Finding Abbey Road (8 page)

I'm crying now. Full-on.

But I'm not going to yell anymore.

The cards are finally on the table.

“It is me,” I say quietly.

My tears have the predictable effect of bringing Dad down a notch. I sort of hate that, the power of my weakness. No cheat codes. But I can't help crying.

“Look, I'm sorry to get so angry . . .” But he doesn't finish.

Mom sighs. “I agree with your father. I know it may be hard to understand where we're coming from—”

“No,” I say, still crying, but firm. “No, I get it. I totally get it.”

We stand there silent. Mom rearranges the pie plates, but doesn't ask us if we want any. There will be no family snack time now.

“You have so much potential,” Dad says. “I just . . .” He looks so disappointed, so sad, like he might cry, too. And, God, on top of
all
of this, the guilt that I am letting him down nearly pushes me under completely. “I just don't understand why you're not content.”

If it were possible I would laugh. I think of my college essay, the one I wrote at Canter's at four in the morning,
still easily the weirdest, or maybe truest, thing that's ever come out of my head.

Maybe the only thing I'm content in is my discontent.

Oh hell, Summer.

“I'm going upstairs,” I say, wiping my nose. “Thanks for listening.” I shouldn't have added that last comment, but I couldn't help it.

“Let's talk more later,” says Mom, in damage-control mode.

“Right.”

4:31 p.m.

I have my phone out by the time I'm at the top of the stairs.

I send the first text when I'm in my room, door shut. When I get the answer I want, I breathe deep, hearing only the deafening hammering in my chest, thudding inside my ears.

I check a couple websites. Do some quick math on the calculator.

Text again.

And wait.

The answer arrives. Again, unlike downstairs, Summer gets what she wants.

And so finally I text Caleb.

Summer: Are you home yet?

Caleb: What if I told you I was parked around the corner from your house.

Summer: I would say that I love you and you are the bestest.

Caleb: Should I come get you?

Summer: No, I'll come to you. Sit tight. I'll say I'm taking the bus to meet Maya or something. Doesn't matter. They'll know I need some time to cool off.

Caleb: That bad, huh?

Summer: Worse.

My fingers tremble, the nerves buzzing, my skin electric.

Summer: Caleb?

Caleb: Yeah?

Summer: What if we went tonight?

4:56 p.m.

Our first stop is the Hive. We pass through the usual gateway cloud of cigarette and weed smoke, sidestep the empty bottles spilled over from the trash cans by the door, the legs of musicians sitting in the hall. It's all I can do not to wave away the smoke, trying to keep my fresh outfit of clothes clean for as long as possible.

They'll need to last awhile.

On the way over, I checked my shoulder bag at least ten times. Phone. Phone charger. Passport. Driver's license. Extra underwear. One pair of socks. A spare T-shirt. Toothbrush and some makeup. All the cash I had: a stunning
thirty-two dollars. I changed into clean jeans, a long underwear top under a T-shirt, and a hoodie. Everything a good girl needs for a three-day international trip when she also has to walk out of the house looking like she's just going to the mall for an hour.

This is insane. I know it. The day has spiraled so far from where it began. And at this point, it feels like to stop moving would cause everything to collapse around us.

We hurry up to the practice space. Caleb is pulling the key from his pocket when we both pause, our eyes meeting.

There's music coming from inside. A song I know too well.

“Shit,” Caleb mutters. He opens the door.

Jon is kneeling by his amp, wrapping up cables and putting them in a black duffel bag. His phone is plugged into the PA and blaring a song by Postcards from Ariel. My old band, his new band. Hearing Ethan's voice makes me tighten up, and I hate that he still has that effect on me.

Jon looks up. Sees us. Looks away fast.

“Boning up on your new band?” Caleb asks. He's trying to look indifferent, standing there with his arms folded, but he can't hide the hurt in his voice. I rub his arm, hoping we can avoid a fight. We have way bigger problems than Jon right now.

And apparently Jon has bigger concerns than us.

“Got a show tonight,” he says. He reaches over and taps his phone, silencing the song, and returns to packing away cables and pedals.

He unplugs his amp, tucks the cord in the back. He's already taken down the Christmas lights he hung on the ceiling. There's a blank spot on the wall where his vintage Rush
2112
poster used to hang.

And it hits me that it's really over. We're not going to lose Jon.

We've already lost him.

I'm on the verge of tears again. “You're moving out for good,” I say.

Jon sighs. He doesn't look up. I wonder if maybe he can't. “They practice over at the Cubes, so . . .” He zips up his bag and stands.

Caleb still hasn't moved. We are between Jon and the door. Which means he finally has to look at us.

“I'm sorry,” says Jon. One part of me wonders if he needs to be sorry for anything. He hated being overshadowed. He
did
get overshadowed. This band has been anything but normal. Still . . . we could have made it work. I want to launch into it with Jon all over again, about how we just have to get through this business of Eli White, and then things will be normal, except how true could that possibly be, especially if we find him alive?

“It's cool,” says Caleb, which is musician speak for
whatever.
He's done.

“Jon . . . ,” I start, because this feels wrong. No matter what went down last week, we were good, Dangerheart was
great
with Jon, and sure, there are a million guitarists, a
hundred right here in the Hive, but they are the unknown.

Jon was ours.

And he was with us at the beginning. It's never the same after a band's original lineup. The ones who first took the stage together. There's a bond there, some love that comes from starting it, from working your way up together. Anyone who comes after . . . it's all a little bit less like family, and just a bit more like business.

Jon looks at me, waiting for me to add something.

I want to tell him that I'll call him next week, that we'll talk it out, but even saying a phrase like “next week” opens the slightest window into what we're doing
this
week, and that's a secret—there have been so many secrets—that we just can't trust him with anymore.

So instead, all I say is: “Break a leg.”

Jon nods, eyes back to the floor. “Thanks.” He shuffles past us, lugging his amp, guitar over his shoulder. “See you guys around.”

We should hug or something . . .

Say something more. Anything.

Hey Jon, remember that time driving to San Francisco? Singing Allegiance to North songs, you playing guitar in the back? When everything was new and we were free?

Remember . . .

But he's out the door and gone.

I start crying but I don't want to be. There's been enough of that. I hold my breath, keep silent. Dammit.

“Postcards is a great fit for him,” says Caleb.

“It . . .” I can't disagree.

Caleb sighs. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

I nod, close the door, and work on the simple act of breathing and making it through each second, as Caleb digs into the recesses behind the sagging couch, gathering the hidden items that we need for what comes next.

6:07 p.m.

I slap the videotapes on the table.

“There you go,” I say. I draw my hand back and rest my fingers on the linoleum inches away. As soon I lose touch with them I immediately want to snatch them back, to tuck those little plastic cases safely back in my bag.

But it's too late for that now.

There they sit, “Exile” and “Encore to an Empty Room,” the lost songs of Eli White. Videos from the great beyond, now back home on a chipped linoleum table, beneath an evening autumn sky, their sky, perhaps the very ceiling that inspired their creator in the first place, sitting here at Canter's the night after a gig, so many years ago.

For a second, Jason Fletcher doesn't say anything. His hungry shark's grin lessens, and he looks almost . . . shocked.

“Anybody need a refill?”

The narrow shadow of Vic appears beside us, holding
the stained coffeepot. I watch him as he notices the tapes on the table. His expression doesn't change, but he glances at me. I offer him a weak smile that I hope somehow says,
Yeah, I know, but this is what we had to do.

Vic has zero response. “No?” he says.

“I'm good,” says Jason, not bothering to make eye contact.

“I think we're set,” I say. “Thanks, Vic.”

He flashes a disapproving glance at Jason. Then looks back to me. “You let me know, anything you need.”

He stalks off.

Jason is still gazing at the tapes.

“I was just old enough when Allegiance was really hitting it big,” he says. “My dad gave me
The Breaks
for my tenth birthday. They were my first favorite band.” I never thought it was possible that Jason could be so . . . reverent about anything, and though my opinion of him isn't changing, it does remind me that it's unfair to think that anyone is purely one-dimensional.

“I used to sit around reading every rumor about
Into the Ever & After.
I'd overheard my dad's conversations, so I knew the band was going sideways. I was even there backstage for a couple of the big fights between Eli and Kellen. But like a naive kid, I thought if they could just get that second album out they would be okay. Shit . . .” He shakes his head. “I had a poster of Eli White on my
wall.
”

A little voice in my head reminds me to check my watch,
and seeing the time breaks the spell of this weird human moment with our otherwise-nemesis.

“Are you going to take them?” I ask. As I do, I reach over and rub Caleb's knee. He's staring at the tapes, too.

“It's just,” Caleb had said in the car on the way over here, “the tapes are my only lifeline to him. If we
don't
find him . . .”

But I know he agrees that this is our only move.

“Hell yes, I'm going to take them.” Jason lays his hand over the cases and slides the tapes close to him. Once they are in his clutches, he checks each box to make sure there's actually a tape inside. “I know this is what
I
would do, if I was in your position,” Jason says. “But . . . since it's you guys, I can't help but wonder if there's a catch. . . .”

“You offered us a deal,” I say quickly, trying to sound professional. “We're taking the deal.”

“So it appears.” Jason glances over his shoulder and snaps his fingers. Side note: finger snapping? What an ass.

Maya Barnes appears. She's actually been standing over by the counter at the entrance to the restaurant this whole time, hate-watching our little meeting. I can't decide whether I feel bad for her being treated as the lowly intern, or satisfied after how she sold us out in New York. Of course, she had her cheating-boyfriend reasons for revenge. So mostly I'm just trying to avoid the laser-death glare she's been giving me since we arrived.

Jason holds the tapes up to Maya. “Check them.”

Maya nods, her face red, tight. She's wearing all black. Her hair is up but a long strand has sprung loose, trailing down over her thick-rimmed glasses. She keeps brushing it behind her ear, but it keeps falling back down. Now that she's this close there's no way she's looking at me.

She digs into her big black shoulder bag and produces a vintage camcorder. She pops in the first tape, fast-forwards a little, then holds it out so Jason can see the screen.

The tapes hisses. We hear Eli's tinny voice: “
Hey, far comet . . .
”

“Excellent,” says Jason.

Maya pops out the tape and they check the other. Same result. She hands the tapes back to Jason. “Thanks, Maya,” he says, waving her away.

“Sure,” Maya mumbles. She marches off, no doubt so, so furious. It breaks my heart a little, but mostly I'm just relieved that she's gone. My nerves feel like tightropes, humming in the wind, and they can only balance so many things at once.

Jason sighs dramatically. “Well, then. Here we are, at last. I have my Dangerheart, and Eli White has returned to his final resting place. I have to say, I
never
thought you'd give these up.”

Caleb and I say nothing. He squeezes my hand because I know he's regretting it, even if it will get us what we want.

“That said . . .” Jason gives us the side eye. “You know I need to ask you about the third tape.”

I shrug. Luckily for once, I can pretty much just tell the truth. “We thought it was going to be in New York. You were there when we checked the Hard Rock, and Ten Below Zero. That was where all the clues led, but . . . it was a dead end.”

Ha-ha, more like the opposite!

Oh, if only
anything
were funny right now.

“We've learned that my dad wasn't exactly the master planner,” Caleb adds. It's the perfect line.

Jason nods and his smile fades. “I think Eli ended up letting a lot of people down.”

Jason has always been good at hiding what he really thinks. Still, I'm pretty sure he buys our story. He was there in New York. He had his eyes on us. He had no idea that was actually Eli onstage at Ten Below Zero, and he'd never heard “Encore to an Empty Room” to even realize that's what was being played as he walked in.