Andy Abramowitz - Thank You, Goodnight

I said, “Do I look like I fit in anywhere?”

“Well, that is the question, my little yogurt parfait.”

A soft knock interrupted us. A young woman pushed the door ajar and poked her nervous face into the room. She was a slight girl in her early twenties with punky blond hair blanketing her head.

“What is it, Marin?” Alaina snapped. “We’re working.”

“Dave Chenier is on the phone. And he’s really mad.”

“Why?”

“He’s not happy with the way the movie is going. And also, Vernon transferred him to me because you were in a meeting and, um, he didn’t like that.”

Dave Chenier was a well-known actor and pompous prima donna who’d made an appearance in nearly every art-house film of the past fifteen years. The warmest thing I’d ever heard anyone say about him was “No comment.”

Alaina groaned. “Transfer the little vaj to the conference room. I’ll take him in there.”

Marin slunk out, and suddenly I felt just as small and meek as she. My history with Alaina and whatever wells of loyalty still pooled in her backyard might have earned me a meeting, and apparently even a nail on her office wall, but it didn’t get her pissing away valuable time that could’ve been devoted to the service of clients with a name and a future. Maybe Warren was right. Even if the songs were pouring out of me as if some artery had swung free inside, there were just too many other variables to factor in.

I stood. “I should go.”

“Go? Sit your ass down.”

Ignoring her, I walked to the door. “Look, I would appreciate it if you listened and told me what you think, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved.” Before reaching for the handle, I paused and smiled. “It was good to see you too, Alaina.”

She caught me as I waited for an elevator, marching up to me, a hot breath of chic scarlet carving up the lobby. “We don’t walk out on me, Theodore,” she said, clearing her throat. “You may have forgotten the rules.”

“I feel silly being here.” I pressed the elevator button. “Listen to the music if you want, but either way, no hard feelings.”

Her head jerked like I’d just jabbed her on the chin. “What the fuck is that? No hard feelings?” Behind the reception desk, a young man with spiked hair and a pastel-green tie pretended to busy himself by fussing with papers. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Relax.” I was already growing weary of this world I was so intent on charging back into. “I’m just letting you know that I understand all the angles. God, you are so much work.”

“I know what my job is. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it,” she snapped. “But don’t give me your girly little no-hard-feelings routine. It’s a huge turnoff.”

I became conscious of the smattering of people milling about in the waiting area, all quietly enjoying our altercation. I wondered if I looked familiar to them, if they were trying to place me, if they were doing the math in their heads and judging me.

“I have a train to catch,” I said. “We’ll talk later.”

Elevator doors parted, I boarded, and then it somehow occurred to me to flash my trump card, if for no other reason than to gauge its power.

“For what it’s worth, Sonny Rivers loves my new stuff. He wants to make a record.”

As the doors glided smoothly toward each other, Alaina’s bejeweled hand chopped the air between them. The doors cowered back.

“Come off, Triscuit,” she commanded.

I complied.

“Sonny Rivers has heard this?”

I nodded. I really should start leading with that one.

“How did that happen?”

“I played it for him.”

“Hmm. And he liked?”

“Well, as I mentioned in my previous sentence, he wants to make a record.”

Her eyes narrowed in devious deliberation.

“Why are you squinting?” I asked.

“I’m not squinting. I’m Asian, asshole.”

I could literally see the wheels spinning behind her eyes, workshopping the moves she’d need to make in order to organize the world in sync with her vision.

“Jumbo’s in,” I added. “So is Warren. Sort of.”

“Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit. Somebody’s been busy. The whole motley fucking crew.”

“Getting there.”

“Jumbo’s still alive, huh? You really want to work with that nebbish again?”

“You were the one who always talked me out of firing him.”

“I considered it an erratic move to ax the only person in the band with talent. What about the chick?”

“I haven’t spoken to Mackenzie yet.”

“Of course you haven’t. Fraidy cat.”

“I’m not afraid. I’m apprehensive. And Dave Chenier is still on hold.”

A courtly ding signaled the arrival of another elevator. “I’m actually going to ride down in this one, so give me a call if you want to talk.” I held up the bunny ears of a peace sign. Which I’d never done before in my entire life.

Later, while rumbling home on Amtrak, I got a text from Alaina: “putting your demo on now. will try to stay awake. zzzzz.”

I wrote back, “you owe me. i stayed awake while you went all amy tan on me. zzzzz.”

Her: “eat me. and don’t think i don’t know this is all a ploy to get me back in your life. i still know u better than u know yerself.”

Me: “there’s not that much to know.”

A few moments passed, then she wrote: “can we try not to bang the bass player this time?”

I shook the fine grounds of a Costa Rica blend into a filter and watched the drips as they fell into the coffeepot below, each hiss a whispered admonition. I’d awakened with a knot in my stomach, knowing I couldn’t put off the next part of my journey any longer.

I still remembered when Mackenzie, then a sophomore, showed up for her audition (yeah, we made her audition) after the bass player we’d been jamming with, a senior like me, failed out and was summoned back to the family garden-gnome business. The rest of us had already been playing together for a while. I’d known Jumbo since childhood, and I’d met Warren through a college friend. “His name is Warren Warren,” the friend warned. “I don’t know if that’s a black thing or not, but he’s a really good kid.”

I knew Mackenzie as the breezy, sporty geek whom I’d seen on campus benches holding shabby copies of Günter Grass and Saul Bellow, always looking like she was clued in to a secret that the rest of us wouldn’t learn for another five, ten, fifty years. Something about her sense of self-containment drew me in, and even though I knew I’d never have the ability, or really the interest, to converse with her about Grass or Bellow, I knew she was the one. I knew it before she’d even plugged in and followed us through “Free Fallin’ ” and “Take the Money and Run,” before I’d seen her easy sway, her bottled warning of a grin, the organic cool of an instrument in her hands. On that first afternoon, she handled the Petty and the Steve Miller effortlessly, then knocked my socks off with “Houses of the Holy” and “Sunshine of Your Love.”

“You’re going to need to learn originals,” I informed her with obnoxious self-seriousness.

“I can do that.”

“You should know going in that this is going to be a commitment. We have plans. Being a college band may be fine for some people, but we’re more than that.”

My delusions of grandeur were met with a chuckle. “Okay,” she said through one of those smiles where she sort of stuck out her tongue and looped it up to the bottom of her front teeth. “But I should mention that I’m the vice president of the Ultimate Frisbee team. We meet two afternoons a week on the quad and we’re usually done by six. I’m also in the Student English Association. That hasn’t met yet but I expect it will at some point.”