Fear and Laundry (28 page)

“Listen,” I said quietly to her as she turned to leave. “Lia doesn’t speak for me. That day in the cafeteria, I’d have accepted your apology.”

She said she’d figured as much, which was why she’d tried to talk to me alone. “You’re alright, Veronica,” she told me, and actually shook my hand before going off to meet up with Sasha, who’d just come in the door.

***

T
he bands shared a drum kit and other equipment that night to shorten the transitions between sets. When Good Television left the stage, another group quickly took their place.

A few of Katrina’s friends left our table to stand by the stage and Melina and Alex joined us instead. Jake did too, once he’d fought his way through the crowd of people stopping him to congratulate him on the great set. When he finally made it to the table, he sat down beside me and smiled, but still didn’t say much or touch me. Caleb and the other members of Good Television stopped by throughout the night, and Jake introduced me to each of them as his “friend.” It wasn’t quite the status I aspired to, but it was nice to be reassured he didn’t hate me.

Between performances, people chatted and took pictures of one another in front of Brendan Connor’s
Eraserhead
mural. At one point I watched Katrina pose in front of “Henry” and tried not to think about some stranger moving in here soon, and painting over his face.

When the last band had played, Trent took down the photo of Scott that Roy kept on a shelf by the door and went up to the microphone. He told all of us he and Scott first met when Scott had been skateboarding in the street and Trent had almost run over him with his pick-up. “I’d just gotten my license. I was a shitty driver and it was totally my fault. You’d think he’d have been pissed,” said Trent, “but he seemed to feel worse about the whole thing than I did. He invited me over to his house for dinner.” That was who Scott had been, Trent said, and despite their age difference, the two of them had become good friends over the following year. “I’m just sorry,” said Trent shakily, “that I didn’t have longer to get to know him before...well, you know.”

When he was done talking, Trent passed the photo and mic to someone else in the crowd and they told a little story about Scott, too. People took turns recounting their favorite “Scott memories” like that for a while. It was fitting, since Scott was the reason we were here, the reason Roy had opened Lynch’s in the first place. Even so, it saddened me. Especially when Roy took the microphone and photo and, with tears in his eyes, thanked all of us (Lia, by name) for trying so hard to save the business he’d opened in his son’s honor.

He told us all not to feel bad about Lynch’s closing. He said Scott had really loved performance art. To him, it’d represented “moments that came and went and only held meaning for the lucky few who'd been present when they happened.” He said Scott would probably have viewed Lynch’s closing from that perspective, and wouldn’t have lamented the place’s short lifespan. “He’d have embraced and accepted it, even seen the beauty in it,” Roy said, sniffling. “So we should, too.”

***

I
didn’t really talk to Jake again until the show was over. When most everyone else had gone, Lia and I approached Roy and asked him if he needed any help packing up the building tomorrow. He told us he’d appreciate it and we told him we’d come by around noon. Then Lia left with Jonathan, and Paige left with Katrina, leaving Jake and I standing alone out front.

“Need a ride?” he asked me.

“No. Believe it or not, my mother actually let me drive her car again.” I took Mom’s key ring from my pocket and held it up. The hotel keys were conspicuously absent.

“You have a curfew?”

“One o’clock,” I told him, playing with the keys.

“What time’s it now?”

I pulled up the sleeve of my flannel and looked at my watch. “Eleven sixteen.”

“Wanna take a drive with me?” He’d have me back in time, he promised.

I felt a surge of hope. “Not sick of hauling me around town yet?”

“Not yet.”

***

W
hen Jake pulled into the Cell Farm parking lot, it was deserted except for two other vehicles. A few lights were still on in the store, but it was clearly empty.

“It’s closed,” I observed.

“Yep,” he said. But then he got out of the van and came around to open my door anyway.

When we reached the storefront, he rang a doorbell practically hidden between two bricks in the wall. About a minute later, a twenty-something guy in a maroon polo shirt and glasses jogged up and unlocked the glass doors to let us in.

“There you are, man,” the guy said to Jake. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his long brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail. “I was beginning to wonder.” He smiled at me and his squinty eyes almost disappeared behind his wire-framed lenses. “This her?”

“This is Nic,” said Jake. “I mean Veronica. Montez. Nic, this is Benji,” he told me. I shook his boss’s hand and told him it was nice to meet him. A pretty, spiky-haired blonde girl in a matching polo shirt came out of an office near the cashier’s stands to join us. Benji introduced her as Allyson.

“Everything’s set,” Benji told Jake. “Just like you wanted. So we’re gonna go.” He handed Jake a set of keys, telling him he was “trusting” him.

“Don’t worry, man,” said Jake.

Benji slapped him on the shoulder, told me it’d been "a pleasure" and then left with Allyson.

“What’s going on?” I asked Jake as he locked the doors after them.

“What do you mean?”

“Very funny. I mean why are we here?”

“Why do people usually come to a video store?”

I frowned. “For movies.”

“Exactly.” He walked over to the soda fountain situated near the door and pulled two cups from the dispenser. “Diet Coke, right?”

“Yeah...”

The fountain hadn’t been shut down for the night and he poured me the drink, put a lid and straw in it and handed it to me. Then he took a bottle of Mountain Dew out of the cooler beside the register and led me to two office chairs set up in the center of the store. A big tub of Maribel movie theater popcorn sat on the floor between them. He told me to have a seat so I did, and found myself facing a bank of dead television monitors mounted high on the wall.

I’d been in the store during business hours enough times to know these screens normally broadcast trailers for upcoming video releases. Jake went behind one of the customer information desks, and I could hear him pushing buttons and flipping switches back there. My curiosity had almost gotten the best of me and I was about to call out and ask him just what he was doing, when the screens blinked to life and a movie began playing mid-scene. I laughed when I thought I recognized it.

“Is this
Hellraiser 2
?” I said when he came to sit beside me.

“
Hellbound
,” he confirmed. “You never got to see the end.”

***

“W
ell, that was pretty disgusting,” I said when the movie was over.

“So you liked it?”

“Totally.” I thanked him for the trouble he must’ve gone to to set this up.

“Yeah, well. It was mostly Benji and Allyson.” Benji had made all of the in-store preparations and Allyson had brought the popcorn over from her other part-time job at the Maribel, a few blocks away.

“But it was your idea.”

“Sort of. I have to give credit where it’s due. I didn’t watch all those eighties romances with Lia eight million times without learning anything,” he smiled.

Watching the end of the movie had only taken about fifteen minutes, so we had some time left to sit and talk. We discussed the closing of Lynch’s, the final show, how touching the tributes to Scott had been. Eventually, I told him about the things George had said to my mother about me. I said I’d turned the criticisms over in my mind while I’d been grounded, decided he was right and resolved to work harder and try to be a better person from now on. Jake said he thought I was fine the way I was. I believed he did, and it made me happy.

After a pause, Jake leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He told me how glad he was he hadn’t completely ruined things between us after all. I told him he must’ve felt pretty confident things would work out alright in the end, given what he’d asked Benji and Allyson to do tonight.

He said he’d hoped he could salvage things, or at the very least convince me to come to Cell Farm and accept his apology. “But I had my doubts,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I was worried I might’ve scared you off for good.”

I was surprised by his choice of words, reminded of my conversation at Lynch’s with Paige. “Scared me?”

“You sure ran off in a hurry,” he explained, amused. “I thought you might be telling the truth, about not really liking me,” he shrugged a little. “But I figured you were more likely just afraid of getting involved.”

I was amazed at his insight, given that even I hadn’t known what was going on with me until Paige had spelled it out.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“I was there, Nic,” he said wryly. "I felt it, too. And you can deny it all you want, but I felt you kiss me back.”

I blushed, not knowing what to say.

He picked up the mostly-empty popcorn bucket and held it out to me. I shook my head and he sat back to finish what was left. “So do I still scare you?” he wondered, picking through the popcorn.

“You don’t,” I said, draining my soda cup and rattling the ice in the bottom. “But how you make me feel does.”

“How’s that?”

“I dunno.” I thought about what Paige had said. “Out of control?”

“Really.” He seemed pleased.

I laughed, and we sat a while longer, talking about other things.

I thought he might try to kiss me again, but he didn’t.

***

H
e didn’t until we were back in Lynch’s parking lot, walking together to where my mother’s car sat near the building, parked beneath a fluorescent lamp.

I thanked him for everything and told him I’d had a great time. He said he was glad. I stopped beside the car but he walked a little past it, turning and leaning against Lynch’s brick wall with his hands in his jacket pockets and watching me intently.

“C’mere,” he said.

I laughed nervously. “What? Why?” But I knew why.

“Come on,” he urged. “Get over here.”

When I reached him, he drew me close and cupped my face, stroking my jaw with his thumb. He slid his hand down, resting it over my pounding heart. “Shhh,” he said into my ear. “It’s okay.” Then he moved my hair aside, lightly nipped my earlobe and brushed his lips along my neck, tugging the collar of my shirt down to kiss the hollow of my throat. Then he was turning with me, putting my back gently against the wall and pressing his mouth to mine.

The same disconcerting sensation I’d had that day at the school radiated through me again, but this time I didn’t pull away. Instead I leaned into the feeling, knowing he was right: it
was
okay. Okay to let go, relinquish a little control and just trust him.

When we finally broke apart, I rested my head against his shoulder, curling my hands in his jacket to steady myself. “I’ve got to go,” I said, looking at my watch.

“Alright,” he said hoarsely, moving aside just enough to let me pass.

I got in the car and sat with my hands on the steering wheel for a second, trying to settle down before driving. But his knock on my window sent my heart racing again. At his gesture, I got back out of the car.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He looked the way I felt: flushed, bothered. Without a word, he pulled me to him and, leaning with me against the car, kissed me again.

***

I
lay awake for hours that night, alternately excited about what’d happened with Jake and a little afraid it might not mean what I hoped it did. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I finally drifted off just as the sun came up.

My anxiety resurfaced when I woke up again around eleven. I knew I wouldn’t feel better until I saw Jake again and gauged his reaction to me, so I showered and dressed and headed to Lynch’s.

Paige and Jonathan had both had to work, but Lia was already at the Laundromat helping Roy and April gather things up and haul furniture into a moving truck. She seemed a lot more upset than either of the Connors. When I came into the dining room, she was behind the counter, wrapping coffee mugs in newspaper and packing them into a box.

“You gonna be okay?” I asked her.

She looked at me with puffy, red-rimmed eyes, smiling thinly but not answering.

There were other venues, I reminded her.

“Yeah, but they all suck.”

Everything would turn out fine, I said. She’d see.

“How can you say that?” Her eyes sparkled and I thought she might cry again. Lynch’s was special, she said.

“It was special,” I agreed, “but it was just a place. You heard what Roy said last night.” I tried to reiterate his speech, about the beauty of fleeting moments and everything, but somehow it didn’t come out right when I said it.

I knew she viewed everything that’d happened lately as her personal failure, and there was probably nothing I could say or do to convince her otherwise. But I hoped that with time she might manage to make peace with it and be okay.

If not, I thought, I would personally hunt down Clyde Kameron and hurt him.

Wanting to redirect her attention, I told her Jake had kissed me again last night.

“Oh,” she said. Her entire body language changed, her face lighting up. She clapped her hands and bugged me for details about where we’d gone after the show. I came around the counter to help her pack the mugs, and filled her in. When I described the special screening Jake had arranged, she said it was “just like” that scene in
Some Kind of Wonderful
when Eric Stoltz takes Lea Thompson to the museum after hours. I told her I’d known she would say that.

Jake finally showed up a little later, hardly pausing to greet anyone else on his way to my side. When he came behind the counter, Lia slugged him in the shoulder and smiled knowingly at him. Before he could respond, she bounced away, having regained a little of her usual energy.