Roomies Read online

  He pokes at the keyboard to wake up his screen. “Well, I notice that Evan in strings is always looking at you.”

  I do a quick mental file through his strings section. All that comes to mind is his lead violinist, Seth, and Seth is not attracted to the ladies. Even if he were, Robert wouldn’t let me date him even over his dead body; despite being invaluable to the production, Seth has a knack for throwing tantrums and stirring up drama within the ensemble. He is the only person I’ve ever seen make Robert truly angry.

  “Which one’s Evan?”

  Twirling a finger over his close-cropped hair, he says, “Long hair. Viola?”

  Ah, now I know who he means. Evan is sexy in a Tarzan kind of way, but . . . the rest of him might be a little too wild. “Yeah, Bobert,” I say, holding up my hands, “but the fingernails on his bow hand . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” Robert laughs.

  “How can you not see this? It’s like he’s plucking his strings with a shark tooth.” I shrug. “He just seems oddly carnivorous. I don’t think I could overlook it.”

  “Carnivorous? You devoured your lamb chop last Wednesday. It was feral.”

  He’s right. I did. “I cook great lamb, what do you want from me?”

  From the doorway comes the sneering groan of my boss. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

  With a grin I answer, “Lamb,” just as Uncle Robert answers, “Man claws,” and Brian’s frown turns radioactive.

  In an effort to keep nepotism at the minimum I don’t actually report to Uncle Robert but to the stage manager, the brilliant yet douchey Brian, who I’m convinced has odd collections of things at home, like a hoarder’s cave with every single back issue of National Geographic, or butterflies pinned to dusty boards.

  “Super-cute family bonding.” Brian turns to sashay away, calling over his shoulder, “Holland. Stagehand meeting. Now.”

  With a last zany smile thrown to Robert, I follow Brian downstairs to the stage and the weekly meeting awaiting us.

  The stagehand team consists of twenty people. Brian oversees all the details—blocking, cues, props, scenery, and ensuring that Robert’s job runs smoothly—which means that he likes to claim credit for the current cult fever over Possessed. But the real heroes are the ones behind the curtain responding to his barked orders: the people Brian pleasantly refers to as his minions.

  Don’t get me wrong—Brian’s job is a beast, and he is very good at what he does; the production runs smoothly, the sets are stunning and noted in nearly every one of the raving reviews the production receives. The actors hit their cues and the lighting is absolutely perfect. It’s just that Brian also happens to be a power demon with a rampant petty side. Case in point, just now a text arrives on my phone:

  I see that your incapacitated, so I’m not quite sure how you plan to handle job duties this week.

  Brian’s inability to get the your/you’re distinction correct makes something itch deep inside my brain. And he’s texting me about this—while sitting a mere three feet away—not only to avoid direct confrontation (at which he is terrible) but also to give a clear message to the stagehand currently speaking that he doesn’t care what she has to say.

  He might be a dick, but unfortunately, he’s also right. I can barely hold my phone with my right hand peeking out of the sling, I have no idea how I’ll maneuver my camera. It takes some time, but I manage to type a reply with my left.

  Other than front of the house, are there things I can help with for the next couple weeks?

  It pains me to hit send on such a vulnerable text, it really does. Even though my tiny archivist salary is comprised of money from nearly every department, Brian feels the most put-out for even having to deal with me on a regular basis. I already know this job is a gift—I don’t need his gleeful reminders of that fact every time we interact.

  While the stagehand continues to update us on the progress in painting the new drop-down forest, Brian ignores her and types, sneering down at his phone.

  Looks like you’re uncle needs more help than I do.

  It takes me a minute to understand his meaning, but when I do, it’s accompanied by an almost comically timed, deafening cymbal crash coming from the orchestra pit.

  The entire group assembled for the meeting onstage stands from their seats and peers down as the aforementioned lead violinist, Seth, shoves clear of the percussion section, shoulders past Robert, and begins to storm up the center aisle.

  I glance down at Seth’s chair; he left his violin just sitting there. I can’t stop staring at it—I’ve heard from Robert that Seth’s violin cost upward of forty thousand dollars, and he just plopped it on his chair before leaving in a huff. From the second position, Lisa Stern leans over, gingerly picking it up. I’m sure she’ll return it to him later; no doubt Seth assumes she will, too. What a dick.

  He has tantrums all the time, but for some reason, the stillness in the theater that follows this outburst feels profound.

  My stomach drops.

  Seth has three long “duets” with the lead, and those segments are the heart of the soundtrack. Seth’s violin is more than part of the orchestra ensemble; although he doesn’t appear onstage, he’s truly one of the lead cast members and has even been featured on our primary merchandise, and in mainstream media. We can’t have a single performance without those solos.

  What transpired must have been major, because Robert’s calm voice carries through the entire theater: “Let me be clear, Seth. You know what it means if you walk out today: Ramón Martín begins in a month, and you won’t be joining him.”

  “Fuck you, Bob.” Seth jerks his arms into his jacket, and doesn’t look back as he yells, “I’m done.”

  four

  My new phone vibrates just as the credits roll on my third consecutive Vampire Diaries episode of the night. I wouldn’t normally be mainlining addicting teen dramas on a work night, but Robert balked when he caught me awkwardly trying to fold Luis Genova T-shirts and kicked me out after the Wednesday matinee, thereby exacerbating my guilt spiral. I can’t go to yoga, I can’t try to write, I can’t go have a drink because of these painkillers. I can’t even focus on reading without the intrusive worry about what Robert is going to do without Seth leading the orchestra.

  My phone vibrates again and I cross the room to where it’s charging on the kitchen counter, next to the laptop I haven’t touched in weeks. I’m wholly expecting it to be my brother Davis calling to ensure I’m not out venturing the mean streets of Manhattan with only one arm to protect myself, but am pleasantly surprised to see Lulu’s smiling face light up the screen instead.

  “Hello, there.” I open the fridge, scanning the contents.

  “How’s my little invalid?” Judging by the sound of voices and clanking silverware coming from the other end of the line, Lulu is at Blue Hill, where she is—like many in Manhattan—an actress waiting tables while awaiting her big break.

  I tuck the phone between my chin and shoulder, and with my good arm pull a casserole dish out of the fridge and set it on the counter. “I’m home. Robert said I looked like a three-legged puppy at a dog show and told me to go home for a few days.”

  “What a monster,” she says with a laugh.

  “Are you at work?”

  “Yeah. Actually . . . hang on.” A few moments of muffled silence pass and then she returns, the background quieter now. “I had an early shift, so I’m leaving soon.”

  “You’re off tonight?” I stop with my plate of cold lasagna just shy of the microwave, outlook suddenly brighter. “Come over and I’ll make you dinner. I’ll only need one of your hands.”

  “I have a better idea. I got a two-for-one on the cover to see this ridiculous band, and Gene can’t go. Come with me!”

  I know this story well: Lulu found tickets to a venue on Groupon and couldn’t pass them up because they were such a good deal. Most of the time, I love her impulsivity and obsession with random adventures. But it’s cold to
night and going out requires changing out of my pajamas—which means putting on actual clothes that I’d have to wrestle my way into.

  “This is a pass for me, Lu.” I pop my food into the microwave while she whimpers into the line.

  The sound is so pathetic, it chips away at my resolve and I don’t even have to say anything—she knows it. “Come on, Holland! The band is called Loose Springsteen! How amazing is that?”

  I growl.

  “Don’t make me go to Jersey by myself.”

  “A cover band in Jersey?” I say. “You really aren’t sweetening the deal here.”

  “You’d rather stay home in your pajamas eating leftovers than have the night of your life with me?”

  I snort. “You might be overselling it just a bit.”

  She whimpers again, and I break.

  Lulu was absolutely overselling it. Hole in the Hall is a . . . bar? That’s really the nicest thing I can say about it.

  The subway station lets out just across the street from a nondescript brick building and Lulu giddily dances down the sidewalk. The neighborhood is a mixture of business and residential, but at least half the surrounding buildings look vacant. Opposite the bar is an empty Korean restaurant, with shuttered windows and a sign hanging crookedly near the doorway. Next door is a converted house with neon letters that spell House of Hookah; the once-bright tubes are now dark and dusty against the tin roof. It’s not exactly a mystery why Hole in the Hall would need to seduce potential new clientele with Groupon deals.

  Lulu turns to perform her dance backward, luring me across the shiny wet street. “This is promising, at least,” she says brightly as we join a small crowd of people lined up near the door.

  The opening notes of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” can be heard through the brick walls, and each time the door opens the music rushes out, as if escaping. I have to admit it feels good to get dressed and leave my worries to languish in the apartment for a few hours. Leggings and a dressy top weren’t too much work, and Lulu and her two good arms helped me blow-dry my long hair. For the first time in a couple of days, I don’t look and feel like a troll doll. This night might not be so bad after all.

  When it’s finally our turn to enter, Lulu brandishes her two-for-one coupon like a badge and shimmies through the line.

  Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty no-frills inside. The walls are lined with old video games, and carved-up tables stand in clusters surrounding the bar. The decor is a questionable mix of Harley-Davidson, taxidermy, and Old West paraphernalia. A stripper pole stands proudly on a platform at one end, and a stage at the other. The lighting is dim and dusty, and combined with a makeshift fog machine, it makes the band members little more than backlit figures moving around onstage.

  Settling at a table, Lulu flags down a waitress and we order drinks that materialize almost disturbingly quickly, like they were poured hours ago and left to grow stale behind the bar.

  Lulu studies her cocktail, charmingly titled Adios Motherfucker. With a tiny why-the-fuck-not shrug, she takes a swallow, wincing as it goes down. “Tastes like 7Up.”

  I am mesmerized by the blinking neon ice cube in her glass. “I worry your drink is going to give someone a seizure.”

  She takes another sip and her straw blooms with fluorescent blue alcohol. “Actually, it tastes like sparkling water.”

  “See, that’s the house-made moonshine killing your taste buds.”

  She ignores this and turns her brown eyes on me. “Is the cast a giant pain in the ass? I’ve never broken a bone.” She grins. “Well . . . none of my own, ifyouknowwhatImean.”

  I laugh, looking down at my purple cast peeking out of the black sling. “It could be worse. The camera’s a bit unruly and I can’t fold shirts very well yet, but I mean . . . I could be dead?”

  She nods at this, taking another sip of her drink—which is already half-gone.

  “I mean,” I say, “let’s be honest, I only need one hand to take people’s money during intermission, so it’s not that bad.”

  “I hear you’re great one-handed.” She slaps a beat on the table and makes a rim-shot noise.

  “The best.” I wink. “What about you, any auditions?”

  Lulu shakes her head with a little pout and then does a shoulder shimmy to the beat of the music. She might waitress to make ends meet, but she’s dreamed of being an actress since she was old enough to know it was a possibility. We met in grad school, where she was studying theater and I was writing. She’s told me on several occasions that she should become my muse, and I can write script after script for her. This should tell you a lot about our dynamic, which—despite this Jersey sidequest—is generally more entertaining than tedious.

  She’s been in a few low-budget commercials (she played an accident-prone chicken in an insurance commercial, and I have several gifs of this performance I like to occasionally text her out of the blue), attended almost every acting class offered in New York, and (as a favor to me) was given a small part in one of Robert’s shows. It didn’t last long—because, as Robert put it, “Lulu is good at playing Lulu and only Lulu”—but as long as she draws breath, she will believe that her big break is just around the corner.

  “No auditions this week.” She watches the stage while taking another neon pull from her drink. I gingerly sip my watered-down Diet Coke. “Crowds haven’t died down since the holidays, so we’re all taking on extra hours.” Nodding toward the musicians, she says, “I feel like I’m being visually assaulted by the crotch of that guy’s outfit, but this band? They don’t completely suck.”

  I follow her gaze to where the lead singer has moved to stand under a single bright spotlight. His acid-washed jeans are so tight I can see every lump he has to offer. A few more hours in those pants and I’m confident he can kiss his child-fathering years goodbye. The band shifts from the closing notes of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” into a cover of Great White’s “Rock Me”—I have my older brother Thomas’s addiction to hair metal to thank for this knowledge—and a brave (or drunk) group of women gravitate to the edge of the stage, dancing to the bluesy opening chords.

  And why not? I sway a little in my seat, drawn in by the way the guitar player drags out each note, like a maddening seduction, his head bent low in concentration. Loose Springsteen might be a cheesy cover band—and most of them are wearing at least one dangly earring and/or an article of clothing covered in animal print—but Lulu is right: they aren’t half bad. With a little polish I could see them playing in a bigger club somewhere, or in an eighties revival off-off-Broadway.

  The singer falls back and the guitarist moves into a circle of smoky light, beginning his requisite solo. There’s a surprisingly loud reaction from the women up front . . . and there’s something familiar about the way he holds the guitar, the way his fingers glide up the neck, the way his hair falls forward . . .

  Oh, holy . . .

  He lifts his chin, and even with his eyes in shadow and half his face turned away, I know.

  “That’s him,” I say, pointing. I sit up straighter, pulling my phone out. I’m still on enough painkillers to not entirely trust my eyes right now. I zoom in, snapping a blurry picture.

  “Who?”

  I stare down at the screen and recognize the cut of his jaw, his full mouth. “Calvin. The dude from the subway.”

  “Shut up.” She squints, leaning in. “That’s him?” There’s a moment of silence where I know she’s looking him over, seeing exactly what I’ve seen almost every day for the last six months. “Damn. Okay.” She turns to me, brows pointed skyward. “He’s hot.”

  “I told you!” We both look back over to him. He’s playing high on the neck, screaming out the notes on his guitar, and unlike the meditative lean of his posture at the station, here he’s completely playing to the audience. “What is he doing here?” What if he sees me? “Oh my God. Is he going to think I followed him?”

  “Come on, how would you possibly know he’s the guitarist for Loo
se Springsteen? You’re not exactly a member of their fan club.” Lulu lets out a happy cackle. “As if they have a fan club.”

  She’s right, of course, but even now, the way I can’t take my eyes off him, I feel like a stalker. I already know so much about his schedule—I saw him just this morning, after all—and I know even more now. Is this the kind of thing he does when he’s not busking? Good Lord. Maybe this is why there’s such a fire to his playing at the station; he has to physically force this music out of his head.

  The song ends and the lead singer slips his mic into the stand, muttering that they’re taking a break before smashing his bottle of Rolling Rock to his lips and triumphantly draining it.

  I’m out of my chair before I know what I’m doing. People shuffle back to their seats to refuel on bad beer, and the lights go up just enough that I see Calvin disappear into the shadows and reappear a moment later at the opposite side of the bar.

  Whereas the rest of the band is a veritable cover spread of 1980s fashion don’ts, Calvin is in a black T-shirt, with the hem tucked lazily into the front of his dark jeans. He’s wearing his black boots, too, and the left one is presently propped on the brass rail near his feet. The bartender places a dark beer in front of him and he lifts it, staring ahead.

  I’m not sure how to approach him, and he still hasn’t seen me standing a few feet away. Saying his name somehow feels sincerely weird, so I square my shoulders and slide onto the barstool beside him.

  Only once I’m seated do I register that there were about ten other women working up the nerve to do the same thing, coming at him from all angles. He turns slowly, like this happens at every set break and he’s never sure what manner of companion he’s going to end up with.

  But when our eyes meet, he startles, face immediately relaxing into a genuine smile. “Hey, it’s the girl from the Netherlands.”

  And I can’t help it. Incredulity makes it burst out of me: “ ‘Hey’?”