Beatless (7 page)

He mumbled something back at her but I couldn't hear it because of the ringing in my ears.

"I drove the car today," I blurted out, unsuccessful in my attempt to play it cool.

She smiled and raised a hand to brush my hair from shoulder. "See? I knew you could do it. And just in time because my night vision has gone to hell." She tilted her head and looked between me and Tucker. "You hungry?"

"Sure."

"Good. You can drive to Wang's." She caught the look on my face and snickered. "Don’t worry. We can take my car." With that she turned and marched back down the stairs.

"Sorry," I started but Tucker shook his head and exhaled, moving to put his shoes back on. "So. Dinner with my aunt, then? I apologize in advance."

***

Over dumplings and General Tso's chicken, Sam grilled Tucker like he was in a police interrogation room. He was surprisingly forthcoming with his answers, and much more polite than I had anticipated. It's not like I thought he'd be a jerk but he was a guy with a reputation for not caring about authority. In school, at least. He sat next to me with a napkin on his lap, our knees touching every once in a while when he shifted to explain something to my aunt.

"Do you have plans to go to another school?"

Tucker studied the food on his plate while he contemplated his answer. "I don't have plans right now. We can't exactly afford for me to go anywhere else, and I help with my sister when my dad needs to work. So I figured I'd stick around here for a bit. Find another job. Work on . . . other things." His fingers worried his ear again and I resisted the urge to pull his hand into my lap.

"He can be anything he wants to. He's so talented. Musically, I mean."

"Is that so?" Sam glanced over at me, just her eyes visible over the top of her cup of hot tea. But I knew she was smiling.

Tucker's phone rang and he excused himself apologetically, rising to take the call. When he was out of hearing distance, Sam leaned back and placed her cup down.

"What?" I slid the remains of my food to one side of my plate.

"I was just wondering if I should take your door off the hinges again."

“Nothing happened.”

“His shoes were off.”

“He always takes his shoes off. It’s his thing.”

She looked skeptical. “Is that so? Are his parents Japanese, or –“

Tucker reappeared at the table, his face a little strained. "I'm sorry, but that was my sister and I need to go home."

"No problem." Sam stood, swaying a little and catching her balance with the table top.

I exchanged a look with Tucker and he just shrugged a little. So we left and the ride home wasn't as easy going as the other times I'd been in the car with him. It was quiet and the only sound was the wind from the crack in Sam's window. When we got to the house she said goodbye to Tucker and headed inside, leaving the two of us alone in the driveway.

"I like her," he said quietly, like he was afraid she'd hear.

"I wish you could have met her before. She's pretty much my favorite relative."

He reached into his pocket for his keys and dangled them from his finger. "I'm sorry to cut it short."

"It's okay."

For a second he looked like he was going to just say goodbye and walk away, but then he turned fully toward me and placed his hands on my shoulders to pull me into a gentle hug. I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my face to his chest, closing my eyes to inhale deeply. Beneath the smell of the Chinese restaurant, I could make out the notes of his deodorant and soap, and I wanted to bottle it up for later. Not the smell of MSG. The other stuff. The boy smell.

"Meet me at my house tomorrow and I'll drive us to rehearsal. You can leave your car there."

"I think that piece of crap can stay at your house for the rest of my life for all I care." I laughed and tightened my hold on him. Suddenly, I didn't want to let him go. "But, yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"Okay," he said quietly. And then very sweetly, he placed a kiss on top of my head.

My entire body lit up from my toes to the part in my hair, and when he pulled away to let me go, I was sure that my body was actually on fire. Could he tell?

He strolled down the driveway slowly and drove off into the night, leaving me with a tight feeling in my chest. Like maybe we'd crossed some sort of fragile line that, somewhere along the way, had already started to bend.

Mal,

If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I probably wouldn't have believed it. The way that boy looks at you? God. And you're finally looking at him like that, too. Like you can see him for the first time. The minute I saw him in the restaurant that day, I knew. He knew. It's about time you caught up.

Jason never looked at me that way. Not even on our wedding day. My memories are a little hazy, but that I remember. He used to tell me that I was broken. And I guess I was. In a lot of ways. Not my fault. Not his. It was just reality.

But once upon a time there was a boy who didn't look at me like I was damaged. He saw all my pieces and wanted to put them together with his bare hands. As if I was worth the effort. But I said no because I didn't think he was the right one. Timing or whatever, I guess. Maybe I'm just an idiot and couldn't hear my heart over my head.

I wish I had said yes. I think it would have been easier.

Don't listen to your head. Your heart is so much louder. Can you hear the way it beats around him?

Sam

~*~7~*~

Rehearsal was as bumpy as I expected. We brainstormed more song ideas that could be integrated based on their melody or chorus; how we could incorporate the Mac into our show.
Our show
sounded so foreign - but it was true. The group threw out names like Rihanna and Ellie Goulding or One Republic and Florence and the Machine. Coldplay and Imagine Dragons. Tucker kept naming musicians while Berkley would counter with different ones. I just sat on the side making notes on a pad of paper to keep everything in order.

Eventually we had to take a break and Tucker went off with Marcus to go order food that Berkley would inevitably pay for because the rest of us didn't come from as much money as she did. Sara had her nose stuck in a book, trying to get some homework in because she desperately wanted to keep her grades up so she could secure her scholarship.

I'd been studying all the time, too . . . between the rest of the activities I now had on my plate. There was little doubt in my mind that I'd have good enough grades to apply for a grant. But a small voice in the back of my mind wondered if the boy I'd grown so fond of was planning the same.

Berkley snagged my shirt and yanked me after her, up two flights of stairs to her enormous bedroom. It was light pink and everything was covered in some sort of lace, her daybed dripping with it like a doily. Pictures covered every flat surface and it made my stomach sink a little because I knew she was pretty popular in certain groups, but it hadn't occurred to me
that
she was that popular. It brought back memories that I immediately pushed aside.

She crossed the room to a giant walk-in closet, rambling the entire time about how she was a huge fan of vintage fashion, especially clothes from the nineties. There was a store in town that specialized in that type of thing and she went there often, gaining a healthy collection of flannel and baby doll dresses.

"When I get to college, I'm gonna rock the shit out of this stuff." She eyed me and turned to hold out a denim skirt that looked to be about four inches long. "Isn't it awesome? There are shorts sewn inside of it. My mom calls it a skort."

"Wow." I laughed and took it from her hands, trying not to look inside at what size the tag said it was.

"So . . . don't take this the wrong way, but our first time out as Beatless is going to be a big deal."

"Why would I take that the wrong way?" I suddenly felt like I needed to sit down. Like she was going to say I wasn't good enough. Just like everyone else in my life. The back of my legs hit her bed and I slowly sank onto her comforter.

"It's not that I don't think you have style. You dress completely fine. I was just wondering if you wanted to borrow something for that night. I have so much and . . . you know . . . being on stage and everything. I have clothes you can borrow."

I exhaled so forcefully that it was followed by a really loud snort. "Oh God, I thought you were going to tell me you didn't want me to sing."

Her eyes crinkled and she tossed her head back to laugh. "No! I think you're great. And so does everyone else." She placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head. "Especially you know who."

I feigned innocence. "Marcus?"

"No."

I nodded and leaned back on my elbows, swinging my feet against her carpet. "Sara."

"You're getting warmer." She moved to sit next to me on the bed. "Have you kissed yet?"

My heartbeat picked up its pace. “No."

"It’s only a matter of time. We can all see it." She crossed back over to the closet again. "Let's give him a reason to make a move."

Thirty minutes later I had a large Victoria's Secret bag full of what she deemed stage-acceptable and we were eating in the rehearsal space again.

"We only have this week to get everything right," Marcus said quietly, looking down at his paper plate. "I'm worried that it’ll be a disaster."

"With this group? Never." Tucker made eye contact with me and nodded. "We go up there and do what we do. Which is kick ass."

“And if that doesn't work, then we start auditioning drummers immediately." Sara chimed in, making us all laugh at how blunt she was.

"I think it's going to be fine. Plus, we only have a couple more times that we can do this together. Next semester . . ." Berkley’s voice floated off as we all turned to stare at her. She took a deep breath and put her fork down to cross her hands on the table. "I got early admittance. Next semester was pretty much just going to be a bunch of electives for me because I already have all of my classes done. That summer school session that my parents insisted on gave me the opportunity to graduate early. So I'm taking it."

"Well shit," Sara mumbled.

The silence was thick as we all contemplated the heaviness of her words.

And then Tucker spoke. "Then we'll need to make it something to remember."

***

Every day for the next week, I was attached at the hip to the boy. Whether it was at school or after, on the breaks we synchronized at work, or just directly after classes ended - we were by each other's side.

He came over three times to practice a little, but we'd always end up in my room, listening to music. One day he brought over some records and a portable player, and I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling while he went into detail about why that particular song was meaningful. Who it influenced. And how, had it not been made, we wouldn't have certain bands today. I just took it all in, feeling like maybe I was getting a specialized education. His passion and dedication to it filled me with awe.

“Without Chuck Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly . . . there would be no Beatles. If there was no Beatles, we wouldn’t have had Nirvana.”

“And without Nirvana, there’d be no Foo Fighters?”

He shook his head and put on a new record. “Smart ass. You’ll learn. Just you wait. I’m going to make you a music master.”

Two days later, he showed up with a guitar and we practiced while he strummed and I sat cross legged in front of him, wishing I had the nerve to reach out and touch him while he played. But with his head bent over and his hair obscuring everything except his nose, I simply leaned back on my hands and watched. His voice was so hypnotic that it lulled me into a sense of calm that I hadn't really experienced since before my parents divorced.

And then, on the third night, Thursday to be exact, he asked if he could play the wall piano that had sat untouched in my living room for more years than I cared to recount. We sat, shoulder to shoulder as he lifted the lid and scanned the keys. He played a couple notes and listened.

"It needs to be tuned, but it's not bad."

"I have no idea how to do that so . . ."

He nudged me and continued to play a little. "Did I tell you that I've written some stuff?"

"No."

"Well, I did. And I've been thinking about putting them together to send out to a few places. Maybe get some professional feedback to see if it’s good enough. I already gave it to Mr. Bates."

It seemed odd that he’d want an opinion from our old Choir teacher. "Really? That's great. I mean, it's amazing. Is that what you want to do, you know, after school?"

"It could be an option. Writing music for plays and stuff." He reached over and placed my hand atop his and began to play something I'd never heard before. My eyes locked in on the tendons in my hand as they jumped above the movement on the back of his.

"How did you get so good at this?"

He didn't miss a note. "I don't think it's something that I want to talk with you about, Mal."

I pulled my palm from him and turned on the bench to look at his profile. "Why? I'm genuinely curious."

He stopped playing and gently placed the lid back on the keys, his eyes trained on the painting of a ship at sea above us on the wall. "I don't want to tell you anything about . . . my family or whatever."

"I'm not going to judge you."

"You might." His eyes flicked to me before he looked away again. "And honestly, it's taken five years for you to look at me again. I don't want to mess that up."

"Oh my God, Tucker." I scooted back as far as I could and crossed my arms defensively. "I can't believe you'd think that about me."

"Come on. You can't say that's not the truth. You were so stuck up your friends’ asses for years and now you're you. And I like you. I don't want to fuck it up with stories about . . ."

He stopped and closed his eyes and I could see him contemplating on whether or not he could say the words. His voice came out softly, almost dropping to inaudible. "You really want to know? Because if you do, I’ll tell you.”