The Rock Chamber Boys : The Complete Series

by Daisy Allen

  Her hair is loosely bundled into a wild knot, fine wisps framing her face and neck. Her red cotton knee length dress is matched with a blue woollen cardigan and black stockings. The outfit is colourful, sweet and slightly quirky, just like she is. The morning sun reflects in her eyes which in turn are reflected back onto the dusty train window. And it looks like her reflection is staring at me, as I stare back at her.

  In my mind, I can hear our music that first day, playing The Power of Love together.

  Together with this image of her, it’s art in motion. She is art. Living, breathing. Breathtaking.

  “Hi,” I say, reluctantly, not wanting to shatter the moment.

  She doesn’t turn and just keeps staring at the fields of muddied crops.

  I go over and sink onto the tattered leather seat next to her, tugging gently on her ear phones.

  “Hey, little girl lost,” I say and she smiles, not turning to me. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, really. If you were Brad staring so intently out the window, I’d say he was thinking of a double cheeseburger. You? It’s probably something a little deeper.”

  “A triple cheeseburger?”

  “There you go.”

  “No, I was just… just thinking about last night’s concert.”

  “What about it?”

  “I was thinking… I was thinking how easy it was. How I had a little problem getting started but then I got through it.”

  “You more than got through it, you crushed it,” I bump her with my shoulder.

  The corners of her mouth twitch, like a tiny little feather is tickling them, “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. You did.” I reach over and squeeze her hand. When I pull away she doesn’t let me, her fingers stiffen and take hold of mine.

  “It’s all because of you, Marius. All you. You and the meditation techniques you taught me to do before going on stage. They made all the difference.”

  “You would’ve figured it out eventually, I just helped you get there a little faster.”

  “No. Listen.” Hey eyes fix on mine and they are glistening but not sad. She looks content. Wondrous. “You don’t… you don’t know what this means. This… problem that I’ve had, it’s crippled me. I thought… I thought I was never going to be able to perform again. I didn’t want to numb myself with sedatives every time I performed. With them I don’t feel anything. I can’t make music that way! What’s the point? So, I told myself, yesterday, if this meditation wasn’t going to work, I was going to give it up. Forever. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Aw, Anca, no. Never ever give up! Especially after only trying it once. Your gift is so extraordinary. There’s always another way.”

  She turns back to the window and traces a tiny crack with her finger. “You gave me that way, Marius. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  There’s no reply to that. I didn’t do it for the thanks. We stare at the canola fields whizzing by, blurring into a bright yellow haze.

  “No wonder you were so nervous when we started,” I say after a minute, understanding more now, what was at stake for her.

  “You saw that?”

  I don’t want to embarrass her, so I just squeeze her hand and she grips it tighter.

  “Of course you did, you see everything. You see me.”

  “Just what you’re willing to show me, Anca.”

  She leans against me and her cheek is against mine. “I want to show you everything.”

  Her words fill with me hope and fear all at once.

  Because I want to see everything she has to give me. I want to see the world through her eyes, and her through the world’s.

  But it’s not for me to see. Not in this lifetime. Not for the life I’ve chosen, and the friends I’ve chosen to be in it.

  Not now, not ever.

  I take a long, deep breath, her vanilla scent intoxicating me.

  Extracting my hand from hers, I pull away and it hurts, physically. Tearing at a strand that binds us, woven when I wasn’t watching

  “I’m sorry. I… I told you, I… can’t,” I stammer. The words struggling to form. I look at her one more time. The wondrous look on her face crumbles, one sparkle at a time. The tableau of the girl in the window has changed. And now I’m on the outside looking in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anca

  I was never supposed to excel at harp.

  I wanted to draw things and write things and paint them in all the colors of the rainbow from my imagination.

  Even as a child I’d see girls with their sketch books and journals sitting against tree trunks, losing time as they found themselves in the lines they drew on paper, words or doodles, something that flowed from mind to hands to create tangible art. I craved the day I could live such a romantic, bohemian lifestyle.

  But as I progressed in music, those earlier dreams were forgotten, and I realized that my art did flow from my fingers, it stimulated the ears and penetrated the soul that way.

  I spent hours in my room, reading music like it was Austen, Steinbeck. Those little notes were like words, rising and falling. Drama and pain, beauty and joy, they were all contained in those little black lines on paper. It was just my job to read them aloud with my hands on my harp. To tell the story how I interpreted it.

  When I realized there was freedom in my gift, I thought my life was set.

  And then everything changed.

  And everything I believed about my talent was gone.

  Because of one person.

  Not the Mae- Maestro.

  I can’t even blame it on him.

  Because I let myself believe what he was telling me.

  No, the only person to blame, was me.

  When Jez called me that night, to offer me the position of playing with his band, my instant answer was no. No, not just no, but no no no no no no no. Not a soft serve cone’s chance in the seventh circle of hell was I going to perform.

  He’d pleaded, he’d begged. And I’d never been able to refuse my brother before.

  So I came.

  And I listened to them. And for the first time in years, I yearned to be on stage.

  With them.

  And with him. Marius.

  That need to be a part of the music he was creating trumped my crippling panic and fear, and it wasn’t until I was on that stage, a crowd of fifteen thousand waiting, hungry for what I was supposed to give them, that I felt I couldn’t do it.

  But I should’ve known, I should’ve had no doubt that when I needed the help, needed someone to understand, someone to hold my hand and tell me I could do it, and how to do it, it would be him.

  It was always meant to be him. I’ve known it from the moment I saw him when I was just a girl, too young to know about love.

  It was always meant to be him.

  Always.

  But I know that he feels that his relationship with Jez takes priority, and I know that he feels that allegiance to my brother so strongly because I feel it too.

  I watch him, as he looks at me, with a longing that feels like a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach, then he pushes open the carriage door and walks away. And I wonder if there is anyone left in the world who can see me like he does.

  ***

  It feels like everyone on the train is crammed into this one carriage. And I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world either.

  News travelled fast that the guys had gotten out their instruments and were having an impromptu jam session in our first class car. Sebastian and Jez sit on the facing seats while Brad and Marius stand by, shit-eating grins on their faces as they take requests.

  “Come on guys! Stump us, give us something hard!” Jez yells out, and someone in the crowd answers with a pair of songs for them to mash-up.

  And of course, they kill it every time. They have an innate ability for weeding out the essence of every song, and finding that common thread that two completely
different songs will inevitably share. Every song’s DNA is just a combination of those twelve notes, after all.

  “Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G Minor and Nickelback’s Lips Of An Angel!” I yell out, and they all throw their heads back and groan. I double over in a hysterical cackle at my own evilness, and I’m leaning against the carriage door, holding my stomach, gasping for air.

  “You complete and utter witch,” someone yells out over my head and it just makes me laugh even harder. It’s Marius. Who else would it be? I force myself to stand straight so I can watch their torment. He narrows his eyes at me and points his bow in my direction, threateningly.

  I waggle my eyebrows and sing the first few lines of the song. I may know my way around a cello, but I was NOT gifted the talent of voice. Marius’s eyebrows spring up and his mouth drops open.

  “I know, awesome, right?”

  “Uh yeah, I’m… awed, that’s for sure. Like ‘Awwww… God must hate her to have given her a singing voice like that.’”

  “Hey!”

  “Excuse me, shush, we’re performing now. We Grammy-award-winning artists, that is.”

  I poke my tongue out at him.

  Which quickly turns into an all out, jaw-on-the-ground, how-the-hell-do-they-do-that expression when they turn my turn songs into a modern day masterpiece.

  “I hate you,” I mouth to him when they’re done, the applause so deafening that I worry that the shaking of the train isn’t just from poor engineering.

  “No, you don’t,” he mouths back.

  And he’s right. What I feel is about the furthest thing from hate that you can feel.

  Fuck.

  “What’s next?” Brad yells out.

  “Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart,” I yell out over the other voices.

  All four of their heads whip around, mouths agape.

  “FUCKING WITCH!” They yell in unison.

  And this time, I laugh so long I actually think I’m going to die from oxygen deprivation to the brain.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marius

  It is finally quiet enough for me to hear what’s going on in my own brain. Once we changed trains over in Lyon to the train that will take us to Annecy, the guys whipped out their instruments again, and the last hour was one crazy request after another. Hailey finally intervened and kicked all the other travellers back to their seats, but probably not before sneakily taking some pictures and posting them all over our Instagram.

  I put my viola back in her case and hand it to Hank, Sebastian’s nephew-slash-slave. Once he leaves I sit back in my empty carriage and close my eyes, enjoying the rocking of the train as it flies through the French countryside.

  I’ve done this route so many times, I can picture what scene is flashing by the window. I’m kind of glad for the quiet now, because the last 45 minutes into Annecy is truly beautiful beyond measure.

  I slide into the seat beside the window and press my face against it, waiting. The thing about Lake Annecy is her humility. She doesn’t announce her grandeur like many of the other Alpine stunners, she just creeps up on you out of nowhere.

  Like… now. Just as the train turns this curve, there she will be, a glistening blue, ripple-less mirror spreading out in front of you, graced by lush, green grass that just begs you to fall in.

  “Man, I’m wiped,” I suddenly hear Sebastian say, as he sinks into the seat next to me.

  “Yeah, we’re not as young as we used to be,” I say, still staring out the window.

  “Speak for yourself, I grow more young and awesome by the day. Practically reversing in age,” he grins, preening his always perfect hair.

  “So, Cadence is dating a teenager, is what you’re saying.”

  “No, I mean… she’s getting younger as well.”

  “So, YOU’RE dating the teenager.”

  He scrunches up his face. “Ew, yuck. Why do you have to make everything so offensive?”

  My mouth twitches at the corners, remembering the last time someone said that.

  “Anyway, that was fun, yeah?” He says, I assume referring to the impromptu jam sessions we just had.

  “Yeah.”

  “I miss those times. It seems we used to have them a lot more. Now it’s a lot of rehearsal time and big stadiums. Like we’re always trying to prepare for the next big thing.”

  I nod. He knows I agree. We all agree. But we’re not going to complain. We know we have the best jobs in the world, doing what we’ve always dreamed of doing, doing it with our favorite people in the world.

  “I miss Cadey,” he muses out of nowhere. And I suddenly realize how far he’s come. From the completely carefree, run amok at every opportunity, playboy bachelor, it can’t be easy for him to be committed to one woman, who’s left him to go half way across the world. He must really love her.

  “I know, man. She’s a good one.”

  “Yeah. And I probably wouldn’t have her, if I hadn’t taken some chances, you know?”

  I think back to the troubles they faced in the beginning, and how if they hadn’t completed trusted each other, believed that it was either now or never, things would have turned out very differently.

  He heaves himself out of the seat and looks me dead in the eye. “I mean, sometimes you’ve just got to decide what’s important in your life. And whether you’re ready for happiness or not.”

  And then he leaves.

  What just happened?

  I don’t know if he meant to or not, but he’s set off a bomb in my brain.

  And the next 40 minutes whizz by with me seeing nothing but the images of what could be in my head.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Anca

  “You guys have the rest of the afternoon free, yeah? Please be back here by 6 p.m., our show starts at 9 p.m.,” Hailey reminds us before she hurries off for a meeting with her crew.

  “So late?” Brad yawns and raises his arms over his head in a stretch as if anticipating the late night.

  “We’re French ‘ere,” Sebastian says, his accent stronger than usual. “We don’t have early bird dinner at 5:30 and go to bed with the covers pulled up to our chins by 8. We like to party.”

  “Why don’t you adopt the same enthusiasm to bathing?” Marius asks, waving his hand in front of his face.

  “I do, just last night I scrubbed my armpits very thoroughly.”

  Jez moves closer and pretends to sniff Seb. “They still smell, bro.”

  “That’s because I used your toothbrush, bro.”

  Jez makes a face and I know he’s weighing up the chances of that actually happening.

  Sebastian laughs and slaps my brother on the back of his head, eliciting a loud yelp and they chase each other, hollering obscenities, as they run out the front door of the hotel.

  Brad wanders off, to find a bed, presumably, and I stand there, not wanting to walk away from Marius. He’s rubbing the side of his head and looking in the direction that Jez went, talking to himself. I can hear mumbles but not words.

  Then he turns to me. “Fuck it,” he says. Out of nowhere. “Ready for an adventure?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Let’s go!” he says, his eyes getting wild.

  “Go where?”

  “Does it matter?” He asks. And I don’t need to answer, he can tell from the look on my face that I’ll follow him anywhere. “It’s now. Or never.”

  “Now.” I say. Like that one word is the most important sound I’ve ever uttered.

  “Let’s go then!” He exclaims, pressing a kiss to my cheek while grabbing my wrist and pulling me with him. As I run, trying to keep up with him, I can’t help but hope that I could spend now, and always, with him.

  “Taxi!” He calls out to the doorman who waves to a waiting cab. He opens the car door for me and pushes me inside just as we hear Jez and Sebastian calling out to us from the hotel entrance. “Get in, get in!” Marius rushes me, giggling as he slides in next to me. “Vite, v
ite!” he yells at the driver as he slams the door shut.

  I laugh as the driver throws us a weird look. “He doesn’t know where to go, you crazy loon!”

  “Just go, man!” He yells and the drivers presses down hard on the brake, just as I hear a hand slam against the window and turn to see my brother’s face. I wave goodbye to his stunned face as the car speeds away.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, giddy with excitement.

  “Wherever the wind takes us,” he whispers into my ear, “whoooosh.” The look he gives me is so intense I have to turn away. Turn away before I say thing I won’t be able to take back.

  “Stop! Arret, monsieur, s’il vous plaît!” he yells in my ear just seconds later, killing the moment, and the car jerks to a stop. He’s dragged me half way out of the car before I even have a chance to take a breath. “Come, Anca! Life isn’t going to wait for us!”

  “Where are we? We barely drove two blocks?!” I pant, looking down at the shoes slipping off my feet as I run, taking two steps for each one of his long ones.

  “Sometimes two blocks is all it takes, Anca.” He gestures with his hand and for the first time, I look up. And gasp.

  In front of me is the most beautiful scene I’ve ever had the privilege to see.

  A glorious green mountain cliff juts out into the sky, seemingly out of nowhere, and at its feet lies the most crystal-clear lake you can imagine. Like a perfect, flawless pane of blue glass, a window into the bottom of the sandy lake. Small motor boats line the semicircle edge of the lake and a giant expanse of thick, green, luscious grass lies out, welcoming you to spread out your lunch and body against its soft leaves.

  “Oh my god. Marius.”

  “Lake Annecy,” he says, with both a sense of wonder and pride.

  “It’s…”

  “Fucking beautiful. I know.”

  I can’t even explain it.

  Even though the air is almost cool enough for you to see your own breath, there’s something of renewing, refreshing in the atmosphere.

  Spring.

  This is where spring begins.