by J. A. Huss
Jayce will probably live on. She worked for us exclusively, but…
I’m gonna lose her too.
I’m gonna lose everything because of one stupid decision to take a vacation in the mountains. It’s like those snow-capped peaks were just waiting for me to come back so they could finish the job.
But I miss it. I fucking miss it. I miss them. I miss us. I miss the energy on stage and the calm, contemplative creativity when we were in the studio.
I want RK’s life back.
So it’s only half a surprise when I go inside and don’t get that feeling of hate and loathing when I walk by the piano. I try not to see myself playing at Missy’s funeral or on stage with the Jacks. I try to make it become just a piano. Something I have loved longer than I can remember. Something that is so much a part of me, my heart aches for the feeling of perfectly weighted ivory keys. It’s an old piano, one that has been in our family for almost a hundred years. One that has been sitting in this house, in front of this window with a stunning view of the Rocky Mountains, since before I was born.
It’s a love affair. It’s a deep longing. It’s one of the many, many things I am now missing in my empty soul.
I sit down on the hard bench and feel a sense of wellbeing. I’m not going to play. Fuck no. I just want to sit. Try it out. Remember what it feels like to be at home. Because even though I am at home, and I’ve never had a real home other than this mountain-top house, it’s been a while since I had the time to actually think about what being home means.
The night is here now, the last of the fading sunset nothing but an outline of pink and orange against the backdrop of jagged peaks. Melanie’s light is on down the driveway. I can see her shadow walking around through the sheer curtains. I lean on the piano and watch her until the light goes out. A few minutes later her car backs out of the garage, the door closing behind her.
I wonder what she does all day? I wonder what kind of job she has? I wonder where she’s going right now?
My stomach grumbles. I have not eaten real food since my last meal in Steamboat. That liquid nutrition was just fine while my throat was healing. But my stomach is getting pissed off at the lack of solid eats.
Grand Lake has about a dozen places that serve a burger, but some of them are lodges, and I don’t feel like a lodge. I shrug on my leather jacket and get in the truck, my only aim to get some food. It’s not too cold tonight. The weather has warmed up into the sixties during the day but the nights are always cool this high up in altitude.
I have every intention of going to Squeemie’s for a burger, but my hands on the steering wheel have other things in mind. I weave down the mountain, making all the right turns until I’m on the main street heading into the trendy downtown district. Downtown is nothing but a few blocks of hotels and restaurants with a nice view of the lake.
The parking lot at Float’s is packed and I have to parallel-park on the street and walk two blocks to the bar. Melanie’s car is in the parking lot. So is TJ’s Jeep.
I get a little nervous as I walk up to the front door, and then step back when it swings open just as I’m about to pull the handle. Live music blares from inside as tourists come bursting through, laughing and happy. The official kickoff to the summer season starts with live concerts outside on the stage dock, and that hasn’t happened yet, but the lake starts jumping with fishermen the minute it thaws. Float’s is the closest bar to the marina, so they tend to come here when they’re done for the day.
I wait for the tourists to pass me, then catch the door before it closes and slip inside.
The place is jumping for not even being eight o’clock, but when I look up at the stage I understand why.
Melanie is up there with some local band and they are playing their hearts out. She’s looking down at her guitar—not bass, which makes me pause, because she always preferred the bass—as she plucks out a slow tune and the back-up singer laments about some lost love.
Isn’t that what we all write about? Love? I mean, look at most of the popular songs these days. Almost all of them are about a girl. Loving a girl, getting a girl, fucking a girl, losing a girl. Girls.
Nah, I think, wandering up to the bar to wait my turn for a drink. Not girls. Love.
Melanie sings the chorus, her voice loud and clear as she croons out the sad love song. She never liked to sing as a kid. She always left that to Missy and she sounds so much like her dead sister, I almost walk out.
Calm, RK, I tell myself as I move one person closer to a drink.
We do a lot of things these days we never said we’d do, don’t we? TJ going into the fucking army is one of them. Jesus, I can’t even with that. He never even liked to hunt when we were kids. I was the only one who hunted with my dad.
All I talked about growing up was Juilliard. How I was meant to be a musician. I play five instruments well. Two extremely well. Juilliard was my destiny. I was all set to go when my life got ripped apart on prom night.
I was never meant to be a rock star. I was never wild as a kid. I was calm, and straight, and creative. I had everything going for me growing up. Good family with decent wealth. I never went hungry or worried about being cold in the winter. I never heard my parents fight over small things that set so many of my friends’ families on the road to divorce. I was never hit, or belittled, or bullied by anyone other than my big brother, and even then, it was in a loving big-brother kind of way. Even my dad’s shortcomings don’t cancel out the life he provided for his family.
It was RK’s charmed life back then.
No one respects a rock star. Rock stars are losers. Drug addicts. Egomaniacal assholes. Rock stars are selfish and lucky—not talented. Rock stars are freaks who drop out of school. Rock stars live on the edge of society because they don’t belong anywhere else.
I guess I became all those things along the way to rock stardom. Or maybe I’ve always been all those things and it’s got nothing to do with my lifestyle or my profession? Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe I am RK’s pathetic destiny? Maybe I am right where I’m supposed to be?
The guy in front of me shoves me out of the way once he gets his drinks and the bartender yells, “What can I—”
I turn to look at him, then try out the new voice. Not too loud though. “You got Sam Adams Summer yet?”
“RK,” Doug yells over the din. “Hey, man,” he yells again. “Sure, we got it in last week, just put it on tap a few days ago. You want me to tell Teej you’re here?”
I shake my head. I can do without the welcome committee this time.
“Be right back,” he says, taking off to grab my beer. And a few seconds later, every head at the bar slowly turns to look at me.
Maybe this was a mistake.
The music stops and I suddenly hear Missy—Mel, Mel, Mel—coming from the speakers. “We have a special guest tonight. It you’re just up here for a visit, you might not know that RK Saber was born and raised in Grand Lake. His family owns this bar, in fact. He’s not around much these days but this is the place he calls home, so let’s give the hometown boy a round of applause.”
“Rock!” someone yells. “Rock,” another one screams. And then it’s a chant. Rock, Rock, Rock.
I have been on stage in front of seventy thousand people when we packed the LA Coliseum and I can honestly say, this room of maybe three hundred makes me far more nervous.
It takes a minute to shake myself out of the panic, but I do manage it, raising a hand and flashing the sheepish grin that drives the girls wild when I’m on stage.
Teej appears in front of me, his face full of trouble and his eyes squinting down into slits. I’m expecting a sucker punch but instead he pulls me into a hug. “I’m glad you came back.”
“Why?” I ask, surprised I’m so eager to talk. “So I can triple your receipts for tonight?”
“I’m gonna ignore that,’” he says, letting me go. “Look,” he says, leaning down into my ear to gain some privacy in this very public place. “
I’m sorry about the other night. Come back this way to my table.”
He turns and leaves, so I follow him through the crowd, pushing my way past people who grab on to my jacket trying to start a conversation. We end up stage left at a group of tables that are all marked reserved. Each one is full, but TJ takes me to the back booth and some guy I don’t know gets up when TJ points to him.
I slip into my assigned spot and then Doug is there with my beer.
“Hey, man, how you doing?” Sean Whimel asks to my left.
“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hi last week,” Gretchen Linnie says across the table. “TJ was acting like a royal asshole.” She shoots him a warning look, like she will personally get up and kick his ass if he scares me away tonight.
I take a sip of beer to hide my grin. Fucking TJ has always had a thing for Gretchen. But I figured they never had a chance once she moved away for college and Teej went into the army.
I nod to each of them. “I’m OK,” I say to Sean. And, “It’s OK,” to Gretchen. She shoots me a hesitant smile, like she’s trying to feel me out. See how much I need to be coddled.
I’m not sure I even mind that too much. I appreciate her protectiveness, actually. Not many people on my side these days. I take another sip of beer, trying to pretend I’m too busy drinking to notice the awkward silence.
“Are you hungry, RK?” Lisa Gantry asks as she walks up, wearing the fancy uniform that does not say ‘rock band playing tonight.’ She’s got her pen and pad ready to take my order.
“I am, actually,” I say, almost not recognizing my voice. I have to close my eyes to shut out the image of me trying to sing with this raspy shit. “Just a cheeseburger. No onions.”
“Coming up,” she says with a smile.
I scrub my hand down my face as things go silent again. I’ve got a week’s worth of stubble. I bet I look a lot worse than I feel. Maybe that’s why they’re being so nice to me? I probably look every bit the drug addict they’ve come to know.
“So,” Sean says.
“So, how have you been?” I ask him. “Still working at the marina with your dad?”
He nods. “You know it. It’s in my blood. We always knew where we’d end up, right?” Sean and I were pretty tight in high school. He was a jock and I was way into the music, but somehow it worked. “Me on the lake, you taking over the world.”
“I’m not sure it worked out for me,” I say back.
“It did,” Melanie says, coming up on my right. She shoots me a sympathetic smile.
I look over at Teej, just to see if he’s gonna throw me a bone. Give me some kind of clue as to what’s happening here.
An intervention? A facing of facts? A reality check?
He shrugs. “To brothers,” he says, raising his shot glass of something.
“Yeah,” I say, raising my beer back. I’m regretting my impulse to come here tonight. I look up at Melanie, then scoot over and pat the seat, just so she won’t loom over me and make me feel watched.
She accepts my offer with a smile as I take another sip, and then says, “You want to play a song with us tonight?”
I almost snort out my beer. “Fuck, no.”
“Too good?” TJ starts in.
I stare him straight in the eyes. “I’m not too good, asshole. I’m fucking—” I almost say it. But being sad is, well, sad. So I don’t. “I’m not ready to play yet,” is where I leave it.
There’s a long collective sigh from all five people in the booth. I stare into my beer.
“Hey, I’m sorry, man,” Sean says. “I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know it doesn’t help. But I’m so fucking sorry this shit happened.”
“We all went to the hospital,” Gretchen says. She makes a circular motion at everyone in the booth. “But they said no visitors. The sheriff, you know.”
I nod. Sure, sure.
“And then,” she continues, “we heard you were transferred up to some private place in Steamboat where they have more armed guards than Fort Knox.” Everyone laughs, even Teej and Melanie. “But we tried, RK. We did try. We wouldn’t leave you hanging like that.”
Like that. Like I did to them after Missy died. Jesus.
“Nice one, Gretchen,” TJ says. “Nice bedside manner you got there.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Gretchen explains.
I wave her off. “I know, Gretch. No worries. Thanks for trying.”
“Your voice sounds better,” Melanie says.
I nod. “Getting there, anyway. I’m not expecting much,” I say, drawing a picture of an eighth note in the condensation on my glass.
“I saw a bunch of boxes being delivered the other day,” Mel continues. “Does that mean you’re staying?”
I shrug. “I have to stay. They won’t let me leave until they figure out what happened that night.” I glance up at TJ and I see all the questions on his face. What did happen that night? He wants to ask so bad. But it’s rude, right? Even his meathead ass knows that.
Lisa Gantry comes with my food and sets my plate down. “Thanks,” I mumble, adding the lettuce and tomato to the burger and taking the smallest bite I can manage.
They all watch me chew, like they’ve never seen it done before. I swallow with a grimace. “Hey, Lisa,” I call out, just as she’s about to turn away from the table next to us.
“Yeah, Rock?”
Rock. “I’m gonna take this to go.”
She smiles and takes my plate back. “I’ll wrap it up. Be right back.”
I look at Teej. “Sorry, but this is the first time I’ve eaten anything solid in weeks and I just need…” What the fuck do I need? “Privacy,” I finally say.
“We understand.” Gretchen reaches over and takes my hand in both of hers. “We do, RK.” She looks up at Mel, then to her right, where TJ sits. “Right, you guys?”
They all nod and I let out a breath. “So what do you do these days, Gretchen?”
“Oh, I’m just home on break from grad school. One more year and I have my master’s in family counseling.”
“That’s nice. It suits you,” I say. No wonder she’s so understanding tonight. She’s got my fucking number. I push on Mel’s shoulder when I see Lisa coming with my box. She scoots out so I can stand, and then I give them all a wave. “Thanks for the conversation. See you guys around, right?”
“I got your bill,” Teej says.
I just take my box from Lisa and push my way through the crowd again.
No one tries to start a conversation or grab my leather on the way out.
I drive home and click the opener I found in a kitchen drawer the other day so I can park in the garage instead of the driveway. That fucking sledgehammer is in the middle of the parking pad, surrounded by all the broken cinderblocks. I get out, leave the truck idling, and then spend the next twenty minutes cleaning that shit up before I can pull in, close the door, and feel satisfied that the world can’t find me now.
Lesson learned tonight.
I’m not ready.
Chapter Nine
It takes me hours to eat that burger, but the thought of one more liquid nutrition shake is enough to spur me on to victory. My throat is sore as fuck by the time I’m done.
I pop my pills and crash on the couch. I haven’t slept in my bedroom since I thought I saw Mel.
Did I see her? Was she really there? Or did I imagine it?
I can’t tell. I was fucked up that day. But it freaks me out because of the way I used to sneak into Missy’s bedroom window when I was a teenager.
I fall asleep watching a movie on HBO with no sound, wondering who the fuck has been paying my cable bill all these years.
A noise wakes me. Another movie is playing on the flatscreen, but the sound is still down. So that wasn’t it.
More noise. This time I know it’s coming from the bedrooms. I get up, wondering why I didn’t set the alarm when I came in. It’s stupid to think I’m safe up here. It’s stupid to think I can just go out in public,
tell people where I’m at, and be left alone.
I grab a fire poker and stalk my way down the hallway. The noise has stopped, but I’m pretty sure it came from my room. I take a deep breath and kick the door in. It swings wildly, banging against the wall before swinging back and hitting my foot.
Melanie is standing in the center of my room in her pajamas. She squeals, her hands up as she steps back.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I say, still looking around for a threat.
“I thought you were out! Your truck!”
“Is in the garage,” I growl. I stare at her for several seconds. She looks down at her clothes. She’s only wearing a pair of shorts and one of those stupid see-through tank tops. Her jeans are in a heap in a pile near the bed. “You were here the other day, weren’t you? I saw you and when I came out of the shower you were gone.”
“RK, look—”
“Don’t ‘RK, look’ me, you fucking bitch. What the hell are you doing in my house?”
She swallows hard and just watching her do that makes my own throat hurt.
“What?” I say again, raising my voice.
“I think we need to call TJ—”
“Fuck TJ. This is my house. And you need to explain or I’m calling the sheriff and pressing charges, Melanie.”
She bites her lip. I almost die thinking about when Missy used to do that. Almost die right then and there. Why did the girl I love have to have an identical twin? Why?
“I live here,” Melanie says, her hands out in front of her like she’s warding me off. “I live here, RK. I moved in after your dad got sick. I’ve been living here in your room for almost two years.”
I want to smash Melanie’s face in with this poker. I want to make her different so I don’t have to see Missy every time I look at her. I want to forget every moment of my life. Black out all twenty-three fucking years of it. Forget every goddamned second. Never be born. I should’ve jumped off the Santa Monica Pier that night. I wish I had. Let myself drown in RK’s pre-determined end. I should’ve ended it poetically instead of pathetically. Because that’s what I am now. Pathetic.