by Ron C. Nieto
“Not a problem!” Alice said, shooting me a look that said I'd better be planning to volunteer to visit and take care of my own cat.
“That's settled, then. And since you're here, Keith, do you think you could make it to the studio this Monday? I talked to my friend and he'd be willing to see you after school.”
“Of course,” I said without even thinking.
“Great! You can go with Alice and pick up dinner on the way back. My treat. Alice, darling, get him out of the kitchen before he has time to say no.”
“I wasn't going to say no. This is such an amazing offer. I'm really grateful. But dinner, there's...”
“See? He's too well-mannered for his own good. Shoo!”
The laughter chased me down the corridor and to the door, but it wasn't the mocking kind. I found myself smiling in answer to their chuckles and it was almost comfortable.
“Keep the cat around,” I told Alice when I stepped out into the porch.
“I will,” she said, still gingerly holding Sparrow. “Come visit later?”
“Of course.” I leaned in to kiss her good-bye and there was an annoyed harrumph as Sparrow got squeezed between our chests. Alice stepped back quickly, giving me an apologetic smile, and I could have sworn that the stupid fur ball had a smug expression when I was forced to walk back home with nothing but the memory of a light peck to keep me company.
Chapter 10
I returned to Alice's place later that afternoon and she was at the door mere seconds after I rang the bell.
“I thought you said he was well-behaved!” she hissed as soon as she saw me.
“He is?” I tried to hide my confusion.
“No, he's nosy and unruly!”
“He's a cat,” I said more drily than I wanted.
“I know. And I'm being ridiculous, right?” She sighed and stepped aside. “Come on. Get in and see if you can get him under wraps.”
“What's the matter?” Her house was eerily silent, no music, TV or voices echoing down the foyer.
“My parents left right after lunch, so I'm not in trouble, but he's been trying to sneak into the library since you left. I had to lock him in my room while we ate so no one would notice.”
I had been hoping for a drama-free afternoon, perhaps lengthening into evening. Just the both of us, talking about nonsense or not talking at all. Obviously, it was not to be.
“Let's go into the library then,” I said, resigned.
“I don't think it's a good idea. There's plenty of breakable stuff in there—picture frames and glass figurines and trinkets and such.”
“We'll be careful.”
“Keith, it's my home. What do you think we're going to find in there?” She rolled her eyes so much I could detect it even in her voice, but at the same time she led us to a closed door on the other side of the living room. Sitting in front of that door was Sparrow, and when we approached, he gave me a glance full of contempt.
Meow, he said. Cat speech for “open the door this minute, filthy human.” I was sure of it.
I took the lead and pushed the door open. The room beyond was a mixture between an office and a library with a massive, sleek desk sitting on one side and the two walls on the other side covered in shelves two lines deep. Sparrow shot between my legs and jumped on the desk's leather chair.
Alice and I exchanged a glance and broke into peals of nervous laughter.
Unfortunately, however much we wanted to laugh the situation off, there was something unnerving about a cat staring at a piece of stationary hard enough to drill holes through it.
Alice walked to her father's desk and followed Sparrow's line of vision. There was a box with three pencils and an eraser inside, a snow globe depicting a whole city inside its crystal dome, a stack of papers, a letter opener, a fountain pen and a family picture in a silver frame.
Sparrow's line of vision wasn't very precise.
“What exactly is he looking at?” she asked.
“I have no idea.” I walked over to them and shook the snow globe. Upon closer inspection, it looked like an old London replica with the bridge standing proudly in the middle and the top of Big Ben lost in the whirlwind of whiteness. “Have you ever been to London?”
She lifted her gaze from the documents she was perusing. “No, I think that's a present my grandma gave my dad after a trip.”
I left the globe back upon the desk. “Anything in there?” I said.
“Nothing relevant. Some bills, printed e-mails, that kind of stuff. Nothing screams the Nightrays at first sight.”
We both looked at the cat. He sat there still as a statue, his eyes fixed in exactly the same direction. Alice grabbed the letter opener and fountain pen in turn, but Sparrow's attention didn't waver.
“It can't be the pencil box,” she said. “I think he's messing with us.”
“It's pretty sad that we trust him this much in the first place,” I said, leaning my elbows on the desktop and letting my own gaze wander over the assorted items. Nothing jumped out. I felt no pull to any particular piece and there was no sentiment of wrongness attached to the room—it was as tidy and well put together as everything else in the Thorne household.
I grabbed the snow globe and shook it again. “Ready to grasp at straws?” I said.
Alice frowned but nodded for me to go on. With a sigh, I did.
“A London trinket and the Nightrays were Brits.”
“We are grasping at straws if that's the best we can come up with,” Alice snickered. “My grandma was always talking about London this and London that, but...”
“You're part Brit?” I teased with a small smile. “Where's the accent?”
“My grandma might have been Brit, not me. Or born in London and raised here, I don't even remember whether she talked about her own life or whether it was just the usual ‘bygone days were always best' kind of thing.”
“I don't suppose we could go and ask, right?”
“She passed on like thirteen years ago.”
“I'm sorry.”
She shrugged. “Don't be. It was a long time ago. I barely remember her.”
I hid a wince and left the globe in its place. Thirteen years. Ten years. More or less the same amount of time. It had been a whole decade since I had lost my mother and it still hurt. It wasn't as devastating as the first months, not even as raw as the first years, but the ache was there, like a low-burning flame that wouldn't go out. Sometimes, the details slipped me—I had trouble remembering small things, like the words of the lullaby she'd sing when I was a baby or the taste of the homemade marmalade she always prepared to celebrate the beginning of the spring, but the loss was still stark. I'd built a life after it, both my father and I had, but that didn't mean we were even close to forgetting what we'd lost.
“Let's file the London clue away for future reference then,” I said, moving toward the door. “I doubt the cat's interest would be in anything other than that globe, but right now we don't have any information to connect it to.”
“Okay,” Alice said, her voice slightly subdued. She closed the door behind us, making sure Sparrow had left as well, and led the way to the living room. “Are you ready for Monday?” she asked, shifting onto happier topics.
“Sure,” I said, sitting down in her couch and reaching out for her to sit by my side. “I've got a song I'm pretty proud of, and I've also prepared some classic riffs.”
She snuggled into my side and I relaxed into her, her warmth seeping through to me. It didn't banish the hurt that had resurfaced and sneaked up on me, but it chased it away to the darkest corners of my soul, where it was manageable. I took a deep death and let my cheek rest against the side of her head, tucked in the crook of my neck.
“Like, Beethoven riffs?” she mumbled, the movement of her lips sending a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with ghosts.
I laughed. “Like, Metallica and Iron Maiden and Deep Purple riffs.”
&nb
sp; “But that's not what you play at all.”
“No, but it's what they might—and note how I say might—find a use for.”
“You know, Mom doesn't want you to change your playing style. There are plenty of rockers out there. It's your playing what's genuine.”
“I do have one of my songs prepared,” I said. “I just have some backups in case the label's not interested in something quite so unique.”
Her palm came to rest on my chest, right over my heart, and she pushed herself away enough to look me in the eye. “You don't believe it'll work, right?”
“Going by my experience to date... I'm not the kind of guy you can put in front of ten thousand teens and hope they'll somehow end up chanting his name. All those years of eating alone taught me that much.”
She went back to her previous position, her arm moving across and around my waist to hold me tight. “Just try for real, okay?” she whispered.
“I promise,” I told her, twisting my head to press my lips to her forehead.
We remained silent, just sitting together and drawing strength and comfort from each other until the front door clicked open and her parents returned home.
Chapter 11
When Alice and I arrived at the studio on Monday afternoon, she squeezed my hand.
“Are you ready?”
“To experiment new heights of inadequacy never before explored by yours truly?” I said with a small smirk. “Hell yeah.”
She pinched my side. “It'll go over much better than you think.”
I didn't reply. Instead, I addressed the clerk at the reception desk, a young woman with “boredom” written all over her features and not at all impressed with our appearance. “Hi, ma'am. We had an appointment with Mr. Stuart Langley.”
“Name?”
“Keith Brannagh.”
She did a quick check on her computer and when she looked back up, she seemed surprised to have discovered that yes, we did have an appointment. “Go on. Down the corridor, third door on the left. Mr. Langley will join you shortly.”
“Thanks.”
All the way down the corridor, I felt her eyes glued to our back. Surely, she worried we'd cause some kind of apocalypse in her little world, vandalizing the place or trying to get into a different room or something.
“You're getting that look that says you're alone against the world,” Alice said quietly beside me.
“I'm not. We… We are.”
The room we walked into was a very small, very neat control cabin. There was a glass wall partitioning the room and a narrow door leading into the fish bowl, where the equipment was neatly stacked. I checked the amps with a glance, and though it was not highest tier, it certainly was the best quality stuff I'd ever stood this close to.
The main door opened before I could comment, and a stocky guy joined us. He was wearing dark chinos and an untucked shirt, which somehow didn't look half as cool on him as it was supposed to.
“You Keith?” he asked. The voice had a light North Western accent that was difficult to place.
“Yes, sir,” I said, offering a hand to shake.
He ignored me and plopped into the chair behind the recording controls.
“Lara told me about you. Says you're some kind of genius boy, but that you're not very optimistic about it. The music you play is instrumental, melodic, classic”—he spat the word like it left a sour taste in his mouth—”and you believe it won't sell. I got you down correct?”
I felt Alice taking a breath to speak, but I shifted a little bit to brush a hand against hers. An argument wasn't worth it, so I said nothing and held the man's stare in silence.
He steeped his fingers in front of his face and gave me a smug look. “Well, you're right, kid. Instrumental symphonies don't even appear in sales' charts. But Lara's a good friend, so I agreed to take a look at you.” He stopped for a moment, as if he expected me to thank him. Then he went on. “If you can handle your guitar like she says, perhaps I can find you a spot in some local indie band, or get a word in so that you can be considered as guitarist for hire when our signed vocalists need recording or live support. Are we agreed?”
“Sure,” I said. I had promised I'd really give this a try after all.
He motioned beyond the glass wall. “Get in there, get hooked up, and play something. Your chick can stay in that corner and look pretty.”
That's when I realized he had no idea who Alice was—her mother hadn't told him that the girl on my arm would be her daughter. Catching Alice's eye, I saw a flicker of pure evil cross her face and had to hide a smile. This whole episode could be useless, and this guy could get insulting, but she planned to get revenge later and that would make it worth it.
I squeezed past the small door into the fish bowl and got my guitar out of its gig bag. I was vaguely aware of Stuart's eyes straining to see the make and model, but I tried not to pay attention. Getting my own cable instead of using the one coiled by the wall, I plugged the guitar into the amp—a Marshall 1969. There was almost reverence in my fingers when I began touching and adjusting the knobs, because it was one legendary model. Sure, it had been surpassed, but there was still something epic about using it. The overdrive this thing could crank out was what turned rock and roll into metal... It was aggressive, lengthening each note into infinity and tearing off the best harmonics from the strings.
It was perfect.
I prepared the settings without bothering to test the result and turned to the glass wall. The man slouched in the chair without much interest, his eyebrow arched as if to say, “That's all you're gonna do?”
Well, yes, that was all. I'd never touched an amp this expensive, but I knew its specs. I knew what my guitar could spit out. I knew what I wanted to do with that raw signal.
I arched an eyebrow in turn, adjusting the strap on my shoulder and balancing the weight of the guitar against my hips.
He flicked a switch and I saw a small red light come on in front on me, wedged between the glass wall and the ceiling. I began to play. For Alice.
The song began long before “Lady Windermere's Theme” ever entered my head. It began with a tear. It fell down the round cheek of a girl who stared out at me from her front porch, and it soothed me even though her lips were pinched in a puffy frown. In my chest, my already shredded heart was being torn out to pieces ever smaller and it was fitting that her lone tear gave voice to my turmoil.
I'd have cried with her, but I was already spent and dry.
After that moment of warmth, the long stretch of loneliness began. The girl didn't wait to see me off. She went inside her home and didn't look back, but I had to believe she cared anyway. She had given me a tear, hadn't she? So I clung to that. Over the breakdowns, the fear, the loss, the sense of uprooting, that one glimpse of feeling, that hint that she missed me too kept me sane. I fell in love with my reminiscence of her as a little girl even as I grew up, and when everything else got to be too much, her image would be there, in my mind.
Time passed and hope picked up. Excitement doused with fear and equal measures of exhilaration snuck into the song. There was another good-bye, a quick farewell to a place that never was a home, and then a long way back to where I could belong. There was anxiety as I waited for her, as I met her again.
In this new, old place, there were too many condescending people and too many whispers—but I'd learned to deal with those. They didn't matter, no more than mere background noise would. What rose over the melody, what cut me to the core, was the look she gave me. The little girl who had grown into a goddess. Who had forgotten about me. Her turning shoulder was a blow hard enough to make me stagger, to break the song. My world up to that point, what had kept me alive, vanished from under my feet and my fantasies were revealed for the sham they were.
It hurt, but the notes didn't blame her. We'd just been kids, and I'd been stupid to believe myself infatuated, stupid even to imagine that our future could take up where our past let
off. She had grown, just like I had, and she had a life now where there was no room for me.
Except that there was. The melody echoed with tendrils from a thousand others. They'd been songs to help me deal with the memory of my mother and the slow disconnection I felt from my father as he sunk his teeth into work to keep us afloat. But also from songs that went back to those infant days of playing and thinking we would never change, of innocence and candor and a form of love that might have been childish, but not any less real for it. Those very songs that mourned her absence brought her back to me.
And she told me she wanted to stay.
I vibrated the last note and let my breath out slowly, keeping my emotion in check.
Through the glass wall, Alice locked eyes with me. Her brows were furrowed in confusion as her mind tried to catch up with her heart and her eyes were shining with unshed tears. As she searched my face, one droplet slid down her cheek, bringing us full circle. I tried to give her a small smile and imagined that, for one moment only, she had truly understood.
Above me, the studio's red light kept blazing out and I glanced toward Stuart. The man had frozen, his lips parted while he stared straight ahead, lost somewhere in his own mind.
Thanks for paying attention.
Then, he leaned forward and slapped a button on his console.
“Change of plans, kid,” he said through the mic, clearing his throat.
About an hour later, Alice and I left the building and headed toward the bus station. If we hadn't missed it, there was a thirty-minute route ahead of us, but we slowed our pace after the first few blocks, unconcerned with time for the moment.
“What did I tell you?” Alice said, tugging my hand to stop me and face me. “You have a gift, Keith.”
“I have you,” I said, half declaring myself and half trying to lighten the thick, emotional mood.
The comment didn't work as planned and she took a step closer. Her grip on my hand was white-knuckled. “That was me, wasn't it?”
I leant my forehead against hers, feeling her proximity in the cold evening and hoping she felt half as comforted by mine. “It's always been you, Alice. Before I was in love with you, I was in love with the idea of you. And before that, I learned to fall in love with your memory.”