Apple Cider
Whatever happened with Angie
would take a while. She and Shawn both seemed more comfortable quartetting it
with Wendy and Pancho. When they were alone, they both seemed distracted and
inert. Occasionally, their eyes would flash in conversation, or he would make
her laugh. He loved her sharp wit, her jaded outlook, but for whatever reason
the loop refused to close.
They began to fall into the habits of friendship: going
Dutch, the goodnight hug. It might have been simple chemistry. After Tacoma,
Shawn knew the color of those sparks, and he wasn’t getting any from Angie.
When they ran out of art films at the Grand, they gave
into mass marketing and saw a Jackie Chan movie. Shawn hated to admit it, but
the guy had turned martial arts into something new, half Baryshnikov, half
Buster Keaton.
They pulled up to the Cambridge to find lawn furniture: a
mattress, bookcase, kitchen table and three chairs. A flyer from the police
department declared that these were the results of an eviction, and were not to
be disturbed.
Shawn left Angie with their customary embrace and nearly
skipped the two flights to his apartment. Fourth-floor Shawn was history! He
was still winded when he hit the answering machine and heard an unexpected
voice.
“Hi Shawn. I hate to call just to take advantage of your
muscle, but... I’m moving, and I really need some help. Could you rescue a lady
in distress? Give me a call. Please.”
Suzanne had been transferred
out-of-state, leaving Tacoma with the choice of finding another roommate or another
situation. She opted for a one-bedroom in a nice complex near Point Defiance.
Its only drawback was a narrow staircase with a sharp right turn, making
furniture navigation a particular pain. It didn’t help that Tacoma kept
cracking jokes at critical lifting moments, leaving Shawn somewhere between
dying laughing or just plain dying.
The work was good, though, because it gave them a focus.
They managed to avoid any awkwardness till later, consuming the requisite pizza
as they scraped for things to say.
“How’s the band?”
“Great! We’re playing Cole’s tomorrow night.”
“Cole’s! Isn’t that the one you’ve been shooting for?”
“Yeah. The real
blues joint. They don’t let you play there unless you’ve been in jail at least
once.”
Oh, that did it. She smiled. He could fend off anything
but that.
“Would you mind if I... showed up?” she asked.
Shawn smiled back. “I’d be honored.”
The next day, Shawn’s mind
was a hundred miles away. He should have been relaxing, perhaps running some
songs through his head. Instead, he was running Tacoma through his head, trying
to figure if this reunion really meant something.
His answer came in a common term of male appraisal,
uttered by Pancho as Shawn knelt on the stage, tuning his bass drum.
“Hachiwawa!”
She walked through the door in black leather go-go boots,
chocolate suede miniskirt, black-and-gold sleeveless sequin top, and a jacket
of black see-through lace extending to her wrists.
Artemis,
thought Shawn. The Huntress. It was
time to make some quick decisions.
Ivy had just told them about a festival in Twin Falls,
Idaho. She wanted to line up clubs on the way there and back, and make a tour
of it. For Shawn, it was a life’s dream, and he wanted it all for himself.
There were lots of tales about drummers and groupies, and he wanted to skim
those shallow waters just once. So he coached himself: Make no promises.
He tightened the last head-nut and went to the bar, where
Tacoma was sipping from a Roy Rogers. He ran a finger down the back of her neck
and watched her apple-cider eyes as she turned.
“Hi.”
“Hi. You look incredible.”
“Y’look pretty good yourself.”
“Nonsense. I look like a drummer. YOu look like a
czarina.”
After such pleasant beginnings, it was easy to fall into
old habits. At the first break, he held her hand under the table. At the
second, he opened her fingers and kissed her palm. She responded by kissing his
jawline just under the earlobe.
Matters weren’t helped by the band, which was operating
like a beautiful machine. They knew the music well enough that they could swim
around in it. Halfway through “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” Shawn extended
the drum break into a hip-hop beat, smacking those interior James Brown snare
shots and refusing to cue the guitarists back in. Ivy jumped to the mic, taking
an old sexuo-political poem (“Mister/Misses”) and laying it out over the drum
track.
Drinking a post-gig martini, unable to keep his facial
features from rising, the loveliest girl on God’s green planet on his arm,
Shawn was an easy target. Tacoma whispered an invitation, and Shawn responded
with a breath-stealing kiss, raising a round of hoots and hollers from the
twelve people left in the bar.
Photo by MJV
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