The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  “Everybody inside before brunch gets cold,” said Mr. Trumble. Joy took Ed and Sarah by the hand and dragged them into the living room to meet her father. The house smelled of bacon and eggs.

  “That’s just uncanny,” said Stanley as he examined Ed’s face from every possible angle. “Jocelyn, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but I thought you were delusional when you told me you were dreaming about Mystery Man. But here he is!” Stanley turned Ed by the shoulders to look at him in profile. “Just like your sketches, isn’t he? Exactly like them.” He leaned close to Ed and whispered, “What an artist she is. Did you see her drawings of you?”

  “I did,” said Ed. “They were good.” Joy beamed.

  “And you,” Stanley said, turning to Sarah. “You’re every bit as pretty as Joy’s description. Very much like your sister, except your eyes are darker, aren’t they? I hope you weren’t treated badly. I made plenty of food, so eat up and have seconds. Have thirds and fourths if you like.”

  Ed was about to go to the dining room to help himself to some of the food, but Sarah was frozen with a look of shock on her face. “What did you say?” she said, very quietly.

  Stanley frowned. “Food. Lots of it. You do eat, don’t you?”

  “Not that,” said Sarah. “The other part. You said something about my―”

  A new voice spoke from the hall. “Sarah.”

  They all turned to look at the girl who had entered the room, who could have passed for a slightly younger version of Sarah. “Rachael,” said Sarah. Rachael approached her sister and stood there, staring at her with a strangely emotionless expression. Then she wrapped Sarah in a gentle hug. Sarah, looking dazed, returned the hug uncertainly.

  “Can we go for a walk?” said Rachael.

  * * *

  “So Susan told me she was with Barbara that day,” Rachael said. “She had a whole story figured out. She said she and Barbara went shopping, then saw a movie, then had dinner, and in the middle of all this I tell her, ‘You know who I was with that day? Do you really want to know?’ And she started looking real shifty and said, ‘Okay, who?’ And I said, ‘I was with Barbara. All day. So don’t you tell me you were with Barbara, because I know that’s a lie.’ Then she turned bright red, because at that point she knew that I knew she wasn’t with Barbara at all, she was making out with Gary Chapman at the fucking movie theater.”

  “Watch your language,” Sarah said.

  Rachael shrugged and glanced back over her shoulder. They had wandered into an older part of the neighborhood, where the houses were bigger and farther back from the street. There were no children playing here. “I wasn’t actually with Barbara that day, but I said I was just to catch her lying. Patty Murphy saw them together and told me the whole thing, so I knew it was true. And all that would have been bad enough, but then stupid Susan kept telling me I was mixed up! She actually expected me to believe that Patty wanted me to break up with Gary so she could have a shot at him. As if Patty Murphy is even in the same league as Gary. So I told Susan to go f—to go screw herself, and that was the last time I ever spoke to her, except sometimes Barbara still brings her along when we go shopping and stuff. But I don’t talk to her even when she comes along, because she’s just a snotty little―”

  The story was endless, and Sarah couldn’t keep all the characters straight. Just to sound interested, she interrupted to say, “So what’s this Gary Chapman guy doing now?”

  Rachael seemed annoyed by the question. “He dumped Patty a few weeks ago and now he’s seeing some girl from the Valley.”

  “Broke up with her? I thought you said Patty wasn’t in his league.”

  “Shut up.”

  They had been walking for several blocks, and Rachael had avoided answering any questions about their mother or anything else Sarah cared about. Rachael seemed on edge, as if she had to keep talking out of some nervous compulsion. She was sweating, too, even though the day was cool.

  “You didn’t answer my question earlier,” Sarah said, stopping her before she could go on. “How is Mom doing?”

  There was a tension around Rachael’s mouth when she said, “Not real good.” She looked over her shoulder again.

  “Why do you keep looking around like that?”

  Rachael refused to meet her eyes. “I’m not.” Then she did it again.

  “Stop.” Sarah stood still and waited for her sister to turn around. “What is going on with you? You keep talking and talking without saying anything. You’re the one who wanted to walk with me, but every time I try to talk about Mom or Dad or what happened…” She trailed off when she heard the sound of a car approaching. Her sister swallowed hard and looked more agitated than ever. “Rachael, what’s going on?”

  The car stopped a short distance away. Sarah turned and saw a woman getting out of a shiny red sports car. She had a scarf covering her hair, and dark glasses covered her eyes, but nothing could be done to hide the long, pink scar on her cheek. She had a tiny little pug nose that made her other features look overly large. “Oh no,” Sarah said.

  “You killed him,” Rachael said with a trembling voice. Sarah turned and gasped out loud when she saw the big revolver in her sister’s hand.

  “Ray-Ray,” Sarah whispered. “Don’t do this.” She looked around. It was broad daylight, but they were in a quiet part of the neighborhood. No one was outside. Maybe someone would look out a window and see Rachael pointing a gun at her; maybe not. “You know what I can do,” she said, trying as hard as she could to sound calm.

  “You won’t do it to me,” said Rachael. But her cracking voice carried no sign of confidence. She was terrified.

  The woman with the scar came up behind Sarah and opened a folding knife. “Remember me?” she said.

  “I remember kicking your ass one time,” Sarah said. “But I can’t remember your name.”

  This caused the woman to go into a fit of rage. Her face turned red, making the scar stand out, and veins pulsed in her forehead. “Maggie!” she hissed. “Maggie Quinn! I’m the one who’s going to cut your face off!”

  Sarah and Rachael both winced at the thought. “I thought you were just going to stab her to death,” said Rachael.

  “I never said that! What do you care how it happens?”

  Rachael looked at the ground uneasily. “I just care. She’s my sister. Stop!”

  Maggie was in the middle of raising the knife toward Sarah’s face. She lowered it again, looking startled.

  “Is that Daddy’s gun?” said Sarah. “Does Mom know you have it?”

  “Mom doesn’t know anything anymore,” Rachael said. Her lip was trembling as she spoke. “She just takes her pills and sleeps all day.”

  “Oh, Ray-Ray,” Sarah said. Her sister didn’t respond. “Rachael.” That got her to look up from the ground, at least. “I want you to understand. Will you listen?”

  Rachael stared at her icily.

  Glancing at Maggie, who seemed quite irritated at being left out of the conversation, Sarah tried to find the right words. She knew she only had one chance to say what she had to say. “Daddy used to… He did stuff to me. Stuff that a dad should never do. He said I couldn’t ever tell or people would come and take me away from you and Mom. So I kept quiet and…” She had to pause to wipe her eyes. “And I let him do it. And every time he touched me, I promised myself one thing, over and over. I promised myself, ‘I will never let him do this to Rachael. I will never let him do this to Rachael. I will never…’” Her voice stopped working, and she took a long, shuddering breath. “Mom knew about it. I know she knew. But she never stopped him. She just pretended everything was…” Sarah took another deep breath. Rachael’s expression had softened a bit; she still held the gun, but its barrel was aimed at the ground. “Finally,” Sarah continued, “I got out of the house because I couldn’t stand to be there anymore. I couldn’t look at either one of them. I went to live with a new family, with a man called the Guru who took care of me. That was supposed to be my
new start. A whole new life. But I couldn’t leave the old life behind, because you were still there. I knew if I wasn’t around, it was only a matter of time before he started to…”

  “He did,” Rachael said softly. “After you left, he started doing it to me.” A tear came out of the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek.

  “That’s why I did it,” Sarah said. “I had to stop him before he messed you up, like he did to me.”

  “Too late for that,” said Rachael.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” said Maggie. “Rachael, she’s just trying to save her own skin. Let’s just do what we came here to do, you know?”

  Sarah and Rachael both turned to her and yelled, in unison, “Shut up!”

  Rachael lowered the gun the rest of the way. Sarah had held it before, years ago, so she knew how heavy it was. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “For destroying our family.”

  “He already destroyed it,” Rachael said. She was crying in earnest now. “I hate him. And I hate mom for letting him do it.”

  “I just don’t want you to hate me,” Sarah sobbed.

  Rachael looked at her for a moment, her eyes full of anguish. Then she threw her arms around Sarah’s neck and said, “I don’t hate you.”

  Sarah hugged her back. “I missed you, Ray-Ray,” she said.

  “Nooo!” With a cry that echoed through the neighborhood, Rachael shoved Sarah out of the way. Sarah tumbled to the ground, and Maggie’s knife sliced through the air where her head had been. “You leave my sister alone!” With that final word, Rachael fired a shot from the revolver. The trigger was hard to pull without cocking the gun first, so the shot went high over Maggie’s head. The gun kicked back so hard that it flew out of Rachael’s hand and tumbled into the street.

  Maggie glared at each of them in turn, her scar pale on her red face. “We had a deal,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “You fat pig, we had a deal!”

  “She’s sensitive about her weight, you bitch!” Sarah shouted. Then she punched Maggie in her stupid pug nose. Blood sprayed out and Maggie shrieked in anger. Rachael leapt into the fray, grabbing Maggie’s wrist so she couldn’t use her knife. The knife fell out of her hand and then they were all on the ground in a heap, punching and kicking and scratching. Maggie bit Rachael on the ear. Sarah found an unprotected spot and started punching until Rachael cried out that Sarah was punching her by mistake. The scarf came off of Maggie’s head and her sunglasses fell to the ground, broken in two. The fight seemed to be going in the Greenbaums’ favor. Then there was a hissing noise, and suddenly they were drenched in cold water.

  “Get off my property!” said a very angry middle-aged man. He had turned his garden hose on them. “Go on! Take your girl-fight somewhere else or I’ll call the police!”

  The three of them stood up, dripping and bleeding. Maggie harrumphed and attempted to put her sunglasses back on, but they were in two pieces and she decided instead to put them in her pocket. Sarah and Rachael gave her identical dirty looks. Rachael retrieved the gun; Sarah picked up the knife and folded it up. Under the watchful eye of the angry neighbor, Sarah and Rachael walked hand in hand back to Stanley Trumble’s house, leaving Maggie to herself. The pug-nosed woman howled in rage, got into her car, and slammed the door hard enough to damage it. She started the engine and made a squealing seven-point turn to get her car pointed the right way. Then she peeled out and sped away down the quiet street.

  Epilogue

  Danny stood on the front porch for quite a while, enjoying the silence, before finally knocking on the door. A dog began barking inside and he heard the frantic scratching of toenails on the hardwood floor inside. That was unexpected. He looked up at the house number to make sure he had the right place. Then he became concerned that they might have moved. His fears were dispelled a minute later when Mr. Fu’s round face appeared in the window. Fu flung the door open and stood there gaping at Danny with wide eyes.

  “Tien-Ming!” he whispered. A furious little dachshund tried to squeeze its way outside. It barked and barked at Danny, who stared at it in bewilderment. A dog! His mother had always hated dogs.

  “Why are you whispering?” Danny said.

  Fu scratched his head and moved aside to let Danny in. “Because nobody’s up yet. It’s early. Hush now, Bruno.” Bruno stubbornly refused to hush.

  “Wake them up, then,” said Danny. The dog was making enough noise to wake up the whole neighborhood anyway.

  “Okay.” Mr. Fu wrapped his arms around Danny and squeezed him in a surprisingly gentle hug. Then he turned and began bellowing as if the place was on fire. “Wake up! Everybody wake up!”

  Alice was the first to come downstairs. Ching was right behind her. They both stood and stared in disbelief at the ghost in their living room. Then Alice yelled, “Ma! Ma!”

  Danny’s mother came running out a moment later, wielding a tennis racket that she kept near her bed in case she needed to defend her family against intruders. She ran down the steps and into the living room, racket poised to strike. She saw Danny and lowered it slowly. “Tien-Ming?” The racket clattered to the floor.

  “Ma,” said Danny. “I’m home.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Myles is quite proud of you,” said Eileen Powers.

  They were sitting in a shiny new office with a breathtaking view of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Sarah didn’t feel like there was any place she could truly call home, but L.A. was the place that was most familiar and comfortable. This building was the newest Nightfinger office, recently opened to expand Ron Nightfinger’s reach into the West Coast music scene.

  Sarah had not attempted to hide her irritation at the way Lester Myles had hung her out to dry. “You said Mr. Myles was going to help me,” she said.

  “I did say that,” said Eileen.

  “He never showed up. It was Ed who saved me.”

  Eileen arched her eyebrows. Her eyebrows could be quite intimidating. “Mr. Myles has a lot of faith in you. He decided to let you get things under control on your own. Which you did.”

  Sarah made an indignant sound, a sort of “Puh!”

  Eileen took a packet of papers out of her desk drawer and plopped them down in front of Sarah. “We’ll just need you to sign a couple of documents—waivers, indemnities, disclaimers. These papers just say that Nightfinger Records is not responsible for any of the… unpleasant things you may have experienced during your trip to Denver.”

  “I won’t sign anything.”

  Eileen ignored her. “You will. And this one…” She pulled out one last paper from the drawer. “This is a new employment agreement. Mr. Nightfinger is pleased with your work, and would like to offer you a new position.”

  Sarah picked up the paper and scanned it. “Vice President of A&R, Western Division. What’s this?”

  “Your new job title. Lester Myles has his hands full with the New York office. Now that we’re expanding, we need someone to run the show out here in La-La Land. With a corresponding increase in pay, of course.”

  “What if I don’t want to move back to L.A.?”

  Eileen smiled. “Then you can work wherever you want. You’re a Vice President.”

  “But…” Sarah was running out of reasons to refuse. “I’m not qualified.”

  Eileen smiled. “Sarah, you’re more qualified than you know. You’ll still be reporting to Lester, so he can answer any questions you may have.”

  “Will I get to meet him?”

  A brief pause. “Soon.” Eileen took out a box full of tapes and acetate records. “This is your next assignment. Listen to these.”

  Sarah picked one up and examined the handwritten label. “What are they? More unsigned demos?”

  “This,” said Eileen, “is the next big threat to our culture. The music on these tapes is an abomination—so terrible that it could ruin everything Nightfinger stands for. They call it disco.” Her mouth twisted when she said that word. “Our new mission is to stamp out this horror before it can take hold.
Your job will be to discover new acts that will sell so many records that this… garbage never has a chance to catch on. Are you up to the challenge?”

  Sarah put the tape down neatly on the desk. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good,” said Eileen. She stood and picked up her things. “Make yourself comfortable. This is your office. Congratulations.” She opened her purse, took out an engraved nameplate that said SARAH GREENBAUM, and placed it on the desk. Next to it she placed a speaker, which she plugged into the phone. “Mr. Myles will be in touch.”

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  It was a warm day in late April. A pleasant breeze was blowing through the valley. Sarah sat with two dozen other people on white folding chairs, which were set up on the grass in five straight rows with a wide aisle in between. Overhead, a half moon was visible in the sky; Sarah looked at it, thinking about the astronauts who were at that moment walking on its surface. The universe seemed very big to her at that moment.

  From their seats they could see endless rows of grapevines on the hills that surrounded Napa Valley. Sarah sat with Rachael on the left side of the aisle. They had debated which side to sit on, and had finally chosen the left because Rayfield’s family was on the right, and Sarah couldn’t see a thing if she sat behind his relatives. Joy’s relations were all petite.

  Rayfield stood at the altar in his tuxedo, looking thoroughly terrified. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He put them in his pockets, then took them out and folded his arms, then stood awkwardly with his hands at his side. Sarah couldn’t help but giggle. Rachael elbowed her in the side.

  On Sarah’s other side was Terry Melcher, whose white suit went very well with his blond hair and mustache. Sarah thought he was very handsome, despite being the opposite of Ed in nearly every respect. Terry had been busy producing his mother’s television show, which was doing well in the ratings.

  Ed stood at the altar next to Rayfield, looking dapper in his rented tux. He whispered something to Rayfield, who laughed out loud in his deep, melodious voice. It was hard not to smile when you heard Rayfield laughing. Sarah was glad Ed was there to help calm his nerves.