by S. K Munt
‘They’re going on in a minute.’ An irritated woman’s voice said. ‘Maybe you can see your boyfriend after.’
‘I am not their girlfriend lady and I’m telling you that if you don’t let me in, I have ways to make them come out…’ Callie’s voice was sweet, but Hunter could hear the snap in it even from a row of lockers away.
‘Then who are you? The bands have been warned to keep their groupies away from the free liquor.’
‘I’m not their groupie. You could say I’m…’ there was a giggle, ‘their Muse.’
Hunter turned, stumbled towards the door and saw that Ryan had already leapt to his own feet, animated like he’d been electrified.
‘Cal!’ Ryan coughed out her name before Hunter could, and had her wrapped in his arms before Hunter had taken two steps. ‘God where have you been?’ His voice was hoarse as he pulled back from Callie, his fingers digging into the flesh of her shoulders. Every part of his body tilted towards her. ‘I thought you’d left town!’
‘And miss this night? No way!’ Callie smiled fondly and wrapped her arms around Ryan’s shoulders, resting her chin on one and closing her eyes, smiling blissfully. When they opened, she saw Hunter, and for a moment, her eyes seemed to shimmer like Northern Lights. ‘You knew I’d be here, didn’t you Hunter?’
Hunter’s throat was tight, and when Callie disentangled herself from Ryan and stepped towards him, he had to work very hard to not look down at the way her low-slung jeans and diamond- studded black belt hugged her curves, or the way her artfully torn Lonesome October shirt fell off one golden shoulder. It was bright red, like Hunter’s hat had once been, and the band’s logo had been screen-printed in black across her breasts.
‘Where did you get that?’ He asked, feeling his confidence skyrocket to know that his band name was gracing Callie’s breasts, which she’d once saved for Metallica and Green Day, and that his hat was back on her head where it belonged.
‘Marnie and I have been screen-printing them all day!’
Hunter’s eyes widened. ‘You can screen print?’
She winked. ‘I have an arty friend, Renee who helped us.’ She grinned, striking a little pose. ‘And now we have a stand set up at the back, selling them.’
Hunter almost laughed. ‘Callie you’re insane! Who’s going to buy those?’
‘Well for now the sales are going remarkably well. I have some girls I know selling them- the supernaturally beautiful type in daisy dukes and platforms, and once you guys rock out tonight, the rest of the stock is gonna fly.’ She winked at Ryan. ‘There’s already enough to buy you guys that new amp even after we pay Marnie back for investing. And then maybe to start a Hunter’s rent fund.’
Hunter wanted to high-five her. But he hugged her himself. ‘Dancers?’ He asked.
‘Oh please. They’ve got skills, but rhythm is all mine.’
Hunter was overwhelmed by excitement to know that pass or fail, they were going to have a new amp as a result of that evening. He wanted to keep Callie in his arms and ask more questions, tell her how he was feeling, ask her where she would be standing, but then Ryan was pulling her away by the hand, behind the lockers.
‘Callie… can we talk?’ He looked haunted again. ‘In private?’
Callie glanced back at Hunter, her black hair, which looked fuller and fluffier and wilder than Hunter had ever seen it before whipping around her shoulders. Her amber eyes seemed to throb with panic. ‘Now? Really?’ She glanced over at Hunter, guiltily, pleadingly asking him to intervene. ‘Shouldn’t you be trying to think about the set?’
‘Think about the set?’ Ryan pressed Callie up against a locker, his voice low and sharp and desperate, his fingers stroking desperately at her hair. ‘Callie I haven’t had a thought that didn’t have you in it all day. You think if you show up now, I’m gonna give a flying fuck about the set?!’
Callie’s eyebrows were knitted together. ‘Well you should!’ She poked him in the chest. ‘God Ryan, you’re supposed to be the level-headed one here! This band needs you to think about the set. And you need to not think about me, okay?’ She held his face. ‘I’m sorry if what happened between us last night made you think that it was a prelude to how it was going to be from hereon but it wasn’t okay? I was weak, and foolish and just, well… lost. In the bluest eyes in the world.’ She pushed Ryan’s already flowing tears away from the rise of his cheekbones as though she thought she could absorb his sorrow as her own. ‘I keep trying to find a way to keep you guys in my life,’ she whispered brokenly, ‘but I can’t have one without hurting the other. I can’t love one without my heart breaking for the other. So it’s the music I’m going to give my heart to, Ry. The beautiful music you make. I’ll print your shirts, I’ll scream your name, I’ll sing along and I will always care for you more deeply than I will ever care for another soul but-’ her voice tightened. ‘But I’m not going to fall in love with you.’ She stepped out from under his arm and backed away from them, towards the corner. ‘I’m not the hero anymore, okay? I’m the broken branch now.’ She glanced at Hunter. ‘Once you guys finish this set, and TFITR starts playing, I’m leaving. And I will never, ever come back to cause you guys even a fraction more pain.’
‘What? Where are you going?’ Ryan croaked as Hunter cried out the exact same sentiment.
‘I have an audition for Wicked in New York in a few weeks, and a plane ticket for L. A. for tomorrow morning. I’m going to go stay with my folks for a while...’ she looked down at her hands. ‘The ticket is one-way.’
Hunter breath rushed out of him. ‘You can’t mean that Callie.’ He said, stepping towards her. ‘You can’t just leave it like this! You’re in love with one of us. You have to be!’ Beside him, he felt Ryan rest his head onto the locker and sigh.
And then Callie Clay did the most shocking thing Hunter had ever seen her do; worse than dancing like a burlesque girl at this disco, worse than falling to her knees and allowing Ryan’s hand to strip her while Hunter stole her kisses, and worse than screwing him to heaven and back and then abandoning him in Hell- Callie stepped away and shrugged. She actually shrugged.
‘Then how come I’m not?’ She asked, her eyes dull, her voice expressionless. She began to saunter past them, whipping Hunter’s red hat off her head and thrusting it hard into his chest as she marched by. ‘Why don’t you just write a fucking song about it?’
Hunter’s heart dissolved and was replaced with icy stalagmites. Ryan’s breath sucked in a whoosh and he seemed to choke on the pain. Neither of them moved when she strode out the door and slammed it behind her, and neither of them flinched after.
‘Sk8ter Boi anyone?’ Nick asked in a jocular manner, slapping Ryan on the back of the shoulder, appearing from seemingly nowhere. ‘Could she make her heartlessness any more obvious guys?’
‘No.’ Ryan said woodenly, picking up his blue guitar from the couch as he strode towards the door. ‘She can’t.’
Hunter could not move. He was paralysed as every grief-stricken cell in his body turned to undiluted rage. Callie was dying, and if he and Ryan weren’t precious enough to her to spend her last days with, he was going to go out on that stage and show that bitch exactly what she was missing, and worry about his broken heart later.
*
‘Calliope this is not the time to fall apart!’ Imogen had taken Callie by the shoulders and dragged her behind the T-shirt stall the instant she’d seen her sister hyperventilating her way back through the crowd. Calliope felt like every one of her organs had been punctured, and her heart had worked itself up into her throat. She leaned back against the chain-link fence and heaved in another not-breath, pressing her hands to her head like a winded marathon runner. Every time she remembered the absolute joy on Ryan’s face when she’d walked in, then its collapse after she’d flung ugly words at them like rocks, twisted the knife in her lungs.
‘I- I can’t-’ she spluttered, looking heavenwards, trying to get her tears back into her eyes like one of those little games
where you had to roll the metal balls into the tiny pinholes. Her scalp was cold where Hunter’s hat had been. She could feel eyes on her, her sisters darting her looks at they tried to sparkle the crowd into buying their wares, without actually making eye-contact and killing a bunch of music careers by accident.
Imogen knelt before her. ‘So they weren’t happy about the shirts?’
Callie barked a humorless laughed. ‘Ryan didn’t want to talk about the shirts. He wanted to talk about ‘us’. So my pep-talk ended up being a three way break-up and fuck you very much.’
‘Oh shit,’ Imogen’s curly piggy tails seemed to deflate. ‘Damn, that’s one annoying cling-on you’ve gotten there Callie. I’ve never seen a Muse get so side-tracked before!’
‘It wasn’t on purpose!’ Calliope gave her sister a dirty look. ‘I was a human child embracing her first friends in a new town and not knowing that my grip would screw them both. When I’m past all this, remind me to smack you one for getting me into this mess, okay?’
Imogen’s glossy lips quirked. ‘I thought you were all about making it up to me.’
‘That was about three nightmare conversations and a hundred lies ago.’ She hugged herself, shaking her head, staring up at the stage when the lights flashed then dimmed.
‘Ladies and gentleman…’ the disembodied voice of one of the local radio D. J’s drawled into the microphone. ‘It’s time to get this night happening! Are we ready to rock?!’
‘Yeahhhhhhhh!’ Was the enthusiastic response.
‘Say WHAT?’
‘YEAHHH!’ The second response was twice as loud and Callie smiled, imagining Hunter probably flipping off the walls backstage. That was, if he was able to move yet. When she’d left them, they’d looked like statues. She chewed her lips and actually crossed her fingers. This had to be the exposure Hunter needed. This had to be the night. If it wasn’t, what was she going to do?
‘Come on Callie, get up. This is your moment.’ Imogen was wrenching her to her feet. ‘Besides, Raina wants you to meet someone.’
‘Gee tell her thanks but I’ve dated enough for a million lifetimes at this point…’ Callie’s eyes didn’t leave the stage as she saw Nick shuffle in at the back of the stage, taking his seat behind the drums as Clarice, the pianist from the performing arts school, moved in behind the keyboard. She wasn’t an official member of Lonesome October, only a ring-in for the event.
‘No it’s some computer hacker she’s been hanging off, you know, doing her thing…’
Callie glanced over at Raina, who had been over at the sound booth all night, talking to a middle-aged roly-poly guy in his thirties with glasses and a Che Guivera T-shirt. He was set up behind a bank of three laptops and a whole bunch of other things Calliope had never seen before, probably doing the sound or lighting. She was touched that Raina had managed to get one of her experts on the job, trying to make Hunter’s moment perfect.
‘I can’t meet him! What if I, you know…’
Imogen snorted. ‘For starters, I’m pretty sure he’s not one of her charges. And if you break the rules of Harmony to sleep with him you’ll probably want your memory surgically removed afterwards. He smells like keyboard cleaner and butter menthols.’
Callie bubbled her lips and just then, a deep grumble echoed from the massive portable speakers flanking the stage and Callie felt her breath catch as the tension in that solitary note hushed her thoughts. Huge screens had been unfurled on either side of each towering speaker, and Callie was delighted when Hunter charged out, grinning his head off. He didn’t wave to the crowd, but she could tell that he was having a hard time not hamming it up.
‘He gets cuter every time I see him,’ Imogen remarked.
‘Just a lot.’ Callie got to her feet, stepping closer, the chatter of the people buying shirts or trying to come onto her sexy sisters fading to white noise as a second chord was strummed.
Ryan walked out then, his fingers held over the chord, and he didn’t so much as glance up. His mouth was in a thin line, his eyebrows knitted in concentration, like he was almost despondent to what was happening around him. It was such a rock star face, and it made her heart flutter in appreciation. He struck a third chord then, and it was a hard note that suited the angry way he slashed at the strings; not because he was prepping to rock out, but because Ryan was pissed.
The crowd had been chattering away, the din they created almost overpowering the halting beginning of the song, but as Ryan struck three more chords in rapid succession and then let his fingers slips and slide down the neck of his guitar like he’d buttered it, hammering out the intricate intro solo with perfect precision and presence, the din lowered, and heads turned.
And then Rathe hit the bassline and the sounds blended, rose, filled Callie. Filled every reachable part of atmosphere.
‘Your opening act guys!’ The D. J announced excitedly. ‘Araulen Valley’s own Lonesome October!’
And then Hunter’s arm lifted as red spotlights burst down upon his golden hair and when he lowered it, they flashed magenta. He joined Ryan’s rhythm, chord for chord, note for note, and then Nick began to tap the rhythm.
‘One, two-’ Callie whispered.
And then the stadium was alive.
30.
The stage lights swept over the crowd and back to the stage and Callie felt that electricity shoot through her as the opening instrumental began. She remembered that once, there had been no lights. Her protege’s had played for the moon or the stars, her opera singers had almost blown out oil lamps with the power of their lungs and several theaters had burned down thanks to excited candle wavers. But even then, Callie had felt this feeling, this kaleidoscope of energy that reflected within an excited Muse’s eyes. The exquisite agony of music had been hers alone then, but since Raina had gotten involved, lights had begun to illustrate sound, to reproduce Calliope’s once secret thrill for everyone lucky enough to be close to it.
Ryan’s fingers stopped moving over the guitar as Hunter took the lead chords and Ryan stepped up to the microphone somewhat dazedly, as though only just noticing it was there. Then he glanced up at the crowd, his eyebrows lifting as though surprised that anyone had shown up for the first act, wetting then parting his lips as Callie’s heart took its cue from Nick and began to crash and pound against her ribcage in anticipation- praying that Ryan would choke, and that Hunter would take his place. Calliope the Muse, and Callie Clay had never hated themselves as abhorrently as they did in that moment.
‘If you don’t know it / it won’t know you / avert your eyes /and it won’t break through… if you ball up tight/ it wont see your face…’ Ryan’s voice was soft at first, but the microphone picked up the rich timbre of it perfectly. It was a dark song, and it made Ryan seem darker in comparison. Callie exhaled, her soul sinking, her heart soaring. Yes Ryan was upset, but he was a professional, and the show was going on with Hunter on the edges of the spotlight- not in it. It made her want to tear at her hair in frustration and then tear at Ryan’s, because he sounded incredible and she wanted to be under him again, kissing him, being cherished by him because Ryan Weaver was incredible and did not need her help to be that way. Callie remembered how often she’d taken his intensity as some sort of depression, but when she recalled his cheeky grin on the walking track to the gorge, she knew that Ryan wasn’t dark; he’d just been saving his light for her. And she’d tried to snuff it out. Her soul burned.
‘Oh mother may I?’ Imogen turned and fanned herself. ‘I knew he was quite the piece but, Mrrow!’ Imogen jostled her shoulders. ‘Okay Cal, I totally get it. I’d be trying to draw this job out too for a piece of that.’
‘Don’t you have work or something to do?’ Callie asked, annoyed.
‘My job is stop you from imploding.’
‘Try harder.’
‘Callie! There you are!’ There was no mistaking Marnie’s voice as she elbowed her way out of the crowd and began dragging Callie back by the sleeve. ‘What are you doing all the way ba
ck here?! The guys are going to be looking for you.’
‘I was just checking on the stall,’ she fibbed.
‘The stall’s fine Cal! Hunter and Ryan are the ones who need our attention. I know you’re afraid they’re not speaking to you but once they find out about the shirts, I know they’ll forgive and forget!’ Calliope almost snorted as Marnie ploughed into the crowd and dragged her after, knowing that Marnie would blow her lid when she found out that Callie had dropped in on the band for a pep talk and ended up breaking their spirits instead!
Or had she? Callie’s eyes did not budge from the stage as she was herded through the crowd. There were a lot of sweeping shots of Hunter on the screens, and though she appreciated Raina’s sound/video guy singling him out, she was surprised at how much fun Hunter seemed to be having- like he didn’t have a care in the world as he cranked his neck to the ostinato Ryan’s fingers were deftly plucking to the beat Nick was setting.
I broke his heart, didn’t I? She thought, eyeing his enlarged image on the screen above, oblivious to the elbows and knees Marnie was swinging her into on the way to the front. He said I did! But where’s the pay-off? Realistically she knew that his triumph could be the internal variety. The song playing (that she was already besotted with) had certainly been penned by Hunter. In fact, he’d been furiously composing since the night they’d first hooked up. But it left Callie wanting. Hunter sparkled on stage- he needed to be fronting a band, that voice needed to be on radio stations across the world. But if she hadn’t broken his heart, he wouldn’t be recognised as the virtuoso he was. And if dumping him then telling him that she was going to die and then sleeping with his best friend before dissing them both hadn’t done it, then what would?
‘If you’re going up front, I’m coming with.’ Imogen’s hand caught Callie’s and squeezed it tightly.
Callie glanced at Marnie ahead of her, and then back to Imogen. ‘Won’t she recognize you?’ She asked, trying to ignore the way Ryan’s raising voice was making her tingle all over.