A loud rock track plays through the record player as I walk into Stone's flat. It's a powerful and intense song, which creates a lively atmosphere in this tiny living room.
This apartment is now really a place of peace and warmth for me, and it always puts me at ease when I walk in the door. Although tonight there are some people I do not know, I find myself surprised at how in this place I can feel at home.
Stone is there, wearing a friendly smile and looking for a record to play next. I wave and he nods back as I approach him.
"We're still not used to welcoming a lady, as you may have noticed." he says, taking another record out of its sleeve with that usual grin on his lips.
"I wasn't expecting flowers and scented candles, don't worry." I say in a half smile, right before hand him the Fugazi record I bought. "Here."
He takes it in his hands, pulling out all his little gracefullness and looking excitingly at the cover front and back.
"Cool! You already heard it?"
"No," I say, shaking my head "I postponed the pleasure to do it together."
"You're so precious.", he smiles.
If sarcasm were sport, Stone would be the undisputed world champion. Almost everything that comes out of his mouth is drenched in sarcasm, and when it's not it seems.
"I see some new faces, don't I?" I ask looking around and disturbing his concentration as he lays the record on the latter, gently placing the needle on it.
"Yeah, some friends from Portland. Why don't you go introduce yourself?"
My introversion doesn't make me enthusiastic about that idea. I'm still the new girl around here after all.
"Shouldn't the host be doing this kind of thing?"
"I'm pretty sure they won't eat you." he says, grinning at my shyness. "But if you need some fuel for courage, help yourself. You'll find some on the kitchen table. That's if these louts left any."
Finally from Stone's mouth came out an idea that at the moment seems more than great. I definitely need a beer to melt my nerves after the long day of work and, above all, to give me the audacity to strike up a conversation with a group of musicians I've never met before.
"I'll get you one,"I say with a disgusted look inside his red plastic cup "looks like someone decided to add a little taste to your drink with that cigarette butt."
I'm heading towards the kitchen looking around a bit distractedly, when suddenly my gaze cross a pair of known eyes. Just for a few seconds, maybe less, maybe an hour, I don't know. Time has become relative all of a sudden.
From across the room Eddie looks over at me. Fleetingly, casually and with a very vague curiosity in the eyes, so far away to be barely perceptible. I smile nicely at him and, in the exact moment I do it, he turns away like he didn't even see me. Apparently I became translucent all of a sudden.
With probably a big question mark on my head, I scowl. One part of my brain can't figure out why he's ignoring me this way and thinks that, maybe, he hasn't seen me...but the other one knows we definitely looked at each other. He obviously doesn't like me and does absolutely nothing to hide it.
I look the other way, going straight to the kitchen and noticing with great pleasure and a certain surprise that there's still some beer cans on the table.
"I'm really gonna need you tonight..."
I take two, and without taking my eyes off the floor this time, I go back to Stone.
"Here we go, mister deejay."
Stone smiles, taking one beer from my hand.
"Thanks. Come on, some friends of mine can't wait to intimidate you."
With a slight movement of the head he makes me sign to follow him and we catch up with some other guys, joining the animated conversation about a certain album of a certain band. Their musical knowledge is so vast and varied that it's pretty hard to keep up with it.
The evening runs safely, the records are always spinning and the conversation is always flowing as I'm trying to ignore the fact that there's someone in the next room who obviously can't stand me for no apparent reason. I'm talking to Jeff and a guy named Chris when I notice that the beer can in my hand is now almost empty and has now completely lost its freshness.
"I'll go get another one. Be right back."
The terrible knowledge that beer is over is a feeling no one should feel. Stone's kitchen table is empty, just sprinkled with a few empty cans and a couple of ashtrays full of butts. There's no beer can left and the evening seems to have just begun.
But a glimmer of hope comes with the memory of some beers in my refrigerator, like a flash. They were left over from one of the previous nights, the one where Stone had to hide in my flat for a few hours, waiting for the girl with whom he had a one-night stand to stop knocking on his door in search of some lingering feeling towards her. Of course, she always found the door closed and not just metaphorically.
I put the key in the lock and enter my place. A strange calm and muffled music on the other side crosses the wall as I go to the kitchen without even turning on the light, the twilight created by the moonlight is enough. With the beers in hand in a precarious balance I open the front door again to go back to Stone's, but I see someone just outside. I can't catch sight of his face, but I know it's Eddie.
He's sitting there, on the first steps of the staircase right in front of my door, with his back to me as he takes what it seems to be the last sip from his can. For a few seconds I stand still as if I'm afraid to scare a wild animal, conflicted on what to do. My right hand rests on the handle as I look at the back of his head, at his wavy hair and his slightly curved shoulders in that maybe too heavy corduroy fabric. He doesn't seem to notice my presence.
I take a breath and close the door behind me with a dull sound that resonates slightly in the hallway. The noise, though not loud, makes him turn towards me.
"Hey." I say, slowly approaching him as he looks at me over his shoulder. Eddie smiles at me politely before his eyes go down in a shy grin.
"Hey. I didn't see you leave."
"Yeah, well...Stone's out of beer, had to rush to his aid." I say, then look at the finished beer in his hand. "Here."
When he takes the can from my hand, he smiles at me again, fleetingly.
"Thank you."
In a spontaneous gesture Eddie moves a bit to the side, leaving me enough space to sit. It is without thinking that I accept his veiled invitation, sitting next to him with a little sigh and without thinking too much. A slight agitation mounts inside me all of a sudden and I look at him with the corner of my eye, in a few seconds of silence.
"Everything ok?"
His eyes quickly rest on me, just before go back nailed to a fixed point on the step below. A shy and uncertain smile is now on his lips, just outlined.
"Yeah, sure." he answers me, almost in a whisper.
The building is in desperate need of repair, and the stairs are no exception. Eddie look up at the walls, seeing the many cracks and holes throughout.
"This place is falling apart."
"Yeah," I remark as I watch a dust cloud settle onto the floor below "it's too bad nobody decide to renovate it a bit. It's a nice neighborhood."
Part of me would like to know why he suddenly changed his mood yesterday afternoon and why he pretended not to see me a while ago, but I placidly decide to let my thoughts be overwhelmed and calmed by the pleasant feeling of just being here with him now.
"Did you lose your notebook somewhere?" I ask him with a hint of boldness and irony, with a little nod of towards his left hand. Moments ago, when he took the beer I offered him, I caught a glimpse that there was something on his hand, something written with a black marker on his palm. Eddie tilts his head and scrunches his nose in an embarrassed smile that looks more like a cute grimace. Looking at the palm of his hand and almost rubbing it with the right thumb, he answers without lifting his eyes.
"No, I have a notebook" he says, almost laughing "but, you know, sometimes I have to write something that came to my mind. There are songs everywhere asking to be written. The right words, you never know when they hits you. I have to, you know...stop them before they disappear."
"So those are words for a song?" I ask without being able to mask my curiosity and fascination.
"Could be." he smiles, softly. "Most of the time they've become that, other times they just stay there until fade. Last time they became the songs for the tape I sent to Stone and Jeff."
"Really? How did you connect? Stone didn't tell me how you found each other."
He smiles, a little embarrassed.
"You two talked about me?"
This question catches me unprepared for a fraction of a second.
"Yeah, I mean. When we first met, at the park. He told me that he plays in a band, that they were looking for a singer and that you just...happened."
With a slow gesture Eddie moves a lock of hair behind the ear, discovering to me his delicate features.
"It was Jack, a friend of mine. He used to play drums for the Chili Peppers and Stone and Jeff asked if he wanted to play drums with them. He said he couldn't do it, but when they asked about singers, he mentioned me and then gave me that tape. And I hadn't slept at night, as usual, and went surfing in the morning and I just had all these ideas..."
As he talks about this, Eddie's eyes light up. Sometimes his gaze distractedly falls on me just for a few seconds and I can clearly see his excitement in telling me how it all started.
"Oh, do you like surfing?", I ask.
"I love surfing. It's one of my favorite things in life." he say just before looking me in the eye for what seems to be the first time tonight. "You ever done it?"
"No, I never had the chance. I was never, you know...the 'cool' one, where I lived." I say with a bitter smirk. "I'd like to try, though. I guess it feels good."
He shakes his head, frowning.
"You know, people think of sun and sand and girls, but surfing's not really like that. At eight in the morning it's foggy and cold. You drag yourself into the ocean and you can't even see the waves through the fog. It's not very glamorous but those are the best waves. The still water's like glass and you feel like you're breaking the plain for the first time as you're paddling out."
Eddie pauses, like he's trying to remember the feeling.
"It's a good time to think. Time alone is when you really connect with yourself. Some people connect with others, that's how their philosophies work, but i'm still trying to get in touch with myself. I've held my breath and swum as deep as I could down into myself, and then had to come back up for air, or because the pressure got too intense, my head felt like it was imploding. But I know I can go deeper. It's just a matter of holding my breath longer."
There's a brief silence.
"I miss all that, you know."
It's like we've knocked down a wall. Eddie's slowly opening up, and I'm sure that he's hiding something between the lines. I feel like he's still looking for his place in the world, and no one could understand him more than I could right now.
"It's always hard to fit in somewhere new, especially if you had to leave everything you had." I say, taking a sip. "You're chasing a dream, there's no better reason."
"Music has always been my reason." he smiles, again. "Maybe that's just where I'm coming from, you know, when things weren't easy for me, growing up. Music, I felt, save my life. I wouldn't be here. I had absolutely nothing else besides music."
His passion is warming my heart and I can almost see his cheeks blushing slightly. I look at his face, and it's like he's estranged from the world when he talks about it. Like he's diving into another universe, away from this reality.
"So, what gives you the inspiration, here?"
Eddie looks up and his blue eyes look straight into mine in a piercing but soft stare.
"I don't know, yet." he says, in a feeble voice.
His gaze makes my heart leap and I quickly look down, avoiding the eye contact as my face is flushed with heat.
"May I know what you wrote on your hand?" I ask in an awkward attempt to dissolve the tension that his eyes in mine have lit like a fuse.
He says nothing, observing his hand closer with an unreadable expression. I wait for a few seconds until he reaches out to me, showing me his open hand. I spontaneously take it in mine, carefully reading those words written in black between the lines of his palm.
"...as the earth to the sun."
In the moment I realize that his hand is in mine, my heart starts racing. I can't help but be completely enchanted by him and the warmth of his skin against mine is giving me a surge of adrenaline. As I touch his strong, masculine hand I suddenly look up, and when our eyes meet the whole world stands still. Everything around us becomes a blur, and all I can focus on is him. His lips, his eyes, every tiny detail of his face. The way he's looking at me. I'm lost in his eyes, completely mesmerized.
We look into each other's eyes for a time that feels like a lifetime and as I look into his I'm overcome by a feeling of butterflies in my stomach. My thumb slightly brushes against his skin, just for a second, soft like a breeze, in a gesture that comes so natural to me that I don't even realize that I'm doing it.
As I start breathing again, he quickly pulls his hand away.
"I've got to go." he says in a thin voice, and with a quick movement Eddie gets up, going down the stairs and leaving. I don't have time to say anything, I don't even have time to think as my gaze follow him as he quickly leaves me alone on these dusty steps.
In one wave I get overwhelmed by so many different sensations, so many that they hurt my head. Embarrassment makes my cheeks burn as I get up and walk back into Stone's house, wearing the mask of denial.
"Hey, you all right?"
I look at Stone, smiling.
"Sure. What did I miss?"