Joey runs full speed to his playroom. A whistle toots from the train table, followed by the annoying Thomas song and Joey’s tiny voice yelling, “Choo choo!”
Dad takes off his green windbreaker and hangs it on the back of the chair. He sets a clipboard on the kitchen island and Mom kisses him. It’s like I don’t exist.
“Hey, Dad?”
He finally wraps both arms around my neck and kisses me on the cheek, his stubble scratching my skin. He stinks like locker room and sweaty socks, but I breathe him in. He’s barely around anymore, especially since we moved here. Says he has to prove himself, being the new hire. But we all know it doesn’t matter. Like most coaches he’ll likely be let go after a few years and transferred to another team.
“Stevie girl, how was your day?” he asks as he sits next to me.
“Good. There’s All-State Band tryouts in a few months, and…”
Dad inhales long and slow, like it’s an effort to breathe. He forks a meatball and shoves the whole thing in his mouth. I fidget with a napkin, which is better than ripping apart my cuticle. Dad swallows and sets down his fork. His hair is still slick with sweat.
“What’s All-State?”
“It’s a really big deal. One band that represents all of New Jersey, and they only take the best players in the state.”
“That sounds great, Stevie, but…”
“It’ll help me get into NYU. The music program is supposed to be—”
“Stevie,” Dad says, the crease between his eyes deepening like a tiny mountain ridge. “You’re a talented musician. But there are so many programs that offer a general education degree. Don’t pigeonhole yourself.”
If I had a dollar for every time Dad said pigeonhole, I’d be a millionaire. What does that even mean anyway? To go after what you want and love and can’t stop thinking about? When Joey was two it was music that came first. He sang before he could talk, his little voice singing lellow to “Yellow Submarine.” Ever since I witnessed the way music could reach him and pull him out from under himself, my mind was made up.
“Caleb,” Mom says, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Naomi, she needs to be practical,” Dad says, putting his hand over Mom’s, and seriously it’s like I’m not even here.
“I am practical,” I say, my voice rising. “You’re the one who isn’t practical, choosing a career that moves us every couple of years.”
Dad’s pale blue eyes fall to the table. He can’t look at me when we start talking about our lifestyle. I know he hates disappointing us. The night he announced our move from Seattle, I couldn’t sleep and snuck downstairs for a glass of water. Before I reached the kitchen, I heard him crying softly in our living room, my heart clenching at the sound. But it wasn’t enough to erase my anger. I crept back upstairs, still thirsty, never mentioning what I saw.
“Exactly. I turned my passion into a career, but you don’t have to. You can choose a stable career and follow your passion on the side. You’re always complaining about our lifestyle. Well, it’s my love of football that got us here,” Dad says, forking another meatball, his eyes fixed on his plate.
His words give me pause because he’s right—I never want to duplicate this life for myself. Even though music is an unconventional field, I know I could find something that keeps me grounded in one state. I’m not trying to be a rock star.
“Music isn’t football,” I say, my eyes narrowing at him. “Football is a game. A pointless game.”
Dad’s face winces, like I sucker punched him. Mom crosses the room and stands in front of me, taking both of my hands in hers. Green paint is dried on her knuckles, but her palms are warm, forgiving.
“Stevie,” she says, glancing at Dad then returning her gaze to me. Her brown eyes are full of compassion for both of us. “Football is music to your father. The thing that inspires him. You of all people should understand what that feels like.”
“I know.” I swallow my pride, my eyes apologizing to Dad. “I’m sorry. Even though I don’t get it, I’m sorry. But why does it have to be at our expense?” I ask, because that’s the real question. Can’t Dad have his precious football without ruining our lives?
“I don’t have a choice.” Dad sighs, like he’s exhausted from explaining something I should have accepted long ago. “I have to go where the opportunities are.”
I have absolutely no say in how my life unfolds because my father’s job uproots us over and over. Maybe when I was younger I could handle it, but now I’m not sleeping, and I’m terrified to make new friends just to have them yanked away.
“You do have a choice.” My voice rises, my throat constricting. “You can do something else. Get another job. One that keeps us in the same state.”
“It’s not that simple,” he says, like I’m a kid who doesn’t get it. But I do get it and it is that simple. A local high school in Seattle offered Dad a job last year, just as he got the offer from the Jets. I begged him to take it, but he fed me the same line he’s feeding me now. It’s complicated. You don’t understand. Well I understand perfectly. We could’ve stayed, but Dad chose for us. “Stevie, if I could change things, I would.”
Yeah, right. Hypocrite. I tear at my cuticle, a sharp pain shooting from my thumb and blood spilling onto my nail. I jam it against my jeans.
“Don’t you realize we all have to start over. I have to make new friends again.”
“You’re great at making new friends,” Dad says, but he has no idea. This is high school. It’s not like starting over in fifth grade. The people in this town have been here forever, with deep histories and friendships. How can I even begin to compete with that?
“You don’t get it,” I say. “I left first chair and Sarah and a city I loved. And now I’m here and I don’t know anyone and it’s so overwhelming that I can’t even fall asleep at night. Every decision you make screws it all up for me.”
“Stevie.” Dad glances at me, and I know what he’s about to say. It’s something he always reminds me of when the world feels unsteady.
“You can’t be certain that one decision will mess everything up. Each new decision takes us on a different path, that’s all.”
But this time I don’t believe him. I want one path, one set of friends, one school. I can’t figure out who I’m supposed to be until I get the chance to stand still.
CHAPTER 4
Drew
I park in front of the intimidating metal gates that guard Shane’s house. Those gates won’t open without the code, which is Shane’s August birth date, same week as mine. He grabs his backpack and hoists it onto his lap, but he won’t look at me. I stare at the penny in the middle console, worried I made a huge mistake. Shane hasn’t looked at me square in the eyes since we flipped that coin, and he only acts like this when he’s pissed.
“We cool?” I ask, trying to diffuse the thick cloud of tension filling the car.
“Whatever,” he says reaching for the door handle. “You get what you want, like always.”
Shane flings open the car door and I reach across him, pulling it shut. He breathes a heavy sigh.
“I don’t always get what I want, and you know it.”
“I know,” he says, finally looking me in the eye. Of course he knows. He was there the afternoon Dad left, sitting with me on the living room couch in stunned silence. Mom screamed obscenities at Dad as he quickly shoved clothes into a duffel bag. He didn’t even say goodbye to me—just got in his Porsche and sped off, down our street and away from our lives. Overdramatic and embarrassing. I hated him for it. Still do. Mom’s hand shook as she grabbed her keys, promising to be home in an hour. She didn’t come home until the next morning. It unnerved me that she didn’t cry but looking back I bet she was holding it all in for my benefit. After Mom bailed, it was only me and Shane, the silence of my house swallowing me whole. I struggled to catch my breath, gripping the arm of the sectional. But then Shane put his hand on my shoulder and simply said, Wanna play basketball? I couldn’t help
but laugh. But that’s Shane—even when he says the wrong words, they somehow feel right.
“And anyway, Stevie turned me down,” I say, picking up the penny and flipping it over in my palm. “Said she was busy.”
“When has a girl ever turned you down?” Shane shoves a water bottle in his backpack and reaches for the door handle again. “Maybe she really was busy.”
“Think so?”
Shane glares at me.
I drop the penny back into the console. I don’t want him to resent me and hold one of his epic grudges. Not that it’s the same thing, but when I was seven, I swiped his favorite Hot Wheels car, the silver one with the red lightning bolt on the side. I was going to give it back, but Shane found out before I had the chance to return it to his collection. He didn’t talk to me for a whole week, the longest we’ve gone without speaking.
“Seriously, are you mad?” I ask.
Shane sighs, then shakes his head, smiling his real smile, the one that reveals a dimple in his left cheek.
“I’m cool,” he says. “For real.” I exhale as I realize he’s not angry, relief flooding my body. “And anyway, if she’s meant to be with you, she will be. If she’s meant to be with me, she will be. And maybe she’s meant to be with someone else entirely. No penny would change any of that.”
Shane’s always riffing on some philosophical bullshit, but I love him for it. His unwavering faith in the universe makes me believe everything with my fucked up family will work out, even as it crumbles down around me. “You’ll be okay,” he said the day Dad left, and even though I didn’t believe him, the certainty in his voice gave me hope.
“You coming by for basketball?” I stick my head out the window as Shane jumps out of the Jeep.
“Give me five,” he says over his shoulder, punching the code into the keypad. The gates swing open and Shane jogs down the long winding driveway.
When I walk inside my house, no one’s home, as usual. Mom’s still at the nonprofit she started when I went to elementary school and she got bored with all the free time. At least she used Dad’s money for something good, creating music programs in inner-city high schools. But lately she’s been coming home later and later. If it wasn’t shitty enough that Dad left, Mom had to freak out too. Even though she’s still physically here, it’s like the mom part of her disappeared with him when he left six months ago. Last week I caught her rearranging candles in the bathroom with this space cadet look on her face. She stood with her hands on her hips, head tilted to the side. Big candle, then little candle, then medium-size candle. She re-ordered them and tilted her head to the other side. She never even noticed me standing in the doorway.
My house feels bigger now that Dad’s gone, our antique grandfather clock ticking away silent seconds. My fingers graze a couple keys on the baby grand in the foyer, the notes lonely and hollow. It needs a tune-up. Once I’m in the kitchen, I set my wallet next to a bowl of fake apples and pears, the only thing on the counter. I open the Sub-Zero like there might actually be food in there besides leftover takeout and random condiments. It’s been this way since Dad left. I reach for a Chinese food container, and lean against the dishwasher, forking day-old General Tso’s chicken. It’s too fucking quiet in here.
After a couple bites, I toss it and head down the hall, glaring at the framed silver, gold, and platinum records. The legendary Don Mason smiles at me from an enlarged photo, his arm around a very young Bruce Springsteen. They’re in the studio, probably late seventies, right after Bruce wrapped Darkness. Loving Springsteen is a Jersey state requirement and all my friends gawk at this one. I used to gawk right along with them. But that was before.
The door to his office is open and it’s exactly how he left it six months ago. More records line the walls, ostentatious and screaming Dad’s accomplishments. He’s such a show-off. Electric and acoustic guitars are propped on stands by the bay windows, sunlight bouncing off the strings. Papers cover the huge mahogany desk and the flash drive is still where I left it over a year ago. I was so naïve to think he would actually listen to it. A thin layer of dust coats my finger when I pick it up and read the label.
Dark Carnival, Summer Garage Sessions
Dad flipped the demo over in his hands that night, squinting at the label. He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk. White Hanes socks stuck out of his sweatpants.
“What’s the sound?” he asked, like I was an aspiring rock star hoping to sign with him, not his son.
“Rock. Kinda alternative,” I said. “Like the Black Keys.”
“You shouldn’t sound like anyone else.” He took off his glasses, the ones that make him look like Elvis Costello. I wished we sounded like the Black Keys. “You sing on it?”
“Yeah.” Dad hadn’t heard me sing for real yet. He’d heard me mess around in the car, and once he walked in on me screaming above a Kings of Leon song. I couldn’t wait for him to hear the demo. Him liking it would’ve convinced me I actually did have the chops to front a band. That I wasn’t some hack, a guy who gets up on stage not realizing he sucks.
“If you want to be a real musician, you need to learn an instrument.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply.
“Will you listen to it?” I asked—no, I begged. My eyes shifted to a photo of him, Paul McCartney, and me at seven years old, the same year I swiped the Hot Wheels car.
“Learn an instrument, any instrument. Join the marching band like I did.”
“Done,” I said. Back then I would do anything Dad told me to. Plus, maybe Dad had a point. Maybe learning an instrument would help me be a better singer. But after Dad left, I hated the trumpet right along with him.
“I’ll take a listen, Andrew,” he said, sliding the glasses back on his face and checking his Rolex. “I have to get back to work.”
“Let me know what you think, okay?” I said, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet.
“Absolutely.”
Every day when he left for the city, I checked his office. Every. Damn. Day. And every day, the demo was still on his desk where I left it—where it still is today.
“Dude, where are you?” Shane yells from down the hall. He bounces a basketball in the foyer, the rhythm echoing through the house.
“Be right there.” I throw the flash drive on the desk. “Let’s get out of here,” I say when I reach him.
Once we’re outside, Shane pegs me in the chest with the ball and I dunk it into the basket at the top of the driveway. The sun hides behind the trees, sinking lower toward the horizon. It’s still warm out, the air holding tight to summer.
“You looking at the demo again?” he asks and I pass to him. He bounces the ball between his legs and misses. It rolls down the driveway and he runs to grab it, laughing to himself.
“Whatever,” I say when he bounces the ball back to me. “I don’t want to talk about him.” Since Dad left, Shane comes over every day after school, sometimes without me asking. Sometimes he even brings me leftovers from whatever his mom cooked the night before. Every time I thank him for the handouts, equally humbled and grateful.
“You’re lucky you still have him, you know,” Shane says, and of course he’s right, even if it doesn’t feel that way. But Shane’s dad was nothing like mine. He was caring and present and losing him sucked. For Shane and me. Shane was twelve and I was thirteen the day his dad took his last breath, after the weeks and months of uncertainty. Both of us too fucking young to deal with something so heavy. I promised Shane’s dad I’d always look out for him, but now it sometimes feels like it’s the other way around. I have no one except Shane. “Maybe you should give him a chance.”
“Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I take a shot and sink a basket. Shane grabs the ball.
“I’ve known Don my entire life. He screwed up, no doubt about it. But what he did has nothing to do with you.”
I wish I could view the world through Shane’s eyes, always hopeful and determined to see the
good in everyone. But the fact is, Dad screwed his personal assistant, which is the most cliché thing ever. She’s not much older than I am. Not only did he screw her in our Manhattan townhouse, he screwed her so much that he decided to leave Mom and me, like we didn’t need him anymore. In my opinion, what Dad did had everything to do with me.
“Just be on my side, okay?” I grab the ball from Shane and sink another basket. Dad always liked Shane better and we both know it. And why wouldn’t he? Shane’s the talented one, the smart one, the real musician. The EMT for fuck’s sake. The one who never messes up.
“I’m always on your side,” Shane says. “But you can’t run away from this.”
“Why not? You dodge Brent Miller.”
“I don’t dodge him. And besides, you’re always there, stepping in. You never give me the chance to deal with him myself.”
“I’m your best friend. I have to step in. I can’t let him do that shit to you.”
“Well I can’t sit back and watch you sabotage your relationship with Don, just to prove a point. I know he screwed up big time this year but he’s your dad. It’s not the same as me ignoring a jerk who doesn’t know how to spell his own name.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “But I’m still not ready to talk to him.”
“Fair enough,” Shane says, dribbling the basketball. The rubber bounce echoes between us and it’s obvious we’re both done talking about the things we hate talking about.
“You still having that party Saturday night?”
“Yeah,” he says, chucking the ball at me. “Just band people.”
“Cool,” I say. “Let’s just play.” I dunk the ball, the net swishing as it falls through. My back pocket vibrates, and I swear if Dad’s texting me again, I’m changing my number. I pull out the phone as Shane dribbles the ball in circles around me.
Ray
We need to talk.
“Your dad?” Shane asks, knowing he’s been texting me nonstop. “I know you’re not ready to talk, but maybe start with a text? There’s no time like the present.”
Where It All Lands Page 4
