|Van|
"Hello?"
"Hey, sweet pea... It's me," I smiled into the phone, as I crashed my body on top of the hotel bed. I was still buzzing from our performance at the sweet, old bar called Schubas Tavern. My voice was fucked and the lads did try to convince me to pull out the gig. I insisted that we carry on and I was glad we did. I'd say, Chicago was a lot of fun. The crowd was absolute ace.
"Is that Emily? Hi, Emily!" Larry tried to grab the phone away from me as I dodged his childlike attempts.
"Hi, Emily!" John shouted, which was soon followed by Benji.
"Emily!"
"What's with all that noise?" Emily asked in a sleepy, sultry voice.
"Nothing. The lads are just jealous that I have a beautiful girlfriend that I am eternally devoted to," I laughed.
"You're drunk," she said.
"You're beautiful...." I retorted.
"You're horny," she yawned.
"You might be right," I told her. "Em? Have you thought about coming to New York?"
"It's late here now, Van... Can we talk about it other times? I need my sleep so I could function at work," she groaned.
"But you said the same thing last night. And the night before..." I sulked. It almost seemed like Emily was purposely avoiding my calls.
"Well, maybe if you'd consider calling me on a different time then I might say something different," she said. I could tell that she was serious by her tone.
"Come to New York. I'll have a few off days soon. You'll love New York. It's the vibes, the people. It's great!"
"No! Did you just say "vibes"? God, Van. I can't believe you just said vibes. You've changed," she laughed, but her laughter then transitioned into a deep sigh. "You're never coming back, aren't you?"
"What are you talking about? Come on, now. I am just inviting you to come over for the weekend," I said, feeling rather annoyed that the conversation was slowly turning into one of her protests of me being on tour.
"You're right. I'm sorry," she swallowed. "I really need to sleep again. Talk to you soon, yeah?"
"Alright," I exhaled. She then hung up and the line went dead. I had no idea why Emily was so moody. I initially thought that she was just having those monthly girly mood swings, but, I was beginning to think that it must be something else that was bothering her. I kicked my boots off my feet and tossed my phone onto the bed.
"Did she refuse your phone sex... again?" Larry laughed at his own joke.
"Nah, mate. I don't know. Something is definitely wrong with her. I just can't quite wrap my finger around it yet," I exhaled.
"Girls," Benji muttered. "They can be really weird and moody over the most absurd things. Like wrong ice cream flavour and shit like that."
"Benji is actually right. I used to get a silent treatment because I bought an ordinary bottle of juice instead of a cold pressed one. I mean, it's still juice, mate. It comes from the same fruit. I just don't get it," John said while playing some tunes on his guitar.
"Yeah, it's probably nothing," I shrugged, trying to convince myself that Emily was just having an off week. I knew it had nothing to do with desserts nor beverages.
"Alright. Enough talk about girls. I'm zonked. Let's sleep. Bed! Oh, my sweet, sweet bed. Sweet bed of mine," John strummed and sang on his guitar before he put it down next to his bed. All of the lads looked like they were ready to go to bed. Benji was laughing to himself on his bed, scrolling through his phone. Bob was already snoring next to him, comfortably nestled under his blanket. I turned around to look for Larry, but he was already wandering around in the service suite, trying to look for the most comfortable bed to sleep on as I heard him muffled about a king sized bed in the other room.
"I think I'm gonna go out for a walk," I told them, knowing that sleep was impossible for me. I put my boots back on and grabbed my jacket.
When I got onto the street outside of the hotel, my hands were quaking due to the cold weather. I rubbed them vigorously a couple of times and blew out a few hot breaths onto them. I hadn't expect it to be that cold.
I was happy to see that not many people were swarming around on the streets, like how they would during the day. It kind of gave me a little sense of privacy - a feeling that I may have forgotten since a little privacy was something non-existent when you're in a band. But I wasn't going to complain about it though. Being in a band, touring and playing music in front of a large crowd, they were all my dreams.
I walked a few steps more towards the end of the street and saw the dazzling bean structure, sitting in the middle of the park, waiting for me to go to it. It looked far spectacular under the midnight sky and against the night lights. There were probably around three to four people surrounding the structure, since it was long past midnight, so I took the rare opportunity to stand alone underneath it.
I looked up the structure and saw the distortion of my face. I then carefully leaned against the structure and lit up a fag. I hoped that smoking near the structure was not an offense or anything. I watched the white, puffy clouds of smoke distorted into thin lines as they escaped my mouth.
"Any plans on quitting?" A familiar voice jarred me. I looked to the direction of her voice and there she was, standing a few feet away from me. Vienna eyed the cigarette between my fingers and then her eyes shifted onto mine with the corner of her lips curling into a sweet smile.
"Not at the moment," I looked at my fag and then to her. "Were you following me?" I tilted my head at her, my eyebrows scrunched a little as my heart blossomed at seeing her. She covered the final few feet between us slowly and stood next to me.
"I was here first," she flushed, tucking a tiny strand of her long hair behind her ear.
"Well, we don't have any time stamp to validate that, now, do we?" I chuckled, softly nudging her sides with my elbow.
"Actually," she bit her lip, "I do," she proudly grinned as she showed me the photos on her iPhone. "This. See, this was taken thirty minutes ago. And this is you, walking towards the bean, ten minutes ago."
"Whoa! Slow down private eye. So, you were stalking me," I smirked.
"No, I wasn't," she pursed her lips, probably mentally cursing herself for showing me the photos as I could see that she was turning bright red.
"Why are you walking alone at night? Isn't it dangerous?" I asked her as she leaned back against the structure next to me.
"Can't sleep," she murmured.
"Me too," I sighed.
"You okay? You look... I don't know... You look troubled," she asked me with furrowed brows as she looked up at me.
"Uhm. Yeah... I'm wonderful. My voice is a little fucked up but everything else is good," I exhaled.
"Man, you're a terrible liar," she laughed.
"It's silly. And I don't want you to make fun of me," I flushed.
"I won't. Try me," she grinned.
I contemplated if I should talk to her about Emily. I have gotten rather close with Vienna while on the road but we never really opened up about our personal lives just yet. "It's Emily," I finally admitted. "She's been acting rather strange lately..."
"Strange how?" She asked.
"I don't know. It's getting difficult to communicate. Like she was avoiding me or something," I said, as my heart started to pain a little at the thought of Emily. I missed her. If only she knew that.
"Have you tried talking to her about it?"
"I did, but she needs to stay on the line for more than a minute in order for me to do that. She'd be asleep or working whenever I called. Time difference... Well, it isn't helping," I babbled. Vienna nodded, but she didn't say anything. I didn't know if it was out of respect that she didn't want to ask anything or if she was bored with my girl troubles.
"I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't talk to you about this," I told her.
"No, it's cool, Van. You can talk to me about anything. I am all ears for anything," she pointed out. "We are kinda in the same boat."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
She exhaled loudly and looked down at the concrete. Tiny crinkles started to form on her forehead as she inhaled and exhaled. "I haven't really talked to my boyfriend since the day I left with you guys. I mean, I know for sure he's alive but he didn't return my calls or texts. I just... I don't know," she shrugged.
"Oh, that's terrible," I muttered, hoping that it didn't sound sordid.
"Yeah. But, whatever. He's probably busy doing his artwork. Seth likes to be in his own world whenever he's working on something, so I should have expected it."
"Artwork. Is he an artist then?"
"Yep," she blinked a couple of times and glanced over at me. Her eyes were telling me that she was missing her boyfriend too. "It's just... It feels weird because this is the first time that we are ever...."
"Apart?" I finished her sentence. She nodded and we stood in silence for a while. I offered her a cigarette but she refused to take it.
"Whoa! Did you quit?" I asked her.
"No," she laughed. "I just brushed my teeth."
"You're weird," I shook my head, laughing at her.
"You look funny," she smirked.
"What?"
"Look up," Vienna said, pointing towards the upper part of the structure. We both looked up and saw the distortions of our faces. It humored me at how ridiculous our reflections looked together. Vienna was making weird faces and I quickly grabbed my phone so I could capture our little private, silly moments together. As friends.
"Oh! You caught me!" She interjected. I laughed in response and switched the camera mode to video mode. "Look up, Vienna. Look up!"
"Van! What are you doing? Stop! Stop recording me!" She covered the lense with her hand and tried to run away from me but my hand was quick to yank her wrist. She then covered her face with the layers of her jacket and the dark grey scarf she had around her neck, babbling for me to stop recording her. I eventually did and had to reassure her that my phone was back in my pocket.
"I'd expect you'd love the camera," I laughed.
"Well, I do! But only when I'm behind it," she gritted her teeth, as she threw on a couple of punches onto my arm. "Don't. Do that. Ever again!"
"Ahh! Okay! Okay!" I pretended that her blows hurt me when in fact that I actually enjoyed her reaction. It was extremely adorable.