“But isn’t the snow just going to kill them?” said Tracy as they lay the flowers down.
“Yep,” said Veronica.
In the coffee shop, they ate donuts and shared a hot chocolate. Tracy had a jelly and Veronica had a chocolate honey-dipped. There was a song on, coming over the shop’s speakers, and Tracy sang along.
“How do you know the words to this?” said Veronica.
“I don’t know,” said Tracy.
Veronica frowned at her. “You don’t think it’s a little inappropriate?”
“Why?” said Tracy.
“Well, for one, your love doesn’t cost a thing because it’s not for sale yet.”
Tracy sighed, kept singing.
“And for another,” said Veronica, “do you have any idea what ‘all the things’ are ‘that money can’t buy’?”
“Love, Mum. Love. That’s what The Beatles say, anyway.”
Veronica smiled. “Well, I’m glad you’ve got taste some of the time.”
They walked back past the car on their way home. Tracy’s music player lay on the back seat. It had been a Christmas gift from the Runt, a costly piece of plastic about the size of a CD player that stored a hundred hours of digital music. Digital. What did that even mean? Veronica wondered, suddenly, how mixtapes would work with a thing like that. In seven or eight years, when boys were trying to woo Tracy, what would they do? Email her a bunch of files? What would they do for liner notes? Type them? Where was the romance in that?
“You want to bring your Nomad with us?” said Veronica.
“Oh my gosh,” said Tracy. “I can’t believe I forgot it.”
The first flakes fell during their walk down Chatham Road, but it wasn’t until they turned onto Deep Hole that things got miserable.
“Those poor flowers,” said Tracy.
“I know,” said Veronica.
“It’s really romantic, though,” said Tracy.
“Sure is,” said Veronica.
“What’s the most romantic thing you ever did for Desiree?”
Veronica smirked and snickered. Leaving the Runt when it made no financial sense to do so, she thought.
“What made no financial sense?” said Tracy.
“Did I just say that out loud?” said Veronica.
“You mumbled something,” said Tracy.
“I guess I’ve never made a real, big, romantic gesture,” said Veronica. “Got any suggestions?”
“You should write her a song,” said Tracy. “A really good one.”
At the piano that afternoon, in the cold dark of Grampy’s living room—her living room now, she had to remind herself—Veronica played in circles, searching for the next chord. Each time she came round to it, the place where the bridge should have been, she found herself going back to the beginning. It grated on her, this timidness. She had never been this tentative with her guitar, and though it had been ages since she’d sat on this bench and plucked away at the old upright, since those summer days when Grampy would break out his trumpet to accompany her, she couldn’t remember ever being so scared.
She slapped both hands down on the keyboard, her lead foot lowering the boom on the sustain, and she closed her eyes, letting herself be swallowed up by the wall of noise. She leaned her forehead against the rough wood, unpolished for almost a decade now, since before Grampy died. It was cool against her skin and it was only then, as she felt her flesh slip into the piano’s ornamental grooves, that she noticed the sheen of sweat that had covered her. Down the hall, a door slammed open and the hall light flashed on. A pair of feet shuffled toward her.
“That was it!” said Tracy.
“That was it?” said Veronica. “That was garbage.”
“Nuh-uh,” said Tracy. “It was pretty, except for the end. Just needs words.”
Veronica turned to face her daughter, straddling the bench as she did. “The words are the hardest part, Trace. There’s a reason I only do cover songs.”
“What about that one you sang to me when I was a baby?”
“That was one song,” said Veronica. “One song out of ten years worth of trying.”
Tracy gave a heavy sigh, shook her head, and stalked off toward her bedroom again. Once the door slammed shut, Veronica got back to it.
Desiree walked in ten minutes later.
“Hey,” she said. “Why’d you stop playing?”
“I don’t know,” said Veronica.
“That was one of my favorites,” said Desiree. “I haven’t heard you play that in years.”
Veronica lifted an eyebrow at her lover.
“What?” said Desiree. “That was the one you wrote for your brother’s play, right? The one back in high school?”
“You’ve heard that song before?”
“Yes,” said Desiree. “It was the song the troubadour sang to Sleeping Beauty to try and wake her up.”
“After all the kisses had failed,” said Veronica.
Desiree sat down beside her on the bench. “I loved that play so much,” she said.
Veronica set her fingers back on the keyboard, trying to remember the rest of the song.
“I think most people were too dim to figure it out,” said Desiree. “But not me. I got it. And when the princess woke up for that moment, just after the singer had admitted defeat and left. God, that got me every time.”
“Every time?” said Veronica.
“Yeah,” said Desiree. “I went every night the weekend it played.”
Veronica ducked her head. Then she took Desiree’s hand in her own and squeezed.
“What?” said Desiree. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t have to work at it,” said Veronica. “You don’t have to work at loving me.”
Desiree gave a brief laugh. “And you have to work at loving me?”
Veronica looked up. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “It’s just that... it’s so hard sometimes to do the right thing, to say the right thing. And then I look around at people like you, like my grandfather—as hokey as it was, his roses, they were his thing, and he believed in them, and it worked.”
Desiree worked her hand free of Veronica’s, then placed Veronica’s hands back into their positions on the piano. “Play me the song,” she said.
Veronica shook her head. “I don’t know it. I can’t remember the bridge.”
Desiree hummed the tune. She was off-key, but she got the point across.
“That was it?” said Veronica. “That’s so damned obvious. How did I not—”
Desiree set two fingers to Veronica’s lips. “Just play,” she said.
“But the words,” said Veronica.
“Make them up,” said Desiree. “Those I can’t remember.”
So, Veronica played. She looked out the window, at the snow falling faintly and faintly falling, wondering where those words were from, that turn of phrase. It wasn’t hers, she knew, but she sang it anyway. Always cribbing from somewhere, always propping herself up with the work of someone else. She shook her head, and was about to stop. But then Desiree laid her head upon Vern’s shoulder. And that was enough to keep her going.
13
Glory, the Grape, Love, and Gold
At seventeen, somewhere between four and five months pregnant, as a great big fuck you to the rumor mill, Veronica closed out a talent show with a scorching guitar solo she played whilst standing atop her high school’s grand piano. And her life as a musician had been pretty much downhill from there. A few months later, she married the sad sack—the runt—who knocked her up. Sure, her father paid for four years at Berklee in exchange for her “loyalty”—whether to the Runt or to her dad’s heteronormative stance on love and marriage, she was never sure—but she’d never had enough time to really learn anything, despite how much she was taught.
“It was actually the middle school’s piano,” Veronica told her daughter as they loaded her gear into the auditorium.
“You mean that one up there?” Tracy asked, pointing
at the stage.
“Yep,” said Veronica, as they walked the aisle. “When they built the high school across the street in the seventies, they forgot to build an auditorium. Or else they were being cheap and figured they could just keep on using this one over here.”
“So, wait,” said Tracy, huffing, straining under the weight of a guitar case she shouldn’t have tried to carry herself. “Did this building used to be the high school?”
“Yes,” said Veronica, plucking the case from her daughter’s hands. “Until 1974. My Uncle Albert was the last class to graduate here.”
“So,” said Tracy, collapsing into a seat in the front row, “the piano could still technically be the high school’s, depending on how old it is.”
“The piano’s not that old,” said Veronica, hoisting her stuff up onto the stage. “It would have to be older than me.”
“Oh,” said Tracy. “And that’s pretty old.”
Veronica did not correct her.
Up on stage, Vern’s cousin Michael was giving instructions to the members of his old high school band. They were reuniting for what would be the penultimate event of Wedding Week: a concert on the same stage where they’d played their first gig many moons before. In her head, Veronica did the math. Tracy had been two and a half then, and Veronica’s biggest accomplishment to that point in her career at Berklee was the venomous dirge she’d made of Ini Kamoze’s “Here Comes the Hotstepper.”
Veronica slumped into a seat beside her daughter.
“You know,” said Tracy, “they’re pretty awesome.”
“You’ve heard them before?” asked Veronica.
Tracy dug around in her backpack and produced her Nomad, headphones coiled around it. “Yep,” she said, patting her music player. “I have their demo tape and their seven inch.”
Veronica turned to face her daughter. “And how, may I ask, did you come upon those? Napster?”
“No way,” said Tracy. “Too dangerous over there now. I’m using Kazaa these days.”
“So, you stole your uncle’s music?”
Tracy groaned. “How could I steal it if it’s not for sale anywhere? You’re crazy sometimes.”
Veronica mussed Tracy’s hair. “It runs in the family,” she said, as she watched her cousin descend from on high to mingle with the commoners.
“Hey,” said Michael.
“Hey yourself,” said Veronica.
“What you listening to?” asked Michael.
Veronica turned to look at Tracy, who had slipped her headphones on. “Tracy, take those off. That’s rude.”
“How’s it rude?” said Tracy. “I’m listening to his band!”
“But we’re about to play,” said Michael, chuckling.
“Really?” said Tracy, pressing play on her Nomad. “Because it looks like you’re about to talk.”
* * *
Tracy’s favorite song by Gideon’s Bible, Uncle Michael’s band, was the one they rehearsed first with Veronica. It was called “Mistake,” and though she wouldn’t know what it was really about until years later, when she wrote an explication of it in high school, she had a sense, even at eight years old. The growl of her uncle was what got that across, the palpable anger in every hiss and snarl. “He was a mistake,” roared Uncle Michael, “she was a mistake,” he continued, “and I was a,” he screeched, trailing off as the guitars kicked in.
And oh, those guitars. Veronica’s was solid, a foundation on which to build upon, but the other girl on guitar, she was fierce. Her name was Robin, and Tracy had heard she and Uncle Michael used to date. Tracy looked around the auditorium for Jenna, the girl Michael was going to marry, to see if she looked jealous. She didn’t. She had a smile on her face, was nodding her head to the beat. Nope, she didn’t look jealous at all. But she should have. Dancing was cool—that’s what Jenna did; she danced—but to shred on a six-string, that was something else.
When the band broke for fifteen, Robin grabbed the seat beside Tracy and sat down. “I hear you’re a fan,” said Robin.
Tracy ducked her head, nodding. She was sure she would cry or faint or otherwise embarrass herself if she looked Robin in the eye. She had listened to little else besides Gideon’s Bible since finding their stuff online a month before. Aside from “Mistake,” the songs Robin sang were the ones she listened to the most.
On stage, Veronica sat at the piano and noodled away at the song she’d written for Desiree back on Valentine’s Day. She looked at her fingers as she played, then looked up at the ceiling, but never out into the empty auditorium, never at any of the people lurking in the wings.
“Your mom has no idea how good she is,” said Robin. “Does she?”
“She says you put her to shame,” said Tracy, focusing her gaze on the screen of her Nomad, on the flashing battery indicator.
“Really?” said Robin, with a chuckle. “Before you showed up, I was telling the guys how jealous I was of her, how nervous I was to be playing next to the one and only Veronica Silver.”
“Nervous?” said Tracy, finally looking at Robin. “You?”
“Oh yeah,” said Robin. “The whole thing makes me nervous, really.”
“Because you and Uncle Michael used to date?”
Robin looked at Tracy, gave her a smile. “That’s part of it, sure.”
“Hmm,” said Tracy.
“Hmm?” said Robin.
“I’m trying to decide something,” said Tracy.
“What’s that?” said Robin.
“Who’s the Desiree in this story? That’s what. Is it you, or is it Jenna?”
Robin raised an eyebrow. “Is Desiree the good guy or the bad guy?”
Even after all these months, Tracy hadn’t decided the answer to that question yet. So, she said, “Neither. She’s the Desiree.”
* * *
When Veronica looked up from the piano, Tracy was in deep conversation with Robin. It was a strange sight, Robin sitting sideways in her chair, knees tucked up under her chin, listening intently to the story Tracy was telling her. Even in her street clothes—torn jeans, a red flannel, and an Appetite for Destruction tank top—she looked like a rock star. But sitting the way she sat, nodding along as she stared into the eyes of the little girl holding court before her, Robin also looked like she might just be a cool babysitter, the kind you hoped to get as a kid, but were scared to have hired as a parent.
“What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Michael asked Veronica as he sidled up beside her.
“Surely, they’re addressing the injustice of Janet Jackson topping the charts again,” said Veronica.
“Good call,” said Michael. “I was thinking they might be tackling the sociopolitical realities of electing a crackhead President of the United States.”
Veronica laughed.
“You ever worry,” said Michael, “about the world we’re leaving behind for her?”
“I ain’t leaving shit behind yet,” said Veronica. “I’m not done with the world myself.”
“You know what I mean,” said Michael.
Veronica wrapped her arm around Michael’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze. “I do,” she said.
Out in the front row, Robin was waving them over. “Michael!” she shouted. “Veronica!” And then she turned, searching the seats for someone else. “Jenna!” she cried, waving her over, too.
They congregated around Tracy, who was biting her lip and tapping her sneakers against the seat, her knees tucked up under her chin now, just like Robin’s.
“What’s up?” asked Veronica.
Robin looked at Tracy and nodded to her, as if to say, go ahead. But Tracy said nothing.
“Trace,” said Michael. “Did you want to tell us something?”
“She wanted to ask us something,” said Robin.
Tracy shook her head in a silent no.
“Okay,” said Robin, looking at Tracy, as if for approval. “You want me to say it?”
It took Tracy a moment, but she did nod.
“Okay,” said Robin. “Tracy is wondering who the Desiree is in Michael’s story: Jenna or me.”
Veronica felt her jaw drooping. She looked over at Jenna, wanting to apologize, but not wanting to hurt her daughter’s feelings by saying “I’m sorry” out loud. It was a valid question, she supposed, just phrased poorly, and perhaps not something Tracy should have asked one of the parties involved.
“Wow,” said Michael, leaning back against the edge of the stage. “I’d never thought about my story having a Desiree in in it.”
“Well,” said Veronica, attempting to lighten the mood, “your story does have a Desiree in it, but that’s a whole other chapter.”
She looked around, waiting for a chuckle, but none came.
Jenna sat down in the seat one row behind Robin’s and leaned toward Tracy. “You’re worried Uncle Michael might be marrying the wrong girl?”
Tracy looked down, bit her lip harder. A tear rolled down her cheek as she nodded.
Michael crouched down in front of Tracy, lifted her chin up. “Honey,” he said. “That is the sweetest…” he said, then trailed off, crying a little himself now. “But you needn’t worry. Let me tell you a story.”
He told the kid-friendly version of it, but Veronica knew this story, knew it well, so her mind filled in the blanks as he went.
* * *
Michael’s family hadn’t had to set the leaf into the middle of their dining room table in years, not since Grammy and Grampy were both still alive and still living upstairs, not since Veronica’s family had moved from across the driveway to across the town. But that night, the night that Robin met Jenna, the night Jenna met everyone in fact, there were six of them. And though they had been cramming five around the unextended table for years—thanks, of course, to Robin—six just wasn’t possible.
Jenna was, at that point, just a college housemate of Michael’s, a friend crashing in the spare bedroom. Her work-study job had offered her extra hours over spring break, and it was an offer that she, like many a poor scholarship student, could not refuse. The dorms were closed, and commuting from her home in Maine certainly wasn’t an option, so Michael had offered her a room. It was as simple as that. Or, well, it should have been. But things were never simple when his little sister got involved. Ashley loved drama, and she was constantly looking for ways to pull people’s strings.
Missing Mr. Wingfield Page 9