Breaking Suburbia

There’s something special about a music shop.

The way the neon signs flickers, the way the bell on the door might as well be the most typical sound, but it rings off the walls of instruments so melodically you’d swear it was a glockenspiel. At least, that’s what she thought as she ventured into the hole-in-the-wall music store. Like a normal day out, her hood was up, securing her hair and identity.

She stared at the guitars lining the wall, the red velvet beneath them. Some old station hums through the ironically poor sound system.

A man emerges from the back, “Sorry, there was just a call, may I help you?” His deeper than expected voice rattles the walls, or maybe it’s because she hasn’t heard another person’s voice in so long.

Clearing her throat, she was preparing herself to talk. She’d done it so many times in front of the gilded French mirror at her house, the one her mom brought back from Paris all those years ago. But, now that she was face to face with a person other than herself, she was speechless. “Uh, I want to purchase an acoustic guitar.” The way she phrased it made the statement sound like an uneasy question.

“They’re up on this wall,” he said, jumping over the counter. The one act of recklessness made her cringe away, huddling back over towards the stacks of amplifiers and boxes piling towards the opposite wall. “Why don’t you come over here with your pretty eyes?”

“You can’t see my eyes.” She hushed, shrugging father back into the sweatshirt if at all possible.

“That’s the joke, sweetheart.” She could imagine his bright blue eyes sparking to compliment his playful tone, yet, she couldn’t see them. “What’s your price range?” He queried, staring up at the wall in perplexity.

“Nothing over four hundred,” she bit her lip.

“I’m so rude, my name is Chester,” he explained as he removed a rather small looking pale wooded guitar. She had her eyes set on a blue one at the top, but his eyes didn’t seem to wander there, so she would keep herself quiet.

“Maggie,” she coolly replied. There was something abnormal about saying that because Maggie didn’t feel like Maggie, Maggie didn’t connect to the person that stared back at her in the gilded mirror. Maggie mentally and Maggie physically weren’t the same person.

“You look like a Maggie.” Chester quipped. As much as she yearned to hate him, his overall childish demeanor and fun lovingness enveloped her into some sort of subspace. “Come over here, I think these would fit you perfectly,” he ordered, but in a nice way, a way that didn’t frighten Maggie. She perched herself on the leather stool, and watched the man bend down to pick up the first guitar. Chester’s heather gray pullover slid up, revealing two nearly perfect indentations in his lower back. Maggie bit her lip anxiously, taking in how attractive the salesman really was, and how painfully out of place she was to be talking to him.

Maggie extended her arms for the first guitar, flinging the body so her right side hunched over it. Maggie assumed it was okay. “No, you’re too small for that type of guitar,” Chester decided.

Not willing to protest, Maggie simply sat the guitar next to her.

They went through this process at least two more times with two more guitars until Chester sputtered, “You’re not a big talker are you?”

Maggie shook her head. “Are you naturally this way or did something bring it on?” Chester raised an eyebrow, handing the girl the last guitar he had originally picked.

“What’s it to you?” Maggie tried her best to sound fierce, confident, but it came out as more of a philosophical question. Damn meekness, she thought quietly to herself as she strummed the guitar. A glorious sound hummed in her ears, she had found it.

Too bad it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. There in her arms was the most distasteful sunburst effect-- black around the edges that eventually faded into a light wood texture. “I want this one,” Maggie perked up, smiling at the sounds she was making by strumming quietly.

“Well, here’s the thing…” Chester scratched his neck, which was covered in black curls that framed his face. Maggie’s heart dropped, she didn’t want to come back. “I can’t write this one up tonight, but I can tomorrow,” he explained.

“Why not?”

“I’m not at liberty to sell anything,” Chester chuckled, “I could call you though and deliver it tomorrow after six.”

“No,” Maggie blurted out. Her chest was fluttering and her heart was jumping rope. How unsafe it would be to have a mere stranger on her property. She couldn’t condone it.

The worst part of her loss of control for her words was that Chester cocked an eyebrow, he noticed. “Alright,” he put his hands up in mock surrender. Maggie didn’t see how she was the threat in this scenario. “But there’s something about you Maggie, something really intriguing.”

Yeah, really intriguing, Maggie denoted in her head. The months alone had made her painfully cynical. Everything was sarcasm to her at this point. Life was a running gag. “Yeah, I don’t talk; guess I’ve got this mysterious girl act down to a T.”

Chester laughed, the sounds rattling the strings that were ten feet away. He intimidated her. Once he was complete, he didn’t speak, he just looked at her eyes. After she realized what he was doing, she turned her head. “So I’ll come back tomorrow,” she fiddled with the straps on her bag.

“I’ll hold the guitar, you have my word,” Chester promised, tapping his fingers on the glass of the counter. Maggie could tell he wasn’t used to being ignored. “Have a good evening, Maggie,” he responded.

“You too.”

She rushed out the door; to the compact car she parked a nice walk away from the music shop. Tomorrow, she breathed in and out at a rapid pace. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. It sunk into her system that she was going to have to do this tiring social mess again, in as little as fifteen hours.

Maggie sighed; she was going to need a good night’s sleep.