Zero (25 page)

Where my painting hangs unsold. Where my best friend and I spent so many hours.

The wind picks up, tossing an empty beer can
rumple-crinkle
across the dirt.

So this is where it happened. The parking lot of a coffee shop.

No music, no satin sheets, no rose petals. Not even the traditional backseat.

“Oh god,” I whisper.

Mike says nothing.

I slowly turn toward him. He’s grabbed hold of his pant legs and twisted the denim into his fists as he sits unblinking, looking at nothing. There’s a thin trickle of blood running down his hand.

“Mike?”

Mike doesn’t move.

“I didn’t mean—” I start, and can’t say anything else, because
yes
, I did.

Mike sniffs. “I need to get home,” he goes, his voice nearly inaudible. “The show.”

“Okay,” I whisper back, and twist the key in the ignition.

I’m in pain the entire drive to his house. It’s not exactly crippling, but it ain’t no fun, either. This is awful compared to how I usually feel after being with Mike.

But then we were never together like this.

And may never be again. More of that intuition stuff, maybe. It tells me that this—what should have been so good and so wasn’t—was absolutely the worst thing I could have done.

When I pull up to his house and park, Mike opens the door right away.

“Are you mad?” I ask as he climbs out.

Mike hesitates with one foot on the sidewalk. “I don’t know,” he says. “You still coming to the show?”

“I—I don’t—”

“Well, I’d like you to. Think about it. See ya.”

Then he’s out, shutting the door and walking up the path to his front porch. I watch him go inside.

I shift into drive and cruise home in silence. Mom and Dad’s room is black when I get there. I make it all the way into my room before realizing I still have the bloody paper napkin clenched in my hand.

I throw it into my garbage basket and climb into bed alone.

I make sure to bury my face against my pillow so Mom won’t hear how hard I’m crying.

I don’t remember when I started.

But I do stop soon enough to shower, change, and still make it to Damage Control on time.

And the Bad Timing Award goes to …

I have this
daydream. It’s gonna sound contradictory, but it’s not, not really. I’m at an opening at some big gallery. My biggest show ever. I’m selling for thousands of dollars. Then some hotshot comes in. Maybe a Hollywood producer or something. He sees this one painting, and he’s all, “I have to have it. Price is no object.” Or something like that. Except when he whips out a checkbook, I tell him, “Sorry. This one’s not for sale.” And he gets all mad, right? Tells me he’ll pay me one million dollars, right here, right now. And I just say, “Nope. Sorry.” So he goes up to two million, then three million, but each time, I tell him no. Finally, he gives up and storms out of the gallery. But see, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that I can’t sell this particular painting because it is absolutely the best painting I’ve ever done. I can’t sell it,
not for any price. I’m too proud of this one piece to ever let it go.

Now, the reality is that the chances of this happening are less than zero percent. No pun intended.

But that’s not the point. The point is, someday I will paint this masterpiece. I don’t know what it is yet, or when it’ll happen. But it is out there. I have to know what that painting is. A piece so beautiful or disturbing or both that I could never let it go.

Like I said, it’s a daydream. But it’s my daydream.

Tonight, it comes back to me in the greenroom downstairs at Damage Control, where Mike and the band are gathered, waiting for the show to start. I didn’t even know there
was
a downstairs, and a distant part of me now feels extremely badass. Every wall of the greenroom is a study in collage, band posters pasted up over other posters of bands who’ve long since broken up, died, or gotten real jobs. Brook has taped my flyer dead center on each of the walls, where I’m afraid it will blend in, get lost, but it doesn’t. It stands out from the others like one of Mike’s beautiful blue-green eyes—the color I used as a backdrop behind the cymbal (or record) reflecting the guys’ faces.

I just wish I could enjoy it.

Three of the guys are amped up, pacing nervously, making jokes, slapping fives.

The other one sits quietly on a folding chair, not making eye contact with me.

“Don’t we get, like, lobster or something?” Brook says, showing his teeth.

“Next time, next time,” Hob says, and (almost) everyone laughs.

The energy is bright, electric, but I can’t share in it. Upstairs, Just This Once is doing the last sound check of the night before the doors open.

“C’mon, Michael!” Hob says, shaking both of Mike’s shoulders in his massive hands. “Aren’t you jazzed, man?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “Just getting in the zone.”

“Oh, hey, no problem,” Hob says, releasing him. “Do what you gotta do, man.”

Mike nods and finally gives me a quick glance. I can only stare back. Of all nights …

Right then, Penny Denton of Four Eyes Entertainment barrels down the stairs and into the greenroom. She looks around at everyone, and she’s
pissed
.

“Who’s Jonathan?” she demands.

Hob turns around. “That’s me. How’s it going? We’ve only met on the pho—”

“We need to talk,” Penny barks, and stomps back up the stairs.

The rest of us turn to Hobbit, who’s watching the door slowly swing shut. He pulls on a scowl and follows after her.

“What the hell was that?” Eddie says to Brook, then immediately repeats it to Mike.

“Probably nothing,” Brook says. He gives Eddie a smile, but it’s not quite as big as it was when we got here. Mike glances at them, at me, then back at the floor.

We sit in silence for about five minutes, during which I try to figure out how many ways there are to say “I’m sorry.” Around number 362, there are heavy footsteps on the stairs.
We all stand. Hob comes in and shuts the door quietly behind him.

“There’s been a change,” he says, staring at the ash-stained carpet. “In the lineup.”

“What?” Eddie cries.

Brook kicks one of Mike’s empty drum cases. “What’d they do, move us to first now?”

Hob shakes his head. Brook storms up to him.

“What, did they boot us? Is that it? ’Cause that would be bullshit!”

“We’re last,” Hob says.

The guys turn into statues, staring at their leader.

“Say again?” Brook goes.

“We’re last,” Hob repeats, and slowly begins to smile. “We’re
headlining
.”

Brook sits down fast on a folding chair. Eddie covers his face. Mike only gives a little shrug of his eyebrows—but the eyes beneath show more. Life. Distraction. Something other than whatever he’s feeling after what happened—

“I just shit my pants!” Eddie gasps.

“Is that, like, a metaphor, or do we need to go find some size forties real fast?” Brook asks.

Eddie nervously shakes his head. It almost makes me laugh.

“What happened to Nightrage?” Mike asks Hob, like he’s still trying to comprehend what Hob has said.

“They broke up,” Hob says, rubbing his hands together. He looks a little
too
pleased at the thought. “Like, literally an hour ago. Imploded. They’re done, they’re history!”

So their blowups onstage weren’t an act after all. And who
cares—now the way is clear for Gothic Rainbow to
arrive
, so to speak.

Just wish it was under different circumstances, personally speaking.

Mike finally moves from the chair. He goes into the center of their circle. “Okay, you guys? This doesn’t change anything. We got moved up. That’s cool. But most of the people up there came to see them.”

“Yeah, but they’re gonna leave sayin’ they saw us!” Hobbit says. He turns to me. “Zero, listen. We got a merch table set up at the back. Can you run up there and man it for us?”

“Um—sure,” I say.

Hob frowns at me and sneaks a look at Mike. “What’s up with you two?”

Brook and Eddie likewise check us both out. I swallow something dry. How to answer
that
little question?
Well, Hob, it’s like this: earlier this fine evening, in a fit of mutual pissy moods, Mike and I …

“We’re fine,” Mike says. “No worries.”

Huh. Sure.

I clear my throat. “Okay, so, yeah, I’ll head up. Break a leg or whatever it is you’re supposed to break.”

Mike comes over and opens the door to the stairs. The other guys say thanks, and Mike takes me up to the top.

“Listen—” he starts.

“No, I know,” I say. “Just have a really great show, okay?”

Mike looks into my eyes, and it hurts how much I care about him, about this, about us. I touch his arm, briefly, before heading into the venue to find the merchandise table.

I get there as Just This Once begins playing. I find GR’s merch table and take a seat behind it. There’s not much to show off; just copies of the band’s demo tapes with handwritten labels. But I sell two almost right away. The people at the box office counter are busy explaining to everyone who comes in that Nightrage is off the bill. I don’t see anyone choose to leave.

After Just This Once wraps up, I feel a tug on my sleeve.

“Hey, you.”

For a moment, I almost don’t even turn, convinced I must still be suffering from a Stupid Fucking Mistake hangover. But when I do, it’s Jenn all right, wearing a worried smile.

And before I know it, I move into her and hug her tight. She hugs me back.

“Thought you’d be here,” she says, while Bad Religion plays over the sound system.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Forget it,” Jenn says, squeezing me. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

We’re still embracing when some tool walks by us, leering. “Hey, all right, girl-on-girl action!” he says. Do guys find this approach
normally
works? Discuss.

Jenn, without breaking her hold on me, barks, “Hey, piss off, jerk!”

The dude blinks and hurriedly goes to the bar. I start laughing; can’t help it. Jenn giggles back, and we separate.

“You want some help?” she asks, gesturing to the table.

“Yeah,” I say. “That would be great.” Oh, you mean selling tapes? Yeah, that too.

She finds a folding chair and brings it over to the table to join me. We both take seats as the capacity crowd shouts for drinks and music while another band preps for the next set.

“So how you doing?” Jenn asks me.

I shake my head. “Jenn … I’m the stupidest person on the face of god’s green earth.”

“Nah.
I’m
gunning for top spot. Did something happen?”

I look around, biting my lip. Not a conversation I want to have, period, never mind at Damage Control on the night of GR’s big show. But it’s so loud and crowded that it permits an ironic sort of privacy.

“Okay,” I say, and scoot my chair closer. Then I vomit. Not, like, puke, but everything that happened tonight. Jenn listens carefully, eyebrows furrowed. I can’t tell if she’s angry, disappointed, or sad, or at
who
.

“God, Z,” she says when I’m done. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell me I’m not a jerk.”

“You’re not a jerk,” Jenn goes. “You were really upset and confused. Trust me, I get it.”

The next band, Living Room Casket, starts up, and it’s way too loud to talk without shouting. So we wait thirty minutes till they’re done, and Jenn turns right back to me.

“It was a mistake,” she says firmly, like she’s taken the time during the music to formulate her opinion. I didn’t hear their set at all.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Jenn says. “It really was. The one thing he specifically asked you not to do, and you did it.”

“This is not helping,” I mutter.

“Yes, it is. You need to understand that if you’re going to make it work. Sex changes everything, Z.
Everything
. Even under the best circumstances, which this wasn’t.”

I nod and cover my face. I know. I
do
.

I feel her hand on my shoulder. “What does Mike think?”

“No idea. We haven’t had any time to talk about it. God,
tonight
, why’d it have to be tonight?”

“Well, it didn’t have to be. That’s all on you.”

“Jenn!”

“Do you want me to be your friend or not?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then I’m going to tell you the truth,” Jenn says. “And if that hurts, I’m sorry, I really am, but if I didn’t say it, I wouldn’t
be
your friend. Okay?”

“… Okay.”

“So obviously, you have to talk to Mike,” she goes on. “But maybe not tonight. I know you want to, and he probably does, too, but give it till tomorrow. You have your own things to worry about first.”

“Like what?”

“How about getting pregnant?”

Oh, holy hell. I almost throw up for real, right then and there.

“And diseases,” Jenn goes on, like it’s a list that she’s well versed in, and I suppose that she probably is. “You’ll have to get checked out. See your doctor, all that.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Okay. I mean, I’m not worried about it. He said he’d been tested before.”

“It doesn’t matter what he said. Ever. You have to. When’s your period?”

Ladies and gentlemen—mostly ladies—this is the single best night of my life, yessiree.

“Dunno,” I say into my hands. “Couple days, maybe.”

“That’s good. If you get it, chances are good you’re not pregnant. But even if you do, you should wait a week or so and then go make sure.”

I nod wearily.

“Good. Now as for you and Mike, I think you should both just chill. Let him get his head together, too, you know? It has to sink in.”

She’s right, I realize. It’s been
hours
. I still hurt a little, for god’s sake. It is too soon to go having a big discussion. Not right after the show.

“The show,” I say.