Good Girl

Chapter 10: Jax

"The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures," Mace reads off his iPad.

"You want to spend our first day off in weeks looking at Barbies?" Kyle snorts.

"Says the asshole who shaved his head last year to support the preservation of finger monkey habitat."

"They're called pygmy marmosets," Kyle tosses back.

"You coming, Jax?" Mace asks, a look of neediness on his face.

My criteria are usually where can I get time outside and where won't I be recognized. I'm guessing the toy museum is as good a place as any to go incognito.

So I trail Mace around the museum as he pops his gum and points stuff out.

"What's eating you? Is it Grace and Annie?" Mace asks as we stop next to a glass case of wooden Disney toys from the 1930s. The paint on Mickey's face is curling.

He's the most perceptive person I know. Maybe that's why he struggled so much with drugs. Because he sees things, feels things. Needs to numb out the world.

I shrug. "They used to come at least three times on a tour. In between, we'd talk almost every day. Now, I've been trying to get Grace to come for three months. Nothing."

I brush past him, and we make our way through the last hall.

We go out for dinner, finding a patio to enjoy the summer weather. My ball cap is jammed down, sunglasses on, and even though our waitress looks a little too long, if she knows something, she doesn't say.

"Once this tour's done, we got another studio album to record."

I bite into my hamburger, then wash it down with beer. "I know."

"You really have nothing?"

I pull a sheet of paper from my pocket and hold it out to him.

"You need to get a phone from this century so you can write in Notes like a grownup," he mumbles, spilling ketchup in his lap.

"Says the guy who puts ketchup on his calamari."

"You can put ketchup on anything."

But I wait as he reads the notes I've been making. Some are lyrics. Some are chords, which will get translated into vibrations, sounds, in his mind as easily as they do in mine.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"I think everything you've written since 'Midnight Mass' gets a little further from who you are."

"I'm not that kid anymore."

"This"—he holds up the paper—"isn't who you are either. At least 'Midnight Mass' was the most honest shit you ever wrote."

I take back the sheet. "You ever write?"

He shrugs. "Sure. Back before you picked me up. In the dark ages." He grins.

"You ever think about whether you're writing to affect people or just get it out? And when you do, where do you start? The music or the words."

"Never thought about it."

"It used to come to me like a storm. The riff. Then when it got too much, it'd rip through me. By the time I finished, the words were there." I turn it over in my head. "Maybe that's the problem."

He studies me, a look of realization dawning. "Or the problem is you're overthinking it. This is about Haley, isn't it? I should've known there was something going on when I walked in on you. She was wearing your hoodie, man."