Blowin' My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, page 11
After we’re satisfied with “Seven Bridges Road,” we move on to my dad’s choice, Robert Johnson’s “Come on in My Kitchen.” During the second run through, Dad grabs an empty beer bottle from under his chair and uses it as a slide on his guitar. It sounds surprisingly beautiful, proving, once again, that my dad can still make anything sound good on guitar. We work the song a few more times until Dad twirls his index finger in a circle and says, “We got it.”
“What did you bring, Rainey?” Mom asks.
“Oh,” I say, remembering that I was supposed to bring a new song arrangement to work on. I could probably make something up, but I don’t want to. And there’s a tiny little part of me that can’t wait to see the disappointed look on my mom’s face when I tell her I forgot.
“Late and unprepared,” Mom says, “a double whammy.”
“Just do one of your weirdo songs,” Walden says.
I swallow. Uh oh.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad asks.
“She has this secret mix tape she listens to all the time with all these weird songs on it. There’s even a song on there that has fuck in the title.”
“A song by whom?” Mom says.
“I don’t know,” Walden says. “It’s called ‘Fuck and Run’.”
“Well, that’s just…I don’t even know,” Mom says.
“I hate you,” I say to Walden. And even though I know I don’t mean it, in that moment, I do a little bit.
“Hey,” Dad says. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s your own fault,” Walden says. “I told you not to be late again. I told you to bring a song. I told you.”
“It’s not like they’ve never heard that word before, Tracy,” Dad says.
“In a song title? What else is on this tape?”
I shrug. “Just songs.”
“Go get it please,” she says.
“What? Are you serious?”
“Don’t I sound serious?”
“But…it’s all the way over in my room.”
“We’ll wait.”
Feeling panicked, I look from Mom to Dad to Walden.
“Tracy,” Dad says.
“Don’t,” Mom shoots back.
“But it’s mine,” I say.
“I just want to see it.”
“The songs aren’t inappropriate. And that one song is really about other stuff, like how hard it is to get close to people and how even if you’re with other people you can still feel empty and alone. She uses bad words to express what she’s feeling. It’s social commentary.”
“Well then I look forward to hearing it,” Mom says.
Walden looks panicked now as well.
“You don’t need to do that, Mom.”
“I certainly do. Please go, Rainey. And come right back. Rehearsal isn’t over yet.”
Feeling miserable, I hobble over to my room, grab Juliet’s mix, and then hobble back to Evergreen Ballroom. There’s part of me that almost doesn’t come back, but where would I go? Nowhere, that’s where. I’m here. I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
“Blowin’ my mind like a summer breeze,” Mom reads. “Well, well, well.” She says band names aloud at random. “Veruca Salt. No Doubt. The Cranberries. Dinosaur Jr. I’ve never heard of any of them.”
“That’s what I said,” Walden says.
“There it is. Fuck and Run. Liz Phair. Where did this come from?” But then she nods to herself. “Never mind. I know exactly where it came from. The same place your nose ring and your lateness are coming from. Juliet.”
“It’s just music,” I say. “It’s not Nazi propaganda or anything.”
“That may be,” Mom says, “but I don’t think you should spend any more time with that girl.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s so unfair!”
“We’ll talk more about it later.”
“But—”
“Later.”
During the duo set that night, Mom and I barely even look at each other, and I wonder if the audience can somehow feel how mad we are at each other in the way we play. We both love music too much to disrespect it by playing bad because we’re mad at one another, but there’s none of the warmth or banter of the past couple nights. Not much spontaneity or improv. We play one song, and then the next one. Like it’s our job. Which it is.
The electric set has gotten better each night, and tonight it purrs like an engine on a smooth stretch of highway, barely a note out of place. But after a two-song encore, we’re all standing in the hallway outside the ballroom, bathed in sweat, shoulders collectively slumped. Four shows in a row has taken its toll. With a lit cigarette in his mouth, my dad is leaning back against the cement wall with his eyes closed. Walden wipes his brow with a small white towel. Mom is just staring, staring. Even the guys in the St. Regis Horns, who almost always have something to say, aren’t talking.
“Listen to them,” Walden says.
He’s already apologized to me, but it’s going to take me a long time to forgive him.
The crowd’s cheering is riotous, and slowly shifts into something more than shouts and whoops. More than just sound. They’re chanting something, clapping as they say it over and over again, a two-syllable pulse.
Some-thing!, some-thing!, some-thing!, some-thing!
Mom is standing across from me. We lock eyes. My name. That’s what they’re chanting.
“Rai-ney, Rai-ney, Rai-ney, Rai-ney.”
Over and over again.
Dad’s beside me, and as he squeezes my shoulder, he whispers, “You were born for this, Rain Man.”
So, I go back out again. Alone. The more times I do it, the better it feels. I sit down at the piano and say, “Thanks for a great week, everybody,” and follow my fingers as they lead me into a slow blues in F. For the third time this week, I choose a song from my mix. A song for Juliet that nobody knows is for her but me, a whisper in the dark. I play “Nothing Compares to You” by Sinead O’Connor.
Sometimes when I’m performing, it’s like a dream. Something that’s happening to me rather than something I’m actually doing. Like the ME me has stepped outside of my physical body and is drifting around watching while my body plays the music. But not right now. Right now, I wrap my whole self around every word, every syllable. Feel the weight of the piano keys beneath my fingers, the power of my breath in my lungs. I don’t ever want to forget this moment.
Track Eighteen
A Word That Rhymes with Dictator
Friday afternoon. Here I am hunched over my brother’s guitar, again. Writing another song, again. A pissed off, middle finger of a song this time. It’s already my third song in two days, so I guess the songs are writing me at this point. Where are all these songs coming from?
This morning, only four or five hours ago, actually, I wrote a follow up to “Ordinary Girl,” a ballad called “Secret Star,” in honor of my first tattoo, which still stings, a small tight pain, a fresh bug bite on my foot. The melody was there in my head when I opened my eyes, hovering in front of me like morning mist off a lake.
I’ve got a secret star,
I’ll bet you’d like to know where I keep it.
It’s tucked inside a hidden constellation
Where only I can see it.
This new song, though, opus number three, is born out of rage, and aimed at a specific target. Hint: she gave birth to me. It’s about being made to grow up too fast and I decide to call it “Peter Pan in Reverse.” I don’t even care how obvious it is that it’s about my mom.
The strum pattern is fast and aggressive, my hair flying around as I play it, and I can already hear thunderous drums coming to life behind it. I hear loud, in-your-face, Nirvana-level distortion.
Right around the time I’m running out of ideas in the third verse, unable to think of a word that rhymes with dictator, I lie back on the bed and look up at the speckled white ceiling again. All the same cracks are there. Broken highways and detours to nowhere. I’ve always heard about heartache and crushes and being love-sick, but those words haven’t meant much to me until now, when someone is standing on my chest, and I can’t get enough air in my lungs. The one thing in the world I care about in that moment is being with Juliet, and now, thanks to my mom, it’s the one thing I can’t do.
What a life I lead.
The phone rings so loud I shoot up as if the cops have kicked down the door. Tentatively, I lift the receiver and bring it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“It’s public enemy number one,” Juliet says.
I’m so excited and breathless I can’t speak at first.
“Hello? Rainey?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m here. How’d you get my number?”
“Don’t be too impressed. The phone numbers are the room number and then the pound button. Can you come swimming?”
“I’m, uh, well…”
“I know you’re not supposed to hang out with me. My mom already told me what your mom said about what a horrible influence I am. But can you come anyway? My friend Kelly is coming. And my friend Roger too. They go to my school. They’re really cool. I mean, what are your parents going to do, put you in jail?”
“When are you going?”
“Just, like, now or whatever.”
The line goes quiet for a long beat.
“I can’t come to the show tonight,” Juliet says.
“What? But it’s the last night. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“I know. But I have to go with my mom to visit my grandma in South Bend tonight. She’s really sick and we have to bring her medicine and clean her house and it’s a whole big thing. I can’t get out of it.”
“Oh. Sorry. About your grandma, I mean.”
“Thanks. So, are you coming or what?”
“I have rehearsal in thirty minutes. If I’m late again my mom will totally disown me.”
“You’re pretty boring sometimes, you know that.”
This comment hurts so bad I don’t know what to say.
“Stay there. I’m coming to you,” Juliet says.
“What, no, you…” but the line goes dead.
I fly into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I yank my hair roughly out of its ponytail and drag my fingers through it a few times, then shake the tips. It looks decent enough. I slick on some deodorant and change into a clean T-shirt, then pace until Juliet’s knock, after which I pull her inside, my finger crushing my lips telling her to be quiet.
“My parents’ room is right down the hall,” I whisper, “and if they catch you here, I’ll be grounded until I’m thirty.”
“Wow, it really stinks like cologne in here,” Juliet says, waving at the air.
“Walden’s obsessed. It drives me crazy. I watered it down, but it doesn’t even help. He bathes in it.”
“Oh my god, and he leaves his underwear on the floor?”
Juliet picks up a pair of Walden’s boxer shorts and twirls them around by the waistband.
“That’s disgusting.”
“I always wanted a brother,” she says.
Soon we’re kissing on my bed, and it’s another endless, bottomless kiss. A Hollywood kiss. Her lips gently explore every little part of my neck and my whole body wants to scream. Our hair is everywhere, tall grass tangled up in the wind, and our foreheads keep gently colliding in a way that makes us giggle snort, which makes us laugh even more. Juliet’s nose is small, her shoulders bony. My big hands practically cover the entirety of her lower back. I can taste sugary soda and smoke on her mouth.
I keep telling Juliet she should leave, that we’re going to get caught, but every time she kisses my words away, and it makes me care about getting caught about as much as I care about the weather in Japan.
But the sound of Walden’s key in the door is unmistakable.
Metal on metal. The latch giving. The door swinging open. As if on springs, Juliet launches herself off me so that when Walden steps fully into the room wearing shorts and a tank top with his sunglasses still on, she’s lying right beside me in the bed.
Between our touching shoulders, messy hair, and heavy breathing, there’s definitely something suspicious going on here. Did my brother just catch me kissing a girl?
“Hey Walden,” Juliet says, casual as ever, propping herself up on her elbows. This girl amazes me. You’d think we were sitting here playing cards with how relaxed she sounds.
“Hey,” Walden says, taking off his shades and setting his massive Stephen King paperback on the desk. Oh my God. Oh my God. The way he said hey was so weird, wasn’t it? He knows something is up. I wish I knew what he was thinking. “I thought you two weren’t supposed to hang out.”
Juliet rolls off the bed and stands up. “Yeah, I know. We’re not. But I can’t come to the show tonight, so I came to say goodbye to Rainey while I had the chance. I know you’re too cool to tell on your sister, though.”
There’s an awkward pause while Juliet puts on her sweatshirt and slips into her flip-flops. Then she says, “Yeah, so, you know, don’t forget to write, you crazy kids.”
And with that she’s gone. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.
Looking at my brother, I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen next. Should I confess and try to explain myself? Jump right into a denial? Wait for Walden to say something? Run out of the room screaming?
The question is, would I care if he knew we’d been kissing? I haven’t spent too much time thinking about that. It’s confusing. But yeah, I decide, I’d definitely care if he knew.
“She is so weird,” Walden says, then walks over to the corner and picks up the canvas bag with all his drumsticks and brushes in it. He stops, opens his mouth, closes his mouth. Then leaves. I don’t like when there’s tension between me and my brother. But it’s his fault. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
• • •
Before the show that night, the house manager appears in the dressing room doorway to give us the news. It’s a sellout. Our third in a row. That means we get the bonus on top of our full fee. More importantly, it means I don’t have to listen to arguments about money all the way back to Vermont.
Simon’s beating me at chess. Walden’s doing triplets on his drum pad. Mom is messing with the set list. Dad’s silently smoking, flipping through an issue of Newsweek. Chad and Damon are in the bathroom primping.
“We did it,” Dad says, a small hint of pride and triumph in his voice.
“Congrats, you guys,” Simon says, casually taking the remaining knight I was so sure was protected. “This has been an unforgettable gig for us. A true pleasure.”
“How did you do that?” I ask.
“You have to pay attention,” Simon says.
The one slight relief is that Dad doesn’t have to do his Houdini act tonight. Everyone finally seems to understand that I’m doing the duo set, which cuts the tension between my parents a little bit. Mom pulls me aside before the lights go down. I’m still so mad I can barely look at her. She waits until I meet her eyes. I can smell her perfume. See the perfectly laid path of her lipstick.
“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, Rainey,” she says. “But one of my jobs in this world is to try to make sure nothing bad happens to you. And sometimes it’s a messy business.”
I nod.
“I love you, girl.”
I nod.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, those words feel good to hear.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to say them back.
“C’mon,” she says when the lights go down, “time to rock and roll.”
• • •
After the show, we eat pizza and chat it up with the St. Regis Horns, talking about the week, talking about how we’re going to do this again sometime. That’s what musicians always say after good gigs. We gotta do this again. Nobody wants that good feeling to end so you pretend you can hold onto it.
Before they leave, Simon comes over to me, a stack of papers in his hand. I can see that it’s the horn charts I wrote for this week.
“You mind if I keep these?” he asks.
“No,” I say, feeling touched, and a little embarrassed. “Sure.”
“Keep going, Rainey,” he says, “don’t stop.”
“Okay,” I say.
I had this grand plan in my mind about going down to the beach to say goodbye to the lake and feel sorry for myself, but by the time we leave Evergreen Ballroom, it’s after one in the morning, and I just want to go to bed. I change into my PJs, wash my face, then read the last few pages of The Color Purple to the lullaby of Walden’s snoring. Celie and her sister Nettie are reunited at last. It’s beautiful. A fitting ending.
Celie has finally found some measure of peace and happiness, but all I can think about after I turn off the light and lie there waiting to fall asleep is how much hell she had to go through to get there.
Track Nineteen
Things I Wonder About
The story is simple but unchangeable.
The residency and our week at Cascade Family Resort was the best week of my life. And now it’s over. Seven days. Five shows. Poof.
Here I am packing up my duffel bag in near silence, sipping a cup of coffee with cream and sugar, feeling numb with each T-shirt and pair of socks I slide into my bag. I remind myself how tired I am of the meager assortment of clothes I’ve been cycling through the past seven weeks, how nice it will be to have my full dresser at my disposal in a few days. It doesn’t work.
Walden is doing the same, choking his coffee down black because he thinks it’s manly, grimacing with each sip. Guys really are ridiculous.
On the television, a James Bond movie plays on mute. Bond is on skis, dodging bullets.
“Rainey,” he says, sitting down on the bed. I turn. His face is full of things he wants to say. Walden looks like Dad, with auburn hair and a round chin. He’s been letting his facial hair grow, but doesn’t have much to show for it other than a thin layer of scattered whiskers.
