Saint Anything(11)

“Okay, you really need to stop now,” Eric said.

Layla flipped her hand at him, as if he were a gnat circling. To me she said, “I’m not saying I believe you are a girl who would fall for this act; I wouldn’t insult you that way. But I was. So I’ve made it my mission to spare others my experience.”

“We,” the guy said, doing one big strum for emphasis, “have been broken up for over a year. I think you can stop now.”

She turned to look at him, again tilting her head to the side. Then she reached out and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “You need a haircut. Shaggy Hipster doesn’t suit you.”

“Don’t touch me,” he grumbled, but it was good-natured, I could tell. He went back to playing, leaning over the guitar, and she smiled, then turned back to me.

“Eric’s in a band with my brother,” she told me. “They’re pretty awful, actually.”

“Her brother,” Eric corrected her, “plays drums in my band. And we’re in transition.”

“They can’t keep a guitar player.” She nodded in his direction. “Too much ego in the room.”

“Someone has to be the leader!” Eric said.

Layla smiled again. “Anyway. They’re playing Friday night, at Bendo? That club on Overland? It’s all ages. Free pizza if you get there early. You should come.”

I was shocked at this invitation. We’d met only once; she owed me nothing. And yet I knew, immediately, that I would go.

“Sure,” I said. “That sounds great.”

“Perfect.” She got to her feet, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Oh, and one more thing. If you want company at lunch, we sit over there.”

She pointed to the right of the main building, where there was a circle of benches around a spindly tree. On one of them, I saw the guy from the pizza place—her brother, I now understood—peeling an orange, a textbook open beside him.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

“No pressure,” she added quickly. “Just, you know, if you want.”

I nodded, and then she was walking away, sliding her hands in her pockets. As I watched her go, Eric cleared his throat.

“Our band is not that bad,” he told me. “She just has high standards.”

I didn’t know what to say to this, so probably it was good that the bell rang then. He put away his guitar, I packed up my stuff, and then we nodded at each other before heading in our separate directions. All afternoon, though, during two lectures and a lab, I kept thinking about what he’d said. High standards, but she’d invited me anyway. Maybe she’d regret it. But I really hoped not.

*

“I don’t know.” Jenn wrinkled her nose, the way she always did when she was suspicious. “Isn’t that a nightclub?”

“It’s a music venue,” I said. “And this is an all-ages show.”

She picked up her pencil, twirling it between her thumb and index finger. “I thought we were going to Mer’s meet on Friday.”

“That’s at four. This is three hours later.”

She wasn’t going to go. I’d known it the minute I brought it up. We were not clubgoers, never had been. But our “we” had already changed. My part of it, anyway.

I looked across Frazier Bakery, where we always went after school when we weren’t in the mood for Antonella’s. A sandwich, salad, and pastry place, it was that weird mix of chain restaurant and forced homeyness: needlepoint samplers, perfectly worn leather chairs by a fake fireplace, your food served on wax paper patterned with red and white checks, silverware tied with a bow. That day, I’d been talked into a specialized coffee drink by the very cute guy working the counter—DAVE! his name tag read—something he swore would change my life. Apparently, this meant I’d be way hyped up and keep having to pee. Not exactly what I’d expected.

“Just meet me there for an hour,” I said, taking another sip anyway. “If you hate it, you can leave.”

“Why is this so important?” she asked me, putting her pencil back down. “You’ve never been into clubbing before.”

“It’s not clubbing. It’s a band, playing a show.”

She adjusted her glasses, then looked down at the textbook in front of her. “It’s just not my thing, Sydney. Sorry.”

I knew Jenn well. Once she made up her mind, she didn’t waver. “Okay. That’s fine.”

She smiled at me, and then we both went back to work. The adult contemporary music overhead, Jenn’s blueberry scone and my piece of carrot cake, our booth by the window: it was all as familiar as my own face. But I found I couldn’t concentrate on my calculus, as much as I tried. I just sat there and listened to her pencil scrape the page until it was time to go.

So I was alone when I walked into Bendo the following evening and got my hand stamped by a bulky guy with a neck tattoo. I’d had a meeting for my English group project at lunch, so I was going in with only my casual invitation and a fair amount of trepidation. Not to mention a lie.

“You’re going out?” my mother asked me when I came downstairs after dinner, having changed my outfit twice before going back to my first choice. She looked at her watch. “I didn’t realize you had plans.”