Encore to an Empty Room (22 page)

“For when?”

“In like four hours.”

“Wow. You . . . but we—”

“Don't worry about me,” I say. “I'll head home and take the heat.”

“Of course I'm going to worry about you.” Caleb reaches out and takes my hand. “I love you, Summer.”

I sniffle like a big idiot. “I love you too, Caleb.”

“And . . .” He puts down his guitar and takes both my shoulders. “I've been thinking about it and I don't care if you go to Stanford or wherever or not. I mean, I care, but like, I'm going to be happy for you to do what you really
want to do. To be who you want to be. No more sulking when we talk about next year. Whatever happens next year will be amazing no matter what we do.”

This only makes me cry more. I throw myself into him. He's so honest, so sensitive. He deserves honesty from me, to know what I now know.

Except then what? It's going to tear him apart. Knowing is only going to lead to so many more tough questions, and none are worse than: Why?

And God I'm back to Eli again: Caleb says he wants me to be happy. That our future will be amazing. What the hell made Eli think that his son's life would be better without him? What has he been doing?
WHERE IS HE?

I have to keep Caleb safe from this. From all these questions. Not forever, but at least until I have some answers. He's barely had time to come to terms with what we've learned already. But now this . . .

“It's okay, Summer,” Caleb says, rubbing my shoulders, thinking he knows what my tears are about. “It's all going to be okay.”

I nod into his shoulder, but all I can think is:

No. It's really not.

Pluto

I leave him at the door to Dave's. We kiss for as long as we can, the minutes ticking by, and I hang on to him even when he's telling me to go because I can't shake the feeling that on the other side of this plane flight, nothing will be the same.

And yet, plane flights don't wait.

“I should come with you,” he says.

“You should check on Matt and look for Val. I'll be fine.” Maybe it's the exhaustion or the impending storm back home, but part of me just wants to be alone.

He watches me until I am at the corner. Until a cab has stopped and I am in it and collapsed against the cold vinyl.

It feels like a countdown. I've got to find out something more by then.

Neptune

The cab bounces through the vacant streets, alone with its kind, hurtling up and over a magnificent bridge. The city sparkles with possibility.

I am sure.

Cold and blue as ice and dead to me. You and your manipulative bullshit. You are the furthest planet now, Ethan.

I delete our conversation. And his contact info. Again.

Uranus

I knock for a while. Just when it seems like there will be no reply, the door squeals open. It's a magazine-hot guy, a couple years older, shirtless and wearing only boxer briefs.
He clutches his almond-colored, all-too-adequate chest and looks up and down the street. “Who are you?”

“Friend of Val's. I just stopped by to get my bag.”

Super chest looks me over but only like I'm a curiosity. “Cool.”

I follow him up the stairs, trying to keep my eyes off him. I'm not turned on or anything. It just feels indecent at this hour. And I'm too tired to process anything.

When we get to the apartment, he heads to the couch, flickering in the light of SportsCenter. Pulls a blanket back over him and returns Neeta's sleeping head to his lap. Resumes eating a bag of SunChips.

My bag has been carelessly shoved to the wall. My toiletries have spilled out. As I replace them, I see the blankets where Val had been sleeping.

Empty.

“Do you know where she is?” I ask the guy.

“Who?”

“Val, who was staying here.”

“Mmm,” he says around chips. “Somebody left like a half hour ago. Gave Neeta a hug.”

Oh no.

Val, who spins on a horizontal axis when all the other planets are vertical. Val, who has faint rings, if you look close enough. Val, who may live a thousand years and save us from our sorrow.

Have we lost her for good this time?

Outside, the cab honks.

I gather my things and slip out.

Saturn

The sky begins to gather a cold blue as the cab rattles back over a wide bridge toward Brooklyn and JFK.

I have been dozing off but now find an email in my inbox.

At least there's this. All is not lost.

If we still have a band when we get back.

Jupiter

I print my boarding pass and make my way through the bustling airport. Cold sideways sun streams through all the windows, catching the tail tips outside.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are at the airport at five in the morning.

And I find myself glancing at every face, watching them all for . . .

It would take 1,321 Earths just to equal the volume of Jupiter.

How can he be alive? How can no one know? How can he not have
told
anyone?

But he did tell someone. Whoever texted me. The LA number. The one who sent us the guitar case . . . then sent me there to see him. Was all that on Eli's instructions? Did he plan to reveal himself to Caleb and me?

That must have been his plan. There wasn't a third tape. We were going to get the man himself.

But now he knows that we're being watched.

Will he get in touch? Or was that our one chance?

What does this mean for . . . everything?

Mars

I trudge to the gate in a blur. Space out in a vinyl chair until boarding. Afraid to sleep and miss the flight.

My last-minute seat is in the second-to-last row next to a mom with a four-year-old in the seat beside me and a few-month-old in her lap. They are not happy. And so my penance begins. I put in my earbuds and turn up Cold Hearts Play with Fire, even though I only have a little battery left (again). I consume a stale bagel and bitter coffee, and lean against the window, watching the Northeast race and recede beneath me. The brown swaths of trees, the narrow twisting highways, the white-frosted lakes.

I think about the sight of Eli onstage. I consider using the credit card my parents gave me for emergencies to buy the in-flight Wi-Fi. I want to reread the articles about his death. Was there a body? If not, how could there not have been more speculation about whether he was alive or not? Elvis-style stuff. Not that Eli was that famous.

But given the state Carlson Squared is in, I don't dare risk the fifteen-dollar charge.

Besides, I will be home by noon. I will see Andre at one. We are going straight from the airport to his office. Apparently, he and I are getting coffee.

The thought of it leaves me blank. Part angry, part relieved. Mars is the god of war, and inside I battle back and forth. The fact that this interview is really going to happen is possibly some sign of a larger meaning to the universe, just the kind of thing I was hoping for, but that discounts how I behaved, how my parents are essentially rescuing me at the last minute.

I've been mad at them at points over the last few hours. But I'm probably the better one to be mad at.

How can I be eighteen and not yet know what I want?

Correction: how can I not be able to say what I want most out loud?

So far, it's been a slaughter.

Earth

The in-flight movie is a lighthearted romantic comedy.

The baby spits up on the four-year-old, who slaps his cup of soda all over me.

Turbulence keeps the seat belt light on, and I spend an hour having to pee so bad, I consider just letting it go and blaming the resulting smell on the kids.

My seat doesn't seem to recline as far as it's supposed to.

The person behind me keeps bumping it with her knee.

There are too many humans.

There are too many babies.

There is too much technology and too much trash and there should only be a few of us, nomadic across the Bering Strait, and there would be no time for bands or colleges or fake deaths or airplane rides. There would just be foraging and hunting and elk skins and huddling close around campfires against the unknown dark and we would have none of these problems.

And also, how can there be only two drink services
on a five-hour flight? My need for ginger ale knows no bounds.

Venus

Before my phone dies out again, I look through my pictures and find the selfie I took of us all, Dangerheart by the food table in Denver. It seems like a year ago that the five of us were standing together, arms around each other, smiling.

I hitch up and start to cry.

And I wonder: Why does any of it matter? Record deals, lost songs, gigs and college and money and any of it. I love these four. We are a thing. Or maybe were. And only now do I feel like I realize how completely rare that might be. We will never be eighteen and in a band and chasing a dream together again. Even just the coming jobs and college will forever change what it is right now.

Venus, spinning backward, the sun rising in the west. Would we get these days back again, if we lived there?

How can we spend any time frustrated or angry when life is this fast and fleeting?

How can we not just be blindingly happy for what we do have?

My phone is off for most of the flight, and the moment the plane's wheels touch the LAX tarmac, I restart it and type a quick group message.

I attach the photo from Denver and hit send.

Halfway through sending, my phone dies.

Mercury

You thought it was Caleb who was mercurial. Ha.

But Mercury is only as hot as it is frozen.

Catherine forever in the dark.

Summer with her face to the searing sun.

Or vice versa.

Always stuck all one side or the other. Scalded or frozen.

No harmony.

No balance.

I stagger off the plane and trudge through the terminal. It's a long walk, and my bag is weighing on my shoulder. Dad said they'd be waiting just beyond security. I walk a bit slower, use the bathroom, stop for a couple minutes to charge my phone, and then get a doughnut. Delaying the inevitable, I know.

The doughnut is Bavarian cream and turns out to be messy, so I have to stop again and manage that situation. Across the hall is a wall of monitors, four by four wide screens, listing the arrivals and departures. I look for flights back to New York. Trace down to the Ps and look for Palau. No dice, but there are so many other places, so many worlds. Before I return to reality, reenter my own time and space through the opaque security doors, a world that is going to suck hard, I want one more moment of possibility. All these places one could journey to, that a band could tour to . . .

“Time to fly.”

The words echo in my head. Eli's last words . . .

I gaze at the alphabetical flight listings.

Reach into my pocket and pull out the guitar pick.

Regent Sounds.

I type it into a search.

Regent Sounds is an independent guitar shop based at no. 4 on the famous Denmark Street.

In London.

I race through my phone again . . . To the picture of the brownstone from Val's house. Like the little painting in Eli's guitar case.

It's not in New York, is it?

It's not even in this country. Eli called that tape the Summer Soho sessions. But he didn't mean SoHo in New York.

All the pieces suddenly fit. Well, except for all the pieces that don't, like how could someone dead be alive, and who knew, and who texted me last night, and on and on, but . . .

Eli White.

Alive, and in London.

Is this a picture of where to find him?

I find the mystery number and send a message.

I don't wait for a reply. And I don't get one, either.

Monday I am back at school.

The interview was nice. Really promising, actually. Andre made his law experience sound cool, and I came across as intelligent and world-weary about music and business and such. He said he thought I was “Stanford material,” echoing Dad. And then I went home and accepted the terms of my grounding.

I lost phone and social privileges for a week, which is absurd but I didn't argue. There was no point. Also, my allowance is going toward the plane ticket until it's paid back.

My parents did listen when I explained to them about Caleb's dad and the tapes. They sort of knew about the
Eli connection (turns out they went to an Allegiance show once, back in the day) but we'd never really talked about it and they didn't want to pry into my business. I didn't tell them about Eli being alive. I have a feeling they'd think that was pretty messed up.

As in, criminal, both morally and legally.

I can't say that I disagree.

Caleb updated me by email as they drove nonstop to make it home by late Sunday night. Matt's head is okay. He slept a lot of the ride.

Jon did stay to play the next Postcards show.

Val didn't show up for the drive home.

No one's heard from her. Cassie Fowler has run again.

And now all too soon here I am, standing on the front steps, watching everyone make their way inside. I am thinking about going in circles. Starting over. I remember wondering, once upon a time on the first day of school, if I wasn't just going around but also spiraling down into a black hole.

“Summer.”

I turn to find Maya approaching me. As if to prove my theorem, the buoyant, peppy smile I remember so well from our first day has been exchanged for a stone-cold scowl.

“Hey,” I say. I'm not sure why she's talking to me. The whole Jason thing seemed like the equivalent of putting our friendship in the microwave.

“I'm sorry about how things went in New York,” she says clinically.

“How nice for you.” I can't help it.

“I have a future to protect at Candy Shell. Anyway, Jason wants to know your answer about the tapes.”

My first instinct is to explain to Maya how the boys just got back, how half the band is missing, and how we haven't had a chance to figure out our next move. And of course the tapes seem like ancient history, given what I know now.

But, no. She doesn't get to know any of this. We're not friends anymore.

Maybe that's mostly my fault. Maybe I did use her, took her for granted. Or maybe she was the one who should have been more observant about her boyfriend's behavior. Ah hell, maybe a million things.

What ifs.

They're kind of a waste of time.

“Tell him I'll be in touch soon,” I say, and it comes out cold, Summer the Bitch, but that is where we're at. “Directly.”

Maya glares at me with pure fury. “Fine,” she says quietly, and storms away.

I watch her go, and it hurts. We aren't going in circles. Ever. We're always moving forward. No matter what wreckage we leave behind.

I don't see Caleb until we're in the Green Room during free period. I have americanos waiting when he arrives.

“How's the reentry?” I ask after we kiss.

“Fine. I feel good actually. Except my ass is still sore from the van. How's yours been?”

I shrug. “Fine. Brutal. No word from Val?”

“No. Charity sent a message to Melanie, too, but no luck there either.” We kiss and sip our drinks. “So . . .” Caleb looks around the busy room, kids noodling on guitars, tapping drumsticks on walls, sitting in clusters. “Should we begin the search for Dangerheart's new guitarist?”

I'm squirming inside. “Actually, I was thinking Taquitas.”

“Oh, now? Breakfast burritos?”

“Well, yeah.”

Caleb checks his watch. “We only have thirty minutes until class.”

“There will always be class.”

He smiles. “Well played.”

We slip out the glass doors by the Green Room and make our way across the parking lot. I can feel Caleb wanting to hurry, but this time I am the one who is walking slow, silent, holding him back by his hand.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I lie. Waiting. I trace the smooth line of his cheek and jaw with my eye. Watch the way his lashes catch the sun. Things I want to treat so gently for just a few minutes more . . .

Until we have our breakfast burrito to split and a horchata to share and we have made our way to the center of the universe and taken a seat in the grass, in the shadow
of the giant metal sun. The circle complete.

“So I was thinking,” Caleb says around his first bite as he passes the burrito to me, “for guitar, what about—”

“Caleb,” I say, and when he sees how much I'm trembling, he stops.

“What is it?”

I pause . . . but only to remind myself what I am sure is right.

We can take this thing to the end.

We can make everything whole.

But first, Caleb has to take one more shot he doesn't deserve, that he could never see coming.

I hate that I have to do this.

But if someone has to, I am glad it's me.

I take his hand.

“There's something I have to tell you.”