Small Town Sonata

by Jamie Fessenden

  Ben took the bag eagerly and peered inside. “Just one?” he asked, scandalized.

  “I feel guilty enough at that. If Bernice was still alive, she’d have my hide.”

  Ben shot him a sour look. “I’m seventy-three years old, son, and old enough to run my life the way I like it. Don’t get all self-righteous on me over one lousy bottle o’ Mad Dog.”

  Dean held his hands up in surrender.

  “Am I supposed to give some o’ this to you?” Ben asked suspiciously.

  “You can have the whole thing. I’m driving.” Dean also found the syrupy grape wine nasty as shit, personally. He couldn’t fathom why Ben loved the stuff.

  Ben cackled gleefully. “Well, come on, then. Have a seat. What did you stop by for?”

  There were two plastic lawn chairs on the concrete, so they sat down beside each other while Ben unscrewed the bottle. He already had the sour alcohol smell that told Dean he’d been drinking that morning. Dean hated enabling him like this, but years of experience had taught him Ben would never agree to anything if he didn’t have a drink in his hand.

  “So… a funny thing happened this past Tuesday….” Dean explained how he’d been roped into putting the septet back together.

  Ben guffawed. “You, my boy, are a grade A sucker.”

  “I know.”

  “Bart was a great guy,” Ben said, raising the bottle in tribute, “but the septet died with him. Let it stay dead.”

  “Come on, Ben. I promised I’d take it on.”

  Ben scoffed. “So? Tell the old biddies you changed your mind.”

  It was hard to explain, especially since Dean only half understood it himself, but when he gave his word that he’d do something, he couldn’t just back out. His word meant something. At least to him. He didn’t have much, dammit, but at least he had that.

  “I promised I’d do it,” he said, “so I’m gonna do it. Even if it kills me.”

  “It might. Or have you forgotten George Thompson moved to Quebec?” He pronounced it “Qwabek” like most people in town, despite the fact that Quebec City was less than five hours drive from Springhaven. Dean had driven farther on his last camping trip to Maine.

  “I didn’t forget.”

  “That puts us out a drummer. And I hate to tell you, but I couldn’t play, even if I wanted to.”

  Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why the hell not?”

  “Come here. I’ll show ya.”

  Ben led him inside the trailer, past piles of old clothes, empty beer cans and wine bottles, and unrecognizable debris in what had once been a living room, then into a room at the far end. The room might once have been a bedroom, but it was clearly being used for storage now, because crap was piled up to the ceiling. They could barely move into the space, and Dean worried it might all come tumbling down on them if they touched anything.

  “There,” Ben said, pointing. “Take a look.”

  It was a bass. And it was wrecked. The entire lower part of the body was caved in.

  “What the fuck happened?” Dean asked, his voice sounding shrill in the claustrophobic space.

  “Dunno. I mighta sat on it when I was… feelin’ a little hazy. I can’t remember. But it’s been like that for months. And we sure as shit can’t get it fixed in time for the Fourth, even if I had the cash to do it—not in this town.”

  Dean growled low in his chest like an angered wolf. “Let me take it and see what I can do.”

  “Son, that’s a complicated instrument. You’re a good handyman, but you don’t got the skill to repair a standing bass.”

  “I’ll take it to the music shop. Maybe there’s something they can do.”

  Ben waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. Do what you like with it. But I don’t think they’ll be able to do much.”

  “Maybe the high school has a loaner?” Dean said desperately. They had a school orchestra. He knew the students had to buy their own instruments, but still, didn’t the school have any practice instruments kicking around?

  Ben shook his head, but he replied, “If you can get me a bass, I’ll play. That’s all I can promise.”

  “WHY haven’t you called him?”

  Aiden set the platter of grilled cheese sandwiches down on the table. “He lives in town, Mom. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other.”

  “Oh, stop!” his mother said, exasperated. “You know what I mean. He’s the most attractive man in town.” She glanced at her husband and added quickly, “No offense, dear.”

  Mr. Scott didn’t even look up from his Elizabeth Peters novel. “None taken. I know when I’m outmatched.”

  “You’re both single,” she continued, looking at Aiden again. “And you dated in high school. Aren’t you at all interested?”

  “I don’t know if we ‘dated,’ exactly….”

  “Helen,” Aiden’s father interjected, “the boy just got here. You don’t need to meddle in his love life the moment he arrives.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “He’s been here nearly a week.”

  “You hated Dean when we were friends,” Aiden pointed out, taking a Coke out of the refrigerator.

  “I did not.”

  His father huffed. “Oh yes, you did.”

  “I didn’t hate him,” she said defensively. “I just thought he was a bad influence on you. You never got in trouble until you started hanging out with him. But that was a long time ago, and he’s grown up to be a very responsible young man.”

  As Aiden took his seat at the table, a thought occurred to him. “Please tell me you didn’t hire Dean to fix the screens, hoping we’d hook up.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” his mother replied. She poured glasses of iced tea for the three of them, then took a seat herself. “Your father hired him.”

  Aiden’s father closed his novel and set it on the table. Mrs. Scott couldn’t stand it when he read during meals. “I hired Dean two weeks ago,” he told Aiden, “before you called to tell us you were coming home. I trust you’re old enough to deal with an ex-boyfriend without falling apart.”

  Was Dean an ex-boyfriend? Aiden had never thought of him that way. If anything, boyfriend seemed inadequate for what he’d once felt for Dean, but of course he’d been a teenager. Everything had seemed epic then. “I’m perfectly fine. Dean is a great guy, and I do find him attractive. I suspect he wanted to ask me out—”

  “Well, there you go!” his mother exclaimed triumphantly.

  “—but I came here to get away from people. Present company excluded. I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”

  His left hand was resting on the table, and his mother placed her hand over it. “Aiden… I know losing Louis was painful….”

  He snorted. Then, at her startled expression, he smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mom. But no. Louis was a vapid, self-absorbed….” He stopped before he got too nasty. “I went into that relationship with my eyes wide-open, and I don’t blame him for being what I always knew he was. But I don’t miss him, and I doubt he misses me.”

  He didn’t want to go into the details—how he’d fallen off the party invite lists of everyone Louis wanted to hang out with, how Louis had run up his credit cards, how he’d begun ignoring Aiden at parties and chatting up men whose careers were on the way up….

  They were better off apart.

  “Oh. Well, then if that wasn’t the reason you came back home—”

  Aiden cut her off before that line of questioning could go any further. “I just need some time away from the city. Some peace and quiet.”

  “I can sure understand that,” his father said, no doubt trying to run interference. He knew better than anyone how persistent his wife could be when she wanted to find something out. “I’ve never been a fan of the city myself.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Scott said, withdrawing her hand and picking up one of the sandwiches for herself. “If you’re planning on being here all summer, you might consider performing on the Fourth. The Lilac Ladies have been pestering everyone
in town—again. Every year has to be bigger and better than the year before.”

  She rambled on, apparently not noticing how her son had blanched at the suggestion he perform in public. They didn’t know. They’d heard about the accident, but that had been two years ago. Like everyone else, they seemed to have assumed that once his hand healed everything would be back to normal. He didn’t know how to tell them the expensive boarding high school they’d paid for—roughly equivalent to attending Harvard—had all come to nothing. They were still paying off the second mortgage they’d been forced to take out on the house. Aiden had been able to pay his own way at Juilliard through grants and orchestra work on the side, and he’d offered to repay some of the costs his parents had incurred while he was in high school, but his father had refused.

  Now, it was unlikely he could help out, even if his parents wanted him to. Part of the reason he’d retreated to Springhaven was because his apartment in New York had been insanely expensive, and his savings were dwindling. He needed time to regroup before he was reduced to poverty.

  “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

  Aiden looked up from the cheese sandwich sitting untouched in his hands. His mother had asked him to do something, but he had no clue what. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. What did you need me to do?”

  That was apparently the wrong thing to say. A look of concern crossed his mother’s face. “Are you all right, dear?”

  “He’s fine, Helen.”

  Aiden shot his father a grateful look. “I was just thinking about what I was going to do today, Mom. What do you need?”

  She clasped her hands together, her face brightening. “I would really like to enter a painting in the art show this year. I’ve been at it for a few years now, and I think my landscapes are getting… well, maybe not worthy of a competition… but certainly good enough to put up on a wall.”

  Mr. Scott paused with his glass of iced tea raised to his lips. “Why not? The painting you did of our gazebo was beautiful.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Scott said, blushing. “I’d like to do a new one of the garden while all the flowers are in bloom. I think it would be lovely.” She turned back to Aiden. “I was hoping I could send you downtown to the art store. I don’t have time to go this afternoon—not with the papers I have to have graded by Monday.” Both of Aiden’s parents were professors at White Mountains Community College in Berlin.

  Aiden wasn’t thrilled about the idea of venturing out into a town full of people who might recognize him—not because he was a well-known pianist, but simply because he’d grown up here. Hopefully, he’d changed enough in seventeen years that nobody would make the connection. He dreaded having to continually explain what he’d been doing with his life, and why he’d come back.

  But he didn’t have a valid reason for refusing, so he smiled and said, “Sure, Mom. I can do that.”

  Chapter Five

  TOM Batchelder at the music shop looked at the ruined bass in dismay. “Dean… this’ll have to be sent off somewhere. I can’t fix this.”

  Dean wasn’t surprised, but the feeling of despair he’d been fighting off ever since his visit with Ben sharpened a little. “Is there someplace we could send it that might be able to do it fast? Like real fast? And… not too pricey?”

  “You don’t want much, do you?” Tom shook his head. “I know a woman who works as a luthier in Maine—that’s someone who makes cellos and violins and such. She also repairs them. I’ll give her a call and see what she can do for you.”

  “Thanks, Tom.”

  “But no promises. If I was you, I’d start looking around for another bass.”

  Dean took his advice. Even if this person in Maine could fix the bass, Tom couldn’t tell him how much she’d charge. It might not be affordable for him, and he knew damned well Ben wouldn’t be able to pay for it. So he stopped by Irene Danbury’s house.

  It was a Saturday, so going to the high school would have been pointless, but Irene was home, mowing her lawn. She was still a young woman, despite having two children, and she’d gone out with Dean on more than one occasion—just as friends. She was pretty impressive at karaoke.

  She was happy enough to take a break from mowing and chat with him, but when Dean asked her about a loaner bass, she burst out laughing. “Are you kidding?” When she saw the look of dismay on his face, she said more kindly, “I’m sorry, Dean. But the music department is the ugly stepchild of the school. Nobody wants to give us funding for anything. Carl Williams wasted a half hour at the last town meeting arguing we should be shut down because we were wasting his tax money.”

  “Carl Williams can suck my dick.” Dean suddenly realized where he was and looked around quickly, praying her kids weren’t nearby.

  Irene seemed unconcerned, casually mopping the sweat off her brow with a kerchief. “Don’t worry. They’re with their father.” The music teacher’s divorce four years ago had kept the town gossips busy for months. “And far be it for me to criticize your sex life, but… you can do better.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  He gave her a smirk, but he was too stressed right now to horse around much. “You don’t got anything?”

  “We do have a few old horns and woodwinds that families donated when they moved away. I have a violin. But not an upright bass. God knows where I’d store it if I did have one.”

  Driving home from Irene’s, Dean considered stopping at Rick Wallace’s or Sarah Cassidy’s houses. They were on the way. Rick had played trumpet for the septet, and Sarah had played sax. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The day was only half over, but already he was exhausted. It had been a long week. Between the Lilac Ladies, making a fool of himself with Aiden, and Ben’s broken bass, he needed a little time to himself.

  And maybe a nap.

  He was having serious doubts about whether he could deliver on his promise to the Lilac Ladies. And even though they’d more or less coerced him into doing it, he’d built a reputation in this town for being able to get things done. If he failed at this, he’d never live it down.

  AIDEN decided to walk to the Art Emporium. He had his own car, but it was a beautiful day out, and it wouldn’t kill him to get some fresh air. The Emporium was just a few blocks away on Main Street.

  Apart from the models of the cars parked along the street, the town didn’t look much different than it had when he was a kid. Aiden walked past the Townsend family restaurant on the corner of Birch Street and Main, recalling the times he and Dean had grabbed some fries and sodas there on the way home from school, and then on past the general store.

  Dean had once been nabbed shoplifting a candy bar there, and Mr. Whitaker had called Opa—Dean’s grandfather. Mr. Whitaker agreed not to call the police if Dean came back after closing time to mop the floors. Dean had been convinced the old man was some kind of pervert who wanted to get him alone. Why else would he suggest something so weird? But no. Mr. Whitaker had just wanted to teach him a lesson.

  Perhaps it had worked. Dean never shoplifted again, as far as Aiden knew.

  Mr. Whitaker had passed away at some point after Aiden left for Interlochen. His mother had written to him about it. He had no idea who owned the store now. Maybe one of his sons?

  It seemed as though every storefront Aiden passed had some kind of story associated with it, and they were all linked to Dean. He’d been kind of a troublemaker when they were kids. Parents killed in a car accident, living alone with an aging grandfather who clearly loved him, but could barely keep up with him. Dean had been a wild one.

  Aiden had been the opposite. Quiet and shy, focused on his music and not really interested in the world around him. He’d had no friends to speak of. Until he and Dean stumbled across each other, Aiden had never been in trouble for anything. Then suddenly he was sneaking out at night, trespassing in the park, skipping school. The two of them had been caught a couple of times, and Aiden had been ground
ed. They’d even served in-school suspension once. What would have happened if he’d stayed in town? Would Dean have gotten him into more and more trouble?

  Aiden didn’t like to think that. Dean was a good kid, even then. He just needed… something. Something he wasn’t getting from school and spending so much time alone.

  He seems to have done all right for himself. Maybe he just needed time to grow up.

  Like the other stores Aiden had passed along the way, Grace Butler’s Art Emporium hadn’t changed much over the years. Though the nude statue of Venus de Milo in the display window was no longer being forced to wear a cloth drape around her bosom. Aiden would have loved to be present at the town hall meeting that finally voted to allow Ms. de Milo to flash impressionable children on Main Street. It must have been a battle for the ages.

  Aiden and Dean had looked up “emporium” one evening when they were bored, since neither believed Mrs. Butler’s tiny one-room shop quite lived up to its grand name. They were right. But since there weren’t any other art supply stores in town, she could pretty much call it whatever she liked. It was a fairly small space, but it did carry a wide array of art supplies.

  Nobody was behind the counter when Aiden entered, though a bell announced his presence. He browsed the shelves while he waited for the clerk.

  Aiden’s mother had given him a list, fortunately. Otherwise, he would have had no idea which brands of oil paints to buy or what the difference was between sky blue, cobalt blue, and cerulean blue. In fact, after examining them closely for a minute, he still wasn’t sure. Sky blue seemed a little lighter, but cerulean blue and cobalt blue looked the same to him.

  “Can I help you?”

  A woman was now standing behind the counter. Though she was seventeen years older than she’d been the last time he’d seen her, which had to put her in her eighties, Aiden had no trouble recognizing her. Grace Butler sparkled. She wore a bright purple sundress with a sequined chiffon scarf in bright pink, and her unnaturally scarlet hair was laced with silver ribbons. Aiden had once heard her tell his mother, “I may be a single woman in a small town with a small shop, but I will bring color and beauty to Springhaven if it’s the last thing I do!”