Authors: Melanie Jacobson
“I’ll ride up with Tanner and back with you. Does that sound okay?” Courtney asked.
I nodded and headed out to my car. Tanner watched me climb in before he got in his Accord and started it. It was thoughtful—and surprising—coming from him. I’d seen him do several things in our last two encounters that didn’t jibe with the perception I had of him after The World’s Worst Interview. It was harder and harder to think of him as a jerk, and I really wanted to.
Needed
to, if I wanted to keep a safe distance. I didn’t know what to think about him, actually, and that was a problem.
A big one.
Dear Dad,
Thanks for teaching me to listen.
Love,
Pepper
Chapter 10
Nothing qualified me to review music besides having two working ears—and a former fiancé on the verge of hitting it big in the pop music scene. But Ellie didn’t know about Landon, and I wasn’t telling. I had no problem going to shows and then putting my opinion out there. If every night was like tonight, I could officially count doing music reviews as my best job ever.
The Krunk Lunkers tore up the joint with fast-paced ska-influenced funk grooves that were downright irresistible. At least, Courtney and I found it impossible to resist. We bounced along to the band’s infectious beats, but Tanner looked immune to the contagion. His impassive expression made me want to poke him, if only to check for signs of life.
I made my way over to him, the happy music thrumming through my system. I smiled, and a return smile peeked back at me. Rather than yell over the loud horns and drums, I pointed to the crowd rising and falling in energetic unison and gestured for him to join us. I did it to tease him, knowing he never would. Instead, he reached out and snagged my hand, pulling me closer as he bent toward me. My stomach flipped, but then a spark of mischief in his eyes clued me in, and I knew he was trying to mess with me. I took the dare and didn’t pull away. “No thanks,” he said. His warm breath so near my neck made goose bumps break out on my arms, and I fought a threatening shiver. We stood frozen that way for the longest five seconds of my life before I tugged my hand free and took a step back. I slid my hands into my back pockets, hiding the small tremor in the one I had liberated from him, and offered him a bright smile.
“Too bad,” I said. “It’s way more fun where we are.” I thought I caught a nod from him as I turned to rejoin Courtney.
We didn’t need press passes to talk to the band after the show. We wandered backstage with Courtney in tow and found them easily enough. I felt self-conscious, with my hair a sweaty mess and my makeup all smudged, but no one in the band minded. I felt better when I whipped out my pristine, new notebook, although . . . Tanner had to loan me a pen when I couldn’t find one in my purse.
I hustled home to write my review after I dropped Courtney off. If Tanner could do it in thirty minutes, I’d make it happen in twenty-nine. When I finished an hour later, I decided Tanner had exaggerated when he’d said he could knock something like that out in half an hour, but I figured I hadn’t done too badly. Besides, it was about quality, not speed.
The next morning, I refreshed my Internet browser window obsessively, like I was watching a closing bid on some eBay treasure. I was looking for my Krunk Lunker write-up—and for Tanner’s. At last, right before I headed out the door to work, I checked the
Bee
online and found Tanner’s review. It was short but descriptive, labeling the band as a fun party group with energy to spare. He didn’t think they would set the music world on fire but termed the performance “a great way to pass an evening.” I guess he’d been paying attention, after all. It was so hard to tell with him.
I kept tabs on my own review at work with my phone. Once it posted, my write-up of the Krunk Lunkers garnered even more reader viewer responses than my first one. Ellie called at about five o’ clock, sounding pleased. “Great job on the review,” she said. “How do you feel about picking up another regular feature?”
“Doing music reviews?”
“Yes.”
“Yes!”
Ellie laughed. “You have a knack for them, and the reader response is good.”
“Great,” I said. “Is Chantelle going to be okay with this?”
“Chantelle is relieved to get them off her desk. She wants to focus more on the arts.”
“I’m thrilled to do it,” I said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“It was an easy judgment call, Pepper. The readers are voting for your writing with their responses in every comment trail. Speaking of which . . .” She paused, and I could hear the tap of her nails against a keyboard. “The numbers today show that your second ‘Single in the City’ column drew a thousand readers last week. Keep it up. I’ll be looking for something golden after your mountain-bike outing.”
Another thousand hits? Well, there was another ten dollars I could count on. That would pay off five of the See’s wrapped truffles I’d eaten in my post-breakup depression instead of using them as wedding favors. That left a little less than two hundred to pay for. Whatever. It was progress. Note to self: big weddings are overrated.
“The page views on your Krunk Lunkers write-up is outpacing the Sonic Machine review,” she continued, “probably because they’ve got local friends and family reading the link. I’d like to shift toward covering more local bands or bands with local people who hit it big, like The Used.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “How many shows a month do you expect me to watch?”
“At least one a week, but two is better.”
I hated to say no to a new boss, but I knew my limits. “That’ll be tough. A lot of shows are on the weekend, and now I’ve got at least one date for the column every weekend too.” Stress over how to fit two shows a week on top of my tight schedule caused a throbbing behind my left eye.
“We haven’t talked about the pay,” she said. “It’s a little different since these reports will be paid on a freelance basis.” She named a figure for each article that would let me knock four hours off of my Handy’s schedule and still come out slightly ahead on my bills.
Take that, See’s charge! I’d be decimating truffle debt in no time. Or at least a month ahead of schedule.
After work, I headed home, but for once I didn’t retreat into my room and mope at my computer. Courtney was picking me up for a movie. When I answered her knock at the door, instead of seeing her cute Mazda in the driveway, I saw Tanner’s Accord, complete with him behind the wheel.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, grabbing a light spring sweater jacket off the coat rack. “Is Tanner driving us?”
“Is that okay? He didn’t have any assignments tonight, so I said he should come check out the movie.”
Courtney idolized her brother—that was clear—and I didn’t want my wariness of him to get in the way of our growing friendship. I smiled and nodded. “Sounds great.”
At the car, Courtney slid into the backseat. Was I supposed to climb in front or join her? The idea of making Tanner drive us around chauffeur style amused me, so I got in next to Courtney. Tanner turned to stare at us. “Really, girls?”
I tapped his headrest. “Could you put up the privacy glass, please?”
Courtney giggled. “I meant for you to get shotgun. I didn’t want to make you sit back here by yourself.”
“Now no one is by themselves,” I said.
“Do I not count?” Tanner asked.
I let my silence answer him. Courtney giggled again, nervously this time, and Tanner put the car in gear and backed out. I asked Courtney if she’d heard anything about the movie, a light romantic comedy that just came out. I listened to her chatter, but part of my mind wondered what motivated Tanner’s presence. Granted, I didn’t have a ton of dating experience, even with two LDS Lookup dates to my credit, but I wasn’t too naive to miss the undercurrent running between us. The moment between us on the dance floor the night before had been so electric I’d had to have been dead not to feel it. It confused me. Even though he hadn’t outed me for my awful interview to his family, I knew he didn’t like me. He’d made his opinion of me clear at our interview, and he hadn’t said anything to suggest he’d changed his mind. My opinion of him had budged marginally—but it was a pretty small margin.
Courtney sat between us during the movie, and I did my best to ignore him and watch the film, but the fact that the male romantic interest wasn’t nearly as good-looking as Tanner didn’t help. Grr.
When they dropped me off at home after we again made Tanner play chauffeur, I bolted from the car, glad to leave the weird energy behind. Courtney rolled down her window and called, “I need new boots. Wanna go shopping tomorrow afternoon?”
“Can’t,” I answered from the porch, my hand already on the front doorknob. “Got a date.”
She flashed me a thumbs up, and I slipped inside before Tanner pulled away. I could hear a bunch of teenage voices in the family room, so I skirted it and headed upstairs. With all my writing for
Real Salt Lake,
my blog had been neglected, and it was time to write just for the fun of it. I wanted to hammer out my feelings on re-entry to the land of the living via loving parental coercion. My blog was a great place to think out loud, especially since I could expect my dad to weigh in with a long and thoughtful comment. It was a face-saving way for me to say, “Maybe you were right.”
* * *
There’s no way to prepare for the experience of hurtling down a mountain on a bike at breakneck speed. I thought there was. I Googled a little. I posted a request on Facebook for people to tell me what it was like. Words like
fun
,
challenging
, and
awesome
don’t help, FYI. They fail to fully capture the experience. Words like
insane
,
terrifying
, and
life-threatening
work better.
I didn’t think anything would be worse than the pure torture of trying to power uphill, but trying not to die on the way down was infinitely more awful. Someone told me to look at wherever I wanted to go. “If you look at a rock, you hit a rock. Don’t look at rocks. Look at the trail.” I tried very, very hard to unsee all the rocks. But there were a lot.
Wade, who was an extra crunchy granola type, yelled encouragement over his shoulder all afternoon. I learned about the breadth and depth of his motivational vocabulary, but riding ten yards behind him for two hours did nothing to help us get otherwise acquainted.
It was too bad because Wade was pretty hot. I don’t think I could handle his intense personality for long periods though. I bet he was the kind of guy who got bumped up to AP on his mission in his third week out. I respected his positivity, but it wore me out the tiniest bit. That—and the grueling climb on the bike. And the almost dying on the way back down.
I knew my “Single in the City” column would be all about me this week because whatever Wade hoped he was getting in a date, I was pretty sure I wasn’t it. Even in early spring, he had a healthy outdoor tan. Me? Still Cullen-ish. Wade had a bounce in his step from the moment we met at a soup and sandwich café until he hopped off his bike after our second downhill—which I begged to make our last. He reassured me that it was hard because I was riding a borrowed bike and that mountain biking was truly fun. I nodded and smiled, but I knew the truth: the bike was fine. I was the problem. I lacked the gene for sports of any kind.
When I limped back to my car in the café parking lot, I consoled myself with the knowledge that my dad couldn’t object to this week’s column. Instead of feeling sorry for Wade because I was poking fun at him, my dad would be pitying the poor guy for having to go out with me.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, I already had the opening hook for my mountain-bike disaster figured out.
I bought myself a new shirt last night. It says,
Warning: This Date Will Be Hazardous to Someone’s Health
. It seems only fair to warn these poor guys up front. It’s going to be them or me, but there’s no doubt that first aid will be involved at some point during the date. Maybe I should focus exclusively on dating paramedics? That’s it. I think I’m a genius. I should bag this whole Internet dating thing and lurk around ambulance bays because THAT’S not completely creepy.
I collapsed into bed early, too worn out to do more than click my mouse and surf the Internet. I checked out
Real Salt Lake
and saw that my “Tragically Hip” recap had almost double the number of comments than the first column the week before. There was no way to know how that would translate into page views, but generally, the greater the number of comments, the higher the number of readers.
I checked out the
Bee
too. Or rather, Tanner’s articles this week. Other than The Krunk Lunkers, he’d written straight news stories. I read through them, wondering if I still wanted to do the regular news. I liked the chance to stamp my personality on the pieces I’d written so far, and I wouldn’t have the same leeway with news reporting. Maybe I wouldn’t even be any good at it.
I drifted off to sleep with a vision of myself as a premiere celebrity journalist, writing lifestyle pieces for something like
Vanity Fair.
Nah. Not me. But maybe I could write about single-girl issues for one of the big magazines like
Marie Claire.
Except their models looked like they were two seconds away from leaping through the pages of the magazine to scratch your eyeballs out. Now
there
was a group of people who could use more sandwiches. Hunger probably made them look that cranky.
Ginger woke me up the next morning when she rattled the hangers in my closet. I cracked an eyelid and stared at her ransacking my semi-color-coded organization. “For someone who hates the way I dress, you sure do borrow a lot of my clothes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with most of the pieces,” she said and then wrinkled her nose at a thrift shop peasant blouse. “Except maybe this one. The issue is how you put them together.”
I shooed her out of my room and helped Rosemary pick an outfit for church. In the peace and quiet of the house after everyone else left, I sprawled on the living room floor and read one of my favorite novels,
The Book Thief
, until it was time for me to get ready too. I dressed carefully in case Tanner was there. He hung around with Courtney a lot. Had he always done that or just lately? Was it because of me? Maybe he did it to make sure none of my crazy wore off on her. I hoped that was the reason. My brain circuits wouldn’t handle the alternative.
Courtney needed some crazy, I thought. More and more, I saw little snatches of carefree laughter or mischief glint in her eye, but the faint shadow of sorrow always lurked too. I wondered if she would ever feel comfortable enough to tell me her story. I knew it had to do with the guy in the picture sitting on her mantel, but I had no idea what might have gone wrong.