The Day Before Read online

  The Day Before: A prequel chapter to THE LAST GOOD DAY

  Avery & Angela

  Robert Kugler

  Published by Four Leaf Publishing, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE DAY BEFORE: A PREQUEL CHAPTER TO THE LAST GOOD DAY

  First edition. June 2, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Robert Kugler.

  Written by Robert Kugler.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Day Before: A prequel chapter to THE LAST GOOD DAY (Avery & Angela)

  The Day Before

  I can’t sleep at all.

  Tomorrow is the last day of the summer and I finally get to hang out with Angie. I still can’t believe that I haven’t seen her since graduation! I mean, seriously, we’ve been best friends for going on four years now! With me getting ready to leave for school on Sunday, I’m still confused about why she’s been so distant. We’ve talked or texted pretty much every day, but I’ve never gone this long without seeing my best friend. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t bothered me.

  That’s not to say I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. We’re supposed to drive down to Wildwood for the day. She said she wanted “One last good ‘Avery and Angela’ day down the shore” before I leave for Boston. I told her I’d be fine if we went to one of the closer beaches, Manasquan or Spring Lake, but she wasn’t having any part of it. She insisted that we go to Wildwood, which is not that shocking, really. Her Uncle Bob and Aunt Jenny live there and it has been her family’s beach forever. I figure she’s already been there this summer, seeing as how we hadn’t gotten together. But when I talked with her earlier today, she said that this would be her first time down the shore all summer.

  That’s pretty weird too, now that I think about it.

  Last summer, especially once I got my driver’s license, it seemed like we got together a few times a week, when she wasn’t traveling with her family or I wasn’t visiting Nana in Philly. Even if it was just watching movies, going to someone’s dopey high school pool party or just hanging out at a diner, we did pretty much everything together. I guess I figured we’d be doing more of the same this summer, but between her mysterious absences and Mom insisting that I put in some hours at Jim’s Country Diner with her over the summer, I can’t say this last summer before college has been all that exciting, with the exception of all the shows I’ve been seeing and playing, that is!

  I have been all over the map this summer, as long as the map extends no further than Manayunk to the west, Freehold to the north, Moorestown to the South and Ortley Beach to the East. I got to be the opener for a bunch of shows in Manayunk, outside of Philadelphia and even a few in the city at The Tin Angel. I played The Towpath in New Hope one night as a walk-in after Peter from John & Peter’s Tavern wouldn’t let me in to play their open mic since I was under twenty-one. I kept hoping Angie would be able to come to one of my shows but she was just not around. I was tempted to call Will and Brian to come along with me but I decided not to. We’ve been friends for a long time and I think we will probably stay in touch next year, but it just wouldn’t have been the same as hanging out with Angie.

  As much as I’m looking forward to tomorrow, I’m a little anxious about how it’s all going to go. I don’t really know where she’s been and there have been times I think she’s been avoiding me. I know she hasn’t been out of town the whole summer. She’s mentioned that she’d had a lot of family stuff going on and was working on wedding stuff with her sister, Celia, but her wedding isn’t until next summer. It’s confusing to be sure, but I’m probably overthinking it, like I usually do.

  Honestly, I’m probably as nervous about leaving for school as I am about anything else. Angie and I have talked about it a ton but what I really needed at times over the summer was just to go do something mindless and silly with her, like go feed the ducks at Carnegie Lake and give them all names and backstories. I really would have loved a trip to the Seaside boardwalk to play air hockey of skee-ball or even just people-watch or something. I drove through Seaside one night in late June when I took the long way home from seeing Kiki and the Hazelrigs at the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park. I was hoping to weasel myself into an opener spot but the boss at the Pony just rolled his eyes at me.

  “You get an ‘A’ for the effort kid but come back when I’ve heard of you,” he said. He let me stay for the show without paying the cover, which was cool. Driving through Seaside made me miss hanging out with Angie and pretty much anyone else. I remember trying to call her while I was driving through town but I only got her voicemail. I called Will next and that was the night he asked me to help him put together a band to play Robyn Kurtz’s birthday party the next week.

  What a train wreck that was! I thought it was a horrible idea to try and get a ten-song set together with new players in ten days, but Will had been trying to date Robyn since sophomore year. I didn’t have a lot else going on, so we gave it a shot and despite the short notice, we scraped together a crew of Nic Naddleman on drums and some kid from Peddie School named Wyeth on keyboards. Will slogged through on bass with me singing and handling guitar. After about three days of pretty intense rehearsal, we decided to give it a try but we were doomed from the start. The night before the party Nic was a hot mess because Sandy Eisner broke up with him and he wouldn’t rehearse. We hoped for the best but when Sandy showed up at Robyn’s party with Eli Stewart, he completely fell apart, leaving the drums halfway through our horrendously lame attempt at “Brown Eyed Girl.” The whole event was a disaster and while I was embarrassed, Will didn’t care because Robyn had been impressed that he’d tried so hard for her and they disappeared into her pool house not long after things fell apart.

  The last I heard, Will and Robyn were still dating, so I suppose some good came out of the whole debacle. They are both going to Rutgers, so they can be together there, I guess. Angie wasn’t around for that party and now that I think of it, that’s probably for the best. It was far from my finest performance, but I played a lot of shows this summer and learned a lot. I even made a little money through it all.

  I really hoped that Angie would come with me to my scholarship audition in New York a few weeks ago. She said she’d planned to but then she called me the day before and said that something had come up with her mom and that I’d do great and that she’d talk to me after. I was pretty nervous to be going by myself, but I didn’t tell her that. Mom was working and since she got me the smartphone for graduation with the maps thing on it, she wasn’t worried about me getting lost in the city, which I’d never really spent a lot of time in, to be honest. Philly, no problem. NYC, yeah that was a challenge, but I managed.

  The scholarship was something Angie convinced me to apply for before graduation. I think Mr. Lawrence; my former jazz band leader at Windsor High had given her the information because out of nowhere she’d recorded one of my stronger sets of original music and was then trying to convince me to apply to the Conservatory. She ended up putting it in an envelope and sending it to the scholarship board for me. They were intrigued and invited me to audition at Lincoln Center for next year’s award. I could use the money next year because Mom is covering this year of tuition in Boston, but that’s all there is. I either find my own way to pay for more school or I find my own way out in the world.

  The train ride north to NYC was pretty interesting. I rode the subway in Philly a bunch while looking for shows or hanging out with Nana, but I’d never taken the train into Manhattan. It was early on a Saturday morning so there weren’t many people waiting on the platform. I remember an older couple, an artsy girl with pink hair and a man who looked e
xactly like Questlove from The Roots and The Tonight Show. I must have been staring as I tried to figure out if it was really him since I’m a fan. I’d actually listened to a few of their albums after checking them out of Nana’s library in the city earlier in the month. He’s the only performer that’s made me want to put down my guitar and try the drums, which I stink at so it didn’t stick, but the band is awesome.

  After catching me starting at him he walked over towards me. I thought he was going to say something but he just put some change into the Trenton Times newspaper box and pulled out a copy. He held the door to the box open and nodded as if to say, ‘take one’ but I nodded awkwardly.

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself,” he replied as the train screeched in the distance, announcing its arrival. Although the older couple was sitting close to us on the platform, they waited until ‘Questlove’ and I boarded and then pointedly went on another car.

  I sat in the second to last row on the left of the car and put my guitar in the seat by the window. “Questlove” sat towards the front of the car on the same side as me and we were the only people in the car. I pulled my notebook out of my beat-up old bag and went over my notes for the interview and the songs I was going to perform. I’d been over it a ton already but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. The conductor came by and clicked my tickets wordlessly before noticing my guitar in the seat next to me.

  “Got a ticket for that?”

  “What, really? Um I—”

  He laughed, “I’m kidding, son. Geez...”

  Like I said, I hadn’t done this before. I’m kinda embarrased by that now. He turned away from me and took the ticket of the Questlove guy, who without my noticing had moved into the seat in front of me. He was sitting next to the window and was wringing the newspaper he’d bought on the platform in his hands as though, by applying pressure, he could coax whatever information he was looking for right out of the paper itself. After the conductor walked away, he leaned the chair back a little, which created a small gap between us. For some reason it reminded me of those scenes in the movies at jails and stuff where people have to talk through like a small hole or slit in the wall. Or like the confessional booth at the Academy back when they used to cart us in for First Friday Mass and Confessional. It was an odd dynamic considering the seat across the aisle from me was wide open.

  “Do you know how to play that guitar you keep patting?” he asked me, and I pulled my hand off, not realizing I’d been kinda nuzzling her case. I looked at him through the small crack that separated us.

  “Yeah, I can play it.”

  He swatted his knee with the newspaper. “Good. Hey, would you play something on it for me, man? I’ve got to get my mind off of where I’m going,” he asked.

  “Where are you going?”

  He turned toward me a bit more fully but I could still only see part of his face. “I’ve got a three-year-old son and I’ve never met him.” His voice was thin and tired and the one eye I could see through the gap looked anxious. “I’m on my way to see him for the first time. Trying to step up for him now, you know? Hoping it’s not too late?” He tapped his left hand on the window of the train and looked back at me through the slit in the seats. “Please, help me take my mind off it, man...”

  I opened up the case and took her out. “What do you want to hear?” I asked.

  “I don’t know man, just please play me something to help me forget where I’m going for like five minutes.” He inhaled long and slow before leaning back in his seat. He continued talking, although it seemed like he wasn’t exactly talking to me anymore. “I really don’t know what I’m gonna do...”

  So, I just played some random chords, making sure everything sounded good and in tune and then I played around with something new I’d been working on but it was kind of minor-key-ish, so I moved into something more positive, considering the circumstances. The conductor walked through and gave us both a weary look but didn’t say anything other than, “OK, then.”

  Whatever it was that the music was doing for him seemed to be helping because he leaned back into his seat and just sighed saying, “That’s just it, man. I appreciate it.”

  I’m not even entirely sure what I played exactly. After goofing around with my own stuff, I moved into some simple chords and fingerpicking just to get warmed up for later. I’m pretty sure I played this fingerpicked version of “Only Us” from the “Dear Evan Hansen” soundtrack that I messed around with like a year ago and hadn’t thought of since, until I played it on the train. It’s got some really cool chord progressions, but it seems a strange one to have popped into my head just then. Anyway, “Questlove” seemed to relax as I was playing and he didn’t say anything else to me until he got off the train in Iselin.

  “Thanks, man. Keep playing that guitar. You got something there.”

  “Thanks, I will. Good luck with your son,” I said to him. He seemed nice. I appreciated the fact that he’s making an effort to know his kid, unlike my own father. The train had surprisingly good acoustics and if that man, whatever his name was, does well by his son in any small way because of my playing my guitar for him, then that’s pretty awesome. It might rank up there as among the most useful things I’ve ever done. I know Angie would have gotten a kick out of it. She probably would have sung along, especially with the “Evan Hansen” stuff.

  The interviews and my audition went well. They were kind of boring actually as it was a lot of waiting around. It was cool to see the inside of Lincoln Center for sure. I mean, both Miles Davis and Eric Clapton played there, and I imagine lots of other artists I like. But for the most part, we were all stuck in a rehearsal room until we got called into the room. I waited about ninety minutes before I got called in and saw five people at a long table who looked more tired and bored than I felt myself. They all introduced themselves but I don’t totally remember who they all were, except for this one old guy in the middle, who it turns out was Pulitzer prize winner composer Ned Rorem! We used to do some of his anthems when I was at the Boychoir academy until eighth grade. He was super cool and asked the best questions of anyone. He seemed more interested in me and what I was listening to than what my musical aspirations were. I don’t think I scored many points with the other panelists when I said “I’m still trying to learn and figure things out,” but Ned clapped out loud at that.

  “As you should be!” he called out. “You don’t need a scholarship for that, boy. Just a set of ears that work!” He was really cool and I think I’ll have to check out his work when I get to school. It was made very clear at the audition that my knowledge of music theory and notation and scoring needed serious work. They seemed to like my songs but found them “raw” and “in need of polish.” They’re probably right.

  Angie was excited for me when I told her all about it and said she was going to download the best of Ned Rorem for me to check out when we got together, which, as I mentioned, hasn’t happened yet. But it’s tomorrow.

  I should try to get to sleep as I’ve got to pick her up early tomorrow. She wants us on the road before the sun comes up, assuming that Mom’s twenty-five-year old Mercury Tracer starts in the morning.

  I’m nervous about tomorrow and I’m anxious about school. The school part doesn’t bother me as that’s totally new and a big change so it should be scary. But why am I nervous to see my best friend? I mean seriously, Angie and I have been through everything together for almost four years. We’ve always been honest with one another and we’ve always shared everything. I know it’ll be weird being apart with me in Boston and her starting at Princeton in a few weeks, but we’ve always figured things out, I mean, Boston isn’t that far away, really. I think I might try to come home for a visit before Christmas and she can come see me up there, right? I mean, why not?

  I’m sure we’ll work it out, but I’m still having trouble understanding where she’s been all summer. If she’s been avoiding me, I can’t think of why. If there was a problem with us,
she’d tell me, right? We always tell each other everything. I’m sure it’s just that there’s a lot going on and things with us were bound to change with college starting. I’ve been a little bored and lonely without her this summer, if I’m going to be completely honest. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had and I don’t really like thinking about my life without her ankle deep in it. I really don’t.

  I’m not sure what Angie has planned for tomorrow but I’m not worried. We’ve always had fun together and while I still don’t know what’s been going on with her, I’m sure everything will be just as awesome and fun as it always is when we’re together. Nothing could change that, right?!

  I’ve got to get to sleep because in the morning, we will be headed down the shore, where all things are pleasant, all people are kind, and the breezes always blow warm and gentle. OK, that might be overkill, but I know it’s what Angie thinks of Wildwood and I trust her. She’s my best friend, after all. Nothing could change that either.

  I know we’re going to have a really, really good day tomorrow! I can’t wait!

  Are you ready for The Last Good Day? If so, start your adventure with Avery & Angela at www.RobertKuglerBooks.com

 

 

  Robert Kugler, The Day Before

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