Falling Under (13 page)

If I was shocked before, I’m doubly so now. The guitar solo he plays needs no accompaniment. It sings for itself, plays its own backbeat. It goes on and on, and you just can’t breathe for the intensity of it, the way it spans the register of notes, high and low, wailing and shredding, low and slow, passionate and angry. He’s deep into it, the guitar on his thigh, held at a slight diagonal. His eyes are closed, his face a mask, not making any of the expressions you so often see in guitarists. He’s blank, except for a slight furrowing of his brow, and a tightness in his jaw. As if every emotion he has is being pushed and poured into the guitar.
 

Finally, he walks his fingers from the top of the fret board to the bottom, all the way down the neck, and when he reaches the highest note, he holds it, lets it hum and squeal and moan, sends it to wavering, echoing, becoming somehow mournful.
 

Slowly, he lets the note fade, and lets silence swell.
 

The silence becomes a single clap, then two, then thunderous applause. I’m with them, amazed.

They were the last act, and the MC, a young guy with thick glasses and a scraggly goatee, thanks everyone for showing up, and then that’s it. People who were only there for the open mic night leave in ones and twos, and the rest go back to studying and sipping coffee. I order lattes for Nell and me while we wait for Oz and Kylie to pack up.
 

They find us at our table, and I stand up to hug Kylie “I’m so proud of you, babe!” I say. “That was incredible.”

She blushes. “Thanks, Dad. I was so nervous I thought I’d puke.”

“You’d never have known.”

Nell joins the hug. “For real, sweetie, you’re amazing. That was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. And I don’t mean that just because I’m your mother.”

I look up at Oz. “You’re a talented kid, Oz. There’s maybe thirty people that can play at your caliber. No joke.”

He nods and gives me an oddly shy half smile. “Thanks, Colt.” He gestures at Kylie, who’s hugging friends and chattering excitedly. “She’s the real talent, though. She wrote all the music. Except for my electric guitar part, I mean. All the acoustic music, she wrote. All the lyrics, the arrangements, everything. It was all her. And she was the only reason I got up there at all.”

“They encored you, pal. At an open mic night.
You
.” I can’t help trying to emphasize this to him, trying to build him up. I see something in him, and it both scares me and makes me want to help him, the way no one did for me.

“Yeah. I might let her talk me into doing a couple more gigs. That was pretty fun. Scary as fuck, but fun.” He winces. “Sorry, shouldn’t swear, I guess.”

I laugh. “I’m not gonna bite your head off for dropping an F-bomb, Oz. Nell might, but I won’t.”

We chat for few more minutes, and then she and Oz are walking, hand in hand, toward the exit.
 

I have so many questions about him, about them. About whether my daughter is safe, whether her heart is safe with him, whether I should ask if they’re sleeping together. If I even want to know. What I’m supposed to do if they are. Should I try and stop them if they are? As they walk away, Oz turns and nods at me, a gesture of thanks. I nod back, and I don’t miss the fact that he scratches at his left forearm.
 

It’s a move eerily similar to the one Nell makes, rubbing at her scars. When she was actively cutting, she’d scratch almost manically, frantically. Even now, almost twenty years later, she’ll rub at her forearms and wrists if she’s really upset, or if something reminds her of those days, those feelings.

Seeing that gesture in Oz, in the guy my daughter is interested in? It scares the fuck out of me. What frightens me even more is the fact that I don’t know what the hell to do about it.

SEVEN: Heaven Breaks Through

Oz

“Oh, my god, Oz!” Kylie shrieks as soon as we’re outside. “That was a
mazing
!”

I set our gear down by the trunk of the car and then pick up Kylie by the waist, spinning her around. “We totally fucking killed it, didn’t we?”

“We did. We totally did.” Kylie leans against me as I let her slide down to her feet. “I knew we would. But holy shit, does that feel good. I
love
performing. I want to do it all the time. We’ve
got
to get a gig, Oz!”

“We will, sweetness. I’ve got no doubts.”

“I did, but not anymore.” She lets out a long, happy sigh.
 

I open the trunk of Kylie’s car. It’s her mom’s, really, but they let Kylie drive it most of the time, unless both Colt and Nell have to go somewhere separately. As we put away our guitars—or
my
guitars, as Kylie keeps insisting I keep the acoustic—I ask a question that’s been nagging at me since we met. “Why don’t you have your own car, Kylie?”

She slides in behind the wheel and starts the engine, which comes to life with a smooth purr. “It was a deal my parents and I made when I turned sixteen. They said I had two choices. They’d buy me something then, when I turned sixteen, but it would be, for all intents and purposes, a piece of shit. Older, used, and cheap. And most of my allowance would go to paying for gas and insurance. Or, alternatively, I could choose to wait to have my own car when I graduate. The payoff there was I’d keep all my allowance as spending money, I’d drive my mom’s car, which is pretty fucking sweet, I have to say, and they’d help me buy a car when I graduate. The closer to a four-point-oh GPA I get, the more they’ll spend on the car, especially if I don’t get any tickets or get in any accidents. I chose the second option, obviously. I’ve been putting a third of my monthly allowance into a savings account, so I’ll have money to put toward whatever I end up buying. It’s a good deal. There’s rarely a time when I can’t take the car, and in those circumstances, either Dad’ll take me where I need to go, or someone else comes to get me.”

I’m impressed. “I don’t think most people would’ve gone for the delayed gratification.”

She just shrugs. “No, probably not, but when Mom and Dad said they’d spend at most five thousand dollars on my car, I did some online research as to what five grand can buy, and decided I’d rather wait.”

She’s taking us toward downtown Nashville, but I don’t know her exact destination. I decide to let it be a surprise.

“Five grand can buy a really nice car, Ky.” It comes out kind of judgmental.

She doesn’t miss it. “Yeah, well, maybe so. But…look. I’m privileged, okay? I know it. All my friends drive nice cars. Their parents bought them basically whatever they wanted, no conditions. That friend I told you about, the one whose house I got lost in? She drives a Mercedes-Benz. A G-class. It costs more than a lot people’s houses. And she’s already wrecked it once. My point is, yeah, I know I’m used to certain level of…luxury. It’s what I know. My parents are trying to instill a sense of values in me, and that’s a good thing. I mean, sometimes I get a little irritated, like, they could afford to buy me my own BMW if they wanted to, but it would be
their
car. Not mine. I haven’t earned it. They’ve worked for what they have. I guess even the fact that I understand why my parents won’t buy me a fancy car makes me weird, for a teenager.”

“I think it’s awesome,” I tell her. “For real. Most people don’t appreciate shit. Like, the house they live in, the car they drive. They don’t understand how much they have. You do, and that’s…it’s amazing.”

She glances at me. “Honestly, Oz, I didn’t really appreciate it very much until I met you.”

I laugh, and it’s not a little bitter. “Until you saw how I live, huh?” She doesn’t answer right away, and I know I’ve gotten it right. “Hey, like you said, it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s not like I went from rich to poor, like I know what I’m missing by not living like you and Ben and your pals do. I’ve always been dirt poor.”

“Are you, like, resentful?”

I have to think about that. “I don’t know. Resentful? No. Mom’s busted her ass to provide what we do have. We’ve always had to scrape to make ends meet. I’ve been working since I was fourteen to have my own money. And now I stay with her and help out with rent and whatever. It’s why I’m still living with her. She works herself ragged, Kylie. It’s a vicious cycle she’s stuck in. She never went to college that I know of, and because she had me, she couldn’t. She had to keep working to take care of me. She just kept working and couldn’t ever seem to scrape together the time or money to go to college or anything. So she’s been a cocktail waitress her whole life. For me. So am I resentful? No. I’m glad to have had what little we did. But do I wish we had more? Yeah. Do I wish for better for her and for myself? Yeah, obviously. I’ve seen how hard Mom’s worked just to keep food in the house and a roof over our heads, and I want more than just the bare necessities, more than just paycheck to paycheck.”

The conversation shifts to other topics as Kylie parks in a lot just off the main strip of downtown Nashville. I pay for parking, and she takes my hand. She leads me to Broadway, where the bars and the lights and the shops are, the famous stretch of Nashville. It’s a busy night, despite the chill in the winter air. Couples stroll hand in hand, families, groups of guys and clusters of girls, everyone laughing and going from bar to bar and shop to shop. She’s taking me somewhere specific, I realize, and I go along with her. She finds the door she’s looking for, and I start to balk.
 

“No, Kylie. Hell no.”
 

She grins at me. “Come on, Oz. Please? Just look?” She doesn’t bother to wait for my response, just drags me by the hand into the boot and hat shop.
 

The door is rickety, and an old-fashioned bell sounds as we open it. The floor is covered in old wood planks that squeak and dip as we walk over them, almost as if we might put our foot through a board at any moment. It smells of leather, and the walls are lined with a dizzying array of cowboy boots. There’s a line of benches running through the middle of the store, with piles of boxes between the benches, single boots displayed on top. There are cowboy hats, fedoras, huge belt buckles, a glass case displaying spurs and string ties and expensive gold-and-silver belt buckles. I have never in my life felt more out of place. I’m wearing my beat-up combat boots, a pair of baggy black jeans, a black November’s Doom T-shirt with a gray long-sleeved shirt beneath it. My hair is bound at the back of my neck, and for once I’m not wearing my hat, at Kylie’s insistence. I look every inch the metal kid, and I’m getting looks of confusion from the guy behind the counter, an older man with an actual handlebar mustache and an enormous white cowboy hat, tight jeans, and a flannel shirt tucked behind a thick leather belt and shiny oval buckle.
 

“Kylie, what are we doing here?” I ask, trying to inch away toward the door.

 
She just laughs. “Oh, don’t be a sissy, Oz. We’re buying you a pair of cowboy boots.”

I snort. “The fuck we are. For one thing, I don’t have the money for boots, and for another thing, hell, no. I’m not wearing cowboy boots. What about me says I would ever wear something like
that
?” I point at a pair of boots. They’re black with orange and red flames, gaudy and dizzyingly bright. “Or those?” These are silver, actual snakeskin, with metal scrollwork at the toe and heel.
 

Kylie just waves at me. “Of course you wouldn’t wear those. We’ve got to find something that suits you.”

“Um, newsflash, sweetness: you ain’t gonna find it here.” I stuff my hands in my pockets and stop in place, refusing to follow her farther into the store.
 

She keeps going, perusing the selection. At the far end of the store, she seems to find something, and hustles back to me, a box in hand. “Sit.” She pushes me backward until a bench hits my knees, and I sit automatically. “Shoes off.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “No.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Okay, be stubborn. But you know you can’t say no to me.”

“No. No. No.” I fake a glare. “See?”

“Doesn’t mean you’re going to
really
say no. Now, boots off, or I’ll take ’em off you for you.”

“What am I, three?”

She lifts both shoulders. “Well, yeah. You are sort of acting like a three-year-old about this.” I just stare at her, and she huffs in irritation. “Just look at them, would you?” She opens the box and hands me a boot.
 

It is pretty cool, actually. It’s more of a biker boot, square-toed, black, with a strap of black leather running over the top and around the heel, buckled at either side with chunky silver.
 

“Goddamn it, Kylie.” I glance at the small white price tag sticker with the
$300
scrawled on it. “No way. No way I can afford those. They’re not bad, but no.”

Kylie kneels in front of me, grabs my foot, and reaches for the laces. “Who said I was letting you buy them?” She tugs my combat boot off, and for some reason, I let her. “Oz, please. Just try the boots on.”

I sigh. “Fine. But you’re not paying for them.”

“Yes, I am. We fucking killed it, Oz. I’m proud of you.”

I stop with my foot partway into the boot. “You’re proud of me?” I’m not sure whether I’m pissed off at the implication of condescension, or pleased. A little of both.

Kylie glances up at me; my mixed reaction must show on my face, because she says, “Not like…god, that sounds condescending, doesn’t it? I’m just…I’m happy you did it. I had fun. And I know you were as nervous as me, and you did it anyway.”

I stomp my foot into the boot, and then the other foot, and I hate the fact that they’re the most comfortable boots I’ve ever worn. “I get what you mean. And thanks.”

“How do they feel?”
 

I lift an eyebrow. “Expensive. Really fucking expensive.”

“But good, right?”

I sigh. “Yeah. Comfortable as hell. But you’re not—” I’m cut off by Kylie taking the box up to the counter and whipping out her debit card before I can blink twice.
 

I watch helplessly as she signs away three hundred dollars and then returns to me, shoves my old battered boots into the box, and grins at me.