Thank You, Goodnight (21 page)

I rolled my eyes. Then, heavily, I reached into my jacket pocket and removed a CD. “I’m actually not here to talk about the past.”

Alaina’s eyes turned devilish at the sight of the CD, and she accepted it with a quizzical twitch of the nose. “What is this? Do you have a son or some grandnephew in a band?”

“You can go fuck yourself, you know that?”

“Oh, believe me, I know.”

“It’s me,” I confessed lamely.

“You?” she gasped. “But . . . but . . . I’m confused. You’re not a musician. You’re a lawyer. You gave all this up years ago. You left it behind, turned the page—”

“Will you give it a rest?”

She regarded the jewel case dubiously. “This is really you? I’m speechless.”

“That’s not what speechless sounds like.”

“So, go ahead. Tell me your story. There’s obviously a story behind this, probably sadder than the one I just recounted about my dead grandfather, but you’re clearly dying to tell it to me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because FedEx still costs less than a train ticket.”

“You got me there,” I said.

“Beautiful does not seem stupid.” Leaning her slender body over the credenza, she inserted the disc into a glistening piece of stereo equipment that had a CD tray, a USB port, an MP3 dock, and anachronistically, a tape deck. “Is this new music you’ve brought me or swing versions of your oldies? Extended dance mixes with Moby? Tremble for Babies?”

“It’s new stuff.”

“Hmm. Delusions of relevance. I’ve seen this movie before.”

“Maybe I’ll exceed your expectations.”

“That’ll be easy.” She snickered. “So before I subject my delicate ears to your cacophony, tell me where you think this fits in.”

This was the familiar Alaina, the one constantly aquiver with a marketing angle. Everybody had to fit in somewhere. The Pet Shop Boys were still at it because the musical tastes of Eurofags hadn’t evolved in the past quarter century. The few members of Lynyrd Skynyrd who hadn’t ridden over themselves with their own motorcycles could still do “Gimme Three Steps” to a crowded barbecue because somebody had to make music for dirtballs. So where did that leave me?

I said, “Do I look like I fit in anywhere?”

“Well, that is the question, my little yogurt parfait.”

A soft knock interrupted us. A young woman pushed the door ajar and poked her nervous face into the room. She was a slight girl in her early twenties with punky blond hair blanketing her head.

“What is it, Marin?” Alaina snapped. “We’re working.”

“Dave Chenier is on the phone. And he’s really mad.”

“Why?”

“He’s not happy with the way the movie is going. And also, Vernon transferred him to me because you were in a meeting and, um, he didn’t like that.”

Dave Chenier was a well-known actor and pompous prima donna who’d made an appearance in nearly every art-house film of the past fifteen years. The warmest thing I’d ever heard anyone say about him was “No comment.”

Alaina groaned. “Transfer the little vaj to the conference room. I’ll take him in there.”

Marin slunk out, and suddenly I felt just as small and meek as she. My history with Alaina and whatever wells of loyalty still pooled in her backyard might have earned me a meeting, and apparently even a nail on her office wall, but it didn’t get her pissing away valuable time that could’ve been devoted to the service of clients with a name and a future. Maybe Warren was right. Even if the songs were pouring out of me as if some artery had swung free inside, there were just too many other variables to factor in.

I stood. “I should go.”

“Go? Sit your ass down.”

Ignoring her, I walked to the door. “Look, I would appreciate it if you listened and told me what you think, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved.” Before reaching for the handle, I paused and smiled. “It was good to see you too, Alaina.”

She caught me as I waited for an elevator, marching up to me, a hot breath of chic scarlet carving up the lobby. “We don’t walk out on me, Theodore,” she said, clearing her throat. “You may have forgotten the rules.”

“I feel silly being here.” I pressed the elevator button. “Listen to the music if you want, but either way, no hard feelings.”

Her head jerked like I’d just jabbed her on the chin. “What the
fuck is that? No hard feelings?” Behind the reception desk, a young man with spiked hair and a pastel-green tie pretended to busy himself by fussing with papers. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Relax.” I was already growing weary of this world I was so intent on charging back into. “I’m just letting you know that I understand all the angles. God, you are so much work.”

“I know what my job is. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it,” she snapped. “But don’t give me your girly little no-hard-feelings routine. It’s a huge turnoff.”

I became conscious of the smattering of people milling about in the waiting area, all quietly enjoying our altercation. I wondered if I looked familiar to them, if they were trying to place me, if they were doing the math in their heads and judging me.

“I have a train to catch,” I said. “We’ll talk later.”

Elevator doors parted, I boarded, and then it somehow occurred to me to flash my trump card, if for no other reason than to gauge its power.

“For what it’s worth, Sonny Rivers loves my new stuff. He wants to make a record.”

As the doors glided smoothly toward each other, Alaina’s bejeweled hand chopped the air between them. The doors cowered back.

“Come off, Triscuit,” she commanded.

I complied.

“Sonny Rivers has heard this?”

I nodded. I really should start leading with that one.

“How did that happen?”

“I played it for him.”

“Hmm. And he liked?”

“Well, as I mentioned in my previous sentence, he wants to make a record.”

Her eyes narrowed in devious deliberation.

“Why are you squinting?” I asked.

“I’m not squinting. I’m Asian, asshole.”

I could literally see the wheels spinning behind her eyes, workshopping the moves she’d need to make in order to organize the world in sync with her vision.

“Jumbo’s in,” I added. “So is Warren. Sort of.”

“Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit. Somebody’s been busy. The whole motley fucking crew.”

“Getting there.”

“Jumbo’s still alive, huh? You really want to work with that nebbish again?”

“You were the one who always talked me out of firing him.”

“I considered it an erratic move to ax the only person in the band with talent. What about the chick?”

“I haven’t spoken to Mackenzie yet.”

“Of course you haven’t. Fraidy cat.”

“I’m not afraid. I’m apprehensive. And Dave Chenier is still on hold.”

A courtly ding signaled the arrival of another elevator. “I’m actually going to ride down in this one, so give me a call if you want to talk.” I held up the bunny ears of a peace sign. Which I’d never done before in my entire life.

Later, while rumbling home on Amtrak, I got a text from Alaina: “putting your demo on now. will try to stay awake. zzzzz.”

I wrote back, “you owe me. i stayed awake while you went all amy tan on me. zzzzz.”

Her: “eat me. and don’t think i don’t know this is all a ploy to get me back in your life. i still know u better than u know yerself.”

Me: “there’s not that much to know.”

A few moments passed, then she wrote: “can we try not to bang the bass player this time?”

CHAPTER 12

I
shook the fine grounds of a Costa Rica blend into a filter and watched the drips as they fell into the coffeepot below, each hiss a whispered admonition. I’d awakened with a knot in my stomach, knowing I couldn’t put off the next part of my journey any longer.

I still remembered when Mackenzie, then a sophomore, showed up for her audition (yeah, we made her audition) after the bass player we’d been jamming with, a senior like me, failed out and was summoned back to the family garden-gnome business. The rest of us had already been playing together for a while. I’d known Jumbo since childhood, and I’d met Warren through a college friend. “His name is Warren Warren,” the friend warned. “I don’t know if that’s a black thing or not, but he’s a really good kid.”

I knew Mackenzie as the breezy, sporty geek whom I’d seen on campus benches holding shabby copies of Günter Grass and Saul Bellow, always looking like she was clued in to a secret that the rest of us wouldn’t learn for another five, ten, fifty years. Something about her sense of self-containment drew me in, and even though I knew I’d never have the ability, or really the interest, to converse with her about Grass or Bellow, I knew she was the one. I knew it before she’d even plugged in and followed us through “Free Fallin’ ” and “Take the Money and Run,” before I’d seen her easy sway, her bottled warning
of a grin, the organic cool of an instrument in her hands. On that first afternoon, she handled the Petty and the Steve Miller effortlessly, then knocked my socks off with “Houses of the Holy” and “Sunshine of Your Love.”

“You’re going to need to learn originals,” I informed her with obnoxious self-seriousness.

“I can do that.”

“You should know going in that this is going to be a commitment. We have plans. Being a college band may be fine for some people, but we’re more than that.”

My delusions of grandeur were met with a chuckle. “Okay,” she said through one of those smiles where she sort of stuck out her tongue and looped it up to the bottom of her front teeth. “But I should mention that I’m the vice president of the Ultimate Frisbee team. We meet two afternoons a week on the quad and we’re usually done by six. I’m also in the Student English Association. That hasn’t met yet but I expect it will at some point.”

Jumbo snorted. “You’ll have to quit both of those.”

Mackenzie, to her credit, ignored him.

“You’ll definitely need a car,” I told her. “That’s a necessity. Do you have one?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Warren’s Camry has a lot of trunk space.”

“It’s my dad’s Camry,” Warren was quick to correct in defense of his pride.

“It holds most of his kit,” I went on, “and the rest of us don’t have a lot of gear anyway. Our PA system is pretty puny, although once we make some money, we’ll upgrade. I’m thinking we’ll mic up your bass amp instead of running it directly through the board. You okay with that?”

“Yeah,” she said, not really paying all that much attention.

Jumbo pointed a stern finger at her. “There may be drugs. Can you handle drugs?”

Again, Mackenzie ignored him. She was a quick study.

Our very first show together was a fraternity basement, and even though it was the only venue that would even consider booking us—and by booking, I don’t mean to suggest that any money changed hands—I’d accepted it with an air of condescension. My grandest musical accomplishment up to that point had been in high school when my aggrieved rendition of Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting” separated Debbie Devereaux from her bra right there on my parents’ piano bench, and yet somehow I still felt that the ZBT house was beneath me.

The gig was not uneventful. Around midnight, the room mobbed and sweltering, we were in the middle of “Nevada Blue Sky” when Jumbo’s guitar simply cut out. That happened with college bands. Technical difficulties bedeviled many a gig, as equipment would burst into an ear-splitting buzz or hum or simply make no sound at all for no apparent reason. Fortunately, “Nevada” was one of my least imaginative compositions, with one groove that you could ride from intro to coda. So while Jumbo fiddled with and pounded madly upon his moody amp, I waited for the song to fall apart one instrument at a time. Mack, meanwhile, played on unfazed. She and Warren kept the pulse of the song alive, pressing on with the beat and the bass line through a colloquy of foxy smirks, improvising a stream of flourishes, runs, and fills that stewed up so natural a jam that we sounded like we did this every night. I was dazzled by her poise and mesmerized by her low-key sense of showmanship, though very much relieved when Jumbo’s Strat rejoined the proceedings.

After the show, as we hauled our gear across campus, I said to Mackenzie, “Nice going. You handled that curveball like a pro.” As if I would have any insight whatsoever into how a pro behaves.

A few weeks later, she appeared at my door on a Sunday afternoon, her guitar case and mini-amp weighing her down.

“Sorry I’m late,” she panted.

“You’re not. You’re two hours early.”

“Shit. Really? I thought we said four thirty.”

“Six thirty. But come on in.”

She dropped her gear on my floor and ruffled her hair with a hand that bore the indentations of her guitar case grip. “I hate to ask, but how busy are you right now?”

Minutes later, we were in my hand-me-down Saab en route to the Center City row house that her boyfriend, a Wharton student named AJ, shared with three roommates and where she’d left her bag of schoolbooks. Mack was under the impression that AJ had some departmental dinner, so she wasn’t surprised when nobody answered. But she desperately needed her schoolwork for the next morning and was reasonably certain a back window was unlocked and accessible to anyone equipped with a modicum of derring-do, and who wasn’t skeeved out by inner-city shrubbery and the untold varieties of rodentia therein.

I followed as she vaulted a waist-high fence and crept down an overgrown alley that ended at a small patio at the rear of the house. There was a back door that looked militarily reinforced, kitchen windows covered over with wrought iron bars.

“Your boyfriend lives in Rikers Island,” I observed.

“That’s his room,” she said, pointing up at a second-floor window. She scoured the patio for implements of elevation; there was nothing but a sagging bag of charcoal and a rake. “If you can somehow lift me up to the windowsill, I can pry it open and slip inside.”

I dropped to a knee and Mack placed one sneakered foot in my hand. Then, leaning against the mossy bricks to offset her weight, she planted her other shoe in my free hand, and I hoisted her up the side of the wall.