Mason
Two hours, if I’m lucky. That’s how long I slept last night, AKA this morning. I sat there on the other side of my door thinking about Avery Abbot until the sun was almost up. I thought about Avery Abbot because she thought about me. And I liked that she thought about me.
I didn’t get her email until this morning. That’s probably good, because now my head is all kinds of fucked up trying to figure out what to think about it. She has wanted to do nothing but stick a staple through my neck since I ran into her at Dusty’s my first day back in town. But last night…I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading into it, but I think somewhere, deep down, Avery Abbot cares about me. And I think maybe I care about Avery Abbot.
At first I was just fantasizing about having a little fun with her, maybe getting her drunk and fooling around. But now I kind of just want to kiss her—like a real kiss, not the kind I usually give out just to make some chick think I’m into her so she’ll sleep with me.
I’ve listened to the clip she sent me a dozen times. The first six, I rolled my eyes, not even letting it play all the way through. But something kept calling me back. My young hands didn’t even know what they were doing back then, picking around the strings trying to make something sound good—sound different, unique. But there was something there, underneath my inexperience.
Somewhere along the way, I lost my passion, and Avery was right. I hate that she’s right. Or maybe I love it. Fuck, I don’t know. But it had me watching out my window this morning, just waiting for her to get in her car with Max and leave the house so I could pull out my guitar without her thinking she had anything to do with it.
She had everything to do with it. But she doesn’t need to know that.
By the time noon rolled around, I had played through everything I’d ever written, and covered about twenty of my favorites just trying to find myself again somewhere in this mess I’ve made. And now I just need to convince Ray to let me go on tonight. I need to see how it feels—in front of an audience. See if my heart kicks again…like it used to.
I’m a disheveled mess, my hair wet from the thirty-second shower and my shirt half tucked in when I walk into Dusty’s. I always liked the lunch crowd. It was nothing but locals and regulars, people who actually came here to get drunk early and eat the food. I look like I fit right in.
“Thanks for hanging on to my stuff, Ray,” I hear a familiar, grating voice say from the other side of the swinging door. If I could wish myself to have one super power right now, it would be invisibility. But since that’s not an option, I do the next best thing and duck behind the counter while Ray and my mother walk around the other side.
“Sure thing, Barb. You know you’ve always got a place here,” Ray says, holding the door open while my mother follows him through. I can see the top of her copper hair as I crouch and slide my way around the opposite direction of the counter. “So, you good startin’ back up tonight then?”
“Honey, I’m always ready,” she says, her overt flirtation like a wet fish slapped in my face. My mother always threw herself at men—doesn’t matter that she’s known Ray for years. He has a penis, no wife, and a decent job. That made him fair game. At least until some millionaire shows up.
“You can’t hide here forever, ya know,” I hear behind me as a foot kicks my ass lightly, just enough to push me off balance and onto my hands and knees. I turn around to see a tiny brunette with short bobbed hair and her hand on one hip, her tray balanced against the other. “That’s your mama, Mason. She’s going to know you’re back in town eventually.”
“Yeah, I know…” I say, studying her face and looking for recognition.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she says, popping a giant bubble with her gum. I know I know her, but damned if I could remember her name right now. She’s one of Avery’s friends—I saw her the other night, and I’m pretty sure not recognizing her now is not going to do me any favors when it comes to Avery. Shit, I hope I never slept with her!
“I remember you…it’s just…been a while,” I say, standing up and dusting off my jeans, racking my brain…nothing.
“Uh huh. Sure you do,” she says, walking past me with a smirk on her face.
“Carrie,” I take a stab in the dark. The look she shoots back at me tells me I’m not even close.
“Claire, Mason! Good lord, at least you got the first letter right. I’ve known you since sixth grade?” she says, loading up her tray with drinks, straws, and napkins. I decide to help her, hoping my gesture might just earn me some points.
“Yeah, that’s right. Sorry. I knew you…I just couldn’t get the name to come up. Sorry,” I repeat, sheepishly. It’s better to just own up to this.
She gives me a short half-smile and pauses for a second or two before shrugging and lifting her tray. I follow behind with a stack of menus. “So, Mason. What are you doing back in town?” she says over her shoulder, dropping off a few drink orders before seating a group of construction workers at a booth.
“You know, just figuring some things out. Not sure if I want to tour any more or maybe work on some solo stuff,” I say, not really ready to lay my failures out for her.
“Uh huh,” she says, her smile just dripping with condescension.
“I’m not with the label any more, so it’s a good time for me to take a break,” I keep going. Fuck! Why do I feel the need to justify myself to this chick?
She just keeps going about her business, dropping off napkins for one table and bussing another, and I keep following her, like some new kid who doesn’t fit in. That’s me—somehow, I’m the new kid! I used to kick my feet up at the corner booth, and skip school until it was time to go on—college chicks lining up just to sit on my lap. And now here I am, begging for approval from a waitress, who clearly couldn’t give a shit who I am.
I finally drop the menus I’ve been carrying around into the bin at the hostess desk and sit at one of the nearby stools, pulling out my phone so I can look busy and find a way out of this sudden feeling of inadequacy. Then I hear the stool drag closer, and seconds later Claire is sitting right next to me, leaning on one elbow—staring. I squint at her and grimace, probably a little rudely, but I’m done trying to impress her. So what if she’s Avery’s friend.
“Avery told me you blew it,” she says, completely deflating me and annoying the fuck out of me at the same time.
“Yeah, well, what does Avery know,” I say, flipping through my ESPN app just trying to find something else to occupy my attention. Funny how many times I’ve asked myself what Avery knows over the last 48 hours. Turns out she might just know me better than anyone.
“My god, Mason. Are you really that clueless?” Claire asks.
“Apparently,” I sigh, continuing to flip through some story on human growth hormone lawsuits and baseball. Claire’s not taking the hint though, so I close the app and push my phone back in my pocket to give her my reluctant attention.
“You, like…really have no idea, do you?” she says, with this faint, cocky smirk. I’m starting to hate this chick.
“Nope,” I say, folding my arms up a little defensively now.
Claire’s smile gets a little bigger, and now she’s scooting closer. She starts looking around, making that face chicks make when they’re gossiping. For some reason, it’s starting to make me nervous as hell, so I start looking around, too. Finally satisfied that we’re alone, she props her chin up on her hand, cupping it a little for even more privacy. I’m starting to think she’s about to tell me that she’s a transvestite, she’s acting so strange—when she drops an even bigger bomb.
“Avery was totally in love with you,” she says, a half-whisper. She says a few other things after, about how Avery used to write my name on her notebook and shit, but all I keep hearing—over and over—is that Avery Abbot loved me. Avery Abbot…loved me? Where the fuck was I?
“Wait…wait. What? Avery can’t stand my ass! And in high school, she barely talked to me. Even when I stayed at her house, she’d always run away, hide in her room. That’s why I called her Birdie, because she was so chirpy and mousy all the time,” I say. I’m pretty sure Claire is full of shit on this one.
“True. And she never liked it when you called her that. In fact, the first time you did, she came over to my house after school and cried her fucking eyes out,” Claire says, instantly sticking a knife through my gut.
“Damn, I never knew that. I thought she always liked it when we called her that. She never said anything…” I say, looking down, a little embarrassed that I now have ASSHOLE stamped across my forehead.
Claire laughs lightly and nudges me to get my attention. “Don’t beat yourself up over that. She had pretty low self-esteem back then. Not the same girl that will tell you where to stick it today,” she says, with a wink.
She’s right, too—my first few days with Avery since I’ve been back in town have been nothing but her telling me exactly what she thinks of me, no matter how harsh, which is precisely why I can’t believe Avery ever loved me.
“Alright, I get it. I teased her. And you say she loved me, which…whatever, I’m not buying that. But why the hell is she so anti-Mason now?” I ask. I want to get to the heart of Avery’s beef with me—if for nothing else to make the next couple weeks a little more bearable.
“You are unbelievable!” Claire says, letting out a piercing laugh just to punctuate how stupid she thinks I am. I just stare at her blankly—I’ve got nothin’. “Mason, don’t you remember Nikki Thomas’ party our sophomore year?”
Yeah, I remember that party. That’s the night I slept with Nikki Thomas, pretty much the hottest piece of ass in our high school. And that was the night I realized exactly all of the doors being a musician could open. It was the night I decided that the second I had enough money I was leaving Cave Creek and heading straight to LA. But something tells me those aren’t the things Claire—and more importantly, Avery—remembers about that night. So I just nod slowly and wait, hoping she’ll fill me in.
“Everyone was playing that drinking game, and you and Avery got dared to be locked in the closet for 30 minutes. You remember that?” she asks, and I have a vague imprint somewhere in the back of my mind. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t sober that night—always one of my regrets about sleeping with Nikki Thomas; I only remember bits and pieces about sex with her.
“Sort of,” I say, scratching at the back of my neck. This isn’t going to be good—I can tell.
Claire just sighs and shakes her head. “Jesus, Mason. You sat in that closet with her for 30 minutes. That was like…her dream come true. And you just sat in there, with your feet crossed out in front of you, like you were taking a nap. You didn’t even talk to her! You practically lived at her house, and you just ignored her so you could endure some goddamned bet you lost!”
Fuck!
“When they opened up the door, you walked out and told everyone she kissed like a bird, too. You said she just pecked at you, and you had to push her off of you. Then you said she begged you to go all the way,” Claire is even ashamed saying this shit out loud. The worst part is I can’t deny any of it. I don’t really remember it—actually, I kind of do, just not clearly. But I can picture it—it’s exactly something I would do. And I haven’t changed a goddamned bit.
The bar is starting to fill up, so Claire kicks back from the bar and scoots in her stool, patting her hands on the counter a few times before speaking. “I gotta get back to work. But whatever you’re trying to figure out while you’re here, Mason? Make sure you don’t have to tear Avery down just to get there, okay?”
I nod at her, my breath pretty much knocked out of my lungs. I thought Ray held up a pretty brutal mirror when he showed me those articles the other day. But Claire just trumped that. Avery might have loved me—once. But I pissed all over that, just like I do everything that’s good in my life.
“Hey, Claire?” I catch her before she heads into the kitchen.
“Yeah?” she asks, pausing halfway through the door.
“You think I can fix any of that? I mean—I know I’m way beyond saying sorry now. But, I guess…you think maybe I can get her to not hate me?” The words sound pathetic as they leave my lips, but I’m all right with that. Turns out, I am kinda pathetic. And the fact that Avery said the things she said last night makes me an even bigger asshole—because I don’t deserve them, but she’s a fucking saint for saying them anyway.
“You can always fix it, Mason,” she says, her lips curled into a half smile. “That girl—she’ll always see the best in you. Even when she doesn’t want to.”
The door swings shut behind her, and despite sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant, I feel completely alone. I have to find Ray. And I have to get him to let me go on tonight. Because I have to go back to the beginning and see if I can get shit right this time around. And I’m pretty sure it all starts with Avery Abbot.