by Ellie Danes
“No, that’s actually not the reason, but I stopped by the record shop on the way, and Rick told me a lot of the storefronts are closing up,” I said.
Caroline paused for a moment and her eyes, a dark blue the exact shade as my own, studied me closely. “Why’d you come home, my love? What’s going on?”
I ignored her comforting concern, the stubborn stiffness returning to my spine. “Rick says the tourist trade is drying up and all the businesses are suffering. What about you?”
My mother gave my concern a flippant wave of her hand. “Same as always. Money comes and goes, Cora, but it’s not what makes the world go ‘round.”
I followed her into the studio’s large back room. The open space was divided into a small kitchen, a seating area that was nothing but large floor pillows and scattered rugs, and a bathroom hidden only by a large boudoir screen. A ladder descended from the sleeping loft, hung with Caroline’s bohemian assortment of clothes.
She disappeared behind the screen, and I heard the shower start. Instead of an actual bathtub or stall, my mother’s shower was nothing more than a rain shower head aimed at a drain in the floor. Paint splashed on the white subway tiles as she rinsed her long, still-blond hair.
It took a minute, but I found the kitchen drawer where my mother had shoved all her mail. Paperwork was not something Caroline deemed worth her time, and her bills usually stacked up until myself, a friend, or a loving patron couldn’t stand it any longer. As I sifted through the large, chaotic stash, I realized just how dire the situation was in Murtaugh, especially for my mother.
Tourists loved her wild shows of creativity and most bought something, even if it was just a postcard. Since my mother refused to advertise, those tourists were the only ones spreading her art to a larger audience. Through them, she got the larger commissions that sustained her freewheeling life. Now that fewer people came to ‘discover’ Caroline, she was woefully behind on all her bills.
The shower stopped, and my mother peeked around the screen stark-naked. “Oh, Cora, don’t worry yourself with that stuff.”
I looked up with tear-blurred eyes. “Your landlord has filed eviction papers?”
My mother tugged her bathrobe back on and walked barefoot over to the kitchen. The letter had been unopened, but she was entirely unsurprised.
“How about a little lunch?” my mother asked. “You must be hungry after driving all the way from the big city.”
“Mom, do you even know what this means?” My voice wavered.
“Baby girl, I wish you wouldn’t worry so.” Caroline caressed my cheek.
“They got an offer on the studio and the two shops next door. Your landlord is going to sell, and they’re going to put in some big chain pharmacy!”
A deep furrow appeared between my mother’s eyes. If Caroline believed in any sort of devil, it was large corporations and chain stores, but especially big pharma pushing their horrible, unnatural drugs. Then she took a deep breath and let it out with a loud, guttural whoosh.
“There are fresh tomatoes. Could you slice up a few?” my mother asked.
We worked silently in the kitchen, putting together a fresh farmer’s lunch of tomatoes, French bread, olive oil, and slices of salami. My mother pulled cottage cheese out of her small refrigerator, and I automatically sprinkled it with pepper. Together, we chopped up carrots and peppers and tossed them with lettuce she grew in giant pots by the back door.
“You two make such a perfect team,” Susie Q said dreamily from the studio door.
“Good,” I said. “Because I’m staying until this all gets sorted out.”
My mother hugged me tight. “I’m so glad, my love. And maybe while you’re here, you’ll tell me what’s really going on.”
“She seems nice,” I said to Rick. “Who is she?”
The record store owner straightened up behind the counter and frowned at me. “Nobody. Just passing through.”
I glanced past the pasted concert posters in the window and watched as the young woman walked slowly down Main Street. Her dragging gait did not make it seem like she was anxious to get out of town, but I couldn’t blame Rick for lying. She was very attractive: unruly blond hair, dark blue eyes, and a shy smile. I wondered what she’d look like with a little confidence.
“You get the record from Bobby?” Rick asked, clearly trying to distract me from his friend.
“Yup. He’s working on a rhythm similar to track number three. I told him I’d have something to play over it in the next few days.” I pushed open the record store door. Outside, a large white truck rumbled down Main Street.
“Good luck getting anything done. Looks like your manager is cooking up something at the house.” Rick chuckled as I left.
I gritted my teeth and headed down Main Street toward my beat-up truck. Another truck, this one marked with an event planner’s flamboyant logo, rumbled past. If Rick was right, then I had to get back to the mansion and kill my manager. I picked up the pace until I got stuck behind two loitering teenagers.
“I thought the place was abandoned,” the taller boy said.
“If there’s a party there, we should totally try to get in,” his friend said. “My dad said the parties there were legendary.”
The taller boy stopped and pulled a face. “Seriously? We should totally gate-crash.”
I cringed as the boys sang a few lines from my one-hit wonder. Somehow, the damn thing was still popular despite its obviously aged sound. The boys were mocking it but knew every word. I lengthened my stride and passed them before they got to the chorus. I walked faster but could not escape the song that had dominated and then destroyed my career.
No one cared that I had more in me than just one catchy tune. No one cared that I could play the guitar to beat the devil. That one song had killed my chances of doing anything else. I was nothing but my father’s disappointing legacy who flamed out after one international hit.
Luckily, enough time had passed, and I had changed my look enough, that the boys did not recognize me. Still, my need for privacy made me cross the street.
I could have stewed on it the rest of the way home, but a camera flash caught my eye. Instinctively, I tucked my chin down to avoid paparazzi before realizing the camera was not pointed at me. I looked up and stopped dead on the sidewalk.
Caroline Sinclair’s art studio was always worth a second look but today it was impossible to look away. The flighty but attractive woman I had seen earlier was barefoot on the paint-splattered floor, stretching with impeccable balance to capture another shot of the artist at work. Caroline, true to her outrageous reputation, was clad in nothing but a bikini as she let her lithe body paint through Yoga moves. But it was the photographer who captured my attention.
She shoved back her short, unruly blond hair and lined up another shot. Gone was the confused and embarrassed expression I had seen in the record store earlier. Concentration set her full lips in a pout, and the light of inspiration shone in her blue eyes.
I recognized that light; it had beamed from my father’s face day and night as he wrote the music that had launched his band into the stratosphere of rock history.
It was hard not to notice Caroline, but I had seen the sweeps and experimental body-painting before. It was the young woman’s face that was new, her expression both irritated and inspired. I chuckled to myself as she slipped in a patch of paint and let out what clearly looked like a string of obscenities. Besides her wild blond hair and her current situation, the young woman looked neat and tidy, one of those straight-laced women who unravel in the most surprising ways.
I dragged my eyes back to the paint-smeared artist. She struck an impressive Warrior Pose but I struggled to concentrate on her normally-inspiring work. Caroline had always fascinated me with her utmost dedication to art. She let everything else go, including her reputation, and I admired her bravery. But today, it was the photographer, now biting her lip as she bent low for a better angle, that had my full attention.
; I wished I could see the photographs she was capturing. I wanted to see the world through her dark-blue eyes.
The riff came out of nowhere, sounding off in my head so clearly that I straightened up to listen. It never failed to amaze me how inspiration struck when I least expected it. I replayed the idea in my head and started walking. By the time I reached the end of the sidewalk, the riff was expanding into a song.
At the corner, I tried to shake it off. I still had errands to run, and who was I kidding? I wasn’t a music phenomenon like my father. Why would I think anyone but myself would like the music I heard in my head?
I stopped in at the post office and tried to return to normal life. “Hi, Larry. How’s the wife?” I asked the postmaster.
“Potty training our youngest,” Larry replied ruefully.
I laughed. “So, nice day to be at work?”
Larry tapped his nose to show I was right on point. Then he slipped into the back room and returned with my package. It was small and wrapped in nondescript brown paper, just a box of my favorite guitar strings, but Larry marveled over it for fun.
“Let me guess, rose petals from the Riviera?” Larry had handled many of my father’s unique orders in the past.
“Not for me,” I reminded him.
Larry smiled, having known me from childhood. “Working on a new song?”
“What?” I blinked hard, realizing that I had been humming the new riff out loud.
“I like it,” Larry said.
“Uh, thanks.” I grabbed my package and hightailed it out of the post office.
Still, the song followed me back down Main Street. I caught myself humming it again as I swung into the hardware store. Luckily, the owners there were relatively new and had no idea who I was. Plus, they were too busy arguing over stock orders.
“No one’s buying anything, so why restock?” the husband argued.
“I don’t care what you stock or restock,” his wife said. “We’re not giving in to that land developer. This is still our store.”
I wondered about the developer, but the forming song pushed everything out of my head again. Back on Main Street, I realized why the riff was so insistent.
It was her.
As soon as I admitted the blonde photographer had inspired me, the song took off. I hurried to my beat-up truck with the lyrics already forming on my tongue. I had to scribble them on the back of a receipt before I could concentrate on driving home.
The last road off Main Street leading to the right headed straight for the lavish mansion my father had built. Instead of driving right home, I detoured down an alley and turned on to the service road. If people saw my old truck regularly driving up the mansion’s wide, tree-lined entrance, they would start wondering who I really was. The locals, like Larry and Rick, had kept my secret without an explanation for years. To them, I had finally become just a regular guy and I prized that more than all the wealth and fame my father had collected.
I bumped over the unmaintained back road and pulled into the stone-walled service entrance of the mansion. There, behind the high walls, no one could see me pull the rusty old truck into the underground garage, where I parked it next to a lemon-yellow Lamborghini Countach. I jumped out and strode past the long collection of high-end sports cars that culminated in a Rolls Royce Phantom my father had loved like a second child.
I pushed open the basement door and jogged up the polished mahogany steps. I kicked off my shoes on the back landing and entered the sun-filled cathedral of a kitchen. After almost a full decade of living on tour with my father, my formative years spent at a boarding school overseas, and countless other expensive residences, this mansion was still the only place that felt like home.
My best memories were in that kitchen, huddled over the massive marble island, mixing up outrageous ice cream flavors with my father late at night. It was the only place he ever seemed to come back down to earth and realize he had a son.
I tossed my keys into the black bowl formed from a warped album and put the brown-paper package on the kitchen island. In the huge double-doored refrigerator, I found a steak sandwich and a beer waiting. I pulled them out and started eating lunch as I unwrapped the guitar strings and let the new riff play over and over in my head.
“There you are! Good, you found lunch.” Tyson, my manager, burst into the kitchen and paced up and down the gleaming floors.
I frowned. “What now, Tyson?”
Tyson could have retired years ago, rich off the royalties from my one-hit wonder, but he had chosen to stay on as my manager, even though I wasn’t making music anymore. Not only did he stay on, but he moved into the mansion and had taken over running the large estate. In truth, Tyson was more family to me than my actual blood relatives. He had apprenticed under my father’s manager as a young man, and we had practically grown up together in the midst of Ian Morris’ inspired chaos.
“Now, before you say anything else—”
“No. Whatever it is, Tyson, it’s not happening,” I said.
“Fine.” Tyson folded his thick forearms over his barrel-chest. “Then let’s talk about the estate instead, shall we?”
I took a long drink of my beer before answering. “You know as well as I do that it’s time to move on. Selling the estate is the only way either of us are going to manage to get on with our lives.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tyson said. “I like my life. I like being a music manager. I like being your manager.”
I snorted. “You sure about that?”
Tyson tipped his bald head and beseeched the kitchen’s beautiful arched ceiling. “Why are you so stubborn, Storm?”
“Wanting my life back is not stubborn, it’s normal,” I said.
“And that’s the problem. When are you going to accept the fact that nothing about you or your life is ever going to be ‘normal?’“ Tyson asked.
I finished my steak sandwich instead of answering. Tyson was vehemently opposed to moving and, at first, I had thought it was because he hated change. Now I wasn’t so sure. Something else had put a determined light in his eyes. He wasn’t telling me yet, so I changed the subject.
“So, I saw these big white trucks driving through town. You know anything about those?” I asked.
Tyson sighed. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
I groaned. “Please tell me you’re not throwing a party!”
“Consider it one last hurrah,” Tyson said.
I pinched the arch of my nose, knowing full well an elaborate party was just another one of Tyson’s ploys to get me to stay. And I knew from experience that once my manager had put an idea in motion, there was no stopping it.
We were having a party whether I wanted one or not.
After lunch, I slowly inched my way to the back door. I knew if I set even one foot toward the studio, my mother would try to rope me back into her latest project. Even as we finished with a bright dessert of fruit and cream, she was already getting that faraway look in her eyes.
“I think backbends should be next,” my mother said to no one in particular. “The effect of the hand placement on the canvas will be really interesting, don’t you think?”
Susie Q agreed, even as she pressed me for more details about my life in New York City. “Come on, Cora, you must have some sort of nightlife.”
I shook my head, tight-lipped. It wasn’t because I was hiding any sort of steamy relationship. I had been single for over a year now, but my mother knew that, so obviously her best friend did as well. What I really wanted to avoid was any sort of subject that could circle back around to my job or my finances. Susie Q loved a lavish lifestyle, and I didn’t want her or my mother sensing the downfall of my savings.
My mother wasn’t interested in my big city life and brought the subject, as always, back around to art. “How about those photographs, huh, Suz? My daughter has real talent. Not that she’d ever admit it.”
I put my hand on the back door handle. The only thing I wanted to talk about les
s was how much I had enjoyed taking those pictures. My phone’s camera was loaded with little shots I couldn’t help but take every day. It was the only little artistic indulgence I allowed myself, and my mother somehow sensed it. If I let myself, I would admit to loving photography but that was way too close to being like my mother, and I vowed never to let that happen.
“Thanks for lunch. Just need to stretch my legs.” I slipped out the door and shut it behind me.
My mother’s laughter rang out, but I ignored it and hightailed it through the narrow alley and onto the street. I had to do something practical, something solid, or I thought my head would burst. So, I headed over a few blocks from Main Street to where the old diner was still in business.
I took a spot at the standing counter in the window and checked my email before ordering. No responses to my dozens of resumes. No views of my multiple online job search profiles. Nothing. There weren’t even any new job postings that made me want to see more than the title.
I was sinking low when there was a sharp knock on the diner window. Outside, my old classmate and friend waved. She waved me outside and motioned for us to get real drinks. I abandoned my job search in a second and joined her.
“Cora! I’m so glad to see you!” Victoria hugged me and then pulled me toward the local dive bar. “Come on, I need a drink.”
“Tough assignment tonight?” I asked. Victoria was a journalist and blogger.
She rolled her eyes behind trendy tortoise-shell glasses. “You’re never going to believe me. Drinks first.”
I laughed and let my childhood friend drag me into the locals’ favorite bar. She navigated the surprisingly packed crowd and found us a small booth in the corner. Under the low hanging bar lights, Victoria’s platinum-dyed blond hair was glossy and perfect. She waved to the bartender, ordering us shots.
“All right. Spill.” I slipped into the booth.
“I’m going to a party at the Morris Mansion!” Victoria announced.