Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,60
She had been so quick to dismiss it; the girls were so dramatic about every little bump, especially the ones they gave each other. And she’d been fine all afternoon. But maybe it was infected? At the very least, a visit to pediatric urgent care seemed like a good idea.
“In the morning, though, right?” she asked.
But she knew she would leave, was already regretting the drinks. There was no way she could go out with the band now and impress Mara by having such cool friends. Now that the possibility was being snatched from her, she badly wanted the consolation of getting drunk. It was supposed to be her reward for witnessing Callie onstage doing what Laura should have been doing. Her body was full of energy that had no place to go. She felt it course through her as a wave of rage.
“Why did you call me? Why couldn’t you have just dealt with this on your own?” she asked Matt.
He exhaled slowly, and in the background she heard Marie crying. She sounded like she had as a much younger child, when she would regularly half wake from a nightmare and scream “Mama! Mama!” even though Laura was right there.
“Look, I’m sorry, baby. I know this sucks. You should stay out if you want to, okay?” said Matt, in his patient, reasonable voice that somehow only ever made her more upset.
“No, of course I won’t. I’ll come home. I’m coming home.”
She went back out to the balcony to tell Mara that she was leaving and saw the look of disappointment flicker across her face.
“I totally understand,” Mara yelled, mouth close to Laura’s head so that she could hear her over the music. “Men can be so pathetic!”
Laura wanted to explain, or confess, or something, but it was too loud to have a detailed conversation about whose choices had created the family dynamic that pretty much required Laura’s constant vigilance—Matt, who had passively allowed the dynamic to develop, or Laura, whose fear that things would fall apart without her had allowed Matt to avoid learning how to care for the children in their neediest moments. Long story short, Matt wasn’t the only one who was pathetic.
As she made her way down the stairs to the exit, Laura passed the semi-famous comedian again, coming back from the bar with a drink in each hand. He gave her a nod of what seemed like recognition, and Laura realized that he’d made the same mistake she’d made earlier—he was pretending now that he knew who she was, because he assumed that they must have met and didn’t want her to feel awkward. She was smiling to herself about it when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
When she turned, she saw that he had followed her and was now proffering one of the drinks, something cloudy and brown with a cherry. “I can’t find the person I was bringing this to, and I thought you looked like you could use a drink,” he said, with the confidence of a person whose pickup abilities have been bolstered for years by positive reinforcement. Laura did want another drink, though.
“I was actually on my way out,” she said, reaching for it. “You’re friends with Callie?”
“I know her, but Davey is my guy. He’s been working with me on some projects,” he said. “You and Callie go way back, right?”
“Wait, you actually know who I am?”
The comedian smirked, which wasn’t exactly attractive, but his whole thing was about being a little bit more abrasive than your average person. He did an exaggerated pompous voice. “Do you know who I am?”
Laura was too tired and distracted to put energy into flirting, and was also trying to drink as quickly as possible so that she could more effectively mute her inner critic. “Honestly? I know your face. But I haven’t watched a lot of TV lately that isn’t for five-year-olds.”
“That’s right, you’re the teen mom!”
She tried hard not to find this flattering. “Not exactly a teen.”
“I’ve seen those shows, too. Not because I have kids—I mean, none that I know of. But I’ve done a lot of voice-over work. Do your kids watch Dragon Dancers?”
Laura nodded. Marie and Kayla were obsessed with those stupid dragons in tutus.
“I’m the pink one. Drogola.”
“Whoa!”
“I know!” He was being satirically false modest, but Laura was genuinely impressed.
“That’s a great performance,” she told him.
There was a tiny moment of a crack in his bluster and Laura could tell he was genuinely gratified, but then