7. Reed

7

REED

“LATE JULY” – ZACH brYAN

T he next morning, I awaken to a relentless pulsing in my head.

I mean, this is a deathly hangover—the kind that feels like a throbbing drumbeat echoing through every fiber of your being, making you swear off drinking for life.

Surprisingly, the ache seems to originate in my legs, a dull pang that matches the rhythm of my pounding headache.

Rubbing my eyes open, I struggle to piece together the fragmented memories of the night before. Fuzzy recollections of beer pong and laughter swirl through my mind, mingling with the lingering taste of regret.

As the weight of the morning after settles upon me, I reluctantly become aware of my surroundings, despite the current assault on my body. This is worse than Montezuma’s revenge. This is red wine mixed with beer and Rumple Minze and tequila shots.

Peering groggily to my right, I catch glimpses of quaint houses passing by, their sleepy charm contrasting sharply with my disoriented state. A surge of panic floods through me as I realize I’m still in my work shirt and slacks, riding in the back of Dunn’s car—well, his dad’s car.

The enigmatic girl with no name rides shotgun, and she and Charlie are chatting casually.

“Yeah, I really am getting a lot of Gemini energy out of you,” she’s saying. “I’m not surprised your wife is a libra. Air signs tend to go really well together.”

“Dunn,” I manage to croak out, my voice hoarse and raw. “Where on earth are we?”

“Gooooooood morning!!” Dunn’s booming voice nearly shatters my eardrums as he takes a sip of coffee, his composure a stark juxtaposition to my bewildered state. “Did you manage to get some sleep?” His tone remains nonchalant.

“Where in the world are we?” I demand again.

“Hey, check out that sign!” the girl interjects. “Terre Haute, Indiana: Home of Square Donuts! Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?”

“We’re in Terre Haute?! Guys, tell me the truth.” There’s a pleading tone to my voice. “Tell me we’re not on the way to the concert.”

Charlie catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Do you want me to tell you the truth, or do you want me to tell you we’re not on the way to the concert?”

“Dunn! This is bullshit. I have responsibilities. I have a life. I have a plan I need to stick to, and a daily regimen.” The thought of losing my job and being sixty with no 401k flashes through my mind.

“It’s all good, man.”

“Stop the car.”

“Relax, man.”

“I’m serious! Stop the car!”

“Okay, okay, shit.” Dunn shakes his head. “I’ll get off at the next exit.”

“I think the square donuts are at a gas station,” the girl says. She seems genuinely excited about this prospect.

Jesus fucking Christ. I pull out my phone.

I sent Sam a couple of I love yous late last night—Jesus, we were up at four a.m.?—but she hasn’t responded. Probably sleeping. It’s early on the west coast.

Dunn pulls off at the next exit and into the first gas station we see in Terre Haute, fucking Indiana.

Sure enough, there’s a big marquee sign that says:

Don’t Be a Square, Try Our Square Donuts

Dunn gasses up the car while I jump out to get some air and collect my thoughts, wandering over toward a fence in the parking lot. I feel mildly like I have to vomit, but I’m no puker. The girl heads into the gas station.

A few minutes later Dunn comes over.

“Sorry, man. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.”

“It is.”

“I’m genuinely sorry. We’ll head back.”

“It’s just that I’ve been trying for this promotion, and if I’m not there on the day my boss specifically told me to go into the office, that’s not good, okay? Like, I know this is vacation for you, but this is my real life. You can’t just kidnap me and bring me to this thing.”

“Do you remember what you said last night on the beach?”

“Uh, no?” A lump forms in my throat. We hung out at the beach?

No tequila shots. Ever again.

“Okay. Well, look, we’ll head back.” He looks down at his watch. “The way I drive, if we leave now, we’ll make it there by oh-nine-hundred hours. I’ll even get us back on the interstate. Though you know I hate it.”

“Thanks. This isn’t really the time for the scenic route.” I sigh, taking a moment to collect myself. “What did I say at the beach?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Whatever.” While I’m curious about what my blacked-out self might have said, I’m not curious enough to push Dunn for information right now.

We look over at the high school across the street.

“How did we end up bringing the girl?” I ask.

“You don’t remember the four-a.m. call to Wendy?”

“Dude, I don’t remember anything after the third beer-pong game.”

“The girl insisted on asking my wife for permission.”

“Did we ever get her name?”

Dunn laughs. “You kept calling her Luna and pointing to the moon. You spoke exclusively in Spanish last night for almost an hour.”

Luna—I guess that’s what I call her now—comes into focus as she walks out of the gas station and toward us with a big smile. She’s got sunglasses on and is wearing a blue dress. Must have had a change of clothes with her last night.

She holds up a bag. “Hey, guys, I got you some square donuts!” She takes a big bite of one. “Mmm... They’re really tasty. Want one?”

“I’m not a big carb guy,” I tell her.

Dunn takes one. “Don’t be a square, man. Try one.” He shoves the bag at me. “You’ve got two choices man. Eat the square donut, we go to Lexington Kentucky, and your world will never be the same after this weekend with the two of us. Clearly, this is a life changing opportunity. Or, chuck your donut in the garbage. I’ll drive you back to Chicago, let life go on like normal. We’ll forget we ever got hammered with some random girl whose name we don’t even know and offered to give her our spare ticket to the festival.”

Luna laughs. “I didn’t realize it until Dunn put it like that, this is huge. This is like you’re Neo in the Matrix huge, except with square donuts instead of a red pill. Your life could completely change as a result of this weekend.”

I frown. “Dunn, I can’t. I…have to work. Really.”

He sighs. “All right. Well, I’m gonna grab something in there for the ride back to Chicago.”

Dunn walks into the gas station, leaving me with Luna, and I stare at the donuts I’m now holding. The sun has just peeked up over the trees. Looking at her and her square donut, I think about my work responsibilities.

Why am I being such a square?

One of my best friends of all time is begging me to go to a festival with him, and here I am making up this story in my head about how important work is.

Hell, my boss isn’t even going to be there today.

What am I gonna regret when I’m sixty? Not taking a trip with my best friend? Or sliding out of work on a Friday?

I mull that over while I take the donut and ape a huge bite. “Damn, these are fresh.”

Luna smiles. “I knew you’d like them. They’re super delicioso.”

“You speak Spanish?” I ask her.

She giggles. “You really don’t remember last night. My dad is Mexican. Mom is…well she’s a bunch of different stuff. But you definitely speak great Spanish. I was impressed.”

Okay, so I know I have a girlfriend, and I’m not supposed to be swayed by the charm of another woman. But something in the girl with no name’s voice in this moment, eating square donuts with her, is making me strongly consider this road-trip adventure after all.

As I chew my bite, I look over at the football field across the street and flash back to the best times of high school. I knew how to seize the day back then.

Something comes over me. When I’m old and gray, am I going to regret missing one day in the office or a concert adventure with Dunn and this girl?

“Fuck it, I’m in,” I announce with my mouth full.

“You want another one?” She holds out a second donut, this one chocolate glazed. “They’re so good once you start.”

“Yeah. And I’m in for the whole thing. Let’s go to the concert.”

“Really?” Her eyes light up. She jumps forward to wrap her arms around my neck in a hug, but backs off immediately. “Sorry. That was involuntary. I know you’re not a big hug guy. You said that last night.”

“I’m not,” I confirm.

“Well…sorry.”

Dunn comes out of the shop with a few bags of chips in his hands, and we meet at the car.

“Fuck it,” I tell him. “I’m in.”

“You are?” He looks like a kid at Christmas.

“I am.”

“Hell yeah!” He holds up a hand for me to high five.

I shake my head. “I’m still mad. Not gonna high five you right now. I need to sleep off this hangover. Which I can’t do because I’m gonna have to work from the car on this drive.”

“Fuck yeah, Walker! Let’s hit it. I love you, buddy. I knew you’d come through.”

“Just give me a moment. I need to grab something from the gas station to hydrate. How many hours to Lexington?”

Once we’re back on the road, I fire up my laptop and hotspot from the backseat. On our way out of Terre Haute, we drive by another sign that says Boot City.

“Well, we have to stop there if we’re going to a country concert,” Luna says.

“I thought this wasn’t country, it’s Zach Bryan? Now it is a country concert?”

“Stop worrying so much about labels, bro,” Dunn says.

He pulls off the road into a place named Boot City, and I don’t know how it happens, but I end up dropping three hundred dollars in that store. We all come out with new boots, cowboy hats, and some fresh jeans and short sleeve shirts. I have a fresh change of clothes now—jeans and a t-shirt.

The Red Lemons play on the car stereo as we drive through southern Indiana, and I work in the backseat. Maybe it’s the hangover, but I’m paranoid now. Would they fire me for blatantly disobeying Hal’s work-from-home order? No, surely they wouldn’t.

Eventually Dunn switches the music to Zach Bryan. I know he’s trying to convince me this was a good idea.

“Good shit, right?” he says, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

“I admit he’s got some good lyrics. It’s like poetry. Not typical country.”

“We’ll convert you yet.” He winks.

Luna turns around. “How’s work?”

“Busy. How’s the book?” I point to her lap. She’s reading The Body Keeps The Score. “I tried to read that once, but it was so dense.”

“It’s part of my whole rebirth journey,” she says. “I’m learning about trauma.”

“Oh.”

“So back to your job. Do you like it? I think I heard you saying you work in tech.”

I shrug. “Pays the bills. It’s stable. I’m grateful.”

“So what’s your girlfriend like?”

“She’s…smart. Pretty. Kind. All the things you want in a woman. She’s absolutely special.”

“Where is she now again?”

“Grad school in California. She’s finishing her MBA.”

“When was the last time you got to see her?”

“Couple of months ago. I went out there.”

“When was the time you two were the most together? Physically, I mean.”

“Probably in college.”

“You lived together in college?”

“No. We were long distance then, too. She went to Purdue, and I went to this small liberal arts school in Indiana so I could run track.”

“Rad. So have you ever been together in the same place?”

I think for a moment. “For a few months at most. She was here for the summer between our senior year of college and when I left for the Peace Corps. We were living with our parents.”

“Oh.”

“Is that normal?”

“What’s normal?” she asks. “Nothing is, really.”

“Long distance is tough. I’m looking forward to the future. I don’t live for the now. I’ve got the secure job. The good girl. I’m headed in the right direction.”

Luna turns all the way around and rests her chin on the back of the seat. “Hopefully this isn’t too personal…”

“Okay.”

“But…are you happy?”

“Come again?”

“You don’t exactly light up when you talk about your future. You bring more of a doing-this-because-I- have-to energy. You’re not pumped to do it.”

“What else is there? You get the girl, you get the job, you get married. That’s the key to life. Dunn, back me up.”

“It’s simple, really,” Dunn says. “People try to overcomplicate shit and look for enlightenment around the next corner. But life’s about balance, too.”

I nod. “Everyone wants to look for the next best thing—the next girl, that special job. But true happiness—enduring happiness, the kind that lasts a lifetime—takes work to build. You’re not going to find it by downloading the latest app or by getting drunk and escaping your problems.”

“You’re not totally wrong,” Dunn adds. “But also? Concert festivals are better than therapy.”

I blow out a breath and make a quiet noise in my throat.

“What was that?” Luna asks.

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing to me.”

I realize right then that I like her. There’s some ineffable quality about her that draws me in. She doesn’t let those little reactions go unnoticed.

“I’m just thinking about my roommate,” I tell her. “I feel sorry for him. His breakup devastated him, and he’s not exactly going about things the right way. He keeps trying to contact his ex, and meanwhile, he dates a new girl every week. Even every day. Sleeping with someone new isn’t going to fill the hole in his soul. He’s got to—shit. My boss is messaging me.”

“Damn,” Luna says.

“I know.”

“No, I meant, damn because I’m thinking about what you said, not your work. I’m not judging what people do at all—by the way—but you’re, like, a good man.”

I snort, thinking about me and Dunn’s antics back in the day. “I don’t know about that.”

“No. You are. I can tell.” She turns around, and I think I see her wipe a tear.

“Ya okay there, groupie?” Dunn asks.

“It’s hard to explain. I just haven’t had that much luck with men.”

Hal: You around?

Reed: Of course

He FaceTimes me.

Of course Hal wants to FaceTime me today.

“Guys, we have to pull over to a coffee shop or something,” I say, trying not to panic.

“A coffee shop?” Dunn laughs. “Dude, we’re in the middle of rural fucking Indiana. There’s no fucking way. Just tell him you’re on the road.”

I let my boss’s call go to voicemail.

He calls again.

“Turn the music down, for the love of God.”

I triple check to make sure I have my generic background on, rather than the camera, and answer the call on my work laptop.

“Hey, Reed.” Hal frowns. “Where are you? There’s a weird whirring noise.”

Hal’s camera is on, and he clearly has a massive vacation home with a lake in the background.

“Not in Florida.” I chuckle. Jesus, he lives in a big house.

“You were supposed to be in the office today. Are you in the office?”

“Uhhh…” I clear my throat. “What did you say? I can’t hear you too well. The internet must be slow today.”

He frowns. “Okay. Well, I need you to go through and call all of Lennie’s customers about their renewals today.”

“Mmm, okay.”

“Is there a problem?” he asks.

“It’s just that I already have a big list of things to take care of, and Lennie’s not the only one I need to prioritize.”

“We’re all team players here. You’re a team player, aren’t you?” He continues before I can answer. “I’m gonna need you to get that done by the end of today. Mmmkay?”

I pull up Lennie’s client list. “Uh, Lennie has over two hundred clients. And some of these renewals haven’t even been sent. Looks like Lennie is behind on them. So I’d have to do the renewals as well. This is going to take…a while.”

“Which is why you’re the man to do it! Well, I have to roll. And next time I call, you’d better be on camera. Are you sure you’re in the office? If you’re not, I’ll have to bring in Phil Decker from HR. Or even Sebastian Jones.”

My blood curdles. “That’s not necessary.”

“If you’re not onsite, you’re breaking company policy. So I’m afraid it is.” I hear a woman’s voice in the background. “In any case, have a nice weekend. Get that done for Lennie.”

Dunn fake-sneezes and says, “Asshole.”

My stomach churns. I cough loudly to try to cover up Dunn’s not-veiled-enough insult, but it just makes it seem like even more like I’m messing with Hal.

Hal narrows his eyes. “Do you think this is some kind of joke?”

“Joke? No, sir.”

“We’re definitely going to have a discussion on Monday in the office—well, I’m not back in the office until Wednesday, but you know what I mean. Get that list done.”

“Will do.” I grind my teeth together as I hang up. “Dunn, seriously?”

He shakes his head, eyes on the road. “Seriously, fuck that guy. I’m in the military, and I’d never humiliate my subordinates like that. He sucks.”

“So…you going to make all those calls?” Luna asks. “Or are you going to play us a song?” She nods toward my guitar next to me in the backseat.

“I’m more of a hobbyist than a musician. It makes me nervous to play in front of people I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” Dunn says. “He writes his own songs. They’re fucking good.”

Luna takes off her sunglasses with a hint of a curious smile. “I thought you were more of a square. You write?”

“I dabble.”

“Play me something. Please?”

I shake my head. “Gotta make these calls.”

“Fine. Can you put on ‘Late July,’ Charlie?” Luna says. “This drive just feels like that song.”

Luna hums softly as we continue our drive. She’s got a pretty voice.

As we journey farther southeast, the scenery undergoes a remarkable transformation. A vibrant tapestry of rolling hills and lush greenery unfolds, stretching as far as the eye can see.

Luna, nestled comfortably in a sunbeam streaming through the car window, drifts into a peaceful nap, her rhythmic breathing a soothing backdrop to the melodic strains of Zach Bryan’s “Late July” filling the car. The beautiful melody weaves its way through the air, encapsulating the essence of summer with its bittersweet lyrics.

Luna nailed it; today really does feel like that song. There’s something about when the days are technically getting shorter, but you’re still fully in the throes of long, lazy summer.

Okay, I’m not fully there, but I might be coming around to Zach Bryan.

As we traverse the winding roads—Dunn’s favorite—snippets of local life begin to dot the countryside. Small towns come into view, interspersed with long swaths of greenery peppered with horses, inviting us to delve deeper into the heart of the Bluegrass State.

Luna stirs. “Are we almost there, guys?”

“Just about. Another hour. Maybe less,” Dunn says.

She points toward a white house on a hill, with horses grazing in a field in front of it. “It’s so beautiful. Look at these houses.”

“Probably costs less than my rent in Chicago, too.”

She turns to me and reaches out to tap my cross necklace.

“What’s that from?”

Her inquiry sparks a cascade of memories. “I got it during a time when I was going through some stuff.”

“What stuff? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well…” I shut my laptop, ready to be done with work for the day. I made a few calls and some progress on the litany of tasks Hal wanted me to complete, but I didn’t come close to getting everything done. That’s a Monday problem, though. “My cousin and I started a band right out of college. We played shows around Chicago for about a year. And then he died in a car accident. We were all set to go with our families on a trip to Ireland—that’s where some of our great-grandparents were born —and then he died.” It happened years ago now, and it’s not a story I typically tell anymore. I can feel myself getting choked up thinking about the good times we had and where we thought we were headed together with the band.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry.” She seems so sincere.

I sigh. “Yeah, it was devasting. I’ve mostly worked through it, I think. But we’d started this band together. So that dream ended. And the trip our families had booked to Ireland never happened either. I’d had this plan to buy a Celtic cross while I was there, but since I never made it to Ireland, I bought this at an Irish shop in Oak Park—right outside the city—as a sort of consolation prize. It’s more a symbol to me than some announcement that I’m a devout religious follower.”

“But do you believe in God?” she asks.

“That’s a tough question.”

“Well, do you?”

“I went through a big atheist phase in the Peace Corps. Read all the atheist books. You know Richard Dawkins?”

She shakes her head. “Who’s that?”

“He’s this famous English biologist who made the principal argument for the atheist movement starting back in the seventies. And I don’t know if I believe in God, but I do know when I was having a really tough winter after my cousin died, I went to my grandpa and asked him what his biggest regret in life was.”

“What did he say?”

“He said his greatest disappointment was that none of his children go to church. I asked why that disappointed him, since all his kids are good people, and he said, ‘Do you believe in God? Do you think everything in this beautiful world just got thrown up against the wall and it stuck?’”

“Damn. I got chills when you said that.”

“So what about you? Do you believe in God?”

“Yes. I went through something and…I won’t get into the details. But I do.”

“I’m curious, obviously.”

“It’s very personal. But I believe in all those concepts from the bible—faith, divine intervention, love and compassion, the power of prayer. It’s at least one place we can source those concepts from.”

“Fair enough. But one more thing—you were asking about my girlfriend. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s your story? You don’t have a boyfriend?”

“You know, I’m a little too tired to have this conversation. I think I’m going to nap until we get there, since I’m sure we have a big night ahead of us.” She glances at my cross again, then nestles back into her seat and pulls her hat over her head.

As we continue to ride together, I think about how Dunn is on his own little journey right now. And Luna certainly is searching for something.

I guess I’m looking for something too, but I’m not sure what. Adventure, maybe? Something to shake up my life?

“Late July” plays again—Dunn apparently can’t get enough of the song—and I look up at Luna, breathing softly, refusing to tell me about her past.

I can tell she’s not sleeping, though.