by SJ Cavaletti
“Anyway,” he continued, “That was then, and this is now. Apparently, I’m writing a banger for Saturday night. Just going to pray to the desert Gods this afternoon for some inspiration. Maybe there’s still a chance for me to be a one hit wonder.”
He stuck out his tongue and bit it playfully.
He grabbed my arm, swiftly taking out my tripod foundation, and I collapsed onto him. My head on his pecs, I listened to his voice vibrating inside his chest.
“I’m not giving up, Maeve. Maybe this will end up being a good thing. I don’t want to waste my time on broken things when I can put my energy into creating. My well isn’t dry yet.”
“Your friends said you were amazing. If you can do it once, you can do it again.”
“The songs he took? I can write more. They probably weren’t my best, anyway. I mean, they were good, got lit phones in the air and shit, but I’ve grown. I think there’s better stuff to come. It’s the other loss, the one I can’t lawyer up and fix, that’s the tough thing.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to fly over that issue. Just. Like I said. Wanting to help. And I can’t do anything about the losing a brother thing.”
I sat up and looked in his eyes, wanting him to see how much I had meant it. He cradled my chin in his fingers.
“That makes two of us.”
His song. It was the only answer he knew to my grief. I wished I had one for his.
He drew me in for a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that makes you exhale every last bit of breath in total relaxation. For the first time in so so long, maybe ever, high-strung as I was, my mind quieted. All I could feel was the feathery softness of his lips. All I could hear was…
… El clinking around in the caravan kitchen.
I opened my eyes. Drake had his still closed, but he stopped kissing me and smiled.
I whispered, “Do you think he’ll be surprised to see me?”
Drake opened his eyes. “No. Nothing surprises Dr. El. Literally nothing. That guy has pulled bullets out of people and delivered a baby to a woman who didn’t know she was pregnant. This is pretty low in shock factor. Plus,” he became more serious, “I think it’s pretty obvious we like each other.”
I tucked some hair behind my ear. “If you say so.”
Drake reached over to his bedside table and flipped over his mobile. “It’s twelve thirty. We need to get you some breakfast. I don’t know if you’ll want to wear yesterday’s clothes? I’m sure Jasmine would lend you something.”
“At least it’s a short walk of shame.”
“First stop. The kitchen.”
I stood up and slipped the red swimsuit back on. I didn’t bother to roll on the stockings, just tugged on my boots and then opened the door where El heated oil in a frying pan.
“Oh hey! Sorry, did I wake you?” El asked.
“No, we’ve been up for a little bit.”
“Want some eggs?”
I did, but said no. I needed to get back to my camp.
“I need to head out. I’m going with Jas to the women only cycle today.”
“Oh cool! I guess I’ll see you later?” He asked but looked behind me where Drake now stood in the doorway of his room, peering over my head.
I turned around to see what El saw. Drake’s response.
“El. You don’t think I’m going to let my dark fairy sleep in a tent tonight, do you? Her wings might freeze.”
He stepped toward me, he leaned down and kissed me.
I may have been the fairy. But Drake was the one with the magic.
14
I saw a meme once. It said, “Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own.” I think it’s Oprah. Because my Mom sent it to me, that’s a pretty good guess.
I was still in high school when I saw that. Quite popular, tall. I filled out early, girls liked me and I was on a varsity sports team. I was never alone. Not unless I wanted to be. Which was something I never even considered. It didn’t occur to me that being alone wasn’t the same thing as being lonely.
I now know that one is constructive. The other is destructive.
So from seventeen years old, when my Mom sent me that quote, I made a pact with myself that at least one day a week, I would spend two or three hours alone. See what happened. Hear what I had to say to myself. If it was good enough for Oprah, it was good enough for me.
I had to go somewhere new to do this. The football fields, my backyard, the mall, or really anywhere I would normally hang out, there were people. To a teenage brain, I had a very extreme view of what it meant to be alone, so I didn’t even want to bump into strangers.
I drove out to Snoqualmie Falls and started walking. At first, even though I saw no one, I felt like someone was watching. And laughing. And thinking I was some outcast, dejected with a hood pulled over my head. But after that first half hour of self-inflicted hazing passed, I opened my eyes. I saw things I hadn’t seen before.
The way the dew hung from a leaf.
How I could feel the seemingly weightless mist on my hair.
The smell of pine trees.
That there were different types of grasses.
After only two times doing this, whether at Snoqualmie or somewhere else, lyrics, poetry really, started coming. And then, melodies. Not like John Denver stuff. I never actually sang about Mount Rainier, which I did occasionally see in the distance and was breathtaking, but the stuff that was happening in my everyday life. Or even feelings I imagined other people had. They became poetic when I was alone. It was simile after simile, adjectives flowed and words started rhyming, almost magically. When this started happening, I started paying a lot more attention in English class, too. Which didn’t hurt this poetic process.
I knew at that point in time that I could be a songwriter for a living. Just like I first dreamed might happen at my Grandma’s funeral. I had such clarity in alone. Clarity of emotion. Clarity in the words I used to express it. Even the music itself often came to me in one go.
This tradition, once a week alone, I’d been doing for over ten years now. Uyu was no exception.
But there weren’t many places on the Plain where you could be alone. It was a pretty crowded scene.
Still, I would search and search, and if I was willing to sit far enough away from anything that mattered, nobody really passed by. I never stayed out for long. With no shade, nothing comfy to sit on; I baked. And Seattle boys aren’t used to the heat. Still, I did it. Because it was a promise to myself. And I don’t break promises.
Now, I’d promised Maeve something I’d promised no one before. I hadn’t even ever written a song for my Mom or an ode to my Grandma. And those were my Queens.
I found my usual spot, sat down on the cracking, hard ground. Placing my guitar case in front of me, I first took out my trusty old first ever guitar and a notebook. I couldn’t bring my good guitar here. The gypsum dust damaged everything it touched.
In past years, I missed my “good” guitar. And this year was no exception. But this time, I wished I had my other guitar because this one reminded me of Jason.
Jason. It was still hard to believe he had done this to me. This guitar. Jason asked his Dad to buy it for me. For my birthday. He told his Dad that we wanted to start a band and that we needed instruments. They both knew my Mom had no money. So his Dad bought it. My Mom’s pride didn’t allow such an extravagant gift, so she paid Mr. Fry back in installments.
My Mom would be pissed when she heard about Jason. I hadn’t told her yet because it was a conversation I needed to have with her when she had some time in person, so she could see I was okay. She would be just as gutted as I was. She had trusted him to give me brotherhood. I really didn’t want to tell her. But she might not be surprised. He had looked like absolute hell the last two times she saw him. My Mom was street smart and knew what drug abuse looked like. Or at least she told me she did the time she also threatened to beat me if I ever did any.
I should have been more a
ngry with him for this betrayal. But all I felt in this genuine, honest space, surrounded by nothing but the dusty earth’s surface, was that Jason's leaving made space for something new.
Someone new. I had been taking care of him for years. Nurturing him from hangover to hangover. Calling him to get up for band practice. Or even a gig at seven p.m.
For a long time, I did this out of love, but more recently, out of duty. It was time for a change of the guard. I couldn’t be afraid of starting over.
And Maeve… the way she wanted to help. What a little spitfire. A tiny, unassuming, drop dead gorgeous bomber pilot. She was just as intelligent and fierce as she was beautiful.
I’d been working on finding people in my life like this. That’s why I loved my Tribe. She fit in so perfectly to this loving group I’d curated. Everything I loved in other humans? She had it. But with chemistry. We gravitated toward each other like it was instinct. I think if I closed my eyes right now, I could find her even in this desert jungle.
But the distance. Thinking about Koa’s saying, I wondered. Does love really ignore distance? She lived in L.A. I lived in Seattle. After this week, we’d go our separate ways. She’d go back to her pain. And I’d go back to mine. Both trying to reframe our lives, figure out how to take a family portrait without a familiar face.
I looked down at my notebook, a blank page stared back at me, and I wondered about her Dad. What kind of guy would bring his daughter to Uyu? Maeve told me he had been deep, present and content with himself. She told me he had been spiritual and tried to attain peace in everything he did. He was generous. Vulnerable and strong at the same time.
And she told me he brought her here because she wasn’t those things.There was pain in her voice when she said that.
I wanted her to let go of that, though I knew one little song wouldn’t be the answer. Still, it could, maybe, just maybe, be the first step.
Sometimes it was strings first, sometimes it was paper. A breeze blew over my face and I blinked dust out of my eyes. And in an instant, I wrote, wishing I had two more hands to play at the same time. I knew what needed to be said. What needed to be sung.
Maeve. This one belongs to you.
15
I rolled up on my bike to the edge of a sea of boobs and wheels. There must have been a thousand women, topless and ready to ride for what purpose, I really wasn’t sure. Supposedly, this cycle parade started as a gesture of female solidarity and an expression of feminism. I wasn’t sure how riding a bike without a bra made anyone a feminist.
It seemed like a fun thing to do though, and I had never done it with my Dad around. Apparently it all culminated in a gigantic party at the end where art cars and butlers gathered to make sure all the women riders had refreshments and tunes. I had also heard there was some sort of “ritual” that happened after the ride and before the party.
I wondered if they’d let me in because I decided not to be naked. I’d had enough after the Laundro-man. I went there. Did that. Did the naked thing and dared myself to try something different without my Dad around, but decided that it wasn’t my thing. I liked bras. They were pretty and kept my nipples from getting sunburned.
“Maeve! Maeve!” I turned around and riding up behind me was Jasmine, looking very much like the Hawaiian goddess that she was. She had native flowers painted beautifully on her breasts and over her stomach. A bird of paradise situated gloriously across her collarbone. She wore a raffia skirt, short and sticking out like a tutu.
I rode my bike over to her; she was toward the rear of the line that was forming. The hubbub suggested the parade would soon be on its way.
“You look sooooo good. Who painted your chest?” I asked.
“There’s a body painting camp.”
“They did a magnificent job.”
“I think so. Really happy with it.”
“Was it strange? To have someone that you didn’t know paint your boobs?”
“No. It just tickled. I think it might actually be stranger to have someone I DID know paint them. You know?”
“I get that. I always wanted to do the liquid latex painting thing. Don’t know if they are here this year. It was something I heard about a couple years ago.”
“They are still here. The camp’s called…”
BLAAAAAST. A foghorn sounded out.
Then, faintly, in the distance, a woman’s voice through a megaphone, “Ladies of the world. United we stand divided we fall. Let’s roll!”
That was it? Some speech from the head of Uyu’s premier feminist organization was like ten words long?
Jas and I waited for some crowd to clear and then hopped on our bikes. After pedaling for only a hundred yards I said, “I really hate this bike.”
The commuter bike design was not only way too Scandi for my taste but also just didn’t roll the way the vintage beach cruiser I had brought in previous years did.
“Not to be rude or anything, but that bike isn’t exactly the one I’d think of you on,” she said, “It’s very suit-on-a-subway. I see you on a chopper.”
“Agreed. And thanks. Oh well. I only have my little car this year. Not much could fit. I feel lucky to have a bike at all, so I need to be grateful and not whine. Last thing I’d want to do is borrow one of the community bikes.”
Jas watched the way ahead, but even with her eyes facing forward, I could see them bug out. “Holla. I heard people catch herpes from them.”
The community bikes were ridden naked by too many people for my liking.
“So Maeve,” Jas said, trying to look at me, her head oscillating between me and the dirt track, “Drake told me about your Dad and stuff. And the spreading of the ashes.”
That was a surprise.
Not that Drake told her. When I told Drake about all this, I never asked him to keep it to himself. We hardly knew each other, and it was just the kind of Uyu gossip a camp would talk about. It was more that Jasmine would bring it up that shocked me.
“Do you mind me asking what happened?” She scrunched her face and squinted her eyes.
“No. It’s fine,“ I said, now feeling more comfortable about it after all my discussions with Drake. “About a month after our last Uyu, almost exactly a year ago, we found out he had pancreatic cancer.”
“What? He only survived a year?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Worst year of my life. Obviously worse for him. I’m not gonna lie. It was heartbreaking to watch him deteriorate so quickly. And to have to accept it. Because at some point, you waste time fighting acceptance, instead of being present and taking what you have left. Does that make sense?”
“I think I understand. You two were close?”
“He was the best. I’m not sure anyone will ever support me or be as honest with me as he was. It was nice to be seen. The way he saw me. He knew me better than anyone.”
Jasmine went quiet. Not quiet like she felt awkward. Quiet like she had something to say but wasn’t sure if she should.
She did. “Drake’s like that.”
“Like what?”
“He’s that kind of guy that sees you. Like not you you but people. He zeroes in on the core.”
I smiled but didn’t reply. We turned a tight corner and at the next camp, there were people cheering.
“Ha. That’s weird,” I said. “Why would they cheer? We’re not doing anything.”
Jasmine smiled and waved. Hilarious.
“I was just thinking,” she said, picking up where she left off, “Drake told me he was going to write a song. For your Dad’s ceremony. I could do a hula? Koa knows some chants and stuff on the ukulele. He offered to play with Drake. We’d be honored to be part of this. Like really, truly honored.”
It was so kind. So warm of her to offer to be part of this. I’m not sure I would have done the same. In fact, her offer, and Drake… A sudden pang of shame punched me in the gut. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have done the same for a stranger. My Dad had been
right. I needed to open my heart. Both for me to share love and for it to come in.
As much as my instinct was to be alone through this, Drake, with his song, and with his delicious dimple… and now, everything else… My Lord, he had found a chink in my armor. And now, Jasmine, like Elasti-Girl, squeezed through it, too. I didn’t resist.
“That would be great,” I agreed.
Damn, I missed my Dad right now. Because he would have loved being with these people. Drake’s people.
“My Dad,” I said, choking a little on the painful lump in my throat, but I coughed and pretended it was the dust, “He was all about Uyu. He loved it here. He was so much better at taking advantage of, well, everything here. Meeting people. Dancing.”
“Your Dad could dance?” She asked, but not sounding surprised. Just interested.
“He could do everything. Except sing. I mean, he did it anyway. Because my Dad was a firm believer that people should do whatever they want, even if they aren’t good at it, but yeah. It wasn’t his calling.”
“Sounds like a cool guy. My Dad would never come to Uyu with me. And truthfully, girl. I wouldn’t want him to.”
“It was me who didn’t want to come. Uyu was my Dad’s idea.”
The parade speed slowed to a halt. But because there were so many women ahead of us, we couldn’t see what we had ultimately come to do.
“Your Dad makes me think of a Hawaiian saying. Oi kai ka lau e hana I ola honua. It means to live your life while the sun is still shining. That’s the most we can do. That’s the most we can get from the days we have. Your Dad sounds as though he really knew how to live.”
Straddling our bikes, I could look at Jasmine now. But she didn’t look at me. She pondered.
“But, you know, I also wonder if it’s us living our lives that makes it feel like the sun is shining? Or if the sun shining makes us feel like we are alive? Dunno.”
I didn’t want to take my eyes off this woman. Or her question. But had no choice. We were being forced into some sort of funnel, like cattle.