Chapter 8
I'm back outside, melting into the pavement, except my fiery rage is more to blame than the sun. Stupid Byron. I shouldn't be this mad or even surprised by his comment, but I am. At the same time, I feel like I'm mad at him for more than that.
Right as I'm almost home, Dinah pulls up to me in her car and honks.
“Get in! I need to get a podcast mike, so off to the guitar store we go.” I pull the handle of her back door several times until she unlocks it, then spread out in her back seat like it's my own bed.
She's got a huge wad of cash in a pawnshop envelope, which I'm assuming came in exchange for the necklace she stole.
“Jesus, you smell like a dead skunk,” she says, pulling off onto the main road.
The guitar store is part of a large strip center with a parking lot that has four levels. Dinah parks on the top level and leads me to the elevator. Once we're nestled in, an elderly woman struggles to hurry toward the elevator.
“Hold it, please! It's an emergency!”
“You're too late,” Dinah says, hitting the close button furiously until the doors cut the lady off. Dinah breathes a sigh of relief. “Good riddance.”
The elevator descends, and I stare ruefully at the ground. I still can't believe Felix likes Byron. Of all the people at school, except for Sutter, he has to—
Wait, is this what I'm even madder about? That Felix likes the guy who talks shit about me? Or is it more than that? Do I feel threatened that Felix likes somebody else?
“What's wrong with you?” Dinah asks.
“How do you know if you're, like, jealous of somebody in a romantic way?” I say.
“Never mind. I don't want to hear about your gay shit.”
“Wait. Why do you think I'm—”
She scoffs. “Wade, how stupid do you think I am?”
“But I'm not.”
“You've got an entire love shrine to a shirtless man on your wall.”
“It's Bill Skarsg?rd! He's just really talented, that's all.”
“Gayer than Liberace's asshole,” she whispers to herself. She pulls out her vape, clicks it, then puts it in her mouth.
The elevator dings, and we're on the first floor.
Inside the store, older men with loose T-shirts and tattoos peruse an assortment of electric and acoustic guitars, and parents watch as their children test out the keyboards and drum sets.
Walrus Cop is even here, standing guard and chitchatting with an employee.
The men up front all gaze at Dinah in unison. She has that effect on men. She's like a beautiful field of bluebonnets: Once you're too deep in, you realize you're in a rattlesnake pit and face-to-face with a pissed-off serpent.
“Ma'am, you can't vape in here,” one of the younger employees in a red polo and khakis tells Dinah meekly.
She pulls it from her lips and folds it into his palm. “Then hold it while I shop. Podcast mikes?” she asks. He stammers a bit, bashful and startled, and points her to the middle of the store.
While Dinah looks at the different microphones through the locked glass, I smell something disgustingly familiar.
Too curious for my own good, I let my nose lead me like a hunting dog around the corner until I'm behind a man posting a sign on a corkboard that says Hot Guitarist Looking for Band. The smell is coming from him.
Gahhhhh. It's Clint.
I jog backward around the corner like somebody is rewinding me.
“I'm going to go wait by the entrance,” I tell Dinah.
I stand by the sheet music up front and pretend to read it as a way to hide my face, hoping Clint will leave the store without detecting me.
It isn't long before Dinah's screaming my name across the store like I'm her personal assistant.
I rush back over to her in hopes that she lowers her voice, but that's reaching for the stars.
“Where are the employees? They're right up my ass when I have my vape, but when I have a question, they've suddenly perfected the art of the Irish goodbye. Get me an employee now.”
Of course, around the corner the only visible employee is right across from Clint. Luckily, there's a single tom drum sitting on the ground nearby without a bottom skin. I plop it over my head and approach them, only to crash into somebody and fall to the ground.
“Watch where you're going, drum-ass,” Clint says. I stay on the ground, unable to see where I am.
I can hear Dinah's impatient footsteps behind me. “Wade! Did you get somebody? What the hell are you doing? Sorry, that's my nephew. He's sixteen going on negative infinity.”
“Pecos,” Clint says.
“Can I borrow you for a second? I need the key to the podcast mikes,” Dinah says to him, then yells at me. “Wade, take the drum off your head.”
“Ma'am, do I look like I work here?” Clint asks.
“Are you going to help me or what?” Dinah asks him. She orders me to take off the drum one more time, and does it herself when I pretend I can't. I feel like she just stripped me naked in front of the world. I try to crawl behind one of the store pillars, but it's too late. Clint spots me.
“Wade,” he says.
I'm done. Game over.
Dinah tosses the tom drum to the side. “You know each other?”
“Yes, in fact, I do! I met him the other day,” he says. Behold my fate.
“Sorry, who are you again?” Dinah asks.
“I'm Clint Holtz. Wade was actually over at my house the other night listening to me play my guitar in my garage. And he came to see me play at a restaurant yesterday, didn't you, Wade?”
“Thank you for getting him out of my house once in a while, then.”
“Sorry, I didn't get your name,” he says.
“Dinah Dornoff.”
He steps closer into her space and takes a whiff, then tells her what a mighty good scent she's got on, and she blushes and tells him the same thing.
He proceeds to tell us that he's not wearing anything, not even deodorant, because the chemicals block his natural testosterone, which explains why he smells so awful.
He asks what she's looking to buy and she drags us to the microphone aisle.
“What do you think?” Dinah asks Clint, pointing to a round microphone and then a longer one. “This or this for my podcast?”
“That's a unidirectional mike and the other is a shotgun mike. You want the shotgun if you want noise control,” he says. “What's your podcast about?”
“Gosh, um, I love researching shady government stuff and aliens, serial killers, mysterious disappearances, weather modification,” she goes on. “I started today, actually! Wade here is my social media manager.”
Meanwhile, I'm inching closer to the fire alarm. I tap Dinah on the arm, refusing to look the creeper in the face any longer. “Hey, let's go check out now.”
“Say,” Clint tells her. “If you're starting a podcast and you want to sound edgy, the one thing you might need is a quality guitar riff or metallic jingle for your intro every time you start the show. I compose music at reasonable rates.”
“Thanks, but I don't have the budget for music right now,” she says.
“It was great running into you,” I say, sliding away and still avoiding eye contact. He grabs me by the shoulder with one hand like he's an old friend and pulls me back into the conversation.
“Wade could tell you how good I am, right, Wade?
He's a bright kid,” Clint says, and Dinah laughs scornfully.
“Good thing you've got him busy with work.
So many other kids are out there doing stuff like stealing from people's property. Eventually the police catch up to those ones.” He stares at me and nods over at Walrus Cop on the other side of the store.
“Wade, how good am I?” he asks firmly.
I gulp. “He's good, Dinah. Like, you should consider hiring him if you want to sound professional. More people will remember your show if you have a memorable riff,” I relent.
“I'd give you a little sample right now, but they're fixing my guitar,” Clint says, then adds, “I'll also help you set up that mike. For free, of course.” He's got a handsome, devilish grin that captures Dinah's eyes.
She hands him her phone. “What the heck, why not? Give me your number, and I can invite you over sometime to see what you've got.”
As he types his number, he shoots me a wink that might just be the opening of a portal to hell.