Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“It’s Friday night. I’m going clubbing,” Xavier said. He was talking to me but glaring at the woman exiting the store. “Was it really necessary to paw through every fucking T-shirt?” he huffed, refolding the Marie Antoinette T-shirts on the display table.
“Eat cake!” he yelled at the door as he rearranged the pastel clutch bags shaped like bonbons and meringues on a gilded cake stand. “And while you’re at it you can kiss my Latino ass.”
“You never even leave the house until eleven,” I said, steering the conversation back to the subject at hand. Annika’s dance performance tonight. “Come with me and you can go clubbing afterwards.”
Xavier spun around and put his hands on his hips, giving me the death stare. “It’s like you don’t even know me. It’s going to take me three hours to get ready. And that’s after I’ve decided what to wear.”
My gaze swept over his black mesh shirt and leather pants. He wore thick silver chains around his neck, six-inch platform boots, and meticulously applied eyeliner.
His black hair was spiked with gel, the tips peroxided, not a single strand out of place.
Xavi was always dressed like he was ready to go clubbing so I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Please,” I pleaded, hands folded in prayer as the bell over the door rang.
“We’re closed,” Xavier snarled, tapping the non-existent watch on his wrist before turning to look at Angel Gabriel.
Joking. He wasn’t an angel. More like a mischievous choirboy.
“But for you we’ll make an exception.” Xavi batted his lashes.
Gabriel laughed and asked him how he was doing, which led to a five-minute monologue from Xavier on the trials and tribulations of working in retail and ended with a rant about his boyfriend’s nefarious ways.
“He’s so clingy. I’ve had it up to here.” He sliced a finger across his neck.
Gabriel nodded. “Sometimes you just need to do your own thing. You need some space to breathe.”
“See? Gabriel gets me.” Xavier sent me a scathing look, which was entirely unwarranted since I’d told him the very same thing this afternoon when he was doing my makeup.
“You don’t need me. You’re already in good hands.” He swept his arm toward Gabriel.
They met a couple of weeks ago when I dragged Xavi to the Horseshoe Bar so I wouldn’t have to three-wheel it.
That’s the night I met Hank, a history buff who wore tweed jackets with elbow patches.
Tonight was supposed to be our third date, but he called last night to cancel. “Full disclosure,” he’d said, “I don’t really trust beautiful women. I’m not even sure why you’re interested in me.”
Then he told me a story about the popular girl in high school who asked him to the prom, only to humiliate him in front of all the jocks and cheerleaders. I’d argued that I was neither a popular girl nor a cheerleader, but he’d muttered sorry and hung up.
Another one bites the dust.
“Gabriel, my love,” Simone singsonged as she breezed through the shop on six-inch spikey-heeled boots that looked like torture devices.
She kissed Gabriel on the cheek and patted it with her palm.
Last week, Simone came to Monks to watch Gabriel perform and was now a devout groupie. “My god. That ethereal voice. It’s like a religious experience,” she’d said, fanning herself. High praise from a former punk rocker.
Now, Simone looked him up and down. He wore his usual boots and denim with an army jacket that was three sizes too big and made him look like a homeless waif.
“When are you going to let me be your stylist?” she asked.
“I’m holding out until Cleo makes me a shirt.”
Simone spun to face me and threw her arms up in the air. “Why haven’t you made this poor boy a shirt yet?”
Gabriel smirked. I rolled my eyes and grabbed my coat and bag from under the black lacquer counter. “I’m not a fashion designer.”
“You’re an artist,” Simone said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. We all know.”
Xavi pursed his lips and nodded. “Mmhmm.”
“But how many times do I have to tell you that fashion design is art? And you, my dear, are talented.” She turned to Gabriel. “I told her to design a capsule collection and I’d sell it in the boutique. Tell her it’s a wonderful opportunity. Too good to pass up.”
“What makes you think she’d even listen to me?” Gabriel asked.
“Look at that face.” She patted his cheek again. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Save your breath,” I told Gabriel as we pushed through the front door onto the street. “I don’t tell you what to do with your songwriting or your music.”
He laughed like that was a good joke. I gave him a look. “What? I don’t.”
Gabriel grabbed my elbow and steered me in the opposite direction. “It’s just as fast to walk.”
Debatable but Gabriel loathed the subway.
It made him claustrophobic. Last week, he told me about a dream he had.
The train crashed in the middle of the tunnel, and he had to claw his way out of the debris and severed limbs.
To make matters worse, the whole vivid nightmare was set to Muzak.
So in addition to excavating bodies, he was driven to madness by the vapid, dehumanizing music that “turns people into zombies and makes a mockery of the art form.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, setting off at a brisk pace. “You just give me the look .”
“I don’t give you any look.” I tightened the belt of my leopard print coat and flipped up the collar to ward off the October chill. “Why did you pick me up anyway? I thought I was going to meet you there.”
“Annika told me Hairy Harry cancelled. She asked me to pick you up.”
“His name is Hank and he’s not all that hairy.” He wasn’t all that great either. Turns out you had to kiss a lot of frogs before finding your true love.
The only reason I invited Hank was to avoid being alone with Gabriel. Plans thwarted once again.
“I need to buy Annika some flowers.” I stopped in front of a florist with a Mad Hatter-themed window display. It was wildly expensive, but the owner was one of our customers, so with any luck she’d give me a generous discount.
“I was going to get her flowers too…” He cleared his throat and gave me a sheepish look.
I sighed. “Yeah, I’m broke too.”
“I thought you got a raise.”
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to pay off my student loans and last week I went to buy one book and came home with a dozen, and then I went on that sushi kick and that doesn’t come cheap...” Honestly, I had no idea where my money went. It just slipped through my fingers like water.
“If you designed some clothes?—”
“If you kept your songs down to a reasonable five minutes?—”
“Make me a shirt for my birthday, Cleo.”
“Write a song that doesn’t suck, Gabriel, and I’ll think about it.”
His eyes narrowed and I waited for him to retaliate but was disappointed when he didn’t.
It would have evened the playing field, and made me feel less bitchy, but he pressed his lips together, shook his head, and said nothing.
When we emerged from the flower shop with a blush and cream extravaganza suitable for a June bride, Gabriel strode up the street, bouquet in hand while I lagged behind, in no rush to catch up.
I cursed my sharp tongue for lashing out like that.
I knew I’d been too harsh but wasn’t sure how to get out of it now, so I strolled through the Village while he soldiered on, running his hands through his hair and shaking his head like he was having an argument with himself.
We had to get all the way across town to the hinterlands of Chelsea, and since it was his idea to walk, I was forced to keep up.
“Hey, baby, what’s a pretty girl like you doing all by yourself?” I tried to sidestep the two drunk frat boys, but the beefy blond in a Kappa Sigma sweatshirt blocked my path. “You want some company?”
“She’s with me, dickhead,” Gabriel growled.
My brows shot up. I’d never heard him growl before.
“Yeah? Well, maybe she’d rather hang out with me.” The guy looked me up and down and leaned in close. I could smell the liquor on his breath. “I know I’d love to hang out with you . Those are some sexy boots you got there. Do they go all the way?—"
“Fuck off,” Gabriel and I said in unison as he grabbed my arm and dragged me up the street. I had to jog a little to keep up.
“You don’t know what you’re missing. Your loss!” the guy yelled at our retreating backs.
I laughed because that was ridiculous. He looked like the kind of guy who wouldn’t know how to find a girl’s clit if you drew him a map.
Gabriel wasn’t as amused. His jaw was clenched and the little muscle in his cheek was working overtime.
On the next block, he released my arm and scowled at my thigh-high boots. “This is exactly why it’s not safe for you to walk around on your own.”
I rolled my eyes. “He was harmless.” And you were the one who charged ahead. “Besides, I’m a New Yorker. I know how to take care of myself.”
He mumbled something I didn’t catch, and we walked the rest of the way in stony silence while I snuck sidelong glances at him, trying to gauge his mood.
I don’t know why I’d attacked his music. It was a low blow and really shitty of me.
As we crossed Tenth Avenue, with the wind whipping up a cyclone of garbage, I pushed my hair out of my face and muttered, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. You were just being honest.” He let out a derisive laugh. “That’s one thing I can always count on with you.”
It didn’t sound like a compliment.
“Your music is good.” He gave me a skeptical look, but I ignored it and forged on. “Your voice is incredible. Your guitar skills are top-tier?—"
“But my songwriting skills leave something to be desired.” He blew out a frustrated breath when we stopped in front of the performance venue, an old warehouse just off the West Side Highway.
Gabriel looked so tortured that I put my hand on his arm to comfort him but quickly withdrew it and stuffed it in my coat pocket.
He swallowed and we both stared at the bouquet clenched in his fist.
“We should go in,” I said, glancing at the steel doors where people were filtering in for tonight’s performance.
He nodded. “Yeah.” He nodded again and bit the inside of his cheek while I finger-combed my hair, untangling the knots, and smoothed a palm over my bangs, trying to make myself presentable.
Gabriel opened his mouth but shut it again. He did this a few more times before tipping his head back and staring up at the sky like he might find the answers there.
In the shadow of the streetlight, his cheekbones looked even more pronounced, his beauty more haunting. He looked like a sexy Victorian painting.
“Just say it,” he said finally. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I thought I knew the problem and wanted to help but wasn’t sure how to do that without hurting his feelings more than I already had. Nevertheless, I took a stab at it.
“You just need to be honest. With your music. With your songwriting,” I clarified. “It just feels like…”
I cast around for a good example. “Okay, whenever you do a cover song, everyone in the room can feel it, you know? The longing, the passion, the joy, the sorrow. You evoke so many emotions with your voice and just…I don’t know, it’s like you are the music.
You’re such an incredible performer, you really are… ”
He exhaled loudly. “Get to the point.”
Fine. He asked for it. “Something is missing from the new music you tried out last week. The lyrics don’t even sound like you. There’s no passion?—"
“You think it sounds too commercial. Too formulaic.”
“No. I didn’t say that. Your music and your voice are unique.
You don’t sound like anything coming out of Seattle.
Your music isn’t pop or formulaic. It’s organic.
Profound. And you usually put everything into it.
” I stopped and took a breath. “But with the new songs it felt like you were playing it safe. I got the feeling that you don’t really believe in them. ”
There. It was out.
He rolled out his shoulders and worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching it. Then he stared at me for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought before turning on his heel and stalking to the door.
I brushed past him, wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut.
When we found our seats, metal folding chairs that scraped against the concrete as we settled in, I took a few deep breaths and tried to let it go.
We weren’t speaking but he was sitting right next to me so I could still feel him. His restless energy. The tension radiating off him in waves. His knee kept bouncing and his hair stuck up all over from running his fingers through it.
He smelled faintly of sandalwood and incense. Woodsy. Warm spice. The musky scent of a boy.
I grabbed the bouquet before the flowers withered and died from his bad vibes. He shot me an accusing glare but said nothing.
After a few minutes of excruciating silence, I exhaled loudly. “You asked me to be honest and I was. So you can’t be all pissed off?—”
“Don’t tell me what I can and cannot be,” he bit out. “And I’m not pissed off.”
“Yeah, okay.” I snorted. “So that’s why you’re giving me the silent treatment.”
“Hey, I have an idea.” He snapped his fingers. “How about we critique your art and see how you react? You want honesty, Cleo? Stop being a fucking chicken and put your work out there.”
I wanted to argue that it wasn’t the same. Unlike him and Annika, I wasn’t a performance artist. Just a hypocrite, I guess.
“You were right.” He rolled out his neck and massaged the side that was to me, like he was trying to work a kink out of it. “The new music is shit.”
“I didn’t say it was shit.”
“It was heavily implied.”
“It’s just one opinion!”
A woman sitting in front of us turned around and shot me an evil glare. The performance hadn’t even started yet so I ignored her.
“Why do you even care what I think?”
“For some reason, your opinion matters to me,” he said under his breath.
Oh . Okay. This is where honesty gets you. Time for a truth bomb, I guess. “I only said it because I know you’re capable of so much more.”
Our eyes met and I counted my heartbeats. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats. Four. “I feel the same about you,” he said finally.
One skipped heartbeat and we were off to the races. I stared at him for a moment before facing forward with my pulse racing and my heart beating triple time.
Pull yourself together, Cleo . He was talking about art, nothing more.
We were here to support Annika, so I shoved all thoughts of Gabriel out of my head and focused on the stage as the first eerie notes played.
The set looked like a dystopian version of New York City with buildings reduced to rubble and dancers dressed in torn rags sifting through the dumpsters and debris.
Annika rose from the ashes in a diaphanous white dress with a crown of braids woven into her hair. She moved like liquid silk, so fluid and graceful that I was transfixed.
Next to me, Gabriel looked awestruck. If he wasn’t already in love with Annika, I think tonight sealed the deal.
I guess I’d better make him the damn shirt.
A peace offering.