Hey there and welcome to my story.  This story is going to include bad stuff:  a lot of swearing, some drug use, and sexuality stuff (the extent of which I’m still unsure of at the moment).  Pretty much, don’t read this unless you have an open mind.  But I hope you do read this.  Anyway, without further ado, read on!

Someday, Beth

Welcome to Artisans’ Paradise

“Suzy, you’re crazy!”

            She chuckled so lightly at the remembered phrase echoing in her head that it would have been inaudible to any one else over the music blaring from her speakers.  Yet, there was no one else to hear her small laugh anyway.  She was alone to belt out the lyrics to the mixed tape in her stereo and concentrate on the once black, but now sun-faded gray pavement stretching out endlessly before her, devoid of any other signs of life besides herself and her black little Ford cruising loudly down the road.

            “I am crazy,” Suzanne Lukah mused to herself.  She laughed a little louder.  “I’m fucking crazy!” she yelled over her music.  It was almost nervous laughter.  When her trip had begun, all the way on the east coast of the country, and the voices of her incredulous friends started to ring in her ears, her laughter had been that of genuine amusement and outright satisfaction.  But now, she was beginning to realize how insane this little adventure was, and she was starting to worry.  She began to worry what exactly she was going to do once she arrived at her destination, which she had only recently determined from the road signs she passed, since they began to all say the same thing.  California.  Apparently that was where she was headed.  The trip had begun in Connecticut, and she just kept following signs that pointed her “West.”  And here she was, cruising through the Nevada desert, nearly there.  She was crazy.  What the hell was she going to do in California?  She might not have known much about life on the west coast, but she knew California was no New England.

            Suzanne pushed her doubts to the back of her mind, though, and tried to focus on good thoughts, thoughts of wild freedom and independency, thoughts of music and art, thoughts of clubs and musicians, thoughts of the life she was always meant to live.  She swallowed down her terror of the unknown and reminded herself that this was everything she’d always wanted.  She turned her stereo up even louder than it had been and resumed her sing along.  There was something so fun about driving with the Pixies as her soundtrack.  The words of the song drifted through the speakers, with Suzanne’s voice echoing, “And you’ll ask yourself, ‘Where is my mind?’”  She giggled to herself, that song had never had so much meaning before.  Someday, she thought as her voice drowned out Black Francis’, someday it’ll all work out like it should.  Someday soon!

Chapter One

            “Are you moving in?” a voice sounded behind Suzanne as she was bent over the opened trunk of her car, trying to figure out how she’d wedged her guitar amp in there in the first place.  She jumped at the question, not realizing someone was standing so close behind her, and spun around quickly. 

            “What?” she asked dumbly, having barely registered anything besides the fact that a voice was addressing her, let alone what that voice had said, as she eyed the stranger whom it belonged to.  He appeared to be about her age, and was rather good-looking, but Suzy knew better than to just trust any stranger in the city.  Hell, she knew better than to trust any man.

            He laughed warmly, flashing pearly teeth, his startling green eyes creasing at the edges.  “I said, are you moving in?” he repeated, motioning towards the run down building that was to be her new home.  It wasn’t much to look at, but the rent was cheap and there was a vacancy.  Being that she’d driven across the country with some cash and her most prized possessions with no plan whatsoever, she would take what she could get.  She could only afford the motel, which was kept in equally bad condition, that she’d found the first night she arrived and had stayed in for a few days as she hunted for a place of residence, for so long before she ran out of money.  Suzanne had resumed her struggle with the stubborn amp.  The man inched closer, trying to see what she was fussing with inside her trunk over her shoulder, but failing.  “Do you need some help?”

            “I got it,” she snapped, keeping her focus on the inside of her trunk, then added, remembering his original question.  “Yeah, I’m moving in.”

“That’s cool,” he replied.  “I’ll be your new neighbor, I guess.  My name’s Travis, I live here, too.” 

Suzanne turned her attention away from her amp and turned around to face Travis again.  She forced a genial smile and shook his offered hand.  “Suzanne,” she introduced herself.

He nodded, grinning.  “So . . .” he began, but Suzanne quickly turned her back on him once more.  “What kind of artist are you?”

She paused, then turned her head towards him, and asked, “Excuse me?”

Travis ignored her query, though, and stepped up beside her.  He laughed softly as he saw the object Suzanne had been tugging on.  “Ah, so you’re a musician,” he mused.  Then he gently pushed her aside, and placing a hand on each end of the amp, he started to inch it back and forth until it was free.  He then tugged it out of the trunk and admired the Marshall name scrawled in white plastic letters on the front before setting it on the ground.  “I have that problem all the time,” he murmured, referring to the wedged amp.  Suzanne frowned slightly at his unwelcomed help, to which he merely shot a charming smile her way.  “Do you need some help?  I could carry some boxes up for you, if you’d like,” he offered, nodding towards her belongings littering the sidewalk beside her car.

            Suzanne laughed for the first time since her meeting with Travis at her own luggage.  She sure knew what was important to her; she’d traveled across the country with a few boxes of clothes, her two guitars, and a boom box.  She’d wanted to bring her stereo as well, but it wouldn’t all fit in her car, and she did have to make sacrifices.  She figured once she’d found an apartment and had moved in, she would perhaps go back to retrieve the remainder of her belongings.  Or maybe her mom would be so kind as to send it out to here? 

“If you really want to, be my guest, but I really don’t have that much stuff,” she replied.  Travis just shrugged, so she shook her head and slammed her trunk shut.  She opened up the passenger’s side back door and lugged the large black case that held her acoustic guitar within off of the floor in front of the back seat, then pulled out her smaller, but heavier electric guitar case, and set both on the pavement of the sidewalk.  Travis went to pick up the acoustic, but Suzanne shook her head, and smiling, snatched it out of his hands.  “I can get this, why don’t you take care of the amp?” she suggested.  She could’ve easily moved all of her stuff herself, but at least now, with Travis helping, she wouldn’t have to lug the beast of an amp up the stairs to her second floor apartment.  

            Loaded with Suzanne’s amp in one hand and the smaller (and heavier) guitar case in the other, Travis followed her up to the second floor of the building.  It wasn’t a very big apartment building, it only had three floors, the first of which was merely the lobby, and didn’t have any apartments. 

As they made their way down the hall towards her apartment, a man emerged from one of the doorways as they passed, and he glared at the two of them.  He had dark hair, dusted with strands of gray, and a small goatee on the tip of his chin.  His jeans were faded and torn at the knees and a worn plaid shirt was tied around his waist.  Suzanne blinked, and laughed inwardly wondering if she’d stepped into a time warp and was brought back to 1995.  “What’re you doin’ Darouin?” he demanded.

Travis turned to face him, sighing.  “I’m helping this nice young woman move in,” he answered, annoyance clear in his voice, gesturing at Suzanne.  She smiled meekly at the stranger, whose expression didn’t change from his original scowl.  “If that’s alright with you,” he added sarcastically.

“It’s Friday,” the man grumbled.  “Moving days are only on the week-ends.”

“But I was told I could move in today,” Suzy replied weakly, trying to defend herself.  She hadn’t even made it to her apartment and she was already causing trouble.

“Oh, don’t listen to him,” Travis assured her, shaking his head.  “You’re fine.”  He turned back towards the man, who had his arms crossed tightly across his chest defiantly.  “Look, Jack, it’s the middle of the day, we’re not disturbing anyone.  She doesn’t even have any furniture to move, so what’s your problem?”  Suzanne reddened slightly as her gaze fell to the floor.  “We’ll be done in 20 minutes at the most.  But if you insist on being bitter and whining the whole time, I can’t stop you.  Go complain to Rosy if it’s such a big deal, but leave the girl alone.  Jesus, it’s her first day here!”

“Fine,” Jack spat bitterly.  “Go ahead and move.  But I ain’t happy about this shit!”

“Big fucking deal,” Travis retorted.  “You’re not happy about anything.  Come on, Suzanne.”  With that he turned his back on the man as Jack slipped back into his apartment, slamming his door shut behind him.  Suzy blinked, then quickened her pace to lead Travis further down the hall and in through the open door leading to her new apartment.

“Hey, your apartment’s only two doors down from mine,” he informed her, stepping inside behind her and glancing around the empty room.  He realized that she really didn’t have a lot of stuff to move.  In fact, it was rather odd for someone to be moving into an apartment with only a small car load of possessions, and no furniture. 

            Suzy raised an eyebrow, and merely nodded at his statement, then instructed him to set her equipment down anywhere. 

“Don’t worry about that guy, Jack, by the way,” he told her.  “He’s always like that.  He just likes to bitch is all.”

“Why?” Suzanne wondered, setting down the guitar case she had in her right hand on the floor, then placing her boom box, which was hanging from her other hand on her kitchen counter.

Travis laughed, and gave her a curious look.  “I dunno why, he’s just a miserable man,” he replied offhandedly.

Suzy furrowed her eyebrows.  People weren’t just miserable for no reason.  She kept her mouth shut on the subject though, and suggested they go down to retrieve more of her luggage.  So the two made their way back to her car to empty it of her boxes, and finished moving her belongings on the second trip.  Travis set down the giant box he was holding and seated himself on the edge of the amp he had recently brought up for her. 

            Suzanne walked to the far corner of the room (and being a small room, wasn’t far from where Travis was seated), and hoisted herself up onto the counter set against the wall.  That particular corner of the room had a tiled floor, and had a refrigerator and oven, proving that corner was the kitchen.  She looked at Travis, half hoping he would leave and half wishing for him to stay.  He had dirty blond hair that fell over his forehead haphazardly as if his previous hair cut had grown out too long, but he was either too lazy, or too cheap to get it cut again.  His green eyes were rather large, and his lips smiled easily.  He was attractive, but Suzanne could tell from his open attitude towards a damsel in distress, and purely from his posture and voice, he knew he was.  And man, did she hate guys with egos!  But she quickly swallowed down her initial distaste for him, and reminded herself that everyone judges people they meet for the first time, and it was natural to do so, but it was the refusal to see past those judgements that transformed a person into an asshole.

            She pulled back her mane of dark hair, streaked with unnaturally brilliant red, into a messy ponytail, wisps of hair and what had probably been bangs that she was growing out slipped out, framing her face.  “Um . . .”  She pursed her lips and let her dark eyes scan around the room before they returned to meet Travis’.  “What did you mean before, when you asked what kind of artist I was?  How did you know?” she wondered.

            He frowned slightly and shrugged.  “Everyone who lives here is some kind of an artist,” he replied.  “Maybe it’s the location, or the fact that starving artists can’t afford a better life style, but there’s something about this building that attracts creativity.  The pain and suffering of living in a shit hole like this provides good inspiration, I suppose.”  The he smiled, knowingly.  “I mean, I guess so.  I’m still here, aren’t I?”

            “So that would make you an artist too?” she replied.  He nodded, and opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.  “A musician, right?  You mentioned you had the same problem with amps before.”

            He laughed lightly.  “That’s right,” he said.  “I play guitar, mostly solo acoustic stuff.  Occasionally I’ll go down and play at Open Mic Night at Livewire.  It’s a bar a few blocks down from here.”

            Suzanne watched him talk, and his voice seemed to drastically change from before when he cockily offered to help a “little lady.”  His gaze drifted from her face to a point in space beyond her, and a small smile crept across his lips, as his voice became soft and thoughtful.  “I’ll have to see you play sometime,” she replied, grinning at him.  Where had that come from?   A few minutes, she had been very wary of him, and now she was drooling over him like a silly school girl.  She could not deny he had a pretty face, but he was cocky, and smooth, and struck her as the type of man she really despised.  The type that drank a lot of beer and watched the Man Show, that collected women’s numbers, but never called them after enjoying a night in bed with them.

            “That’d be great,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.  “I’ll let you know next time I go down there.”

            Suzanne merely nodded briefly, and averted her gaze to the patterns on the counter space next to her created by the sun spilling through the open window behind her.

            “Travis!  Travis, honey, are you home?” a female voice called from the hallway outside Suzy’s open door. 

            Suzanne glanced at Travis, a questioning look on her face.  Travis rolled his eyes, then smiled weakly at Suzanne.  He sighed as he hoisted himself up from the amp and strode to her doorway.  He leaned against the frame and hung his head out into the hallway.  “I’m over here, Lilah,” Travis called.

            Curiosity plaguing her, Suzanne jumped off of her counter and came up beside Travis to see who he was talking to.

            “Oh, sweetie, there you are!” the woman cooed.  She was tall and blond, though her eyebrows were quite a few shades darker than her hair, and she wore a loose fitting lavender dress that reached the floor with a shall patterned in light colors draped around her shoulders.  Her artificial-looking hair, that resembled that of a Barbie doll, was drawn up into a messy bun, and she had large gold earrings dangling from each ear.  She had a pretty face, but it seemed to be caked with make-up, and the wrinkles around her eyes revealed that she was older than she wanted to appear.  Much too old, Suzanne thought, to be calling Travis “honey.”  “What are you doing in there?” the woman cried, approaching Suzanne’s apartment.

            “I was helping the new tenant move in,” he explained, as the stranger entered Suzanne’s doorway and glancing in Suzanne’s direction.

            “Hi,” Suzy said softly.  “I’m Suzanne.”

            The woman’s face lit up in excitement.  “How wonderful!” she exclaimed.  “I’m Delilah DeMarco, I live across the hall.”  Delilah turned towards Travis, cocking her head in Suzanne’s direction.  “So what is she?”

            Suzanne opened to her to address Delilah, but was interrupted by Travis.  “Musician, guitar player, and perhaps singer as well, guessing from the mic stand,” he answered.  His eyes darted from Delilah to Suzanne, and he gave her a small smile.  “Like me.”

            “Does she play as beautifully as you do, honey?” Delilah wondered.  Suzanne bit her lip, and watched almost resentfully as the two bantered about her as if she wasn’t standing right next to them.  These people sure weren’t like anyone she’d ever known. 

            Travis laughed uneasily and scratched the back of his head, his eyes straying from Delilah’s stare to Suzanne’s carpet.  “I wouldn’t know, Li, I haven’t even heard her play,” he admitted, glancing quickly in Suzy’s direction, revealing a shy, apologetic smile.  “She did just move in today.”

            Delilah nodded.  “Oh, that’s right,” she murmured.  Then she pasted a fake smile on her lips and looked at Suzanne again.  “Welcome to the building.  I’m sure I’ll see you soon, seeing as how we live so close,” she paused to chuckle at her own joke, “but right now, I must be going.  I’m afraid I’ll have to steal Travis away too.”  She glanced back at Travis and pouted.  “Sweetie, I need some inspiration.  Help me out, won’t you?”  She batted her eyes at him as her lower lip jutted out further, and the sight was sad, but not in the way Delilah had meant for it to.

            Travis sighed.  “Sure, Li,” he agreed unenthusiastically. 

            Delilah clapped once in joyful triumph, then took Travis’ hand and led him out the door. 

            Suzanne just stood there, befuddled.  What had just happened?  Then she sighed and commenced unpacking some of her belongings.  She looked around her empty apartment.  What the hell was she thinking?  She had nothing.  She had a sleeping bag and a pillow to place on the floor for a bed, and would have to keep her clothes in their boxes, because she had no drawers to place them in, and no hangers to set in the closet.  She had a reasonable sum of cash, that would dwindle quickly unless she found a job on the double.  She had no food to store in her refrigerator, and better yet, no dishes or utensils for making and eating food. 

            She sniffed as her eyes began to water, trying to blink back the tears.  She wasn’t going to start her new life with sobs and self pity.  She straitened herself up and hoisted up her biggest box, which contained her clothing, to place in her new small bed room.  She then brought in her sleeping bad and smoothed it out over the floor in the corner farthest from the door, neatly placing her pillow at the head.  She made her way back to her living room, and picked up her box of beauty aids and toiletries, delivering it to the smallest bathroom she’d ever seen.  At least there’s a mirror over the sink, she consoled.  And there is a shower.  No bathtub, but a shower that was the size of a small closet. 

            She returned yet again to the main room in her apartment, and smiled to herself.  At least she had what was important.  She began to set up her music equipment; she plugged her amp into the wall and set her teal green Fender Stratocaster on a guitar stand next to it, tracing a thick black wire from it to the amp.  Then she opened the tattered blue suitcase that she used as a storage space for smaller pieces of her music equipment collection and pulled out her microphone and the cord that fit into the intricate plug at the end of it, and set it into its stand, adjusting it to the right height.  She sighed as she finished the set up, and smiled contently at her work. 

            She decided she was not in the mood to crank her guitar right then, though.  It was her first day, after all, and she didn’t want to disturb her new neighbors quite yet.  And she especially didn’t want the man, who appeared to be oblivious of the past decade, to inform her that she was, yet again, breaking rules.  She surely didn’t need her new landlord, Rosy, to receive any complaints about her on the first day.  So she opened up the last remaining guitar case and pulled out her trusty acoustic guitar.  It’s wood was honey colored and its finish revealed many scratches, hiding the original polished shine it had once flashed.  It also had a small ugly metal switch on the front of it that did absolutely nothing.  The guitar had been her dad’s, which was why she loved and cherished it so, and he had become quite handy with guitar wiring.  He had wanted to place a pickup on the guitar so it could be plugged into an amp, and he thought it would be a great idea to have a switch that turned the pickup on and off.  The insertion of the pickup worked beautifully, but the switch had been wired wrong and made an awful noise when it was used, so her dad disconnected the switch completely.  It now did nothing but make a soft clicking noise when it was pushed back and forth, which Suzy had a habit of doing when she was bored or uninspired. 

            Tracing her fingers over the strings, and plucking them softly, she adjusted the strings so they were in tune.  She ran her callused fingertips over the strings lightly, scraping them to make melodic squeals.  She loved the noise it made.  Her fingers stopped halfway down the neck and she arranged her fingers to form a chord.  She then began to strum softly a song she had written a few years ago, but had always been one of her favorites.  She smoothly slid her fingers along the strings, playing the familiar riff, then licked her lips and began to sing the words softly.  The vocals didn’t exactly match the rhythm of the guitar, but she had formed them to fit into the melody perfectly.  “This roller coaster never ends, I keep reliving all these twists and turns . . . time blends into a blur,” her voice sounded through the empty apartment, filling it with a lush resonance.  The song had been her anthem since she could remember, but she had finally broken the curse she sung of by coming to California, by living out her dream.  “Sweet Amnesia, I’m yours to claim.  Will my mistakes always remain?”  Sometimes this song would make her sad as she played it, realizing the utter truth that lay behind the perfectly formed phrases that flowed poetically in contrast with the guitar’s progression, but this time, it made her feel jubilant and victorious.  She had escaped the vicious cycle of failure by doing all that she’d ever dreamed but never dared to do, until that day. 

            Suzanne stared intently at the frets as her hand slid across the neck of the guitar, spilling out the hauntingly beautiful, yet simple melody, through habit.  She didn’t need to watch her fingering so closely, but when she wasn’t trying to perform, she didn’t put effort into tearing her eyes away from the strings.  “Sweet Amnesia, save me,” her voice pleaded.  “I just want to be.  Sweet Amnesia, claim me.  I just want some hope . . . someday.”  She strummed with more force and resolve, as she played off the riff of the song for the last time, letting the ending chord echo off her walls until the strings ceased their reverberation. 

            “That was really good.”

            The voice startled a gasp from her as her eyes darted up to find Travis standing in her doorway watching her.  She blushed and cast her eyes downward again, setting her guitar aside and pulling herself up from her position on the floor.  “Thanks,” she murmured.  Then as an after thought, she added more so to herself than to Travis, “I gotta remember to close my door.”

            “It was closed,” he admitted.  “Just unlocked.”

            She eyed him.  Every time she started to warm up to him, his creepiness would always resurface.  There was a fine line between friendly and creepy, and he was treading on that line.  “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” she asked.

            He laughed, shaking his head.  “Damn,” he muttered.  “Give me some credit.  I did knock.  You didn’t answer.  I heard the guitar, and figured you couldn’t hear it over your playing, so I tried the door.”

            “Oh,” she mouthed inaudibly.  Then she crinkled her forehead, and looked to him again.  “How long have you been standing there?” she demanded.

            “Long enough to hear a good portion of that song,” he replied, grinning.

            She placed her fists on her hips.  “And you were just gonna come into my apartment and watch me without saying a word?” she cried.

            “I didn’t want to interrupt,” he shrugged.  “I was afraid you’d stop.  If you don’t want people coming in, you should lock your door.”

            “Well, next time I will,” she stated curtly, but she couldn’t hide the smirk on her lips.

            He smiled back and a silence lingered in the air for a moment.  “So . . .” Travis mused, breaking the silence, “I’m gonna take a wild guess and suppose that you don’t have any food here?”

            Suzanne looked at him and hesitated before answering.  “I’m fine, Travis really,” she replied foreseeing the point that his statement was eventually leading to.

            “Oh, come on, it’s getting late, you must be hungry,” Travis pleaded.  “Just come have some dinner with me, we’ll eat, we’ll chat, it’s no big deal.”

            “I’m sorry, I just really don’t think so,” Suzy retained.

            “. . . My treat,” he offered, watching her expectantly.

            Her eyes fixed on his.  What could be the harm in a little dinner?  Free food was free food.  “Fine,” she agreed.

            He laughed heartily.  “What a sad day it is when you can be bought by free food,” he told her, shaking his head disapprovingly.

            She pouted slightly at his comment.  “I could change my mind, you know,” she warned.

            “No, come on,” he whined.  “I can only say that because it’s true of me too.  Hell, a chick buys me food, I’d be her slave.”

            Suzy chuckled.  “I’ll have to remember that.”

Well here’s just a little introduction and the first chapter.  I know it’s starting out kind of slow, but I hope it to get better.  So what do you think, would you like to see me continue this?  Is it boring?  I’ll try to punch out chapter two, which should have a little more storyline and a little less background information, very soon, maybe in the next day or two.  Anyway, please review, it would make me ever-so-happy.  Thanks ;)