Tabbs

Chapter 8

Tabbs pulled up to the parking lot in front of her apartment and miraculously found a spot right in front of her building. She cranked the sputtering Saturn into park and killed the engine. Traipsing towards the iron steps to her unit, she gave the usual nod at the two smoking dads who, in turn, nodded back. She cranked her key in the sticky front door and threw her weight against it. The door popped out of the door jam with an audible snap and she closed and locked it behind her.

"Hey, babe," Gavin said from the couch without looking at her, his week-old shirt strewn with a fresh coating of Cheeto dust. "How was it?"

Tabbs riffled through the large bag of takeout she had been carrying and tossed something warm and covered in tinfoil at him. Aiming for his head, it bounced off his chest and landed at the foot of the couch. "Uh- little help here, babe?"

She didn't answer, instead pulling out her own takeout and grabbing a can of Arizona iced tea from the fridge before marching off to their room, slamming the door behind her. Plopping down on the freshly changed sheets of her bed she had replaced that morning before work, she jammed the charging cable into her phone and prepared to stream a video. While her dinosaur phone paired with the WiFi and loaded, she unwrapped her burrito and took a massive bite. Munching away, she browsed different series to watch - it was always the worst being between series - and landed on some documentary about cocaine in the 80's in south Florida. Old men with floral Hawaiian shirts and khaki pants talked at her, but none of the information really sank in. Show still going, she found her eyes wandering to the black case with golden latches laying casually against the opposing wall. Her mind suturing with the day's events, about her grandma, about Valentina. More seemed to have happened in the course of a few days then it seemed to in the past couple of years.

Without thinking, she wiped her greasy hands on her work pants and strode over to the case. She delicately laid it on the ground and popped each latch in sequence. She laid a hand reverentially on the case lid and gently pushed it out of the way. There, in the same condition since she had taken it out in the attic, was the guitar. Her guitar. She touched its surface, the glossy black paint cool to the touch. A good sign, since she knew heat wasn't good for a guitar over a long period of time. Also that she could be pretty sure Gavin hadn't laid his crusty hands on it while she'd been out. Not that he was especially likely to be picking himself up and out of the couch anyway. She splayed her fingers on the body as before and plucked each string in turn with her thumbnail. Instead of singing, they vibrated and rattled against the frets. 'The temp change must have loosened the strings,' she thought.

She wrapped a hand around the base of the neck and pulled it carefully out of the case. The weight of the instrument was satisfying and fit perfectly in her lap. She tuned the chrome tuners and plucked gently at the string to get the pitch she was looking for. No matter how much she twisted though, it still didn't sound quite right. She reached back in the case to root around for her tuner, when her eye caught the will, still laying in the spot she had found it. She averted her eyes and continued her search till she located her tuner and a pick with the tip missing. Miraculously, the battery was still good and she tuned the bottom E till it was perfect, then repeated the process till every string was where it needed to be.

Her fingers navigated the neck like a day hadn't passed by since her last practice session. Without her realizing, her pick had begun plucking and strumming the intro to Come As You Are by Nirvana, her voice singing softly along to the un-amplified electric. Tripping up on a couple of notes at first, the rest of the song returned to her so smoothly she forgot she was even playing at all. Her mind wandered back to Valentina. To the look on her face when she mentioned Keith. Before she knew it, the tempo of her playing picked up, hamming on the bass notes of a power chord. She then felt a stinging in her fretting finger and saw a tiny cut oozing blood in the crook of her knuckle on her forefinger. She couldn't help but chuckle - it had been a long time and her guitar calluses were long gone. She placed the guitar on top of the case, ripped a piece of paper towel off a roll she kept in the room, and wiped the strings off with a loving caress. Wrapping her wounded finger in the unused portion of the paper towel, she rose to wash it and bandage it in the bathroom.