Songs to Make You Stay (Playlist Book 3)
Page 5
He knew better than to wish Jill’s gaze would lock into his again, darting as they were along the length of the guitar’s neck, following the frantic slides of her fingers. But that was okay, all the better for him to watch her. At several points, her eyes would close into tight half-moon outlines as her singing mouth moved into a smile, and Shinta knew she meant those lyrics a bit more than the rest.
“Hey I’m coming for you/ Hey don’t you know I love you?/ Still/ Still, still/ Don’t you know I love you still?”
The last note hung in the air for an extended pulse, followed by a tick of silence, then applause erupted from the tables around them. Jill’s eyes opened and flashed in alarm at the sudden noise. She pushed the guitar away from her, dropping it in Shinta’s lap, severing their connection.
“That’s a sad song.” Shinta secured the guitar beside him before he reached over, fingers stroking the skin of her elbow. “Why did you choose to sing a sad song?”
“No. No, it’s questioning. It’s a curious song. Besides, Nino wrote it.”
“Then the song has every license to be sad.”
Jill laughed. “Yeah he deserves to be sad. Nino, that cheat.”
The sound of clogs against vinyl floor pierced their bubble. Shinta looked up to see that the Tattoos for Arms lady had breached the coffee-and-dessert counter and was striding towards them, hands planted on hips, elbows flapping like wings.
“What the hell, Jill!” she screeched, coming to a halt beside them.
“Lala, I’m sorry! I should have asked permission.” Jill held up both hands over her head. “But the guitars have been hanging on that wall for as long as I’ve been coming here. Looking all forlorn and disappointed in life. I couldn’t say no to them anymore.”
Tattoos for Arms lady called Lala waved her apologies away, directing her glare at the guitar beside Shinta. “I didn’t even know the damn thing could still make sounds. Both were given to me by an ex-boyfriend. Bastard knew I couldn’t play a note to earn a pity peso on the streets.”
Jill turned to Shinta with a cocked eyebrow. “Why do guys like to gift girls with guitars?”
“To a girl like you, I totally get it,” Lala cut in before Shinta could summon a thought. She turned to him, eyes taking a leisurely stroll along the planes of his face, down his neck, down his shirt, to the knees peeking through his distressed black jeans, and back up again. “And you are?”
“Shinta Mori,” he answered with a smile and a tiny bow of his head.
A sly smile lit up Lala’s eyes. “Sure you are, beautiful.” She returned to Jill. “Who’s he to you?”
“I’m her person,” Shinta volunteered.
Jill coughed into her fist, the burst of pink on her cheeks betraying her. “Lala, this is Shinta. Shinta, this is Lala. Doozy belongs to her. Both café and dog.”
“Oh, then I have questions for you.” Shinta grinned up at Lala’s imposing shadow. “But they can wait.”
“Good. I’ll be right back with you, honey. Now hold up, Jill.” Lala as good as threw the guitar on the floor to give herself room beside Shinta. She leaned over to Jill. “Do you have a band?”
Jill grimaced at the hollow sound of wood hitting stone floor. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I should have known. Which one? You’re a superstar, aren’t you? I’ve been poisoning your veins with sugared-up Americano for months and I didn’t even know.”
Shinta watched—the apt audience of one—as Lala raked her bony, silver-ringed fingers through her cropped hair. The bleached tips stood on their ends, looking like lightning bolts growing out of her head. He was starting to understand how this was the kind of person who would invent a kaleidoscope unicorn-dog hybrid for her shop’s sign.
“I’m sorry. Life’s been a bulldozer.” Lala threw her hands up. “I haven’t been to a gig in ages!”
“That’s sad,” Jill said. “But no, not a superstar. Never a superstar.”
“I think Kim would secretly like to hear that though,” Shinta put in. “It’s fun to see him blush.”
Jill nodded. “A very rare public occurrence, yep.”
“I should come see you guys play.” Lala scrunched her forehead to the ceiling, fingers tapping a staccato beat on her chin. “But the mortal problem that is time…”
“We could play here. You got good acoustics.” Jill stretched out her arm and rescued the weathered guitar from the floor, hugging it against her. “Plus, you’re surrounded by a 24-hour karaoke place and a parking lot so soundproofing won’t even be a thing.”
“Now that’s an idea. Where would you guys set up though?” Lala angled her head left to right, scanning her tiny space. “Why the hell am I running an establishment as big as a birdhouse?”
“You can throw away that horrid Ms. Pacman machine.” Jill pointed to the vintage arcade game with her thumb. “Perfect spot for a drum set.”
Shinta raised his hand. “I’ll take it!”
“What?” Jill cricked her neck to shoot him a look.
Shinta’s mind was already drawing a picture of how wonderfully out of place the bulky chunk of bright blue and yellow metal would be in his white room. “I don’t have any furniture here, remember?” he explained.
“That solves it then.” Lala put her hands together, the clap like ringing thunder. “Now, Jill, how would you like a job?”
It took Jill a few seconds before she spoke, gaze boring into Lala’s keen face. Shinta figured Jill was waiting for the punchline. “I already have a job,” she said when it didn’t come. “I’m a girl in a band.”
“Another job then,” Lala pressed.
“Doing what?”
“Doozy Bar and Book Café.” The words poured out of Lala’s mouth with a flourish of her hands. “What do you think?”
Jill tipped her head to one side. “Doozy Book Café and Bar. Because it’s books before rock stars, most days. At least for me.”
“I can attest to that,” Shinta said in earnest. “So can four other guys.”
“I love it!” Lala cheered, bouncing in her seat. “So, are you up for it, Jill? Help me make it happen?”
“Wait, you’re serious?” Jill had turned her panicked eyes to Shinta. “Is this how you normally make business decisions, Lala? Because we’re not going to balance each other out.”
The shop owner was shaking her head as if she had a persistent tic. “It’s been a stray thought floating around my head. It just needed a little catching. Besides, this must be the reason why I didn’t destroy those wretched guitars years back when that awful man left. They’re here to bring you to me.”
Jill kept her gaze on Shinta, her fingers flying over the strings again, up, up, down, building to a free sound. Shinta reached over, his warm hand enveloping her knee. He read hesitation on the lines of her face, poised to overpower all other motivations, the braver voices inside her head. He was used to seeing that swirl of reluctance in her eyes, the many times he’d caught it there when she looked at him. He sometimes saw it even now that his devotion was no longer hidden away, a secret peeking out yet always at the ready. Even now when he declared his feelings freely, in both actions and words spoken.
Always he’d make sure to give her qualms a consistent answer. Consistency was key.
He lifted his hand to catch hers, ending the jagged rhythm of her strums. “Why not?”
The corner of her lips took its sweet time to slide up. But it got there. Jill abandoned the guitar on the pink seat, refocusing her energies on knotting her fingers with his.
“You’re going to need to add more food groups to your menu,” she said to Lala. “Specifically, beer. And nachos.”
Lala’s lips spread out into a smile. “Beer and nachos. And oh! Fish crackers!”
“We’ll need to shut the place down for a couple of hours to set up the equipment.” Jill shot daggers at the Ms. PacMan machine. “It will be like Commute Bar. Band and people on the same floor.”
“Door charge starts once the lights dim?” Shinta
added. Helpfully, he hoped.
“Yeah.” Jill gave the knot of their fingers a squeeze before returning to Lala. “Let me talk to my bandmates, then let’s go for one gig night. If that goes well, tell me if you still want me here.”
Lala was shaking her head again, but Shinta knew that meant a dozen times yes, and that Jill read it the same way too.
“It won’t pay much,” was Lala’s fair warning. “We’d probably have to split my salary for now. But this place has been doing well for the past couple of years. Just a few months ago, I had to extend my hours because the kids like to overdose on books and coffee, and it takes a hot spatula shoved under their butts to get them to leave. If the bar idea takes off—”
“Hey.” Jill waved a hand in front of Lala’s eyes, breaking her worrywart trance. “I scribble words and play at bars for a living. Does that sound like someone who does things for money?”
Lala spurted out laughter, the sound shrill and cackling, inviting wary looks from neighboring tables.
“I knew I liked you the moment you walked in with your Sugarfree shirt and ordered two slices of cake with your coffee,” she said, reaching over to give Jill’s chin a hard pinch. “But you can’t eat your art, honey. It has to feed you. Your soul and your mortal body.”
“Oh, I know.” Jill smiled at Shinta, one hand rubbing her point of injury. “I’m not rolling like Gwen Stefani, but I don’t look impoverished to you, do I? And I can do math.”
“Great.” Lala grinned. “Let’s talk math.”
I wait for the sign
That all has come undone
My sins, sins, sins
Fault lines underground
Bridges worn to the ground
Come here and stay
Oh say you’ll stay
Hey I’m coming for you
Hey don’t you know I love you?
Still (still, still)
Don’t you know I love you still?
I have once been told
He can love you like I do
My sins, sins, sins
Paper knees, thick skin
Words vowed to the ground
Come here and stay
Oh say, ‘stay, stay’
I’m the same, same, same
Hey I’m coming for you
Hey don’t you know I love you?
Still (still, still)
Don’t you know I love you still?
You came to get me
When I was not ready
But don’t you know I love you still? (Nino)
September 28, Monday, afternoon
“Speakers, cables, drum kit, pedal boards, 10 cases of beer…”
This was the fifth loop of the same string of words that passed through Jill’s lips today, muttered low and clear like a prayer devotion. It had started as a much longer list that Shinta and Jill had built together. Bullet points converging into a map of plans, drawn with a permanent marker on Manila paper, as they were sprawled on Jill’s bedroom floor. Shinta feared Jill would run out of breath the first time she read the plans out loud. But as the days rolled into weeks, their steady work on Doozy’s first ever gig night chipped away on the long queue of things to do.
It gave Jill several moments of triumph, a few reasons to breathe out, breathe in. But his girl, Shinta knew, was a worrywart. And often she’d go back to this prayer of tasks, even while she was in the middle of a different one.
The current task being invaded by this recitation was that of putting up flyers on waiting sheds around her old university.
“…spare strings, giant bags of nacho chips, giant bags of fish crackers, spare sticks in case Nino breaks his again...”
Jill slapped a sheet of angry pink paper on the corkboard, Shinta right behind her with the industrial-duty stapler.
Thursday Night’s A Doozy! screamed the quartet of pink signs they had laid out. Doozy Book Café launches Gig Night featuring bands Trainman and UGH!
Shinta’s phone buzzed as he stepped back to admire their work. He clicked the screen, and launched into open swearing.
“Those little shits.”
“What?” Jill swiveled toward him, cricking her neck. “Did the sound system guy cancel? Did the beer and peanuts guy? Please not the beer and peanuts guy.”
“I’ll never let the beer and peanuts guy do that to you,” Shinta vowed, his grip a vice on her shoulder. “It’s Robert of UGH! They got booked for a celebrity’s birthday party on the same night. And since that gig pays more zeroes, I doubt there was much of a decision-making process.”
Jill slumped on the worn wooden bench, fingers crumpling the stack of flyers she held. “I’m going to tell his girlfriend Number 1 about his Numbers 2 and 3 the first chance I get.”
“That explains why he texted me and not you.” Shinta stood over her, his arching height her shade against the menacing sun. “Who names their band UGH! anyway?”
“What am I going to do?” Jill’s fingers raked through the mess of her hair, pulling at the strands. “The gig is next week. Everyone else I know is booked. It’s too late to find anyone else.”
“A Trainman solo set sounds good,” Shinta offered. “That was the original idea, right?”
“Maybe.” Jill squinted, looking up at him. “But if it’s just us, the gig ends at 10 p.m. No self-respecting gig ends at 10 p.m.!”
Fair point. “I can do a monologue if you want.”
A pause in her hair-pulling and hand-wringing. “Like Hamlet?”
“Like a Gundam pilot talking to his Mobile Suit as he braces for a fight.”
“That sounds gripping.”
“Oh it is, believe me.”
“A bit off for a gig night, though.”
“Well, I tried.” Shinta mirrored the smile that was inching out from the corners of her mouth, knowing that was due to his good work.
“Don’t take it as a wasted idea.” Jill patted his arm consolingly. “I have a feeling Lala might be interested in producing the Doozy Cosplay Monologues too.”
A poem that hurts, a few sheets borrowed from a recycled script, or a manga. Bottles of cheap wine and cubes of sharp cheese, and excerpts from a romance novel—Shinta’s thoughts lined up into his own string of ideas, things he and Jill could do together next. They could have Nino there, with his box drum and fan girls. He could ask his mother if she knew people devoted to the spoken word. Maybe the blue-haired lady could read a poem. Shinta could have his old Gundam costume shipped, or he could actually learn something from Hamlet. Or recycle his few lines from the Rashomon play he did once. That would be easier.
When though? Shinta’s gaze drifted back down to Jill’s bowed head, his thoughts returning to the happy news he’d given her when he arrived. Six weeks and four days.
But that was it. That was the full scope of his promise. Beyond that, their time apart stretched far and wide. These extended vacations were designed for bi-annual frequencies, and if the number of contracts he had recently signed (on top of contracts still pending) was anything to go by, either the frequency of his visits, or the length of his holidays, or likely both, would soon become scarce.
Jill had jumped up and out of her own stupor, jerking Shinta back.
“Hey, where are you going?” he called out, following suit as her long strides retraced their flyer route.
“Crossing out UGH! on all the flyers we’ve put up.”
“Sure, I’d love to go around another 2.2 kilometers with you in this sweltering heat.” Shinta jogged the last meter until he caught up with her. Jill had reached another waiting shed and was facing the five-flyer spread they had stapled on the board. “Honey, I don’t think too many people will think UGH! was referring to a band,” he began as she uncapped a black marker. “So maybe we don’t need to do this?”
“Tell that to their post-punk following.” After two mad slashes on each sheet, she pivoted back to him. “I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”
“A little bit.” He grinned, his thumb light on her che
ek to wipe off a stray dot of black ink. He was just glad he was around for the craziness, and not Kim. Or Miki, the perpetually present. He told her so. Without the ‘perpetually present’ part.
“Me too.” Jill drifted down onto the shed’s chipped wooden seat, pulling Shinta beside her. “You miss a lot of the madness when you’re away. And it’s best you truly understand the kind of lunatic you’re dating.”
Shinta frowned. “I do know the lunatic I’m dating. And I mean that in the most adoring, loving way possible.”
“Yeah but the things I share on a video call, I can filter. Not that I do that all the time. Or any time. Ever. You know what I mean.”
He had to rein in the sprig of panic that sprouted inside his chest before he could think, and agree. He did know what she meant. Her calls and messages had long been the bright spots of his day, but the way they came to him was spontaneous, erratic at best. Jill’s days were the wrong-side up, leisurely albeit full while the sun was out, then would later ascend to many heights of crazy as the sun went down. Shinta’s life, on the one hand, was a series of moving parts, each day a hopscotch game on the color-coded events saved on his father’s schedule.
Getting an overlapping free hour was close to impossible. So they didn’t bother fixing times. They’d leave texts, emails, comments across the space between them like breadcrumbs. The rule was you pick up the last crumb, consume it, and leave your own for the other to find. On it went throughout the day, on to the next.
That rule built a friendship that crossed over to something more. But yes, it was easy to filter, to leave out a tiny detail, a slip, intended or not. It was easy to miss out on things.
“…drum kit, pedal boards, 10 cases of beer, spare strings, giant bags of nacho chips and fish crackers...” Jill’s list poured from her lips again. She sighed, resetting. “This is crazy isn’t it? Saying yes to this was crazy.”
“Of course it’s crazy. Which is why it’s such a good idea.” That was his other rule of life—crazy or nothing.