Stay Until We Break (2 page)

“Not yet,” I say. “I’m sure any minute.”

Cole turns to the bartender. “Where’s Lou? We need to hit the road.”

“He’s in the back,” he answers. “I’ll go get him.”

The bartender walks away and I give Cole a look, and it includes a serious lip curl. He rolls his eyes, and now things are back to normal between us, like that kiss never even happened.

“Look, Sunny, you have to be more assertive,” he says. “Especially you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re a pretty girl and men are pricks,” he says. “And club managers are the worst brand of prick there is. So get your Jersey on.”

It doesn’t escape me that for the first time ever, Cole has called me pretty. But my irritation with his audacity, his assumption that I can’t get the job done because I wear dresses, overrides any joy I might find in that realization.

“I’ll take care of this,” I say to him. “Tell the others I’ll be right out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t make me use my Jersey on you,” I say. “Or I won’t seem so pretty anymore.”

“Fine,” he says. “Have it your way.”

Lou comes back and Cole hesitates until I give him the eye, and then he walks back outside. Lou hands me an envelope and says thanks. I open it and see there’s a pile of cash in there and then put the envelope in my pocket.

“We good?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Let’s book something for the fall,” he says and hands me his card. “We’ll get them down here on a Friday or a Saturday night.”

“Sounds good,” I say, feeling all proud of myself and manager-like now.

In fact, I’m feeling like such a big shot, I pull a twenty out of the envelope and hand it to the bartender, and then I take another twenty out and give it to the sound guy, who is very appreciative, if surprised by our generosity.

It’s not until I get back outside to the van where the others are milling around and Joey says, “How much did we get paid?” that I even think to count what was in the envelope. My stomach drops as I catch my stupid mistake.

“What’s wrong?” he says. “Did we get stiffed?”

I take the money out and realize that what looked like a nice, big pile is actually a pile of singles and fives and what’s left in the envelope after I generously tipped out the bartender and the sound guy is fifty dollars.

“Fifty bucks?” Travis says. “There were over a hundred people here tonight.”

“That’s bullshit,” Joey says. “They didn’t even have to pay three bands.”

“Well, it was ninety but I tipped the bartender and sound guy,” I admit, sheepishly.

“You tipped them forty dollars?” Emmy says. “That’s more than a tank of gas.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” I say. I turn pink from my stupid mistake. “I wouldn’t have if I’d known it was only ninety dollars.”

“You didn’t count it?” Emmy says. “That’s not like you, Sunny. What were you thinking?”

I was thinking about Cole, obviously, and not about what I’m here to do. I’m so pissed at myself.

“Oh, give her a break,” Cole says. “Remember the first time we played the Roxy? They paid us forty dollars for playing a packed show and we didn’t know any better. We even thanked them.”

“No, Emmy’s right,” I say. “If I’m the manager, I have to be more assertive. You even said so yourself, Cole.”

Now he looks irritated with me.

“I guess we all make mistakes,” he says, and I wonder what we’re even talking about now. Is he talking about me getting stiffed by the club, or is he talking about kissing me earlier? Shit.

Cole climbs into the van with everybody else while I’m standing there holding fifty dollars in singles and fives, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole. Like I let them all down.

“Get in the van, Sonia,” Emmy calls from the backseat. “Tomorrow’s another show.”

Cole

Friday, August 11, 1995

Corked Barrel, Cleveland, OH

With Ghostly and Herman’s Pride

Soft Tour—Day 2

Girl in the corner

Faraway stare

Your body is here

But your head’s over there

The smoking ember

Touches your hair

A burn this clean oughta get me higher

Fire, fire, fire in the empire

Cities of dust do thus require

Fire in the empire! Fire in the empire!

—“Fire in the Empire,” by Stars on the Floor

If every night for the rest of my life could just be this—Joey’s beat, Emmy’s voice, Trap’s Les Paul roaring against the pulse of my Ampeg—I would be fine. I would be so much better than fine. I don’t need or ask for much. The road, my bass, a girl here and there.

Well, maybe not
that
girl, the one right there in the rockabilly pigtails at the back of the room selling T-shirts for us. That one spells trouble, I can tell. Maybe I really should have waited until Sunny was drunk again before I kissed her.

That look of hers tonight is killing me, though. She’s gone all out with that halter dress and she doesn’t even have the decency to cover those shoulders with her sweater like she normally does. I can see that ink of hers from here, and that open birdcage right on her arm. And always, always those librarian glasses that might make somebody think, “Oh, this one? She’s timid.” Nope. Not even mildly timid. Petite, yes, but she’s about as timid as a hornet. A hornet with some fine, bare legs who is killing me tonight. No need to even mention her flawless taste in music and her wicked sense of humor and the fact that she’s never, not once, put up with anyone’s shit.

Too bad I read her wrong last night. After she hopped in my lap all drunk at my birthday party last month I thought maybe there was something there. Not that I was going to do anything about it with her so well oiled she could have gotten me contact-drunk. Then last night when she asked me to come outside with her, I wasn’t planning to kiss her or anything like that. But as I was following her out to the van, staring at that perfect ass of hers, my brain just went all loose and funny. She was right in front of me and I reached for her arm, wasn’t even thinking about what I was doing. She turned, I could feel her chest just barely touch me, and there was one of those super still moments where she stared up at me with a look in her eyes that asked,
What now?
So I kissed her. Now I’m wondering if that look really meant something like,
Can you move out of my way?
Because she went into the club at the first opportunity and did not return. Actions, not words.

Now the entire day I’ve been staring at those shoulders, wondering what I ever did to turn them so cold.

We’re in the middle of our set at the Corked Barrel and nobody is here. Well, technically not nobody, but just a handful of somebodies, seven of whom are playing in the two bands after us, three of whom are staff of the bar. A few more bodies scattered here and there. And really, it’s fine. I hope Sonia learns that soon before Emmy strangles her. When nobody was here before the show, she was pacing the floor like a caged animal.

“Stop that, Sunny,” Emmy said. “You’re stressing me the hell out.”

“I can’t help it. What kind of buzz are you going to get if people don’t come see you? We’ve got to try and do some more prep work before these other shows to get a crowd. It’s Friday—where is everybody?”

“At Peabody’s,” I explained. “The fucking Pumps are in town.”

“Oh God no, not those assholes,” Travis said.

I pointed at the page of the local music rag, and right there was the full-page advertisement with
The Pumps
in enormous bold letters at the top. The Pumps are a New York band we’ve played with several times back home, and every time we have, they’ve been total dicks. They wear eye makeup and skinny ties and play the most boring, bland, wannabe Smashing Pumpkins bullshit, and none of us would care about any of that, or how good they are, but like I said, they’re dicks. Every damn time we’ve played with them they’ve showed up late and played into our set time. Last time they left in the middle of our set and haggled with the club for more money because they’re from out of town—a whole forty-five minutes away.

The worst part is, last year they got signed to Geffen Records and have been touring ever since. That’s always been our dream—a record deal, preferably with a strong indie label like Matador, and then to hit the road. All we’ve ever asked for was a decent break. A fair deal with a label, with enough money to survive and keep playing. That’s the only dream I’ve ever had in this life. But sadly, I won’t be sticking around long enough to make it happen.

“Aren’t these club promoters doing anything to advertise the show?” Sonia asked.

“Empty rooms happen when you play out of town,” Emmy said. “You’re just not used to it because you only ever see us at home. We’re going to be playing some empty rooms on this trip, I promise you.”

“Then why do it?” she asked. “Doesn’t it feel like a waste?”

“We’re a band. This is what we do,” I told her. “We write songs, we book shows, we play. We have no control over who shows up.”

“How can you be so calm?”

“He’s the bass player,” Trap said. “It’s his job to be calm.”

That’s the truth.

The local bands we play with tonight, Ghostly and Herman’s Pride, are all apologetic that only their girlfriends and a handful of others turn out tonight because everybody in fucking town is out to see the Pumps. But I don’t care about that. I don’t even mind it, it just makes the packed houses sweeter when we do get them.

And regardless of the sparse crowd, we play our asses off. That’s how we always play, and it’s why we can play empty rooms and have it not feel like a waste. Playing never, ever feels like a waste to me because every time we play, we get better. No matter who is or isn’t there. It always makes me feel something I can’t feel any other way, and that never feels like a waste of time.

By the end of the set, at the very least, every single person in the bar is up in front of the stage digging the sound, and that’s really nice, even if it’s like fifteen people. Ghostly and Herman’s Pride are both great local acts and very cool to us. They’re nice enough to offer us their entire cut of the door so we can fill Beth’s tank, which we don’t and wouldn’t take. But we do take up the offer of two of their friends, Diane and Marilyn, to sleep on their floor.

“Whoa, are you sure we should be doing that?” Sonia asks. “We don’t know a thing about them.”

“Relax, Sunny,” Emmy says. “They’re music-scene people. It’ll be fine.”

“What if they’re serial killers?”

“Then Cole can take them out with his pocketknife,” Trap says.

“Plus, I think Diane is into me,” Joey says. “Could be my night.”

Of course, by three a.m. Joey is stretched out on Diane’s couch, fast asleep. He can’t stay awake long enough to even ask her her last name. I’m sitting on the floor, playing Nintendo with Diane while I wait for a turn in the bathroom, and Emmy and Travis have been given Marilyn’s bed. Unfortunately for all of us, we can hear them. That’s because Emmy is a screamer, bless her, and this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows her. Diane looks at me and smirks as we hear the bed banging against the wall in there.

“You’d think they hadn’t seen each other in six months,” she jokes.

“They’re sort of a new item,” I explain. “You know how it is.”

“New is the best,” she says, and then lays her head on my shoulder just as Sonia walks out of the bathroom. I can feel her staring but I don’t look up because I don’t want to see her face. She crosses the room and stretches out her sleeping bag on the rug as I’m losing my shit at Donkey Kong.

“Wake Joey up so you can take the couch,” I say.

“I’m fine,” she answers. “I’ll be passed out before you lose this round.”

I turn around and shake Joey’s shoulder and he bolts upright. “What the fuck? What was that?”

“Give Sonia the couch,” I say.

“I said I’m fine,” she says again.

Joey is groggy and rubbing his eyes, but he sees Sonia on the floor and slumps off the couch and sprawls out on the rug with one of the sofa pillows. He’ll be drooling all over it in about ten minutes. But Sonia doesn’t move.

“I told you I don’t need the couch,” she says.

“What the hell did you wake me up for then, Cole?” Joey says, and then climbs back up onto the sofa, and I give up now. Sonia’s on her own from here on out.

It’s going to be a long three weeks.

Marilyn passes me a fresh joint, and I hesitate before taking it and taking a hit. Few people know this, but I did time in juvenile detention and got a year of probation when I was in high school for dealing weed, so I’ve developed a bit of an aversion to it. Especially the getting locked up part. But maybe if I’m high, I’ll stop feeling pissed off and just be able to drift off to sleep. That’s what I need, because this stupid night combined with this slight from Sonia has my gut in a knot.

I take a couple of deep hits from the joint and it relaxes me. Diane asks if I’m ready to go to bed, and I’m just freshly baked enough that I actually think she means sleep. So I say, “Oh yeah, definitely,” with a big stretch of my arms over my head, and then Diane shuts the Nintendo off and stands up and offers me her hand. I get to my feet and she leads me down the hall to her room, and that’s when I realize she plans to fuck me. And as that realization dawns on me, so does another. Marilyn is following us to Diane’s room, too. And if there was ever a reason to be into older women, this right here is it, because older girls are a lot less hung up about sex, and it’s pretty clear now I actually can get with both of them tonight. At the same time. Under normal circumstances I’d be thinking,
Fuck yes, holy shit, Joey and Trap will never believe me when I tell them.
But that’s not what I’m thinking now. Instead I’m thinking about Sonia sleeping on the damn floor. Stupidly, I turn around and see her leaning against the sofa, her eyes wide like a lost kid as she watches the three of us walk into Diane’s room, and I pause.

“Should we invite your manager?” Diane asks.

“Nope,” I say.

Marilyn’s stoned smile as she closes the door is the last thing I see before the lights go out.

***

Those girls are all over me in the dark. At first I can’t even tell who’s who because I’m so high and so tired and there’s only the faintest light from a streetlamp outside, leaking through the cracks in the blinds. The bed has some sort of smooth sateen cover on it. I feel it against my bare back because one of them has stripped my T-shirt off and pushed me down to the bed and is straddling me in nothing but a pair of panties. The other, I think it’s Diane, is taking off my shoes. Holy fucking shit. I get a total adrenaline rush that fuels this need I have to get back in control of the situation, and now one of these girls is going to get fucked. Right now. And I don’t even care which one it is.

I roll over and pin Marilyn under me, mostly naked and smiling up, and she wants it. Not me, but
it
, and I have it so she’s going to get it. Diane lights a candle on the dresser so she has some light to watch by. Marilyn’s eyes roll back and she’s breathing heavy and hot when Diane comes back to the bed and pulls her shirt off and lies down next to her, running her hand along my back as I’m grinding into Marilyn. Marilyn turns her head and the two of them start to kiss, in nothing but their panties, and it’s so crazy I’m not sure I’m not hallucinating. That this is real. Can this be real? Nobody will ever believe it. I’m here and I’m not sure if I believe it myself. Diane slips her hand into Marilyn’s underwear and now I’m so hard my pants are uncomfortable.

“Take them off,” Marilyn says, then unbuttons my pants.

“I’ll bet he has a nice cock,” Diane says. “Let’s see it.”

Diane kisses me as Marilyn is unzipping my pants, but the thing is, when I feel Diane’s lips they don’t feel sexy. They feel hard and thin. Probably because I’m high. I start trying to remember what Donna . . . Dana . . . shit . . . Diane’s lips actually look like, because now they don’t even feel like lips, they feel like licorice whips, and now I’m hungry. But unfortunately, not for Diane or Marilyn. I remind myself that there are two sexy girls here who want to play, I am literally about to fuck two women, and this is the opportunity of a lifetime. No matter how high I am I shouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by. So I put my lips to Diane’s again and taste them, salty, not sweet or sharp like black licorice. She slides her tongue into my mouth and damn, now I’m remembering how it felt to kiss Sonia and I’m not thinking about how awesome it is to get with two girls at all. I’m thinking about what Sunny’s lips feel like against mine. Soft, full, and sweet like a plum in summer. But this isn’t her, no matter how hard I try to pretend it is.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Diane asks, caressing the side of my face as she smiles at me.

“Do you have any more weed?” I ask. I don’t want any more weed. I just need an excuse to stop doing this until I can get my head back together.

“Sure,” Marilyn says. “There’s a cigar tin in the coffee table drawer. Help yourself.”

I’m relieved to get out of there but I’m also still baked, so I walk right out into the living room barefoot and shirtless without even realizing how it looks. Sonia pulls the sleeping bag over her head as I come out, so I know she’s still awake. I pull the tin out of the drawer, but before I head back into Diane’s room I pause next to where she’s lying on the floor, look down, and she’s curled into a ball like a little snail.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay out here?” I ask her.

“Are you sure you’re okay in there?” she says.

She peeks her head out and she’s eyeing me hard and I’m suddenly completely self-conscious. I cross my arms in front of my chest, holding the tin of weed.

“Two girls at the same time, Cole? That’s special even for you.”