Deep Cuts

Heartbeats

Heartbeats

My final tour was startlingly unpleasant. I was given only two nights per city, less than half the time I was used to, and my hotels had been downgraded to whatever level is well below room service but just above bedbugs. I spent Miami and LA mostly in the hotels, messaging trendsetters online and half-heartedly searching job bulletin boards.

In New York they put me in Times Square. I met about half my quota online the first day, sitting at a microscopic desk with a view of a giant Planet Hollywood sign, but the next morning I was dying to get out. I met Nomi for lunch at Dojo, a cheap NYU-area restaurant that just a month earlier we would’ve thought ourselves far too mature and successful to patronize. Nomi had ascended to Vogue, but magazines were the worst place to be, and she knew her days were numbered. She showed up in all black, dressed for the funeral of her industry.

Halfway through our four-dollar plates of noodles I asked, spontaneously, if she wanted to make some extra cash as a trendsetter—like many journalists she’d been hustling to amass a following online; I’d been enjoying how well the snitty comments she used to make in the margins of my stories translated into the language of social media—then remembered with a wave of horror that she was well into her thirties now, far too old for the panel.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m too old for this conversation. Keep your blood money.”

We talked a lot about how the other creatives in our orbit were faring, hunting for clues about our options. She told me Raj was writing a book about spices, had been paid a decent advance for his proposal. Harrison had ended up in tech. Nomi wasn’t ruling anything out.

“What about your guy, the wedding singer?” Nomi asked as we descended into the West Fourth station.

“I wish I knew,” I said.

We stopped at the entrance to her platform and she noticed my expression, which I could feel was suddenly unsettled. “People will always go to shows,” she reassured me as we hugged goodbye.

I waited a long time for my train. Commuters moved through the station with a different energy than usual, slower, on edge. A busker played a minor-key tune on a violin that ricocheted off the white-tiled walls and hit me on a cellular level. I knew Nomi would be fine; she would seize her impending free time to design a new, more interesting career path for herself. I’d be fine too, eventually. But Joe didn’t do well in times of upheaval. I told myself he had a reliable if modest source of income, not to mention a girlfriend—he didn’t need me. But by the time my train arrived, I’d decided: I wanted to see him. I wanted it for me. The thought sounded profoundly comforting, and it sounded, now, like something I could handle. It had been more than two years since I’d seen him onstage at the Troubadour, five since the night on the Brooklyn rooftop.

But only one since my last unanswered email.

Back in the hotel I logged in to Zoe’s Facebook account and searched his name: still living in Brooklyn, not currently touring. That very night he’d been tagged in an invitation to a show at Union Pool, a Williamsburg mainstay where I could probably find a few trendsetters, though he hadn’t responded to the post. Scrolling further, I saw he was regularly tagged at Union Pool. There was even a shot of him behind the bar.

I played the scene out dozens of ways as the afternoon crept by: he would be with her, in all of them, and I would be ready. I would be cool. That’s what I wanted, more than anything: a low-pressure way to say hey, we’re cool, how are you. No need to be weird anymore; we’re too old, and the world is too fragile.

—

Williamsburg had gentrified visibly in the past year. A nearby diner had been given a shiny makeover that seemed both incongruous and perfect for the times, a garish embodiment of overspending. But inside the bar, everything felt worn and comfortable. Ceiling tiles in a random pattern of turquoise and white evoked the building’s original purpose as a midcentury pool supply shop, and looked, in a few spots, like they might fall on our heads.

I did a quick loop: a meager crowd for a Thursday; loud, unfamiliar music; no Joe. I allowed myself a drink and then got to work, but the pickings were slim. People were staying home, saving money, watching the news. Finally I found a brash twenty-five-year-old girl named Liza-Beth—not Elizabeth!—who thought trends were “beautiful proof of human frailty.” She wasn’t on Facebook, but I took her info down anyway in case I got desperate.

I was reviewing my quotas at a corner table and beginning to accept it wouldn’t happen when it did: the silhouette of his upper half materialized against the warm lighting of the bar. The soft curls and square shoulders—my adrenaline surged before I was even sure. He was talking to someone, mid-nod, when our eyes met. He froze briefly and then resumed his conversation, his gaze returning to me every few seconds, then flicking away again. No wave or expression of shock, which seemed strange, though I realized I hadn’t done either myself. It was hard to know what kind of greeting would be appropriate for a history like ours.

The people he was talking to, two girls and a guy, appeared to have intercepted him upon entering; he didn’t have a drink, and a light pattern of raindrops dotted the shoulders of his denim jacket. One of the girls talking to him was Liza-Beth. I stood and moved through the crowd to their group. His darting eyes monitored my journey.

“Oh hi,” said Liza-Beth when I arrived. “Guys, this is—uh, I’m sorry—”

“Percy,” I said.

“Right! You guys, Percy works for this company that will pay you to take surveys about bars and music and stuff. She’s legit.” She clamped her mouth down on a cocktail straw, took a slurp, gave me a side-eye. “I mean, she bought me a drink, so I’m assuming she’s legit?”

“How much?” said the guy who wasn’t Joe.

“Payment varies by assignment,” I said. “But unfortunately we’ve met our quotas on white dudes for the year.”

Joe laughed.

“You look familiar,” I said to him.

His head tilted. “Do I.”

“He’s the lead singer of Caroline!” Liza-Beth gushed.

“Oh? Is that a band?”

“Come on,” she said. “?‘Bay Window’? You’re making me doubt your legitimacy, Percy.”

“Joe,” he said to me, holding out his hand. His grip was firm, practiced. The markings on his inner forearm were indeed a tattoo: one long musical staff, treble clef, no notes.

“Can I buy you a drink, Joe?” I asked.

“I thought you had too many dudes,” said the other guy.

“Well, for a lead singer, ” I said, aping Liza-Beth’s reverence, “we might be willing to go over quota.”

“Why not?” He gave his friends a nod, and we wedged into two empty stools at the bar. I ordered us Budweisers for old times’ sake. I felt unreasonably excited. He was wearing a Serious Moonlight Tour shirt, vintage to the point of threadbare, and one of those jean jackets with a nubby white fleece collar. He’d shaved off the beard and reined in the curls, which sat above a slightly higher hairline. I unzipped my backpack and took out a blank screener.

His eyebrows went up at the sight of the formal document. “Quite a job you have there, Percy.”

“I’m aware,” I said, raising my voice over the chatter and the clinking of glass from behind the bar. “Okay—age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

I had already filled it in. “Do anything for work besides music?”

“Odd jobs, when we’re not on tour.”

“Really,” I said, writing this down. “Like what?”

“I fill in here behind the bar,” he said. “Donate blood. Dog-sit.”

I smiled. “Hobbies, interests, passions?”

“Songwriting,” he said. “Piano tuning. You seem too smart for this job.”

I stopped writing. I couldn’t quite read his tone: it seemed both familiar and chilly. “Maybe that’s why I got fired last week,” I said.

He gave a small, sympathetic grimace. “Not because capitalism is failing?”

“That too.”

“What’s your plan?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t know. I’m also a music journalist and a songwriter, but, you might know this actually, turns out there’s no money in indie rock?”

He laughed and crossed his arms, then one leg over the other; he was wearing Beatle boots, worn but nice. “You have to tour to make money.”

“So you’re okay?”

He nodded with a self-assuredness that surprised me. “As long as I can get on a stage with a microphone, I can make a living. How’m I doing, by the way? Am I trendy?”

I made a still-deciding face, tilting my head from side to side.

He laughed. “Journalists always say I’m gangly.”

“I wouldn’t use that word,” I said. I clicked the pen in my hand a few times, happy for a prop. “I enjoy the way you…inhabit space.”

He bounced the foot of his crossed leg, considering this. He was smiling, having fun now. “Are you going to write that down?”

I clicked my pen back on. “Candidate has an enjoyable way of inhabiting space: slightly awkward without being self-conscious.”

He laughed. “Candidate is awkward but doesn’t know it, basically?”

“Right. And is therefore not, in fact, awkward.”

“Nice try,” he said. “I just get a pass because I can sing.”

“Ah,” I said, holding my pen up. “But I’ve never heard you sing.”

He gave an exaggerated nod. A band started playing from a back room and the main bar emptied significantly, quieting down. He made no move to join them.

I wanted to talk about “Bay Window” without losing the protection of our little game, so I said, “Are you the one who sang that problematic mom-rock song about 9/11?”

He laughed. “Blame my co-writer for the problematic bits.”

“That must’ve been hard, though,” I said.

He looked surprised. “Are you kidding? It was amazing. Biggest hit of my career, and the fact that it was a curveball makes it even better. People don’t know what to expect from me now. I can do anything.”

This was a good point that hadn’t occurred to me, but all I said was “Must be nice.”

He leaned forward. “I’m very grateful for that song.”

I felt a tiny sting in my eyes. I nodded.

He leaned back again. “I live just up the road,” he said. A new note in his voice, tentative. “If you want to hear me sing, that is. I could play you some things I’ve been working on.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of opinions about music.”

He broke character, laughed abruptly and boisterously.

“Okay, say I did.” I restrained my own smile. “I’ve learned it’s not a good idea to become involved with other people’s work, at least not people you’re attracted to. Makes for a weird dynamic.”

The eyebrows. “So you’re attracted to me?”

My cheeks burned. What was wrong with me? “Everyone is attracted to you,” I backpedaled, with a sweeping hand gesture intended to indicate both Liza-Beth and the redheaded bassist, wherever the hell she was. “It’s nothing special.”

He looked at me carefully. He was waiting for me to say just kidding, of course I’ll go to your apartment with you, of course I’ll listen to your genius songs. He was thinking—I was certain, I could see it in the edge forming around his mouth—of Skinner.

Before he could speak, I asked the next question on my screener: “How would you describe your social scene?”

“Broken.” He motioned to the bartender for another round, then narrowed his eyes at me. “Hey, are you the one who blogged about me singing ‘What Makes You Think You’re the One’ at a house party, couple years ago? How the hell did you know that?”

He’d seen it. I held back what would’ve been a terribly inappropriate smile. “From one of my trendsetters.”

“Oh really!” The chill in his voice came back, hardening now to ice. “So it is a useful job for you!”

“I just guessed at the song, though—was I right?”

He let out a half laugh, nostrils flaring. “It would’ve been a lot less creepy if you’d been wrong.”

“Wow. I’m sorry if that felt invasive—”

“I was in a bad place, that night—our CMJ show sucked, my girlfriend was mad at me—”

“But the piece wasn’t about you, really.”

“That’s true—it was about the author, right? How she always tries to own the singer’s accomplishments? Interesting.”

Suddenly I hated him all over again. My right palm let out a throb of phantom pain. “Calm down,” I muttered. “I deleted it five seconds after I posted it.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. Made me think I’d hallucinated it.” He stopped and sighed, rubbed his forehead. “Never mind.”

ANGER ISSUES , I wrote on the screener, cupping a hand so he couldn’t see.

Then, bizarrely, he laughed. “Ancient history, though, right? Kinda weird how much I still care sometimes.”

“It keeps coming,” I said, “till the day it stops.”

He lifted his head, eyes brightening at the reference. “Percy, have you ever noticed that talking to most people is boring? Easier than this, but boring?”

“Yes,” I said. “But why are we talking like this at all? Didn’t you just say you had a girlfriend?” When he didn’t answer right away I looked back down at my screener, nervous.

“No girlfriend at the moment,” he said.

Panic rose inside me. I looked down at the page, which went red for a half second, then black. Then my vision restored. NO GIRLFRIEND , I wrote. “What happened?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

“She’s amazing,” he said, and I wished I hadn’t asked. “But she’s older, and—well, there was a biological clock issue.”

This didn’t shrink my jealousy, but it gave it a different shape. He was a complicated shadow on her life too, a heartless waste of precious time. I felt an obscure kinship with her, even as I hated how grown-up their relationship suddenly seemed, how weighty and real their problems. Music was playing again in the bar: Hot Chip’s “Ready for the Floor.” Two girls began to dance.

“And you?” he asked, taking a small drink of beer. “Any smart young politicos in your life?”

Zoe must’ve told him about the Obama staffer. “Nope,” I said. “Honestly, I’ve only had one real boyfriend, and that was years ago.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?”

“I cheated on him.”

He thought about this. “And you just told him? Right away?”

I nodded. “And he dumped me right away.”

His face registered this slowly. After a minute he said, “Poor guy.”

“Eh,” I said. “He’s married now. I did him a favor, really. You don’t know how insufferable I can be.”

He leaned forward suddenly, moved his knees so they parted mine. “Come over,” he said. “I want to suffer you.”

I looked down at our legs, four alternating stripes of denim. “But you hate me,” I said.

“Not as much as you hate me.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry about Skinner, but not everything is about you, you know?”

He leaned back slightly. His knees were still touching mine. “Here’s the apology I want. Come over. Work with me.”

I looked away. “Heartbeats” by the Knife started playing. Angular synths cut the air between us, followed by Karin Dreijer’s sharp, dramatic voice. The song had come out after we’d stopped talking; we’d never heard it together, never discussed it.

“The Knife is the perfect name for their sound,” he said quietly.

“Totally. They’re the aural equivalent of a meat cleaver.”

He smiled. We watched each other listen to the song, his smile slowly fading. It’s a mysterious song about an intense romantic encounter, a true and astonishing episode of love—but something goes awry in the bridge, and all Dreijer is left with is a conviction that after this experience, divinity will never come from above. Not for her. Only earthly bodies, pressed so close they’re sharing heartbeats, could ever be divine.

When the last biting synth chord lifted, I found all my temper flares had been tamped out. They seemed idiotic in the face of the song’s grandeur. It was a song I understood only because of Joe, and now here he was, inches from my face, breathing slow and shallow. His knees were closer now, squeezing mine.

Then wordlessly he stood and led me to the bathroom. As we crossed the room it felt oddly quiet, almost still, like those fantasy sequences in movies when everything pauses except the main characters. We joined a silent line of people waiting and stood together leaning against the wall. Our pinkies hooked.

“Do you ever think about that day at the wedding?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes. Zoe once told me that was the whole point of that day.”

“I start with the knock on the door,” he said.

“I start with your hand on my shoulder.”

He turned swiftly and kissed me. It was shocking but also soothing, like falling backward into a warm pool. His hands were in my hair, the pads of his fingers cradling my skull, and then his palm slid down my back, pressing me so close I could feel his ribs on my breasts, the thump of his heart inside my own, just like the song described. Nobody in the bathroom line said anything. Or maybe they did and I didn’t hear them. When he finally pulled back, he wore an expression of deep satisfaction, like the world was right again. I was woozy from the kiss, but that look made me want to clarify something.

“No songs, okay?” I said. “Just us.” I leaned in again.

He turned his cheek.

I froze. “No, don’t—it’s just—”

Wasn’t it obvious? Wasn’t it obvious that working on his stupid songs would ruin everything?

“It’s important that I do my own thing,” I finished.

“Was Skinner your own thing?” he said, his face still at an angle.

“Kind of, yeah. Because it wasn’t you.”

He scoffed.

“Okay, do you want to just do music?” I challenged. “Strictly business?”

He flinched, his face inching even farther away.

“Yeah, me neither,” I said. The volume seemed to have been turned back up on the bar sounds, and the bathroom line had lengthened behind us without shortening in front of us. I waited for him to say something, but he was still drifting away from me. Then he leaned back on the wall and folded his arms high on his chest.

I sighed. “What was I thinking?” I said, and it was a question that truly baffled me. Fucking “Heartbeats.” We’d gulped down that song like a couple of drunks, recklessly chasing euphoria. And now, instead of the mature resolution I’d been searching for, I had rewound myself back into my early twenties.

“You can go if you want,” he said.

“No, I can’t. I need two more trendsetters and I fly out tomorrow morning.”

He nodded, still not quite looking at me. “I’d help you, but”—he lifted his shoulders—“I don’t want to.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said, and walked back to the barstool, where my backpack was waiting on the floor. He stayed in the bathroom line. A few minutes later I saw him leaving. He gave me a small, resigned smile as he pushed through the glass door.

—

The next morning, on the cab ride to JFK, I got a text from him. He was going to be in the Bay Area next month for a benefit show, and wanted to know if he could come to Thanksgiving dinner at the Gutierrezes’. Zoe says you get priority, he said.

Sure, I responded, and felt so relieved I almost cried. Maybe in the light of day, away from barstools and banter and that song, we could be cool.

A few minutes later, he texted, BTW how good is the new Shins? I looked out the window with the phone on my chest for the remainder of the ride, just enjoying the feeling of having Joe to respond to.