Nowhere But You

Chapter 35

Nathan's round dining table was covered in Polaroid pictures, newspaper and magazine cutouts, memorabilia, a couple scrapbooks and the like. But within the chaos there was order. Everybody present knew what stuff belonged to whom: which pictures and cutouts were Robin's, which were Johnny's, which were Eli's, which were Liz's, and finally, Nathan's carefully kept scrapbooks and memorabilia. River was never allowed to keep anything as he 'always lost everything' (his own words) so he counted on everyone else for those matters.

The task at hand that night: choosing the best content for a timeline of events that would be part of the 10th anniversary book.

"Who's this idiot?" Johnny laughed profusely, holding a photo of himself hanging from a scaffold, very high over the stage during one of the shows of that festival tour with the Quicksand Swimmers.

Eli snatched the picture from Johnny's hand to take a closer look. "Holy shit, man! That's tall! I was so out of it I wasn't even shocked when you did that."

"And meanwhile, there I was," River pointed at himself in the image, "constantly thinking you were gonna fall and ruin my entire career and life."

Johnny cackled, loudly, just to be met with River's icy stare. One of those in which you didn't know if he was joking or not.

"It's not funny, dude." River said sharply.

"Ah, but it kinda is." Johnny patted River's back. The singer was already immune to his bandmate's observations. "And what's this?" He looked at another picture. "This is from the end of tour one, right?"

"Oh, yeah." Robin smiled. "Look at all that silly string and champagne. I think I still have some of it in my hair."

Nathan's dog, a blue-merle Australian Shepherd named Brooke, jumped on Liz's knee. She scratched the pup's head and fed her a potato chip under the table.

"It's amazing now to look back..." Johnny became quiet for a minute. "To think I didn't wanna do this."

River elbowed Johnny from below the table. Robin's suspicions at the beginning were true –the band had said yes to this project even though they weren't exactly sure. That is why she decided to jump ahead and make it as smooth for them as possible: meetings would take place at people's homes in lieu or offices, around food and drinks in a more relaxed environment and no schedule.

"Look! Look!" Eli exclaimed, pointing at a series of images of the band and the crew completely covered in mud, after the crowd showered them with it during a crazy, rainy show at that same festival tour. "Man, that was nuts!"

"It took me forever to get that mud out of my hair," Liz said, playing with her braid.

"Yeah. 'Mud.'" River made quotation signs with his fingers. Liz frowned, but soon her expression turned into a wide grin.

"Aw, me and Ollie from Silent Moth!" There was joy in her voice. "I knew this picture existed, I looked for it forever!"

"That's mine." Johnny pointed out. "I took it."

"You sure liked that Ollie." Nathan teased Liz, with a hint of jealousy in his voice –at least that's what Robin sensed.

"Pffft!" Robin played along and squeezed Liz's shoulder. "Who didn't?"

"Dude!" Eli laughed at a magazine photo of River smashing a guitar onstage. "I still can't believe you did that."

Besides jumping around a little bit, River was never known for going too crazy while he played. Breaking a guitar was surely a rare event from his part, an action he never repeated since.