by Strauss, Lee
Most people had paintings and photographs hanging on the wall: he had guitars. Some were vintage collectibles, including a 1957 Gibson Gold-Top and one Fender Stratocaster which was once owned by Clapton, but most were just recent impulse buys from the corner music store. He also had a Baroque violin, the chin piece worn by a million hours of practice as a kid. He hadn’t touched it since Hollow Fellows took off.
He’d set up a mini studio in the corner. Two flat-screen monitors and an audio/midi interface sat on a dusty desk. Long black cords twisted around two condenser microphones in metal gooseneck stands. He liked to work on ideas and get them down when inspiration struck, no matter the time of day. It was something that hadn’t happened for him in a good long while.
Sebastian needed noise. He searched the room for the remote, finding it under a cushion and turned on the TV projector. He fell into a chair and let out a long hard breath, working to focus on the program.
Normally, he liked being alone—he hardly ever was—but tonight the solitude mocked him. He no longer had the comfort of knowing his relationships extended beyond these doors. If he couldn’t trust his girlfriend and best buddy—correction, ex girlfriend and ex best buddy—then who could he trust?
His fame had grown, but his world had shrunk. He hadn’t called his parents in years. He commented on his sister’s Facebook status once in a while, but that was the extent of that relationship. His band was his family, and now that too had gone to hell.
A dark cloak of depression settled on him as he stretched out once again on his couch. He wished he would’ve turned out the lights, but he was too weary to get up and shut them off. Instead, he placed a cushion over his face.
He was alone. He didn’t even have a pet. Not a good idea when you’re only home half the year in spurts.
The image of Yvonne and Karl passionately kissing in front of her building burned stubbornly at the back of his mind. How could they do this to him??
Now that he thought about it, he could see the signs that something had been amiss. Yvonne had been pulling away for some time, and Karl rarely held his gaze. Right. Now it was fricking obvious. They’d both played him, and Sebastian was the fool. Now he wished he’d blackened Karl’s other eye.
The TV program was nonsense that got on his nerves and he clicked the remote to turn it off.
“The Water Song” from Eva Baumann ran through Sebastian’s head, tugging him out of slippery despair before he slid too deep. He hummed the haunting melody over and over again. So achingly beautiful.
He had to meet up with this girl. He had to get to know the person who could write a song like that. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful like the groupies who wore too much makeup, or like Yvonne, whose Goth edge caught attention, but she was cute in her own way.
Too bad about the limp and the cane. He wondered what happened to her? Was it a birth defect? Had she been born with a withered leg?
Whatever it was, it hadn’t affected her pipes. The girl could sing. And she seemed to like him, even if it was directed at Sebastian Weiss the icon and not Sebastian the guy around the corner. It wasn’t the first time he used his fame to his advantage. Just flash his winning smile, turn on the charm, flex his tattoo. Worked every time. If he could get her to sing for him, just for him, that might soothe the angst that ate away at the core of his being. He hummed her tune like a lullaby and let the emotional weariness overtake him. He fell into a deep sleep and surprisingly never had any nightmares.
Sebastian awoke the next morning feeling discombobulated. This wasn’t an unusual experience. For a fleeting moment his mind raced to remember what hotel he was in, then his eyes registered the familiar surroundings of his living room. Why didn’t he sleep in his bed?
Then he remembered Yvonne and Karl’s betrayal. An avalanche of anger built up from the day before swooshed down and pooled in his gut. He reached for his phone on the end table where he’d tossed it the night before. He’d turned it off when he entered the Blue Note and had forgotten to turn it back on. Nine text messages. Eight from Yvonne, which he deleted, and one from Dirk who’d called a meeting for that afternoon and wanted the band there.
Sebastian groaned. He’d hoped for at least one day off. One day to not have to look at Karl’s ugly mug. He texted back that he was sick and couldn’t make it and turned off his phone. He removed his clothing and was about to crawl into bed when he heard pounding at the door. What now?
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Yvonne.”
Damn. He really didn’t want to see her yet.
Yvonne didn’t relent. “Please, Sebastian. Can we just talk for a minute?” The handle quivered as a key was inserted—he’d given her a copy—and Yvonne pushed the door open. Sebastian huffed and realized he was standing there in just boxers. He cursed and stormed back to his bedroom, frustrated that Yvonne had followed him. He ignored her and shuffled into jeans and a button-down shirt.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Can’t you give me one more chance?”
Sebastian looked at her then. Her red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks. Short and spiky pink hair with dark roots. Her thin, waifish body. He waited for his emotions to kick in. Something that resembled affection, some residue of the love he’d had for her just yesterday, but he felt numb. “I don’t think I can.”
She stiffened and a hardened look crossed her face. “So, you’re just going to throw away six years.”
He snorted. “I didn’t throw them away. You did.”
Someone else was pounding on the door before Sebastian could even get his buttons done up. How were people getting in the building without buzzing? Yvonne had a key, which he needed to get back, but whoever was on the other side of that door must’ve slipped in behind another tenant.
He opened it to Dirk and Markus.
“I said I was sick.”
“Which is why we brought the meeting to you,” Dirk said. He pushed his glasses up as he took in Yvonne. “Hi, Yvonne.” Then back to Sebastian, “Karl is on his way.” He lowered his voice. “I had to squeeze his balls. He said you two had a falling out.”
Sebastian huffed. “You could say that.”
Dirk nodded to Yvonne, his face registering that maybe something was wrong. “Sorry to intrude.”
The tension in the room was thick. It was Yvonne’s fault. She was the cheat.
“She was just leaving,” Sebastian said, holding out an open palm. “My key?”
Yvonne dug into her purse and handed it over slowly, her eyes hard, and lips in a firm, thin, line. She let the key fall to the wood floor, where it landed with a clink and slid under the couch. Then she turned sharply and slammed the door on her way out.
“Whoa,” Markus said from his position on one of the low-lying living room chairs. His feet were crossed at the ankles and rested lazily on the coffee table. “Did you guys just break up?”
Sebastian lowered himself to the floor to reach under the couch for the key. “Yup.” His fingers wrapped around it and he shoved it into his pocket.
“Wow,” Markus continued. “You two were together, like, forever.”
Dirk frowned and took a seat on the couch opposite Markus. “So that’s the sickness. What happened?”
Sebastian moved to the kitchen and gulped orange juice from the carton before answering. “Ask Karl.”
“Ask me what?” Karl entered through the unlocked door and stood there sheepishly. His dark hair hung over the black eye that had formed there.
Sebastian scowled. “Your girlfriend just left.”
Dirk and Markus’s gazed moved back and forth between them. “Whose girlfriend?” Dirk asked. “What’s going on?”
Sebastian pointed at Karl. “Him and Yvonne. That’s what’s going on.”
Markus gawked. “You hooked up with Seb’s girl?”
“It was stupid,” Karl said. “I know. But it’s over. I’m sorry.”
Sebastian shook his head. “You think you can fix this with a lame apology?�
��
“What else do you want from me, man?”
“I want you out of the band.”
Dirk’s wide eyes cut back and forth between them, his cheeks puffing out like a squirrel’s. “Hold up, Sebastian. Let’s just calm down here.”
“What? You can’t expect me to keep playing with him?”
Dirk’s fingers tapped nervously along the top of his tablet. “I know. It… sucks. But, you’ll need to work it out somehow.”
Sebastian thrust his shoulders back. “I’m not working anything out. Either he goes or I go.”
Dirk broke into a sweat, which caused his glasses to slip down his nose. “Well, his name is on the record contract. So is yours. Unfortunately, neither of you can quit.”
Sebastian stepped into his shoes and headed for the door. “Yeah. Watch me.”
It was a lot easier having a celebrity crush from a distance. Having Sebastian Weiss sit right next to her and whisper in her ear almost blew her circuits. Eva was sure he’d been drinking too much and that she’d never see him again. Still, the high of it along with her performance kept her from falling asleep until dawn. In fact, she floated along in a happy daze for a couple days afterward.
“You seem especially chipper,” her mama noted at breakfast. “Is there something we should know about?”
Her papa eyed her over the newspaper he read each morning, bushy eyebrows taut with curiosity.
“I already told you,” Eva said, keeping her eyes averted, spreading marmalade on her toast. “I finally had the courage to sing at the open mic night.” She couldn’t tell them about Sebastian, but the way they kept eyeing her it was like they already knew. “What?”
“Nothing,” her mama said quickly. “We’re happy that you’re happy. Are you going to play there again?”
Papa added, “Maybe we can come see you next time.”
Eva’s smile flattened. As much as she loved her parents, she didn’t want them there. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she was embarrassed of them. If anything, she was the one who brought the unwanted glances their way. But what if Sebastian came again? What if he talked to her? She didn’t think her parents would approve. Not that they wouldn’t like him as a person. But he wasn’t the kind of boy they’d like to see with their daughter.
Which was an absurd thought anyway. Sebastian Weiss wouldn’t be interested in someone like her. He liked her song, not her. It’d been three days since she’d played, since he promised to come see her, and he hadn’t shown. He was just being polite and maybe had too much to drink. She was foolish to entertain fantasies of any kind that included Sebastian Weiss.
“Schatzi.” Mama lay a hand on her arm. “Are you okay? Did we upset you?”
Eva snapped out of her reverie and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“You’re not feeling unwell, are you?” Papa asked.
“No, I’m fine.” A familiar annoyance rose in her chest. She was twenty years old now, but she felt like her parents couldn’t stop seeing her as their crippled teenager.
“Good.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and snapped his paper. “We’re serving lunch today, so there’s lots of work to do.”
Eva knew this, of course. Her world was small, revolving around the house church that existed one floor below her. She sighed. Would she ever break free from this neighborhood? Do something different with her life? Live on her own? Travel? Go back to university?
That would be up to her.
The thought of branching out in any way both excited her and scared the pants off her. And as usual, fear won out. It was safer for her to stay here with her parents. She wasn’t ready to live on her own. What would she do?
What if she fell?
She reached for her cane that hung on the back of her chair and then carefully carried her dishes to the sink. She stopped at the WC to brush her teeth before lumbering back to her room. She’d turned her laptop on when she awoke, like she did every morning, and the page for Hollow Fellows was still up. She refreshed it, but there was nothing new. She found it a little strange since the band’s webpage generally had daily updates. She clicked on one of their music videos and indulged in her morning dose of Sebastian Weiss. She caught her reflection in the dresser mirror—cane in one hand, the computer mouse in the other, unbrushed hair and a frown. This silly crush she harbored was pathetic. She was pathetic.
Eva pressed the laptop lid closed and moved to her bed to lay down. She was tired, but not the kind of weariness that came from a lack of sleep. She was crashing from her three-day high, like a plane whose propellers suddenly quit, and it was a long, hard fall.
Who was she to think she would ever be truly happy? And what did true happiness look like anyway? Eva huffed. It looked like Gabriele.
She stretched and groaned and bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t lie in bed forever. Her papa would be knocking on the door if she wasn’t ready to head downstairs soon. She sighed long and hard again before rousing herself to dress for the day.
Eva stared wistfully at her Duncan Africa, wishing she could carry it downstairs herself. She had a second guitar in the church, a community instrument left there for anyone to play. It was all right, but it didn’t resonate the same way. She always had to ask Gabriele or one of her parents to carry it up and down for her when she left for the Blue Note.
She could already smell the soup her mama had prepared halfway down the circular cement stairwell. Even though Eva enjoyed cooking, she was too slow in the tight quarters of the soup kitchen. Mama had other volunteers from the church who helped. Providing music was Eva’s most useful contribution.
Papa had raised the outdoor blinds and unlocked the front door, and the tables were already filled with the hungry. Papa welcomed them all with a sincere smile, and then opened with a prayer. Eva played a worship song and a few of the patrons lifted their hands. Her gaze wandered to the window and her heart stopped. Her hands plucked the strings of her guitar and her mouth moved, but her brain had disengaged. Sebastian Weiss stood across the street, one arm folded across his chest and the other on his chin.
She remembered when he stood in that same spot over a year ago, waving his hands in the air, mocking. He wasn’t mocking now. His eyes seemed to lock on hers. Could he see her through the glass?
Then his hand moved from his face, and he waved his fingers.
He could see her! She quickly looked away.
Papa cleared his voice. “Is something wrong?”
Eva blushed. She’d stopped the song midstream without explanation. “No, I’m sorry.” She began again, cautiously glancing through the hair she allowed to fall in front of her face and out the window. Sebastian Weiss was gone and a strange disappointment wrapped around her collection of flustered emotions.
Eva could barely concentrate during Papa’s short pre-meal message from the Bible. Her mind was fixated on Sebastian Weiss. She pictured him standing across the street, the way he leaned back slightly, with his weight on one leg. He stared at her through the window, stroking his chin beneath beautiful lips that had so recently whispered hotly in her ear. This time, in her imagination, he hooked a finger calling her outside to meet him. With perfect grace and without her cane she hurried to meet him.
Then what?
She ran her hand against the back of her neck as if she could sweep away the heat that her fantasy brought on.
Oh God. She had a debilitating crush. An embarrassing infatuation. She really had to pull herself together. Her obsession with Sebastian Weiss and Hollow Fellows couldn’t be healthy. At best it was extremely immature.
She engaged in light conversation with the patrons in an effort to clear her head.
“Nice weather,” she said to one of the regulars.
He huffed a gruff reply. “Too hot.”
“Well, it’s July,” she said. “Not long ago we were complaining it was too cold.”
When the lunch rush ended, Eva pushed the rolling tray full of dirty dishes to
the kitchen and returned with a wet cloth to wipe the tables. Her back was to the door as she hobbled from table to table. That was why she didn’t see him enter.
“I’m sorry young man,” she heard her papa say, “but lunch is over. I can get you a bun if you like.”
“I’m not here for the food.”
Eva stiffened, her spine like a cold copper pipe. Chills shot up to the base of her neck. She didn’t have to turn around to know who the voice belonged to.
She swiveled slowly. The sight of Sebastian Weiss standing in the middle of their small house church made her knees give out, and she lowered herself onto the nearest chair. She wasn’t imagining it this time. He was really there, in the flesh.
Her brain couldn’t compute. Sebastian Weiss belonged on stage and on TV. A crack in the universe had erroneously delivered him here.
Papa’s eyes, looking larger through the thick lenses he pushed up on his face, darted from Sebastian to Eva and back. His thin lips drew downward. “What are you here for then?”
Eva’s pulse surged, and she found it hard to swallow.
Sebastian pointed at Eva. “For her.”
Papa stared at the large tattoo on Sebastian’s arm, then to the earrings in his ears, and a soft growl escaped from his throat.
“It’s all right, Papa,” she said, her voice barely audible. “He just wants to ask me about a song I sang at open mic night.”
Papa bore down on their visitor. “What did you say your name was?”
“Sebastian Weiss.”
Papa’s eyes moved back to Eva, his bushy brows jumping. Then he grunted again. “Never heard of you.”
Eva knew that wasn’t true. Everyone in their small flat was aware of her fascination with Sebastian Weiss and his band, and they often teased her for it. Papa’s thick brows furrowed deeper but thankfully he turned back to the kitchen and left them alone.
Sebastian slipped into the seat across from Eva. “He’s scary.”
