Red Velvet Crush (9 page)

Winston keeps on talking.

“Nothing big, just a few small clubs, you know, but still—”

“Like a tour?” I ask, dazed.

Who is this guy? I am used to the Winston who wanders around the house constantly looking for his lighter or stands in the kitchen shaking empty cereal boxes before putting them back into the cabinet. Not the taking care of business dude standing before me now.

Winston crosses his arms over his chest and smiles.

“Randy pulled some strings,” he says.

It seems ironic that all I can feel at this moment is the pounding bass line of some other band.

“A freaking tour?” Jay hollers, his hands gripping the edge of the bench, arms flexing, ready to spring.

Winston nods. “There are still some details to work out, but if it makes you feel better, we'll call it a freaking tour.” His grin is huge.

And Jay is up, jumping, his shaved head coming close to the low ceiling. He high-fives Ty, high-fives Ginger; working his way around in a circle. He high-fives Winston and then Billie, who shrieks and hops up high enough to hug him tight around the neck.

When Jay gets to me, I hold my hand up, dizzy and smiling. A dream I haven't even started to dream yet is rushing at me, with no chance to think or breathe or choose.

They all are so excited, but I want to sit. Maybe breathe
into a bag. Call for smelling salts. Something.

How did this happen?

Winston has never, ever done anything right before in his life, but he has somehow managed, pun intended, to be good at something, finally. And this is it, this is what he chooses: a road trip with his little sisters and a fledgling rock 'n' roll band.

My palm stings from the smack of Jay's hand. My fingers tingle and twitch. I let my hand drop.

Another hand, calm and warm and big, slides into mine, locking into my empty spaces and squeezing out the worry. Ty wraps me up, holding me tight and together while a roar of applause rises and fades a few walls away.

W
inston sits at the table, a box of cereal and a bowl parked in front of him, spilled sugar surrounding his elbows. He lifts his chin toward me as I plop down and reach for the open box. I plan to sit right here until Dad comes home. I dig my hand into the box and eat the sugary flakes dry, calling them dinner.

Winston helps himself to another bowlful, shaking one, two, three more flakes on top of the mound. Then he grabs the milk and pours, slowing as the milk appears under the cereal, slowing again when the cereal starts to rise and float, skimming along the rim of the bowl: breakfast cereal perfection.

I have seen him do this hundreds of times. Winston is extremely proud of his ability to fill a bowl.

The back door swings open, and a couple of wet leaves swirl in along with Dad. He swipes his hand across his
forehead and smooths his hair as he shuts the door behind him with his hip.

I play with some of the stray sugar that has escaped from Winston while Dad pulls out the chair across from me and sits down.

“Winston told me,” he says, his eyes on the table.

I push the sugar aside, sweet and useless. I don't know what to say. It all happened so fast, and I wish I could have told him. Winston is too quick and harsh, his words coated in nicotine and braggadocio. I would have at least pretended to ask.

Billie spent last night with a packed duffel bag next to her bed, as if the tour could happen at any moment without notice. But I'm not so sure about it. Any lingering bubbles of excitement inside me burst as soon as I woke up this morning, smelled Dad's coffee, saw Billie's toes peeking out from the end of her blanket.

I'm not worried about the hard work, or the music, or the trip itself. I'm worried about Dad and me. This place is my home. He is my ballast.

He stayed. He held on with his warm, sturdy hands when Mom let go. I don't know if I can just walk away from that and leave him here, alone.

And I have only ever been here, known here. I wish I could be like Billie, so ready to go, but I don't know if my brain works anywhere else. What if my music doesn't follow me down the road, away from this place?

Dad stands, grabs the back of his chair, and pushes it in slowly, right against the edge of the table, carefully lining his thumbs up along the worn back. I sit up straight, grateful that Winston is too busy chewing to chime in.

“Let me think about it,” he says, and my head hangs low, sinking toward the table.

I nod and press down on the stray sugar in front of me, feeling it crunch under my fingertips.

It winks in the late afternoon sun, daring me to taste it. It leaves only a fleeting sweetness on my tongue as Dad walks away and my brother pours himself another perfect bowl of breakfast cereal for dinner.

“Couldn't he just get a job at McDonald's?” Dad asks a week later.

We are putting the groceries away. Two paper bags stuffed full that Dad carried in from his truck, the tops wet from riding around in the open bed all morning. Somehow it always ends up just being the two of us on Saturday afternoon, when the job of unpacking comes around.

Today I am hanging at home on purpose. Not for the groceries but because tonight is Ty's graduation. I spent the morning inspecting my dress and picking out just the right pair of shoes and staring in the bathroom mirror, wishing that my teeth were whiter.

“Winston?” I ask, turning the cans of vegetables in the
cupboard so that the pictures of corn and beans and peas all face out. It looks like we are neat and organized and temporarily flush with cash. Before Winston messes them all up anyway.

“You know he won't,” I say.

If that were an option, Winston would have done it years ago. But there's no way he'd wear a uniform or fit into a drive-through window.

And what happened to my dad's love of Winston's job at the radio station? He seems less enamored with it now that it means we might be going on the road.

He shakes his head, not really listening to me.

I'm not sure I even need to be here. I am merely a witness to the internal argument he has been having all week, the debate that must have been raging inside him since Winston broke the news. We might be leaving home. All three of us.

Following behind him, I pick up the things he leaves stacked on the counter and then straighten out the packages of sandwich meat and sliced cheese he stuffs into the fridge, all in the middle of the top shelf.

I spread everything out, even put a cucumber into the vegetable bin, so our bounty is evenly distributed. Will we ever find a reason to eat that lonely cucumber, or will I throw it out this same time next week, limp and wrinkly?

Dad stops in the middle of the kitchen with a can of coffee resting under one arm. The red lid glows as the afternoon sun
banks in through the windows over the table, reminding us that spring is almost over.

“School will be out soon,” he says, rubbing his whiskers with his free hand. It is his day off; whiskers are allowed. He sets the coffee on the counter, next to the pot. “And you'll be there to take care of your sister.”

Neither seems like a question. So I simply stare back, letting him work it out for himself. He hands me a box of chocolate chip cookies, the big box with enough for everybody to get at least one after Winston has had his way with them and plenty of busted cookie dust at the bottom for Billie to stick her finger into.

I put it in the cabinet, far into the back corner, hiding it. Maybe I am hoping he won't let us go. That way we can stay home and everything will stay the same as always: safe and small and easy. But maybe I want more than that, too.

It is the perfect night for Ty's graduation. The air feels warm on my arms, and a breeze is blowing through the newly budded trees as I park my car.

Billie talked me into a sleeveless dress. I knew she would go out in a handkerchief if she thought it looked good, damn the weather, so I wasn't sure when she picked this one out at the mall. It fits snug around my waist, and the dark blue skirt flares around my legs like I am ready for a party.

Now I am glad she pushed for it because the cars I am
passing as I totter through the parking lot are all German, all expensive. All shiny and screaming, “We know you pulled up in a late-model Camry with a bad starter and a voracious appetite for synthetic motor oil.”

Walden Academy is imposing. I need to be dressed up.

The building itself is old. The faded red bricks of the original structure have stood the test of time. Newer blocklike additions were built onto each side and cropped up from the back. I open one of the glass doors of the entrance, gripping the thick brass pull.

It is like stepping into a tent in a Harry Potter novel. The wooden floors and grand old tradition of the main entrance open up into a modern world of shining stainless stairways and bright glass-walled classrooms filled with world-class gadgetry.

The floors creak under my feet as I hurry across the lobby.

Just the divorced dads and I are arriving late, skimming in at the last second.

The catering staff is busy setting out crystal punch bowls and silver platters full of sugar cookies for after. Banks of mullioned windows flank me on my right, the glass slowly running for the floor, one century at a time.

I follow the hand-lettered signs set up on easels and make the turn toward the auditorium. A sea of black graduation gowns fills the hallway, waiting for the cue to enter. Ty and Jay are in there somewhere, inching toward their diplomas.
I hand my ticket to a large lady in a white blouse. The PTA sticker stuck to her chest says
DEVON
'
S MOM
.

“Thanks,” I whisper, and slip through the open doorway.

The auditorium is an excited hush, a collection of whispers and quiet coughing and flash photography.

I smooth my skirt and slide into one of the few remaining aisle seats near the back. It has green velvet cushions and a little brass plaque engraved with a name on the curved wooden back.

My school has a gym for an auditorium, with metal bleachers that fold up against the walls. We have engravings on the seats, too, but they are scratched in. They say things like “Eat me.” Or “Cheri is a coked-out slut.”

The student orchestra is entering from the right, taking places along the risers set at the back of the stage. Thick curtains bank both edges of the stage, held sway by ropes, waiting for the next performance of
Pippin
or
Of Mice and Men
.

Ginger pokes up from the back row: a tall poppy in a sea of short brown grass. He positions himself behind the timpani, his eyes on the conductor. I smile. So Ginger Baker
is
a drummer after all.

With a quick flick and a sharp drop of the conductor's baton, “Pomp and Circumstance” fills the room. The kettledrums pound low and deep. Ginger's hair puffs to the side when the crash cymbals smash together next to him.

The doors at the front of the room open, and the graduates file in: a swishing procession of black robes. Almost all of them have gold cords strung over their shoulders. Applause buffets the curtains and bounces off the stage.

“Today is the day to set your dreams on fire,” a tiny Asian girl says from the podium at the center of the stage when the noise dies down, craning her neck up to reach the microphone.

Isn't that a Taylor Swift song? My ears prick up. Sounds like it. Her parents must be so proud.

Are Ty's parents somewhere down front, saving a seat for me, the girl who is going to take him away from all this excellence? It is too late to check; dreams are ablaze all around me.

Parents are zooming in. Tablets and cell phones and old-school cameras crowd the horizon, arms reaching up for the best shot of this priceless moment.

“Pictures are for people who can't remember things,” Dad told me—years before at Billie's eighth-grade graduation. He tapped his temple as the other parents fought for territory. “I remember everything.”

It is true. He does remember everything. But maybe, just maybe, he didn't want a reminder of where we've been, a book full of photos to show the hole in our family. Either way, we have never owned a camera.

Winston bought a disposable cheapie for a school trip
to Disneyland once when he was in high school, but all we ended up with was a paper envelope stuffed full of two-for-one prints of girl's asses.

“Please hold your applause until all the graduates' names have been called,” Ty's principal announces.

The graduating class lines up at the edge of the stage. Suddenly the aisles are swamped. Moms and dads block and tackle.

A woman in a tight black satin skirt kneels in the aisle next to me. A camera that probably cost more than my car presses against her face; her other hand grips my armrest for balance.

I don't stress, though. I don't even try to tip her over. (Just a little push, and that rock of a wedding ring would do the rest.) I don't need a picture to remember this night. I already feel legit, like a real girlfriend with a graduation program in my hand and a road trip on the horizon. Maybe I'll even write about it one day.

Jay is called before Ty. He crosses the stage, practically running by the time he reaches the principal. He pumps the principal's arm up and down twice, takes his diploma, and turns to pose for the cameras, still for only a second before he whoops loud and runs a fast lap around the edge of the stage. Everyone onstage waits patiently. They are obviously used to Jay by now.

Ty crosses the stage in two big steps—just like the first time I ever saw him—and the first few words of a new song fill
my head. When they call his name, I don't care what anyone has to say. I clap so hard my hands hurt.

My phone buzzes late that night, after the sparkling cider and the cake and the congratulations. After I kick off the blue dress and climb into bed and write for hours. Until Billie, still in her coat, climbs into her bed across the room, and we both fall asleep.

“I'm outside,” the text says, and I slip on a sweatshirt and wrap myself in my quilt and then walk on my toes all the way to the door.

It is clear and chilly. My nose tingles when I breathe in. The sky is dark blue, finished with black and already moving on to the colors of day.

Ty is standing in the far corner of the yard, staring at the house. The streetlight is out, again.

A mountain bike is dropped on the grass behind him, the handlebars stuck at an odd angle into the dirt. No minivan tonight; he is in stealth mode.

“I didn't know if your dad was home,” he says.

“The answer to that is almost always no.”

He holds his hand out, and I pull him toward the porch. We sit down on the top step, and I cover his shoulders with the quilt. His nose is red from the bike ride.

“I'm in,” he says quietly in the dark. “They're letting me go on the road.”

I can't see his eyes, but his voice sounds excited.

“That was their gift to me for graduation: my freedom.”

It is probably more like trust than freedom. Trust—with a credit card attached for emergencies.

“Well, freedom, and some serious savings bonds.” He laughs.

He reaches under the blanket and squeezes my leg.

“And Jay?” I ask.

“He's in. His parents are going to Europe for a couple of weeks anyway. He'd have to stay home with the housekeeper. He thinks she smells like mothballs,” he whispers into my ear as if it were a state secret.

Jay seemed so excited before. Is he only going along to avoid the lady with a dustrag and a slight odor? Maybe
These Songs Are Better than Mothballs
should be the title of our first album.

“Life's rough,” I say.

“No, not like that,” Ty wiggles my leg. “You know Jay. He would've found a way, no matter what.”

I picture Jay bouncing through a very clean house, smuggling a backpack stuffed full of T-shirts and sneakers of various colors past a geriatric housekeeper as he makes his escape. Yeah, that's better.