Fear and Laundry (2 page)

The guys Paige had been talking to earlier had cleared out, leaving the room empty except for us. As our table fell silent, every other sound seemed too loud to me: the wind whipping faster and faster past the windows; Roy and April cleaning up the kitchen; Dustin stapling another zine together. “Um, who were you talking to on the phone?” I asked Lia.

Like the front room, Lynch’s dining room was entirely outfitted from flea market and garage sale leftovers, so nothing matched. Lia took one of a variety of chairs away from a nearby dining table that’d probably represented the height of home furnishings in 1974, dragged it up beside mine and Dustin’s picnic bench and sat in it backwards. Between bites of her sandwich she explained that she’d called her mother. “I knew she had a meeting at the museum this morning. I wanted to know what she found out. They still haven’t heard from Clyde.” She paused, chewing.

Clyde Kameron sang for Blank Fiction. He wasn’t the biggest name in rock music or anything, but he was Carreen, Texas’s principal claim to fame. Eight years ago, he’d gone to Carreen High, like we did now. But he’d dropped out half way through the tenth grade, when his band had gotten signed. He’d left town, and although he’d dumped the other two original members of Blank Fiction pretty soon after that, the band’s new incarnation had earned Clyde two gold records – forcing my mom to stop telling me high school drop outs never amounted to anything. His brush with national fame might’ve fizzled out a few years back, but most everyone in Carreen under age thirty still loved Clyde at least a little because of what he represented: the hometown kid made good.

Lia, though, was crazy for him.

Late last year, the Carreen College Museum had announced a planned exhibit honoring area musicians and Lia’d led an aggressive campaign to get Clyde in. The museum hadn’t wanted to feature anyone “contemporary” (read: cool) but, due to a considerable show of public support, had grudgingly agreed to include Clyde and invited him to appear at the exhibit’s dedication. So far he hadn’t accepted. Lia’d been hounding her mother, who was on one of the museum’s fundraising committees, for word about his possible appearance for months.

“I figure they’ve gotta hear from him really soon,” Lia said. “I mean, the dedication’s set for September fourth.”

“That’s the day of the benefit,” remarked Dustin.

“Duh,” said Lia. “Why do you think I scheduled the show for then?” When Dustin just stared at her blankly, she went on, as though talking to a four year old. “If Clyde’s gonna be in town for the dedication anyway, there’s no reason he can’t stop by the benefit, too...”

Paige made a derisive sound. “That seriously your plan?”

“What if it is?” Lia challenged.

“Please. You’re deluded if you think Clyde Kameron is ever coming back to Carreen, much less playing
here.
”

“This is his hometown,” said Lia.

Paige ran a fingertip around the rim of her mug. “Yeah, so? He doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass what goes on here anymore.”  

She had a point. Clyde hadn’t been back once since he’d left, and had never so much as mentioned his hometown in any interview I’d seen. It was as if he’d forgotten all about Carreen the minute he’d gotten out. Not that I could say I blamed him.

“And why should he?” Paige continued, voicing my thought. She wouldn’t, either, she informed us, once she got the hell out of Carreen and escaped back to Dallas.

Lia’s gray eyes flashed and I could tell she wanted to rip into our bassist, maybe tell her she’d gladly help Paige’s cause by kicking her ass out of town right now. But she held her tongue, instead tearing a French fry into little bits, angrily mashing the pieces to a greasy pulp between her fingers. I caught her eye and gave her a weak smile, trying to be supportive. I’d never had the heart to tell her even I didn’t think it was likely Clyde would ever be back, no matter how many accolades the town offered him.

Bored with Lia and me and the subject of Clyde, Paige turned her attention to flirting with Dustin, eventually asking if what she’d heard was true, that he was a mean pool player. When he answered he was, she stood up, came around the table, and challenged him to prove it.

April had emerged from behind the counter to refill sugar containers and stood close enough to hear this. “Use the back table,” she instructed Paige, popping her bubble gum. “The front one’s jammed. It keeps taking everyone’s money.”

Dustin dropped the stapler without even glancing at me, and jumped to his feet. I watched him splay his fingers against Paige’s lower back, just above the curve of her behind, and eagerly steer her into the game room.

“No way
,
” said Lia. “You don’t think they’re gonna...
you know
?” Of course I did. A girl playing pool with Dustin Tran only ever led to one thing. I should know.

“Whatever,” I said, a knot forming in my stomach.

I glanced over to where April stood with a half-empty sugar shaker in her hand, looking disapproving but unsurprised. Even “Henry” from
Eraserhead
, peering wide-eyed over her shoulder, seemed to say he told me so. I looked away again.

“See the way she looked at you when you told her she’d have to pay for that zine?” I asked Lia, scratching the side of my nose.

“I know. She’s such a psycho. If she weren’t, like, the only decent bass player we could get on short notice...” Biting a fry in half, she gestured at the zine pages. “C’mon. Let’s finish this and get out of here.”

I nodded sullenly, picked up the stapler, and got to work finishing what Dustin had begun.

***

H
alf an hour later, Lia and I dropped a stack of fliers and twenty-four copies of the zine at the lunch counter. As usual, we kept the twenty-fifth issue of the
Slate
to mail off to Clyde Kameron himself, along with a handwritten note from Lia taped to the inside cover. Borrowing a felt tip pen from April, Lia scratched Clyde’s address, care of his management company, onto the back of the zine and stuck a stamp in its corner.

We said goodbye to the Connors and went into the game room, where Dustin and Paige stood together beside the back pool table, their game, if they’d ever started one, abandoned. Smoke snaked away from the end of a lit cigarette in Dustin’s hand and I focused on the patterns it made as it drifted to the ceiling. So I wouldn’t have to watch him put his tongue in Paige’s mouth.

Outside the storm was dying down but hadn’t completely abated. We crossed the street so Lia could drop Clyde’s copy of
The Blank Slate
into the battered mailbox on the corner and then hurried back to Lynch’s parking lot. I shielded my face against the wind but wound up with stinging eyes and a mouthful of dirt anyway.

When we were safely in Lia’s Dodge Dart, she asked if I was okay. The wind howled and buffeted the car. Knowing what she wanted to hear, I said I was fine and pretended my eyes were just watering because of the dirt in them.

***

M
y mother was at work and I was home alone when Lia called the next day. I told her I didn’t feel like hanging out. When she insisted on coming over, I relented and told her I’d leave the front door unlocked so she could let herself in.

I lay in bed watching
Friday the 13
^th
when she showed up and knocked on my bedroom door. I muted the television, calling at her to come in.

“The fetal position? Seriously?” she said when she saw me lying on my side with my knees drawn up. Her car didn’t have air conditioning and she was clearly suffering the effects of the hot drive over, her face ruddy and the neck of her tank-top dark with sweat. A wide headband held her coppery brown hair back from her damp forehead, and she had a black and white composition book tucked under one arm. When I didn’t answer her, she closed the door, sending one of my stuffed penguins tumbling off a shelf to disappear into a heap of dirty laundry.

“C’mon,” she said, carefully picking her way across the cluttered floor. “What’re you even going to miss about him?”

“Gotta admit he’s pretty,” I said.

“Pretty dumb,” she countered.

I had to give her that.

“And you hated that he smokes,” she reminded me, shoving my feet out of her way so she could sit.

“I know.”

“You’re better off.”

“You’re probably right,” I admitted.

“Course I am. You need a boyfriend, Vee. A real one. Dustin likes to mess around, but he’s not exactly a relationship type of guy. You know?”

“Believe me, I know.” I rolled onto my back and stared at the Freddy Krueger poster tacked to the ceiling.

Lia was quiet for a few seconds, but I could feel her staring at me. I imagined she was trying to generate some sympathy. And failing. “So, what?” she finally asked. “You just gonna lie here sucking your thumb, you big baby?”

I stuck my thumb in my mouth. “Yeth.”

“Get up. We have stuff to do.”

I took out my thumb and tried to wipe spit on Lia’s arm, but she just knocked my hand away without even flinching. What, I wondered aloud, could possibly be important enough to interrupt my pity party?

“You know we need to find a fill-in guitarist. We can’t let Sierra’s stint in rehab-camp sideline us.” The show, she said, must go on.

Could we also, I wanted to know, get a new bassist while we were at it?

“What for?”

I hated Paige, I told her, and had decided I couldn’t stand being in a band with a boyfriend stealer.

“Didn’t we just settle this? Dustin wasn’t your boyfriend,” sighed Lia. He was just the latest example of my very poor taste in men. “And I hate Paige, too. But we’re kind of on a time crunch here. So I’m gonna need you to, you know, suck it up.”

Just what guitarist were we supposed to get? I asked hopelessly. “All the decent, non-psycho musicians are already in other bands.” Or had she forgotten why we’d ended up with Paige in the first place?

“I wrote down some possibilities.” She opened her composition book, all business, and scanned a scribbled list. “There’s...Lana Philbin.”

I gave her a thumb down.

“Tessa Rodriguez?”

“Ugh.”

“Nalin Khapur.”

“What is this? Your inventory of the crappiest musicians in Carreen?”

“Okay, Ms. Expert,” Lia admonished, reminding me I’d only started learning drums a couple of weeks ago myself. I knew she was right, but felt too petulant to cooperate.

“Can we do this later?” I pleaded.

She made a face, but shut the notebook. “Fine. What do you want to do instead?”

I wanted to lie there and sulk in peace, I said. Maybe watch all of the
Friday the 13
^th
sequels back to back.

“You’ve got a messed up way of comforting yourself,” she told me for the umpteenth time. She glanced at the muted television screen, where Kevin Bacon was getting it in the neck with a harpoon. If it were her, she said, shuddering and turning back to me, she’d watch
Pretty in Pink
and suck down a vat of ice cream. Like a normal person. Or better yet, she wouldn’t bother being upset at all. Not over Dustin Tran. Not that she’d have ever touched
him
to begin with.

“I thought you were coming over here to make me feel better?” I pulled a pillow over my face.

Wrong, she said. She was here to bring me back to reality.

I lifted a corner of the pillow just high enough so she could hear me, telling her I didn’t want to come back. I was perfectly fine wallowing here in my cocoon of cathartic, staged violence, thanks. “Go away,” I groaned.

She ripped the pillow from my hands and tossed it aside, telling me I couldn’t brood forever. It was unhealthy and she forbade it.

“It’s been twenty four hours,” I said.

I should at least come over to her house and mope
there
for a while, she told me. “My idiot brother showed up out of nowhere last night and he’s already driving me insane.”

“Jake? What’s he doing here?” Other than briefly at Christmas breaks, I hadn’t seen Lia’s brother in almost two years. Hardly an “idiot,” he’d graduated early and left for college the year Lia and I were sophomores. He was pre-med at UT Austin and his junior year should be starting any day now. I couldn’t imagine why he’d suddenly return.

“He’s decided to ‘take some time off’ from school...or something.” She gazed around the room. “Honestly, Vee, I don’t know how you can sleep in here. And I don’t just mean because of all your scary-ass posters.” She booted aside a pile of my stuff, clearing a space to stand up in. She was, she said, talking about the nightmarishly messy living conditions. “Just being in here for five minutes makes me...itch,” she said, scratching both arms.

I ignored her attempt to change the subject. “Time off?” I repeated, sitting up. “You mean he’s dropping out?”

Lia exhaled. “I don’t know details. All I know is my parents are pretty pissed this morning. Something about ‘flushing away a full scholarship.’” She made air-quotes with her fingers. “Or maybe they said it was his future he was pissing away? I dunno. Something was definitely going down a toilet.”

“That sounds serious, Lia. Didn’t you ask him what’s going on?”

She looked appalled by the idea. “You know I try to talk to him as little as possible.”

“He’s not so bad,” I said. She gave me a skeptical look. “Well, he’s nice to
me
,” I said, patting the bed clothes in search of the remote.

“So I’ve noticed. That’s why you have to come over. Run interference before he lands me in an asylum.”

I stopped the movie and switched off the television. “So you think he’s back for a while?” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and touched my striped socks to the only other patch of bare floor, kicking crap around in an effort to find my shoes.

“Probably,” she said miserably.

I put my feet into a beat up pair of Cons I’d uncovered and double-knotted the laces. “Maybe we could convince
him
to play with us?” Before he’d moved away, Jake played guitar in one of my favorite local bands, Burro Bruto. He could really shred.

“No way,” said Lia. “It’s bad enough I have to live with him again. I’m not letting him infiltrate my band, too.”