8. Garrett
8
Garrett
“ A s Lyla West, without a face or presence, you aren’t able to connect with your fan base in the same way other musicians do. People want more than talent; they want to know you—” The male voice stops coming through the Bluetooth connection as quickly as it started and is replaced by Alina’s jazz preset station. The abrupt switch is dizzying.
My head thuds back against the firm headrest as shock crushes a breath from my lungs.
This is Evelyn who says every damn thing that pops into her head. Evelyn who wears her heart on her sleeve for everyone to see. And she’s Lyla West? Fuck.
I’ve just heard proof of this, but I’m struggling to see how that could be true.
I’ve known of Lyla West the same as anyone who’s interacted with any pop culture for the last five years does. Her first album made her interesting, someone worth talking about. When her second album came out she made her name as a force to be reckoned with. My favorite is her third, even if it is her least popular. It always felt the most familiar.
Evelyn’s not someone who I can see keeping that big of a secret and with Drew’s relationship with music over the last few years, I can’t fathom her doing something that would make him uncomfortable. I guess if he also doesn’t know, that might just make sense, be the one reason she’d be able to keep a secret this large.
A blur of movement streaks across the house windows and then Evelyn stops to peer out at me. Her doe eyes are wide but unwavering. She's speaking into the phone but I can’t read the words falling from her lips.
I think for a moment she’ll hang up and vanish like a ghost. But this is Evelyn. Even if I’ve just learned that she’s also someone else entirely, she barrels things with an unmatched intensity that makes me feel like I’m a pin about to be struck down by a bowling ball. So, I’m not surprised when a few moments pass then she flings open the door and marches toward me.
But then her eyes flicker with hesitation. She just stands there next to the car with her phone clutched at her side. She’s wearing the outfit I sent her. Denim hugs her hips, and a thin band of skin exposed between the gap below the hem of her shirt has me desperate to know how my fingers would feel running over it.
Soft. I think she’d feel so fucking soft. For a moment I forget everything else that’s happening. There’s just her.
Evelyn.
Evelyn, who is also Lyla.
Fuck.
I make an effort to relax back in my seat. There’s no point in showing my hand before I know the rules of the game.
In truth, there are very few things that I appreciate about my job, but reading people has always managed to make the list. It’s the same reason I hate texting; you lose the nuance of humanity. You can’t see someone disguise their sweaty palms over an email or hear the tremor of anxiety that lets you know you can push a negotiation further. It’s a skill learned from necessity as a child, knowing when I’ve overstayed my welcome at the shops around town or when Lana’s face would pinch and she’d start reminding me how I destroyed her life with the simple act of being born, as if I asked to be born in the first place.
Everyone has a tell. Evelyn’s is a smile that takes an extra few seconds to reach her eyes. It’s a brave face, a convincing one for anyone who doesn’t know what her genuine smile looks like. I don’t know when I started noticing it, but one thing is for sure. Right now, she’s doing her best not to show how shaken she is.
Evelyn hovers by the door, her hand floating inches from the handle. An unasked question weighs heavy in the air.
“Get in.” I reach over and open the door for her. “We’re going somewhere with plenty of alcohol, and you look like you need a drink.”
“How do people know if you’re actually going to get gas or if you’re coming here?” she asks, breaking the stiff silence that’s fallen over us during the short drive.
The ‘n’ in The Gas Station’ ancient orange and red neon sign flickers. A handful of familiar cars are parked outside the old converted gas station turned townie bar.
“Context clues, I guess.” I pull into a spot under the rusted awning next to a non-functional gas pumps.
“But when someone says, ‘I’m taking Darla to The Gas Station’ how am I supposed to know if they’re taking their unfortunately named car or an actual person?”
The Gas Station is still on most maps as an actual gas station. The odd tourist or two stumbles in because of it, but it’s far enough out of the way most people seek out other options for fuel first. But the locals just know. It’s one of the few spots besides the unmarked trails around town that we have to ourselves.
I was going to come here tonight with or without Evelyn. I have a soft spot for the place that always has me coming back on my last nights in town.
“Please don’t tell me you name your cars,” I say.
“Just my piano,” she says. “Her name is Meg.”
“Meg?”
“Like Meg Ryan,” she explains, “I love When Harry Met Sally. It makes me feel okay with being single and a mess as my thirtieth birthday creeps around the corner with the voice of my mom asking why I’m not engaged yet. It also taught me how to fake an orgasm at an inappropriately young age.”
“I can get behind a piano with a name,” I say. My fingers tap nervously along the steering wheel. I guess we’re just going to ignore what happened earlier, but my mind is still whirring as I try to slot pieces into place.
Why are you here, Evelyn?
She checks her phone for something. A message from whoever she was talking to earlier? Whatever it was about, it didn’t seem all that pleasant.
I nod toward her hands, and she quickly tucks it out of view. “There’s a no phone policy. If you take out your phone, you have to buy everyone a round.”
“What if there’s an emergency?”
“Step outside or there’s a payphone,” I explain.
“Do some old folks with a vendetta against technology own the place?”
“Pat is turning forty for the sixth time this year, but she’s had a vendetta against me since I was a kid.”
Evelyn’s eyes gleam with amusement. “Are you telling me you’re the reason for the rule?”
“More or less.” I shrug.
The rule has evolved over the years. First, I couldn’t bring in textbooks or homework, then it was my school laptop when I’d squeeze in time to visit between classes at Columbia. The phone rule is the most current iteration. The rule was born from the times I would hang around after school. I was definitely too young to be in a bar, but Pat knew it was better than the alternative.
I played pool, or when it was slow Pat would teach me chess. I’ve never particularly liked people, but I’ve also never liked being alone. Even if I was by myself in the corner, studying old chess games didn’t feel so adrift. I think the sound is part of the reason I miss the city so much. Even if you’re shut away in your apartment the world never goes completely quiet outside.
“Anything else I should know?” Evelyn asks as she starts to reach for her door handle.
“If you ask for an off menu cocktail, Pat will try and make it and it will be the worst thing you’ve ever tasted.” The memory of these instances send a shiver down my spine.
“Noted.”
Inside, the bartop is constructed out of the old checkout counter and still has the same monstrous outdated register that stopped working last year, leading to some long-time bets to finally be resolved. I’m fairly sure Winnie got upward of a thousand dollars for that one. A group is clustered around one of the two scuffed pool tables tucked in the corner of the bar. Our shoes stick to the checkered linoleum as we head to a pair of red and chrome diner style stools.
Patricia “Pat” Herrington’s gaze slips right by me to land on Evelyn. She was in the military before opening the bar and has retained the same short, now graying, pixie cut she’s had since she left at eighteen, as well as the muscles she now uses to lug around kegs of local beer. Like most people in town she juggles two jobs, so she also daylights as the high school’s gym teacher.
“Rare to see a new face here, especially one with him,” Pat says as she hooks a thumb in my direction.
“Oh, I just found him wandering around the parking lot trying to get cell reception. There’s no way I’d associate with people who put that much product in their hair,” Evelyn says, quick as ever.
Pat slaps the glass counter and lets out a full-throated guffaw. “She’s good.”
She is. I’ve always teetered between being wary of people like Evelyn and being enamored by them, because she knows how to interact with people in a way that leaves them feeling lighter.
I might be able to read people, be able understand them, but putting that into practice has never been my forte. If anything it makes it worse. I can see when I fail but not be able to rectify it. It’s forced me to the point where I’d rather be seen as cold and indifferent than incompetent. That’s part of the reason I’m struggling with what to do about the situation with Evelyn now. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that if I say something, I’ll fuck up any chance of her speaking to me again.
“She is,” I agree, taking the opportunity to look at Evelyn. Despite what I’ve just learned, she’s composed, which only serves to make me question how many times I’ve seen her like this while there’s more going on beneath the surface.
“Did he tell you he’s famous, honey? Because you can do better than a washed up C-list celebrity.” Pat leans over the counter and lowers her voice conspiratorially, staying loud enough so I can hear her over the Eagles song blaring from the jukebox on the opposite wall.
“I know I can. He’s just here to pay for my drinks while I find someone I’d rather go home with,” Evelyn says, then does a generous perusal of the bar room. She winks at someone but I don’t catch who. This causes my blood to simmer for some fucking reason.
“Slim picking here, don’t get your hopes up,” Pat warns. “What are we drinking?”
“Two shots of tequila please,” Evelyn says.
“I don’t drink tequila,” I say.
“Good for you. These are both for me.” Evelyn flashes a full toothy smile as Pat moves to the other end of the bar to grab chilled tequila and glasses.
“I take it that this is how you’re going to cope with what happened?” I ask, finally attempting to broach the topic of what I overheard.
“Well, you offered alcohol and have been avoiding the topic,” she says with an indifferent shrug. “In my mind, there’s a chance I wake up tomorrow not trying to overthink what you know because I’ve forgotten. And at this rate you haven’t said anything and I’m happy to continue like this.”
“Because drinking to the point of amnesia is the best solution here.”
“Best? No. Effective? There’s only one way to see!”
The moment the tequila shots appear in front of her she slams them back without a chaser.
Alex is sitting on Evelyn’s lap looking far too satisfied with his situation.
“Alexander?” she asks with a giggle as he leans into her touch. Evelyn is flushed and in higher spirits after a few drinks. She’s also finding everything about ten times funnier than it actually is.
“Yes,” I answer.
She looks at Alex and flashes a shameless smile. “You should come home with me, Alexander.”
Alex, as one might expect, meows.
The orange cat has one eye and is respectably battle scarred. I’m pretty sure the creature came with The Gas Station when Pat bought the place. Currently, he’s found sanctuary on Evelyn's lap in the corner table we’ve found.
“Many a drunk woman has tried, all have failed,” I tell her. I've been drinking water since my first and only beer. Evelyn’s drunk enough for the both of us.
“Okay, but we have to stay until he lets me go. It’s illegal to move a sleeping cat,” she insists.
“I must have missed that chapter in law school. Tell me, is that a felony or a misdemeanor?”
She pauses and considers. Unhappy that she’s stopped petting him, Alex wakes up and bumps her hand with his head until she resumes stroking him. “Which one is worse?”
“Felony.”
“Then it’s a felony.” She nods curtly then looks down at Alex, scratching under his chin and earning a rumbling purr. Her expression flattens and her eyes flick to my face then back down. “Why doesn’t it seem to bother you?”
“Why would Alex bother me? I don’t have allergies.”
“No, I mean learning about Lyla.” She swallows hard. “It’s making me go crazy. Like, I thought the first time someone found out the apocalypse would start and I’d get sucked into a sinkhole or something. I’m just waiting for you to do something with it so I can stop anticipating the worst.”
“Are you telling me you wouldn’t have downed so much tequila if I told you I don’t plan on doing anything with it?” If I knew that, maybe I would have voiced some of the thoughts rattling around in my head.
“No. Tequila was going to happen no matter what,” she says, as if that’s supposed to be reassuring.
“And you’re disappointed because…” I want to give her the reaction she wants, but doubt that’s actually to make a big deal of it. I’d rather not feed into the feeling that her world is about to implode on itself.
“I’m not.” She trips over her words for a moment. “It’s just, I thought you’d have some reaction worthy of the natural disaster brewing in the back of my head for the last five years.”
“I thought my eyebrows communicated with you about what’s going on in my head.”
“Only when you’re being judgmental.” Her expression softens.
“Well, I’m sorry that my reaction doesn’t rival the rapture, but due to the amount of secret love children I draft NDAs to cover up, my threshold is high,” I say, but it’s more that I keep my reactions to myself.
“Does this mean you’re secretly my lawyer? Because last time I checked it was this sweet balding man who insists on me calling him Herb over email,” she says. Her voice has a light slur to it. “I like Herb.”
“No, I'm not secretly your lawyer. I’ll sign something if you want. But if you’re worried I’ll tell someone, spilling your secret will all but destroy my professional integrity without gaining anything.”
“So, not surprised?”
“You’re just…” I trail off for the right way to describe it. I’m surprised, of course I am, but it makes sense in a way that I didn’t expect. Years ago there would be times when we were writing a new song and Evelyn would be on her stomach, popping candy into her mouth and doing homework. Wes and I would get stuck and start bickering about word choice or a key change and her head would pop up.
She’d say something like “Obviously, the right word is atrophy” then go back down to whatever she was working on. There are so many of her suggestions that ended up in the final product that she should have been given song writing credits.
“Loud, abrasive, not that smart, a bit of a flirt,” she finishes for me. Her lashes flutter and she leans in across the table. There’s a dangerous light in her eyes that draws me in like a dare.
“I was going to say you’ve never seemed like the type of person to keep secrets,” I say. I guess that’s why it’s worked so well. Who would guess the girl who lays everything on the table has something like this under wraps.
“It’s because there’s a tiny, locked room in my head where I compartmentalize those parts of my life. And if you’re wondering, that room is on fire right now.”
“Might I suggest water. I’ve heard it helps more than alcohol when dealing with fire.”
“But far less fun.” She winks and bites at her plush bottom lip causing my blood to heat. God this woman. You’d think she’d flirt less at a time like this.
Alex swipes at me when I start to remove him from Evelyn’s lap after last call. Eve’s head keeps rocking to the side as she fights sleep. Her eyes keep drifting closed. At least what happened won’t be keeping her up at night, granted the amount she’s had to drink probably has more to do with that than true peace of mind.
Evelyn reaches for the furball as I pull him away. “No. Bring him back.” She moans like he’s some long-lost lover and not an equal opportunist already on his way to find someone else to leech affection from.
“You can come back and see him later,” I say as I set Alex on the ground. “Come on, let's get you home.”
She pouts, but clambers to her feet using a chair to support herself. A hard determination takes over as she walks to the door with all the grace of a newborn deer. Every time I reach out my hand to offer help, she mutters, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
In the car, her phone connects and a vaguely familiar pop song starts to play, the type that transitions from radio to being played on repeat in department stores. Evelyn is silent with her eyes closed, the wind plastering dark strands of hair to her forehead. The only thing giving away that she’s not asleep are the canyons of concentration cut between her brows.
I park at the top of her driveway expecting her to dart out of the car, but she heaves a breath relaxing into the seat. Evelyn’s glassy green eyes pool with moonlight as she peers at the sky.
“I’m not really here on vacation,” she says.
“Maybe you have decent taste after all.”
Evelyn reaches a hand up as if she can pluck one of the stars out of the sky. It’s one of the few things I miss when I’m in the city. “Maybe I’ll write a song about the stars.”
“How would it go?” I ask with genuine curiosity.
“No clue.” Her expression slackens into a frown. “That’s why I’m here. I need to write an entire album and it’s like I’ve forgotten how. I had this idea that if I surrounded myself with love it would just, I don’t know, be easier.”
“And?”
“I ended up with a grump in a convertible and what’s going to be the worst hangover of my life in the morning,” she says, throwing up her hands with this can you believe the day I’m having exasperation.
“Sounds terrible.”
“It is, don’t get me started on how the guy took a cat from me.”
“Deplorable.”
“The worst,” she says. She undoes her seatbelt and gets out of the car. After she shuts the door her hand lingers on the edge. “You’re not the worst though, not really.” Her eyes latch on mine and it's a marvel she remains soft despite the weight I now know she’s carrying. “See you around?”
“Probably not.”
“Going to hide at Alina’s and avoid me now that the betting pool’s not going to come for you?” she teases.
Her references to Alina and the betting pool are such small things, but it’s an exchange I’ve never had with anyone else.
These people. This place. I keep them to myself.
Sharing this with Evelyn, a person who can truly appreciate it even if I can’t, was something I never saw coming.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.” And I don’t have room to regret it. I need to get back to work. It doesn’t matter that these twenty-four hours have forced us to share things about ourselves we never would have under different circumstances.
“Oh.” Evelyn nods as she digests this. “Well then, I’ll see you for our regularly scheduled run-in in a few months.”
“Send an NDA and I’ll sign it.”
Her lips draw into a tight line. “Okay.”
The moment she lets go of the door I’m backing down the driveway.