Red Velvet Crush

by Christina Meredith

  “What is going on?” I ask as I shove the door open.

  The room is lit up like the local 7-Eleven, with the curtains to the window by the parking lot window pushed open and dirty clothes tossed all over the floor. The TV is on with the sound turned all the way up.

  Billie is out cold, asleep on the floor on top of a pile of lumpy hotel pillows while a fat man on TV sells knives to insomniacs at the top of his lungs.

  I click it off.

  “The manager called me,” Winston says as he walks toward the bathroom. The exhaust fan is shaking up a storm over the tub, permanently rigged to work whenever the light is on. Winston reaches in and hits the switch. The room becomes quiet. “The neighbors got tired of the rattle.”

  I pull the covers back on the bed, and Winston picks Billie up from the floor. He kneels on the edge of the mattress and sets her down. She curls up on her side as soon as she touches the bed, one sock dangling from her toes.

  She curled up that same way, like a cat, in the bottom of Mom and Dad’s closet right after our mom left. She’d crawl in where Mom’s clothes used to hang, under the empty hangers that were clumped together and pushed into the corner, abandoned, and fall asleep.

  Dad would find her when he got home. No blanket, no pillow. The single bulb above the shelf, left on to scare away any monsters, was the only thing keeping her warm.

  He’d pick her up, carry her into our room, and slide her onto her bed. He’d pull the covers up under her chin and smooth her hair back as I pretended to be asleep, waiting until she was brought back to her bed, snoring and snuggly, so I could fall asleep, too.

  The whole closet thing lasted about a year. My dad dropped her off each night, and then everyone but me seemed to forget about it by the next day.

  I remember sitting at the kitchen table each morning before school, my cereal getting soggy, trying to figure out how she’d turned on that light. It was so high above the shelf, and the string had snapped off long ago.

  Tonight the room is still bright as Winston pulls the covers up over Billie and tucks them in under her chin.

  I set the extra pillows onto the bed next to her while Winston shuts the curtains. I meet him at the door with the key card in my hand. I hold it out to him and shut off the lights.

  He steps past me, expecting me to stay with Billie, because I always have. I press the key card against his chest and pull the door shut.

  Winston pins the card to his shirt and shakes his head. “We’re going to have to figure this out tomorrow, Teddy Lee.”

  I walk away, down the hall and back to Ty. Tomorrow is still a few long hours away.

  “What were you thinking, Ted?” Winston asks me the next morning, as promised.

  He is propped up against the outside of the roadside diner, his leg a denim kickstand covered in a trail of ash, waiting for my answer.

  Honestly, I’m not thinking yet. With the door banging and the boy in my bed, I’d barely gotten any sleep last night.

  The sign shaking in the wind next to the highway says BREAKFAST ALL DAY. Billie is inside, sitting in a booth facing the window and drinking a chocolate shake at 7:00 A.M. She probably slept like an angel.

  She bangs on the thick glass between us, waves from the inside.

  A small circle steams up the window as she leans toward it, lolling the cherry from the top of her shake around in her open mouth, coated in foamy spit and red dye number three. The cherry slips from her lips and bounces off the tabletop.

  “Why?” I ask Winston, as Billie’s drool dries on the Formica tabletop. “Are you worried about her?”

  He looks over at me with his jaw tight, and I realize, ten years later, that it was Winston who pulled the string on the closet light for Billie.

  Ty and Ginger and Jay are in a booth across the aisle from Billie, huddled around mugs of coffee that are mostly milk, pretending to be awake.

  “Then you sleep with her,” I say as Billie wipes her lips with the back of her hand and then sucks her shake dry in one long pull.

  It is someone else’s turn.

  Winston glares at me and starts inside. My eyes burn with the sharp exhale of his cigarette smoke as it clouds around me. He presses his phone up against his ear and pulls the door open, probably ready to give Randy a full report.

  A trucker walks up behind me, his reflection stopping next to mine in the glass. He looks in at Billie, crosses his hairy-topped arms on top of his big belly, and says, “Hell, I’ll sleep with her.”

  I turn toward him, and he laughs and walks away.

  Inside, Ty purses his lips and bends down to blow on his coffee. He looks up and finds me staring. He waves me in through the glass and I cross the crowded diner and slide into the booth by his side, leaving Billie all on her own.

  Ginger listens to classical music. I know. I can hear it leaking through his headphones when he takes them off for a second. Beethoven and Bach and things like that.

  I am squeezed onto the van’s bench seat between him and Billie. Billie and I are playing hangman on the back of a paper place mat from the diner, and she is stealing her words from billboards as we pass.

  She gives it away, her eyes glancing to the side of the road whenever it is her turn. “Steakhouse.” “Rest stop.” “Hot showers.”

  I wait for her, watching the grass waving along the sides of the freeway. It is tall and dusty green with pools of purple that disappear as it sways, pulled along by the wind and the draft of eighteen wheelers loaded with cattle and performance tires and frozen food.

  I admit it, “saltwater taffy” takes me awhile. Billie bites the end of the pen and grins at me as my hangman gets feet, then hands, then a handlebar mustache. Somehow I missed that one when it rolled by.

  Jay and Ty are up front, driving and navigating, while Winston leans in between the bucket seats from his spot in the middle, playing with the radio and lighting cigarettes with the dashboard lighter as the mile markers fly by.

  But Ginger Baker is lost somewhere, centuries ago, his fingers twitching along on an imaginary fortepiano posing as a shag-covered bench. He is scribbling away, making brisk pencil strokes on a lined page in a leather notebook, stopping to compare it with another sheet of graph paper that he has half hidden under his long, skinny leg as he juggles a coffee in his other hand.

  I am not judging his musical choice, and I am not entirely surprised by it. Classical seems like the perfect fit for Ginger. It is full of structure and purpose and feeling, but without words—just like him.

  Maybe I am a little bit impressed and, okay, jealous. I can play better by ear than by reading music. If I close my eyes and listen to a song, I can knock it out with the few chords I know. If I try to read the music, it takes me awhile ’cause I can’t feel it as much when my eyes are busy.

  I study Ginger, wondering how what he is listening to morphs into the scribbles coming out of his hand. I wish I could climb right into his head, that I could write music the proper way, like him.

  “Someday can you teach me how to do that?” I ask, staring at the sharp little notes with long winged tops stretching across the paper, ordered and systematic.

  Billie crowds in, the hangman word she is working on forgotten. Her bottom lip sticks out as she examines the paper in Ginger’s lap.

  “Then Ty is going to teach me the guitar,” she says, swaying as we change lanes.

  “Why do you always have to get something if I get something?” I ask. It’s like she is still five years old and we are getting chocolate bars at the grocery store.

  “It’s only fair.”

  “To who?”

  Ginger watches us, silent as always. He would be an excellent secret keeper. Or spy.

  “To me,” Billie says. Of course, what was I thinking?

  “Besides,” she says, looking over at Ginger, “he didn’t say yes.”

  She twists away, filling in the blanks below the hangman’s noose, pressing hard with the ballpoint pen. “Up yours,” it says, but there are
three spaces left over.

  “He doesn’t say anything,” I say, grabbing the pen.

  I draw in her hangman. Crook his neck and dangle his toes. Dead.

  I am afraid I bothered Ginger, botched up his brilliance somehow with my unexpected request, because he has stopped writing. I lick my lips, suddenly nervous around this innocuous boy, this quiet creature who has probably never made anyone’s pulse race.

  His freckles grow together as I stare too hard, watching him return to his work. He slows, deliberately drawing two big dots at the end of a staff. I know enough to know that means repeat. He looks up at me, waiting.

  “Someday can you teach me how to do that?” I ask again.

  He nods and turns away, never even stopping to pause his music.

  In the world of music, you gotta go with who you are. And we are not Command Option Control, the techno band we are opening for. I peek out at the mostly packed tapas bar, completely unsure how and why Randy and Winston booked us this gig. Maybe we are getting paid in tacos.

  With Randy tapping into his never-ending network of retired alcoholics strung across the Pacific Northwest for gigs, every night has been different: biker bars, nightclubs, house parties, bowling alleys.

  Usually we don’t have the time to get nervous. The van starts to shake and chatter at anything over seventy miles per hour, so most nights we walk in and we are on, practically.

  It’s good that way. It stops us from peeing our collective pants when we learn the headliners are a speed metal band called Black Zipper, like we did last night. Or, like tonight, when we discover my amp is blowing blue smoke again.

  I twist my microphone into the stand and check out the crowd.

  They all have full-on fancy square eyeglasses and bright white snug-tight T-shirts. The girls and the guys and the band itself are a mob of nearsightedness and Clorox bleach.

  Last night was better.

  Last night there was some flannel out there. Plus a chick with pink streaks in her hair, as well as a bunch of skinny, tattooed guys that gathered in the back. It was a good fit—a little rich, a little sweet, and some potential for damage.

  But these are not our people—no flannel, no sweet. Any damage will be orderly and should be arranged for in advance. There is paperwork to be filled out at the front desk.

  “Fixed,” Jay announces from behind my amp.

  Then he pops up and hitches up his pants.

  Winston breathes a sigh of relief and lights a cigarette.

  Jay is one of those guys who can fix anything. He’ll sit down and stare at something and figure out how it works. My amp, the cigarette lighter in the van, Billie’s miniature hair dryer: he fixed them all. While this comes in handy, it also makes me feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time with a good view of his butt crack. (FYI, boxers. Always plaid.)

  Ty and Ginger are a few feet away, taping our cords to the floor.

  After ten days on the road, we have begun to figure out a routine: who does what and how to get everything done that needs to get done so that we can make it onto the stage each night, reasonably close to being on time.

  The guys haul the big stuff. Billie and I follow with guitars and cords and cartons of cigarettes. Ty always carries his sticks himself. Then Billie and Winston work the room, befriending bartenders and waitresses and managers while the rest of us set up, double time.

  Drop that into reverse, and we are packed up at the end of the show. Cords wrapped neatly, gear stowed under the seats, people on top, and the white van rolling on toward the bitter end. We have it down.

  Jay jumps off the edge of the stage and bounces over. We all huddle together, scribbling down our set list on the back of a pizza box with a big black marker Billie borrowed from the bouncer.

  “The ballad killed Styx and Journey,” Winston says, reading over my shoulder, as if he were some kind of sage.

  I know better. Winston owns only one book, How to Survive Anything. He has read it cover to cover, though, so we are set if the van ever plunges into a raging river or if he gets locked inside a steamer trunk.

  “Have I taught you nothing?” he calls out as he runs down the steps and retreats to his hiding place offstage.

  Winston always stands to the side of the stage while we play. Beer in hand, leg jiggling along, just close enough for the waitresses to find him when he needs a refill.

  “Not on purpose,” I yell at the shadow now looming behind the tall speaker on my right.

  Then I reach over and scratch out the Journey song anyway.

  Billie stumbles toward me more than buzzed. How did she manage to get loaded while we set up? I look around for the usual suspects, skinny boys with spindly mustaches, looking completely sneaky and smoked out.

  How will she win over the crowd like that?

  I plug in, silently praying to the often ignored baby Jesus for a good set, a great night, a gracious landing. Billie steps in beside me, smushing a cigarette with her foot. I don’t think it was ever even lit.

  “First one to miss a start has to pack the drum kit.” Jay jokes as he bounces his guitar up against his hip, amped.

  Ginger nods, up for the challenge.

  Jay swings his guitar around to the front, ready to go.

  I catch my breath right before the first few notes, just as Billie moves in close to her mic and shouts, “We are Red Velvet Crush!”

  The crowd is at attention.

  We tear into some serious rock music. Couples fill the dance floor, and even the most spiteful Red Velvet Crush nonbelievers are tapping their toes by the second verse. Someone, somewhere has gotten knocked up in a backseat to this song.

  It brings out my inner cheerleader. She likes lip gloss and boys who play football and high kicks. I hop while Billie does the pony next to me. Her blond hair bounces up and down, her voice perfect and raspy; her breath stays even.

  She spins during my solo, her skirt flaring out toward the audience, her eyes snapping onto mine after each rotation. Drunk and useless five minutes before we went on, Billie is blistering through it.

  Ginger’s head rolls from side to side, his eyes shut. Jay plays hard, jumping off everything he can climb. And Ty pounds under us all, a nonstop highway of snare and crash cymbals with no speed limit.

  Sometimes I don’t even know we are climbing until we are at the top. Sitting astride a huge wave of rhythm and energy. Sliding to the bottom on shattered fingernails and dissonance, just to start again, ready for the next ride.

  How do I come down from that?

  How do I go back to real life, to everyday things like history notes, hitting the snooze button at 7:00 A.M., and flossing on a regular basis?

  I hold on to our final note, hoping I never have to find out. Our shoulders lift in unison, then beat down together one last time, making this great noise, this great feeling, something so much bigger than any one of us could be alone.

  All sins are forgiven, all squabbles left behind. Every shred of pain and drip of sweat and stab of jealousy is worth it, over and over and over and bow.

  13

  Ty and I slide out of the van and spill into a parking lot as the sun starts to set behind us. I’m sure we stink. We have been on the road for more than two weeks straight, and it is summer after all.

  The Laundromat has a neon sign in the window. A string of glowing pink bubbles, popping as they light up from bottom to top. The last one is broken. Ty drags our two bags of dirty laundry up over the curb, and I bring my guitar.

  “Please don’t tell me we got paid in quarters again,” he says as I hold the glass door open for him.

  “Nope,” I say, flashing a ten-dollar bill. “We’re big time.”

  The Laundromat is empty. No people, only the swishing of soapy water and the smell of softener. A good sign, I guess.

  It means that at least we can leave our stuff here while it spins and soaks.

  I shake my clothes out onto a table and start sorting. Ty skips that step and stuffs all of his into o
ne machine. He gets quarters and two tiny boxes of soap from the dispenser on the wall while I select my temperatures and water levels.

  Studying my piles of pinks, whites, and dirty jeans, he smiles skeptically and holds out a handful of change.

  “I’m hoping for more than a lump of gray at the end,” I say.

  “Optimistic.”

  He leans in and kisses me after I drop the lid on my load of darks.

  “Do you want to start on that one from last night?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  I add soap while he runs to the van for Jay’s acoustic bass.

  Settling in, I open my guitar case and sit in the middle of a row of plastic chairs shaped like eggshells. I pull my notebook from the bottom of my bag.

  Ty chooses the eggshell on the end of the row. I put the notebook on the empty seat between us as he tunes the bass, twisting his fingers and tipping his head until the sound is just right.

  “It’s about a girl and the pull of the moon, right?” he asks, remembering like he always does.

  Our eyes meet, I nod, and we start to play. My fingers trip along, working out the melody, finding the notes that fit what Ty is thumbing out as the words from my notebook drift in my head, finally falling into place.

  We started working together five nights ago after a long, late gig. Ty was taking a shower. We usually stayed in after our shows; after-parties and closing down the bar don’t work for Ty. Nothing was on TV but dog races, and I had already tried home, leaving another message for my dad, again.

  After the beep I breathed out, “Hi. Hope you’re good.” Pause. “Billie had pancakes for breakfast today, with a side order of pancakes . . . I’ll send you a picture.” Pause. “Okay. Miss you. Bye.”

  I found a picture of Billie’s breakfast, a half-eaten short stack of pancakes, swimming in a brown sea of syrup, and hit send.

  Picturing Dad at the kitchen table alone, a full box of bran flakes in front of him, or watching TV until he fell asleep every night in a dark and empty house made me feel sad, so I pulled out my notebook and my guitar.