a_littlefaith | (no subject)

She can't afford it.

The money in her account is nice, but Beth knows she needs it for food and rent and to buy a whole new wardrobe, since the only clothes that came with her had reeked of sweat and dirt and all sorts of zombie guts. She's gone out a few times, tentatively explored the area around her new apartment building, bought a fresh pair of jeans, some shirts, new underthings that aren't so old and stained they look grey instead of white, and a nice soft sweater she's wrapped up in now as she stands in front of the music store and stares inside.

She can't afford it, but does she ever want it anyway. It's the nicest guitar she's ever seen up close, a Gibson with a beautiful finish, shining in the soft light of the display case and she wants it so bad she can feel an itch in her fingers. She used to play her dad's old guitar out on the porch, she remembers strumming chords, singing songs she'd heard growing up or making up ones of her own. She hasn't touched a guitar since her mother died and it reminds her of a time when things used to be safe.

Daryl's warned her against getting too settled, but she kinda can't help it. She's sleeping in a real bed for the first time in a long time, a bed in a room that's all hers. Already she's spent some time online, looking for a GED program, for a part time job that might hire a girl with no real experience and no references. And now she wants this guitar.

"Hey," she says, turning to look at someone nearby. He seems to be looking at the guitars on display, too, so she hopes she's not bothering him. "D'you know if there's any pawn shops or anything around here? Someplace where I might find a guitar I can actually afford without havin' to go hungry for six months?"

It's a joke, but she thinks maybe it's a dumb one to make, especially when she knows she's still too thin, all bones and sharp angles from trying to live on peanut butter and canned peas.

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"A long time," she says, thinking back. "My parents put me in piano lessons when I was just a kid, maybe only five or six, and then I started messing around with my dad's old guitar when I wasn't much older than that." She's never had any official guitar lessons, they never could really afford it back then, not with her dad's drinking and the farm not making much money, but she doesn't say that. It doesn't matter what he used to do, her father changed and now he's gone and thinking bad thoughts about things long past doesn't make it any easier.

"Did you meet your girlfriend here?" she asks, looking around for someone who works in the store, someone who's willing to let them plug into some of the amps that are in the room with the guitars. She's never been in a music store quite this big and she's a little hesitant to touch anything without one of the people who work here. "Or did you know her before?" In Darrow, it seems like both are equally possible. She's got Daryl and Carl here with her from home, but she's met plenty of new people. Plenty of handsome people, too, she thinks, her cheeks burning a little as she thinks of Chuck.

Newt smiles at that, very much able to relate. With a musically-gifted mother, a father who tuned pianos for a living, and an uncle who'd revolutionized European dance music, it would have been terribly difficult to escape a life filled with music. It's the reason he's always worked better with his favorite tunes blasting at work, though it often seems to disrupt his colleagues just as it had disrupted Hermann. "I'm in the same boat," he tells her. "Keyboard, drums, guitar, I learned how to play the big three really young. I do a pretty badass triangle, too, if I do say so myself."

He spots a nearby attendant and raises a hand to signal for assistance, receiving an acknowleding nod in return just as the attendant moves to the register to check out a customer. Newt turns back to Beth as they wait, shaking his head at her question. "I didn't know her. She actually used to work at the train station and that's how we met. I got lucky, though, had one person in this city that I did already know, even though we weren't exactly friends where we came from. Peas in completely different pods, y'know? Still, it kind of helps a lot."

"We should make a triangle and glockenspiel band," Beth tells him with a teasing smile, because that's the only thing she can play besides piano and guitar, and the idea of just those two instruments makes her laugh. She's not really looking to be in a band at all, not because she's got something against it, but she's never had to create music with other people before. It's always been sort of a private thing, something she'd do on a quiet Saturday afternoon, holed up on the porch or in the barn. Sometimes she'd sing with Maggie, but that had always been different. They'd just sing old folk songs their father wanted to hear; it wasn't about making music the way she misses it.

"Yeah, I understand that," she says, nodding at the comment about his friend. "I got a couple of people here from home and it's good to have 'em, I don't know what I would've done that first day without a familiar face. Not to say people weren't real helpful, because they were, even though I must've looked and smelled somethin' awful. I tried to shake this guy's hand, this nice Australian guy, and it was gross. I was all covered in dirt and blood and stuff. He must've thought I was a real winner."