“How many people in seats so far?”
“Getting close to a thousand.”
“One thousand? Sweet. See you at the top, bro.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say thanks.”
Kevin got up and went back to the front of the stage. He peered around the curtain hiding him from view of the crowd laying blankets on the thick June grass and lying back and letting the late afternoon sun soak into them. “Why are you doing all this for me?”
“You’re kidding, right? After all the years you believed in what we were trying to do—even when it was lean? Talking me off the ledge millions of times? Telling me I had it when no one believed it but you? This is a very small payback for all those years.”
“Thanks.”
“Now go out there and go crazy. Sing like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t. There is only this moment. Take it. It’s yours.”
“I needed those words and to say I appreciate it sounds so . . . stupid.”
“Rock it, bro.”
Kevin let the growing rumble of the crowd’s conversation seep into his heart. They weren’t here for Brandon Scott. They were here for him. Kevin Kaison. Not the manager. Not the agent. The musician. “I should go.”
“Something else,” Brandon said. “This is important. Ready? You might want to make a note of this. I’m serious.”
“I’m ready.”
“Try your best when the moment comes, and you walk onto that stage . . . not to puke.”
Kevin laughed. “I’ll try.”
“K2? One more thing. Serious this time.”
“Yeah?”
“God is in this and since he is, nothing about tonight is about you. It’s about him. And if it’s about him and he is in it, whatever happens is gold.”
“Love ya, bro.”
“Same. Kick it hard. I’ll be praying.”
As Kevin started the fifth song, something flickered in his peripheral vision. A thin line of something translucent with a light green tinge to it slithered through the grass to his right and left and up toward the stage, but when he stared at the matted grass he saw nothing. A memory flashed through his mind. Of Brandon’s concert last year where Reece’s and Dana’s and Marcus’s spirits had shown up onstage to fight . . . he couldn’t remember. A vine? Some kind of evil but what? Brandon had never really talked about it, and Kevin shook his head. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. This was his shot.
The crowd had been appreciative up till now, but he felt a shift, saw it on their faces. They loved him. And he loved them. And if he could admit it, he loved that they loved him. For once in his life the praise wasn’t all about the god of Christian music: Brandon Scott. The roars of the crowd were for Kevin Kaison, stepping into his glory. No. Leaping into his glory—with arms stretched to their limit.
For the rest of the concert he did exactly what Brandon had told him to. He went crazy, forgot about playing every chord right and hitting every note perfect and just played with abandon.
By the time the last chord on the last song filled the dusky night air, he knew he’d hit a grand-slam home run. He raised his guitar to the audience and loped offstage, adrenaline and sweat and exhilaration all pouring over him.
The roar of the crowd ended in shouts of “Encore!” and Kevin strutted back onto the stage and again raised his guitar high in the air. The crowd erupted and his grin felt like it wrapped around his head. He was home for the first time in his life and if he had anything to say about it, would never leave.
An hour later Kevin sat alone in the center of the empty stage. The shouts of a late-evening soccer game under the Marymoor Park lights floated toward him from a half mile away. And the shouts of the crowd at the concert still echoed through his head. Cheering for him. Loving his music. His dream had come alive.
Holding the case his bass rested in with both hands, Anthony bounced over to Kevin. “Congratulations, K2. I knew you could do it. The band knew you could do it. Most of all Brandon knew you could. Well done.”
“Thanks.” Kevin gazed over the matted grass again, and an image of the crowd again filled his mind.
“How are you going to juggle being a rising star and being Brandon’s manager slash agent at the same time?”
A surge of adrenaline filled him, but he shoved the emotion down. “Easy. This was a one-time thing—my hobby getting a few moments in the sun. Managing Brandon is my true calling.”
“Do you practice that insipid line every day?”
Kevin turned to Anthony and stared at the bass player’s grin. As he did, an impression formed in Kevin’s mind. Anthony was right. He wouldn’t be going back. His days were on the verge of change. He’d just hopped on a sixty-foot wave and his surfboard was pointed straight down—he was about to go on the ride of his life.
Kevin turned to look out over the venue as if in slow motion. “I’ll do it for you, Anthony. Because I think you’re right.”
“Don’t do it for me, or anyone else, do it for you. You deserve it. You’ve earned it.” Anthony frowned. “What? You’re worried about what Brandon will think?”
Yes, he was. Brandon had given him incredible support, so why was Kevin worried? Because he knew Brandon better than almost anyone. And while Brandon wanted him to succeed, he didn’t want it to come at the expense of losing Kevin as his manager.
As he drove home that night, two questions wrestled for his attention. How soon should he tell Brandon, and how would Brandon react?
TWENTY-NINE
MARCUS FINISHED UP HIS LAST CLASS ON MONDAY afternoon and called Simon’s cell phone again. This would be the third message without a callback, but Marcus didn’t care. He wanted to talk to the magician again. Simon hadn’t been on campus for the past three weeks, or if he had, Marcus hadn’t seen him. The magician had implied they’d talk again but it hadn’t happened.
He wanted to ask Simon why the switching had stopped and why it had happened in the first place. And he wanted to talk about the Wolf. How did Simon know about that? What part was God going to have the magician play in this game?
Marcus didn’t trust him, but the conjurer had at least some kind of answers, of that Marcus had no doubt. And more than anyone else could offer. As Marcus walked toward Red Square, the call went to voice mail. “Simon here. Do you believe in magic? The Lovin’ Spoonful did. I do too. Leave a message.”
Marcus smiled. Reece would love that message.
“Simon, it’s Marcus. I’d like to talk again. Call me. You have the number from my previous calls. I apologize for the persistence, but I want to continue our discussion from before.”
Marcus trudged across the bricks that made up Red Square toward the parking garage but on a whim turned left and headed toward Drumheller Fountain. It’s where he’d last seen Simon. Why not?
When he was still one hundred yards from the fountain, Marcus spotted what looked like Simon. It had to be the magician. Who else would be balancing on one leg, the other in the air along with his arms, reaching for the sky? And doing it up on the concrete ring of the fountain dressed in all black. When Marcus was still twenty-five yards away, Simon turned and hopped onto the ground like a cat.
“Professor of time and all it contains, what do you do when realities rain down all around you like lightning and snow, and when the bough breaks, where do you go?”
Simon hadn’t mentioned his ability to look more than a little crazy while spouting his somehow-ingratiating rhymes. The magician’s gaze darted from the fountain to Marcus to the sky to the ground back to the fountain.
“It’s good to see you, Simon.”
“Is it?” Simon blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Good to be seen in this reality. It is real, isn’t it? I’m choosing to believe so.”
“Did you receive my cell phone messages?”
Simon rubbed his head as if he were scrubbing one-hundred-year-old grease spot off a silver chalice. “I’ve been having a tough few days. Not sure if I have a cell ph
one here. Can’t remember.”
“Here? As opposed to where?”
“Other places, the other places, the other places. Stop asking about it. I don’t want to go there. Got free of that finally. Never going back.”
Simon bent over and squeezed and unsqueezed his fists like pistons working overtime. “What do you want to say today, and hear with ears that might not listen, to flashes and glistens, that take your mind, to many lives of another kind?”
If this was the result of Simon’s tough days, the days must have been difficult indeed.
“Are you with me here, Simon?”
“Most assuredly, yes. Ask me, ask me anything.”
“I want to discuss my supposed forays into other realities. And the Wolf.”
“The Wolf, the Wolf, the Wolf of confusion, he always spins a compelling illusion.”
“Are you all right, Simon?”
“I’m good. I’m fine, really. It’s just that it’s a contusion, this ball of confusion.” Simon straightened and fixed his gaze on the fountain. “Talk? You would, you would, and I think you should. We should, we could, and we should.”
“Simon. Slow down.”
The magician’s head swiveled like his neck was made of rubber, his eyes moving everywhere except to look at Marcus.
“Tell me about the Wolf.”
“Wolf bad. God good. Wolf bad, God is good. The Wolf is very, very bad. God is very, very good.”
“What do you know about the Wolf—the spirit of religion?”
“I used to have cream with my coffee all the time.” Simon paused and blinked again like he was sending a Morse code message with his eyes. “Or did I?” He stared hard at Marcus. “Do you know?” He dropped his gaze and seemed to study his palm. “Hard to keep track of what is real and what isn’t. Too many layers. Hard to keep track. Very difficult to keep track.”
Marcus leaned in. “Simon, are you sure you’re all—?”
“Did you know in some realities they don’t have crème brûlée creamer? How crazy is that? Very challenging to deal with.” He bit his lower lip like a chipmunk trying to crack a nut. “Yes, I’m fine. I know what you’re thinking. But I’m not. I’m not insane. Not. Not. Not. Just having a bad day today. Too many memories to keep track of. Makes me jumpy and talk gibberish. I know that. Don’t you think I don’t know that?” His eyes flashed anger.
“What happened, Simon?”
“Chose the wrong door, you see. No, that’s not right. That’s wrong. Reverse that. Strike that. Didn’t choose the door. Should have gone through it but didn’t. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. Want to go back and walk through it, because I think it would be good, but I can’t now. What’s done is done. Over. Finished. I went the other way. Didn’t even put my hand on the knob.” Simon looked up, his gaze darting back and forth between Marcus and the fountain and his shoes. “Had my chance.”
With a mixture of fascination and horror pinging through his mind, Marcus stared at Simon. This wasn’t the same man he’d watched perform in Red Square the other day.
“You’ll have to make the choice someday, Marcus Amber, professor of physics. The Teacher will need to learn how important choices are. And the most difficult ones will, of course, without doubt, without question, teach him the most important lessons.” Simon stopped fidgeting and his body went stiff. “Don’t you agree?”
“The switching has stopped.”
Simon laughed and clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “Sure. Sure it has. I believe you. It has, certainly. But of course it hasn’t stopped and you know that down there.” The magician jabbed his finger at Marcus’s stomach. “And it won’t stop till you choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Can’t tell you that. No sir, no can do. Not yet.”
Simon rose and pulled a silver coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air. Marcus tried to follow the flight but it had vanished. A second later Simon reached behind Marcus’s head and pulled the coin into view for a quarter second, then slapped it on the back of his wrist.
“Heads or tails?”
“Tails.”
Simon grinned and slowly lifted his hand. The coin was gone, replaced by a small golden ticket. “You’re just like Charlie. Willy Wonka is going to hand you a ticket, but you’ll have to choose to go through the factory door.”
THIRTY
“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET ME OUT OF THAT, BRO. Now I’m looking stupid.”
Brandon tapped his sandal against his deck at his home near Snoqualmie Ridge on Thursday afternoon. Sandals in mid-June. Nice. The month was typically full of rainy days. But today was sun and low seventies. Perfect.
Brandon stared at the Douglas fir trees in his backyard and gripped his phone tighter. Ever since Brandon gave him the show at Marymoor Park, Kevin had dropped the proverbial ball multiple times. There’d been complaints from the road crew as well. Nothing big in and of itself, but added all together it bothered Brandon. His manager was slipping and the cause was pretty obvious.
“Get you out of what?”
“I get a phone call this morning from a producer down in LA wanting to know what time I want to meet on Friday to go over what my cameo is going to look like on their TV series. I told you I wasn’t going to do it.”
“But you’re going to be in LA anyway to meet with your label.”
“That’s not the point. I asked you to cancel it. I’m not going on the show.”
“Yeah,” Kevin muttered.
“Yeah what?”
“I spaced.”
“You never space.” Brandon strolled onto his lawn. “And you haven’t exactly been Speed Racer lately with e-mails or phone calls.”
“You mean it takes me more than an hour to respond to an e-mail or voice mail?”
This conversation wasn’t going to end well if Brandon didn’t get off the track, but the road seemed to have rails on it with no place to exit. “Try seven or eight hours.”
“I’m allowed to have a life, right?”
“One hit song and one successful concert and you’re suddenly a superstar copping an attitude.”
“Knock it off, Brandon. I’m trying to keep a million plates spinning.”
“Too many are falling off the poles. I think your brain is in the wrong spot and you need to figure out where you want to be.”
Kevin didn’t respond and Brandon’s gut agreed with what his mind had been telling him for the past five days. “When do you want to leave?”
“What?”
“Become my ex-manager.”
Brandon heard Kevin’s quick breath through the phone. “You’re not ticked—”
“I knew we’d get here someday, didn’t you?”
“No . . . I mean I hoped . . . but I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Brandon wandered back inside and stared at a photo of Kevin and him skiing up at Whistler. “But you have to find me someone as good as or better than you before you ditch me entirely. Which is, of course, an impossible task.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’re looking forward to us going on tour together.”
Kevin laughed. “All the way. That will be the top.”
Brandon switched gears. “Reminder. I’m headed out to see the label tomorrow. Anything going on there you want help me with? Anything you’ve said to them about me I should be aware of?”
“No, it’s all good on all fronts. Just trying to get my album finished.”
“Sweet.”
Brandon hung up and walked toward his home studio. Yeah, Kevin was dropping a few plates only because his dreams were coming true. Brandon needed to relax. But he couldn’t get the feeling out of his mind that one of the larger plates was about to drop on his head.
THIRTY-ONE
REECE’S CELL PHONE RANG ON TUESDAY EVENING WITH a generic ring, which meant he didn’t know the caller. He’d assigned all his inner circle specific ring tones since he lost his sight, which meant he probably should let the call go to voice m
ail. But something told him to pick up.
“It’s Reece.”
“Hello, Reece Roth. This is Tristan Barrow.”
Interesting. Brandon’s stalker. The one who had found the Song, the Leader, and the Teacher down at Houghton Beach Park.
“Good morning, Tristan. I understand you’re getting to know some of my friends.”
“Trying, yes.” The tone of Tristan’s voice made it sound like he was smiling. Who was this guy?
“And what is your interest in them?”
“The same as my interest in you.”
“Which is?”
“From what you’ve heard about me from the others, do you believe I’m here to help or here to hinder you in your quest?”
“Why don’t you end the suspense and tell me.”
“If I said I was here to help, would you believe me?”
“I’d like to look into your eyes as you said it.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Roy, but there is purpose in it.”
Reece’s pulse spiked. Roy? How did Tristan know the name Jesus had given him a year and a half ago? Roy Hobbs from The Natural—Roy Hobbs who was washed out but stepped back into the game to fulfill his destiny. Just like Reece. Had one of the other Warriors told Tristan that name? Highly unlikely.
“How do you know about that?”
“Why don’t we meet, Reece Roth, and we can talk about that and other things as well. Always better in person than over the phone.”
The man’s voice was powerful, his tone one of confidence but not cockiness.
Jesus?
The answer from the Spirit was immediate. Go.
“Will your two friends Jotham and Orson be joining us?”
“No, they have other duties they must attend to.”
“Fine. Maltby Café on Friday morning at eleven o’clock.”
“Excellent.”
“And, Reece?”
“Yes.”
Tristan went silent.
“Do you have something else to say?”
For a few more seconds the only sound was the hum of the phone. “You will see again.”
Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) Page 17