Red Velvet Crush

by Christina Meredith

  It had been hard to find a car that had enough properly working parts to pass the inspection before my driving test. I had to borrow our neighbor’s minivan; Dad’s passenger taillight got knocked out one night when Winston was chased by a jealous boyfriend. It’s a good thing he didn’t knock up Mr. Tenny’s daughter, or I never would have gotten my license.

  I bought my own car as soon as I could, and I let Winston drive it as little as possible. He is too libidinous.

  Ty and I drive in total silence for a while, more than a couple of blocks, making our way around the edge of town.

  “Ginger likes Titchy,” he says out of the blue, pointing me to the right at the next intersection.

  “Who’s Titchy?” I ask.

  For a second I think maybe Ginger Baker is in love with a cat.

  He shakes his head and laughs. “For a band name.”

  “Oh.” I take the next left, following his finger again.

  “But we’re not British,” I say. “Although Ginger Baker does kind of look like a young king of England.”

  “Twitch then?” he suggests as the houses get bigger and the yards start to slope and grow.

  “And definitely not punk.” I wince.

  Ty sits, no tapping, his hands calm in his lap for once, and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Wait,” I say, looping back to the beginning of the conversation as we stop at a red light. “Ginger said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean—and this is a weird question to have to ask—he speaks?”

  “All the time.” Ty laughs. “He’s just very selective.”

  “Should I be offended?”

  “Hope not.”

  He looks over at me like he is wondering if I have the hots for Ginger Baker. I shake my head. I so do not.

  Ty points straight ahead, and we pull into a quiet neighborhood under a canopy of tall, curving trees. A leafy arch of sabers stands over the wide street, and I feel protected as we pass underneath, my crooked headlights leading the way.

  Happy people live here, I think. Happy families that eat prime rib and grow organic gardens and have perfect teeth.

  “I was thinking . . . ,” I say, slowing to look both ways at an unmarked intersection, studying the striped lines of the crosswalk that separate safety from danger.

  Ty waits for me to finish my sentence.

  I breathe out before I press on the gas because I have been thinking about a band name for so long and have never said it out loud to anyone else before, but here it goes. “Red Velvet Crush.”

  It sounds better now than it ever did in my head.

  Ty leans his elbow up against the door and rests his chin down, staring out his window, taking my idea in, and giving it some gravity.

  “Cool,” he finally says.

  Thank God.

  He directs me toward the third house on the right. “It reminds me of cars.”

  “And cake,” I add, because cake is always a bonus. Always.

  We pass his driveway and pull up in front of his house.

  “Perfect.”

  I’m not sure if he is commenting on my choice for a band name or my superior parking ability. I learned from Winston, who can drive better with his knee while rolling a joint than most people can with their hands at ten and two. Either way, I am good.

  He doesn’t get out.

  I don’t really breathe.

  Instead Ty reaches down and pulls a CD from the side pocket of my passenger door. George Michael smolders back at me. Crap.

  “Really?” he asks, incredulous.

  He sets the CD flat onto his palm, as if it were poisonous, and opens it up. It creaks like a vault or a crypt.

  I know the case is cracked. But still, I watch as the cover falls off and the CD rolls down his leg and onto the floor.

  So much for this love affair.

  “What can I say?” I shrug as he bends down to pick up the pieces. “It came with the car.”

  It’s true.

  “I know what you need,” Ty says.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  He snaps the corner back onto the front cover and slides the whole case back into the door. Then he dusts his hands off on his jeans, as though attempting to wipe away the shame of the eighties, and turns toward me.

  “Come with me?” he asks, his eyes warm and steady on mine.

  A million heartbeats in one second can’t be wrong. I put the car into park.

  Lit only by porch light, we make our way across the soft, grassy rise of Ty’s front yard. The dark wood shingles and tall, pitched roof of his house wait for us in dusky stillness.

  He opens the front door and turns on the hall light. I step in behind him. It smells clean inside, but unused. Like everything is brand-new and nothing has ever been accidentally set on fire.

  Ty kicks off his shoes and bounces down a set of stairs at the end of the hall, his frame loose and jangly.

  I kick mine off, too, and try to keep up, but I am busy staring at everything. Taking it all in.

  A baby grand piano gleams under the windows facing the street in the front room. A blue glass bowl sits on top of a sideboard, next to a stack of National Geographics. I touch the edge of the bowl as I pass by. The glass is smooth and cool under my fingers.

  Lining the stairs is a series of photos—Ty’s school pictures—one from every year. He grows up with each step. His schoolboy hair gets bigger, then rockabilly, then punk, then metal and screamo. I laugh and start again at the top, watching his smile go from gapped to big and toothy to a Crest commercial.

  The last one, his senior picture, is straight-edge Ty. Shaved short, he smiles back at me with perfect teeth. The same smile looks up at me from the bottom step, waiting.

  “Where are your parents?” I ask in a shy voice I didn’t even know I owned. I step down to him.

  “Book club,” he says, and takes my hand, pulling me across a sea of thick carpeting that swallows me up to my ankles.

  I am impressed, by the answer and by the room, where everything is soft and subtle, in shades of tan, like living inside a warm cup of coffee. But Ty keeps going.

  “Farmers market?” He leads me to an entire wall lined with books and record albums, obviously just guessing.

  “At this hour?” I ask, playing along.

  “It’s special.” He kneels down, flipping through the albums on the bottom shelf. “Nightshades only.”

  He looks over his shoulder at me.

  Grinning, he gives it one more try. “Turkish prison?”

  He must be used to being alone in this big house. I honestly can’t remember being alone in my house. Ever. With Billie around I barely get to use the bathroom on my own. She busts in while I am in the bathtub.

  “Take these.” Ty slides albums out across the carpet toward my toes, one after the other: Lissie, London Grammar, The Runaways.

  “But this—” Ty says when he finally stops flipping and stands up.

  He taps the album cover with his finger. “This is what you need.”

  “Carole King?” I ask, spying the cover as he walks over to a stereo. It is sleek and expensive looking.

  “History,” he says.

  He lifts the record player’s slender arm and slides the album onto a shiny silver post. The record drops silently, like magic, and the arm moves over it, hovering for a second before it lowers, filling the room with pure, melancholy piano music.

  The song strikes a chord deep in my chest, somber and heavy, reminding me of my mom. I swallow hard, afraid of falling into a place that is dark and jagged and full of crags, fighting to stay here, where it is warm and safe, lit by the softest of bulbs.

  Ty turns toward me and nods along. A mellow drumbeat is coming in through the speakers hidden in the ceiling, thumping low and deep.

  “Nice offer,” I say as he steps over the albums scattered across the floor and moves toward me. “But we don’t have a record player.”

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bsp; He does not look disappointed. “Then I guess you’ll have to come back.”

  He holds his arms out, and I step into them, sinking farther into the carpet. His heart is beating, muffled and warm, as we start to dance. We aren’t really even dancing, just holding each other, circling. His body is close against mine. I smell the sweetness of his neck and his shoulder. His hand rubs across my lower back slowly, softly, perfectly, melting me to him.

  I reach up and run my hand along the back of Ty’s head, his hair buzzing under my fingertips. It is soft and prickly.

  I sneak in under the bridge of his nose. “I’m skipping ahead,” I say, and I kiss him.

  His lips are warm and soft and start breaking into a smile as soon as I stop. He breathes out in a rush of warm air that mingles with mine, and I lean back in for more. Up close, his eyes have flecks of gold in them.

  My bare feet touch against his tube-socked toes as one song spins into the next and the next and the next until the album ends and there is nothing but us, hearts beating fast, surrounded by a soft, sweet hiss.

  I can’t wait for next time.

  Ty pulls up to my house on Saturday morning behind the wheel of a champagne-colored minivan. It has a “My Son’s an Honor Student at WA” bumper sticker on the back and squishy-looking tires with whitewalls. It is all very street legal and suburban looking.

  I step off the front porch and walk across the yard.

  “Are we going to play soccer?” I ask as Ty makes his way around the front of the van and reaches for the passenger door.

  “It’s my mom’s,” he says as he pulls the door open for me.

  I duck in under his arm. It’s been two nights since we danced in his basement, and I am still sleeping in the shirt that pressed up against him, his smell slowly fading in a nightly battle against my flowered sheets and fabric softener.

  I breathe him in deep as I climb into the car. Ahhh . . . there’s nothing like the real thing.

  Ty swings my door shut and then jogs back around the front as I check out the van.

  The interior is boring beige with stripes of corporate tan. Spare change is lined up by denomination in the appropriate slots, although there seems to be an abundance of pennies. It smells great inside, but that might just be Ty.

  He starts the engine and swings out into the street.

  “Where’s Billie?” he asks as I click my seat belt.

  “Still sleeping.”

  For once Billie’s sleepiness has worked in my favor. Usually it just makes me late for school.

  “And Winston?” Ty asks, steering around the pile of broken blinkers and headlights at the end of our street. It is a tricky left.

  I lean forward, looking to the right along with him.

  “Slumped on the couch, smoking cigarettes and watching cooking shows.”

  He looks at me as if that requires further explanation.

  “It’s what he does when we’re low on groceries.”

  Ty avoids the slow, lazy curves of the suburbs and heads toward downtown. He drives with his left leg bent and leaning up against the door.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “What?” I am not good at surprises. Not since the second grade anyway.

  “Well . . .” he says. “It’s someplace, actually.” He checks over his shoulder to switch lanes. “I kind of live there. I think you’re going to like it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know,” he says.

  I remember the dancing and the albums he picked out the other night. How he pulled the word bittersweet out of the air as we sat at the piano. I cross my fingers and tuck them under my leg. He’s been right so far.

  We drive until we are kind of downtown, but not really. The tall glass offices and department stores are still blocks away. Low brick buildings and shops surround us with handmade signs inviting us to SHOP LOCAL.

  Ty drives down an alley, turns right, and then parks the minivan in a spot on the corner.

  “Rock star parking,” he says, lining the van up with the curb.

  I lean over to look out his window. It counts as rock star parking only if we are right outside where we want to be. The storefront on his side of the street is jam-packed with banjos and ukuleles. The window gleams, glass and wood bodies and metal strings. Silver fittings and fingerboards sparkle in the morning sun.

  “You live at The Wall of Sound?” I ask.

  “Just wait,” Ty says, opening his door. “In a minute you’re going to wish you did.”

  I climb out. Hey, if they have an empty bed and are willing to turn the heat past sixty-five degrees in the winter, I might consider it.

  A bell jingles above the door when we walk in.

  “Ty!” the man behind the counter says as soon as the door swings open. We are the only customers. The man has dark, poofy shoulder-length hair and a drooping mustache.

  “Tony!” Ty grins and walks toward the counter.

  They shake hands, and I look around. A wall of guitars is in front of me, a wall of brass is on my left, and the entire back room seems to be devoted to drums. Pianos are planted wherever there is room.

  Wood gleams like gold honey.

  Metallic strings flicker in the sun.

  Polished silver keys and pedals sparkle.

  I spin and take it all in again. I take a step, change my mind, and step the other way. What should I touch first?

  Thank God Billie isn’t here. She would break something.

  I walk toward the wall of guitars, picking out the one I would want if I could afford a new guitar. Guitars of every color hang on that wall. Bright yellow ones, shiny apple red ones, matte black death metal ones, even pinstriped flying Vs straight from 1984.

  “What do you think, Teddy Lee?” Ty calls out.

  I have never heard him say my name before, and it stops me in my tracks. I immediately decide he should add it to the end of every sentence.

  The price of postage went up again, Teddy Lee.

  Dracula was Bram Stoker’s most popular book, Teddy Lee.

  The sun rises and sets for you, Teddy Lee.

  “Now I see why it’s called The Wall of Sound,” I say, knowing that it’s stupid, that everybody probably says that. But I can’t help it. I am having a hard time not hopping around on my tippy toes with my eyes wide and my mouth in a little O. It’s possible I might need defibrillation.

  Tony laughs and says, “I do my best.”

  “I told you you’d like it,” Ty says, leaving the counter.

  He was right. It is amazing.

  Ty walks past me. “First things first,” he says, holding his hands out behind his back, reaching for mine. I hesitate, then grab for them. He leads me over toward the windows and a black baby grand in the corner.

  Tony follows us, dusting his fingers along drum tops and piano lids as he goes. I am jealous; he can touch everything.

  “You play, right?” Ty asks as he sits me down on the black bench.

  “I do.”

  I wait for him to sit at the drum set next to me. It is pearly gray, like the sky before a storm. Instead he walks back over to the wall of guitars with Tony.

  Of course he plays the guitar. He probably plays everything, including the glockenspiel.

  “What about that one?” Ty asks, pointing toward a neon green Mustang.

  Tony shakes his head. “Not today,” he says. “Too much flash.”

  I agree, even though they haven’t asked for my opinion.

  Tony moves two guitars over and one guitar up. Ty nods, and Tony takes down a custom-built acoustic guitar, all black with a silver spiderweb painted on the body. He hands it to Ty.

  “More your style,” he says.

  Ty tunes it, his head tilted.

  There is no strap; he holds the guitar propped against his hip. I stare at his arms, picturing the muscles flexing under his Henley.

  He walks toward me and starts to strum.

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nbsp; I raise my hands over the piano keys, my fingers wobbly because he has never actually heard me play and because Tony is watching.

  “Death Cab?” Ty asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Teen Spirit?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Sublime?” He pauses. “Come on . . . everybody loves some Sublime.”

  “Yeah, everyone forty-five and over,” I say. “Besides, that’s stoner music.”

  He stops strumming. “Do you have something against stoners?”

  “Not strictly speaking,” I say. Lord knows I’ve spent enough time with them.

  Ty runs his fingers along the strings, thinking.

  “I know,” he says. He nods like he’s had the best idea ever. “‘Yesterday.’”

  Yesterday? Nothing happened yesterday. It was two days ago I kissed you, I think.

  He starts in on the first few notes of the song “Yesterday,” and I freeze.

  My hands plunk onto the keys. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Ty stops, too.

  “Wait . . . you don’t like the Beatles?” he asks, looking suspiciously at Tony.

  “Nope,” I say, and Tony bounds toward me. He leans against the side of the black piano and reaches down. My hands are shaking for real now. I don’t know what to expect.

  “Well then,” Tony says, catching up my right hand into a tight, warm squeeze, “welcome to a small and very exclusive club.”

  “Happy to be here,” I say, relieved.

  My reflection smiles back at me from the glossy piano top.

  Ty stands in the middle of the room and sighs. “I can’t believe I’ve found the two people in the world that don’t like the Beatles.”

  “Believe,” I say, and play a series of twinkling, totally Lennonish notes.

  Tony laughs and starts walking back to the counter. “Now that sounds like a Beatles song.”

  “Okay,” Ty says. “Pick something else. Your choice.”

  He steps closer to the piano and rests the guitar against his hip again, waiting for me. I tuck my hair behind my ears and sit up straight.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “This is weird,” I say, looking at him.

  Ty shakes his head. “It’s cool, I play here all the time.”

  “No . . .” I say. “It’s just that I never see you standing up. It’s weird.”

  I swear I can hear Tony chuckling behind the counter.