They went into the café, which was dark and smelled like old couches and cigarettes, and ordered their drinks and their allotments of internet time from the guy at the counter. Laura stalled by going into the bathroom, where a bunch of computer parts sat in a bathtub, some kind of dumb art installation, and while she peed she thought through the decision she had just made to email Dylan. It was such a low-stakes way of reaching out to him. But what would she say?
She sat down at one of the shared monitors, trying to ignore the greasy feel of the keyboard, and began to type. She asked how the tour was going, what the different cities were like. She fished delicately for a response that would indicate that he was looking forward to seeing her when he came back, but she didn’t make any dramatic declarations. She tried not to mention her feelings at all. She needed to include at least a sentence about what she’d been up to, but this was tricky because there really wasn’t much going on in her life besides working at the bar, hanging out with Callie, and obsessing about him. So she lied a wishful lie about working on her songs and playing a small show that a friend of Callie’s had hooked her up with. Callie had mentioned something about introducing her to someone who booked bands at the Sidewalk Café, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Plus, she could even use the lie as motivation to make it true before Dylan got back.
She went through the rest of her in-box unhurriedly, lingering over the details of spam emails she’d gotten instead of immediately deleting them. Really, she was waiting to see whether he would respond. This was crazy; the odds of his even being near a keyboard were so slim. She didn’t even know what city or what time zone he was in. Still, when her half hour was up, she went up to the counter for a refill and another passcode to unlock another half hour of internet access.
“Why do you need to stay here longer?” asked Callie, who had finished her coffee and her free issue of VICE and was tapping her long nails on the counter.
“I just thought maybe a person I wrote to might write back,” Laura admitted.
“A person. Jesus.” Callie rolled her eyes and went to wait for Laura in the park across the street.
But then when she got back to the desk, there it was: a response! She felt like the gross shared computer was a slot machine dispensing a flood of coins. He would be home in a week, he wrote, and would be playing a show first thing. He invited her and Callie to meet up after the show at Brownies. He said he missed her.
Laura floated into Tompkins Square Park and found Callie sitting on the patchy grass on the hill. The park was full of people their age with nighttime jobs or no jobs who could treat the park like a beach, lying on blankets with snacks and drinks and joints and cigarettes, getting sun, watching the dogs in the dog run and one another. Callie had bought a large bottle of orange juice, from which she poured out some of the juice and replaced it with the contents of a small bottle of vodka. Laura didn’t have to be at the bar until seven; there was still time to get drunk, then nap and shower before work.
This was how they’d been killing all the lengthening summer afternoons lately, but the surge of energy Laura had gotten from her communication with Dylan had made her too hyped up to enjoy lolling around. She told Callie about her email and the response, and the minor lie she’d told.
Callie ashed her cigarette thoughtfully on the patchy grass near the blanket they sat on. “Oh, that’s no problem. Let’s just go by there right now and see if Alex is working. Well, not right now right now. Like in half an hour? Let’s finish our drinks at least.”
“I have to go grab my guitar and stuff first! And I don’t want to get drunk.”
“You’ll just be relaxed. You need to.” Callie took a swig, then offered the bottle. Laura semi-reluctantly accepted. She was suddenly feeling too wound up, almost to the point of panic. Her initial joy at being in touch with Dylan was activating her brain and body in ways that were agitating if she couldn’t be around him physically.
An hour later she and Callie were in the dark daytime interior of Sidewalk, in the side of it that was a bar and not a twenty-four-hour diner. Alex, a short, skinny guy with bluish-pale skin who could have been twenty-five or forty, hugged Callie too long and then looked Laura over as frankly as her bar employer had on the day she’d gotten hired.
“So you guys are in a band together?”
“Well, it’s mainly Laura, but yeah, it’s kind of a band,” said Callie, smiling at Alex and doing her “you are the only person who exists in the world” thing.
“Great! Hop up there and do one of your songs real quick.”
They conferred quickly and decided to do the song that Laura had started writing at Dylan’s studio. For never having technically rehearsed, they weren’t as terrible as Laura had assumed they’d be. Callie had heard Laura sing the song so many times that she had memorized it, and she sang almost harmony and shimmied around a little as Laura tried to keep up with Callie’s innovations in rhythm. It was uncomfortable to make eye contact with Alex, so instead Laura watched Callie as she sang. She thought again about how anyone watching them onstage together would spend more time looking at Callie shimmying than at Laura playing guitar. But maybe it didn’t matter; it was Laura’s music, Laura’s song.
When she looked out at Alex next, he was grinning. “Come back tonight, I’ll put you on at eleven thirty,” he told them. “What should I say you’re called?”
“I can’t tonight, I have to work,” Laura said.
“Weird name for a band,” said Alex, then laughed at his own joke.
“You can call in sick once. You’ve been there long enough to get away with it,” Callie said.
“Five weeks?”
“I’m sure you’re a lifer by the standards of that place.” Callie turned back to Alex. “You can call us the Groupies.” She wrinkled her nose and laughed like she’d made a hilarious joke. The vodka-OJ was cold and acidic in Laura’s stomach.
“You’re on the bill,” Alex told them. “You get two drink tickets and a cut of the door that you share with all the other bands, so tell your friends to come.”
Laura was silent as they walked home, scuffing her Chinatown mesh slippers against the dusty sidewalk, walking like her guitar was heavier than it actually was.
“What?” Callie finally said.
“Well, we’re going to make pocket change, for starters. I can’t afford to miss my shift or to lose this job.”
“But this is what you came to New York to do!”
“Not like this,” Laura said.
Callie stopped and turned with her hands on her hips, so close that Laura could smell her breath, orangey and rotten in Laura’s face. “Like what?”
“Like … the only reason he booked us is because of you.”
Callie smiled and turned around, her anger immediately defused. She let Laura walk next to her on the sidewalk again. “That’s not true, I’m just training wheels. You’re doing it on your own. It’s okay to let people help you sometimes!”
“Callie, I’m not blind. When both of us walk into a room, all anyone sees is you.”
“Dylan saw you,” Callie said almost too quickly, like she’d been planning to say it. And Laura couldn’t argue with it, because it was true. Maybe whatever he saw in her would translate now. Maybe things would be different, and Callie was right, and Laura was going to be the one people looked at this time.