Chapter 2
2.
I forget so much.
The beers do that, apparently. Blur the edges of the nights, mash together the fragments of memories. But this week I commit to remembering: the carpet in Izzy’s living room; the bridge on the mouth of the jam jars she uses to serve wine; the saccharine yellow light splitting the shades while I thumb my way through scales. I think that I’m in the right key, that for once I’m hearing it all, understanding it: the change, him, the shift in the not-so-acute depression. But, as usual, I’m slightly out of tune. I’m too inside my own head, my own feelings, and then just like that: my own songs.
Izzy: spinning clay the color of cloudy days in the afternoons, listening to Rumours, Déjà Vu, Pet Sounds. Her hands working her feathery hair into braids, loose pigtails. Izzy, over at Billy Reid, thumbing through three-hundred-dollar T-shirts for a country star, picking out jeans at the designer on Twelfth, a bouquet of flowers in her hand as she presses her fingers to the denim, blue dye rubbing off on the pads of her fingertips. Izzy, picking up some Earl Grey at the Jewish deli in Midtown, buying lox (lox!), meeting Clem for a glass of wine at Giovanni’s.
Sloane: saying that the negative ions in the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast, anywhere—doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re near water—are good for recharging. The pine trees too. Leaving town for the week to go see Jamie’s band in the Pacific Northwest. Standing backstage at the Crystal Ballroom, at Neumos. Wearing a rain jacket and walking down by the old canneries on the port in Astoria. Drinking beer at a dive in Capitol Hill, stuffing her purse with matchbooks. Texting Billy about the opening band, saying they should put their stuff on rotation at Lightning. Sending me videos of the best performances she hears on the road, links to the downloadable songs on SoundCloud. Texting me about the radio show, there’s an open slot—nobody even died! It could be ours, we should take it. We could do it. Sloane, slurping down tequila sodas, forgetting that her phone even exists. Crushing the heart of a guy who hits on her in the coffee shop, the hotel lobby, the bar, on the street corner, at the post office, backstage—before anybody realizes she’s Jamie’s girlfriend.
Jessika—suddenly somebody I talk to. Somebody I text. Somebody who sprays dry shampoo into her dark curls, swipes lipstick effortlessly across her mouth. Responding to me immediately, always. Inviting me to showcases, to birthday parties. To record release parties, to happy hours and late nights. Asking me to send her my songs.
Andy: picking up his girls from volleyball practice. Colt: doing coke with the bartenders on the East Side, at the bar with the taxidermy wolf. Throwing up out a car window on Main Street. Laughing about it the next day, waiting to audition for a Jewel video that’s filming in Hillsboro Village. Eddie: at Bongo Java, bitching about the neo-folk movement. Shitting on all the bands with acoustic guitars, foot-stomping, harmonies and harmonicas, bugging everyone to come to his show next week.
Somewhere, maybe, Nick: rehearsing in a studio space someone from Rough Trade has paid for in Lower Manhattan. Getting his velvet suit tailored—he didn’t like the way it fit in the SNL promo. On Houston, bumming a cigarette. Ordering a hoppy beer, a shot of Jameson, somewhere in Nolita. Trying to decide if he needs another haircut. Rolling a joint on a fire escape above the Bowery Electric, meeting a woman at the merch table, in the greenroom, behind Mercury Lounge, having a cigarette in front of the club. Nick, lacing up his black Vans to go onstage, tuning the high E on his Gretsch, warming up his voice on the soundstage at 30 Rock, shaking the hands of the B-list actor, the writers, Bill Hader and Kenan Thompson. Most of them haven’t heard of his band. Still, Nick, pale lips around a microphone, a live crowd screaming for him.
Julien.
At his place. Reading Spider-Man or Michael Chabon. Turning on a Springsteen album, dicking around on his guitar on the porch. Listening to one of Jess’s mixes. A bunch of songs I don’t even know, wouldn’t pick, might not even like or ever hear. Julien—walking down Sixteenth, thinking about stopping at Bobby’s Idle Hour and then changing his mind, turning off down Edgehill, getting a black Americano. In his Explorer, down on Eighth on his way to work, trying not to think about spending the whole evening with Eddie, Vampire Weekend pouring out of his speakers as the cranes sway over the Gulch.
Julien, his hip bone pressed to mine months ago on his porch, the trees frozen fireworks, the moon an open eye above, our voices searching each other’s, dipping into the cracks and crevices, climbing up scales and through chords, hovering around as we make out the harmonies and then—
Light pink lips to mine, grocery store wine, hot and tannic, a song we’d written sitting just beneath our skin.
It’s a brilliantly clear evening, the moon already high above the Franklin farmlands, the expanse of former Civil War battlefields now owned by country music stars and publishing CEOs and major agents.
Tonight, Izzy’s taking me to the Bluebird with Clem. A songwriter’s round she swears I’ll enjoy. I look up the names and don’t recognize any of them, but if these past two years have taught me anything, it’s not to put too much stock in name recognition.
When we arrive, Izzy squeezes both hands of the man at the door. They stand like that, holding hands, as Izzy nods and nods. We huddle into a back booth and she orders us gin and tonics, a basket of fries. The room is full, people tucked away in quiet twos and threes, twisting rings on wedding fingers, crossing and uncrossing their legs, whispering into ears, shifting wallets into back pockets, looking around the room—first for familiar faces, and then for celebrities, A-listers, B-listers, even though anybody big will be coming in from the back or is in a corner so dark already they can barely be seen by the people they’re with.
I don’t know who I’m looking for. When my gin and tonic is gone, I slurp at the sugary ice and glance around. A man in a very earnest cowboy hat. Two blond suburban moms. A guy in a leather jacket. Someone who could be either an eighth-grade teacher or a member of Wilco. A couple too dressed up for the occasion.
A hush comes over the crowd, but the songwriters aren’t out yet. I lean over to Izzy.
—What band would you never recognize without their lead singer? I ask.
I take a sip of water, set my gin and tonic aside for a moment.
—Deep Purple, Izzy says almost immediately, as though she’s given this plenty of thought before.
—Black Sabbath, Clem says.
—Damn.
—Well? Izzy asks. Tell us yours.
—Vampire Weekend?
Izzy smiles and nods her head.
When the songwriters come out, I don’t recognize any of them until the lights fully flood the seats, aligned in front of each microphone. Dark hair, a familiar bright streak of gray: Esther Wainwright.
—I thought this was for up-and-comers, I say. For—
She looks at me oddly: It is.
Esther plays last, her voice huskier live than I imagined it. On her albums, and when she sings with Wilson, she stays in an almost breathy head voice. But now she sounds like Joni Mitchell after all the cigarettes, a deeper, heavier timbre. At first I’m disoriented, because I’ve heard the song before, but something about its contours is different. The melody is already at the back of my throat, the words to the first verse on my lips. But then a shift: the song turns in a different direction. It’s not that I’ve never heard it before, it’s just that I’ve never heard this version of it before: the song Wilson played at the awards ceremony, the one I’ve watched so many times, sung along to under my breath. Written by Esther, sung only by Esther. With her voice—and the eerie sadness that seeps in—it’s a totally different song.
Izzy squeezes my leg as the crowd takes a collective breath, applauds. I blink back a few rogue tears. It’s only when the lights go up that I see him: Julien, standing at the door, hands in his pockets, nodding in conversation with the door guy. Red buffalo flannel, the left sleeve rolled up. A Mazzy Star song comes on overhead, like the house music is fucking with me, and his face lights up in surprise. My mind tells me I should give him space, or something stupid like that, but instead I start walking across the room, hands in my pockets, the heat in my ears flooding. The lights are still low.
—Julien Black, I say. Didn’t think I’d see you here.
For all the time Julien and I spend at The Venue, I’ve never run into him at another club. I have the urge to hug him, but instead I stick my arm through the air and press my fist to his shoulder in an odd platonic punch. My limbs belong to someone else. He catches my hand at his shoulder and holds it there for a moment with his. Warm, dry.
—Can I see your ID? he asks.
His hand is still on mine, pressed against his shoulder. I laugh.
—I’m on the list, I say.
—Of course you are, he says.
He drops my hand and we drop our bit.
—I didn’t know you came out to these.
—Oh yeah. As much as I can.
—Really? With who?
He shrugs, takes a sip of his beer. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and offers me the bottle. I shake my head.
—Myself, he says. You never know who you might see.
I know he’s talking about the songwriters, the people like Esther we all paid to see, but he is looking at me so intently it sounds more like—
—Thank you, I say. For picking me up the other night. For picking up the phone too.
He nods. Eyes muddy, warm.
—I’m the phone guy, he says, smiling.
—I’m sorry, I say. For sucking.
He shakes his head. He reaches out to me, and just like that I’m tucked into his chest, his neck sweaty but not at all unpleasant.
—I’m sorry, I say again.
—Stop, he says then, into my ear.
When I look up, he’s looking down at me, our faces close. Steel, malt. I start to lean my chin toward his, and then: the lights go up and a bell rings for last call.
I lose track of things. A T-shirt of Sloane’s I borrowed last month. I can’t find it for weeks. Socks too—they seem to disappear into the dryer with every cycle of laundry. The picture of Julien with the blond girl; did he delete it? Appointment reminders, rent checks, a wedding invitation from a college friend. Gas bills, electric bills, pens, loose change. Guitar picks, packs of gum. Bobby pins, names of acquaintances, phone numbers of baristas. I try to recollect them all, but so many things slip through the cracks. I find it hard to believe that anyone is ever old enough to commit to a lifetime of anything.
In the car on the ride home, Izzy sits back and closes her eyes, her hands folded across her lap. The traffic is all gone by now, safely back in the suburbs, and the streets are quiet.
—You know, I’ve heard that song she played tonight about a hundred times. And I always thought it was already perfect, when he sang it. But now—
—Beautiful, wasn’t it?
—Yeah. There’s something different hearing it like that. Like—
—How so?
—I don’t know, I say. Sang by the person who wrote it, I guess.
Izzy nods, smiling.
It’s like I hadn’t fully believed it, or something. He embodied so much of the song onstage that when he sang it, you could almost convince yourself that the words were his. Almost like I’d wanted them to be his all along. I was always trying to force some specific truth when the reality was something much more interesting.
I crack the window. Clem has dozed off on the opposite side of Izzy, her head on Izzy’s shoulder. The driver glances straight ahead as the traffic lights flash yellow at most of the intersections, a slight breeze shaking the chestnut oak leaves outside through the tinted windows.
—I was drinking, I say out loud, when the driver turns onto Old Hickory.
—Today? Izzy asks, pulling a strand of hair off the shoulder of my shirt.
—No, I say, and my throat constricts. I try to clear it and she waits. The driver has turned on a song, but it’s quiet, the reverberations echoing quietly in the car the way sound carries at The Venue when it’s empty.
She’s quiet.
—I wasn’t—I didn’t feel drunk or anything like that, but I had a roadie.
—A roadie?
—Oh, I’d made a drink and brought it with me. And I’d had a drink or two at the house.
—Ah, she says.
—I hit a dog, I say. It wasn’t—it wasn’t a deer.
Izzy’s hand reaches for mine. My throat aches with the threat of tears.
—I couldn’t find the owner, I say. There wasn’t a collar or anything. I think—I think it was a stray.
Izzy’s hand is cool and damp, tightening around my own.
—Oh, Al, she says, her voice soft.
—Something even worse could have happened. Should have.
—Should have?
—I just feel like I deserve something bad to happen to me. Especially after what happened. After what I did.
—What? Why would you say that?
—Because nothing bad ever has.
I think about Julien and his dead dad, his face in the car on the way back from the art museum. Izzy leans her head back and laughs, loud but short, like she’s been caught off guard by a joke in an otherwise unfunny movie. Clem is still dozing. Or maybe she’s awake, listening to all of this.
—Oh, honey.
—What?
—Don’t get me wrong, she says. That was stupid. Never drive when you’ve been drinking—ever. But something bad still happened. You crashed your car, you hit a dog. You could have been hurt worse than you were. No need to wish for anything more than that. Be glad it wasn’t. You’re lucky.
—But…
—You are.
She puts an arm around me. I think she’s about to say something else, but she just squeezes my shoulder tightly and leans into me.
Jessika is the one who ends up picking me up from Izzy’s at the end of the week. Sloane is showing around a friend from Rhode Island and Izzy has to do an overnight shoot at Blackberry Farm, and I just don’t have it in me to ask Julien for another favor, to make him pick up his phone again.
I leave a thank-you note in the kitchen for Izzy and Clem and slip out the front door.
—I don’t know how I became your personal black car service, Jessika says, laughing loudly as I slide into the passenger seat.
—You’ve only given me two rides ever, I say, suddenly self-conscious.
—I’m kidding, she says, and my chest lightens. I wasn’t doing shit today. This is your aunt’s place?
—Yeah. Definitely not mine, I say.
Jessika throws the car into drive and sets out on the back roads of Franklin with confidence. When I ask her if I should pull up directions to get back into town, she laughs.
—No need. I’m from here.
—Wait, really? I didn’t know that.
—My little secret.
—I just figured you went to Belmont, I say. You’re always hanging around with that crowd.
—Berklee, she says.
—In Boston or California?
—Boston.
This explains her slightly contradictory accent—the southern drawl with the nasal-y East Coast undertones.
—I guess all I know about you is that you manage Denim. And you were…with Julien. And now and then you give drunk idiots like me a ride.
—I guess then about seventy-five percent of that is still accurate, she says, laughing.
I nod. She turns on the same Esther Wainwright EP we were listening to months ago, when she was my designated driver and I drunkenly stole several of her mixes. I reach to turn the volume up on the dash.
—You like him, don’t you? she asks as we pull up to a stoplight. She glances over at me, a splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose, a faint smudge of mascara that somehow looks intentional.
I don’t say anything for a moment.
—You know it was never really like that with us, she says.
Outside the car, birds are squawking overhead, sunlight is bursting through impossibly high trees.
—Like what? I ask.
—Serious, she says. We were both kind of the first person the other one met here. I was just back into town from Boston, and trying not to run into anyone from high school. He’d just moved here. So, you know, we kept hanging out, but I mean—we never even had sex. It was more…I don’t know. But it’s not—it’s not like you guys.
—What do you mean?
The long red light finally flicks to green. Jess eases onto the gas, inching us forward.
—You know exactly what I mean, she says.