Red Velvet Crush (5 page)

I kick mine off, too, and try to keep up, but I am busy staring at everything. Taking it all in.

A baby grand piano gleams under the windows facing the street in the front room. A blue glass bowl sits on top of a sideboard, next to a stack of
National
Geographic
s. I touch the edge of the bowl as I pass by. The glass is smooth and cool under my fingers.

Lining the stairs is a series of photos—Ty's school pictures—one from every year. He grows up with each step. His schoolboy hair gets bigger, then rockabilly, then punk, then metal and screamo. I laugh and start again at the top, watching his smile go from gapped to big and toothy to a Crest commercial.

The last one, his senior picture, is straight-edge Ty. Shaved short, he smiles back at me with perfect teeth. The same smile looks up at me from the bottom step, waiting.

“Where are your parents?” I ask in a shy voice I didn't even know I owned. I step down to him.

“Book club,” he says, and takes my hand, pulling me across a sea of thick carpeting that swallows me up to my ankles.

I am impressed, by the answer and by the room, where everything is soft and subtle, in shades of tan, like living inside
a warm cup of coffee. But Ty keeps going.

“Farmers market?” He leads me to an entire wall lined with books and record albums, obviously just guessing.

“At this hour?” I ask, playing along.

“It's special.” He kneels down, flipping through the albums on the bottom shelf. “Nightshades only.”

He looks over his shoulder at me.

Grinning, he gives it one more try. “Turkish prison?”

He must be used to being alone in this big house. I honestly can't remember being alone in my house. Ever. With Billie around I barely get to use the bathroom on my own. She busts in while I am in the bathtub.

“Take these.” Ty slides albums out across the carpet toward my toes, one after the other: Lissie, London Grammar, The Runaways.

“But this—” Ty says when he finally stops flipping and stands up.

He taps the album cover with his finger. “This is what you need.”

“Carole King?” I ask, spying the cover as he walks over to a stereo. It is sleek and expensive looking.

“History,” he says.

He lifts the record player's slender arm and slides the album onto a shiny silver post. The record drops silently, like magic, and the arm moves over it, hovering for a second before it lowers, filling the room with pure, melancholy piano music.

The song strikes a chord deep in my chest, somber and heavy, reminding me of my mom. I swallow hard, afraid of falling into a place that is dark and jagged and full of crags, fighting to stay here, where it is warm and safe, lit by the softest of bulbs.

Ty turns toward me and nods along. A mellow drumbeat is coming in through the speakers hidden in the ceiling, thumping low and deep.

“Nice offer,” I say as he steps over the albums scattered across the floor and moves toward me. “But we don't have a record player.”

He does not look disappointed. “Then I guess you'll have to come back.”

He holds his arms out, and I step into them, sinking farther into the carpet. His heart is beating, muffled and warm, as we start to dance. We aren't really even dancing, just holding each other, circling. His body is close against mine. I smell the sweetness of his neck and his shoulder. His hand rubs across my lower back slowly, softly, perfectly, melting me to him.

I reach up and run my hand along the back of Ty's head, his hair buzzing under my fingertips. It
is
soft and prickly.

I sneak in under the bridge of his nose. “I'm skipping ahead,” I say, and I kiss him.

His lips are warm and soft and start breaking into a smile as soon as I stop. He breathes out in a rush of warm air that
mingles with mine, and I lean back in for more. Up close, his eyes have flecks of gold in them.

My bare feet touch against his tube-socked toes as one song spins into the next and the next and the next until the album ends and there is nothing but us, hearts beating fast, surrounded by a soft, sweet hiss.

I can't wait for next time.

Ty pulls up to my house on Saturday morning behind the wheel of a champagne-colored minivan. It has a “My Son's an Honor Student at WA” bumper sticker on the back and squishy-looking tires with whitewalls. It is all very street legal and suburban looking.

I step off the front porch and walk across the yard.

“Are we going to play soccer?” I ask as Ty makes his way around the front of the van and reaches for the passenger door.

“It's my mom's,” he says as he pulls the door open for me.

I duck in under his arm. It's been two nights since we danced in his basement, and I am still sleeping in the shirt that pressed up against him, his smell slowly fading in a nightly battle against my flowered sheets and fabric softener.

I breathe him in deep as I climb into the car. Ahhh . . . there's nothing like the real thing.

Ty swings my door shut and then jogs back around the front as I check out the van.

The interior is boring beige with stripes of corporate tan.
Spare change is lined up by denomination in the appropriate slots, although there seems to be an abundance of pennies. It smells great inside, but that might just be Ty.

He starts the engine and swings out into the street.

“Where's Billie?” he asks as I click my seat belt.

“Still sleeping.”

For once Billie's sleepiness has worked in my favor. Usually it just makes me late for school.

“And Winston?” Ty asks, steering around the pile of broken blinkers and headlights at the end of our street. It is a tricky left.

I lean forward, looking to the right along with him.

“Slumped on the couch, smoking cigarettes and watching cooking shows.”

He looks at me as if that requires further explanation.

“It's what he does when we're low on groceries.”

Ty avoids the slow, lazy curves of the suburbs and heads toward downtown. He drives with his left leg bent and leaning up against the door.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I want to show you something.”

“What?” I am not good at surprises. Not since the second grade anyway.

“Well . . .” he says. “It's someplace, actually.” He checks over his shoulder to switch lanes. “I kind of live there. I think you're going to like it.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” he says.

I remember the dancing and the albums he picked out the other night. How he pulled the word bittersweet out of the air as we sat at the piano. I cross my fingers and tuck them under my leg. He's been right so far.

We drive until we are kind of downtown, but not really. The tall glass offices and department stores are still blocks away. Low brick buildings and shops surround us with handmade signs inviting us to
SHOP LOCAL.

Ty drives down an alley, turns right, and then parks the minivan in a spot on the corner.

“Rock star parking,” he says, lining the van up with the curb.

I lean over to look out his window. It counts as rock star parking only if we are right outside where we want to be. The storefront on his side of the street is jam-packed with banjos and ukuleles. The window gleams, glass and wood bodies and metal strings. Silver fittings and fingerboards sparkle in the morning sun.

“You live at The Wall of Sound?” I ask.

“Just wait,” Ty says, opening his door. “In a minute you're going to wish you did.”

I climb out. Hey, if they have an empty bed and are willing to turn the heat past sixty-five degrees in the winter, I might consider it.

A bell jingles above the door when we walk in.

“Ty!” the man behind the counter says as soon as the door swings open. We are the only customers. The man has dark, poofy shoulder-length hair and a drooping mustache.

“Tony!” Ty grins and walks toward the counter.

They shake hands, and I look around. A wall of guitars is in front of me, a wall of brass is on my left, and the entire back room seems to be devoted to drums. Pianos are planted wherever there is room.

Wood gleams like gold honey.

Metallic strings flicker in the sun.

Polished silver keys and pedals sparkle.

I spin and take it all in again. I take a step, change my mind, and step the other way. What should I touch first?

Thank God Billie isn't here. She would break something.

I walk toward the wall of guitars, picking out the one I would want if I could afford a new guitar. Guitars of every color hang on that wall. Bright yellow ones, shiny apple red ones, matte black death metal ones, even pinstriped flying Vs straight from 1984.

“What do you think, Teddy Lee?” Ty calls out.

I have never heard him say my name before, and it stops me in my tracks. I immediately decide he should add it to the end of every sentence.

The price of postage went up again, Teddy Lee.

Dracula
was Bram Stoker's most popular book, Teddy Lee.

The sun rises and sets for you, Teddy Lee.

“Now I see why it's called The Wall of Sound,” I say, knowing that it's stupid, that everybody probably says that. But I can't help it. I am having a hard time not hopping around on my tippy toes with my eyes wide and my mouth in a little O. It's possible I might need defibrillation.

Tony laughs and says, “I do my best.”

“I told you you'd like it,” Ty says, leaving the counter.

He was right. It is amazing.

Ty walks past me. “First things first,” he says, holding his hands out behind his back, reaching for mine. I hesitate, then grab for them. He leads me over toward the windows and a black baby grand in the corner.

Tony follows us, dusting his fingers along drum tops and piano lids as he goes. I am jealous; he can touch everything.

“You play, right?” Ty asks as he sits me down on the black bench.

“I do.”

I wait for him to sit at the drum set next to me. It is pearly gray, like the sky before a storm. Instead he walks back over to the wall of guitars with Tony.

Of course he plays the guitar. He probably plays everything, including the glockenspiel.

“What about that one?” Ty asks, pointing toward a neon green Mustang.

Tony shakes his head. “Not today,” he says. “Too much flash.”

I agree, even though they haven't asked for my opinion.

Tony moves two guitars over and one guitar up. Ty nods, and Tony takes down a custom-built acoustic guitar, all black with a silver spiderweb painted on the body. He hands it to Ty.

“More your style,” he says.

Ty tunes it, his head tilted.

There is no strap; he holds the guitar propped against his hip. I stare at his arms, picturing the muscles flexing under his Henley.

He walks toward me and starts to strum.

I raise my hands over the piano keys, my fingers wobbly because he has never actually heard me play and because Tony is watching.

“Death Cab?” Ty asks.

I shake my head.

“Teen Spirit?”

“Definitely not.”

“Sublime?” He pauses. “Come on . . . everybody loves some Sublime.”

“Yeah, everyone forty-five and over,” I say. “Besides, that's stoner music.”

He stops strumming. “Do you have something against stoners?”

“Not strictly speaking,” I say. Lord knows I've spent enough time with them.

Ty runs his fingers along the strings, thinking.

“I know,” he says. He nods like he's had the best idea ever. “‘Yesterday.'”

Yesterday? Nothing happened yesterday. It was two days ago I kissed you, I think.

He starts in on the first few notes of the song “Yesterday,” and I freeze.

My hands plunk onto the keys. “You're kidding, right?”

Ty stops, too.

“Wait . . . you don't like the Beatles?” he asks, looking suspiciously at Tony.

“Nope,” I say, and Tony bounds toward me. He leans against the side of the black piano and reaches down. My hands are shaking for real now. I don't know what to expect.

“Well then,” Tony says, catching up my right hand into a tight, warm squeeze, “welcome to a small and very exclusive club.”

“Happy to be here,” I say, relieved.

My reflection smiles back at me from the glossy piano top.

Ty stands in the middle of the room and sighs. “I can't believe I've found the two people in the world that don't like the Beatles.”

“Believe,” I say, and play a series of twinkling, totally Lennonish notes.

Tony laughs and starts walking back to the counter. “Now
that
sounds like a Beatles song.”

“Okay,” Ty says. “Pick something else. Your choice.”

He steps closer to the piano and rests the guitar against his hip again, waiting for me. I tuck my hair behind my ears and sit up straight.

“Ready?” he asks.

“This is weird,” I say, looking at him.

Ty shakes his head. “It's cool, I play here all the time.”

“No . . .” I say. “It's just that I never see you standing up. It's weird.”

I swear I can hear Tony chuckling behind the counter.

“Just play,” Ty says.

So I do. I kick into it, hard and fast, playing the song we danced to in his basement, but live and much louder. I have been practicing it at home every chance I get, remembering how it felt to be close to him for the first time, how my heart drubbed down into my toes, how my hands rested on him, light and new.

I work the pedals on the baby grand, feeling all the notes, full steam ahead.

I don't slow down, or ease into it, or even give Ty a chance to catch up to me, but somehow he does.

J
ay and Ginger are in for it. I can tell by the way they stand straighter and stare whenever Billie walks into the garage for practice. Today their mouths hang open, and Jay's bass swings low and loose, temporarily forgotten.

I've seen it before. It is a side effect of her bounciness, her indifference, and the little space between her front teeth. Boys love Billie.

But Ty never even seems to notice her. He is either very well behaved or impervious to her charms. Maybe he is still hypnotized, spinning under the dazzling spell of The Wall of Sound and its sea of shining instruments.

I am still feeling it, too, and returning to the dusty dimness of the garage is a bit of a disappointment. But Jay and Ginger are here when we pull up, spilling stupid jokes and guitar licks
out into the street, and sliding under the moon and stars strap feels like home. It sparkles when the light hits it just right.

Billie is sporting a fresh scrape on her knee. It looks suspiciously like rug burn, but Billie always has a bruise or a scratch or a bump. A nick. A little something that she picks up during the day and has no idea how it happened.

She bumps along with a smile on her face, knocking into everyday shit, unknowingly changing the trajectory of everything around her. Lives, furniture, even things that appear to be set in stone are nudged into another dimension when she bounces up against them: poor, unprepared world.

Her eyes follow mine from her knee to her face, where they flicker and hold, seemingly abashed, but I bet I just imagine that.

What was she up to while Ty and I were out?

I tell myself she tripped.

Ty waits for her while she gets set, tapping out the intro to the next song on the rim of his snare. Jay joins in, and Ginger Baker rolls his head back and forth to the beat, already lost.

When Ginger goes to bed at night, I bet musical notes dance before his eyes, while bosomy girls in satin nighties thread in and out of staves, weaving themselves into his unwritten masterpieces.

Billie starts singing, and soon she is screwing everything up. I know it's on purpose because songs she has known her
whole life are coming out wrong.“Wish” becomes “kiss.” “Boys” becomes “noise.”

There is no excuse. Growing up with Winston was a lifelong primer in classic rock. We skipped right over “The Farmer in the Dell” and went straight on to “Black Dog,” drifting along on a constant stream of acoustic intros and cigarette smoke.

The periodic table and the parsing of sentences fall right through Billie's brain, but those lyrics are stuck in her head, like bubble gum on the bottom of her boot. This has to be payback for spending the day with Ty.

I scowl at her from behind my guitar and wonder what will come next.

Finally Jay jumps forward and whispers over her shoulder.

“Ah . . . it's ‘repent,'” he says, “not ‘red pants.'”

Billie turns to look at him, eyebrows arched.

Jay ducks his chin and slides back into his spot, lining his worn Vans up behind his microphone, completely apologetic and still slightly goggled by her presence.

“'Sokay.” She smiles sweetly, finally swimming in the attention she was after.

We find our places again while Billie sways, waiting for the start of the next verse.

She stands, hand on her skinny hip, the fake fur trim surrounding the hood on her parka tangled into her hair. As the music starts building, she arches toward the mic, and I
watch her transformation from little sister to rock star. It never fails to impress me, even under the dull fluorescent tubes of our garage.

Her five feet two inches stretch, suddenly seeming much bigger than her usual scabbed-up little self. A rasp rattles into her voice, husky and low, summoning up a southern accent that hasn't existed since the end of the Confederacy. Then a sound, huge, rocks from that tiny body.

I stare at her in amazement, remembering her dressing Barbie dolls and eating her breakfast cereal with milk that was definitely well past sour but not quite chunky, and I want to hate her, to take my jealousy and bash it over her head like a guitar, Pete Townshend style, because it is so big and violent, but I can't. I am too busy being proud of my slightly rotten little sister. She blows the boys away.

Yes, even Ty.

A faint rush of cold air swirls around my ankles as I lean down into the fridge, trying to find a place to wedge the ketchup bottle. The sticky red ring that it normally lives in has been swallowed up by a shifting load of jars and jellies, all jammed in.

“I think I should have just one name,” I hear Billie say.

I stand up and rest my arm along the top of the open door.

My dad glances over his shoulder and then turns back to the sink.

Billie has pink streaks in her hair and fake tattoos stretched up her arms. She is wearing a wifebeater and booty shorts with her worn-out black leather boots.

She flexes her biceps. “Like Pink.”

Dad turns off the tap.

“Or, you know,” she says, dancing around and watching her reflection in the darkened windows above the kitchen table, “like Madonna did.”

“Does,” Dad says.

Billie stops dancing. “What?”

“Madonna's not dead,” Dad says.

“Are you sure?” Billie asks. He nods, and she starts dancing again.

I finally give up and cram the ketchup bottle in next to Winston's homemade bitchin' hot barbecue sauce. (His secret? Lemon pepper.)

“But you're my Billie Carter,” Dad says, sounding like his pride is wounded. Dish soap bubbles drip from the ends of his fingers.

“Yep,” I say as I swing the fridge door shut, “named after the dishonorable brother of our thirty-ninth president. And a can of beer.”

I memorized these facts in the third grade, back when I half expected to see my mom on
Antique Roadshow
, her hair done up, a can of Billy Beer in her hand, waiting in line to learn of her riches from a snobby guy with a bow tie and a Boston
accent. But it was always just people with crap from basements and attics and the Civil War, nothing good.

She once brought home a can of Billy Beer from a garage sale—unopened and covered in dust—thinking it would be worth money someday. It sat on a shelf in our garage for years, and I thought she took it with her when she left. Turns out, Winston used it for target practice. Shot a hole in it with his first BB gun.

These days the beer story is just good ammunition against Billie.

She likes to pretend she is named after Billie Holiday, but it seems that we all were named after the shit my mom encountered during her daily trips to the convenience store or the flea market: cigarettes or beer cans or cheap nylon lingerie in a plastic bag. Go figure.

Billie pauses and gives me the finger.

My dad sighs as she stalks out of the room, the loose sole of her boot flapping along behind her.

“What's going on with you two?” he asks.

“Me and beer can Billie?”

His brow furrows. He is acting like he has never seen Billie flip me off before.

I shrug and reach for the dishcloth to wipe the table.

“Consider yourself lucky, Teddy Lee,” he says, leaning back so I can run the cloth under the tap in front of him, “you came close to being called Quinn.”

I start wiping. “That doesn't sound so bad to me.”

Marginally better than being named after a dollar store negligee.

He smiles wickedly. “Short for Harlequin.”

I groan.

“Yeah,” he says distractedly, bending over the sink, “Your mom was really into romance novels at the time.” He turns to grin at me, and a plate slips between his fingers and lands with a sploosh in the sink.

I finish wiping, and he pulls the plug. While the water gurgles down the drain, he dries his hands.

“How come Billie doesn't have a middle name?” I ask.

I have always wanted to know but never asked before. I bet Winston probably knows.

My dad's eyes light up, and I hold my breath as he crosses his arms and leans against the edge of the sink. A moment like this, just the two of us talking about the past, is rare. He remembers so much and tells us nothing.

I wish for a happy story filled with smiles and sunshine, instead of the darkness that I know. Does it hurt him to remember? Does he wish for a different ending? I'm not sure if I want to know.

“I guess your mom just ran out of gas,” he finally says with a shrug.

His eyes clear, and just like that—snap—he turns back into himself, a tired man with three kids, wrapped in flannel nine months out of the year.

“Make it right with your sister, Teddy Lee,” he tells me, his shoulders moving in steady, small circles as he starts to dry the dishes. He hands me a glass and a plate to put away. “You know I count on you.”

My plan is to sneak Billie out of school. I'm pretty sure that isn't what my dad had in mind when he told me to make it right with Billie; but I know her best, and nothing will make her happier than skipping out.

I wait for her outside the girls' locker room after her fourth-period gym class. She is wearing striped tights and a long T-shirt pretending to be a dress and bounces on her toes as soon as she sees me standing against the windows, swinging my car key around and around on my finger.

We walk down the hallway as fast as we can, trying to keep our boots quiet on the dark green tile, checking both directions for adults and slowing down for open doorways as we go.

I do my best not to contribute to Billie's delinquency, seriously I do, but if Dad had something else in mind last night, he should have been more specific.

“Best idea of the day,” Billie says quietly as she ducks under my arm and we sneak out the doors closest to the gym.

We crouch and run across the student lot, jumping over the crumbling parking bumpers and crooked feelers of
crabgrass growing up through the cracks in the blacktop.

“What are you missing?” I ask her while I pump the gas pedal in my car just to be sure all systems are go.

“Interpolation.”

She rolls down her window as we drive along the circular drive in front of the school. Billie is like a dog: she is always up for going anywhere, and she always has to have the window rolled down.

“You?” she asks.

“American government.”

I drive through town, considering that there might come a time when I will regret skipping out on the electoral college. But the sun is shining today. The air is cool and fresh; and Billie is humming along to some tune playing in her head and leaning out the window. Right now it does not seem likely.

We pull up into an angled parking spot at the drive-in. It has looked the same since we were kids: a dark brown hut with a bright orange stripe painted around the base of the square roof. The carhops wear old-time change belts and come right over to your car with your food when it is ready.

I reach out to press the button on the illustrated menu/speaker so Billie can order.

She leans past me and sticks her head out my window.

“Let's see. . . .” She studies the menu with her tongue poking out, like we haven't been here millions of times before.
“We'll have two cheese nachos and two—” She turns to check with me on the soda size.

“Medium?” she asks me. I nod. I hate talking to the machine.

“And two medium root beers.” She finishes ordering and drops back into her seat. The two old guys in the car next to us look disappointed her ass is no longer on display.

“Not diet!” she yells as I start to roll the window up, and I jump.

“You done?” I ask, stopping with the window halfway so there is room for the tray.

Billie nods. “You know I hate diet.”

I do. Billie would live on pure sugar if she could.

It is cold today, so our carhop has on a dark brown windbreaker when she delivers our nachos and sodas.

“The ones in the summer are better looking,” Billie says, eating a chip and staring blankly out her window as our carhop walks away.

The nachos are covered in that fake bright orange, practically government-funded kind of cheese. They ladle it out of a large black pot and pour it on top of round, salty corn chips here. I'm sure you could get better nachos almost anywhere else in town, but these totally do it for me.

We sit silently, munching on our chips and taking long, slow sips of root beer. Billie eats in small bites, the cheesiest chips first, then scraping as much cheese as possible onto the
ones left over, until she runs out and comes scrambling for mine.

We used to come here a lot with my mom. She could make an order of fries last all night. Billie and I would climb over from the backseat, into the front, where life was far more exciting, full of buttons to push and broken bits of Wint O Green Life Savers stuck into the crack of the seat and an always overflowing ashtray.

The radio would play low as the carhops swung back and forth in their white sneakers and short shorts, me in the middle and little Billie kneeling at the window, watching the world go by.

When it got dark and it was time to go home, we'd slide back over into our seats. Mom would drop into reverse, and we'd bite into the whole Life Savers we'd secretly stolen from her purse, leaning in close to each other so we could see them spark in the dark.

Billie licks her finger and dips it in the drift of salt left behind by her chips. She leans down and runs her tongue along the edge of the plastic tray.

She sighs.

I wish we had a radio.

The ice is melting in my soda. I give it a swirl and stare out over the dash. Somewhere down the road and what feels like a lifetime away, a school bell is ringing for us.

“Look what I got,” Billie says.

My head rolls toward her along the back of my seat. Should I tell her she has cheese in her hair?

She digs into her bag and holds up a pack of Life Savers, Wint O Green and brand new, dancing it toward me with a big smile on her face. I smile back. I made it right.