She Screams in Silence

Four years later, Felicity, at twenty-two years old, was managing to get by on her own. She had run out, broken every tie she had. She hadn’t contacted her parents since she had up and left, and was intending to keep it that way. They had threatened to cut her off without so much as a dime if she dared disobey them, and by leaving she had basically told them and every single cent of theirs to kiss her ass. Once out by herself, in a town where she knew no one, she had started working full-time, pulling in forty hour weeks and all the while attending community college in the evenings and living on Ramen noodles. Only by having lived so long with an overloaded schedule had she been able to handle it, and by the time she was twenty, she was able, with the aid of Cal Grants and loans she would probably be paying back for the rest of her life, to transfer to a four-year school and finish her degree. Having just graduated, she worked as a copy-editor for a small newspaper and shared a small two-bedroom apartment with a girl named Vicky.

Vicky was two years her senior and had bright flaming red hair. It had been she who had advertised the need for a roommate on Craigslist, and Felicity had responded. Vicky was loud and exuberant, which suited Felicity just fine, as the other girl didn’t expect her to keep up her end of the conversation. The two were friends, certainly, but Vicky never pried as long as Felicity didn’t volunteer information about herself. It ended up being an excellent arrangement of opposites, Felicity being able to keep to herself for the most part––her social life was, and had been since leaving Berkeley, completely nil––and Vicky was the bright social butterfly, off to trendy clubs and hot dates with a steady stream of fellows, and always ready to relate her experiences in a most dramatic fashion. In a way, Vicky reminded Felicity a bit of Cat––if Cat felt like trading in her blue-streaked hair and leather for a white minidress and an eyeshadow called “Shimmer Sweet Pink.”

Meeting Vicky had certainly been interesting. Hers was the first ad on Craigslist Felicity had called and Vicky had, after relating a ten minute long anecdote about her old roommate moving out, told her to just come by and see the place for herself with the explanation of, “Because I just really hate talking on the phone.” When Felicity had arrived shortly thereafter and knocked, Vicky simply yelled for her to come right in, as she was perched on the couch chattering away on the supposedly loathed phone. Felicity had stood in the doorway feeling awkward until Vicky had said, “Let me call you back in a mo, hon,” and then smiled at her uneasy guest and cried, “So, let me give you the grand tour!” Felicity followed her around the place, wondering if it was a good idea to move in with someone who referred to a unit of time as a “mo.” But it was Chatty Cathy here or a park bench. Felicity signed the lease that same day and retired to her room with the only piece of furniture she had––an air mattress of Vicky’s that made loud crinkling noises every time she moved.

Working had posed numerous issues for Felicity. When starting out, she had absolutely no experience and had to subsist on minimum wage. Lacking any sort of real corporate ladder to climb in the world of retail, she had managed to get a position at her current job, the little newspaper, working for pittance until she reached her present position. She still was not paid particularly well, but for the first time she seemed to actually have a little spare cash on hand.

But in truth, the copy-editor bit was to pay the bills. It was nothing tremendously exciting to argue over improper syntax and spelling with grammatically-challenged journalists. What she really did was something that still shocked her to admit––she worked in the theatre. Hating to get up in front of people and perform, she found herself doing just that the second she was no longer forced into it. The idea still terrified her, of course, but something odd she couldn’t place kept driving her to it. And when she pulled back from that horrible fear that plagued her, she found she actually wasn’t half bad.

She had started in small local productions––no more than community theatre, no salary, a hobby on the side when she could make the time for it. Eventually, grasping the courage, she had gone about a month subsisting on pasta and other cheap edibles to pay for headshots and auditioned for roles that actually paid something. “Something” hardly translated to anything substantial though. She wasn’t nearly making enough to have theatre pay for everything––thus keeping the day job. It was, rather, her fun––a masochistic, twisted fun, albeit. Her current part, Eponine in a decidedly major production of Les Misérables, was the biggest role she had taken so far.

Keeping herself mind-numbingly busy was necessary on several accounts. While she obviously had to hustle to make ends meet and finish school, there was something wretched about free-time. If she had nothing to do and nothing on her mind, invariably a particular person would pop in her head––a person she was determined to forget. Her somewhat misplaced anger for Billie had quickly dissipated after she had left, replaced with a gnawing guilt and anxiety, a horrible sadness that pulled at her until she was half-sick. It was only her stubborn pride that kept her from picking up the phone, telling herself over and over again he did not wish to hear from her and she certainly wanted nothing to do with him.

Thinking about him only caused her pain.

The plan was to forget.

It certainly didn’t work very well, as only a year after leaving, Green Day had suddenly been catapulted into the spotlight. It wasn’t exactly possible to try and forget someone who happened to show up on the television set pretty regularly, their fame steadily increasing with the release of each album. That, and Felicity also owned all of their albums to date, with the exception of Nimrod, which had just gone on sale a month earlier.

So she didn’t always strictly adhere to her plan.

• • •

Returning home from a trip to the store one evening, Felicity walked into her apartment to behold Vicky putting on quite the show. In Risky Business-fashion, she was using a comb as a microphone and bounding across the room to jump up onto the sofa and dance about as she sang along with the bubblegum pop music on her stereo. “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want! So tell me what you want, what you really really want!”

“What in God’s name are you listening to?” Felicity raised an eyebrow as she set the bag of groceries down on the counter.

“Spice Girls!” Vicky called out between her singing extravaganza. “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends! Make it last forever, friendship never ends!”

“Please stop.”

“What? You don’t like it?”

“The term ‘insipid’ comes to mind,” Felicity replied, walking into her room. She left the door open a crack, saving Vicky the trouble of barging in if she wanted something.

Thankfully, the song wound down about a minute later, the word “lover” being repeatedly echoed as it faded out. The radio station immediately went into the next song without any annoying comments from the DJ. It promised to be slightly less peppy, at first only an acoustic guitar playing.

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road,” the singer began.

Felicity froze. She knew that voice anywhere.

Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go,
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why,
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind,
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time,
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial,
For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

Felicity felt numb as the song finished. How was she supposed to forget? She wasn’t one for over-analyzing, but for the love of God, Billie Joe might as well give an interview and say, “Oh, yeah, I wrote this in hopes that I might completely torment this one girl with memories of me.”

Everything. Everything was piling up in her mind like an avalanche.

Putting her head in her hands, Felicity started to cry.

“That song’s awesome, huh?” Vicky interrupted her tears, pushing her door all the way open and leaning against the frame. “What’s the name of the band? Green-something, right? Green Day! That’s it! Isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh,” Felicity murmured, surreptitiously swiping at her face.

“Hey, you okay? Are you crying?” Vicky asked in concern, squinting as her red eyes.

“Fine. Just fine. I’ve got...allergies.”

“Oh. But I just love that song! Don’t you think it’s great?”

Felicity raised an eyebrow, “Green Day and the Spice Girls. How eclectic of you.”

“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Vicky remarked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You look insanely pissed off.”

“I’m not.”

“Upset, then. Whatever. Same difference. I know you and Posh Spice aren’t going to be bonding anytime soon, but you should agree with me about that Green Day band. You like that kind of music. In fact, I should say, I think you have a deep all-consuming love for it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You sleep with an autographed cassette tape of theirs under your pillow. And don’t even give me that horrified-invaded-privacy look. You let me crash in your room that one weekend you went out of town and my room was being painted. I found it. So did you meet them at some concert or did you shell out a shit-load of money for that thing?”

“It’s none of your business. Don’t go through my stuff.”

“I didn’t! I found it on accident! If you didn’t want me to see it, you should at least have put it in a drawer or something rather than where I put my head. Did it ever occur to you some people like to fluff their pillows before they go to sleep? Come on, don’t get so offended. I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay,” Felicity muttered, shrugging and staring at the wall.

“Don’t get so bent out of shape about it. It’s a tape. It’s not like a diary or anything. I’m not going to tell anyone you’ve got a crush on one of the guys in some band. Speaking of which, who is it that’s struck your fancy?”

“No one. Can you drop it?”

“Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed about! Look, I used to have the most enormous crush on one of those guys in New Kids on the Block. God, I can’t even remember his name now. But anyway, come on, who in Green Day is setting your heart a flutter? And no bullshit, please––you don’t sleep with a cassette tape under your pillow if you don’t have a thing for at least one of them.”

“Vicky, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s nothing.”

Vicky rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. But seriously––did you meet them?”

Felicity hesitated. She hadn’t told her about most of her past and typically Vicky had never thought to question it. She had always been content to chatter along, liking Felicity for being quiet and willing to listen. “I...” she began, wondering if she should go into it.

What for? Vicky would never believe her. Not to mention just thinking about it––thinking about Billie––was killing her.

“I...” she tried again, “I...paid for it.”

Vicky let out a low whistle. “That had to be a fortune. How much?”

She shrugged. “More than I should have spent.”

“Yeah, but it was worth it, huh?” Vicky gave her a smile.

“Time of my life,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Nothing. And yes, it was worth it.”

“Figured as much,” Vicky nodded. “You know they’re playing here soon? I saw in the paper. Sold out.”

Of course she knew. She had debated buying a ticket, but had ended up rejecting the scheme on the grounds that she didn’t have that sort of extra cash to spend and it was a ridiculous idea anyway.

That, and the show had sold out when she called to buy one.

Several Months Earlier...

Billie sat, his elbows resting on his knees, as he stared at the floor, spacing out. He seemed to make quite of habit of that.

Mike dropping a notebook on the table with a loud slapping sound jolted him back to reality and he glanced up at his friend, “Well?”

“Well, I’d say they’ll be great when we get them put to music,” Mike shrugged.

“But...?”

“But what? I didn’t say anything.”

“You’ve got that look that suggests a ‘but.’”

Mike sighed, running his hand through his hair as he took the chair next to Billie Joe. “Look, you know I’m always honest with you, right? And honestly, these are great. This is going to be an awesome album.”

“But...?” Billie waved his hand in a motion for him to continue.

“But there’s a definite theme here,” Mike gave him a sad smile. “More than I’ve seen of it for awhile, because it’s about a third of the songs. I mean, it’s always there, but now it’s––”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you want to name this album ‘Billie Joe Waxes Poetic on Lost Love’?”

“What?”

Mike gave him another melancholy grin, sympathy behind it. “You’re still hung up on her.”

“Are you stoned? What the fuck are you talking about?” Billie sneered.

“It’s good stuff,” he nodded. “Really is. And it shows very clearly that even after four years you’ve still got it really bad for someone you may very well never see again.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Billie scowled at the floor, lighting a cigarette and then brutally crushing it out, completely forgetting to actually smoke it.

“Man,” Mike shook his head, “you’re fucked.”