On the Run (Vagabonds #1)

by Jade C. Jamison

  “Kelly Cambridge.” She smiled. Wow—the girl beamed positive energy. I could get used to playing around that kind of spark. “What school you go to?”

  “None around here. I’m from Winchester.”

  “Isn’t that up in the mountains?”

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  She nodded. “So this is really cool, you guys.”

  I smiled while slightly twisting a peg with my left hand. Liz said, “Yeah, it totally is, but if we don’t get started now, Peter’s gonna get here and fuck things up.”

  Okay, so that was odd, but I just kept doing my thing. I hadn’t quite figured Liz out yet. Hell, the only one I felt completely at ease with was Vicki, and that was based on one meeting where we’d clicked—but who knew if that feeling would continue? Kelly said, almost as if she hadn’t heard Liz, “I think we’re all gonna be best friends.”

  I really had nothing to say to that. I’d initially liked her energy, but now she was feeling…weird and annoying. My eyes remained focused on the headstock of my guitar.

  Liz wasn’t going to let up. “All right.” She stood next to me and waited before continuing until I looked at her. “If I play a riff, can you pick it up?”

  Was she trying to insult me or was she being genuine? She had heard me play the other day, right? “Uh, yeah, I think so.”

  She didn’t even register the duh quality in my voice. “Great.” She began playing an original tune and…it wasn’t bad. But, in my opinion, it wasn’t great, either. It wasn’t something fans would bang their heads to or tap a foot to. It wasn’t—catchy, for lack of a better word. It was pretty plain. But it was her baby and I didn’t want to insult her. Besides, at that point, I hadn’t written a lick of music. I’d just learned to play well.

  But I could take something mediocre and play it better. So, once she was done and looked up at me, I played it back—first, the way she played it and then, when she seemed satisfied, I played it again, only with my own spin on it—mostly changing the tempo, but changing a note or two as well. When I looked up again, Liz looked exasperated. “That’s nice, Kyle, but can we play it the way I wrote it?”

  Vicki did a buh-dum-bum on her drums, making us look at her. “It sounds better the way Kyle played it.”

  I agreed, but I wasn’t ready to fight over it. Before I could say anything else, Liz said, “I need to get used to playing with you—guys,” she said, emphasizing for Vicki’s sake the fact that she hadn’t once more called us ladies, “and then maybe I can deal with some improv.” She looked at me again. “You okay with that?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Boring, but I supposed I’d live through it. That was the moment where I was inspired to begin writing my own music, though. I didn’t feel like I could be a critic if I hadn’t ever done it myself.

  I kept playing and Liz began backing me with rhythm. Shortly after, Vicki then Kelly joined in. We wound our way through the chorus (where I had to back off for a second to catch the switch) and then back through another verse, and we still hadn’t heard Liz sing yet. But we were getting a great feel for each other. When we got to the end of the second chorus, Liz said, “This is where I want to put the solo, but I can’t come up with anything.”

  “Want me to try?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I didn’t think I could do anything on the spot, but I plucked a few notes. “Why don’t we start from the top, let me feel the song more?”

  “Yeah, and sing this time, dammit.” Oh, God, Vicki was itching for a scrap, but I looked up at her and she was grinning from ear to ear. Liz was a little taken aback at first too, but Vicki said, “We just wanna hear your voice, babe.”

  Liz smiled—probably the first time I’d seen her do that. “Yeah, okay.” So we started out the song again and Liz began singing. The first thing I noticed was that she was mimicking someone else. I had no idea who, but it didn’t feel like the way Liz should be singing. And then I noticed she could have a really cool gravelly sound if she wanted to. She had a great voice and was hitting all the right notes—she just didn’t sound rock enough for my tastes.

  But maybe that would come with time.

  What struck me was her lyrics. They were not the words of a sixteen-year-old girl and certainly not those of a spoiled rich kid. They were the heart and soul of someone who had shut herself off to please others and was now drowning. So what Liz was missing in the tunes department, she made up for in words. Holy shit, she was amazing. And this was only the first song.

  As we played, I made eye contact with Vicki and then Kelly, and they were thinking the same thing. Hell, yes. This kind of shit? We had fame in the bag.

  I closed my eyes and just felt the song, and I sensed this insane buildup inside me as we got closer and closer to the solo. When we got there, I just let my hands and heart take over. It started as just a harder repetition of the chords we’d already been playing, but then one note after another spoke to me and I shredded that shit out. I only hoped my emotion on the strings matched the emotion Liz had been feeling when she’d penned the words.

  When we finished, we all looked at each other with renewed respect and awe that we had taken something and made it great. There were no words. But after a few seconds, in that charged atmosphere, I said, “Holy hell, Elizabeth. You are a fucking poet.”

  I heard Vicki and Kelly agree with me. “Call me Liz.”

  Vicki said, “You serious?”

  Liz grinned. “Hell, yeah.” Vicki threw down another beat and then Liz said, “Hell of a solo, Summers. I’m impressed.” I heard more agreement from the other two girls in our band. “Now I know why Peter wanted to check you out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And you two. Amazing, ladies—er, guys.” We all started laughing…and that afternoon the Vagabonds were born.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WELL, THE VAGABONDS might have been born that afternoon in Liz’s garage, but we weren’t done growing—not by a long shot. We tried on a couple of other tunes for size, and then Peter showed up late afternoon to fuck everything up.

  Peter wasn’t alone when he got to Liz’s house. He had with him…another girl. She was thin and blonde and—well, her name was Barbie. Barbie Bennett. But what girl would intentionally want herself compared with a doll that continued to represent an ideal that women should have long moved past—a blonde bimbo with tits too big, a waist too thin, and an obsessive preoccupation with fashion? Don’t get me wrong—I liked new clothes almost as much as the next girl, but I also didn’t want to be known just for my fucking boobs. I am intelligent and I can play a mean guitar just as well—if not better—than any man. So if my mother had named me something like Barbara, you can be damn well sure I wouldn’t go around letting people call me Barbie. It devalued the girl right off the bat.

  But, as I began to get a sense of her, I suspected that was exactly the image she wanted to project—and I then began to wonder if Peter had chosen her for her personality rather than her singing chops.

  He never said that, though. Instead, he said, “Hello, whores. Here’s your lead vocalist.”

  I didn’t actually tilt my head, but I did question if I’d really heard him correctly. Had he called us whores? I was imagining it, right?

  Liz was nothing short of pissed. She approached Peter, and how she remained so calm, I’ll never know. Back then, she was pretty good at maintaining her composure in spite of all the anger she had pent up inside. Goddamn, the girl held it in—no wonder she was a poet. Her voice was soft when she said, “I’m the lead singer, Peter.”

  “Not anymore. We need someone with charisma, someone who can charm the audience.”

  Now, it was true that Liz hadn’t seemed that lively at the mike, but Jesus. She hadn’t even had a chance to settle in. Barbie, though—she was in our face and loud from the get go. I could kind of see Peter’s point, even though I sided with Liz. It was uncool of him to do that and especially not to give us any kind of warning.

  “And I’ve got your name too.” His voice
got loud and lilty. “I now dub thee the Vagabonds.”

  Vicki couldn’t keep her lips zipped. “The Vagabonds? What the fuck kind of name is that?”

  His face remained unchanged—it was always neutral. I didn’t know how he did that. His face was like ice, his voice calm, and yet I could feel the power in his words, the threat. “It’s the name that’s going to make you a worldwide rock star. Are you okay with that?”

  I saw Vicki swallow before she nodded her head. What she said next completely knocked me out of my boots. “Yes, sir.”

  Well, there went my brilliant idea for a name like The Rebels. And, it turned out, it would have been a sucky and misleading name if we all tucked tail every time he looked at us funny.

  Only he didn’t look at us funny. It was more a sense, something lurking under the surface.

  The dude was weird. There was just no getting around it. I have never before nor have I since met anyone quite like Peter Cyrus.

  For the record, that’s a good thing. There should not be two people like that man on the planet. Surely, if they came into contact with each other, the planet would explode or some weird shit.

  So, he’d already thrown us off our game when he came in with his announcement “surprise”…and Barbie? She added some strange, flighty vibe to the group that I wasn’t digging. All of a sudden, I felt like my period had started—I was grouchy, headachy, and felt a little off. But my mind continued to cling to that image Peter had filled it with when he’d recruited me over the phone—fame and fortune at my young age, and all by doing something I loved with all my heart. Yeah, I could put up with some bullshit for that.

  Peter said, “I need you sluts to play something for Barbie that she can sing, so you can all get a feel for working together. What do you think you can do?”

  There. He did it again. Now I knew for sure. He called us sluts. What the hell? I looked over at Liz and her eyes weren’t looking at Peter or Barbie…but I wasn’t sure where they were focused. I turned my head more and saw Vicki and she too seemed shocked, the big piece of bubblegum she usually smacked resting on her tongue.

  Liz finally said, “I don’t think we all know the same songs. We could play her one of mine, but I don’t think she knows the words.”

  Kelly said, “You guys know any Kings of Leon?”

  Liz nodded. “I do.”

  Vicki shrugged. “I can give you a beat even if I don’t know the song. It might not be exact, but…you could give me an idea.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m not familiar with those guys.” I took a deep breath, trying to think of some of the songs I knew that were lighter metal, bands that weren’t known for being loud and hardcore. “What about, um, Three Days Grace?”

  Liz shook her head. “No. I like some of those guys’ stuff, but I don’t think I could play any of it spur of the moment.” Ah. That was one difference between Liz and me. If they’d let me listen to one of their bands, I probably could have figured it out…not that I’d necessarily want to. “How about Imagine Dragons?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ve only heard one of their songs, and I can’t remember any kind of guitar riff from it. Do you know any Green Day songs?

  She shrugged. I realized then that it was between her and me. Kelly and Vicki could figure it out, whether they knew the song or not—it was the guitars that would carry the tune. Then she said, “What about Icon for Hire? Or OneRepublic? They’re local boys, right here out of Colorado Springs.”

  God, then I felt like a shit. I’d never even heard of them, much less heard their music. “Nope. The Offspring?”

  Peter cleared his throat. “Why don’t one of you play something and the other sit out for a moment?”

  What a fucking idiot. Didn’t he realize we had big egos—that he’d fueled, no less? Really, if it came down to it, I could have put my foot down, insisting that because I was lead guitar, I picked the song, but Liz had already suffered one letdown today. I refused to hurt her too. Barbie took care of it, though. “Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t need accompaniment.” She stomped over to the mike, her shoulder bumping Liz (so Liz got out of the way), and then she tapped on it with her finger. “This thing on?”

  Like it mattered. She wasn’t singing for an audience, and if she were singing a cappella, she didn’t need to be amplified. We’d be able to hear her just fine. But that was Barbie in a nutshell. She started vocalizing and then singing, and it took me a second to realize it was a Lady Gaga song—“Bad Romance.” As Barbie moved into the first verse, she pulled the mike off the stand and began singing to us as though we were an audience there to adore her.

  I wondered if she could pull off hard rock, but Peter was right—she had charisma by the truckload. No matter what I thought of her personally (she was already coming off like a freak), she was definitely front woman material.

  When she finished the song, she looked at us—not with expectation, as if waiting for us to accept or praise her, but more like she was gracing us with her presence. No matter what I thought of this girl, she already projected the image of a celebrity. All she was missing was sunglasses and an entourage.

  But Peter strolled up to her and touched her cheek before turning to address us. “She’s a real gem, isn’t she?”

  The only emotion I saw from Liz was a flared nostril, and I wondered if anyone else caught it, because by the time she spoke, all body language was completely ratcheted down and out of sight. “Peter, can I speak with you for a moment?”

  His voice, droll and monotone (as it frequently was), lacked as much feeling as Liz’s had, but his eyes flashed, and I thought maybe I could see something a little dangerous in them. “I’m sure whatever you say can be said in front of the entire band.”

  She inhaled deeply before responding. “I’m sure it can’t. It will only take a moment.”

  Peter sighed. “Very well.” They started walking toward the door after Liz propped her guitar in its stand. He turned for a moment and waved his hand in a circle, as if he were a party host urging the guests to mingle. “Why don’t you all get to know each other? We’ll be back soon.” I saw the look on his face turn sour before he followed Liz through the doorway.

  I personally hoped she’d give him hell.

  Barbie smirked and strutted across the garage to look at the black Mercedes on the other side. I was halfway surprised that there was even a car in there. I’d never been in a garage like it before. It wasn’t hot in there, even though the temperature was in the mid-nineties outside and it was pristine—no dust or dirt. It could have been the Mayerson’s dining room.

  Barbie leaned over and peered in the windows of the car before turning around. “So…what’s your names again?”

  “I’m Kyle, and this is Kelly,” I said, nodding toward our bassist and then in turn pointing toward our not-so-meek drummer who was nodding back, “and Vicki.”

  Barbie assessed me and, after a few moments, said, “What kind of a name is Kyle?”

  I wasn’t angry—yet—but I was growing to care less and less for this young woman as every moment passed. “What kind of a name is Barbie?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “It’s short for Barbara.”

  I nodded. “Kyle is short for bad ass bitch.”

  She started laughing then. “Fair enough.”

  I heard Vicki snickering in the background. It made me feel good that she had my back, but it wasn’t necessary. Barbie reminded me of some of the girls I’d attended school with—some cheerleaders, some not, but they were the girls who thought they were better than everyone else. Why? I wasn’t sure, but I figured it was because they thought they were richer than the rest of us or more beautiful—or had better names. It certainly wasn’t because they were smarter or more skilled at life. But I think they believed that simply their attitudes—that of first dismissing most people or, when they actually had to interact with others, condescending—would be enough to cow the rest of humanity into bowing down before their whatever. Ugh. It was th
at attitude, in addition to my very first impression of her, that made me instantly dislike Barbie. That didn’t mean we couldn’t or wouldn’t get along, but it meant that she’d have an uphill climb if she wanted to be my friend.

  I couldn’t see her wanting to do that, either.

  But I could get along with her and respect what she brought to the band. The question became if Liz could.

  Barbie ran a finger along the hood of the sleek black car. “Where you guys go to school anyhow?”

  Neither Kelly nor Vicki seemed eager to interact with Barbie, not that I blamed them a bit, but I decided to speak up once more. “I’m not from around here. I go to Winchester.”

  She frowned, as if trying to figure out what I meant. “Oh, that’s up in the mountains a little, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Before we could continue, Peter and Liz reentered the garage. Barbie sauntered back over to where the rest of us stood. He spoke as though he’d never left the room. “Are we ready to work, skanks?”

  Okay, what the hell? Peter hadn’t acted weird like this before, but today he was pushing all my buttons. What was with the degrading female-shaming name calling? It seemed childish and bullying. Before I could say a word myself, he ran his hand over his thin, light brown hair that was plastered to his skull like a swimming cap, and Barbie asked, “What’d you say?”

  “I asked if you’re ready to get to work or if you want to just stand around all day. I personally have better things to do with my time.”

  “That’s what I thought you said.”

  Peter arched his eyebrows as if to tell Barbie to watch her place…but Barbie’s behavior that day was just a tiny taste of what was to come.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “THE PHRASE IS take me, not tame me, Barbie.”

  The blonde shrugged, a defiant feel about her, but there was nothing in her face to indicate anything—except maybe a little indignation because, after all, she was an “artist” and nothing she could do was wrong. She had the view that she should have the right to change the original artist’s intent. “It sounds better.”