Falling Under (7 page)

Kylie is justly horrified. “That’s…awful.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t mind the other stuff you played, the first couple of songs. But that’s not really my cup of tea.”

“I didn’t think it would be. I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do, or anything. I just really didn’t think you’d like it.” I pause to formulate a thought. “But then, it’s not really music you’re supposed to
like
. It’s music you
feel
. Experience.”
 

Kylie nods. “Yeah, I can see that. But anyway, about this open mic night.”

I sigh. “Really, Kylie? You still want me for that?” I frown. “I’m really not sure I can even play like that. I’ve never even touched an acoustic guitar. I can’t read sheet music or anything like that. I play by ear.”

“Just try? Please?”
 

I really don’t want to. Really, really don’t. I mean, it’s not that I give a flying fuck what people think about me. But then…that’s bullshit, because everyone cares what their peers think of them. If you don’t care, I mean,
really
don’t care, not even deep down where you don’t dare look, then there’s something truly psychologically wrong with you. Either you’re trying to get their approval and trying to fit in and be cool, or you’re just one of the crowd, or you’re like me, on the outside acting hard and aloof, when inside you wish you knew how to be like them. You don’t fit in, and you never will.
 

Could I do this open mic night? Yeah, probably. I mean, if I can teach myself to shred via YouTube videos and library books and hours of practice, I can probably learn to play some simple acoustic chords, right?
 

I groan. “Fine. I’ll try. But I make no promises.”
 

She does the squeal-and-clap-her-hands thing, and then flings herself across the room to hug me. I’m stiff, frozen. No one hugs me. Mom doesn’t hug me. Overnight hook-ups don’t hug me. I don’t know what to do with a hug. Her arms are around my neck, her body pressed up against mine. Her face is against my chest, and she’s up on her toes to reach, ’cause I’m tall and she’s maybe five-six. She doesn’t let go, but she sinks down on her feet, leans back to look at me, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes accusing.

“You suck at hugs.”
 

I laugh. “I don’t get a lot of practice.”

“Well, now’s your chance. You’re supposed to hug me back. Let’s try again.” She lifts up again, slides her arms around my neck, and pulls at me.

I try, because she wants me to. I let my arms slide around her back, high, just beneath where I’m guessing her bra strap is. Platonic, non-threatening. This girl ain’t a hook-up, and I’m not gonna go there with her, not even a little bit. So I hug her. At least, I think that’s what I’m doing. I hold on to her, feel her body swell with each breath, ignoring the softness and the way she seems to fit just so, and the fact that I can feel her curves like temptation. It’s just a hug. I breathe and hold on to her back, my hands splayed on her shoulder blades.
 

After what seems like a ridiculously long time for a simple hug, Kylie steps away, nodding seriously. “That was better. We’ll get you up to speed in no time.”

“Up to speed?”

“Yep. We’ve got to work on your sub-par hugging skills.”

“Work on my…” I trail off.

 
“Your sub-par hugging skills,” she finishes.

I nod. “Okay. If you say so.”

She nods with me. “Okay, then. I’ll figure out a practice schedule with my parents so we can use their studio. I’ll get a list of possible songs together, and we’ll pick one together. We’ve got over a month, so that should be plenty of time to get something ready.”

I feel like I’ve been snowed. “Um. Okay. Nothing stupid, though.”

She just laughs. “Trust me, Oz.”

Yeah, see, that right there is not really my thing. People say that all the time—
trust me
—like it’s so easy. There’s one person in the whole world I trust, and that’s Mom. And even she doesn’t really have my full trust, because she’s lying to me and hiding the truth about my father. But other than that, she’s always been there for me. I’ve never starved, never been homeless. Well, except for that two weeks between when one lease ended and another began. We lived out of our truck for those two weeks, but it was okay because it was summer in Mississippi. Mom is my only family, and my only friend, and the one constant in my life.

And Kylie’s saying
trust me
like it ain’t no thing. I almost laugh out loud.

Maybe Kylie sees something in my expression. “I meant about the song, Oz. Trust me about the song.”

I lift an eyebrow. “We’ll see, I guess.”
 

FOUR: Warning Signs

Colt

The Harris Mountain Boys are
good
. Really good. They’re a folk-bluegrass trio: a stand-up bass, a banjo, and a fiddle. Gareth Fink, the banjo player, is incredible. I’m sitting in the booth, watching him pick so fast it’s inhuman. Buddy Helms on the bass is a solid presence, head bobbing forward as he thumps the rhythm, fingers slapping and walking across the strings. And then there’s Amy Irons on the fiddle. She’s a whiz, a whirlwind of frenetic energy. Their name is funny, a kind of thumb-of-the-nose to the established idea of a folk trio, since one of The Harris Mountain Boys is actually a girl, and a gorgeous one at that, but it works for them. Their lyrics are often humorous, tongue-in-cheek, often belying the insane amount of talent the three of them have. I found them busking on Broadway, and asked if they’d like to record a demo in my studio.
 

I remember busking, sitting on the street with my guitar, playing for the love of playing, sitting on a stool in some dive, no one paying attention. If I’d had a demo, I might’ve gotten somewhere faster. Which is a moot point, and I’m kinda glad it didn’t happen, because I probably wouldn’t have run into Nell on the street that day. But I can help these talented kids by letting them record a demo
pro bono
, just because everyone needs a kind gesture once in a while.
 

And then, once they got the demo down, they saved their bucks and managed to get it pressed into a hundred and fifty discs, which they promptly sold out of after only a handful of gigs. So I had Nell work up a loosely worded contract, basically just saying that if they want to accept a deal with an actual label, they need to let us know beforehand. And voila, Calloway Music LLC had a band signed on. We used our contacts around Nashville and places farther afield to get them a tour of the East Coast and select Southern cities, the bars and coffee shops where Nell and I started out and still play regularly, nearly twenty years later. The Harris Mountain Boys’ tour starts in January, right after the New Year, so we’ve got a couple months to get a full album down for them to tour with.
 

I hear the door from the basement stairs open into the studio, and I turn to see Kylie enter. She slumps into the chair beside me with the lazy grace of a teenager.
 

She watches the band play for a few minutes, and then turns to me. “Can I use your studio?”

I shrug. “Sure, when we’re done. I wanna cut this last track, and then it’s all yours.” I turn my attention to the trio beyond the glass. “Good! Let’s try it one more time, except Amy and Gareth, you need to actually slow down just a hint.” I swivel back to my daughter. “What’re you up to?”

She fidgets with a knob on the board. “Practice.”

“For what?”

“An open mic night at the college coffee shop.”

I nod. “That’s cool. Yeah, sure. We’re gonna be in here most days until probably around six, so if you can wait until after we’re done, you can use the studio for practice.” I point at her. “Just make sure you shut everything down when you’re done.”

She’s not done yet, though, I sense. “I was thinking…Oz is going to play the guitar for me. Since I suck. So he’ll be practicing with me.” She glances at me, nervous. “If that’s okay. With you. Please.”

I’m a little surprised. “Oz? He plays guitar?”

She nods. “Yeah. He’s really,
really
good.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed. Judging by the T-shirt he was wearing, I would’ve thought he’d be more of a hard rock kind of guy.”

She shrugs. “He is. But he’s going to try to play a few songs for me.” She gives me another hesitant glance. “Do you have an acoustic guitar he can borrow?”

I sigh. “I guess. Just…it’s not that I don’t trust him, but…keep an eye out, okay? This stuff is expensive.”

Kylie shoots me a dirty look. “Seriously, Dad? What’s he going to do, smuggle the mix board out in his pants? God.” She stands up. “I’d think
you
of all people would be less judge-y.”

“I’m not judging him, hon. I’m just saying. You never really know a person.” I wonder if I should say something about them being alone down here. I decide to go for it, since I’m a dad and it’s my job to be suspicious of guys sniffing around my daughter. “One more thing, Ky. You’re down here to play music. That’s it, okay? You get me?”

She blushes. “Dad. God. You’re so embarrassing. Yes, I get it. We’re just friends, okay?”

The blush says she’s thought about it being otherwise, but I take her at face value. I rub her back. “I’m just doing my job as your dad.”

“I know, I know.” She’s out the door and up the stairs before I can say anything else.
 

After another two takes, I’m happy with the cut, and the band packs up and troops upstairs. Nell, Kylie, and Oz are all in the kitchen, munching on hummus and pita. That’s a Becca thing. She’s got this recipe for hummus that’s heavy on the garlic. It’s addictive as hell, and she’s always bringing over giant Tupperware tubs of it for us, since we eat a metric shit-ton of it. Looks like Oz is chowing down, laughing at something Nell is saying. I watch him from the doorway to the basement. He’s a big kid, over six-four, lean and hard, with long auburn hair tied back in a ponytail, hidden under a backward Broncos hat. He’s wearing a pretty garish-looking T-shirt, some metal band logo, and a pair of old blue jeans, combat boots. There’s a biker jacket hanging over the back of one of the chairs, and it’s got all kinds of patches on it. I glance at his forearms, and my stomach seizes a little. He’s got scars. Not cut marks, but some kind of scarring. It doesn’t look accidental. There are circular marks, rows of them near his elbow. Intentional cigarette burns, maybe? I can’t tell from here. There are other marks, too, irregular patches of smooth, shiny skin, the edges twisted and crimped.
 

Oz notices me, follows my gaze, and immediately tugs the sleeves of a white long-sleeve shirt down to his wrists and shoves his hands in his pockets. His expression doesn’t shift, and he doesn’t look away, doesn’t act guilty, but he covered up nonetheless. My own experience—not to mention Nell’s—makes me suspicious. Worried.
 

The kids from The Harris Mountain Boys have trooped out of the house, and it’s the four of us in the kitchen. Should I say something to him? Not yet, I decide. Give him a chance. Maybe it wasn’t self-mutilation scars that I saw. I hope not, for Kylie’s sake. That shit ain’t no joke, and it’s not something I want my daughter caught up in. She’s gotta make her own choices, and I’ve got to let her, but I don’t have to like it if she gets involved in something so nasty as cutting or burning one’s self. I’ve been there. Nell’s been there. It’s a fucked-up place to be and, at almost eighteen, my daughter is still impressionable. I don’t want that for her.

I can’t overreact, though. I know better. I’m not that kind of dad. She’s a good kid, and I trust her judgment, but I also know what it’s like to be her age. In the end, I let them head down the stairs together, and I keep my worries to myself. At some point, though, I’m going to confront the kid. It’ll piss Kylie off, but sometimes as a parent your duty to protect means angering your child. Just the facts.
 

When they’re gone, I notice Nell is staring at the door to the basement with a worried expression on her face. “You saw his arms?” she asks, not looking at me.

I lean on the counter beside her. “Yeah. I saw.”

“He’s a really nice kid,” Nell says. “‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and all that. But those scars. They scare me, Colt.”

I sigh. “Shit, don’t I know it. Thing is, babe, we’re more like that kid than we are like Kylie. We’ve both got scars we gave ourselves.”

Nell’s palm skates up and down her forearm, smoothing over the fine white lines engraved on her creamy skin. “Yeah, we do. And that’s what scares me. Because we both know the kind of hell it takes to make someone do that.” She looks up at me, pleading. “I want to tell her to stay away from him. So bad. I freaked when I saw his arms, Colt.
Freaked
. But I can’t tell her that, can I? She won’t listen.”

“No, we can’t, and no, she won’t.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her against me. “She’s smart, Nell. We have to try to trust her.”

“But we can’t ignore the warning signs.” Nell’s hands are rubbing at her scars, almost obsessively. Nell almost never does that anymore, especially around Kylie.

“No, you’re right. But listen, babe. Oz having scars doesn’t mean he’s still doing it, and she sure as hell isn’t doing anything like that.” I grab her wrists and hold them.

“I know. I just…I don’t even want her to
know
what scars like that mean, Colt. I want to protect her from everything we both endured.” She turns into me, face against my chest.

“We can’t protect her from life, Nell. You know that. She’s going to get hurt someday. All we can do is love her, and be there when it happens.” Smooth words, easy to say. Not so easy to do.

FIVE: Acoustic Melodies and Old Pain

Oz

I’m freaking out, hardcore. Like, totally losing my shit. Kylie’s house is fucking
dope
. Huge. Nothing is flashy or gaudy, just tastefully, subtly expensive. They’ve done well for themselves, really well. And they’ve done it on their own, as indies. It’s impressive. And this studio? Jesus. Intensely impressive. All the best equipment, racks of guitars, a piano in one corner, several top-of-the-line recording mics.