I figured we’d make it only a couple of days, a practice or two into the musical experience, before Winston would bail, ditching us for something better or shinier or faster. But he is still here and actually trying. So covers of classic rock are fine until we figure ourselves out. We are working on some newer stuff, too, some Interpol for Ty, Editors for Jay, and a little Shooter Jennings to round things out when Randy is ready for it.
I watch Winston through the garage window, pacing in a circle in our side yard, his mouth moving faster than his legs. His left arm swings up into the air, punctuating the speech he is giving or promise he is making. I wonder what else he is getting us into.
He has the same long legs, the same bullshit smile, the same loud laugh as always, but I’m not used to the go-getter my brother has become.
Until now Winston has given up on everything: high school; his career as a kick-ass martial artist, which lasted three karate lessons (he claims his boys never felt comfortable in a gi); the thrill of motocross; even Emily, the one girl who actually seemed to love him and stuck around for a while.
She was great. She had this soft curly hair and a round face. Her lips were red and bowed up at the corners, like the cupids you see dangling from the ceilings in elementary school classrooms on Valentine’s Day. She was sweet and smart and, for some reason, truly smitten until Winston went and ruined it.
I heard them fighting late one night a few years ago as I shifted around in my bed, Billie’s breathing a hushed rustle in the background. Even in anger Emily’s voice was soft. It curled under my door and across the rug.
“Why did you do it, Winston?”
I couldn’t hear his answer. His voice was too low and muffled.
“I hope she was worth it,” Emily said clearly.
There was a pause, and then I heard the front door close quietly but firmly before her tires crunched down the driveway and her headlights crossed my ceiling as she drove away.
We never saw her again. I hoped Winston felt like shit.
Why would he do anything that would risk her? Make her leave? Didn’t he realize who she was? What she was? There would never be another Emily. There were a lot of Tinas and Brittanys and, for some reason, Cheryls. Yuck.
Then, the summer after Emily left, some stereos and other AV equipment went missing from the high school. It was a big deal at the time, with local crime fighters knocking on our door, but Winston was away from home, suddenly, and fortuitously, attending broadcasting school.
Life without him was too quiet, too cold. The cable went out, and there was no one to fix it. I wrote a lot of songs about snow and ice, even though we never had much of either one here where it is always wet and green.
Eventually the PTA coughed up enough cash to replace the TV sets. Then old Mrs. Crawley and her bony ankles, along with the rest of the faculty, finally got to sit back down, dim the lights, and get back to some serious teaching.
They also bought bars for all the first-floor windows.
Though he has never copped to the crime, I have always wanted to ask Winston: Couldn’t you have stolen something less useful, like the sewing machines or the uneven bars?
Winston dropped out of broadcasting school last spring, and since then every word out of his mouth has sounded like a damn commercial.
Outside the garage, he laughs loud and continues his phone call.
Ty lifts up off his stool and cuts to the chase, getting to the important detail that the rest of us have overlooked.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yells toward the yard, “When?”
Winston reappears in the middle of the doorway. He holds up his finger, listens for a second, then answers, “Randy says next Friday night.”
His answer fills the garage with electricity. Next Friday night isn’t that far away. I feel more combustible than those cans Winston has hidden in the corner, pumped full of anticipation.
Ty nods at Winston: message received.
Winston flicks his cigarette butt into the air and casually walks away. Like a tiny firework, it sparks and blooms before it crashes onto the well-worn concrete. I imagine a blue streak burning its way toward us, a vapor trail streaking along the floor, rushing forward from spark to flame to hit man, with only seven days till we all explode.
Tonight is the night. We are finally going on last at The Night Owl, an armpit of a bar out on the highway, where everyone knows Winston by name so it doesn’t matter that we are all too young to be on the premises, let alone onstage.
The sound of rain dripping off the roof and the clank of Dad putting pot lids away fill the house. Billie and I are in our bedroom. Winston took off in my car hours ago, promising to come back in time to take us to the show. His rusty 280Z is parked in our front yard, hood open, gutted like a fish.
I lean over and turn on the radio next to my bed. I tune it to the country station we like to listen to on the weekends and then empty my makeup bag onto our dressing table.
Putting on makeup calms me. It takes the shakes out of my hands and gives me something to think about other than the changeups we have been practicing all week and what we will do if no one shows up at all tonight and we end up playing to an empty room, dead silence.
Plus, if I have enough eye shadow on, maybe nobody will know who I am onstage. It is like camouflage.
“Now do me,” Billie says, her blue eyes round and big as she leans over my right shoulder and crowds me right out of the mirror.
Billie always likes it when I do her makeup. She sits on the stool in front of the dressing table, cross-legged and patient. The dressing table was another gift from Grandma. It is curved and painted Dutch blue, with a large oval mirror.
If it weren’t for that old woman, we’d all be sitting on the floor in a bare room, huddled around an old milk crate and a black-and-white television set.
Billie angles her chin up. She knows how to stretch her eyes just right so I can get eyeliner along the lower lash. She is a pro.
We have been practicing since she was eleven and Dad decided that makeup was okay, for fun—at home.
She likes to find ideas in fashion magazines and tear them out so we can try them later. The wall around our dressing table is covered in magazine pages: lightning bolt nails, hot pink lips with matching eyes, batwing blue eyeliner and black mascara.
Billie reaches up, smooths her hair over one shoulder to keep it off her face, and quickly twists it into a braid.
“What about a loose braid like that?” I ask, nodding toward her reflection before I put shadow on her brow bones. It glitters in the lamplight. It will twinkle on stage.
I add two coats of mascara. She blinks, and I wipe.
“Don’t you think I’d dance it out?” she asks, stretching her face toward me, her lips pouted.
“Maybe,” I say, searching the top of the dressing table for the honey-colored lip gloss I know she likes because she keeps trying to steal it from me.
She rocks her head left and right, just barely, and the braid slips out.
“Okay, probably,” I say.
I put gloss on her lips with the smallest brush. Dropping the brush back into my bag, I look her over. My fingers sweep an eyelash from her cheek, and then I give her a nod.
She stands, eyes down, trying to keep her back to the mirror. Billie doesn’t like to see herself until the look is complete, head to toe.
“Beat-up blue jeans?” she asks, stepping into our closet.
“Yeah.” I sit back down in front of the mirror while she digs around in the back of our closet. I hear a zzzipppp, and then she is posing in front of our pile of dirty laundry, wearing the oldest pair of jeans known to man.
They are also the best jeans ever, patched and repaired and held together by pieces and parts and lots of love. Once they were Winston’s, then they were mine, and now they will eternally belong to Billie.
Winston got too tall, I got too curvy, but Billie stays the same. A perfect fit. I am still getting over it.
&n
bsp; Billie kneels down in front of the closet and starts sorting through our shoe collection. A soft drum is tocking from the radio, and I hear Dad’s boots coming down the hall toward our room to say good-bye. His steps match the rhythm of the Lady Antebellum song that is playing.
He walks across the pink rug and scoops me up into a small two-step between our twin beds. With his hand on the small of my back, he leads me around the rug in my bare feet for one ambling turn about the room.
A boot bounces to the floor as Billie leans out of the closet to watch us.
“Break a leg tonight,” Dad says as he returns me to the dressing table.
“It’s not musical theater, Dad.” Billie rolls her eyes, sitting in a tangle of boots and sneakers and stretched-out sandals.
Dad reaches down for her. He slides her up into his arms and twirls her on his finger like a ballerina. “Good luck then,” he says.
He lets her go and crosses the room. One big hand grips the door frame as he looks back and says, “Be safe tonight. Wish I could be there.”
“Me, too,” I say as he retreats. But he has to work. Like always.
“Boots?” Billie asks, suddenly standing next to me on one leg.
She has on one black boot, the ones that lace up the front, and one red rain boot that has a frog face painted across the toe. Someone’s been raiding the boot bin at Goodwill again.
She flamingoes, helping me to choose.
“Black,” I say. No question.
She bends over to lace up her boots.
I turn and face the mirror, sliding my hands through my hair, smoothing out the tangles. Moving in toward the glass, I study myself. Something is missing. I reach for my favorite eyeliner and stretch my eyes wide.
“Blue?” Billie asks, sounding skeptical, coming out to watch me smear the dark blue liner into my lash line.
I nod, unapologetic. I like it.
Outside our window Dad is leaving for work. He makes his way across the front yard as wrapped up against the weather as a grown man allows himself to be. He throws a stick for the neighbor’s dog, watches it run, and then climbs into his truck, gone.
I finish my makeup and turn around. Billie steps out into the middle of the room. She is ready: black boots, beat-up jeans, and shiny blond hair swinging loose and long over her right shoulder.
I stare, my mouth open and my heart sore.
Taped in the medicine cabinet, just above the rusty shelf, where Dad’s razor sits surrounded by a sprinkling of whiskers, is the one and only picture we have of my mom. Billie looks exactly like that picture, secreted away and suspended in time, minus the peeling Scotch tape at the corners. She takes my breath away.
My mom didn’t look like the other moms. She was hotter. And looser somehow, like she could be easily disassembled. Something was always sliding off her shoulder or drifting unbeknownst behind her. The dads and older brothers always stared.
“Candy’s here, lock up your husbands,” the wives whispered through pursed lips as she moved along.
I hated it. It made me hold tight on to her hand and want to drag her away with my little pink fingers, back home where she was only ours.
She was fragile.
Dreamy.
Breakable.
I am darker. Rounder. Built. With my dad’s eyes, dark hair, and full lips. Billie is so blond she could wash away without a second shampoo.
She cocks her hip, holding her hands out. The ta-da is silent.
“Beautiful,” I say finally, because she is, and I scooch over so she can see for herself.
Winston honks the horn outside, and my heart skips. It starts up again, but faster than usual.
“Showtime,” Billie whispers.
I look up at her in the mirror. She nods down at me.
I wrap my fingers around hers, and she holds on tight, pulling me up from the stool and out of our room.
We rush through the kitchen and run out into the wet night together, lights still on, door unlocked. We race each other across the front yard, toward whatever waits for us, ready or not.
“Nervous?” Ty slides me into the corner of the dark bar. My back is against the paneled wall, the edge of the stage a few feet away. He faces me, bumping his toes up against my boots.
“No.” I lie.
Of course I am nervous. We are about to take the stage for our first show ever and follow a band that has been pretty damn good. They call themselves Propaganda and wear matching jumpsuits. The small crowd clapped for them. We aren’t even color coordinated.
Ginger is wearing some kind of Frenchman’s lab coat, buttoned up tight. It is peacock blue. Jay has on his specialty: the shrunken 7UP T-shirt that shows off an inch and a half of his belly every time he moves. It peeked out with every bend and lift as we hauled our gear out of his car and my backseat and crammed it onto this small stage.
Billie has on the black boots and the best jeans ever.
Ty is wearing a crown of laurels and holding the hammer of the gods. Kidding. He has on a dark gray T-shirt, jeans with drumsticks poking out of the back pocket, and his pink sweatband on his wrist.
I went with multiple tank tops, way too many bracelets, and the darkest, tightest jeans I have ever owned. I think they are made of a little bit denim, but mostly blue paint.
Ty grabs my fingers and pulls me up onto the stage. Billie takes her place next to me, and Jay and Ginger squeeze in behind us. Maybe one of us should’ve run out to get something red or crushed or velvet, I think as I look out over the smoky bar, because this is about to get real.
Our amps are plugged in. Our mics are lined up. Most of the overhead lights are pointing in our direction, except for one that is wonky and looks like it is headed for the parking lot.
The ceiling is low, not much higher than the one in our garage. I hope the acoustics will be better, though.
A series of high, rectangular windows—a lot like our garage door windows—face the parking lot. The pool tables are parked by the door, and the curved bar pokes out into the room. If people dance, it is between the tables or right up against the stage.
Most of the Propaganda fans cleared out as soon as they packed up, leaving The Night Owl almost deserted. I count fifteen people. We could have stayed home and called the neighbors over for a bigger show.
Still, my fingers are tingling and my stomach tightens. It is time.
Jay starts hopping.
Hop, hop, hop, just small little ones up and down on the stage, barely even noticeable, as he burns through that endless supply of energy he seems to have been born with. Billie joins in, the toes of her black boots scuffing forward with each little hop. Jay grins, and I join in, too. Hop, hop, hop . . . scuff.
Ty takes his seat, snaps at the sweatband around his wrist, and starts tapping a syncopated rhythm on the edge of his drum.
He adds in a little high hat: hop, hop, tchht . . . hop, hop, hop, tchht . . . hop, hop, tchht . . . hop, hop, hop, tchht. . . .
Ginger bounces his head along.
We are smiling and hopping and ready to go. The guys at the bar must think we are crazy.
Jay brings in a thrumming bass line, and we are off.
Billie jumps around, slamming and bumping into the amps, getting shouty and singing at the top of her range. She throws herself into it, tearing a new hole in the best jeans ever and sending the thick orange extension cords that we forgot to tape down slipping over the edge of the stage.
Jay tries to slam with her, but Billie bumps away from him, taking her place behind her microphone stand. I scoot out of the way, keeping up with the music, glad she doesn’t want to mess around with Jay, but pretty sure she’s bumped up against much stranger boys than him before.
Ty and Jay and Ginger are lightning fast. No transitions, they go from one song to the next, bouncing to the beat, barely giving me time to find my fingering or take a breath.
Jay’s hopping and Ty’s pounding get faster as Billie sings louder.
Our guitars start chasing one
another. Jay’s bass notes are out front, and my higher notes follow right along. Ginger joins in, too, like the rounds we used to sing in kindergarten: one voice started, then another, then another. Row, row, row your screaming electric boat, with guitars and stompboxes and a pounding bass line.
We make a couple of mistakes, but the crowd does not seem to mind. They nod along and whistle during guitar solos. Pitchers of beer bubble, and a girl in a hippie skirt gets up to dance, arms over her head, the song in her head moving much slower than what we are banging out onstage.
Jay keeps hopping: small, medium, bigger . . . huge. He doesn’t stop until Ty pounds down the last beat and we are done. A single phone pops up at the end, glowing, and that is enough for me.
There is no backstage, no glamour. We finish, grin at one another while we are wrapped up in Jay’s last quivering bass note, and then we jump off the stage to pockets of applause.
As soon as I land, Ty picks me up and hugs me tight, swinging me around in a big circle, the toes of my boots hovering above the dusty wooden floor.
I don’t care that only fifteen people showed up. I don’t care that my shoulder aches and my hair is glued to the back of my neck. This moment—it feels like everything. I close my eyes and swing.
When my feet touch back down, Jay jumps in close and high-fives me. “Remember when I started hopping?” he asks. His eyes are bright, and I swear I can see his pulse beating in the side of his neck.
“I do.”
“That was awesome,” he says, clapping his hands onto Ty’s shoulders as Billie bounces between Ty and me.
Winston heads over from the pool tables, poking his cigarette into the corner of his mouth so he can clap as he walks.
“Good job,” he says, fist-bumping Jay and then Ginger’s freckled fingers.
“Thanks, man.” Ty bumps back.
I stamp my feet. They are still buzzing. I am surprised how much I could feel the music through the wooden stage. It vibrated ten hundred times more than our concrete garage.
Inside, my chest is buzzing, too. A swelling feeling of holy shit, we did it grows and grows until I am beaming. It has to be pride, but I’m not sure.
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