The Adventures of a Scrawny Musician and a Compulsive Liar

13. Stupid Selfish Laurie

            “So what’s the real reason you want to go on a road trip?”  I asked Nathaniel during English on Thursday. Ms. Gail was going around helping the students with their essays. Nathaniel was doing his Pre-Calc homework with his textbook in his lap and his copy of Pride and Prejudice propped up in front of him.

            “Good job, Nathaniel! Taking notes, I see,” Ms. Gail cheerfully called out. Flashing a fake smile, he waited until Ms. Gail’s out of hearing range and sighed.

Without taking his eyes off of his homework, he replied, “April twelfth is coming up.”

            Oh. “Shit, man. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I forgot.” Nathaniel just gives a ghost of a smile and nods like it’s okay but I know it’s not.

            Eric.

            I have this one main memory of him that’s a bit faded around the edges like an old photograph. He’s about seven years old and Nathaniel, Evan, and I are rehearsing in Nathaniel’s garage. We were about twelve at the time. So we’re playing this new song we wrote when Nathaniel stops drumming and we all look over to see a giant pair of bright blue eyes staring at us from over the hi-hat.

            “Can I play?” Eric asks excitedly. Without waiting for an answer, he climbs onto Nathaniel’s lap and takes the drumsticks from his older brother. Immediately, he starts banging on everything he could reach—the snare, the toms, the hi-hat, and worst of all, the crash cymbal. After he’s done waking up half of South Africa, he walks over to me shyly. I never really understood why he was so afraid of me.

            “Do you wanna try?” I asked Eric. He nodded bashfully, with his eyes trailed on his feet and his hands folded in front of him. And when I lifted that guitar strap over my head and presented my brand new eight hundred dollar Les Paul to the kid, his face lit up like the sun.

            And then he proceeded to drop the damn thing and cost my idiotic pre-teen self a hundred dollars to repair it.

            The bell rang and we picked up our books silently. Nathaniel nodded towards me in a good-bye and I nodded back. There was a tension between us now that I couldn’t ignore. As I walked away, one thought kept running through my mind.

            How could I have forgotten Eric?

            Natalie’s taken to walking home with me every afternoon. She never talks about us going to her house or even about her family, but I sense it’s a delicate topic so I never push for information. We hang out for a bit, sneak a few kisses when Mom isn’t hovering over us with a camera and a goofy smile on her face. Dad (whenever he was actually at home and not work) just walks in, sees Mom obsessing over us, rolls his eyes and walks back out. Today was another one of those days.

            “So Nathaniel wants to go on a road trip.” I began. We were sitting on the tan leather sofa in my living room and watching re-runs of “Seinfeld” on the television. My arm was draped along the back of the sofa where Natalie sat. “Would you be interested?”

            Natalie cocked her head to the side and her brow furrowed. “A road trip? To where?”

            “The Grand Canyon. Not much of a road trip, I know. But April twelfth is coming up…”

            “April twelfth?” Natalie inquired.

            “Eric,” I reminded her. Immediately her cheery disposition drops a few notches.