Stay Until We Break (Hub City Romance, A)

by Mercy Brown

  I’m so glad I didn’t, though, because this night, with everyone I know here, will be something that stays with me forever. For the rest of my life I want to remember that I had this. Even if my music career didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped, it still mattered because it taught me that life doesn’t have to be all scars and bad memories. I get to have memories like this, too. I practiced and gigged and drove countless hours and miles and lost sleep and slept on floors and ate ramen for weeks and took shit from my family for wasting my time in the band for years just to arrive at this moment.

  But if it wasn’t for Sonia, I wouldn’t have even shown up.

  Our set tonight is one big, loud blur as we cruise from one tune to the next into the next until we pause to say thanks before the last song of the night. Last song of the tour. Last song of my music career.

  And if it’s the last song I’m going to play with these guys, I’m so glad it’s “Loud.”

  This is when I look up and see her, my Sunshine, standing on the bleachers to the side, not in front of me like she normally does. Makes me a little sad, but I get it. We may have stopped fighting, but the truth remains: as soon as I pack up my bass and walk away from Soft, I’m no longer the guy with the bright future, all the exciting possibilities like she has ahead of her. I’m the regular guy with the predictable, mediocre future and all the obligations that go along with it.

  She deserves the rock star.

  For the last three minutes I’m playing this song, I can still pretend that’s me. More than anything she’s asked me for, Sonia wanted me to play this set. So if this is the last thing I can do to make her happy, Goddamn I’m going to bring it.

  Travis starts the opening riff to “Loud” and the energy is exploding in so many different directions, but nothing is as explosive as the inside of my head. I’m feeling it so hard I start bouncing in place, already close to crowd surfing and I haven’t even started playing yet. I feel like I’m going to break in half with every crushing thud of Joey’s kick drum, and it feels so right. And I don’t—can’t—think of what it will be like to walk away at the end of the night, because that feels like my body walking away from my soul. I close my eyes and feel this song everywhere—the rumble in my chest, in my hands, in my head. My legs feel it. And it feels like breaking free.

  I strum heavy bass chords against Travis’s riff, move on stage as I follow the sound of it into the verse. The roar from Trap’s Marshall is a fire in the dark where all my fears go to die. I hit my distortion and thunder right along with the strings, driving this song as hard as I can into the very next now. Emmy’s voice is like starlight busting through the deepest part of night as she breaks out the first verse, and as loud as we are, I hear what sounds like every voice in the bar singing right along with her. I look up, and realize this is actually happening. The sold-out crowd at Maxwell’s is pressed up to the stage and everyone is singing our song. I look over at Emmy and she looks so fucking happy I feel a catch in my throat. Even the Steel Trap can’t stay cool at a time like this. He’s head banging right on the edge of the stage and playing like his hands are on fire. Joey’s eyes are closed as he sings along, not even into the mic but just because he’s feeling it so hard.

  That’s when Sonia finally looks up and gives me this killer sad smile and I almost forget what the hell I’m doing, where I am. All I can think about is holding her under the stars in Tennessee. My eyes lock on hers when I step up to the mic for my backing vocal, my heart galloping when we get to the chorus because even though this is Emmy and Travis’s song, I’m so glad it’s giving me the chance to say something I’ll never get to say to this girl again. She’s looking right at me as I sing, Loud . . . is how . . .

  I love you.

  Sunny’s face cracks and she has to look away as she blinks back tears. That’s almost enough to break me. I want to leap from the stage and take her in my arms, but I’m still not sure if she’d let me.

  My attention shifts to the floor when I see Claire lurching toward the stage, pushing through the crowd until she’s right up to the monitor in front of me, her arms over her head, cheering as wildly as the biggest drunk in the bar.

  “Coco!” she screams so loud I can hear her over the music. She laughs and throws the devil’s horns at me. I catch her eye and she smiles and thumbs over her shoulder, back to the bleachers, and holy fucking shit. “Look!” she yells.

  Oh my God, my mother is here.

  My mother is here with Patrick, who’s in an REO Speedwagon concert T-shirt and has his stupid cell phone on a clip on his belt. The look on my face, I have no idea what it must be. Horror? Can’t remember the last time I saw my mom in a bar without a drink in her hand. Never, actually. Never has she come to see me play. Never even expressed any interest in my band other than, Why are you wasting your time? Are you doing drugs? You need a real job. When are you gonna grow up? And et cetera. That’s all she’s ever had to say about it. She looks right at me and dabs at her eyes with a crumpled bar napkin. Is the smoke in here making her eyes water? Shit, is her asthma going to flare up again?

  I look back to where Sonia was, but now she’s gone, disappeared somewhere into the crowd. My head is flooded with so many things, I have no idea what to think or feel. We’re in the last part of the song and I’m a total mess. But I close my eyes, hit my pick to the strings, and drink in that last chord ringing out into the night.

  “There’s no place like Jersey,” Emmylou says into the mic. You almost can’t even hear her over the cheering. “Good night, guys. We love you all.”

  I take one last look out at that packed house, the last audience I’ll ever play for. Just try to remember this, Cole. Remember it was good. Maybe it didn’t last, but maybe nothing this good ever does.

  I flip my amp to standby and set my bass in the stand, wipe my face down with a towel Joey tosses me. Then I squat down at the edge of the stage where Claire stands, grinning at me.

  “What the hell is Mom doing here?” I ask.

  “She and Uncle Patty came to see you play!” she says. “Crazy, right?”

  “Are you behind this?”

  “No, I swear,” she says, and I don’t believe her, but that look in my sister’s eye, I know it. It’s been a while, but that’s the look she gives me when she’s proud to call me her brother. And it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

  “When’s the next show?” she asks, totally ignoring the reality that there’s no next show for me. “Sonia says I’m on the guest list for life!”

  “She does, huh?”

  Sonia is now standing on the floor next to Claire, saying something to Emmy, who’s listening like her life depends on it. Then Sonia turns to me.

  “I’m heading to the bar to get you guys a round,” she says, business as usual. “Do you want a shot of Jameson?”

  No, I don’t want a shot. I want her. In fact, all I want is her. There’s so much I have to say to her before the night ends, but right there in the middle of two hundred and fifty people screaming, “More!” at us isn’t really the time.

  “Cole?”

  “Just water,” I say.

  She nods and turns from me, and the crowd parts before her like she’s royalty as she heads for the bar. I turn and see Emmy’s face and she looks like she’s going to be sick. Travis looks worried and now so am I. She beckons both of us over and we huddle at the drum kit with Joey.

  “Guys,” she says, looking pale. “Something has happened.”

  “What?” I ask, my stomach dropping to the floor. It has to be something awful with the look on her face.

  “Mat . . .” She covers her mouth and fans her hand in front of her face.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” Travis says.

  We all lean in close. Joey stands up and she wraps her arms around my and Travis’s shoulders and whispers, “Matador is here.” She practically faints when she tells us. Good
thing she doesn’t, because we’re all too stunned to catch her.

  “Wait, what?” Travis says.

  “Holy shit,” I say. “Sunny really got someone from Matador here?”

  “Fuck yes!” Joey says. “Did they dig it? We rocked the fucking house tonight!”

  “I can’t believe it,” Emmy says, trying to calm down. She gestures to the bar, where Sunny is talking to a guy I don’t recognize. “She says they loved the single and they want to set up a meeting with us to talk about doing a full-length. They’ve got a CMJ showcase at the Mercury Lounge in October they want us to play for them.”

  “No fucking way,” Travis says.

  “Yes fucking way!” Joey jumps up from the huddle and throws his arms around all of us, and I am stunned. Fucking stunned.

  “Cole, are you okay?” Travis says.

  “I’m . . .” Am I okay? I don’t even know. “Tripping. I’m tripping.”

  “Well get your shit together,” Emmy says. “We’re doing ‘Amber Orbit’ for the encore, straight into ‘Metal Madness.’”

  “No, let’s roll ‘Amber’ into ‘Fire in the Empire,’” Joey says. “That has a huge ending and it’s all ours.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Emmy says, recovering from her shock, her face determined. “But no more than two songs, and no second encore. Let’s be classy.”

  “Good plan,” Travis says.

  I’m still tripping, though.

  “Cole?” Emmy says, putting both hands on my shoulders. “Look at me. Are you here?”

  For my final moment? To help Soft land a deal with the indie label we’ve been dreaming of for years?

  “Fuck yes, I’m here,” I say, and feel a good glow come on from the core of me. “Let’s do this.”

  The lights in the house go down for our encore. The roar of the crowd is insane. I can’t figure out what’s behind this energy. All I know is it feels like there’s enough of it that it’s going to last me a good, long while. I look down at my feet, and there she is, just the girl, just the girl, the girl I want. Sonia, her eyes closed as she starts to sway to the opening chords of “Amber Orbit,” and I’m playing just for her.

  She doesn’t know it, but every note I play is for her.

  ***

  Right after our set, I avoid everyone I can and head straight down to the gear alcove, a narrow hall with a bench and band graffiti and stickers all over the walls. I need a moment to collect myself before I deal with my family, Sonia, and Matador Records, for fuck’s sake. I sit right under the big cartoonish-looking Soft tag that Travis Sharpied on the wall the last time we played here. I put my bass back in the case and try to push away the thought that I won’t be the one taking her back out again. I can’t figure out how to say good-bye. I don’t want to say good-bye.

  My ears ring, my head pounds with frustration. What did I think it was going to feel like to quit my whole life and walk the hell away? I expected it to feel bad, sure, but I guess I didn’t expect it to feel so fucking wrong.

  Sonia comes downstairs carrying Emmy’s Gretsch and pedal bag. I pull myself together and snap the latches on the case down. She leans against the wall, across from where I sit, which is so close our knees are practically touching.

  “I have something I need to say to you,” she says. She smooths her hair, puts her hands on her hips, the Sonia battle stance.

  “Okay,” I say, not sure what to expect. My stomach churns with doubt as I brace myself for whatever she plans to say. But then, Anton and Elliot come bounding down the stairs.

  “You guys fucking?” Elliot asks, hopefully.

  “Does it look like this when you fuck?” I ask. “Tell your wife I’m sorry.”

  “We need our guitars.”

  We hand them their guitar cases and they run back upstairs, Anton giving me the thumbs-up for good luck as he leaves. With the look on Sunny’s face, I guess I’m going to need it. She stands so close I can smell her hair, her skin, and I’d like to pull her down into my lap, but right now that’s probably about as good an idea as trying to cuddle with a rabid honey badger. She reaches down and draws her finger along the rope of my tattoo, over to the single thread, and sighs.

  “I’m so mad I can’t break you free,” she says.

  Yeah, well, with everything else Sonia seems to be able to influence, I’m sure it makes her nuts that she can’t get me to stay in the band. Especially now. If anyone could, it would be her, for sure.

  “I am free,” I say. “I’m sorry, Sonia. I’m just not the guy you thought I was.”

  “No, you really aren’t,” she says, and just punch me in the gut, why doesn’t she? I look up at her to see if there’s some kind of explanation on her face, but the softness of her eyes doesn’t match the harshness of her words. “You’re so much more than that,” she says.

  I don’t know what to say, but I know what to do when she kisses me, so sweet and unsure. I take her in my arms, cherish the feel of those soft, full lips against mine. Get my hands in that thick, shiny black-and-blue hair and hold her as close as I can, while I can.

  “What are we going to do?” she asks, her eyes wide as she looks to me for some kind of answer. It’s not like Sonia to ask me what to do—she always knows what she wants to do. And I’m guessing she knows what to do now, too. But maybe she just can’t do it without my help.

  “If Soft signs a deal with Matador, you guys are going to have to get on the road and stay there,” I say. “That’s your dream, isn’t it?”

  Pain crosses her face, but then she nods. We both know how bad she wants a piece of this—it’s all she’s been working for ever since she got to Rutgers. What am I supposed to do, tell her to give it up? Am I going to see her in twenty-five years, all bitter and full of regret because she gave up her dream for a plumber? Hell no.

  “That’s what we’re going to do then,” I say, tracing my finger down Sonia’s arm, resting it next to the bird as it flies off into the future. “You’re going to go after that dream for both of us. And then one day when it all comes true, I want you to look back and remember me as the open door—not the cage.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Cole

  Why does doing the right thing have to suck so fucking bad sometimes? Any philosopher out there who can explain that one, I’m all ears.

  After my talk with Sonia, all I want is to go home or get drunk or maybe go home and get drunk and call it a night. A year, even. But when I go upstairs, my sister, mother, and Patrick are all waiting for me and I have to get some sort of game face on so I can say thanks and send them on their way. Patrick slaps me on the back and tells me how surprised he is to see I actually know how to play—that this band thing I’m in is actually, you know, pretty good. Claire goes on and on about the fact that a real record label is here and wants to give us a contract (which isn’t exactly true, not yet, anyway). But the entire time they talk, my mother says nothing.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I ask her. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  “Can we talk outside for a minute?” she asks.

  My mother never asks me to talk about anything, so this is a surprise. We go for a walk down Frank Sinatra Drive, along the Hudson. The street is pretty quiet for a Saturday night, just the occasional late-night partiers. Across the river, the lights of lower Manhattan look like all the stars of the sky.

  “You know,” Mom says, looking out across the Hudson. “I always felt like you never came home from the youth house. Even after you got out you were never home, you never talked. Always with the band, though. Always out of the house. This show, that show, practice. I thought you were just out there partying all the time.”

  Of course she thought that, because if it had been her at my age, that’s what she would have been doing. But I swallow that bitterness because the fact is, Mom is here and she spent all night in a bar sober just to see me pl
ay and that’s pretty cool.

  “Well, I’m glad you got to see what it’s all about before I quit.”

  “Cole, I don’t think you should quit,” she says.

  I look square at her. Quitting is what she’s been wanting me to do ever since I got out of the youth house. She even blamed the band for getting me into trouble! “Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she used to accuse me. Now she doesn’t want me to quit? Just like that?

  “It’s time,” I say. “I’m going out on a high note, so it’s as it should be.”

  “But aren’t you about to get a record contract?”

  “Who knows?” I shrug. “Even if Matador signs us, it’s not a guarantee I’ll ever make a living playing music.”

  “But Cole, you’re really good. I mean, I may not know much about punk rock . . .”

  “Indie rock, Ma,” I say. “Or just rock.”

  “Whatever it is, I was wrong about it,” she says, shaking her head. “All wrong. About so many things.”

  Then, right there on Frank Sinatra Drive, she tells me things that I never in a million years thought she would ever say.

  “I’m sorry, Coco,” she says. “It’s my fault you ever got into all that trouble in the first place.” Says it was because I had such a shitty childhood that I got into selling weed, and she says that was all her fault, which it wasn’t. I mean, she had me when she was sixteen and that was rough. But it wasn’t her fault that she got knocked up by a fucking drunk who never worked and used to beat us both alike. “I should have protected you better,” she says. “I should have tried harder to get away from your father.”