For the Record

by Charlotte Huang

  “Really?” he asked. I nodded. “It’s not exactly a national landmark.”

  “Not yet, maybe,” I said, and he shot me one of those amazing smiles.

  We kept walking until we reached SoHo. I’d always read about it but never thought about anyone actually being from there. We stopped in front of a gorgeous old building sandwiched in between expensive boutiques and cafés. He pointed up at a window on the fourth floor. “That’s my old room,” he said.

  “Are your parents home?” I asked.

  “No. They spend summers in Nantucket. So do my older brothers. I don’t live here anymore. Once you go to boarding school, it can be hard to come home, even if no one’s in it.”

  “So they’re not coming to the show?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re waiting for me to grow up and go to college. I deferred Yale two years ago. They’re still holding on to hope.”

  We stood there staring up at Beckett’s childhood window.

  “Beckett!” We looked in the direction of the voice. I saw a girl walking toward us, arms weighted down with fancy shopping bags. She looked very familiar, tall, model-thin, with long blond hair. I wondered if she was one of Pem’s cousins who’d come to the Miami show. When she reached us, she barely looked at Beckett, instead focusing all of her intensity and curiosity on me. “You must be Chelsea.” Her icy demeanor impressed me as native New Yorker directness.

  “Hi.” I looked to Beckett to see if he was going to shed any light on the situation. He stared at her like he was seeing a hallucination.

  “Sorry. Chelsea Ford, meet Hollis Carter.” He didn’t take his eyes off her.

  I felt a rush of prickly heat. There was no simple way to describe what I was feeling, but appalled and terrified came pretty close. While Hollis looked somehow more accessible in normal clothes and makeup, she was still a commanding presence.

  And then there was the way Beckett was looking at her. I wanted him to stop looking at her like that. His face, normally so closed, opened right up upon seeing Hollis. It was all right there: caring, history, regret.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” I said, for lack of anything better or more accurate to say.

  “Likewise,” she said.

  “Are you here for the rest of the summer?” Beckett asked.

  She shook her head. “I leave for the Hamptons for two weeks and then back to school.”

  “How do you like Vassar?” Beckett asked.

  “It’s fine,” Hollis said in a tone that indicated that she’d rather skip the small talk. She gave me another once-over. “I can’t stay and chat. Good luck.”

  We walked away first, like all of SoHo was her kingdom and she’d banished us. “Whew. So glad I could be there for that touching reunion,” I said. “She looked like she wanted to eat my young.”

  Beckett sighed. “It couldn’t be easy for her to meet you.”

  “She’s still in love with you, you know. I mean, there’s a thin line between love and hate and all that, but believe it or not I think she’s teetering on the love side.”

  He snorted. “Then I bet she’d really be in love with Pem too right about now.” He stopped and grabbed my arm. “I’m not in love with her. Okay?”

  I shrugged like it didn’t matter to me one way or the other, but we both knew I was full of it. We just weren’t ready to call me on it yet.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon downtown. Even though I didn’t get close, I saw the Statue of Liberty. We took the subway to Brooklyn and wandered around. There was a beautiful carousel right next to the water, which I naturally made Beckett ride with me. Twice. We ate dinner sitting side by side in front of an enormous window at a restaurant that was basically under the Brooklyn Bridge. The sun setting over lower Manhattan and the water was absolutely breathtaking.

  After dinner we went back to the Mercury Lounge. We waited in line and paid the cover. Even though everyone seemed to recognize us, they left us alone. Maybe New Yorkers didn’t geek out over famous people. But after a few songs, I tugged on Beckett’s arm and motioned to the door. The band was too loud for such a tiny space, and their mix was so hot and bright that it was uncomfortable to listen to.

  We got out to the sidewalk. “You didn’t think they had potential?” Beckett asked. I wrinkled my nose. Snobby, I know. “Oh, that’s right. You’ve never been in a band that sucks.”

  “And you have?” I asked.

  “Believe me, when Melbourne started out we straight-up sucked. I almost feel bad for you that you missed it.”

  When he put it that way, I was kind of bummed about it. I’d had it easy, slipping into a band as polished and established as Melbourne. I didn’t know what it was like to build something from the ground up. Yet another reason to be jealous of Hollis.

  After much groaning and bellyaching, I talked Beckett into taking me to the Empire State Building. “Aren’t you tired?” he asked.

  “Please?” I wheedled. “It’s my only free night in New York.”

  The line wasn’t long, which cheered him up immensely. We rode the elevator to the 102nd floor, which is as high as you can go. As soon as we stepped onto the observation deck, a guy got down on one knee in front of a girl and opened a ring box. Everyone stopped what they were doing and cheered as the newly engaged couple shared a tender kiss.

  “That is so romantic,” I sighed.

  Beckett turned to a security guard. “How many times a day does this happen?”

  He gave us a look. “A lot. But it never gets old.” He started another round of clapping, which I dutifully joined. Beckett laughed at me.

  “Do you hate romance or something?” I asked.

  “Not as much as you,” he said.

  “What are you talking about? I just clapped for strangers getting engaged.”

  “I mean, what happened with you and the d-bag? What’s up with you and ‘Parietals’?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but Lucas was kind of a d-bag.” Beckett continued to stare at me, refusing to let me joke my way out of this. I couldn’t lie to him. He’d been so good to me and he deserved better.

  The only light on the observation deck came from exterior lights and the city below. The darkness made it easier to open up. I took a wobbly breath. “I had kind of a thing with that guy you met at my parents’ store.”

  Beckett snorted. “As if that wasn’t completely obvious. Yeah? So?”

  I was thrown by his reaction. “I mean, I don’t still like him. It was freshman year.” He wouldn’t meet my eye, so I moved closer and tilted my head up to look into his face. “I’m being totally honest.”

  “Okay, Chelsea.” He sounded so convinced. I wasn’t sure how to continue. “You just seem confused. You kept Lucas around long past his sell-by date when even I could tell you weren’t feeling him. You kissed me even though you were in a total state—”

  “None of that was about Mike. Well, not exactly.” I grasped for the right words. “I don’t still want him or anything remotely like that. The part that I’m still traumatized by”—and here I had to swallow whatever modicum of pride I had left—“is that he never wanted anything more with me than top-secret hookups, but I was too dense to know he was using me.”

  “So your freshman-year boyfriend turned out to be an insecure asshole? Is that different than any other girl’s—or boy’s, for that matter—freshman-year experience?”

  Oh God, I was going to have to tell him the rest. “Could you look somewhere else during this next part?”

  He let out a surprised laugh. “Are you serious?”

  I nodded, so he leaned back against the wall and watched all the tourists. “We did it, I thought I got pregnant, he bugged and told everyone that I tried to blackmail him into being my boyfriend, the whole school thought I was on crazy pills and shunned me, the end.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, you can look now.”

  Beckett turned back, his expression a mixture of disgust and sympathy. “So that’s why you can�
�t sing ‘Parietals’? Because it makes you think of him?”

  “We sang it all the time, but it took on all-new and humiliating significance after I understood the truth about us. Every time we play it, I die a little inside.”

  “I think we all do, so you’re in good company at least.” Beckett sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “What about Lucas?”

  “You’re right. It would have been more honest if I’d broken up with him earlier.” Beckett rolled his eyes. At this point, I had nothing left to hide. Maybe Beckett would think I was pitiful, but he’d also know me better. “He was the first boy who paid attention to me since Mike and was willing to be seen in public with me. I admit that the bar was set low, but can you blame me?”

  Beckett looked at me. “What about me? I paid attention to you and ended things with Lauren because of you, and you still got with that poser.”

  I suddenly got very interested in looking down at Rockefeller Center. Tiny bats dove in and out of the spotlights mounted on the side of the building. “How was I supposed to know that? Besides, what were you going to do about it with Pem’s rule? Which, by the way, I completely get now.”

  He stared at me for a second. I looked up at him, outlined in the darkness, and waited. He reached down to brush my cheek before leaning in to kiss me, something I was not expecting at all. I let myself go with it for a minute, which was probably a minute too long. I couldn’t help it. As much as I wished I didn’t, I liked Beckett—as more than a friend and bandmate. And he was an insanely good kisser.

  There was nothing tentative about us this time. His lips moved against mine, kissing me so deeply and completely that it left me breathless. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed against him, not wanting to stop. From the way his hands gripped my waist, I knew he didn’t want to stop either.

  But we had to. Finally I pulled away and turned to face the window. “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it.”

  “Can’t risk what?” His hands dropped from my hips. “Your place in the band?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I want it to work for a lot of reasons.”

  My heart broke in anticipation of him agreeing with me. After a long moment, he nodded. “I don’t think Pem would understand after what happened,” Beckett began.

  “And I totally see why.”

  He sighed, frustrated. “I know you think what I did was deplorable. And it was. But when you look at the whole picture, it’s not completely black-and-white. Same with you and Mandy.”

  In my experience, it was always the wrongdoer who said things like that. The thing with Mandy felt pretty black-and-white. Same with what happened between me and Mike. I was willing to bet that Pem saw things the same way.

  Beckett and I didn’t say much on our cab ride back to my hotel. “Tomorrow we’re all supposed to have lunch,” he told me. “I’ll text you the address when I get home.” I nodded and turned to get out. He grabbed my arm. “I want to be with you, but my relationship with Pem is important to me too.”

  I understood. He’d chosen Pem over a girl once already. “You guys have been friends for a long time.”

  “It’s not just our friendship. Our partnership, the way we write together, it’s not something I can just throw away. We’d just have to take it slow. We could come clean eventually.”

  That wasn’t good enough for me anymore. “I don’t want another secret boyfriend.” He looked at his shoes. “Thanks for showing me New York.” I hopped out of the cab, blinking back tears.

  36

  The next day, I gave the cabdriver the address for a restaurant in Chinatown. The place was a symphony of loud voices, languages, and clanking plates. Families with multiple generations, young professional twentysomethings, and schlubby, middle-aged intellectuals all clustered around large round tables, dining family-style. White-uniformed staff pushed rolling carts around the room, slapping dishes down and marking tickets with an ink stamp.

  Malcolm spotted me and waved me over. Pem and Beckett were already seated on one side of the table for four. I sat down and took a sip of ice water, trying to act normal.

  “You made it. Behold, Chinatown.” Malcolm waved grandly toward the center of the room. “I’m going to take care of the ordering. My Cantonese is shit, but it’s better than any of yours.”

  “End-of-tour lunch,” I said. I remembered back to the kickoff lunch, how nervous and uncertain I’d been. At the same time, it had felt so alive with possibility and more festive with the entire crew and Sam there.

  “Cheers,” Beckett said. We clinked our glasses together.

  Pem poured black tea into tiny ceramic cups with no handles.

  A lady pushed a rolling cart to our table and stood by. Malcolm studied the little tins that cluttered the top of the cart. “That,” he said, pointing. “And that one and that one.” The lady stamped our ticket.

  “That one and that one?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure my Cantonese is as good as yours.”

  Malcolm glowered at me, but Beckett snickered. “Dig in,” Malcolm said. He served us pieces of each dish with quick, sure chopstick skills.

  I took a tentative bite. “Don’t start. We’re not getting you a burger,” Pem said.

  I took a bigger bite. Whatever it was, it was tasty, salty goodness. I ate another one. Malcolm selected more dishes from another cart and we inhaled them. The carts couldn’t come fast enough. Waiters replaced our teapot at least three times. I was getting hyper, but the black tea was a perfect balance to the greasy dishes. The whole time, Beckett and I avoided looking at each other.

  “Interesting. You won’t eat fish, but chicken feet and tripe are right up your alley,” Malcolm said.

  “What? Are you being serious?”

  “Don’t think about it,” Beckett advised.

  When we’d finished stuffing ourselves, Pem folded his arms. “Hollis called me yesterday.”

  Beckett glanced at me before saying, “Oh?”

  “She thinks you guys are, how did she so charmingly put it? Screwing each other,” Pem said. He glanced at Beckett. “She’s still extremely pissed at you by the way. In case you were wondering.”

  My mouth dried up. I reached for my water. Malcolm stared, looking back and forth between us. Beckett sighed. “Well. We’re not.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I said. Not anymore, anyway.

  Pem balled up his napkin and threw it on his plate. He obviously didn’t believe us. “I can’t go through that bullshit again. Building a band is soul-breaking work, which I wouldn’t expect Chelsea to understand. Having it fall apart almost wrecked me. And starting practically all over again hasn’t been a cakewalk either. I’m holding on to everything too tightly. I think I need out.”

  There was stunned silence. After their initial shock, Beckett and Malcolm tried appealing to Pem’s senses. “Dude. We can handle whatever it is. We’re all adults,” Malcolm said.

  “All bands deal with stuff. We’re not exactly Fleetwood Mac,” Beckett said.

  “And I don’t ever want to be. I really think I’d be just as happy producing and writing songs for other bands. Not to mention, my family can finally stop hassling me,” Pem said.

  “This is why Sam made the money grab with Chelsea’s shit,” Malcolm said. “He could tell you had one foot out the door.”

  “Probably,” Pem agreed.

  Tears came to my eyes as what Pem said hit me. I’d go back to Lydon to be a high school senior. Just in time for another year of scorn and scrutiny.

  And Pem wouldn’t be in a band anymore. I was still a fan, and the idea of him not performing, not being on a stage, was too much to process. Getting to watch him work during the past year had been a privilege. Now to hear that he wanted to quit and that it was at least partly my fault? I was devastated.

  “It isn’t all tragic,” Pem was saying. “I wanted to prove to Hollis that we could do it without her, and we did. I feel good about that.”

  At least somebody felt good about something.

/>   —

  Playing the show that night was surreal, because the only people who knew that this might be the last Melbourne show were onstage. An enthusiastic, unsuspecting hometown crowd packed the intimate outdoor space. Every lyric, every story, took on added significance, but only for us.

  I felt desperate to connect, to memorize the audience. If this was going to be my last show ever, I wanted to remember actual people, not a fleeting, anonymous mass. I picked out a guy with a red baseball cap. Beads of sweat flew off of him as he air-drummed, eyes scrunched shut in a state of oblivion. He opened them at the last second and flashed a triumphant, ecstatic smile when our eyes met. Next I focused on an animated girl with a black bleach-striped ponytail. We zoomed in on each other, her intensity rivaling my own while she sang every word with me.

  Even with all that going on, I made a point to take in Central Park. With buildings peeking over treetops and the sun setting on a beautiful summer night, playing here was an experience to keep.

  Pem got choked up a couple of times talking to the crowd, which almost made me cry. Malcolm hit the drums so hard I was sure the entire world knew his heart was breaking. I didn’t dare look at Beckett.

  Even though we were falling apart, we left it all onstage one more time.

  —

  Sam put the dressing room on lockdown after the show. Even Rob wasn’t allowed in. “Beckett, Chelsea, let’s have it,” Sam said.

  Seriously? That’s how he was going to jump off? Awkward. “Uh…”

  Beckett silenced me with a look. “There’s nothing to tell. We both want what’s best for the band.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?” Sam asked.

  I looked down at my hands, which were clenched tightly in my lap. Better to let Beckett handle this. “Meaning nothing’s happening and we’re cool,” he said.

  When I glanced up, Sam’s gaze was on me. “You sure it’s that easy?” He seemed to want me to answer this one.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I completely get it and don’t have a problem.”

  “Personally I think it sucks that we feel like we have to micromanage each other like this. I mean, at least we all get along,” Malcolm said. “Some bands still work together and can’t even say that.”