Encore to an Empty Room (6 page)

Plus, there's my parents. Would they even allow Summer's version? Sure, I'm eighteen, but I'm a long way from supporting myself. And if I got a job with enough hours that I could afford an apartment, that wouldn't leave a lot of time for Caleb and the band anyway.

Suddenly it feels like too much to figure out. And I realize that in this very moment I'm doing exactly the thing I just said I didn't want to do: living a double life. I try to focus on what's around me right now. The singers, Stacia, the cool café. This visit is only a few hours long. Nothing has to be decided tonight.

We go for ice cream with some of the singer girls after the show, and meet even more people, and while I introduce myself as Summer, we talk of Catherine things, too. From the finer points of a cappella voicing, to clean water in developing nations, to the best indie bands, Jane Austen, awkward dorm room hookup stories, the upcoming protest about unfair trade in South America . . . and I kind of love it
all. I can't remember a time when I've ever talked about all these things at once. And it feels like it could go on and on.

Too soon, I have to meet up with my parents, and Stacia admits they're going to a friend's room to drink some kind of cheap wine that doesn't get you hungover, and even that sounds fun.

When my parents ask me if I had a good time, I say yes, and I am not lying.

I spend the drive home spinning around the conversations. Being smart . . .

Being all the versions of me.

My phone buzzes.

I want to say amazing.

It's such a dodge and I know it. Back to my life. Back to faking it. Even with Caleb.

I'm giving him the quick sign-off because I am surprised by how strong this sense of guilt is welling up. It almost feels like enjoying tonight was somehow cheating on Caleb. Cheating on a dream we've been sharing.

The feeling makes my heart race. I try to remind myself: nothing has to get decided now . . . right?

And yet, it's only four months until the acceptance letters start to fly. Not that I'm taking getting in for granted. But I've got a range of schools and some acceptances are likely. Which means my future will be determined by April 1. A date that feels far too soon.

Christmas is a small affair at my house this year. Sometimes we've had my mom's cousin and their family over, but that didn't come together, and then my brother, Bradley, announced that he was going to Hawaii with his girlfriend Sonya's family. Mom didn't take that well. So for Christmas Eve dinner it's just the three of us and luckily, Aunt Jeanine.

Normally, Jeanine would be back over on Christmas Day, but she's catching a flight up to San Francisco to see her girlfriend. Things have been going great for her since our secret trip, a fact we gab about every time we go shopping, but one we can't bring up over dinner, because Jeanine is still worried what my dad's reaction will be.

It's a fun night anyway. They are drinking wine, which makes them silly, and we just talk about movies and politics and the latest drama among the extended family and it feels easy.

I do have to field one question from Aunt Jeanine about what is increasingly becoming the only topic in my household and probably on my mind, too.

“So how are the applications coming along?”

“Oh, fine,” I say, but I feel a surge of nervous energy. To say that they are coming along implies that I've done anything other than fill out the basic contact information sections. Actually, I did start, and quickly abandon, an essay yesterday.

I've done that three times now.

“I've been thinking about it and taking some notes,” I add. And by that I mean mental notes. More accurately: mental notes that I should probably start taking notes.

“I've heard that the essay is just to make sure you can write,” says Aunt Jeanine.

I'm not sure that's true but I know she's trying to take the pressure off me.

“I keep telling Cat,” Mom says, returning to the table with a dish of green beans, “that the sooner she gets it done, the sooner she can relax and enjoy her vacation.”

“Come on, Mom, where's the fun in that?” I smile like it's a joke, but procrastination feels inevitable at this point. I felt inspired after the UCLA trip, but then Caleb and I spent
all of Sunday afternoon together and I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Now I'm back to feeling paralyzed.

It's almost like I need it to be last minute: like I need the fates to be involved, to help take some of the pressure out of my hands. If I wait until the very end, then more hangs in the cosmic balance, and when the decisions arrive, I'll feel some kind of peace. Like it was out of my control.

Maybe I'm just kidding myself.

Luckily, we don't return to that topic of conversation. Dinner is fine and fun, though after a while I wish Jeanine and I could talk for real. In spite of our pact to work on being more truthful with my dad, we're still just avoiding topics around him like black holes.

We exchange presents with Aunt Jeanine after dinner. Our gifts are winks to each other: I got her a book about
Tosca
, and she gives me a gift certificate to Bloomingdale's and a business card for her personal shopper there, Franca. “She says she can't wait to see her Vivien again,” says Aunt Jeanine, “but don't worry: I gave her explicit instructions not to go overboard.”

Aunt Jeanine heads home after dessert. I collapse on the couch beside my parents, pleasantly too full. They're watching
It's a Wonderful Life
, so I start noodling around online, but there's nothing except people's holiday wishes and pictures of gifts and what they ate for dinner.

Eventually, the movie sucks me in. Mom and Dad know it so well they're quoting lines.

“To Momma Dollar and to Poppa Dollar!” says Dad as George is just putting the last two bills into the safe, hoping they'll make babies.

I texted Caleb earlier and finally I hear back from him.

It's more fun watching knowing Caleb is watching, too. He texts again during the honeymoon scene.

And later:

I'm more than a little jealous of Val getting to hang out with Caleb right now.

Meanwhile, our movie goes on, grinding George down, but then ending in song. Mom is crying by that point, and I feel like I might, but for a different reason. Mom's tears are of the heartwarming variety. What I don't understand is why more people don't think this movie is incredibly depressing. How is it the story of the richest man in town, like Harry says? Isn't it really the story of a man who had his dreams beaten out of him, who had to settle for the normal life that he'd always wanted to run from?

And that normal life is so bleak that he tries to kill himself, only we're supposed to be happy for him getting that same life back at the end?

It's all making me feel fidgety, bordering on dread. Maybe it's my slightly nauseous, overfull belly, or the college applications looming just beyond the holiday, or maybe it's the idea of what happened to George Bailey: that the choices you make right now, when you're eighteen, will set up the chain reaction of your whole life. George went from “I know what I'm gonna do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that,” to jumping off a bridge, and it all started with decisions he had to make at
this same point in his life. . . .

Maybe I should be writing my essay on this.

I'm just glad when the movie's finally over and we're watching the best of
Saturday Night Live
Christmas episodes.

I sleep anxiously, but it's not all fretting about the future. There's also a little echo of anticipation for Christmas, for the wonder and simplicity of toys under the tree and pajamas all day. Santa came until middle school, even though I'd stopped believing long before that. I think Mom and Dad were just hesitant to let it go. But there's still a little buzz inside me for the magic of the day.

I come downstairs to find that Mom's feeling it, too. She's hidden the pickle ornament in the tree—but without my brother there, it's just me and Dad rooting around in the branches, and he's letting me win. Mom just watches and seems sad. It leaves me feeling grumpy and claustrophobic and glad to finally get out the door and on my way to Caleb's.

Our Sunday search for more song clues came up empty. We reread
On the Tip of Your Tongue,
the collection of interviews and journal entries from Allegiance to North, and scoured the backwaters of the early internet. We dug up an Eli White murder conspiracy page but it was from something called GeoCities and we couldn't get it to load. After a couple hours I could feel the last embers of our enthusiasm
from the meeting with Vic fading. Maybe talking to Randy today will yield some results. We can run Vic's conversation by him and see what he thinks.

Unlike the early-rising duo of Carlson Squared, Caleb, Val, and Charity are all still lazing around drinking coffee and eating cinnamon rolls when I arrive. Randy is on the couch. His face is the color of concrete.

“Wild Christmas Eve?” I ask him as he nurses an orange juice in a sunny corner.

He toasts me with the glass. “Drove back this morning. As is tradition. Me and my buddy Pearl take our royalty checks and gamble them away.”

“You get royalties for Savage Halos?” I ask. That was Randy's band, back in the same years as Allegiance.

“Yeah,” says Randy. “
Sear My Face
was big in Germany and certain Baltic states. Twice a year we get these international royalty checks. It's just enough to have a little fun with, so we do.”

“And how did that go?”

He grins weakly. “My Christmas present to you is a high five.”

Caleb and I help Charity make bacon and eggs. After we eat, we gather around the tree to exchange gifts.

Deciding what to get Caleb was tough. I'd had this scarf all picked out for him for a month, but then at the last second I panicked, worried it was too girly, and got him a new capo, a cool locking kind because he's been complaining
that his slips when he's playing and it messes up his tuning.

“Thank you,” he says, kissing my cheek. He rarely does that around Charity but out of the corner of my eye I see that she's smiling. “This is definitely the right kind.”

“You sure?” I ask and suddenly I am wondering if he actually likes it or is just saying that. I should have been more creative with a gift! Like more romantic. Except I knew he needed the capo . . .

“It's perfect.” He hands me a little box.

It's wrapped in silver paper and feels really light. Inside I find a little hand-drawn Pluto cut out of construction paper. On the back it says:

I meet his eyes and smile. He's fidgeting. “Do I need to bring anything?”

“Just you,” he says, and his face shades bright red.

“Ugh,” says Val, watching us.

I am surprised when a box comes my way from Charity. It's a gift certificate to get a manicure. I can't help glancing at my worn, unpolished nails, the cuticles all torn. They're the first thing to suffer when I'm worrying. There's been no shortage of that lately.

“It's not a statement on your looks,” says Charity with a smile. “It's just one of those little luxuries we never have
time for, that make you feel surprisingly fancy.”

Caleb gets gift cards from his grandparents, and a really nice Bluetooth stereo from his mom. “Randy helped me pick it out,” she says.

“Bass in those things is usually suspect but that one's good,” he says from his reclined position on the couch, eyes closed.

“Caleb,” Charity asks when they are finished. “Where are the presents from Great-Aunt Linda?”

“Oh.” Caleb gets up. “I brought the box in the other day.”

“Grab the ones by the door while you're up,” says Randy.

“I thought you said you didn't bring anything,” says Charity.

“Not me,” says Randy. “There were two boxes on the front porch when I got here this morning. I moved them into the entryway.”

“Huh,” says Charity. “That's weird.”

“I heard UPS was delivering today because of all the snow delays back east,” Randy adds.

Caleb returns with two boxes. “Here's Aunt Linda's, and one of the new ones . . .” He puts them on the coffee table and returns with a third box. This one is really long and flat and at least four feet tall.

“That looks like a guitar case,” says Randy.

“Who are these things from?” Charity asks.

Caleb stands the tall box on its end and spins it around. “No label.”

“There's one on this box,” says Randy. “It's addressed to ‘Caleb Daniels and Family.'”

“Definitely the name of our brother-sister project,” says Val. She grins at Caleb.

“Looks like it was sent from a UPS store, too. In . . .” Randy frowns. “Princeton, New Jersey.”

And Val's smile dies away.