Exile (27 page)

“Allll right,” he says around the cigarette as he positions the camera. “Spent the bus ride today putting these lyrics together. It still needs a second verse, but it’s almost done. Man, these songs have been coming so easy, finally.”

He starts strumming guitar, same as last time, and now sings:

Can you miss someone you never knew?
Do you feel the space I should have occupied?
I’m watching from a distance
Trying to hear you through the breeze
When you laugh, when you cry
I want to know why . . . but I’m too far
Living in Exile . . . without you
Living in Exile . . . without you

The guitar rings in the hollow bathroom when he finishes. When Eli finally looks up at the camera, there are tears.

“Travel day tomorrow,” he says, “but I’ve got the other songs dialed in.”

There’s a knock at the bathroom door.

“Okay then.” His smile at the camera is tender, genuine. “More from the next show.”

The video clicks off. Caleb keeps staring into the blue.
He blinks. I wonder if he will have tears too. Then he shakes it off and asks the obvious question: “Where was the next show?”

“We can search, or check Matt’s shirt,” I say. “But, then what do you want to do?”

Caleb and Val lock eyes. “What do you think?” she asks.

Caleb glances at the blue screen again. “I told Kellen I’d let him know if we found anything else. . . . But then Randy said some interesting things about Kellen on the way home. I think there’s more to all this than we know. So . . . keep the tape to ourselves, for now.”

“I mean about the ‘next show,’” says Val. “The next tape.”

Suddenly Caleb breaks into a wide grin. “Are you kidding? We’re going after it.”

Val grins too and holds up her hand. “That’s the right answer.”

Caleb turns to me. “You think?”

My heart is racing, because here we are again.
Now what, then?
But Summer knows the answer. “I think.” I hold up my hand, knowing it’s corny. Caleb smiles like he agrees, but we high-five anyway.

“Ohhh-kay, now that that’s settled . . .” Val leans back on the couch, yawning. “I think I will now sleep for a week.”

I check my phone. “We’ve got a Harvest Slaughter to
rock in just about thirteen hours.”

“Okay, bed,” says Caleb. He looks at me. “Upstairs couch okay?”

“Sure,” I say. We stumble up the stairs, and he kisses me in the kitchen before I collapse on the couch. Woozy feelings are gone now. There is only the desire to be unconscious pulling me under. And also the sense that I will need as much sleep as I can get, because this . . . is only the beginning.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

MoonflowerAM
@catherinefornevr 15m
There is nothing, I repeat nothing, that pancakes and music can’t cure.

I wake up to a busy kitchen and the smell of frying foods. The complete lack of adequate sleep is partially made up for by mugs of coffee and faces full of pancakes and eggs from Caleb’s mom, whose first reaction to the news about Val seems to be a determination to set the world record for number of pancakes made in a morning.

I find her by the stove as I’m getting thirds. Val and Caleb are immersed in a conversation that has something to do with whether Dave Grohl is a better songwriter or drummer. Charity is dabbing her eyes with a kitchen towel.

“This is probably hard for you,” I say, more because it seems like something you’d say than anything else.

She sort of nods and shrugs at once. “It’s a lot,” she
says. “But I’m happy.” She glances back at Caleb and Val. “It’s always just been the two of us here. For a lot of years, I made sure of it. This wasn’t what I was planning on, but . . . it’s good. It’s right.”

I feel a squirm of guilt hearing this, thinking of how dissatisfied I always am with all the family I’ve always had.

Her hand falls on my shoulder. “I hope you’ll be part of it, too.”

I’m completely unprepared for such a not-typical-boyfriend’s-mom kind of thing, but I find myself saying, “That’s the plan.” We share a smile and I bring a stack back to the table, where Val and Caleb are bickering like I used to with my brother. For the first time in a couple years, I miss him.

Later, at the Hive, the band takes it well, too, Jon’s only comment being, “Cool, just now please don’t do any Luke Leia Hoth action or I will slit open a tauntaun and crawl inside.”

“Technically Luke and Leia didn’t know they were siblings at the time,” Matt points out. “But yeah, what he said.”

“Except we’re only
half
siblings,” says Val. She says it with all the blank stoicism that she’s always had, but this time, I can actually detect the joke, and laugh and be cool with her. Well, mostly.

After practice, I have to return home. Caleb gives me a ride to Aunt Jeanine’s, where I wait until she pulls in, looking exhausted and delighted. “Wonderful,” she reports of
her weekend. “I will be making many more weekend flights north. And you?”

“All kinds of amazing,” I say.

“Excellent. I’ll tell you all about the opera on the way, what we ate after, where we stayed.”

“Jeanine, thank you,” I say seriously as we drive.

Her smile fades for a moment. “Long term, we should make it our goal to be truthful with your father. He does deserve that. And so do we.”

“Yeah,” I say, the guilt returning.

“But for today, we are just two ladies full of thrilling secrets!”

My parents buy the story.

“Both schools were delighted to reschedule for a girl to see
Tosca
,” Dad reports. “We’ll go up on Thanksgiving weekend?”

“Sounds good,” I say, flipping to the calendar on my phone.

“Maybe we’ll make a whole long weekend of it.”

“Well, I’ll have had midterms all week and I might be exhausted.” I say this as I am noticing that the big Homecoming Concert is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. “Could we wait to leave until after the holiday?”

This of course works, and yet, it makes me sad. After all this, I find myself back in the same role, lying to keep my parents satisfied, with bigger lies than ever before, rather than being seen for who I really am. . . . How much longer
can I keep doing that? How much longer can I survive it?

Luckily, my eye notices two other words on my calendar, for the weekend before: Homecoming Dance. I’d been planning to ignore that with malice . . . unless Caleb wants to go. I could actually wear the opera dress. We could be fancy and not care what anyone thinks.

But for tonight, I need to tear up the hideous pink prom dress I bought last week at Goodwill, cover myself in brown, black, and red makeup, and make my hair stick this way and that. My costume is basic zombie princess. It never gets old to imagine a Disney princess as a devourer of brains. It works on so many levels.

Dangerheart is on third at the Harvest Slaughter. They’ve kept it simple with a unified zombie prep school theme. Shredded jackets and ties, faces painted, and all in the shorts and socks like Angus Young from AC/DC. Val looks the best of course.

Freak Show will close out the night, and I see them strutting around the cafeteria bragging about their gig the night before. And when I say cafeteria, I mean Mount Hope’s version, as in, one that has a wall that slides back to reveal a complete stage with professional lights and concert-quality audio. Supreme Commander is playing when I arrive, and the crowd pulses in a frenzy of bizarre costumes.

Right before Caleb goes on, I grab him around the neck and plant my lips against his, right there in the green-and-blue light in front of anyone who might care to notice. I may
still be in hiding at home, but not here, not anymore. I know him, I know it’s right, and I know me.

Then I pull back and we bump fists seriously. “Give ’em the ear lube,” I say.

“Pluto strong,” he replies.

And then we kiss again.

“Please stop!” Jon calls from the stage.

Caleb leans his forehead against mine. “Gotta go play a show.”

“Gotta go check out a hot new band.”

“Summer.”

“Caleb.”

Encore kiss. And Caleb bounds up onstage.

“Hey, everybody,” Caleb says, sounding as free and easy as I’ve heard him. “We’re Dangerheart. How’s everyone doing?” He smiles, no Fret Face, and the band proceeds to kill.

Maya appears beside me mid-set. “Hey!”

“Hey! Awesome costume!” I say of her David Tennant outfit. Always a great look on a girl, and her brown suit and spiky hair are perfect.

“You too!” she shouts back. “They sound amazing!”

“Yeah!” I agree. Something about the trip has made the band gel. Exhausted and painted gray and black, you can feel the internal steel of the group. They don’t need to glance at each other anymore. Don’t need to check the songs. Don’t even need to take deep breaths. They just are.
I hear a couple things that could be better, of course. But I’ll save them for a while.

“I just sent you a link!” Maya shouts.

“Oh, cool.” The band is midway into “On My Sleeve.” The room is on pins and needles, the lights orchestrated perfectly to the swells of sound. I don’t know why she’s telling me this now.

Then I feel her leaning toward my ear. “You should probably take a look at it ASAP.”

“Um, okay.” I try to keep an eye on Caleb, singing tenderly, sounding lovely, as I open my phone, find the link and click. But as soon as I see the first words that load, my eyes are glued in disbelief:

VINYL CUFFLINKS

Where We Are Music Infinite

—posted by ghostofEliWhite on September 30

Friends, you absolutely will not believe this. A friend just sent me this copy of an unused poster from last night’s show at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. And if you look at the bottom of the listings, you will see something that will blow your tiny minds. ELI WHITE HAD A SON.

A quick scouring of the internet seems to confirm it. These pictures below show them side by side. Caleb
Daniels of Mount Hope, CA, and lead singer for a band called Dangerheart, is the secret child of Eli White! Apparently Candy Shell has been keeping this secret for over fifteen years! Caleb, if you’re out there, please write in and tell us your story!

Below is the poster Jason had made up, side-by-side photos of Eli and Caleb, as well as over fifty comments going crazy about this news.

My heart sinks. This is going to suck for Caleb. And I have to wonder: Did Jason leak this? Was this his way of forcing Caleb into the spotlight, to shine on his terms? I wouldn’t put it past him.

“It’s true, right?” Maya asks in my ear.

“Yeah.”

“People are going to freak!” Maya says. “I won’t though, promise, especially not now that I’ve seen your reaction!”

“Thanks.” I want to tell her to keep it quiet, but there will be no keeping this quiet.

Up onstage, Caleb sings:

Damn, Caleb, you’re going to be wearing this way more than you ever wanted.

“Can I help at all?” Maya asks.

The song is coming to an end. “Yeah,” I say. “Go crazy for the set.”

We applaud and scream, as does the rest of the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I see people swaying to it. The song will capture hearts. But now people will figure out what it’s about.

And Caleb won’t be able to hide it anymore.

Of course, this is probably going to be a good thing, in terms of exposure. The problem is, everyone will have their angle, will try to define Caleb in terms of Eli. What if they never see him for who he really is?

But then I remember that we have the ace up our sleeves. The lost songs. We can show the world how Caleb and his dad are connected.
We
can set the terms, not the bloggers and music critics and commentators. And once we find those songs, we will.

We just have to hang on until then.

For now, I try to put it out of my mind. At least for a few more minutes.

The band breaks into “Chem Lab,” and I try to be content to watch Jon dance over “Mission Control,” arcing his guitar around his body and spinning crystal notes, to watch Matt bob and weave to the rhythm, his sticks a blur, to watch Val shake and hop onstage, like a boxer just waiting to hit you with the next note, the next brazen lyric, to watch Caleb lose himself in a song, and look up like he’s just
returned from somewhere far away inside his heart, and to every now and then glance at his band mates, at his sister, a far comet found, and between songs, at me.

I wish they could play all night. Never come offstage and face reality, the future, any of it. I wish we all could just stay in this moment, in beautiful light, lost in music, free to play and dance. But the song ends.

“Thanks!” says Caleb as the crowd erupts in the wake of “Chem Lab.” “We’ve got a couple more. Does that sound cool?”

Yes, Caleb, it definitely does.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I would like to acknowledge John Bonham’s drum fill at the 3:33 mark of “The Wanton Song” by Led Zeppelin, side B of
Joshua Tree
(on CrO2 cassette), and the exquisite melancholy of Rosemary Clooney’s performance of “Sway” with Pérez Prado. These and a million other moments make music the thing. I would also like to acknowledge my wonderful editor, Katherine Tegen; the ultra creative Patrick Carman; my wise and valiant agent, George Nicholson; my You Are Next “band” mates; the Seattle authors, booksellers, and librarians who make me feel like a rock star; my family and friends who keep me sane; and, of course, Steve Perry.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................