"At a time like this? After the discussion we had last night?"
"A time like what? And what exactly are you implying?"
My mother"s voice dropped to a quiet, vicious tone, and she said, "You know exactly what I"m talking about, young lady. I raised you better than that."
I was very calm. Calmer than I expected. For the last four years, ever since the day my once best friend decided to sabotage my life, I"d heard this over and over again from my mother. She never asked me what had actually happened. She never offered a bit of sympathy. She never did anything but try to grind me into the dust.
I"d finally had enough.
"Please don"t call me again," I said.
I didn"t wait for an answer. I simply, quietly hung the phone up. I took a deep breath, staring at it, knowing it would ring again within a minute. But it didn"t. After a few moments, Jemi said, "I found the phone out on the Quad."
"I"m sorry about that," I said. I felt unaccountably sad. I wanted to cry, and I didn"t understand why.
"I"m worried about you," Jemi said.
I looked up at her, startled.
She set her textbook down beside her. "I know we"ve never been close ..." she said.
"I"ve never been close to anyone," I replied.
Her eyebrows pressed down, close to each other, and she said, "Maybe it"s time you tried."
I spread my hands out and opened my mouth, as if I was going to say something, but I couldn"t. I didn"t know what to say. Or how.
"Sit down," she said, patting the couch. I thought for just a second, and then I walked over and sat with her.
"You know we"ve been suitemates for three years," she said, "and I still don"t know anything really personal about you."
It was true. I didn"t know a lot about her either.
I took a deep breath. "I have a hard time trusting people."
"I do, too," Jemi replied. "That"s why we should team up. Adriana and Linden would tell their life story to a stranger on the sidewalk."
I snorted. "It"s true."
"So ... let me ask you a question." She leaned close to me as she spoke.
"Okay," I replied.
"Everyone"s read that Maria Clawson blog ... your ex-boyfriend, um ... emailed it to just about everyone."
I groaned.
"Are you and Crank Wilson involved? Is that why you were so upset last night?"
"The blog is all bulls.h.i.t," I said. "She made almost all of it up."
"The kiss in that photo looked very convincing," Jemi said. Her tone was so serious that I couldn"t help but giggle.
"Um, yeah, we did kiss."
She grinned. "You really should have told me."
I shrugged. "It ... it doesn"t really matter. I mean-it"s not like, um ..." I was at a loss.
She raised her eyebrows. "It"s okay. So what happened last night?"
"Um, well ... I kind of wrecked Crank"s car. And then drove him home, and stayed there, and now I"m home."
She looked stunned. "You stayed at his place last night?"
"Well, no, at his father"s house. He had to watch his brother."
She raised an eyebrow, and I spoke again. "I slept on the couch."
"You"re not serious."
"Of course I"m serious!"
Her expression shifted, and she got a wicked grin on her face. Then she said, "Well, that was certainly a waste."
"Oh, G.o.d," I said, burying my face in my hands.
She laughed a little. "So why is your mother calling every five minutes? Why did you throw the phone out the window?"
I opened my mouth. And I almost told her. I almost did. But all I could see was Lana. My best friend through high school. We got in a fight, the last week of junior year. My last week in China. In the end, the fight was about nothing at all. But she"d gotten to the point where she couldn"t say goodbye. Maybe we all do after a while. I deal with that by not getting close. She dealt it with it by smashing things. So she sent out an email to the entire junior cla.s.s, detailing what had happened between Harry and me. She"d taken the biggest hurt and damage in my life and turned it into gossip. The kind of vicious gossip that can ruin lives.
I looked at Jemi, and I don"t know what I was thinking, because I said, "I can"t. I"m sorry I can"t talk about it. I can"t ever talk about anything again." And I was mortified, because I started crying. Really crying, because what I really wanted, what I wanted more than anything in the world right now, was my mom. And I couldn"t have her.
"Oh, Julia, what happened to you?" Jemi whispered.
That was all it took. I let out a moan, curled up on the couch, and cried like I hadn"t in years. Jemi slid over next to me and put her hand on my shoulder, and let me cry until I thought I was going to die.
Okay, a lot weird (Crank) You wouldn"t think that a parking lot collision could do so much damage. But my car was completely wasted. Seeing it in the light, there was no question. The pa.s.senger side was crushed. It wouldn"t have been so bad, but the car was rusted through already on the bottom, and the collision with Julia"s brand new car just destroyed it.
c.r.a.p. I was going to need new wheels. Which meant I was going to have to spend a lot more time with Julia to find them, and get them paid for. I didn"t know if that was a bad thing or not. When it came to her, I didn"t know what to think.
She"d called me out on being a d.i.c.khead, and you want to know the truth? I kind of liked that. No one called me out, except for Serena occasionally, and my dad. In other words, the people I really care about.
It was four in the afternoon before I got back to the house. Everyone was gone, which was fine by me. I sat down, toying with some lyrics. That got me humming, and then thinking about some opening riffs, so I moved downstairs to the studio. And found myself sitting in front of the electric piano.
We didn"t use it much in our music. I play piano better than I play guitar. I should-my mom started teaching me before I was tall enough to reach the keyboard. But most of our music didn"t call for it, and you can"t play the guitar and piano at the same time.
In any event, what I was toying with seemed to call for piano. So I turned it on, tried out some notes and liked it, and kept going in that direction, tinkering, daydreaming, trying out different options, until the door opened and Mark and Pathin came in.
Mark immediately said, "Crank! What the h.e.l.l happened to your car?"
"Wrecked," I said.
"Yeah, we saw that. You were long gone by the time we finished packing up the gear, but we saw the car. Some drunk dude said you took off with a girl?"
Pathin shook his head, his expression a mix of resignation and near contempt. He"d never approved of my string of girls.
"Yeah, something like that," I said.
"Well, what happened? Who did it?"
I shrugged. "The girl I took off with."
Mark and Pathin stared at me, in shock, and then Mark burst into laughter. "You"re hilarious, Crank."
"Whatever," I muttered. Then I started playing the song again. I had the first verse and the chorus down, and it was coming together well, but something wasn"t meshing quite right. The piano was driving, angry, like most of our stuff, but I was trying to work in a longing quality, and it just wasn"t coming together. I paused, trying a couple different options, when Mark blurted out, "Dude, what the h.e.l.l is that?"
I looked up. Both of them were standing there, mouths open.
"What?" I asked.
They looked at each other, until Pathin spoke. "I think what Mark is trying to say, Crank, is that"s ... brilliant."
I blinked. It wasn"t brilliant at all. It actually kind of sucked. "Oh," I said. "Well, that"s good."
"Seriously," Pathin said, "I don"t know what was in the water when you went to Washington, but that"s two new songs in a week. And they"re good. If you keep this up, we might have to go back to the studio and cut a new EP."
I snorted. "We"ve barely paid for the last one."
"Whatever, Crank. I"ll deliver some extra pizzas or something. Or maybe Mark can actually work for a change."
"What the h.e.l.l, man, I work!" Mark protested.
"Yes, we know, about four hours a week," Pathin responded.
"I pull my weight," Mark said in a sharp tone, glowering.
Pathin looked at him. "Do we really need to have this discussion again?"
"Guys, cool it," I said. "I"m trying to work here." Christ, they were like an old married couple.
"Whatever," Mark muttered. "We"re headed out about ten. Coming?"
"Where to?"
"Bill"s."
Near Kenmore Square, Bill"s was connected to Lansdowne, where we"d played several shows over the last couple of years. They were friendly, and a lot of the girls from Berklee College of Music hung out there. Which usually meant it was a guaranteed spot for me to pick up some action. Though as tired as I was, I wasn"t sure I was up to it that night. Besides, I was sick of Serena giving me a hard time about it. She attended Berklee and sometimes it was a little ... weird ... with her hanging out with girls I"d slept with.
Okay, a lot weird.
"All right. Give me a little bit, I think I"ve almost got this."
They wandered off, and I got back to work. The problem was simple, really. I was trying to do something that couldn"t be done. Playing with Julia earlier that day had put my brain in a different mode, and what I was really going for here wasn"t going to work without four hands on the keyboard. I scribbled it all down, in a hurry, and there it was. Done. And impossible. I shook my head. I seriously needed a nap, I"d hardly had any sleep, and it was almost ten o"clock already, and I wasn"t making any progress. I switched the keyboard off and headed upstairs for a shower.
An hour later, the three of us were waved into Bill"s Bar & Lounge. It was packed, as expected, and my head was pounding, even with the four aspirin I took before we left. I put back my first drink in a hurry, hoping it would dull the pain a little and relaxed a little on the second.
Then I felt a tiny little arm snake around my waist, and I looked down to see Alicia Mosier.
Oh, d.a.m.n.
Alicia had been a mistake, on too many levels to count. She"d shown up backstage one night after we played next door at Lansdowne, and I"d been sitting, drinking, of course, and she just climbed into my lap. I don"t usually turn down that sort of offer. Redheaded, five feet tall, and with a wicked a.s.s and perfect t.i.ts, she"d been a firecracker in bed. A lot of fun. Until the next morning, when she somehow got the idea that we were a thing.
I"d received a lot of dark looks the rest of the day from my bandmates, because they"d all been awakened by the screaming and shouting. Not to mention the coffee mug she threw at me, which shattered into a million pieces against the backsplash in the kitchen.
"Crank!" she said. "How you doing?"
Pathin"s eyes widened at the sight of her, and Mark took a gulp of beer. "Be back in a minute, gotta hit the head."
Coward.
"Hey, Alicia ... what are you up to?"
"Just out having some fun, you?"
I couldn"t very well say to her, I"m about to run like h.e.l.l, so I said, "Just grabbing some drinks."
"You want to dance?" she asked.
"Not feeling well," I answered.
She slid her hand into my back pocket. Oh, for G.o.d"s sake. Then she got up on her toes, which brought her to about the level of my shoulder, and stage-whispered, "I could make you feel better."
Pathin groaned, and I gritted my teeth. The thing was, I was seriously torn. Alicia was wild in bed. I mean, seriously wild. And despite my headache, the fricken" traitor between my legs was starting to respond to her curling up against me. She was rubbing her hand in my back pocket in a way that ... well, s.h.i.t.
I"d regret it in the morning. I repeated the thought to myself to underscore it, give it plenty of weight. If I could put the message on a flaming arrow and shoot it right into my forehead, I would. I"d regret it in the morning. But oh, man, was she hot.
I was wavering, big-time, when Mark showed back up.
And that"s when I heard a voice I didn"t expect to hear at all.
What are you afraid of? (Julia) Dinner wasn"t exactly a disaster, but it came close.
First of all, I was still a mess. After that long, wrenching cry, I withdrew, embarra.s.sed. Jemi didn"t push it, which I deeply appreciated. I went to sleep for an hour then was back up, getting a shower. The lack of sleep was not good. I could feel the weight of my eyelids and a little bit of heartburn. I really, really did not want to go out.
I was still in the bathroom, getting myself together when Barrett showed up ten minutes early. Jemi answered the door, and in a surprised voice called out, "Julia ... there"s someone here to see you."
"I"ll be just a minute!" I answered and then went back to putting on makeup. I don"t often wear makeup, but it was a date, even if it was one I"d lost interest in. Why did he have to show up early? Willard, who I"d dated most of soph.o.m.ore and junior year before he decided he wanted to get serious, was chronically late. I was guaranteed I"d have an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to get ready any time we went anywhere. Barrett had implied we were going somewhere nice for dinner, so I"d worn a dress, wine red with a retro, nineteen-fifties cut that I"d picked up for a steal last summer. This was the first time I"d worn it.