CHAPTER ELEVEN
He doesn’t show up at the Nosh Pit. Thank God.
I spent the entire morning imaging what I’d say to Gavin if he plopped into my section again, his fake grin wide, one of his two faces happy in spite of all the ice I gave him last night. Then I spent my entire shift mapping scenarios, working out how I’d deal with every possible instance. The first few, at the start of the shift, were sensible situations.
He might come in happy and/or horny, trying to work me like an angle.
He might come in angry, having regained the balls I snipped last night.
He might come in apologetic, having worked out what he’d done.
The last was the hardest to riddle. If he playacted sad well enough, I was afraid I might cave. I might bring him pie. I might let myself smile when I spoke to him, failing to convey that I’d seen right through him, and knew what he was like beneath his beautiful blue eyes and charisma. So I talked to Maya, gave her the ten-cent version of yesterday, and asked her to help steel me. Maya is feisty, just like her daughter. She’d be happy to help.
But after a few hours, it became harder to hold my guard. After other scenarios snuck in. When I started to imagine grand gestures that would obviously never occur. I didn’t tell Maya about those because most of me knew I was being stupid.
When my shift ended — Ed ogling Maya’s too-far-unbuttoned uniform top and Roxanne still giving me yesterday’s stink eye — I was relieved.
I think.
Because I didn’t want Gavin to come in. That’s what all the scenarios were for — to help me repel him in a way that would keep my dignity and knock his down a peg. He’s a narcissist, and the worst thing you can do around a narcissist is encourage them or feed their ego. Maybe that’s why most of my more outrageous imagined rebukes involved asking him to fuck himself as I sauntered off with swinging hips. I could never do that in real life, but nothing kicks a guy’s dick out from under him like female swagger.
But as my shift ended, I felt a bit hollow, too. Disappointed. It was ridiculous to assume Gavin would show up seeing as he’s never been in my section before, but in the past twenty-four hours I’d started to imagine him as a pathetic little puppy. He wanted to make nice for some reason, and I kind of felt the need to bat him away.
I couldn’t refuse him if he never showed up.
If he didn’t come at me with unwanted affections, I couldn’t tell him how unwanted his attention was.
It should have equaled out in the end. The final result was supposed to be that I didn’t have to deal with him, and the fact that he never showed up — despite a hint last night that he might — meant that I didn’t have to deal with him.
Why did he ask if I was working here tomorrow? Why did he say he might stop by?
Just who the hell does he think he is, to threaten an appearance and then stay home?
On my way out, Roxanne tried to tell me I didn’t sufficiently wipe my tables. I stopped her with a look, and that’s something because Roxanne is like a train, usually impossible to stop.
And now I’m here, at the Overlook, two hours earlier for the prep shift to scrape gum from under the tables and shit, per Danny’s apparently normal protocol. Dreading the moment when Gavin shows up. Dreading it so much, in fact, that I can’t concentrate. I keep looking at the doors. I even ask that little wiry guy, Richard, a few times.
Has Gavin Adams shown up yet? No? Good. Because I don’t want him here. Let me know when he comes.
And by 6, I’m pretty sure Gavin is waiting longer just to mess with me. He should be here. He needs to prep or warm up or rehearse or whatever they do. Performers don’t clean like the wait staff, but they should still be early.
The doors open at 7, so after a while of no-show, Gavin is just being disrespectful. I point this out to Chloe, a young pretty singer with platinum-blonde hair. She’s soft spoken and from what I hear, nobody knows much about her. But I find her friendly, and after thirty seconds I’m wondering if I can tell her how annoying Gavin is being, not being around when responsible people like her are.
After talking to Chloe in the back room, now ten minutes after six and another ten of Gavin not taking his job seriously, I head to the front and start turning the liquor bottles label out. I hear strumming behind me and realize that Gavin has finally arrived.
He’s on a stool in the stages’s middle, just like last night. He’s monopolizing the entire thing, plopping down, acting like the place is his personal studio.
He looks up. I don’t have time to look away, and our eyes meet. Now that I’m trapped, I refuse to look away first. I got the upper hand at the end of last night, I think, but Gavin ran off with his skank, so it’s possible he thinks he won. If I’m weak, he might come over and talk to me again, and I don’t want that. So I hold his gaze, and eventually he looks down. Not shamefully, though. He puts his fingers on the strings and strums, as if I barely warrant notice, or a nod, or a smile, or a hello, or any kind of acknowledgement at all.
I turn back to my bottle chore, but now and again I sneak glances at Gavin. His bearing is obnoxious. The way he’s sitting, the way he’s holding the guitar, the brooding way he refuses to look up and seems lost in the soul of the music — it’s all so obvious. A show. Nothing but posturing.
I’ll bet he even works on this — not the music he plays, but the way he uses his body to convey an image of the tortured artist. His floppy, vaguely hipster sweater hangs down over faded blue jeans. He’s still unshaven, but the stubble looks exactly the same length as yesterday. His hair is still a mess, but again it strikes me as a contrived mess, like he’s mussed it for effect.
He probably takes video of himself then plays it back like a coach reviewing past games.
Was I moody enough? Or could I lift an eyebrow or shake my head slowly, to be more sultry, to get more girls excited?
It’s not working on me, that’s for sure.
I look back. Gavin’s head comes up. Again, he looks right at me as he plays. It’s a mock-sad look. Or maybe a dirty look. Something designed to manipulate me.
There was probably a point where he could have made nice. There’s even a part of me, buried beneath a surprisingly thick wall of resentment, that thinks I might be being unreasonable. Since last night, I’ve had no new Gavin inputs — nothing new he’s had a chance to do wrong. Still, I’ve grown increasingly annoyed with him, and as I listen it’s hard not to consider the possibility that he’s done nothing new, and that I’ve been building my case in his absence. All it’s taken for him to seem more repugnant since last night was to know he exists.
But the longer we don’t speak, the further we move from possible resolution.
He could have said hello when he came in, before he started playing. I wouldn’t have run to him and given him a hug, but it might have dulled my edge.
He could have given me a smile, without saying a thing. Smiles can say a lot. I’d probably have taken his as, I’m still a weasel and I want to get into your panties, but it would have been friendlier than this.
What is he trying to prove, rehearsing in the main room? There are only four or five people in here at any time, and he’s directly across from me, out of all of them.
Does he need us to hear his brilliance? How amazing he is on the guitar, playing his … his …
I don’t know the tune he’s been strumming over and over since he sat down. That’s not surprising. I may have Googled him this morning, and I may have listened to every Firecracker Confession tune I could find on YouTube — even a bootleg of their unreleased album, Brutal Design — but I don’t know all of his songs.
I do see, now, that most of what he plays is recycled Firecracker content, though. But this isn’t any of that. Last night, I’m pretty sure his entire rehearsal and set was just the YouTube songs, stripped of lyrics and played acoustic.
I may have listened to every Firecracker Confession song twice this morning, then hit a few more between shifts. I don’t know everything he’s ever done, but I don’t think this was ever on YouTube.
I have to admit it’s catchy, though I can tell he’s still playing with its shape. There’s little beyond the hook, but I can sense it fleshing out a bit with each replay. As I stew with my back to Gavin, turning bottles that have already been turned, I find myself wanting to hear it again.
And I can almost hear words, though he’s not singing any. The words are in my head. The kind of refrain my idle brain will attribute to just about any rhythm — a recurring pattern of footsteps, the predictable drip of rain from a leaky gutter.
The repeated chord progression stops, and the room seems too quiet. I take a few seconds before I turn to see why, sure that Gavin will be walking over, wanting to bug me as he did last night before and after showing his true colors. Good. I’ve been rehearsing witty, cutting responses all day.
But he’s not even looking in my direction. There’s a young guy onstage with him. A kid in a hoodie with short, bristle-cut hair. He looks about my age, maybe midtwenties. But even the motions of his hands as he talks to Gavin tells me that his words have a maturity beyond his years. And, I suspect, that I’m witnessing a discussion these two have had many times before.
I’m staring too long and don’t want Gavin to look over and take my look for interest, so I spin and head toward the back room, hoping to find someone to ease my mind of all this confused, disturbing emotion.
I walk away, realizing I’m humming Gavin’s tune.