Read Online Lennon's Jinx by Chris Myers - Free Book Online Page B

over two years. He’s the only one in our group that manages
to sleep with one girl at a time. I haven’t figured out why.
    Jinx
looks at each of us. “Recital?”
    “Clive
has to see his girlfriend.” Danny Boy tosses a drumstick that Clive catches.
    “It’s
mandatory for us to go to Currie’s performances,” Clive says.
    I
sip on my beer. “You don’t have to go.”
    “Who’s
Currie?” she asks.
    “Lennon’s
sister,” Danny Boy says. “Don’t you go to school with him?”
    Jinx
is silent for a moment. “Are we going to practice? When’s our first gig?”
    Clive
holds his bass and picks on it. “We’re regulars at Kichee’s Joint on the
weekend.”
    She
crinkles her nose. “There?”
    “We
get six hundred a night plus the door,” Clive says.
    “That’s
it?” She wears her disappointment, which makes me feel ashamed.
    Danny
sits down on his stool and twirls his drumstick. “We have a wedding this
weekend. That’s thirty-five hundred.”
    When
she perks up, Clive stares hard at her chest.
    “That
sounds good,” she says.
    “You
won’t say that when you see our set list.” I hand it to her. There are over a
hundred titles for just the clubs, and that doesn’t include the wedding music.
“We play some originals at the clubs. Otherwise we’re a cover band.”
    “Oh.”
Her tone swings the other way.
    “Memorize
these before the weekend.” Friday’s only two days away. “You get a percentage
on what you can play.”
    Her
face droops as she scans the list. “I do?”
    “It’ll
give you incentive,” I say.
    I
pluck out a few chords to play one of our standard love ballads for the wedding
gig. The guys slide in. It takes Jinx a moment to catch up. She understands
chord progression, so she can fake her way through it and several other songs.
After that, she’ll have to learn the music. We’ll see how that goes.
    “Can
you sing harmony?” I ask, even though she sings alto in the choir, which is
almost always the harmony part.
    The
frightened kitty look washes across her face. “With you? I’ll try.”
    I’m
amazed at her lack of confidence when she can belt out ballads in choir.
    When
we practice, I face the band, so we can critique each other. Makeup covers the
bruise yellowing her cheekbone. Like her friends, I wonder if she torqued off
some guy at the party. I want to know. My mind plots on how to weasel it out of
her.
    After
we play a set, I say, “Who wants to come in early tomorrow to help Jinx?”
    “I
have to take Susan to work.”
    “Clive?”
    “Your
idea, so you go first.”
    “Be
here at four tomorrow.” I pack up my Taylor. If the other guitars get stolen, I
wouldn’t care, but this one’s my baby.
    The
other guys nod their goodbyes while Jinx stores her keyboard into its cover.
    “We’ll
get a new keyboard before this weekend.” Usually a call to the music store will
do the trick. I’m a good client.
    Before
she picks up her keyboard to carry it outside, I grab it and my guitar. She
walks with me to her car. Rust pockmarks the edges of her beat-up ride. The
paint is so faded it’s peeling off the roof and hood.
    “Pop
the trunk,” I say.
    She
does, and I place the keyboard inside. There’s an open gym bag stuffed with
clothes and toiletries. I do this, too, for practical reasons, like in case I’m
too wasted to drive home and have to sober up in some strange girl’s bed. I get
the impression her reasons are different from mine.
    I
accidentally brush up against her. She jerks away.
    “Hey,
I’m not going to take advantage of you,” I say.
    “I’m
sure you’d like to try.” From the intensity in her words, I’m pretty sure she
hates me, and I don’t like it.
    “I’ve
never forced any girl. If anything, it’s the other way around.”
    Jinx
spins toward me. All five-two of her in a twisted rage. I try not to laugh.
    “You’ve
done girls too drunk to remember,” she says.
    “Nope.
Never. Besides, where’s the fun in that?”
    “I
don’t