Indigo Blues (4 page)

"Oh, sorry." I stand up and pull a straw hat off of my
oversized teddy bear and put it on. "How's this?"

Cat grabs my orange-and-purple-striped scarf off my desk and drapes it around her neck. "How about me? Will
people listen to what I have to say?"

Eli gives us the finger.

By now both Cat and I have lost it. Giggles pour out
of us like hit singles being downloaded from iTunes by the
second. I grab the rest of the tampons from the box and
start chucking them at Eli.

"You guys suck." Eli stomps away down the hall.

"Perhaps we do," I say, in the sultriest voice I can
muster.

"Yes, darling." Cat lowers her voice, too. "Perhaps we
do."

slam my cell down. I fucked up. Maybe I shouldn't have
yelled at her. But she drives me so damn crazy. I've been
trying to reach her all day. I grab my guitar from its stand
and start picking at the chords. This is not how it was supposed to go down. I know I wrote the song to get back at
her, but I also wanted it to bring us closer, like a foreverforged bond.

The framed photo of her on my desk is a reminder of
how things used to be. I took it when we went ice skating
on Boston Common. It was our third official date. She's
wearing a yellow knit hat and a black coat zipped up to
her chin, and she still looks hot. I lean down and kiss her
cherry red lips, and close my eyes and sing. "Indigo, how could you let me go. You drew me in like a figure in a coloring
book... "

I shake the chord on the last note on my guitar.

It makes a trill sound. I picture a wounded circus elephant, struggling to stand up.

But stumbling again.

And again.

My arm goes slack.

I can't get the elephant to rise.

My thumb and forefinger are numb.

I finally let go. The guitar hangs from my neck by its
leather strap.

That was some freaky shit. I'm sweating and my mouth
is dry. I take a sip of water and breathe.

If you manipulate an electric guitar enough, it can produce some funky noises. I once got mine to sound like our
high school principal, Mrs. Mandel, blabbing over the PA
system. Very high-pitched and crackly. But Zach says the
best noise is the signature "tandem fart," when we both let
our guitars rip at the same time.

Zach's picking me up at eleven. I better get into party
mode or he'll be on my ass to loosen up all night. We're
all going to hit a few clubs and, in his words, "get double
fucked," meaning get obliterated and laid, in that order. He
says we need a serious night out on the town to celebrate.
It's true that if Indigo never broke my heart, then I might
not have had this hit song, because nobody wants to hear a
song about the guy that won the girl and lived happily ever
after.

I shuffle a few shirts around in my closet until I find
one that is wearable. I have to do laundry soon or I'll be
wearing the clothes my grandmother sent me for media
interviews. We're talking pastel button-down shirts with
big collars that make me look like I'm about to be sucked
into cubicleland and spit out as an accountant.

A plain gray T-shirt calls to me. I smell the pits. Clean.
It goes on. I run a comb through my hair and reach for a
beer in the fridge. Some say you can tell a lot about a person by glancing into their fridge. I wonder what an eightpack of Dannon vanilla yogurt, a six-pack of Bud, a carton
of eggs, and four types of mustard says about me?

I flip off the top of the beer and take a huge swig. As
the cool liquid makes its way through my body, I begin to
relax. Beer is a guy's best friend.

I'm halfway done with my second bottleneck when
Zach buzzes me from downstairs. I grab my keys and jet
down. Since the guys all live together, I'm always the last
one to be picked up. Conjunction Jack is riding shotgun,
so I scoot in the back with Tommy and his girl, Heidi. I
thought this was a guys' night out, but whatever.

"You ready to get fucked, Adam?" Zach pulls his Jeep
out into the street.

"No, Indigo already did that to me." Or maybe I did
it to myself because now that the song is out, I can't go
ten minutes without hearing her name. Without being
reminded of her.

"You spoke to her today, didn't you?" Tommy accuses
me.

"Yeah. How do you know?" I fish my seat belt out
from the seat cushions and buckle up. Let's just say that
Zach drives like he performs onstage, all over the place.

"Sixth sense," Conjunction Jack offers. He was christened Conjunction Jack back in high school, not for his
use of connecting words but for the lack of. As few words as
possible is Jack's motto.

"No, you're wearing gray, the color of heartache."
Heidi twirls a strand of her dyed red hair. Which matches
her sparkly tank top. Happy. Happy. Happy.

"Gray is sad," Zach says in a mocking tone.

I scan the guys to see if anyone else is on the heartache
team. Nope. Navy for Tommy, green for Conjunction Jack
and white and blue pinstripes for Zach.

"I wear gray all the time," I mutter.

"Exactly!" Tommy laughs and everyone else joins in.

I force a grin onto my face. "Okay, let's get this party
started." I don't need any more attention brought to my
broken heart.

"That's my man!" Zach screeches to a halt at a light on
the corner of 14th and Washington.

"Easy on the old folk," I say as he barely misses the
toes of two old ladies trying to cross the street. "Where are
we going, anyway?"

"Conjunction's cousin just got a job at Hatchback on
Little West."

"Hot chicks galore." Tommy smiles.

"Hey!" Heidi elbows him.

"That's why you're coming." Tommy makes a quick
save.

Heidi just rolls her eyes and Zach pulls into a parking
spot half a block down from the bar.

There's a small line at Hatchback's door. The bouncer
is shorter than most of the bouncers at the city's bars and
skinny, too. There are a couple of girls in tight skirts at the
front of the crowd. Tommy's right, they are hot-long legs,
thin, and big boobs. Zach cuts in front of them and says to
the bouncer, pointing to Jack, "He's Pat's cousin." Which
translates to, don't check our IDs because they're bad fakes
and only one out of the five of us, Zach, is twenty-one.

"Oh, my God," the blonder of the girls gasps. "Aren't
you Zach from Blank Stare?" As the group's founder, Zach
is always the first one of us to get noticed. A reporter back
home coined him the "Gerber Boy." She said he looked
like the Gerber baby all grown up. He wasn't too happy
about that because he thinks it hurts him with the ladies,
so we save it for insults.

"Yeah." Zach blushes.

The girl leans forward and kisses his cheek.

"So is Indigo real?" The other girl asks.

Immediately the guys turn to me.

I feel my face go red. What kind of question is that? Of
course she's real. My pain is real.

The bouncer opens the door for us before anyone can
answer.

Zach points to the girls and says, "They're with us."

He's such a sucker for hotties.

The bouncer shrugs and waves us all in.

It's pretty crowded inside. Guys with hard-ons chatting
up girls. Girls with mega-cleavage chatting up guys. A few
couples sucking face in corners and varied loners spread
throughout.

Heidi scores a table toward the back and Tommy grabs
a few extra chairs so we can all sit together. Hatchback is
a typical bar, filled with wooden tables, a small stage, and
recessed lighting. I don't wait for someone to take our order,
just head right up to the bartender to snag a beer. If I'm
lucky enough, I'll get swallowed whole by the blur of faces.

I guzzle down my first brew without even turning my
head. I check my phone-11:50. Too late to call Indigo
and apologize, but that's what they made texting for.

Indigo sorry for hanging up on u

I hit send before I have a chance to write anything else
stupid. Damn her if she doesn't like me. I'm a nice guy, sitting at the bar alone with an empty beer while his friends
are at a table. Celebrating. Crap, we're supposed to be celebrating. I call the bartender over and order a round of
Lemon Drops for the table in the back.

I slowly walk over to my peeps. Everyone's laughing,
and Zach has his arm around one of the girls from outside.

"Dude, where have you been?" Zach pulls out a stool
for me. "I was just about to send Hannah here to look for
you.

Hannah, the hottie not claimed by Zach, smiles at me. I nod and take a seat. She's really pretty, with long blond
hair and soft white skin. "I had to get a round of shots."

The waiter zigzags through the crowd and passes out
the tray of Lemon Drops.

"Now we're talking," Tommy says.

We all grab our drinks, say cheers, and slam our empty
glasses down onto the table.

I've got a buzz and figure what the hell, I might as well
talk to Hannah. I lean over and ask, "So, where are you
from?" Lame, I know, but I haven't even had time to warm
up yet.

"Boulder, Colorado. But I'm a sophomore at SUNY
Purchase."

"Colorado. Cool. You ski?" Dumb question. That's like
asking a New Yorker if they've ever eaten good pizza.

"No. Not my thing."

Okay, not so dumb. One point for Adam.

"What's your thing?" I move in a little closer. She smells
like strawberries. Indigo smelled like strawberries, too. They
must use the same shampoo.

Hannah's eyes are big and round. Her lips shiny and
moist. She leans in and our lips touch. She slides her tongue
into my mouth and I hold on. I wonder if her lips are real.
They're so large. So soft. I don't think I've ever kissed anyone with fake parts before. I run my fingers over her breasts.
They feel real, but it's hard to tell through a ribbed shirt
and bra.

"So that's what you like," I say.

Jack asks if anyone else wants another beer. I pass. I don't want to get wasted and end up doing something I'll
regret. Like sleeping with a hot non-skier from Colorado
with possible Botox lips but a tight ass and firm, real breasts.
Plus, we have an interview on Wake Up, America on Monday and I don't need to slink in with a hickey. Everyone
is going to be watching this one. My dad. Grandparents.
Indigo? She'll be in school. Still, she could catch it later on
the net.

"Well, do you?" Hannah pokes me in the shoulder.

I shoot her my huh? look.

"Dance?" She doesn't even wait for an answer. Instead,
she yanks me by the arm. A bunch of people are dancing around in the middle of the room. Punk rock is blaring from the speakers, some old London '70s tunes mixed
with new. None of that slow-dance middle-school crap,
so I agree. Zach and Hannah's friend, Erica, are already
smushed together like taffy. We get moving a few feet from
them. I'm not gonna lie, it feels good to be this close to a
beautiful girl.

I get lost in the music. Lost in the grooves of Hannah's
body.

o try and forget this whole "Indigo Blues" mess, I've
decided to focus all my energy on getting Tripp to ask
me out. Usually I'm drooling over rock stars in Rolling Stone
or actors in People magazine, but Tripp is that hot. I'll give
myself one week to make it happen. And if it doesn't, then
I'll ask him out myself.