Chapter 6 Jamie
Jamie
“You know what,” Shrishti says.
We’re at the bar—the bar, not just any bar—Shrishti in her favorite blue sparkly dress, me in the same cheap suit I always wear. She’s sitting on the barstool across from me, fingers toying with her fancy yellow cocktail, watching me with the kind of expression that I already know means trouble.
“What?”
“I think you like her.”
I frown. “Like who?”
Shrishti waggles her brows. “Goldie. I think you like her.”
I laugh before I can help myself; it comes out like a snort. “Haha, very funny.”
“I’m serious!”
My eyes roll right to the back of my head. “Uh-huh. Sure. That’s the kernel of truth at the heart of all this. I’m harboring a secret teenage crush on the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.” I shake my head. “Come on, Shrishti. This isn’t a rom-com.”
“That’s something that a guy in a rom-com would say.”
“You watch too many movies.”
She shrugs. “I mean, probably. But you have to admit you are weirdly obsessed with her. Like…who hates somebody this much? It’s a little extra, don’t you think?”
Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. I’ve lost sight of whatever rubric I’m supposed to use to judge the appropriate amount of disdain I should assign any particular person before getting accused of being in love with them.
“Anyway, remember when you asked her on a date?” Shrishti points out. “At some point, you liked her.”
Before I fucked it all up? Yeah, no, I’m not claiming that one.
“Before you and Cessy broke up?” I say, maybe a little meanly.
But Shrishti seems unaffected. “Yeah, I guess that coincided with you and Goldie having your big falling-out. But you’re missing my point.”
“Which is…?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t play stupid, Jamie. I already said it—I think you like her.”
I drum my fingers against the bar top and tighten my lips. “Well, I don’t. So go ahead and mark that one as a miss.”
Shrishti is visibly unconvinced. Which is annoying, because she otherwise tends to be right about everything.
Only now that she’s said it, I can’t get it out of my mind. The whole time Shrishti is off in the bathroom, I’m sitting there staring at my drink and mulling it over.
Do I like Marigold? Is that something my brain is even capable of anymore?
I mean, yeah, she’s pretty. It would be hard not to notice that silky dark blond hair as it falls across her face while she plays, or her eyes like endless wells of ink—her softly curved body, her small and delicate hands as they settle atop the keys—
But just because I think she’s gorgeous doesn’t mean I’m into her. Been there, tried that. And she made it pretty damn clear how little she thought of me and my emotions, or lack thereof.
Shrishti’s return saves me from having to overthink it.
“Woof,” she says as she drops back onto her barstool. “I feel like I should have cut myself off way earlier. I’m going to be drunk before this date even begins.”
“Want me to get you a coffee?” Part of the arrangement here is that I get free drinks alongside my fee in exchange for playing quiet and pretty piano music while rich people eat pasta alfredo. It’s not a bad deal.
“Nah, I can rally. And she’s gonna be here any minute.”
Shrishti’s gaze flits back over to the front door, searching for her on-again, off-again girlfriend in the crowd.
Probably wondering why the hell she indulged her worst impulses and asked Cessy out again, because Cessy is almost ten minutes late.
I haven’t been on a date in so long that the apprehension is completely foreign to me.
“Are you staying in the city for the holidays?” I ask to break the moment. “Or are you going back to Toronto?”
“Staying here,” she says, finally tearing her gaze away from the door.
“Don’t think I can handle a second Christmas in a row listening to my parents literally arguing over spilled wine.
Like…no, I’m not thrilled to be a weapon in your unending war of domination!
I wish they’d just get divorced already.
Isn’t that supposed to be the strat? Stay together ‘for the kids,’ then split as soon as the youngest starts college?
” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway. What about you?”
I wish I could say I’m going back. I still remember the strained look on my mother’s face as she said she was headed up to Dubuque for the anniversary of Adam’s death—the empty glass of whiskey at her elbow, half-visible on my computer screen as we talked.
Lately, I feel more like her parent than she is mine, constantly worrying if she is okay. If she will be safe without me there.
She’s going on a cruise, I remind myself. She’s going to have an amazing time drinking mai tais and tanning with my aunt and uncle and her boomer friends. She doesn’t need me.
“Can’t. Too expensive.”
She sighs. “Yeah. Sorry I asked.”
“Besides,” I say, “my mom is planning on going on this cruise? I know—Amy Larson actually doing something fun for herself, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance I can’t pass up. If I go home, she’ll think she has to stay home.”
“Wow,” Shrishti says, lifting both brows. “Good for her.”
“I know, right? I told her if she doesn’t come back with a golden tan and a boat boyfriend, I’ll be disappointed.”
Even so, I have a feeling staying in the Parker dorms alone is gonna be a lot like what a zombie apocalypse would feel like: all long empty halls and flickering lights.
I know that realistically, it will just be totally normal, only emptier, but that doesn’t stop my brain from rolling postapocalyptic film reels of me fending off the undead hordes.
Some of that must have shown on my face, because Shrishti’s expression softens further, and she adds, “You’ll be okay. I mean…at least your mom will be around friends. Right? They’ll take care of her.”
“Yeah,” I say, although I can hear how morose my voice sounds still. “Probably.”
“Listen, it could be worse. We could be my brother. Aarjav’s going home to Toronto, because he’s fucking spineless and hasn’t figured out how to tell my mom ‘no’ when she does the Punjabi mom guilt trip. So he gets to play couples counselor for freeeeeeee.”
“Sounds bleak.”
“Yup. It is. I’ll have a few more months of peace before I have to move back in with the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.”
As funny as it is to picture Shrishti’s unassuming, white-picket-fence parents playing out the greatest WWE rivalry of all time, the mental image skitters out as soon as my brain processes the implication of what she’s saying.
“Wait, what? You’re leaving New York?”
Shrishti sighs and fiddles with the little umbrella in her drink. “Yeah. Landlord is raising our rent next year. How is it that I have two roommates and can still barely afford my rent in this godforsaken city?”
Something cold and heavy drops into my gut.
Somehow I’d never considered the possibility of Shrishti being gone for good.
Losing her at Parker had been hard enough—I’ve always struggled with social stuff, and Shrishti was the only person who seemed to understand me without trying.
Without her, the campus feels bleak and too large.
I know some people would say to let it go, make new friends, but it’s never been that easy for me.
But the city without Shrishti?
Every time I try to imagine it, my mind flinches away. The idea is that grim.
“Could you raise your prices?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. There are a million violin and viola teachers in this city, and I don’t have a fancy degree or studio. I’m just some Parker dropout giving private lessons in people’s living rooms.”
“Your students love you, though.” I know that much for a fact. Partly because it’s impossible not to love Shrishti, but also because I’ve been to her student recitals. I’ve seen those kids run up and fling their arms around her at the end of their sets, so happy to earn her pride and praise.
“I guess. It’s not really up to them, though, is it? It’s all about the parents.”
There’s not much I can say to make her feel better. And nothing I can do to make the money side of things suddenly not matter, short of entering her for every lottery in the city.
I hate feeling so helpless. It itches at me from the inside out, gnawing beneath my sternum.
“You have to go, by the way,” Shrishti points out, gesturing toward her smartwatch.
She’s right. I’ve only got about a minute left until I have to start my set. That’s just a few more sips of my drink before I’ve got to drop my tip on my napkin and head to the baby grand piano on its shallow dais at the center of the restaurant.
I’ve been playing at this restaurant since I started at Parker.
Originally it was to make a bit of pocket change, but now it feels necessary—like if I didn’t have this place to anchor me, I might dissociate from earth entirely and just float away.
It’s the only time that sitting in front of the piano makes me feel calmer, instead of more tightly strung.
I exhale, the ivory cool beneath my fingertips. And when I play, the notes come easy.
My usual routine here is a blend of romantic nocturnes and classical sonatas—everything low and smooth, quiet enough that people can hear themselves talk, but lovely enough to lend the place a sense of grace and class.
Listening to music while they eat makes people feel like they’ve been clipped out of the real world, cradled somewhere new and dim and beautiful.
I like that we get to share this new microcosm together, me and the people who are listening.
Even if they aren’t really focused on me.
Even if they only hear the music in their subconscious, a soundtrack to their lives rather than a central feature.
It’s a feeling like listening in on someone else’s conversation, or reading a short story, or being on the outskirts of a party. I don’t have to participate. I don’t have to think. I can just exist in parallel to someone else’s life, and that is its own strange sort of intimacy.