Encore to an Empty Room (14 page)

The snow starts when we are still three hours outside of Denver.

“It's fine,” says Randy. “I've driven in it plenty of times. Let's stop now and get supplies so we can make tracks.”

Our plan is to get to Dylan's Vintage Guitars before we go to the house party. Snow was not included in our thinking.

We pull into a rest area and crawl out of the back of the stalker van. A day and a half of travel spent sitting around and between our gear has us all walking like retirees. We've been rotating drivers, and also who gets to ride in the precious padded shotgun seat, which we have taken to calling
the Spa
.

We shamble through the convenience store, probably all looking as bleary as we feel. We all talked big about trying to eat healthy but really it's been pretty much just chips and soda and candy.

“Peanuts are a health food, right?” I say as I pick out a Snickers. Matt is standing beside me, surveying the options in the nougat food group.

“Yeah,” he says but gets distracted by his phone buzzing. He sighs as he checks it.

“Maya?” I ask.

“Uh-huh.” As he says it, he glances across the aisles and catches Val's eye. She gives him a little eyebrow raise, like,
What?

This trips my radar. I can't even say why. Intuition? But also, there have been little things, here and there, ways he's been acting, that have made me wonder, just a little, about all the time these two have spent together the last few months. . . . “I know you've been helping Val with her math,” I find myself saying. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Like what?” Matt says quickly. His face gets red.

Intuition confirmed. Uh-oh.

“Matt, it's okay if you have a crush on Val. There's nothing wrong with that, except that you're, you know, dating someone else.” I realize, too, that on one level I'm relieved, because it means he no longer has a crush on me.

“Nah,” says Matt like the world's worst liar. “But you're right: I'm not sure how great things are going with Maya.”

“Have you told her that?”

“Not really?”

“Except in your body language,” I say.

Matt seems surprised. “It shows?”

I roll my eyes. “Duh. And if I can tell, she can definitely tell.”

Suddenly Val pops up between us. “Got it!” she says excitedly to Matt, holding up an enormous fountain soda. “Fanta for the drummer boy!”

“Nice,” says Matt with a genuine smile. “Should we do Three Musketeers or Milky Way?”

“Both,” says Val. She punches him in the shoulder.

“Yeah . . . ,” I say, raising my eyebrows at Matt and heading for the Little Debbie display. “I'll be over here.”

Back in the van, Randy keeps driving and Jon's got the Spa. Caleb and I are on the floor behind the seats, and Val and Matt are together beyond the wall of amps and guitar cases. And now that my radar has been tripped, I realize that they've been in that spot all day. Sitting close, too. Like heads nearly touching. Which probably means shoulders are touching? Oh boy.

Caleb dozes off for a bit, and I am hoping to do the same when I hear a clinking of glass and then Val: “Oh shit!”

She and Matt bust out laughing. Actually it's more like giggling.

I lean over the drum cases. “What's going on back here?”

Val looks up innocently over the giant soda cup. She's trying to suppress a smile. “Nothing,
Mom
,” she says, sounding annoyed but then she barely holds back another laugh.

“Hey, Val,” Matt says in this weirdly low voice, “can I have some of your soda?”

This makes them crack up.

Oh. Now I think I finally get it. “Did you spike that?”

“Relax,” says Val. “It'll be hours before we get to the gig; we'll be fine.”

I don't know how to react. I don't want to give in to the immediate mistrust I feel. But playing it too cool undermines my real worry: we can't have two drunk band members at our big show.

“Is it the schnapps again?” I ask, going for something in the middle.

Val toasts me with the soda and lowers her voice. “Peach flavored.”

“Sounds delicious.” I hope my slightly sarcastic tone isn't nagging but does convey a sense of the stakes. I hate this conversation already and just want to get out of it. “Just be careful, you guys. Okay?”

“You're not going to rat us out to Randy,” says Val, “are you?”

“You're not going to screw up the gig, are you?”

Val starts to glare at me but bursts out laughing instead. “We'll be
fine
. Now, go away, please.”

I sit back down, feeling like, for the moment, there's nothing more I can say. If they really get worse I'll tell everybody else and we'll intervene.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Val's been in better
shape since New Year's, and none of our worries about her drinking have seemed to be substantiated. But now I don't know. If she's had a stash of booze with her, there have been many opportunities while we've been on the road. I think back to last night, laughing over flossing, and now I have to wonder if she was sober then. Ugh, I hate this feeling!

She erupts into giggles again. Dammit. I want to trust her, but I don't. And I'm stuck as to whether to say anything to the others. Caleb is napping or I'd tell him. Maybe after we play tonight. We're in the Red Zone after all. Don't want to mess with the delicate balance right before a show.

Our drive is slow with the snow, and by the time we get to Dylan's, we're worried that maybe it will have closed early. The parking lot of the small strip mall is completely empty, pristine with the inch of snow . . . but the store lights are on.

We all hurry across the lot through a biting wind. The streetlights make the air sparkle with flakes. As we duck through the snow I can see a middle-aged man at the counter inside.

We enter and pick our way through a maze of stacked amplifiers. Guitars hang in tight rows along both walls and down the center of the store. The man behind the counter is rail thin with frizzy gray hair. He's holding a screwdriver to the innards of a guitar pedal. The glass case he's working
over is full of them. There are stacks of parts behind him: circuit boards and dismembered guitar necks and head stocks.

“You guys look like you're in town for a show,” he says without glancing up at us.

“Are you Dylan?” Randy asks.

He looks around the empty store. “Who else would I be?” Dylan squints at Randy. “Do I know you?”

“Randy. I toured through here with a band called Poison Pen a long time ago. My band mate bought a sea foam Jazzmaster from you.”

“Eli White,” says Dylan. His eyes trace over us and land on Caleb.

“He was my dad,” Caleb confirms.

“Well, I'll be damned,” says Dylan. “You're like a ghost of him . . .”

Caleb shifts and holds out the receipt. “I think I'm supposed to show you this.”

Dylan squints curiously and takes the receipt. He looks it over for longer than it seems like he should need to. Glances back at Caleb. Back to the receipt.

“It's for the Jazzmaster,” Randy prompts. “Sea foam green. You sold it to him in '93?”

“I remember it . . . ,” says Dylan. “It was just a long time ago. But this . . .” He seems puzzled, like he's trying to remember something.

I nudge Caleb.

“He also left me this.” Caleb holds out the slim white guitar pickup.

Dylan looks at it and his eyes seem to register. “Whoa. Man, that's it, isn't it?” He takes the pickup and turns it over in his fingers. Glances back at Caleb. “He told me you might come by someday, looking for this. I never . . . I mean, I forgot I . . .” He heads into the back office.

We crane our necks and see him deep in a crammed narrow space, rummaging through stacks of those plastic units with lots of tiny drawers, like for art supplies. “Every once in a while I'd stumble across that old thing, and I'd have to remind myself why I still had it. Ahh.”

Caleb fidgets beside me. I grip his hand.

Dylan returns and holds out the identical pickup. And wrapped around it, held fast by a rubber band:

A small plastic case. A DV tape.

Caleb takes it and carefully unwraps it. He opens it, confirming there's a tape inside.

“I think Eli told me it was an old bootleg or something,” Dylan says. “He wanted you to have it. I didn't understand really what he was getting at. And then of course he passed. Just a couple days afterward. Made me wonder if it was a coincidence or what. The timing seemed so odd.”

“There's a note in here,” says Caleb.

He removes a small scrap of yellowed journal paper that's been folded neatly inside the tape case. It's from Eli's old journal, the same weathered paper we found in his gig
bag. Caleb unfolds a square scrap with neatly torn edges. I can tell immediately that it's Eli's handwriting. Caleb's eyes flash from the words to me.

“Read it,” I say.

Caleb nods and swallows hard.

If you're reading this, then you're back at the start. I don't know if the clues I left will be enough of a show to get you through to this encore, but if they were, you're holding the keys to my final words. Writing this now, I feel like I'm lost between two worlds: one bed in the hole in the road, the other on the news of the world. There was no more going forward, when you're torn apart like that. Backward was the only way out.

But enough about me. This is about you, little man. Hopefully you're far enough away from those Candy Shell crooks that we can talk safely. And then you can wield your silver hammer and have the last word.

This tape is the Encore. For the final note, all you have to do is look inside the start. Right where I'd like to be, under the sea. Waiting for you. The peace that I found. That I know means you'll be all right.

No far comet should be alone.

“It sounds like he's saying the other tape is . . . here?” I say.

“That is typical Eli,” Randy says, sounding frustrated. “Still, let me see that . . .” Caleb hands over the letter. Randy starts to run his finger down the lines. “Lots of weird little Beatles references here,” he says. “Lyrics. All from
Abbey Road
, I think.”

“Isn't that the third missing song?” I say. “‘Finding Abbey Road'?”

“What does he mean the final note is right here under the sea?”

Caleb and I share a glance. “Sea foam green,” I say.

We turn to Dylan. His eyes are wide and he's nodding. “I was going to tell you, this receipt you brought . . . It isn't from when I sold Eli the Jazzmaster. It's from when he sold it back to me. The same day he left that tape.”

“So the third tape is inside the guitar?” says Caleb.

“Whoa . . . ,” says Dylan.

“Where is it?” Randy wonders, looking around the store. “You must still have it . . .”

“Um . . .” Dylan shakes his head, looking horrified. “That's the thing . . .”

“Holy crap, you
sold
it?” Randy nearly shouts.

“No! I'd never do that, but I . . . I donated it.”

“Donated,” Caleb repeats.

“Yeah, to the Hard Rock Cafe. Years ago now . . .” Dylan thinks to himself. “I know it was on display in their New York store for a while. . . .”

“Oh, man,” says Randy, rubbing his beard.

“Here it is,” I say. It's so easy to find Eli's guitar that I can't believe we never saw it before. But then again, we were never looking for it. I hold out a picture of it from the Hard Rock's site. It's right there, on the wall in New York.

“I . . . I had no idea,” Dylan stammers.

“We should get to the show,” Randy says, checking his watch.

“Wait,” I say, trying to make sure we've put all the pieces together. I turn to Dylan. “So, are you the one who sent us the old guitar case?”

Dylan cocks his head. “Oh no. Eli . . . I don't think he sold it to me in a case. Which I maybe thought was weird at the time . . . Man, it was all so long ago.”

Caleb turns over the tape. Val is reading the letter to herself. “Okay, well, thanks,” Caleb says to Dylan.

Dylan nods. “Sure. It was the least I could do for Eli. Hey, can I just ask . . . what's on that little tape?”

“Probably just a bootleg, like you said,” Caleb agrees. “I never got to see him live.”

Dylan nods, still awestruck by the whole thing.

Back outside, the snow is still coming down, slanted by the wind and freezing our faces. We get in the van, nobody
speaking yet, but I am already sending a text. An idea is exploding in my brain but I want to see if it's even possible before I mention it.

“You brought the DV recorder,” Caleb asks Randy, “right?”

“Indeed,” he says, revving the engine and putting it in drive. He's hunched over the wheel, hands in the ten and two positions. “Even brought a cable so we can watch it on a computer.”

The van slips in the parking lot but feels more steady once we're out on the main road.

“It's great that we got that second tape,” says Val. “But how are we ever going to get the third one?”

“Another tour,” says Caleb. “Another time, I guess.”

I listen to him say this, and feel tight inside. Because what if there isn't another time? The future is coming fast, whether it's the record labels or graduation . . . I watch my phone for a reply to the text I just sent.

Everyone is quiet. My phone finally buzzes with a reply.

The message nearly makes me scream. “Guys,” I say. “What if we
did
have a gig in New York City?”

“What do you mean?” Caleb asks.