Bright Lights, Dark Nights

by Stephen Emond

  There was seating around the sides of the venue, but Naomi and I were in a busy general admission area. Naomi sprang to life once the show started, dancing up a storm while I shouldered the brunt of bodies being slammed around us. It turned out that Foo Fighters fans were much bigger than me, and more nimble and more drunk. There was no great way to know if this was a date, or just a friendly hangout, or if she just really wanted to go to this concert. At least there wasn’t a secret boyfriend. I didn’t know how to nudge things in one direction or another, or if there was something expected of me at some point to cement things as romantic or friendly. I had no idea what to expect, and that was why I’d broken out in a sweat once again. I looked at the happy seated people off to the side. I could have done some gentle chair-dancing there, I was good at chair-dancing. As it was, I swayed and head-bobbed and pushed back against the wave of shoulders and elbows. I could guarantee a constant movement of my body, but I could not guarantee it was dancing.

  Naomi, on the other hand, was good. I think. She looked good to me, anyway. She seemed to talk to everyone in our radius. When she wasn’t doing that, she was yelling song names to me each time a new riff played. She was a legit fan. She spent more time asking people around us what their favorite albums were and what other shows they’ve been to than she did talking to me. A good three or four guys seemed to be interested in her. Two of them might as well have come here with her.

  “This is so fun!” she shouted toward me about halfway through the set. “It’s like a big family here. I love it!” It did feel like family, which is why I wanted to go to my room and shut the door. That word had different connotations for us.

  There were bodies everywhere, dark bodies with splashes of red highlights on us. I watched the band and I watched Naomi as the lights on the audience went off and on in flashes to rile up energy. One of the guys kept leaning in and I couldn’t hear him. Sounded like he wanted to get her something, a drink maybe. She shook her head, and they laughed. I couldn’t tell if she knew these guys or not. At the rate I was going, they were more likely to make a move than I was. I glanced at my phone and saw we had probably an hour or so left, and I debated sneaking away or going outside for air, but instead I smiled firmly and kept with the waves of crowd movement, a reluctant semimosh. If I brought Naomi home crushed or bruised or folded in half, I could count a second date out.

  Naomi tried to talk to me, but I was off my game—my brain was shut down. I was holding back the moshers, the music was loud, I was deeply analyzing what this was. So I smiled and nodded a lot.

  Eventually, in between sets, I was introduced to Ted, one of the guys who’d been hitting on Naomi all night. “Hey, man, I’m Ted,” Ted said.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, as noncommittal as possible, my hands in my pocket, looking around at the dark venue. These guys seemed like they were built into the installation here, like regulars. They looked and dressed the part, cool concert-going hipsters.

  “Good show, huh?” he asked. Someday I’d look back and think, Yes, that was a damn fine show. But right that second was not the time. “You go to a lot of shows here?” he asked. I didn’t. I didn’t ask for a personal tour guide or concert buddy, but the questions continued. “Do you live in the city? Ever go to New York? What kind of music do you listen to?”

  I tried to pull myself away from Ted and get back to Naomi. Maybe if I hovered obviously enough, we could bail from these guys, find another place to stand. She was talking to the other dude. He wore fingerless gloves. Who wears fingerless gloves? As I got closer I caught wind of the conversation; this guy had a lot of questions, too.

  “You don’t have Facebook?” he asked her, leaning in. “Okay, Twitter? E-mail? Phone?”

  “No, sorry, I’m completely disconnected,” Naomi said, and she seemed relieved to see me. I had been wingmanned—I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. The wingman and I joined Naomi and her would-be suitor. I wondered if I could take them, but decided I could not.

  The band came back out and Naomi pulled me away, closer to the stage. “Let’s dance” was all she said, and as much as I didn’t want to dance, didn’t know how to dance, it by far beat hanging out with the concert hipsters. Naomi bounced and twirled and laughed, and I tried to follow suit. I tried to bounce and laugh, and on every level I feared I looked ridiculous. But I also suddenly stopped caring if I did.

  Naomi turned to face me, a big smile on her face, and I wanted to be the best dancer in the world and I didn’t want to let her down. “I can’t really dance,” I shouted over the music. “All I know is some bad sixties dancing my mom showed me!”

  “Show me the sixties dance!” Naomi shouted back.

  I threw inhibition to the wind and did my mod-era hand-dancing. I did the scuba dance. My mom would have been proud. Naomi cracked up and danced badly with me. She looked down, watched my body, and copied. She had a big smile when she looked back up at me. I could move—I surprised myself and probably Naomi, too. I felt less like I was on some job interview, or even like I was on a date. I was just there, and it was fun.

  She turned to face the band and backed into me, and I felt the weight of her. I didn’t know if I could touch her, move my arms, or what. She turned again and touched the hair over my forehead.

  “I like this curl,” she shouted over the music. “I can tell you’re a little bit wild because of that curl in your hair. It can’t be tamed.”

  I needed to feel more like my hair.

  *

  After the concert, we waited for the floor to empty. Half the room cleared out immediately, but a lot of people hung around, talking and taking their time.

  “I think the show’s pretty much over,” I said when it was us, some roadies cleaning off the stage, and maybe a few other people scattered around. The lights were on and some pop music was playing over the speakers. The place was a mess in the light.

  “Finally, it’s all ours,” Naomi said, laughing and dancing by herself. “I don’t want to go home yet. My parents won’t know exactly what time they stopped playing.”

  “If they’re signing any autographs, it’ll be out by the tour bus,” one of the guys cleaning said.

  *

  We waited outside at the end of a line by the bus, with about twenty other people. These were the hard-core fans. They probably did this often. Standing along the dark side of the building, watching for a rock star every time a door opened, chatting with one another about all the other times they stood in line and watched the doors.

  “The clock is ticking, Mr. Wilcox. Uncle Dave is just feet away,” Naomi said.

  “He’s going to be so thrilled to meet you,” I said.

  Those two guys from the concert were nearby, because of course they were. They walked over like they were old friends and reintroduced themselves. I introduced myself again, and Naomi immediately said, “Dave Grohl is his uncle.” She really had no off button. It was one thing to joke around with her and another with these two guys I didn’t know.

  “Oh yeah?” one of them said. “Really? And you’re in line?”

  “Yeah,” I said, desperate to run in any direction from there, into traffic if possible. “He doesn’t actually know I’m here, so it’s cool.”

  They laughed, unbelieving. I would have, too.

  “It’s real,” Naomi said, somehow making it all worse. But then, “Walter’s my boyfriend, so I’ve seen him before.”

  “Wow,” the one with the fingerless gloves said, kind of actually genuinely impressed, and he even took a step back. Thank god she finally acknowledged the joke, indirect as it was. I wasn’t sure how much further I could take it. “That’s really cool. Hey, sorry, I didn’t know you two were—”

  “Yeah, well, we are, and you two are rude, and way too old to be dressed like that. Plus I’m sixteen, so bye,” Naomi said. She smiled and leaned her head on my chest, and the two guys stepped away with their eyebrows raised. I’d have been horrifically embarrassed if I didn’t like her head ther
e so much. She could push every button I had and know exactly how to undo it all. She was a master manipulator and I didn’t think she had a clue.

  “No autographs tonight, everyone. Sorry,” one of the roadies called out as he left the building. The stragglers dispersed with some grumbling.

  “Bye, Uncle Dave,” I yelled at the tour buses, and Naomi yelled bye as well.

  She turned to me with a look of shock as we made our way back to the parking lot our own bus was in. “Can you believe those guys? At least one of them was trying to ask me out! So awkward! That doesn’t happen, like, ever. And those guys must have been, like, twenty at least! Ew!”

  “That’s, like, forty combined,” I said.

  She took a deep breath of air that didn’t smell like beer or sweat. “So how’s it feel being Mr. Naomi Mills?” She laughed before I could answer, not that I had an answer. “I can’t believe I said that. I say stupid things, Walter.”

  I never really liked my name until I heard it out of her mouth. And then it was all I wanted to hear. The light at the intersection turned red and the little walking guy turned white. A bunch of people crossed the street together under a smattering of traffic lights and streetlamps.

  I took Naomi’s hand and felt a shiver through my whole body. I was positive my hands were clammy and sweaty and my heart was ready to explode, but I didn’t hesitate. I was sure that this was okay. That this was supposed to happen. I gave her hand a squeeze and she squeezed mine back. Some kind of secret communication and I didn’t know what it said. Maybe I’ve got you, or Is this more than friendship? or maybe just Hello.

  “I promise you I’m not a compulsive liar,” I said as we walked toward the less glamorous transit bus in the parking lot.

  “You promise? That’s exactly what a compulsive liar would say,” Naomi said. “I think you’re witty. Most people would have bailed on the Uncle Dave story about three seconds after the joke, but you hung in like a trouper. I’m proud of you, man.”

  “Do you want to walk back?” I asked. The two guys from the concert weren’t far behind us, and a line of people in the parking lot were piling onto the bus already. We could be alone, stretch this out. Have some space. “We can get a bus at the next stop unless you have to get home right away. I can protect us if we get in trouble. I’m a black belt in karate.”

  “Are you really or is this more compulsive lying?” Naomi asked. She let go of my hand as we passed the bus stop. My hand felt empty now.

  “This is lying,” I said. “I’m completely beltless. But it is pretty safe here.”

  “All right, let’s walk. But if any ninjas pop up, you better protect me.”

  “Have you angered ninjas?” I asked. “No, you know what? It’s a deal.” We made our way through the tall uptown buildings and bright lights to the nighttime oranges of the business district. Orange lights, brown trees, yellow walk signals, and cars lined up on every curb. Everywhere we looked, there was life, even at ten, eleven, whatever time it was. The night owls were out. Nate might have been right about tonight: it just could be the best night of my life.

  “Let’s play a game,” Naomi said as we waited to cross the street. “We each get to ask the other five questions, and by the end we’ll know everything there is to know about each other. I’ve got, like, a thousand questions I can ask already, so it should be easy. You in?”

  “I’m in,” I said. The silence of the bus ride to the concert felt like ages ago. “You go first, since it’s your game. I need to know if this is, like, ‘your favorite letter’ kind of questions or ‘who would your murder if you had the chance’ kind of questions.”

  “Those are both good,” Naomi said. “But okay. First question. Walter Wilcox, what is your favorite memory?” She gave the side of my head a playful poke, and it gave me a rush.

  “My favorite? Wow, that’s tough,” I said. She hit hard right off the bat. “I could still be thinking by the time we get to the bus stop.”

  “What’s the first thing that popped into your head?” Naomi asked. I couldn’t say the head poke or the hand-holding. Could I? No, I couldn’t say that. I did have an image, though.

  “I don’t know if it’s legitimately my favorite memory, but Disney World,” I said. We crossed another street, darting through headlight beams. “I was eight years old. My family drove all the way down there. My family never really did anything, so that was a huge deal. I was obsessed with it all year. Nobody fought. We all had a blast, so, yeah, maybe that’s my favorite memory.”

  “How about something specific?” Naomi asked. “So I can picture it. What’s the one image that captures the whole trip?” She was looking at me when she asked it, not looking at her feet like I had been doing. She was good at this. And she was really interested. I had an answer.

  “Fireworks,” I said. “They had this parade and these crazy fireworks that went on forever, and the sky was so bright it seemed like daytime. They do it every night there, too. But, yeah, just sitting on this sidewalk with my family watching the fireworks, that was the image that popped into my head. My sister had her arm around me, which was rare, but it was nice.”

  “Good answer,” Naomi said. “I feel like I know you more already. Now you ask me something.” She had her hands in her jacket pockets now. I wished I could hold them again.

  We were walking under a line of trees downhill toward the park bus stop while I thought up my next question. What I really wanted to know I wasn’t sure how to bring up, but she did say something earlier I could use to get there. “Why was it so weird to you that those guys were trying to ask you out?” I asked. “Was it just because they were older? Or was that just really strange for you in general?”

  We sat down at a bench across from a guy eating a slice of pizza. It was Saturday night but it could have been Saturday morning with the amount of foot traffic in the park.

  “They were old, but it wasn’t just that,” Naomi said. “You go right for the personal questions. Why was that so weird? I don’t know. I guess because it’s never happened before? It’s gotta be weird the first time someone hits on you, right?”

  “I would not know,” I said. That was a feet-watching answer, not a face-watching answer.

  “Me, neither,” Naomi said. “I’m kind of a dork. I don’t really come across as super approachable or anything. Which is fine because I’m really not, my parents wouldn’t let me date anyone anyway. Never mind. I’m gonna change the subject. My question. Here’s an easy one: favorite color, and why.”

  She didn’t look like a dork, that was for sure, and she didn’t have a dork vibe until she was calling herself one. After a few hours with Naomi, I was starting to see it a bit, in a good way. Our differences were attractive, but the similarities were what I really enjoyed. Our mutual dorkiness.

  The bus showed up, a perfect diversion from Naomi’s hard-hitting question. The bus was packed and we had to stand and hold on to the rails. Naomi and I faced each other on the bus, no room for anything but face-watching and eye contact for the ride. The game was a little embarrassing with so many ears in the vicinity now.

  “So my favorite color. Maybe purple?” I said. I focused on her shoulder. The dark purplish black of her jean jacket. “Like a night-sky purple. Shadows. In my head it’s the color of the city, even though I can look around and not see a ton of purple. That’s a bad answer, I know. I’m going to use my question to ask you the same thing. Favorite color.”

  “All right, but you only get to copy me this once, and only because I have an answer,” Naomi said, confident smile. “I like combinations. Like blue and black, or blue and brown.”

  “So anything with blue, but not blue by itself,” I said. I looked up, tried to match her eye contact. I didn’t want to seem intense or creepy but not too soft or insecure, either. Life is difficult.

  “Hey, blue goes with a lot,” Naomi said. “My question. We’ll get a little deeper. Who was your first crush?”

  I looked around. No one was paying any atten
tion to us. The people in seats were asleep or listening to their iPods, or talking to each other.

  “I guess it was this girl Ellen, from third grade,” I said. “I just picked her at random because everyone else at our lunch table were picking out their crushes. She was the first girl I saw when I looked around. Lo and behold, she became the most popular girl in elementary school, and pretty much everyone was into her by the end of the year. I think she moved out of state in fifth grade.”

  “Nice, so you have good taste and set trends,” Naomi said, nodding. The bus stopped and we swayed toward the back for a second. “You also send girls running across the country. Hmmm.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” I said. We grabbed a couple of empty seats. When the bus started moving again, her body pressed into mine. She was still waiting for my next question. “What do you see in your future?” I asked.

  Ideally she’d see me there, but there was pretty much no chance of her actually saying that. It would probably be troublesome if she did.

  “Boring future, but not too boring,” she said. We sat side by side now. I watched her knee. There was a slight rip in her jeans on the left knee. “Like, I want a husband and family, but I don’t want a boring day job or to be home all the time or anything. I have too many hobbies I love, so I want to do something with one of them to make money and be fulfilled.”

  “Wow, there’s, like, twelve follow-up questions to that,” I said. This game could go all night, but our stop was next.

  “That’s why it’s a good game,” Naomi said, cutting off the subject. “Are you a good student?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really. I get C’s in school, I strive for average. I’m a better student of life.”

  “Fair enough. What grades do you get in life?” Naomi asked.

  We hopped off the bus at our stop, and I gave it some thought. “Life grades,” I said, mulling it over. “Like, D’s, if I’m honest. I’m a bad student of life. I’m a bad kid, Naomi Mills.”