Red Velvet Crush

by Christina Meredith

  Mrs. Cornwall, local school lunch lady and PTA president, was coming at us with a red store apron tied over her Christmas sweater and a tight smile on her face. Her rubber-soled shoes gripped onto the floor with a squeak and a squeak and a squeak.

  I grabbed a soft pink box with the words “comfort glide” scrolled in the upper right corner before I heard one more squeak and started to cry right there in the tampon aisle. I headed for the cash register with my eyes down, wishing I had a mother.

  Winston trailed behind me with a five-dollar bill in his hand, silent and steady, probably wishing the exact same thing.

  A mother would be nice right now, too.

  I wrap my jacket around me tighter, fighting off the onslaught of air conditioning. Like Winston said last night, it’s just a broken arm. We will figure it out.

  “Carter,” the white coat behind the counter calls out.

  “Carter,” it repeats, louder.

  I look over at Winston. He looks at me. We both look around. The place is overly fluorescent and completely deserted. There are only bottles of sweet cherry cough syrup, flushable undergarments, whiplash collars, and us. Why is this guy yelling?

  We laugh and start to shuffle toward the counter to put the poor lab coat out of his misery.

  “What will you do?” Winston asks.

  “Is it only up to me?”

  “Well,” he says, “it is your band. Not mine. Or Billie’s.”

  He looks over at me instead of staring at the floor.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Maybe this should be it. Maybe we should be done. Maybe when your little sister twirls off the stage and snaps an arm, the universe is trying to tell you something.

  I know that Winston wants to go on, that he has found some kind of honor in this, some code of the samurai, and he wants to do what he said he would and finish the tour. It is very un-Winston of him, and it makes me want to help him get there. But he isn’t going to tell me what to do, not now, because then it will be his fault if it falls apart.

  We step up to the counter.

  “You could do it all, you know,” Winston says as the lab guy pokes out our total on his computer screen. “Without her.”

  So he does want to keep going, broken arm or not, Billie or not.

  “I know.”

  Winston pays with a smooth sheaf of bills pulled from his back pocket. I reach past him and grab the white paper bag.

  He pauses. “But you won’t.”

  The drugs knock and rattle inside the bag. No, I probably won’t, I think as Winston curls the change in his palm and we walk toward the door.

  And I hate that about me.

  I flop back into bed as soon as Winston and I return from our early-morning run to the drugstore. I wake up hours later, all alone, with only an empty spot in the bed where Billie used to be. A pack of Sharpies lie open on her pillow. I lean up on my elbow and grab the closest one, stopping the pool of pink that is staining the sheets.

  The TV, still playing silently, is now set to an infomercial for an exercise machine built of rubber bands. The room smells like brand-new markers and sleep.

  I follow a trail of dirty clothes and find Billie in the bathtub, cast propped up on the edge, bubbles swirling around her body. All the towels are pulled off the metal rack and stacked on the floor at the edge of the tub, like bunting.

  “How do you feel?” I ask, sliding down the wall next to the tub.

  She points over the tip of her cast at the sink. Two of the orange pill bottles Winston and I picked up wait there, caps off. Pills litter the edge of the sink, melting in puddles and sticking to one another.

  “Better.”

  She must have wandered out of the room while I was asleep; she already has scribbles all over her cast.

  I reach for her arm.

  “You’ve been busy,” I say.

  “Boom! Out Goes the Lights” is written in bright blue.

  A random phone number is printed neatly in black near her elbow.

  Dark green letters spell out “Way 2 Stage Dive! And “AWWWWwwww” is written in red ink, a long, twisting string that makes its way around the top edge of the cast and then trails down her wrist, getting smaller and smaller on its way back around toward her thumb.

  Tugging her arm closer to me, I take the pink marker and write:

  If Lost or Broken, Please Return to:

  Teddy Lee

  Tiny House at the End of the Street

  Crazytown, USA

  Billie reads what I’ve written, wrinkles her nose, and pulls her arm away. She points her toes and presses them up against the faucet.

  “So . . . ,” she says, slipping down, chin just above the water, “looks like my guitaring days are over. I should probably start learning your songs now.”

  Sighing, I press the back of my head hard against the wall. Of course that is what she thinks. I have something, and Billie wants it, no matter the cost.

  I grab her before she can slide under.

  “Not now,” I say, wishing she were normal. Not broken and bruised and so damn Billie. I wish there were any way to win with her, any way other than giving in. “Not at least until your bone sets.”

  She splashes and looks away.

  I push myself up from the floor, stop, and stare at myself in the mirror. I pretend not to see Billie in the background, picking at the fluff around the edge of her cast by her fingers, watching me, waiting for me to give in and change my mind like I always have.

  Damn you, Winston, I think as I drop the marker and grab one of the sticky pills off the countertop. Why couldn’t you be a ninja-level martial artist or a monster of motocross and just leave me alone? Leave me out of decisions and responsibility and the opportunity to disappoint everyone. Leave me to my music and myself, just like I was.

  I wipe the pill dry with a hand towel from the floor, hearing a voice that is a lot like Winston’s booming in the back of my head: “’Cause nobody ever got famous playing the guitar alone in their bedroom.”

  Yeah? Well who says I want to be famous?

  I don’t stop until the rest of the pills are dry. I drop them back into the bottles, counting up the cost of each one as they plink into the plastic bottoms. I add them up, telling myself we can’t afford to miss tonight. Not after a trip to the emergency room. There is no way I am going home with empty pockets, a dishonored brother, and a broken sister. The show must go on.

  Billie turns on the tap with her foot. She toes it to the right, all the way past hot.

  “Do you think you can do it tonight?” I ask, turning toward her and the mountain of steam rising from the tub.

  She looks so tiny, so swallowed up. But she nods with certainty. No big deal. No doubt.

  I wish I knew what that feels like.

  “Bring me some more bubbles,” she says, just bossy enough to get the job done. “I’m starting to see the bottom.”

  So I pour them in, pink and pearly. They mix with the water, bubbling up to the edge, lapping at Billie’s cast and broad grin. I add more, drowning her in a shimmering sea of hopeful sparkle, shine, and pop. Then I sink down, rest along the edge, and wait for her to wrinkle.

  There is only a dusting of applause as our last notes drift over the stage and dissolve into the crowd. It lands on my shoulders and weighs me down.

  Billie has been a pain in the ass all night. Tonight and every night of the week since she broke her arm, really, singing off-key and mumbling her way through the choruses, leaving me and the boys dragged down by the end of each set, wishing it were over.

  But Billie won’t be happy until she gets what she wants. No worries if that makes everyone else—especially me—hate her. She is used to getting her way no matter what, and since I am the only one who can give in and let her sing my songs, she’s going to make every moment onstage miserable for me. Ty and Jay and Ginger are just along for the ride.

  Ty’s sticks tumble impatiently on top of his snare after we grind to a halt.


  “Get your shitkickers out, boys!” Winston says sarcastically as he climbs up onto the stage from the dingy bar floor. “We might have to fight our way out tonight.”

  The crowd is milling around with straight faces and dirty work boots. Most of the drinkers sitting around the bar turned their backs on us during the last song, not even waiting until we got to the end to act unimpressed.

  All the older men in plaid shirts and big belt buckles are making me miss my dad, miss home. It would be great to wake up and know where I am.

  “Let’s get the hell out of this bar.” Ty pushes back from his drum kit with his eyes cast down and hooded, hiding from me.

  “This is not a bar,” Jay says. The flames on his guitar strap glimmer as the lights flash and then dim. “This is a sweat sock with a soda machine in the corner.”

  He’s right. The bar is down a deep set of stairs, and it is cavernously dark inside. A shoebox with rectangular windows positioned way up high that glow with leftover streetlight. It looks like it used to be a bunker or a bomb shelter.

  A small circular dance floor is cut out of dark carpeting. The barstools are black and fake leather, with high curved backs and long silver legs. They have those old glass candles, dark red and gold, wrapped in plastic netting sitting on the black horseshoe-shaped bar.

  It is, I realize, the perfect place for our shit to fall apart. There was no opening band, no headliner, nobody to hide behind tonight. It was only the five of us, skimming along, trying to keep our heads up in this dark and dirty little bar. Things couldn’t get much lower than this.

  Winston crosses the stage, glowing red.

  “Their money is still good,” he says, grabbing the amp closest to him. I don’t think he cares what we play, country or rock or funeral dirges, as long as we get paid.

  Ty walks toward me, and I hold my breath, hoping he’ll grab my hand and bring me back to center, whisper into my ear how everything will be okay and we’ll find our way back somehow, but his eyes stay dark, studying the floor as he moves.

  I follow him to the edge of the stage and wrap my fingers around his wrist. “Her arm won’t be broken forever.”

  “No,” he says, slipping free. “But for long enough.”

  His hands disappear, stuffed deep into his pockets. “Is this what you want for the rest of the summer? More nights like this?”

  I know he doesn’t want to give up on my songs, and neither do I. But I can’t bring myself to hand them over. Not to Billie.

  “It’s great this way, Teddy Lee,” he says, dropping down onto the first step, away from me. “You don’t get to play your music. Billie doesn’t get to sing your songs. And the rest of us don’t get to play anything but covers. It’s perfect.”

  He heads for the exit, leaving disappointment in his wake and my heart tightening up.

  I should have just said no. No, Billie, you are never going to sing my songs. With no wiggle room. No chances. No gray area. But I didn’t. I had to go and say something about her bone setting. I had to go and give her hope. And hope is a bitch.

  I stomp over and snap the cord from my amp. The plug flies out and lands at Billie’s feet.

  “Just ’cause you’re not happy,” I say to her, “doesn’t mean you have to suck.”

  “Why not?” she asks. “You do.”

  My fists clench, and my jaw squares as I eye her up. She does have another arm to break.

  She drags her mic stand across the floor, pushes it into Winston’s empty hands, and follows practically on Ty’s heels, through the small crowd and up the dark stairs to the street.

  Jay is standing off to the side of the stage, looking uncomfortable. He’s holding his guitar against his hip at a strange angle. He bounces not at all.

  Ginger is behind him in a shiny black shirt with silver cowboy detailing. It looks authentic, right down to the pearl buttons, but even that didn’t help us tonight.

  They start packing up their gear, quickly slamming cases and locking locks, all while stealing glances at me. They hop off the edge of the stage when they are done, one after the other, Jay like a gymnast and Ginger like a flamingo.

  I wait while they climb the stairs, the light from the street slowly disappearing behind them as the door completely closes. It sucks knowing that standing up for myself is letting everyone else down.

  Winston walks up beside me, winding a thick cord over his bent elbow and between his fingers.

  “What do you think?” I ask him as he winds and winds and winds.

  I am hoping I’m not the only one who thinks Billie shouldn’t sing my songs. That someone else will vote in my favor—especially the guy who talked me into starting a band in the first place.

  Winston knows what Billie is like.

  He knows it won’t be easy, but it might be worth it to try to keep something for myself. He has to see why I can’t give in this time.

  He is still. The bundled cord hangs slack in his hand.

  “I think it’s your band,” he finally says, a single spot lighting up his shoe.

  “You said that before.”

  “I know. Now act like it.”

  All I can hear is the scratch of silverware and the rustle of the newspaper next to me. Who reads the paper? I think, leaning away from the smear and ink of it until Ginger finally finds the rest of the story he is searching for, snaps the curling pages straight, and dives back in.

  The morning sun is bright today, and my plate of steaming eggs is yellow under a baby blue sky. I stare out the diner’s front window with a ketchup bottle caught in my hand, struck by the fact that so much summer has passed us by.

  It got lost in a bleary-eyed string of nightclubs and basement bars. I miss the smell of mowed grass, the sticky drip of a Popsicle melting down my fingers. I’ve seen so little of the sun.

  I want to be awake at noon.

  I want to know Ty in the daytime.

  I miss the short shaved heads that started the summer. We are into August already and the boys are grown out now, completely shaggy and sullen.

  Today we are heading west, turning back toward home. I don’t want to think about that yet, though. The fact that real life is waiting for us, right around the corner. I try to tell myself we still have plenty of time.

  Ty is going to Humboldt in the fall. That’s the plan. He has semesters of hemp weaving and ethics seminars and a campus full of girls with thick, braided hair ahead of him. We have only a few more gigs to go. Soon summer will be over, and we all will be back home, breaking up, saying good-bye.

  Ty has grown distant since Billie broke her arm, spending time alone, strumming his guitar or disappearing without a word. He is distracted now, always on to the next thing.

  And Jay doesn’t jump as high. He looks like his batteries are wearing out.

  Ginger’s fingers don’t dance along to silent melodies anymore. His eyes don’t light up as he scribbles notes and twirls his pencil, punctuating the air. His stillness speaks volumes.

  We all need a vitamin.

  I want everything back the way it was six weeks ago. Back when we were fresh and clean and new, covered in downy fuzz and anticipation. Before we wanted to bite one another’s heads off.

  Winston climbs into the booth, back from a smoke, and knocks Ginger’s knees into mine under the table.

  “I booked tomorrow night,” he says, and then orders a Coke. Winston doesn’t believe in coffee, only soda.

  “It’s big for us,” he says, watching the waitress walk away. “Blasting Cap sent it our way. They were double booked.”

  Jay sniggers. “How is that possible?”

  Winston shrugs. “People like smoke.”

  “Yeah,” Jay says, “or ukulele-size guitars.”

  He pops up on the bench and starts playing his sternum like a guitar. Ginger watches over the top of his paper, his eyebrows up. Jay has one side of the booth entirely to himself. No surprise, since he is wearing his bright yellow I’m with Jealous T-shirt. It made Ginger and Wins
ton and me all elect to cram in together on the other side.

  Jay slides back into the booth when the waitress returns and bumps into the table on his way down. The table rocks. The water in our glasses shimmies.

  “Anyway”—Winston continues after Jay settles down and Ginger’s paper snaps back up—“it’s gonna be loads of people, lots of cash.”

  That’s good. After the last few nights it would be nice to have a shot at breaking even.

  He twists the paper from his straw, tosses it aside, and takes a long dark drink.

  “Who else?” I ask.

  “A bunch of surf punks called Highway Robbery.”

  I nod. Time to get our shit back together then, because I plan on blowing them out of the water.

  “Where are they now?” I ask.

  Winston looks around, confused. “The surfing bandits?”

  “No . . . Billie and Ty.”

  Winston shakes the ice around in his Coke.

  “Maybe she’s learning lefty,” Jay says, strumming the air.

  He stops, unhinges his jaw, and pours a glass of milk down his throat as I watch. One large white gulp and it is gone. Boys are such pigs.

  Jay stifles a burp and adds, innocently, “It’s not like she had that much righty.”

  True, but sometimes Jay is way too much like having another brother.

  Winston sets down his Coke.

  “So . . . you’ll build a set list?” he asks, his long frame halfway out of the booth.

  “Yep.” I nod to his shoulder, his half-empty glass of Coke. I reach for my fork and stab some eggs.

  Winston waves from the doorway, already pressing his phone against his ear as I start building the set list in my head.

  It doesn’t matter where Billie is right now—or Ty. I’ve decided I’m not giving in this time, no matter how broken any one of us might be. It is my band after all.

  17

  “Scheisse . . .”

  Jay spins in a small circle, taking in the club.

  It is big. Huge. As in seats-and-round-tables huge, room-down-front-for-dancing huge. Two bars. Even-has-a-balcony huge.