Johnny slid off his wig and perched it on the corner of the exit ramp rail, wishing he could peel off the fake muttonchops so he could vigorously scratch his cheeks. He had a few more appointments for the afternoon and the adhesive on the cheap chops he’d resorted to didn’t really last through re-application. He already felt the top edge of righty making a run for it, but at least that could be tucked under the wig. He unzipped his bedazzled, befringed leather jacket down to his belly button and lit a cigarette, holding at the top of his first drag so he could feel the smoke tumble into the back of his throat, mixing with the taste of the chocolate croissant he’d taken to chasing his mid-morning coffee with. Johnny slid his gaze down toward his belly button surging against his zipper with every deep inhale. Maybe he would cut down on the croissants.
He thought about the tight body of the girl, woman, young woman he’d met at the bar the other night, her tan legs, dancer’s legs, dangling down from the bar stool, creeping over to hook her ankle around the back of his calf while they talked. She asked to bum a smoke and giggled when he lit it using the tip of his own, bringing his face close to hers. She didn’t cough but she exhaled everywhere, too tipsy to care. He ran his hand up one of her taut thighs when she clumsily tapped her number into his phone, the cigarette in her other hand slowly turning to ash. The thought of her both excited and sickened him, knowing she was probably disgusted with herself for giving him her number, embarrassed she had gotten drunk enough to flirt with some past prime wannabe-actor while her friends left for the club without her. He kept scrolling to her name in his phone and then putting it back in his pocket. Hadn’t he embarrassed himself enough for one lifetime?
The door to the exit ramp swung open and June materialized in a cloud of youthful perfume pickling on middle-aged skin. Her fake tits were propped halfway to her chin, the lace of her cheap bra peeking out of a low-cut tank top worn under a blazer that no longer closed. Her expression flicked quickly from annoyance to saccharine sweetness.
“Johnny, honey,” she plucked the cigarette from his lips and tossed it out onto the concrete, “I know we all like a little puff now and again, but you do have an appointment and it’s too hot for you to smell like smoke and sweat.” She grasped the zipper pull on his jacket and yanked it upwards, his belly button just narrowly escaping. “Here.” She grabbed his hand and dumped half a container of white Tic Tacs into it. Johnny hated the white ones. “You’re in Chapel 2, sweetie.” She turned on a straining stiletto and hauled the door back open. “And lay off those croissants.”
Johnny had officiated 6,782 wedding ceremonies in his career as an Elvis impersonator. He hadn’t always needed the wig, and girls hadn’t always needed to be drunk to give him their numbers, though usually they were. Marrying folks had just been for the extra cash, at first. He’d done the ceremony so many times he could, and had, barreled through it drunk, high, or both, without missing a beat. Once, when he’d done a ceremony sweating and plastered, the groom shook his hand vigorously afterward, and thanked him for his “commitment to playing his character.” Johnny had had to try very hard to not puke on his shoes. Early on, he once competed in the Elvis of the Year Contest for a laugh, and quickly realized that all of the other guys really were committed to the character, and they didn’t think his flippant approach was very funny. After that he stuck to the chapel and his own gigs, when he could get them.
The first couple he’d married today had been a pair of shaky junkies, followed by a pretty normal-looking lesbian couple whose family took lots of photos and insisted he pose with them. Post-interrupted cigarette break was a mildly Internet-famous couple young enough to be his children whom he had never heard of. The girl was already pouting as she stomped into the room in thigh high white boots and a dress so dangerously short that Johnny couldn’t help glancing down, expecting a flash of vulva.
“It’s an old Elvis,” she hissed at her husband-to-be, talon like fake nails digging into the soft flesh on his arm (he was wearing a white t-shirt and white jeans in lieu of the traditional tux). The groom shrugged.
“That’s what happens when you plan a wedding a week in advance, babe.” He smiled pityingly at Johnny and patted his bride on the ass. “Let’s just finish this so we can get to our appearance on time, ‘kay?” Johnny made sure to slow his normal pace down just a tic or two, enough to make the cadre of barely legal assistants serving as witnesses uncomfortable as they switched between multiple iPhones each.
When he started, Johnny hadn’t needed the wig, or the over the top costumes. His (unlike Elvis’s) naturally jet hair flopped over his face in a way that made women swoon when he swept it into an unkempt wave, he had a deep singing voice that belied his age, a guitar, and a rarely flashed smile. The resemblance to the young Presley was undeniable, and the appearances and gigs were more fun before they became his actual livelihood.
Claire and Johnny were both beautiful when they met. Their larger, shinier dreams had mostly been dashed but there had been some glimmers of hope amongst the rubble for a while. Sometimes Johnny would get a small TV spot or Claire would get a call back from an audition for a musical and they’d buy a bottle of champagne and fuck and talk about LA or New York and red carpets and after parties, the visions becoming ever grainier, their enthusiasm for one another flagging. The most recent time Johnny had been cast in anything, as a murder suspect in an episode of the Vegas spinoff of a crime scene drama, Clair had sneered at him over her cigarette and tumbler of cranberry vodka. She didn’t say anything, just laughed to herself as she smoked while laying on a dilapidated lounge chair on their patio, the sun spots on her chest baking in the desert sun.
Claire didn’t smoke, or drink, or tan when she and Johnny first met. She knew her youth and beauty were her currency, and she didn’t want to squander it.
“Claire’s vice is ambition,” Johnny would say to their friends, squeezing her knee while she blushed, “that’s why she’s going to be more successful than the rest of us!” But even then, in her mid 20s, Claire knew her prime was flying by and she was becoming a veteran showgirl despite her best efforts. When her knee gave out for the third time mid-show, the producer told her to take time off and go to a doctor, who told her to go to a specialist, who told her she needed surgery and ideally to not dance for a living anymore. Johnny assured her that her voice and her charm would be enough, but they both knew that her ability to dance had been her real hook.
She pretended for a few years that her career wasn’t over, and even tried to segue into TV via an ill-advised stint on a reality television dating game show. Johnny gave his blessing, assuring her that he knew it was all acting, but her refusal to drink or to be slobbered on by the aging rock star whose heart she was competing for got her sent home early, but not before she cemented her place in the unforgiving annals of reality TV history. When prompted to get on a stripper pole and show off after telling her fellow competitors she was a dancer, she turned purple and cried: “I’m classically trained!” The catchphrase was too memorable to shake off and she lacked the chutzpah to twist it to her advantage. After an awkward appearance on a reality round up show and getting laughed out of some soap opera auditions, she gave up, and reached out to her choreographer friends, looking for work behind the scenes.
Johnny had never intended to stay in Vegas long term. It wasn’t a long-term kind of place, a glittering false city in the middle of the desert. When he used to perform as Elvis in the casinos his life had felt more satisfying, he was able to bask in secondhand adulation and at some point started telling himself that since he was performing, which was a lot more than many other wannabe entertainers could say, he was killing it by comparison. His dreams slumbered and calcified.
At some point neither of them could precisely recall, Claire and Johnny stopped talking about the future. Maybe it was when choreography gigs weren’t materializing for Claire, or when the chapel became Johnny’s main source of income instead of a side job. They hadn’t ever discussed marriage or children or any of the other kinds of normal future ephemera when they first began to merge their lives; those were concepts to be revisited after the inevitable onset of fame and acquisition of money. Now it was too late to marry, their joy long since spent, and the idea of a child made of two humans reduced to the parts of themselves they hated most was grotesque. They didn’t live together so much as exist in the same space, orbiting a mutual disappointment.
***
Monday was Johnny’s day off, because while the chapel was technically open every day of the year, no one really wanted to get married on a Monday. He woke up drenched in sweat to find that the air conditioning had crapped out, and Claire had passed out on the couch again. He collected the plates and glasses she’d accumulated on an end table the day before and put away the vodka bottle open on the counter. He wanted to tell her to lay off, but he didn’t think he had any right. He filled the sink with soapy water, left the crusty dishes to soak, and slid on a pair of sandals that had seen better days to take out Claire’s dog, a mean-as-shit Yorkshire Terrier named Louis. While Louis scouted the small, fenced area out back for a spot not already occupied by his shit, Johnny lit a cigarette and held it in his lips while he scooped a week’s worth of Louis’ droppings. Since the yard was fenced, Claire had taken to letting the dog out when it fussed and leaving the mess for Johnny to deal with. The plot had become a wasteland of dead grass, sad plastic outdoor furniture, and Louis’ shit.
Looking up from a particularly egregious pile, Johnny saw one of his neighbors watching from beyond the fence. The neighbor held their nose and Johnny turned back to his work, mentally noting the new “that guy with the shit-filled yard” title as one of the many “that guy” titles he’d accumulated over the years. He didn’t have much energy for shame anymore.
When the yard was clear he stood over the HVAC unit, staring hard and waiting for it to state its issue. All Johnny knew about air conditioning units was that when they died it was fucking expensive. The landlord would be pissed. Claire would have a fit. He could hear her cursing already.
She was attempting to enter the backyard, but the sliding glass door had seized while only partially open. She continued to yank on it feebly with her free hand, a lit cigarette between the first two fingers of the other. When she managed to get the door open wide enough to squeeze through, she surveyed the scene and its parts: the shit, Johnny, the neighbor, the suspiciously silent HVAC. She gave the neighbor the finger. He retreated.
Johnny’s phone buzzed against his thigh from “Daisy, bar” and he felt a schoolboy stomach flutter, even amongst the shit.
‘Hey there! Wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you and figured I’d just take the risk myself. Are you free tonight?’ It felt inappropriate to answer her in his current state. He dropped the phone back into the pocket of his shorts and it burned there.
“Do you think you can do better?” Johnny’s grip tightened on the poop shovel.
“Um, what?”
“Like, if we left this godforsaken place.” Claire gestured toward the dead HVAC with her cigarette. “Do you think you could do better? We could do better?” Johnny flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders back before turning to face her, deciding if this was a safe question to answer. Claire wasn’t one for waxing philosophical, so he was wary of traps.
“Are you saying you want to leave? Move?”
“I’m just saying it’s something we could do, but we’ve never talked about.” There were a lot of things they didn’t talk about, like the mold growing on the bathroom ceiling, that maybe they never had anything in common except that they dreamed of fame, or that groceries were always in short supply, but cigarettes never were.
“Where would you want to go?” By the time he’d finished asking, Claire’s gaze was unfocused, her eyes pointed over the fence and not seeing. She shrugged and took a drag on her cigarette.
“Maybe somewhere without nosy fucking neighbors.” Johnny let out the breath he was holding and looked down to see Louis depositing a fresh turd by his right foot.
***
One fundamental difference between Johnny and Claire was that while Claire liked to be miserable alone, Johnny did not. While she chose to spend her most desolate times alone in the living room with a drink and the television, Johnny preferred to do his depressed drinking in the company of, or at least the vicinity of, other people. So it was not strange for Johnny to go out by himself on his night off, especially not to his buddy Alistair’s bar, but he was unused to actively keeping information from Claire, rather than just not interacting with her. He thought for sure she would notice that he was acting strangely, putting on a button down shirt and then switching to a t-shirt after he noticed how the buttons by his belly button strained, fussing with his remaining hair in an attempt to soften his ever retreating hairline. As usual, she gave no indication that she noticed him at all. Johnny found himself thinking that he could have been cheating on her for years without incident, and then hated himself for the thought. He stood in the doorway of the living room to say goodbye before he headed out and she stirred, peeling away from the couch.
“What’re you gonna do about the air conditioning?”
“I called Jesse, left a message. Those machines are fucking expensive so, I don’t expect him to move too fast getting it fixed.”
“Can he charge us for that?”
“Dunno. I don’t think so?”
“Better not. Do we have a fan anywhere in this house?” Johnny didn’t want to go find a fan and potentially dirty his last clean t-shirt, but he already felt guilty.
“Maybe. I’ll go check the basement.”
The basement light was already on; forgotten by Claire the last time she went down to do laundry, whenever that was. Johnny lifted the lid on the washing machine and was hit was a musty, mildewy smell. The clothes were still plastered to the sides of the drum, almost completely dry. He dumped in more detergent and ran it again. A small tabletop fan was sinking into the top of a stack of decaying boxes he was fairly certain contained Claire’s old costumes, presumably rotting away like their containers. It was covered in dust but when he plugged it into an outlet it whirred to life and began to oscillate, blasting a small cloud of filth at him. He shook as much of it as he could off the fan onto the already dusty basement floor and brought it up to present to Claire. She nodded in thanks.
“Change your shirt, even Alastair doesn’t deserve you showing up in that state.” Johnny rifled through the laundry until he found a minimally wrinkled, seemingly less rank shirt. He tried to keep himself from racing to his car.
***
Alistair’s bar was in North Las Vegas, away from the strip but close enough to at least get some tourist money now and again. Alistair was one of Claire and Johnny’s many friends formally of the entertainment industry who had grown too old to make it and settled into adjacent industries. Alistair was a former aspiring actor who’d made a fair amount of cash as a stripper and then left the sweaty stage to open the bar with his girlfriend Taya. As far as Johnny knew, Taya was a career bartender who had never expressed interest in anything else. She could also double as a bouncer in a pinch; Johnny had seen her throw many a man twice her size out on his ass. He found her mostly terrifying.
Though the night was cool for August, Johnny was already sweating nervously, and even the subzero wave of air conditioner couldn’t save him when he walked in to see Taya, and only Taya, manning the bar. She had a pint of his favorite draft pulled before he slid onto the stool. He tried to look nonchalant.
“Don’t sweat all over my clean bar, if you can help it.” She brandished a towel and him and he instinctively removed his forearms from the polished wood. “How’s Claire?”
Taya always asked about Claire, despite the fact that he couldn’t actually remember a time he had seen Taya and Claire engage in any kind of one-on-one conversation when their group got together.
“The same. Not great. She talked about moving today.” He didn’t know why he told Taya about this probably meaningless, definitely private conversation. She had a way of eliciting the truth even though you knew she didn’t give a fuck about how you answered her.
“Oh yeah? Moving where?”
“When I asked she didn’t say. It wasn’t an intense conversation.”
“Could be worth considering. Lotta bad memories here for her. Lotta disappointment.”
“Yeah, sure. For me too. But it’s where our lives are.” Taya studied him for a beat with her hazy gray eyes and then turned to the register to close the tab of a young man approaching the bar. Johnny took a sip of his beer.
“So, where’s Alistair, he’s usually here on Mondays.”
“He blew his back out lifting a keg last night. I gave him the day off. He should know enough to leave that shit for the bar backs. We’re not young anymore, you know?”
“We’re not old yet, either.” Taya turned to give the man his change and roll her eyes at Johnny, just as the girl appeared. She was dressed for a fancier, younger place than Alistair’s. When she walked in, he could see her nipples go hard under the silky top she was wearing, and he wanted to touch the gooseflesh he knew was rippling over her bare legs, expertly showcased in a mini skirt. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek before hopping onto the stool next to him.
“Hey Johnny, good to see you.” Taya’s bemusement was palpable. He avoided her gaze. He had suggested the bar to Daisy because it was the spot he always suggested and usually only Alistair was there on Mondays, and also because he didn’t really want to cheat on Claire. He hadn’t considered the other potential cons of his choice.
“You too. Daisy, this is Taya, she’s one of the owners here. Taya, this is Daisy.” Daisy extended her hand and Taya shook it politely.
“Nice to meet you Daisy. Me and Johnny, we go way back. Let me know if there’s anything you need to know about him.” She repositioned herself at the other end of the bar and acted absorbed by the pre-season football game on one of the TV sets hanging on the back wall. Johnny considered relocating, but that would be an admission of guilt.
Daisy crossed her legs and turned her knees so she was facing him straight on, her smile warm and open. She kicked her airborne foot playfully and sipped the vodka soda she’d ordered. Her hair was pretty, shiny, expertly dyed a shade of blonde that her eyebrows revealed to be unnatural. It was the kind of hair that looked great in pictures, in person even, but it didn’t invite you to rake your fingers through it, not like Claire’s. When Johnny first met Claire she always wore her hair up, and if her posture didn’t scream “dancer”, her ever-present bun did. He used to love to look at her beautiful neck, held just so, but he loved it even more when she took the pins out of her hair and let her unruly rusty curls pour out over her shoulders and onto his face and chest. Her stray hairs were on all of his clothes, caught in his stubble, sometimes in the food she cooked, a constant reminder of how she had permeated his life. She had gotten a stylish shoulder-length cut when she’d tried to switch to straight acting, but he still imagined her with that warm aura of hair. He didn’t know how long it was now; she’d gone back to wearing it up but without any of her former artistry.
“So, what have you been up to?”
“Do I look like a guy who’s been up to much?” Taya’s presence made him feel tense, but Daisy smiled, squeezing the lemon from the rim of her glass into her drink.
“I feel like everyone is in this town is up to something. I don’t necessarily mean anything nefarious.”
“Maybe I’ve overstayed my welcome here then, I don’t usually have anything going on.”
“What about your music?”
“I didn’t realize I’d been drunk enough to tell you about that.”
“Well, I told you that I’m a singer, so it seemed like a logical thing to share.”
“Right, right.” Johnny couldn’t remember what her day job was, and since she was out with him right now, she obviously wasn’t a successful singer. He couldn’t think of anything to say to this girl, this woman, this girl-woman who he had no business being out with. He wished he had taken the time to form an intention before he showed up. Had he always been this useless with girls before? Had he ever been sober around girls who weren’t Claire before? “What kind of a singer?”
“A yodeler.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Believe it or not, I was in this garage rock band with my brother and his friends since I was twelve, but when they graduated high school they wanted to tour and my mom wouldn’t let me go because I was only fourteen. She bribed me into resignation with private singing lessons and more dance classes so then I started doing theater and musicals and that sort of thing.”
“Hence, Vegas.”
“I get that it’s a cliché, but it’s not a move in the wrong direction. It’s still closer to LA than I was.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“North Texas, outside of Dallas.”
“And you were in a garage band?”
“Just because I’m from Texas doesn’t mean I have to enjoy country music.”
“I bet you’d look cute in cowboy boots though.”
“I do.” Her knees touched his and she looked at him through her lashes as she sipped her drink, but he remained frozen, one hand on his beer, one on his own leg. “What kind of musician are you?”
“Uh, I used to – well I used to perform covers, you know, as part of the whole…the Elvis thing. I sang live, and usually there would be a band, you know, like he had. But, I haven’t done that in a while.”
“What about your music?”
“When I was a kid I was in a bunch of alternative bands, really thought Ska was going to be my thing because I liked the horns and all, but ah, I actually…Well anytime I’ve written anything lately, and by lately I mean like, the past, five years, it’s come out more folk. Maybe I’m softening with age.” Johnny caught sight of his gut as he glanced at his knees and regretted using the word “softening.”
“Where are you from, originally?”
“Oh, here. That is, the suburbs. My mom used to work a bunch of different jobs in some of casinos and hotels when I was growing up: dealer, waitress, sometimes cleaner.”
“Ever thought about leaving?” Everybody wanted to leave Vegas today.
“Sure, who hasn’t? Haven’t found a reason to, as of yet.”
“You don’t make it sound as if you’re tied down by anything here. Like is your family still here?” He could feel Taya’s eyes burning into him and he didn’t even see her at the bar anymore.
“No, my mom moved – why does any of this matter to you?” Daisy set her drink down and straightened her spine.
“Have you ever played in any bands? Besides as Elvis.”
“Sometimes if a buddy’s band needed a guitarist or a bassist to fill in for a gig. It was always kind of a one-off thing.”
“You play guitar and bass?”
“I play a lot of things. Where is this going?” Her eyes glittered with hope and excitement and maybe just the early lick of inebriation.
“I’m trying to put together a band. I’m not – I don’t like performing without a band, it’s not my vibe.”
“Your vibe?”
“I like the way a band works off each other, the way everyone’s energy can come together…it just doesn’t feel the same when I’m on a stage alone. I know some people, I know where I can get us some little gigs to try and get some traction, but I need to get a band together and we need original material.”
“You gave me your number because you want me to be in your band?” The bar felt strangely quiet, the way a bar always does when your private conversation reaches a fever pitch. Daisy cleared her throat and lowered her voice.
“Obviously, I had fun talking with you the other night and you seemed really laid back and I thought that, as an impersonator who performed live in Vegas you had to have some kind of talent. And –”
“You don’t know anything about me. I could be the shittiest Elvis in this town.”
“But you’re not! I looked you up!” Johnny ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
“I can’t fucking – Taya!” The bartender sauntered back over to his end of the bar and tried to keep the glee out of her face.
“Yeah John?”
“Can I get Dewar’s on the rocks? And close my tab.”
“Wait, Johnny,” tendrils of discomfort snaked up his arm from where Daisy’s hand touched him. “This is a serious offer; can’t you just listen to me a little?” Taya didn’t wait to see how he responded and slid the drink and the receipt in front of him before darting away.
“I’m too old to join a new band just trying to make it. You don’t even know if my style is anything you would like. And anyway there are many other guys, younger guys, in this city alone that I’m sure you could get to back you up.”
“I don’t want a backup band and I’m not trying to like, make it to pop-rock superstardom here.”
“If you didn’t want some kind of fame you wouldn’t be doing it.”
“Okay yes, fame would be great but being able to make music and get paid for it is the initial goal here. I get that I haven’t been in this city as long as you have but I’ve been here long enough to know I’m over it. I’m done waiting tables wearing next to nothing and dancing backup for whatever pop star has a residency. I’m not going to take my clothes off to get my own show here and I thought about just leaving but I think there is buried talent that I could maybe dig up and turn into something meaningful.”
“So, am I your first Vegas fossil?”
“You don’t have to believe me, but I found videos of some of your Elvis performances online, and I really liked them. You were so relaxed and engaging, and you were singing like Elvis, of course, but I felt like there was some of you in there too. I could see you putting a little twist on it. It was really charming.”
“The Elvis fanatics didn’t think so.”
“Well, maybe you weren’t meant to perform as Elvis anyway. Maybe you were meant to perform as you.”
“That sounds very pretty. But that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“That’s up to you, I guess.” She slid off her bar stool and slapped a $20 on the bar. “Listen, I’m sorry if you feel like I wasted your time. I’m sorry if…if I gave you the wrong idea. But I meant what I said and if you want to give it shot, maybe jam with me and some of the other people I’ve been talking to, you have my number.” Her heels resounded on the wood floor as she left, every male head in the bar turning to watch her go. Taya leaned on the bar near where Johnny was still sitting, nursing his whiskey.
“Did you text Claire?” He asked.
“I thought about it. Then I figured I’d wait to see how it played out. I’m not sure if that was better or worse than I expected.” She picked up Daisy’s $20 and the cash Johnny had left on the bar. She didn’t ask him if he needed change. “’Night, Johnny.”
Back at home, Johnny opened the door carefully, guiltily trying to be considerate of a potentially sleeping Claire. The lights were on in the living room and she was asleep on the couch with Louis tucked up behind her knees. The dog raised its head when Johnny entered and let out a drowsy growl before curling back up against Claire’s warm legs. Or he assumed they were warm, it had been a while since he and Claire had slept actually touching in their bed, but she usually ran hot at night. He felt another pang of guilt as he remembered the broken air conditioning. He would call the landlord again tomorrow and give him hell. Johnny moved the fan so it blew directly on Claire, thought about having another drink, and put himself to bed.
***
The next morning Johnny was awoken by the unusual sound of the shower running without him in it. After a half hour he went in to investigate, because he needed to get ready soon if he was going to get to the chapel on time. Claire was bent over in the shower shaving her legs; he could vaguely see her body through the semi-translucent curtain.
“I gotta – I got work, babe.”
“Yeah, just a minute.” Johnny went to the kitchen where there was a pot of coffee made, and Louis was curled up in his bed, content. Claire must have already let him out. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, unsettled. Claire had worked sporadically the past couple of years, and then for the past couple of months, not at all. He was under the impression that she drank most days, smoked more than she ate, and didn’t care much for talking to him anymore. He recognized that this was likely some kind of depression, it wasn’t that unlike the way she’d been just after her surgery, when she was trying to rehab her knee and deal with the death of her dancing career. But he felt pretty fucking depressed too, working in the off-brand chapel, wearing a fucking wig, picking up her dog’s shit. Had Taya texted Claire after all? Was this her snapping back into herself just so she could leave him on his ass after he’d been embarrassed in their friend’s bar? He poured himself a cup of coffee but left it on the counter untouched.
Claire emerged from the shower wrapped in a towel with another twisted on top of her head.
“How’s the coffee?”
“I didn’t try it, why?”
“I found a really old can in the cabinet, but it was all we had, so I figured I’d give it a shot. It smells fine.”
“How old?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Louis got up and trotted over to lick moisture off her exposed calves. She playfully shooed him away with her foot and he yapped at her toes.
“So, what’s going on?”
“I have a job interview today.”
“An interview? Where? You didn’t say anything.”
“A new dance company is opening a theater in the city, they had an open administrative position, and Sheena passed my named along.”
“A regular job. I didn’t know you wanted that.”
“I want to move, but I’ve never had much saved and, lately I’ve been living off of you.” She focused on digging her toes into the carpet. “A regular job would help me save some money so I can get out of here.”
“I guess this is what you were talking about yesterday?”
“Yesterday. And I’ve tried a few other times, but you didn’t seem into it. You didn’t seem into talking at all.”
“I felt the same way about you. About not wanting to talk, I mean.” Claire nodded slowly, staring out the sliding glass door, he couldn’t tell if she was taking in what he was saying. Louis scratched at the pane, and she let him out into the yard where he verbally assaulted some birds that had been picking at the sad grass. “I’m not picking it up.”
“What?”
“Louis’ shit. I’m not going to pick it up anymore. I’m tired of you leaving it all week for me. The neighbors think we’re disgusting. You deal with it.” She nodded again, a flush rushing up from her décolletage to her temples.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you expect me to leave just because you want to?” It was a question asked without anger because he too had been thinking, had been considering decisions that he had not consulted her about. He was angry, but self-aware enough not to show it.
“No.” She picked up the coffee mug he filled, sipped it, and poured it down the sink. “I thought we could talk about it. But I didn’t expect you to leave with me. I meant to talk to you about it before I even decided but…” she swept one arm out, loosely indicating the sad kitchenette, the dingy living room, and the entirety of the time they’d spent together, almost a decade. Johnny felt disoriented; the conversation was both too specific and too broad, they were talking about one job opportunity in Vegas and then the rest of their lives. Was this a breakup? An ultimatum? It felt like both and neither.
“What does that mean for us then?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Should we talk about it?”
“Do you want to?”
They used to talk for hours, days even, they would sit on their couch drinking cheap wine and talking about their dreams and their fears. Claire’s cheeks would flare from the alcohol and her eyes would glisten with tears, she was so much more emotional than their friends thought, so worried about doing the right thing with her life. He should have taken her away when she got hurt, found a place for them to settle for where she didn’t have to watch her dreams slowly die. Maybe the trick was to quit before it got sad, like Alistair and Taya did, or the fire-eating couple that had moved to Northern California and had triplets. Johnny let the question hang, and Claire gave him another one of those little nods and went into the bedroom to dry her hair.
Claire moving in his peripherals while he was getting ready threw Johnny off; he had grown used to a drawn-out shower where he spent long minutes half-awake while the hot water beat on his shoulders, quietly slinking through the house while Claire still slept. Now that she was acting with more vigor than he’d seen in months there was tension between them that neither had had the energy to feed before. Johnny was the one who went to work, bought groceries, kept up some semblance of a life, and now he felt like the bad guy. Did he deserve to be painted as the loser partner when he had done nothing but hold things together, just because Claire had gone and gotten a secret job interview?
When he exited the shower Claire was dressed and back in the kitchen looking like a version of herself Johnny hadn’t seen in years. She had wrangled her hair into that smooth, tight, perfect dancer’s bun and she had on some makeup and a simple top and skirt he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen before. She could have been a dance instructor or a choreographer for a prestigious company, with only the silvery strands stretching from her temples and the tight set of her mouth betraying her age. Upon closer inspection he could see the softness in her limbs and at her middle that she hadn’t had in her prime, and the slight bloating of her face, though he noticed it was better than it had been the last time he’d taken a moment to really look at her. She was scribbling on a discarded envelope that a bill had come in.
“Is there anything you want from the store? I’ll stop by after my interview.”
“Really?” He didn’t mean to scoff, but it happened.
“I guess text me if you think of anything.” She shoved the envelope list in her bag and tried to shoo Louis into his crate while he whined, pulling his tail as far underneath himself as he could and flattening his ears. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic!” She found some dog treats and threw a handful into the crate and locked Louis in when he ran after them. He yipped painfully. “Sorry, sweetie.” She straightened up fully, neck elongated, chin high, like so many harsh dance mistresses had trained her to when her body had not yet betrayed her. “Wish me luck.”
She didn’t need it. Johnny knew she was going to come home with groceries and a job and a new life trajectory that didn’t have him in it. And he was angry.
“Luck,” he managed, and she was gone.
***
He was late to his first wedding and June glared at him over her rainbow-colored drugstore reading glasses when he shuffled in to the chapel, trying to look contrite.
“Chapel 4. I had to give them a discount for the wait and it’s coming out of your cut.”
“Why didn’t you just have Charlie do it?”
“Because they requested a song and Charlie’s fucking tone deaf. You’re going to need to move it along and you’ve lost your break time.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Fuck off.”
June sent him appointments one after the other all day, including extra walk-ins whenever he thought he had a moment to breathe. There were so many couples he started to think she was snatching people off the street just to spite him. When he was able to get a few minutes to himself under the guise of taking a shit, he saw he had a text message from Alistair asking about the night before that he didn’t answer. Instead, he sent a text to Daisy, asking her when the band would meet next, and if he could drop by. She answered almost instantaneously that they could meet tonight and gave him the address of some recording studio he’d never heard of. Claire wasn’t the only one who could get a fucking gig. He left the chapel out the back door when he was originally scheduled to be finished, not bothering to let June rip him some more.
When he got to the studio, which was just as shitty as he imagined it would be, he realized he hadn’t thought to go home to get his guitar, or more importantly, to change. He peeled off his chops and wig and changed out of his white leather jacket into a musty t-shirt he found in the backseat of his car. He didn’t have any pants other than the fringed, bedazzled white ones that matched the jacket, and he stared at them for several minutes, willing them to transform into something respectable, wondering if they were reason enough to turn around and ditch the meeting altogether. This was the second time this week he was about to make a decision that could, and likely would, make him look like an ass, and it was only Tuesday.
Daisy grinned when Johnny entered and rushed into the control room to greet him with a hug. He was glad she didn’t touch the back of his neck, which was slick with sweat. Three other people were already in the room, a guy with a low bun and tight pants who looked closer to Daisy’s age sitting at the controls, and a man and a woman of nondescript age, both dressed in black with shaved heads, sitting on the cheap futon that served as a couch. They looked like twins, and both stared at his pants. So did the guy with the bun. Daisy didn’t seem to notice. She introduced him; man-bun was named Erik and didn’t smile when they shook hands. The twins were Ron and Rhea, who were unexpectedly chatty, peppering him with questions about his work as an impersonator and his life in Vegas. Daisy’s smile didn’t waver.
“I’m so glad you came; we were just finishing something that I want to play for you. It’s pretty rough, and the guitar isn’t fully fleshed out…that’s kind of where I was hoping you’d come in. But I’m curious to hear what you think.” She nodded to Erik who adjusted something on the board and then flooded the room with the sound of a keyboard in a minor key, followed by a rich, contralto voice. Johnny glanced at Daisy, and she flushed, turning her eyes to Erik. The track was bluesy, moody. Johnny leaned against the wall to listen; there was nowhere to sit. Erik smiled for the first time when the track ended with a cackle, presumably of blooper of Daisy’s that he had kept in, and her blush deepened. He turned to her, trying to give her a private look, but she ignored him.
“So what do you think?”
“That isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“You talked about musical theater and pop. This is…well it’s not that.”
“I wanted to talk to you more about it the other night but…it didn’t seem like the right time. Anyway, I think it’s better for you to hear it than for me to attempt to describe it. Did you like it? Maybe that’s the wrong question, actually. Does it interest you? Is it the kind of thing you think you could put some of your own style into?” Erik’s eyes were boring into Johnny, and the twins were rapt, waiting for his answer. He felt so much distance between their optimistic experimentation, the trendy mashing together of genres and musicians hoping for gold, and his own relationship with music. He had long ago written himself off as having talent for one thing, pretending to be a musician he was not, and these days he didn’t even cover the music but did unenthusiastic impersonations for money while couples who still had light in their eyes made sweeping promises a rare few would keep.
“I like it, I do. Um. I’m not sure – I’m not really like a star guitarist or anything. I’m not sure how – what I’d be contributing.” Erik’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling and Rhea took his hand.
“Oh don’t say that! Daisy showed us some of your videos. You’re very good. I bet you’ve had enough practice that you could improv a little for us.”
“I didn’t want to pressure you, but. What do you think? You can use Erik’s guitar in the booth.” Daisy’s eyes were pleading. He decided there wasn’t any face left to save in front of probably-Daisy’s-boyfriend Erik who already hated him and the perpetually supportive Goth twins. He didn’t think this motley crew had much chemistry to speak of, but he was already there.
Johnny listened to the track again in the booth and then noodled a little with an acoustic electric while Erik watched every touch of his fingers on the fret board. Daisy seemed to be talking excitedly with the twins her hands fluttering above her head. After a little while Erik’s voice burst into Johnny’s headphones; it was higher pitched than he expected.
“We don’t have all night. Do you want to lay something down?”
“Sure.” He had Erik record him adding in rhythm guitar to round out the song and then a few decorative riffs he came up with that he thought might compliment what they’d already done. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but it was enough to please Daisy.
“This is great! I just have a few suggestions, but there’s plenty of time for that. I think I speak for all of us when I say we’d love to have you.”
“I didn’t think this was an audition.”
“No of course not! I just mean, this feels like a good fit.”
“Does it?” Erik was pretending to be absorbed by the control panel and the twins were both staring up at him from the couch, wide eyed.
“Well, we do all need to get to know each other but musically I’d say things are going well! Should we go for drinks?” The twins murmured in agreement. Erik told Daisy he had some stuff to finish up, so she asked Johnny for a ride. When she slid into the passenger seat of his humid sedan her perfume hit him harder than it had in the air-conditioned studio, sweet and a little spicy, the kind of fragrance Claire would have called “musky”. Dressed down like she was now, in a short, loose dress that she’d worn with an oversized sweater in the studio to ward off the chill, Daisy reminded him much more of Claire. She had a constant elegance that long limbs and perfect posture seemed to give a woman, but unlike Claire, she was easygoing, quick to smile. Her eyes widened with excitement when she saw his discarded jacket on the backseat and he rolled his eyes, apologizing for the mess in the car. She buckled her seat belt and tucked her hands between her thighs.
“So, what do you really think? Do you hate it?”
“Why do you care so much what I think?”
“Because I want you to like it so you work with me! With us!”
“Erik didn’t seem to like me very much and the twins are just…I don’t know Daisy. It’s a weird group of people. I don’t really think we’re going to gel.”
“That sort of thing takes time! We haven’t even hung out together yet. You’ll see at the bar, Erik just takes a bit to warm up and the twins are sort of all-around artists, they paint, they’re musicians — I think you’ll find there’s really a lot of common ground.”
Johnny wiped one slick palm and then the next on his pants, which didn’t help much due to the leather fabric. Daisy was looking at him with her unfairly large cartoon eyes that made him want to say yes to anything. They were bright and hopeful and transported him back to when he was younger and hotter, and he believed anything could happen. The bitterness in him craved the optimism in her; he had felt it on the first night in the bar when she had let him paw at her legs. He wondered if she regretted that now, or if it was all part of the larger plan to get him to this point, him driving her to a bar where after a few drinks he’d hopefully agree to become the resident old-timer of the band and she could start working her way to becoming a famous frontwoman. The cast of characters she had assembled certainly paled in comparison to her: Erik, the twins, and now Johnny, in his decline; they were background people, the kinds of faces you’d gloss over on the way to noticing one like Daisy’s. Johnny made a decision. He wasn’t above being a background guy, not anymore, but he wouldn’t be led by his dick into a fate worse than death: trying to lap up the dregs of someone else’s star power. He made an illegal U-turn to pull up in front of the bar and unlocked the doors, the engine idling. Daisy pushed loose strands of hair back from her face as if to get a better look at him.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“Nah, I don’t think this is my uh, vibe.”
“Come on, you haven’t even really given it a shot.” She reached out, tentatively, her fingertips touching the middle of his thigh, toeing the line between friendly intimacy and suggestion, trying to draw him back. He picked up the hand and placed it back on her leg, gently, patronizingly.
“I don’t know why you haven’t been able to get another guitarist or even if you’ve tried. You knew a sucker when you saw one and I have a high tolerance for shame but, I guess we found my limit.”
“No, Johnny, I was never trying to – ”
“Listen, you’re trying to get ahead, I’m a lonely creep; we’ll call it a wash.” Daisy opened the car door and the heat leaked back in, cutting the icy dry air pumping out of the car vents. She swung her feet onto the sidewalk and twisted around to look at him once more, a magazine caliber profile backlit by the seedy bar’s neon sign.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Tell the twins it was nice to meet them.”
***
He was afraid to go home because he didn’t know what to expect from Claire after that morning. He didn’t know if he’d prefer to find her dozing on the sofa as had become custom, or doing something the revitalized Claire might be doing, like packing.
When he opened the front door he was hit with a surprise blast of cold air. There was a plate of food covered in sweaty plastic wrap on the kitchen counter waiting for him, and Claire sat cross-legged on the couch, her computer open in front of her. Her hair was wet and braided, and she wore an old t-shirt of his that she’d commandeered years before that he hadn’t seen in a while. She didn’t react when he came in.
“Jesse fixed the air conditioning then?”
“Yeah, came by this afternoon.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“Probably, but I wasn’t really listening.” She was tapping away on the keyboard, navigating through a number of tabs that he couldn’t make out from his vantage point in the kitchen. He knew he needed to get his eyes checked but he’d need contacts for his job and he was squeamish about both the cost and the idea of touching his own eyes. He peeled the plastic wrap away from the plate and his stomach rolled over, awakened by the smell of chicken and mashed potatoes, and there was even a vegetable on the plate, green beans.
“You cook?”
“Nah, picked it up from the premade section of the supermarket. It’s good though, I had half.” Guilt flooded Johnny and took the edge off his appetite. How was she feeling right now? Hungover? Sick? And she stopped to get them food anyway. It had been easier for him to assume she had shut down for good than to attempt to reach her, and when she pulled herself up, no thanks to him, she left him dinner. He didn’t even know they owned plastic wrap.
He walked over to the couch and sat next to her, his pants and the old springs creaking in harmony. He tried to center himself, to think of how to begin.
“Taya called me.” Claire didn’t take her eyes off the computer screen.
“Sounds about right.”
“I want you to know I’m not angry with you, or well, I am, but rationally I know that I’ve driven you away so I kind of deserve this. And I’ve been keeping things from you too so – I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you made an ass of yourself but only in front of her, really, and she reassured me that it didn’t appear that you enjoyed yourself at all. She said the girl was scrounging for industry contacts or something.”
“She’s putting together a band. She asked me to be in it.”
“You gonna do it?”
“No. I thought about it but I’m too old for that shit. Not to mention the people she’s trying to organize – I’d be surprised if they get things off the ground.” Claire closed the laptop and hugged her knees up to her chest.
“They’re checking my references, but I basically got the job.” Johnny was unsurprised, but for some reason he felt a jolt in his gut anyway.
“Also, I’ve been backing off, on the drinking. During the day, when you’re gone, I’ve been going to therapy. Talking about my knee and everything that happened. Talking about us. Shelby got me an appointment with the woman she sees and she agreed to give me a discounted rate.”
“I could’ve given you money, Claire.”
“I didn’t want to tell you. I wasn’t sure you’d want to know.” He wanted to touch her then, reach over and pull her to him, but the foot or so of couch between then felt like an unbridgeable distance.
“How long have you been going?”
“A few months.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“I’m getting there.”
“So, for a few months you’ve just been, what, pretending?”
“I wasn’t pretending to still be disconnected from you. That was a pretty mutual thing. How long have you been seeing other women?”
“I haven’t. I met Daisy a few weeks ago. You know what happened after that. I work. I go to Alistair’s. That’s pretty much it.”
“I said I’m not mad at you.”
“That’s not reassuring in this case.” Louis got up from his bed, shook his tiny body so hard his hind legs left the ground, and then jumped up on the couch between Johnny and Claire, mustering a half-hearted grumble, pressing himself against Claire’s side.
Claire laughed, and it was a rusty kind of laugh, turned throaty from disuse, but it still ended with a tinkling sort of giggle that Johnny remembered as soon as he heard it again.
“He’s always hated you, hasn’t he? I swear I didn’t put him up to it.”
“Maybe he can just read the room.”
“Why did you get him for me?”
“You know why. You always wanted one of those tiny dogs, you’d get all excited seeing them, the little legs.” Johnny wiggled his fingers in the air in imitation of a trotting teacup sized dog. “I wanted you to feel better even though you couldn’t dance anymore. I would’ve done anything to make you feel better.”
“You stopped trying.”
“You weren’t receptive. I didn’t want to – ” he was going to say ‘beat a dead horse,’ but thought better of it. “I didn’t want to smother you either because you said you hated that. But you’re right; I stopped when I could’ve asked how to help you. What you needed. I’m sorry.” Claire stroked Louis’ tiny head with two fingertips.
“I haven’t been giving you what you need, either. It’s why I’m not angry or surprised to hear that you…that maybe you looked elsewhere. I don’t want to hold you back. If you want to join this girl’s band, I think you should do it. I’m not going to be here too much longer if I can help it.” The air conditioner droned, and the silence built up around them like scar tissue.
“You know what I thought, whenever I saw that girl?” Claire’s eyes met his for the first time since he’d come home. “I thought about how much she reminded me of you. About how she had dancer’s legs and posture and that’s one of the first things I noticed about you. About how her hair was not like yours and I didn’t like it. I can’t see an attractive woman without comparing her to you.” She blinked. The dog left the couch, annoyed that Johnny had angled his body toward Claire.
“I figured that meant that we weren’t done. Or at least I wasn’t done.” Claire reached for his hand and slid her fingertips into his clammy palm.
“We never talked about what we wanted out of life other than to make it.”
“I don’t think I ever thought a lot about that, even after I knew it would never happen.”
“Me neither. I think we thought we’d have time to build our lives once we got lucky. I’ve been thinking about it more now though.”
“Have you come up with anything?” Claire squinted and moved her computer off her lap so she could turn to face Johnny fully.
“I think I might like to try out a milder climate. Maybe near some water that isn’t in a swimming pool.”
“That seems pretty simple.”
“I figure it’s better to start with small, achievable goals. Work up to the big life-encompassing dreams. Baby steps and all that.” Johnny nodded, looking down at his hands. It was surprisingly easy to imagine his life outside of this scorching, sandy city; easy to imagine Claire with her old smile on her face, his sparkling leather suits retired. The idea swelled in his chest.
“And, on the subject of taking baby steps…” Claire crawled close and perched her pointy chin on his shoulder, her lips brushing his ear.
“I picked up Louis’ shit today,” she whispered. Johnny laughed until tears mixed with the traces of wig glue on his face.
*****
Aimee Griffin is a graduate of Gettysburg College with a BA in English and Philosophy. Her work as appeared in Epiphany Magazine’s ‘What We’re Reading Now’ web series and Delay Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, where she works as a marketer for an academic publishing company.
