by L A Tavares
“Rina,” Alexander says, “truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
He thinks on it for a moment.
“Is it true that Principal Wheeler caught you in the auditorium making out with Georgy Harris last week?” he asks, and I’m shocked twice. Once, because he hardly ever knows any of the gossip, and again because I’m surprised that he would care enough to ask.
“No!” she squeals. “No. I did get caught in the auditorium, but it was not Georgy Harris. Never. My turn. Blake?”
I perk up and my heart rate quickens. “Dare,” I say before she can ask the question, though truth probably would have been the less dangerous option.
“Hmm-m.” She thinks long and hard. Kelly leans into her ear and whispers an excited idea. Once she hears it, it’s like the lightbulb physically goes off above her head. Her eyes light up and a mischievous grin grows across her lips. “Meet us in the front yard. We will be there in a minute.” Rina and Kelly scurry off and we wait outside in the yard as instructed.
“What do you think they are going to make you do?” Alexander asks.
“I have no idea, but maybe we can get out of it. We really should be getting back to your house anyway.” I try my best to stall, but I know there’s no backing out now.
The girls join us in the yard, linked at the elbow, laughing as they skip toward us. Rina has a backpack strung over one shoulder.
“Come on,” Rina says. “We’re going for a walk.”
Two blocks down on a quiet cul-de-sac, a bright blue Prius sits in front of a quaint house with a wraparound porch.
“Whose house is this?” I swallow back the fear that keeps bubbling at the back of my throat.
“Just a grouchy old neighbor.” Rina opens the backpack to reveal a few cans of shaving cream and a carton of eggs. “Pick your poison,” she says with a concerning amount of excitement in her tone.
“You want me to…what?” My hands shake nervously at my sides.
“I dare you to either shaving cream or egg that car.” She pushes the bag toward me.
“I…” I look to Alexander for advice or assistance, but he’s off lighting a cigarette, paying no attention to me at all. I reach for the shaving cream, take it out and shake the can a few times. I spray a small amount onto the windshield and the girls laugh and clap an encouraging cheer. I draw a less than tasteful design across the back window and Alexander shakes his head, blowing smoke into the wind. This isn’t so bad, I think. It’s just a little shaving cream, after all. I just want to fit in, and if a tiny prank is the key, I’m going to turn it. I press the plunger on the shaving cream canister, but it has run dry.
“Rina, I need a new—” I start, but look up to see that both girls are gone. Alexander strides toward me with his hands in his pockets, laughing at the masterpiece on the car. He takes out his phone to snap a picture of it, but just as he does, the porch light turns on and the door to the home opens. An older gentleman in a bathrobe steps outside.
“I have called the cops!” he yells, and I realize it’s not just any grumpy old neighbor.
It’s Principal Wheeler.
We run hard and fast away from the house and down the street as our sneakers hit the asphalt in hard, echoing thuds.
I almost stayed home from school when Monday rolled around, only my stomach pain and nausea wasn’t illness. It was nerves and guilt.
“Hey,” Alexander says, heading out of the doors as I enter them.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Home,” he says. “I got suspended for the week.”
My jaw drops and puddles of sweat form in my palms. How did they know? How much trouble am I going to be in?
“Principal Wheeler saw me at his house. He told me if I opted to get a haircut every once in a while, he probably wouldn’t have recognized me but ‘he’d recognize this mop anywhere’. His words, not mine.”
“Alexander…” I start, unsure what to say. “You didn’t do anything…”
“You’re my best friend, Blake. I will always cover for you.”
Chapter Six
Now
I sit on a couch in the backstage area of a Phoenix, Arizona, concert venue and wish the cushions would just swallow me whole. Cooper walks in and pulls up a chair, sitting across from me creating a psychiatrist-office-type vibe—me on the couch, him trying to analyze something on a deeper level that doesn’t exist.
“How bad is it?” Cooper leans back in the chair and crosses his legs.
“I don’t what you’re talking about.”
“I am toying with the idea of keeping you benched for the show tonight. The boys can do it without you,” Cooper says.
“You…can’t do that.” Maybe he can. I’m not sure.
“The show is in a casino, Blake.”
Thanks, Xander.
Cooper wipes the sweat from his brow. “The gambling. How bad is it? How far are you in? How much have you lost?”
I roll my eyes and adjust my position. This is pointless. I just want to get out of here and relax before the show.
“I haven’t lost anything,” I say, and at the moment, it’s the truth. I have been on an upswing for weeks. Purely profit.
“Just respect, then.” His lips pull together in a straight line as he says it. “You’re winning money—which you make plenty of, by the way, so I know it can’t just be about that—but you’re losing respect—mine, the band’s. You’re so distracted thinking about where to take your next risk that you can’t concentrate on a conversation. You’re staying out all night so many nights in a row that you can’t function on stage.”
“That was my bad.” Sweat soaks through my shirt and I stick to the leather of the couch. “Are we done now?” I add, standing from the cushions.
“Sit. Down,” he yells. I’ve never seen Cooper yell before—not even at Xander—so that’s saying something.
“This is the third time I have had this conversation, and there have only been five band members,” he starts as I slowly descend back to the couch. “So, what does that say about me?”
I’m confused—which is par for the course with me, but more so now. I don’t see how any of this has to do with him.
“I thought we did all of our growing up with Julian’s issues,” he starts, his voice quiet, his eyes on the floor. “Then Xander. And now we are here. I’m starting to think that maybe it’s me—that you guys are reaching for something I can’t give you. I’m doing everything I can to keep you all in a recording studio and on the road and as successful as I can, but every time I turn around, one of us is failing. I can’t figure out if it’s you or me.”
Nothing that any of us has done has had anything to do with Cooper. Cooper keeps us together and going.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can do this with you guys,” he adds. “So, perhaps, it’s time for this to be my last tour.”
“No, Coop, no,” I say, my tone defeated. “That’s not what we need.”
“I don’t think I know what you guys need anymore.” Cooper leaves me backstage by myself.
* * * *
Then
The yells are so loud that the walls shake, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a loud bang of unknown origin. I pull the blankets up over my head, as if covering myself is going to protect me from what comes next.
A shiver runs down my spine when the house goes noiseless, because the silence is worse than the yelling. It’s eerily quiet, the very definition of muted. The nothingness is broken up by footsteps on creaking stair treads, and I hold my breath. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. When there is silence again, I take a chance and peek out from under the covers. The light under the door is blotted out by two large boots then the doorknob spins—slowly, alarmingly. I swallow hard and the door opens. The sound of his footsteps gets closer and closer until I can sense his body looming over my own. The liquor scent on his breath permeates through my blanket and causes me to gag.
He steals the covers from
me and tosses them aside into a pile on the floor, then he tosses my body into a heap in the same fashion. It hurts to breathe. My lungs refuse to fill with air, no matter how much I will them to. I squeeze my eyes tight and wish the demons away, but the second blow comes, no matter how much I try to convince myself that this is all just a bad dream.
The first time my mother had this boyfriend here, I tried to fight back, but I’ve learned in the months he has been visiting that fighting back makes everything worse.
She knows how he is. He shows up. He drinks. He hits anything that moves. She knows. But he pays bills, so, in her mind, he’s more helpful than harmful.
* * * *
I knock on the door to Alexander’s house and his mother answers. Damn it. I was hoping she wasn’t home.
“Blake?” She presses her hand to her mouth where a gasp escapes her lips. I chose not to look in a mirror, but I can tell by the pain and lack of vision on one side that the eye is swollen shut and a far cry from pretty. “What happened?” She places her fingers at my jaw and lifts my face to hers to get a better look at the damage.
“I…fell…down some stairs. At school. Tripped over a backpack. I wasn’t paying attention.” I tell the lie in fragmented pieces, trying to come up with something reasonable on the spot.
“Let’s get some ice on that.” She leads me into the kitchen and pulls out a seat at the countertop, then grabs a bag of frozen peas and gently presses it to my eye. I flinch at the touch. “Alexander should be ready any minute,” she adds, and I nod.
Alexander steps into the kitchen and drops his backpack to the floor in a thud.
“What the hell happened to your face?”
“Language, Alexander,” his mother snaps.
“I fell down the stairs at home. Clumsy,” I rattle off, trying not to look at him.
“I thought you said it was the stairs at school?” Alexander’s mother adds, skepticism heavy in her words. Even with one good eye, I can see the look she gives Alexander, silently asking him if he knows anything about my home life that she should be aware of. He shrugs and shakes his head.
He’s not lying. He doesn’t know anything. No one does. It has bothered Alexander before—why we only ever go to his house, why I never invite him to mine—but I would guess, at this point, he’s starting to put all the puzzle pieces together.
* * * *
Now
“Coop? Do you have a minute?” I ask, scratching the roots of my hair. He looks up from the papers in his hand and nods.
“You look…rested,” Cooper says. “That’s a start.”
“You asked me earlier what I’ve lost, and I said nothing. But that’s not necessarily true. Just because I haven’t lost anything yet doesn’t mean that I won’t. I see that now.” My voice is quiet. I’ve never been good at admitting I was wrong. “I was having fun, but I see now that this is all getting out of hand. I don’t want to risk anything else. This career is not something I am willing to take a gamble on. So, I’ll walk away from betting if you promise not to walk away from this band.”
He looks at me, long and hard.
“I’ve still got a lot left to learn, Coop. You are one of the only people who has ever successfully gotten through to me. If you walk away, who’s going to get through to me?”
He nods but doesn’t answer. His eyes soften, though, and that’s usually a good sign. I turn to leave but hear him call my name once more.
“Blake?” he says, and I lean into the doorway. “Tonight better be the best damn show you have ever played.”
“I know. I know. I owe it to you.”
“No, Blake. You owe it to you.”
I take his words and my promise with me as I head to the backstage area to prep for the show. When we take the stage, I’m feeling refreshed and motivated.
The spotlights shine down brightly, breaking through the blue hue that colors the stage. Xander is on fire tonight, dancing and jumping wildly across the floorboards. It’s almost a glimpse into the old Xander.
“Xander.” I step away from the microphones but keep my fingers moving and the chords echoing as we speak. “Let’s do Way Back When.”
“I haven’t sung that in years. Besides, it’s not on the set list.”
I kick the set list off the stage. “Live a little!” I yell over Dom’s drum solo.
“I don’t even think I know it anymore,” he yells, leaning into my ear so I can hear him.
“I’d bet you do,” I say with a wink, and I play the opening notes, slowly, then faster, eventually picking up the correct pace for the song—and the crowd loses their mind with excitement. Their adrenaline high courses right through me and I can see it in Xander’s eyes too. He misses the song. He misses who we used to be.
“Arizona,” I say into the microphone, “who wants to hear Way Back When?”
Their collective pleading cry would break the windows if there were any. It’s loud, boisterous and longing.
“That’s too bad,” I say, stopping the repetitive riff I played. “Xander said no.”
An instant ‘booooo’ rings through the voices of the crowd of thousands. I step to the edge of the stage, joining their boos and engaging in a dramatic thumbs down directed at Xander.
“Hey now, hey now. I didn’t say no. I said… Well okay, I said no,” he says with a laugh that echoes through the microphone. “Change my mind!” he challenges, and the fans scream. Their spontaneous screeches turn to a unified chant. Way Back When, Way Back When. Way Back When.
“Okay, okay, I’m in,” he says. “But you guys have to help me. I don’t remember how it goes!” he yells to the crowd and turns the mic to them. They fill the venue with the opening lyrics to the song. I play in, matching their pace, and Theo and Dom do the same. It’s beautiful—a crowd-led song that we are merely background music to.
We run off stage and Cooper slaps me on the shoulder. “Now that was a great damn show.”
“Blake?” Xander says through a sip of water. I wonder if he’s still mad at me for antics as of late. “You brought me back, man. What do you say we get out there and play a few more old songs? I’m thinking, Sunday Best. What do you say?”
Sunday Best is the first song I ever taught myself how to play. The lyrics to it were written on Kelly’s notebook the first time I ever saw her. It’s the same song we played for the talent show the first time we ever played together.
I think about the building we’re in. Just on the other side of these walls, lights flash atop slot machines, colored chips fall on green felt and cards are being dealt across crowded tables.
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing right now,” I say, and we jog back out onto the stage that is taking me so far back, and yet, so far forward.
* * * *
Then
Alexander still hadn’t answered me about the talent show. He sat on the steps picking the intro to Sunday Best over and over again. I tapped my foot off the cement stair, waiting for an answer, but the look on his face leaned more toward utterly irritated more so than overwhelmed with joy—though, that was pretty much just his perpetual mood.
“I didn’t know what else to say.” I cut through the lack of conversation between us. “She asked if I had a band, then you opened the door and I just kind of ran with it.”
“That’s great, Blake,” Alexander says, his voice sarcastic and pointed. “But there’s one major problem. I don’t sing.”
“Sure you do!” I try to be as encouraging as possible, though I’ve only heard a few notes every once in a while when trying to figure out guitar riffs from popular songs we wanted to learn to play ourselves.
“When is the talent show?” he asks through an upward exhale that blows loose pieces of hair away from his forehead.
“Two weeks—”
“Two weeks? You expect us to get our shit together in two weeks?” he yells, his voice echoing under the overhang. “Have you met us?”
“It is one song. Just show up to rehearsal to
morrow and see what happens,” I plead.
“And if I don’t?” Alexander clicks open the locks on his barely functioning guitar case.
“Then I look like an idiot in front of the entire school…but mostly I look like an idiot in front of Kelly.”
“Not your best argument,” Alexander says. “Hell, I’d pay to see that.”
I shake my head, returning my guitar to its case and he does the same. He slaps his hand on my shoulder and I turn toward him. “I’m kidding. Have I ever let you down before?”
“Uhh-h—”
“Don’t answer that. I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow.”
* * * *
Rehearsal is held in the auditorium with students scattered about the stage and seating areas. One group of students stands in the corner doing scales and vocal warm-ups for their a capella piece they plan to perform. Another student walks back and forth, mumbling to himself as he practices the poem he wrote for the show. One kid stands at the front row playing the bagpipes—poorly—and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that he doesn’t even go to this school.
Alexander still hasn’t made an appearance, and I check my watch nervously for the thousandth time. Kelly takes the stage and calls bagpipe guy’s name. His act is so painful I’d consider stubbing my toe and biting my tongue at the same time more comforting, but believe it or not, he’s not nearly as terrible as accordion kid.
“I thought this was supposed to be a talent show,” Alexander says, jumping over the row of seats in the auditorium and taking a seat next to me.
“I thought you might not make it.” I don’t remove my eyes from Kelly as she skips across the stage.
“I said I would be here—and I’m here. Feeling pretty confident, actually, now that I’ve seen the competition.” He places a pick between his teeth.
“It really isn’t a competition. It’s just a show.”
“That’s bull sh—” he starts to say, but Kelly stands at center stage calling the next group. No one responds. I look around to see a familiar-looking, broad-shouldered kid with a backward hat push the door open and leave and excuse myself from Alexander, following the student outside.