Julie Bean

part one

The wine from the water, the flesh from the bone

This year I am becoming my own home

Becoming My Own Home / The Collection

catalyst

If you stand on the stage in the Moonlight Café—barefoot, of course—and curl your toes around the edges so you can feel the cheap painted plywood, you will be in the right place. If you imagine the weight of a guitar hanging from your shoulders and neck, tethered to an amp on the floor, you will be closer to the memory. If you close your eyes and conjure up the sound of people trying to be quiet, the shuffling of chairs and the muffling of coughs, the soundtrack of the moment will be just right. And if you can feel the warmth of a spotlight fanning your face, making you the brightest thing in the room, something of a sun that the audience is orbiting around, you’re almost there.

The chairs are stacked upside down on the tables now, reaching their legs up to the sky like arms raised in a call for rain, but at the right night, they were on the floor with people in them. The house was full that night; not a lofty accomplishment, given the size of the establishment, but an accomplishment all the same, especially considering the weather. The sign out front—welcoming The Entertainment as the city’s best modern folk/rock group with a lesbian leprechaun—definitely helped draw the crowds in. Look, behind you, in the corner under the stack of extra chairs. The chalkboard sign is there, the chalk rubbed half-off by some hasty employee at the end of the shift. Once it advertised The Entertainment every Friday night.

Turn back to the stage. It’s small, especially with the piano set up in the corner (an old out-of-tune stand-up, missing its stool now). The stage only held three people comfortably, so one person was always the sitting duck and had to sit on the edge, attempting to look just as dignified as everyone who was standing. Sit on the stage there—yes, just like that. See how you’re looking right in the eyes of everyone in your imaginary crowd? Everyone with a mobile instrument got a turn to be the duck. Right now, it’s yours.

Stand up, back where you were before. Grip the edge of the stage with your toes so you don’t fall off. To your left, sitting with one foot on her guitar case and the other on the stage, is Emmy. She’s holding her violin cradled in between her shoulder and her chin like a baby she’s trying to soothe; she tickles her bow light across the strings, her fingers dancing into different formations. Behind you, sitting at the piano (this is back when the stool still existed) is Cal, hunched over the keys like a brooding hunchback with his hair falling over his eyes. Dex is behind you, a stubbly beard coming in prickly and patchy, presentable tonight in a tucked-in polo shirt that he definitely did not pick out himself. The three of them encircle you like protective arms, ready with their accompaniment, but at the start of this song, it’s just you—you who has to pour something into this silence and hope it sounds the way you want it to.

You clip your capo onto your guitar, kissing the mic, don’t worry about the germs, life’s too short. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. There you are, on stage, a pick in your hand and a song in your throat. There you are.

Close your eyes.

chapter one

Out of the dark and into the light

When the morning comes I will be alright

In the Morning / The Coral

Our first apartment was the sexiest apartment anyone had ever lived in. Andy had given it this title, and the title would stick. For years after, whenever I thought about my first apartment, I referred to it (sometimes in my mind, sometimes out loud) as the sexy apartment.

There was actually nothing particularly sexy about the apartment. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a living room that had just enough space to fit a kitchenette and a couch. The building that contained the sexy apartment was called Maplebrook Manor, which Andy and I agreed sounded like an old folks’ home. Only two out of four burners on the stove worked, there was no actual bathroom door so we’d had to hang a shower curtain in the doorway, our upstairs neighbours liked to blast old-school country after midnight (late-night Johnny Cash, anyone?), and the building’s elevator had been out of order for years. Andy, however, was determined from the start to make this apartment a place fit for the most goddamn beautiful women to ever attend Birkett University.

Andy had a habit of making superlatives out of everything. The grilled cheese she had for lunch was the best dairy-based sandwich anyone had ever made; the rom com she just saw was the saddest thing she would ever experience. After cohabitating with her for almost a year already, I had gotten used to it.

She and I had lived together last year in a two-person room in Gossard Hall, a building that was approximately 99% male. This meant we’d had to stick together through various acts of vandalism and delinquency, including but not limited to: That Time The Lobby Was Flooded with Jello, That Time The Common Room Got Covered In Flour, and That Time Someone Shit In The Piano (in the piano!). That kind of thing really bonds two people together, so even though Andy and I were very different people, it didn’t take us long to become close, to grow used to each other’s neuroses and find common ground. So here we were eight months later, ready to take on new things together, settling into a tiny apartment with (hopefully) no more four a.m. fire drills or hallway streakers to contend with.

We started unpacking on a sunny May afternoon, cranking open the stuffy apartment’s windows to let in some fresh air. As we dumped our stuff out of bins and bags and boxes, I was surprised over and over with the amount of junk we’d managed to transport from our dorm room to the new place. A few of the more eclectic pieces that had survived the move were a ceramic turtle lamp (a gift from Andy’s uncle?), an impressionistic painting of a pug in nerd glasses, a towel that said Don’t worry dishes—no one’s doing me either, and not one, not two, but three clown dolls that neither of us could account for. I started making a chuck it pile as I unpacked; our apartment was small enough without all this weird stuff clogging it up.

I’d had the idea to colour-code the boxes—purple for my things, yellow for Andy’s, red for the kitchen, blue for the bathroom, et cetera—but Andy had gotten bored with just getting one colour so she had packed her stuff in boxes of every colour. As a result, we had to open every single box to see what its contents were before we brought it to its new home, and pretty soon I was grumbling as I hefted the boxes around the apartment.

You know what we need right now? Andy said as she fiddled with the wires on the TV. Some tunes.

What kind of tunes? I asked absently, trying to organize our jumbled set of mismatched dishes into the cupboards.

Um, pump-up tunes, obviously. Andy turned on her Bluetooth speaker and synced her phone up, and soon ABBA was blasting through the living room.

Having expected something more Top 40s than Swedish disco, I started to laugh. Andy broke into dance by the couch, jumping around and pumping her arms in the air, and I set the dishes down and joined her, and soon we transformed from two dumb kids living alone in the city into a couple of dancing queens.

***

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Bohemian Rhapsody startled me into half-consciousness. My hand scrambled across an unfamiliar nightstand, eyes still closed, and grabbed my phone. Squinting at the screen, I saw a picture of Andy’s face (one of the unattractive selfies she’d once filled my phone with).

I groaned and stumbled out of the bed, my feet twisting in my dress that lay crumpled on the floor. I picked up a big T-shirt from its home on the back of a desk chair and tugged it over my head so that I felt a little less naked as I crouched out in the hall.

Hello? I whispered.

Julie! Where the hell are you? I thought you were dead!

Well, I’m not dead—

No, like, I actually thought you were dead. Like I really thought—

Yeah, I know.

So where are you right now? Slash where have you been since like all night last night?

Um… I looked around. I was sitting on some stained beige carpet in an apartment I didn’t recognize. I peeked around through the bedroom door, and there was Ben, still deep in sleep. Him, I recognized. Well. Technically I don’t know exactly where I am. But last night I went home with this guy…

Um, sorry, who is this? I’m going to need you to put me back on the line with Julie Bean please.

Andy…

"I don’t know who you are, but Julie Bean doesn’t do one night stands."

Andy.

"And I quote, ‘I want to get to know guys, Andrea! How am I supposed to even know a guy at all after one trashy night in a club? Like, eww. What if he murders me? What if I willingly go home with some guy who, I don’t know, collects small figurines of cats in clothing? Or has an axe collection?"

For God’s sake, I did not say that.

You one hundred percent did, I wrote it down, I’m not lying and you need to give me enough details that I could picture your night, like, in my head—

Oh my God, gross.

—but first get dressed and come home, kay? We need to finish unpacking and I’m too out of shape to do it all by myself.

How do you know I’m not dressed?

Just put some pants on and come home.

I hung up and slunk back into the room. The curtains were still drawn, and the morning light filtered dimly through the dingy brown drapes. I dropped to my knees and collected my various pieces of clothing that were scattered across the carpet. I cringed as I pulled last night’s dress back on; it reeked of cigarettes. Did Ben smoke? I couldn’t remember.

The night before, Andy and I had gone out with a couple of our friends for one last party before they left to go back home, as she and I were some of the only ones sticking around the city for the summer. It had been at a really nice house downtown, a friend of a friend of Renee’s (a childhood friend who’d followed me to Birkett). Unfortunately, no one had really appreciated the upscale decor—the hardwood floors and chandeliers were overpowered by the pull of pulsing lights and booming bass. Somewhere in between trying a mysterious fruity drink Andy had made for me and joining some strangers in an 80s karaoke sesh, I’d met a sweet guy with cute rumpled hair. I couldn’t be sure that I had made out with him in the laundry room, but I couldn’t rule it out.

The light was too bright as I left his apartment, finding myself about ten blocks from Maplebrook. I glanced down at my god-awful heels (correction: Andy’s god-awful heels). Why the hell had I thought that four-inch heels would be a good idea? I grimaced as the tips pinched my toes, sharp pain shooting up each time I took a step.

I stopped by a coffee shop called the Moonlight Café to pick up some breakfast for Andy and I because in that moment, I wanted sugar and caffeine even more than I wanted to get home. Maplebrook was just around the corner. I knew that living in such close proximity to a place with great coffee and pastries was going to hurt my budget and desire to eat a well-balanced diet, but for now I loved the convenience.

Andy, I’m home, I shouted into the apartment once I’d scaled all six flights of cursed stairs. I have danishes and coffee!

Andy popped out of the kitchen and grabbed me in a hug. "Ahh, Jules, have I told you lately how much I love you?

Yes, I said, and you’re welcome for breakfast.

Andy giggled and took the bag from me. Let’s eat it on the balcony, she said. I put the loveseat out there!

What? No. It’s going to get wet when it rains, that’s a really dumb idea.

I suddenly regretted leaving Andy to unpack our furniture last night, unsupervised.

It is not, there’s a roof over the balcony. Just come sit with me and stop being so crotchety.

It was admittedly comfortable, out on the old leather loveseat that took up the entire balcony. I licked cherry filling and icing sugar off my fingers and told Andy about my night with Ben. From what I could remember from the night before, it hadn’t exactly been a mind-blowing encounter, but Andy, who’d been in a committed monogamous relationship for longer than anyone else in history (about two years) absolutely ate up every mundane detail.

Julie, Julie, Julie, Andy said, shaking her head. Look at you. So, are you going to see him again?

I shrugged. I left my number for him.

She grinned, blueberry filling on her lips. That’s my girl. It’ll work out. Hey, she said, tapping my knee until her mouth wasn’t full anymore, I meant to ask you. Dex’s band is playing this Friday at the Moonlight, and he’s wondering if you wanted to come in and play as a guest star. I’m pretty sure it’s because they have a shitty setlist this week and they need to fill up their time slot, but whatever, it’s a chance to perform, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess. It’s been a few months. I haven’t really been working on anything lately…

Oh, I’m sure you can come up with something. Do one of the songs from that guy and his sons or whatever.

Mumford and Sons. You’re talking about Mumford and Sons.

Yeah, that’s what I said. Anyway, are you in?

The city underneath us was waking up. Six stories below, cars drove lazily down the road, someone called out to someone across the street, a truck honked in annoyance. I rested my feet on the railing, legs slightly stubbly, feet still in last night’s heels. I felt vaguely sore, my head pounding a bit from the drinks I’d downed, but oddly I didn’t mind any of it. I told Andy I would do it, because in that moment I felt good; maybe it was some leftover endorphins kicking around, or the fresh morning air filling my lungs up full, or maybe the Moonlight’s danishes were just straight-up magic.

***

Close your eyes. Feel the way seventeen felt. You’re at your first house party, after prom. Feel the scratch of the tulle from inside your bright purple dress as you unzip slow down your back, feeling the AC blast onto naked skin.

This isn’t the house of anyone you know, so this bathroom you’re changing in is unfamiliar. The rug under your feet is worn soft from years of use, but the picture of a friendly-looking octopus is still discernible. The undersea theme is actually pretty prevalent—tropical fish are embroidered on the towels; the shower curtain is a pattern of bright bubbles.

Sit on the octopus rug and wait for your head to stop spinning.

You can talk yourself out of most things, but you’re going to have trouble talking yourself out of this. It was all Cameron’s fault, truly; you didn’t initiate anything. Not really. But still you feel responsible—after all, it was your choice to keep going. You can still feel your hands reaching around to run soft skin under your fingers. Can still see the spotty light coming from the disco ball that the stoner from your math class had taken from his mom’s closet and hung from the chandelier. Can still taste the beers you drank too fast, tasting like yeasty bread in your mouth now.

Get up and gulp down water from the bathroom sink; it might help with the taste. Decide you don’t like beer anymore. (You won’t drink it again for at least a year.)

You’d brought clothes in here to change into as a guise for hiding in the bathroom, but it’s been too long now. So gather your things and unlock the door and find your way back down the hall to where this party, filled with people you probably won’t even talk to in two months, is still going strong. Drop your dress and heels in a corner beside the dishwasher, slip out the back door and sit on the edge of the deck. Ground yourself by digging your bare feet into the grass and soil of this stranger’s backyard. Remember what you felt like an hour ago. You’re still that person now.

Try not to cry. Cry anyway.

chapter two

And so it is, just like you said it would be

Life goes easy on me most of the time

The Blower’s Daughter / Damien Rice

Bloated, crampy, and bleeding from my uterus, I was definitely not in the mood to dress up. If it were up to me, I would have preferred to order in pizza, eat a bag of Swedish fish, and watch old Grey’s Anatomy episodes.

Julie, get off your butt and come help me with my hair.

I gave a groan in reply.

Never mind, I got it. My hair’s so thin and useless.

Andy came over from the bathroom to where I was curled up on the couch in sweats.

What are you even watching? Andy asked.

Grey’s, I said. It’s amazing what you catch on the fifth watch-through.

Oh, for God’s sake! Andy grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. You know what you need? You need to put on some real clothes and do something with your hair.

These are real clothes, I replied vaguely, grabbing the ends of my hair and inspecting a curl. And what’s wrong with my hair?

Just stop moping and get dressed, ‘kay?

When is Dex coming? I asked as I slid off the couch and headed to my room.

Five minutes, so get a move on.

Can I wear your peach heels? I’m wearing your peach heels.

Yep, Andy replied unnecessarily.

I trudged into the bathroom wearing a floral dress, a blush-pink scarf wrapped around my head in an attempt to tame my curls. How do I look? I asked, grimacing.

Andy laughed. Don’t look so depressed, she said. You look great. The colour of that scarf looks so good on you. (I begrudgingly agreed—pink was a nice colour against my dark brown skin—but didn’t vocalize this agreement out of sheer stubbornness.)

She reached for her eyeliner and carefully dabbed it in dots along her eye, smudging it as she went. It was how she always did her makeup; she swore it was more precise, but I was pretty sure it just took longer.

Thanks. I leaned back against the bathroom counter, nudging Andy’s hair dryer out of the way with my elbow. You know, I don’t think I actually want to do this thing. Tonight.

Don’t be dumb. You have to do it.

But I have cramps! I whined, wrapping my arms across my middle and giving Andy puppy-dog eyes.

I’ve got Midol in my purse.

And my guitar is really out of tune.

You can tune it before Dex gets here. Or before your song.

My throat feels sticky. I had milk tonight. You’re not supposed to have milk before you sing. I could choke up there. Do you want that on your conscience?

Julie! Andy cut me off. You’ll be great. All I’m asking is that you go and play one song. Literally one song. You know it by heart. All you have to do is get up there and sing.

I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows at her. Why don’t you ‘just get up there and sing’?

Andy snort-laughed. If you see me on stage singing, she said, I am hammered, I am drunk as a sailor, in which case get me off the stage before I vomit on someone in the first row.

She wasn’t exaggerating. There was a reason Andy was a roadie of Dex’s band, not a member—she was, she was convinced, clinically and irrevocably tone-deaf.

Once Andy had finished putting on her makeup, we sat on the couch and waited for Dex, who was supposed to arrive any minute. The sound of the door quietly opening sounded from the entry, which couldn’t be seen from the kitchen.

Dex? Andy called. No answer.

Andy glanced at me. Dex? she repeated, a little quieter.

No reply.

She got up and grabbed a frying pan out of the drawer under the oven.

Andy, I began.

I’m just being safe! she said. I rolled my eyes but followed her as she crept down the dark hallway. I felt around for the light switch.

Andy shrieked, and my heart flew up into my throat. I finally found the light, and saw Dex, who had snuck up behind his girlfriend and grabbed her in the dark.

Dexter Dixon, you’re such an ass! Andy cried. Dex laughed and hugged her around the waist. She pretended to sock him in the face. They stood together, looking, as always, entirely mismatched—Dex was tall, tanned, and beefy to Andy’s tiny, wiry, and pale—and yet they somehow made perfect sense standing side by side.

We all slid on our shoes—me in Andy’s peach heels, Andy in dangerous-looking red stilettos—and proceeded down six flights of stairs. (Sometimes Andy and I fantasized about the luxury of an elevator, the inconceivable convenience of being lifted up to our floor, but we’d already made peace with the reality of the stairs.) It only took about five minutes to walk down to the Moonlight Café, the place where I’d bought breakfast last weekend. Dex’s band had played a gig here last week and the owners had invited them back in, but from what I’d gathered (between Andy’s unreliable accounts and Dex’s grandiose stories), the band hadn’t quite been ready to play another show so soon after the first. So they’d scraped together a new setlist and scrambled to find a guest star—and that’s where I came in.

Coming up to the café, I felt some nerves dissipate: it really wasn’t much from the outside, made of worn brown brick and sporting a defective neon sign. But the chalkboard sign out front announcing "Friday night—come see The Entertainment, with special guest Julie Bean!" was reminder enough: this was a gig, a real performance, and the butterflies took flight again. We stood on the sidewalk for a few breaths, Andy and Dex kindly letting me collect myself. Then a rumble came from the clouds and a late-spring storm started pelting down on us, and Andy yelped as we all ran inside.

I’d only ever been to the Moonlight during the day, when the sun streamed through the windows and people waited in line impatiently for a cup of strong coffee to wake them up. But the café was different at night. Inside, the lights were dim and warm; the air smelled like black tea and honey. People sat in small clusters at tables and on sofas, talking in muted voices and sipping cappuccinos. I felt a bit preppy and overdressed and made a mental note to go a little more casual next time.

In the corner was a small unsteady-looking stage, built of what looked like plywood painted black. An old stand-up piano filled up almost half of it. Dex climbed up on the stage and greeted the floppy-haired blonde beanpole in a button-down sitting on the piano stool. That’s Cal, Andy said. And that’s Emmy. She gestured over to a girl sitting on the edge of the stage, tuning a violin. She wore a wrinkled flannel shirt and black converse, red hair hanging in loose waves over one shoulder. Her mouth was turned up in a kind of snarky smirk, like she was silently making fun of everyone in the room. She caught my eye and the smirk got bigger. I shifted my gaze away, and went to unpack my guitar.

I tuned and went to sit with Andy as the band played a couple of songs to start the night off. They were mellow acoustic tunes, catchy but unfamiliar. Did they write these songs? I whispered to Andy over a couple of vanilla lattes.

She nodded. Emmy writes them. Dex tried once, and it was the most horrendous piece of writing I’ve ever had to read. The man wasn’t cut out for it.

I was sipping my latte when Dex called me onstage. My blood froze up, my hands shaking as they held the mug. Andy squeezed my arm. Go get ‘em, tiger, she said, and I gave her a look. By the stage, Dex handed me my guitar and I glanced down at Andy’s heels. They suddenly seemed like a really bad idea. A slow-motion montage flashed through my mind of various embarrassing ways I could trip over my own feet while trying to get onstage. So I kicked off the dangerous pink shoes, casting them off to a dark corner where they couldn’t hurt me or anyone else.

I stepped onto the black plywood stage, gripping the rough edge with my bare feet. My legs felt shaky, like a building swayed by a strong wind. I’d performed a few times on campus during first year, just me, my guitar, and songs I knew by heart, students half-watching as they sipped watery coffee and flirted with each other and avoided studying. This felt a little more real.

I took a quick look around me, taking stock of my surroundings: Cal sitting at the piano, Dex leaning against the counter beside the cream and sugar, Emmy on the edge of the stage. I was here now, and people were expecting a song. I took a deep breath and started to sing.

And so it is, just like you said it would be.

The song (a pretty acoustic number by Damien Rice) started out a capella, which always sounds like a great idea until you’re actually performing, and then your voice sounds shaky and small and never as strong as you think it’s going to.

Life goes easy on me, most of the time.

When I brought the guitar in I breathed a sigh of relief; the instrumentation flowed under my voice and supported it, giving me something to sink into, to fall back on. I closed my eyes and let myself slip into the song, to ride the crests and falls of the melody with my voice. There’s something so comforting about playing a song you know well, like pulling on a sweater you’ve had for years.

And so it is, the shorter story.

Then the sound of a violin came in from my left, and the sound of the song was suddenly not so familiar.

I jerked my head around, still playing, and saw Emmy, Dex’s bandmate in the plaid. Her violin was propped against her shoulder, and she was playing along with my song, still sitting on the edge of the stage. What the hell?

No love, no glory; no hero in her sky.

I didn’t know this girl at all, and here she was, deciding that she wanted to join me in my solo, just jamming along with her fiddle uninvited.

I would be pissed if she weren’t so freaking good at it.

I can’t take my eyes off of you.

I shook my head in disbelief but decided to roll with it. Either she knew the song I was playing or she was just really good at improv, but either way, she accompanied me effortlessly. My guitar and vocals and her smooth, slow violin line mingled and melded together into a sound that filled the room. Looking out at the crowd, spotlights glancing off of some faces and plunging others into darkness, people didn’t look taken aback, but instead gazed up at us with something like reverence.

I can’t take my eyes off of you.

Emmy stood up partway through the song to come and stand beside me, leaning into her instrument. She looked up, met my eyes, and grinned in a way that looked a little apologetic but mostly like she was having a great time.

When the song ended, the applause from the café was thunderous. Post-performance adrenaline made my fingers and toes feel electric. I jumped down from the stage and sat back down with Andy, who crushed me in a tight hug.

After the band wrapped up, the café began to clear out. Andy went to congratulate Dex, and I wandered over to where Emmy was lecturing Cal about something at the piano. What the fuck, Cal, no. It’s a Gsus4 there, I told you. You’re not even listening to me. She had an accent that I had trouble placing (Scottish, maybe)?

Hey, I said, and Cal and Emmy turned.

Hey, she said, standing and coming over to me. My stomach flip-flopped a bit, probably some leftover nerves still wearing off.

So, um, I don’t know if I should thank you for the accompaniment, or…

Yeah, about that…sorry, I just really love that song. I don’t usually interrupt people during their own solos, that was pretty fucking rude. She ran a nervous-looking hand through her hair, cracked a grin at me. You don’t have to thank me. I shouldn’t have done that.

Yeah, well, I mean, it was great. It just, um, took me by surprise.

Yeah, I don’t know why I did it. I probably should have warned you.

That’s okay. Looking at her now face-to-face for the first time, I felt like maybe I’d been wrong about the unfriendly vibes I’d sensed before—something about her face was warm and a little bit inviting, but in a hesitant sort of way, like she’d be nice to talk to if you just worked at it for a bit. I smiled at her. I’m Julie.

Emily. But no one calls me that except my mom. Call me Emmy. Please.

Well, Emmy, thanks for the surprise strings section anyway.

She shrugged. My pleasure. Are you going to come back and play with us again? I promise I won’t, like, ambush you onstage next time. I’m not that much of a dick.

I looked back at Dex sipping tea with Andy, at Cal trying in vain to figure out the song Emmy had been trying to teach him. I smiled and thought I could probably get used to this—the buzz of adrenaline coursing through me, the smell of honey and black tea.

***

Close your eyes. Feel June sun coming down onto bare brown shoulders. You’re eleven and a half, and you’re at the edge of an uncomplicated time. Next week, your mom will take you to buy a bra. In a month, you’ll get your first period. In two months, you’ll start shaving your legs. But for now, you wear shorts that expose your skinny legs and a tank top that hangs loose on your body, and you don’t