Paradise (14 page)

Lacey fumigated herself with one of my spray bottles of perfume. “I don’t smoke,” she argued. “I mean, I’m not a regular. I’m situationally smoking. Only until my situation next week is over. See?” She held the cigarettes out. “No filters. I’m starting to sound like, um, who’s that chick with the hair that L. V. has a poster of?”

“Stevie Nicks?”

“Yeah, whoever.” Lacey fanned her hands around so that we both smelled like lavender eau de toilette. “I’ve been on the east side of the barn smoking like a hooker for three straight days.” She coughed some more. “No way will they let me in the Singing Eagles with this jacked-up voice.”

“Did Mother see you come in here?”

“Gosh no.” Lacey collapsed onto the bed, her chest heaving with every labored breath. “I heard Di-
ane
—rolling a wheelbarrow full of garden crap down to the barn—I stomped out my cigarette real good—hauled ass around to the west side—ran like a roadrunner to the house.”

I plopped next to her. “Lacey, you’ve lost it.” The cigarettes lay on her chest. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“Reality check, Paisley. You can’t talk. It’s not like you aren’t running your own game.” Lacey twirled a long strand of hair around her finger. “And you’re starting to sound like Levi.”

Levi and his shotgun-blast lie theory had some merit. All the convenient truths in the world weren’t worth Lacey compromising her health.

“I’m buying myself some time,” she said. “You saw how Mother flipped smooth out when Dad told her Levi and I were talking. Which we are and which we will continue to do whether she likes it or not, knows about it or not.” Lacey’s voice had a sharp edge to it that didn’t come from the cigarettes. “Paisley…” Her cheeks had cooled, but they fired back up into a throbbing scarlet. “Levi and I’ve been close since grade school, but something’s changed this spring. Levi’s taken things slow because he didn’t want to make trouble with Mother. That’s all out in the open now, but if she runs him off, I swear I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Listening to Lacey, something clicked for me. Like the chambering of a gun shell.
Ka-thwump.
Locked and loaded. Getting around Mother was easy and harmless enough at first, but the lies and the secrecy were fast becoming a tangled mess. “As soon as Texapalooza is over with,” I told her, “I’m laying it all out there. Everything.”

“Everything, Paisley?” She grabbed my hand, touching my purity ring as if she’d once lost something special just like it. She turned my hand over, tracing my palm like a psychic. “Levi says the band thinks something’s going on with you and that accordion-playing stud.”

“Nothing yet.”

Lacey laughed. “I know, I know. You’re all about the band. But Levi says the dude is sprung where you’re concerned. It’s written all over his face.”

My heart skipped like a single stroke roll across the toms. I could see his face—the sly-fox grin and the green eyes.

“So other than bearing gifts.” Lacey grinned. Levi must’ve told her about the
caja.
“Has he tried anything?”

“Oh, gosh, Lacey, no.” My neck heated up. “We just talk about music. The band.”

Lacey tucked her cigarettes back down her shirt. “One thing leads to another,” she warned. “It always does.”

CAL’S LYRIC JOURNAL

THE RIDER

Cruising the deep storm drain under dim street lights

A concrete buzz rolling under my wheels

Up the steep sides, gaining speed, taking flight

Bank a 180, land an acid drop.

Can’t stop.

I don’t shut my eyes

I train my sights

As I ride I know what’s coming up ahead of me.

The world can try to steal, you may never feel

But that won’t change the life I’m carving out for me.

I dig hard on the heel edge, lean in, cut and turn

A grinding screech of the deck against the concrete

Got no pearl snap shirt, no cash to be a confident flirt

My love’s not sketchy, kick-flip

Heart rip.

I never shut my eyes

I keep my sights

As I ride I know what’s coming up ahead of me.

The world can try to steal, you may never feel

But I see the life I’m carving out for me.

Lean

            
Cut

                        
Turn

18

PASSION AND PERFORMANCE

Drumming in L. V.’s hilltop hangar alone—the door shut, the sparrows silent. Feeling the isolation of being so far away from towns, honking horns, and blinking red lights and the stop-and-go stop-and-go push-push-push-let-me-through racket—I split open a vein. Pumping out a beat, a pulse. Absorbing the rebound. The return. Six-stroke roll. Flam. Paraparadiddle. With the speed of a hummingbird’s wings.

I couldn’t remember when I first played: maybe rapping a spoon against a stainless steel pan in the kitchen or maybe riding through the pasture, standing in the bed of the pickup slapping out a tin-can tinging tune on the truck’s roof. Rhythm was as much a part of who I was as red dirt and pine trees. I could ignore my passion, turn my back. But deep down the rhythm would continue to pulse with every beat of my heart. A pine tree can’t lose the sharp smell of evergreen.

I rested my sticks, picked up the
caja
. The pillow practice had worked. My hand strokes drew out an earthy Latin groove that danced around the hangar. I loved the rough feel of the animal skin under my fingers and palms. The stroke and the rub. The
caja
’s wooden sides vibrated against my legs. The rhythm rolled through my body, a soul-settling vibration. My shoulders bounced. My head nodded. Paradise was right. The
caja
embodies passion.

“Practicing for your solo?” Waylon—flanked by Paradise, Cal, and Levi—stood in the doorway. I never even noticed the light breaking into the hangar when they pushed open the door.

Paradise grinned and started to strap on his accordion. “Solo?” He screwed his face into a fake puzzled look. “She’s just a timekeeper.”

I knew he was kidding, but the others didn’t. They paused as if they expected a Mack truck to barrel through the hangar.

“Very funny.” I blew him off. “Just be sure you can keep up.”

Ever since Paradise showed up, Cal had taken to drinking protein shakes. He gulped down what looked to be a couple pints then switched on the amps. Waylon, clutching his ’61 Strat, loosened his fingers on a B. B. King barn burner.

Levi stood in front of my drum kit, thumping my crash cymbal. “We cool?” he asked.

“Nothing’s changed.” I was at least going to be honest with him. Make it clear that I wasn’t taking any risks of ruining my chance at Texapalooza. “I’m not saying a word to my folks until after we get back from Austin.”

He gave me a fist bump. “I’ve asked Lacey out after Texapalooza.” Levi rolled the bill of his baseball cap between his palms. “Told her I’d take her to celebrate not making the Singing Eagles.”

“She wouldn’t have made it anyway,” Waylon blurted. He handed each of us a one-page laminated playlist of our fifteen-minute set.

“Waylon”—Levi pressed his baseball cap on his head—“don’t give me a reason to bust that Strat over your head.”

Waylon defended himself. “I don’t mean because of Lacey’s singing.” He shifted his beady brown eyes toward me. “It’s their mom. The choir director for the Singing Eagles told my dad she was high maintenance. That she had all kinds of suggestions about outfits and costumes and even stage props. They’re a traditional choir,” he clarified and hopped up on his musical high horse. “Not a glee club.”

I could’ve stuck my head between the hi-hat cymbals and pounded away. Mother’s reputation didn’t embarrass me. It frustrated me. Good grief. The woman had no restraint when it came to manipulating in order to make her dreams for Lacey come true.

I pretended to read Waylon’s laminated playlist. Paradise and Cal stared at me. I could feel it. Didn’t. Even. Look. Up. I just wanted the conversation about my mother to end.

Waylon trekked on as if we needed for him to lay out the full story. “My dad said the choir director quit returning her phone calls because she…”

Levi held his hand up—cutting Waylon off in mid-sentence.

Cal carved out the intro to “Sweet Home Alabama.” Paradise faced me and clapped in time with Cal. I grabbed my sticks and set the pace. Before long, I was lost in the groove. Rolling through Waylon’s playlist, our official Texapalooza set. Filing Mother and the aggravation that came with her away in the back of my mind. Turning the volume down on the nagging irritation that she’d never stick her neck out for me and my dreams.

We were firing on all cylinders. Levi was back to looking at me when we locked in his bass. Cal colored the songs with his Gibson. Waylon led the charge with his wicked, powerful playing. Paradise drawled the lyrics when he was supposed to, pumped his accordion when he got the chance. The right chance.

We kept it up, rehearsing every afternoon while L. V. was gone to the air show. I couldn’t wait for him to get back. Play the set for him. We were close to audience ready and in a zone.

When I showed up Thursday afternoon, the band was all there, and Paradise was sitting on my stool, my throne. The chatter of guys laughing and talking shut down with a viselike silence the minute I walked in. Paradise patted his knee as if I should sit on it.

I didn’t budge. They were all up to something.

Paradise attempted a drumroll. “I’ve got us a gig,” he said, smiling, all proud of himself. “Saturday night. Don Caliente’s Taco Bar and Cantina in Jessup County.”

I’d been to the cantina a few times to eat, even made a round or two on the dance floor with Dad. But always in the early evening. They had a large back room with a wooden dance floor, and on weekends the cantina turned into a bona fide Texas dance hall and honky-tonk. Twenty-one and over.

I wondered how Paradise worked us into the gig. “We don’t meet the minimum age requirement.”

“All under control, Paisley.” He handed me my sticks. “We’re going to play early, before the bar opens in the dance hall. The equipment is all set up. You can use their drum kit.”

Waylon explained, “We’re fronting for the house band.”

I studied Waylon and Levi and Cal. They were committed. The Waylon Slider Band was playing. The road to Texapalooza was going through Don Caliente’s Cantina.

“No law breaking, Paisley. It’s all good,” Paradise urged. “If you can swing it.”

Our success at Texapalooza depended solely on our ability to perform. The only way we had to get that right was to practice on a crowd. The cantina was deep in Jessup County. The chances of someone identifying me were slim. And I was willing to take the slim chance.

“Let’s do it,” I said with no real thought of how to get there. “Let’s play the cantina.”

19

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

A vase the size of a championship trophy overflowed with at least two dozen long-stemmed pink and yellow roses. Ribbons in every color of the rainbow and glitter-glued with
GOOD LUCK, LACEY
and
DON’T STOP BELIEVING
billowed from an enormous bow. Dad, Mother, and Lacey silently ate their dinner, barely looking up as I slid into my seat. The clinking of forks against china reminded me of the time I played the triangle in first grade.

“I’m sure your sister would’ve appreciated your being here earlier,” Mother cracked. She had black mascara clouds under her eyes. “As much time as you’ve wasted up there the last two weeks, L. V.’s hangar ought to be cleaner than a Methodist’s knees.”

I tried to come up with something to say to Lacey. Clearly she didn’t make the Singing Eagles cut, and privately she’d be jumping for joy. Still, she’d cap all that in front of Mother. “I know there’s a lot of good things in the future for you, Lacey.”

Dad stared at me as he bit into a buttery roll. As certain as I was that he knew about the band, I thought Lacey’s long-gone desire to sing had yet to register with him. However, given his slow grinding chewing, I got the vibe that he was quickly figuring it out.