Candles of all shapes, sizes, and colors were arranged on every flat surface in the room, including the end table, stereo shelves, television top, and the window ledge in front of the macramé curtains. Candles that looked like trolls, candles shaped like mushrooms, animal candles, short candles, tall candles, white candles, yellow candles, rose-colored candles, even black candles. I glanced at Rob, who was standing near the stereo studying the waxy collection, and he looked back with raised eyebrows. We both could have been thinking the same thing: She’s a witch.
Evangeline’s voice came through the beaded curtain. “I know the furniture’s ugly, but it’s not mine. It came with the place.” O.K., that explained the furniture, or lack thereof, but what about the candles?
While Yogi, Mick, and Sam settled down on the couch, Rob continued his tour of the candle exhibit, and I slowly followed him around the room. On the end table, cone-shaped incense lay in a brass dish next to a copy of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. A framed Kahlil Gibran poem hung on the wall over the stereo. I stopped to read it. Some tepid sentiment about accepting the “thunder and lightning.” What choice did we have, I wondered? I knelt and rifled through the ten or twelve albums stacked on the stereo shelf. James Taylor. Joan Baez. Joni Mitchell. Cat Stevens. Seals and Crofts. Carly Simon. And, of course, Melanie’s Candles in the Rain.
Evangeline reemerged from the bedroom, looking relaxed in jeans and an oversized wine-colored sweater. “Put on something if you want,” she said to me. For lack of a better choice, I selected Cat Stevens’s Tea for the Tillerman. Evangeline continued into the kitchen. “I’d better get started with dinner so you guys can get out of here in time. Anyone want to help?”
“I will,” Yogi called out.
“Why are you always so nice to me, Edward? O.K., you can do the salad. And Mick, can you help me open the wine?” The two of them followed her into the kitchen.
“Marvelous,” I heard Mick say, “this thing has a cork. Screw caps are more our cuppa tea.” Evangeline’s laughter drifted from the kitchen.
I sat down on the couch next to Sam, who rolled his eyes around the room and whispered, “This place is kinda spooky, isn’t it? What’s with all the candles? Is she planning to hold a seance or something?”
“I hope not,” I said. “All these candles burning at one time would suck the oxygen right outta our lungs.”
EVANGELINE SLID the big bowl of spaghetti across the table toward me. The motion caused a long river of wax to run down one of the two tall candles in the middle of the table. Thank God she hadn’t lit the ones in the living room. The dining area felt clammy enough, with condensation from the pasta streaming down the windows.
I served myself a large pile of spaghetti, splattering sauce on my yellow T-shirt in the process. “Damn.” I dabbed at the spot with a napkin.
“Tsk, language, me lad,” Mick scolded me. “A lady is present.”
“That shirt needed a little color anyhow,” said Sam from the chair next to me.
“Now it’s tie-dyed,” Rob noted.
I gave up and took a bite. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
Evangeline beamed back at me.
The dinner had taken on a formal air. Maybe it was the wine, the darkened room, the candles. Maybe it was the presence of Evangeline. Whatever the reason, we all sat board straight, trying to use our best table manners, which weren’t particularly good. It was weird; in two hours we would be playing in front of drunken bikers, but here we were now, napkins tucked in tight, elbows off the table. The thought of what might come later tightened my stomach.
Mick refilled Evangeline’s wine glass. She glanced in my direction and said, “I think Daniel may need some.” I had refused the wine up until now.
Mick reached across Sam’s plate with the bottle. “Here’s a spot of the hair of the dog that bit your arse. It’ll do you good, mate.”
So much for good table manners. I sipped the bitter red wine, craving something sweeter, something easier on my hangover, like a vintage Boones Farm or Annie Green Springs.
Yogi, sitting on the other side of our host, took a sip from his wine glass—the first time I’d ever seen him drink alcohol. With his pinky stuck out, he tilted the glass to his lips. This was definitely getting weird. He glanced sideways at Evangeline and gestured toward the candles. “I like all this—it’s all very romantic.”
Mick snorted, but Evangeline gazed back at Yogi with glasslike eyes and said, “I’m a bit of a romanticist, I suppose; I knew you’d appreciate it,” which caused our drummer to blush about three shades of red.
“Speaking of which,” Rob said, glancing in my direction, “take Daniel there. Now he’s your true romantic.”
Surprised, I looked across the table at him, only to see him grinning back at me, his face, like Yogi’s, red with wine.
“Our Daniel?” Mick said. “Since when?”
“Ask him,” Rob said, pushing his hair back behind his ears. “He’s got a girl in every port.”
But it was Evangeline, smiling at me like the Mona Lisa, who asked, “Is that right, Daniel?”
I squirmed in my chair and gestured at Rob with my fork. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Sure you do,” Rob said. “Let’s see. There’s that girl in Berkeley—I think her name’s Nita—and then there’s Kitten right here in Puente Harbor.”
“What?” Sam asked. “Kitten?”
“You sly dog,” Mick said with a wink. “The queen bee herself.”
“Rob’s crazy.” My voice came out louder than intended. “I’ve just been doing some business with her.”
“Is that what you call it?” Rob glanced around at the other guys. “I saw him kissing her—or was it the other way around?—between sets last night.”
“My, my, Pleasant,” Mick said. “I thought you smelled a wee bit fruity when you came back the other night. You’ve been a busy lad, haven’t you?”
“No busier than you, Jack,” I shot back.
He glanced sideways at Evangeline and put a finger to his lips.
“So,” Rob said, “which one is it going to be, Nita or Kitten?”
“Shut up, Rob. You know damn well I don’t have anything going on with either of ’em.”
“Thou dost protest too much, me thinks,” Mick said. “I sense true love with one of the lasses.”
“My guess is that it’s Nita,” Rob said, his lips pulling back into a wry grin. “Which brings up why he’s hanging out with Kitten.”
I kept my mouth shut. Everyone but Evangeline was now grinning at me. She leaned forward and, with eyes reflecting the candlelight, said, “I think Daniel should follow his heart.”
All heads turned toward her.
“I always do,” she said, her voice dropping into a dreamy whisper. “Your heart’s never wrong. My mother told me that. Follow your heart, no matter where it takes you. Being with someone for any other reason is wrong.” She said these last words looking directly at me, as if she knew that I, more than anyone else here, needed to hear her simple kind of truth.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, flashing on the thought that she really was a mind-reading witch.
Evangeline’s gaze did not waver. Across the smoking candles, she repeated, “Being with someone for any other reason is wrong.”
With all eyes slowly rotating from her to me, I felt my face grow warmer. I pushed away from the table. “I gotta use the bathroom. Where is it?” I didn’t wait for directions, instead heading through the living room toward the only possible location.
“Did I say something wrong?” I heard Evangeline ask, sounding way too much like Nita.
I pushed through the veil of beads and found the bathroom just to the right of the inside of the doorway. Candles burning on the counter lit up the mirror, so I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I splashed water on my face and stared into the mirror, looking hard for the telltale signs that I knew were there, but found nothing that Evangeline could’ve read, nothing that w
ould’ve revealed the secrets that were beginning to eat away at me. She didn’t understand: I was following my heart, right into the soul of the music, and Kitten was only a vehicle to help me get there. Nita? Not a factor. Fuck Rob.
But Nita pushed her way back into my head. For a moment, I saw her in the mirror, her beautiful brown eyes gazing at me, searching my face. Follow your heart. Follow your heart. But I knew that following my heart wouldn’t lead to Nita. She was gone, and it was pretty unlikely that I’d ever see her again. My salvation was through music, not love, and this was the moment and the place where I would find salvation. And who ever said that salvation would come in a neat, pretty package, all wrapped up in a big bow? Kitten was now part of the package, and that’s the way it was.
I rubbed at my throbbing temples until the blood worked its way back into my brain, soothing the parched membranes connecting the elements of the plan that had emerged day by day, piece by piece: finish out at the Mai Tai, play the Heart gig tomorrow night, and don’t look back. I stared into the mirror, willing Nita’s face away. Kitten had made herself necessary to the plan; love was not. There was nothing to unite me with anyone else, no magical chord, no lost note. My path was my own, just like Pete Townshend’s was his. That’s what he had been telling me. He was leading me to the Real Me, and I was almost there. I let the breath flow in and out, my body capturing the waxy, incense-laden air until it filled the empty spaces.
After splashing my face again, I fished around in my pocket for my pills. The small tablets slid out of the vial and down my throat, helped by a handful of water. I took one last look in the mirror, blew out the candles, and returned to the table.
19
AN HOUR LATER, and fifteen minutes behind schedule, the five of us pushed our way into the lobby of the Mai Tai Hotel. My nerves, stoked high by my cross-topped buddies, were beginning to tingle, and, better yet, my hangover, wiped out by the food, the drugs, and the wine, was now only a bad memory.
I started to follow everyone upstairs before changing my mind. “Mick, grab my guitar, O.K.? I’ll start plugging in things.”
“Right-o, mate.”
“And grab that flannel shirt lying on top of my suit- ” case.
“Aye.”
He and the others disappeared up the stairs. I retraced my steps and headed into the lounge, where a few dozen customers, some familiar to me, some not, were already scattered among the tables. I waved at Mr. Tom behind the bar and began winding my way through the tables toward the stage. Near the edge of the dance floor, a woman dressed all in black sat alone at a table, her back to me, an empty glass in front of her. I glanced at her as I passed by. Then I fell over a chair.
Awkwardly scrambling up, my face reddening, I looked at her again. It was Nita. She stood, smiled, and tucked her chin.
“Remember me?”
“Nita?” I felt myself blinking, looking into that pure face of high cheekbones and upturned nose. Brushing off my clothes, I stepped toward her, taking in the black turtleneck sweater, charcoal straight-legged jeans, and black lace-up boots. “What are you doing here?”
“Um, I wanted to see you.” Her smile started to fade, the small chin tucked deeper, and the brown eyes rolled up. “Is it O.K.?”
“God, yes. I’m just shocked to see you.” I tried to smile, but the surprise had frozen my expression.
She ran her fingers through her choppy blonde hair. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“We were having dinner. God, I can’t believe you’re here.”
She lowered herself into a chair, and I followed into the one beside her, the smell of her leather jacket, slung over the back of her chair, coming to me. With an impulse that could only be explained by the drugs, I took her hand. “How’d you get here?”
She laced her fingers through mine, her eyes downward. “I decided to use one of those plane tickets my dad kept sending me.”
“You flew to Seattle? When?”
“Yesterday after classes.”
I swallowed twice to lubricate my throat, which had gone bone dry from the uppers. “And you came all the way up here to see us?”
“I wish I could say yes.” With her left hand, she tugged at the neckline of her turtleneck, her throat porcelain white against the black of the sweater. “I mean, I thought about it. Especially after I missed your call the other day. I thought you’d call back.”
I looked down at my hand, locked up with hers. “Things have gotten pretty hectic around here.” My eyes lifted to scan the room before settling back on her face. “So then you flew up to see your dad?”
“I thought I’d try spending the weekend with him, but it didn’t work out.”
“No?”
Nita removed her hand from mine and started tracing a deep scratch in the varnished surface of the table. “He has a girlfriend living with him. He didn’t tell me about her until I got there.” She turned up her chin, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “I freaked out. I couldn’t help it. I took one of his cars and drove over here.”
“Wow.” I realized I knew very little about her. “Does he know you took it?”
She opened her eyes. “I left him a note. I told him I’d bring it back.”
“But how’d you know where to find us?”
“You told me. Remember?”
My mind stretched back to the party but found no recollection of telling her where we’d be. I shook my head.
“Well, you did.” The shy smile, the one that had remained somewhere in the back of my head all week, emerged. “I didn’t remember the name of the club, but I knew it was something unusual. I asked somebody at a gas station, and they said the Mai Tai. And then I saw your picture on the front window.”
“You’re a regular Columbo.”
“I wanted to keep track of you.” Her brown eyes locked onto mine. “I need a friend right now. And, remember, we share a secret.”
At first I didn’t know what she meant, and then I remembered the thread of punk music that connected the two of us. My heartbeat clicked up a notch. I gazed back at her, but in the background I saw Mick and Sam coming through the door of the lounge. “Look, Nita, we start our show in about fifteen minutes and we’ve still gotta sound-check. What’re your plans?”
Her eyes dropped to the table. “I don’t normally ask guys this question, but what do you want me to do?”
Her question brought everything back into sudden focus, and I saw what would happen if she stayed. She couldn’t be here when Kitten arrived. “I hate to say this, but maybe you should take the car back.”
“You mean, go back to Seattle?”
I nodded, but, as I did, the unknown consequences of her leaving stretched out in front of me, and I feared they might be worse than if she stayed. I needed time to sort everything out, but with the clock ticking, the guys gathering onstage, I had none. Still, I knew I couldn’t send her away. I was too fucking weak to do the right thing, even with the mood-elevating drugs pumping through me. My mind jumped to the heroic assumption that Kitten could be put off until tomorrow. “No,” I finally said, “don’t do that. It’s too late. Why don’t you stay here at the hotel? It’s pretty grungy, but I know they have rooms.”
She cocked her head sideways as if studying a picture frame that needed straightening. “I already checked into a Travel Lodge out on the highway. I wasn’t sure you’d be happy to see me. Are you?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Mick and Sam had made it to the stage and were watching us. From the other end of the room, Rob and Yogi came through the door, where Beanie and Cecil now stood. “Are you kidding? I’m really glad you’re here, but I’ve gotta get to work. You’ll stay?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll get dinner, and then I’ll be back later, O.K.?” She paused and stared hard into my eyes, as if there was something more that needed to be said but couldn’t be verbalized. “I’m glad I found you,” she finally added.
“I’m glad you did, too.”
She sque
ezed my hand, and my heart took a tumble sideways. I held her hand for a few moments more before we separated and she left the lounge.
Mick met me at the edge of the stage with eyes arched in a rare expression of admiration. “My, my. I thought Rob was a bit dodgy, but, bloody hell, you’re a regular Romeo. You’ve got two birds in this port?”
“Didn’t you recognize her?”
“From where?”
Sam walked over dragging a monitor cable. “From the party last Saturday night. Right, Daniel?”
“You got it.”
“That’s Nita?” Mick asked.
“That’s her,” Sam answered for me.
Rob had overheard and joined us. “She came all the way up here to see you?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
Mick squinted out toward the door through which Nita had just gone and then back at me. “Lemme suss this out. That bird I just saw you with—that punky blonde with the tight trousers—she came all the way to Puente Harbor to see you?”
“That’s what she said, more or less.” I suppressed my grin and pulled on the flannel shirt Mick had brought down for me.
“I hope Kitten likes her,” Rob said, wiping the beginnings of the grin from my face. I stopped buttoning the shirt and looked out into the lounge, searching the gathering faces for the woman who now had me tethered to an ever-shortening leash.
Mick put an arm around my shoulder. “Just remember what Evangeline said, me lad. Follow your heart.” And then he laughed, long and loud, his voice echoing around the room that would soon be filled by the unholy trinity of Nita, Kitten, and the Hell’s Angels.
Getting in Tune Page 18