Bounce (26 page)

I head to the apartment without a plan, but fired up to do
something
. I wonder if this is how Adam felt when he started Boomerang. It's just after ten when I get there and grab the keys to the truck, which is here, since Brooks picked Skyler up for their date. Inside, my truck feels familiar, but not. It smells like Skyler. A few of her things are on the center console. I study them for a little while—a red hair rubber band, a parking receipt, a tube of lipstick—without really knowing why or what I'm looking for. Then I turn the engine, and our demo CD starts playing through the speakers.

Was she listening to us? To me? It's kind of a shitty/awesome feeling to think that she drives around listening to our music. Like winning second place at something. Good, but not enough.

Before I realize what I'm doing, I'm heading to Adam's house. It's only been a few weeks since I left, but this stretch of PCH already feels foreign to me. The streets of Venice Beach feel more familiar, but still not like what I think home should feel like. Maybe with the millions I'll make in music I'll buy some property in Washington with a cabin where I can chop my own firewood or something. I run with the fantasy for a while as I drive, thinking about Skyler walking around in my log cabin, wearing one of my flannels,
only
one of my flannels. Then I'm at Adam's house, pulling up to the driveway and I
still
don't know what I'm doing or why I came here.

I let myself in. The living room and kitchen are dark, but the lights on the back patio are on. Adam, Ali, and Mom are sitting at the table out there. Mom is wrapped in a fluffy white throw blanket that's usually on the couch. On her, it looks like some expensive fur poncho. There's a bottle of red wine on the table, three stemless wineglasses. As Ali listens to Mom, she absently picks hers up and swirls it, making a small whirlpool of the red wine inside the goblet. Beyond their cozy little scene, the ocean breakers are a glowing blue line against the darkness. A storm swell is coming in, and the surf is bigger than normal, roaring ferociously in the near distance. But Ali, Adam, and Mom seem oblivious to it. Untouchable. Immune to the dangers of such ordinary, pedestrian things as the elements.

It's all so fucking civilized and privileged. I grew up with this sort of thing playing out over and over in front of me, since I was five. But I've always hated it. And without my dad here to curse and tell off-color restaurant stories and generally dirty things up, I feel more than ever like an alien in this family. I'm the bastard son. A mistake. Just like me coming here was.

They didn't hear me come in, and since I'm in the darkened living room, they don't see me, either. I turn for the door but then I think of what Skyler said, about how I avoid and smash. Here again is an example of Avoidance Grey. I'm doing it right now. I'm never going to escape this thing until I confront it. And I miss my goddamn brother and my mom.

I turn back and head their way. Then Mom says my name, and I stop.

“I spoke to your father, and he's going to be able to make it,” she says. “He'll come in the day before the showcase and stay until Monday. He's so excited about it. You'd think he was the one who's performing.”

Showcase?
What the actual fuck? How do
they
know about it?

“That's great,” Adam says. “The shoot should be wrapped in the Virgin Islands by then, too, barring any problems, so Ali and I will be there.” He smiles at Ali. Ali smiles at him. Adam looks back at Mom, who's smiling at both of them. “Can you imagine dad watching Grey sing?”

“Actually, yes.” Mom laughs. “Your father and Grey have always had rock star swagger.”

Again, what the fuck? Why is she making it sound like she
likes
that about me? Why have I always heard, “You're so much like your father, Grey,” like it was a
bad
thing? My God. I don't understand
any
of this.

I should get the hell out of here. My instincts are screaming
leave, leave, leave
. But I creep forward like a fucking ninja.

Mom takes a sip of wine, and stares at the glass for a moment. “Do you think he'll be speaking with me by then?”

“I don't know, Mom. Whatever you said to him in August—”

“Adam, it wasn't me.” Mom pauses. As the moments pass, I know she's struggling with whether or not to say more. To finally break silence. She sighs, her decision made. “You know he went to see Lois.”

“Which should never have happened.”

“He kept asking me, Adam. And she gave birth to him. Don't you think he had the right to know? To go see her?”

Adam has no answer for this.

She continues. “Your brother and I weren't getting along. He was letting his grades slip. He was going out all night. He stopped playing basketball, he stopped showing up for dinner. It scared me. You know how I can't stand apathy.”

“Mom, Grey's not lazy. He just hated school. I did, too.”

“But you had
plans,
Adam. You were already dreaming. You were already
acting
on your dreams.”

“He's nineteen, Mom! And I was a freak! Not everyone is like me.”

“You're not a freak, honey. If you are, then I am. Then your father is.”

“Then we all are. Overachievers, every one of us. Passion and drive is not lacking in this family. Grey has that, too. He just took a little longer to find it. You should see him around the studio, Mom. He's figuring things out. And you've heard him sing. That's what he's supposed to do. He's . . . ​he's amazing.”

How has she heard me sing?

How in the
hell
has she heard me sing?

Did he give her one of my demos?

My entire body's numb. There's no gravity anymore. I'm about to come off the floor and start floating.

Mom sets the wineglass down and adjusts the blanket around her shoulders. “I know, Adam. I was wrong. I see that now. But you know how your brother pushes me. He kept telling me he wanted to go to Lois. And I broke. I got tired of hearing him tell me how much better his life would be with his real mom. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I gave him her address.”

“And the joke was on me, wasn't it?” I say, stepping onto the patio. I can't listen to this shit anymore. I'm done hearing about slow, lame-ass Grey who needs to be handled with special care. Screw that.

They all look at me, and the waves are crashing on the beach and in my head. They're crashing through my veins in cold, forceful swells.

“How do you know about my singing?” I ask my mom. A sick feeling creeps into my throat. “Who told you?”

Adam folds his hands together, knuckles going white. Beside him, Alison looks like she's trying to become invisible. “I found a copy of your demo in your room and gave it to her. There are copies getting around the set, too. The word's getting out, Grey. That's what you want, isn't it?”

He's manipulating the conversation. Changing the thrust.

“You got a copy and gave it to her,” I say, because that's the point here. He betrayed me. He did something he knew I'd object to, and I want him to know I didn't miss that. “What about the showcase?” There's no way people on set could know about that. Only Garrett knows, and Skyler, and I want to know which one of
them
betrayed me. Looks like I'm going to have a list of traitors.

Mom and Adam look at each other.

“How did you hear about the showcase?” I repeat, my voice going gritty with anger.

“Grey,” Mom says, “you don't let me be close to you. You've pushed me so far out of your life for the past nine months—”

“Eight—”

“Nine, Grey. It was nine months ago that you left.”

“What does that have to do with the showcase?”

“I heard your music, and I got so excited.”

Oh, no. It starts to sink in. No. No way. “Did you . . . ​Did you fucking set up a music producer for me? Are you fucking kidding me?”

She's shaking her head now, her eyes going glossy. “You're so good. I was so proud, and you haven't let me help you for almost a year, and—”

“Shut up.”

“All I did was make a phone call. We'd worked with Vogelson's record label in New York on some fund-raisers. He
loved
your demo. He went on and on about it. He said your band was exactly what—”

“Stop, Mom.
Stop.
Don't say anything else.”

I leave. I drive for a while. North. Then south. Then east. West is the Pacific, or I'd have driven that way, too. It's almost 3 a.m. when I get to the apartment. I shower and make some coffee and pace around my room for a while. I can't think. I can't hold a single thought in my head. It's like when I hit the basketball court freshman year and had a concussion. I have about a fifteen-second focus window, then I white out again and . . . ​nothing.

Beth must have slept at Titus's house, so I open Skyler's door and step inside. I lie down on her bed for a while and think about her. I find I can focus on Skyler for much longer stretches than anything else. The urge to send her a text is colossal, a clawing thing inside me. I just want to see if she'd answer it.

By sunrise, I'm on my surfboard, shredding the huge waves at the tail end of the storm. Carving isn't exactly what I do. I slash. I brawl with the water. When I finally drag myself out around ten, my arms are so spent, they're already getting sore.

But I know what I need to do.

I grab my phone and sit on the warm sand. There are a dozen texts and voicemails from Adam, Ali, my mom, and my dad. I clear them and send my own messages to the guys in the band, asking everyone to come down to the garage. Shane's still sick so today is out, and with Rez tied up at a recital for his students all day tomorrow, the earliest we can all meet up is Monday night.

We set it up. Eight o'clock at the garage.

I slip my phone into my pocket and think about how I'm going to tell them.

I go through all of it. How singing was mine and now it doesn't feel like it's mine anymore. How we didn't earn this chance; my family connections made it happen. How I'm not someone whose good graces can be
bought
. I think and think about how to explain it, but decide on being direct. Direct is best. I'll just say it.

We can't do the showcase.

  
Chapter 30
  

Skyler

A
t the Seventy7 Lounge, Mia, Beth, and I sit in the corner of a brown leather banquette, crammed in between people who are little more than shadows in the dim light coming from old-timey glass chandeliers. I've never been here before, but if I wasn't so hell-bent on the mission at hand I'd probably enjoy the speakeasy feel of the place, the fact that they actually have an absinthe fountain, which makes me wish I could shrink myself to Green Fairy size and plunge in for a swim.

“So, what's the plan?” Mia asks, from her position half in my lap.

Usually, I don't mind that my best friends consider personal space a wholly optional concept, but tonight my body is one big ball of skittish energy, so I push away, just a bit, and gulp down half of my drink, called a Persephone's Dream, which makes me think about Persephone spending six months of every year in the Underworld, and how that might be okay because it's probably quieter there, maybe dark and sultry like this club.

“The plan,” I tell the inside of my glass, “is to throw a chair at him in the middle of his set.”

Gently, Beth pushes the glass away from my face, and I set it back on the table. “Nuh-uh,” she says. “The real plan. You wanna wait 'til after he plays? Try to get in there before he goes on?”

“I guess after. Is that okay? Are you all right with hanging out?”

“Of course,” Mia says. “But I don't get why you didn't say something when you saw him in San Francisco.”