“Just play,” Ty says.
So I do. I kick into it, hard and fast, playing the song we danced to in his basement, but live and much louder. I have been practicing it at home every chance I get, remembering how it felt to be close to him for the first time, how my heart drubbed down into my toes, how my hands rested on him, light and new.
I work the pedals on the baby grand, feeling all the notes, full steam ahead.
I don’t slow down, or ease into it, or even give Ty a chance to catch up to me, but somehow he does.
6
Jay and Ginger are in for it. I can tell by the way they stand straighter and stare whenever Billie walks into the garage for practice. Today their mouths hang open, and Jay’s bass swings low and loose, temporarily forgotten.
I’ve seen it before. It is a side effect of her bounciness, her indifference, and the little space between her front teeth. Boys love Billie.
But Ty never even seems to notice her. He is either very well behaved or impervious to her charms. Maybe he is still hypnotized, spinning under the dazzling spell of The Wall of Sound and its sea of shining instruments.
I am still feeling it, too, and returning to the dusty dimness of the garage is a bit of a disappointment. But Jay and Ginger are here when we pull up, spilling stupid jokes and guitar licks out into the street, and sliding under the moon and stars strap feels like home. It sparkles when the light hits it just right.
Billie is sporting a fresh scrape on her knee. It looks suspiciously like rug burn, but Billie always has a bruise or a scratch or a bump. A nick. A little something that she picks up during the day and has no idea how it happened.
She bumps along with a smile on her face, knocking into everyday shit, unknowingly changing the trajectory of everything around her. Lives, furniture, even things that appear to be set in stone are nudged into another dimension when she bounces up against them: poor, unprepared world.
Her eyes follow mine from her knee to her face, where they flicker and hold, seemingly abashed, but I bet I just imagine that.
What was she up to while Ty and I were out?
I tell myself she tripped.
Ty waits for her while she gets set, tapping out the intro to the next song on the rim of his snare. Jay joins in, and Ginger Baker rolls his head back and forth to the beat, already lost.
When Ginger goes to bed at night, I bet musical notes dance before his eyes, while bosomy girls in satin nighties thread in and out of staves, weaving themselves into his unwritten masterpieces.
Billie starts singing, and soon she is screwing everything up. I know it’s on purpose because songs she has known her whole life are coming out wrong.“Wish” becomes “kiss.” “Boys” becomes “noise.”
There is no excuse. Growing up with Winston was a lifelong primer in classic rock. We skipped right over “The Farmer in the Dell” and went straight on to “Black Dog,” drifting along on a constant stream of acoustic intros and cigarette smoke.
The periodic table and the parsing of sentences fall right through Billie’s brain, but those lyrics are stuck in her head, like bubble gum on the bottom of her boot. This has to be payback for spending the day with Ty.
I scowl at her from behind my guitar and wonder what will come next.
Finally Jay jumps forward and whispers over her shoulder.
“Ah . . . it’s ‘repent,’” he says, “not ‘red pants.’”
Billie turns to look at him, eyebrows arched.
Jay ducks his chin and slides back into his spot, lining his worn Vans up behind his microphone, completely apologetic and still slightly goggled by her presence.
“’Sokay.” She smiles sweetly, finally swimming in the attention she was after.
We find our places again while Billie sways, waiting for the start of the next verse.
She stands, hand on her skinny hip, the fake fur trim surrounding the hood on her parka tangled into her hair. As the music starts building, she arches toward the mic, and I watch her transformation from little sister to rock star. It never fails to impress me, even under the dull fluorescent tubes of our garage.
Her five feet two inches stretch, suddenly seeming much bigger than her usual scabbed-up little self. A rasp rattles into her voice, husky and low, summoning up a southern accent that hasn’t existed since the end of the Confederacy. Then a sound, huge, rocks from that tiny body.
I stare at her in amazement, remembering her dressing Barbie dolls and eating her breakfast cereal with milk that was definitely well past sour but not quite chunky, and I want to hate her, to take my jealousy and bash it over her head like a guitar, Pete Townshend style, because it is so big and violent, but I can’t. I am too busy being proud of my slightly rotten little sister. She blows the boys away.
Yes, even Ty.
A faint rush of cold air swirls around my ankles as I lean down into the fridge, trying to find a place to wedge the ketchup bottle. The sticky red ring that it normally lives in has been swallowed up by a shifting load of jars and jellies, all jammed in.
“I think I should have just one name,” I hear Billie say.
I stand up and rest my arm along the top of the open door.
My dad glances over his shoulder and then turns back to the sink.
Billie has pink streaks in her hair and fake tattoos stretched up her arms. She is wearing a wifebeater and booty shorts with her worn-out black leather boots.
She flexes her biceps. “Like Pink.”
Dad turns off the tap.
“Or, you know,” she says, dancing around and watching her reflection in the darkened windows above the kitchen table, “like Madonna did.”
“Does,” Dad says.
Billie stops dancing. “What?”
“Madonna’s not dead,” Dad says.
“Are you sure?” Billie asks. He nods, and she starts dancing again.
I finally give up and cram the ketchup bottle in next to Winston’s homemade bitchin’ hot barbecue sauce. (His secret? Lemon pepper.)
“But you’re my Billie Carter,” Dad says, sounding like his pride is wounded. Dish soap bubbles drip from the ends of his fingers.
“Yep,” I say as I swing the fridge door shut, “named after the dishonorable brother of our thirty-ninth president. And a can of beer.”
I memorized these facts in the third grade, back when I half expected to see my mom on Antique Roadshow, her hair done up, a can of Billy Beer in her hand, waiting in line to learn of her riches from a snobby guy with a bow tie and a Boston accent. But it was always just people with crap from basements and attics and the Civil War, nothing good.
She once brought home a can of Billy Beer from a garage sale—unopened and covered in dust—thinking it would be worth money someday. It sat on a shelf in our garage for years, and I thought she took it with her when she left. Turns out, Winston used it for target practice. Shot a hole in it with his first BB gun.
These days the beer story is just good ammunition against Billie.
She likes to pretend she is named after Billie Holiday, but it seems that we all were named after the shit my mom encountered during her daily trips to the convenience store or the flea market: cigarettes or beer cans or cheap nylon lingerie in a plastic bag. Go figure.
Billie pauses and gives me the finger.
My dad sighs as she stalks out of the room, the loose sole of her boot flapping along behind her.
“What’s going on with you two?” he asks.
“Me and beer can Billie?”
His brow furrows. He is acting like he has never seen Billie flip me off before.
I shrug and reach for the dishcloth to wipe the table.
“Consider yourself lucky, Teddy Lee,” he says, leaning back so I can run the cloth under the tap in front of him, “you came close to being called Quinn.”
I start wiping. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
Marginally better than being named after a dollar store negligee.
He smiles wickedly. “Sho
rt for Harlequin.”
I groan.
“Yeah,” he says distractedly, bending over the sink, “Your mom was really into romance novels at the time.” He turns to grin at me, and a plate slips between his fingers and lands with a sploosh in the sink.
I finish wiping, and he pulls the plug. While the water gurgles down the drain, he dries his hands.
“How come Billie doesn’t have a middle name?” I ask.
I have always wanted to know but never asked before. I bet Winston probably knows.
My dad’s eyes light up, and I hold my breath as he crosses his arms and leans against the edge of the sink. A moment like this, just the two of us talking about the past, is rare. He remembers so much and tells us nothing.
I wish for a happy story filled with smiles and sunshine, instead of the darkness that I know. Does it hurt him to remember? Does he wish for a different ending? I’m not sure if I want to know.
“I guess your mom just ran out of gas,” he finally says with a shrug.
His eyes clear, and just like that—snap—he turns back into himself, a tired man with three kids, wrapped in flannel nine months out of the year.
“Make it right with your sister, Teddy Lee,” he tells me, his shoulders moving in steady, small circles as he starts to dry the dishes. He hands me a glass and a plate to put away. “You know I count on you.”
My plan is to sneak Billie out of school. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what my dad had in mind when he told me to make it right with Billie; but I know her best, and nothing will make her happier than skipping out.
I wait for her outside the girls’ locker room after her fourth-period gym class. She is wearing striped tights and a long T-shirt pretending to be a dress and bounces on her toes as soon as she sees me standing against the windows, swinging my car key around and around on my finger.
We walk down the hallway as fast as we can, trying to keep our boots quiet on the dark green tile, checking both directions for adults and slowing down for open doorways as we go.
I do my best not to contribute to Billie’s delinquency, seriously I do, but if Dad had something else in mind last night, he should have been more specific.
“Best idea of the day,” Billie says quietly as she ducks under my arm and we sneak out the doors closest to the gym.
We crouch and run across the student lot, jumping over the crumbling parking bumpers and crooked feelers of crabgrass growing up through the cracks in the blacktop.
“What are you missing?” I ask her while I pump the gas pedal in my car just to be sure all systems are go.
“Interpolation.”
She rolls down her window as we drive along the circular drive in front of the school. Billie is like a dog: she is always up for going anywhere, and she always has to have the window rolled down.
“You?” she asks.
“American government.”
I drive through town, considering that there might come a time when I will regret skipping out on the electoral college. But the sun is shining today. The air is cool and fresh; and Billie is humming along to some tune playing in her head and leaning out the window. Right now it does not seem likely.
We pull up into an angled parking spot at the drive-in. It has looked the same since we were kids: a dark brown hut with a bright orange stripe painted around the base of the square roof. The carhops wear old-time change belts and come right over to your car with your food when it is ready.
I reach out to press the button on the illustrated menu/speaker so Billie can order.
She leans past me and sticks her head out my window.
“Let’s see. . . .” She studies the menu with her tongue poking out, like we haven’t been here millions of times before. “We’ll have two cheese nachos and two—” She turns to check with me on the soda size.
“Medium?” she asks me. I nod. I hate talking to the machine.
“And two medium root beers.” She finishes ordering and drops back into her seat. The two old guys in the car next to us look disappointed her ass is no longer on display.
“Not diet!” she yells as I start to roll the window up, and I jump.
“You done?” I ask, stopping with the window halfway so there is room for the tray.
Billie nods. “You know I hate diet.”
I do. Billie would live on pure sugar if she could.
It is cold today, so our carhop has on a dark brown windbreaker when she delivers our nachos and sodas.
“The ones in the summer are better looking,” Billie says, eating a chip and staring blankly out her window as our carhop walks away.
The nachos are covered in that fake bright orange, practically government-funded kind of cheese. They ladle it out of a large black pot and pour it on top of round, salty corn chips here. I’m sure you could get better nachos almost anywhere else in town, but these totally do it for me.
We sit silently, munching on our chips and taking long, slow sips of root beer. Billie eats in small bites, the cheesiest chips first, then scraping as much cheese as possible onto the ones left over, until she runs out and comes scrambling for mine.
We used to come here a lot with my mom. She could make an order of fries last all night. Billie and I would climb over from the backseat, into the front, where life was far more exciting, full of buttons to push and broken bits of Wint O Green Life Savers stuck into the crack of the seat and an always overflowing ashtray.
The radio would play low as the carhops swung back and forth in their white sneakers and short shorts, me in the middle and little Billie kneeling at the window, watching the world go by.
When it got dark and it was time to go home, we’d slide back over into our seats. Mom would drop into reverse, and we’d bite into the whole Life Savers we’d secretly stolen from her purse, leaning in close to each other so we could see them spark in the dark.
Billie licks her finger and dips it in the drift of salt left behind by her chips. She leans down and runs her tongue along the edge of the plastic tray.
She sighs.
I wish we had a radio.
The ice is melting in my soda. I give it a swirl and stare out over the dash. Somewhere down the road and what feels like a lifetime away, a school bell is ringing for us.
“Look what I got,” Billie says.
My head rolls toward her along the back of my seat. Should I tell her she has cheese in her hair?
She digs into her bag and holds up a pack of Life Savers, Wint O Green and brand new, dancing it toward me with a big smile on her face. I smile back. I made it right.
Her fingers peel back the foil wrapper, and she hands me one.
I pop it into my mouth. Lean in close and bite down.
“Did you see it?” I ask.
The cheese in her hair shakes, and she hands me another one.
We are two tiny little girls, sliding around in a big backseat with minty fresh breath, all the way home.
7
“Got your next gig,” Winston announces as he steps into the garage the next Friday afternoon.
It is the end of April, and the sun has been shining for almost a week straight. That is a seriously long sunny streak for us in Oregon. A trail of dust follows him across the threshold, sparkling and swirling up into the sunshine that angles through the windows.
He has been wandering in and out all afternoon, his old flip phone cradled on his shoulder. That thing has more miles on it than my car. A lit cigarette dangles from his lips. He is hustling for something, I can tell.
Jay’s amp hums, a tense undercurrent, as we all freeze, staring and surprised. Without saying a word, Ginger Baker walks over and gives it a sharp, small kick.
“Uh, don’t you mean first gig?” I ask.
“Semantics.” Winston dismisses me with a wave of his hand before he walks back out the open door and into the yard, his mission complete.
A flood of nerves smacks into the mountain of excitement building in my belly and leaves me overwhelmed. I glance arou
nd the garage. Is it possible we’d made Winston into an overachiever after a lifetime of just getting by?
“But we don’t have a set yet,” Jay says to the four of us, his voice rising.
“A set?” Billie gulps. “We don’t even have a name.”
“Sure we do.” Ty answers from the back of the room. “It’s Red Velvet Crush.”
“Red Velvet Crush?” Billie twists around her mic stand to look at me.
“What does that even mean?” Jay asks, pulling the strap off his guitar. He sets it in the corner next to an old broom and then runs his hand across the top of his head, rubbing his short hair. I didn’t think he’d be so inclined to panic.
“You know . . . ,” Ty starts to explain, his eyes checking in with me as he starts to articulate something that I myself have never tried to define. I mostly like how the words sound all strung together. I focus in, curious to hear what it means to him. “Sweet. Rich. With the potential for serious damage.”
I suck in my breath and hold tight to my guitar. That boy is perfect.
Billie sets a half-eaten Pop-Tart on top of the amp in front of her and dusts the crumbs from her fingers. “We are not rich,” she explains, as if Ty were an idiot.
“Don’t be so literal, Billie,” Ty says.
He points one of his drumsticks at me. “Sweet.”
I blush a little bit.
And Jay. “Rich.”
Jay looks down and shuffles his feet, even though it is true—and literal.
Then he points at Billie. “Potential for serious damage.”
I smile at Ty, pretty much delighted with his explanation, even if it does make Billie sound more interesting than me.
“Besides,” he says to Jay and Billie, “you’re forgetting. We have covers.”
“Are we a cover band?” Jay asks, his eyes big, suddenly a soprano. “I thought that was just where we were starting.”
Ginger Baker cringes so hard it is almost audible.
I am with them. I have no intention of always being a cover band, but I don’t know what we are yet. We haven’t even had a chance to talk about it.
I honestly didn’t think we’d make it this far. We are only six weeks in to being a band. So far I’ve been looking to keep Winston employed, Randy on our good side, and Dad happy.
Red Velvet Crush Page 6