Because it’s Millie.
She taps her boot, clears her throat in that “ahem, dickface” sort of way. I glance up.
“Mi—”
“No, no, I get to go first.” She jumps down my throat the second I open my mouth. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Yes?” She stares, her eye daggers unrelenting, so I guess that’s not a good enough answer. I sigh, take another sip of coffee. “What do you want me to say, Millie?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were with Bean?”
I bristle. I know Travis and I aren’t even on speaking terms right now, but fuck, that is
my
name for him. Not hers. Not anybody else’s.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“No, it isn’t,” she says. “It’s actually quite simple. When I tell you I’m into him, you tell me you’re together. You know? The truth. Jerk.”
“We weren’t technically together,” I say.
“Come on, Emmy,” she says. “I talked to Travis.”
“When?” I grit my teeth because I still do not like the thought of Millie talking to Travis, even if he is in Omaha.
“Last week,” she says. “And I made a complete ass out of myself, thanks to you.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“None of your damned business.”
I make a face, and she makes an even bitchier face back. And really, what can I say? I know she’s got every right to be pissed at me.
“You’re right—I should have told you what was up. I’m really sorry.”
Millie’s glare softens a bit, and then she helps herself to the other chair at my table.
“Apology accepted,” she says. “And you’re going to make it up to me, too. You owe me, you know.”
“How am I going to make it up to you? Do you want to sleep with the guy I’m into? Because he’s in Nebraska right now.”
“No, dummy. I would
never
do that to you. Chicks before dicks, remember?” she says. “You’re going to make it up to me by joining Vagaboss.”
“Come on, Millie. I can’t . . .”
Sonia swings by and brings her coffee and a menu. “Yes, you can,” she says. “That’s a great idea.”
“Great idea?” Whose side is she on? “I’m not even a little bit rockabilly.”
“Emmy, you play a damned Gretsch,” Millie says. “Don’t tell me you can’t do rockabilly.”
Millie’s eyes shine in a way that completely betrays her bossy front-girl facade. Then I realize, she’s not really asking me for this because she wants me in Vagaboss.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, and I actually feel pretty choked up.
“Yeah, I know,” she says and then reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “Rehearsal is tonight at Bailey’s house. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
***
As soon as I get home, I walk to the phone and stare at it. One simple contraption, so many complicated feelings. It’s crazy how that impulse to call Travis still hasn’t faded one bit. He’s the first person I think of, well, pretty much all the time. But definitely at a time like this, when I’ve been adopted by Vagaboss. Wonder what he’d think of that? I imagine picking up the phone and calling him in Omaha all casual and saying,
Hey, I haven’t spoken to you in a month, but guess what?
Would he hang up? Laugh it off and tell me to brush up on my Stray Cats impression? If he was still here, maybe he’d come over to tweak my Holy Grail to make sure the reverb on my clean tone was just perfectly so.
Damn.
I pick the phone up and call Joey.
“Can you bring my amp to Bailey’s tonight?” I ask him.
“Sure,” he says. “You’re jamming with Vagaboss?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I am.”
“Okay, no problem.”
“Joey?”
“Emmy?”
“Do you and Cole maybe want to jam later?”
“Sure,” he says. “We’re hanging out all day, so come by anytime.”
I pull my guitar case out from under my bed, unlatch it, and just look at the cool, vintage mint finish on my Gretsch. She looks exactly the same from the front, and the relief I feel to see that headstock reattached runs real deep. She’ll never be the same, but it’s clear she’s no longer broken. I take a deep, slow breath, run my hands over the neck gently before I lift her out of the case and hold her in my arms, and then turn her over to look at the repair job on her neck. I trace the very faint crack behind the headstock, and while I can see the crack, it’s so well repaired I can’t even feel a ridge beneath my finger. The moment I tune her up and start to strum, I feel all warm like Round Valley under a summer sun. Reminds me of when I was five and Granny took me there to teach me how to swim. I thought for sure I’d drown when she brought me into the deep water, but I didn’t. Maybe all I could do then was dog-paddle, but fuck it, dog-paddling is still swimming.
I get up and call Joey back.
“I’m coming over now,” I say. “I need to be loud.”
“Fuck yeah, you do,” he says. “Get your ass over here. We’ve been waiting.”
I look down the fretboard, follow my hand as I drop right into this part, fast and hard downstroking on a barred F♯. It’s my first night on stage with Vagaboss, and it’s so fucking loud the entire Melody shakes and I feel it through my whole body. I let the sound take over everything. Let my Gretsch bring me back to myself.
Millie and Bailey sound great on the mic together, they’ve got a really good harmony going on and I’m clicking just fine with Burt on drums. I turn and rock with him a little, but then when I turn around I look up and there’s Travis, right in front of me, standing in the crowd. As soon as I see him I drop my pick. Fucking hell shit God damn it. I just flubbed this super simple part in front of him, but more importantly, Travis is
here
. Here, in the Melody. Here, as in
Not In Nebraska
.
He gives me this “oops, sorry” look, like he knows it’s his fault. He pulls a fresh pick from his pocket and hands it to me. I’m so annoyed I don’t want to take it, but I do because he uses the same exact picks as I do and it’s faster than pulling one from my own pocket. I am, to say the least, unnerved by his presence. I’m torn between stopping the set so I can jump into his arms and running for the fire exit. And now I’m pissed at Joey and Cole because there’s no way in hell they didn’t know Travis would be here and they didn’t have the courtesy to warn me.
The rest of the set feels like an exercise in awkward torture because he stands right in front of me, watching me the entire time, and I can’t do a thing about it. I feel tight and tense all over. I can’t even look at him. I’m so stressed out, I’m worried I’m going to fuck up my solo, but then I just get fucking pissed and the intensity I feel drives my playing into that other dimension, the one where I feel like I’m part of the guitar, like maybe it’s playing me.
By the way, Travis was right—after getting my guitar fixed by Mickey’s luthier, it’s not just good as new—it’s playing better than ever. It got a sweet setup so it’s like butter under my fingers. I know it sounds weird, but I feel like breaking this guitar during a show and getting it fixed with money my band earned somehow puts my mojo all over it. This guitar goes from being Len’s guitar to mine. Or maybe it’s the other way around now. Maybe Len and I both belong to the Gretsch.
I look out into the crowd after my solo and Travis has that dreamy, crooked smile that I miss with all my heart. His eyes are closed and he’s bobbing his head along with the rest of the crowd, who are all hooting and hollering at me because, to be quite honest, I kill it. I really do. And in spite of everything else that feels fucked up in my life, I feel good. I feel like me again.
***
When the show is over, I kneel down to pack my pedals and cords up and Travis kneels down in front of me, facing me. “You were awesome tonight, Emmy,” he says. “You do amazing things for the Vagaboss sound. Totally rich.”
I glance up at him and open my mouth and an age passes before I manage to say, “So . . . you’re here?” Glad I haven’t lost my knack for stating the abundantly obvious. “You came back from Nebraska already?”
“Actually, I never left.”
“You never went home?” I say, confused. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Something happened.”
“What happened?” I ask, my heart thudding in my ears. “Are you okay?”
His face softens and he looks away for a second before looking back at me, like he’s trying to find words. “I’m okay,” he says. “Can we talk somewhere for a minute?”
“I need to pack up my gear.”
“Right.” He glances over my shoulder at my amplifier. “Let me get the Twin for you.”
“Bailey will get it,” I say.
He pauses, but then he gets up, unplugs my amp, and carries it back to the gear lounge for me. While he does that, I duck into the bathroom to check myself out, but as I wipe the sweat off my face and the black smudges of mascara from under my eyes, I start to panic. I’m just barely starting to feel normal again, and I don’t feel ready to deal with Travis just yet. Especially not alone where he can really call me out on my shit. I don’t know if that’s what he intends to do, but I don’t want to find out. Not tonight, anyway. While I’m freaking out about this, Millie comes in and gives me a huge hug and tells me how happy she is with the show. I would share her enthusiasm, but at the moment I feel like a small bird trapped on a moving train. She puts her hands on my shoulders.
“You’re not leaving this bar without talking to that boy,” she tells me.
“Millie . . .”
“Emmy, you obviously still have a lot of unresolved issues with him,” she says. I guess somebody has been making some progress in her psychotherapy here, and it’s not me. “You two need to have it out. You can’t avoid him forever.”
Maybe not, but I can avoid him for tonight. Or so I think, until I find Cole standing outside the bathroom when I exit. I glare at him, fold my arms in front of my chest.
“How could you keep this from me?” I hiss. “Do you have any idea what a wreck I am now?”
“I’m sorry, Emmy,” Cole says. “But if you knew Trap was going to be here, you would have freaked out about playing the show. And besides, you know you’ll regret it if you don’t talk to him before he leaves.”
“Leaves . . . for Nebraska?”
Cole rolls his eyes, shakes his head at me, and then walks off. I stand there for a minute, watching after him, and then I follow him down the stairs and out the front door of the club, onto the sidewalk where Joey is standing.
“Let’s go,” Joey says. “I’ve had it for tonight.”
“Yeah, see you later, Emmy,” Cole says. “Good set.”
“Wait, you guys,” I say. “Wait.”
“What?” Cole asks. “What’s wrong?”
“When is he leaving?”
Joey and Cole exchange looks, like maybe they’re not going to tell me, and what the hell? Then they just shake their heads and walk away, like they’re going to the parking lot. I follow them around the corner, but when they cut through the alley next to the Melody, I see Travis leaning against the brick wall, obviously waiting for me. Now I feel completely set up and all I want to do is flee. I spin back around to leave before he sees me, but Joey cuts me off and blocks my exit. Traitor. I mutter many swear words at him and he turns me right back around to face Travis.
“Oh hey,” I say, trying to act cool but I can barely keep my voice from shaking. “When are you leaving for Nebraska?”
“I’m not,” he says.
I glare at Cole, but he just shrugs innocently. “I never said he was going to Nebraska.”
“You didn’t say he
wasn’t
going, though.”
“Yeah, well?” he says. “Do I look like Trap’s travel agent?”
See what I have to deal with? Travis smiles a little, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which are serious and trained right on me, and that just makes me even more nervous.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Why aren’t you going to Nebraska?”
“Because you’re not in Nebraska, Emmylou,” he says. “And I really need to talk to you.”
Shit. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid tonight. I glance at Joey and Cole to get some inkling of what he wants to say to me and whether I’m about to get told off right now for what I did to wreck the band and how I hurt Travis, but I can’t read anything on their faces. They’d make great poker players, and I think I’ll recommend it to them since they have all this extra time on their hands now, not playing in Soft.
“There’s nothing to say,” I insist. “I get why you quit and I know it’s my fault. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I’m the way I am. I’m just an asshole, I guess.”
“You’re not an asshole, Emmy,” Travis says, shaking his head, taking a step closer to me.
“Yeah, well what if I am?” I say. “I think we can find plenty of evidence here.”
“You’re not,” he says. “But either way it doesn’t matter. I’m still in love with you.”
I don’t answer because I’m still stuck in the part of his sentence where he’s telling me he loves me. His words ring deep in the wide empty space inside, but how could they be true?
“What did you say?” I ask, taking a step back. I have no idea how to react, here. I’m tangled up and ripped wide open, afraid for the first time of him seeing me like this.
“I said I’m in love with you,” he says. “Come on, Emmy, you know that.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you.” He says it just like that, right there in front of Joey and Cole and everything. Not a second of hesitation, not a glimmer of doubt in his voice.
He moves in even closer, but I back up because I’m still pretty messed up over him and I don’t need to be banging him in the back of Steady Beth right now, and seriously, look at our track record. Joey and Cole excuse themselves to go find anyone drunk enough to hit the Melody dance floor, and now that I’m alone with Travis, I’m really torn between strangling him and making out with him. Maybe both are in order here, but I don’t do either.
“Then how could you leave?” I say.
Grief flashes across Travis’s face. “I’m really sorry,” he says. His blue-gray eyes are steady on my watery greens. “We were just so stuck, I didn’t know what else to do. I loved being in a band with you, but I wanted more.”
I wanted more, too,
I don’t say, because while it’s true, I’m still afraid of more. Maybe it’s the only thing I’ve ever really been afraid of—having something that means everything and then losing it. But now I’ve got nothing because I don’t have him.
And now I get it. I know exactly why he left.
Because if I have nothing, then I have nothing to lose.
“Anyway, it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would,” he continues. “I actually thought if I quit, you might see me as something else besides your guitarist.”
“What, like my tattoo artist?” I say, and I can’t help blushing as I crack a smile.
“Something a lot more than that,” he says as he smiles back.
“My boyfriend?”
“For starters,” he says.
“For starters.” Right. Like how the sun starts the dawn of every new day.
“Yeah.” He shoves his hands into his pockets as he glances away, down the alley. “But obviously that didn’t pan out.”
“I’m not very good at boyfriends,” I say. “Remember the Michael Bolton guy?”
“I try not to,” he says. “Anyway, I wanted to know if we could just get together and jam for a bit. Maybe tomorrow? I’ve got this riff I want to show you.”
“Why?” I ask. “What for?”
“Because I miss the hell out of you,” he says. “If you don’t want to be with me, I’ll have to find some way to live with it. I still want to be friends. I still want to play.”
I can feel the broken part of my heart, the big-ass crack right down the middle as it’s being sewn back up again by the eager look in his eye. The earnest edge to his words. I nod slowly like I’m thinking this over, like I’m still just not sure. I’m watching his face all screwed up with worry, and maybe it’s mean but I’m letting him squirm, because Travis never squirms. Mr. Steel Trap? No. I cross my arms in front of my chest and look him up and down and I think,
Good, you adorable bastard. Sweat a little.
“I guess I’m not busy tomorrow,” I finally say, and a smile spreads across his face that blows the last of my angst clear away.
“Great,” he says with a nod. “Perfect. I’ll meet you in the cave.”
***
It’s June in Jersey but it’s like the Arctic Circle down in the cave. The AC is cranked in the house because no one survives the Jersey summers without it unless they were raised in a fire swamp (or the Pine Barrens) and they’ve evolved the necessary physiological adaptations to extreme humidity and the associated asshole natives spawned from it. The beat brothers’ house has central AC, and while the main floor feels like a livable temperature for a human being, it’s so freezing cold down here that I actually have to crack open a couple of windows, which has the dual benefit of taking the basement out of the walk-in freezer zone and mixes a little fresh air in with the band-basement aura.
Travis must have been here last night to drop our amps off, but he’s not here to play yet. Joey and Cole are upstairs, and they haven’t even offered to jam with us.
“We’re going to the Hungry Peddler and then to Sam Ash as soon as Trap gets here,” Joey says when I arrive. “Don’t fuck in my bed, that’s all I ask.”
“We’re here to play, not to fuck,” I say, disgusted. Not really. I might still be feeling insecure about Travis, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m opposed to taking my pants off. Shut up.
“Don’t fuck in my bed, either,” Cole says. “That’s what the couch is for.”
“You’re both animals, a discredit to your poor mothers,” I say. “Get me strings while you’re out.”
I plug everything in and now I feel at home again. In my own space. In my own skin. With my own gear, surrounded by my drummer’s drums, my bassist’s rig, and Bean’s Marshall half stack with most of the letters ripped off so it says “ars,” which he’ll explain is Latin for “art,” but also sounds like “arse.” I take my guitar out, tune up, and turn on. I start playing the chords to “Loud” while I’m waiting for him, and then I’m singing, not into the mic or anything because I haven’t bothered to turn the PA on. I’m singing into the room with my eyes closed, lost in it, feeling happier than I have in weeks and weeks. I open my eyes and there’s Travis, sitting on the stairs, watching me. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“Oh hi,” I say, feeling like an ass.
“Hi,” he says, giving me the sweetest of all the boy smiles. Probably in no small part because I’m wearing his favorite Pixies tank, though I am wearing a bra under it this time.
Now that he’s here I don’t feel confident or cool. I don’t feel over it. I feel everything all at once. The sun is in my lungs, there’s a tornado in my skull where my brain once was. I can’t think of the right thing to say, so I open my mouth and it just tumbles out.
“Why are you here? Really,” I say, putting my hand out to stop him as he crosses the room. “I need to know right now before I let myself get too happy to see you.”
“I want to come back,” he says. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Back to what, exactly?”
“To Soft,” he says.