37
Sasha
On the main floor, Lillian’s house is the opposite of Cyprus’s parents’ place.
Semi-deliberate choices without the need to pretend that no one lives there and it’s being prepared for an open house.
It’s like a grown-up college dorm, where there are posters for bands most parents do not endorse, and these posters are nicely framed.
There’s a clutter of memory all about the main floor, like every random object might be explained with a long story.
The fridge is fully covered in pictures, every inch of it.
I could stand there and see Lillian’s life stretch back.
Furniture somewhere between vintage and old, with an emphasis on comfort.
The coffee table (and several other surfaces) are spilling over with books and magazines and none of them seem like prototypical coffee-table reading material — either very academic or very activist looking, or both.
I feel comfortable here the same way I feel at Initialism.
Like I’m not a disruption.
I’ve dropped in at Initialism a couple times in the past few weeks just to feel like I unquestionably belong.
Just to exist and to listen and to drink something sugary while I learn how to let my body dance without performing for anyone.
When Lillian lets me into her room, it provides stiff competition for the title of my new favorite place.
It’s a lot like the rest of the house, but more on the music.
It would be a big room if the ceilings didn’t slant every which way, making half of it impossible to stand in.
Where the walls aren’t covered in signed T-shirts and pictures that Cyprus took and drawings that Quinn made, there’s sound baffling.
With all the cables and her gear from the showcase, there isn’t much of Lillian’s floor available to step on.
There’s a desk covered in recording equipment, computer in the middle, speakers on either side.
They seem to be hooked up to devices to play everything from vinyl to CDs to … 8-tracks?
There are dried flowers hanging over it, multiple bouquets upside-down and dried out.
I sit beside an acoustic guitar on a low, striped couch.
I used to play a fair bit, every show on the wave-your-phones songs.
I pick this one up — old strings, worn wood, capo on the headstock — and strum a few chords.
“I didn’t know you played,”
says Lillian. She unplugs five different cables from her laptop so she can bring it to the couch.
“Not like you,”
I say.
“I’m more in the hum-and-strum variety of guitar playing. Three chords and the truth.”
I realize I’m unconsciously playing an Admirer hit and switch to something else before Lillian notices.
She’s got a sea of movies open on her screen.
“What do you want?”
“High school, dark comedy maybe. Juno or something old and deeply defined by an era that isn’t the one we’re in.”
“Please, Juno is for the weak.”
She definitely loves it.
“It’s got to be eighties, it’s got to be Heathers,”
she continues, pulling it up on her screen.
All I really know is that I want to wear what Winona Ryder is wearing, and that’s enough to have me convinced.
Lillian slides closer to me, behind the neck of the guitar. As close as you can sit without it being notable.
Though I do note it, ringing out in me.
“You play the right hand and I’ll do the fancy chords,”
she says.
“What should we play?”
I name a Monochrome Stoplight song, one where I’ve got the fingerstyle sorted but my chord changes are slow.
“The acoustic EP version?” she asks.
“Obviously.”
“Is it sacrilege to say it’s better than the original since it’s basically Liv James playing by herself?”
“If it is, it’s my kind of sacrilege.”
Our attempt at the song is out of sync, playful, broken by laughter. It’s a mess, but we’re not trying to be anything else. I should look at my right hand and Lillian’s left hand, but I mostly watch her face. I sing with her, just the simple backup parts and a little high falsetto above her on the chorus.
When we hit the end, she’s grinning at me.
“I forget that most music isn’t the scramble of that showcase stuff. This is music too. Now, have you considered guitar lessons?”
“Come on, I did good.”
Her look says, as if.
“You showed potential.”
I tell myself that some people just have a generally flirty demeanor. Not Lillian, though. She’s more for throwing dirty looks at strangers and looking angry until she’s talking to someone she likes. Like the way she’s talking to me.
She jumps up so quickly she almost hits her head on the slanted ceiling.
“Popcorn! A movie needs popcorn. I’ll be right back.”
“Do you have honey?”
I ask.
“I’ve got a great popcorn recipe I can make.”