Paradise (24 page)

“A sloppy timekeeper? Pa-lease!” Mother held her purse by the handles as if she might wind up and fling it. “Don’t you have a church band to go drum in?”

Uncle L. V. motioned for us all to head toward the stage. Mother followed behind us repeating, “Sloppy timekeeper, my backside,” with every stomp of her stilettos.

Levi waited up ahead. Lacey must’ve warned him. He was staying as far from my mother as he could. The five of us—Waylon, Levi, Cal, Paradise, and me—drifted away from the family, away from the other bands, and huddled by the stage.

Colt Collins’s voice rang out across the park. Whoops and clapping erupted as they announced the rules and the showcase kickoff.

“We play like we practice.” Waylon kept us together, had us focused. The humidity turned downtown Austin into a sauna. “You’re taking the stage first, Paisley. Count us in. Just like the hangar practice.”

I could tell he needed assurance, and I needed to say it. “I’ve got it. No worries.” A trickle of cool sweat slipped down my cleavage.

The first band hit the stage. The applause from the audience was lukewarm at best. Maybe it was the heat, but the band started slow and never got off the ground.

“Well, folks”—Levi turned his baseball cap backward—“wake me when they’re done.”

We all chuckled. Nervous laughter. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “That’s from Lacey.”

He looked over his shoulder for my mother. She and L. V. were making their way toward the audience from backstage, but she kept watch.

The first band finished and the second took the stage. All girls. Dressed to the hilt. And they rocked it out. Cal clapped and threw up a fist pump.

“Their guitars are on.” Waylon watched the girls like a hawk. “But the vocals are screamy and the drummer’s nothing special.”

Paradise winked at me.

I’d always believed we had a shot to win, more than a good shot. Then Waylon’s dad came over and pulled Waylon to the side. Held up his hand with his fingers stretched open. He tapped each finger as if he were counting reasons why Waylon would fail. By the time he got to his thumb, Waylon cut him off, “It’s my name too.”

Waylon walked away, back to us.

He picked up his ’61 Strat, slipped it over his shoulder, tightened the leather strap.
SLIDER.

“We’re one band away from rockin’ the hell out of this town.” He gritted his teeth, and as burning hot as it was, Waylon slipped a skull cap on his head anyway. “Get ready.”

My sticks were in my back pocket. Paradise handed me the
caja
. I brushed my hand across the skin. My toes curled in my boots.

Waylon called out, “Lead the way, Paisley.”

I made my way to the steps to the stage. Paradise’s family, Levi’s older brothers, my mother, and L. V. stood side by side with the Sliders. That probably hadn’t occurred since their high school years.

Mother fanned herself with a flyer. One arm of my hoodie hung out of her purse. I’ve never wanted to drum so badly in my life. The band before us cleared off and I took the stage. I raised the throne and moved the hi-hats closer to me. I threw a silent straight arm, just to make sure I had the reach. I held the
caja
between my legs and took a deep breath, as Colt Collins announced, “The Waylon Slider Band.”

36

LIVIN’ A DREAM

Under the heat from the stage lights and the sweltering humidity, I dripped from sweat. My bangs stuck to my forehead. The crowd, shoulders bumping shoulders, loomed in front of me. With the little drum between my legs, I drew a beat out of the
caja
. A rub. A stroke. A slow, passionate vibration against my thighs. Echoing in the muggy twilight. I rolled with the groove. Just like Moon Lake. With Paradise. Swinging hip on hip.

Rruumpapa.
Pa-pa

Rruumpapa.
Pa-pa

Rruumpapa.
Pa-pa

Alone on the stage, I kept the groove even. Counting us in. Holding tight to the rhythm.

The guys didn’t show.

A soft, steady clap from the crowd lilted onto the stage. Then another. And another. An irresistible call to the passion in the little drum. And when three or four hundred folks joined the beat, downtown Austin shook.

Waylon appeared on the steps to the side of the stage. The band waited. Waylon pressed his hand on Paradise’s chest, holding him back until the crowd reached a fevered fist-pumping, hand-clapping, foot-stomping crescendo. This wasn’t the count-in we practiced. Waylon left his OCD in Prosper County. He was running the show on pure feel.

Sweat poured down my cheeks. My legs burned from the rope around the
caja
, but I had this corner of downtown Austin on fire and I had yet to roll the sticks on the snare.

Waylon powered onto the stage with Paradise, Cal, and Levi alongside.

Paradise took the mic. “Is it hot enough for you?”

The crowd whistled and whooped.

I kept the beat humming.

Paradise gave Waylon time to plug his Strat into the amp. “Well, it’s about to get hotter.” He took off his Colombian cowboy hat, waving it in a circle, then growled out, “Waaaay-lon Sliiiiii-der.”

And Paradise did something we’d never practiced. He gave up center stage, stepped to the side as Waylon tore into the old Strat. It was like Waylon was plugged into the wall. Playing like a man possessed. He bent the blues out of every string, every fret. And the folks in the crowd rocked and swayed with him as if the melody moved them like reeds in the breeze.

I backed off. Less is more. Levi added a beat with his bass guitar. I set the
caja
down and drew my sticks from my back pocket. This was not at all what we practiced, but going with the flow worked because we owned the flow.

Waylon nodded and Paradise hit his vocals. Waylon was right with him. With the crowd propping up his confidence, Waylon took control of his own lyrics. Singing in his rough, honest way. Paradise faded out as Waylon’s voice grew stronger. Paradise made clear whose band it was to anyone watching, but Paradise was nobody’s backup singer. He let his accordion be his voice. A deeper layer to the Waylon Slider Band.

I rolled us from one song to another. Driving the beat. Keeping the time.

Cal textured the songs with his light harmony, then hit the Gibson hard. Waylon had the soul; Cal rocked the attitude. He shot a lightning bolt from his guitar that made the hair on my arms stand stiff. Then he danced his fingers along the neck holding a vibrato until my ribs rattled in my chest and the crowd seemed to levitate.

Waylon’s voice jammed in and the guys worked into another song.

Paradise accented with his voice and his accordion until a break in the lyrics gave him his time to shine. When the moment was right and Waylon and Cal calmed their guitars. Levi plucked his bass. Paradise punched the bellows on his accordion in short bursts.

I rested my sticks and switched back to the
caja
. The passion.

The crowd found its rhythm again—a pulsing throng—and Paradise took over.

He hugged his accordion to his chest, piling chords on top of chords until his fingers blurred. In one strong-armed, back-bending move, Paradise pulled the bellows in a slow drag across his chest. Letting it exhale. Loud and shrill like a siren. Then he was on. He threw himself into a riff, a jaw-dropping scorcher that crawled up and down, all over my beat.

I caught a glimpse of his grandfather near the corner of the stage. In his eyes, Paradise was a true accordion king. My mother wasn’t far from him. She’d stopped fanning herself and was clapping. My mother was clapping.

I suddenly felt like I had the power to tilt the world.

When Paradise, drenched in sweat, panted the bellows to a rest, we all kicked in for the last song. Rocking on Waylon’s and Cal’s lyrics with the crowd behind us. We played it out. Taking it high at the end—G chords, screaming guitars, tinging cymbals, and the eardrum-frying cry from a smokin’ squeezebox.

Lights out.

37

BRANDED

Despite a dark cloud drifting southward, the sun set west of Austin and left in its wake a striking afterglow of dusty pink, lavender, and orange. The most beautiful part of the day isn’t always the brightest.

Mother waited for me at the bottom of the steps. The thick makeup under her eyes was gone probably from rubbing away the sweat or her tears. Her eyes were puffy.

She grabbed my shoulders. “Look at you.”

I was soaked and my tank top clung to my skin and my bra.

“Your legs.” She brushed her hands across the inside of my thigh just above my knee. The rope from the
caja
had shredded my skin, leaving raw, burning stripes.

I hadn’t noticed.

“We need paramedics,” Mother yelled. “EMS!”

No one paid her any attention. The band showcase was still live, and the band onstage had an electric synthesizer that moaned in loud tones like a foghorn symphony.

“I’m OK.” I didn’t want to tell her that my thighs felt like they’d been branded. I didn’t want to lose the moment. She was there for me. “I’m OK. Really.” I winced. “How’d we do?”

She cupped my face in her hands. “I don’t know how anyone did but you.” Her eyes turned as red as my legs. “You were amazing.”

“Excuse me.” A tall man in a golf shirt with a shoulder logo that read
MEMPHIS SOUND
came between us. “I’m a friend of the Sliders’.” He gestured toward the radio broadcast booth. Colt Collins was interviewing Waylon as his father stood beside with his arm around Waylon’s shoulders.

The man turned to me. “I just met your uncle who tells me you’ve got a couple years of high school left.”

“She does.” Mother collected herself.

He handed Mother a business card. “We maintain a stable of studio drummers for recordings across the country, from Nashville to L.A.” The man glanced at the band onstage as it limped along to an awkward beat. “Not everyone has the gift of strong timekeeping and adaptability to different styles.” He shook my hand then Mother’s. “Let us know when you want to come in. We have lots of projects, some small commercial stuff even. We can work with a school schedule till she gets her feet wet and gets some age and experience on her.”

Mother stared long and hard at the business card.

My thighs throbbed, but I could’ve squealed from excitement. “Do I have a job?” I waited while Mother read the card. “Mother?”

“Paisley, honey, I think with the right education you could have a career.”

“I knew it. I knew it.” I wanted to jump and shout. “All I’ve ever wanted is to play the drums.”

Mother stared across the park at the University tower standing tall against the horizon.

“Not in place of school,” I reassured her. “I can do both. Just like Lacey.”

As we stood by the stage, folks ran around us and between us. When the area cleared, I saw the guy from Memphis Sound talking to Cal. Nearby, Levi laughed with his brothers as they sipped on longneck bottles. Paradise stood by Estella and wrote his name on some girl’s hat. Mother watched them.

“Paisley, the music business isn’t going to be a Sunday stroll down a blacktop road. They don’t call it a boulevard of broken dreams for nothing.” She tucked the card in her purse. “A lot of people, a lot of talented kids, get really messed up and go off on wild, loose tangents and never find their way back.”

I sensed her protective walls closing around me. “Kids not in the music business get messed up too.” My chest tightened as I remembered Lacey passed out in the backseat of the Bronco. “Depends on the kid.”

Mother pushed her thick hair away from her face. A bead of sweat inched down her cheek, etching a crooked scar in her makeup. “If you’re waiting for me to say your dad and I messed up, don’t hold your breath.”

“You don’t have to say it.” I called her hand. “You judge everybody and calculate every step Lacey and I make on your own mistakes.”

Mother raised her voice. “And you don’t think our experience is worth learning from?”

“Your experience has taught me to chase my dreams and not let anything get in the way of that.”

The last band closed out. Colt Collins and Jaybird took the stage to announce the showcase winners.

“The music business was good enough for you when you pushed Lacey to sing.” I stood my ground. “Don’t tell me you’re not going to support me.”

“I’ll be there every step of the way,” she promised. Or warned, I wasn’t sure. “We’re just going to take teeny, tiny baby steps. This doesn’t have to be a footrace.”

High and above the crowd, a band of girls squealed so loud the crackles settling in for the night burst from the park trees. The all-girl band won the Texapalooza Youth Showcase.

“I’ve got to find Waylon.”