Wait until the music's over

49. The surfer, the nice guy and James' brother

"Angie, wait, calm down! Could you talk a little slower, please? I didn't understand shit. I've never heard so many words coming out from you all at once. I mean, I probably never heard you say so many words in general since I first met you" Meg stops me as I'm trying to summarize all the disasters occured to me during the few hours passed since we said bye this morning. Anyway, wasn't that joke mine? We've been living together for less than a year and she's already started talking like me.

"I'd love to if I had an unlimited stash of quarters but that's not the case" I say right as I put some more coins into the payphone.

"Ok but you sound like a 33 record pitched up to 45, you're scaring me. What do you mean the show was canceled? Where are you now? And what's this music?"

"Livingston Taylor. I'm in a café. I don't know if it was canceled of Eddie simply mixed up the dates. The fact is the concert is tomorrow, at least for the Alice guys. No trace of Mookie, neither today or tomorrow, they're nowhere to be seen..." I explain answering her questions in reverse order.

"From what I can hear, a bar for suicide candidates" she asks, showing she understood only the first part of my answer.

"Can we talk about the music selection of this place another time?"

"And who the hell is Livingston Taylor??"

"I guess the answer is no. It's James Taylor's brother"

"Does he sing too? How do you know him?"

"I'll try again: can we go back to my problem?"

"Are you sure Mookie's are not there? Take a better look"

"I'm sure Meg, I checked. There's someone called Pearl Jam... never heard of her, she sounds like a country singer. Or maybe it's a band. Or a bunch of bands getting together for a jam, I don't know"

"Country? What the fuck does country music have to do with Alice? And are there jam sessions in country music?"

"I have no idea, I only know the guys are not there"

"They must be there, maybe the bill is not updated!"

"The fact is I'm fucked anyway, because if you're right, then they're playing tomorrow night and not tonight. And I already have a flight booked for tomorrow"

"That's not a big deal, you can change the date. Didn't you take two more days off to go visit your parents?"

"Well, yeah..." I wrap the phone cord around my finger a little tighter.

"Ok, so you'll go back to Idaho another time and now you'll spend a few days in California, I can't see the problem" here's surely a better place than the one I was planning to go. Anywhere is better.

"With what money? And where will I sleep? I don't even have clothes with me, I brought almost nothing with me" I have another pair of jeans and a couple of t-shirts and I think I'm gonna put on one of the t-shirts right now because I'm starting to sweat with this jumper. I already need to go to the bathroom anyway.

"I bet it's hot down there though, you don't even need clothes" she chuckles, knowing that she's just making me more nervous.

"If you're trying to be funny, you know, you're failing miserably"

"And I doubt Eddie will complain about your lack of clothes... I mean"

"MEG!"

"He'd be happy about it, I think"

"What about we just cut the crap and focus on my problem once and for all?"

"This problem again! What's the problem? Just go see the guys and they'll find a solution"