The memory of our kiss had swollen in my mind until I felt like I was bursting with it, because despite all the time I’d spent with Lynn since then, the subject of our midnight adventure was never broached. We talked a lot about the band, and what Josie had told her of the tour: the run-down motels, the wild parties, how the boys had decided to record a full-length album and were trying to write new material on the road. At first, I thought there must’ve been a reason why Lynn didn’t mention our swim, and I wasn’t sure how to bring up the topic on my own. But eventually I began to wonder if she had even seen the kiss—if anyone had seen. Then, the more I scrounged for validation, the more I began to consider that maybe it hadn’t happened at all. The amount of alcohol I’d consumed did seem ludicrous, once I tried to quantify it. And yet the memory was too real; when I closed my eyes and let the Santa Anas surround me, I could almost hear the waves again, could feel the pressure of his fingers on my lower back, the way his thumb hooked around my ear, dripping polar water down my neck.
But that was all I had: an impression that glimmered when the cold punctured my skin.
Until my phone pinged with a text message from an unknown number.
I have a confession to make.
It was late and I must have been tracing the fringes of a dream, because I couldn’t think of any reply better than, Who’s this?
The response took a moment to come. Cameron Cabrera.
I sat up in bed, my heart thumping. Cameron had asked Lynn for my number. He hadn’t forgotten about me.
Wanting to appear casual, as if boys kissed me and disappeared and then sent me midnight text message confessions every day, I wrote: Oh hey. What’s up?
That night at the beach, he began, and my body turned hot. Do you remember?
I thought my heart might plow right through my rib cage. Yeah.
Something fell out of your pocket. I was going to give it back but then I read it and I couldn’t. I’m sorry for stealing your poetry. And for smuggling it across state lines.
It’s not poetry, I wrote back quickly, grateful that text messages revealed no tone or emotion. I would not have been able to hide my disappointment, the desire that filled me up like air. But you’re forgiven anyway.
What is it then?
I said, Lyrics.
Yeah? I read it a dozen times. Each time I realize something else about the words. It’s really good. Much better than what I write.
Thanks, I said.
More seconds passed. Worried that this might be the extent of the conversation, I searched for something further to add, typing and deleting various self-deprecating comments until a new message popped up.
I was wondering if you would do me a favor.
What’s that?
I waited, giddy and nervous and hardly able to breathe.
Could you maybe help Alex and me with some lyrics for a new song? Most of the time we just sing a lot of gibberish. It’ll sound good, but won’t actually make much sense. And I want this one to have real meaning. Then, after another moment, he added: I feel weird even asking, but I’ve never been great with words.
Surprised, I stared at the screen. The brightness was almost painful. When I looked away, the afterimage of a white box punctured the darkness. Sure, I said. I’d be happy to.
We made a plan. After Christmas, I would go to their studio space and help them with the song—a simple collaboration between musicians. I could not imagine anything more exciting. Or terrifying.
I fell asleep to the sway of the wind, and woke the next morning to one final message: Thanks, Susannah. I’m really excited about this. And seeing you. Merry Christmas, by the way.
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered to the empty room.
On the day I went to the studio, I told my mother of a study group for midterms, which would start as soon as school resumed. Then I borrowed her new (used) car and drove out to the back corner of an industrial park in Fullerton, where the Endless West practiced. It was Sunday and deserted; a few abandoned cars speckled the parking lot, but otherwise I saw no one—just building after building of concrete. Here and there a cement-sprouted tree teetered with the breeze, but it was not enough to dampen the glare. I left my sunglasses on—red “Wayfarers,” courtesy of an Arco gas station—and removed my sweater as I stepped out of the car.
I think I’m here, I wrote to Cameron, but I’m not sure where to go. I leaned against the car and waited, arranging my hair in front of my shoulders. My skin appeared tanner in the tint from my sunglasses and I pulled them down, then up, admiring how quickly, how easily, I could change.
“Over here,” a voice called from behind me. I spun around. “The numbers are actually on the ground.” Cameron pointed to his feet, where I finally saw the address he had given me painted in bold, black stenciling.
I laughed. “I swear that wasn’t there a second ago.”
“You caught me,” he said, flashing a smile. “Our studio is magic. But don’t tell anyone.”
He led me inside, down a short hallway that ultimately emerged in a long, narrow, windowless room—a veritable storage space. The front was equipped with a huge metal roll-up door where big trucks would have otherwise backed in for loading, but the platform had been converted into a stage. In every direction, the walls were embellished with splashes of color and a slew of thrift-store oddities ranging from weird paintings to macramé. And yet, beneath the erratic decorating, the room still felt raw: unfinished wood, exposed pipes, cement floor marbled with scuffs and ash stains, split down the center with a complex configuration of duct-taped cords. The way it existed as both rehearsal and commercial space reminded me of my father’s studio—how our garage was always fighting to retain its artistic integrity despite the bulky plastic bins my mother insisted on storing there.
“So this is our space,” Cameron said. “Fun fact: Fender was started just a couple blocks that way.” He nudged his head to the left, though I wasn’t sure what direction that actually was. “Did you know that? Fullerton born and bred.”
“I didn’t,” I admitted, but wondered if my father had known.
“The street’s named after him now, but the original factory is long gone. I’ll show you sometime, if you want.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
And then, for a few awkward moments, we were silent.
Cameron said, “You want the tour?”
I nodded, and he began pointing around the room. “That’s the stage there, the bathroom, and the bar back there, but right now it just has a couple of PBRs and a really old bottle of Josie’s Diet Coke. And up there’s where we’re going.” I followed the direction of his hand to a second-story platform that jutted out over the makeshift bar. Orange extension cords draped from the edges, the way white twinkle lights still drooped from the roof of Vivian’s house.
It looked sturdy, held up with numerous thick beams and enclosed by a railing, but still, I asked, “Is it safe?”
“Definitely,” he said. “PBR for the climb?”
Beers in hand, we ascended the ladder to the balcony while Cameron explained that Luke’s father owned the property, and thus gave them a good deal on rent. The location had also proved to be rather ideal; because the band practiced at night and on the weekends, they rarely encountered any other tenants and the possibility of a noise complaint was almost nonexistent.
Reaching the top, Cameron headed for a plaid couch that slumped against the back wall.
“So the tour was pretty great, huh?” I asked, sitting next to him. My body sank into the worn cushion.
He shrugged. “Not always the turnout we expected, but fun anyway. You been to Seattle before?”
I shook my head.
“Cool scene up there,” he said. “Definitely some of our best gigs.” Then he laughed at something. “Although the highlight was probably how after one of our sets, some girl cornered Gabe in the bathroom and gave him a hickey the size of a sand dollar.”
I smiled at the story, not wantin
g to think about what kind of girls cornered Cameron.
“By the way, where is everyone?” I asked, suddenly aware of the empty warehouse and our proximity on the old plaid couch.
“They’ll be here in a bit. I wanted to meet with you first.” He picked up an acoustic guitar. “Do you remember the song we talked about before, the one you heard that day at the school?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I want it to be ready for our New Year’s Eve show, and the guys are easily distracted. I knew if we tried to do this while everyone was here, it wouldn’t get done at all.”
Before coming, I had not thought about the others, or how strange it would have been to embark on such a personal act in such a large group. I had only thought about Cameron. And I was grateful now that it would be just the two of us, because I had never collaborated with anyone but my father, and the pressure felt almost suffocating.
I took a deep breath. You are a songwriter, I reminded myself. Now is your chance to prove it.
“So I guess I should show you what I have,” Cameron said, striking a few swift chords. “I like the melody, but honestly, I’m not attached to the words at all. It’s really just . . . well, you’ll see.” And he began to play.
He started with the song’s major chords but broke up the progression with bits of embellishment—hints, I assumed, at the lead riff he was writing in his head. He sang in fragmented phrases, in melodic hums, sometimes with his eyes closed and sometimes staring directly at me but never looking at his hands, which bent and slid across the strings with unbelievable precision. The progression was beautiful but not without edge, and the first time he played it, I just listened, wanting to hear the feeling, the emotion. Halfway through, something strange began to happen.
Perhaps the empty warehouse provided an instant echoing effect, making the sound fuller and more intense, or maybe it was me, the hope pounding inside my rib cage as I watched him, this boy who saw gleaming the part of myself I’d always valued most. Whatever the reason, I felt everything at once: a coalescence of joy and sorrow, all the pain I’d internalized rising, a little more visible but at the same time a little less dense. And yet, this wasn’t a reaction to what the song was right then, right in the moment Cameron played it. At least not entirely. It was a reaction to what I sensed it could be.
What the song was nudging awake inside of me.
Cameron broke into another chorus and suddenly I was back in the summer, back in the crux of those early Santa Ana winds, walking home from a shift at the Last Bean. I had just spent the night in the studio with my father. It was the last midnight we would share together, only I didn’t know that then, didn’t know anything except the simple fact that I had started to write what might one day become a great song. My father had said so: You’re getting better. Every piece you write is better than the last. And as my mind waded through the dry August heat and Cameron struck a startling minor chord, hammering on the higher notes, I understood—the artistry in his discord, the harmony of the winds. My lips started moving, forming the words that had sat silent since that fateful afternoon. I could hear it clearly now—again—the drumbeat and drawl of bass, the hidden rhythm that had almost been forgotten.
I pulled my notebook from my purse. I needed to see the lyrics written on the page, immutable and unrelenting. My eyes swung from line to line. There was no mistaking it. Cameron’s song was permeating the air around me, filling up my lungs. But in my head I heard “Don’t Look Back.”
I ripped out the page.
“This might sound totally weird,” I said, holding the paper out to him, “but I started writing this song during the summer. I never managed to finish it. The music . . .” I paused, unsure of how to explain the winds, the rhythm. Coming home to find that my father had locked himself in the studio. I shook my head. “The circumstances aren’t important. What matters is that when I heard you playing just now, it unlocked something that I hadn’t been able to access in this song, and these lyrics—they just fit. We’d probably need to tweak a few things structurally, but, well. What do you think?”
Cameron glanced at the page. I could sense his uncertainty in the way he bit down on his bottom lip, how the fingers of his free hand twitched. He must have read my lyrics twice, three times. My stomach twirled as the room swelled with silence.
“‘Don’t Look Back,’” he said when he was done. “That’s the title?”
I nodded.
“I like it,” he said.
After that, everything fell into place.
“And what if we end the chorus on the E,” I said, “so it just slides right back into the verse?”
“And this line here,” Cameron said. “‘I won’t forget who you are until you do.’ Can we use that for the bridge?”
“And then at the end, after the last chorus, the tone could shift. It would stay in four-four, but what if the beat breaks down?” I slapped my hands on my thighs to show him what I meant. “Da da da, da da, da da da. But the vocals plunge forward, so the momentum quickly rises again, surprising you when the last chords finally ring out.”
“Yeah,” Cameron said. “Yeah. Fuck yeah. Let’s try it from the final verse.”
He started playing, and I sang:
Expiration dates tease me, and
other possibilities tempt only pain.
But I can’t let go. I can’t let go.
I can’t let go—oh . . .
As the final line repeated, Cameron joined me with a reprise of the chorus (Let’s bury our woes and go back to the beginning), our voices entwining until we had no breath left.
We grinned at each other.
“Again?” he asked.
“Again,” I said.
We worked for an hour, maybe two. Maybe only twenty minutes. Time seemed to stop in that studio, without clocks or windows to the world outside. It was an endless midnight, so close to the one I had lost, and with it came bravado—the sense that everything felt a little more possible, a little more real. All I know for certain is that after a while, when we were giddy with progress, our fingers bumped atop the page. Our bodies inched closer. Our lips nearly touched. My eyes were closed but I knew that only a sliver of space separated us.
Then a herd of voices broke the moment and we split apart.
“Cameron,” someone yelled. “You decent?”
“Fuck off,” Cameron yelled back.
Downstairs, the boys had arrived. Cameron climbed down the ladder and I followed.
“Susannah was just helping me finish the new song,” he announced.
“I bet she was,” Alex said.
Gabriel nudged him in the arm. “Let’s hear it.”
Luke mounted the stage and sat behind his drum kit. He lit a cigarette.
“It’s called ‘Don’t Look Back,’” Cameron said, smiling at me, and set his pick against the strings. He started singing.
The longer I stand here waiting,
the less I understand why . . .
I took the harmony, chiming in for emphasis. My throat stretched for the higher notes but I caught them, propelled my voice outward, louder, stronger, and as we sailed past the final chorus, I felt a chill inching down my arms. “Don’t Look Back” was rough and wide-open and heartbreaking. I wished my father could’ve heard it.
When the song ended, the boys echoed unanimous approval. Cameron and I broke down the chord changes, the lyrics, and once everyone had it memorized, Alex decided to teach me the words to “Coastal Blues,” followed by “Coming with Me.” By the time night actually fell and I had to leave, I knew five of the Endless West’s other songs. But no, that’s not quite right; knew insinuates that I had learned them by proxy, by listening repeatedly, the way any other fan would have. What I did was different. I got inside the songs by layering my voice in the dips and grooves of Alex’s melody, emboldened by the furtive glances Cameron cast from his side of the stage. My voice added a fresh texture, something that didn’t exist yet in the band’s songs. I thoug
ht nothing could possibly be better.
Then it got better.
As I was leaving, Cameron stopped me. “You should sing with us at the next gig,” he said. “New Year’s.”
A hot current pulsed through me. “Are you serious? I mean, is that cool with everyone?”
“Hey, guys. What do you think of Susannah singing with us on New Year’s?”
“Hell yeah,” Gabriel said. “Your harmonies are sick. Some real Beach Boys shit.”
“Okay,” I said, attempting to tame the wild grin on my face. “That sounds fun.”
It wasn’t until after I’d merged back onto the 57 and began replaying the afternoon’s events in my mind that my euphoria withered, and I was filled with something akin to dread. Susannah was just helping, Cameron had said. But I’d done more than that. I’d given him my lyrics, my chords. My ideas. An intimate piece of myself.
Or maybe I was overanalyzing everything. If they hadn’t appreciated my contribution or acknowledged my skill, they wouldn’t have taught me more of their songs. They wouldn’t have wanted me to sing at their next show. There had been a consensual trade; I gave them “Don’t Look Back,” and they gave me a spot on their stage.
I felt a fresh rush of excitement just thinking about New Year’s. No, the root of my worry had to be something else. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, and then it hit me: guilt. I’d spent the whole afternoon with Cameron and the rest of the boys, infiltrating the one place that I knew Lynn did not have unfiltered access. And I hadn’t even told her.
It took five minutes of staring at my bedroom ceiling, typing and then retyping, before I finally sent Lynn a text. I settled on Cameron asked me to help him with a song today. It was simple and straight to the point; nothing hidden, nothing subverted.
How’d it go? she replied quickly.
Good. I met him at their studio and we worked on it for a while, then showed it to the rest of the band. They all seemed really happy with the result.
That’s great.
The Midnights Page 17
