An Autumn to Remember: A Novel (Elmtown Series Book 1) (19 page)

26

   “Your father and I have decided to try to work things out,” Teresa said as she drove her gray Mercedes off of the college’s premises. Chelsea’s car was going to remain at the mechanic’s for two more days and she was too tired to walk home so she asked her mother to pick her up on her way home.

   “That’s a good thing,” said Chelsea. “I guess.” She shrugged, her voice having a trace

of ambivalence to it.

   “Of course it’s a great thing. Why would you doubt that it was?” Teresa asked and then turned down the volume of the car radio.

   “It’s just...I don’t know how people do it. I know he’s my father and I love him and would love for you two to be together forever but I just don’t know how women do it in these types of situations. Live with a man who has cheated on you. It’ll be hard for me to trust him again. It’s probably different when you’re married I guess.” She shook her head.

   “What are you talking about?” Teresa looked completely baffled. “Who cheated on who?”

   “Mom you don’t have to keep pretending for his sake. I saw Dad’s text messages to a lady called Nasty Nancy or something like that. The fact that you had problems doesn’t justify his having an affair.”

   “Chelsea! What in the world are you talking about? Your father has never cheated on me. Nasty Nancy? That’s his pet name for cousin Brenda.”

   Chelsea was taken aback. “No Mom. I asked him for his phone one day at Holborn in London. He left me in the car to get something from his bank manager. I wanted to play a game on his Nokia phone while I waited. A text came in from someone called Nasty Nancy. He said he missed her. She said the same and they sent kisses to each other. He talked about being tired of arguing with you and she asked if he wanted to move to her place in Scotland. They both ended with ‘I love you.’ It was just too uncomfortable to bring up with you but when I heard you yelling at him a few days later, I sensed you must have figured it out.”

   Teresa’s eyes widened. “Oh my God Chelsea, I was yelling at him about the company. Brenda lives in Scotland now, we just never went to visit her because I don’t really get along with her. That’s how they talk to each other. It’s been that way since we were in NYU. I’m afraid you are totally mistaken darling. My issues with your dad have nothing to do with him cheating on me. You got that one wrong honey. Wow, is that why you stopped talking to him?”

   Chelsea, overwhelmed with embarrassment, couldn’t say anything more. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was for judging her father without knowing the truth. She wondered how she could have been so blinded that she didn’t try to find out the truth before passing judgment. All those months of not talking to him immediately felt like wrongfully imprisoning a criminal only to find out they were innocent. Somehow it made her think of Jamie. Should I have at least listened to what he had to say?
She didn’t deny that she missed him but those kids were real. Three of them. Real eyes. Real ears. Real hands and feet. Three real boys who belonged to Jamie. What was there to clarify? she wondered. She cried in her room when they got home. She had some serious apologies to make to her father.

***

   “Chelsea, come downstairs,” Tyler said. “Dad is here.”

   “Oh OK, I’ll be there in a sec,” Chelsea said just as Tyler turned back and scampered down the stairs. Chelsea heard some clattering and hollered. “Are you OK Tyler?” His excitement whenever their Dad was home after some weeks of absence had not changed through the years.

   “I’m fine,” he said, managing to get to the end of the stairs unhurt.

   After five minutes, Chelsea walked down the stairs slowly and through the dining room wondering what she would say to her father. As she got closer, she heard bursts of laughter and it hit her that they hadn’t all been together as a family for a while and she missed that.

   “Hey,” Chelsea said. She leaned against the doorjamb and played with the tip of her hair.

   “Hey princess,” Cameron said smiling at his daughter like everything was OK between them.

   “Why are you guys laughing?” Chelsea asked, not knowing what else to say. She noticed he’d lost some weight and wondered how she didn’t see that during her birthday party.

   “Tyler and your mother were just messing with my head,” he said as he stopped tickling Tyler who looked like he was going to pass out laughing. “I asked about school and they both said he dropped out. I was about to go into a frenzy when they both started laughing at my folly,” he said then pointed at the empty love seat. “Anyway, do you wanna have a seat? Your brother wants us to watch Lord of the Rings and we’ve almost convinced your mother to provide us with some popcorn.”

   Chelsea smiled and sat down. “Of course.”

   “You are both spoiled kids. Go make your own popcorn,” Teresa said shaking her head.

   “That’s probably your fault,” Cameron said. “You never allowed us men in the kitchen for many years, now we have to make our own popcorn without training.”

   “Oh wow, such hardship. Such distress. The painful experience of being subjected to popcorn making,” Teresa said. Talking on the phone for the past two weeks without fighting with Cameron made it easier for them to relate with each other, almost like everything was fine. It was a good start but they both knew there would be bumps along the way especially when they started to reopen old wounds. For now, they decided to just have fun as a family.

   “I’ll go make it myself. It’s not such a big deal,” Tyler said and started towards the kitchen.

   Teresa sprang to her feet. “No thank you Mr. Sous Chef. The last time you tried that, my kitchen was left upside down.”

   “Mom that was a long time ago. I know how to make it now.” He walked in front of her into the kitchen.

   Chelsea began to look at her feet as she was left alone in the living room with her father. She wanted to ask him how he had been. She wanted to tell him how much she missed him and how sorry she was for acting like a jerk. She wanted to admit that her behavior was distasteful but she said nothing.

   “How are you?” Cameron asked as he slotted the DVD into the player.

   Chelsea looked up. “Fine. How are you?”

   “Not so good.” He smiled. “I can’t live without you guys. I missed you like crazy.” His words pierced through her heart like a knife.

   “I missed you too,” she said.
I’ve been so cruel to you.

   “I know,” he said. “How has grad school been by the way?”

   “Good. Tough, challenging but good.”

   “Resilience. That’s what grad school prepares you for. I’m glad you are doing good.”

   They both smiled at each other.

***

   Chelsea woke up around 3:00 a.m. to study. Her plan had been to study that evening but since she didn’t, she needed to regain all that time she spent watching Lord of the Rings with her parents and Tyler. She slipped her feet into her Mickey Mouse house slippers and held the railings as she walked down the stairs half-asleep.

   She saw light from the kitchen cast a man’s shadow on the floor and smelled the rich aroma of hot coffee and cream.

   “Hello pumpkin. Coffee?” Cameron asked.

   “Hi Dad, no thanks. It’s not winter yet.” She smiled and reached for the kettle.

   “Right, I’ll make you some tea then.” He waved her away.

   “Oh thanks Dad,” Chelsea said and sat down. Him making tea for her reminded her of childhood. He would come over to help Teresa in the kitchen but since he wasn’t much of a great cook he would do simpler tasks like washing the dishes, preparing the table, making coffee and preparing the kids’ cereals. They looked like the happiest couple until they got to England when Cameron realized how running their engineering consulting firm was taking too much time away from spending time with Chelsea and Tyler. He suggested that he needed to cut back on work. That was the beginning of their fighting. Teresa thought that he was going against their plan. She stopped being an active part of the business so she could focus on the kids and it was his responsibility to push the company towards the goals they had set in the beginning.

   “So how is Jamie doing? I didn’t get to talk to him at the party. I see he’s all grown up now. It’s amazing how you all have grown. I liked his speech by the way.”

   “He’s fine,” Chelsea said and immediately realized she didn’t really know how he was.

   “There you go,” he said, placing the cup of steaming black tea on the countertop.

   “Thank you. Hmmm, it’s perfect, not too hot.”

   “I still know some things about my daughter. Hopefully Jamie doesn’t know her more than I do.”

   “I don’t think so,” Chelsea said trying hard not to allow the mention of Jamie’s name drive her to tears.

   “I hope so. How is your boyfriend John? I haven’t even had time to get to know him.”

   Gosh he is so far behind where I am,
Chelsea thought. “We broke up Dad.”

   By the time she recounted everything that happened in the past few weeks, the lump in her throat started to break her voice.

   “I’m sorry. That’s a lot. But I think you should have a word with Jamie.”

   “You think so?”

   “Yes. He is a good person. We all make mistakes you know.”

   “Dad?”

   “Yes?”

   “I’m so sorry,” she said wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I’ve been thinking about how to apologize for how I treated you. I thought you were cheating on Mom. I was just–” she sighed.

   “It’s OK honey,” Cameron said and held her. “Your mom told me already. Like I said, everybody makes mistakes, we just have to learn that people aren’t perfect and we must be ready to forgive because we aren’t perfect ourselves. Love cannot survive without forgiveness. If love were a person, forgiveness would be their blood.”

   “Thanks Dad, I realize that now.”

   “So will you?”

   “Will I what?”

   “Talk to Jamie. I kinda like the boy. I can only imagine what he’s going through now, trying to gets to grips with the reality of being a father of three boys. Wow. Anyway, I’m not pushing you into getting back with him. I’m just saying, at least give him a chance to say sorry. You can still be friends you know.”

   Chelsea nodded as she listened to her father’s advice. “I will. It’ll be hard but I’ll talk to him,” she said and cried some more holding on to her father’s pajamas.

27

   Jamie woke up suddenly before sunrise. His belly pressed hard against the sweat-drenched bed as he tried to catch his breath. His dream was so vivid. Though he didn’t know where he was trying to get to in the dream, one thing was clear, he was trying to cross a river filled with all kinds of wild creatures to get to his destination. He almost reached the bank when his leg got hooked by a mysterious water plant and could no longer move. That was when he woke up.

   He got up, grabbed his toothbrush, toothpaste, towel and went into the bathroom for a hot shower. Sometimes his dreams were meaningless. He would often have them when he had too many things running through his mind. At other times, he had dreams that served as warnings of things to come like when he dreamed that his father drowned in a swimming pool. He wondered where dreams came from and hoped this dream was as meaningless as the one he had days before where he saw himself living somewhere in the wild with five aliens who seemed to be his brothers.

   As he brushed his teeth, he wondered if they had Wi-Fi available somewhere in the building so he could check his email. He needed to know if he received any emails from South Korea. Maybe someone had some information for him about Ji-Min’s whereabouts or contact details. How could she appear with them like that and then just disappear like it was nothing,
he thought, but he knew he had no right to think like that. Her disappearance was nothing worse than what he did to her.

   He was invited for breakfast at 9:00 a.m. where he was introduced to the other band members and noticed how most of them were much older than he was except for the two who played the trumpet and the alto saxophone. They looked like they were still in their mid to late twenties.

   They took him through how the band prepared for night performances, the types of songs they performed, how many songs they did each night and which nights were busiest. There were two guitarists, one pianist who was the leader and a drummer with braided hair. They hired backups from the area but didn’t make them permanent members of the band. The temporary backups were cheap and easy to let go of when no longer needed.

   “So you’ll need to learn these five songs in the next month. I’ll help you with some vocal exercises so you can sing comfortably on certain chords,” the pianist said with his husky voice, handing over a piece of paper to Jamie. He was told that Jamie was a really good vocalist but that was the same thing people said about many others who struggled at first. Many vocalists he had encountered were challenged by these five songs so he always used them to test and stretch them. That way they were clear on the expected standard and he could also use them to help the new singers get better.

   Jamie listened and nodded but wondered why the man assumed he would find the songs hard.

   “Also, we’ll need to know songs you’ve performed before so we can rehearse them with you. That way, we’ll still have songs we can perform while you learn these five. Plus it’ll help us build some onstage chemistry with you. Once these five songs have been perfected,” he pointed to the paper and scratched his beard, “we’ll move on to the next five. That’s how we work here.”

   “I can do these songs,” Jamie said confidently, his eyes still scanning the list in his hand. “I’ve listened to them many times.”

   “Dude, knowing a song and being able to perform them are two different things,” one of the guitarists said. Jamie heard two people giving out a laugh. “Have you performed them before?”

   “No I haven’t but I rehearse a lot on my own. I can do them,” Jamie said again with gentle self-confidence.

   They all looked at themselves and smiled at his naivety. Without preparation considered above and beyond, being on a stage of this stature, in this kind of city, could destroy even the best of singers. In addition to the difficulty of singing the chords of these particular songs that were signatures of the nightclub, improvisation was still expected from a jazz vocalist. From their experience you had to train like a maniac to have a chance of a decent performance.

The last singer who came from Chicago left after he choked on stage. His preparation had been of the highest intensity, but he still couldn’t pull it off.

   “Ok let’s do it,” the pianist said getting up from his seat, hiding his smirk. He knew they were about to have one of those fun moments where they would laugh at the younger ones who appeared more confident than their abilities–a category he thought Jamie belonged to.

   They all got up from their seats and marched to the stage as Jamie followed behind. He put his guitar in a corner. He came down with it thinking they were going to ask him to play something but no one asked whether he could play an instrument.

   “OK, let’s do ‘Droplets of Blue Water’ by Robert E. Benson,” the pianist said. He ran his fingers across the keys of the dark brown grand piano as everyone prepared their instruments.

   Jamie just stood there nonchalantly as if he had no care in the world. He put his hands in his pockets and bent his neck, his head hanging to the side like a bored teenager. To the ordinary eye, his posture made him look unready. He moved closer to the mic stand. If only they knew how many times I’ve done Benson’s songs in my room,
he thought.

   “One two three…”

   They played the intro twice and Jamie, with his rich baritone voice pounced on the accompaniment and performed the song with the ease of a fish thrown into water, adding his own improvisation in perfect moments. He ended his singing with a vibrato effect and faded out softly as the accompaniment reached the end with a magnificent outro. The song seemed shorter than the seven minutes it took because they all didn’t want to stop.

   The men were quiet as they looked at each other. Then the drummer blurted out, “Was that incredible or what?”

   The rest of them started to clap, they left their instruments and came over to Jamie. Some of them shook his hand with disbelief still written on their faces. Others patted him on the back warmly.

   “What’s your name again?” the pianist asked looking completely egg-on-your-face embarrassed.

   “Jamie.”

   “Well, Jamie. I’ll be honest with you,” he said, “I have never heard anything like that before in my life.”

   “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

   “You are really, really good. How long have you been singing?” one of the guitarists asked.

   “All my life,” Jamie said smiling happily thinking about how proud his father would have been.

   “Welcome to the team son.”

   In the next three hours they rehearsed all the five songs with Jamie and as soon as they were done, Mr. Smith called him into his office.

   “Jamie, have a seat,” he said gesturing towards the white office guest chairs.

   The office had pictures everywhere. Pictures of Smith with celebrities and renowned music executives who had visited the nightclub over the years littered the wall like plaques. They represented a sense of conquest and Jamie could tell that the man was proud of what he had achieved in Allen City.

   “I see you’re settling in quite well here.”

   “Yes they’ve all been really nice and the rehearsal went really well. I feel very welcome.”

   “I am glad. The guys seem really shocked about your ability. Guerini already told me how good you were and I trusted his judgment but even I didn’t think you’d be this good. I think you’re the best I have seen here.”

   “Thank you Mr. Smith. I appreciate your kind words,” Jamie said.

   “Call me Austin. Everyone here does,” he said then took a small picture frame from his table and handed it over to Jamie. “Do you know who that is?”

   “Of course. Jackie Oliver. She’s doing really well in Europe I think.”

   “Yes she was signed by a French label last year. They found her at this club,” Mr. Smith said. He reached into a drawer for a pack of mints, popped two into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

   Jamie nodded wondering what the man was driving at.

   Smith produced a cigar and ignited it. His eyes squinted as he took a long drag, releasing the curling smoke through his mouth and nostrils. Then he continued, “Tonight, a friend of mine who works at a record label in this city will be here with some of his colleagues. I want to introduce you to him. He’s been scouting for new talent and I am sure he will be interested in working with you. I don’t know if Guerini told you but I used to work as an A&R executive for Sony in the seventies. Now it’s more of an external consulting arrangement so I still scout for some of these record labels. That’s the reason why our vocalist turnover here is quite high, especially with the good ones like you. I believe signing to a record label is something you are interested in?”

   “Of course,” Jamie said. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

   “Fantastic.” He held his cigar between his thin dry lips and produced a document from his drawer. “Here is a copy of the agency contract. Go through it and let me know what you think. It’s just basic stuff saying you are allowing me to represent you. Anyway go through it and let me know what you think.”

   “Thank you very much. I certainly will.”

   “That’s it,” said Mr. Smith and got up. He stretched out his hand to Jamie. “I’ll be speaking with you later then.”

   “Yes sir. Thank you,” Jamie said, with a huge smile carved on his face.

   As Jamie opened the door leading to the next office, the fire alarm went off. Startled, Jamie looked at Mr. Smith’s personal assistant for answers but was met by a rather confused look.

   “It’s not Wednesday,” she said, which meant absolutely nothing to Jamie.

   Mr. Smith immediately walked in and asked her, “Stephanie, have they changed the day for the weekly fire alarm test?”

   “I don’t know Austin but we still have to exit the building.”

   She got up and exited the room, Jamie and Smith following. As soon as they stepped outside they saw a couple of staff members and strangers looking up towards one of the windows of the building. Thick dark smoke emanated from one of the rooms. Jamie looked intently and saw dancing yellow flames through the windows on the upper part of the building. Everything he brought from Elmtown was up there except the guitar in his hand.

   “Is everybody outside? Do a quick count please,” Mr. Smith shouted, his body already trembling.

   A count was conducted quickly and there seemed to be two people missing. Someone already called 911.

   “Who’s not here?”

   “Richard and Priscilla.”

   “No, Richard went downtown this morning,” Smith said confidently. His son always went downtown to meet with their bankers every month.

   “He came back five minutes ago,” the janitor said. “I saw him when I was cleaning the stairs.”

   “Call his phone and find out where he is,” Smith shouted pointing to another male staff member.

   “I hope the firefighters get here on time,” he said under his breath.

   “Oh no. You are trapped upstairs?”

   That was enough information for Mr. Smith. Without considering the danger ahead, he dashed toward the burning building. He didn’t hear the shouts of people pleading that he shouldn’t go near the fire. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his son without doing anything and the firemen had not arrived.

   “Mr. Smith stop! Please someone stop him,” his secretary barked.

   In a matter of seconds, he opened the door and entered into the building engulfed in smoke. Jamie stood there with his jaw dropped, not knowing what to make of it all.

Suddenly Jamie heard a big bang. He noticed the fire had spread. It seemed as if the fire came across something flammable leading to a deafening explosion. His heart was now beating fast and hard, praying for the safety of those inside the building but it looked hopeless unless help arrived in a matter of seconds.

   “Gas,” said one of the chefs. He cussed under his breath and put his hands on his head helplessly. “I think I left the gas on before leaving.”

   Five more minutes and the fire truck had not arrived. Jamie stood within the crowd watching helplessly from a distance. In those few minutes in Smith’s office, he felt like he finally met the person who was going to be the passage to his vision. But now it was unlikely that Mr. Smith would make it out of that fire alive. As he watched the fire devour the building he felt like finding someone in whose arms he could curl up and wail. Only one image came into his mind– Chelsea. When the firemen finally arrived, it was too late.