Rachel Burke - Sound Bites

“Renee.”

Her eyes circled the room, then she leaned forward in her seat and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you want to meet me for a smoke at the Groves after school?”

“Sure,” I agreed. I’d never smoked a cigarette in my life, but it seemed ideal for an otherwise uneventful Monday afternoon.

The Groves were located in the back of the Rockland High football field, a giant spread of woods where kids would meet at the end of the day to smoke cigarettes, get high or arrange fist fights with their opposing enemy of the week. Justine led me down to a secluded spot, then took a seat on the ground and handed me a Marlboro red. When I took my first drag and started coughing like an amateur, she broke into a fit of laughter.

“Never smoked before, huh?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I just spent the last eight years in a Catholic school. The most rebellious thing that kids ever did there was sniff White Out.”

That made her laugh harder. Laugh is an inappropriate word actually, because Justine didn’t laugh, she giggled. And it was contagious. No matter what kind of mood I was in, all it took was Justine’s infectious, childlike giggle to snap me out of it.

I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but there was something about Justine that I was instantly drawn to. Maybe it was her constant paradox of innocence and mischief, or the way she loved music the same way I did. All I knew was that, up until that point, I’d always felt like an outsider, but when I was around Justine, it was different. I’d found someone who was just like me.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lying face-up on the grass, Justine twirling her long brown locks with her left hand and chain-smoking with her right. We exchanged grunge fashion favorites and sexual experiences. We quizzed each other on alternative one-hit wonders and compiled a list of CDs to trade. We took Polaroids of ourselves upside down in the grass and howled over the results.

When it started getting dark, Justine walked me to the top of my street. Before crossing to head home, she removed a Polaroid of us from her purse and pressed it into my hand.

“Keep it,” she said, smiling. Then she turned and walked away.

***

After our high-school graduation, Justine and I wasted no time plotting our escape out of the hells of Rockland. The small-town scene wasn’t for us, and we craved a destination full of skanky rock clubs, sweaty musicians, and lots of nightlife. So, six months after receiving our acceptance letters to UCLA, we made the forty-two-hour drive west to the city of Lost Angels.

So many things I never would have imagined. Living in L.A. was like one long vacation. We oo’ed and ah’ed over all the things we didn’t have back home, the little things that homegrown Los Angelites undoubtedly took for granted: In-N-Out Burger, twenty-four-hour diners, the ninety-nine cent supermarket. We spent our days on Venice Beach and our nights on the Sunset Strip, enamored with the seedy sinkholes that lined the majority of West Hollywood. Occasionally we’d throw aside the rock gear, layer ourselves in scarves and high heels and pretend we fit in with the high-class L.A. sector, treating ourselves to fruity champagne drinks at the Ivy, Santa Monica shopping, rooftop pool parties at the Standard. California, aside from the overpopulation and traffic, was heaven on earth.

During my senior year, I landed an internship as a music columnist for Pace, a local magazine that specialized in all aspects of the über-hip L.A. scene from fashion to nightlife. It was there that I met my boyfriend, Pace’s sports editor, David Whitman, a broad-shouldered, macho-masculine jock whom I had virtually nothing in common with. However, his charm and matching dimples were a socially and ethically acceptable diversion from this roadblock.

Originally, I had assumed that once our four-year UCLA stint was complete, Justine and I would move back east to be with our families. But now the thought of giving up the daily dose of L.A. excitement in exchange for bleak Boston winters and small-town gossip didn’t seem the least bit appealing. So, after several heart-to-heart discussions over martinis, Justine and I made the unanimous decision that we were here to stay.

The plan was set. We’d renew our lease and driver’s licenses. We’d land real jobs, ones that paid us in wages instead of school credits. We’d let our families know we’d be home to visit every summer and every Christmas, and make a list of all the things we loved about L.A. in case we ever got homesick.

Then one day, something happened that ruined our plan completely. It was the day that I walked in on Justine and my boyfriend in bed together.

I was in desperate need of an apartment, although apartment hunting scored a pretty low ranking on the list of my favorite activities. Whatever qualities one apartment had, the other usually lacked, and vice versa. There were the expensive places in a great location, the reasonably priced places in a not-so-great location, and the dumps. And when you have a slowly dwindling post-college fund and no roommate to share rent expenses, you usually aim for something between the middle and the latter of those three options.

I had entertained the idea of a roommate for one brief, fleeting moment, but every classified ad I came across only reminded me of the outcome of my last roommate.

I ended up settling for a small one-bedroom on the second floor of a complex about three blocks away from Central Square in downtown Boston. The hallways smelled like a nursing home and were lined with painted bricks, like a high-school bathroom, but it was one of the only places in town that included free parking, a high selling point for someone who loathes the public transportation system. I also wasn’t too keen on living in a complex since I feared the combination of thin walls and loud neighbors, but luckily it was a small complex with about twenty apartments, not the kind with fifty floors and elevators up the wazoo.

I had barely moved one box into my new place before my cell phone rang again. When you move across the country and land a new job and a new boyfriend, your life becomes interesting at best. When you walk in on your best friend and boyfriend in bed together, your life becomes tabloid fodder.

“Hi, Mom,” I greeted, holding the phone with one hand and attempting to unpack with the other.

“Hi, honey.” I could hear the pity already. It practically seeped through the phone. “How’s the moving coming along?”

“About the same since the last time you asked.”

“Sorry,” she said, unapologetically. “You sure you don’t need any help?”

“No, I’m almost done,” I said, which was a lie. I’d spent about ninety-five percent of my day thus far on my cell phone, and the other five percent moving, which meant I’d brought exactly one box of clothing and a lamp up to my place.

“Okay, well I want you to know that I’ve been praying for you,” she said. “Everything will work out for the best, Renee. You’ll see.”

Sadly, I had shared this same belief at one time. Now, it just sounded like my mother’s usual Jesus jarble.

“So…” She paused, and I knew what was coming next. “Have you heard from Justine at all since you’ve been home?”

“No. I think she finally got the hint after I ignored the eighty-five sobbing voicemails she left me.”

Another pause. “Honey, I know this is hard for you. But don’t you at least want to talk to her about it?”

“No, Mom, I don’t,” I said flatly. “And frankly, if I never talk to her again, that would be fine with me.”