The After Girls Read online

  “Thanks for the tea,” she said, but it came out as a snap. “I should go.”

  And she breezed through the beaded curtain before her aunt could protest.

  Up at the front, her uncle was checking out a customer. Her fiddle, newly strung, was ready on the counter. “Thanks,” she said quickly, as he counted change out of the register. She flicked her eyes to the large grandfather clock, though she still had plenty of time before practice. “I’ll see you later.”

  Her Uncle Sid handed the customer his bag and then turned to her. “You stay longer next time, okay?”

  Sydney nodded, walking quickly out of the shop.

  It was only once she got to the car that she realized that she was still holding the book in her hands.

  • • •

  Max was a jerk at practice.

  “Come on, Sydney,” he yelled. “Focus!”

  Sydney shot him a look but it didn’t stop him.

  “The show’s tonight, the fair’s this weekend, and you’re all over the place.”

  In just days, he’d gone from supporting, loving, eager-to-hook-up Max to demanding dictatorial Max. She’d experienced the transition before, but she’d at least thought his good mood would last a bit longer this time, considering. It was like he was two different people. When he wanted her (whatever she was to him), he was sweet and comforting. When he wanted music, or more like a musical ideal that he (and only he) could understand, he was exacting, overbearing. In short, an asshole.

  And yet in spite of herself, she still liked the way that his sandy brown hair fell around his face, just above his shoulders. He’d always have that on her.

  “Alright,” she said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to still her mind. “Let’s just try it again from the top.” She had her bow at the ready. Max, on guitar, started them off, softly strumming.

  Eight counts of eight, she told herself. Eight counts of eight.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  It wasn’t a difficult song; it was one they’d played many times. Not the main crowd favorite, but well-liked. A bit moodier, still upbeat. On the demo that Max wanted to record, it would be the second track. He was serious about River Deep. Had been since they’d started three years ago. So was Sydney.

  But the problem wasn’t the music. It never was. It was Max. He hadn’t said a word about them hooking up. Of course, she hadn’t either, but that was beyond the point. He was the one who wanted space until he didn’t want it anymore, for a few fleeting moments. He was the one who called the shots.

  Three. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  She hadn’t told Ella what had happened between them. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t approve. Astrid was the kind of person she told those things to. Astrid was the one who never judged. It’s not that she didn’t love Ella — she did — but Ella wasn’t the one that you ran to if you were ashamed of yourself. She was the one you celebrated with when you were proud.

  Six. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  Astrid had wanted to tell her something, too. Her mind flashed back to that stupid party, Astrid getting drunk, her face right before Sydney walked away. What had she and her mom been fighting about? A boy? But Astrid never was all that into boys, at least not beyond the faraway crushes that everyone had at some point or another. Could she have been seeing someone and they hadn’t even known about it? Had she tried to talk to her mom about her dad? Was she tired of never mentioning him, of practically pretending that he’d never existed? Sydney had never even seen a photo of him anywhere in their house. She’d always thought it was a little strange, but now that he had a name, now that she knew he played the saxophone, liked jazz — was wild for Grace — it just felt wrong.

  And yet she’d never questioned it. Not once.

  Now, Sydney wished more than anything that she’d stayed. Pressed her until she got it all out. But instead, she’d just let Astrid be Astrid. Open up one moment and shut back down the next.

  That night, Sydney had known that something was wrong. God help her, she’d known. And she hadn’t done anything to help.

  Eight. Two. Three. Four —

  The guitar stopped. Sydney looked to Max and Carter. Carter quickly stopped playing and looked at her bashfully, his face warm and nice like it always was. He felt bad for her. He always did.

  Max just stared at her. “Can you not count?”

  She thought of Astrid and all she felt was rage. At herself. At Max. At everyone.

  “I guess not,” she said, and she threw her bow across the garage as hard as she could. It hit a plastic sled and landed on top of a can of mineral spirits. She didn’t throw her fiddle. Even she wasn’t dramatic enough for that. And she knew that it damn well wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  She set it down instead, stomping out of the garage, cursing the pretty sunset that met her outside, bright orange and pink that really ought to be enjoyed. She had nothing else to do, so she sat down by the mailbox in front of Max’s house. She put her hands at her sides, took a deep breath, and screamed.

  No one turned, no neighbors or idle walkers, because there was no one there to turn. Max’s house was the only one along this road. In another place, maybe someone would have thought that she was hurt, that she’d been attacked, but not here. She almost wished that she was hurt, really hurt, with a broken ankle or arm or even just a sprain. She wished that she could trip and fall and have a reason to scream and cry. She wanted concrete, physical pain, instead of this: the abstract, the questions, the guilt — hot and angry and empty and heavy all at once.

  Carter came up to her shortly after. He sat down next to her, about an inch away without touching. He didn’t say anything yet, but his presence, his tall lanky body and stupid curly hair, was almost comforting. Almost.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was honest. “Max can be kind of an ass sometimes.”

  “It’s not just Max,” she said, without looking over.

  “I know.”

  They didn’t say anything more for a minute. The sunset was more progressed now. Almost purple. A mosquito buzzed by and landed on her arm. She swatted it away.

  “I guess you want me to come back in there,” she said. “And learn to count.”

  Carter looked back towards Max, and she followed his gaze. He was hunched over his notebook, probably working out another damn chorus, his back facing them.

  “Max just doesn’t know what to do with you,” Carter said. “I know he feels bad about what happened, and he — ”

  “So that’s how he’s trying to help?” she asked. “By criticizing the hell out of me?”

  “It’s a lame tactic, I know,” he said. He crossed his arms in front of him, then let them go again and stretched out his legs. Carter was all angles. He never knew quite what to do with himself. “What I mean is that he’s scared,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “Of you, of things that are real. You know.”

  “We broke up a year ago,” she said. “Why does it matter?”

  “He still cares about you,” Carter said. “And he knows that you need somebody, and he just gets freaked out and then starts shit and pushes you away.”

  She stared at Carter then, and he looked so open and honest and comforting. He was so good sometimes. Too good.

  After a minute, she put her hand on his shoulder and forced a smile. He was so tall, she almost had to stretch. “Carter, babe. I think you’ve been listening to too much talk radio.”

  “My mom puts it on in the car,” he said. “Not me. I only listen by proxy.”

  “Mmm hmm,” she said, laughing. “Sure.”

  “Well tell me I don’t have a good point, here,” he said. “Just trust me on this one.”

  Sydney crossed her arms in front of her. “So you want me to come back in?”

  He sighed. “Max will be Max,” he said. “Just try not to let it get to you.”

  She uncrossed her arms and leaned b
ack on her palms. “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Carter jumped up immediately, but then he seemed to change his mind and squatted down so his face was level with hers. Close.

  “And Sydney,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You didn’t do anything,” she said. “It’s all Max.”

  “I’m not talking about Max,” he said. “I mean, you know, everything else.”

  “Thanks,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s not anyone’s,” he whispered, shaking his head. He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Come on,” he said, jumping up again, grabbing her hands and pulling her with him. “Let’s go.”

  “From the top!” Carter yelled, as they walked back into the garage. Sydney retrieved her bow quietly, avoiding Max’s eyes. She picked up her fiddle and waited.

  But Max caught her eyes. “From the top,” he echoed, looking straight at her. “I’ll try to be better with my cues this time.”

  And she knew that that was the only apology she’d get.

  • • •

  That night, she leaned against the back wall of The Grove with Max and Carter, adjusting her earplugs, pushing them in tighter, as the lead singer of Death Star let out a long piercing wail and strummed on an electric guitar with way too much distortion. The floors were dirty and the lighting dim, and the stale smell of sweat and Natty Light filled the air. Around them, the crowd of people, all twenty or so of them, looked about as bored as she was. Apart from a group of girls who must have been the Girlfriends. They banged their heads almost in perfect tandem with the three blond-haired, pock-marked boys of Death Star jumping up and down on stage. That was the thing about The Grove. It was her favorite, for sure, but they weren’t always as selective as they could be in their lineups.

  Max was standing there, arms crossed in front of him, in serious pre-show mode. He’d been nicer since her breakdown, nice for Max, at least. Carter turned to her, stuck his tongue out, and wiggled his head back and forth in a mock-Kiss tribute. She forced herself to laugh, doing a few head bangs herself. But she knew it came out as fake. She just couldn’t help it.

  River Deep didn’t go on for another hour at least.

  The Grove was the first place they’d ever played. She’d been fifteen, they’d just started the band, and she’d finally begun calling her violin a fiddle. Her hair was honey brown then, natural. Two tiny, generic holes in her ears were her only piercings. She barely even knew what makeup was, and Max was nothing to her. Just the nerdy guy in her English class who also hated Chaucer but liked Keats, and wanted to start a band. She was first-string violin in the orchestra, so it only made sense. Once they’d found Carter, the only one weird enough to try his hand at the mandolin (it still looked so strange against his stretched-out body, like it had been made for an elf or a fairy), they were set.

  That first night, they’d opened for another local band who also had no following. Astrid and Ella and a few friends of Max and Carter were the only people in attendance. And yet, Sydney had been seduced by the colored lights and the feel of the stage and the excitement of the unexpected, the not quite knowing how it would turn out, how long she should hold the end note, the happy look on the faces of her friends when they heard something that they liked, the smile Max gave her when she got the riff just right. She’d been hooked on all of it ever since.

  Astrid always loved their shows, and she especially liked their early stuff, all quiet and basic because they didn’t really know how to write. Ella saw things more practically. She thought the new stuff was better, more complex, had a greater chance of getting them into the larger festivals, but Astrid didn’t see it that way. She still had a thing for that first one that Sydney had written with Max, even though Sydney told her over and over that it was far from their best.

  Now, two years later and so much had changed, sure. She had a whole list of things that just weren’t as good and easy as they were back then. But the only thing she really wanted, the one thing that she really missed, was for Astrid to be out there in the crowd, just one more time.

  “You okay?” Carter asked, waving a hand in front of her face. “You look a little dazed. Nervous?” he asked.

  Sometimes Sydney wondered if he liked her. She wondered if things hadn’t happened with Max, whether anything would have, could have happened with Carter. Her mom had always wanted them to date. So had Ella. She supposed that there was no reason why things couldn’t happen still. But as the low lighting picked up his chocolaty eyes and the slightest smattering of freckles along his forehead, she knew for sure that they wouldn’t. Carter always did the right thing, was always so good. She never seemed to like that.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and as she did, she saw Ella and Ben walking in.

  Ella walked slowly towards her and gave her a hug, long and tight. Sydney could feel her arms shaking around her.

  “Are you okay?” Sydney asked as she looked her over. Ella was pale. She almost seemed scared. “Did something happen?”

  Ella looked down at her purse, fished around but then looked back up. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just that it’s the first show since …”

  “Since Astrid died,” Sydney interrupted. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to remind me.”

  Ella just stared at her — deer in the headlights.

  Next to them, Ben and Carter started talking about football. The two had always been friendly — they’d been science partners in 8th grade or something — but in the past couple of years, their friendship had turned into a full-on bromance.

  “Did you at least bring it?” Sydney asked.

  Ella narrowed her eyes, and then it seemed to dawn on her. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah.”

  “Sweet,” Sydney said, trying to sound at least somewhat cheerful. “Bathroom break.”

  The walls were covered in Sharpie phone numbers, cracked paint, and Xeroxed flyers for shows that had already happened and beginner guitar lessons. Ella pulled the nail polish remover out of her purse, and Syd walked into the first stall, jerking on the roll of toilet paper and scrunching it into a ball.

  She grabbed the remover from Ella, poured a little on the paper, and began to work on the X on her hand. It was a trick they’d cultivated long ago, after they’d fully pissed off the bouncer by covering the backs of their hands in so much Vaseline that his pen wouldn’t even work. This way, they took their underage Xs with smiling, innocent faces and scrubbed them off when safely out of sight. You only had to be sixteen to go to shows at The Grove, and once the marks disappeared, no one gave you any trouble.

  Syd scrubbed harder, and the paper in her hands began to turn black as her skin cleared, turning just the slightest bit red. When the X was nearly gone, at least gone enough to pass in a dark room, she poured some more remover and handed it to Ella.

  “I don’t know,” Ella said, somber. “I’m not sure if I want to drink tonight.”

  Sydney crossed her arms. She knew that Ella would never adopt the party-girl persona that she so readily embraced, but still, Ella had always had fun at her shows. When their set was done, they’d all drink a beer together and imagine that Sydney had finally made it big, trading fantasy stories of cute, bespectacled groupies and sketchy tour buses that would inevitably come along with fame.

  “Geez, El,” she snapped. “What the hell happened?”

  Ella looked down, then shrugged. “It’s just been a rough week,” she said.

  “I know,” Sydney said. “All the more reason to drink.” Sydney forced a smile and held the wad of paper out to her.

  Ella shrugged again. “I don’t really work that way, Syd.”

  “It’s been hard for me, too,” Sydney said. “Obviously. But this is our first show of the summer, and it’s our only show before the fair. I just want to have a good time. Please.”

  Ella hesitated.

  “Please,” she said. “I need this.”

 
“Okay,” Ella said. “Alright.” And she took the wadded up tissue. “You’re going to be great,” she said, as she scrubbed her hand. “I know you are.”

  “I hope so,” Sydney said, and after a moment, they walked back out. They headed straight to the bar and ordered their first beers.

  • • •

  It felt good to be up on stage again. The three of them were six songs in; they had just a couple more to go. Sweat beaded on her brow, and her heart felt like it was beating right along with the strumming of Max’s guitar. The lights were bright on Sydney’s face, red and blue and shining strong so that the crowd in front of her became one mass of swaying, vibrating bodies, and she could tell that they liked what they were hearing. Sydney wasn’t drunk, really. She wouldn’t be until later, after their set was over. But she’d had just enough to make her blood pulse fast and her body feel warm and light, the music natural and alive, as if her bow were simply an extension of her hand.

  The problems she’d had in practice seemed to disappear beneath the lights. She didn’t need to count; she just felt, whipping her bow back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster and faster across the strings, until powerfully, and with a final quick stride, the song was over, and the crowd burst into applause, Ella’s cheering voice among them.

  “Thanks,” she said into the microphone, between big gulps of air. She looked over to Max, and he was smiling right at her, bright and wide. “Perfect,” he mouthed, and it was moments like this that proved to her that she’d never quite be over him. When he smiled at her like that, when they were up on stage, when he kept up with the rhythm of her movement. When he let her lead, when he followed faithfully behind, when he really believed in her, as she knew deep down that he did. It almost felt like the two of them were the only people in the world.

  Max leaned in towards the microphone. “Let’s hear it for Syddie,” he said, to more applause, and in spite of the sweat on her face, the heat in the room, she swore that she blushed, beamed hotter.