Page 18 of Side Trip

“There will be plenty of other nights this summer you can go to Taryn’s, but not tonight,” her dad said with finality.

“This is such bullshit!”

“Enough! You’re grounded.” Her dad pointed a finger at her.

She lightly punched the car and spun away. “I hate you. I hate you all.”

“I get so tired of her attitude,” Joy overheard her mom complain as she stomped back to the house.

Her dad sighed, weary. “She’ll grow out of it.”

Joy slammed the front door.

CHAPTER 7

BEFORE

Joy

Flagstaff, Arizona

The waitress bused Joy’s plate and left the check. With a slight tremor in her fingers, Joy reached into her purse for her wallet. She also took out Judy’s bucket list and a pencil and unfolded the paper on the table, smoothing the creases. The memory of that last day with her sister always left her rattled. But she’d accomplished an item on the list. That should count for something.

Feeling a smidge better, she drew a line throughmake a new friend, then paused, pencil tip hovering above the fresh marking.

Were she and Dylan really friends?

Joy looked outside. The martini glass flashed. On-off-on-off. She loved live music, had ever since Taryn invited her to see Matchbox Twenty a few months after Judy passed. Music had always made her happy, but after Judy died it became an escape. She could plug in and feel the beat rather than remorse. She could blast her tunes and scream and shout, and she wouldn’t feel depressed.

She’d pay money she couldn’t spare to hear Dylan sing. Real friends supported each other. They showed up at their gigs and cheered them on. What was the harm in spending a couple of hours doing something that she enjoyed? Hadn’t Dylan said something to that effect when he said goodbye?

Joy had nowhere to be that night, and now that she’d eaten and sucked down two Cherry Cokes she was buzzing. Sugar high. She’d be up late anyway.

She paid her bill, drove the block to the motel and checked in, then walked back to the bar, her step light. She fussed with her shirt, smoothing the creases, and checked her reflection in the window, patting her hair, then paid the ten-dollar cover charge.

Excitement coursed through her. Live music amped her up. She was also excited to see Dylan again, something she’d admit only to herself.

The Blue Room was deep and narrow with muted lighting, the hardwood floors worn and sticky. The rubber soles of her white Keds peeled up like tape being ripped off a surface. The small stage in the back was empty except for a single guitar on a stand, a stool, and a mic. A black cord ran from the guitar to the bar’s PA system. The audience—if she could call them an audience—was thin. Judging by their laid-back demeanor, Joy guessed most of the people here were locals. Work buddies hanging out at their favorite Thursday-night watering hole.

Joy’s gaze darted around the small space, looking for Dylan. Where was he? She thought he started at nine.

She approached the bar. “Excuse me, do you know what time Dylan is supposed to go on?” she asked the bartender, a wiry guy in a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt with a hoop piercing his lower lip and ink wallpapering both arms.

“Five minutes ago. Lea, go see what’s holding up Westfield,” he told the cocktail waitress who’d inserted herself between Joy and a man who looked as old and haggard as the bar, nursing a light beer.

“Sure thing, Ed.” She left her tray of empty glasses on the bar top and went through a side door near the stage.

“Anything I can get you?” Ed cleared Lea’s tray, upending the dirty glasses in the sink.

Joy scanned the taps. “Sierra Nevada.”

“You got it.” Ed filled a glass and set it on a cardboard coaster with the Blue Room martini glass logo. “Keep a tab open?”

“No, thanks.” She didn’t want to drive tomorrow with a hangover.

“That’ll be seven-fifty.”

Joy passed him a ten and found an empty table for two near the front and against the wall. Conversations flowed around her and Arcade Fire’s newest hit, “The Suburbs,” could be heard just under the drone of voices. Minutes passed and still no appearance from Dylan. Joy sipped her beer, feeling anxious. A little nervous, too. It was the first time she’d intentionally gone out of her way to see a guy in eight years. She hadn’t dated in high school, preferring to spend her evenings in her room no matter how hard her parents and Taryn tried to get Joy to socialize.

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