Hermosa

A Conversation Between Acquaintances (Part 1)

On the Way to Somewhere

(Someone is in the car with Jules, and she is driving. These people are traveling on a busy interstate.)

Jules: I wasn't really looking for a relationship. In fact, it was likely the last thing on Earth I wanted. Uh, you know, I-I'd gotten out of a bad relationship maybe six months before that. Nine months - No, it was definitely more like nine, and that ended really badly. Uh, foof, [sighs] my ex had basically, well he had invited a woman to stay at his house like two weeks before we broke up, and I wasn't having it. I just absolutely lost my shit, and so ya know, I waited for the week to end after frantically calling him like fifty times and freaking out. When we finally met up again [she sighs from deeper inside her throat, her voice becoming progressively more gravelly] um, I was supposed to meet him at his house. Then he wasn't there. I had to bang on the door and talk to his roommate to find out where he was. [sniffs dryly] Find out he was out like late night walking at the campus that I was about to graduate from. Ugh, and so then I got there. He got in my car in the parking lot and just said, ya know, "I'm not doing this anymore." 'nd he kissed me on the forehead, and I-I cried, ya know, I cried a lot. 'nd I begged, like, "Please, tell me what's going on? What happened?" I was in complete and total denial about the woman. I-I couldn't believe it. Ya know, in my mind my boyfriend was perfect. I was 21 years old, and this was the first serious boyfriend I'd had – that I really cared about, anyway. [sniffs, swallows hard] So, ya know, he-he just got out of the car [pause] and left. That was that y'know, I never really grasped that that was the end of it. For the next six to nine months I just couldn't think about dating. Not really. I mean, I had a side guy that I, y'know, fucked around with and took a couple of trips with, but we both knew it wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't anything serious. [clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth]

(Jules pauses, her eyes darting back and forth as though she is looking at every car on each side of the road. Ahead, there is a large green sign above the interstate indicating the split between a stretch that leads to Memphis, TN or Knoxville, TN. The travelers merge towards Memphis.)

Jules: I moved away from Clarksville because I couldn't [voice becomes higher, her speech more rapid] I couldn't be there. I couldn't stand it, you know, dff, everything had a memory tied to it – every, uh, strip of sidewalk, uh, every restaurant. And every, fuck, I couldn't be anywhere near a Taco Bell. Christ sake. [pauses to brake for a car that has merged in front of her vehicle] So, yeah. [quickly takes a deep breath] I moved back home, moved in with my mom about an hour away from Clarksville 'nd started looking for another job. Found one in Nashville, did a lot of commuting [sigh]. The-the mall there was re-opening after being closed for a couple of years because of the 2010 flood. 'nd we, uh – So yeah, I got hired on as one of 72-ish people to go open this store. I was so broken at the time that I couldn't even stand the thought of dating, but I was like okay, maybe now that all of my friends have moved away – we're out of college now - I can start making new friends, and that'll help me get out of the house. That'll help me forget about this. I worked really really hard to get to know a good chunk of these 72-ish people [laughs lightly]. We worked really hard rebuilding everything, helped put together all the shelves and hardware, helped put out some several thousand units of clothes. We were all working a lot of hours at first. It was a good time to get to know each other, and I, uh, I had picked up smoking cigarillos. So, I would go take smoke breaks with the girls. Everything was pretty chill. Um, I guess it wasn't until probably that August – we re-opened in March. It wasn't until August with all of these people that I finally, like, really met this guy Diego. And Dee, I dunno, he was like really quiet 'nd he, we never worked in the same department. So somehow, we had completely looked over each other, I guess. And so one day I was in the breakroom lookin' at a copy of the Nashville Scene that my friend Chess had left there [swallows]. Somehow, I got off talking about this venue called The End. Uh, and Dee just happened to be in the room. We were talkin' about different shows we'd seen, and I had asked someone else, "Have you ever been to The End? What shows have you seen there?" and they were asking me about the venue. Diego pipes in, he goes uh, "I think the last time I was there, I went to see a band in like November 2010." I was like, "Oh yeah, that was the last time I was there, too. I went to see this band called Land of Talk that I just was absolutely obsessed with." He was like, "Yeah! That was the band I went to see. My friend was a big fan, and I went with her." And, uh, anytime someone expresses any sort of interest in going to the types of shows that I like, or listens to the type of music that I like, that immediately sells me on, uh [laughs] a person. Because my interests in music are very sporadic.

(The GPS speaks loudly over the conversation, "Continue onto I-24 East.")

Jules: They're very odd even. I guess you could say this is a band [swallows in the midst of the next word] no-nobody has ever heard of. Nobody in the breakroom had any idea what I was talking about, but here's this one person who gets it. So, we became friends pretty quickly after that.