“You’re right, Mon. I’m sorry. As soon as there’s something to tell, I’ll tell you.”
Monica stares at me, picking through my brain with her eyes before releasing a frustrated sigh. “Just be careful, OK? Oh! Josh and I are going away Friday to my parents’ house, so I have to drive separately to Concord on Wednesday.”
“That’s fine.” I shrug nonchalantly while silently thanking whatever powers arranged that. Now I won’t have to tell her about going to Adrian’s on Friday.
“Night.” Monica turns back to Finnegan’s.
“Night.”
Chapter Nine
The first part of this week has been a total bitch. Carrie placed interns with Monica and me in our offices, and handed them the rest of our workloads so we can focus “one hundred percent” on the DROP collaboration. This means that yesterday and today I’ve had to put up with oh-so-many questions from college seniors that I know for a fact I wasn’t annoying enough to ask when I was in their shoes.
“Don’t friend potential contacts on Facebook. In fact, you need to make yourself as private as possible on that damn site,” I huff as I walk over to the computer to adjust the intern’s privacy settings.
“Or you could not have an account at all, like Ember,” Monica chirps as she walks in.
The intern contorts her face in a mix of horror and disgust. “You don’t have a Facebook account at all?”
Monica and I laugh and shake our heads as I try to offer an explanation.
“Believe it or not, when we were in college it was only available for college students. Period. Now that they let any old cat in, I’ve lost interest.” I finish adjusting her settings before letting her go for the day. “Oh, Zoe? One more thing.” I tap the screen at one of her photo albums. “Regardless of your privacy settings, just, please, never take pictures like these again. If you don’t put them on the internet, someone else will, OK? If you wouldn’t show your grandmother, don’t show the world. And, if you would show your grandmother...I need to meet her for drinks.” I chuckle.
She turns white and crimson at the same time. “OK. Goodnight.” She leaves quickly.
“You are such an asshole.” Monica slaps the back of my head.
“Oh, am I? We need to see some girl using Zoe’s belly button as a shot glass?”
We burst into a laughter that’s eluded us over the last couple of weeks. Monica’s seemed a little distant since I started back at work. Things with her and Josh are going well and I want her to talk about it, but she seems hesitant to brag about her bliss. Also, while she’s not thrilled with Adrian’s reappearance in my life, she’s upset that I won’t talk about him with her just the same. It’s made things a little tense, and I don’t really see the tension dying down any time soon since we’re going to be in Concord for the rest of the week.
Within an hour after leaving work, I’m at Finnegan’s for our weekly rehearsal. I’m the last one here since, apparently, I’m the only one with a day job.
“What took you so long?” C.J. grumbles behind his set.
“Some of us work, Ceej.” I toss my backpack on the closest table and hop up on stage. “You’ll have to forgive him,” I turn to Regan while pointing to C.J., “he’s an asshole. But I guess you knew that since you’re his cousin and all.” Regan hoots as C.J. flips me off and sticks out his tongue, exposing his tongue ring.
“C.J., it’s not 1999, lose the barbell.” He flips me off again.
Regan draws his bow slowly across his fiddle once before speaking. “OK, Ember, the guys and I were talking about bringing some Irish rock into the mix. Are you OK with that?” I lose myself in the movements of his lips with his muffled accent. “Hello?” He snaps me out of it.
“Hm? Sorry. That sounds great, I guess, but I don’t really have a rock kind of voice ...”
“Oh, I think you’ll do just fine.” He ignores my concern and resumes stroking the strings with his bow.
“What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin?” I ask, studying the instrument that looks like a violin to me.
Regan stops and considers his fiddle, twisting it in the space between us. “Fiddle’s just a nickname.” He winks and places his chin back on his “nickname.” He’s intriguing. He’s cool, confident, but seems safe. I need to figure him out.
As he vacillates between fast and slow rhythms, I find myself watching his hands and swaying along with him. I’m transported back to my childhood, once again watching my dad play for my mom while I peeked from my bedroom. Monica sneaks up behind me and hooks her arm through mine, swaying in time.
“He’s a goddamn dream, isn’t he?” Monica bats her eyelashes.
“I’ll say. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to watch this fiddle-playing god.”
Regan chuckles but keeps playing, as Monica gushes.
“Jesus, Mon, Josh is right there!” I point to Josh, who sits and shakes his head.
“Not for me, smartass, for you.”
What?