Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story (13 page)

Beth winced. “I hate to say it, but maybe he just thinks of you as a friend.”

There it was again, Beth’s brutal honesty, smacking me dead in the face.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I mumbled, crinkling my Starbucks napkin into a tiny ball.

Beth pouted, her eyes glazing over with unwanted pity. “You love him, don’t you?”

“That’s an impossible question to answer.”

“No it isn’t,” she argued. “It’s a simple yes or no. You either love someone or you don’t.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Renee,
maybe
is not an acceptable answer. That’s like saying you’re a little bit pregnant and or caught a touch of breast cancer. Deep down, you know whether or not you love someone.”

I rolled my napkin ball back and forth over the table, trying to avoid eye contact with her. I knew if she looked into my eyes she’d be able to see right through me. “Do you think it’s possible to love someone who doesn’t love you back?
Someone who
you’re not even in a relationship with?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. You can’t help your feelings for someone, despite if the feelings are mutual or not.”

I wasn’t sure if I trusted Beth’s theories, considering she had always been in love with the idea of love. I took a sip of my coffee and was silent for a minute. When I looked up at Beth, she was grinning.

“I have to tell you something,” she confessed. I was relieved that we were off the subject of Dylan.

“What?”

“I slept with Eddie the other night.”

“Get out!” I exclaimed. As far back as I could remember, Eddie had always been the eternal bachelor, and Beth had been the only one able to transform the egotistical, womanizing jockstrap he once was into a normal boyfriend. Ever since they broke up, I always assumed that Eddie would be the one pining until the end of eternity while Beth never looked back. Apparently, I was wrong. “How did that happen?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know. He called me last Monday… no, wait, Tuesday… and he asked me if I wanted to grab dinner with him but I was at work… well, actually I was driving home from work, so…”

“So to make a long story longer…”

She smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Well, basically, he’d been calling me a lot lately and at first it was just friendly, but eventually we smoothed over some unresolved issues that we still had from our past. I started thinking about him a lot and wondering if I did the right thing by breaking up with him. So I stopped over his house the other night and it just happened. It was, well… it was nice, actually.”

I burst out laughing. “It was
nice?
Beth, I don’t think Eddie would be too happy if you described your bedroom romp with him as nice. Crazy, wall-shaking, earth-shattering, explosive, orgasmic, any of those adjectives would be complimentary. But whatever you do, don’t tell Eddie it was
nice
.”

She giggled. “Hey, a
t least
I
got some action
. That’s more than I can say for you.”

“I’m working on it. So what now? You gonna break poor little Eddie’s heart again?”

She shrugged and finished the last sip of her coffee. “We’ll see what happens.”

As if it were ever that simple.

***

I was officially having one of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong did. Not only had a wire fallen on top of the train on the way to work, causing me to arrive almost an hour late, but Angela was out sick, so my evil boss, Elaine, had forced me to venture out of my resume writing hole and help out with the recruiting side of the business, which was not what I had signed up for. To make matters worse, one of our clients had just made our candidate a job offer, but when I called the candidate to deliver the good news, he replied by saying he wanted more money.

“Javier,” I said, trying to stay calm. “Before we sent you to the interview, Angela told you that the salary for the position was sixty-thousand, right?”

“Yes,” he replied. “But I just got another job offer for seventy thousand, so unless they can match that, I’m going to take the other offer.”

I went through the scripted motions – negotiating health benefits, retirement plans, vacation time – but the guy wouldn’t budge. I really couldn’t blame him for taking the other offer but I was dreading the fact that I was going to have to relay this information to my high-strung, neurotic, on-the-brink-of-insanity boss.

“Hey, Elaine,” I greeted, walking into her office. “I have to talk to you about Javier.” Elaine’s eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of her head by the time I finished explaining the situation. Every conversation with her stressed me out because she asked so many damn questions and always seemed like she was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I swear it was because she drank too much coffee.

“Well, how could this happen?” she asked. “Didn’t Angela tell him the salary range?”

Obviously, I thought to myself. No, she didn’t tell him the salary. She wanted it to be a fucking surprise.

“Of course,” I answered, practicing my deep breathing yoga techniques while counting all the reasons I needed a steady paycheck. “But he just got another job offer for ten thousand dollars more a year, and
the
maximum salary budget for the position is sixty thousand.”

“Well, did he mention to anyone that he was interviewing elsewhere?” she probed, tossing her hands in the air. “We always have to find out if they’re interviewing somewhere else and find out how their other opportunities compare to this one.” I nodded furiously, feigning my best attentive skills, but all I could think about was how her bulging eyes resembled those goldfish with the giant eyeballs that looked detached from their head.

“I’m sure she asked him,” I replied. “She’s usually pretty good at gathering all the details when speaking to candidates.”

“Well, when was the last time she talked to him? We need to check in with candidates every few days because if they’re on the market, they could get an interview at the drop of a hat.”

How did this happen? How did I end up in corporate hell?

After Elaine finally agreed to call
the
hiring manager to work out the logistics, I sat back down at my desk and sighed, wondering how many people in the world hated their job as much as I did. I cursed Justine for sleeping with my boyfriend because, had she possessed an ounce of loyalty and kept her mitts off my man, I’d still be working my dream job writing articles about the music industry. But then I realized that if I was still in L.A., I’d still be dating some cheating man whore and living with a two-faced traitor, which wasn’t much of an alternative. And most importantly, if I hadn’t moved back here, I never would’ve met Dylan.

As if picking up on my thoughts, my cell phone vibrated and I was greeted by Dylan on the other end. A chipper tone had replaced the usual brooding ‘tude.

“I have good news,” he said.

He informed me that because of Electric Wreck’s successful turnout at Chaos, they had been invited to play at a benefit concert in New York City with a few other east coast bands. The proceeds of the event went to an organization that helped with teenage drug addiction, and Dylan was beyond excited about Electric Wreck’s exposure to a new crowd.

“So, what do you think?” he asked me, after relaying all the details.

“I think it sounds great. I’m really happy for you.”

He started laughing. “I wasn’t asking if you thought it was a great opportunity, that’s an obvious fact. I was asking to see what you thought about coming with me.”

That caught me completely off guard. I hadn’t expected him to invite me to tag along. “Are you sure you’d want me to go?”

“Of course,” he answered, his voice softe
ning. “Renee, I know I can be a
dick sometimes, but honestly, none of this ever would’ve happened if it weren’t for you. Even if I don’t show it, I really am grateful that you pushed me into this whole thing.”

“Thanks. You know I only pushed you because I knew you could do it.”

“Yeah, well, trust me, I wasn’t grateful at first. I could’ve killed you before that first show, but it’s been getting a little bit easier each time.”

“Told you so.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “So what do you say? You in?”

“Nah, I think you should go without me.”

Silence. “Why? I really want you there.”

I burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding. Of course I’ll go. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Awesome,” he piped up. “Each band only gets to play three songs each, so I’m going to need you to come by and help me decide which songs I should play. And also, Jeff’s buddy has a recording studio, so he’s going to help us record a demo with a few songs on it to give out to the kids at the show.” He was
talking so fast
that I thought for a second he’d morphed into Beth.

“Oh, and I almost forgot,” he continued. “I’m going to make the hotel reservations today, and, since places in New York aren’t cheap, I was thinking you should probably crash with me, if that’s cool. I think Justin and Jeff are going to share a room and Christian is going to bunk up with
his
girlfriend.” He paused. “So… what do you think?”

I sighed. If only he knew.

Chapter
14

There’s something about New York City that is different from any other city in the world. It’s unexplainable, really, because you can’t put the excitement of the energy into words, it’s just something you can feel. The busy atmosphere,
the buzzing nightlife, the diversity of people, it’s all so overwhelming that you feel like you might miss something if you take your eyes off it for a second.

The first time I visited New York City was with Justine. We were eighteen, our first out-of-town adventure as adults. We’d taken the Fungwah bus from South Station to Manhattan to see the Black Crowes play at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I remember stepping off the bus and taking everything in as we roamed the streets, feeling like I’d lived there in another life. And upon arriving home in Boston, I’d always felt the inexplicable pull to go back.

Justin, Jeff and Christian came with us in Dylan’s van, along with Christian’s girlfriend Bianca. She was a tiny little peanut with long black hair and a shy smile. She didn’t look a day over twenty-one. I tried to make small talk, but small talk was quite the understatement. She was even more of a reluctant conversationalist than Jeff.

Our hotel was located six blocks from Times Square, the closest place we’d been able to find for under two-hundred bucks a night that also provided free on-site parking. Dylan and I agreed to meet everyone in the lobby at six o’clock so we could all head over to the theater where the show was taking place.

I had to admit, for less than two bills a night, our room wasn’t too shabby, although I was slightly disappointed that it contained two double beds inside of one king-sized. My x-rated fantasies took over as soon as we set foot inside the room, as I watched the way Dylan roved back and forth, in the same swift manner he moved around the stage. I was curious if he had the same powerful intensity in bed that he had on stage, and if he put all his emotions into sex the way he did with music.