Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story

Copyright © 2012 Rachel Burke

Cover design © 2012 by Kurt Remlinger

Cover photo ©
Lena Mirisola
. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews – without written permission from its publisher.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2012 Rachel Burke

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10:
1475221371

ISBN-13: 9781475221374

“Lover You Should’ve Come Over” by Jeff Buckley

© 1994 Columbia Records

All rights reserved.

Chapter
1

Going from Catholic school to public school is like living in a fishbowl your whole life, and then being dumped into the Mississippi River. The classrooms are bigger, the hallways are wider, and everywhere you look, there are cliques upon cliques of students of all different styles and genres.

It was September of 1997 when I began my freshman year at Rockland High. I can still remember staring at the mass of strange faces – preppy cheerleaders who followed the jocks, stoners in leather who smelled like cigarettes, art kids in an assortment of colors whose headphones were glued to their ears at all times - and wondering where I’d fit into the equation.

But as soon as I walked into my fifth period English class, I didn’t have to wonder for long.

I spotted her in the back corner, scribbling something on her notebook.  She was wearing black combat boots and a yellow T-shirt that said, “Save a Tree. Eat a Beaver.” I was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and the purple Converse sneakers I’d owned since junior high. I took a seat next to her and we both discreetly eyeballed each other until she broke the ice.

“I like your necklace,” she
’d
whispered to me. I was wearing a black choker that resembled
a dog collar with silver studs. A token of one of my unfortunate, short-lived goth phases.

“Thanks,” I
’d
whispered back.
I pointed to her notebook, where she’d written the words “J.B. 1966 – 1997” with a heart around it. “You’re a Buckley fan, huh?”

Her jaw dropped in disbelief. “You like Jeff Buckley?” She looked me up and down, then narrowed her blue eyes suspiciously. “What’s your favorite song?”

That was an easy one.
The day I discovered “Lover You Should’ve Come Over,” music took on a whole new meaning. It was like
Jeff
Buckley had beamed down from rock and roll heaven to educate society on what music was meant to be. To turn music into more than just a dancy track that saturates the airwaves, into a life-altering event. Into something that makes you view the world differently.

I relayed this information to her, at which point a glorious grin broke out across her face. “I’m Justine,” she said.

“Renee.”

Her eyes circled the room, then she leaned forward in her seat and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you want to meet me for a smoke at the Groves after school?”

“Sure,” I agreed. I’d never smoked a cigarette in my life, but it seemed ideal for an otherwise uneventful Monday afternoon.

The Groves were located in the back of the Rockland High football field, a giant spread of woods where kids would meet at the end of the day to smoke cigarettes, get high or arrange fist fights with their opposing enemy of the week. Justine led me down to a spot that was far enough in for us not to get noticed, then took a seat on the ground and handed me a Marlboro red. When I took my first drag and started coughing like an amateur, she broke into a fit of laughter.

“Never smoked before, huh?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I just spent the last eight years in a Catholic school. The most rebellious thing that kids ever did there was sniff white out.”

That made her laugh harder. Laugh is an inappropriate word actually, because Justine didn’t laugh, she giggled. And it was contagious. No matter what kind of mood I was in, all it took was Justine’s infectious, childlike giggle to snap me out of it.

I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but there was something about Justine that I was instantly drawn to. Maybe it was her constant paradox of innocence and mischief, or the way she loved music the same way I did. All I knew was that, up until that point, I’d always felt like an outsider, but when I was around Justine, it was different. I’d found someone who was just like me.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lying face-up on the grass, Justine twirling her long brown locks with her left hand and chain-smoking with her right. We exchanged grunge fashion favorites and sexual experiences. We quizzed each other on alternative one-hit wonders and complied a list of CD’s to trade. We took Polaroids of ourselves upside down in the grass and howled over the results.

When it started getting dark, Justine walked me to the top of my street. Before crossing to head home, she removed a Polaroid of us from her purse and pressed it into my hand.

“Keep it,” she said, smiling. Then she turned and walked away.

***
 

A
fter our high school graduation, Justine and I wasted no time plotting our escape out of the hells of Rockland. The small-town scene wasn’t for us, and we craved a destination full of skanky rock clubs, sweaty musicians, and lots of nightlife. So, six months after receiving our acceptance letters to UCLA, we made the forty-two hour drive west to the city of Lost Angels.

So many things I never would have imagined. Living in L.A. was like one long vacation. We oo’ed and ah’ed over all the things that we didn’t have back home, the little things that homegrown Los Angelites undo
ubtedly took for granted: In-N-
Out Burger, twenty-four hour diners, the ninety-nine cent supermarket. We spent our days on Venice Beach and our nights on the Sunset Strip, enamored with the seedy sinkholes that lined the majority of West Hollywood. Occasionally we’d throw aside the rock gear and layer ourselves in scarves and high heels and pretend we fit in with the high-class L.A. sector, treating ourselves to fruity champagne drinks at the Ivy, Santa Monica shopping, rooftop pool parties at the Standard. California, aside from the overpopulation and traffic, was heaven on earth.

During my senior year, I landed an internship as a music columnist for
Pace
,
a local magazine that specialized in all aspects of the
über
-
hip L.A. scene from fashion to nightlife. It was there that I met my boyfriend,
Pace’s
sports editor, David Whitman, a broad-shouldered, macho-masculine jock whom I had virtually nothing in common with. However, his charm and matching dimples were a socially and ethically
acceptable diversion from this
relationship roadblock.

Originally, I had assumed that once our four-year UCLA stint was complete, Justine and I would move back east to be with our families. But now the thought of giving up the daily dose of L.A. excitement in exchange for bleak Boston winters and small-town gossip didn’t seem the least bit appealing. So, after several heart-to-heart discussions over martinis, Justine and I made the unanimous decision that we were here to stay.

The plan was set. We’d renew our lease and driver’s licenses. We’d land real jobs, ones that paid us in wages instead of school credits. We’d let our families know we’d be home to visit every summer and every Christmas, and make a list of all the things we loved about L.A. in case we ever got homesick.

Then one day, something happened that ruined our plan completely. It was the day that I walked in on Justine and my boyfriend in bed together.

Chapter
2

I was in desperate need of an apartment, although apartment hunting scored a pretty low ranking in the list of my favorite activities. Whatever qualities one apartment had, the other usually lacked, and vice versa. There were the expensive places in a great location, the reasonably priced places in a not-so-great location, and the dumps. And when you have a slowly dwindling post-college fund and no roommate to share rent expenses, you usually aim for something between the middle and the latter of those three options. 

I had entertained the idea of a roommate for one brief, fleeting moment, but every classified ad I came across only reminded me of the outcome of my last roommate.

I opted to take the solo route and shell out the extra rent money instead.

I ended up settling for a small one-bedroom on the second floor of a complex about three blocks away from Central Square in downtown Boston. The hallways smelled like a nursing home and were lined with painted bricks, like a high school bathroom, but it was one of the only places in town that included free parking, a high selling point for someone who loathes the public transportation system. I also wasn’t too keen on living in a complex since I feared the combination of thin walls and loud neighbors, but luckily it was a small complex with about twenty apartments, not the kind with fifty floors and elevators up the wazoo.
I could barely even get one box settled into my new place before my cell phone rang again. When you move across the country and land a new job and a new boyfriend, your life becomes interesting at best. When you walk in on your best friend and boyfriend in bed together, your life becomes tabloid fodder.

“Hi, Mom,” I greeted, holding the phone with one hand and attempting to unpack with the other.