Now We're Here

by Jessica Kale

  “Well, he let me in on the plan, yes. And I totally support him,” he said slowly.

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to tell me?” Dorothy asked, her lips shaping into a wry smile. “What are your hopes for this band? What are your aspirations?”

  “I’m pretty sure our aspirations have already been set out for us,” he said. Again, Dorothy’s face broke into a smile.

  “Listen, at the end of the day, we just want what’s best for you guys,” she said. “We want you to be as big as One Direction once were. We want you to be on all the charts. We’re talking platinum here!”

  “And I completely trust your instinct, which is why I never went against what Straub wanted to do,” Devon said.

  “See, that’s why I like you, kiddo. You’re cooperative,” Dorothy said. “On the other hand, some people aren’t.” There was a pause. “I wanted to talk to you about something, or let’s just say, I wanted to consult you.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” the stringy bassist said, stroking his beard. Something told him he already knew what she was going to say.

  “I have a problem with one of the band members. I think you can guess who it is.”

  “Gabriella?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you suggest we do about that?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. The two of them just stared at each other for a while, saying nothing. Devon noticed the way Dorothy’s lips twitched upwards and formed into a snarl. It terrified him.

  “Listen, you’re going on the tour pretty soon,” she said, putting her iPad away. “But after that, you’re going to start working on your new record, that is, if our plan comes together.”

  “Right,” Devon said, nodding like a robot.

  “Alright, well, I’m a bit concerned about the future of this band if Gabriella stays in it,” Dorothy said. She paused for a moment, searching Devon’s face for a reaction. But he remained stoic. “Straub and I have been talking, and we both think it would be best if we let Gabriella go after the tour is over.”

  Devon continued to stroke his beard, pretending to be deep in thought. In reality, he couldn’t wait to hear what Dorothy had to say next. “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, what do you think? Don’t you think her style doesn’t quite fit in with our vision for the band?” Dorothy asked.

  “Not at all,” Devon said. “But who do you want to replace her with?”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Dorothy said. “Straub and I are going for a major change here. We want this to be an all-male band.”

  Devon jumped in his seat. “What? An all-male band?” he asked. “So a boy band.”

  “Oh, the term 'boy-band' is a bit juvenile, don’t you think?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m thinking more along the lines of Take That? You remember them, yes?”

  “I remember,” Devon nodded. “But what about Sydney? Are you going to let her go, too?”

  “Well, yes,” Dorothy said. There was silence. “Basically, we’re going to hold auditions so talented, hot men like yourself can come and knock our socks off.” Devon looked hesitant. “You don’t have to tell me what you think right now,” she continued, placing a hand on his thigh. “In fact, you can take all the time you need.”

  “You know what, you got it,” he said, rising to his feet. “You know I was in a boy-band once. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s about time I moved on to bigger and better things.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Dorothy said. She eyed him as he started pacing the room frantically.

  “But why Sawdust? Why not just start something new?”

  “And go through all the marketing again?” Dorothy shook her head. “No, baby, we’re riding the waves of the first album. Just taking the sound in a new direction.”

  Devon lowered his gaze, thinking deeply about what she was saying. “You know what? I like this idea. I like it very much,” he said again.

  “You look pretty enthusiastic to me.”

  Devon’s eyes lit up like never before. His mind conjured up images of sold-out concerts, of groupies and fan signs. He closed his eyes and imagined being up on that stage and not having to stand in the back. He had knocked Gabriella off her throne, after all these years. “I’m pretty excited,” he said, his pearly teeth showing through his smile.

  “Well then, I think we have a deal?”

  Devon licked his lips and extended his arm out to Dorothy. “We have a fucking deal,” he said.

  ***

  “Phew! I haven’t done an interview in such a long time, I’m nervous,” Alicia said, her eyes darting back and forth frantically. “Is it just me or is it a thousand degrees in here?” she asked, looking over at Jeremy.

  “No, you’re just nervous,” he said, crossing one leg over the other and looking around the radio lab. The air was still, a bit too still. They couldn’t hear anything that was going on outside. They sat across from each other on a round wooden table, with the microphones pointed right at them. Alicia tapped it once or twice and then rolled back in her chair, her heart beating faster than ever.

  “Where is that guy?” she whispered, her eyes fixated on Jeremy’s.

  “We’re supposed to go live in twenty minutes, calm down,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  Alicia’s heart wouldn’t stop racing. She hadn’t been interviewed for a magazine in such a long time that even the thought of going live made her cringe.

  “Dude, this is Rock Today, it’s not like any other magazine,” she hissed, leaning in across the table. “Hey, can you come sit next to me? Why are you sitting all the way over there?” she asked. Jeremy chuckled and moved over.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, holding her hand.

  Suddenly the door inched open and a tall, lanky man - seemingly in his thirties - barged in with a huge, toothy grin plastered across his face.

  “Well, good afternoon!” he said. Instantly, Alicia felt more at ease. “We’re supposed to go live in exactly seventeen minutes, okay? We have time to chat a bit.”

  “Oh,” Alicia said, forging a smile.

  “So, my name is Stephen Blooming and I’ll be your host for today’s show. Mainly we’ll just talk about Sawdust, your first studio album and the tour. And um, what else? That’s pretty much it,” he said, flipping through his papers.

  Alicia looked down and they were all blank, except for the very first page, which had some scribbles on it.

  “Sounds good,” she said, the corners of her lips fighting to fall down.

  Her eyes were fixated somewhere over Blooming’s shoulder; a bunch of glowing red digits was staring back at her. Fifteen minutes. Alicia put her phone on silent but kept it in her hand. For some reason, she felt like everything hinged on what she did that day, and once done it could never be undone. She couldn’t think straight that morning, and before she left the house she asked Gabriella to wish her good luck. The silence was almost unbearable. Her hands spread like pale starfish around her standard-issue coffee cup; they were cold, resisting the warmth that struggled to seep into them. The clock was ticking. This was unbearable.

  Suddenly a great red lamp went on above Blooming’s head. And they were live!

  “Good afternoon, America! I am Stephen Blooming from Rock Today magazine and today we will be talking to the producers of the country rock band, Sawdust. Alicia, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?”

  “Hello, my name is Alicia Harper and I produce Sawdust’s music. We’ve been working together for several months now and just recently we launched the band’s first studio album. Right now, ‘Papercut’ is number one on iTunes, so I’m pretty excited about that.”

  “Woo, that does sound pretty amazing. So, Alicia, Jeremy, how would you describe Sawdust’s music? How do you think your band stands out in the middle of all of the other rock bands out today?”

  “Are you gonna answer that or should I?” Jeremy asked, flashing Alicia a smirk. “Alright, well,
Sawdust isn’t just a product of a bunch of kids playing music in a garage. Sawdust is the product of two girls who related to each other on such a great level that they decided to make something meaningful and share it with the world.”

  “But I thought the band already existed before Alicia became their producer?” Blooming asked.

  “If you wanna know the truth, Sawdust never really became Sawdust before Alicia came along,” Jeremy said. “She was the glue that brought this band together, still is.”

  But not for long, she thought to herself.

  “Very flattering, Alicia,” Blooming said, glancing at her. “And what do you think? Do you feel like this band is your baby and your personal experiences are in its DNA?”

  “Definitely,” she said. “And it’s not just me. It’s Gabriella, too. She and I have been through so many of the same things that we’ve kind of turned this band into our outlet of creative energy,” she continued.

  There was a pause.

  “Well, speaking of which,” the talk show host said, bouncing in his chair. “The fans are dying to know… are you and Gabriella dating?”

  Alicia felt the adrenaline burst through her veins. For a moment she felt like she’d fall off her chair. Her eyes darted to Jeremy, who just shrugged. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

  “Does it matter if we are?” she asked, tilting her head sideways.

  “To the fans, it does,” Blooming said. “Come on, you said it yourself. The band is like your baby; we’re pretty sure something is going on with you guys!”

  “I mean, it might be true,” Alicia said, biting her bottom lip.

  “You’re halfway there!” Blooming said, his eyes growing wider than a set of plates.

  “Alright, fine. We’re a thing,” she said finally.

  Total radio silence.

  “Whoa, there! That’s cute as hell, I’m sure the fans are thrilled for you guys!” he said.

  Alicia nodded nervously.

  The rest of the interview was a blur. There were times when Alicia wished she had selective amnesia, and today was one of those days. After it was over, she couldn’t bear thinking about it. Yet the memories persisted, dormant until triggered, and then the panic would start.

  “Oh my God, I don’t remember what I said.” Alicia sat in the lobby, hunched over like she was about to throw up. “Actually, never mind. I remember too much and that’s the problem.”

  “Alright, what is it that you regret opening up about?” Jeremy asked, slumping down next to her.

  “You know what,” she said, glaring at him. “Gabriella hasn’t come out publicly yet. Oh God, she’s probably going to kill me.”

  “But the way you guys act around each other kind of gives it away, don’t you think?” Jeremy asked.

  “It’s different when you come right out and say it,” Alicia said, burying her face in her hands. “I can’t believe this!”

  Suddenly she envisioned a scenario where Gabriella would cut her off for saying what she did. No wonder she had been acting weird around her lately. She remembered all those times when she would try to get her to dance, all those times when she would squirm away like a worm. Everything made sense. There was no way Gabriella was going to be okay with this.

  “Alright, tell you what. How about we talk about this in the car? We wouldn’t want the people working here to see you freak out like this,” Jeremy said. Alicia was close to tears. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “I can’t, I can’t,” she said, hugging her knees to her chest. “Gabriella’s going to kill me. She’s going to kick my ass for this, Jeremy!”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” he said, trying to get her to stand up.

  Alicia couldn’t muster up the strength to get up on her own two feet. At that point she just craved solitude away from this place, away from all the noise.

  “Let’s go,” she breathed, walking slowly towards the exit.

  Suddenly, Alicia froze in her place. Jeremy stared at her for a second, flustered as to why she had stopped dead in her tracks. Immediately his eyes caught the man standing on the other side of the door. He was tall, and Jeremy immediately recognized him. Without the suspenders and tap-dance shoes, the man didn’t look as threatening.

  Alicia was staring straight at him. “Dad?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Alicia and her dad walked side by side down the street. She hadn’t seen him in years, and it was weird that he was only a few inches away from her. If she were to move a little to the left, she would bump into him. The real him. Not just a picture of him hidden away behind the TV set at her mother’s house, not just a face in a photo album.

  The real him. Daniel Harper in the flesh.

  And that terrified her.

  The moment she saw him, she noticed some things had changed. Wrinkles had formed around his eyes, he had stopped wearing his glasses - those round frames she had gotten so used to - and his hairline had receded. He walked slowly next to her, not uttering a word, but staring straight ahead as the pair approached a cafe a few blocks down the radio station.

  “I think there’s a nice coffee shop right around the corner,” he said, not looking at Alicia. He still maintained his casual demeanor, the one Alicia had always admired him for. Besides his wrinkles, his frilly white hair and his ashen face, he was still his old self. His suspenders peeked from under his suit jacket; Alicia could’ve sworn he had those since she was a little kid.

  “Do you come around here often?” she asked, not looking at him, either. Looking at him meant noticing how old he’d gotten, which also meant realizing how long they’ve been apart.

  “Yeah, I come here sometimes,” he said, taking her hand and marching across the street. Alicia froze.

  “Dad, you don’t have to hold my hand anymore,” she said.

  But her arm didn’t fall limply to her side; she held on. The father-daughter pair stepped into the coffee shop and headed for the first table they could find. Alicia sat down slowly, and then finally, when she knew she had to, she raised her eyes to her father. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes searching hers.

  For a while, she didn’t say anything, and neither did he. They looked down at their menus, pretending to flip through the pages, pretending to decide between the vanilla latte and the caramel macchiato, except they were both lactose intolerant.

  “Well,” he said, leaning across the table and looking into Alicia’s eyes. “How’ve you been?”

  “Why did you leave?” she blurted out.

  There was absolute stillness. No air stirred the grass or leaves outside. Not a sound could be heard either close at hand or in the far off distance, despite the cafe being busy with people. Even Alicia’s own breath seemed to die as soon as it left her mouth. It was an eerie silence and Alicia felt like the world was encased in a cocoon, and there was no way out.

  “Don’t you want to tell me how you’ve been first?” he asked.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I left because I was a disappointment. To you, your mother. I was a disappointment, and I couldn’t live with that,” he said, his eyes dropping to the table. Alicia recalled seeing the same look on his face when he told her he couldn’t buy her a grand piano on her eleventh birthday.

  “You didn’t even come to mom’s funeral,” she said, her tone a bit harsher than she had intended it to be, her eyes locked on his. It was like she was drilling into his soul, and he was reciprocating her same look, as if staring back at himself in the mirror. His lips parted momentarily but no words came out. For the first time in his life, he was speechless. “I’m sorry. I didn’t -”

  “No, that’s okay. You have every right to think I’m a horrible person,” he said.

  “You know I don’t think that.”

  “But I do,” he said. “When I was younger, I didn’t know what I was doing. I kept pretending, over and over again, to know where I was headed with my
clarinet and my guitar. I went out every day thinking my feet would carry me someplace else, away from the subway station.” There was a pause. “But I always ended up there. Over and over again. Day after day. It was a recurring nightmare, until I found someone who realized I had potential. I was lucky, Alicia, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you never came back,” she said, waving off the waiters, who were hovering around their table like bees.

  “I did. Once,” Daniel said. “I still felt like a disappointment. Your mom never wanted me to work in music; all those years we spent fighting really took their toll on our relationship. By the time I got a record deal, I tried to come back. But it was too late.”

  “Oh,” Alicia said, her eyes fixated somewhere over her father’s shoulder. “Is that why I came back from school one day to a pile of dollar bills scattered all over the floor? Is that why mom was on the floor crying?” she asked, trying hard not to relive the memory in full effect.

  “You were fifteen,” he said, staring at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “I had made the decision to move back in once I got the record deal. I came back with a bag of money, but your mother wasn’t having it. We fought for hours before I finally decided to leave the money behind and head out,” he continued. “I never came back since.”

  “So one fight and you gave up?” Alicia asked, folding both arms across her chest and leaning back in the booth, trying to put some distance between them.

  “Alicia, it wasn’t just one fight. Your mother and I fought all the time; our marriage pretty much collapsed under my own life decisions, and when I finally tried to make up for my mistakes, she gave me the cold shoulder,” he said. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did, Alicia. I’m sorry things ended the way they did.”