by Elle Bennett
“Hey, I only did that once,” I argued.
She gave me a glare and I turned around to walk back out. The bell on the door rang as I opened it, causing Calvin’s head to pop up from where he was helping out his table. He gave me a wave hello, and I waved back before I ran off to my car.
I blasted some Peristerophobia on the way back to my dad’s place. It helped me think, and I had to figure out where I was going to work. I wanted a job that I actually liked. I didn’t want to work retail or fast food again. I knew beggars couldn’t be choosers or whatever, but I really just wanted to be happy. I had that when I worked at Cranberry, for the most part. I wanted to find that again. There had to be another place that would make me happy.
The moment I got home, I announced my arrival to Pigeon and pounced onto my bed. Pigeon followed me and curled up by my feet. I had an unread text from Erica.
“Should I bother reading it?” I asked Pigeon.
He tilted his head at me.
“Yeah, I probably should. I haven’t really talked to her in a while.”
I opened the text.
Erica Hall:
Hey! How was your trip with the band? You should call me, it’s been forever.
Like it wasn’t her fault that it had been so long? I was so sick of being the only one who made an effort. I stared at my phone and sighed before hitting the call button.
“Took you long enough,” Erica said. “How’s everything?”
“Pretty shitty,” I said.
“Oh. Tour didn’t go well?”
“No, the tour was great. Getting evicted and moving back in with my dad all while being unemployed, however…”
“Dang,” she replied. That was it? No lecture about responsibility or saying that maybe I shouldn’t have quit Cranberry and ran off with a guy I hardly knew? That was weird.
“Honestly, you’d know that if you ever answered my texts,” I said.
“What? You send me a text like, once a week, if that,” she said with a scoff. “You’ve been incommunicado for a while.”
“Well, I sent you pictures while I was on tour, and you never replied to a single one.”
“What am I supposed to say to a bunch of pictures that all look the same? Hey, a guy on stage. Another guy on stage. Oh look, there’s the guy you’re banging. Besides, I’ve been busy. I have school, remember? I know getting an education is a foreign concept to you, but not all of us want to be groupies for a living.”
“Wow, fuck you,” I said.
“You’re really turning out to be your mother’s daughter. You know that, right?”
I hung up on her, fuming. I hopped up off my bed and hit the button on my stereo to play some classic Alkaline Trio on full blast. I took a few deep breaths. Matt Skiba always helped my rage. When my phone rang again, I hardly heard it, thanks to the sound of “Radio.” Since it was Andrew, I turned down the music and picked up the phone. Andrew was reliable and calming. He might actually help even more than Matt.
“Hey gorgeous,” he said. “You should come over. I’m working on our song. The rough demo is just about done, and I think you’ll like it. It’s like if your style and Peristerophobia’s style hooked up. Seriously, I’m proud of it.”
“My style? I don’t have a style,” I said.
“Yes, you do. You’re April. The song is in the style of April. Now, come over. I want you to hear it.”
“Do I have to sing it in public?” I asked.
“Yes. You lost the bet.”
“Fuck you,” I said before hanging up.
But I still got in the car and went over.
When I got to Andrew’s place, I saw his little sister lying on the couch with her guitar, strumming quietly. It wasn’t as nice as any of Andrew’s instruments, but it was a decent quality Gibson. She played really well, but I knew her voice did not match in skill.
“Hey, you’re April, right?” Joan said, sitting up, setting her guitar on her lap. “Didn’t you used to work at Cranberry?”
I nodded.
“Until I went on tour with Peristerophobia, yeah.”
“Did you hear me play that night that Andrew tagged along with me to the cafe? I wasn’t really happy with my version of ‘69 Ways To Love You,’ but I’m working on getting the sound just right for turning it into more of a folk ballad than a happy pop song.”
“Um. Yeah, I heard that one. I didn’t really think it translated very well into a folk ballad? I mean, it’s what you said - a happy pop song.”
She gave me a small smile and tucked a brown curl behind her ear. Now that I was looking at her up close, I don’t know how I didn’t make the connection between her and Andrew that night at Cranberry. They were so obviously related. They had the same eyes, the same smile. The same chin. The same lips, even.
“You’re probably right.”
“You’re a talented guitarist, though,” I said. “Really. Killer. Though, um. I maybe wouldn’t say that you’re lead singer material? Like, maybe you should be more of a Chad than an Andrew.”
“Minus the drugs? Because I’ve gotta say, that’s not my scene.”
I laughed.
“Yeah, exactly.”
She let out a sigh.
“I wish I were a better singer. I know I’m not a strong vocalist. You’d think it would come naturally, considering my genes, but no, Andrew got all the natural skills in that department. I’m a better guitarist than he is, though. So. It evens out.”
“Your genes?” I asked.
“Yeah, I mean, if I didn’t do something with music, I’d suspect I was adopted. Has Andrew ever told you about our parents?” she asked. I shook my head. “My mom’s a music producer. She can out-sing any diva. My dad isn’t a bad singer either, but he’s more into classical music. He teaches orchestra at the high school that Andrew and I both went to. He can play every single instrument that his students learn. So, if I didn’t have any musical talent, it would be really weird. But I guess I only inherited the guitar gene, because I can’t even play anything else and singing is really fucking hard.”
I let out a breath and nodded. Of course Andrew’s parents were musically inclined. It made sense. He was so passionate about it, and they clearly supported him. I wondered why he never used his mom’s connections to get a deal, though. I guessed he wanted to be able to do it on his own.
“Speaking of singing being really fucking hard, I’ve got to get downstairs. Your brother is expecting me,” I said. I gave her a wave and walked down to the basement.
It was half a bedroom, half the band’s practicing space and recording studio. The way it was set up, it was almost like the basement was his own apartment. There was a drum kit, a few microphones, amps, even a portable grand piano keyboard. Over in the corner, Andrew sat on a battered green couch, staring down at a notebook.
“Hey there, hot stuff,” I said, standing right in front of him. He looked up, then pulled me down to the couch and gave me an enthusiastic kiss hello.
“I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up or not.”
“Your sister and I talked for a minute. I would’ve been down here sooner otherwise.”
“I meant because of the ‘fuck you’ and hanging up on me thing. You were talking to Joan?” he asked.
“Yeah, nothing important. And I know I may have said ‘fuck you’ but what I really meant was ‘fuck me.’”
I kissed him gently on the neck and trailed my hand up under his shirt. He let out a deep breath and I felt the muscles in his abdomen contract as my fingers caressed him.
“April,” he said sternly, “we don’t have time for that right now. But later, definitely.”
Damn. I was hoping I could distract him.
“Do you want to hear the song?” he asked. His smile was wide and I couldn’t help but nod, because honestly, I was always up for hearing a new song by him. Even if he expected me to sing it with him.
He grabbed one of his guitars and placed his fingers carefully over the righ
t strings as he got comfortable. Then he strummed a few chords, testing the sound, and turned to me.
“Alright, so this is just the melody. I’ll show you the lyrics here in a bit,” he said, shifting his fingers into the position for the first chord of the song. “Open your eyes, goofball.”
I stopped shielding my eyes and rested my hands on my lap as I sat and listened. The first bit of it was soft, thoughtful. As it progressed, the song got louder, stronger. By the end, I had no doubts about the song. It was sincere and beautiful. He was putting all of himself into every single note. It was like listening to his heart beat, it was so comforting and him.
Honestly, watching him play it, looking so intense, so into every movement of his fingers, it was a major turn on. I was finding it hard to keep my hands to myself.
“Okay, that was incredible,” I admitted after he finished playing. “Let’s see the lyrics.”
He handed me the notebook he was looking at earlier. On the page, there were little doodles around the edges, words crossed out and replaced. Everything was so hastily scrawled it made me wonder how quickly he’d written it. The lyrics made me smile. I could definitely hear them with the melody he’d played me. And the title… I had to laugh at the title.
“Spackling?” I asked. “Why?”
“It fit!” he said.
He had a point. It did.
“Okay, yeah, it does. But it’s not going to make sense to anyone else. That’s alright, though. Your song titles don’t always make sense.”
“They’re not always as random as they seem,” he said with a sly smile.
I looked down at the lyrics again, then back at him. I gave him a quick kiss, then said, “Fine. You’ve got me hooked. I’ll sing it with you. But only because of ‘Spackling.’”
“You would have had to sing it anyway,” he pointed out.
“Nonsense.”
He began to play the song again, this time singing the lyrics along with the music. By the third time, I joined him. And by the fifth time, I couldn’t imagine not singing it. It was both exciting and terrifying, how at home I felt on this beat up couch, singing a song with my boyfriend about a night that our relationship became deeper, more real. It was our song, and that would never change.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
You pretend you know me
But you don’t know yourself
You’re hiding behind a mask
But it’s made of glass
“Stick To What You Know,” Peristerophobia
The guys came over for practice not too long after we’d sang the song a few times. Ken walked into the basement first, hearing our voices ringing out through the room.
“Damn, April,” he said as he walked past us and sat down his base. He opened up the case and removed the instrument, plugged it into the amp, and began warming up.
“What?” I asked. I looked up from the paper from where I was still studying the lyrics. I had to memorize them before the concert. Not that it would be too difficult. I accidentally memorized songs all the time. I mean, I could sing along with songs I hadn’t even heard since I was a kid. Ask me to recite all the states in the U.S and I’m sure I’d miss a few. Ask me the lyrics to a David Bowie song and I could repeat them without having to think about it twice.
“You two have amazing harmony,” Ken said.
Doug walked in and went straight to his drum kit. A few moments later, Chad joined us as well, stumbling into the room.
“Dude, are you already drunk? It’s only four in the fucking afternoon,” Andrew said. He set the guitar he’d been playing back into its case and walked over to his storage area, where he grabbed another guitar and plugged it into one of the amps in his practice space. He stood with the rest of the guys while Chad plugged in his guitar as well, threw the strap over his shoulder, and played a perfect opening to “Anonymous.”
“Fuck. I’ll never understand how you do it, man,” Andrew said.
Chad shrugged and the rest of the guys picked up the song where he started, playing along with him.
I’d discovered on the tour that Chad was pretty much always high for a reason. He had a marijuana prescription to help his depression. But when it came to the other drugs and the constant smell of whiskey on his breath, I had a feeling that those weren’t prescribed by a doctor. I wondered if his demons ever quieted down, with everything he used to try and silence them.
After the third round of the guys playing a song I hadn’t heard before, Ken mentioned to the guys that Andrew had written the song that I was supposed to sing with them. I widened my eyes. Fuck him for mentioning it. I wasn’t ready to sing with the whole band yet.
Doug nodded and pointed towards the keyboard that was sitting next to the practice space.
“Why do you think he took that out of storage? He had me help him haul it out of his dad’s music shed earlier today.”
“And you were awake for that?” Ken asked, shocked at the idea.
“Fuck you, I’m on a new medication. I don’t sleep as much on this one,” Doug said.
“Wait a second. Why a piano?” I asked, my voice going up a few octaves.
No one in the band should have known about my ability to play the piano. I’d never told Andrew, and I never planned to tell him about it. Even if we stuck with each other for over a decade, got hitched, and he knocked me up (no thank you), I still never would have told him. The piano was my past, and I intended to keep it there.
“Andrew said that he wrote out most of the band’s parts in ‘Spackling,’ and he added some piano so you could be more involved than just the vocals,” Doug said, like it was no big deal.
“But why would I be more involved? I don’t play the piano. I don’t play anything,” I said. “I mean, I’m pretty good at Tetris, but instruments? No. Especially not the piano.”
Andrew scoffed.
“Liar. You really need to get over this absurd fear of performing,” he said. He put his guitar down and tugged my hand, walking me towards the keyboard.
I didn’t have a fear of performing. My fear was based more around being a worthless piece of shit. And staying away from the piano, staying away from singing, that all helped me stay on the right path. That way, I wouldn’t be my mother’s daughter.
I stared down at the keyboard, tears welling up in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry in front of the guys, but if I touched the piano in front of them, it was likely going to happen. I couldn’t sit there and play a song in front of everyone else. I didn’t care how pretty the damn thing was. I didn’t care that my fingers were itching to touch the keys, moving towards them out of habit. I didn’t care that my entire body was aching to play the instrument, that there was a small part of me that wanted to suck it up and just make some damn music again.
I couldn’t.
“No, seriously. I’m musically illiterate, Andrew. I don’t play anything. Not the piano, not the guitar, not the triangle, or even the kazoo.”
“I already know you do, April. Stop denying it. I’ve seen you play before.”
My eyes widened with horror.
“How?” I asked.
“Your dad showed me a video of one of your old performances,” Andrew said. “You were really talented. I don’t understand why you quit. He said you never told him why, either, just that around five years ago, you said you were never touching a piano again. I don’t get it. Why are you fighting this? It’s just a piano.”
“Why the fuck was my dad showing you a video of my old performances? He doesn’t even like you.”
“I saw the piano in your basement when I was helping you move in,” he said. “I asked him about it, and he told me you used to play. Then he showed me a video he had saved on his computer from when you were younger.”
I shook my head, my nostrils flaring in anger, my eyes still prickling with tears.
“I quit for a good reason, Andrew. And no, I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t believe you talked to my fucking dad about the fucking piano. You had
no right! He had no right!”
“What’s the big fucking deal? It’s just a piano!”
No, it wasn’t just a piano. It was more than that. The piano was part of a life I thought I’d have once. A life I’d never allow myself to have. My dad didn’t know about Cassidy coming back to town when I was fifteen, about how she told me that I was just like her, that I was going to have to sleep my way to the top. Because O’Connell girls didn’t make it by talent. No, of course not. We had to make it in other ways.
Not that she’d been an O’Connell for a long time. She had gone back to being a Shea by then. Waving around her newly printed album, saying she was going to make it big time in Nashville as a country artist, because she knew and blew all the right people. Of course, the album was a flop. She may have been able to sleep her way into a record deal, but she couldn’t sleep her way out of it being awful and not getting any radio play, failing on every chart.
After knowing my mom had left us for that, for a career as a singer, for a career in music, I knew I had to walk away. I didn’t want to be her. I didn’t want to try for a career in music. I let my piano collect dust. I sang along to music, but I never made it again.
It wasn’t just a piano. It was a step to being the person I absolutely did not want to be.
“Andrew -” I began to say, tears starting to fall. But he interrupted me.
“Look. Just try it. Once. If you hate it that much, or if you’ve somehow lost all ability to play the piano in the last five years, we’ll take the piano bit out of it. The song won’t sound quite right without it, but it’ll be fine. If you hate it, we’ll nix it. Just promise me that you’ll give it a shot. What’s the harm in trying it? It’s not like it’s anyone other than me and the guys are here right now to hear you. I mean, Joan is upstairs, but you’ve heard her perform. You know she can’t judge you. Just know that if you mess up, we won’t mock you.”
I shook my head, the tears still falling. This was too much. I couldn’t handle it. I tried to hide the fact that I’d begun to cry. I wiped my eyes discreetly and looked back up at Andrew. I wasn’t sure if I was angrier at him or at my dad. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to sit at the piano and pretend like everything was okay, like I wasn’t taking a step towards being exactly like her. I’d already broken one of my rules by dating a musician. It was one thing to date him. It was another to use him as a stepping stone to a career in music. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want that at all.