Page 5 of Volt
“I should have texted you to let you know Mary’s on a warpath today,” she says.
“Warpath? More like she’s on the rag.”
Bree laughs and finishes wiping down the bar in front of her. She was the first person I met when I started working here and has become my best friend over time. She’s tall—five ten—has legs for days and the kind of curves that makes men drool. Like me, she’s got full breasts and displays them proudly. She’s got dark hair that falls to the middle of her back, rich tawny skin, and almond-shaped eyes the color of milk chocolate. She has a vaguely exotic look to her. It’s just a hint of some blend of ethnicities, which only adds to her allure. I like to think I’m a pretty girl but standing next to Bree, I feel positively plain.
She’s a couple of years younger than my twenty-four years and takes classes at a local JuCo with designs on attending law school at Stanford in the future. I have every confidence she’s going to make a fantastic lawyer and already pity those who come up against her because Bree is a buzz saw and will go right through anybody who stands in her way.
“So, how was it in here today?” I ask.
“Other than dealing with Mary’s grumpy ass, it wasn’t too bad,” she says. “How are your paintings coming?”
I grumble and shake my head as I start cutting lemons and getting my station ready for the evening rush.
“I still haven’t found it… that missing element. I still feel like it doesn’t pack the punch I want it to, you know?” I respond.
“If you want my entirely uneducated, uninformed opinion, it’s that you’re overthinking it,” she says.
“Overthinking it?”
She nods. “Yep. You’re so concerned about how somebody will react to your work, you’re missing the bigger point.”
“And what is the bigger point?” I ask.
She looks at me with a small smile on her face. “Ultimately, you’re creating the art for yourself. Not for anybody else. But when you start worrying about how somebody will feel, or what they might think, you’re then creating it for them,” she says. “That means, if you want to connect with your work and put all that emotion you’re feeling into it, you have get back to basics and start creating art for yourself. Creating art is a selfish experience and that’s not a bad thing because at the end of the day, what anybody else thinks, feels, or even says about your work isn’t on you. It’s on them.”
I stare at her for a long moment, totally floored by her words. She flashes me a big smile. What she said is smart. There is a powerful wisdom in her words and it’s a perspective I haven’t really considered before and it hits me hard. Over the couple of years I’ve known her, I’ve seen a ton of different facets of her personality. But this is the first time I’ve seen the sage and wise counselor side come out. It’s as impressive as it was unexpected.
“That’s my life philosophy adapted to your situation,” she says. “Want to know what I call it?”
“Enlighten me.”
“I call it, ‘fuck ’em’.”
I burst into laughter. “So eloquent.”
“Damn straight it is,” she replies. “Anyway, I gotta jet. Got class in an hour.”
“Thanks, babe. And thanks for the advice,” I say. “Have a great class.”
“Anytime.”
She grabs her things and heads out, leaving me to finish setting up my station, with her voice and the thoughts she inspired bouncing around in my head.
Chapter Three
Volt
The silence in the clubhouse is deafening. I look around and see the expressions on the faces of the guys gathered around and, to me, they look like a group of soldiers in the immediate aftermath of a firefight. There’s shock. Grief. And that intangible thing that grips fighters who’ve just gone through a hairy battle. I’ve seen it before and that’s what this feels like to me.
But then, having just dropped a massive bombshell, I guess it’s to be expected. Like I said earlier, the news of Prophet’s death has blown a hole right through the heart and soul of the club. And sitting there, looking at everybody’s reaction, I think they all have the same question on their mind that I did—how are we ever going to patch it? Or alternately, can that hole even be patched up? I have my doubts, and I can see that others do too.
“Tell me again,” Doc orders.
He looks at me as if telling the story again is going to change the goddamn outcome. Nothing’s going to change no matter how many fucking times I tell the story. At the end of it, Beaker, Axle, and Prophet are all still going to be dead. But I do as he asks and tell him everything—from the start to the end of the shit show as he paces at the front of the room, his hands clasped behind him, a look of rage blended with grief on his face.
“How’d you get back to your bike?” he asks when I finish the tale.
“I told you, I walked. It was a few miles back to where we were supposed to meet with Cort,” I reply, sounding more defensive than I should. “I needed the fuckin’ time to process what just happened and clear my head.”
