The Secrets of Attraction

by Robin Constantine

  “Oh . . . Paul is coming by tonight. He’s leaving tomorrow, you know that, right?”

  I stopped mid–swirl of blush application and looked at her.

  “Wait, what? He said he found a new place.”

  “Yes, at a hotel near the airport.”

  Anger I thought had subsided bubbled up again.

  “He didn’t mention he was leaving, like, now.”

  My mother shook her head. “It doesn’t surprise me. I had to bribe him with Palermo’s pizza and a bottle of his favorite cab to even stop by tonight; he’s not one for good-byes. He doesn’t really consider this good-bye, though.”

  “But it is, isn’t it?”

  I thought about my tentative plan to apply to summer architecture programs in California. What was the use now? If he hadn’t even wanted to say good-bye, why would he want me to live with him for a few weeks?

  “Mom, I’ll try to get back, but I need to see Jesse. It’s important to me.”

  “Well, maybe he’ll still be here when you get home.”

  “I doubt it.”

  My mother stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Madison, it’s a lot to take in. We won’t figure this out all at once. I told you before—this is happy news to Paul. Very. Don’t forget.”

  “So happy he’s pretty much running away.”

  “Well—you know, sometimes it’s hard to change.”

  “Maybe he should start taking yoga, so he can live his truth.”

  “I’ll have to tell him you said that.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  JESSE

  “DUDE, YOU HAVE TO CALM DOWN, WE’VE GOT this thing,” Grayson said.

  “I’m trying,” I said.

  Being stuck in a vestibule along with the other bands and various equipment was about as fun as being naked in a cage with a rabid honey badger. Although, truth be told, a honey badger would have probably smelled better. Not everyone, it seemed, cared about hygiene, and the small space made that painfully evident. My nerves were live wires; I could barely stand still in the two feet of space we had surrounding us. At least the door had windows so I could see into the gym.

  There were two stages, so as one band played, the other could set up their equipment. Thankfully, Plasma didn’t share our staging area; they waited in the hallway on the other side of the gym. Sharing a cramped space with Kenny or Duncan would have made me even edgier. I’d seen them, nodded in a sort of “Good luck, may the best band win” kind of way, but they had just sort of stared, trying to psych us out. Out of six bands, we were set to go on third. Smack-dab in the middle. Not the most enviable spot, but it was the luck of the draw. Plasma was the closing band. Tanner thought it was fixed.

  I paced back and forth, occasionally peeking out into the gym, which did nothing to calm my nerves. The Battle of the Bands always drew a decent crowd, and the space was already starting to fill in. I kept looking for one face, though, and ten minutes until the battle was supposed to start, Madison was nowhere to be seen. Her absence wasn’t the reason I was nervous. She said she’d be there and I believed her.

  The real reason it felt like my blood was replaced with pure adrenaline was that I was about to throw the competition and I had no idea how I was going to break it to Tanner and Grayson.

  After the weirdness with Madison in my car, I’d gone home and finished the song. Her song. I couldn’t handle playing it for her one on one, I’d be too self-conscious—but being on a stage where I could get lost in the energy of the crowd would somehow make it easier. I didn’t plan on singling her out, I knew how she felt about grand gestures, but she would know it was for her.

  Grayson would be easier to persuade. This was all new to him, and while I knew he wanted to win, he wouldn’t think twice about me doing the song. He’d said as much at practice.

  Tanner was a different story. It was now or never. I grabbed his arm.

  “Dude, I have to talk to you,” I said.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “Not here.”

  His upper lip curled. “Where we gonna go?”

  I looked around. He had a point. I turned my back to the small area, forming our own corner, and motioned for them to come closer.

  “Okay, I’m starting to feel like a douche, Jess, are we going to join hands and do a power chant or something?”

  “This from the guy wearing the hat,” Grayson said.

  “Lucky hat.”

  “The song is done. It’s good. I want to play it for Madison.”

  That was as plain as I could make it.

  Tanner breathed out hard, staring up at the ceiling before answering. “I thought we talked about this. Just save it for May.”

  “I just . . .”

  “Want to impress a girl. Did you know about this?” He turned to Gray. Gray shook his head.

  “No, this is sort of a game-time call. Look, I can’t explain it, I just think she needs to hear this. We’re already better than Plasma—we know that, does it really—”

  “How could you spring this on us now? Why is it more important than us trying our best to win this thing?”

  “Because it just is.”

  Tanner’s face fell. He shook his head. “It’s still all about you.”

  He spun away, knocking into the girl singer from the band who was set to go on first. “Sorry,” he mumbled as she scowled.

  “T, wait,” I said as he shouldered his way over to a set of double doors. Through the glass window I saw him storm off into the locker room, out to the area where we unloaded our equipment earlier.

  “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Jess, you wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. I’ll go talk to him,” Gray said.

  I nodded as he walked off in search of Tanner. Was Tanner right? Was it all about me? I hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. I wanted to win, I did, but wasn’t music more about reaching people, making them feel something instead of this stupid competition?

  I peered out into the gym and finally spotted Madison, standing between Wren and Jazz. She wore the Yellow #5 shirt. Her smile a small, still vote of confidence in the crowd. My heart wigged out at the sight of her. What the hell had I been thinking? The song was too personal to share, it needed work—I sounded clumsy. What if I totally screwed it up and blew it?

  Mr. Katz, our gym/driver’s-ed teacher/emcee for the night, tapped a mic on the far stage, welcoming everyone and announcing that the first band would be on in five. My stomach coiled tight. I needed to find T and Grayson. I wove my way around the other bands, pushed through the doors, and found the darkened locker room. There was a door open to the outside on the far end. I raced toward the sliver of streetlamp and out into the parking lot behind the school. Tanner sat on the curb. Gray stood next to him.

  “Hey, you know, just forget it,” I said. “We’ll do our five best songs, that’s it.”

  “No, do the song, Jess,” Gray said.

  “I can’t.”

  Tanner sprang up.

  “Now you need me to tell you how great you are, right? Because that’s how it always works with us.”

  “No, you were right. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you putting up the money, filling out the application. I’m just, it was stupid of me. Arrogant.”

  He breathed out, crossed his arms.

  “Chickenshit.”

  “What?”

  “Just play the song you wrote for Madison. Okay? You’re wimping out, that’s worse than losing on purpose.”

  “What if it sucks?”

  “It won’t. It never does,” Tanner said.

  “Okay, gather in,” Gray said, motioning for us to huddle.

  “Dude, I was serious about the chanting feeling. Not right.”

  “I was lacrosse captain, just huddle, it brings a team together, and we are about as not together as you can be at the moment.”

  “Fine, but if you start telling me to breathe deep—”

  I jabbed Tanner to stop it. The three
of us put our hands out and brought them together.

  “Now what?”

  “Someone say something inspiring. As front man, Jess, I think that falls to you.”

  My mind was blank. What to say? Two months earlier I’d wanted to give up, and here I was with a viable band, both Tanner and Gray were better than they thought they were. We could be great. Blow them all away. That was it.

  “If we’re gonna blow it, blow it big.”

  “From the Whiskey. Cool, I like it,” Tanner said.

  “Me too. So on the count of three, um, ‘Blow it big.’”

  “Do we—”

  “Just say it.” Gray shot Tanner a look.

  “One . . . two . . . three. . . . Blow it big!”

  We pulled our hands away, and Grayson howled. Tanner punched the air a few times.

  “Let’s do this.”

  I could never be sure at what point it happened, when Stage Jesse took over, but it was something I could always count on. The fear of failure, the nervous anticipation, and the energy of the crowd all converged and fueled me. The last piece of the puzzle was my Fender. I put the strap over my head and ran my fingers across the strings. Gray slid into his seat, giving me a stick up that he was ready. Tanner nodded. I stomped my foot, holding the guitar close to my body, and walked up to the mic.

  “S’up, Bergen Point. Are you ready for some Yellow Number Five?”

  There was a cheer, but not a loud one.

  I screamed into the mic, “Are you readeeeeeeeee?”

  I didn’t wait to hear a louder response, just launched into “Welcome to Paradise” and the crowd was infused with the music, a wave of people under our control, at least for the duration of our set. I looked over at Tanner; he grinned, tassels on his hat whipping around with his movement. We owned the stage and it felt fucking amazing.

  We went into the next song, a Say Anything cover, without breaking. I scanned the faces in the crowd, now more visible, looking for her. She was there, her face flashing green, then blue, in the stage lights. A smile when our eyes met that fired up my confidence. I played for her. For me. For everyone. We drove the song hard, Gray ending with a thrash of drums. Tanner waved me over.

  “Do it now,” he said.

  “No, I can wait until the end.”

  “No, do it now, but it better be friggin’ amazing,” Tanner said.

  Grayson nodded, taking a gulp from a water bottle. I switched guitars, pulling the strap of the acoustic over my head. I hadn’t given much thought to how I was going to introduce the song. Only knew I wouldn’t say her name. The rest I was winging.

  “Gonna slow it down a little. This next one is a Yellow Number Five original. Kind of the world premiere.”

  “You suck!” someone yelled.

  Was it a mistake doing it now that everyone was so pumped? Screw it.

  “Thanks,” I said, laughing. “This one’s for, um . . . well, she knows who she is.”

  Brilliant, Jess.

  I fumbled with the opening chord, my mind suddenly empty. Blowing it big was one thing, fucking up completely in front of a room full of people who could remind me on a daily basis was another. I stopped strumming, took a breath, and found Madison in the crowd. She smiled. It was all I needed.

  I strummed, feeling the buildup to the opening verse.

  You come in like a storm

  A force strong and true

  Eyes alight with fire

  Powerless against you

  I closed my eyes, lost myself in the words and the melody. I was in the meadow, under the stars, filling the space, my mind a montage of visions of her—her hands in my hair, her face at Fallingwater, that sketch in her room, the fight in my VW—as I sang. Everything. The good, the bad, the best. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Tanner had pulled up a lighter app on his phone, inspiring others to do the same.

  Madison’s eyes were riveted on mine, her head tilted slightly; she stood stock-still in the swaying mass. She knew the song was for her. The crowd broke into applause as I strummed the last notes. We had a moment, an exchange, the two of us alone in the crowd, before I had to dive into the rest of the set. I wished I could say I knew what she was thinking, that we had telepathically communicated our mutual desire, but when the moment was over, I was just as unsure as I’d been at the start. I switched guitars again, the worry of what she really thought of the song threatening to paralyze my ability to play. She liked it, that was sort of evident, but how did she really feel about it? I pushed it out of my head as I called out the next song.

  The final two songs were a blur. We’d practiced so much they were automatic and we finally loosened up and acted crazy. Me and Tanner stalked each other across the stage, jumping now and then. Laughing, even. By the time we finished, we’d wrung out the gymnasium.

  At least it felt that way.

  The stage crew helped us break down our stuff and we loaded it into the ’burban just as the fourth band took the stage. The stress from before the show was gone. I was relieved—the set had gone well, we’d played our best. That was winning enough for me. I hoped Tanner and Gray felt the same. A new kind of anxiousness tightened my throat as we walked back into the gym. Had Madison liked the song?

  The fourth band was in the middle of their set as we hit the gym floor. Wren spotted Gray first and waved him over. Jazz beamed at Tanner. Madison wasn’t with them. My stomach took a free fall.

  “You guys were awesome!” Wren screeched over the band. Gray pulled her in for a kiss. I looked at Jazz.

  “Where’s Madison?”

  She leaned in toward me and cupped a hand around my ear. “She had to run home.”

  My playing high deflated in seconds. “What? Why?”

  Jazz shrugged. “She just said something like, ‘I have to go, call me if you go out after,’ and then she was gone before we could stop her.”

  “Was she pissed off or anything?”

  She shook her head as Tanner joined us.

  “You were great,” she said to him, punching his shoulder.

  He pulled on his hat. “Works every time.”

  Had she hated the song that much?

  The crowd suddenly felt thicker. I pulled on my collar, trying to cool down, looking around the gym on the off chance that Jazz maybe hadn’t heard Madison right. That maybe she was just at the back of the gym, waiting for me.

  “Hey, do you mind if I bail?” I asked Tanner. He crossed his arms.

  “I’ll try to make it back before they announce everything.”

  “No you won’t. You sure you don’t want to be here for the results?”

  “Not really. In my mind, we won.”

  Tanner laughed. “I guess I can catch a ride with Gray. You better come out after. A plate of disco fries is the least of what you owe me for tonight.”

  “Tanner, thanks, man. For everything.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you better, like, name your first kid after me or something,” he said.

  I pushed my way through the crowd and out into the hallway, checking my messages hoping to find one from Madison. Nothing.

  “Jess.”

  I spun around at my name.

  Hannah stood behind a table of cupcakes. There were two other girls with her, in front of a sign that read: SUPPORT THE ARTS! $1 CUPCAKES! They stopped talking as I came over.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You guys were the best,” one of the girls said.

  “Thanks.”

  “There’s still two more bands to go,” Hannah said. “We’re rooting for Plasma, remember?”

  The girl shook her head and held out a cupcake to me. “You guys are still the best. Here, on the house.”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I said.

  “Do not refuse her cupcake,” the other girl said, taking it from her and holding it up to my face. I laughed.

  “Well, um, okay.” I took it from her. “Thanks.”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute, Jess?” Hannah motioned for me to walk over to th
e side with her. I followed. We stopped in front of a bank of lockers. She leaned against one and smiled at me.

  “I’m kind of in a rush,” I said.

  A crease formed between her brows. “You’re leaving? You’re not even going to watch Duncan?”

  “No, I’m sure they’ll be great.”

  “Guess you’re not afraid of the competition, then.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, not really thinking about it. I just . . . We played our best. It’s not really a competition to me—doesn’t matter who wins.”

  “Your song was beautiful, Jesse.”

  My mouth went dry as she reached up and ran her fingers under the lapel of my jacket. She had this sparkle in her eyes for a moment, but then pulled her hand away quickly, like she suddenly realized she shouldn’t be touching me.

  “Thanks, I really have to—”

  “So did you write it the other night? Your notebook looked pretty blank, I was just wondering. It was so pretty, the way you introduced it,” she said, looking down at her feet. “Are you really powerless against me?”

  Holy crap.

  She thought it was about her.

  The kind thing might have been to ignore it, I guess, but I couldn’t. I should have been happy, this was what I’d wanted for so long, for her to come back to me, but she’d been right about the breakup. Maybe I had a lot to do with it, but we’d both been a little too comfortable. It was time to move on. I could feel that now.

  “Hannah, I . . . There’s someone else. You know, that girl you met the night at Mugshot? Madison?”

  The look on her face jabbed me in the gut.

  “Oh. I . . . I’m sorry, Jess,” she said.

  I had no clue what to say to her. Whatever doubts she’d been having about Duncan were things she had to deal with on her own. As much as I still cared about her, I wasn’t ready to dole out relationship advice. Still, I didn’t want to leave it at that, without saying something upbeat. I didn’t want her to feel like shit over any of it.

  “The song Plasma is playing, the one Duncan wanted so bad . . . just, you know, listen to it. There was a reason he wanted it. You’ll like it. I promise.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Thanks. Um, Madison seems really nice. I hope you guys are happy.”