Roomies

“The best.” I wink. “What about you, any auditions?”

Lulu shakes her head with a little pout and then does a shoulder shimmy to the beat of the music. She might waitress to make ends meet, but she’s dreamed of being an actress since she was old enough to know it was a possibility. We met in grad school, where she was studying theater and I was writing. She’s told me on several occasions that she should become my muse, and I can write script after script for her. This should tell you a lot about our dynamic, which—despite this Jersey sidequest—is generally more entertaining than tedious.

She’s been in a few low-budget commercials (she played an accident-prone chicken in an insurance commercial, and I have several gifs of this performance I like to occasionally text her out of the blue), attended almost every acting class offered in New York, and (as a favor to me) was given a small part in one of Robert’s shows. It didn’t last long—because, as Robert put it, “Lulu is good at playing Lulu and only Lulu”—but as long as she draws breath, she will believe that her big break is just around the corner.

“No auditions this week.” She watches the stage while taking another neon pull from her drink. I gingerly sip my watered-down Diet Coke. “Crowds haven’t died down since the holidays, so we’re all taking on extra hours.” Nodding toward the musicians, she says, “I feel like I’m being visually assaulted by the crotch of that guy’s outfit, but this band? They don’t completely suck.”

I follow her gaze to where the lead singer has moved to stand under a single bright spotlight. His acid-washed jeans are so tight I can see every lump he has to offer. A few more hours in those pants and I’m confident he can kiss his child-fathering years goodbye. The band shifts from the closing notes of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” into a cover of Great White’s “Rock Me”—I have my older brother Thomas’s addiction to hair metal to thank for this knowledge—and a brave (or drunk) group of women gravitate to the edge of the stage, dancing to the bluesy opening chords.

And why not? I sway a little in my seat, drawn in by the way the guitar player drags out each note, like a maddening seduction, his head bent low in concentration. Loose Springsteen might be a cheesy cover band—and most of them are wearing at least one dangly earring and/or an article of clothing covered in animal print—but Lulu is right: they aren’t half bad. With a little polish I could see them playing in a bigger club somewhere, or in an eighties revival off-off-Broadway.

The singer falls back and the guitarist moves into a circle of smoky light, beginning his requisite solo. There’s a surprisingly loud reaction from the women up front . . . and there’s something familiar about the way he holds the guitar, the way his fingers glide up the neck, the way his hair falls forward . . .

Oh, holy . . .

He lifts his chin, and even with his eyes in shadow and half his face turned away, I know.

“That’s him,” I say, pointing. I sit up straighter, pulling my phone out. I’m still on enough painkillers to not entirely trust my eyes right now. I zoom in, snapping a blurry picture.

“Who?”

I stare down at the screen and recognize the cut of his jaw, his full mouth. “Calvin. The dude from the subway.”

“Shut up.” She squints, leaning in. “That’s him?” There’s a moment of silence where I know she’s looking him over, seeing exactly what I’ve seen almost every day for the last six months. “Damn. Okay.” She turns to me, brows pointed skyward. “He’s hot.”

“I told you!” We both look back over to him. He’s playing high on the neck, screaming out the notes on his guitar, and unlike the meditative lean of his posture at the station, here he’s completely playing to the audience. “What is he doing here?” What if he sees me? “Oh my God. Is he going to think I followed him?”

“Come on, how would you possibly know he’s the guitarist for Loose Springsteen? You’re not exactly a member of their fan club.” Lulu lets out a happy cackle. “As if they have a fan club.”

She’s right, of course, but even now, the way I can’t take my eyes off him, I feel like a stalker. I already know so much about his schedule—I saw him just this morning, after all—and I know even more now. Is this the kind of thing he does when he’s not busking? Good Lord. Maybe this is why there’s such a fire to his playing at the station; he has to physically force this music out of his head.

The song ends and the lead singer slips his mic into the stand, muttering that they’re taking a break before smashing his bottle of Rolling Rock to his lips and triumphantly draining it.

I’m out of my chair before I know what I’m doing. People shuffle back to their seats to refuel on bad beer, and the lights go up just enough that I see Calvin disappear into the shadows and reappear a moment later at the opposite side of the bar.

Whereas the rest of the band is a veritable cover spread of 1980s fashion don’ts, Calvin is in a black T-shirt, with the hem tucked lazily into the front of his dark jeans. He’s wearing his black boots, too, and the left one is presently propped on the brass rail near his feet. The bartender places a dark beer in front of him and he lifts it, staring ahead.

I’m not sure how to approach him, and he still hasn’t seen me standing a few feet away. Saying his name somehow feels sincerely weird, so I square my shoulders and slide onto the barstool beside him.

Only once I’m seated do I register that there were about ten other women working up the nerve to do the same thing, coming at him from all angles. He turns slowly, like this happens at every set break and he’s never sure what manner of companion he’s going to end up with.

But when our eyes meet, he startles, face immediately relaxing into a genuine smile. “Hey, it’s the girl from the Netherlands.”

And I can’t help it. Incredulity makes it burst out of me: “ ‘Hey’?”

Calvin’s smile turns a little sympathetic, like he gets it, and waves to the bartender, who immediately approaches. “Whatever she wants,” he tells the older man.

I hesitate. I didn’t come over here to have a drink with him. I came here to scratch that tickle of curiosity in my head that’s been plaguing me for the past few days . . . and maybe tell him off a little. But his inherent easiness is disorienting. I expected him to be shy, or stiff. Instead he’s nothing but relaxed, smiling charisma.

The bartender taps an impatient finger against the bar.

I apologize under my breath before ordering, “Club soda with lime, please.”

“A real wild child you are,” Calvin teases.

I meet his eyes, giving him a forced grin. “I’m on painkillers.” I nod to the cast. “Broken arm.”

He grimaces playfully. “Right.”

The question is so much easier to ask than I’d expected: “So why didn’t you tell them what you saw? They told my family I jumped.”

He nods a few times, swallowing his sip of beer before speaking. “I’m sorry. I am. But I didn’t think the police would believe my version.”

Pre-subway-platform-dive Holland would be losing her mind right now at the way his accent moves every word to the front of his mouth, and think comes out as tink—a tiny coin dropped into a cup.