Saint Anything (23 page)

He drove me back to Seaside, pulling up to my car before heading in to grab the delivery. We said our good-byes, the careful way we always did, and I got out, shutting the door behind me. But as I started to walk away, I looked up at that setting sun, the sky blue, dappled with pink.
Perfect,
I risked thinking again, if only for a moment. I turned around and went up to Mac’s open window.

“Forget something?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I told him. “This.”

I stood on my tiptoes, leaned in, and gave him a kiss. I could feel his surprise, then hesitation, before he eased into it. It was a risk, being public like this, but I was already tired of hiding. Anyway, Layla, my only true concern, was with Spence; it didn’t occur to me to think of anyone else. At least, not then.

* * * 

“Wow,” Eric said when I opened the door. “Nice digs.”

“Did you just say ‘digs’?” Irv asked from behind him, where he was filling the rest of the door frame. “Really?”

“What? It’s actually a quite common term.”

“And these are actually quite heavy. So would you enter the digs, please?”

Eric rolled his eyes, and I stepped aside to let him in. He was carrying his guitar, his backpack over one shoulder. Following behind and carrying all the rest of the equipment were Irv, Ford, and finally Mac.

The fact that I’d noticed this inequity must have been obvious, as Mac explained, “Eric’s got a bad back.”

“Eric,” Irv added, huffing slightly as he lifted a black case about half my size over the threshold, “
claims
he has a bad back. I’ve never seen evidence of it, except when we have something heavy to move.”

“It’s my L3 and L4 disc,” Eric replied in a tired voice. “It’s agitated.”

“
I’m
agitated. This shit is heavy.” Irv put down the case with a thunk, rattling the glass table beneath my brother’s portrait. “Where are we taking it?”

“Downstairs,” I told him. “Follow me.”

I led them through the door past the kitchen, down the winding stairs (more huffing, more comments about Eric’s disc), and finally, into the workout room and then the studio. As I flipped on the light, Eric stood back, taking an appreciative look around while the others carried in the stuff. “Wow. This was all for your brother?”

“Was supposed to be,” I said. “He kind of got, um, preoccupied before he could use it much.”

“Is that what we’re calling prison now?” Irv asked. “A preoccupation?”

Mac poked him, hard. “Hey. Watch it.”

“What?” Irv looked at him, then at me. “Oh. Sorry, Sydney. I’m just talking, being stupid.”

“It’s fine,” I said, and smiled at him.

Still, Mac came over as Ford and Eric began unpacking instruments. “Sorry about that. Irv’s kind of a straight shooter, especially about certain things.”

“He’s right,” I told him. “My brother is in prison. It’s kind of refreshing, actually, to be around someone who calls it that.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded, and then Ford was calling his name, asking him something. As he went over, then bent down to unpack a case, I watched the Saint Bathilde pendant around his neck slide into sight before he reached up, tucking it back under his collar. Yesterday, I’d held it in my own hand, between my fingers, twisting it in the dappled light at Commons Park. Just remembering made me flush.

“So, Sydney,” Eric said, jerking me abruptly away from this thought, “I hear we’re on a time constraint here. How long do we actually have?”

I looked at my watch. It was six thirty. “About three hours.”

“Not long to get down these songs.” He lifted his guitar and backpack onto the nearby couch—an action that apparently did not require his agitated disc—then rubbed his hands together. “When did you say Layla was coming?”

“Seven at the latest,” Mac told him.

“Okay. Then I’d better get acquainted with this equipment.” Eric walked over to the board of switches and buttons, taking a seat in the rolling chair there. “Man. This is nicer than the setup we had at VAMP.”

“VAMP?”

He sat back, twisting a knob. “Vintage Acoustic Musical Performance Camp. It’s where I spent last summer. Music and production classes during the day, serious jam sessions at night.”

“Wow. Sounds great.”

“Life-changing,” he corrected me. “I mean, it was for me, anyway. Spending eight weeks with people who actually care about the music the way I do? Like an oasis in the ongoing creative desert that is my life here.”

There was a rap on the glass separating us from the booth. When I looked up, Mac was standing there. “We can hear you, you know.”

Eric flipped his hand, hardly bothered. But I noticed he did unpress the only button whose function I knew—the intercom—before saying, “Look, don’t get me wrong. These guys like to play. But they’re not
passionate
. Once high school is over, they’ll tell stories about how they were once in a band. I want more than that. You know?”

I nodded as Irv helped Ford stack one amp onto another. Mac was back at his drum set, twisting clamps onto cymbals. I was watching his face, so focused, as Eric said, “So, um. There’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” He smiled at me. “It’s not a secret I think you’re cool, Sydney. I want to take you out. What do you think?”

I honestly did not know what to say. This was such a direct question, there was really no way to circumvent or dodge it. Still, I was trying to think of a way to do just that when I heard the doorbell ring. Saved.

“Shoot,” I said, as if I weren’t insanely grateful for this interruption. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Although I had the entire way across the workout room, up the stairs, and through the foyer to consider what to say when I returned, I made little progress. When I opened the door to find Layla supporting a red-faced, mud-streaked, damp Spence, though, all thoughts of Eric vanished.

“A little help?” she said, dragging him into the foyer. As they passed, I got a strong whiff of alcohol. And, strangely, fertilizer. “Do you have a towel or something?”

“Hey, Sydney,” Spence slurred at me cheerfully. “What’s up?”

“Stop moving, would you please?” Layla said to him. “Just stay there. And take off your shoes.”

With that, she disappeared into the powder room, leaving us alone. Weaving slightly, Spence kicked off his Nikes, first one, then the other, before reaching into his back pants pocket to pull out a slim glass bottle. He uncapped it, took a big swig, then held it out to me. “Vodka?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “Is it raining or something?”

He shook his head, taking another sip. “Sprinklers. Came on when I was crossing your neighbor’s backyard. Serious water pressure. Apparently. Sure you don’t want a drink?”

“She doesn’t,” Layla replied, emerging from the bathroom. She was holding one of our hand towels, which she held up to me, raising her eyebrows. I nodded, and she tossed it to him. “Dry off and put that away, would you? They’re not going to be happy I brought you in the first place.”

“Nonsense.” Spence slid the bottle back into his pocket, then stepped closer to her, sliding his arms around her waist. “I told you, baby. You won’t even know I’m here.”

While Layla clearly doubted this, she allowed herself to be pulled in for a kiss. To her surprise, not to mention mine, it quickly became openmouthed and full-on tongue. Luckily, just then, the phone rang.

I ducked into the kitchen, grabbing the handset. “Hello?”

“This is a collect call from an inmate at Lincoln Correctional Facility,” began the familiar robotic voice. “Do you accept—”

“Yes,” I said, taking a few steps toward the front window.

“Are they downstairs?” Layla called out from behind me. When I turned to look at her, Spence was nuzzling her neck. I nodded. “Did they start already?”

There was a buzz, then a click. “Sydney?”

“Yeah, one second,” I told my brother. To Layla I said, “Yes and I don’t know. I’ll be there in a sec, okay?”

She nodded, pulling away from Spence, and disappeared down the hallway. He followed, removing the bottle from his pocket again. Great.

“Sorry about that,” I told Peyton. “I have some friends over. How’s everything?”

“Okay,” he said. “Considering that I’ve actually picked a team on that stupid show you like so much.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re Team Ayre.”

“Nope,” he replied. “MD is, though. I’m solidly Rosalie.”

“What?” I said. “That’s crazy. She’s insane.”

“Oh, and Ayre isn’t? Did you not see that dinner party where she pushed Delilah in the pool?”

“She was
provoked
,” I said defensively.

“Yeah, whatever.” He snorted. “Well, I don’t want to hold you up if you have people over. Is Mom around?”

I blinked, surprised. “No. She’s already headed there.”

“What?”

“She and Dad left this afternoon. For the ceremony?”

“It’s not until tomorrow,” he said.

“Yeah, but I guess she had a lot of stuff to do for it or something?” He said nothing. “They’re staying at a hotel, meeting some of the other families, I think.”

There’s a difference between quiet on a phone line and angry silence. One is light, the other heavy. Right then, I pictured the connection between us sagging, almost to a breaking point.

“I can’t believe this,” he said finally. Behind him, the noise I knew from our few conversations was typical: raised voices, banging, intercoms. Prison was even louder than Jackson. “I told her I didn’t want her to do all that. I didn’t want them here at all, actually. I’m in
prison
, not school. I don’t get why she can’t understand that.”

Wow,
I thought. I’d been waiting so long for someone else to feel this way. I’d just never expected it to be Peyton. As I wondered how to reply, I heard a thump from beneath me in the studio. “I guess . . .” I began, then found myself hesitating. The line buzzed. “She’s just hanging on to anything she can make feel normal.”

“But this isn’t normal,” he replied. “I screwed up, I hurt someone, and I’m doing time for it. When she tries to make it anything else, it just . . . it makes me
nuts
. This needs to be different, you know? To be hard. Everyone else understands that. But she just doesn’t
get
it.”

Even with our recent talks, this was the most my brother had said to me in months, if not years. It was so unexpected, not to mention emotional, that I realized I was holding my breath. For so long, I’d seen him and my parents as one unit, sharing the same party line. But Peyton was his own person and carried his own weight. How could I not have understood that?

“I’m sorry,” I said. Two words, but they felt heavy, too.

“Yeah.” A pause. His voice sounded tight. I thought of him walking across that sinkhole: I saw bravery, him something else. “I’m, um . . . I’ll try her on her cell.”

“Okay. Take care, Peyton.”

“Bye, Syd.”

Another click, and he was gone. I hung up the phone, feeling a pang as I remembered my mom organizing her Big Club baked goods the previous morning, not to mention all the other work she’d done. She could tell us and everyone else it was for Peyton, and maybe she really believed that. I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t thought I could feel more ashamed about the entire situation. Wrong again.

CHAPTER
18

“WAIT,” ERIC
said. “I didn’t like that intro. Let’s try it again.”

Ford groaned, while Mac sat back behind the drum kit, rolling his eyes.

“Dude,” Irv said from beside me, “it’s a demo for a showcase, not your first album.”

“That doesn’t mean it has to suck,” Eric said.

“It’s not going to
exist
if you don’t ease up, though,” Irv replied. “We’ve been here for . . . how long, Sydney?”

“Hour and a half,” I told him.

“Hour and a half,” he repeated, emphasizing the words, “and you’ve got nothing down. It’s time to get serious.”

“I
am
being serious,” Eric said.

“Then get less serious,” Mac told him. “Let’s just get this done.”

Eric, his expression darkening, turned his back to the glass between us, adjusting something on his guitar. I looked at my watch: Ames would be showing up at ten, at which point they and all their equipment needed to be long gone. At the beginning of the evening, this had seemed entirely doable. Now I was beginning to have my doubts.

Eric’s perfectionism was one problem. Another was Spence, who, after arriving and immediately knocking over two amps (that was the thump I’d heard), had been told by Layla to sit on the couch, out of the way. There he proceeded to drink most of his bottle of vodka, providing a stream of not-helpful commentary (“Are you sure you’re in tune?” “More cowbell!”) as he did so. I had no idea why Layla had brought him.

“I didn’t,” she told me out in the workout room, where we’d slipped away during yet another complicated skirmish about verse transitions. “I told him I was coming here and that your parents were gone. All he heard was ‘party,’ so he grabbed a bottle and headed over. When Rosie dropped me off, he was in the driveway waiting.”

I thought of earlier, when I’d opened the door to see him standing on the porch, slumped against her. “Does he drink like this a lot?”

“No,” she said, her voice clipped. She added, “I mean, some, sure, but it’s not usually like this. Anyway, it’s not his fault they’re not recording. It’s Eric’s.”

I glanced back at the open studio door, where Irv was now sitting back in the chair by the control board, his hands over his face. I could relate.

“Lay-la,” Spence called out, then leaned forward on the couch, peering at us. “Come here. I miss you.”

“One sec,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She glanced at the screen. “Crap.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“My mom.” She turned, walking back into the studio, leaning over Irv to hit the intercom button. “Mac. Rosie just texted. She thinks Mom might need to go in.”

He was on his feet immediately, coming out the door. “What happened?”

“I don’t know; I’ll call right now.” She put her phone to her ear, walking over to lean against the wall. Spence, on the couch, offered her the now-almost-empty bottle, but she waved him off. “Hey, it’s me. What’s going on?”

As Rosie replied and she listened, we were all silent. I glanced at Mac, but he was watching Layla.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Yeah. Well, keep me posted. If you decide to take her, we’ll meet you there. What? We were planning ten thirty, but we can come now if she wants us to.”

Someone exhaled, frustrated. Eric, I assumed.

“All right. Yeah, do that. Thanks, Ro.” She hung up, then looked at Mac. “Just the usual. Dizzy, shortness of breath. She got super light-headed and Rosie panicked, but Mom says she’s fine now. She’s going to keep an eye on her.”

“Could be those new meds,” he said. It was like the rest of us weren’t there. “They said the side effects could be more pronounced, even with the smaller dosage.”

“Which sucks, because they’re working.” Layla slid her phone back in her pocket. “Whatever, let’s just try to get this done. I want to get home.”

“Seconded,” Mac said, turning back to the recording room. Once inside, he said to Eric, “This take is the last one for this song. Then we move on. Okay?”

Eric did not look happy about this. Still, he nodded, adjusting his guitar strap as Irv got everything on the board set up again. Mac counted them off and they began playing. I held my breath as they passed the intro into the first verse and then the chorus, the farthest they’d gotten so far.

“Sit down and relax. Have a drink,” Spence said to Layla, pulling her down beside him. She sighed, then, to my surprise, reached for the bottle and took a swig. “That’s my girl. Better, right?”

She swallowed, wincing, then wiped a hand over her mouth. “I swear, I don’t see how this night could get any worse.”

I could. Because right at that moment, Ames appeared in the open doorway. I was so startled by the sight of him, I thought for a minute I had to be imagining it. When he spoke, I knew it was for real.

“Well, look at this. It’s a party.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but, unfortunately, Spence spoke first.

“Now we’re talking!” He turned, looking at Ames, and held out the bottle to him. “Welcome, comrade. Drink?”

“No,” I said, answering for him. Still regrouping, or trying to, I said, “It’s not a party. They’re just recording a demo.”

Ames made a point of looking at the bottle, as well as Spence slumped against Layla, before turning his attention back to me. “Your mom didn’t say anything about this.”

“She’s been distracted,” I replied. “And anyway, they’re almost done.”

“I wish,” Irv said. The guys were wrapping up the song now, having actually made it through the entire thing. “Although we’re further along than we were, I’ll give you that.”

I didn’t like the way Ames was surveying the room, taking it all in: Layla on the couch, the guys on the other side of the glass, Irv in his seat at the controls. Then, finally, me. “Let’s talk outside,” he said. “Okay?”

Layla was watching me as I followed him out into the workout room, where he gestured for me to take a seat on my dad’s workout bench.

“So,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“I did. They’re recording a demo.”

“And drinking,” he added.

“Spence is drinking,” I corrected him. “I don’t even really know him.”

“And yet he’s here, in the house, while Peyton and Julie are gone.” He cocked his head to the side. “I have to say, Sydney, I’m surprised. This is not like you.”

“They’re my friends; they needed a studio. It’s not that complicated.”

“And that guy playing drums? Who’s he?”

I blinked, caught off guard. “Why?”

He shrugged, then leaned back against the wall, studying my face. “Just curious. I saw you with him the other day, in the parking lot of that strip mall off Mason. You seemed pretty close.
Very
close, actually.”

It took me a moment to catch up. In the lag, he was watching me, the slightest of smiles on his face. “Are you going to tell my mom about this?”

Instead of answering, he looked back into the studio, where Spence was now stretched out across the couch, eyes closed, the bottle on the floor beside him. Layla was nowhere in sight, which I assumed meant they had indeed moved on to her song.

“I don’t know,” Ames said finally. “We’ll talk about it later.”

I wanted to know now. Then I could accept my sentence and the reality of the repercussions. But I knew Ames. Now he finally had the upper hand, and he wasn’t going to relinquish it any earlier than necessary.

“Sydney.”

Glancing at the studio, I saw Irv filling the doorway, looking out at us. “Yeah?”

“We need you.”

I looked at Ames. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

I went back in to find Layla on the other side of the glass, headphones on, a microphone in front of her. Eric was at the board, getting things set up so that Irv could record again. Behind me, I could hear Spence snoring.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We need backup vocals,” Eric told me, still futzing around with some dials. “No time to layer them in. So you’re up.”

“Me?” I said. “I don’t sing.”

“Everyone can sing.”

“Let me rephrase that,” I told him. “I don’t sing well.”

“It’s not opera,” he replied. “We just need to fill out the sound. You know the song, right? Paulie Prescott, ‘Four A.M.’?”

Of course I did. After I finished swooning over the safe boy-next-door Logan Oxford, Paulie Prescott was my first bad-boy crush, or as bad as you could be wearing eyeliner while performing concerts at malls. “Four A.M.” was his biggest hit, a half-rap, half-sung description of driving home after a night of partying and fighting and wanting to call a girl, but deciding she deserved better. It was just the kind of thing that, at thirteen, you wanted some lovesick rebel to sing about you. I’d had it on repeat for weeks.

“I think I remember it,” I said.

“Great.” Eric stood up, turning to face me. “Now, we’re doing it acoustic, very quiet, in contrast to the original production. Remember all those big guitars? It was all swagger, or fake swagger, actually. So for this, we’re turning it on its head, going light, ballad-esque, more of a love song than the original ego-driven recitation of various acts of valor that may or may not have actually happened.”

Beside me, Ames blinked. “Whoa.”

“Exactly,” Eric told him. “So we’ll just have you come in during the chorus, behind Layla, to convey the
routine
aspect of this, that it’s not just one girl who’s felt it, but many. But just for two lines: ‘You’re sleeping only a mile from here/But it feels so far away.’ The two following—”

“‘While I want to see you, touch you, feel you/In my dreams I’ll let you stay’?” So much for pretending I didn’t know it by heart.

“Right. For those, I want only Layla, for contrast. See, your lines are about the truth of this situation: the wanting. The other are the ideal, the way girls
wish
guys really felt. Okay?”

It was a testament to how familiar I’d become with Eric and his music discussions that none of this seemed over the top to me. Ames, however, exhaled as Eric went back into the recording room, then said, “Man. I’ve heard that song a million times. Never thought of it that way.”

“Nobody does,” Irv told him, adjusting something on the board.

I turned back to the glass, looking in at Layla, who was nodding as Eric talked to her, explaining all this again. Mac was back on the drums, saying something to Ford, when I felt Ames move closer, putting his hands on my shoulders. He gave a light squeeze, then left them there while saying, “So you’re singing? I can’t wait to see this. Nervous?”

“No,” I said, although I was. I shifted slightly, trying to get out from under him, but he was too close, and now squeezing again.

“You’ll be great. Just relax.”

I swallowed, doing the exact opposite and tensing up, hoping he’d take the hint and back off. But no. He was still right there, his fingers lightly on my shoulders, when Mac looked up and saw us.

Seeing his face, I had a flash of Layla’s, all those weeks ago at the courthouse. But while her expression, as a stranger, had been a question—
You okay?
—Mac’s was different. Like he knew I was not, and because of that, he wasn’t, either. He was just getting to his feet when Eric spoke.

“Okay, Sydney. You ready?”

I pulled away quickly, then walked into the recording room, where Eric was setting up a microphone. As he waved me behind it, Layla leaned into my ear.

“What’s he doing here?”

“He’s staying tonight. But he wasn’t supposed to come until ten.”

“Huh.” She adjusted her headphones. “What are the chances. Is he going to tell your mom?”

“He says we’ll talk about it.”

She made another pointed look as Ames gave us a thumbs-up. “I’d stay if I could, I swear. But I’ve got to get home to my mom.”

“It’s fine,” I said. Then I turned, glancing behind me at Mac, who, as I expected, was watching me. I only had a second to try to convey that he shouldn’t worry, I was all right. But just in case, I said it, too. “It’ll be okay.”

At that point, despite everything, I still believed this. This confidence stayed with me as we ran through a quick rehearsal, then started to record. I could almost forget about Ames on the other side of the glass and whatever might happen later; right then, there was only the music. Eric’s guitar, and Ford behind it. The haunting sweetness of Layla’s voice moving over the words I knew so well, and then my own, blending with it if only for a moment. Through it all, Mac was behind me, keeping the beat, holding it all together. Later, I’d look back at this as the last time things felt perfect, and be so grateful for it. Some people never get that at all.

* * * 

“Do we have it?”

We all waited, silent, as Eric punched a few buttons, his brow furrowed. Then, finally: “Yep. We’ve got it.”

“Hallelujah,”
Irv said, speaking for everyone. “Can we go eat now?”

“You’ve been eating the whole time,” Layla pointed out.

“I’ve been
snacking
,” he corrected her. “It’s mealtime.”

“Actually, it’s go time,” she said. “Rosie’s waiting for us. Let’s get packed up, okay?”

Mac nodded, then headed back into the recording room, where he, Irv, and Ford began dismantling the instruments and equipment. Upstairs, I could hear Ames moving around as Layla turned her attention to Spence, still crashed out on the couch. He hadn’t budged since falling asleep.