Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,16
should I say you’re called?”
“I can’t tonight, I have to work,” Laura said.
“Weird name for a band,” said Alex, then laughed at his own joke.
“You can call in sick once. You’ve been there long enough to get away with it,” Callie said.
“Five weeks?”
“I’m sure you’re a lifer by the standards of that place.” Callie turned back to Alex. “You can call us the Groupies.” She wrinkled her nose and laughed like she’d made a hilarious joke. The vodka-OJ was cold and acidic in Laura’s stomach.
“You’re on the bill,” Alex told them. “You get two drink tickets and a cut of the door that you share with all the other bands, so tell your friends to come.”
Laura was silent as they walked home, scuffing her Chinatown mesh slippers against the dusty sidewalk, walking like her guitar was heavier than it actually was.
“What?” Callie finally said.
“Well, we’re going to make pocket change, for starters. I can’t afford to miss my shift or to lose this job.”
“But this is what you came to New York to do!”
“Not like this,” Laura said.
Callie stopped and turned with her hands on her hips, so close that Laura could smell her breath, orangey and rotten in Laura’s face. “Like what?”
“Like … the only reason he booked us is because of you.”
Callie smiled and turned around, her anger immediately defused. She let Laura walk next to her on the sidewalk again. “That’s not true, I’m just training wheels. You’re doing it on your own. It’s okay to let people help you sometimes!”
“Callie, I’m not blind. When both of us walk into a room, all anyone sees is you.”
“Dylan saw you,” Callie said almost too quickly, like she’d been planning to say it. And Laura couldn’t argue with it, because it was true. Maybe whatever he saw in her would translate now. Maybe things would be different, and Callie was right, and Laura was going to be the one people looked at this time.
* * *
It was Callie’s idea to both wear the dress Laura had bought from the boutique where she worked, Laura’s in white, Callie’s in red. Laura wore her dark hair down around her face, so that when she bent her head toward the neck of her guitar it was hard to see her. Callie wore her straight blond hair pushed back. They wore winged eyeliner, applied by Callie’s unerring hand. On Callie, it made her light eyes more visible from the audience, but on Laura, it was just another dark thing receding into shadow.
A friend of Davey’s was recruited to play drums at the last minute, and to loan them a bass guitar, which Callie pretended to play. The drummer, a sleepy-eyed but highly professional guy named Zach, was actually great to have. They were allowed a little sound check before the show started and he gamely fleshed out Laura’s songs, making them sound less folky and more upbeat, like a low-fi version of a sixties girl group. Despite still being slightly disturbed that Callie had hijacked and reshaped her dream, Laura had to admit that the Groupies weren’t that bad, especially for being put together in one afternoon. They would have to figure out a different name, though.
They sat in the small audience comprised of the other bands’ friends and drank their free vodka tonics till it was their turn, then awkwardly shuffled up onto the stage as the previous band was leaving it.
Laura said, “Hi, we’re the Groupies,” in a flat quiet monotone into the mic, then pushed into the opening lines of the song she’d written about Dylan. She’d named it “Can I Call You?” It was about not wanting to scare someone off by coming on too strong, but the joke was that of course the narrator of the song, because she was thinking about whether it was okay to call the guy (on the phone) or to call him (her boyfriend), was sort of obsessed. It was supposed to be humorous and pathetic. Callie was so charismatic, though, and so sexy as she tossed her ponytail from side to side, that by chiming in on the choruses she transformed the song into something different. A guy would have to be an idiot not to want to be her boyfriend, she seemed to be saying. She swayed from side to side as Laura played a plinky, cute tune during the song’s bridge, her version of a guitar solo. Even though Laura was singing lead and playing guitar, it was somehow Callie