How are we supposed to get you down a flight of stairs?”
“That part’s easy,” Chad says. “You ask Hannah.”
“Who’s Hannah?”
“Hannah Crew. She’s the lead singer of Beethoven’s Anvil. And she’s awesome.”
“Awesome as in so physically strong she’s going to carry you down the stairs?”
Chad laughs at this. “Man, that would be sweet, but she’s like five-two. Naw, but she’ll find people who will. Trust me. She does it all the time. All you have
to do is go into the club, find her, ask her, and the rest is gravy.”
“Is this why you came by the store? Not to invite me to go to the show but to trick me into getting you carried into the club?”
Chad grins. “Trick is a strong word, wouldn’t you say?”
“How about bamboozle? Hoodwink? Dupe?”
“You have an impressive vocabulary, dawg. I bet you aced your SATs.”
I got 740 on the reading section, not that it did me any good.
“You’re an unreliable narrator, you know that?” I tell him.
“Is that like the guy who narrates the telenovela on Jane the Virgin?”
“It’s when the person telling you the story is maybe not telling you the entire truth. Sometimes it’s because they can’t see it themselves. But other times it’s because they are trying to deceive you.”
“Oh, you mean like Amy in Gone Girl?”
“You’ve read Gone Girl?” I ask, impressed, because Amy is exactly what I mean by unreliable narrator.
“It was a book? I thought it was a movie.”
“It was a book before it was a movie.”
“Oh. Didn’t know that.” Chad drums a little beat on the steering wheel. “Look, I get that recent evidence makes me seem like a grade-A douche, but I really did want to hang with you. I was bummed you didn’t stick around the other night. And you’ll dig the band.”
“I doubt it. I don’t really get into music like other people do.”
“Well, you might not get into music, but you’re gonna love Beethoven’s Anvil.”
Chad will turn out to be right. About this, and so much more.
* * *
Chad drops me off in front of the club, instructing me to find this Hannah and tell her that he’s upstairs. He promises she’ll take care of the rest. After I pay my cover and get my hand stamped I realize Chad has not told me how to find Hannah or even what she looks like. The club is dark, cavernous, and full of music hipsters. I could not feel more out of place if it were full of Elvis impersonators.
I try asking the bartender but I can’t even get his attention. I try asking someone at the merch table but no matter how loud I yell, he can’t hear me. The whole thing is making me nervous, which in turn is making me have to pee. I’m looking for the bathrooms when all of a sudden a door swings open and on the other side of it I see a girl quietly reading a book, as if this were a library, not a music club.
A strange little tingle shimmies up my spine.
And then I see what she’s reading. The Magician’s Nephew.
Officially this is the sixth volume in the Chronicles of Narnia, but it really is the first. Lewis wrote it as a prequel. Everyone’s read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but only the hardcore fans get to book six.
The tingle spreads out through my entire body.
When Ira stopped for Mom all those years ago, she nearly didn’t get in the car. Ira had been on the road for four weeks, and looked it: unruly beard, haunted eyes, back seat full of books and food wrappers. “He was throwing off some serious Charles Manson vibes,” Mom said. She almost bolted, but something stopped her. And that something was a song.
“As soon as I heard it, I got this whole-body feeling,” Mom used to tell me. “I know it sounds crazy but it was like a message from future me to present me, telling me that in some way, this man and I, we weren’t just bound to happen, that we had, in some sense, already happened. It felt . . . inevitable.”
I stare at this girl, reading this book, my heart thundering so loud she must hear it. Because she looks up. She has dark brown eyes and a constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Can I help you?”
I remember why I’m there. “Sorry, I’m looking for Hannah. Hannah Crew.”
She puts the book down. “Then you’re looking for me.”
My ears start to ring, the way they will after every Beethoven’s Anvil show I ever go to.
Inevitable.
Oh, fuck!
* * *
For once, Chad has not exaggerated, and Hannah does exactly what he promised. She corrals a bunch of guys to carry him and his chair down the stairs and then personally pushes him through the crowd, situating us right next to the speaker.
“Can you make a buffer for these two?” she asks the people around us. “In case the pit gets too wild.” They say yes. I will come to find that people always say yes to Hannah.
“Unless you wanna crowd-surf me,” Chad says, grinning at the attention. “Wouldn’t say no to that.”
“No, I doubt you would,” Hannah says. “Come find us backstage when you’re ready to go and we’ll get you back out.”
“Thanks, Hannah,” Chad says, nudging me in the ribs. “Say thank you.”
“Thank you,” I repeat.
“Anytime,” Hannah replies, and then she leaps, almost balletically, like the cheerleader I will learn she once was, onto the stage.
Chad watches her go. “Amazing, right?”
My ears are ringing like mad. My heart is palpitating. I feel sick. There’s no way this girl is my inevitable. No matter what she’s reading. And anyway, even if she were, I don’t want her to be. I’ve learned inevitable only ever bites you in the ass.
“Can I have your keys?” I ask Chad. “I’ll wait in the truck.”
“Why?”
“I really don’t wanna be here. I mean, I’m happy to get you in and all but I’d rather not watch the show.”
Chad stares at me. “What’s your problem, dawg?”
“Nothing! I told you, music isn’t my thing.”
“How do you know something’s not your thing if you’ve never experienced it?”
“I have experienced music.”
“But not this music.”
“I haven’t experienced waterboarding, either, but I can confidently say that I wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Chad sulks. “I wouldn’t have asked you to come just for the ride. I thought you wanted to hear the band.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. I just did it as a favor to you.”
“Next time, spare me your pity.”
“Can I have the keys? I’ll keep my phone on if you need anything.”
Just as Chad reaches for his keys, though, the lights dim and the crowd surges forward.
“Too late now,” Chad says. “You’re gonna get anvilled whether you want to or not.”
* * *
I spend most of the band’s short, loud set trying to get away from the giant speaker, which is throbbing in time with my blooming headache. But there’s a scrum of fans swirling around and every time I step away from the Chad Buffer Zone, I am attacked by elbows and feet, assaulted by shrieking. After a while, I surrender to it, slumping, fingers in my ears, looking at everything but the girl on the stage who I cannot stop looking at.
The set finally ends. “Can we go now?” I ask Chad as the band leaves the stage.
“You really hate joy, don’t you?” Chad says.
“I told you I don’t like music.”
“Fine. Let’s go say hi to the band.”
“Can’t we just leave?”
“You gonna carry me up the stairs?” Chad asks. “We need Hannah’s help. And besides, I wanna say thanks.”
We push though the throngs, Chad jubilantly calling, “Cripple coming through,” which parts the crowds nearly as effectively as Hannah did.
In the greenroom, Chad introduces me to the rest of the band—Libby on drums, Claudia on bass, and Jax on lead guitar. I think those are their names. My ears are ringing for real now and I can’t hear.
I look around for Hannah. When I don’t see her, I’m relieved.
And disappointed.
“You rocked so hard tonight,” Chad gushes to Jax. “Legit fuego. Thought you were gonna blast me outa my seat.”
> “Thanks,” Jax says. “I could see you from the stage.”
“Who wants a beer?” Claudia asks, pulling cans off a six-pack.
I shake my head. “Not for me.”
“I’ll take his,” Chad jokes, reaching for mine.
“You said we’re leaving.”
“Chill, dawg. It will take me precisely five minutes to suck down two beers.” Chad grins at the band. “Don’t mind him. He hates music.”
“I do not!”
“Who hates music?”
And already, I know her voice.
“Aaron does!” Chad crows.
I swivel around to find Hannah Crew. She holds a club soda out to Jax and gives me an amused smirk.
“I never said I hated music,” I explain.
“Dawg, you compared listening to the band to waterboarding!”
Hannah’s left eyebrow arches. A tiny scar runs down the center of it. “Never heard that one before.”
“I was being hyperbolic,” I explain.
“Hyperbolic?” Hannah asks.
“He likes big words. He’s book smart like that,” Chad explains. “His family even owns a bookstore.”
“Really?” Libby asks. “Which one?”
“Bluebird Books,” I say.
“That used bookstore?” Libby asks, saying the name of our town.
“That’s the one,” I say.
“So . . .” Hannah drawls. “Owning a bookstore equals hating music?”
“I don’t hate music!”
“Puh-leeze,” Chad says. “An hour ago, he was begging to leave. And he still can’t wait to get out of here.” He turns to me, knocking his temple with his knuckles. “We haven’t even tried to sell your records.”
“You’re selling records?” Claudia leans forward, suddenly interested.
I shoot a death glare at Chad. “I told you I’m not selling records.”
“So you didn’t have a crate of vinyl at the Outhouse the other night?” Chad asks me.
“I did, but . . .” I trail off.
“So let me get this straight,” Hannah says, crushing her soda can in her tiny hands. “You’re selling records and you’ve been to two of our shows in the past week but you hate music?”