Encore to an Empty Room (18 page)

“God, I hate it here,” Val says quietly. Her eyes dart around, like she's taking it all in, or like she's trying to avoid memories. I can't imagine what any of this would be like. To have run away, to be back, a visitor in your own house, in your old life.

She sighs and heads for the desk, where she opens a drawer and starts rifling through a mess of pencils, photos, tape dispensers, and trinkets. She stuffs a few things in her coat pockets and then moves to her dresser. She rummages and yanks out a black T-shirt. She holds it up to me:
Kings of Leon: Only by the Night Tour
.

“First concert I ever went to on my own,” she says.

“Weren't you like ten?”

“Eleven. Mom dropped me and a friend off. I think the other parents thought she was actually going in with us. One advantage to having my mom.”

“It still fits?”

“I bought it big and ripped the sleeves.”

Something catches her eye on the bed. She picks up a small journal, lying open. Just stares at it.

“What's that?” I ask.

“This is what I was doing . . . that night.” Val holds out the notebook to me. The paper is graph-lined, which I almost comment on.

The page contains a black ink sketch of a waifish girl
with anime features. She's wearing a leather dress and has bat-like wings half folded behind her. Shading on her arms, legs, and face makes her look almost like she's made of stone. Her fingers are curved, claw-like, with long nails.

A wild scribble of ink slashes diagonally over the figure, and also, here and there are small drops of dark red. Dried blood, I think. They almost look intentional.

“That's Garr,” says Val quietly. “I was taking a graphic novel class. She was my hero. Stuck for eternity as a gargoyle but she could be unfrozen by pure sorrow. Once she was alive, she'd be bonded to help the victim who awakened her, except as soon as their sorrow lifted, she'd be sentenced back to stone. She's like a thousand years old but she's only lived like forty days since she was cursed at sixteen.”

“Wow,” I say. “That's so completely cool.”

Val seems stunned by the drawing, as if she'd forgotten it existed.

“You're really good,” I add. “That drawing is amazing.”

She shrugs and runs her finger over the outline of Garr's wing.

“I know a kid back at Mount Hope, Miley, who runs an online comic site. She could help you get it posted somewhere.”

Val raises an eyebrow at me. “Is this what Caleb means by how you manage him?”

“Oh, I guess. Sorry.”

“Don't be. That sounds cool.” Her gaze drifts to the
hall. “There's one more thing I need.” She heads out the door, across the hall, and carefully opens the door to her mom's room.

“Val,” I hiss, but I stop in the hall. I don't want to go into that dark room. It feels too private. I can hear her footsteps, and the squealing of a drawer. A light sound of rustling paper—

And then a whoosh of cloth. Sheets.

And a deep, groggy voice: “Mel, is that you?”

I freeze. Afraid to breathe.

There is a second of silence, and then feet padding fast over carpet. Val appears in front of me, face white, locks eyes with me, and bolts for the door.

“Mel . . . hey,” the deep voice of the boyfriend is followed by more rustling and heavy footsteps on the floor.

We race through the kitchen, not bothering to step lightly anymore.

“Hey, HEY!” he calls from behind us. “What the hell?”

The bedroom door slams open.

We're back in the living room. Val pushing out the front door—

When I notice something on the wall behind the easy chairs. Every nerve is telling me to run but is that—

I dodge over and peer closer.

It's that image again, the painting of the brownstone building that was in Eli's guitar case. Only this is a photo. That house. It
has
to be the same one, on a street, an
intersection in the background.

Eli's never left us anything without it having a purpose. This photo might help.

“Come on!” Val is hanging onto the door, halfway down the front steps.

I can't make out the details in the gloom and scramble to get my phone out of my pocket.

“Who the fuck is there?” Footsteps lumber down the hall.

I open the camera, aim the phone, and tap at the shutter button. There's a click and the flash even goes off.

“Hey!”

I don't know if I got it but I lunge for the door and slam it behind me. We careen off the steps and sprint straight across the snow-covered lawn, stumbling as the crust shatters in toothy triangles, freezing snow scraping our ankles, but then we reach cleared sidewalk and sprint away.

Behind us, the door bursts open.

“HEY, COME BACK!”

Val is pulling her hoodie over her head. I risk one look back and see a man built out of barrels and logs but also barefoot and only in boxers and a T-shirt, standing on the front steps.

“He's not coming,” I say through heaving breaths, each one an icy dagger into my chest.

“Keep going,” says Val. Her cross-country muscles are probably reactivating, whereas my haven't-done-sports-things-since-JV-volleyball
thighs feel like they are going to seize up.

We round the corner, and Val leads the way in a new direction.

“He's got a motorcycle,” she pants. “We need to get inside.”

Two blocks later we reach stores and run into a bank. Everyone glances at us like we may be there to rob the place.

We stand just inside the entryway, catching our breath. My lungs have gotten tight, each breath painful.

Sure enough, a minute later, the boyfriend, now in sweatpants, sneakers, and a helmet, cruises by on a black Harley, still in his T-shirt, screw the cold.

Val checks the train schedule on her phone. “We're going to miss the eleven forty-five. Next one isn't until one o'clock.” She says this like everything's normal.

“What were you doing in their room?” I ask.

Val shakes her head. “Nothing. What was with you taking a photo?”

“There was a picture on the wall. I swear it's the same place as that little painting Eli left in his guitar case.”

Val rolls her eyes. “My mom thought of herself as a photographer. You should have heard her go on and on about it when she was high. How that was her calling except then I came along and screwed it up.”

“I just thought it might be important.”

Val shrugs.

“Do you think he could tell who we were?”

“Who else would have a key to the house?” Val says. “But whatever. Mel will come home and he'll tell her but then they'll probably take a hit to clear their heads, and next thing you know it will be tomorrow morning and we'll be gone.”

“Okay,” I say, my heart still hammering.

“I hope, anyway.” Val gazes up and down the street again. “Coast is clear. Come on.”

We cross Princeton in clandestine spy fashion, stopping into every convenience store and shop, one time mere seconds ahead of boyfriend's cruise-by.

Finally, we make it back onto the train. I text Caleb to let him know we're running late.

I worry what his reaction will be until he says that he and the guys have made their way to Sam Ash guitars and are geeking out, which is a guarantee that they'll lose track of time.

We've been on the train a half an hour when I ask Val:

“So, what happened the night you left?”

She's been looking at the drawing of Garr, and the earlier ones, in the notebook. Some of the pages are ruled out into comic panels and filled with scenes, some are just loose
sketches. There are also pages of handwritten script.

Val sighs, like she's considering whether or not to tell me. “You'd think it would be some big dramatic thing, but it wasn't. It was Christmas Eve. Normally we would have gone to Grandma's up in Connecticut but Mom had spent the entire fall calling Grandma ‘that rat bitch.' I think because she tried to check Mom into rehab. At the time I felt like I was on Mom's side. It wasn't like she couldn't heat up frozen food for dinner, or make it to work mostly on time. She got her hours in, was maybe even a pretty good nurse. She had a temper, and probably needed counseling. But not rehab. And it was sorta like Grandma to see the drug thing but not the emotional thing. Sorry, I'm going on.”

“It's okay.”

Val flips back to that last drawing of Garr. “It was the stupid trash,” she says. “Tuesday night is trash night, but it was Christmas Eve so, duh, no trash pickup on Christmas. But Mom comes storming into my room, lit up and not thinking it through, and starts yelling at me like, why haven't I put the trash out and why am I so lazy and why do I have to listen to the radio so loud. And I started yelling back like, do you even remember it's Christmas, and she was like yeah, but then she said I didn't deserve Christmas because I took away the one gift she ever had.”

“Oh no. Did she mean Eli?”

Val nods. “Such a nice thing for her to say. That was
always the punch line, when any argument got big enough.”

Val's finger runs over the blood drops on the drawing. “She threw my clock at me. Grabbed it off the desk and hurled it. Hit me right in the side of the head. . . . But . . .”

“Val . . .” I put my arm around her. She convulses, and tears come out silently. “That's awful. And it's not your fault.”

“No,” she whispers, “you don't understand . . . .” She taps the page. “This isn't my blood.”

“What do you mean?”

“I . . . I hit her first. I was so mad and she was screaming and looking like a demon and she tore the notebook out of my hand and was all
What's this?
Because I'd never shown her any of my drawings. And I snapped, I jumped up and just . . . swung. Punched her right in the nose. Well, not like a real punch. Like a hand-half-closed, think-I-sprained-a-finger punch. Blood started pouring from her nose. Then she shoved me back on the bed, and threw the notebook at me and then the clock, and we were both like cornered animals at that point. She stormed out and I just shoved a bunch of things in my bag and took off. Started driving and didn't look back. A neighbor called the cops, I guess. But . . . I don't know if I was scared or ashamed.”

“You were protecting yourself.”

“Maybe. But I hit her. Sure, she'd smacked me a time or two, but I felt like I was going to kill her. Even more than she might kill me. I was just as much a monster, and I
needed to save her from
me
. That's why I ran.”

“You weren't, though. Not really. You were scared, and you had every right to be.”

“I don't know.”

Val slaps the notebook closed and leans against the window.

We are silent for the rest of the trip.

She dozes off, and I open my phone and look at the photo I took. It's more blurry than I hoped. I zoom in on the corner where the words are. There's what may be a number . . . 13? And then some other text, but I can't quite make it out. There's a blurry word that maybe says
Avenue
.

I try a sharpening feature but it doesn't help. I could find an app with more rendering tools, but I see my phone is already down well under half battery.

We get back to Penn Station and beat it for the subway up to the Hard Rock. There's no service in the tunnels, and so when we finally pop up above ground, I've got a home screen full of texts again.

Ugh!

For what?

Spam?

We jog the two blocks to the Hard Rock. Beneath its giant marquee, a line of people extends up the block, corralled by felt ropes. I feel their eyes on us as we rush past them and through the main doors.

The tiny entryway is awash in blaring Green Day. Caleb and the boys are standing by the glass doors with a young guy in a collared Hard Rock shirt.

“Man,” Caleb says as we hug. “I missed you all day.”

“Me, too,” I say, and even though I'm relieved to be holding him I'm tensing up at the thought of dancing around the details of our trip.

“Hi, I'm Manny,” the guy in the Hard Rock shirt says. “If everybody's here, then let's head inside. Right this way.” We follow him into the restaurant, weaving through the rooms, their walls covered in rock memorabilia: guitars, clothes, platinum records, photos. He leads us into a room with a bar in the center. There is an area roped off with yellow twine. Inside are six chairs in a semicircle.

“We're going to have you sit here,” says Manny. “Our curating manager, Lara, will bring out the guitar for you to see. We'd like to film you seeing it and holding it, and then,
if you agree, we'd love to get you playing a song, perhaps?”

“You mean out here?” Caleb says.

“Yes,” says Manny. “It will feel like an impromptu concert. We'll let the other diners know what's happening and we'll get a great little crowd.”

I grip Caleb's hand. “You can do it,” I say by his ear.

He nods tightly.

A security guard pulls back the little twine barrier. We are just getting seated and a crowd is already starting to mill around. I hear the words
Eli
and
Allegiance
sneaking around the onlookers.

“We should have brought the rest of our gear,” says Jon. He doesn't look thrilled with this whole situation. He and Matt and Val will just be sitting there with nothing to do.

“Okay, here it is.” A professionally dressed woman with dark features and rectangular glasses emerges from the crowd. “Hi, I'm Lara.” In her hands is the relic: Eli's sea foam green Jazzmaster. It has a sticker for the Posies on the white pickguard, and a long strip of paint chipped away along the side. One of the knobs is missing. She carefully hands it to Caleb.

I can practically hear his heart pounding.

“So amazing, right?” says Lara. “Caleb, how does it feel to be reunited with your dad's guitar? This must be some moment for you.”

Manny is already taping, the red light glowing on a handheld camera.

Caleb runs his hands over the strings. “It's a lot,” he says. He strums it quietly.

“Now,” says Lara, “we understand that you have a band of your own . . .” She glances at notes on her phone. “Dangerheart.”

“That's us,” says Caleb, indicating the rest of the band.

“Very exciting.” Lara doesn't actually sound like she thinks it is, but like it's what she should say for the “video.” “So, want to play us a song?”

“Play some Allegiance to North!” someone calls from the crowd.

“Do you have instruments the rest of the band could use?” Caleb asks.

“Ah, no,” says Lara. “But it could just be you?”

“Um . . .” Caleb glances down the line.

“Go for it,” says Val, speaking for them, though based on his scowl, maybe not for Jon.

A black-clad tech guy appears and places a microphone in front of Caleb. Another tech wheels an amplifier around and runs an instrument cable to him. “Here you go, sir,” he says.

Caleb plugs in, but when the tech turns on the amp, he gets no response. “Is the volume up?” he asks Caleb.

Caleb checks the knobs. “Yeah, it's up.”

The tech catches Lara's eye. “We're getting nothing. Should I check the guitar's circuitry?”

“Actually . . . ,” says Randy. “I think it might be missing
some parts. That's . . . what I heard anyway.”

“Oh, um . . .” Lara glances worriedly at the assembled crowd. “Can you do an area mic and we'll go unplugged?”

“Sure.” The tech talks into his phone, and a minute later, another girl appears with a cylindrical silver mic on a short stand. He places this a couple feet in front of Caleb.

“Great. Ready?” Lara asks Caleb.

“Okay,” he says. The mic picks up his voice, and the amplified sound quiets the crowd. “You probably want to hear me play one of my dad's songs—”

“Yeah!” someone shouts.

“But I think if my dad were here, he'd want me to play one of my own. This is my band, Dangerheart, and this is our song called ‘On My Sleeve.'”

I fire up my phone to record as well. Caleb starts to strum. The unplugged electric makes a tinny little sound. The tech cranks the volume, and I see Lara sending a waitress away. Moments later the house music ceases. Caleb has been vamping on the opening chords, and now he starts:

“You never knew, what you left behind . . .”

The fact that the song is about Eli is clearly not lost on the crowd. They hang on every word, and some are singing along by the second chorus. Caleb starts out nervous but he settles in, and by the end he's lost himself in the song, eyes closed, his voice smooth and confident. I give Val a nudge as the second verse starts, and she joins in with her harmonies.

Phones are out all around us. This is amazing. They sound perfect. The crowd is rapt. It couldn't have gone better.

No matter how much light shined on you
You took it with you . . .

Caleb and Val sing in unison and he lets the last chord hang.

There's that excellent pause that happens when band and crowd have arrived at the end, as the silence grows louder than the fading sound, when to clap is to end a moment that no one yet wants to leave . . .

But then someone breaks the ice and the applause becomes an uproar.

I stop the video and give Caleb a thumbs-up.

“What's your band called again?” someone calls.

“Dangerheart,” Caleb says.

“A-band-called-Dangerheart dot com,” I add. And damn I wish I had my bag because I had a spare stash of buttons in there.

“Play another!”

“Nah,” says Caleb. “We're playing over in Williamsburg tonight at Needlefest, though, if you want to check us out.”

Some people start to leave but others push forward, adults and some kids and teens who want autographs on Hard Rock napkins, on their arms. I flash Caleb a pen. An employee shows up and hands Lara a stack of Hard Rock T-shirts. “Buy a T-shirt and you can get it signed by the
band!” she announces. It's a frenzy.

“Get the other band members, too,” says Caleb, waving his hand toward us.

I look around and find Matt and Val. . . . Wait, where's Jon?

Randy sees me looking around. “He left the second you were done. Said he'd meet us at the club . . .”

“Is he mad?”

Randy shrugs sort of sheepishly. “Maybe? I think he's got a case of underappreciation.”

I wish I'd noticed! Things had seemed better on this trip. Then again, there have been a lot of distractions.

Caleb and Val and Matt stand with two young girls, sisters, as their parents take photos. Others are still watching and milling around.

Randy leans in beside me. “Time to try . . .” I motion to the band and we make our way over to Lara.

“I'm Caleb's uncle and Eli White's old band mate,” says Randy. “Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but before Eli died, he left Caleb a note that said he'd hidden a gift for Caleb inside that guitar.”

“Right,” says Lara. I can't tell if she sounds like she's interested or is dismissing this outright.

“We were wondering—again, I know this sounds crazy—but would it be possible to take off the pickguard and quickly look inside?”

“Yeah . . . ,” says Lara. “I spoke with my boss about
that after you called this morning, and he said it's fine given your concerns about a possible felony.”

“Wait . . . ,” says Randy. “Spoke this morning? I never called you.”

“Oh . . . Was it another member of your team?”

“Yes it was,” says a voice from behind us.

My heart falls through the floor. I don't even have to turn to know who it is.

“Hi, friends,” says Jason, appearing beside us, smiling smugly. “That was an excellent moment. Nice work, Caleb.” He holds up his phone. “I got a great video.”

I feel like I probably already know the answer, but I find myself asking anyway: “How did you know where to find us?”

“Maya told me that you guys were headed to New York,” says Jason, sounding delighted to share, “and that she suspected you might be on the hunt for more lost songs. Such a good intern. And that got me thinking . . . Denver . . . New York . . . What linked those cities in Eli's past? A quick call to Kellen and it was obvious: the Jazzmaster.”