Beside the Music

by BJ Knapp

  “It’ll grow back,” I replied. “Remember when Vito dug that hole over by the pear tree? Now you can’t even tell it was there.”

  “Brenda, I am still not sure about this. I don’t think we’re really equipped to run a rock-and-roll bed and breakfast.”

  Later that night, before we went to bed, I caught him looking out the bedroom window at the tents, a concerned look frozen on his face. He probably didn’t get much sleep after that, and I am pretty sure he won’t get much while they’re here...

  He pulls the dish towel from my hand and hangs it back on the rung on the front of the oven. “You have been obsessing about this for two weeks now. You need to go. Now.”

  Like he noticed. I’ve done all the work to get the house ready, while he and Aria have been busy conspiring to take over Rhode Island with his campaign. He hasn’t been home much in the evenings. And even when he has been home, he’s been beached in front of the TV, while I’ve been painting, cleaning, and rearranging the furniture. I know that having the band move in is my pet project, but I wish he’d offered to help more.

  He balked when I asked him to help me move a few boxes into the attic. “Ugh, no,” he said “I’m exhausted. I had to push three cars into the garage today. None of the cars I worked on would start.”

  “Please? It would be so much easier if you could just hand the boxes up the ladder to me, so I won’t have to try and muscle them up there myself.” I ended up wrestling with the boxes myself and was pretty pissed about it...

  Just thinking about it now on the way to work is irritating me. When I get there, I realize that I have no recollection of the drive. I sit down at my desk and get cracking on my emails. Not only did I get the house ready for rock stars, but I also totally nailed the pitch for the Baxter account at work, and they signed with us. Now I am working on their launch, and I am killing it so far.

  The cable network, Innovation, is featuring them on their show Factory Tour—filming started last week. I even got to meet the host, Ed Rollins. He’s been all over the place doing voiceovers on various documentaries about fishing boats, factory workers, and the like. Very cool guy. And he’s taken a liking to Baxter—I think I could get him to do more for them. Amanda is psyched. I am still keeping an ear out for word on my eventual promotion. I am halfway through my emails when I notice that the clock in the corner of my computer screen only says nine o’clock. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was running backwards.

  “Hey,” Joy says, popping her head into my cube and startling me so that I jump at the sound of her voice. “Oh my God, what is with you today?” She laughs. “You nearly hit the ceiling just now.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night,” I lie, “and I’ve had a lot of caffeine today.” I can’t tell anyone that an ‘80s metal band is going to invade my house tonight; and I don’t know how I am going to survive however long they’ll be there without being able to tell anyone.

  Obviously, they know I had dinner with Keith, thanks to the army of photographers and our profession’s close attention to all forms of media. My picture was all over the online gossip mags for half a day, and I got a few follow-up calls from reporters, which I declined to answer. Even Annie called me because she wanted the scoop for MTV News; of course, I gave her a bit to pad her story. How could I not? Joy politely asked what he was like, but she’s not a fan of the band. She didn’t ask again, and of course I couldn’t volunteer any more information.

  I just need to keep my head down and kick some serious ass on Baxter. I decide that I’ll just use Baxter as an excuse for my odd behavior at work. If everyone thinks I am being uber-focused, they’ll probably leave me alone.

  “Well, anyway,” Joy says, “I wanted to tell you that Emily from the printers came by to drop off these proofs for one last look before she does the print run. She needs an answer by noon.”

  “Okay, I’ll take a look. Thanks.” I set them aside and turn my attention back to the screen. Better yet, I need to get up and move a bit. I am way too jittery right now.

  I stand up in my cube and stretch then decide I need a smoothie. I head out of the office and up the block to a café where I sit on a stool at the smoothie bar. When I take out my phone, there’s a text from Annie.

  Heard a rumor that Hydra is recording in R.I. Can you confirm?

  I am torn. She’s a member of the press. Obviously I can’t tell her anything, or it’ll set off a group of reporters to camp out on my front lawn. Tim would kill me.

  I haven’t heard anything.

  She responds, Interesting. Maybe it is just a rumor.

  I hate lying to her. But over the years, I’ve given her a lot of tips. This time I just can’t. I pay for my smoothie and walk back to the office. I have way too much work to do today, enough that I can’t deal with the dilemma of helping out my friend versus keeping my sanity at home. I hope she’ll just let it drop. But knowing Annie, she’ll eventually find out.

  When I get back to my office, I call Emily at the printer and leave her a message to go ahead with the print run on the brochures. Then I hide out in my cube and manage to bury myself in Baxter for the rest of the day. The day still goes by pretty slowly, but like every other day, it eventually ends. Then, of course, there’s traffic on the highway on the way home due, apparently, to an accident. When I finally pass by the scene, I see that an eighteen-wheeler has hit a van. The van is on its side, and the paramedics are loading a person on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. I get a little nervous and drive the speed limit the rest of the way home.

  By the time I finally walk into the house, I see Vito slinking around with a guilty look on his face. Then I see why: he’s shredded the leg on our Louis XIV chaise during the day. Of course he had to pick today of all days. He’s long outgrown his puppy-chewing days; I wonder why he started up again. Maybe he senses the tension between me and Tim and feels stressed out as a result.

  “Bad dog!” I holler at him. He slinks toward me, his tail stiff and his head bowed. I clutch his nose and press it against the damage. “No, Vito! Bad dog!” He wriggles loose and heads for the back door. He flattens himself against the floor and whimpers, which makes me feel guilty for yelling at him.

  I let him out, then go out myself and throw a Frisbee for him; he’s the only beagle I have ever seen that likes to play fetch. We sit on the steps, and I stroke his velvety ears. He seems to have forgotten that, just a half hour earlier, I was royally pissed off at him. I feel his warm tongue lap the back of my hand; I think he’s trying to calm my nerves. He looks up at me with his dopey brown eyes, and I can’t be mad anymore. I kiss him on the head, and he wags his tail. All is forgiven.

  We go back inside, and I toss some kibble into his bowl. Then I put some spaghetti on for dinner and wander through the house, trying not to obsess. I make a move to rearrange the flowers, and then think better of it. I need to keep myself occupied. I pull out the mop and do the kitchen floor again.

  I take a look at the shredded couch leg then try to sand out the teeth marks by hand. I manage to get most of them out, and then I paw through the junk drawer to get that stain felt-tip pen that Portia thought to buy for us when she bought the furniture. I touch up the scratches and almost can’t tell that Vito chewed it up. I engage in a few more little projects, but none of them manage to keep me occupied. By the time Tim gets home, the pasta is in the colander in the sink, and I am on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor, scrubbing the grout between the tiles.

  “Um, honey?” he asks, stepping beside me. “You need to stop.”

  I don’t look up at first. “I’m almost done,” I say. I puff the hair off my forehead.

  He wrestles the brush from my hands. I open my mouth to protest. “Stop!” he commands.

  “But...”

  “Just stop,” he replies firmly. “Do we need to go out? You’re starting to go nuts.”

  Grudgingly, I follow him out of the bathroom. I can’t believe it’s already eight o’clock. I fix us
each a plate of spaghetti. Just as we sit down at the kitchen table, the phone rings. I know it’s them, and I know their plane must have just landed. I nearly dive over the kitchen counter to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Brenda, it’s Toni. We’ve just gotten through customs, and we need to get organized. We’ll probably get to your place in about two hours.”

  I hang up and relay the message to Tim. He walks over to the kitchen window. Doubt seems to cross his face again as he gazes out at the vacant rock star encampment in the back yard. “How did I let you talk me into this again?” Is it more than just his concern for the lawn? My guess is that having Hydra in the house will be very hard for him. We always get into a fight after we have houseguests; his anxiety about our home makes him come off as very rude.

  I fight the urge to say, “It’ll be fine.” He’s been listening to me say that for weeks now, and I know he’s not going to believe me if I keep saying it over and over again, even though I wish he would. The adrenaline is making my hands get all tingly, so I dump my unfinished spaghetti into a container for lunch tomorrow.

  “I know this will be difficult for you. Thank you for letting me do this.” I go in for a hug, but he backs off. I recognize this behavior. “You’re already getting tense,” I say, “and they haven’t even arrived yet. You need to chill out, or this is going to be a long stay for you.”

  “How do you expect me to chill out? I have tents in my back yard and strangers coming into my home to stay for God knows how long. And you want me to chill out?” He adds an extra mocking tone to “chill out.”

  “Tim, come on. You always get bitchy when we have houseguests over. Do you remember when Annie came to visit? You practically shoved her out the door as she was leaving. What is the matter with you?” It’s true. He yanked her bag from her hand and practically threw it into her trunk. She never said anything about it, but I noticed that she always has an excuse whenever I ask her to come up from New York for the weekend.

  “What’s the matter with me is,” he spouts, “that I have way too much going on to deal with this.”

  “Tim, you always have way too much going on. Tell me something I don’t know. If you have so much going on, then maybe it’s time to examine your life and cut back on a few things. Do you need to meet with Aria every single day, for example?”

  “There it is. Aria. Brenda, there’s nothing going on with her. She’s my campaign manager.”

  “You’d better tell her that,” I snap. “Have you seen the low-cut tops she wears when she’s Skyping you? Your mother introduced you to her on purpose—and she’s not only thinking about the campaign.”

  “And now my mother, too. Anything else you want to bitch at me about tonight?”

  This is how it’s been going lately. I can’t bring up his mother or Aria. “Why are you getting so defensive? I’m worried about you because you’re always so stressed out. You have a lot going on, but it’s your own doing, Tim.”

  I walk into the living room and turn on the TV, trying to distract myself, but instead I find myself bouncing my knee and biting my fingernails. When I look down, I see that Vito is pacing on the area rug, as well. Tim and I don’t talk until I finally see the headlights turn onto the driveway.

  “They’re here.”

  Chapter 12

  THE CONVOY OF MINIVANS pulls into the driveway just after ten o’clock. I switch on the outside lights and step from the deck to meet our houseguests at the edge of the driveway. The van doors slide open and people pour out and stand on the lawn to stretch and shake the circulation back into their legs. One of the men asks me where the bathroom is, and Tim leads him into the house. The Australian accents flow melodically as the crew chatters to each other while they organize their belongings. I listen and am automatically drawn to the laid-back lilt of their voices. I see a crew member open the back of one of the vans and pull out beer stacked by the case. He carries the cases one by one into the house and stocks them in the fridge without saying a word.

  I spot a woman yanking suitcases out of the back of the third van. She blows the hair off of her forehead and strains to lift the heavy baggage. None of the crew members asks if she needs help, as they are busy with their own tasks. I leap into place beside her to help her unload the remaining bags.

  She turns to face me. “You must be Brenda,” she says. “I’m Toni!” She shakes my hand and thanks me for helping her with the bags. Her blonde hair is tied in a messy ponytail, and I can tell that she is tired from traveling. She tugs a purple suitcase out of the back of the van and sets it on the ground with the rest.

  “Welcome to Rhode Island!” I say, hoping I sound cheerful and not like a complete dork. “Have you ever been here before?”

  “No. It’s a long way from Sydney. I think it’s the furthest I can get from home without falling off the face of the planet.” She yawns. “What a long day.”

  I imagine the complication of steering a group of rock stars and their crew through customs, which is probably the equivalent of herding an entire kindergarten class through a candy store. The crowd of people around us has erupted into slight chaos as they stash bags into the tents and equipment in the garage.

  “It’s a shame you had to arrive at night,” I say to Toni. “There’s nothing like seeing a place for the first time right when you arrive.”

  “I know, I was just thinking that on the way here. I hope I’ll have some time to explore while we’re here. I’d love to take a swim in the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Just as I am promising to take Toni to the beach, a man thrusts a clipboard into her hands and storms off. Toni shrugs at me, and I watch as she assigns members of the crew to their tents. The Bluetooth headset in her right ear chirps. “Yes, we will do the Rolling Stone interview, of course,” she says, walking over to the tents. She points at one of them and gestures for a crew member to move some suitcases into it. She’s like a rock-and-roll cruise director, but I hadn’t realized that she is also the publicist.

  For a moment, I allow my mind to drift off to late night PR collaboration sessions over my dining room table, in addition to the jam sessions, the critiques, and the lyric-writing all-nighters. I snap back to the present when I see Toni back at the minivan, hauling two large suitcases from it to the edge of the lawn, where she lines them up for the rest of the crew to haul to their tents. I help her pull the remainder of them out of the van. Then she proceeds to hoist a few of them up the deck stairs.

  “Seriously? The big rock stars can’t haul their own bags?” I ask.

  “No bellman at your place?” She laughs as I help her pull the last of the luggage up the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Good lord, what the hell did they pack in here?”

  “I don’t know. I am sure it was worse in the ‘80s, when they had to pack all that hairspray and mousse.” She laughs. “Though now, they’re probably packing things like leg braces and Bengay.” We both laugh.

  Once we are in the kitchen, I put the kettle on and set out a few cups. We continue to joke around while we wait for the water to boil. Toni turns, opens the fridge, and scans the contents.

  A moment later, I feel a pair of sinewy arms encircle me from behind, then warm breath on my neck as Keith whispers, “Shhhh” into my ear. I stand perfectly still and try not to let my heart pound through my back and into his chest. He releases me and tiptoes over to Toni, where he nuzzles her from behind and whispers in her ear as well.

  Toni jumps when she hears his voice. “Keith! Hi!” She leaps toward him and gives him a hug. The kettle begins to whistle, and Keith picks it up from the stove then turns circles searching for a mug.

  I hand him one from the cabinet and drop a tea bag into it; he empties the kettle into the mug and stirs in honey, too. As I am refilling the kettle and setting it back on to boil, the man who handed Toni the clipboard materializes at the back door. He has thinning red hair, and I can see the shine of his scalp. His belly bulges over his belt, and freckles dot his pasty face and arms.
The man drags a large whiteboard through the door; it’s almost as tall as he is. Did they stop at Staples and the liquor store on the way here? Where the heck would he get such a large whiteboard at this hour?

  He barely acknowledges Keith and Toni and nods at me. “Erik Murtaugh, band manager” he says. “You must be Brenda Dunkirk.” He gestures to the whiteboard. “May I hang this on that wall right there?” he asks, nodding to the wall beside the fridge. Before I can answer, he whips a power screwdriver out of his pocket and screws the board onto the wall. I recognize the screwdriver. I can see the initials that Tim carved into the handle, TD. Erik has raided Tim’s toolbox in the garage. I’m guessing Tim is not going to be happy about that.

  Tim apparently hears the whining of the power screwdriver and bolts into the kitchen. He glares at Erik as he’s hanging the whiteboard. “Brenda?” he asks through gritted teeth. “A word in private please?” The moment we step into the living room and out of ear shot, Tim hisses, “Why the hell did you let him hang that thing on our wall? We just fucking painted the kitchen!”

  “I, um, he just did it.”

  “What do you mean? He just walked in and started redecorating my kitchen?”

  “Um, pretty much,” I reply.

  “They just got here, and they’re acting like they own the place.”

  “Well, they are paying us. They kinda do own the place for a while.”

  Tim glowers at me for not taking his side. I don’t know why I said that: the words just kind of fell out of my mouth. And now Tim and I are off to a great start with Hydra’s visit. I need to backtrack. I reach out my hand to him; he scowls and turns his attention back to the whine of the power screwdriver.

  We go back into the kitchen, and I see that a few other members of the crew have found their way to the kettle and the mugs. Tim examines the screws that Erik drove into the wall, then the screwdriver, which Erik is still holding. He snorts with disgust, and faces Erik. “Hey, that’s my power screwdriver.” The irritation in his voice is obvious. Erik looks at him blankly, as if not understanding why he is so upset.