CHAPTER TEN
A week after Mark had told me to fuck off, instead of meeting with me, I found myself at Respects again. Once more, I had cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, and a beer in front of me; but I was by myself. I lit up and looked around the bar, trying not to be the morose asshole I felt like. It was eleven, so people were starting to come in, but I didn’t think there would be that many; according to Sophie, the place was almost never super packed on a Wednesday. Thursdays--for Flaunt--it would get busy, and then on Friday, and almost always on Saturday, but unless there was an actual event, Wednesdays mostly only managed to bring out the diehards.
I flicked the tip of my cig in the ashtray and looked behind the bar. Sophie was in perpetual motion, taking stock of her supplies, closing out tabs, opening tabs, going into the back for whatever it was anyone needed. Queens of The Stone Age, “No One Knows” came on through the system and I saw her hips beginning to move in time, as she scribbled something down on a pad. I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but it seemed like she got hotter every time I saw her; when I’d picked her up to drive her to work about an hour and a half before, it’d been all I could do not to drag her back into her apartment and convince her to let me make her late. She’d pulled her hair back into the spiky, small pigtails I’d liked so much the first night I’d seen her, but she was wearing a pair of shorts that barely covered her ass, along with a thin, almost transparent shirt that draped across her shoulders and clung to her tits.
“Want another shot?” Sophie leaned in closer to me over the bar, and I shrugged.
“Might as well,” I replied. “Not like I have anywhere to be.” It had been a week--and none of us had gone back into the studio, because Mark refused to respond to anyone. Either he told them to fuck off, same as he had me, or he just didn’t answer. Things were starting to get desperate; the record label wasn’t happy with the fact that we were stalled out on the album, especially since they’d given us the biggest budget we’d ever had. We were going to have to come up with something soon, but no one in the band seemed to have an idea of how to move forward.
I couldn’t help but feel more than a little guilty about it; I couldn’t make myself believe that Mark’s tantrum was all about Sophie, but obviously, that had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back. If we couldn’t figure out how to move forward, then it was going to be bad for all of us. Not that Jules won’t just bounce back. He’s already got that side project. Alex could go solo. Nick… I sighed, pushing the thought out of my head before I’d even finished it. In a certain light, I could understand where Mark was coming from; at least, where he’d been coming from before, the night we’d met Sophie.
But knowing where he was coming from didn’t really seem to help all that much. I still didn’t have an answer for what to do about the situation. My phone buzzed on the bar top and I turned it over to see the screen flashing. I had a text. I unlocked my phone and stubbed out my cigarette, taking the shot from Sophie without even looking. Meeting tomorrow. Ron’s office. Mark won’t be there. It was from Nick. I knocked back the shot and considered the message.
Is Ron going to be there? What’s the deal? I took a sip of my beer and lit another cigarette. This was certainly getting interesting--I knew that it would eventually come to some kind of meeting; some kind of sit-down. The fact that it was Nick messaging me about it instead of Alex was a little unusual.
I had to wonder if the rest of the band thought it was my fault that Mark was throwing such an epic tantrum. After all, the spark for this had been him finding out about me and Sophie. You have to admit that you were pretty pissed about the fact that he and Sophie were supposed to go out after she’d already said yes to you, I reminded myself. And it was true--and Nick had pointed out how stupid it was for me to be so touchy about it. And then, too, it’s not like he knew. Obviously. I finished off my beer and signaled to Sophie. At least for a little while, I had enough money not to worry too much about running up a huge tab, and how I’d pay for it. We were still getting quarterly royalties from the first few albums, and since things had gotten so good with everyone else in the band drawing more and more attention to us, those checks were bigger.
Ron’s not going to be there. He’s letting us figure this shit out. But the label is pretty...the polite way they put it was ‘concerned’. I almost laughed out loud at Nick’s understatement. The label was pissed. They’d dropped money on the studio of our choice, and they were bleeding that money for however long we went without working, since--unless we contacted them and told them to suspend the album--they couldn’t just quit the lease on the place. My phone buzzed again. Noon, Alex says. You going to be there? Sophie cracked another beer and slid it in front of me.
I sighed. I knew I didn’t really have a whole hell of a lot of choice. I’ll bring pizza, I texted back. There was no real getting around it--I’d need to be there. Especially since Mark apparently wasn’t going to attend, it was a good idea. There was no doubting what we’d be discussing: the future of the band, and how we were going to deal with the situation.
“What’s up?” I looked up and saw Sophie standing across the bar from me, hands resting on the bar top. I shrugged.
“Meeting tomorrow with the boys--except Mark, who apparently won’t talk to anyone,” I told her. “At our manager’s office, but he won’t be there.”
“I assume you’ll hash everything out?” Sophie looked doubtful.
“Jules will bring some dope, I’ll bring some pizza, we’ll talk about whatever everyone wants to talk about,” I said, shrugging. Sophie stepped back and grabbed her pack of cigarettes from where she’d left it, next to the register.
“What do you think the outcome is going to be?” I wasn’t the only one who felt guilty about the situation between Mark, the band and me. Sophie had admitted that she hadn’t quite known how to say no to Mark’s date invite; she also hadn’t known how seriously I’d meant it when I’d asked her out first. But at this point, none of that even completely mattered. It was obvious to me at least that Mark wouldn’t throw such an epic tantrum without there being more at stake than a girl.
“No idea,” I said. Sophie lit her cigarette and took a drag. “That depends on what they’re thinking.”
“Do you think they think it’s your fault?” I shrugged again and drank down some of my beer.
“Nick doesn’t seem to, but it’s hard to say for sure what Jules and Alex have concluded,” I told her. “Even though he’s got a girlfriend now, Jules is still a morose bastard--so he’s probably likely to think it’s fucking everyone’s fault. Alex just wants things to keep trucking, as far as I can tell.”
“So it might come to an argument?” I pressed my lips together. Sophie held her cigarette between her lips and poured me another shot of Jameson with a wink. I always made sure to pay my tabs, and after her comments about dating guys in the local scene I had made sure not to even think about asking her to comp me anything, but sometimes she tossed me a shot for free.
“It might,” I said, gesturing for her to pour herself a shot as well. “I’m paying for these--period.” Sophie shrugged and poured herself a shot from the bottle before putting it away. We both knocked back our alcohol; I chased mine with a gulp of beer and Sophie chased hers with a mouthful of some cocktail she’d mixed for herself. “Anyway, if it comes to a fight, at least it’ll be a change.” Sophie laughed.
“Change is better than nothing at all, right?” I nodded.
“I don’t think it’ll be a fight,” I admitted. “I think it’ll be...tense, but I think that we’ll figure something out. I sure fucking hope that we do.” I scrubbed at my face. I hadn’t realized how much it would bug me to be out of the studio for a week straight, with the record label breathing down our necks. I’d never had an argument with Mark that had lasted longer than maybe a couple of days, at the most. Usually by the day after, we’d more or less forgotten what we were mad about.
“Here’s hoping, right?” I raised my beer and Sophie raised her cocktail and I hoped that I wouldn’t massively regret agreeing to go to the meeting.