by Penny Reid
“Frosty?”
“She was about as warm and friendly as a polar vortex. Super frosty.” Kaitlyn frowned, and then scrunched her face. “I’ve read that about her. Mona DaVinci, supergenius, personality of fifty below zero. But then, if I had her IQ, I might be the same way. We must all seem like single-cell organisms to her.”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep my expression dispassionate and from asking another question, though many scrolled through my mind, How long did she stay? Did she say anything to anyone? Did she say she’d be back down tonight?
“Anyway,” Kaitlyn continued, “in that interview I read? The interviewer said she was a cold person. Perhaps she’s the mythical Snow Queen. And that yelling was her speaking the snow language, giving orders to her minion snowflakes. ATTACK THE BEARS!”
Preoccupied and unsettled, I forced a smirk at Kaitlyn’s silliness and scratched the back of my neck. I’d read every interview Mona DaVinci had given, or all the ones I could find online, and Kaitlyn was right. If Mona was described in an interview, they used words like cold, emotionless, blunt, and abrupt just as often as they used gifted, intelligent, smart, and brilliant. They’d also called her “the greatest mind of her generation,” and, “this generation’s Einstein.”
The closest anyone had come to ‘friendly’ was when Rolling Stone had done a profile on the exceptional children of famous musicians. The journalist mentioned something about Mona DaVinci only being animated while she discussed advances in the field of physics with an audience of high school seniors.
According to the article, Mona donated some of her free time to a foundation dedicated to advancing women in STEM fields. Mona flew around the country a few times a year, giving speeches to assemblies in rural areas and underserved schools. Apparently, she was also a philanthropist. I didn’t know why, but evidence of her good deeds aggravated me.
However, the rest of the article went on to describe her as single-mindedly focused on her research and the foundation, disinterested in questions about all other facets of life.
At one point they’d asked, “Do you think you’ll ever get married?”
To which she’d responded, “Irrelevant. Next question.”
Then they’d asked, “Anyone special in your life?”
To which she’d responded, “Yes. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Next question.”
And that made me laugh. It also pissed me off when her responses in interviews made me laugh.
Kaitlyn pulled me out of my thoughts by bumping my shoulder. “Hey there, Abram. What’s going on in your brain? You are behaving in odd and uncharacteristic ways.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”
She studied me for a moment before asking, “Why are we here?”
“To write music.” And to assuage my . . . curiosity.
Curiosity was not the right word, but it was definitely a part of why we were here now.
When Leo had suggested the trip three days ago, I thought he was nuts. I didn’t see how I could drop everything for several days and go to Aspen for New Years, just two weeks before leaving for the tour. But then he mentioned we’d have to share the house with his sister. Mona.
We’d left New York for Aspen the next day.
Revenge was a construct I used to actively avoid, the idea of it both repulsive and tempting. Repulsive because my parents had raised me better, and tempting because . . . Honestly?
I’d always felt injustice on a visceral level. Fairness was a sore spot, a stumbling block, the wall I banged my head against instead of searching for a door or a window. When I was younger, I’d avoided the temptation of seeking vengeance, made better choices, been a better person, had more restraint and self-control.
Now? Not so much.
So, yeah. I was curious. Given what she’d done to me, what would revenge against Mona DaVinci look like? What could I possibly do to this generation’s Einstein that would be a just settling of accounts between us? Maybe nothing. Maybe she was too frosty and couldn’t be touched. Maybe I didn’t want revenge at all. Maybe I didn’t care.
I was on the fence, committed to nothing, not a place I spent much time.
Presently, Kaitlyn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You haven’t written new lyrics in over a year.”
I tilted my head to the side, avoiding her searching glare. “All the more reason for me to write now.”
“You’re being quiet,” she accused.
“Am I?”
“Yep. You’ve been quiet since we left New York. And you’ve been pensive. I’m not used to pensive Abram. I’m used to salty, sarcastic Abram. What’s going on? Is your manbun too tight?”
I shrugged, forcing another smirk. “Just tired.”
“Falsehood. Untruth. Lie.” She punctuated the triple accusation with chords, singing the words in a falsetto voice like an opera singer.
My grin this time was genuine. The only thing bigger than Kaitlyn’s talent and her vocabulary was her personality.
“Let it go, Kaitlyn.”
She removed her hands from the instrument, turned at the waist, and leaned away to inspect me. “Are you nervous? Worried? About the tour?”
I shook my head, my eyes dropping to my hands. “No.”
“I would be, if I were you. It’s okay to be nervous. You’ll do great. It’ll be great. You’ve been playing live for years.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“But you’re not excited either?”
I shrugged again, movement by the big staircase drawing my attention. Leo was walking down the stairs, taking them slowly, a frown on his face.
I sat up straighter, wondering what had happened to make Mona yell and if she was truly okay, or hurt and hiding it, or what?
Stop thinking about her.
“I’m ambivalent about—” I paused, sighed, frowned “—about it,” I finally answered.
Kaitlyn made a snorting noise, and then said, “Scoff.”
I cut my eyes to her. “Did you just say, ‘Scoff’?”
“Yes. Scoff-scoffety-scoff-scoff. You are crazypants, Abram Fletcher. I know what ambivalent means. How can you be uncertain about the tour? You have the number one song in the country—”
“No. We have the number one song in the country.”
“You know what I mean, it’s your song.”
“No.” I turned to face her. “It’s our song.”
“It’s our musical composition, but they’re all your words. It’s seventy-five percent your song, at least. And the rules of scientific digits mean that it’s your song. But that’s beside the point. As I was saying, you have the number one song in the country, and two others climbing the charts. That’s a BFD.”
I let her claim—that it was seventy-five percent my song—go, even though it wasn’t true. Most of the words were mine, true. But Kaitlyn had helped me fine-tune the lyrics. Her vocabulary was crazy, which made sense. She had this game, where she’d chant synonyms, when she was nervous.
“By BFD, you mean big fucking deal?” I smiled at my friend, lifting my eyebrows.
Kaitlyn hated curse words, which was why I usually never cussed in front of her. But I did enjoy teasing her for this peculiarity in her personality from time to time.
She wrinkled her nose, right on cue. “No. By BFD, I mean a beautiful fantastic delight.”
“Suuure.” I crossed my arms, my eyelids dropping.
She mimicked my pose and expression. “Look, all I’m saying is that you are winning at winning. You’re in Aspen. At DJ Tang and Exotica’s mansion with your awesome friends and bandmates. You’re about to go on a world tour with said bandmates. Your songs are everywhere. You have everything you’ve ever wanted.”
I frowned, dropping my eyes to the piano, the last words she’d spoken echoing within my mind, sounding lonely and untrue. A memory—the memory of Mona pretending to be Lisa I contemplated most frequently—materialized. It was the moment after she’d apologized for Lisa’s behavior, sta
nding on the second-floor landing outside Lisa’s room, how horrified she’d been, shocked, remorseful.
I replayed it often, the way she’d sucked in a startled breath, the anguish—for me—plain on her features. Everything else, I questioned. Every other interaction, I’d easily convinced myself was false, a charade, part of her act.
But that moment—
Kaitlyn poked my shoulder, drawing my gaze back to hers which was now squinted, her lips a stern line.
“Is this about that woman?”
I stiffened, turning my face and glaring at her from the side. “What?”
“You know. That woman.” She gave me a look like, you know what I’m talking about. “The one you’ve been trying to get over since forever?”
I tried to shush her.
She kept talking, “The one you wrote all those songs—awesome songs BTW—about? The someone worth hurting for? The woman—”
“God, shut up.” I covered her mouth with my hand, glancing around, because her voice wasn’t quiet. I swear, sometimes she was like an irritating little sister.
Arching her eyebrows, she waited, blinking slowly.
Dropping my voice to a whisper, I lowered my hand. “Don’t . . . don’t bring that up.”
She shook her head at me, her mouth a flat line, and then turned her attention back to the piano, playing the theme to the movie Love Story. “Oh, the angst! THE DRAMA!”
“Shut up,” I said, glaring at her, trying not to laugh.
“Come on, Abram. Cheer up.” Kaitlyn nudged my elbow, switching to ‘The Entertainer.’ “Turn that frown upside down. Don’t make me say something nice about you, you know I hate it,” she teased.
I gave in to a small laugh, shaking my head. “Fine. I’m happy. This is me happy. I have everything I’ve ever wanted.” Sarcasm wasn’t technically a lie.
A genuine frown invaded her usually sunny expression while she inspected me. “Yes. You do. Maybe take a moment to recognize how far you’ve come. No more fistfights, no more arrests. No more gig weddings and corporate parties. Now you’re six months without even a cigarette. And! No more playing Def Leppard covers.”
“Those were dark days,” I agreed with mock solemnity. “Except for the Def Leppard.”
She ignored me, but she did crack a small smile. “You have it all. So maybe, possibly, perchance just . . . enjoy it?”
I nodded thoughtfully. My friend was right. I had everything I wanted.
Stop thinking about her.
Well, everything I wanted, almost.
5
Electromagnetic Waves
*Mona*
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, continuing to stare out the window at the flecks of white appearing, and then disappearing. We were in my room—the room I’d be staying in—which was the largest room in the house. It wasn’t, oddly enough, the room my parents typically used. My parents preferred the master suite on the main level in this house. I wasn’t sure why. I’d never given it much thought.
“Mona.” Allyn placed her hand on my knee, and I flinched, my eyes darting to hers. She looked concerned. Really concerned. “You, uh, haven’t said anything since Leo brought you inside.”
Her statement was accurate, so I nodded. Again.
Allyn’s expression grew pained and she did a squirmy little dance in the window seat where she sat facing me. I watched her, though it felt like she was behind some kind of filter, fuzzy, distant.
But then she blurted, “What happened? Why were you yelling? What is going on? Why aren’t you talking? Are you sure you’re okay?”
Abruptly, Allyn, the room, the cold, time, and my position relative to all four came into focus. Also in focus? The hot, leaden weight on my chest. It was an invisible weight, and I hypothesized that all dark matter were actually feelings, clustering and pressing upon hapless humans during the most inconvenient of times. Perhaps dark matter was attracted to heartache?
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, even though I’d cleared my throat before speaking.
She sighed, her head tilting to one side as she examined me. “The yelling? You have to tell me what the deal is with the yelling.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t yelling.”
“What were you doing?”
Hesitating, I lifted my eyes to the tall, vaulted ceiling, and tried, “Growling?”
“Growling?”
“Yes?”
Allyn made a sound of confusion, and then asked, “Why do all your answers sound like questions?”
I brought my gaze back to hers. “Because they are?”
That made her laugh lightly, but she still looked concerned. Now, sitting here, looking at my behavior over the last hour or so, I understood why she was concerned.
After Abram left, unceremoniously shutting the door in my face, I’d watched the funicular until it disappeared down the mountain. I then stared at the darkness where the small car should (approximately) be for much longer, all the while arguing with myself.
He knows the truth. He doesn’t.
He does. He definitely, definitely does. He doesn’t know. How could he know? And at this point, why would he care?
The way he looked at me, like he hates me. He knows, and he hates me, and now I feel like becoming one with the snow. I want to make snow angels until every part of me is numb and I can’t think, or feel my toes, or my heart. He doesn’t know and stop being so dramatic. If he knew, wouldn’t he have reached out? Confronted you? Or told your parents? Or told Leo? Or a million other things?
Then why did he look at me like that? Maybe he still has feelings for Lisa? Maybe you remind him of her and that’s why he was distant?
But he wasn’t just distant, he was aggressively aloof!
I’d rubbed my chest, wincing. It hurt. It hurt reminiscent of those early days after Chicago, with the searing intensity of sitting too close to a campfire, in a sauna, while severely sunburned, under a heat lamp, and sitting on coals. My brain was a mess—again—and I couldn’t draw a full breath no matter how much I tried.
What are you going to do? I don’t know.
I didn’t know what to do. Standing there in the funicular structure, staring at black nothing, I hurt all over and I didn’t know what to do.
DAMMIT ALL TO HECK!
Therefore, I’d growled. Glaring at the ceiling of the funicular house and foisting my free hand into the air while I gripped the backpack to my chest with the other, I turned and marched down the hallway, growling. Once I was outside, in the snow and wind, I growled again, raging. This time louder and longer, like maybe a tiger might do, or a mountain lioness. And then I did it again and again and again.
I wasn’t thinking because I didn’t know what to think. The truth was, I didn’t want to think. But I also didn’t want to feel, because it hurt, and it was an inescapable hurt. It hunted me relentlessly, except when I growled—or, I guess, yelled—all I felt was the cold beating against my face and the rawness of my throat and the constricting of my abdominal muscles. Yelling had been a relief, until I sucked in another breath and—
“Mo-naaaah!”
I’d stiffened, squinting at the snow around me, wondering at first if what sounded like my name was actually an echo of my growl/yell. But then I spotted movement on the path ahead and heard a second call, “Mo!”
It was my brother.
Exhausted, I’d exhaled a sigh, but then pressed my lips together when the sigh sounded dangerously like a sob. Stumbling forward, I pushed my arms into the straps of my backpack and attempted to gain control or administer some semblance of order over my chaotic thoughts:
I needed to go inside, because I was freezing. I needed a minute, or sixty, to come to terms with the sudden reality of seeing Abram. I needed to figure out whether Abram knew the truth. If he didn’t know, I needed to figure out what to do next.
But if he did know? And he hated me?
I can’t think about that. If I think about that, I’ll start making snow angels an
d never go inside the house.
The several minutes that followed were a blur, mostly because I’d spent them in my happy planetarium, gazing at the stars, blanketing my awareness with the sparseness and peacefulness and darkness of space. I remembered walking into the house with my brother. I remembered there being a lot of people. I remembered making an effort to look at each of them as they were introduced, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to shake anyone’s hand.
And then we went up the stairs and I sat on the window seat while Leo and Allyn spoke in hushed tones. Sometime later, Leo left. Sometime after that, Melvin arrived with the bags, but he also left.
Now it was just Allyn, me, and all these horrible feelings. Horrible feelings were the third, fourth, and fifth beings in the room, making the large room feel crowded, suffocating, uninvited guests on what was supposed to be my vacation.
“Did something happen, between you and Abram Fletcher, after Leo and I left?” Allyn’s question had me looking at her sharply.
“Fletcher? Who?”
Her gaze was steady, patient. “Abram Fletcher. The guy who went down to help Melvin?”
A strange buzzing sounded between my ears. Abram Fletcher. Fletcher. Why did that name sound so familiar?
“Mona?”
I squinted at her. “You know who he is?”
“Yes.” She shook her head at me, a small movement. “Of course.”
“Of course?”
“Don’t you know who he is?”
I thought about how to answer that question and decided there was no right answer that would encapsulate the enormity of the truth, so I settled on, “Why don’t you tell me who you think he is?”
“He’s Abram Fletcher, lead singer and guitarist—bass guitar, I think—for Redburn.”
“Redburn?” Redburn? As in Herman Melville’s fourth book?
“Yes.” Allyn laughed, making a face like she thought I was funny. “Redburn, the band? Haven’t you heard ‘Hold a Grudge’?”
“Hold a grudge?” The question arrived sounding more like a breath than words, and my right hand drifted to my chest.