by L A Tavares
“C’mon,” he says, throwing his head over his shoulder. “Get in. We can take a ride over there.”
The back seat of the police car is hard and uncomfortable, both physically and mentally. My stomach turns just thinking about how much trouble we are about to be in. Growing up, though, I was never truly praised as a child, but my mother never necessarily cared enough to scold me, either.
The officer bangs on the door and we stand awkwardly outside awaiting our fate. The light flicks on behind the front door then Debbie opens it, wearing a bathrobe and a sleepy expression. Her exhaustion is knocked out of her abruptly when she puts together the pieces of the puzzle and suddenly she’s wide-eyed and furious.
The officer, who, all in all, was much kinder than we deserved, recapped the story as they stood at the door while we stayed at the kitchen counter.
“So only the one boy is yours then?” he asks.
“Blake has been with us for a while,” she says. They try to keep their voices hushed, but the house is only so big, so it’s easy to hear their conversation.
“Do you have any kind of paperwork like power of attorney or legal guardian forms? Anything that says you’re caring for him at this time?”
I know what’s happening and so does she. Alexander has never been great at math, but he’s solving this equation as fast as the rest of us.
“Please,” she says, “this has been hard enough on him. He has nowhere else to go.”
For a moment a few mumbles are exchanged then silence before the man says, “That’s not a name I’ve heard in a while.”
There is no more back and forth after that. She steps inside and closes the door behind her. The name she spoke, the name he recognized, was my mother’s. And the only reason he agreed to let me stay was because as soon as Debbie uttered her name that officer knew I was better off here, regardless if the arrangement had been legally bound.
“Who feels like talking first?” She leans into the counter we sit at. Neither of us respond. “Okay, I will,” she says. Suddenly I wish I’d volunteered.
“I got these letters in the mail this morning. The school sent them. It’s a notice that says both of you are at risk for failing the term if you don’t pull off a passing grade on your exams.”
I pick at some dirt from the football field under my fingernail so I don’t have to look at her. This is only going to go from bad to worse. “I planned on talking to you tonight about these letters and then you were brought home by a cop instead so thank you for saving me some time. Now I can yell at you for everything all at once.”
It’s a one-sided conversation. We stay quiet, getting through the lecture to find out what our inevitable punishment is.
“You two were doing well. You were playing music and making some money to put toward that music. Your grades went up—for like two-and-a-half seconds.” She pauses a long, silent moment and takes a breath. “I can’t keep up with you two. Just when I think I can let my guard down and trust you both are maturing, you pull stunts like this. Inconsistency is just about the only thing you two do consistently.”
Alexander and I looked at each other automatically, doing that wordless conversation thing we have perfected over the years. Even though we ended up being grounded for two weeks, we also ended up with a band name that fit us in a way nothing else could.
Chapter Thirteen
Now
Stasia and I enter The Rock Room in a fit of laughter that has morphed from giggling about something dumb to that silent, gasping-for-air-type laugh that comes when you keep piling stupid things on top of the joke that wasn’t necessarily that funny in the first place. I take a deep breath and she wipes a tear from the corner of her eye.
“You sound nothing like me.” The words are choppy as I’m recovering from the fit of laughter.
“I sound exactly like you,” she says, botching all her efforts to mimic the words I pronounce slightly different than she does.
My stomach muscles hurt from laughing so hard. It’s been a while since I’ve been so unwound, so…childish.
“You’re here,” Kelly says as we enter the backstage area. Her voice raises in surprise as she says the words.
“You asked me to be…” A confused grimace replaces the smile that I wore seconds ago, “The band should be going on soon, yeah?”
“Not until nine-thirty.” She flips through papers on a clipboard, never looking up from her work as she talks.
“You said eight-thirty.”
“Yes, I did.” She tucks the clipboard under her arm. “I figured you’d be late if you showed up at all, so I gave you a one-hour buffer. But, look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to be alone while you wait.” Her lips press into a hard line and she returns her gaze to her paperwork. “Stasia,” she says with a nod. No ‘hello’, no ‘how are you’. It’s the bare minimum of noting Stasia’s presence at all.
“Kelly,” Stasia responds with a paralleled lack of enthusiasm as Kelly leaves us backstage.
Stasia raises her brow to an arch and holds her hands toward the area Kelly just exited through.
“What?” I say, losing the game of charades she is playing.
“Go after her, you goon,” Stasia says, slapping her hand against her thigh with a loud sigh. “She’s clearly upset about something. She’s your girlfriend. Go fix whatever that something may be.”
“I don’t think she wants me to follow her.”
“She wants you to follow her. Trust me. Now go.” She steps forward and pushes me toward the door.
“Kelly,” I say, quickening my pace to catch up to her. She turns to me but keeps her eyes on her clipboard, immersed in her work the way she always is. I take the clipboard from her and toss it to the ground. She looks up at me, surprised, and I place my fingers at her jaw and my lips on hers.
“What was that for?” she says through a smile.
“I miss you.”
She looks up at me with confused eyes.
“I haven’t gone anywhere,” she says, placing her hand against my chest where my heart beats under her fingertips.
“I know, but I have.” She braces for impact like bad news is coming in for an impossible-to-avoid collision. I can feel it in the way her body tenses and she holds her breath. “No, no,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “I’ve been distracted. I’ve been looking for what comes next, when everything I have been looking for has been just a few feet from me the whole time. I don’t just want to be home. I want to be present. I’m going to be better, Kelly…for you.”
She places her palm at the back of my neck and pulls me in close to her, leaving her mouth lingering on mine like a pinky promise of the lips.
“I want to show you something,” I say when we part, and she nods. I open an app on my phone and punch in the pin to a side bank account I’ve had for years. “I asked you to take charge of my bank account when you moved in, because, let’s face it, Kelly, I suck with money. And since then, you’ve kept everything going—the house, the bills. It all comes out of the account that you have access to.”
“I know.” She nods in a slow pattern, trying to follow.
“But this account,” I say, handing her the details on the phone’s face, “is the dream account. It was Cooper’s idea. I’d bet Xander has one too. When he realized how horrendous of decisions he and I made, Cooper suggested we have a bank account for right now—the one the bills get paid out of—and one for someday. The dream account… This account is one we will need in the future when the music isn’t there anymore.”
“I don’t understand.” She eyes the numbers on the screen.
“This one, Kelly,” I say, tapping the screen. “This one is our account. Our ‘someday’. We’re going to do something with this—a year-long trip of a lifetime, vacation homes, whatever you want…what we want. We’re going to do it together.”
“What’s your dream?” She puts the phone back in my hand. “Where do you want to go? What do you want to buy?”
&n
bsp; I think about it for a moment. I’ve never thought about it before. When I look into the future, I can’t see the whole dream, but I can see one clear part of it.
“I don’t care where we go or what we buy, as long as we’re doing it together.”
She nods and kisses me again, then nuzzles her forehead into my neck and holds herself against me. I’m not sure how long we stand there, but I won’t be the one to step away first. I won’t ever be the one to step away first. If I could have, I would’ve made that moment last hours, but Kelly’s job calls her away and I sit backstage where I watch her work, counting my blessings each time she walks by. The rest of the band shows up and takes the seats around me. We talk, laugh and drink until Kelly pops her head in to the back and tells us she’s ready for us.
The band we’re here to watch, First and Forever, takes the stage and we observe from the wings. They’re excellent, with a great following of their own. They remind me a bit of Consistently Inconsistent’s early days, all energy and emotion, soaking in the excitement of looking out from the stage and knowing you’re on your way to the top.
“Great show, really well done,” Xander says, clapping his hands loudly as the band exits the stage and joins us in the wings.
“Thank you so much. You guys are a huge inspiration. You were all we listened to growing up,” the lead singer says, sweat dripping from his hair.
“Ouch, now I feel old.” Xander says it, but we were all thinking it. “What’s the plan going forward? Looks like you’re getting some good exposure.”
“Yeah, not so bad. We had a call just the other day from MLA records. They’re requesting a meeting, so we will see what happens with that.”
Stasia turns and walks away so quietly that no one else noticed—but I did.
“Any advice?” another band member adds.
“Follow your gut. If you get contacted by a label that can take you to where you want to be and leave your sound intact, do it. But this is your music. Don’t get stuck anywhere that tries to take that away from you,” I say, and they nod in response.
“We’re weighing our options,” the lead singer says. “There’s a lot of checks in the pro column to staying unsigned, and so far, we’re not doing so bad, but we want to explore options and see what is out there for us. Thank you so much again for coming out.”
“Looking forward to seeing what you do in the future,” Xander says. Their band members exchange handshakes and well wishes with ours and we go our separate ways.
* * * *
Then
Our demos are sailing. Small news outlets in the area have helped us promote our songs and our social media pages are gaining traction faster than we can keep up with. One night, late into the evening hours, Alexander and I sit at the table and do our homework—yes, seriously.
The phone rings and Alexander’s mother answers it. She looks over at us every once in a while but offers only the occasional ‘mm-hmm’ and ‘uh-huh’. Alexander and I look at each other, trying to figure out what we might have done wrong without starting to admit to anything. She hangs up the phone and doesn’t say a word. She returns to the counter and continues preparing dinner. We hold a collective breath for a moment, only she goes on to hum a little tune and not say anything at all. We shrug and return our gaze to our books, then she finally speaks.
“Why don’t you two invite Julian, Dominic and Theo to join us for dinner tonight?”
Our faces are a matching set of confused grimaces, but we do as we are told.
“What are we here for?” Dom asks, a bit later when they arrive, but the rest of us know nothing more than he does.
“Not a clue,” Alexander and I say in unison.
Alexander’s mother comes into the kitchen and takes a seat with us.
“So, there’s a record label that has heard some of your songs and they want to meet with you.”
We’re all silent, absorbing the sentence but not reacting to it.
“Let’s try again,” Debbie says in slow, drawn-out dramatics. “Record label. Likes your songs. You guys. Meeting.”
There are no words. Literally, the sounds that come out of our mouths are not English…or coherent. It’s just a mix of excitement and half-formed questions—and for some reason smacking each other hard on the arms and shoulders as an expression of enthusiasm.
For days, time moves backward. No matter what we do to pass the minutes or make the clock move faster, it doesn’t. Our seven-hour school days age like years as we wait for our meeting, but we survive the brutal anticipation.
The restaurant chosen for the meeting is one of those dimly lit, prices not listed on the menu, waiters with towels over their arms type atmospheres that I’ve only ever seen in the movies. Self-consciousness rushes through me as other patrons walk by eyeing our ripped jeans and rugged looks in comparison to the expensive clothes they wear and the designer handbags they carry.
We’re seated near the bar area but in a booth. None of us speak—nerves, I think. I tap my foot, nervously shaking my leg, which in turn shakes the table and Julian tells me to quit it. Alexander chugs his third water refill.
“Who did they say they were sending again?” Theo asks.
“Some dude named Charlie Adams.” My nervous leg-twitch returns.
I’m unsure what to expect. My thoughts trend toward a man in a suit with slicked back hair and a holier-than-thou attitude. But I’m wrong.
A woman in a black leather jacket and impossibly high heels joins us at our table.
“I’m Charlie Adams,” she says, “Artist & Repertoire representative for MLA records. I’m so sorry I’m late.”
She reaches across the table, introducing herself to each one of us individually and asking us a bit about ourselves.
“Order whatever you want, boys. MLA is taking care of you today.”
Charlie wastes no time, diving right in to what MLA would like to see from us, what they do—and most importantly, why we need them. I’m not sure any of us absorbed even one word of the material she presented. It was like school but fancier and far more confusing.
We dive into our meals like we’ve never eaten before, leaving nothing spared on the plate.
“So, you’ll think that over then?” She flashes teeth that sparkle as she smiles. “Call if you have any questions.” She hands over her business card and leaves the table, her heels clicking through the restaurant in an even echo.
We chat among ourselves, repeating everything Charlie said, but not really knowing what to do with the information.
“Mind if I join you for a minute, boys?” a deep voice says. The man drags a chair around, straddling its seat and leaning his elbows against the back of it. Sitting with the chair backward at the end of our table, he looks almost as out of place as we do.
It took me a minute to realize that we knew him. He’s Alexander’s mom’s friend. Greg? George? Gary? Something with a G, I think, but I don’t really know.
“Hey, how are you doing, Cooper?” Alexander asks. “Thank you for all your help so far. My mother says you’ve been distributing our demos to your friends in the industry.”
“Oh no, this was all you, boys—hard work and a little bit of luck.” He picks up Charlie’s business card from the table. “So, MLA, huh?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Kind of surreal.”
“I think you can do better.” His eyes are on mine. His lips are tightly pressed and matter of fact. I think he might be kidding.
He’s not kidding.
“Consistently Inconsistent is already on the fast track to something, and no one has gotten you there but you. You’re playing small shows. You’re in a recording studio. By my observation, your followers on your pages are growing exponentially every day.”
“You’re following us?” Alexander asks.
“Yes, of course, Xander,” Cooper says.
“Oh, it’s actually Alexan—” Alexander’s voice trails off and his lip turns to a curled smile. “Xander is fine.”
“I think you’ve got something good going, and MLA is great, for sure. Don’t get me wrong. But they would own everything you do. Your sound won’t be your sound anymore. You can do this without them.”
“Well, Cooper,” Alexander—or Xander, I suppose—says, “why don’t you tell us your thoughts? We will let you buy us dessert.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cooper responds through a smile and a laugh.
Chapter Fourteen
Now
The table is set, the candles are lit, and the only thing that can make it more perfect is Kelly’s arrival home, which should be any minute.
I pull my chair out and sit, accidentally knocking my fork to the floor as I do so. It bounced under the table to a place I can’t reach. I slide off the stool and put all my weight on one knee, grabbing the utensil and returning it to its spot. Just as I’m about to stand, Kelly walks in to find me on one knee beside the romantically decorated table.
Her gaze finds mine and both of our jaws drop, mirror images of the other’s surprise. I look at the table, at her then back again.
“Blake…” she says, hanging her coat on the rack.
“This…this isn’t what it looks like.” I stand and brush myself off.
“Oh, thank God.” A sigh of relief escapes her lips.
“Oh, thank God?” I repeat. “Tell me how you really feel. Don’t hold back this time…”
We both laugh, a loud, full sound that echoes throughout the house and we have to force ourselves to breathe again.
I pull out her chair then my own.
“What is all of this?” The candlelight flickers in the reflection of her eyes.
“I do have something for you. It’s just not a ring.”
She laughs again, shaking her head back and forth. I lean over and pick up an old, tattered photo album and hand it to her. She takes it but doesn’t open it. She glances over the book from under deep black lashes.
“You said you wanted to know everything about me. That’s it. That’s all I have of them—my parents, that is.”