Chapter 1 #2
Movement behind the bar pulls me out of my darkening thoughts, and I glance up. The bartender reaches above her head and her shirt rides up a bit with the movement, exposing a slip of her pale stomach and back.
Maybe if I was in the mood I’d give her a shot.
She slides a board over as the wheels creak loudly against their tracks. The coffee menu gives way to the bar menu, revealing a few drink specials and a couple of food options.
All fried and probably not public health inspected.
The little hand on the clock ticks down the final moments until it’s 5:00 pm.
The girl appears to be watching it out of the corner of her eye as her hand hovers over the short glasses, waiting until truly the last moment to grab one for my drink.
Even with her back turned to me, I can feel the smirk on her face.
Should’ve gone home.
But that’s just as unappealing. It doesn’t feel like home. I don’t know if it ever has, even though I’ve called that house in the hills of LA home for the last ten years.
Maybe home is just an elusive feeling only a lucky few get to experience, and I’m just not one of them.
The clock strikes and she pours a skimpy serving of whiskey.
Her hair fans out as she spins around and slaps the short glass against the counter, not even bothering with a napkin that might’ve helped catch some of the liquor that spills over with the force of it.
She gives me a saccharine smile. “Thank you for your patience.”
The sarcastic tone in which she says it has a familiar heat rising in my chest. The taste of a potential challenge, a little more sparring, has sick excitement rising alongside it. But before I can quip something back, she takes off with a swoosh of her ponytail and without a second glance.
There’s something pulling in my gut as I take a drink. Like there’s something I’m missing. Something just out of reach. Like trying to remember details about a dream when you finally wake up.
The lights dim a bit, finally, and it does give the space a more late-night feel.
A door behind the bar swings open, but it’s a different bartender that emerges.
This guy’s older, I’d say maybe early fifties, and by the way he shoots a disgruntled look in my direction, I’d guess this is the owner whose business I insulted to his employee.
I glare back at him, and he’s the one to break eye contact.
I finish my drink in a few sips and debate ordering another. It’s not that I exactly enjoy sitting here, but I also don’t particularly like the idea of returning home to my empty house. It’s still early and the nights are long.
Making my decision, I push my glass forward in silent order to the man and glance over to the small stage at the back of the bar.
The girl is settling in on the creaky stool up there, apron gone and hair pulled free from her ponytail.
She adjusts the mic stand with one hand while steadying her acoustic guitar with the other.
I used to have one a similar color to it.
Now I have a whole collection of various guitars that sit untouched.
None of them see the light of day anymore.
I used to love live music. When we played at festivals, Walker and I would often try to sneak into the crowd to catch other artists’ sets.
There’s something about the electricity and energy of being amongst people in the thick of it that you just can’t get when you watch from backstage.
As our fame grew, it got harder and harder to do that though, and then when our relationship crumbled…
Maybe I don’t want another drink, or maybe I actually want a few more.
I pull my eyes away and stare at my fists resting against the bartop. A restless energy buzzes beneath my skin, but I have no outlet to expel it. Maybe I should go back to the gym. Work myself into exhaustion.
A throat clears, the sound magnified by the microphone, but the bartender turned late-night entertainer doesn’t say anything as she strums a few times in warm up.
The man sitting at the other end of the bar spins on his stool to face the stage, giving her his full attention.
I pick at a scab on one of my knuckles as she begins to play. My ears reluctantly perk up at the familiar chords ringing out on acoustic guitar, but it isn’t until she sings the first verse that recognition fully washes over me.
I whip my head around, almost throwing my entire body off-balance on the stool, and I slam a hand against the counter to catch myself.
The song.
It’s one I played over and over until my fingers were raw growing up. One of my favorites. One that I taught her…
Impossible.
It’s a coincidence. Lots of people know that song. It shouldn’t hit me like it does, but there’s something I can’t kick. Maybe it’s her voice, the acoustic guitar, the red of her hair under the small lone stage light.
I don’t know when I stood up or how I got closer to the stage. Some invisible force pulls me forward, past the other patrons half paying attention to the girl playing, half involved in their various conversations or screens.
All I do know is that I keep stepping closer, my vision narrowing in on that guitar in her hand, looking for a familiar quarter-sized chip in the warm, tanned veneer.
It’s not going to be there.
It has to be a coincidence.
But there’s something, a string, an echo, a calling, something, beckoning me forward. Making me step closer. To look.
Not just look, but see.
I pause about ten feet in front of the small raised platform that’s a sad excuse for a stage.
The girl reaches the chorus and her fingers dance along the strings with delicate purpose and clean execution.
With each word, her voice grows stronger, harsher, like she wants to nail every single word into my skin.
I can feel her watching me. Feel her eyes burning through my face.
But I have to see for myself first what my gut is already telling me.
Has been trying to tell me I think since I first sat down.
I narrow my eyes, straining to see, and as if she knows what I’m looking for, the girl adjusts her right arm slightly without missing a single beat. The small movement, the little gesture, gives me what I’m looking for.
Toward the bottom of the guitar is a missing piece of the veneer that one of my mother’s cigarettes burned through.
I had used a pocket knife to chip away the charred surface while keeping the guitar intact.
The damage was purely cosmetic, but I remember how angry I was that she was so careless with my most prized possession.
And I remember exactly who I left that guitar behind with.
The ground shakes beneath me but no one else seems panicked. No one else moves or raises concern. The music dulls and gives way to the roaring in my ears, overwhelming and desolate. The air grows thick and heavy as my nostrils flare, trying to take a deep breath but struggling.
And when I finally drag my eyes away from the damned spot on the instrument and look at her face, not just look but see, her lips curve into a knowing smirk.