Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story (3 page)

“You left? Why?”

I shrugged. “I was in shock. I didn’t even know what to say. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and try to process what had just happened.”

“So what did Justine say? Have you talked to her? She must’ve called you, right?”

In addition to her honesty, Beth was also infamous for talking a mile a minute. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise when the two of us were together, and even when I was the one talking, she would constantly interrupt with one hundred questions. Beth was very analytical. Conveying a story to her was like being on trial; you had to offer up every single detail so she could analyze every aspect of the story and weigh her opinion carefully.

Beth and I met the summer before we both entered the sixth grade. She lived a street over from me and was the only girl in my neighborhood who didn’t think I was some sort of foreign reptile because I went to Catholic school. Our afterschool rituals consisted of riding our bicycles around the neighborhood and swapping stories about our daily adventures. I was always envious of her public school lifestyle, mainly because nothing exciting ever happened at Holy Family. No one ever got caught fooling around in the locker room or smoking pot in the bathroom. Her stories were like listening to the narrative of a soap opera, which, in my eyes, made her the epitome of cool. I couldn’t believe she actually wanted to be friends with someone who wore knee socks and saddle shoes on a daily basis. 

“She’s called, but I can’t talk to her,” I said, answering her question. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to, but right now, I just can’t.”

Beth cocked an eyebrow. “So how did you get your stuff out of the apartment?”

“I went there when I knew she was at work. Took the basics, left the furniture.”

“Do you think they’re, like, dating? Or do you think it was just a one-time thing?”

“I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t want to know.”

“God, I really can’t believe Justine would do that to you,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands. “I really can’t. You guys have been friends for so long.”

I bit my thumbnail nervously, and then asked the question that I had been dying to ask all along. “Beth, why do you think she did it?”

Beth sighed. “Well, I think it could be two reasons. The first reason could be that she’s jealous of you.”

I shook my head. There was no way. The only time jealousy occurred was when someone felt they were being denied something they could have, something that belonged to someone else. Justine could’ve had any guy on the planet. It didn’t add up.

“No way,” I said. “I think I’d pick up on it if she was. I mean, come on, the girl was my best friend.”

Beth gave me that knowing look that told me she knew what she was talking about. “Don’t be so sure. Sometimes people hide things well. Maybe she’s always secretly compared herself to you and you just never realized it.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. So what’s the second reason?”

“Well, the second reason is that maybe she’s in love with him. And I don’t mean some sort of sexual infatuation, I mean serious love, as in marriage. If she doesn’t have jealousy issues with you, then that’s the only thing that would make sense. I can’t picture her ruining a friendship, especially a friendship like the one you guys had, unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this guy.”

That was the more logical explanation, the one I had been leaning towards all along. But the thing that bothered me even more than the thought of Justine and David getting married was the fact that Beth used the word “had” when referring to my friendship with Justine.
The friendship you guys had.

And even when I returned home later that evening, I still couldn’t get those words out of my head.

Chapter
4

I’m not sure who came up with the brilliant revelation that college freshmen are mature enough to choose their own majors and career paths because – and I can pretty much guarantee this – eighteen year-olds do not have the mental capacity to make such a life-altering decision. And in the city of Los Angeles, if you decline to enter into the shallow world of wanna-be model/actresses, that doesn’t leave you many job options.  You either end up a waitress, a receptionist, or become some
soulless mutant
who
crunches numbers for a living.

Five years and three major switches later, I didn’t find my calling. It found me.

I was browsing the classifieds for internships when I saw it.

“
Pace Magazine
is looking to bring on interns to assist with our new music column, ‘Sound Bites.’ Responsibilities will include article fact-checking and assisting with weekly music reviews. Journalism and Communications majors only. All interested candidates should send their resume to
[email protected]
.”

The words danced before my eyes. Bright lights and heavenly choir music engulfed me.

A music writer.
Why
the hell
hadn’t I thought of this before?
For all those years I’d lived and breathed music, it had never occurred to me that there were other professions inside the music industry besides solely performing music. I’d long since come to terms with the fact that, in light of the many things I was good at, singing was not one of them. Writing, however, was a completely different story.

My eagerness had clearly shown through on the day of the interview, when
the entertainment director
hired me on the spot. I’m not sure if she hired me because no one else had applied for the job or because she saw the undying love for music glowing from my eyes, but either way, I was told to report to the lobby on Monday at nine and bring two forms of ID.

When my first day arrived, I was sitting in the lobby, pretending to be engrossed in the latest copy of the
L.A. Weekly
, when I noticed him. He strolled across the room steadily, his white polo hugging him just tightly enough to show off the outline of his biceps.

“You must be Renee Evans,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m David Whitman,
Pace’s
sports editor. It’s nice to meet you.”

I stood up and shook his hand, still stunned by the beauty of his dark, deep-set eyes and perfectly chiseled frame.

“The HR team is in a meeting, so they’ve asked me to bring you up to the conference room to get started with your new hire paperwork,” he continued. “Follow me.”

I grabbed my purse and followed him down the corridor. I had to increase my speed to keep up with his brisk pace. One of my college professors had taught us that, when in a business environment, there were three things you should always remember: make eye contact, have a firm handshake, and walk with a straight posture, with confidence, “with a purpose,” as he’d called it.

David Whitman walked with a purpose.

After recovering from the initial intimidation of his beauty, I felt instantly at ease with him. By the end of my first day, that budding feeling of lust had already started to form in the pit of my stomach, and I found myself humming on the way home from work like a teenage smitten schoolgirl.

By the end of the second day, he had already asked me out.

I can remember our first date as clear as you’d remember anything else of significant importance in your life: your first kiss, your first love, your first heartbreak. He picked me up in a black Lexus RX, wearing a
white baseball cap and a light green shirt that
showed off the tanned tone of his skin
.
He took me to dinner at Katsuyah on Hollywood Boulevard, then for a walk down the Santa Monica Pier. When he leaned in and kissed me, all I could think of was how long it had been since I’d felt like this.

Naturally, at first, I thought it was love, as everyone does when they’re blindsided in the initial relationship stages. I even held out on sex for as long as physically possible, because I was “waiting for the right time.”

“What the hell are you waiting for?” Justine had asked. “Singing angels to come down from the sky?”

“Hey, we don’t all put out on the first date like you,” I’d joked, but in truth, I really did want it to be perfect, just like everything, up until that point, had been.

But after the honeymoon stage fizzled out, I began to have my doubts. For one, if things didn’t work out between us, I knew the inter-office romance drama at work wouldn’t go over well, and could possibly cost me my newfound dream job. And I had also slowly started to come to the realization that David and I didn’t have a whole hell of a lot in common.

Pace’s
entertainment director had just assigned me my first research piece, where I was instructed to review the album charts for the past
decade
and compile a list of the most popular rock bands of the twenty-first century. After coming up with a pathetically weak list of bands not even worthy of mention, it was of no comparison to the bands like Nirvana and Radiohead that had severely impacted the music world a decade prior. I began to wonder if the entire music scene had gone seriously downhill in the last ten years, as the only band I could think of that had emerged over the past decade and was worth adding to the list was Muse.

When I presented my frustration to David, his lackluster attitude gave way to the realization that we were definitely lacking in the common interest arena, as David’s only passion in life was sports, which was like a foreign language to me. For the first time since we started dating, I began to think that maybe our relationship didn’t exactly have the longest shelf life. Common goals and passions may not be important to some people, but they were to me.

“Cornell is still around,” he
’d argued when I vented about my article.

“My point exactly. Cornell was one of the talented artists who evolved in the nineties.
Name at least one of your favorite bands who
evolved over the past
ten
years.”

Silence.

“See?” I pointed out
. “It isn’t easy, is it? I literally sat my desk for hours today trying to come up with some great bands that have formed in the last few years and I ended up having to include bands that I didn’t even like. The only one worth adding to the list is Muse.”

“Who’s Muse?”

***

The lobby to my apartment building was lined with a horizontal row of silver mailboxes, each of which held a small lock in the center. Every afternoon, like clockwork, I’d spend at least ten minutes trying to force my key to unlock the damn door, which usually resulted in my fist beating it repeatedly until the door swung open.

Which was exactly what I was doing when Dylan came strolling through the front door. 

“Well, if it isn’t Miss California herself,” he greeted, sidling up next to me. His mood seemed to have slightly improved since our last encounter.