Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

1059 Movin' on Up

Movin' on Up

All in all, I didn't have that much stuff to move out of the sublet: one duffel of clothes and one box of miscellaneous things that had accumulated during the months we were there. In it were some CDs, a couple of books and magazines, a VHS tape Colin had left behind, a pasta drainer, the sheet music Priss had made me copy, a box of rubber bands. Not a lot.

Oh, and a guitar.

As I did a last sweep of the living room, Ziggy was writing something on a notepad on the coffee table. Then he picked up his own bag of miscellaneous items and slid a hardcover book onto the shelf.

"Did you just leave a note in that book?" I asked.

"I did." He shouldered the bag and opened the door into the stairwell for us to exit.

I knew I wasn't going to get an explanation unless I asked. "What did it say?"

"It was a thank you for letting me read their books." He shrugged.

Why he didn't leave the note on the table instead of inside a book where they weren't going to find it for years, if ever, I don't know. Ziggy works in mysterious ways.

When we got back to Allston, Court and Claire were sitting in the living room, apparently finishing up eating brunch. From the sound of the conversation going on in the kitchen, it seemed that Colin and Christian had cooked it. They sounded on the verge of starting a water fight during the washing up process. I stayed out of it and concentrated on moving my things up to my room.

Ziggy followed. "Can I borrow your phone?"

"Of course."

"Thanks." He sat on my low bed and dialed a series of numbers, then hung up. He'd paged someone. Less than a minute later, it rang and he picked it up, and said in an uncanny imitation of Christian's Boston accent, "Allston Oystah House. We shuck em, you suck em." Then in his normal voice, "Barrett, it's me."

If he was going to talk business, I decided to go back down to the living room, but as I was exiting the room I heard him tell Barrett he wasn't coming back to New York until the next day. Which was interesting. I'd somehow been assuming as soon as we were done clearing the apartment he was going to flit right back to the city.

Maybe he wanted to spend as much time together as possible?

When it was safe to go back into my room to unpack, I found Ziggy lying on the bed, an upward-facing starfish, staring at the ceiling.

I unzipped the duffel and began sorting out my things on top of the dresser. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah." He sounded like his mind was very far away.

I figured if he had something to tell me he would, and that maybe he knew he didn't want to say too much that would just stress me out. I had to keep opening and closing my drawers because I didn't remember which things went in which one. Turns out I had socks in two different ones, which was just silly, but I wasn't motivated enough to take it all out and start over. "I really live more out of a suitcase than I live here."

"Yeah," he said again, and then focused on me. "Do you actually like living here?"

"Of course I do."

"I think you like the idea of living here, anyway," he said, which wasn't really disagreeing with me, but wasn't exactly agreeing either.

I abandoned my sock rearrangement and sat on the bed next to him. "I like the idea of living with you more."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah." It made sense to me that my brain brought this up now. "If everything with Claire hadn't happened, we would have spent most of the last year living together. We would have moved out today. And it'd be time to talk about what we're doing next."