“Thank you, dear,” she said, placing a warm hand on my arm.
I made a mental note to spend more time with her in the future.
Rose and I settled back into our spot on the couch next to Lucille and George, who had already fallen asleep, just as Letty had predicted. George’s ice cream cup lay empty upon his belly, slowly rising up and down with each breath. I smiled to myself.
The movie, Up, which Rose had already seen, had reached a montage scene of a couple falling in love, getting married, and growing old together. Rose leaned over and warned me, “It’s going to get sad,” to which I, as a red-blooded American male said, “No problem.” I never cried at movies.
Five minutes later, tears were rolling down my face.
“I told you,” said Rose, dabbing at her eyes.
I discreetly tried to wipe my face with a napkin. “It’s from all the Lysol,” I explained, wondering who the hell had picked this movie for a bunch of old people anyway.
“Sure it is,” she teased. Then she leaned over and rested her head upon my shoulder. My right arm was propped on the couch armrest, and the wooden frame was jabbing into my ribs. In fact, I’d been about to shift positions just before this new circumstance arose. But now, I had the endurance of a hundred men, the strength of a bull, and the body of Eduardo, the X-rated puzzle man.
I held out my left hand, palm up, and prayed, never taking my eyes off the screen. A moment later, skin met skin, and her hand was in mine. I closed my fingers, and she did the same. My heart pounded.
I gave her hand a squeeze.
She squeezed back.
EIGHTEEN
BEFORE LEAVING HOME FRIDAY NIGHT, I RECEIVED A FULL-SCALE psychological evaluation, interrogation, and downright cross- examination from my mom. She folded laundry while I leaned on the doorframe, answering questions that came in rapid-fire succession.
“Who’s going to be there?” she asked.
“Dylan, and his two friends, Axl and Novie,” I answered.
“Will an adult be there?”
“Yeah, Dylan’s sister, Maggie. She’s, like, twenty-four.”
“No parents?”
“Dylan’s parents are spending the summer in India.”
“And left him alone?”
“Like I said, his sister will be there.”
“Will there be alcohol?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not bringing any.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Mom replied, sounding slightly irritated. “How do I know the other kids won’t be drinking?”
“I guess you don’t know. I’m not going there to drink. I’m going there to hang out and play music.”
“Will Rose be there?”
“No. I asked her, but she has to practice for her piano lesson tomorrow.”
“I see.”
“You see?”
My mom turned to face me with an “I know something you haven’t learned yet” look that made me feel about six years old. “Yes, I see. And you’ll be needing the car, I suppose?”
“I can’t ride my bike across town carrying a guitar. Plus, it’ll be dark on the way home.”
“Oh, it will? And how long do you plan on staying?”
“I don’t know, until we’re done jamming.”
“Try ten o’clock.”
“Ten?! How about midnight?”
“Ten.”
“Eleven.”
“Ten.”
“Ten thirty.”
“Ten.”
Apparently going on dates with Rose = safe and harmless; jamming with friends = dangerous and deadly. Finally, I conceded and threw my guitar in the back seat and drove across town to Dylan’s. Halfway there I began to feel nervous, as if the whole idea was a huge mistake. I wished Rose was going to be there; she always found a way to put me at ease. I’d be seeing her Sunday though. I still needed to come up with a surprise, but I had all day Saturday for that.
I pulled up to Dylan’s house and parked on the street. A rusted Ford pickup truck that had once been red but had faded to a dull, orangish hue sat in the driveway. In the bed of the truck, a large black speaker cabinet lay on its side. Various shiny metal stands, which I assumed belonged to a drum kit, sat in a pile next to the speaker. Suddenly, I felt ill equipped for my first official jam session, having only my acoustic guitar with no amplifier or accessories whatsoever.
Too late to back out now, I thought.
I walked to the front door and knocked. Dylan’s sister, Maggie, greeted me and let me inside.
“How was BuffaloFest?” she asked while walking me through the kitchen to the basement stairs. I heard the muffled sounds of voices from below.
“It was cool. I met a ton of people.”
“I bet you did. D knows everybody.” Maggie stopped and pointed at me. “He didn’t go on his goldfish rant, did he?”
I laughed. “Yeah, maybe a little bit.”
“Oh, God, I don’t think he’ll ever let that go.” Maggie laughed and shook her head. “They’re all down there. Not too loud, okay?”
“No problem. Thanks again for the wristbands.”
“Sure thing.”
Half the basement had been sectioned off by two old couches and a couple of recliners. In the center, a wooden trunk had become a makeshift table, covered with stacks of magazines, printed lyrics, and a few open bags of chips. A drum kit sat half-assembled in the corner. Vampire Weekend played from a speaker where someone’s phone had been docked to the port on top.
“Zeus, what’s up, man!” said Dylan, waving to me from one of the couches. “Axl, Novie, this is the guitar player I was telling you about.”
“Hey guys,” I replied. I felt naked standing there with just my acoustic guitar. I wished I at least had a carrying case for it, or an amp.
“What’s up, Zeus?” asked Novie. She lay on the other couch, a Drummer’s Digest magazine spread across her stomach. White-blond hair fanned her face, the tips looking like they’d been dipped in a purple inkwell.
“Hey, man,” said Axl, who sat cross-legged on the floor beneath her. He shared the same fair hair and wide cheekbones as his twin, and both had inherited Letty’s crystal-blue eyes.
“Have a seat,” Dylan said, making room for me on the couch. Agatha lay on the floor in front of him, looking exhausted from her day of being a dog.
“So, Zeus,” Axl began, “where do you get a name like that? Your parents into Greek mythology or something?”
“Let me guess,” said Novie. “You have a sister named Aphrodite and a brother named Poseidon.”
“I wish.” I laughed. “My brother’s name is Manuel Thor Gunderson, no joke. I call him Grub. Mine’s even worse—Jesús Bjorn Gunderson, so I go by Zeus.”
“Right on, makes sense,” Axl said.
“Yeah, my mom basically cursed us in the name department,” I replied. “Speaking of that, what’s up with Axl and Novie?”
The twins gave each other a look, one I realized they had shared many times.
“Perhaps I can explain in song,” said Dylan. He flipped on an amp, grabbed a guitar, and began to sing. “Nothing lasts forever, and we both know hearts can change. And it’s hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain.”
“Stop!” Novie covered her face with a pillow as if to smother the song out of her head. Dylan played a little lick on guitar and laughed.
“Wait, really?” I said, starting to put the puzzle together.
“Really,” said Axl. “Meet November Rain Gunther, aka Novie.”
“And that would make you Axl Rose Gunther?” I asked.
“Haha!” Novie pointed and laughed at her brother from under the pillow.
“I thought Jesús Bjorn was bad,” I said.
“It’s pretty bad,” said Axl.
“Definitely stick with Zeus,” said Dylan.
“So your parents are huge Guns N’ Roses fans, I take it?” I asked.
“Mom i
s, yeah. She used to be, anyway,” said Novie. “She had a thing for eighties bands.”
“To our everlasting shame,” Axl added.
“Your mom . . . So that’s Letty’s granddaughter, right? Crash?” I asked.
“That’s her, Christy ‘Crash’ Liszieski,” said Novie. “‘The crazy skips every other generation, so we didn’t get it.”
“Yep, no crazy here,” said Axl.
“Right. No crazy here at all,” said Dylan, thick on the sarcasm.
“Dylan doesn’t get to be in our Horrible Names Club,” said Novie.
“Really? Come on! I was named after a poet, doesn’t that count for anything?”
The two other members of the Horrible Names Club and I shook our heads no.
“Dammit,” said Dylan.
“I’m also a proud Mexiwegian,” I pointed out. “Beat that.”
“Mexiwegian?” Novie asked.
“Half Mexican, half Norwegian. Mexiwegian.”
Novie turned to her brother. “What would that make us? Mom’s Polish, what’s Dad?”
“Mostly German, I think,” said Axl.
“So you’re Germish,” I said.
“I knew it! Keep those scabies and tapeworms to yourselves,” Dylan said, leaning away from the twins.
For the next hour, conversation flowed freely. My initial discomfort melted away as soon as we started trading funny stories about our weird families—we were more alike than I’d expected. I found out that Axl and Novie’s dad had moved to Alaska when they were babies, and they only talked to him once a year at Christmas. Dylan talked about his New Age parents and their large collection of Reiki stones and essential oils. And even though I’d never told anyone else but Rose, I explained how my mom had decided to skip the sperm donor bank and get knocked up for free in Latin America.
Twice.
It felt good to be around people who didn’t judge me, who had stories as strange as my own. And it felt good to laugh about it. What else could we do?
Eventually, we got around to playing music. I helped Axl and Novie drag their equipment in from the pickup truck and navigate it through the house, careful not to put any holes in the drywall. Dylan stayed in the basement, setting up microphones on stands. Duct tape was heavily featured in their assembly.
They kindly asked me what songs I knew, to which I replied that I’d play whatever they wanted. They’d all know soon enough how much I sucked.
Dylan ended up showing us a song he’d recently written. It only had three chords: E minor, C, and D—right in my wheelhouse—so I gently strummed along. I tried to keep up, but I played really soft, afraid I’d mess up. It probably turned out to be a good thing I wasn’t amplified, but I think I held my own. Axl and Novie listened while tapping their feet and bobbing their heads.
“That’s awesome, man,” said Dylan, when we came to the end. “We’ve been needing a rhythm guitarist.”
Rhythm guitarist. Had a nice ring to it.
“Thanks,” I replied. “I kind of screwed up that middle part.”
“No, you didn’t! You were great!” said Novie.
“Yeah, dude. Spot on,” said Axl.
I didn’t know if they were serious, or just being nice.
“Here, try this out.” Dylan opened up a black case and pulled out a dark blue Fender Telecaster.
Like Joe Strummer’s, I thought. Almost.
Dylan plugged it into an amp and handed it to me.
“Um . . .” I said.
“Here’s your volume,” Dylan said, pointing to a knob, “this chooses your pickup, and this adjusts your treble and bass.”
“Got it,” I replied, though I felt out of my league. I strummed a chord and jumped at how loud it was.
Dylan laughed. “Don’t worry, she won’t bite ya.”
I turned the volume knob and strummed again. Much better.
After that, Axl showed us a bass line he’d been working on. I watched in awe as Dylan put his head down and worked his way up and down the neck of his own guitar to find the matching chords. I studied his hands closely. Okay, I recognize that one, I think that’s an F. That’s definitely a C. I think that’s an A minor. No! D minor. Now A minor. I know that’s a G. I followed along the best I could. After about five or six times through the chord progression, I had it down.
Novie tapped out the tempo on the hi-hat, then fell into a groove with the snare and kick drum.
Dylan watched me play, which made me nervous, but soon he nodded at me in approval. Then he clicked a pedal on the floor and launched into a guitar solo.
Holy shit.
I was actually playing with a band.
I could feel the bass, feel the kick drum. My own guitar was part of the music, almost like a conversation. There was a sense of collectivity, a unity. This was what I wanted. This was what I needed.
We finally reached the big ending, accented by heavy cymbal crashes and me breaking a string.
I didn’t care though.
My ears were ringing, my fingers were bleeding, and I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.
NINETEEN
THE PSYCHIC’S HEAD WHIPPED UP, HER EYES OPEN WIDE. “THAT’S THE old-soul line, right there.”
“It is?” asked Rose.
“Yes. You’ve lived many past lives.”
“I have?”
“Mm-hmm.” Mo the psychic traced a line along Rose’s palm from below her index finger to her wrist. “You will live near a large body of water. Soon. Within the next six months.”
“Really?” said Rose. “Is it the ocean?”
“Hard to say,” replied Mo.
“So it could be any body of water?” I chimed in. “I mean, it could be a river or a lake too, right?”
Mo flashed me a look. “Yes, it could,” she finally said, after staring into my soul for a moment.
Mo owned Moira’s Psychic Healing and Palm Reading, the business located down the strip mall from World Peas Café. The previous night, I’d brought her some leftovers from the café, which apparently my mom had been dropping off for weeks. It was then I’d come up with the idea to surprise Rose with a palm reading on Sunday. I’d half expected—okay, I’d fully expected—to find an old woman in a silk gown and a shiny jewel-encrusted turban speaking in some gypsy accent as she hovered over a crystal ball. It turned out that to be a psychic in Buffalo Falls, all you needed were a pair of tie-dyed shoes, some tarot cards, and a twenty-by-ten-foot office space. Forest green, soul-sucking animal eyes didn’t hurt either.
I decided to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the reading.
Mo continued to stare at Rose’s hands, which rested on the table in front of her, palms up.
“You were an artist in a past life. A painter, perhaps. Possibly a musician.”
“I play piano now, in this life,” Rose replied.
Mo looked Rose in the eyes. “I know.”
“Psychic,” I mouthed, pointing at Mo.
“Oh, right,” said Rose.
Mo stared for a moment, then pointed to a spot on Rose’s right palm. “There. These two lines connect here. Is there someone new in your life?”
Rose gave me a look. Her eyebrows twitched and her lips pursed like she was trying to hold in a smile. “Yes,” she answered.
Mo glanced at me, then looked back to Rose and referenced me with a head tilt, meaning, “That guy there?”
Rose nodded.
Mo scrunched up her face. I think it was a sign of approval, but it could have been “Oh well” or “He’ll do.”
Maybe both.
“All right, that’s all. Next. You’re up.” Mo was looking at me.
“That’s okay. This was just for her—”
“Have a seat.” Mo motioned to where Rose was sitting, with an air of authority that didn’t leave much room for debate.
Long story short, when she told me to sit, I sat.
I rested the backs of my hands on the table and stared down at them, waiting for the process to beg
in. She said nothing. I flexed my fingers, straightening them, offering her a better look at my palms.
Still nothing.
I looked up to find her staring at my face, her brow furrowed into a twisted knot, her crazy eyes burning into the very essence of my being. I think I jumped a little. I looked back down at my hands, then up to her. Her face hadn’t changed.
I cleared my throat. “So, what do you see?” I asked, breaking the silence.
Mo leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and threw one leg over the other.
“You need to do some meditating,” she finally said.
“I do?”
“White light.”
“White light?”
“Surround yourself in white light.” She made a lasso motion above her head, indicating such.
My arms trembled now from holding my palms up. I wasn’t sure if I should release the position yet. “White light,” I repeated.
“You have a spiritual blockage,” she said, in the way someone might say, “Your fly’s open.”
“I had leftover pizza for breakfast, it’s probably just that,” I said, but Mo didn’t laugh.
Rose suppressed a snicker.
“I’m serious. You need to meditate. Surround yourself in white light to keep the bad spirits out.”
“Got it. So do you see anything in my future?” I asked. “Besides the spiritual blockage, I mean.”
Mo looked to Rose and back to me. Then her face untwisted. She leaned on the table with her elbows. “I see a long walk. I see a sunny afternoon. I see holding hands. I see smiling faces.” Her face released into a Grinch-like grin, showcasing her smoke-stained teeth. “But you didn’t need me to tell you that, did you?”
Mo didn’t charge us for the visit. She said as long as my mom kept sending the leftovers, we could come back for a free reading anytime.
Rose gave me plenty of guff for my psychic shortcomings the second we were out the door. I didn’t have much ammo for retaliation since Mo had been spot-on with Rose’s reading. The first thing she’d said when Rose sat down was “You bring joy to people’s lives.” I obviously couldn’t argue that point. She’d also been right about the musician thing, and even about living by a large body of water in the near future, though I tried not to think about it. Rose and I had spent the last week avoiding the topic of the Manhattan Music Conservatory, and I was glad to do so.
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