Bad Tastes

[holiday_pirner]

When Holly entered Tracks, the record store was mostly empty, save for a few people milling over some new releases. A Cinderella track was playing over the sound system, and strains of glam metal accompanied the brunette as she wandered over to the cassettes.

As she rifled through the Q's, trying to find a Queen album a friend had recommended, a movement in her periphery caught her eye. A boy, maybe in his mid-teens, was grasping a few tapes in his hand and acting twitchy.

Holly tilted her head, watching him closely. He was too busy looking out for store employees to notice her, until she pointedly cleared her throat. "Are you sure those are the ones you really want? I mean, if you're going to opt for the five finger discount, make it worth your while."

The brunette approached him, ignoring his surprised glare. She grabbed one of the tapes and held it up. "This one isn't too bad, but...is that Quarterflash?" Holly shook her head disapprovingly. "I think someone should call your parents just to warn them of their son's budding horrible taste in music."

He pulled away from her, grabbing the cassettes back. "Do you work here?"

Comments

[brian_campo]

He didn’t notice her alongside him until Holly spoke. “Oh, it’s um…” Brian held up the paper. It was upside down. He flipped it around. The advertisement had been drawn by hand in black ink and photocopied a hundred times. He knew that because he had done the copying for the kid in Billie’s office at the record shop, not that his boss realized it. “There’s this place called the Dive, lots of local bands. There’s something this weekend. You should go.” He shrugged and handed it to Holly. “Just don’t use the bathroom, if you can help it.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Billie said from her stool. She was reading a dog-eared copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The corners were mushy as if the paperback had been dropped in the bathtub. “Also I think the bouncer has rabies.”

“Ahh,” he sighed. Brian rubbed his forehead. “Nice contribution.”

[holiday_pirner]

"Don't use the loo, got it." She examined the flyer, her eyes lighting up. Holly had been somewhat of a fixture at the punk clubs in London, and it was nice to know there was a similar option in Vegas.

"She's blunt," the brunette remarked, in a voice low enough for only Brian to hear.

"Let me guess: she rides your ass, but at the end of the day, she's really the boss with a heart of gold? Only with a nice barbed wire exterior."

[brian_campo]

“Yeah, except for the heart of gold, you’re right on it.” Brian fiddled with his t-shirt sleeve.

He watched Billie pull on her stubby, pink ponytail as she tried to release tension from her temples. A year before, just after he took the job at Tracks, he had found himself at the same party as her. They were both messed up and he temporarily forgot that she was the definition of month-long PMS.

He mumbled to Holly, “One time I was stoned and I briefly entertained the notion of asking her out because she had this giant cherry on her t-shirt. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Luckily I passed out in a puddle of my own sick before that came to pass.”

[holiday_pirner]

Holly gave him a sympathetic look. "Now that is some obvious symbolism. That is some Clockwork Orange shit." She still couldn't get that big, phallic statue out of her head.

The brunette shifted her weight from foot to foot, fiddling with the tapes in her hands. "So, you get stoned?"

[brian_campo]

Brian chuckled. “That’s what you took from that?”

He looked at the other customers nearby and then inclined his head, indicating that they should walk away from the register. He stopped in front of a rack of band t-shirts that he could feasibly fold and manage to appear busy while they had a conversation.

“Yeah.”

He held up a finger.

“I’m not sure why I walked over here just to say that. Pretty innocuous.”

He grabbed a shirt that a customer had draped over the top of the stack. The Rolling Stones. He attempted to improve its condition and rapidly remembered why he wasn’t the employee who did this.

[holiday_pirner]

She took the shirt from him and expertly folded it. She handed it back with a satisfied smile. "I worked a shop, too. The clothing variety."

Holly casually leaned against one of the racks. "I've kind of taken a break from the harder stuff, but if you're into green, I always have a plentiful supply."

The brunette patted her olive green bag.

[brian_campo]

Brian took the shirt and set it on top of the larges. “Yeah?” His eyes strayed to her bag. “Cool.” It was good to know somebody he could buy from that wasn’t potentially a cop. The small, plastic-wrapped stash in his nightstand drawer was dwindling. “I’ve been taking a break, too. Kinda… trying to work some stuff out with a clear head.”

Too bad clarity wasn’t coming. It didn’t seem to matter if he was high or not; nothing changed.

“Trying to be responsible. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” His mind was on the confrontation with that vampire.

[holiday_pirner]

She understood that. Too well. "I used to deal with everything by softening the edges. Make things seem less real." Holly brought her shoulders up in a shrug.

"Now everything seems painfully unreal, so what do you do then?"

The brunette quickly realized she was rambling. Maybe it was time to just take a shot in the dark. If he thought she was insane, she could avoid the store. He'd never have to see her again.

"So, what is it then? Fangs? Or are you a wolf masquerading as a human?" She touched his arm. "You seem warm enough."

[brian_campo]

“What? No,” he whispered. Brian was taken aback, though not for the reasons one might suspect. He launched a paranoid search of their surroundings to make sure no customers were eavesdropping. How did this stuff keep coming up? He was putting the moves on a vampire slayer and he had seen two of those in the last week. Now there were werewolves?

“I…”

He wrapped his hands around the back of his neck. What should he do, pretend he didn’t know what Holly was talking about, or pretend that he did? Because neither seemed like an honest response. He let his arms flop to his sides. “I’m as human as it gets,” he said. Well. Technically. “C’mon, let’s talk outside.” He pointed at the door that led into the store room.

Unless she was a vampire.

He looked beyond her at the end of the aisle, where a spherical mirror hung on the ceiling. No, she had a reflection.

[holiday_pirner]

Holly followed him, strangely satisfied at his reaction. Okay, so she hadn't meant to scare him or anything. But it was good to know she wasn't the only one new to rubbing shoulders with the...what? Supernatural? Holly supposed it was as good a term as any.

"Me too," the brunette replied matter-of-factly. "We have so much in common."

[brian_campo]

“I’m taking a break,” he called to his boss, who acknowledged the statement with a bored thumbs up.

Brian led Holly through a stockroom. It was cramped with half-empty boxes of casettes, a small table and four chairs for meals, and an assortment of trash bags full of Styrofoam peanuts. The air in there was stuffy, so when he opened the back door, the fresh air was a relief. He let the door slam shut and reached up, where a ladder extended off the fire escape. It rattled to the ground.

“Nobody goes up here,” he said. These days, he didn’t want to hang out in the alley. It seemed excessively dangerous.

[holiday_pirner]

"Ooh, I like climbing these."

Holly waited for him to go first. It wasn't until a breeze tousled her hair that she realized she still had the tapes in hand.

"I'm going to pay for these, promise."