“Quiet here in this spare room, but you can hear it, hear it . . .”
The crowd was loving it, cheering, some girls along the back row singing along, hands on their hearts, like washed-up divas on the Labor Day telethon.
I looked over at the bar, where Chloe was staring right at me, but she didn’t have a smug look, instead something even worse. It might have been pity, but I turned my head away before I could know for sure. And a few seats down from her, the A&R chick was swaying, smiling. She loved it.
I got up from the booth. All around me the crowd was singing along to the song, one they’d heard all their lives too, but never quite in the context that I had. To them it was just old and sappy enough now to be nostalgic, a song their parents might have listened to. It was probably played at their bar mitzvahs or sisters’ weddings, trotted out about the same time as “Daddy’s Little Girl” and “Butterfly Kisses.” But it was working. The appeal was obvious, the energy coming through the crowd so strongly, the kind of response that Ted, in a million potato dreams, wouldn’t even have hoped for.
“I will let you down,” Dexter sang as I pushed my way toward the bar. “But this lullaby plays on. . . .”
I went to the bathroom, where for once there was no line, and shut myself into a stall. Then I sat down, pulled my hands through my hair, and told myself to calm down. It meant nothing, this song. All my life I’d let other people put so much weight to it, until it was heavy enough to drown me, but it was just music. But even there, locked in the stall, I could still hear it going, those notes I’d known by heart for as long as I could remember, now twisted and different, with another man I hardly knew who had some claim to me, however small, singing the words.
What had my mother always said when we listened to it on the one scratchy album she owned of my dad, back when we still had a record player? His gift to you, she’d tell me, idly brushing my hair back from my forehead with a dreamy expression, as if someday I’d truly understand how important this was. By then, she had already forgotten the bad times with my father, the ones I heard secondhand: how they were dirt-poor, how he’d hardly spent any time with Chris when he was a baby, and only married her—not even legally, it turned out—in a last-ditch attempt to save a relationship already beyond repair. What a legacy. What a gift. It was like a parting prize in a game show where I’d lost big, a handful of Rice-A-Roni and some cheap luggage thrust upon me as I left, little consolation.
The final note sounded: the drum cymbals hummed. Then, huge applause, cheering. It was over.
Okay then. I walked out of the bathroom and headed straight to the bar, where Chloe was sitting on a stool with a bored expression. Truth Squad was still going, playing a medley of camp songs—played Led Zeppelin style, with crashing guitars and a lot of whooping—that I recognized as being a set-ender. The guy Chloe had been talking to was gone, Lissa was still talking to the not-cute-but-decent one, and Jess, I assumed, had used one of her regular excuses and was either “at the pay phone” or “getting something from the car.”
“What happened to the surfer boy?” I asked Chloe as she scooted over, making room for me on her stool.
“Girlfriend,” she said, nodding to a booth off on our left, where the guy was now nuzzling a redheaded girl with a pierced eyebrow.
I nodded as Ted did a few windmill guitar moves, John Miller going all out on a drum solo, his face almost as red as his hair. I wondered if Scarlett was impressed, but she’d left the booth where she’d been sitting, so I couldn’t know for sure.
“Interesting song choice earlier, didn’t you think?” Chloe asked me, pushing off the floor with her foot so that we twisted slightly in the stool, to one side and then back again. “Couldn’t help but feel that I had heard it somewhere before.”
I didn’t say anything, instead just watching as John Miller continued to battle his drum set while the crowd clapped along.
“Of all the things he should know,” she went on, “that you hate that song is a freaking given. I mean, God. It’s basic.”
“Chloe,” I said softly, “shut up, okay?”
I could feel her looking at me, slightly wide-eyed, before going back to stirring her drink with her finger. Now there was only one person between me and the A&R chick, who was jotting something down with a pencil she’d borrowed from the bartender, who was watching her write with great interest while ignoring a whole slew of people waving money for beers.
“We’re Truth Squad!” Dexter yelled, “and we’re here every Tuesday. Thank you and good night!”
The canned dance music came on, everyone pushed toward the bar, and I watched as Dexter hopped off the stage, conferred with Ted for a second, and they both began heading toward us, Lucas in tow. John Miller was already making a beeline for Scarlett, who I now saw standing by the door, as if trying to ease herself out gradually.
The A&R chick was already holding out her hand to Dexter as they came up. “Arianna Moss,” she said, and Dexter pumped her hand a bit too eagerly. “Great set.”
“Thanks,” he replied, and she kept smiling at him. I glanced across the room, looking toward the door, wondering where Jess was.
Ted, pressing closer, added, “The acoustics in here are terrible. We’d sound much better with decent equipment, and the crowd kind of sucks.”
Dexter shot him a you-aren’t-helping kind of look. “We’d love to hear what you think,” he said to her. “Can I buy you a beer?”
She glanced at her watch. “Sure. Let me just make a call first.”
As she walked away, pulling a cell phone out of her pocket, Dexter saw me, waved, and mouthed that he’d be just a minute. I shrugged, and he started to move toward me, but Ted pulled him back.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “She’s here to talk to all of us, Dexter, not just you.”
“He said we wanted to hear what she thinks,” Lucas told him. “Calm down.”
“He’s buying her a beer!” Ted said.
“That’s called public relations,” Dexter told him, glancing back in my direction. But now Arianna Moss was already coming back, tucking her phone in her pocket.
“And what was up with that song?” Ted shook his head, incredulous. “Sonny and Cher would have been better. God, anything would have been better. We might as well have had on leisure suits and been playing dinner theater with that crappy song.”
“She loved it,” Dexter said, trying to catch my eye, but I let a burly guy wearing a baseball cap step into my line of vision.
“She did,” Lucas agreed. “Plus it got us out of the bottomless pit into which ‘The Potato Song’ had flung us.”
“‘The Potato Song,’” Ted huffed, “was doing just fine. If John Miller had bothered to make it to the last band practice on time—”
“Oh, it’s always somebody else, isn’t it?” Lucas snapped.
“Shut up, you guys,” Dexter said under his breath.
“Ready to talk?” Arianna Moss asked as she walked up. She asked Dexter. I noticed, and so did Ted. But only he, of course, was truly bothered.
“Sure,” Dexter said. “Over here okay?”
“Sounds good.”
They started walking and I turned my back again, waving down the bartender for a beer as they passed. By the time I’d paid they were sitting in a booth by the door, she and Dexter on one side, Lucas and Ted on the other. She was talking: they were all listening.
Jess appeared next to my elbow. “Is it time to go yet?” she asked me.
“Where have you been?” Chloe said.
“I had to get something from the car,” Jess said flatly.
“Remy, hey, there you are.” John Miller popped up beside me. “You seen Scarlett?”
“She was over by the door last I saw her.”
He jerked his head around, eyes scanning the wall. Then he started waving his arms. “Scarlett! Over here!”
Scarlett looked up, saw us, and smiled in a way that made me think I’d been right on in assuming s
he’d been hoping to leave in-conspicuously. But John Miller was waving her over, oblivious, so she had no choice but to work her way through the crowd to us.
“You were great,” she said to John Miller, who beamed. “Really good.”
“We’re usually a lot tighter,” John Miller told her with a bit of a swagger, “but Ted was off tonight. He was late for the last practice, didn’t know the new arrangements.”
Scarlett nodded and glanced around her. The crowd at the bar was thickening, now about three deep, and people kept jostling us.
Lucas came up behind John Miller and managed to flick him on the back of the head while balancing two beers. “Hey, in case you, you know, have a minute, we’re talking to this A&R woman over here and she’s probably getting us a great gig in D.C. if, you know, you care in the least.”
John Miller rubbed the back of his head. “D.C.? Really?”
“That big theater, the one where we saw Spinnerbait that time.” Lucas grimaced. “Hate Spinnerbait, though.”
“Hate Spinnerbait,” John Miller agreed, taking one of the beers. “That’s a band,” he explained to Scarlett.
“Ah,” she said.
“Come on,” Lucas said. “She needs to talk to all of us. This could be big, man.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” John Miller said to Scarlett, squeezing her arm. “This is just, you know, official band business. Management decisions and all that.”
“Right,” Scarlett said as he followed Lucas over to the booth, where Ted made room for both of them. I could see Dexter sitting in the corner, against the wall, folding a matchbook and listening intently as Arianna Moss spoke.
“Poor you,” Chloe said to Scarlett. “He’s obsessed.”
“He’s very nice,” Scarlett said.
“He’s pathetic.” Chloe hopped off the barstool. “I’m going to the bathroom. You coming?”
I shook my head. She bumped a couple of guys aside and disappeared into the crowd. As the bodies around us shifted I could catch the occasional glance of Dexter. He looked like he was explaining something while Arianna Moss nodded her head, taking a sip of her beer. Ted and Lucas were talking, and John Miller seemed totally distracted, glancing over at us every few seconds to make sure Scarlett hadn’t made a break for it.
“John Miller’s very nice,” I said, feeling obligated to do so just because he kept looking at me.
“He is,” Scarlett agreed. “A little young for me, though. I’m not sure he’s really parent material, if you know what I mean.”
I wanted to tell her that this, at least in my experience, wasn’t as big of a factor in a relationship as you’d think, but decided against it.
“So how long have you been dating Dexter?” she asked me.
“Not long.” I glanced over again at the booth. Dexter was waving his hands around while Arianna Moss laughed, lighting a cigarette. You would have thought they were on a date. If you didn’t know better.
“He seems really great,” she said. “Sweet. And funny.”
I nodded. “Yeah. He is.”
Ted suddenly appeared next to me, bursting through a crowd of large girls in tight shirts who seemed to be celebrating a bach elorette: one of them was wearing a veil, the rest Barbie hats. “Two beers!” he shouted at the bartender in his typical vexed way, then stood there and seethed for a second before noticing us.
“How’s it going?” I asked him.
He glared back at the booth. “Fine. Dexter will probably be in her pants within the hour, not that it’s gonna help the band any.”
Scarlett looked at me, raising her eyebrows. I said, “Really.”
“Well,” he shrugged, as if only now realizing that maybe I wasn’t the best person to say this to. Not that it stopped him: this was Ted, after all. “It’s just how he is, you know. He hooks up, things end badly, and we’re out a gig, or a place to live, or a hundred bucks in grocery money. He always does this.”
Now, standing there, I felt so stupid I was sure it showed on my face, if that was possible. I picked up Chloe’s drink—now all ice—and took a gulp from it, just to do something.
“The point is,” he growled as the beers were dropped in front of him, “if we’re going to work as a group, we have to think as a group. Period.”
And then he was gone, bumping the girls behind us hard enough to trigger a wave of curse words and lewd gestures. I was stuck there with Scarlett, looking like Band Floozy Number Five.
“Well,” Scarlett said uneasily. “I’m sure he didn’t really mean that.”
I hated that she felt sorry for me. It was even worse than feeling sorry for myself, but not by much. I turned my back to the booth—damned if I cared what happened over there now—and sat back on the stool, crossing my legs. “Whatever,” I told her. “It’s not like I don’t know the deal about Dexter.”
“Oh. Really?”
I picked up Chloe’s straw, twisting it between my fingers. “Just between you and me,” I said, “it’s kind of why I picked him in the first place. I mean, I’m off to school in the fall. I can’t have any big commitments. That’s why it’s perfect, you know. A set ending. No complications.”
“Right,” she said, steadying herself as a stray elbow bumped her from behind.
“I mean, God. All relationships should be this easy, you know? Find a cute guy in June, have fun till August, leave scot-free in September.” This was so easy to say, I realized, that it had to be the truth. Wasn’t this always what I’d said about Jonathan, and any other of my seasonal boyfriends? Of course this wasn’t different.
She nodded, but something in her face told me she wasn’t the kind of girl to believe this, much less do it herself. But then again, she had a kid. It was different when other people were at stake. I mean, in normal families.
“Yep,” I said, “just a summer boyfriend. No worries. No entanglements. Just the way I like it. I mean, it’s not like Dexter’s husband material or anything. He can’t even keep his shoes tied.”
I laughed again. God, this was so true. So true. What had I been thinking?
We stood there for a second, in a silence that was not exactly awkward but not altogether comfortable either.
She looked at her watch, then behind me, into the crowd. She seemed surprised for a second, and I figured John Miller must have given her another one of his hold-on-honey-I’m-almost-done-here waves. “Look,” she said, “I really have to go, or my sitter’s going to kill me. Can you tell John Miller I’ll see him tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I told her. “No problem.”
“Thanks, Remy. Take care, okay?”
“You too.”
I watched her walk to the door, then cut out quickly just as John Miller turned his head, looking over at us again. Too late, I thought. I scared her off. Big, bad Remy, cold bitch, was back.
“Now,” Jess said, appearing next to me, “it has got to be time to go.”
“I’m in,” Chloe said, plopping down beside me. “No decent prospects here.”
“Lissa’s doing okay,” Jess told her.
Chloe bent forward, peering down the bar. “That’s the first guy that spoke to her when she got here, so yes, we should go. If we don’t she’ll be engaged to him by last call. Lissa!”
Lissa jumped. “Yes?”
“We’re going!” Chloe slid off the stool, pulling me with her. “There’s got to be something better to do tonight. Got to be.”
“You guys,” Lissa said as she came up, fluffing her hair, “I’m talking to somebody.”
“He’s subpar,” Chloe told her, glancing at him again. He waved and smiled, poor guy. “You can do better.”
“But he’s nice,” Lissa protested. “I’ve been talking to him all night.”
“Exactly,” Jess said. “You need a variety of guys, not just one. Right, Remy?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Let’s go already.”
We were almost to the door when I saw Jonathan. He was standing by the jukebox, talking to the boun
cer. I’d seen him from a distance a few times since we’d broken up, but this was the first official drive-by, so I slowed down.
“Hey Remy,” he said as we passed, reaching out, in typical fashion, to brush my arm. Normally I would have sidestepped, out of range, but this time I didn’t. He didn’t look much different, his hair a bit shorter, his skin tan. Typical summer changes, all easily undone by September. “How’ve you been?”
“Good,” I said as Chloe and Lissa walked past me, out the door. Jess I could feel hovering closer by, as if I needed reminding not to waste too much breath here. “How about you?”
“Freaking great,” he said, smiling big, and I wondered what I’d ever seen in him, with his slick looks and touchy-feely ways. Talk about subpar. I’d been bottom fishing and hadn’t even known it. Not that Dexter was much of an improvement, apparently.
“Oh, Jonathan,” I said, smiling at him and moving just a bit closer as two girls passed behind me. “You always were so modest.”
He shrugged, touching my arm again. “I was always great too. Right?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I told him, but I kept smiling. “I gotta go.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you around,” he called after me, too loudly. “Where you gonna be later? You going to that party in the Arbors?”
I reached over my head with my hand and waggled my fingers, then walked out into the thick, humid night air. Lissa had already pulled her car around, and she and Chloe were waiting, engine idling, as Jess and I came down the stairs.
“Classy,” she said to me as we slid into the backseat.
“I was just talking,” I told her, but she only turned her head, rolling down her window, and didn’t say anything.
Lissa put the car in gear and we were off. I knew Dexter would wonder where I’d gone, just like he’d probably wonder who I’d been talking to and, whoever he was, why I’d been smiling at him that way. Boys were so easy to play. And if nothing else, I gave as good as I got. He could cozy up with some chick all he wanted, but I’d be damned if I’d sit and wait while he did it.
“Where we going?” Lissa asked, turning her head and glancing back at me.
“The Arbors,” I said. “There’s a party there.”
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