Page 3 of Resonance
“They’re a real thing,” Ru assured me.
“I know, thanks for reminding me.” I was so low in my seat now that my eyes were level with the dash. But then again, I was short. “Lars Priest referred to me as a titty baby.” I could almost,almostlaugh at it now because who even said that?
“Ugh. That guy sucks anyway. He sounds like he swallowed a cat in heat and the kittens are locked in some Battle Royale inside his vocal chords.”
“Think you missed a crucial step there,” I pointed out and straightened a little. “Shouldn’t there be a method of insemination somewhere?”
“It’s the imagery that’s important, not the logic, O. Go with it. It might also be why I haven’t finished an album yet. But anyway, Lars called you a titty baby and he’s a douche. No loss.”
“I told him.”
“No you didn’t.”
“I did. Didn’t even stumble until the end. Then I almost threw up in the parking lot because I should’ve just taken the high road.”
Ru cackled. “The high road is boring. Smooth asphalt, no curves.Lonely. Low road is where it’s at. Breakneck speed around the curves. Kick up a cloud of dust for all the merry assholes behind ya. Fuck ’em all.”
“Eh.” It was a nice picture, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “I’ll get over it.” That much was true because I’d had a lot of practice at it.
“Want me to cover your shift tomorrow so you can wallow properly?Ascension Gameis complete now. You could binge on the entire series. I can bring by some wings.”
I dropped my keys in the console and mashed the button to start the car. “Nah. I need the hours to fund the coke habit I’m gonna require to ever get on a stage again.”
Once I got backto my apartment, I kicked off my shoes, peeled off my clothes, and flung myself onto my mattress, ready for sleep to swallow up the disaster of the night.
When my phone chimed, I groaned and fumbled blindly for it, opening up the text from my dad:
Hey son. I’m being re-routed to pick up a shipment in OK. Try to catch up with you next time I pass through.
I silenced the ringer and tossed the phone back on the nightstand.
When I closed my eyes, I saw the bartender’s face, the mask of sympathy peeling back until it became laughter.
Why did my life constantly feel like someone had hit the whammy bar on it?
Chapter 2
There was a time when I’d gotten used to hearing my voice singing back at me. When I’d wander into a gas station or roadhouse or even a damn JC Penney and hear words I’d written floating around me as I stared at a bag of chips, a beer, a package of undershirts. I’d always felt a strange sense disconnection from it all, listening to the tinny, piped-in music while standing in the middle of a grocery store aisle as my mind supplied oversaturated memories of where I’d composed it and tried clumsily to match the two timelines up.
But it took me longer than it should have to recognize one of my songs playing in my own damn record store.
I stopped in the entryway for a second and cocked my head, listening to myself wax bitter on an unreleased done-wrong song as the glass-fronted door thumped against my back.
The automatic chime got stuck as the door shut when I stepped farther inside, anerr errr errrweaving between the croony chorus until I hammered the heel of my palm against the alarm sensor.
The store appeared empty, but just when I was about to get my hackles up about no one being at the front counter, Owen’s tousled head popped through the beaded curtain that led to the rear of the shop where I kept used CDs and a few bins of cassette tapes.
“Shit!” Owen Harper. God Almighty. He was a guy for whom exclamation points were invented. His eyes went cartoonishly wide, and he shoved through the beads, swatting them over his shoulder when they got tangled in his rush toward the counter. “I thought you weren’t coming in today.”
“Thought wrong.”
“But it’s Tuesday. You never come in on—”
“It’s Wednesday.” I lifted a brow, though there was half a second that I thought maybe Iwaswrong. I’d been more scatterbrained lately. Too much happening in the wrong places in my life.
Owen grimaced. “Oh. Yeah. Feels earlier in the week.” He made an apologetic face as he approached while I stuffed a few rolls of receipt paper under the counter.
“What’re you getting up to on Tuesdays that I should know about?”