PREVIOUSLY: Mark keeps his word and calls Kat again...and again; during one such conversation, she tells him a little bit about what happened between her and Chris while Mark, in turn, tells her about how Kristine was suspicious of her feelings towards him - both of which are unusually intimate topics for them to be discussing; Kat wonders why Mark's really been calling her but doesn't openly question it and just enjoys their banter-filled conversations and their deepening friendship; it seems like Jerry's never in the right place, at the right time aka in Lizzy's immediate vicinity but they finally meet at a bar where their friends hang out after basketball games; Jerry spends the whole time trying to touch Lizzy and when he finally takes her hand, she freaks out because it occurs to her all of a sudden that she might end up being just a rebound to Jerry; she seeks advice from Eva but ultimately decides to wait a little and see...
I start my internship so soon, there's so much to think about, but at the same time, I feel like the day can't come fast enough. Kat thrifted some really nice pieces for me to wear... I'm aware it sounds really shallow but it's important to think about. What I look like is what people are going to think of me every time I enter a room and if I want to launch my career into orbit, I want them thinking only the best. Kat found some silk blouses, a couple of really sweet skirt suits, and I already have like three pairs of shoes for the job. So I'm all set there...
I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, thinking about all that, while Eva and Lizzy talk about shopping lists...before Lizzy changes the subject.
"How can I be sure that I wouldn't be just a rebound to him?" She asks me and Eva seconds after bringing up this same boring topic yet again. I wish I could just walk away from having to listen to her whine about Jerry again, but seeing as I'm driving this car, that would be kind of irresponsible...
"Lizzy, how much more can we talk about this..."
"You can be real mean sometimes, you know that, Gwen?" She scrunches her nose at me from the passenger seat.
I mean, it's just that...Lizzy's already asked everyone for their opinion on what she should do, literally – she had lunch with her aunt's family, who are in town to scope out UW for Lizzy's cousin, and it sounds like her cousin voted for Lizzy staying friends with Jerry to give him time for now... Absurd! Of course she shouldn't do that because then he'll start dating someone else and Lizzy will be crushed.
"Okay, sweetheart, I'm going to be completely honest with you now so just hear me out," I turn my face towards her after stopping the car at a red light, "you do not have the willpower to stay away from him. You can't even stop talking about him so how are you gonna be 'just friends' with him??"
"This is really a non-issue, Lizzy," Eva says from the back seat. "You have an okay looking guy—Hey!" Eva laughs when Lizzy tries to whip her with her silk scarf... "Okay, okay... You have a good looking guy who's into you... And he's already shown you that he's a honest man. What more advice do you need??"
"I think Jerry's a good guy...I don't know if I should, considering what kind of people he's friends with, but I do. And he obviously likes you. Do something about it, Lizzy ," I tell her as I parallel park and kill the engine. "There is no way to know what's gonna happen, you just have to live it and see, sweetheart."
"That's what I said! You know Gwen's right, Lizzy," Eva backs me.
We get out of the car and I add enough coins into the parking meter for just over half an hour. It's windy today so the three of us clutch our jackets close to ourselves as we make the short walk from the parking spot to the café.
"Hello!" Eva walks into Raison d'Etre first and heads for the staff room.
"Hey, guys! What's up?" Jeff smiles at us from behind the espresso machine.
"How's it going, kids?" Lizzy purrs sweetly, as she always does.
"Howdy," Stone, who's leaning on the counter, lifts one hand in a wave.
"Hi, guys," I walk up to him behind Lizzy.
"The usual for you two, ladies?" Jeff asks us after he puts two cups on the counter and calls a Jordan.
"Yeah," Lizzy's the one to answer. "Thanks, Jeff!"
"No problem."
"How's the morning been?" I ask but instead of Jeff answering, Stone butts in.
"Pretty rough, thanks for asking," he looks at me and Lizzy. "Jeff won't stop talking about Mudhoney and how we should start a cover band."
"Shut up, you dork," Jeff laughs and sends a paper cup flying at Stone's head while steaming a pitcher of milk with his other hand.
Eva walks out from the staff room, tying her apron, at the exact moment to watch that unfold and laughs. "If this doesn't happen for three consecutive days, I get worried. Oh, before I forget... Have you two heard about Pet Samatary on the eighth?"
"What about it?" Stone inquires and I answer instead of Eva:
"Kat has a bunch of tickets for the premier screening. I think it's one of her UW friends who works for a movie theater," I add an explanation. "So she's been rallying people to go see that together."
"On the eighth? This is in the evening, I'm assuming?" Jeff asks for clarification and Eva takes over to explain the details to him.
"You know," I turn to Stone, "you should really be pestering Kat if you miss your friends. She's on the phone with Mark all the time," I say and he flashes me an intrigued, wide-eyed half-smile before his face returns to its resting expression.
"How come?"
"Who could say, Stone? Kat and Mark are very strange people, it could be literally anything," Lizzy answers with an impatient shrug and then turns to me. "So what should I do about...you know what??"
"You know what?" I cackle. "Since when are you embarrassed to talk about this in front of people?"
"About Aunt Flow?" Stone asks with a hushed voice and a supposedly understanding look.
"No! About Jerry, you weirdo," Lizzy gives him a deeply disturbed stare while I laugh.
"Ah, right, boy problems..." Stone nods slowly, once again pretending to understand what's going on, and once again cracking me up.
"So she's embarrassed to talk about boys in front of a bunch of people, so what?" Jeff, who's been telling Eva all about his morning shift up until now, tries to help Lizzy out who – contrary to what he thinks – does not need any help. She's bursting to talk about Jerry. And honestly, I don't know him that well, I don't know if he's capable of the same level bullshit that Mike is – I don't think so, but I don't know – but I just really, really want Lizzy to stop whining about him. If Kat's on the end of spectrum where you have to employ medieval torture methods to get her to say anything about how she really feels, then Lizzy's the exact opposite of that – you have to threaten torture to make her shut up.
"Oh, you don't understand," I tell him. "Lizzy is shameless."
"Am not!"
"Out of the four of us, Lizzy is definitely the most shameless one," Eva nods her head.
"What? Nu-uh!" Lizzy protests.
"What do you mean, nu-uh?" I laugh at her pout. "I've heard you ask Steve if he can tell you're not wearing a bra..."
"Only because the trauma, caused by you, brought him and I closer together emotionally," Lizzy rebukes in an uncharacteristically combative tone. Oh yeah, Kat, Stone, and I did plant a condom wrapper in Lizzy's room along with Steve that one time...
"Well, all the same... Don't tell me you're gonna stop talking about Jerry just because Stone and Jeff are here?" I wiggle my eyebrows at her and she rolls her eyes and sighs and then chuckles.
"Actually, maybe you two will be able to help me... I mean, you're guys, after all," she adds, her eyes jumping between Jeff and Stone, as if only now realising it.
"What do you need advice on?" Jeff asks, as if Eva hasn't already told him all about Lizzy's love life drama.
I shuffle my gaze to her and sure enough, she gives me a guilty grin. Not that Lizzy's love life is any kind of secret at all... But it's nice to see that Jeff has enough decency to at least pretend to not already know and have an opinion about it, I'm sure.
"Okay, so I need you to put yourself into Jerry's shoes and tell me what you'd do... So Jerry's long distance girlfriend just ended their relationship...which he was also ready to get out of. But because it happened over the phone... It's not that I'm worried he's not over her, but I feel like he didn't get real closure and I don't know how that will affect him... What if he just rushes into a rebound relationship? That's not at all what I'm looking for... So...what do I do??"
"You guys ever just...zone out when Lizzy talks?" Stone shakes himself out of his trance and looks at me and Eva.
"Why you gotta be so rude?" I try to glare at him but can't keep from laughing, because yeah, I do, lately...
"Stone, shut the fuck up," Jeff sighs out while putting lids over mine and Lizzy's drinks. "I mean, you should just talk to him..." He shrugs while handing her the bigger of the two paper cups. "Jerry's a good guy."
"That's what we keep telling her!" I say as I grab my coffee. "Lizzy, seriously, get out of your head and go for it."
"Gwen, just out of curiosity," Stone turns to me now, touching all his fingertips together as he does. "Why are you so adamant about Lizzy going out with Jerry after what his bassist did to you?"
Did to me? I don't think so. What Mike did, he did to himself. But I can't be bothered to try and explain that to Stone right now. "Look, Stone, I have this daily mantra that I live by – do whatever the fuck you want, just don't hurt other people. You know what I mean? Mike can become the next Pope, for all I care, it won't make a difference in how or what I do. Why should Lizzy's life be affected by that clown? It shouldn't. Therefore, Lizzy," I look at her squarely, "go live your life!"
"Maybe you should call Jerry's ex," Stone turns to her now, "get her to break up with him again... But better this time."
"I'm sure you have a heart as big as your feet, Stone," Lizzy starts, "but your advices suck."
"You know, I can't argue. It's all coming straight out of my ass, really..." He shrugs and turns to join whatever conversation Eva and Jeff were having, but just then, they...burst into song...
"Stand in the place where you live, now face north, think about direction, wonder why you haven't before..." They're just loud enough so that a few of the people sitting at the café tables glance over. And they're also doing something...akin to a dance routine? Mostly jumping and turning around... "Now stand in the place where you work, now face west, think about the place where you live, wonder why you haven't before..."
"This song comes on like five times a day," Eva laughs out an explanation when their performance fizzles out.
"Okay, I've seen enough," Stone straightens up. "Jeff, you need a ride?"
"Yeah!"
"We're gonna get going too," I tell Eva.
Jeff, Stone, Lizzy, and I walk outside a couple of minutes later and after we say bye to them, she starts...talking about Jerry again. And I start thinking about my internship at the Mexican Embassy again...in Spanish this time though, to brush up on my skills.
* * *
"Jerry!" I give up on trying to run in this darn pencil skirt and yell his name instead before he disappears out the back door of the hotel.
"Hey, you!" He sways around, a grin already painted across his face. "How's it going?" He shrinks the gap between us in just three or four strides (which would have taken me thirty steps, I'm sure) and scoops me into a hug, briefly lifting me to my tiptoes as he does. "Are you done here?" He asks when we pull apart. "I didn't see you at the front desk, I was there just now..."
"Yeah, I'm done, I was just chatting with Victoria."
"Do you need a ride then?"
"Yeah, thanks," I tell him, already thinking of how I should bring up the topic of me having a crush on him...'cause that's easy! Ugh, I just don't wanna do it. Or rather, I want him to do it first...
We talk about work and our friends and movies and the weather and whatever else during the drive, as usual, but my mind is elsewhere the whole time. After Jerry tells me about how Sean tried to convince him to set their answering machine message to play the sound from some porn scene, I can't help but take the mental leap...
"This is a random question, but... I'm just curious, have you heard anything else from Dee?"
"I haven't spoken to her since that last call..." Jerry tells me with a shrug. "Oh and she left a message not too long after that but that was it..."
"She did? What did she say?" I ask, unable to stop myself... But I mean, it's kind of my business too, isn't it? I need to know where he's at in this whole breakup mess before I tell him I like him, just to watch him get back together with Dee or something...
"She was just letting me know she'll be in Seattle at the end of May. That was—"
"She will!?"
"Yeah..."
"But that's great!" I clap my hands together.
"It is?" Jerry looks at me with a mixture of a frown and an amused smile.
"Well, yeah... You can get some real closure once you see her."
"You think I should see her?" He asks without conviction.
"Yeah! I mean, you haven't seen her in months and then you're not together anymore... Doesn't that feel weird?"
"I mean... Yeah... Yeah, it does. That's just part of long distance relationships..."
"But she told you she'll be here herself – she obviously wants to see you face to face too."
"I mean, I really didn't think there is any point... It's over, it's done, I don't think there's anything left to talk about," Jerry says without looking at me, a note of resolution clear in his voice, right as he pulls into a parking spot across the street from my apartment building. "Anyway, here we are, miss," he turns to me with a smile, resting his elbow hooked over the steering wheel. "You know, I could probably drive here from Fairmont with my eyes closed at this point."
"Yeah..." I give him a guilty grin...I really should start pitching in on gas at this point... "Thanks, Jerry..."
"My pleasure, Liz, genuinely," he assures me... "Don't tell me that's news to you?"
I really should talk to him, shouldn't I? I know I should, I've just been putting it off, hoping that he breaks the ice on that topic first. Call me old fashioned (my roommates often do), but I want a guy to tell me how he feels about me first, I don't want to have to coax it out of him... But how long can I keep avoiding it? Gosh, Gwen's right, I'm really not strong enough to just decide to stay away from Jerry and then do so...
"D'you wanna come upstairs?" I blurt out. "For some tea?"
"I'd love to," he kills the engine before he can even finish the short sentence.
We get out of the car and walk inside; Jerry turns towards the elevator but I warn him to seriously never do that and we walk all the way up the stairs; right when we get to the apartment door, my hand plunged into my bag to retrieve the key, Kat walks out of Mark's apartment and stops dead in her track, a politely surprised smile frozen on her face.
"Hello, friends."
"If you're in the middle of something illegal, don't mind us..." Jerry quips while it takes my brain a moment to try and make sense of what's going on. Is Mark back? But I thought they still have a week of tour left... Huh?
"Gwen took away my phone privileges in our apartment," Kat explains. "So I'm using Mark's." Ah.
"That next phone bill will be a nice welcome back gift for him, huh?" Jerry raises his eyebrows.
"She's on the phone with Mark," I tell him and sure enough, Kat doesn't correct me. I think this is the fifth time in the last week. And some of those times took literal hours, so Gwen really did what needed to be done.
"I'm just getting some snacks and incense..." She explains as she steps into our apartment (the door was unlocked) and we follow her in. "The stench in that apartment might be gone but it's still...not right..." She mumbles, casting a vaguely alarmed look at me.
"Hey, guys," I shuffle my attention to Eva, Gwen, and Aimee, who are all draped over our corner couch.
"Hey, you two," Gwen beams at me and Jerry.
"We're gonna watch a movie, you guys wanna join? Are you sticking around, Jerry?" Eva asks.
"We're gonna make some tea," I tell her and then try to telepathically instruct her and Gwen to not bother us because I'm trying to take their advice and talk to Jerry.
"Well, if you want something stronger, I brought some wine," Aimee grins at me as I quickly step over to the dining table to hang my bag on one of the chairs.
"Would you be disappointed if we had wine instead of tea?" I look over at Jerry and he chuckles in response.
Once he turns around towards the kitchen, the three girls all give me thumbs up and mouth...something encouraging, I think. I follow him and point to a cupboard where we keep our wine glasses. Eva, Gwen, and Aimee, in the meantime, are deciding which of the three rented movies they should start with...
"So, Mark and Kat are together now?" Jerry glances over at me while filling up our glasses.
"Mark and Kat?" I repeat with a laugh, remembering how she reacted when Gwen merely pointed out that there was potential between them... "They're not... They just really get along. But you can't really be sure with Kat, I guess," I mumble, maybe a touch more bitterly than I wanted to. "I think they're just friends..."
"Who's just friends?" Gwen asks as she swings the fridge door open to get some cheese out.
"Kat and Mark."
"Oh, yeah, she doesn't even leave the room when she's on the phone with him," she says and I have to agree – I think as a rule, if Kat is into someone, she'll hide it from everyone, and as far as her calls with Mark go, she doesn't care if we're around to hear them or not. "I had to kick her out of here and off our phone... And their conversations, from what I've witnessed, are mind numbingly boring. Although Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum themselves somehow find them infinitely amusing..." She adds, walking back to the couch with some cheese and crackers.
"So which one's which? Mark's always struck me as more of the Tweedle Dum type..." Jerry grins at me, making me laugh, while the TV sound goes up just enough that I have to take a step closer towards him to hear him. "Okay, so... Vanilla," he leans his hip against the edge of the kitchen counter, his back turned to the couch, and swirls the wine glass close to his nose.
"Yeah, totally," I confirm after investigating it myself. "Oak, too."
"Hm. Really? I'm not getting it," he furrows his brow after sniffing his glass some more and then he reaches for mine. "Maybe yours is oakier..."
"Jerry, it's the same wine," I chuckle but allow him to switch our glasses anyway.
"I'll try it anyway, just I case," he grins and takes a sip from my glass, right from the side where I can see faint marks left by my tinted chap stick on the edge of it. "Why are you looking at me like that?" He asks as his face shifts into a smirk.
Because that was unexpectedly hot... "I don't know," I shrug and blink at him innocently. "How am I looking at you?"
"Like you like what you're seeing," he takes another sip of my wine and switches our glasses again, all while I lean against the edge of the counter too, so we're mirroring each other, and I keep my eyes looking at everything but his face. "I like you, Lizzy," he somehow captures my gaze anyway, his voice dropping to a murmur. "And I know you like me too. Like, a lot," he momentarily widens his eyes and I bite the insides of my cheeks...
"You do?"
"Yeah. You see, Gwen threatened me last week so I figured it must be serious," he smirks at me, looking very pleased with himself now.
"She did what!?" I yelp and throw a dirty look, across the room, at Gwen but she doesn't notice it. "What did she say??"
"Something about how you and her differ in how you...deal with things," he answers in a happy tone. "I think she might have been talking about disposing of my dead body..."
"They're all horrible," I mumble.
"They?" Jerry cocks an eyebrow with a curious look.
"Never mind that," I wave it off.
"So uh... Can we talk somewhere with fewer ears?"
"Yeah," but not in my bedroom either. That would contradict everything I'm trying to do here. "I actually wanted to talk to you too..." I mean, bringing Jerry into my bedroom doesn't exactly say 'let's take it slow', does it?? "We can go sit over there," I take his hand and lead him to that weird little appendix that our living room has. It's kind of like a dead-end hallway instead of mine and Eva's rooms sharing a wall, and there's a window at the end of it and a loveseat underneath. It's also completely out of sight and out of earshot from the couch.
Jerry instantly makes himself comfortable on the loveseat, propping his elbow against the backrest and leaning his temple against a loosely balled fist, still gently swirling his wine in the other hand. "Am I wrong?" He asks me once I take a seat next to him, which brings us much closer to being eye level with each other than usual.
"About what?"
He chuckles as I swim laps in the blue of his eyes... "I like you a lot, Lizzy, but I think you know that..." He pauses briefly, as if to give me a chance to deny it, but I obviously don't... "I was reluctant to tell you because I don't want you to think that I'm just lonely or bored, that I jump from relationship to relationship with no consideration..." Jerry's eyes grow more serious now.
"That's...that's actually what I wanted to talk to you about..." I spit it out.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah... Of course you're right, I like you too, Jerry," I say and he watches me without breathing, by the looks of it, and I really have to concentrate on what I'm trying to say because...why do I want to take things slow again?..
"See, I knew Gwen wouldn't have threatened me otherwise," he chuckles. "I'd really like to take you out... I mean, bumping into you at work and bars and giving you rides is very enjoyable as well, don't get me wrong," he straightens up just a touch, his elbow still on the backrest, but he uses his hand to play with my braids now as he speaks, lazily twirling them between his fingertips, "but it'd be cool if we could go on a date, don't you think?"
"Yeah..."
"Wait a second... I sense a 'but' coming..." Jerry's fingers stop as he studies my expression.
"No! I mean... It's not so much a 'but' as it is 'slow' or...'until' or 'wait'..."
"Uh... What?" He blinks at me blankly.
"I'd love to go out with you, Jerry!" I assure him with a nod. "It's just that maybe we should wait until after you see Dee?"
"I don't think seeing her will change anything..."
"Well, no, but..."
"I don't understand why you're so set on this? I don't regret breaking up, I don't miss her, if that's what you think," he retracts his hand now, giving me a somewhat irked look.
"That's not what it's about, it's just about...closure, just healthy closure," I try to explain, unsuccessfully.
"Closure? But I have closure, I knew this was the only way it was going to end for a long time, I told you. Lizzy, I just don't understand you..." Jerry sighs out. "What is this really about? What am I doing wrong here?"
"Nothing! You're not doing anything wrong," I punctuate my words by reaching out and giving his arm a squeeze. "I guess... What I'm trying to say is... I love myself and I'm happy with my life right now. I don't really want to date around just to not be alone. I want to build a relationship with someone," I say, surprising myself a little, I have to admit... I hadn't really articulated it like that before, and now it's all coming out in the exact words I couldn't find until now, "who is also ready, you know? If we start something, I want it to work... I wanna make it work..."
"Lizzy..."
"I'm sorry if that sounds like...a lot. But I've told you, I don't really date around much just for the sake of dating..."
"Yeah, I know that," he pulls his lips into a warm smile that lights his eyes up as he quickly leans over to set his glass on the floor by his foot. "I wanna make it work, too. And I want you to know that I think you're amazing, Lizzy, and if you just give me a chance, I'd love nothing more than to show you just how much I want to make it work," he says and reaches for my free hand to gently tug on my fingers, peering at me as he does. "If you think I should see Dee, then I will. I guess it's not an unreasonable idea."
"Thank you."
"And if you'll only go out with me after that, then so be it. I'll wait."
"Thank you, Jerry," I lace our fingers together, wondering how I got here?? I honestly didn't expect this to go so smoothly, but maybe I should have known? Jerry's such a kind, gentle person...I mean, maybe 'gentle' is not necessarily the word most people would use to describe Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains, but he has a soft side that I, at least, see pretty often. I should have known he'd react well, I wouldn't be interested in him otherwise, would I?
"I saw you singing karaoke last Monday," he tells me with a dreamy smile now and all the while, I'm just trying to not faint because he's making me feel so giddy...
"You did?"
"Yeah. You never told me you're part literal angel, Lizzy," he drops his gaze to our hands, linking and unlinking our fingers as if he can't keep from doing it.
"What?" I laugh. "I'm not!"
"How else do you explain your voice?" He meets my eyes and I break out into another smile. "I'm aware of how cliché this sounds, but I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you," he says. "I don't know what it is... You make me feel like I'm hypnotised every time I look at you."
* * *
"Would you say Jeff and you are friends now?" Kat asks me out of the blue as I'm locking up the apartment door.
"Sure. Why?"
"Oh, just wondering, considering you used to hate each other."
"That's ancient information."
"I know, I know."
"I don't know, we get along. I'd say we're friends but I also feel like I don't really know him that well. I mean," I say as we head down the hallway and Kat throws me a somewhat confused look. "We mostly talk about work and customers and basketball, and occasionally his band. So I know stuff about him."
"Makes sense," she drops it with a nod.
"On an unrelated topic, I think Lizzy and Jerry were holding hands last night..." I tell her as we walk downstairs where Stone is, hopefully, already waiting for us.
"Oh, yeah!" Kat laughs. "Gwen told me about it briefly. I saw her just before she left for work," she explains as we walk outside. As if on cue, we both inhale deeply, filling our lungs up with tonight's thick fog.
"So what's the deal? Did Lizzy finally grow some balls and tell Jerry she likes him?" I ask, making Kat cackle.
"Sort of. I think he called her out on it, actually? And then Lizzy told him that she wants to take things slow and that he should meet with Dee when she's here, because the girl obviously wants to see him... Apparently, he was very understanding," Kat reports to me as we both look around to see if Stone's car is anywhere around.
"God, frickin' Lizzy, she had to drag this on for so long and for no reason at all."
"Whenever I don't understand her, I chuck it off to Christianity," Kat tells me with a wiseass expression. "Ugh, where the hell is that muppet?" She mumbles with a glance at her wristwatch.
Actually, I don't mind waiting around a little. I feel like I've been rushing the whole day today – I had to go to the lab in the morning, then I worked at Raison, then had to run back to the lab again, had a meeting with my supervisor, then headed back home, took a quick shower and had just enough time to get ready before Kat informed me it's time to leave again... But I'm so ready for this party! Honestly, it's just what I need.
"Let's go on a hike soon." I light a cigarette while we wait.
"Eva, you know I can't," Kat looks at me solemnly.
"Why??"
"Because it requires fitness and good limb coordination – neither of which I have."
"It's good for you!"
"How about we compromise and have a picnic at the botanical gardens? It's almost May," she wiggles her eyebrows, although I don't require much convincing on this.
"Yes! We haven't gone on an adventure in ages," I whine as I pass her the cigarette. Kat and I used to have to-do lists for every school year at UW that we had hanging in our kitchen; we'd do all kinds of things, like explore small towns and watch the rain on the beach and go to animal shelters... We have a list in the making now too, we just haven't been very proactive at checking things off. I guess I've just been busy with school and work and basketball... "So what's up with Mark calling you so much? Are they stuck in a German jail or something?"
"He didn't really answer when I asked, I told you. He just makes dumb jokes about it instead. I don't know, I think he's probably just kind of over the tour already... It sounds like they all are. Either way, not like I have anything better to do," she concludes with a half-hearted shrug.
"Fair." Wonder if Mark called Kristine that much from tour but what even is the point of bringing that up... "You feel okay about going to this party?"
"Sure."
"Katie?"
"What?" She meets my eyes. She knows why I'm asking and I'm done letting her get out of talking to me like a normal person so I continue to peer at her until she sighs. I know it's been a couple of months already but I also know that nothing's been resolved between her and Chris. Doesn't that complicate things a little, considering they have a lot of the same friends and we're literally going to his house party right now? Doesn't she need to address it properly? "Gwen and Mark told me to make out with someone... Or key his car... So that'll get me through the night."
"How about you have a drink and enjoy yourself?" I suggest with a laugh.
"Yeah, that sounds good too. Honestly, I'm fine. I don't know why everyone keeps asking..."
"Maybe because it's impossible to know otherwise? And maybe your friends just want to make sure that you really are okay, so we'd rather ask than assume, you salty lunatic?"
"Oh... Yeah, could be that..." Kat mumbles barely audibly. "He wants to be friends," she adds after a short pause.
"What?" I shoot her a surprised stare; not at what Chris said but at the fact that Kat's telling me. Yes, good girl.
"Yeah. He said he feels like shit and that he hopes we can still be friends."
"Well..." I bite back all of the other things I'd like to say and go for this one instead: "Wasn't that your whole deal though? Weren't you friends with benefits?" Which I warned you about, I said it never works, but whatever...
"Yes, but..."
"But what?" I ask when Kat doesn't say anything else.
"Nothing. That's exactly it, that's why I never advertised it. I'm just not sure I want to be friends with him anymore..."
"Oh..." I breath out.
"Don't worry, I won't make out with his car or key his guitarist," she says and I don't question it because I don't want to interrupt this flow of unexpected openness, "it's all just kind of comical at this point. I don't think he'll try talking to me again tonight so we can both have fun with our largely overlapping friend groups. Does that make sense?" Kat pulls her shoulders up in a question.
"Yeah," I answer right as Stone's red Fuego screeches to a halt in front of us.
We say our hellos as Kat hops into the front seat, forcing me to sit in the back.
"What is this bullshit, Stone?" The redhead wrinkles her nose at the car radio and changes the station, in spite of Stone's protests.
"Eva, you're from San Diego," he states out of the blue, while Kat switches the station again, and again... "Does this kind of weather kill you inside a little bit?"
"You know, I actually got pretty used to it when I lived in Halifax. It got foggy a lot there like this, really thick and damp and lingering. Actually, it was kind of exciting for me and my sister. I was in eighth grade," I explain to him.
"Canada?? How long did you live there?"
"Just for a year, with my family."
"Why did you move there for just a year?"
"My dad used to go on work trips there a lot," I scoot over into the middle of the back seat and lean forward. "And he'd sometimes spend a couple of months there. The summer before eighth grade, me, my mom, and my sister all went over there to stay with him until we had to go back to school. And then one day, while we were taking an evening walk on the beach, somebody broke into our car, and stole some stuff, including my mom's purse which had all of our passports in it. This was not even a week before we were supposed to be back in San Diego for first day of school and my parents decided that rather than waiting for all the paperwork to go through to allow us back into the country, we'd just settle down there for the whole year."
"Wow, that's pretty intense," Stone glances me a wide-eyed look.
"Yeah, navigating social life as a teenager in a completely unfamiliar place, at a new school, and half of it in French... That was pretty rough, not gonna lie," I say thinking about the friends I made there. They were the kind of kids that skipped entire days of school and smoked cigarettes on lunch break. And that was just the innocent side of it. "But it was also kind of cool. I mean, who else has had an experience like that?" I shrug, meeting eyes with Stone in the rear view mirror, while Kat finally settles on a station playing The Rolling Stones.
"Wait, so did you have classes in French?"
"No, most everything was in English, but we did have multiple French language classes a week. And some of the kids at my school mostly spoke French amongst themselves."
"So you speak any French??" Stone goes on with the questions, evidently really intrigued by this new information.
"Just a tiny bit, it was the hardest thing for me for some reason."
"No shit..." Stone mumbles. "Cool, cool. I thought Katie was my favourite geek but now I'll have to think about it some more..." He earns himself a laugh from me and a back-handed slap on the arm from Kat.
We stop by a liquor store on our way, since the party is BYOB, but it doesn't take us long; no longer than thirty minutes later, we're already getting out of Stone's car outside Chris, Andy, and Xana's place. The fog only seems to have thickened but it still can't hide all the people standing around outside, the red embers of their cigarettes floating about.
The three of us make our way inside, saying hi to a few people as we walk through the house, until we reach the kitchen. Kat and Stone go to put our beers into the fridge while my eyes stumble over Jeff and Matt Cameron.
"Hey, guys," I go up to them.
"Hi, teammate," Matt grins while Jeff greets me with a smile and a wave.
"What is this, Jeff?" I flick the wide brim of his pink hat that belongs in the closet of either a thirteen year old girl or an eighty-three year old granny.
"Fashion, but you wouldn't know anything about it. Explain to her, Matt."
"Oh, no," Matt's eyes light up with silent laughter as he lifts up his palms in defence. "I've seen these fights..."
"What?? We're not fighting," I assure him. I've gotten to know Matt a little more lately, since we're on the same basketball team, but he still seems kind of guarded to me. Oh well, I like him, he's a fun guy.
"I'm not taking sides. You can forget about dragging me into your competitions."
"Huh?" Jeff furrows his eyebrows momentarily.
"Oh yeah, people talk about how you are at work too. You're always trying to top one another at anything you can and I will not be a puppet in your twisted game," Matt shakes his head and steps backwards.
"Huh?"
"Oh hey, speaking of work, did John say anything to you about new business hours?" My co-worker asks me when Matt leaves us with one last shrug and shake of his head.
"No, what about it?"
"I think he wants to be open later."
"Oh great," I groan and Jeff quirks an eyebrow. "I'm exhausted, I already feel like I don't have enough hours in a day for sleep."
"Hi, Jeff. Eva?" Kat holds up a beer can to me while Stone's opening his.
"So I hear you're on the phone with Mudsellouts all the time?" Jeff looks at my roommate.
"Yes, all of it."
"What do you talk about?" Stone perks up.
"Mostly about you," Kat shoots back. I've realised something recently, as a result of spending a lot of time around Stone (he usually somehow appears wherever Jeff is and seeing how I work and play basketball with him, I see Stone a lot) – it makes perfect sense that Kat would be friends with Stone because he can be really annoying and she's one of the few people with chaotic enough energy to be able to handle that.
"Oh, really? Do you also talk about Chris?"
"All of the time."
"Why did you break up with him?" Stone asks as if he's inquiring about the weather.
"Stone, if you got rhinoplasty, d'you think you'd become a little less nosy??" Jeff pops his eyes at his bandmate, making me laugh. Jeff is another one of those people who understand something about Stone that the rest of us don't. Actually, when they start talking about new music they're working on, you'd think they're in love with each other, that's how deeply connected and in tune they seem to be. It's very...interesting.
"It's okay, Jeff..." Kat bobs her head... Huh?
"Really? You don't have to tell him anything, you know. If anything, you have to watch what you say around him because he'll memorise it and start repeating it at you..."
"Fuck you, Jeffrey..."
"Never should have told him my name..."
"No, no, I don't mind telling him..." Kat insists, for some reason!?
"Really?" I frown at Kat now; she won't talk about Chris to me, Gwen or Lizzy for weeks, refusing all our attempts at trying to be there for her, and now she'll tell Stone all about it!?
"Yeah... I broke up with him because he insisted that we listen to Sex Rap every time we had sex..." She says and...I lose it and it gets even better when she notices that Chris just walked into the kitchen so she raises her voice: "And far too self-obsessed. He wanted to have a mirror positioned so he could see himself while having sex every time. He gradually started setting up three or four mirrors so he wouldn't miss any angles, as he put it..." She goes on and Jeff, Stone, and my eyes all start darting between her and Chris; the latter, in the meantime, is standing by the fridge – so practically an arm's reach away from Kat, although there's people standing between them – a freshly opened beer bottle in hand and a vaguely intrigued scowl on his face; he's watching her, frozen like some big old ogre in his murky flannel, while Kat goes on, aggressively ignoring his proximity. "He had all kinds of kinks... And then he also asked me to roleplay as Walt Whitman and...well," she says while the three of us, as well as a couple other people around us, snigger and chuckle, "that was really the last straw for me." Ah, I love Kat, I don't tell her that enough. "You see, I thought we bonded over Whitman's—"
"Yes!" Chris, who's now sporting an amused grin, loudly cuts across her. "It's true, I only see Walt Whitman for the sexy piece of meat that he was!"
"And I'm sure he would have had sex with you, Christopher, had you been alive during the Civil War. He was probably gay, after all," Stone tells his friend with a glazed look.
"Anyway, I'll go see if I can find Xana or Andy anywhere," Kat goes on pretending like Chris didn't necessarily just say anything and slips out of the kitchen in double quick time.
I turn around and find myself locking eyes with Chris so I throw him the biggest plastic smile I can muster and he responds with a sheepish one before walking out too. Surely, not after Kat though. He honestly can't be that stupid, otherwise she'd never gotten together with him in the first place.
"Kat will never tell you why she broke up with Chris," I tell Stone when we both end up in the corner of the kitchen that hosts a box full of empty beer cans, where we dispose of ours as well. Wow, I guess I really needed that beer after today...
"Why? Did she say that?" His hand lingers mid-air for a moment before he drops the can. "Ahh now I really wanna know!"
"She didn't but I know her... True, it took me a couple of years to decipher her, but I know now that she would hate to come between you and Chris. Or Chris and literally any of our friends."
"Did he fuck up that badly??" Stone pops his eyes at me.
"I'm not sure," I answer honestly. She keeps insisting it's not a big deal but... "I think she just wants to distance herself from him without making him into a villain, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I think I do..."
"So stop fucking pestering her, Stoner!" I flick his nose and leave him frowning at me.
I lose sight of him and Kat for probably over an hour as I work on my second and third beers and get pulled into different conversations and one quick game of truth or dare. At some point, I spot Bruce out front, smoking and laughing with a bunch of guys, so I make a mental note to avoid that side of the house for a bit. It's nothing, really, I've just noticed he gets kind of clingy sometimes if I so much as say one word to him. Nothing against the guy, I just don't feel like spending the whole night with him hanging around.
I grab myself another can of beer and turn towards the sliding back door. It seems like there's a lot of people in the back yard so I decide to join them.
"The Jesus and Mary Chain are so much better than Sonic Youth," Jeff's voice carries and once I step outside, I see that he's talking to Kat.
"What?" Her voice goes up. "That's ridiculous! I mean, I like them...not least of all because they're Scottish... But you—"
"Relaaax, I'm just messing with you," Jeff pulls his lips into his usual grin; honestly, if some people have resting bitch faces, then Jeff has a resting Cheshire Cat face. "Try that on Mark though, he'll flip his shit," he cackles.
"You're a cruel man, Jeffrey," she squints at him.
"It's just an innocent joke," he seems to be unable to stop laughing.
"Kat will argue with you over anything that she believes to be the truth," I tell him as I join their little group and pull out my pack of cigarettes. "You have to be careful what you joke about around her," I tell him and Kat gives out a dry laugh before mumbling 'whatever'.
"I mean," I go on as I look at Jeff, "she goes to bakeries and argues with people over incorrectly labelling their pastries as croissants, because," I say and then both Kat and I finish the sentence in unison: "croissant is a crescent shape, not a flaky dough..."
"Very funny," the redhead pouts at both of us now. "I'll leave you be so you can laugh at your funny jokes without committing genocide on my brain cells," she walks off, pulling out her loose tobacco pouch and waving at Andy, who's standing around with a different group of people.
"Have you noticed anything...strange about Kat and Stone?" Jeff asks me reluctantly, slowly dragging his gaze back to me.
"Like what??" If he's about to start talking about how they're secretly in love with each other, I swear... That's all people ever talk about – relationships and love and hook ups and who likes who; what a drag.
"Not so much about them together as about each one of them," he goes slowly. Okay, let's see what this is about. "I feel...like I'm being watched. Or observed..." Jeff's face crinkles. "I don't know, I don't know how to explain it..."
I'm too tired for this shit... "That's just the usual effect Kat has on people. I don't think she's that interested in observing you, Jeff," I laugh and then yawn.
"So not getting enough sleep, huh?" He asks after chuckling along with me. "Must be especially tough, considering you're not a morning person."
"Not a morning person?? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing!" He looks at me with an amused expression. "It's just that whenever we work an opening shift together, in response to my 'good morning' you usually glare at me and sigh. And then about one to two hours later you just launch into conversation all at once."
"I do not."
"You do to."
"You wanna start a chart?"
"I'd love to, actually," he smirks at me. "I'll personally buy you a sheet of stickers so you can get a gold star for every day of the year when you do say good morning."
"Oh my god," I laugh out. "Matt's right, you and I are always trying to compete about something, aren't we?"
"I personally think we're just nudging each other to be better baristas and better basketball players."
"You know what, it all makes sense now – you were so mad at Stone for getting me a job at Raison that you've made it your mission to make my life a never ending struggle," I grin at him. I wouldn't honestly say I've been struggling. If anything, our tip bet has been heavily tilted in my favour for a long time now. And of course I don't think Jeff has any kind of agenda but it's fun to rile him up all the same. He really was a huge ass to me when I first started working at Raison so maybe I deserve to get back at him a little once in a while.
"No, it's actually because the first time we met, you almost murdered me with the thrift shop door."
"Ah, and I regret it every day!" I cackle and he cracks up too.
"Does it bother you? That we end up making a competition out of everything? I mean, at work, especially? I don't wanna hear about it from John..."
I shrug. I honestly haven't even noticed until just now. I guess it makes life a little more fun. Like, I'm exhausted but at least I know I can kick Jeff's ass at work so it gives me a boost of energy. "Nah," I answer and before Jeff can say anything else, his lips already parted, Chris walks up to us, lighting his cigarette as he does, making me suddenly remember I've been holding my pack this whole time.
"Am I allowed to socialise with you?" He asks me unceremoniously. "I'm trying to map out the social territory so I know what's safe and what's not."
I'm about to tell him that he's welcome to stay but I might accidentally kick his teeth in but...then I remember my conversation with Kat earlier tonight. She wouldn't want me to say that out loud... "Sure," I tell him instead and he holds up his lighter for me, which I accept with a very unwilling 'thanks'.
"Do you play bass by any chance?" Chris' eyes linger on me for a second while I wrinkle my nose and shake my head and then he walks away again.
"What a strange guy..."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Jeff chuckles. "And you just met him a few months ago – I've known him for years and still can't figure him the hell out."
"Stop trying to compete with me, Jeff!"
* * *
"Yeah, they're all about expresso here—"
"You mean, espresso," Kat interrupts me, her voice carrying a note of deep, genuine annoyance, if I ever heard one.
"No," I grin to myself, unable to resist the temptation to get her a little worked up about this; it's just way too easy, "I don't. I meant expresso."
"Why do you do this? Why do you test me like that? It's espresso."
"Expresso," I enunciate into the telephone receiver.
"ESpresso."
"Expresso."
"Stop saying that!"
"What are you gonna do, call the grammar police?"
"I am the grammar police!"
"Ah, silly me..."
"You know, you probably turned out so annoying because you're an only child," she tells me, effectively adding a new topic to our repertoire – childhood; we haven't discussed that yet. I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised we still have things to talk about after two weeks and...a lot of phone calls. Too many to get into that right now... I was half bracing myself to spend thirty minutes listening to her chew her lunch after we run out of things to talk about and yet, that is yet to happen. "There was nobody there to slap you over the head for being an annoying prick."
"Maybe you're not entirely wrong about that..." I mumble, thinking back to a couple of decades ago. I was an annoying child. "Wait, which one are you again?"
"Third out of four. So I have all the middle child mental issues that are then inflamed by all my youngest child delusions. Anyway, back to you," Kat summarises quickly and goes on... I've noticed that's how she communicates difficult things – as if it doesn't matter. "An only child... What's that like?"
"You know, I think I was always attracted to loud, messy music because I didn't have siblings to make a ruckus with. And my parents were very strict on their house rules. My mother needed to practice her opera parts, you see," I add and then it occurs to me...that this is the last time I'm calling Kat on this tour. Weird.
"Wow, yeah. That's good. I see your controlling parents and I raise you parents who had four children and still demanded silence at all times of the day. Unsuccessfully, mind you, but that was a big thing for them."
"At least you had comrades..."
"So what music were you into as a child?"
"Anything fast and loud. I remember hearing kids singing The Beatles – I hadn't actually heard the song itself... At this point, I wasn't allowed to bring records into the house. Yes, really," I say, guessing that she's about to ask, and she laughs, so I must have been right. "But I heard other kids singing She Loves You and I thought it was great... Although I thought the lyrics were 'I love you' so that explains why the other kids laughed at me when I sang along... And I really enjoyed the Beach Boys," I say as I think back to those days, "I thought they sounded like what being in love must feel like. I was like nine when I thought that though so I would take it with a grain of salt, Novak."
"Hm... So what was your first record? And when?"
"Eighth grade. I finally convince my mom, and it took a lot, believe me. I went out the same day and bought The Sweet's Desolation Boulevard."
"Glam rock," Kat drawls and I can just see her smug smirk before my eyes. "That explains your previous band and previous outfit choices," she laughs, surely referring to my sequin pants from Green River days. Yeah, she's not wrong... Oh, I should tell her Mudhoney might get signed for a full album soon. But I don't want to derail the current topic just yet...
"I'll go ahead and shorthand this for both of us – I was also really into Aerosmith around that time."
"Wow. You must really trust me..."
"I spend a lot of time with you on the roof," I remind her, "if that's not trust then I don't know what is."
"I did think about pushing you off the first time we were up there... So Aerosmith, huh?" She goes on casually. "Cool kid music?"
"Sort of. But then I hit a phase where I wanted to seem smarter than I was so I got into Velvet Underground."
"Same," she cackles. "And Bob Dylan, way into him."
"Wouldn't expect anything else from you. Anyway, it was all downhill after Desolation Boulevard. I started a band that year, my father started greying, and my mother started seeing a psychic. Or a shrink... I was never really sure," I grin as I listen to Kat's laughter.
"I would have loved to see that band live."
"What were you like in eighth grade, Novak?"
"Mostly into music that predated me. Never popular but everyone's friend. Class clown at the right moments, a nerd sometimes. A weirdo, really. I really liked her. That was before all the self-loathing kicked in," she explains.
"What did you start to loathe yourself for?"
"I don't know. I started feeling like an ogre."
"What, like an actual ogre?"
"I felt fundamentally different," she elaborates after a moment of contemplation, speaking slowly. "I felt like everything about me was wrong. Everything about how I looked, what I said, how I thought...just incorrect. You know what I mean?"
"I guess I can imagine... Ogres aren't so bad though."
A compliant sigh reaches my ear. "Yeah."
"So...the moral of the story is that now you can differentiate between a redheaded woman and a folklore monster?"
"I'm working on it. Quick, anything else we need to discuss in this last episode of phone confessions?"
"Yes. Riddle me this - when you're a little kid, dick jokes are considered adult content, but when you're an adult, then it's immature!"
"Mark Arm, the voice of a generation."
"This poor generation... So, you feel physically crippled by sadness much lately?" I ask in my best nonchalant tone. Kat told me she feels like that sometimes. That was around Christmas, I think, and it's almost May now. How weird.
She was really drunk that night and I felt like I was invading her privacy, like she wouldn't have said those things to me if she were sober. I wasn't sure what parts of her were a façade and what parts of her she couldn't help back then. Now I feel like I have a pretty good map of what's what. Not only that, I feel...kind of entitled to her secrets, her opinions, her thoughts... I feel like I've gotten to know her during these calls (which there have been eight of, not counting this one; how did that happen?) on some entirely new level, I feel like I understand her more somehow. Or maybe I'm just starting to know her well enough to recognise something in her that I hadn't noticed before?
"You know, not really," she answer with strangely placed ease. "Just a touch tired, maybe. Have you started experiencing sadness yet?"
"Honestly not sure what I'm experiencing. This tour has been...a little too much, as you know. I'll probably need a few sessions in a sensory deprivation tank after this."
"Forgive me if I'll sound insensitive but I'd much rather be travelling around Europe than be here."
"We're not travelling. We're just being shipped around and put on display every night like a miserable, flea ridden animal circus."
"Ah, has Lukin been petting feral dogs again?"
"And a few unwashed felines, I suspect."
"Mark!"
"What?"
"Big ew."
"Exactly!" I laugh out. "Okay, anything you need to get off your chest before we're just regular old neighbours again?"
"Hm, I feel like I need to think of something big for the finale..."
"How about your shoe size?"
"Rude," she gasps. "You'll be here, in person, in two days... How weird, isn't it?"
"Yeah... I can always call you from across the hall though."
"You know, I do have a thought for the finale..."
"Let's hear it?"
"It's more of a question really..."
"Still need to hear it."
"Have you been calling me because you just found out you only have one month to live so you've been trying to right all your wrongs?"
"Close, but no," I chuckle, stalling for time as I think of how to explain this... Why have I been calling her every other day for the past two weeks? Because a lot of things during this tour haven't felt very normal and this has? Because those were some of the only times I didn't need to be 'a guy from that band'? Because I was feeling homesick? Because some of the atrocious hostel rooms seemed genuinely funnier when I was reviewing them to Kat? Because I'm over this whole tour? Because I was bored, because I felt like it, because I needed reassurance that life goes on as normal? Who could say... "I told you, I just spent a month and a half being shipped around Europe with the same miserable handful of guys. And you're living a quiet, neighbour-free life over there. Didn't seem fair," I say and Kat laughs.
"On a related note, isn't it funny that people in Europe pay to come hear your voice..."
"That's a gross exaggeration, but go on."
"...and here I am, on the phone with you all the time, completely free of charge."
"Your head is a bizarre place, Novak."