Chapter 6
6.
Freezer aisle at the grocery store: me looking for a pizza, Julien suddenly in front of me in a black hoodie, holding a half-full basket, tugging earbuds out of his ears. I’ve just left the weird photo shoot, still toying with the idea of taking Jessika up on her invitation.
—Hey you, I say. What are you listening to?
Overhead, a mid-aughts soft-rock band has come on—the kind of song that’s so ingrained in your memory, where you know all the words but for the life of you can’t remember the name of the song or even the artist, just a flash of memory from an earlier life. A boy’s passenger seat, a window down on a Michigan highway, a fingertip pressing into a hip bone, a day on the beach when you were sixteen—
—Postal Service, Julien says.
—Cute, I say, and resist the urge to make the obvious joke about what Yoshi told me at the Halloween party.
He laughs, barely.
—What are you doing tonight? I ask.
He shrugs and shifts the basket in his arm, tamping down a box of fancy spaghetti that’s threatening to fall out.
—I was going to make dinner, he says.
—For yourself?
—Yup.
—Sounds a little lonely, I say, shrugging at him.
—You think doing anything alone is lonely.
—Isn’t it?
—Some people like being alone, he says, and then takes an unexpected step toward me to let a large—large—man pass behind him. The man lingers there awkwardly, looking for something behind us, leaving the two of us standing quiet and close, our bodies only seven or eight inches apart. My face, chest, the back of my neck warm, and I suddenly want to press my fingertip to his collarbone, his cheek, the jut of his hip bone. But my palms are too sweaty, and I am overwhelmed by the desire to be somewhere less public, somewhere I could stand even closer—
For the first time, I notice large scars on Julien’s earlobe. A piercing that had closed up? Healed skin that will never be smooth again. This close, his face delicate and pale—you almost want to pull him out into the sunlight. Fluorescent lights flashing, a piney whiff of cologne. When the man behind us finally sighs and settles on a lasagna, Julien relaxes a bit, but he doesn’t step away from me.
—Want to hang out? I ask.
I have the odd urge to stand on only one foot, like some strange grocery store flamingo. Instead I bounce up and down on my toes, let the blood travel up through the arches of my feet, my calves.
—Do we need wine? I ask, before he’s answered.
Things I missed: A pewter ring he wore on the middle finger of his right hand. His block-caps handwriting, the words covering every centimeter of the mix CDs he still played in his car. The absence of an aux cord in his car. The way all his CDs skipped. The choppy, jarring sound of being pulled in and out, in and out, in and out of a melody. Cheeks that flushed peach when he got too warm, most nights at The Venue. His short, filed fingernails. Green eyes, sometimes, and then other times definitively hazel. The way he was always listening, waiting, showing a patience for others that I could only aspire to. He had a way of walking through the world like a dancer, elegant and intentional and poised, but then he would stop somewhere—in a parking lot, working the door at The Venue—to pull out his phone or pick up a dirty napkin, and his shoulders would slump and break the spell. The way he always wanted whatever would make things easier for someone else. And here I am, not even knowing what I want.
On the way from Kroger to Julien’s house, I flip through the CDs in his car. Most everyone else has switched over by now—to aux cords and Bluetooth, anything but CDs. But Julien and I seem stuck in 2005, both our cars full of burned CDs, scratched and ruined, like we’ve run them all across concrete. In the front of his collection is a silver CD, a burned one, with JwK #11 written in black sharpie across the front. I put it in and Julien glances over at me at a stop sign. A last streak of sunlight pierces through the window in a line of golden glitter. Belle and Sebastian comes over the speakers, and I can’t read the expression on Julien’s face.
Julien carries in all the groceries even though I offer, even though it’s way too much for one person, even though the bags are too tight around his wrists, his forearms, his biceps as he makes his way from the car. On his porch, a can of San Marzano tomatoes rolls out, a clang of metal on wood as it rolls down the front steps. I haven’t been to his place since the Halloween party, and the trees in his yard have turned into vibrant, wild creatures in the past two weeks. The maple looks like it’s been set aflame. A bubblegum pink sunset starts to fade into indigo—evening.
—Sorry, it’s a little messy, he says, opening the front door.
It’s not, though. Not at all. His trumpet is out, leaning against the lip of the couch, a worn-in chambray color I didn’t notice at the party. Records are stacked on the coffee table, atop the small TV. There are books and graphic novels spread out on the couch, as if he were reading them all at once. And yet they appear almost thoughtfully arranged, as if they were styled by some designer for a picture.
—It’s not, I say. You’ve obviously never seen my room.
—I haven’t, he says, and I wonder if I hear a hint of a suggestion.
Plastic bags onto a small kitchen table. A New Yorker, several bills, a copy of the Nashville Scene, a coffee mug from the place on Twenty-First, day-old tea at the bottom. A set of guitar strings, the high E missing. I pick it up and twirl the pack in my fingers.
—I always break the high E, I say. And then I’m screwed because I’m terrible at changing my own strings. So I’ll just play without it for weeks.
Julien is still unpacking all his very adult groceries. Pork chops, loose greens, lemons, shallots.
—I can do it, he says, not turning around, the refrigerator light casting a weak halo around him. If you ever need a hand, he says.
—I forgot. Your hard-core band. Of course you can change a string on the fly. What was their name again?
Now he turns around, stares at me.
—So Much Man, he says. And then: Shut up. Shut up.
I laugh.
—Wow. So Much Man. Okay. That’s not what I was expecting. How old were you? I mean, it’s not much worse than Flirtation Device.
My throat constricts—I immediately regret shoving Nick, however loosely, into the conversation. Julien’s face is straight.
—That’s true, he says, pointing the corner of a box of granola at me, a faint smile registering as he turns back to the cabinets.
—Want to put something on? he asks.
Out of his jeans he pulls an iPod, unplugging the tangled headphone cord. When he passes it to me, the smudges from his fingers cover the surface of the screen. The pressure to choose music for us rises up between my lungs. I turn on a song about a one-night stand, and then, for some reason, I ask:
—Do you know how to have casual sex?
Julien chokes out a startled laugh. His cheeks flush light pink as he glances over his shoulder at me.
—Excuse me? Do I know how?
He’s holding a can of tomatoes in his palm, the label facing upward, like he’s about to do a bicep curl. He waits.
—Yeah, I say. I just…I’ve tried. I don’t think I’m very good at it. I don’t mean, like, logistically or physically. Well, I don’t know. I mean emotionally.
—I’m not, Julien says. Good at it.
—Casual sex, or sex in general? I ask.
He laughs.
—Do you want me to cook you dinner or not? he says, turning back to his cabinets.
—What about with Jess? I ask.
Julien opens and shuts a cabinet, then glances over his shoulder again at me. I wonder if we’d be having this conversation if his back weren’t to me.
—What about her? he asks.
—Would you call that casual?
—I wouldn’t have called it serious, he says.
—Wouldn’t have? I ask. Past tense?
The kitchen is quiet; the refrigerator emits its soft hiss.
—What about Colt? Julien asks.
—I don’t want to talk about it.
—You brought it up.
—Did you and Jess break up? I ask.
—Put something else on, he says. And then: Will you eat salad?
—Sure. Yeah, okay. In the mood for anything?
—Dave Matthews Band.
Now it’s my turn to give him a dead-eyed stare.
—I’m kidding, he says. Though there was definitely a point in my life where I probably wouldn’t have been. Do you want a drink?
He pauses, and then:
—I know that’s probably a silly question.
The comment is subtly loaded. I let it pass and say:
—Yeah, in a minute. Which is maybe the closest I’ll ever get to turning down a drink. Postponing it, perhaps. My tongue still tastes like syrup, an aftertaste of the warm whiskey at the photo shoot. I check my phone and there’s a text from Jess: Headed to Melrose now. See you there? Or not:)
—And yeah, we broke up, he says. Right before Halloween.
Halloween. The night Julien was loopy and drunk, when we sat on his porch and smoked together. I slide my phone back into my pocket.
—I’m sorry, I say.
—Oh, it’s really okay. Turns out she mostly likes women. I think I was more of an experiment.
—Really?
—I mean, kind of.
I nod. And flip through more music on his iPod, desperate to ask more questions. Instead, I say:
—That was weeks ago. You didn’t tell me.
—I’m telling you now, he says.
—Okay, but—
—From what I’ve gathered there’s plenty of things you don’t tell me.
Our eyes meet and then I break the eye contact and look down at my hands—it’s too much. He turns back around and opens and shuts more cabinets, pulling out pans and spices. I clear my throat and ask:
—Have you heard the new Justin Wilson demos?
—I don’t think so.
—There’s two songs up on Bandcamp. Hang on, let me find them. I downloaded them today and, well, let’s just say: I was not emotionally prepared. I don’t know how he—how they—do it. Seems like so much pain wrapped up in two and a half minutes.
Julien nods.
—Do you think he’s dead? Like, these are just old demos someone’s digging up and releasing now? And soon…
I stop and look to him, as if he might know how to finish the sentence.
—I don’t know, he says. I feel there would have been an announcement or something, right? Maybe he just wanted to go off the grid.
—I know, but there’s been nothing. Like, nothing. And he was kind of fucked up anyway, you know. I hate saying this, but it wouldn’t be surprising. If something happened. I mean, did you see him at last year’s Americana Awards?
Julien shakes his head.
—It’s kind of a mess, but even so.
—That voice, he says.
—Yeah. But she wrote the song. Esther did.
—That’s right, Julien says.
—And honestly, when she sings with him—
He nods, like he wants to say something else but doesn’t. My chest clenches as he turns back around, the stove flicking on. Hot oil and the searing sound of a melancholic melody pouring out of my phone. A motion sensor light glows caramel in the back alley through the window, then: pitch dark, the window a midnight sea.
Julien turns back around and sets an onion on the table in front of me. He looks directly into my eyes, very seriously, as though he’s about to—
—Can you slice this? he asks.
The air gathered in my chest collapses.
He hands me a pair of swimming goggles.
—If you need them, he says. I usually do.
Panic, for me, always comes in wild, messy tears. Not a heart attack but an absolute meltdown. That hollow fist in the back of my stomach, the certainty that everything, everyone, everywhere is fucked. Late at night at The Venue, cleaning the toilets, wondering why I got a college degree just to clean up somebody else’s vomit. In my closet. On the floor. In my car, bed, bathroom. In the alley behind The Venue. At Robert’s. At the Ryman, the Exit/In, the End, the 5 Spot. At 3rd and Lindsley, the bus stop bench on Woodland on the Fourth of July. In the bathroom at The Venue, after Nick showed up but before we left together. Now, in Julien’s kitchen, head bent over a pungent white onion, as the demos fade out. The only sound the hiss of meat against cast iron, the click of the knife against wood. I should be able to predict it by now.
The moment Julien uncorks a bottle of wine, dribbling it lightly into glasses, I have to excuse myself. I duck out onto the front porch. The sun has set and the studios of Music Row are sleepy, tucked beneath the leaves drifting down with every bit of breeze. Because I have to, because I have no choice in situations like this, because my body and my brain do whatever they want whenever they want to, I let the panic rush over me, let the tears run down my face. A fist to my mouth to quiet myself.
It’s six in the morning over in Korea, but I dial my parents’ number anyway. It’s a matter of pure, primal instinct. The phone rings and rings; nobody answers. I start to dial Izzy, but then stop. Inside, a pan crashes into another, water running in the sink. Thirty more seconds: finish crying, take a deep breath. I dig back in my pocket, find another Xanax. It dissolves under my tongue in seconds. Maybe it’s just that simple to feel better. Maybe it actually is that easy.
—Everything okay? Julien asks when I walk back inside. He’s at the stove, still cooking the pork chops.
—Too many onions, I say.
His eyes narrow and I run the back of my hand across my own. Damp.
—You sure?
—I had to call my parents.
He nods, but he’s not convinced.
—Are they in Michigan? he asks, looking over his shoulder at me, ignoring the meat sizzling on the stove. I look down at his Chucks—god, doesn’t he have any other shoes?
—Korea, I say, and he finally breaks eye contact.
—Really? What are they doing there?
—Foreign service, I say. And then: Actually, they’re missionaries. Foreign service just sounds…I don’t know. Yeah. No. They’re missionaries.
He’s sliding the pork chops onto a plate, the juices pooling against the china.
—They’ve been there for—two years now? They moved when I was in college.
I don’t say the rest: the loneliness, the distance.
—My dad was a pastor, Julien says.
—No shit, I say. Is he still? In Minnesota?
—He—uh, he actually passed away.
I start to reach out to him and pull my arm back into my own space. He looks at where my hand was and then back at me. His eyes are the color of fresh, fertile dirt.
—I’m so sorry, I say.
Here I am crying in Julien’s kitchen, on his front porch, about absolutely nothing, when his own father is actually dead.
—It’s okay, he says. I mean, it’s not, but I’m okay. I mean, you don’t have to apologize.
—When was this? I ask.
—In high school, he says.
High school seems like both yesterday and a million years ago.
—I’m sorry, I say again.
He turns his back to me again as he reaches for the wine. My face is very warm. The crickets on the porch are so loud it sounds like they’re inside.
—Do you want to play some music after we eat? he asks.
He opens the fridge, the dull light briefly bathing the room in a shallow fluorescent glow.
Julien hands me a ceramic plate and we go out to eat on the porch with the plates in our laps, our feet over the steps. It’s still a little cold, and the sun is long gone. Suddenly I remember that he mentioned stopping by a show later tonight. Doesn’t he have plans after this, I ask, and he just says:
—I’ll be fine.
The meal is surprisingly good; I didn’t know I liked pork chops or salad, or maybe I’m just buzzed enough to eat anything. But the pork chops are tender inside despite the crisp edges, and the salad is bright and balanced, and I find myself practically slurping off the dregs of the dressing. When we finish, Julien slips inside and comes back with a bar of dark chocolate—the fancy, six-dollar kind—and we pass it back and forth, breaking off pieces of it and wiping our cold fingers on our jeans. We share a joint, and the tops of my ears are cold, and I hope he isn’t really going to the show. It occurs to me how little time he and I spend completely alone like this, outside work, wrapped up in the silence of Music Row at night.
—Would you ever want to have a spot of your own? I ask, moving to the rocking chair.
—Like, a house?
—No—
But the misfire has thrown me off. Julien is unwrapping the chocolate bar to break off another piece.
—No, like, a venue.
He looks up.
—Somewhere smaller, he says. Maybe.
—Yeah. I like the—I don’t know. I don’t like big shows. Even the Ryman is pushing it.
—Yeah, I like the intimacy, he says.
I nod, my fingers pressing into the weathered wood of the rocking chair, sliding back and forth as if I’m trying for a splinter.
—Would you? he asks.
—Me? No way. I don’t ever want to be in charge. I don’t want to be responsible for—I don’t know, fixing the air-conditioning or something. I don’t want to have to pick up my phone when shit goes wrong.
—You need a phone guy, he says, eyes on me, a sleepy half smile.
—Exactly, I say. But it could be fun to help with somewhere a little smaller. More acoustic shows, songwriting rounds, more women. I don’t know. Third and Lindsley does that live broadcast once a week. Something like that could be cool.
He smiles. The joint has kicked in and the night has lovely aqueous, fuzzy edges.
—You like the boys, he says. The boys in the bands.
It’s innocent enough. Coming from Eddie or Colt, the comment might have sharper corners, but Julien…
—I like the music and the people. I like—well, yeah. I guess I like the bands. Which are mostly boys.
—It’s not a bad thing. Maybe if you were better at casual sex—
—Fuck you, I say.
—Your words, he says, laughing lightly. He leans a shoulder softly into mine.
Warm wine, cool night. Hot acid down my throat as the wine dries out my mouth, my tongue briefly a slab covered with sandpaper, asking me to take another sip. A jet rushes overhead, then the neighborhood is just us again. We climb out of the giant rocking chair to sit on the steps.
Julien brings me an acoustic guitar and a flimsy electric one for himself and starts to play a few licks without saying anything, so I follow, trying to figure out how my fingers fit against the wood, trying to find the key he’s in. The action is low and the strings are light and now Julien is letting me lead, and before I realize it I’m playing without thinking, without worrying about who’s listening or whether the melody is working or the chords are right. His notes are twangy and distant while a few cars pass by, and I wait for the silence of the street again, closing my eyes and letting the tension in my knuckles loosen, the muscles moving without effort, our playing the only sound on the street. When I open my eyes again Julien is lying down with his back on the porch, his eyes closed, his eyelashes black and delicate like maybe he’s wearing mascara, grease from our meal still caught on his top lip, reflecting in the porch light as I hum, quietly, so far under my breath that even I can barely hear it, and he says softly then: Keep going. Our legs are touching and he is lying back and my fingers are cramped and cold but I keep singing, slow and self-consciously at first, the sound emerging from a distant corner of my lungs and then swelling up in me a bit, angry and restless and frighteningly sad, and I know I’m not hitting notes and I’ve messed up the chorus but Julien is still playing and the cars on Seventeenth are hardly there and I stretch the song—my song—as long as it can go, and when it’s over I’m exhausted, like after a long hike or an endless run, and we sit in the silence, the outsides of our thighs still barely touching.
He sits up—I can hear him shifting—and my eyes are still closed but his shoulder leans into mine again and I turn to him and kiss him first. He meets it, a little too soft for my liking, like maybe if the kiss is good enough I can convince him to return it. His mouth is salty and soft and a little oaky and I like it more than I expect to, and then my mind goes a bit blank, like waking up in a dead dark room only to find that it doesn’t matter if your eyes are open or closed, you can’t really see anything anyway.