Abby Road

by Ophelia London

  “Or you could get a place of your own,” I suggested.

  Hal snorted and wandered toward the craft service table.

  “I’d love to hear some of your songs,” I said. But Hal only gave me a look from across the table.

  “That one you wrote a few years ago about graduation.” I thought for a moment. “Something Nation.”

  “‘Dirtbag Nation,’” he corrected, his mouth full of Ritz crackers.

  “And I love that one about the girl you met in Central Park, that one you sang to us on the bus.”

  “‘Beatrice Cries.’”

  “That’s it. It was stuck in my head for days.”

  “Whatever, duchess.” He snorted again and reached for a cube of yellow-and-white marbled cheese.

  “We’re not on for another twenty minutes.” I joined him at the table, reaching for my own piece of cheese.

  Hal eyed me skeptically when I popped it into my mouth, probably astonished to see me eating solid food.

  “You’ve got your guitar all nice and tuned.” I chewed, swallowed, and took another piece of cheese. “Would you play something for me?”

  Hal looked down, perhaps deciding if I was worth sharing a part of him that was extra special.

  Watching him from across the table of snacks, waiting for our time slot to perform, I felt a warm gush of gratitude in my soul for him. He’d been good to me. Not exactly like a brother, Hal was something more.

  I was dying to bond with someone, anyone. Hal and I had always been close, sharing a kind of higher connection, simpatico, as he liked to put it. To express this, most of the time we fought like a couple of first graders. As I watched him from across the table, my heart broke a little. I had cut him off before, so unkindly, that day in the kitchen at the studio when he’d tried to tell me about his feelings. I couldn’t stand to hear it at the time; I didn’t want to deal with it. I couldn’t handle any more change.

  I looked away from him, ashamed of my past behavior. Above everything, I was Hal’s friend. We needed each other, and I would do anything for him.

  “I do have one I think you might like,” he said. When he lifted his chin, he grinned, not needing any further coaxing.

  I returned his infectious smile.

  Then the two of us, tucked away behind closed doors, shared a secret.

  While softly strumming his guitar, Hal sang to me his latest effort. It was a simple song about strength, about loss, about miracles, about it never being too late, and about how some things were simply meant to be, no matter how many times you screwed up. It was like hearing out loud the hopes of my heart.

  My breathing slowed and my body sank into the stiff, red wingback. I knew I was crying. And I welcomed the emotion.

  Hal’s song had a minimal yet beautiful melody and something of a bluesy hook because, after all, it was Hal.

  I was moved, I was touched, but mostly I was impressed.

  “Wow,” I said after he finished. “That was really good.” The word was not nearly sufficient enough.

  My band mate shrugged.

  “You should record it.” I leaned forward, wiping my eyes with the backs of my fingers.

  “Yeah, right,” he said, resting his elbows on his Gibson acoustic. He sounded grateful, but also defeated. “Someday, maybe.”

  I shook my head. “Seriously. It gave me chills.” I showed him my arm covered in goose bumps. “This is way better than anything out there right now.” I rubbed my arms. “Better than the crap we’ve done lately.”

  “Of course it is,” he agreed, his orange hair falling across his forehead. He was smiling, but regret showed on his face at the same time. Seeing it made my heart ache on his behalf.

  “Why don’t you record it?” I suggested.

  “I’m no singer, duchess.”

  “You’ve got a great singing voice. You just never get to use it.”

  He rolled his eyes, but blushed just a bit. “Anyway, I wrote it for a woman’s voice.”

  I bit my thumbnail. “Maybe Max will let us do it.” Before the words were completely out of my mouth, we both knew that was an impossibility. Max handpicked every song. Sure, he used Nathan’s perfect ear and killer instincts as a sounding board, but Max had ultimate say. We also knew that Max wouldn’t give anything of Hal’s a fair shake, just because.

  For the first time, I understood that Hal and the rest of the group felt just as trapped as I did.

  I stood up to pace, automatically returning to the food. “There must be something we can do.” I took a handful of M&Ms and poured them into my open mouth like a rainbow. Hal watched me the way he used to do when I’d first joined the band. He was looking to me for a solution. But I didn’t have one. Yet.

  “This is a hit song, Hal,” I said. “You know it and I know it. It needs to be out there for high school kids to make-out to at prom.”

  “Classy.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  We laughed. It sounded like music.

  More than almost anything, I wanted someone in our group to have some kind of personal triumph. It might not be me. And that was okay.

  “There are a hundred other chick singers out there besides me,” I continued, nibbling on a green bell-pepper stick. “Why don’t you make a demo to send around? Exactly the way you did it just now. Anyone would kill to sing on the demo for you.”

  “Naw,” Hal said with a wave. He stared into his empty guitar case. “Anyway, it needs a piano accompaniment instead of guitar.”

  “You play piano.”

  “The bridge needs work.”

  “Shut up, Hal!” I insisted. “The song is freaking perfect.”

  He snapped shut his case and looked down at the tips of his callused fingers. We were losing momentum here.

  “Well . . . what if . . .” I paused to wet my lips, getting an excited tickle in my stomach as I created a plan. “What if I sing it? Yeah, yeah. I’ll make the demo.”

  Hal looked up; his expression seemed confused.

  “I’d love to!” I rushed over and knelt at his feet. “Oh, please, please, please. Please let me.”

  He chuckled, but it lasted only a second. Then he shook his head and stood up. “Uh-uh, Abby. No way. If Max the Tool found out, he’d go freakin’ ape all over you.”

  “And on you,” I added.

  “Not me,” Hal corrected. “Seriously, the man don’t give two squirts about me, but if he found out you were squandering away your talent on drivel, he’d tear you a new one.”

  Suddenly, that made me fuming mad. “I don’t care about Max.” I jumped to my feet, punching a hard fist into my palm as I paced the room. “I want to do something. I need to do something. I need to do this for you, Hal.” I spun around to him. “Please let me.”

  “Better keep your voice down,” he cautioned, eyeing the closed door over my shoulder. We both knew who was right behind it.

  I groaned at his lack of motivation, then walked to stand in front of one of the monitors, my arms folded tight across my chest. The guest on the interview couch was some kind of zookeeper. He had a green parrot thing perched on one shoulder while stroking a brown-and-orange baby tiger in his lap.

  “We’re on soon,” Hal informed me from behind. “Where’s Molly?”

  “With Jord, watching the show from backstage,” I answered, still studying the screen. The zookeeper was now feeding kibble to a llama. “This . . .” I pointed to the screen, “is the dumbest thing in the entire world. All of this.” Hal was watching me, his guitar in his arms. “I mean it. If having all this success still means we can’t do what we want, or have what we want . . .” I threw my hands in the air. “What are we doing, Hal, and why?”

  Just then, the door of the greenroom swung open and Max crossed the threshold. The sudden tension accompanying him felt like the calm before an explosion. “Four minutes, babe,” he warned, surveying the room, not focusing on anything in particular. “No!” he boomed, swatting the inside of his hand with a rolled up piece of paper.
He turned his back to us. “No, the negotiations are final. Five years, no less. And yes, just the one, that’s the new deal.”

  Max was talking into his Bluetooth. Hal and I shared a look and a shrug; we could never follow Max’s one-sided conversations. “I said non-negotiable,” Max snarled as he turned back around.

  Someone’s panties are in a wad, I thought, maybe a bit unsympathetically.

  “No, no. Not the other three—” That was when he seemed to notice me. “You’re wearing that?” His eyes moved down my outfit. “This is not what we discussed. It’s awful. Totally unacceptable.”

  At first I couldn’t tell if he was talking on his phone or not.

  “Did you even bother looking in the mirror this morning?” He pointed the rolled up paper at me.

  I was a little stunned, and I automatically inspected what I was wearing. It was a tailored brown cotton tank, black low-rise trousers, and tall brown suede boots. Casual-classic and completely modest. For a change, I felt comfortable in my clothes. Plus, the whole outfit was brand new, a little shopping spree I’d treated myself to.

  For the record, no, I hadn’t bothered to look in the mirror that morning.

  “Is that all you brought with you?”

  “Umm, yeah,” I replied.

  “Where is . . . she? Where’s that other girl?”

  “Molly?” I asked, puzzled.

  Max shook his head briskly. “No-no, that other one. Hair and makeup, stylist.”

  “Jillian?”

  “Whatever.”

  “She’s not coming. I told her I could do this kind of thing myself from now on.”

  Max’s face turned gray and then red. “You did what?” he hissed. “Who exactly told you that you could do that?”

  I grimaced at the harshness of his words. Max’s scrutinizing eyes gave me the once-over again, making me feel like I needed another shower.

  “At least knot the bottom of your shirt in the back so the front is tight.” He stared directly at my chest, clinically. “Give the people at home something to look at.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time.” He gave me one last scowl before stomping out of the room.

  Numb from shock, I touched my hands to the sides of my shirt, my fingers obediently curling around the bottom hem.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Hal said from behind me.

  I turned around.

  “You look great, just the way you are. And if Max the Tool—”

  The bumper music started playing on set, announcing the pause for a commercial break. We were on in three minutes.

  I uncurled my fingers and smoothed out the bottom of my shirt. “Thanks,” I said, wishing I could run over and hug him and explain how special he was to me. Instead I walked toward the door that led to the set.

  “Hey, Abby?”

  I stopped so he could catch up. “Yeah?”

  “Are you happy?”

  His question made me blink. “Happy? Yes,” I answered after a beat. And I was, comparatively.

  Hal tilted his head as if examining me. “Yeah. Happy’s one thing, but it’s time to get the rapture back. Where’s your rapture, girl?” He made a fist and gently knocked my chin. “Let’s get you that rapture, shall we?”

  As he walked ahead of me, I felt on the verge of tears. When he turned back again, he was grinning. “Oh, and that favor you were asking for earlier. If you still want to, well, I’d be effin’ honored.”

  {chapter 30}

  “FREE AS A BIRD”

  I adjusted the cracked and battered, dilapidated headphones over my ears and gave Hal a nod. His steady piano intro began the rhythm track.

  It was going to be another late night, crammed in a makeshift recording studio that Hal, Jord, and Yosh had built in the guestroom of the house they shared high in the Hollywood Hills.

  At those late-night sessions, I was an enthusiastic participant.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” Hal kept asking me. He didn’t have to. I was sure.

  “Level the mike, duchess.”

  I did.

  “Recede more, just a bit.”

  I stepped back an inch.

  The microphone was vintage. I recognized it as a Neumann U47 condenser mike, probably fifty years old. It matched the rest of the equipment in the small recording booth. Hal was a sensitive artist. He liked antiques, objects with history.

  “Sugar-plum fairy, sugar-plum fairy,” I counted off into the mike. “Too much feedback.” I licked my lips.

  “Watch your vowels,” Hal instructed.

  “It’s not like she’s never done this before.” Jord snickered, cradling his Fender bass like a lover.

  “Yeah, Hal,” Yosh chimed in from behind his drum set. “Stop being such a Max!”

  The three of us hooted with laughter.

  “Shut it,” Hal snapped from behind the window of the homemade control booth. “I need a level.”

  Jordan ran his fingers up the scales.

  “Sample Test Track,” Hal spoke into the talk mike, giving our recording a verbal title. He pointed at Yosh, who cracked his drumsticks together three times as the count off.

  Singing was a pleasure in that cozy home studio. It was as comfortable as being in my car, my favorite “stage.” There was no pressure there, and no egos. We were allowing ourselves to relish in the creativity—something none of us got to do much of anymore. Plus, Hal’s studio was much tidier, much more streamlined than I was used to. Rather than a huge control room with wall-to-wall soundboards, mixing consoles, monitor speakers, and equipment racks like at SU, Hal had one computer. All his mixing was done with a keyboard and mouse. “Mixing in a box,” he called it.

  As I began my part, the sound vibrations left me, bounced off the carpeted walls, and then back onto me in a very familiar way. I closed my eyes, feeling the lyrics, concentrating on my phrasing. The heels of my hands pressed against my diaphragm for control. Gradually my right hand moved up to my heart, pressing in. It remained there.

  It wasn’t the notes I was visualizing behind closed eyes. With Hal’s poignant lyrics percolating through my mind, I saw a face—fuzzy and distant at first, but there. With my mind recently liberated from other past issues, I was forced to confront what was left. I pictured our story as motivation while I sang.

  Perhaps not my brightest idea.

  “Sorry, guys,” I apologized, wiping my wet cheeks with the back of my wrist. We were forced to stop more than a few times when my voice cracked like Peter Brady’s. No one complained, though. In fact, they all seemed to expect it. “Can we start again?” I shook my hands out. “I’m ready.”

  Even though it was only a demo, I wished I’d been performing better for Hal, wished I had my full vocal arsenal behind me. But I was too shredded. Not sad exactly, just emoting . . . with every part of my soul. Finally. For too long, my emotions had been delicately balanced under my top layer of skin, but recently they had all burst out. I hoped this gush of raw, embarrassingly honest sentiments would make up for my lack of perfect pitch and somehow translate into beautiful music.

  Perhaps taking my emotional response as a cue, or perhaps relying on his instincts as a budding producer, Hal slowed our song down, scaled it back, stripped it naked, to just the mike and me, a little piano, some understated percussion, and Jord’s bass line like gentle thunder. Hal surprised us all by adding his own voice as the harmony backup. Stunning. I also added my own touches, changing some of the phrasings and lyrics when I thought it might work better. Hal welcomed my changes and suggestions. The four of us pooled everything we had into molding our piece of art.

  As I looked around the room at my guys, I was flooded with every positive emotion. When I wasn’t crying my eyes out, the four of us were all smiles, knowing we were experiencing something magical. It was coming together, nothing like any of our Mustang Sally pieces. This recording was something different, something special, our group effort.

  It was joy.

  Love.

  Rapture.
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  I scooted to the edge of my stool and sat up straight, flexing my diaphragm in preparation for our next run through. I caught Hal grinning at me through the glass. I beamed back, realizing that this was the one thing I could do for my guys; it was what I could give. Finally, it was enough.

  Two nights of sneaking off after our regular day’s work and we finished the demo. Hal gave it the working title “Indian Summer.” The words of the title didn’t actually appear anywhere in the song, like Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Woman #5,” which has neither a rainy day nor a woman #5, and Billy Joel’s “Summer, Highland Falls,” which speaks neither of season nor location. Hal was artistic and poetic. And it showed, even in the title, which was written across the front of the white CD in Hal’s unique script. Below it were three sets of Japanese characters.

  We stood alone in their kitchen on our last night of recording.

  “Jord and I get co-producer credit,” Yosh explained. “He gave you co-writer’s credit, too. Did you know that?”

  “What?” I stared down at the CD. “He didn’t have to do that.”

  “This was really good for him,” Yosh continued thoughtfully, his newly dyed black hair falling over his dark eyes. “For years we’ve been trying to convince him to send his stuff around.”

  All I could do was smile, dusting off some leftover tears. “I wish I could’ve . . . done it . . . better.” My throat started closing up again.

  “You sang your face off, Abby,” Yosh said in a rare moment of warmth, which made me gulp another sob.

  Hal walked through the door. “What’s with all the waterworks, lady? You keep crying, and you’re gonna drown.” He chuckled and opened the fridge.

  “This has been so great, you guys,” I managed to choke out.

  “Oh, no!” Yosh yelped, backing away from me like I was contagious. “The dam’s about to break.” He spun a one-eighty and comically exited the room.

  “You okay?” Hal asked, eyeing me.