Finding Home

by B. E. Baker

And I’m not the only one who notices.

  Beth doesn’t pause long, just long enough to say, “I call this song ‘Chasm.’”

  The piano in this piece is phenomenal. She plays so many notes, so many chords, that I wonder whether she has two sets of arms. The notes crash over me, pulsing, sobbing. I wonder whether the entire thing is instrumental when she finally begins to sing, this time in English. The world was safe, the world was strong, and light was in her life.

  Then a chasm opened up under her feet and drowned her whole.

  It so perfectly describes how I felt when Noel died that I’m embarrassed to have to wipe away tears. When I glance around to see if anyone noticed, I realize I’m not the only one crying. Hundreds and hundreds of people pull out their phones and turn on the lights, swaying with the slower tone of the song. This one doesn’t end on a happy note, though, and I feel almost wrung out when the last notes fade.

  Thankfully, she plays her song about Liechtenstein next, and the bone-deep sorrow from before eases.

  When a little man in a yellow suit pops his head out on the side of the stage, I want to shoot him. He makes some kind of motion at Beth.

  “This will be my last song,” she says.

  Boos, so many boos.

  “I really want to thank you for being such an amazing audience. I wish I had known I’d be playing so I could have planned something better for you, but it has been an experience I’ll never forget.”

  I hope she’ll play the “Finding Home” song that I heard last time, but she doesn’t. Instead, she plays a piece that would easily play on any radio in a large city. ‘Her life was fine, her life was great, she had plenty of things to celebrate.’ The melody is catchy, the cadence quick. It makes me want to bounce in my seat. ‘She had real goals—all under control, but then.’ The piano takes over, leaving me wondering what happened.

  ‘You walked right in, all wrong and so right. You saved me that day and you loved me that night.’ Oh no, it’s a love song. Who is she talking about? Who loved her that night? I want to punch him, no, strangle him. It must be someone she met on tour. Could it be the guitarist? She mentioned in a text that he was young.

  By the time it ends, people are clapping along with her. She stands up, holding the mic. “Thanks again. I couldn’t have asked for a kinder audience.”

  The massive applause surprises even me, but I do my part to add to it, and Beth ducks backstage.

  Ten minutes later, she and the other musicians sneak back on when the lights are dim, but I know to look for her, so I spot her immediately and shout, “BETH!”

  Others take up the chant.

  When Henrietta Gauvón walks on a moment later, everyone in the theater shouts and hoots and claps, but she glances behind her once, annoyed, and I realize I might not have done Beth any favors.

  Twenty seconds later, with the lights and the smoke and the dancers, I stop worrying. The show Beth put on was nothing like this. There’s no way Henrietta could be frustrated with a little piano performance, especially when her opening act cancelled. Henrietta hits every single note, and every song is flawless. The piano, especially, couldn’t be better. It supports the vocals, enhances them, without ever overwhelming or distracting.

  After she plays her last song, when the crowd keeps clapping, she beams. “Okay, I will do one last song. What do you want to hear again?”

  “Beth,” someone shouts.

  “Beth Graham!” Others pick up the cheer.

  Henrietta’s eyes flash. “I knew you’d love my daughter once you figured out who she was. She really does take after me, doesn’t she?”

  The crowd goes insane.

  “Beth, why don’t you come up here and sing a song with your mother?”

  Henrietta picks one of her biggest hits about a night out on the town, leaving Beth the part of back-up singer. But without the piano to support her, Beth experiments. She changes the words up, on the fly, and completely shifts the meaning of the song. Instead of singing about how fabulous Henrietta and her posse are out on the town, Beth makes it about the insecurity that’s covered with a show, with sparkle, with bling. The tears behind the mask, she says at the end, and the crowd explodes.

  I’m legitimately worried that the woman next to me is going to take her shirt off and throw it up on stage. Several people try to rush the security personnel and have to be shoved away.

  Beth and Henrietta disappear shortly after, but I’m not ready to leave.

  “Drinks, boys?” Rogan asks.

  “I’ll meet you in a few,” I say. “I’m going to try and get backstage.”

  Ben rolls his eyes. “You’re never gonna make it. She’s famous now, bro.”

  I’m afraid he might be right.

  I consider dropping my name or who my dad is, but I can’t quite force myself to claim to be a prince when I’m so clearly not. Even calling myself the Marquis is a stretch these days. I settle instead for paying the bouncer a thousand dollars. Well worth it, if it works. Beth’s deep brown eyes, her graceful fingers, her high-swept cheekbones, I’m hungry for all of it. My long legs eat up the ground, and I’m rounding the corner when I finally see her, leaning against a wall. I expect her to be deliriously happy, chatting, or maybe even being put upon by eager new fans.

  Instead, she’s frowning.

  What’s wrong? I keep walking, focusing on the words around her. It’s loud back here, but I can hear someone shouting.

  Henrietta.

  “You planned it. You had to—else why would the audience call for you specifically?”

  Beth shakes her head. “I have no idea why they asked for me.”

  “It ruined my show,” she says. “And it made me look like a fool. I had to reveal you were my daughter so that the entire thing didn’t fall apart.”

  So that the attention wouldn’t be pulled from her, she means.

  “I am very, very sorry,” Beth says.

  “You’re always sorry. When you flub songs—”

  “I only did that one time, during the first practice—“

  Henrietta throws her arms into the air. “You are sorry when you change songs, but you keep doing it.”

  “You agreed they were better,” Beth says.

  Henrietta’s eyes flash. Her voice is so soft I barely hear the words. “Will you be sorry tomorrow, do you think? Now that you have no place?”

  “I don’t understand,” Beth says in German. Her German has improved a lot, but I imagine nuance is frequently lost even now.

  “I don’t understand,” Henrietta mimics. “Let me be clearer. You’re fired. Kicked off the tour. You have no job. You can go back home to Georgia and cut housewives’ hair again.”

  Beth frowns. “I like housewives. I was raised by one.” She steps closer. “And if you ever claim you’re my mother again, I’ll go on public record denying it. You may look down on housewives, but my mom is twice the woman you are. The best thing you did in your life was to give me up.” She spins on her heel and marches away.

  Glorious. Magnificent. Stupendous.

  I’ve never seen someone I admire more than Elizabeth Graham. In fact, I’m pretty sure I love her.

  13

  Beth

  My family puts together puzzles every single year at Christmas. Huge puzzles—the more pieces the better. We clear the kitchen table and the dining room table, and fit one on each. The puzzle takes shape on one side of the table, and the other side is the graveyard—the place for the unmatched pieces. As soon as school let out, we’d bust out the puzzles. During the break, we ate at the bar or on the sofas in the living room for a week or two while we worked puzzle after puzzle. Mom made Christmas cookies on every available counter space while we hovered over the tables working, our eyes scanning the options. I learned quickly, as the youngest, to start with pieces that had corners and then move to the edges. Once the outline was done, we’d move on to unique patterns or images. Only once the easy pieces were in place did I resort to looking for oddball shapes, li
ke a piece with a flat end, or a wonky shaped tab, or triangular blanks.

  Sometimes, not often but sometimes, we would complete an entire puzzle only to discover it was missing one piece.

  I always felt vaguely betrayed. Had we lost it during the time we had it out? Maybe I knocked it off with my elbow and Mom vacuumed it up. Maybe it fell and I kicked it under the bookcase. Or had someone put the puzzle away, knowing it was missing a piece and not caring?

  No matter the cause, it robbed us of some of the joy in our accomplishment. We’d step back to admire a herd of horses running through a stream, but one eye would be missing. Or we’d want to show visitors that we’d recently finished a beautiful landscape, but they’d immediately say, “Um, there’s a hole here.” They’d point at the middle of the field of wildflowers where a single patch of kitchen table mocked us.

  When we discovered a puzzle was missing a piece, we always threw it away. Shame on us for losing it, if indeed we had, but we would never inflict that on someone else by dropping off an incomplete puzzle to Goodwill, for instance.

  Like those puzzles, I walked through my life feeling as if something was missing. I had a beautiful life, sure, with parents and siblings who loved me. I liked my job, I loved the piano, and I had great friends. I’m healthy and strong and smart enough, but I’ve never known who I really am. So when Henrietta showed up, sparkly and impressive and famous, well. I snatched that puzzle box out and tossed it down on the table in a blink.

  I am such a moron.

  A month ago, my stupidity might have been excusable as naiveté. A month ago, I didn’t know Henrietta. I was bright-eyed and optimistic, and I came here hoping that knowing her would complete my perfect picture. That once I knew who I really was, everyone around me would finally admire me. I may not have gone to college like my siblings. I may not have perfect, shiny hair. I may not share their blue eyes. I may not have skin that bronzes in the sun, but it’s okay, because I have something else.

  I take after my bio mom, a breathtakingly beautiful, world-class singer and performer.

  Except in the past month, she has made no effort to get to know me. She tossed me this job like a bone to a stray dog and never looked back. She didn’t criticize the job I did, but only because I never made any mistakes. The guitarist, Alec, and the bassist, Frances, and the drummer, Roberto, were all regularly raked across the coals for missing notes or botching beats. I lived in fear of doing the same.

  The dancers—I can’t even imagine how they must feel. Too fat and they’re fired. Too thin and they’re ordered to eat. They must be attractive, but not more attractive than her. “I pay top dollar, and I expect top dollar performance.”

  But tonight, when I heard that people wanted to hear me play, I actually thought that she might be happy for me. She agreed that I could go out and perform in Beneficio’s place. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to play, but I did it, and they liked me alright. When they asked me to sing with her, I was elated. She seemed happy enough to welcome me up.

  I scrambled for a way to take her somewhat silly song and make it something meaningful. When it occurred to me to sing about the things that she must be feeling inside while out partying, I thought it would make the song real, authentic for the first time. The crowd loved it, and they loved us, and then Henrietta finally admitted to the world that she was my mother.

  I imagined we might have dinner, or hug, or maybe sit down and talk. Now that the staff knows that we’re related, she can finally interact with me in a real way. How could I have been that stupidly optimistic? I know her now—I should have expected that even a beam from a flashlight next to the rays of her sunlight would cause a complete meltdown. But what really kills me is how disappointed I am to be let go. I have zero desire for smoke and mirrors and flashing lights. I don’t want amps and electric guitars. I hate the dancers.

  But I felt some of the audience connecting with my songs, with the pain behind them, with the hope, and it was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. I’ve spent the last five years defending my decision to cut and highlight hair. I will defend it until the day I die. There’s beauty in serving others, and there’s beauty in helping them see the gorgeous people they really are inside when they look in the mirror. I love that job.

  Even so, the thought of flying home to cut hair and paint on foils instead of standing up on a stage to sing and play. . . it’s deflating. Telling Henrietta off and defending Mom in the process was almost worth it, though.

  “Beth?”

  The hair on my arms rises at the sound of that voice. I’ve heard it nearly every night in my dreams. If I’m hearing it out loud now, well, I hope I’m not imagining things. I glance around the room, my eyes finally noticing that someone is standing in the side doorway. When my eyes meet his impossibly green ones, a thrill runs up my spine. “What are you doing here?”

  He smiles. “I just saw the most amazing performance of my life. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Shouldn’t you be back at home?” He’s got the vote on the House Law coming up fast. He didn’t say when, but I know it’s soon.

  “I needed to see you.” He walks toward me, his shoulders broader than I remembered, his hair darker. He stops less than a foot away from me, his hand reaching up to brush against the side of my face. “Not upset enough to cry?”

  “Oh, I definitely shed a tear or two tonight,” I say. “But I have waterproof mascara this time.”

  “Too bad,” he says.

  I snort. “Sure.”

  He steps closer. “I liked that Beth, you know. Small Beth. Unsure Beth.”

  “You did.” I can’t keep the skepticism out of my voice.

  “I’ll admit that initially, I was a little flummoxed.”

  “That’s an impressive word for a third language,” I say.

  “I’ve been studying,” he says. “See, there’s this English-speaking girl I can’t stop thinking about.”

  My heart quits beating. My eyelashes flutter. “We’ve been over this.”

  “What if I don’t care?”

  “I’m headed home. Did you hear?”

  “I heard that your birth mom is an idiot. I’m sorry that happened, but it’s all her issues, not yours.”

  “Either way.”

  “You were magnificent tonight. Everyone knew it.” His head is leaning down, closer, closer.

  My heart kicks back in, beating way too fast. “You did that,” I whisper.

  The side of his mouth curls up into a smile, and I know I’m right. He demanded that Beth Graham play tonight. It’s because of him that I had that chance. When his face reaches mine, I turn upward and lean in. I’m still flying high from playing and singing my own songs for twenty thousand fans, but even that feeling doesn’t compare, not to this. My hands grab his collar and yank.

  I can’t tell whether he groans or growls, but either way, I like it. His arms reach around me and slam into the wall on either side of me, pressing me more tightly against the hard lines of his chest. His mouth moves on mine carefully, slowly, but also with purpose. Like he came here to do just this.

  “Why did you come?” I ask against his mouth.

  “Surprised?”

  I kiss him briefly. “In a good way.”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you after you left.”

  “But isn’t the vote—”

  “It was today,” he says. “And I lost.”

  My heart sinks. How could those family members not see that there’s no one as prepared to serve the people of Liechtenstein as this man in front of me? “I am so sorry.”

  He shrugs. “I wasn’t even that upset.”

  But now that he’s not trying for a crown, he came straight here. . . to what? Am I some kind of consolation prize? Does he think we’re hooking up? Am I his vat of ice cream after a breakup? That would be the only thing worse than my birth mother firing me and sending me back home—falling like an anvil to the bottom of the ocean for this guy who is a million and one
miles out of my league, and then being cast aside once he’s gotten over his loss.

  I slide out from under his arms. “It was really nice of you to come this far.” I try to keep the frost out of my voice, but it’s there all the same.

  “Beth?” someone asks from the main doorway.

  My head feels stuffed with gummy bears when I turn to see who’s calling me.

  Mr. Ferrars, Henrietta’s agent.

  I close my eyes. “What now?” I’m angrier than I expect to be. “Does she want these clothes back, since they’re a part of the costumes?”

  Mr. Ferrars frowns.

  “No, don’t tell me—she’s suing me for ruining her famous pop song.”

  “I heard the unfortunate news that my client, Miss Gauvón, has asked you to leave the tour.”

  “And?” I put my hands on my hips.

  “I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Some fans put your songs online—on YouTube. They have already generated quite a bit of interest, probably spurred on by Miss Gauvón’s admission of your connection.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s my understanding that the songs you sang are original.” He raises his eyebrows.

  “They are. I wrote them, both the melody and lyrics.”

  “I’d be very interested in signing you as a client. I can promise you a record deal at a bare minimum, but if these videos continue to generate hits, we could likely set up a tour very soon as well. We’d want to move fast to capitalize on the good press. Never lose momentum, that’s my motto.”

  “The queen is dead, long live the queen?” I shake my head. “You’re cold as death, aren’t you?”

  He folds his yellow-suit-coat-clad arms across his chest, and I struggle not to laugh. He looks like an angry, gay sunbeam.

  “I am, at all times, extremely professional, and I’m offering you the opportunity to become very, very rich.”

  “Pass.” I need to gather my things and get out of here. I cross the room, not looking back at Cole either, and push past Mr. Ferrars.