“What did you do to it, hit it with a hammer?” The screen worked fine, though, so obviously the Otterbox had done its job. Jeff created a contact with his information and sent himself a text.
“I… fell on it.”
Jeff ran his finger down the crack in the plastic. “Are you heavier than you look?”
“While skating,” Carter said.
“Well, that’ll do it,” Jeff said, meeting eyes with their server as she passed by. He couldn’t tell if she recognized him, but she definitely knew Carter.
“Can I get you something else?”
Carter shook his head. “Just the bill, please. Thanks, Alice.”
“Sure thing.”
She didn’t ask if he wanted to split the check, but that wasn’t so strange. Lots of small places like this didn’t. When she returned with it, Jeff reached for the folder but was quelled by a death stare from Carter, who apparently thought Jeff had spent enough money today. Jeff let him take it. His masculinity wasn’t that fragile.
“Thanks.”
Carter shrugged. “No sweat.”
The drive back to the cabin was mostly quiet. Jeff added Carter to his phone contacts, then leaned his head against the window as they drove through the park, taking in the dappled sunlight and the occasional glimpse of familiar blue water through the trees.
They were just turning onto the long lane that led to the cabin when Carter said, “How’d you score this place, anyway? Usual rental contract’s got a sixteen-day max.”
There wasn’t any accusation, just a sense that Carter knew exactly how persuasive Jeff was when he wanted something. Jeff smiled wanly. “I begged.” He’d laid it on pretty thick too—the park is a special place for me because my mom and I used to come out here before she got sick. “When that didn’t work, I made a generous donation to the artist-in-residence program.”
Carter looked at him sideways. “We don’t have an artist-in-residence program.”
Jeff smirked. “Notyet.”
He didn’t have to look to feel Carter’s wry amusement.
This time Carter didn’t pull into the carport, just drove right up to the porch to let Jeff out. Jeff was left feeling wrong-footed. If they were friends again, if they were ignoring the fifteen years of silence, he probably didn’t need to say thank you for today. He just didn’t know what to say instead.
Carter beat him to the punch anyway. “See you around?”
Jeff offered a wry smile. “Well, you know where I live.”
He nodded. “See you later, Jeff.”
It sounded like a promise.
Excerpt from profile interview inRolling Stone
March issue
RS: HOWLis one of the most prolific groups of the genre. It seems like every year, eighteen months, there’s a new album. How do you maintain that level of productivity?
JP: When we first started, it felt like we were growing so fast, we all had so much to say. We were too excited to pace ourselves. But I think that—what did you call it, that level of productivity—that’s actually damaging. Like when a kid ties a blanket around his neck and jumps off the roof of the shed. Just because he doesn’t break his leg doesn’t mean he’s Superman. We were that kid. We didn’t know any better; we just wanted to fly.
But now I think the healthy way to do it is—my mom used to garden. And she was always giving plants away, because certain kinds will self-propagate. Like every couple years the hostas got too big and she’d split them up and give them to friends, or every couple months the spider plant in her bathroom would send off this shoot that she’d start in a bud vase and it would become another little plant. It didn’t hurt the plant to do it like that. They started new plants when they were ready, so it was sustainable. But when you’re saying, ‘okay, we need an album every year,’ and you don’t give that album time to develop organically—pardon the pun—what you’re doing is you’re just going and cutting off parts of the plants to arrange in a vase. It won’t be as good and it hurts the plant.
So, I guess the short answer is, you don’t. I think we’re slowing down, and I’m okay with that. I’m not twenty anymore; I need to rest. I think the albums will be better for it.
RS: You’ve said you learned guitar as a kid growing up in Willow Sound. Can you tell us a little more about that?
JP: My mom was diagnosed with ALS when I was twelve, and my dad spent all his time with her. I would’ve been on my own except my neighbors—the closest thing you get to neighbors in Willow Sound—took me in as their fourth kid. Their three boys were involved in a ton of extracurriculars, so sometimes it was just me and the parents, and I’d hang out in the basement with the dad and we’d listen to music. That sounds sketchy, but it was disgustingly wholesome. And he had a guitar and he could play, and he saw that I was interested in learning, so for my thirteenth birthday he found a used Seagull at a secondhand shop and taught me to play.
