Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,17
who made it work. It was because of Callie that everyone in the bar was clapping with more than the perfunctory politeness they had showed the other bands.
After their set was over and they were back at the bar, Alex came over to congratulate them. “You guys are invited back whenever,” he said, looking at Callie, and he gave them their cut of the door: thirty dollars. They ended up giving it to Zach so that he could take the bass home to Williamsburg in a cab.
* * *
Brownies was unassuming on the outside, just another storefront-size bar on Avenue A, but inside it was a dim, noisy deep cavern, a whole alternate world. The stage lights were sharp and perfect, so bright that they illuminated motes of dust buzzing around them, flecks of sweat bursting from the band as they strutted and thrashed. The floor was packed and writhing, moving in waves pressing closer to the stage. Usually Laura wasn’t into close contact with strangers, but this wasn’t like being on the subway. It was like being a cell in some larger organism, everyone joining together with the same aim in mind. It was just loud enough so that their bodies were enveloped in sound, just on the edge of discomfort, a vibration rattling up through everyone’s shoes, re-regulating their heartbeats and breathing so that everyone exhaled in time. Some people even knew the lyrics of the Clips’ songs. A few weeks ago the band had been unknown, playing shows that people came to for the promise of free wine. Now they were galvanizing hundreds of people, maybe thousands before long. Laura was close enough to the stage to see the look on Dylan’s face as he played. She thought he seemed happy, but at the same time uncomfortable. There was a twitchiness in his expression she’d never seen before. Maybe he was anxious to see her; she was so anxious to see him that when the show ended, she prayed for no encores. But of course there was an encore; the crowd demanded it. The band waited a desultory minute before strutting back out onstage. Thankfully they played only that one song, though, and then it was finally over.
The basement underneath the venue was a dark cave, too, full of scuffed leather couches and surfaces littered with bottles and half-full ashtrays, bottle caps and empty thin black plastic liquor-store bags. Dylan looked up when Laura entered the room with an expression of pure happiness, almost like he hadn’t expected her. When she got closer, though, she saw that the look she’d thought was shocked joy was actually a more abstract kind of euphoria. His pupils were huge, and he had trouble focusing on her face. He smelled sweaty, and she wanted him to close the distance between their bodies immediately, murmur in her ear, and get her out of there. Instead, he just stood there, smiling a goofy smile. She opened her mouth and realized she had no idea what she wanted to say. The two weeks since they’d seen each other seemed like a huge gulf of experience.
Laura had settled further into her new life, carving out patterns of her days, writing lyrics in the non-internet café on Avenue A, riding the subway, eating egg sandwiches in the morning and pizza at night, drinking dozens of cups of sweet light bodega coffee, getting incrementally better at being a cocktail waitress at night, making friends with Alexis on their smoke breaks, teaching Callie the new songs she was writing to prepare for their little shows. They had played twice more, once at Sidewalk again and once at a terrible NYU bar on Bleeker, which had gone less well. Part of her still felt Ohioan and alien. No matter what clothes she borrowed from Callie or how much makeup she wore, she didn’t quite look right. She still smiled too much at people on the street and at patrons at the bar. She didn’t know how to act in this loud smoky basement full of strangers. She wished that she and Dylan were alone and naked. She looked over at Callie, who was drinking from a tallboy can of malt liquor and letting Davey drape his arm around her.
Laura moved closer to Dylan so that he would put his arm around her, too. She relaxed into him. He handed her the beer he was drinking, and she took a long sip and thanked him.
“You were great,” she said, trying