by Adam Selzer
And no one in the room knows it but me.
They don’t know a thing about music.
The song ends and Doug says “Thanks” into the mike, then stumbles away. The band goes into a really bad Green Day cover, and I wander back over to Sadie.
“That was pretty awesome,” I say.
Sadie laughs at me. But before she can lay a brilliant zinger on me, Marie the Necrosexual stumbles up to our spot. She’s clearly wasted.
“Hey, you guys,” she slurs. “I still like vampires and all, but these guys suck!”
I’m snapped back to reality by the look on Marie’s face. I’ve seen it before, back when I was younger and my mom hadn’t quite outgrown her party-animal teen years.
“Oh, great,” I say. “She’s about to blow.”
“Yeah,” says Sadie. “She’s in that about-to-barf state. Is there a word for that?”
Marie wobbles a bit. She’s not quite there yet, but it’s coming.
“Nauseated?”
“No,” says Sadie. “Nauseated means you feel like you could barf. Is there a word for when you’re about to?”
“Not in English,” I say. “It’s probably one of those things where there’s a Yiddish word for it, but not an English one.”
I really should have paid more attention at Jewish summer camp, like Sadie did, instead of focusing all my energy on prank wars and flirting.
“Yeah,” says Sadie. “It’s probably something like ‘verblecht.’”
“That’s what she is,” I agree. “She’s verblecht.”
“Yeah,” Marie slurs. “Tell Peter that one. I’m verblecht!”
“Let’s get her out of here,” says Sadie.
I close my laptop and tell Eddie to keep an eye on it, and Sadie and I lead her through the crowd and out into the parking lot. Through the window, I can hear the band slogging their way through the last verse of “Time of Your Life.” Nat is singing in a bad key for him. If I was still writing the review, maybe I would say, “I felt like giving Nat a chair to stand on so he could have a better chance of reaching the high notes.”
But then again, even I’m not that big of a jerk. I say stuff like that in my column, and Peter’s column, all the time, but at least I don’t name names.
Marie ralphs into the bushes while Sadie holds her hair, and I wander back up to look at the band through the window, just on the off chance that Doug is singing again, but when the song ends, Nat announces that they’re going to take a short break. While Marie recovers, Sadie comes back over to me.
“Smitten!” says Sadie.
“That guy knows Leonard Cohen and Cole Porter!” I say. “What the hell is he doing in a band like this one?”
“You’re past smitten!” says Sadie. “You’re versmote!”
I wander back in to pick up my laptop from the bar, and maybe ask Doug his last name. That’s all I want to know. I want to Google him and see if he’s been in some other band or something. After I know his name, I will walk out of the Cage and go back to just waiting to move to a city with more datable guys. He’s probably got a girlfriend anyway. Singers usually do.
But when we get in, all the girls are crowded around Will on the other side of the room. Doug is sitting right in my chair, in front of my closed laptop.
And all of a sudden, as we get closer to him, I start to get nervous. I have never been nervous around a guy before. What in the hell is wrong with me?
“Hi!” says Sadie to Doug, cheerfully. “We’re from the press, and we need some information about you. You live in West Des Moines, right?”
Doug looks at her for a second, then mutters, “Sort of. I don’t really live there, exactly.” At least, I think that’s what he says. He talks the way he sings—in a low voice like a whisper. Very quiet.
“Why did you only do two songs?” I ask.
He sort of points at his throat, like he’s telling me it hurts. Sadie opens my laptop and pulls up a word processing program. “Just type it,” she says.
He starts slowly typing something out. On the one hand, I’m annoyed that Sadie has taken it on herself to let anyone touch my computer. It’s a part of me, like a diary. On the other hand, there’s this intimacy about letting the guy type on my laptop that’s kind of thrilling, in a way. I’ve never let a guy do that before.
He’s not a fast typer. He looks like he’s being very careful. Finally, he turns the screen to us so we can see what he wrote.
My throat isn’t in good shape. I can only do a couple of songs before I don’t have any voice left. I’m not really in the band. Nat just lets me sit in. Old friend.
So it’s health stuff, I guess. Allergies, maybe. That’s freaking tragic.
“Well, Doug,” says Sadie, “this is my friend Gonk.”
“Alley,” I say. “People call me Alley. It’s like, they’re both short for Algonquin, which is my whole name. So you can also call me Quinn, or Al. Only Sadie calls me Gonk. It’s her thing.”
He’s just looking at me. I’ve totally embarrassed myself, rambling on about my name. He must think I’m another dumb drunk girl. I almost want to buy a can of pop just so I can demonstrate that I know how to open them. He doesn’t even say hi. He just waves.
“Gonk was very impressed that you knew Cole Porter and Leonard Cohen,” says Sadie. “She thinks you’re pretty awesome.”
The dim lights probably cover the fact that I’m blushing.
“Not many people sing that song the right way,” I say before Sadie can embarrass me any further. “I mean, you not only got the cocaine line, you seemed like you knew what the song was about.”
He types out, “Nat understands it, too, even though he’s not so good at playing it. He’s a theater person. But I’ve been trying to explain music to Will for years. Hopeless.”
“Oh my God,” says Sadie. “You’ve known him for years?”
Doug nods.
“Are you a vampire, too?” asks Sadie.
I’m totally relieved when he shakes his head no.
“Well, that’s good,” says Sadie. “Because Gonk isn’t into vampires, but she’s totally into you, and I’m here to set the two of you up. Were you singing that Cole Porter song to anyone?”
He shakes his head again.
“So you’re single?” Sadie asks.
Doug nods, and I swear my heart sort of flutters. I always thought hearts only really did that if you were about to have a heart attack or something. You’re supposed to feel things in your brain, not your heart, right? I mean, that’s where I’ve always felt stuff before. Either my brain or my stomach. The heart thing is kind of new.
“Good,” says Sadie. “You and Gonk are perfect for each other. She’s a Cole Porter freak, and her dad probably has a Leonard Cohen scrapbook. You busy tomorrow night?”
Doug shakes his head, and Sadie takes the computer and types out my address.
“You have a car?” she asks.
Doug nods.
“Here’s where she lives,” she says, pointing to what she’s typed on the screen. “Can you pick her up tomorrow night at seven?”
Doug starts typing again and then shows me the screen:
You really want to go out?
I can’t say anything. I just smile. I nod a little and blush a lot.
Doug smiles and types that he’ll pick me up at seven.
I don’t remember a thing about the next several minutes. I remember we loaded Marie into Sadie’s car and took her to my house to clean her up, and I remember Sadie teasing me about how she knew I’d be knocked on my ass by a guy sooner or later, and that’s all.
When I get online, I find that Trinity’s already posted my review to the paper’s home page.
4
I have hooked up with guys before. I’ve even liked guys, in a way. Enough to make out with them, at least.
But I’ve never really been on an official “date.” I mean, who does that anymore? Who goes on “dates” or talks about “going steady” or whatever outside of,
like, Archie comics? When I make out with a guy, we usually start out hanging around with a bunch of other people and then drift back to my place or a parking lot or someplace like that to work off some steam in private. I wouldn’t do that with a guy that I disliked or anything, but I’m pretty good about not letting my emotions get too involved in my conquests.
Rule #1 for me is never, ever date a guy from Cornersville Trace. Half the people in town want to live here forever; even moving ten miles away to downtown Des Moines would be too much for them. And if you try to tell most of them that this town is a dead end, they’ll say, “You know, we’re supposed to be getting a Red Lobster on Cedar Avenue soon.” We’ve been supposed to be getting a Red Lobster since I was about seven. People act like it’s going to make us a very cosmopolitan town, even though they got one in West Des Moines, out by Valley West Mall, years ago, and that sure didn’t turn into a big city.
But they did at least get to be enough of a town for someone like Doug to come out of there. Even though he said he didn’t exactly live there. He probably lives in Clive or Windsor Heights, the two tiny suburbs right next to West Des Moines. Everyone tends to forget those towns exist, so people who live in them usually just say they’re from West Des Moines.
But anyway, the idea of living here any longer than I have to has always been so unappealing that I’ve just kept all my emotions in check to ensure that I don’t get tied down to a guy here. Froze them in ice, like. To be totally honest, all of my making fun of guys and couples and the whole dating scene at lunch is just, like, a defense mechanism. Something to keep me from feeling lonely. Something to keep me from being bothered by the fact that no one asked me to prom (even though of course I want to go). And anyway, I’m part of the Vicious Circle, damn it, and I have to be snarky.
So I’ve really never felt the way I feel when I wake up Saturday morning. Excited that I get to talk to Doug more and get to know him better and see what makes him tick. Maybe (probably, if I have anything to say about it) see if he’s a good kisser. And I’ve never, ever been so afraid that something I wrote for the paper will bother someone.
Sadie shows up at three to help me get ready. I had no idea getting ready for a date was the sort of thing that was supposed to take four hours, but then again, the date is all I can think about, so I figure I might as well spend my time preparing for it. After some debate, we play it safe and go with a vaguely goth look: a black velvet shirt and skinny black Audrey pants. It’s casual, elegant, and dark enough that I could pass for a goth. Maybe not one of the genuine “so goth I tag the walls with a fountain pen” types, but at least a goth sympathizer. I mean, I know guys don’t think about this stuff much, but if he happens to catch a glimpse of us in the mirror somewhere, I want him to notice that we look good together.
At seven, Doug arrives in his car, which is an old, beat-up Dodge. Powder blue, which means it has to be from the 1970s. I’m waiting at the front porch so we don’t have to go through the whole “meet the parents” routine. I’ve never been through it before, but the very idea is enough to make me feel … well, verblecht. Dad will probably try to talk about football (about which he knows even less than I do) and Mom will give him a little speech about responsibility and respect, and I will curl up into a ball and die. I’ll die again when Mom subtly implies that she thinks we’re not really going to dinner, we’re going to some sort of heavy-metal vomit party. That was how she spent her teenage years, along with a good chunk of her twenties, and I think she believes that I’m secretly out partying all the time and that she needs to give me the occasional boring speech about moderation and safety when I just want to get out of the damn house.
So when the car pulls up, I simply step out onto the porch and start walking down the driveway. Doug is wearing the same suit he was wearing last night, and the same goth makeup, from the looks of it, only it’s blended in so well that I’m not even sure it is makeup. Maybe whatever health thing he has makes his skin look weird.
“Hi!” I say.
He waves back, smiles and opens the front door on the passenger side for me. Normally, if a guy did that I’d roll my eyes and ask if he thinks I’m a poor helpless damsel who can’t operate a door, but this time … it’s different. I feel pampered. It’s kind of nice.
Inside his car, there’s a weird smell that I can’t quite place and choose to ignore, and a really ornate dashboard. I mean, like, if Queen Victoria had driven a powder blue Dodge, this is what her dashboard would have looked like. It’s obviously not the car’s original dash—it’s wooden, and has lots of intricate designs carved into it. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Cool dash,” I say.
Doug climbs into the driver’s seat and smiles. “Thanks,” he says. “I made it myself.”
“No kidding?” I ask. “This looks like super-advanced woodworking.”
He shrugs. “It’s a frame I carved and decorated to cover the regular dash,” he says. “Sometimes I just have to build something. I can’t explain it.”
“That’s one of the typical guy stereotypes I don’t mind so much,” I say.
“We don’t have many good ones,” he says. “Grunting, being smelly, being obsessed with sports, sex and violence, all of that. At least this one is productive and creative.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But seriously, most guys are like that.”
“I used to be about like that myself,” he says. “I’ve gotten a bit better, but I still like to work with my hands. I also still smell most of the time.”
If this was any other guy, I’d probably stop him right there. I’d say, “I can think of a few things for your hands to work on,” and then move straight into having him do exactly what I have in mind. But this time, I’m taking it slow. Slower, anyway.
I’m just about to ask what changed him when I notice the stereo. It’s a tape player.
“Whoa!” I say. “Is that an antique?”
“I guess so,” Doug whispers. “It came with the car.”
“Do you actually still have tapes?”
“Nah,” he says. “There’s an adaptor.” He plugs a thing that looks like a cassette into the tape deck. It has a wire running out of it into an iPod, and one of those portable CD players is sitting between the seats.
He fires up the iPod. “This is the Alley playlist,” he says, with kind of a nervous smile. The first song up is “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
Cole Porter.
There is no better way to show you have class than Cole Porter. One Cole Porter song can turn a beat-up, weird-smelling powder blue Dodge into the classiest car in the world.
I have this voice in my head begging me to say something snarky about his suit, or the smell, or something. Anything to make sure the date is a flop, so I don’t have to worry about this stuff anymore. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to do something stupid to screw this up, so every instinct in my body is telling me to do something mean to scare him off. But I keep myself in check. It’s only fair. Plus, he’s hot. No point scaring him off without at least making out with him first, right?
We don’t say too much as Doug drives up to Eighty-sixth Street; we just listen to the music.
“Sorry if I don’t talk too much,” he says. “It’s hard for me.”
“But you’re a really good singer,” I say.
He smiles—he has an awesome smile. “Thanks,” he says. “But I can only do two or three songs a night before I’m worn out. I even have to pace myself when I’m just talking.”
“Is it allergies?” I ask.
“Something like that.”
We drive along a bit more. The playlist turns out to be a mix of Cole Porter and Leonard Cohen, plus a few other songs. There’s a Joni Mitchell track. How did he even know I like her?
We drive out of Cornersville Trace and right through West Des Moines, onto the interstate and into the city itself. Des Moines is not exactly a towering metropolis, but we do have a couple of skyscrapers and a few good restaurants and co
ffee shops, and more of them are opening in the west end all the time. There are two or three blocks where you can trick yourself into thinking you’re in a really big city.
Doug parallel-parks like a pro outside of a place called the Noir Café, which is a little bistro that looks like it’s in someone’s house. I think it used to be called just Le Café before the whole goth thing. I’ve heard about the place; it’s more popular with the real Goths, the ones who would still be goths even if this wasn’t the post-human era, than it is with the preps-in-capes crowd, who I guess still hang out wherever it is that preps hang out.
Inside, I feel like I’ve been transported back in time. It’s not like the Cage, which is obviously just a regular bar and grill with cobwebs in it. This place looks like a Victorian mansion. I don’t feel like I’m in Iowa at all.
The hostess recognizes Doug and leads us to a quiet corner booth, and I feel like a movie star.
“You take dates here a lot?” I tease.
He smiles shyly. “I don’t date much.”
“Neither do I,” I say. “There’s not much of a pool of datable guys in this town.”
“Or datable girls,” he breathes.
“Fair enough,” I say. “You do the goth thing a lot better than most of the guys, though. Most of them are just jocks trying to pick up girls who like vampires.”
“You aren’t into that vampire stuff?” he asks.
“Nah,” I say. “All the vampires I know are dicks.”
“Tsk, tsk,” he says. “Stereotypes.”
“Well, it’s true. I mean, no offense to Will.”
“Oh, well, he is a dick,” says Doug. “But I really wanted to sing with a band. Even if he was in it. I heard girls like guys who are in bands.”
He smiles a little, and I smile back.
A waitress brings out some coffee (iced for Doug, hot for me) and Doug suddenly looks nervous.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a drunk or something,” he says as he pulls a flask of something out of the inside pocket of his suit. “It’s just medicine. I have to drink this stuff every four hours.”