It's Really Happening

Once I returned to San Francisco, I fell into my normal routine of school, work, surfing, work, photography, missing Zack, and more work. It didn’t take me long—about four hours, in fact— to realize that being home by myself with no dramatics and amusement of weddings and musicians was boring.

Summer took its sweet time passing, which I didn’t mind usually, but the calendar date that read “FIRST DAY OF TOUR” made the days drag like wading through molasses in January. Working at the restaurant kept me busy and occupied, but my heart wasn’t in it. I chopped herbs and wondered if Abby had decided anything else without me. I peeled potatoes and thought about how excited Zack was to play the record for me; he was proud of it.

I trudged through June and July like a zombie, living for phone calls and text messages. I tried to push myself harder in the studio—my personal motto, which I shared with everyone who came in to record, was “Good is not good enough”—and to shoot more models who would actually pay me, but at the end of every day I came home exhausted and wanted to do nothing but lie on the floor and stare at nothing.

I was so thankful to see Abby when she showed up, partly because I love her and she’s awesome, partly because she saved me the airfare to Michigan, and partly because I’d actually left the apartment with a duffel bag and no plans or emails telling anyone I was leaving.

She hung around my apartment in the days drawing nearer to our meeting up with tour and I was happy to have company. It made deciding what to pack easier.

“New Orleans, right?” Abby asked. She was lying on my bed with my laptop looking up flights while I folded my clothes into tiny cubes and stuffed them into my duffel bag.

“Correct,” I replied, tossing in socks. “Unless you’d like to actually have clean clothes for the next three weeks. In which case we should head to Detroit.”

She thought a moment and laughed. “Maybe a good idea.” Abby began typing again. “Though the guys won’t have clean clothes.”

“I asked Dave what his definition of ‘clean’ was once. He said whatever doesn’t smell like sweat, beer, piss, or vomit.” I folded a t-shirt against my chest and laid it neatly in with the rest. Abby stared at me blankly. “I then offered to wash, sterilize, and or burn all his clothes and spray him with a hose.”

She snickered. “Sounds like Dave. What’re you doing?” I stopped, kneeling over my duffel bag with a grey polyester cube on one hand. “What is that?”

“My companion cube.” I tossed it into the air a few feet and caught it with a smile. “Zack bought it for me after I made him play Portal.” I dropped the cube into my bag and tugged the zipper closed. Now my stuffed duffel had a tumor. “So. Detroit?”

I went to pick up my paycheck from the restaurant and deposited it before Abby had even woken up, which was bad because if both of us tried to get ready at the same time, we’d miss our flight.

“Abby.” I poked her shoulder, and she grumbled and rolled over. “Abigail, wake up.”

“Why?” she demanded sleepily.

“Because we have to make a detour in Michigan before going to Louisiana? Come on, being late makes me anxious.” I tugged the blankets off the bed. Abby grabbed the pillow from under her head and hit me in the face with it. “Fine. You can buy your own coffee at the airport.”

I have mixed feelings about flying. I enjoy being in the air because it’s like being between worlds, but I hate take-offs because the stewardesses don’t bring around the drinks cart until afterwards and I hate landings because I understand physics and gravity is a bitch.

“You know what we should do?” Abby asked rhetorically, coming out of her room some time after we’d gotten to the apartment.

Stretched out on the couch, I opened my eyes and thought for a moment. “Get haircuts?”

She tilted her head at me. “You either need to stop that or teach me how you do it.”

“I’m magical,” I replied, sitting up and stretching. “Also you’ve been fiddling with your hair for the past three days.” Abby raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged. “Magical sounds better than forensic-observant.”

“Anyway!” she continued, brightening. “D’you want to come? It might be more interesting than sitting around here alone.”

“Sure.” I stepped into my shoes again and put my hair into a bun. “Professionals might have some enlightening secrets about keeping me from looking like Hermione Granger.”

The place Abby picked was a trendy salon with neon lights along the walls and a tile pattern I couldn’t figure out. But she said it was reasonably priced (read: cheap) and they hadn’t fucked up so far. She told the woman at the front desk what she wanted—a funky sort of bob with long side-swept bangs— and when I looked up from the trippy floor, they were both looking at me expectantly.

“Oh. Uh.” I licked my lips nervously. What should I say? I grinned sheepishly at Abby. “What would you say if I streaked my hair purple?”

Abby laughed. “I’d say, go for it! How about blue for me?”

We gave our names and sat down to wait for chairs to open up. “Does the library allow you to have strange-coloured hair?” I asked, relaxing.

She shrugged. “Probably not. But what about you? You have a professional-type job too. Sort of. And since when do you want purple hair? You never told me that!”

“It’s all part of the surprise we’re apparently giving the boys. You’ll find out tomorrow.” Abby pouted, but luckily my name got called just before hers and we followed two trendy hairstylists to chairs.

I decided somewhere between the bleaching process and washing out the dye, which I chose because it was called Tyrian Terror, that I might as well go with my decision to be impulsive and get an actual haircut. Which I did.

“I don’t know how you handle doing your hair everyday,” I said the next morning, while both of us were figuring out how we wanted our new hair-dos to look. I blew my new long bangs out of my eyes and tried to twist the layered waves into some semblance of order. “I don’t have the patience for this nonsense.”

Abby, straightening her newly shorn hair, laughed. “Years of practice,” she replied, “And I’m not in denial about being girly.”

“I am not in denial!” I protested, searching through my makeup bag. “I just dyed my hair partly purple and cut it like a freaking celebrity.”

“I know. Zack’s gonna flip his shit.”

“Well, your man has longer hair than you now.”

“Eh, not the first time that’s happened.”

New Orleans, the Big Easy, birthplace of Jazz. God damn it’s hot here. I pressed enter on my iPhone and thusly informed anyone who followed me on Twitter that we’d arrived safely. “So what’s the plan?” I asked, squinting even behind my sunglasses. “We getting a cab?”

“Are we going to the venue or somewhere else?” Abby asked, shielding her eyes.

“No idea. Call Dawson? He might know.” While she pulled out her phone and dialed, I picked at a purple piece of hair hanging in my peripheral. What if he doesn’t like it? I thought suddenly. Crap.

“Okay. Bye, Rian.” I stopped worrying for a moment and turned to Abby. “He says come to their hotel because they haven’t left yet because nobody’s ready even though they’re supposed to be at the venue in half an hour.” I looked at the clock on my phone. “Yeah, they overslept, I guess.”

“Right. Taxi!” I called, leaning off the sidewalk and raising a hand.

In between swapping stories with our cab driver Leon, who was Cajun and liked to talk, I took a lot of pictures since we probably wouldn’t have time to see much of anything. Abby explained that we were traveling around the country for a few weeks, which prompted Leon to offer to sweep us away and show us all the best of New Orleans and the world.

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” I laughed as the cab slowed outside the hotel, “But I don’t think my darling’s fiancé would like that very much.” I paid and tipped him, and Abby and I climbed out to haul our bags from the trunk.

We waved as the cab drove away. “He was nice,” Abby commented. “Weird and I could barely understand him, but nice.”

“Hey!” I turned around to find Danny and Rian heading towards us from the lobby. While Abby rushed to hug her favourite drummer, Danny swung me around, which coaxed an annoyingly girly noise out of me. “Your hair’s fucking purple!”

“Well-spotted. Now put me the fuck down!” I demanded, laughing. He did, allowing me to give him and Rian actual hugs. “Howdy, kids.”

“Said the youngest person on the tour,” Abby narrated as we headed into the building.

“Not important! What’s important is that we are here and tour’s about to get ridiculous, if it wasn’t already.” We crossed the lobby into the elevator where Rian pushed the 3 button. I noticed, as he and Abby talked about recent developments in the wedding planning, that Danny was staring at me. “What?”

“You look good,” he said, smiling.

I rolled my eyes and pushed my bangs out of my face, only to have them fall right back to where they were. “Thanks. Impulse haircut. I’ve been going mental trying to decide if I like it.”

“It suits you.” I grinned as the doors opened, and we walked out into the hall, where it was quite obvious that everyone was running late. Rian led us past several rooms full of people we knew—I waved and Abby shouted random greetings—until he almost ran headfirst into Josh.

“Wow.” That really was the only thing I could say, which was better than Abby who appeared to be speechless. Josh, unwittingly joining us in our surprise plan, had cut his hair short. Well, for him. “Guess I was wrong with that comment earlier.”

Abby’s head tilted sideways. “Am I hallucinating or did we time travel?” she asked, still staring at her fiancé. “Last time his hair was that short was when we met!”

The rest of us laughed, Josh running a hand through his hair. “Come on, Eris,” Rian said, walking around the soon-to-be newly-weds, “Let’s go before they regain their senses.”

Danny had other plans, apparently, since he joined the rest of his band in sitting around. “I’m glad they’re getting married,” I said, once we were a safe distance away.

“Why’s that?”

“Because if they weren’t, Abby would have to carry around a bat to keep the ladies off him. I mean, Jesus.”

Rian chuckled. “Oh, this is gonna be fun,” he mused to himself, unlocking a door and opening it.

I frowned. “What?” He didn’t reply; simply grinned and walked into the room where Vinny and Flyzik were hanging out. “Hey, guys.”

They looked up and stared blankly for a moment before Matt blinked in surprise. “…Eris?”

I raised an eyebrow at Rian and dropped my bag. “Rian, you didn’t tell me I was unrecognizable!” He shrugged. I smiled at the others. “Yes, I’m still me. Last time I checked. Zack around?”

“Next door,” Vinny informed me, jerking his thumb at the door connecting us to the next room. “Hurry up though, we’re supposed to go soon.”

“So I keep hearing,” I laughed, heading into the other room, “But all I’ve seen is a bunch of slackers sitting around on couches. Oh!” I stopped, crossing my arms. “Speak of the devil.”

Alex sighed heavily. “Oh good, Zack’s snarky girlfriend is here,” he said before grinning. Jack tore his eyes away from his iPhone and waved.

“As opposed to Zack’s sweet, sincere, not-snarky girlfriend.”

“She’s nice. She made us cookies.”

“That’s nice. Too bad I’ll have to kill the bitch.”

“Who’re you killing?” Zack asked, walking in from the bathroom.

“Your theoretical other gir—” I probably could have saved myself from looking like an idiot, which I probably did gaping at him, if I’d actually looked over when he came in instead of in the middle of my sentence.

Jack snickered. “Now we know how to shut her up,” he joked.

“Quiet, Bassam,” I retorted, still staring as my boyfriend came over to me. Zack had followed the trend of the day and the result was shorter hair than I’d ever seen him with. And god damn did it look good. “H-hi.”

I did not just stutter in front of my boyfriend, because of my boyfriend. Please tell me I’m smoother than that.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted with a smile. “I missed you.”

Okay, obviously I am not that smooth since it took all of my willpower to keep the kiss he gave me classy and not R-rated.

I smiled nervously. “You, uh… c-cut your hair…” I made a face. “Stated Captain Obvious.”

Zack chuckled. “You too.” He pulled a piece away from my neck and twisted it between his fingers. “Purple looks nice on you.”

Oh good god, look at that jawline, I thought helplessly, biting my lip. Alex coughed loudly, which helped me back to reality. I cleared my throat. “Er, aren’t you guys supposed to be gone by now?”

I helped Flyzik rally everyone into getting up and out of the hotel, where we’d be staying the night, but that didn’t stop me from getting distracted by Zack, whose hand I never let go of. I caught myself staring more than once, even on the bus. I kept hoping we’d get a moment alone, but at the same time, I knew a moment wouldn’t be enough.

“Something wrong?” Zack asked. We had claimed a corner of the back lounge of the bus and once we started moving, everyone seemed to settle down. The only other person with us was Alex, and he had headphones on and plugged into his laptop.

I smiled down at our hands clasped together and crossed my legs over his lap. “Restraint takes of lot of resolve and attention,” I explained, eyes flicking up. “Especially when it isn’t so much ‘mind over matter’ as ‘logic and habit of social niceties over mind and matter’.”

He blinked at me. “I think you lost me at ‘resolve’,” he admitted. “Pancakes, Eris, not waffles.”

I grinned. Zack and I had a code that developed out of an analogy I used when I first told him about my being in therapy. Pancakes were simple, easy, straightforward. Waffles were more complicated. It confused the hell out of anybody else who heard us mention either one, but we never explained. “Your haircut reminds me how unbelievably lucky I am.”

“How’s that?” He pulled me farther onto his lap and pulled the hair-tie off the messy knot that had at one point been a bun.

I ran my fingers down his cheek and neck. “You’re…” I paused and tried for something that wasn’t cheesy or really dirty. Nothing spectacular came to mind. “You.” Zack raised an eyebrow. “I could make you understand, but I’m trying really hard to save up on ‘ew Zack and Eris are being coupley’ points. It could be a long, annoying tour for some people if I didn’t.”

A grin pulled at his lips (which just made me want to kiss him more) and without looking away, he said, “Hey, Alex.”

“What?”

“Go away.”