Perfect Tunes

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Perfect Tunes Page 6

by Emily Gould


  She knew that if she waited for the perfect moment, it would never come, and of course part of her didn’t want it to. The thought of playing for a large crowd that had come to hear the Clips and would likely hate her music was terrifying. But she didn’t want to look like an idiot to Amanda, and she also wanted to give herself a chance to be serious. If nothing else, Dylan would have to take her seriously after seeing her perform on a real stage. He would finally understand that she wasn’t a subway busker. He would start to see her as an equal, a partner.

  They woke up the morning after a late night, hungover as usual. There was a cool breeze blowing in through Dylan’s open window from the direction of the East River, bringing with it a briny smell that cut through the dirty laundry and ashtray fug of his bedroom. Laura rested her head on Dylan’s chest and traced his bicep tattoo, an outline of an anchor.

  “What are you doing today?” she asked.

  “Practice, write songs, meet up with everyone at Joe’s later,” he told her.

  “What if we went to the beach instead?”

  “What beach?”

  “I don’t know, Coney Island? We could just get on the F and be at the beach in an hour. Summer’s almost over, and I haven’t been to the beach.”

  “Is this a date?”

  “Yes, this is an extremely romantic date,” Laura said, rolling her eyes at him. Being opposed to “dating” was one of Dylan’s things; he had drunkenly rambled something once about how the construct was artificial and oppressive. But he was malleable today for some reason and smoked a cigarette instead of a joint as she hurried around his apartment, throwing things into a tote bag: towels from the floor of the bathroom, a soda bottle refilled with water from the tap, an opened bag of pretzels. They were both pasty and would need sunscreen, but she could buy it on the way. Her black underwear would be fine as a bathing suit. She hustled them down the sidewalk toward the F so that Dylan wouldn’t have time to think better of the plan. They ate the pretzels on the way and looked out the window, sharing headphones attached to Dylan’s Discman, listening to Belle and Sebastian with their shoulders and hips pressed together. Her hand brushed his accidentally, and he reached out and grabbed it, which made Laura feel a stunning burst of happiness.

  It was a perfect beach day, with a high, blindingly blue sky. Neither of them had brought sunglasses, so they bought novelty pairs with neon pink rims from a boardwalk vendor. When they passed a photo booth Dylan wordlessly grabbed her hand and pulled her into the darkness inside it, put money into the slot, and then ducked down out of the camera’s frame so that it would catch only her expression as he knelt between her legs for a few insane and unexpected seconds, then, grinning, stopped when their time in the booth was up and pulled her back out into the sunlight, reeling and dully aching with unsatisfied desire. They didn’t wait for the photos to come out. The beach was crowded and filthy, littered with trash and suntan-oil-glistening bodies of all kinds, from very large older people to impossibly wasp-waisted teenagers in tiny bright-colored swimsuits. Laura ran down the wide expanse of sand, dodging bodies on blankets all the way to the edge of the water, then stripped down to her bra and underwear. She coaxed Dylan into taking off his shirt, and they stood in the knee-deep surf where the waves were breaking. She reached down into the water and grabbed handfuls of it, using her hands as paddles to splash him so that he’d have to go in all the way.

  The waves were wild and huge, and the water was a thick, soupy beer-bottle green. They dove and then floated, trying to ignore whatever brushed against them and hope that it was seaweed. Laura was a good swimmer; she’d always loved the water. “I’ll race you to that soda bottle that’s floating over there,” she said breathlessly after dipping down and then hurling her wet hair back away from her face.

  “No, I can’t,” said Dylan. His deep voice wavered in a way she hadn’t heard before.

  “Yeah, you can, come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll give you a head start.”

  “I really can’t. I mean, I can’t swim,” he said quietly. He was tall enough that his feet touched the bottom where they were standing, even though Laura was treading water.

  “Oh! Well, if you start to drown, I’ll save you. I’m very strong.”

  Laura paddled over to where Dylan was standing and rubbed her mostly naked body against him. He felt so warm against the cool water. She ran her hands down the length of his long pale back, loving how it tapered down from his shoulders. He had the kind of body that would always look good, no matter what he did to it; beauty inhered in his proportions, his graceful slender hips, angled perfectly to press into her exactly where she wanted to be pressed. She lifted her face up so that he could lean down and kiss her, but he was shivering.

  “I’m gonna get out, okay? I’m too afraid of losing my balance,” he said, and headed for the shore, leaving her no choice but to trail after him, awkwardly bodysurfing the small wave that carried her all the way in.

  They dried off with the gross towels Laura had packed, then put their clothes on and headed back to the boardwalk because Dylan wanted to get a beer and go on a ride. Laura got an ice-cream cone and licked it pensively while Dylan chugged his entire first beer, then bought another one right away. They walked down the boardwalk toward the Cyclone, and Dylan reached for Laura’s hand again. Laura thought about whether anyone they passed would recognize Dylan and wonder who his girlfriend was.

  They rode home as the sun was setting, watching the last of the day wash over the exotic faraway neighborhoods as the elevated train passed avenues far into the alphabet, beautiful and ugly streets alike rendered cinematic by the golden light. Dylan smelled objectively bad, because he was unshowered and sweaty and had alcohol oozing from his pores, and though Laura was a little bit self-conscious about what their fellow passengers thought, to her he smelled good.

  The train was full of smells of its own, and raucous noises of sunburned families coming home laden with inflatable toys and buckets and chairs, shouting at one another. Dylan swayed and nodded. She had to ask him now. The worst he could say was no. It would be humiliating to admit to Amanda that she’d lied. She could always say it had been canceled or called off for some reason beyond her control, but Amanda had barely believed her to start with and would definitely not believe any excuse she proffered. On the other hand, who even cared what Amanda thought? She had just given Laura an excuse to do something she’d wanted to do anyway.

  She didn’t want to seem pathetic. She wanted to seem triumphant, like she was conquering her new New York life and beginning her real musical career. And she also, despite her fears, wanted to play for a big audience. Some of them might like her music, and those people would become her fans. Then her band would be real, and playing in a band could become the focus of her life, the way it was the focus of Dylan’s. She wouldn’t have to feel like she was waiting to fail definitively so that she could give up and get back to real life, the way her father had. That was the version of her future that her mother and brothers probably envisioned, if they even bothered to envision her future. But Laura now had access to a different vision: given the chance, she now knew she could be like Dylan, or better. If Dylan could manage to be Dylan even though he barely bothered to make an effort at anything in his offstage life, then she should be able to do as well as he did. She tried so much harder than he did all the time.

  She thought about explaining all of this to Dylan, but he would probably fall asleep before she got to the point. So instead she just asked, point-blank, whether he thought her band was good enough to open for his.

  He was breathing with his mouth open, head on her shoulder, almost dozing, but he perked up for a moment. “Of course you’re good, baby. I love your little songs.”

  “Okay, well, do you think you could talk to someone about putting us on the bill before your next show?”

  He shook himself more awake. “It’s in DC, next Tuesday. You work Tuesdays, right?”

  “I can get someone to cover for me,” sh
e said, trying to keep her tone casual as the thrill of terror and joy vibrated through her entire body. Dylan probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He curled up and dozed off for real just as the stations began to be more recognizable, and then the train dove back underground for the final time. Soon she was shaking him awake at Second Avenue, wiping at the spot of his drool that had pooled on her shoulder, composing a triumphant email to Amanda in her mind. She couldn’t wait to tell Callie. They would have to practice with Zach, but there was a whole weekend to prepare. They could become professionals by then.

  * * *

  Sound check was a train wreck. At first Laura couldn’t hear Callie or Zach, only herself, and they played half a song before the guy in the booth’s agonized shouts overpowered Laura’s nervous determination to just muscle through. They must have all been playing at completely different speeds; she heard a moment of Callie’s amplified voice and registered how bad it sounded, how clearly she was improvising some unrelated tune rather than actually singing harmony. But then they got the levels adjusted and somehow all managed to chug through “Can I Call You?”—even beginning to have fun by the end of it, getting excited by the sound of their voices so loud and clear in the enormous empty room and prancing like horses from end to end of the enormous stage.

  “It feels like we’re getting away with something. Like, is this all a joke?” Callie asked as they packed their gear away again at the end of their allotted fourteen minutes. “How is it possible that we’re playing a venue this big with no album, no single, and a set that’s five songs long?”

  “We can write more songs—I mean, I’m already writing more songs,” said Laura. “This is how we get to record an album. Someone will see us tonight and make it happen.”

  They clambered clumsily down off the stage, into the darkness of the cavernous empty room. There were several hours to kill before the show, too long to spend backstage, and it would have been a perfect time to get dinner if Laura hadn’t been too nervous to eat. Instead, she sat at a diner with Zach and Callie and watched them eat pancakes and burgers, listlessly sipping a Coke and nibbling the hard edge of one of Zach’s fries. The Clips had traveled separately, in a giant black van with their expensive guitars and amps. She wanted to at least see Dylan before she played. She didn’t think he would give her a pep talk or anything, but she knew that touching him for a minute would ease her fear and replace it temporarily with brainless lust. They were probably there now, unloading, sitting backstage and passing one of the ludicrously oversize blunts that Dylan rolled. It seemed almost possible that he’d forgotten that he’d arranged for the Groupies to open.

  But when they got back to the dressing room, no one from the Clips was anywhere she could see. The sound guy told them with bored, irritated indifference to hurry up and get onstage, so they did. Laura looked out at a sea of studiously indifferent faces. Clearly, the crowd was just holding their places near the stage so that they wouldn’t have to push through and fight for them when the Clips came on. The music from the PA died, but the crowd didn’t stop talking. Callie and Laura stood there waiting for them to stop for a few minutes, but they still didn’t. Laura made eye contact with Callie and smiled, but Callie looked pissed-off and scared. Laura had just had a weird flash of inspiration. If they were going to be completely ignored, then this was a chance to do whatever they wanted, without trying to please anyone. She put down her guitar and picked up the toy piano that she used to plink out a solo on “I Want My Tapes Back,” and began to play that song’s opening lines on it. Callie walked over and whispered in her ear, “Um, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Who cares? It doesn’t matter, they don’t care what we do. Isn’t that kind of great?”

  “No, it’s humiliating!” Callie hissed.

  “Or it’s great! Let’s just sing the song and see what happens, okay?”

  Callie gave her a freaked-out stare, but she sauntered back over to behind her own microphone. They started to sing “I Want My Tapes Back,” accompanied only by the plink plink of the little piano. Laura sang slower than usual, making sure every word was crisp and audible, and for once Callie was actually able to harmonize, so that they sounded funny and sweet but a little bit eerie, like a pair of creepy baby ghosts in a horror movie, singing about a high school breakup.

  The chatting, indifferent audience was still louder than they were, but some people in front, at least, were turning their attention toward the stage. Laura could see them looking up at her—the lights in this room were focused on the stage, but there were scattered spots on the audience, too, and she could see individual faces. They looked befuddled, but some of them—girls, mostly—were smiling. One girl, standing in front of her taller boyfriend who had his arms wrapped around her from behind, was beaming up at the stage. The dude behind her looked off to the side, too cool to even deign to notice whatever was going on.

  Laura put down the toy piano at the end of the verse and picked up her guitar, letting the crowd noise rise into her silence. Callie looked over at her again, and without exchanging words both of them understood themselves to be on the same page. They launched into the chorus of the song with gusto, amplified louder than they ever had been before, shout-screaming over the pounding of Zach’s drums. They sang the chorus through again and again, getting faster every time. It sounded unhinged, but every time they did it they got a little bit better. By the fifth and final time, a few people were singing along. When they stopped playing there was a smattering of applause, and some laughter.

  Were they laughing because the Groupies were ridiculous? Or were they just laughing at the spectacle of girls having fun, doing whatever they wanted in front of a huge crowd that wasn’t there to see them and couldn’t care less? It didn’t matter, Laura realized as she started playing “Can I Call You?” The point was for her to have fun, and for Callie to have fun, playing, and for the rest of their set that’s what they did. They marched all over the giant stage, told jokes, danced with each other, theatrically tossed their hair and leaped in the air like they were in a metal band from the eighties. The crowd never completely stopped ignoring them; near the bar, out in the room, the low hum of conversation still competed with their music. But that girl in her indifferent boyfriend’s arms in the front row eventually broke free of his grasp and stood a foot in front of him, eyes closed and dancing like she was in her own private universe.

  2

  At nine the night had barely begun at Bar Lafitte. There was only one table in Laura’s section: tourists drinking light beers who seemed lost and likely wouldn’t stay. A new hostess had seated them, correctly, at a table deep in shadow. Laura was glad she wasn’t a hostess anymore, even though it had been easier than being a waitress. The patrons could be disgusting, and she still avoided being alone even momentarily with Stefan. But she had begun to develop patterns of speech and thought that made her job easier and protected her real self inside a persona. Besides, she made much better money, which was useful since she was working fewer shifts, scheduling them around nights when the Groupies could play or practice. Being in a band made it easier to be a waitress, too. She could remind herself, in unpleasant moments, of her moment of triumph onstage in DC. That was the true Laura, the one who’d fearlessly converted a crowd; the Laura who had to laugh at a table of NYU seniors’ sexist jokes was earning money so that the real Laura could book studio time and finish her album.

  She was standing by the service bar when her cell phone rang. She hurried to silence it—they weren’t supposed to carry phones, but everyone did—and surreptitiously checked to see the caller ID. Amanda. Out of curiosity, she dumped her table’s round of Bud Lights and then went out into the back alley to smoke a cigarette and return the call.

  Amanda picked up on the first ring. “Oh, good! I caught you. Is this a good time to talk?”

  “Not really, I’m at work. But I could talk later? Well, much later. Or tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure? I have big news. You work at Bar
Lafitte, right? I could come by and tell you in person.”

  “I don’t know—it gets kind of busy.”

  “Trust me, you’re going to be excited. I’m near there, I’ll see in you in twenty.” She hung up the phone before Laura could protest any more.

  True to her word, Amanda came through the door about twenty minutes later, sailing past the hostess stand to sit down at the bar, where she made herself at home, ordering a cosmo and striking up a conversation with the bartender, who was early enough in his shift that he still could be bothered to have social interactions. Laura had a few more tables by then—luckily, she’d thought as she’d waited for Amanda to arrive, because it gave her something to do while she waited besides speculate nervously about what the news might be.

  She scanned the room to see whether Stefan was anywhere nearby and then motioned Amanda to follow her through the dark hallway stacked with spare chairs and out into the alley. Amanda took her ridiculous pink drink with her, managing, waitress-like, not to spill a drop from the precarious triangular glass. She balanced it on a ledge and took out her cigarette pack. Of course, hers were Marlboro Lights. There was a manic gleam in her eyes.

  “I loved the show you guys did in DC, and I pitched a story about you to my editor. He said yes! I’m going to get a byline, and soon I won’t have to answer his phone anymore!”

  Laura smiled. “Well, that’s great news for you. And I guess it’s good news for me.”

  “We’ll do a photo shoot and everything. Are you opening for the Clips on the rest of their tour? The idea is to interview you and Dylan together—talk about how you influence each other, how your bands are coming up at the same time, that kind of thing.”

  Laura paused. That didn’t sound like something Dylan would appreciate at all. Maybe she could convince him to at least show up to the interview, though she cringed inwardly imagining how high he’d probably get beforehand and how unintelligible he might be. Still, it was a music magazine; that was probably par for the course. Callie would lose her mind over this; being in a magazine was exactly what she’d always dreamed of. She would plan their outfits with such meticulous care. And it was what Laura had dreamed of, too, in a way. If it led to more moments on the stage like the one she’d experienced a week ago, it would be worth whatever she had to do to get there.

 

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