A Scheduled Four Hours of My Local Drugstore Hell
AKA: Chapter Two
Once upon a time, two high school sweethearts were married. They’d already fallen head-over-heels in love, so they tied the knot, bought a house, built successful careers, and even started a family together.
Then, they got divorced when their son was in seventh grade.
Since the divorce, I’ve lived with my mom in the Valley. Not too long after their marriage dissolved, my dad got a job offer to teach English at Purdue, and he couldn’t possibly pass up such a sweet deal, so he moved to Indiana. I only get to see him in person a few times a year, less and less since he started teaching spring and summer courses. At first, it was pretty tough and kind of hit me hard, but it probably could have been worse. It was a fairly clean break – there wasn’t really a lot of fighting. Instead, they just both sort of realized they’d married the wrong person. They’re still friends, which is better than what Bryson had to deal with when his parents split up, so I figure I’m one of the lucky ones.
***
After band practice, I’m back in the Gator’s passenger seat with an altered mood and the dread caused by the clause of a hastily written contract looming over me. At the very least, Travis is always musically prepared, so I don’t have to sit through the overplayed crap on the radio. Not all of his stuff is particularly to my taste, but it’s absolutely nothing like Selena’s so I can deal with having to hear a Nickelback song every once and a while.
I don’t have a car of my own, so this is all commonplace. Travis is basically my ride everywhere. We usually aren’t too far apart anyway. Both of us live in Woodland Hills in the third quadrant (as bisected by the highways and major streets) where the roads start to mercilessly curve in order to work with the mountains. The bends, levels and hills made it an equally exciting and terrifying experience learning how to drive, so more often than not, I graciously decide to leave that part up to Travis.
I live in one of the two-story homes, which is pretty rare because Woodland Hills is basically made up of single-story ranches that were definitely built during that bold period between the fifties and the eighties – low, gradual rooflines, giant stone on the same building as ugly siding, the whole nine yards. I wouldn’t be too surprised if half of them still have shag carpets, faux wood panels, and flower power wallpaper from the seventies.
Travis pulls into my driveway behind my mom’s car, and we both climb out of the Gator. We head inside through the front door. The smell of spices and grease hits me the instant we step from the LA summer heat into air conditioning. The scents waft from the kitchen in through the living room.
“We’re home!” I call out as Travis and I kick off our shoes. We follow the aroma, and the crackles and pops that start to become clearer, into the kitchen.
My mom’s still in scrubs which means when she got home the hunger and thought of dinner overruled everything else, including changing clothes. She’s standing before the stove with stir fry sizzling on the element.
“Doctor Scott!” Travis uses his standard greeting – a high, breathy, surprised gasp in his best impression of Janet from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It does not suit his voice at all, but it’s been his go-to hello for my mom since we first saw the movie back in middle school. I’m sure that must be why it’s one of his favourite scenes because, honestly, it’s thirty straight seconds of people yelling names. And it repeats.
“Travis is here,” she states, half sarcastic and wearing a grin. “Big surprise.”
“Yeah, I just can’t seem to get rid of him,” I joke.”
Travis scoffs back teasingly as he drops into one of the chairs at our kitchen table. “Em fo dir teg ot gniog reven er’uoy, Nagrom,” he says in reverse.
“Taht tuoba ees ll’ew, Sivart.”
“Stop speaking in tongues or I’m hiring an exorcist,” my mom chimes in. She turns a bit to look over her shoulder while I open the fridge. She asks, already knowing the answer, “Are you staying for dinner, Travis?”
“If you insist.” I don’t have to see his face while I’m digging around to know that he’s smirking as he says it.
“Intercepting my leftovers before they even had a chance,” she sighs playfully.
“Is it vegetarian stir fry again?” I ask, only because I notice from the corner of my eye that her pan seems to lack protein. I kick the fridge door shut, hands occupied by two sodas. I toss the Cherry Coke to Travis and he, thankfully, catches it. There have been a few tragic instances where one of us has missed, and the can exploded as a casualty, and it really isn’t fun cleaning liquid sugar off of every surface in a seven-foot radius.
In response to my question, my mom lets out a little disapproving hum. “It wouldn’t be if you’d ever listen to me and take the chicken out of the freezer when I ask you to.”
Travis laughs as he cracks open his can.
“At least I know it means you’re eating your vegetables.”
“I mean, I don’t really have many other options. Between driving to somewhere for a burger or staying and eating your rabbit food, this one’s the simplest.”
“Kind of an Occam’s Razor for food choices,” Travis interjects.
“Precisely.”
“You two are weird.” She looks up from stirring the pan and focuses on me. “Work tonight?”
I nod. “At six. Short shift. But I wouldn’t be stuck in CVS purgatory if I already had a car and didn’t have to save for one.”
“I gave you a choice. Car now or tuition later.” She points the spatula at me. “And you, my friend, picked the smart option. Even if it means Travis gets to steal my food and camp out in my home. Will I be seeing him later, too?”
“Likely,” Travis answers. “I am his ride everywhere, after all.” It’s his small attempt at helping my cause and rescuing me from part-time retail, but it ultimately doesn’t end with my mom seeing the light and offering to buy me an alternative mode of transportation.
Travis changes the subject after taking another sip of his drink.
“Coming to the gig Friday night, Doctor Scott?”
My mom has told him many times that he can call her by her first name, or even just call her mom at this point. Travis refuses. She’s stopped trying to fight it.
“Nope. Date night.”
My mom has seen a few other guys since the divorce, but she’s been with her current boyfriend, Derek, for about six-or-seven months now, I believe. Ironically, he was my dad’s best friend all through high school. They were even in a band together back then, too.
“Besides, Ray’s Underground is kind of sketchy. Don’t they pay you in beer?” She gives me a “mom look,” one brow raised.
“They pay us. We get about four-fifty a show. Bryson funnels it back into the band.”
“The free beer is just a perk, not currency,” Travis adds with a grin.
“Why can’t you be like normal teenagers and just lie to me about your illegal shenanigans?” She shakes her head. Her hair is still pulled back, so the low ponytail flops between her shoulder blades. “I’ve heard you guys a hundred times anyway. You’re good. I don’t have to go watch every show.”
“Too bad. You’ll miss Morgan’s lead-singing debut.”
I feel the physical part of me freeze up, and others inside die instantly with that kill shot that came out of nowhere. My mom’s head whips up from the stove and her light, wide eyes spend a second bouncing between me and my best friend. He’s still wearing a smug face. I’m just trapped in that “stay perfectly still and nothing bad will happen” mindset like some stunned piece of prey. Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, her gaze settles on Travis in disbelief.
“Morgan?” she asks. “Morgan Scott? Morgan Jamie Scott the Second?”
My parents are both uncreative, naming-impaired, cruel narcissists. I have my dad’s first name and the middle is my mom’s, so I guess it’s a good thing they were both stuck with unisex names. I’ve been told it would have been reversed if I’d been a girl: Jamie Morgan.
“My son?” The spatula tip is pointed my way again. The tenseness has begun to fade away and now I just want to roll my eyes at her theatrics. “Him?”
“Even signed a contract,” Travis confirms. “He’s going to sing our encore, front-and-center.”
“Wow,” she remarks. “I’m almost sad I’m going to miss that.” Her curious stare briefly finds its way back to me before her focus moves back to her cooking again. “What are you singing?”
Travis jumps in and answers before I can. “Blank Space.”
I notice a second too late that he refused to elaborate on which version we’re doing.
I feel that sinking pressure of remorse mixed with something that’s bordering on annoyance because my mom bursts out laughing after putting the title to a song, and the song to the original singer’s face, and then probably that face on my face. She’s obviously thinking about the overplayed pop version she’s heard a billion times.
“Thanks, Trav.” Monotone. Sarcasm. In response, he just raises his can of Cherry Coke to me like a small, mischievous salute. He’s grinning and practically glowing with schadenfreude.
When she stops mocking me, my mom turns. She shoves her spatula into my hand. “Watch the food, Taylor Swift; I’m going to go get changed.” As she steps around me to leave, she reaches up the height I’ve got on her and messes my hair, only adding to the humiliating taunting. “God, you need a haircut.” She says this about once a month to me, and every few days to Travis – not that it accomplishes anything.
I sigh silently as I take her place before the frying vegetables, and she disappears from the kitchen. I hear her laughter start up again – she isn’t finished basking in the sheer hilarity everybody except me seems to find in the deal I was bribed into making.
“She’ll be calling me Taylor Swift for the rest of my life.”
“No doubt.”
“I hate you,” I say.
“I know,” Travis replies, definitely still smirking.
***
When I get off of work at ten after a scheduled four hours of my local drugstore hell, Travis is waiting for me in the Gator, parked in a space by the door and blaring Sum 41 so loud all of Winnetka is liable to complain. He turns the volume down when I climb into the passenger seat to something more suitable for conversation.
“Fun night?” he asks to tease me.
“I think a piece of my soul died.”
Travis chuckles in response – he’s heard enough of my CVS horror stories to know I’m not exaggerating. He encounters some idiots at his job, sure, but there’s a special brand of general-public stupidity that I’m exposed to every single time I walk into CVS wearing a nametag and a polo.
“What did you do while I was being tortured?”
He’s wearing another conceited look as he backs out of the space in the vacant lot. “I met up with Sweet Caroline Wu for a little while.”
Sweet Caroline Wu goes to our school and had a major Neil Diamond obsession back in the tenth grade, hence the nickname. (She’s hot too, which is also pretty sweet, in my opinion.) Travis and Sweet Caroline have been hanging out as a pair for a couple weeks now, usually whenever I’m working. They both say they’re not dating or fooling around, but they absolutely are. Travis talks about her a lot in that dopey, smitten way. I end up hearing a lot about how her lips taste like strawberries, and how her hair smells like coconut, and how her breasts feel (perfect, according to him).
So, yeah, they’re totally dating.
“Is she coming on Friday?” I ask. I know Sweet Caroline doesn’t really like the kind of music we play, but she likes Travis enough that she’ll sit through an entire band practice just to fawn over him.
“Of course. I promised her a backstage tour after the set. And she can be another witness when you dump your girlfriend.”
Those words sound like a choir of angels to me. I almost expect the night-darkened heavens to part, and a beam of light to shine down on the promise of mine and Selena’s contractually-destroyed fake relationship as it’s so close to coming to an end. It’s the clause of my agreement with Bryson, however, that stops this from happening. It weighs heavily on me like a cloud of smog blocking the Godly illumination’s full radiance.
By the time we’re back in Woodland Hills and pulling into my driveway, the music has shifted to blessthefall. Travis shuts the Gator off in the middle of Hollow Bodies. He hauls a familiar overnight duffel bag over his shoulder as we walk to the door, which means that, at some point between making out with Sweet Caroline Wu and coming to pick me up from work, he went home, at least for a few minutes.
“How is it over there?” I ask him.
“Not safe. Have to wait it out another month.”
Travis’ older brother, Tyler, is home for the summer. He’s majoring in structural engineering at UCB, which means that Travis’ parents are asking him about his courses, and also asking Travis what his plans are after he graduates high school. They don’t like the answer that he gives.
Both Longfield brothers got in part-time at this garage during the summers, and, while Tyler sees it as a source of a few extra bucks, it’s what Travis wants to do – I mean, not the cleaning and administration stuff he’s stuck doing, but the fixing part. His parents think he can do better than “just a lowly auto mechanic,” even though he’d definitely have an apprenticeship lined up after vocational school, and a guaranteed full-time job after that. When his brother is home, that all goes out the window, and he has to spend most days and nights over at my place. He’d end up in a straightjacket otherwise.
My mom is still awake in the living room when we enter. She’s sitting in front of the TV, watching one of her recordings of some drama on NBC that makes her cry. I always tease her and tell her she should stop watching if she can’t handle the tragedy they’ve scripted, but she holds true to her claim that it’s all just too beautiful, and intricate, and deserves to be viewed. She keeps watching and crying over fictional characters.
“How was work?” She’s already dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“Hell.”
“That’s nice.”
She’s not really listening.
Travis and I go upstairs and leave her be.
I think my bedroom is relatively normal for a teenager – posters, books, clothes, a mother who’s constantly trying to make me clean it all up to no avail. The only uncommon thing is Travis’ bed. It’s a futon, but it’s never put back into couch mode, nor do the extra pillows and blankets ever leave it. Travis sets his bag down at the foot of it.
“What magnificent wonders of the past are you forcing me to watch tonight?” I pull off my polo – my glorified prison uniform – and toss it aside. I’d burn it if I didn’t need the money in my car fund.
Travis already has three DVDs in hand. He’s sort of a movie buff, which means I’ve seen just about every piece of cinema produced between 1927 and the present, regardless of whether or not it’s actually good.
“Psycho, The Searchers, or Casablanca?”
“Psycho.”
“Shower scene. Implied nudity,” he remarks. He’s smirking, mostly because he’s an ass, and also because he isn’t wrong.
“Beats cowboy racism and a movie I’ve watched a hundred times.”
“Casablanca is a classic,” Travis defends, already putting in the disc for Psycho. “Three Academy Awards.”
“I know,” I say, teasingly, “Because I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
He flips me off playfully, and we fall into something familiar and comfortable, despite the creepy motel vibe and plenty of chocolate syrup blood.
Chapter: 1