Leo’s fancy radio flashes like a rainbow disco. The music gets louder and louder as the needle on his speedometer goes higher and higher.
“Maybe we should slow down!” I shout over a screaming guitar solo.
“Why?” he yells back. “There’s no one else on the road.” He leans casually on the center console, driving with one hand draped over the top of the wheel. I grab his free hand and stick it back on the wheel.
“At least use both hands!”
He laughs. “All right, all right.”
The needle pushes higher. The singer’s wild falsetto is as shrieky as my heartbeat. Leo’s car is ancient, and it feels like we’re rolling down the road in a rusty birdcage. The buffeting wind blows some of my hair out of my twist, but this time I don’t fix it. Partly because my hands are occupied in a life-or-death grip on the panic handle, and partly because a squirrelly, roller-coaster-drop feeling of chaos is blooming in my chest … and I’m … liking it?
The glove box pops open when we hit eighty. I let go for a millisecond to snatch a pair of neon pink heart-shaped sunglasses from inside. They squeeze my temples, but at least the ache distracts me from the fact that we’re the only car pummeling down the road. Leo pulls his aviator glasses from his collar and puts them on, grinning at me.
I laugh.
Astrid would love this. She can’t drive yet—she keeps failing her driving test because she’s too busy chatting to the instructor to use her turn signal—and she always pretends to be embarrassed to be seen with me when we borrow my parents’ SUV. She slinks down in the seat and puts on my mom’s Audrey Hepburn sunglasses like she’s a celebrity avoiding the paparazzi.
She would approve of Thunderchicken.
The wind rushes against my cheeks, over my bare arms, and a memory twists in me—another time when going fast had wind whipping around me. When I was little, my dad used to take me out on his motorcycle. I haven’t been on it in years. I forgot how fun it was.
I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes, losing myself in the speed. In the feel of the wind whipping my hair against my face. In the relentless tempo of his screeching rock-and-roll music. I feel alive.
I don’t open my eyes until Leo slows the car down for our exit. I blink up at the tall buildings, trying to get my bearings.
Leo grins at me. “So …”
“Okay, okay. That was fun,” I admit.
Leo pats the steering wheel lovingly. “Good girl, Thunderchicken. And that was only eighty-five. I got her up to ninety-one the other day. Want to try it on the way back?”
“Definitely,” I say before my rational brain can kick back in. My heart is still beating wildly in my chest. Speeding isn’t just against the rules; it’s against the law. What else have I been missing?
As we drive through the deserted downtown streets, I run my fingers over the edge of the seat, where the rolled seam of burgundy velvet is worn thin. I get the most powerful feeling that it’s a thing I’ve done before.
Leo pulls into a parking lot shaded by an overpass. We have free rein in choosing a space, but he ignores the handicapped spots beside the festival entrance and parks in a regular space.
There’s an enormous arch over the entrance, a cosmic explosion of purple and teal and hot pink. The turnstiles look like giant Rubik’s Cubes, and the festival’s name is splashed everywhere.
SpandexFest: The ’80s Rock Festival.
“No one parties harder than the rockers of the eighties,” Leo says, flashing me another dazzling grin.
If you’d told me an hour ago this is what I would be doing, I would absolutely not have believed it. I don’t want to go home anymore. I want to check out this festival and see this legendary guitar.
Leo puts the car into neutral and yanks up the parking brake, but there’s something I want to say before we get out.
“Hey, Leo?”
“Yeah?”
“I think if I were an animal, I’d be a deer.”
He smiles so brightly it stuns me for a second. The afternoon sun glazes everything with nostalgic light, and when he swallows, the way his throat bobs hypnotizes me. He really is fascinating to look at.
Leo turns off the engine, and I get out after him without stopping to think, because the cloudless blue sky is glowing and I’m wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and I just found out I like breaking speed limits.
Everything will be different now that Leo’s around.
Hannah’s glowing in the seat next to me. No power chord smile yet, but it’s gotta be right around the corner. I’m pumped from the drive, and we’re so stoked for this, grinning as we clamber out of Thunderchicken—
And then I remember the silence.
For a second, I can’t move. All my excitement seeps down into the ground.
I spin around. There should be cars on the street, cars on the overpass. Cars crawling all over this parking lot. Cars, cars, cars. But there’s nothing. No mosquitos droning, no birds chirping. Just the cooling-down clicks of Thunderchicken’s engine and Hannah’s soft footsteps on the pavement beside me.
“Kind of kills the high, doesn’t it?” I say, frowning at the emptiness.
“Yeah.” She crosses her arms and hugs herself like she’s cold. She’s not glowing anymore.
I fish my ancient wired earbuds out of my pocket and offer her one. “Want to listen?” I ask. “It helps. I wouldn’t have made it this long without them.”
She corks a bud in her ear, next to a prim little pearl earring. I wiggle the other bud into my own ear as I scroll through my phone, looking for something less high-octane than what we were listening to on the highway but still upbeat enough to cover up the empty. Power ballads it is.
We have to walk pretty close to each other to keep the earbuds from popping out. Hannah’s arm brushes mine. I should walk a half step farther away, but touching her reminds me that she’s not some hologram of my imagination. She’s really here.
I’ve shared earphones like this with a few girls, and it always starts off clumsy and awkward. Feet out of time, hips bumping together, everything clashing with the rhythm of the song.
With Hannah, it’s smooth right away. We lock into step, moving together like a well-oiled machine as we walk across the parking lot. I keep waiting for it to all go wrong, but it doesn’t.
I put a lot of stock in rhythm, and it’s not often you find someone whose beats per minute match yours. Hannah and me, though—ours match.
I sneak a sidelong glance at her, pleased to see that she already looks more relaxed. I offer her my arm with a cheesy flourish—strolling arm in arm is okay if I do it in a mock-gentleman way, right?
She laughs and shakes her head like I’m an idiot, but she obliges. Her fingertips rest in the crook of my arm, delicate as air. It tickles a little but in a good way.
The festival is supposed to start tonight, but for now a chain-link rent-a-fence still surrounds the grounds. After finding us a gap to squeeze through, I steer us to the main thoroughfare.
It’s like a ghost town.
Before the gates opened last year, there were people already milling about between the food trucks and merch stands. Technicians in black T-shirts were sweating in the heat, laughing and swearing as they tested the equipment. But now it’s just Hannah and me, walking right through the middle of it all like cowboys returning to their hometown to find it dusty and vacant.
It’s so hot—weirdly hot for this time of year—and so still. The sun bakes down on my neck. I feel naked without a guitar case on my back.
We walk through the mini carnival area, passing booths where you toss rings and win dusty stuffed animals. The hot dog and funnel cake carts are shuttered up, but dozens of bags of cotton candy hang from their canopies, swaying just enough to totally creep me out.
I snag a bag and tear it open. When I offer some to Hannah, she plucks off the tiniest pink puff. I grab a whole handful and shove it into my mouth.
There’s still no sign of anyone else. Al
l the standard carnival rides are here, waiting to give you whiplash and part you from your last five-dollar bill. Teacups, bumper cars, Tilt-A-Whirl. Who set them up? Who hung out the cotton candy bags? It’s like the festival is frozen in time, waiting for the clocks to lurch forward so everything can start again.
I turn our music volume up three clicks and walk a little faster.
Hannah’s side-eyeing everything like she thinks something’s going to jump out at us. I hip-check her to distract her, and she gives me another little strum of a smile.
The abandoned rides are freaking me out. The carnival lights should be flashing, and tacky carnival music should be playing. The bumper cars huddle together in the corner of their tent like the trash that collects at the edge of a pond.
I love SpandexFest. I’ve been six years in a row. But now all I can think is … why the hell did I think it would be fun without a crowd?
I can’t turn back now. I’ve got to sell it. I promised Hannah we’d have a good time.
So we press on, past taco stands and beer tents until the sky opens out onto a huge field of dead grass. On the other side is the gargantuan main stage, built up on a ten-foot-high platform. Crisscrossing metal trusses shoot up tall, supporting a grid hung with a mind-blowing number of stage lights. Two line arrays—massive stacks of speakers—hang down from the grid like big black earrings. Last year, Asher said that it looked like a rad version of the Parthenon in Greece. I did a double take, because he always has his head on his desk in World History. He’s either secretly a genius or absorbs knowledge in his sleep, because who’s ever heard of a stoner who gets decent grades without trying?
“Where are the tour buses?” Hannah asks.
“In the back.”
We cross the field and bank around the side of the stage. Behind the Parthenon, there’s a whole village of vehicles, ranging from VW campers to glossy luxury tour buses.
“That’s it,” I say, pointing to the biggest one. Slydekick is airbrushed on the side in neon letters. I collect my earbuds and stuff them into my pocket.
We stare at the door.
“Should we knock?” Hannah asks.
“Why? The chance of finding someone else is pretty slim, don’t you think? Besides, I haven’t knocked on any of the other places I’ve busted into.”
She frowns. “How exactly did you bust into them?”
“Well … there may have been rocks. And kicking.”
The door of the tour bus is smooth and alien, and I don’t see any big rocks nearby. “Uh, stand back, I guess,” I say, preparing to karate-kick the handle.
“Wait, wait,” Hannah says. “Don’t you want to at least try it first? Maybe they left it unlocked.”
I’m about to say there’s no way they’d leave all their gear without locking the bus, but she’s already trying the knob—and it gives.
It would have been more fun to kick it in, but I guess her way is okay too.
The inside of the tour bus is cool and dark. I mess around with the complicated bank of light switches next to the door and end up turning on black lights. Hannah’s teeth and leotard glow like we’re at a rave. I fiddle with some other switches until it looks more like a cozy living room, but I can’t figure out how to turn off the purple LEDs running down the middle of the ceiling.
It’s all leather and mirrors, expensive and sleek and awesome. Slydekick has everything: ice machine, fully stocked bar, huge fridge, fancy Italian coffee machine.
“Want coffee?” I ask, firing up the machine.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Hannah. We’re dead. Have coffee.”
I plop onto one of the leather bench seats as I wait for the coffee to brew. There’s clearly nobody here. No dirty dishes, no socks or shoes strewn about. I don’t know why, but some part of me was still hoping that Bruce and the band would be here. Hannah appeared today. Is it too much to ask that the rest of Houston would follow?
“So you know these guys? Slydekick?” Hannah asks, leafing through a stack of flyers with their logo on it.
“Yeah, I met them at last year’s festival. I’ve been a fan since I was eleven, though.”
I tell Hannah about how I met Bruce, the lead singer, and one of the last shred gods standing. Exactly one year ago, my band was playing on the smallest stage, the one between the empanada cart and the shitty penguin-themed fun house. By some crazy-awesome stroke of luck, Bruce watched our set. He wasn’t wearing his performance outfit, so I didn’t recognize him in the crowd. When he’s onstage, he wears lace-up leather pants and goes shirtless to show off the planet tattoos on his chest, and he styles his bleach-blond hair to look like an electrocuted poodle. Turns out the hair was a wig.
After our modest (but devoted) audience cleared, Bruce came over and told me he’d never heard a better vocal cover of Whitesnake’s “Crying in the Rain.” I realized who it was then, from the star tattoos that start at his temples and blend up into his hairline. In my head I was shrieking, chasing my tail around the stage, but I kept my chill. I cocked my hip and kept on coiling the cable I was wrapping, chatting to him about music and amps. Just shooting the breeze with a rock icon. No big deal.
The next thing I knew, I was backstage during their set with a VIP pass roped around my neck, feeling the stage shake under my feet. I partied with Bruce’s band all night, and he took me under his wing for the rest of the festival weekend. I even helped him finish the lyrics to a song he’d been stuck on, and he told me he owed me one, and that I could call in the favor if I ever wanted to give the music thing a real go.
On the last day, I met his producer, the legendary Salina Sakurai. I was playing one of my own songs, right here at the kitchen table of this exact tour bus, and I didn’t realize she was upstairs. She heard me playing and came down. She let me finish the song—and then asked me if I’d written it.
I almost said yes. But if experience has taught me anything, it’s that I’m going to fuck up any opportunity that comes my way that requires me to actually be on the ball about something. Sure, I can rock up to a bar at sort of the right time and play a few songs, but all the other stuff—the hard work part—that’s not exactly my strong suit.
So I said no. Told her it was something I’d heard on the radio.
She gave me her business card and told me to call if I ever made anything fresh. She said I had good instincts, and that Bruce was impressed with my stage presence.
I kept the card in my guitar case for weeks. Obsessed over it. I thought about calling her and coming clean. But in the end, I shoved it to the bottom of a box of spare cables and tried to forget about it. It felt too much like my band’s first-ever gig, when I convinced the guys we could handle playing in front of a huge audience. I got them so revved up about it, but I got the times messed up. We were stranded on a sidewalk in hundred-degree heat waiting for our ride while the show went on without us, and it was all my fault. That’s how I lost my first drummer. We were twelve. There have been other, bigger screwups along the way, but that was the first.
I was so excited to hang out with Bruce again and get another taste of the life, but they’re not here.
“Leo?”
Hannah’s voice pulls me back from that extra-fun trip down memory lane. She slides a coffee cup across the table—she must have poured it while I was zoned out—and a packet of hotel cookies that she’s already torn open for me. And then she’s touching my arm, fingers soft and curled around my wrist. I go still, desperate not to move, to scare her off. I didn’t know how badly I’ve been needing to just touch someone.
“Hey, Leo? Before today, were you … all right?”
I huff out a breath. “Do I look that bad?” She’s so put together, and I’m in three-day-old jeans and haven’t slept through the night once. I shift an inch away from her. Do I smell?
“No—sorry, that’s not what I meant. Like … could you find food and stuff? Have you been eating? Have you been sleeping? I don’t know, I guess I’m just asking if
… are you okay?”
The question is so foreign to me that I almost laugh at the absurdity.
I can’t remember the last time someone asked me if I was okay.
I take a sip of coffee before I realize that she’s actually waiting for an answer.
“Oh—I’m fine,” I say. “Shredtastic.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
Maybe I could tell her a little bit of the truth.
“I mean. Five days is a long time with no one,” I say finally. “I like being around people. It wasn’t the best time of my life.”
She waits a little longer, just this open, relaxed silence between us, but that’s all I can give her right now.
“Ready to find that guitar, then?” she asks after a while.
“Yes. Please.”
I take a deep breath and shake off what feels like such a monumental moment. I didn’t mean to tell her that, but it felt good.
I drain my coffee and stand up, and the hunt for Galaxe begins. I open up every cupboard, look under every seat. It’s gotta be in here. Bruce is superstitious about it: He would never let it travel in the separate truck that hauls the band’s equipment. I’m about ready to give up when I see something on the upstairs level of the bus. There are eight bunks with a narrow hallway down the middle, and each bed has a little privacy curtain. Through the gap in the last curtain, I can see something shiny and black on the pillow.
I pull back the drape. On the bed, laid out like a person, is the weirdest-shaped case I’ve ever seen.
“Hannah, come here,” I call. “I think this is it.”
She comes over and stands next to me. I flick open the case latches and raise the lid. If life were a movie, we’d hear singing angels.
Here she is, the legendary Galaxe, in all her savage glory.
Her neck is the only part of her that looks like other guitars. It’s long and straight and has a standard set of six strings and twenty-four frets. But instead of the regular shape everyone thinks of when they think of a guitar, Galaxe splits into two fins like a jacked-up, razor-sharp mermaid tail. Every edge tapers into a knifelike thinness. If you swung this guitar into a tree, I reckon it would bite in just like an ax.
You & Me at the End of the World Page 5
