Just a Girl Read Free

still suspicious.
    “Go grab your name tag and get your Continental on.”
    I went to the front of the store again and slipped behind the registers looking for the small plastic basket where everyone ditched their name tags at the end of the day. It was right where I knew it would be, and I sifted through the pile until I found mine at the bottom. And there it was: PRESLEY . Forever off-center.
    Name tag as metaphor.
    I couldn’t quite bear to put the tag on yet, but I carried it with me to the back of the store, where I knew I’d find Todd lurking somewhere among the guitars. Todd had been at Continental as long as I could remember. He was in his fifties by now, and looked every inch the aging musician. Gray ponytail and beard, jeans that were legitimately distressed over years of wear, and always a band T-shirt of some kind. When I found him, I wasn’t surprised to see he was wearing one of his favorites—Pink Floyd, “The Dark Side of the Moon.”
    “Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ,” he said when he saw me. “Presley Mason. The prodigal daughter returns. That’s some hair, kid.”
    I’d gone from an artificially light blonde to fire-engine red after I moved back from L.A. “I needed a change.”
    “I bet. Damn, girl, we have missed you around here.” He laughed and held me by the shoulders for a moment, as if he couldn’t really believe what he was seeing, before grabbing me into a bear hug. “For what it’s worth, those guys don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground, Presley,” he said softly. “Fuck them.”
    I squeezed him. “Thanks.”
    Todd released me and propped his fists on his hips. “So, I hear you’re back at the Continental.”
    I nodded with resignation. “Looks that way.”
    “For how long?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. A while.” It was true, I couldn’t be sure. But right now, it sure felt like forever.
    “You gotta get back on the horse, kid. Don’t let a couple of jackasses keep you away from music.”
    “Yeah,” I said noncommittally. “I just need some time to figure out what I’m doing next.”
    Todd looked at me thoughtfully, long enough that I had to look away.
    “So, uh, what kind of help you need around this place anyway?”
    He smiled. “I got just the right job for you.”
    “Does it involve a dust mop and the acoustic room?”
    “Aw, Presley, it’s like you never even left.”
    —
    It was either amazing or pathetic how easy it was to slip back into the routine at the Continental. There was inventory to manage, displays to clean, phone calls to answer, and endless customer questions. Although there were a few new brands or models out since I’d last been an employee, most of the instruments’ specs were burned into my memory. It was like the needle of my turntable slipped into the grooves of my brain and out came the words stored there.
    By lunchtime, I’d already made a sale on a pretty decent electric guitar. Todd high-fived me as soon as the customer was out of sight.
    “You still got it, girl.”
    My momentary thrill of victory was dampened a bit by the thought that I was facing an interminable future of high fives over the sale of who knew how many instruments. Was singing not my actual fate? Was I born to sell other musicians their dreams?
    After lunch most of the instrument teachers started to make their way in. Their schedules tended to be heaviest in the hours right after school, and most of them didn’t even start work until mid-afternoon.
    The teachers turned over a lot. They came and went as they got gigs touring with this band or working as a studio musician for that producer. A lot of them were just biding their time until they could find another way to support themselves as musicians. Then there were the die-hards, of course. The career teachers. They’d been there as long as I could remember, and some of them had even been my own teachers.
    I heard a lot of prodigal-daughter jokes.
    The customer traffic tended to pick up after