Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody #2)

by Ryan Winfield

  “You bought breakfast,” Jane said.

  “I know, but I figure if I pay for dinner too, I can expect you to put out later.”

  “Chauvinist much?” Jane asked, smiling. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you treat, but only if you use this.” She tossed a card across the table.

  Caleb picked it up and looked at it, obviously confused. “What is this? And why does it have my name on it?”

  “It’s a credit card I got for you. It’s linked to my account.”

  “But I like to use cash.”

  “I know you do, but you’ll be in a strange city and you’ll need something in case of an emergency. I don’t want to worry about you. I love you.”

  Caleb smiled and tucked the card away in his pocket. “I’ll only use it in an emergency then,” he said, pulling out his cash for the check. “But buying you a twenty-dollar steak is not an emergency. And I love you too.”

  “I also got you this.” Jane opened her purse and slid the box across the table.

  “There’s more? Wow. I would have gotten highlights in my hair a long time ago if I knew it would have the ladies handing me credit cards and gifts.”

  “Oh, zip it and open the box, Fabio.”

  “Let me guess,” he said, making a show of struggling with the paper. “Socks for my trip?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, “because it’s so cold in L.A.”

  He laughed, then opened the box and pulled out the phone. Jane watched for his expression, a little worried that he might feel as if she were trying to put a leash on him.

  “I know you don’t like phones and Facebook and all that crap, but you might need to start, now that you’re going to be famous. And this one does everything. Plus, I wanted you to be able to get ahold of me in case you needed to tell me you missed me or something.”

  “This is really sweet, Jane. Thank you.”

  “I programmed my number in already.”

  “Oh, I’ve already got your number, babe,” he said.

  “Turn it on. Go ahead. The button’s right there.”

  Caleb turned it on and the welcome screen lit up. When it faded, the screensaver was a picture of him and Jane, taken with her phone at the water park on his birthday.

  “Aw, I love it, honey.”

  “There are a few others of me in a folder marked Private,” she said. “But those are for when we have phone sex.”

  Caleb laughed so loud the restaurant got quiet. “Now I see why you got me the phone. You want to call and talk dirty to me.” Then he smiled at her mischievously and added, “I hope you’re ready for a big bill.”

  “You sure you won’t let me drive you to the airport?” Jane stood in the bedroom doorway, watching Caleb stuff his clothes into his duffel.

  “You know I’m terrible with good-byes, babe. Plus, why waste all that gas and fight all that traffic when the bus takes me there for a buck?” He cinched his duffel closed and looked up at her. “Baby, why are you crying?”

  Before she could respond, he stepped around the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m going to miss you too. But I’ll probably get kicked off the show and be home before you know it anyway.”

  Jane brushed a tear away from her cheek and laughed. “Yeah, right,” she said. “You had better not. I bet Mr. Zigler lunch every day for a month that you’d go all the way.”

  “Now I have no choice but to win,” he said. “The way old Zigler eats, that bet could bankrupt you.”

  He reached and lifted her face to his again, then cupped her cheeks in his palms and kissed her. She felt safe and complete there in his arms—the strength of their connection, the heat of their kiss, the love beating back and forth between their two hearts like a Möbius strip. She knew that the bond they shared would carry them past any obstacles, was worth any temporary inconvenience. She knew it with every neuron firing in her brain, and she knew it with every cell in her body. A hundred trillion tiny voices all screaming, He’s the one!

  She just hoped she’d still believe it when she was alone.

  “Well, I better get moving or I’ll miss the bus.”

  “Okay. I’ll come out with you to the stop.”

  Caleb slung his duffel over his shoulder and picked up his guitar case. “At least I’ll have my Jane guitar with me. It always reminds me of you.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, following him from the bedroom. “But that guitar had better be the only thing with a woman’s name that those fingers of yours strum while you’re away.”

  They were nearly out the apartment door when Jane ran back to the bathroom for something. “Here, you’ll need this.”

  Caleb looked at the mini bottle she handed him. “Really? Hair conditioner?”

  “Yes, you’ve got to take care of it now that we put highlights in.”

  He smiled and tucked the conditioner away in his duffel, mumbling, “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m heading for the set of Glee?”

  The sun had yet to rise and the Austin skyline stood black against a rim of golden light to the east that marked the promise of another coming day. The world just kept on spinning, despite everyone’s hopes and fears, or so it seemed to Jane. They crossed the street together and stood at the bus stop.

  Caleb took out his new phone and checked the time. “I hope I didn’t miss it.”

  “You want me to just drive you?”

  “It’s okay. It should be along.”

  They stood there quietly together, both looking down the empty street to where the bus would come from. Jane felt strangely shy. As if this were the parting at the end of a first date and she didn’t know whether to hug him or kiss him or just shake his hand and say farewell. The yellow light of the bus sign grew out of the gloom and was upon them before Jane was ready to even admit that this was good-bye.

  The brakes hissed. The door popped open.

  Jane threw her arms around Caleb. “I love you, you silly so-and-so. You know that?”

  Caleb hugged her back. “I know you do. And I love you, baby. Bunches and bunches.”

  Then he kissed the top of her head and was gone. She stood and watched him climb the step and feed his dollar into the pay slot. Then he walked to the rear of the bus and sat down next to his guitar and his duffel. His eyes were forward and he looked to Jane like a young man scared to be leaving everything he knew and loved, and determined not to look back and show it.

  The motor whirred, then the bus lurched away from the curb. Jane saw Caleb turn and look out the side window at her, his hand pressed up against the glass. Then all she could see was the back of the bus painted with an Austin nightlife public safety service announcement that read: FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS LEAVE ALONE.

  Digging in her purse for her keys, Jane sprinted across the street to her car. She jumped in, started the engine, and pulled away, still latching her seat belt. She whipped a U-turn and sped after the bus. She caught up with it half a mile down the street and flashed her headlights. The bus kept going. It turned onto Congress Avenue, where there were four lanes, and she pulled alongside it and laid on her horn. Caleb looked up and saw her and smiled. He reached and yanked the cord for the next stop, and Jane fell in behind the bus.

  When the bus stopped, Caleb hopped off with his duffel and his guitar and jogged to the car, tossing them into the backseat before he got in next to her. He smelled like his shower soap and the outside. He looked at her and he was grinning from ear to ear, but he didn’t say anything.

  Neither did Jane. She just put the car in drive, took his warm hand in hers, and eased back onto the road to take her fiancé to the airport.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 6

  Caleb watched Austin shrink away beneath him.

  His heart seemed to remain down there somewhere, tethered to Jane, and he imagined a giant silver cord unspooling from his chest and trailing
the plane to California. The feeling came in the form of a song lyric, and he went to write it down before realizing that his notebook and pen were stashed away with his duffel in the overhead bin. He pulled out his cell phone instead, found a notepad app, and typed out the line. It worked, but it wasn’t the same.

  “Is that in airplane mode, sir?”

  Caleb looked up at the flight attendant. “What’s airplane mode?”

  “There’s no cell phone use allowed on the aircraft.”

  The big man seated next to Caleb leaned into his personal space and tapped the phone’s touch screen, navigating options.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

  “I used to have this same one.”

  “Maybe just turn it off,” the flight attendant suggested.

  “Sorry,” Caleb told her, jerking the phone away from the man and powering it down. “I’ve only flown twice in my life, and this is the second time.”

  The flight attendant smiled and passed on.

  The man next to Caleb let out a belly laugh and said, “Only your second time flying, eh? I hope you’re not nervous, because when I was boarding, I think I heard the pilot say the same thing to one of them stewardesses.”

  The flight attendant reappeared in the aisle. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, addressing Caleb. “You look a little cramped in there. Would you like to move to an exit row where there’s more room for those long legs of yours?”

  “Yes, please. That would be great.”

  Caleb unbuckled, and the big man stood to let him out and watched him go with a look of disappointment.

  “Thank you,” Caleb whispered as he settled into the emergency row seat.

  The flight attendant winked at him.

  It was a race between the plane and the rising sun, but the sun won, and it was well up and boring a hole in the hazy Los Angeles skies when they landed and taxied to the gate. Caleb already felt a million miles away from Jane, and it seemed strange to him that with the time change there were only a few hours between them. He got out his phone and turned it on, then composed and sent a text:

  Landed safe and sound in Tinseltown. Missing you already, baby.

  He pocketed his phone and stood to deplane.

  “Welcome to Los Angeles,” the flight attendant said.

  He had expected it to be nicer. Glitzy even, like it looked in the movies. But if LAX was any indication of the city it served, Caleb thought, then the city needed a face-lift. He was on his way to claim his checked guitar when he passed a huge man in a black suit scanning the crowd and holding a sign. Caleb stopped and stepped back to read the sign again.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “Are you Mr. Cummings?” the man asked.

  Caleb nodded. “I’m not used to being called Mr. anything, but I guess I am.”

  “Great. I’ll be your ride. Do you have bags checked?”

  “Just my guitar.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll accompany you to baggage claim.”

  The luggage was a long time coming, so Caleb stood at the carousel watching the people milling about. It was a mix of faces the likes of which he’d never dreamed of seeing—the poor and disheveled, curiously unaware; the rich and beautiful with their noses in the air; the glam girls with their heels and their makeup, their knockoff purses clutched in their arms. And many of them kept glancing at Caleb. A few even pointed and whispered. As if maybe he were someone they should know. Then he looked to his right and saw why. His driver was standing beside him with his arms crossed and his mirrored sunglasses on, looking like Secret Service, or maybe private security. Caleb couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

  After he had gotten his guitar and opened the case to check that it was okay and to retighten the strings, he followed his escort out to the limo lot and climbed into the back of a black Cadillac SUV. They left the airport and sat in traffic for what seemed like hours, starting and then stopping again. L.A. had its own sound and Caleb leaned back to drink it all in.

  The commuters beyond the dark windows, honking horns and revving engines, shouting at one another from their yuppie convertibles. The Cadillac’s radio quietly droning on about news of war and Wall Street. The air conditioner blowing. And the huge driver navigating this madness, as relaxed and placid behind the wheel as a man born to the job who couldn’t possibly care less about any of it.

  He glanced in the mirror at Caleb. “First time in L.A.?”

  “Yeah. First time in California.”

  The man nodded as if he’d suspected so. Then he looked back at the road.

  He dropped Caleb off at a studio lot in Culver City and handed him a pass to get inside. He said he’d take Caleb’s luggage on to the hotel, but Caleb refused to part with his guitar. Then he decided it was silly to send him with just the duffel, so he took it too and thanked him, then walked on toward the gate with all his possessions and his entry ticket in his hand, feeling like a carpetbagger come to claim a prize.

  The guard looked at the ticket and waved him through, mumbling something about Lot B. Caleb followed the signs. Soon he began to see others who seemed to equally not belong there, mostly young people standing about near the studio entrance, trying not to look lost.

  He noticed the punk rock girl from his audition and wondered why she hadn’t been on his flight. But then he remembered she’d said she was from Selma, and he figured she must have flown out of San Antonio. She was standing by the door, chewing gum and kicking at a weed in the cracked sidewalk with her sparkly red shoes.

  “Hi there,” Caleb said. “I remember you.”

  The girl looked up at him. Then she looked around as if to verify that he wasn’t speaking to someone else. “You do?”

  “You’re the singer from Selma with the amazing voice.”

  She blushed and looked down again. A full half minute later, she said, “I’m sixteen.”

  Caleb stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, sixteen. I’m Caleb.”

  “Oh, funny,” she said, catching the joke late. “My name’s Amanda, but people usually call me Panda.”

  “Well, Panda, do you know where we’re supposed to be?”

  “A man came by a little while ago and said we should wait here. That’s all I know.”

  “Well, it’s more than I know. Thanks.”

  Caleb set down his guitar, then dropped his duffel onto the sidewalk and sat on it. The girl kicked at the weed.

  “I’m not nervous,” she said out of the blue. “My stepmom says I should try not to look so nervous—she says it looks bad on camera—but I’m not nervous, I’m just shy.”

  “Shy, huh?” Caleb asked. “I just figured you were angry.”

  “Angry? Why would I be angry?”

  “Maybe you should ask that weed you’re kicking.”

  She pulled her foot back midkick. Then she stepped over and sat down next to Caleb, and hugged her knees to her chest.

  “Are you?” she asked, after a minute or so had passed.

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m nervous.”

  There were at least thirty of them sitting or standing around by the time the big bay door rolled open and a man in linen shorts and a Hawaiian shirt stepped out. He was followed by a small retinue of eager assistants. The man clapped his hands and everyone who was sitting stood, except Caleb.

  “Listen up, chuckleheads,” he called. “My name is Garth and I’m your producer. Today is going to be a full day with lots of information, so pay attention. A few ground rules first. I’m sure many of you have heard from teachers and parents and other well-meaning sorts of folks that there’s no dumb question except the one you didn’t ask. That’s a lie. Don’t ask questions. There’s going to be forty of you total here and another twenty of us working with you at any given time, and
if you waste one minute with a question, you’ve wasted one minute times sixty people, and in my world that makes an hour. And you don’t want a bill for an hour’s worth of production costs, trust me.”

  He looked to one of his assistants and motioned for her clipboard. He scanned the paper on it and handed it back.

  “Douglas Carpenter,” he called.

  A young man with bad acne and curly red hair stepped forward from the crowd.

  “You’re excused, Douglas.”

  “I’m sorry, sir?” the young man said.

  “I said you’re excused.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “What did I say about questions? It means you lied about your criminal background on your application, young man, so you’re gone. Layla here will take you back to the hotel and arrange for your flight home.”

  The young man dropped his head, obviously ashamed, and the assistant led him away.

  “That’s the second rule,” the producer said to those who remained. “Don’t lie. Not to me, not to any of us, not ever. Third rule is don’t spike the cameras. We won’t be filming today’s orientation, but every other day there will be cameras in your face. Lots of cameras. Including when you’re working on your songs at the hotel. Don’t look at these cameras. Don’t play to these cameras. Just pretend they’re not there. Ignore them. Works for me to imagine them to be my wife. But you’re all too young yet to understand that. Anyway, don’t worry, you’ll get used to the cameras and you won’t even know they’re there.”

  One of his assistants leaned in and whispered something to him. He nodded. “Where’s Caleb Cummings?” he called.

  Caleb’s heart jumped just a little. He looked up at Panda, and then he looked at the producer and raised his hand.

  “Why are you sitting down?” the producer asked.