The After Girls Page 14

  Jake was driving really fast.

  And he was talking even faster. “Now this,” he said, “is my favorite track. Well, it’s my favorite of their more synth-y stuff. The best of their acoustic is ‘Blue Heart,’ no question. You like it?”

  Ella started to answer but before she could he was turning up the volume, leaning towards the speakers, as if he might miss some crucial part of the song if he didn’t lean close enough. “Listen to this, right here,” he said, turning it up again. “That beat,” he said, his hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “That beat is so sick. Listen, you hear that? That, da dum dum da dum dum da.”

  Ella nodded, half laughing. He’d been going on about the music since he picked her up at 8:20. He wasn’t exactly the best with time.

  “Seriously,” he said. “Listen.”

  “Okay,” she said. And she did. She closed her eyes, pushing it all away, her ruined pottery, the phone call, the cabin — all the questions she had about Grace. She let herself swim through the sound. She let it wash up around her and drown her. The music wooed her and enchanted her — just like it did him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, leaning back again, turning the volume down a little, and she opened her eyes. He turned to her and smiled so he looked almost … bashful.

  “Sorry, sometimes I get overly excited about things.”

  Ella laughed. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “It’s a good thing.”

  Music snobs were always passionate — and she liked that — but she wondered what it was that she got excited about. Was there even anything? Pottery? She liked it, liked the way the clay moved at her command, the way she was absolutely in control. But not like this. Not in this all-consuming way that moved Jake so much that he actually had to interrupt himself. The one thing that had always been important to her — so important to her — was her friends, and she’d always prided herself on being a good one, but now she wasn’t even sure about that. A good friend would have known what was going on with Astrid. A good friend would have done something.

  “So have you heard much of their music?” Jake asked. He was zipping past a car on the freeway now, and she instinctively braced herself. Ben — her boyfriend — had a cool Jeep, but he never drove this fast.

  Jake was waiting for an answer.

  “The Black Rabbits?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Honestly, not really,” she said, pushing hair out of her face. Ben also never drove with the windows down. Unless the AC was broken. And then he complained about how hot it was the whole time. Maybe she should have just told him that she was going with Jake. It wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong.

  “Well, you, my dear, are in for a treat. You’re going to love them. They’re like The China Dolls on crack. But like, good crack.”

  Ella laughed. She’d expected him to be a little disappointed in her musical knowledge. Sydney had acted flat-out astounded when Ella had said that she didn’t know who Woodie Guthrie was. Like Ella had committed some crime against music or something. Jake didn’t seem to care.

  She liked that. She also liked how he’d called her dear.

  Jake swerved around another car, and before she knew it they were on the exit ramp.

  Pinbrook was what people called a highway town. It wouldn’t have been much of anything except that it was so damn convenient to everything else. It had about two restaurants and a movie theatre, but the music venue, The Cat, was close enough to the college to get some good acts. Or so she heard. Sydney had gone to see some bluegrass band there a couple of times. Ella had never been.

  The Cat was just a few blocks off the highway. They pulled into a gravel parking lot, and Jake turned off the car.

  He flipped down the sun visor and pulled the tickets out.

  “For you, my lady,” he said, handing her one. “Nice shirt, by the way.”

  She looked down at her mom’s old Grateful Dead t-shirt that she’d found in her bottom drawer. After her pottery disaster she figured she’d try to look nice for the show — or at least semi-hip. She’d finished it off with skinny jeans and her coolest sneakers. She wondered if he thought she was trying too hard. She wondered if he noticed the clay that was still caked beneath her nails.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for asking me.”

  “My pleasure,” Jake said. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  She smiled. “I’m really glad that I did.”

  Outside The Cat, a gaggle of kids in plaid took drags from their cigarettes between glances at their iPhones. She and Jake walked through, and the scent of tobacco hit her strong — she hated cigarettes — she didn’t understand why after everything that they knew now, medically speaking and all, someone would even start.

  A girl with a nose pierced like a bull took her ticket and marked her hand, and they walked through the door, Jake leading the way.

  Inside, the air was a little clearer, but the room was dark.

  “I’m going to hit the restroom,” Jake said. “Meet you back here?”

  “Okay,” she said, and he left her alone, with the hipsters and the punks and the scene kids who all looked so much like they belonged.

  Sydney would have fit right in, but Ella, even in her vintage t-shirt and painted-on jeans, looked terribly out of place. These people were pierced about everywhere you could be — most of them had loads of tattoos — while she didn’t even have her ears pierced (she avoided pain at all costs), and the closest she’d ever come to a tattoo was a butterfly number on her back that Astrid had done in henna one day down by the river. It had worn off in a week.

  Ella leaned against the back wall, trying to become invisible. She pulled out her phone to pass the time — no new messages, new calls, nothing — but it only made her think of Astrid. So she put it back in her purse and tried to focus on this night. On going to a show. Having Fun. Being normal. The questions and the hurt would still be there tomorrow, waiting.

  She wished she had a drink. Not for the alcohol, just to have something to do with her hands. Instead, she shoved them deep into her pockets (no easy feat in skinny jeans) and waited.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Jake came back. “Sorry,” he said. “Long line. You want a drink?”

  Ella held up her X-marked hand. “I don’t think we’re allowed,” she said.

  Jake held up his with a smile. No Xs.

  “Nail polish remover?” she asked.

  He just looked at her like she was nuts. “Fake ID,” he said — and then he threw up his hands. “I know, I know, not the most upstanding thing in the world. But you have to have one to go just about anywhere in Chicago.”

  “Why does everyone think I’m going to judge them?” she asked, realizing immediately just how judgy that made her sound.

  But Jake was unfazed. “I don’t think you’re going to judge me,” he said. “It just seems kind of like you like to play by the rules.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Jake ticked off his fingers. “You looked extremely flustered when you were late to work, I’ve yet to see you take anything longer than your allotted fifteen-minute break.” He paused for effect. “Plus, I could tell you were totally freaked out by my speeding.”

  Ella frowned, but she knew that he was right. The only truly daring thing she’d ever done — going into Astrid’s room — had shaken her to the core.

  He must have seen her disappointment even under the dingy lighting. “Hey,” he said. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” He smiled. “Seriously. It’s not a bad thing. Rules are good. Rules give the world order. Some people jibe with that order, and some people don’t as much. It’s no big deal.”

  “Rules are for prudes, right?” she said, thinking of Sydney constantly dragging her into the beer line or Ben trying to get her to go to one of his macho drunken football parties. “For people who turn their homework in on-time and don’t fall down at parties and have the same boyfriend all through high school.”
She stopped to take a breath.

  “See, rules are good for something,” he said, smiling, but it sounded less like a statement and more like a question.

  “Yes,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot, and shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. “In that way, I guess, yes.”

  Jake nodded, but he looked like he was thinking hard on something.

  Finally, he broke the silence. “So did that long answer mean that you do or do not want a drink?”

  Ella didn’t hesitate this time. “I’ll have whatever you have.”

  Jake smiled and quickly headed to the bar, while she watched a few skinny boys on stage pack up their equipment and make way for a new set of skinny boys setting up what must be The Black Rabbits’ stuff.

  And sure enough it was. A guy with a ridiculously long beard for his age pinned up a backdrop, a big bunny silhouette painted across it.

  Jake was back in minutes.

  He handed her a beer can, cold and dripping with sweat, like it had been pulled right off an iceberg. “We got here at the perfect time,” he said, leaning closer to her for a minute. “Looks like they’ll be on soon. You want to go up a little closer?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, and they walked forward, Jake leading, weaving through everyone until they were right at the front, a dusty stage before them. Ella could have reached out and set her beer on one of the amps.

  They didn’t say much after that. Between the people behind them and the guys on stage, testing the different sound levels or whatever it was that they tested (Sydney claimed it was like mega super important, but Ella had always wondered why it had to take forever), it was too loud to really say much.

  So she sipped on her beer — it was bitter and watery — as her eyes darted from the stage to the crowd to the equipment to the eager look on Jake’s face, taking it all in. It was strange, she realized, that this was really the first show she’d ever been to without Sydney in it. The first one she was going to just for the music. Not for support. Not because it was what a good friend would do.

  How had she gone seventeen years without experiencing that? She took another sip, realizing that there was still so much for her to do. So much for her to see. And the thought hit her like a knife, tearing through her, sharp and jagged, because it was so horribly, undeniably true. There were so many things that Astrid would never do.

  But she didn’t have time to dwell. Jake turned to her as a group of boys with creative facial hair and neon t-shirts walked on stage. “Here we go,” he said, leaning close — just for a second.

  Up on stage, they didn’t say anything. They didn’t introduce themselves. There was just the screaming of the crowd around them, and then there was the sound.

  It started with an electric guitar, a note, long, rugged, and loud. And then the keyboards. And a big black box that she was pretty sure was a synthesizer. And then their voices — all together.

  Hey, you. Hey, you.

  You don’t know me. You don’t know me.

  Hey, you! Hey, you!

  You don’t know me now!

  She turned to look at Jake, but he was in another world already, singing along with them, jumping up and down to the music.

  So she turned her attention back to the stage, and the guitars were getting louder, more playful, and the guy on the keyboards was rocking out, and that beat, that bass, it was so undeniable, so intrusive, so present, unlike anything she’d ever heard before.

  Like this was their moment, all of them, every person in this room, and these guys were just keeping time.

  And before she knew it, she was jumping, too, and she could feel her beer spilling, splashing her in the face, and she didn’t know who she was hitting or bumping into, but it didn’t matter, did it? Because they were all there, bumping together, and there were lights, red and green and blue and yellow and pink — even pink — and she felt like she was in a movie, or another world, one she’d never known, one she’d never had admittance to, and here was Jake, his shoulder brushing against hers as he jumped along with her, giving her the ticket, welcoming her in, letting her be someone she wasn’t. Letting her fool every single one of them.

  Letting her become someone new.

  And the guitar went faster, and it danced, and it jumped, too, and it wouldn’t — couldn’t — stop, and she thought it would go on forever, until it cried, wailed, stopped. Shut up.

  You don’t know me now!

  The crowd burst into cheers and screams, and Jake leaned close, shouted in her ear:

  “On crack, right?”

  “Yes!” she screamed back.

  And then the bass started thumping again.

  • • •

  They drove much of the way home in pleasant silence. She was too exhausted, too exhilarated to say much of anything. It had been delightfully too much for her. Too many lights. Too many sounds. Too many people with too many tattoos. In the best possible way.

  She’d walked in scared, unsure, feeling out of place, feeling like Sydney was the music person, like she didn’t have the right to have opinions of her own, to go to a show that wasn’t Syddie’s, and then she’d walked out feeling she was part of some movement that she couldn’t put words to — that didn’t need words.

  Ella stole a quick glance at Jake. His eyes were focused on the dark road ahead. His strong hands grasped the wheel.

  She owed it all to him.

  Finally, they reached the exit that led to Falling Rock. Apart from a couple of bars, the place wasn’t much for late nights. It looked like a ghost town as they drove down the main drag, peppered with occasional streetlights and trees but not much else. They passed Trail Mix — it was too dark to see inside — and Ella wondered what it would be in fifty years, if someone would turn it into a hair salon or a yoga studio. She wondered how long people would remember that it was Astrid’s place.

  She wondered what Astrid thought of it now.

  After a few more blocks, Jake turned onto her street. It was a windy night, and she watched as the trees swayed around them.

  He pulled into her drive and put his foot on the brake, but he didn’t turn off the car. Ella heard the vrum-vrum-vrum of the motor, counting down the seconds they had left together.

  Jake turned down the music — not like him — and turned to face her.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” he said.

  She smiled (why could she not stop smiling?) and she looked down at her purse. “Thanks for taking me,” she said. “It was amazing.”

  Jake smiled, too. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  She opened her purse, fumbled with her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Oh,” Jake said, putting his hand on hers. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh,” she snatched her hand away, and she knew that that made it more obvious than ever. “Are you sure?”

  “Just get me a latte at the café next time.”

  “They’re free for us,” she said.

  “Well, make one for me then.”

  Ella laughed, and as much as she just wanted to think about the music and the night and the way Jake’s eyes crinkled a little when he smiled, she knew that if she didn’t bring it up now, she never would. “I know your mom said it was okay for me to work today, but I don’t know how much Grace really wants me there anymore. She was really upset last night.”

  Jake looked at his hands. The engine still ran. He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “My mom will keep you on, don’t worry,” he said. “I’d miss you too much if she didn’t.”

  The engine puttered on. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of him missing her, but still she wished he would say something else. She wished he’d talk about Grace.

  Ella cleared her throat. “But Grace is still mad?” she asked.

  Jake hesitated. “You probably should be getting inside,” he said. “It’s late.”

  “Okay,” she said, but she didn’t move. “Thanks again.” She turned towards him t
hen, looked him right in the eyes, hoping that he would change his mind. Hoping he would let her in.

  But he didn’t say another word. He just looked away, focused his eyes on his hands, the steering wheel, anything but her.

  She didn’t have a choice. She grabbed her purse and slowly opened the door. She was out of the car and her feet were on the concrete when he stopped her.

  “Ella,” he said.

  “Yes,” she turned back, catching her breath. And at that moment, she didn’t even know what she wanted more — for him to say something about Grace or for him to just say something to her. She didn’t even know what he could say. What words could accurately describe how she felt in this moment, with the good and the bad all tangled up together? What did she feel?

  “You shouldn’t worry about Grace,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, hesitantly, waiting for him to say more, wishing so much that he would. Wishing that she could know everything that he knew. Right now. Was that why she was so excited to be around him, or was it something else?

  “I mean, you can’t always take what she says — what she does — to heart.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “It’s not totally her fault.”

  Ella narrowed her eyes at him. “She threw me out of her house. I wasn’t even trying to — ”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’m just saying, don’t take it personally. It’s not about you.”

  Ella looked at him like she didn’t know him, because for a second, she felt like she didn’t. It’ll be okay, she wanted to hear. You guys will work it out. She’ll let you back in. She’ll be okay. But not that she shouldn’t care. How could she not?

  “You know I practically grew up in that house. With her. She was like a second mother to me. How could I not take it to heart? I know I’m not one of you, but I feel things just like you guys do.”

  “Whoa,” Jake said. “Calm down. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t mean that you don’t have a right to be upset. I just meant that — ”

  “You just meant what?”

  “I just meant that sometimes Aunt Grace, well sometimes, she just doesn’t know what she’s saying.”