On Being the Other Woman, Pt. 1

Archive: November 2nd, 2022

I'm going to tell you a secret. Someone in my life cannot know that I am writing this. Should he ever stumble upon it, I'll know it the next time he looks me in the eye. 

Back in June, I met this guy. I didn't think anything of him at first. My band had recently decided to replace our drummer and we posted an ad, hopeful that we'd find someone new, someone who would fit seamlessly in with our four-pack. 

I remember when he was just a name that our keyboard player mentioned one day after practice. "We have three guys coming in next week to play with us." He was just a guy who answered an ad. An ad for a drummer. He had an old-fashioned name. Sturdy, like you could balance a cup of coffee on it and you’d never have to worry about it betraying you. 

When this guy walked into the rehearsal room a week later, he almost didn't register. He was tall, he had a shaved head. He was polite and confident, maybe a little quiet. He dressed like a good kid, a little crunchy, like a New Englander. The footwear and the modest clothing. He didn't feel like the kind of guy I'd want. 

He was good. More than that, really. He picked up the songs quickly, instinctually. He seemed unproblematic and happy to play. So we took a vote. He was in. 

Somewhere between our first and second rehearsals with the new drummer, I became aware of his eyes behind me. Like that human sense that tells you when there is a ghost in the room with you. The space felt different with him in it. I'd sit in bed in the dark after practice, watching the videos over from hours before and notice him staring right at me. Every week, something was shifting. I felt it even if I didn't understand it yet. 

I started taking longer to get ready for my rehearsals on Monday nights. I wore my hair up, then down. On the day that we tried his first cover song suggestion, we were watching nature videos on the big screen. I was telling our guitarist about the squirrel politics and he inserted himself. "Squirrels love seeds, that's what I'm getting from this." I giggled like a teen. I felt hot before playing the song, like I might break out in hives at any moment. It was a little rocky. But the quiet guy spoke up, complimenting me, and I decided I wanted to believe him. I decided I really liked my name in his mouth. 

He started getting more confident. He'd talk to me, crack the occasional joke. He was finding his voice in that room, his place in our lineup. When I like someone, I find it very difficult to look them in the eye. I kept my eyes forward, interacting only, mainly, with the guys to my right and left. It felt bold to turn my body around to face him, direct my comments to him in particular. But every practice, I'd do it once. I'd meet his eyeline and quickly spin back around. I asked how his Canada Day was and he'd ask about mine. We'd joke about switching places, me on drums, and he'd hold the sticks out to me, smiling earnestly. 

He started to show us who he was a few weeks in. He came in with a fresh tattoo on the side of his calf, pulling the tape to the side to show us the face of a beautiful girl. One day, he came in carrying a large helmet. He had a motorcycle. I started to realize that I may have read him wrong. This guy wasn't as innocent as he had appeared. I knew virtually nothing of his life, but I got nervous now on Monday nights. 

One night after practice, we stood around in the parking lot in a circle, talking about the plan for our first open mic. We would play at a bar downtown the following week. I'd never played anywhere in a city this big. This was new for me, and I didn't know what to expect. One of the guys said this bar was attached to a Tilted Kilt. I made a face and they said it was like Hooters. "Like the lifted skirt," our drummer said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. 

We talked about the new songs that we wanted to learn before next practice. 

"So you have a motorcycle?" I said to him, while the guys talked on in the background. 

"I do. I'll show you if you want." 

"What if you fall off?" 

"It wouldn't be good!" 

"So you're like a badass?" our guitarist said. 

He made a face, "ehh", gesturing with his hand. It appeared he kind of was. 

We said goodbye and walked off in our different directions. I rounded the corner and found him on his bike, in line outside the gas station. I gave a small wave as I walked closer to him, realizing I'd have to pass right by him. He gestured back. 

"Don't fall off," I said, passing him. He nodded. 

We had a Zoom call before the open mic to talk about a band name. We needed one before we could start playing out in public. The four of us had gone over it for weeks before the new drummer joined. We didn't realize how difficult it would be to find something that we all loved equally. The drummer gave one suggestion one day after practice, casually, and everyone seemed to just immediately like it. It became the one to beat. We each entered five of our own favourites into a Google doc and signed onto Zoom to battle it out in the final ultimate death match. 

I fixed my hair twenty times and sat cross-legged in a chair, holding a blanket in my lap, and signed on. We voted on each other's suggestions, one at a time. Only offering votes to ones that we liked. He voted for one of mine, More Than Friends. I didn't forget about that. In the end, it came down to two names. One was his, and one was mine. His name won, and I knew it would. But I liked it too. It had been growing on me. Now we were a real band with a name. We could tell people about this thing that we spent every Monday night working on. He asked if any of us were going to bring people to the open mic. A few people piped up, saying they'd bring their wives, a handful of friends who might pass through. 

"Yeah, I think I'll bring my girlfriend, maybe a few other people," he said. I hadn't known anything about his life. This was the first time I'd heard him bring her up and I just concentrated on not letting my face fall in an obvious way while I was still on camera. It made sense that he had a girlfriend. The ones that I like always do. 

The following Monday, we met up at the bar to sign up. I was sitting at a table with the three other guys when he walked in, towing a small, breezy girl behind him. She had black hair and wore no obvious makeup. She wore shorts and a tank top and she radiated youth. I still didn't know how old he was. It never came up. He shook everyone's hand. When he got to me, he acted like he didn't know what to do. I told him to shake my hand. He did, hesitantly. He introduced her and I forgot her name. She walked out, saying she'd be back. 

We moved to a booth and ordered a beer. Someone asked more about his tattoo. I wondered now if it was supposed to be his girlfriend. 

"It's a siren."

Fuck. That just made me like him more. 

"I'm scared of the ocean," he said. He talked about how it wasn't really the aquatic life, but just the unimaginable depth of it. He looked at me the whole time. I just stared at him and wondered how I could say what I had to say without sounding like I just wanted to agree. I had felt this all my life. The ocean remains one of my favourite parts of being alive, but it scares me beyond compare. I told him I understood. That I felt that too. 

His girlfriend returned while the host played the warm-up songs. She brought a friend, a boy who didn't say much. The songs went well. One older jazz standard and an upbeat favourite. I didn't forget the words. The guys got to hear me introduce us for the first time. I got to say our band name like it was all real and so were we. I was up there for the people in front of me but I couldn't ignore the fact that my focus was on the one just behind me. It felt like I was performing for him. 

After our songs, we got to relax into the music of everybody else. We returned to the booth and ordered another beer. He sat beside me with his girlfriend and her friend to his right. I asked how they all knew each other. 

"From our old job," he said, gesturing toward his young girlfriend. She said she knew the guy from university, and nobody said anything else. They went outside and he came back with a hint of weed lingering on his skin. On his dark thermal shirt. I wanted to know this person but I wasn't allowed to. I noticed his long thin fingers wrapped around a glass. The beauty in his profile. 

Every musician that took the stage was great. I felt warm and content sitting in a booth with my band for the first time. This was mine. I drank my beer and danced beside him, just a little. I watched him watch the performers, examining the side of his face for the first real time. He'd turn and whisper to me about the songs we just heard. The mishaps at the start. I heard his girlfriend say "I hate it" to her friend and they both laughed, nodding. Then the drummer would turn to me, comment on something they did well and see how I felt. He'd see me already smiling and clapping. I just felt honoured to be there, a part of it all. I was in awe of everyone. 

Our legs touched and he didn't try to move away. There was room. We just held like that for a while, with his girlfriend on the other side of him. 

I've heard it before, if you like someone and want to find out if they are interested, touch them in some way when you're beside them. Press your arm lightly into theirs, see if they move it. It turns out, there may be some truth to this.

If this would be the only way I'd ever touch him, it could be enough. I told myself that, and I believed it. The next day, I would text my friend about that moment. I wondered if something might be beginning. For now, it was enough to be a part of the space that he took up, to be next to it. 

There has been many a boy before him who was used to prove some point to myself that I'm worthy of being here on earth and he was going to be no exception. 

I walked to the subway and thought about his tattoo: a siren. A singer who lures men to their deaths. I smirked on the way home because he had no idea what was about to happen to him. 

As the weeks went on, I looked forward to practices so that I could see him. I'd barely talk to him, but it was enough to share the room. For open mics, he started recommending the songs that he knew I liked the most. In practice, he'd ask what I wanted to sing. He'd make little comments. "I think she's hitting it pretty good" after trying a new song. The first night that we tried "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, I didn't know how they would react. I was excited but a little nervous. After the first run-through, our guitarist said "I think that's the best first go of a song that we have had yet." I said "yeah, because you guys know it so well."

"Good for you though, man! I was thinking.. I don't know if she's a rocker," said the drummer. I faced front and smiled. He was a metal guy. It felt good to impress him. 

In our band group chat, we'd sometimes let ourselves flirt. It felt more comfortable when he wasn't staring at me. If I couldn't make a rehearsal, I'd tell them to go on without me.

"You're our centerpiece!" he'd say. 

If everyone was uncharacteristically quiet for more than two days, I'd ask them to send proof that they were alive. 

"Proof," he'd write back. 

When he sent us pictures of the rabbit in his yard that went along with our band name, I was waiting in line for my booster shot. 

"My daily visitor," he said. 

"Are you a princess?"

He sent a gif. "I'll never tell." 

"Okay, Cinderella"

(Cinderella gif). 

Sometimes, I felt like the guys could tell. But it didn't stop anything. 

We played our second open mic at The Painted Lady. It was a small, dark bar with outdoor seating and picture frames lining the walls. It was a place with regulars. The really good acts performed there and we were just starting out. We probably didn't belong yet, but we did it anyway. The guys were all sitting at two tables along the far wall. His girlfriend was there with her friend. But she looked different.

"Did you shave your head? You're so cool!" I said. 

She laughed and took off her baseball cap. The drummer had convinced her to do it, she said. Now they matched. My heart sank because I couldn't think of a greater love than the one that inspires a girl to shave her head to match her boyfriend. My crush was probably doomed. 

I talked to her and her friend more at the bar and learned that she went to school for neuroscience. Fuck. She was nice, too. We talked about my hometown and she said the drummer went up there to snowboard sometimes. Funny, me too. But it had been years. 

Two guys took the stage and asked if there was a drummer in the house. They needed a third to complete their set. Ours walked up without hesitation and played a song he hadn't practiced, and he did it well. I sometimes couldn't believe the confidence of this kid. 

I took a series of short walks around the block before we went on to make sure that I remembered the lyrics. I wanted to make the guys proud. 

The crowd liked us and it gave us more confidence. We sat outside at a picnic table and talked with our guitarist's friends. Everybody ordered more beers. Our keyboard player announced that someone had followed us on Instagram after our set. "Guys, I am a salesman," I said. I asked the drummer what he thought about our songs and he said they fucked up the middle section but no one noticed. "You did great, though." 

The guitarist asked how old the new guys were, the drummer and the bassist who had recently joined.

"I'm '96," said the drummer. My eyes widened. He was 5 years younger than me, and the kid made me extremely nervous. The bassist said the same which shocked every single one of us with eyes. He was a quiet, Italian man with a wife, a full beard, and cool, European-looking glasses and we all thought he was ten years older than he was. 

I tried to convince myself that the crush should end there. I never liked people younger than me. Not really. Harvard was one exception, and that was only a year. I was thirty-one. I should be looking for the real deal. But maybe the idea of someone tenderly shaking me awake in the morning still scared me too much to look for that. Even though I'd done it, I'd done it perfectly, for years. I'd had that, and then had it again. But I couldn't deny the fact that despite what I continued to tell myself that I was looking for, what I found often looked very different. 

He turned to me. "Are you a 90's baby?" 

I smiled shyly, "'91." I watched as he did the math. 

We kept practicing every week, adding new songs, faster than we had before. I'd still play the drum beat on my thighs behind the mic. He'd still give me a beat to dance to. He could make me dance whenever he wanted. There was always so much sexy potential in that. 

He was finding out all these little pieces of me, without really trying. Just by being there, observing it. He got to see me all dressed up. He heard the jokes I made at the guitarist's expense, he got to see other people watch me. Support me. When we worked on our first original song, he heard the words that I wrote. He was finding out that I could write, he was finding out about the things that hurt me, what made me move. I was learning about him one layer at a time. It is a unique experience to get to know someone through their passion. You see the biggest parts right away. Everything smaller, the minute details, come later. It was always the opposite with everyone else. 

On a Saturday morning, the drummer suggested a new song for us to try in the chat. It was different than anything that we were playing already. It felt like a stoner song and I really liked it. I liked that he'd picture me on it and think I could do it. He said all the basic girls would love it. 

"I like it!" I said. 

"(Wait I'm not basic)"

"No way, you sing in a band! Way past basic." 

One night, we all showed up too late to play the open mic at Handlebar. We decided to sit outside and get a little drunk instead. I was wearing a thin, green summer dress with tie straps and tan strappy heels. I felt pretty. He showed up later than the rest of us and sat across from me. I talked about the guy at the door who carded me and made me feel like a youth.

"If you never want to get carded again, just shave your head," the drummer said. I told him that I played the drums at the last rehearsal when he had to skip out to work a night shift. I said it was harder than I thought it would be. 

"It took me ten years!" he said. "I'll teach you." 

We talked about the new song that he wanted us to play. 

"Yeah, I like it," I said, again. 

"I thought you would... you're not basic," he added, before I could. 

"But you like it, what does that make you?"

"I'm a basic girl," he said, touching his chest, smirking. 

Someone mentioned that I was an out-of-towner. 

"You're from Vermont? I've been to Vermont," he said. 

"Do you ski or snowboard?" (I knew the answer already).

"Snowboard."

"Me too."

"Really? Do you do all the jumps and stuff?" 

"Obviously, what do you think? No." 

"Well, you're from Vermont!" 

He asked if I'd been to a specific mountain out here and I said I'd never gone in Ontario. 

We talked about one of our covers, "Portions for Foxes" by Rilo Kiley. It was the song of my high school years. At some point, we started saying that the drummer hated it and it just stuck. The guitarist said he liked playing it and the drummer said, "yeah, me too."

"You fucking liar," I said, and they all laughed. "I keep trying to let it go but then you say stuff like that." 

"I like the song, and I like this joke we have going," he said. 

Our guitarist always blushed and giggled a little when we played that song. It is overtly sexual and features some heavy breathing. 

I asked what he did for work. "I'm a millwright. I'm in the trades." 

Anyone who knows me knows that it makes perfect sense that I'd like a guy in the trades. Flat pencils galore. I was starting to realize that I fell for them before I even knew what they did! They just kept finding me! 

"You're a teacher, right? I thought you were a teacher." I knew that he thought this from the classroom photo I'd sent a few weeks earlier when I was working a school event. I talked about my publishing job. 

"How do you like working from home?" he asked. This was the most we had talked about personal details. He mostly knew me from the back of my head and the sexual songs that I liked to play. 

We talked about how we were both morally against TikTok. The keyboard player asked the drummer for his girlfriend's name, saying he always forgot people's names. She was noticeably absent. 

The drummer put his hand on his chest, "I'm [     ], this is Tessa." 

The keyboard player mentioned us all hanging out soon on a weekend. 

"Oh, you guys wants to be friends?" he said.

"Yeah, and you have to agree to it," I said. He stared at me.

The bass player left early and I joked that we should text him to tell him we were on. That a few acts cancelled and we were going to go up soon. 

"I like your style, Tessa."

I stayed late with the drummer and the keyboard player. They took turns holding up their hands, showing their bent pinkies. They both shared this unique physical abnormality. I held my hands up to show my straight fingers all in a line and asked if it made them uncomfortable. 

"No, it makes me jealous! I can't cup water," he said. We all laughed.

I got up to walk to the subway with the keyboard player. The drummer lingered like he wondered if we might hug, but I started in the other direction. It's always easier for me to walk away when I start to feel too much. We said goodnight from across the street. 

We returned to Handlebar the following week and made it on the list this time. We were going to play two harder rock songs tonight, ending with "Portions for Foxes". He showed up a little late and sat on the stool beside me. He was wearing an oversized Burton sweatshirt and it caught the attention of my New Englander brain. I stared at the ear plugs that he wore on a string around his neck. He always wore them to play. I loved it. 

I was sitting behind him when I realized that I had almost touched him a few times. I kept almost reaching for him and I couldn't understand why. It's like I felt like I was allowed to. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck. It's like that was the whole reason I'd shown up that night. 

The place was loud. He turned to whisper something to me about the guy onstage looking like the singer from The Smashing Pumpkins. It felt really good when he was that close to me. I turned around and saw my friend and her sister walk through the door and I jumped up to hug them. I hadn't invited anyone to come and watch me yet. I felt too new, but I'd told her the week before on a whim because I was trying to make myself ready before I was ready. And I wanted her there. We hadn't talked about it in a few days, so I didn't know. I thanked her and kissed her cheek and introduced her around. 

The drummer walked up to the bar and stood beside me. "Tessa, who are your friends?" I liked it that he took an interest.

My friend and I walked to the washroom and shared the one-person room like we used to do at all the bars in university. 

"Isn't he cute?" I asked, while she faced the wall. She knew about the situation. She'd heard about his leg pressing up against mine beneath the table. 

I walked back to the subway with my friend and her sister and they commented on how much they liked them. 

"I like that I feel like I can be myself," my friend said. I said something to her sister about this minor crush that I was possibly in the process of developing on my drummer and she told me that she had felt a vibe. I found that interesting. I was always wondering if it was in my head. After I learned about his girlfriend, saw his hand on her hip in the booth beside us, was he really flirting with me at all? 

I'd walk around my apartment, practicing the songs before rehearsal, singing in my kitchen: "you're bad news. Baby, you're bad news" (Rilo Kiley). I'd think about him. I always wondered if that song made him think about me when I'd sing it with my back to him: "there's a pretty young thing in front of you, and she's real pretty and she's real into you, and then she's sleeping inside of you" (Rilo Kiley). 

He'd make little comments to me when I wouldn't turn around to talk to him.

"Tessa, can we just tune up real quick?" he'd say when they all took a break mid-way through a rehearsal. He'd hit the sticks lightly on the snare and smile up at me. He'd always encourage me when I made fun of our guitarist for whatever off-colour thing he'd just said. This time, he joked that playing "You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse made him uncomfortable because it talked about infidelity. 

"You can go home if you want," I said. 

"You tell him, Tessa." 

He still didn't talk much during practice. But he would always talk to me. We'd play "Portions" and he'd say "this is my favourite song now," "we're going to hit people in the face with this song." He knew I always liked it. He walked back in after break smelling like weed, but no one else seemed to notice. I turned around to him slowly.

"I know what you did." 

"What I did? I play the drums." 

After practice, we stood outside near the steps and talked about this new rehearsal space. He was always considerate of what I felt. 

"Do you like it, though?" he'd ask, when everyone was saying how easy it was to get there. We talked about hours for the next month of practices and he'd ask, "does that work for you?" 

I was walking toward the bus stop with the keyboard player beside me and the drummer pulled up next to us on his bike. But when he slowed, the bike stalled, and he had to restart it. I could tell he got a little flustered. Then we watched him take off, leaning heavily on the back wheel to gain back his momentum. His front tire was high in the air. I remember thinking, I don't know that he would have done that if the keyboard player walked alone. It felt like a statement. He wanted our attention. 

That weekend, we all decided to meet up in a park. One guy brought the blanket, one guy brought the games. We played Red Flags and each took turns picking the ideal date for each member of the band. The drummer sat beside me and plead his case for why I should pick his guy with the best characteristics that he thought that I would care about. We spent the rest of the night at the Craft Beer Market playing bocce ball and I had fun bending down in front of him every time my turn rolled around. We got competitive at corn hole and I talked a lot of shit and sipped my beer and reveled in the fact that I was beating him at something. We took a photo to end the night and got the guy in the next court to take it. We huddled close and the drummer was beside me. I wrapped my arm around his waist and he let out a little laugh like it was banned or something. It was the first time we'd touched on purpose. 

At the end of the next practice, we sat on the bench out front. He was always beside me. The keyboard player was asking if we wanted to practice at his studio space on Saturday. "Are you going?" he asked me. I said I wasn't sure that I could. I had too much work to do. Soon after, we all parted ways and I started the walk toward the bus stop with the keyboard player beside me. The drummer got in his car and passed us, "night, rockstars" he said out his window, waving. 

On a Tuesday night in mid-September, I was sitting up in bed, finishing my work. I opened Tinder, the app that I have deleted more times than I can count on one hand, after a friend convinced me to download it one more time. I mindlessly swiped past almost everyone. 

One guy caught my eye, so much so, that I did something that I had previously considered perhaps a little bit shameful. I couldn't go back to see who I had just swiped past, not for free. I paid for a month because I had to see it for myself. When I swiped to see the last person one more time, it was confirmed. 

That was my drummer. 

The guy with the shaved head, with that thin black cord hanging around his neck. But he had a girlfriend. I just stared at my phone, trying to process this new information. Did they break up? In my mind, this could mean one of three things. They were no longer together, he was on here to cheat, or he was in an open relationship. I had toyed with the idea of going out with a handful of men in that position, even talked to some of them for multiple days and nights with every intention of meeting. But I never chose to in the end. It always started to feel less fun and more uncomfortable after a few days. 

I took a screenshot and sent it to my friend from that night at Handlebar. She knew how I felt about him. I said I couldn't believe it and wondered what it meant. 

I lingered for a minute, then I swiped on him. Nothing happened right away. I wondered if this was an old account that he had just never deleted. Maybe he didn't use it anymore. I was still texting her when I got the notification approximately eight minutes later that we had matched. 

I probably made a cute, appropriate squeal. I texted my friend all of these updates in real time. I couldn't wait for her to look at her phone to see the journey that I had taken her on, asking her the same questions about his intentions. But if he was trying to cheat, why would he swipe on me? I'd met his girlfriend. He wouldn't want me to know. Even if he was curious to see if it would be a match, why would he leave it for so long, wait for me to see it? 

A week ago, I had just been hoping that I'd be able to hug him at some point. 

I paced in my kitchen, questioning what I should do. If I should act. If it was even morally okay to say something. An hour later, I saw the notification. I had a new message. I stood at the counter, and opened it. 

Citations:

Rilo Kiley. Lyrics to "Portions for Foxes". Performed by Rilo Kiley, Mike Mogis, Mark Trombino, Jimmy Tamborello, 2004. Genius, https://genius.com/Rilo-kiley-portions-for-foxes-lyrics