No, You Gotta

HOME SWEET HOME

Seattle, WA

Her name was Eleanora Davis, and it wasn’t that she didn’t fit into the crowd– it’s just that anyone could have fit into this crowd.  It was the summer of 1989 in Seattle, and anything-goes was the fashion of the day.  Wearing a pair of cutoff overalls on top of fishnet tights and a black, one-sleeved belly shirt, Nora waded through a sea of matted hair, ripped jeans, body odor, and colorful vintage thrift store jackets. She took in her surroundings with pleasure– it had been seven years since she’d been home sweet home in Seattle, and she missed the free, vibrating spirit of the city.  Her family moved to California when she was sixteen, never coming back to Seattle for so much as a visit.  After art school in San Diego, Nora had taken off to paint the country– literally.  She had spent the past few years making her way from town to town with her canvases and oils, capturing the landscapes everywhere she went and then selling her art to local galleries and dealers for a meager sum.  She had met some truly amazing people and traveled as far east as New York and Philadelphia by the time the first year had come and gone.  She was able to keep herself fed and clothed for a long time this way, but all adventures have to come to an end, and Nora smelled in the wind that it was time to move back to her true home and reconnect with her roots.

Nora was the kind of girl that caught your eye, the kind of girl that people call mysterious– although Nora was never sure what exactly that meant.  She stood about 5′5″ in bare feet, and her long, slightly wavy hair hung like strands of fine black silk all the way to the small of her back.  She preferred it plain and simple, parted right down the middle, occasionally with a flower tucked behind one ear.  Today she’d chosen a daisy.  Nora had the kind of blue eyes that made you do a double take to make sure they weren’t completely colorless.  The combination of her naturally black hair, pale eyes and skin and bountiful freckles were certainly a sight most people tended to remember.

As she pushed past another small pack of heavily perfumed girls in an attempt to get closer to the backstage door, Nora wondered if Stone would remember her after so long.  She definitely wasn’t sixteen anymore– she had matured into a more womanly figure, though still naturally thin and somewhat knobby kneed, and her experiences on the road had given her more of a worldly air.  She was all grown up at twenty-three and wearing a darker shade of lipstick than she would ever have dared to back in school. 

That was where she met Stone Gossard, the artsy little pipsqueak from her 7th grade drawing class.  She still remembered their first interaction, which caused Nora to giggle a bit to herself as she got closer to backstage.  She recalled that she was finishing up a pastel drawing of the female form at one of the corner work spaces before the bell rang, not for an assignment but just for fun, and the skinny, rather opinionated kid from two rows in front of her walked right up to stare at her work.  

“It’s ugly,” she remembered him saying, nose scrunched up in immature disgust.  Then he just walked away and sat back in his seat to wait for class to begin.  When school let out that day, Nora made sure to find Stone before he left his locker and she taped to it a small piece of paper with the words “You’re ugly” written on it in perfect calligraphy.  She triumphantly walked away, but she only got ten feet or so before she heard him call for her to wait up.  They were joined-at-the-hip best friends from that moment on.

That is, until she got the news that her father was moving the family to L.A. to take a new job there.  Her two little sisters were still too young to feel the full impact of the decision, but Nora was already sixteen and had really carved out a social niche for herself with her close group of like-minded friends.  Stone was at the head of that group, and the news hit him like an atomic bomb.  She remembered their tearful goodbye as her father waited in the packed car to leave– the promises they made to each other to keep in touch, write letters, never really say goodbye– the soft, tentative kiss that Stone left on her lips before he turned around and rode his bike away from her for the last time.  It was easy to make those promises to each other then, but as teenagers it was hard to follow through.  Naturally, communication dwindled to full silence in about a year’s time, and Stone and Nora went on with their lives like we all manage to do when circumstances change.

Finally, Nora managed to reach the bouncer at the backstage door and sneak right past him, hiding behind several ridiculously tall groupies who were just given permission to pass through.

So this is the life of Stone Gossard now, huh, Nora laughed to herself.  Girls, booze and rock and roll…  Not quite the geek she left behind all those years ago!  Bracing herself for this reunion with her childhood best pal, Nora spotted a jaw line too well defined and hair too luxuriously thick not to be Stone’s.  A glint of mischief reflected in her eye as she watched him, unaware of her presence and laughing with a blond haired man in ladies’ gloves who seemed to be wearing more makeup than she was.  It was now or never.  She stepped confidently in their direction, almost exploding with anticipation.

“Hey, your riffs.  They were kinda ugly, man,” she said through a sly smile, inches behind Stone’s shoulder.  She could see him stiffen and slowly turn around to face her.  His expression instantly changed from one of annoyance to one of complete disbelief.  While his fair-faced friend eyed Nora with disdain, Stone brought a hand up to his mouth and his eyes grew about five sizes wider.  After a few seconds, he furrowed his brow and brought his hands to his hips.

“You’re ugly,” he deadpanned, but only for a half second until he couldn’t suppress a smile any longer.  Before she knew it Nora was being lifted off the ground and twirled through the air in circle after dizzying circle before finally being set back down safely on the floor.  Stone stood with his hands grasping Nora’s upper arms, both of them laughing and tearing up like they were sixteen again.

“Eleanora Fiona Davis, what in the fuck are you doing here? You’re way too ugly to be a groupie,” Stone said between bouts of laughter.  Nora was back home in Seattle.