Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,11

stop washing your own hair. It was easy to see why she sold lots of dresses; being around her made you want to try to look as good as she did, and also somehow made it seem like it might be possible.

“Do it for me, pick me out something.”

“You can’t afford any of this, even with my discount.”

“I have a job! I could get some new clothes.” Having sex had also made her feel pretty. There was no better time to go shopping.

“I get that you’re trying to distract me, but I’ll weasel some intel out of you before we’re done here,” said Callie, circling Laura and looking at her from all angles. “This is what I do: I stare at people like I’m computer-analyzing their unique proportions and going through a mental database of our whole inventory. Then I pick the most expensive thing I think I can get away with, or whatever is going on sale next week.”

“Well, don’t do that with me. Just show me the cutest thing,” said Laura.

“For you? It’s this.” The dress had a halter top that exposed the top of Laura’s back. She liked that it was a light color, so she couldn’t wear it at work; it was a dress for her actual life, not the dim black-clad half-life of the bar. It was perfect for summer and could even be worn under a cardigan in fall. It showed off Laura’s arms and shoulders, where her muscles were well defined from years of both playing and carrying around her guitar. She imagined standing near Dylan and having him reach behind her neck to untie the straps. As soon as she put it on she knew that she would have to buy it, no matter how expensive it turned out to be.

She waited until the flush that rose across her chest subsided and came out of the dressing room to get Callie’s reaction, but Callie was paying attention to an actual customer, so instead she walked around the store, pawing the racks. There was a shelf of “vintage” shoes near the back of the store, which the shop’s owner had found at thrift stores just outside the city, polished slightly, and marked up several hundred percent. They were good finds, though, pretty eighties pumps and barely worn leather sandals. Laura found a pair of heels in her size and slipped them on. They were lipstick pink, which looked good with the off-white dress and her dark hair. Callie’s customer left the store, and she walked back over toward Laura.

“Okay, very nice, but where are you going in that?” she asked. “I mean, how are you going to justify it to yourself?”

“I’m going to wear it onstage,” Laura said, without thinking. Callie nodded approvingly. She rang her up with her staff discount and threw the shoes in for free. “They probably cost the owner a dollar, let’s not sweat it,” she said. “Now, let’s figure out where your band is going to play.”

“I don’t have a band,” Laura said. She went back into the dressing room and started putting her dirty clothes from the night before back on. Callie kept talking to her through the door.

“You should get one. You know, I’ve been thinking about this. No one’s going to book a singer-songwriter, that’s some open-mic-night shit. I can pretend to be in your band till you find someone better. Then we just need a drummer, and maybe someone who can actually play bass, but that can happen later.”

“Pretend to be in my band?” She was still zipping her jeans, but she stuck her head out of the dressing room so that she could see the expression on Callie’s face and try to gauge how serious she was.

“Yeah, like a backup-singer type of situation. We’ve sung together before, remember? In high school.”

Laura came out of the dressing room, avoiding the letdown of the mirror. Without the dress on she was returned to her former self, dirty and puffy around the eyes. “If I’m onstage with you, no one will look at me,” she said.

“Of course they will, you idiot. You’re the one who can actually sing and play. I’m just going to help you get your foot in the door.”

The thought of wedging her foot into that door alone was terrifying, which was why Laura hadn’t made any attempts to do it yet. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” she told Callie. “I got you a croissant, by the way.” The owner didn’t like food