Blowin' My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, page 3
Confession #3: Maybe I jumped the gun a little bit on Confession #2. Not sure what that means for Confession #1. Will report back later.
“Can we listen to that one again?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? I could listen to it all day.”
While the song plays again, Juliet lays down, then pats the bed beside her, which I guess means I’m supposed to lay down too. So, I do. I glance at Juliet out of the corner of my eye.
With her eyes closed in listening bliss, her face is full of deep secrets and elaborate stories waiting to be told. People are always asking me what’s wrong or if I’m okay. People tell me I should smile more. I’ll bet no one has ever said any of those things to Juliet. She wears dark purple lipstick and has a nose ring like it’s no big deal. I picture what my mom’s face would do if I showed up with a nose ring.
When “Lithium” ends, Juliet asks if she can see my “domicile.”
“Sure, I guess,” I say.
But when I lead her to the room I’m sharing with Walden, she laughs and says that she meant our “tour bus.” We’re already here, though, and Walden is sitting on his bed watching a movie on TV. He doesn’t have a shirt on, which I would normally barely notice because half the time he doesn’t have a shirt on, but somehow, a shirtless guy in my room feels scandalous with Juliet standing there.
“This is my brother Walden. This is Juliet. Her parents own the resort.” I realize that he must be confused by the fact that I walked off alone two hours ago and came back with someone, so I add, “We just met on the beach. Or whatever. A little while ago.”
“Oh. Cool. Hi,” Walden says.
“You’re the drummer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I love drums,” Juliet says.
Is she flirting? Walden’s sucking in his belly and puffing out his chest, but he’s so skinny the effect is ridiculous. He does push-ups and sit ups all the time, but like my dad, he’s tall, skinny, dramatically unmuscular, and somehow never gains a pound no matter how many burgers and fries he devours.
“Yeah anyway, we were just leaving,” I say, grabbing my keys off the dresser and setting down my backpack, which now holds Juliet’s loaned copy of The Color Purple.
“Your brother is kind of cute,” she says as we walk to the parking lot.
“Gross.”
“I don’t mean for me,” she says, nudging my arm. “He’s not exactly my type. But I think my sister Cordelia would like him. They’re both seventeen. Does he have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
She rubs her hands together. “Matchmaker time.”
What is Juliet’s type, I wonder? Come to think of it, what’s my type? Do I have a type? I know I’m supposed to be guy crazy by now with my hormones raging beyond all control, but I’m not. I look at boys, but not much happens. Maybe if they weren’t so gross.
I almost ask about the blue-eyed boy in the picture in Juliet’s bathroom. If he’s her boyfriend. But something inside of me doesn’t want to know.
Howard the Duck, which is pretty much the opposite of a tour bus, looks even more pathetic than I remember. Parked at the far end of the guest parking lot, his rusty undercarriage splattered with mud, he takes up almost five spaces across, like something someone abandoned. I’d rather crawl in a hole than take Juliet inside.
I show her the beds, the bathroom, the kitchenette, leaving the door open to air out Howard’s funky, lived-in smell, an odd brew of dirty clothes, bacon, cigarettes, and hairspray. It’s a pretty short tour. There’s a milk crusted cereal bowl in the sink. A peanut butter smudge on the counter. It feels ridiculous that we actually live in here. To judge by Juliet’s face, though, we might as well be touring the Palace of Versailles. She plops down in one of the captain’s chairs and twirls around with her feet splayed out like a little kid.
“This is the coolest thing ever. You guys really live in here?”
“Most of the time. Me and Walden sleep in the bunks in the back, me on the left, Walden on the right. My parents sleep up there.” I gesture to the queen bunk in a compartment above the front seats. “Every four or five days, we stay in a hotel. Otherwise, this is home. Until we get home.”
“Which is where?”
“Fairview. It’s in Vermont.”
“Ver-mont,” Juliet repeats, like it’s a word she’s never heard before. “What’s the farthest away you’ve ever been in this?”
“Mostly we tour the Northeast and the Midwest, but last summer my parents got invited to play at a festival in San Francisco, so we drove all the way out there and did some dates on the way back.”
“California! I’d kill to go to California. Tell me about life on the road.”
Her curiosity is a little unnerving, the way she’s so interested in my life. But it also feels nice, like when the sun peeks out from behind the clouds and warms your face on a chilly day.
“You’re looking at it. Lots of driving. Lots of crappy sleep. Lots of reading and solitaire. Lots of smelling my brother’s farts and cologne. We play every night and then drive to the next place and do it all over again. It’s pretty boring.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she says, and I can tell she really means it. She almost sounds offended, and her eyes tighten together. “Rainey, you live the least boring life of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“It’s not that great.”
“You travel all over the country playing music. Crowds cheer for you. Not to mention your parents are famous! You probably sign autographs, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
“See!”
I shrug. I know I should feel proud and flattered by all this, but all I can think about is how much I’d rather have The Overlander Suite for my bedroom and be on a swim team with other kids my age so I could tape their pictures to my mirror. I think about telling my mom how I wanted to take a break from the band. About how she brushed me off like a fly on her shoulder. About how weak and terrified I am.
Sometimes it feels like music chose me and not the other way around. The story’s simple but unchangeable. My parents were touring musicians who didn’t want to be away from their kids, so they brought us on the road and homeschooled us. We spent all our time in dressing rooms and at after parties, surrounded by adults, not another kid in sight. When Walden and I got good enough, we took over as the band and my parents re-branded themselves The Cobb Family Band. The end. I love music more than anything, but sometimes I feel like a character in a fairy tale who doesn’t realize she was born in a prison until she tries to go outside for the first time and the guards stop her at the door.
“Well,” Juliet says, kicking off and spinning around and around and around. “I think your life is really cool.”
• • •
That night, after having dinner in the lodge and watching an orange sunset on the beach with my family, I stay up late reading The Color Purple and immediately get sucked into the story. Thankfully, the noisy air conditioner mostly drowns out Walden’s snoring.
The book is told in the form of letters, which I’ve never seen a book do before. The letters are being written to God by the main character, Celie. Within the first ten pages, she’s already gotten pregnant when her own father rapes her and then ships her off to be a housewife for some jerk named Mr _______, who treats her like dirt. The saddest scene so far is when Celie goes into town with Mr ______ and she sees a little girl who she instantly knows is her own daughter, the one that came from incest who was given away. But, of course, Celie can’t say anything. She has to sit there and watch. It’s like she has no voice of her own. It’s like no one loves her. Reading The Color Purple, it’s hard to feel too sorry for yourself because almost any life seems better than Celie’s.
I try to go to sleep, but I can’t get my mind to power down, so I take out my journal and my lucky pen. The one my grandfather used to write letters home while he was in the South Pacific during World War II. It’s made of heavy polished silver, smooth and solid in my hand. My grandpa died before I was born, and I like the feeling of holding something that he held, that he used the same way I do.
I’m a list maker. It’s my thing, I guess. Making lists helps distract my restless, spastic brain. I start writing. Enjoying the easy, smooth rhythm my pen makes as it glides across the heavy paper.
First, I make a list of the Best Books I’ve Read This Year (East of Eden, Dubliners, The Handmaid’s Tale…). Then Things I Hate About My Body (belly, pimples, small feet, cow lick…), followed by a list of All Time Best Female Blues Singers (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Bonnie Raitt…), then of Things That Are Red Besides My Hair (blood, cinnamon gum, roses…).
I keep thinking about what Juliet said about my life, the buzz of her enthusiasm still echoing inside of me. It’s not easy for me to see myself through someone else’s eyes, but I try.
I just met Juliet earlier today, but it feels like I’ve known her for so much longer. I didn’t know meeting someone could feel like that. Like lightning that doesn’t stop. I think about the way her wet bathing suit felt between my fingers.
Things I Like About Juliet
She has a nose ring.
She also kind of works for her family.
She swims like a dolphin.
She’s funny.
She’s ambitious, but not in an annoying way.
She ACTUALLY thinks my name is cool.
She might know even more about music than I do.
She’s named after a Shakespeare heroine.
She’s probably the coolest person I’ve ever met.
Because a list of nine feels incomplete, I try to think of something else to add. When I do, I make sure Walden’s still asleep, then put my pen to the paper.
She’s pretty.
But pretty doesn’t look quite right on the page, doesn’t do her justice. So, I cross it out and write what feels closer to the truth.
She’s beautiful. That’s the truth.
Track Five
Off to the Races
Ten o’clock Sunday morning, our first of two rehearsals today, and Dad’s already making excuses. Not a good start. His target at the moment is the shoddy sound system in Evergreen Ballroom where we’re rehearsing for our first show tomorrow night.
I’m at the upright piano stage left, my hair up in a ponytail because it’s so hot in here. At least all the piano keys work. Walden’s behind his drum kit. Mom and Dad are up front, Dad on guitar, Mom on bass. Then, standing in a line beside Mom, is the St. Regis Horn Section, three handsome guys who showed up a few minutes ago from Detroit, all in suits and sunglasses, all looking really slick. Though my mom looks nice, as always, in black jeans and a white blouse with her long red hair spilled around her shoulders, my dad, as usual, looks a bit, let’s call it ruffled. I wish he’d burn that wrinkled flannel and buy himself some new Levi’s. The horn players are all freshly shaved, musky and clean smelling.
When I hand them the horn parts I wrote, they look at me, then at each other.
“I heard you were young, but c’mon, man,” the trumpet player says, giggling.
“Ignore Damon,” says the saxophone player, shooting the trumpet player a look. “My little brother was born with his foot in his mouth. I’m Simon. And you must be Rainey.” He offers me his hand and I shake it. “They all said the same thing about Stevie Wonder when he first came on the scene. Just keep doing what you do.”
“Charts look damn good, though,” the trumpet player, Damon, says, flipping pages. “You really wrote these?”
I shrug, feeling my cheeks flush with pride.
“You’ve already met Damon,” Simon says, “and that’s Chad, the black sheep of the family.” The trombone player laughs at this, I think because he’s white and Damon and Simon are both black, then waves and says, “Yo yo yo.”
Similar to the shows we’ve been doing all summer, our five shows here are each two sets. What’s different this week is that set one is going to be stripped down, Dad and Mom playing as a duo like when they first started out. Mom thinks that seeing Luce and Tracy in the classic format that made them famous will pull on the audience’s nostalgia strings and send them to the merchandise table. I hope she’s right. Set two, though, is going to be a burner, an electric set packed with Cobb hits and soul and R&B classics like “Knock on Wood” and “Get Ready.” Before tour started, Mom got this idea to add a horn section for the residency and asked me to write horn parts for the songs she chose. I’m not a horn player, but I can hear harmony really well. I’ve been working on them off and on all summer, listening to lots of Stax and Motown to get inspired. I’m nervous but excited to hear the horn players bring my charts to life.
Dad kneels down and repositions his monitor, then fiddles with the tone knobs on his Fender tube amp. He’s right. The sound in here sucks. Buzzing monitors. Old microphones. A boxy room with flat walls that don’t lift and carry the music.
But the real problem isn’t that Cascade Family Resort clearly needs a sound system upgrade. It’s that Dad’s obviously nervous and acting weird. Skittish, distracted, temperamental.
When I was younger, maybe nine or ten, which is around when it started being an issue, stage fright used to be something he could control. Something we could even joke about. He’d get antsy in the days before we left for tour. Then about an hour before each show he’d start pacing the dressing room. Chain smoking Camels. Re-tuning his Telecaster a million times. My mom sat me down one day and said, “You know why he gets like this right?”
“No.”
“It’s because he’s scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of playing. Of the crowd. Of making mistakes. Of feeling exposed.”
“But Dad’s been playing music his whole life. How can you get scared of doing something you’re so good at?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me either. But it’s nothing that you’ve done, okay? Or me. Or your brother. It’s something Dad’s going through.”
My dad throws up every night 10-15 minutes before we go on stage. I’m not kidding. If he seems extra nervous, my mom will ask him if he remembered to “take out the trash,” which is code for him finding the nearest bathroom and sticking his finger down his throat. Some nights he’s his old, relaxed self. Lazy Luce Cobb they used to call him because he was so laid back. Other nights he sweats through his shirt before the show even starts, and my mom has to practically drag him on stage.
Lately, Dad’s stage fright feels more and more like a volcano. And all volcanoes erupt eventually.
Rehearsal starts with “Tell the Truth,” my parents’ best-known song. The one everybody knows because it’s still a fixture on light rock radio, slipped in there somewhere between “Lay Down Sally” and “Listen to the Music.” But Dad keeps stopping us halfway through, turning dials on his amp, tapping the microphone, saying “Check one two, test test.” As if he’s trying to find the reason it doesn’t sound right. He walks over to the edge of the stage and looks out into the empty house. I look at the horn players, who look at each other. The looks on their faces say something like, We showed up expecting to play with Luce Cobb, and we get this guy instead?
“Sorry,” Mom says, sounding stressed, tying her hair in a bun and rolling up her sleeves, “we haven’t played with horns in a couple years. We’ll get there.”
After talking to the sound guy, who’s not a sound guy at all but a handy man at the resort, she and I both now know what the horn players don’t. That not even a third of the tickets for our opening night show have been sold yet, meaning it could be a very small crowd. Small crowds have been haunting us all tour, and we still have boxes and boxes of CDs and T-shirts left.
“Hey, it’s cool,” Simon says. “But we got a lot of songs to get through.”
“Luce?” Mom says, but Dad stands there frozen like a statue. “Luce?”
There’s more to the story, though. Mostly it has to do with money and never having enough of it.
Mom’s pretty unflappable, but sometimes when she gets really frustrated with Dad, or when the crowds are lousy on back-to-back nights, I’ll catch her saying things like, “I don’t know what went wrong. This was supposed to be easier by now.”
Back in the late 70s, Mom and Dad were on the cover of Rolling Stone, “Tell the Truth” made the top ten, and they played all over the world. They opened for The Eagles and Neil Young and headlined their own shows across the country. But there’s only a little bit of room at the top in music, and when New Wave took over in the 80s, their country soul got pushed to the side. Every year, the crowds got a little bit smaller. Don’t even say the words Duran Duran in front of my dad. He’ll get really mad.
In other words, it’s really important that we play great tomorrow night to generate some buzz for the rest of the week.
Cautiously, I get up from the piano and walk over to my dad, like he’s an animal I’m trying not to spook. My mom says I have a calming effect on him. And I guess that’s true. He looks down at me with fear in his eyes. Underneath the shagginess, Dad’s still really handsome with freckles and auburn hair that curls at the tips. I think he has the world’s kindest face.
“I thought ballrooms were supposed to have chandeliers and gold walls,” I say. “This looks like a place old people play bingo.”
He chuckles. “How’d you get so smart, huh?”
“I get it from my dad.”
“Sounds like a hell of a guy.”
“He has his moments.”
“I’ll bet.”
I nod back over at the band.
“Should we try it again from the top? We get one good one under our belt and then we’ll be off to the races.”
It’s the expression he always uses. Like, if we finish a good show, he’ll say, “Man, we were off to the races tonight!” If anyone else said it, it would sound stupid, but Dad makes it sound funny and sweet. Like you’re part of something important.
