Jade knew which of her stories would be my favourites. Even from before I had ever heard her speak any of them. She knew which colours to brush up in the background; what songs to plug into the soundtrack; the right buttons to lean on in the middle; and that exact, hushed volume to drop down to at the end.
Like a fortune teller with a neon sign, a round crochet tablecloth and a front parlor in old East Hollywood, she read my tells and told me the tales I needed to hear.
Her stories were based on real events. But more than just the names and the places had been changed.
There were stories of train rides home from concerts that happened before she was born; heart break over boys she never loved; a blood cancer diagnoses that wasn't hers; glossy, golden hoop earnings coming out for a fight that led to her getting booted from the very same high school she also rode all the way to graduation; and of tender kisses with fallen legends behind broken windows and shattered bamboo blinds.
When I talk about her now - to say a therapist or a handyman or a Hinge second-date - I cop to be being played. I admit it. I know it now. I know that her stories were only a facade - a veneer without an off-switch. A pretty and useful surface. Her only method for radiating - but never reflecting - beauty. But it was still only a surface. And, if you lasted long enough for a chance to scratch at it, underneath was just a plunging void that felt like that fast and sudden drop you experience as you fade into sleep on nights of exhaustion.
---
She once called me from a hotel room whilst out on the road. Her band had a gig in Austin and they were driving down to Houston for the next night's show. But then a Tornado Warning Amber Alert buzzed on their phones and their manager decided it was best to pull over into a hotel for the night.
It was well after midnight by the time we spoke. She was drunk or high. I could never tell the difference with her. I was just finished updating her on the dog's visit to the vet earlier in the day, when we were interrupted by a banging on her door. She said it was one of the drunk chair salesmen she shared shots with in the bar downstairs. He was now so wasted that he couldn't work out which room was his.
"I'll just help him find his room and call you right back."
She never did call back. Not that night, anyways. She did call me the next morning and apologised for not calling me at all the day before and asked if I had taken the dog to the vet yet.
---
A few months later, out at a bar in Brooklyn, I overheard her tell my sister that she had a friend in Texas who sold chairs and he could hook her up with a deal.
In the Uber home, I asked her who this phantom chair salesman was.
"Oh, he is just a dude I dated for a bit when I lived in Orlando. We occasionally text each other. Happy birthday wishes. That sorta thing. Anyways, he sells chairs for a company out in Texas now."
"Where in Texas?"
"He is out of a little place called Bastrop. It's kinda just outside of Austin, if you're heading towards Houston."
And before I could say anything else she turned to the driver and said loudly:
"Hey, Eric, do you have any 90's hip-hop on your playlist tonight? Maybe some Biggie or something like that?"
Eric fiddled with his phone, put Machine Gun Funk up on his speakers and turned the volume all the way loud. Jade leaned into my ear, whispered something about how tired she was and slid back over to the other side of the car. She draped her black and white silk blazer over her shoulders, closed her eyes and silently mouthed along to the lyrics.
I looked out my window, blurred my vision to the lights of the passing cars and lowered the electric window. I tried to remember the feeling of the slow and heavy turquoise waves rising up against my skin on that little rounded outlet at the end of Noosa's Main Beach.
