“Hey there, friend,” she said. “Nice touch with the classic Zeppelin album. This one’s my favorite.”
I noted her fingers, tapping along to the bass line against her thigh. Noticed my feet and Mateo’s keeping the same rhythm.
“Hey there,” I said, thrilled when my voice didn’t croak like a teenager’s. “It happens to be my favorite too.”
“Plus, I’ve provided the cheapest beer possible.” Mateo grinned. I found a third chair, quickly wiped the dust from it, and pulled it out for her. Her eyebrows just about shot out of her face. But she took the beer with a secret smile before sitting down gracefully, crossing one leg over the other.
“Don’t let the pearls fool you,” Fiona said. “I’m a cheap-beer-and-shots girl all the way.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else from a Red Room wild child,” I said. “And before we get to the one embarrassing story Mateo might have on me, let’s talk artwork.”
Mateo was checking his watch. “Yeah. Much as I’d love to drink beer and shoot the shit with you both, I need to run in a minute to meet a buyer. But this is what I had in mind for posters, obviously with different bands featured from the photographs Max found. The Hand Grenades will absolutely have their own design.”
My best friend unrolled the canvas and Fiona had the same reaction as me. Utter awe. She blinked, set her drink down. Reached out to hold it herself. “It’s Patti.”
“Sure is. From one of the first shows, back when everyone was either at The Red Room or CBGB to catch whoever was playing the underground scene at that time,” he said. “I’ve got designs worked up for The Clash and the Sex Pistols and Blondie.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Debbie Harry is my personal hero. Although, fun fact, my middle name is Lennox, as in Annie. But it was almost Harry.”
“Fiona Harry Quinn.” I chuckled, shook my head. “What’s Roxy’s middle name?”
“Ramone, as in The Ramones.” Fiona bit her lip. “This is, seeing this, it’s extraordinary. It’s like you’ve captured the spirit of The Red Room. It’s grit and hunger and all that history.” She swallowed, voice thick with emotion. “So much of this city is disappearing to developers, and club owners like Pop are locked out of neighborhoods they used to be able to afford. It’s like they want to suppress art and music and creativity. And we can’t fucking let them.”
We can’t fucking let them.
Her back was straight, chin lifted, stilettos still moving in time with the bluesy bass line. My father and an entire lifetime of his work was under attack, and this was the beautiful warrior standing next to me.
“Right the fuck on,” he said, raising his beer. “I’m ready. Once we get these posted, let’s paper the fucking streets like the good old days.”
“Although,” I added. “That was mostly just an excuse for me to flirt with girls in different boroughs.”
“Yeah, and once Rafael and I started dating, we’d sneak off to make-out somewhere and let Max carry the burden.” Mateo shrugged. “Gave the two of us a solid alibi since my mother worshiped the ground Max walked on.”
Worshiped, as in past tense.
I swallowed hard, relaxed my shoulders. “Well, that was only the case because of that one summer, when you and Rafael were newly dating, and I’d go over to keep your mom company. It’s why I know how to cook so many traditional Puerto Rican dishes.”
Mateo laughed again. “Shit, hermano, that’s right. The guilt trips I got that summer were epic. But now she can’t say anything since Rafael is about to become her son-in-law, making all of her dreams come true. Until we give her grandchildren, that is.”
Fiona’s eyes sparkled. “Congratulations, by the way. Max told me you’re engaged?”
Mateo pulled up a picture on his phone, showed it to her. “Rafael and I met when we were sixteen. Although Max and I had been best friends since we were ten. That was the year—”
He stopped, glanced over at me with a questioning look. I shrugged, shook my head. “Fiona knows my parents are divorced, that Mom left. It’s no big deal.”
His brow furrowed. But I didn’t feel like bickering with Mateo today about my mom and the ways in which he thought she was a terrible person. It was tiring, constantly defending someone that other people judged so quickly.
“How did you ask him to marry you?” Fiona said.
Mateo gave me one last look before refocusing on his phone. “Gather ’round, children. I paid a friend to capture his reaction on video.”
As I stood next to Mateo, it wasn’t the happy, emotional scene on the tiny screen that captured my attention. It was the smell of Fiona’s hair, close to me as we hunched over together. What was that—fresh strawberries? It was bright and crisp and made me think about taking her on a picnic at Central Park, nothing but warm sunshine and my fingers sifting through her golden strands.
Fucking hell, I was losing my mind. Taking women on picnics was an action firmly in the camp of promises that weren’t mine to make because they were promises I could never keep.
Mateo pressed play. On a city street, in front of a dark building, was a glowing light fixture that read: Will you marry me Rafael Navarro?
“After I got down on one knee in front of the wall, I clicked a remote, and the lights came on behind me,” Mateo said. I watched in wonder as my two best friends hugged and kissed each other, crying and laughing. Rafael was gazing at his engagement ring and gazing at Mateo, and people on the street were stopping to say congratulations.
I’d never seen an engagement before. Never been interested. Now I was seconds away from fucking crying. Mateo caught it, the sneaky son of a bitch.
“You can cry,” Mateo said. “You wouldn’t be the first. When I showed Pop, he kept coughing and avoiding eye contact.”
I coughed. Stepped back and absolutely avoided eye contact with the gorgeous spitfire next to me. “You, uh… Pop’s seen this?”
“Like the day after we got engaged,” Mateo said. “I showed strangers on the fucking street this video. My mom told me she watches it every Sunday night just because.”
I pressed my hand to the back of my neck, rubbing a phantom sore spot.
How many calls with my mother centered around encouraging me to pursue the way of life that made her happy? A life without permanent roots was like the ebb and flow of the tides to her. You had friends, you left ’em. You had jobs, you quit ’em.
The joy I felt at twenty-eight was real. I’d seen so much of this country, had abandoned that idea that your life had to fit into society’s edges. Fuck, I identified with Fiona’s parents a lot. Coloring outside the lines made things fun and easy, at least according to my mom. And living by her advice hadn’t led me astray.
Until now. I flashed back to that night the three of us sat on the fire escape the day we graduated high school, drinking cheap beer and dreaming of the future. A decade younger, wild and carefree, hungry for what came next. That night, I’d have gladly done anything—any goddamn thing—for my two friends.
Mateo and Rafael had strangers watching their engagement.
And where in the hell had I been?