I answered, trying to keep my voice level. “Hi, Royce.”
His enthusiastically nasal twang greeted me. “Lauren my love! How are you?”
Well, Royce, I just had my heart ripped out of my chest and lit on fire like some kind of finishing move in a shitty arcade game, and it's looking like all of my hopes and plans for the future over the past four years were basically a bad joke that I wasn't in on...
“Fine, Royce. Doing great. How are you?”
“Good-good!” he responded without hesitation. Never just “good” from him, always “good-good.” Never just “Lauren,” but “Lauren my love.” God, he had so many vocal tics, and I positively loathed them all.
“So! Buttons'” he continued, pausing to chortle briefly at his own unfunny quip. Another favorite saying of his.
Please, Royce, please just say what you called to say and hang up, because if I have to hear one more male voice right now I swear I'll grab the kitchen scissors and stick the blades as far into my ear as they'll go until they hit brain and beyond.
“I'm calling about the coffee commercial you auditioned for last week. You know, the sip-and-smile?”
That's industry slang for a part in an ad that doesn't require any dialogue or any physical acting beyond simply lifting the product to one's lips, sampling it, and smiling as though it's the answer to all of life's problems. Sips-and-smiles generally represent the lowest rung of the acting ladder, just short of working as a background extra or lighting double. However, sips-and-smiles also represented paid work and exposure, which I sorely needed as an actor who was just starting out.
“Anyway, they called me to say that they've got it narrowed down to three people.”
Finally, I thought. At least there's one piece of good news I can cling to. I'll be able to pay rent this month. Maybe this is God or fate, or whatever telling me that it's not really over. It’s just the start of a new chapter in my life.
“That's great,” I said, trying to bolster my voice with excitement I barely felt. “Wow, really, thank you. I'm so glad to hear that. So they're, what, doing a second set of auditions? When do they want me there?”
An uncomfortable silence followed, and when I heard Royce's voice again, it was somehow flatter and more toneless. It took me a moment to realize that he sounded uncharacteristically flustered and embarrassed.
“Yeah, uhhh...so...like I was saying, um...”
Fuck, please, no more stuttering, no more uhs and ums and pregnant pauses. For God's sake, what is wrong with the people in my life today? What is wrong with all the damn men?
“...they've narrowed it down to three people, and, um...well, you're not one of them.”
I wanted to laugh. I think I even tried, but it came out as more of a choked sob. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, they, um, said to thank you for coming in, but, uh, they decided to go in a different direction...”
Yeah, they probably chose a girl who's a lawyer instead, I thought, and a morbid giggle escaped my lips. Someone they have more in common with.
“...Lauren? Are you there?”
“That's how you decided to tell me?” I asked incredulously, the giggle widening into a titter that felt almost hysterical. “That's how you set me up for that news? Really?”
The tittering boiled over, becoming a laugh so shrill and jagged that I felt myself doubling over and holding the painful muscles in my sides. The phone was muffled as it pressed against my sweater, but I could still hear Royce's voice: “Lauren my love? Are you okay? Is there anything I can—”
I threw the phone across the room, hard, hearing it smack against my closet door before clattering to the floor. The laughter broke in my throat, and that's when the tears came at last. I simply couldn't hold them back anymore, and I felt them spill hotly down my cheeks, tickling my chin, wetting my hair against my neck. I'd never cried that hard before in my life, never felt more ashamed, never felt more like someone's idea of a punchline.
After some time had passed—I didn't know how long—I composed myself enough to walk across the room and pick up the phone again. Still functional. No damage, other than a thin crack in the screen. Good. I could at least call my parents. Maybe I’d go see them and spend a week or two with them. At least they'd understand. At least they would take care of me, support me as they always had, and reassure me that this wasn't really the end of the world despite how much it felt like it.
As I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen to dial their number, I noticed the date and cursed to myself—December 24th.
Christmas Eve.
Between the break-up with Jared and the stress of waiting to hear about the acting gig, I had completely forgotten that it was Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad were on the east coast, half a country away, visiting relatives for the holidays.
They had asked me whether I wanted to join them, offering to pick me up in their old Chevrolet and drive me out there with them since they couldn't afford a plane ticket for me, and they knew that I couldn't afford one either. I remember nodding through the phone conversation, only half-listening, thanking them for the offer but assuring them that I'd be spending the holidays with Jared because, well, why wouldn't I? We always had before, and I assumed we always would.
And now, we never would again.
I wanted to throw the phone again—to finish the job and actually break the stupid thing this time—but instead, I just put it back down on the counter gently, my shaking hands causing it to chatter briefly against the formica.
I sat on my old couch, hit the power button on the remote, and channel-flipped listlessly. A Christmas movie. An old romance. Another Christmas movie. A sitcom's very special Christmas episode in which two long-infatuated characters finally got together and declared their undying love before kissing passionately in front of a whooping studio audience. A sip-and-smile. A very special Christmas special, with special carolers harmonizing in front of a special live audience filled with happy couples clinging to each other for warmth.
Another sip-and-smile.
And another.
I don't remember how many more times I cried that night, or when I ended up falling asleep, the tears drying on my face in sticky streaks and soaking my pillow. I woke up the next morning with needles of sunlight stabbing into my eye sockets, and my clock radio braying about how “jingle bells chime in jingle bell time” and inviting me to “rock the night away.” I brought my hand down on the radio hard, smacking the off button so violently that I cracked the machine's cheap plastic shell and cut my hand on a jagged edge. I spit out a curse, followed by a weary laugh.
Well, looks like my luck is holding.
As I went to the bathroom to carefully apply disinfectant and a small adhesive bandage to my cut, I made a firm decision. Tonight I would not be forced to suffer through endless reminders of this holiday and my own loneliness in relation to it. No sitting at home in front of the TV. No going out for a quiet walk and facing street after street of Christmas decorations. No hitting one of my favorite bars and being forced to endure tacky Christmas-themed drinks, or infinite song-loops of Burl Ives demanding that I have a holly-jolly Christmas. I didn't want to go anywhere where it would be Christmas...only a simple Friday night, like any other.
A tall order, to be sure. And I knew exactly where I had to go to find it.
# # #
The Devil's Nest was known as a haven for outlaw bikers in general, and members of the War Reapers in particular. People who said they'd been there claimed that the floor was littered with so many broken teeth that they crunched underfoot when you walked in. They said that the bartender would have you beaten and tossed out if you dared to order the wrong drink and that you never knew when a rival gang would decide to shoot the place up in a drive-by or fire-bomb it.
Most of all, those people claimed that all holidays were ignored by the crowd of rough-necks and misfits who frequented it. After all, a leather-clad, hard-drinking lone wolf who lived on the road and profited from a life of crime certainly wouldn't be eager to sip green shamrock-beers on Saint Patrick's Day or see cardboard Santa decorations reminding him of the home and family he'd left behind.
And would I risk all of these insane threats tonight, just to be someplace—anyplace in the world—where this holiday would be unwelcome? Would I actually try to drink and fit in with a room full of hardened criminals, just so each new Christmas carol heard, each new happy family seen, wouldn't keep hammering nails into the coffin of sadness that was smothering me?
Damn straight I would. Right now, I literally feared death less than I feared Frosty the fucking Snowman.
I nodded to myself, and headed to the closet to find something to wear on my adventure.
And now here I was, about to walk into the Devil’s Nest.
Chapter Three
Nic
I walked three blocks from my apartment to the Nest and approached the bar that I'd come to think of as my real home over the past six years. As opposed to the various derelict rooms and flop-houses I'd made a habit of crashing in to avoid leases, utility bills, nosy neighbors, and other such bullshit entanglements and paper-trails designed by cagers and their lawyers.