“And you as well!” she replied. She sat back down as Layla followed him back behind the counter, turning to look at me. When they were out of earshot, she said in a low voice, “Drugs?”
“Rosie had an injury that led to some legal issues with prescriptions,” I explained, watching her face carefully. Before Peyton’s troubles, the judgment would have been automatic, almost a reflex. Now, however, she didn’t have that option unless she wanted to risk looking like a hypocrite. It was clever of Layla, I realized, to expose our common denominator right off the bat, letting her know that for all the differences, we did share something. “She’s getting back into skating now. I watched her practice the other day.”
“You did?” she said.
I nodded. “She was pretty amazing.”
Mac appeared beside us, carrying two plates of pizza. “One pepperoni, one roma,” he said, putting them down. “Anything else?”
“Not right now, I don’t think,” I told him. “Thanks.”
He nodded, then returned to the register, where Layla was now leaning against the counter, YumYum in her mouth, watching us. Her dad said something and she nodded, then replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.
“Wow,” my mom said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “That is good.”
“Told you,” I said.
She glanced up at the picture beside us, which was of a boardwalk lined with games of chance, the sea visible in the distance. “I’m curious about the name. Not much coast around here.”
“I think it came from up north, from another place her granddad owned,” I said.
She nodded, then stopped chewing, cocking her head to one side. “Is that a banjo I hear?”
“Bluegrass,” I said. “It’s all that’s on the jukebox.”
For a moment, we ate in silence. The phone rang behind the counter. Mac took an order. Mr. Chatham disappeared into the office. Meanwhile, the sun slanted in the front window, making little bits of dust on the table beside us dance.
“How did you meet Layla, again?” my mom finally asked me.
I swallowed the bite in my mouth. “Here. I came in for a slice after school. And we just started talking.”
She looked back at Mac, who was pulling a pie out of the oven. “You said her mother was ill.”
“She has MS. I think they trade off taking care of her.”
“How awful.” She wiped her mouth. “And where do they live?”
“About two blocks from here.”
I could sense I was close to getting what I wanted, which was also near enough to worry about it slipping away. So I kept quiet and waited for her to speak again. Instead, the next sound that came was her phone.
She pulled it out of her bag. Upon seeing the screen, her eyes widened, and she quickly scrambled to hit the TALK button. “Hello?”
Distantly, I could hear the sound of an automated voice.
“Yes.” Her voice was clear and loud enough that Layla and Mac both looked over at us. “I’ll accept the charges.”
It was Peyton. I could tell by her face, the way her eyes filled with tears when, after a beat, he began to speak. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I didn’t have to. I’d always had a sense when it came to my brother. And anyway, his voice had more presence than most people did face-to-face.
“Oh, honey,” she said, putting her other hand to her face. “Hello. Hello! How are you? I’ve been so worried!”
As he replied, she got to her feet and headed for the door, the phone clamped to her ear. Once outside, she began pacing on the sidewalk, her face all attention, listening hard.
“Looks like an important call.”
I glanced up to see Layla standing beside me. “My brother,” I said. “It’s the first time he’s had phone access in a while.”
She was still watching my mom, moving back and forth in front of the window. “She sure looks happy.”
“Yeah. She does.”
Neither of us spoke for a second. Then, wordlessly, she put a root beer YumYum beside my plate. Compensation? A gesture of sympathy? It could have been both these things, or neither of them. It really didn’t matter. I was grateful for it.
* * *
When I got to Layla’s later that afternoon, I was surprised to see several cars parked in the driveway and along the curb. Clearly, I was not the only one who had been invited over.
No matter, though. I was just glad to be there, even if it did take my brother to make it happen. After hanging up with him, my mom was so over the moon, I probably could have gotten anything I asked for. This, though, was all I wanted.
I parked behind a minivan that I recognized as belonging to Ford, the bass player in Eric and Mac’s band, the name of which was still in flux. Before Hey Dude, they’d been known as Hog Dog Water, both names Eric felt did not “do their art justice.” This had been the subject of another extended discussion at lunch on Friday, during which Layla said he should pick a name and stick with it, for recognition if nothing else. He, however, maintained that a band’s identity was not something to be decided lightly: whatever they became next was important. Unlike, say, Hot Dog Water.
From there, the conversation had gone about how they all did, segueing from a somewhat civilized discussion to Eric performing a loud monologue that no one else could interrupt. I often left lunch feeling exhausted, and that day I’d almost fallen asleep in my ecology class afterward.
The band might have been nameless, but this didn’t prevent them from practicing, if the noise I heard as I walked up to the house was any indication. The music was coming from around the side of the house, so I followed it, coming upon an outbuilding that sat between a truck up on blocks and a large sedan with a sunken-in roof. Smaller than a garage, but bigger than a shed, it had two wooden doors that were open, revealing Mac at his drum set, Eric behind a microphone, and Ford, who was fiddling with an amplifier. In front of them was Layla, in a lawn chair. She was wearing sunglasses.
“Verdict?” she was saying as I came up behind her. “Too loud. Not good.”
Eric just looked at her. “Don’t feel the need to candy-coat, Chatham.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“We’re supposed to be loud, though,” Ford said, unplugging something, then plugging it back in. “That’s part of the whole ethos, right? That this music was, in its original form, so highly controlled and conducted, even computerized. Making it raw and rough turns it on its head.”
Mac, drumsticks in hand, raised his eyebrows. “Dude,” he said. “You’ve been hanging out with Eric way too much.”
“On the contrary, I think someone is finally talking sense around here,” Eric said. “Now we just need to get our drummer on board with the message and we’ll be all set.”
“Forget your message,” Layla told him. “Concentrate on playing well.”
“Nobody asked you,” he said. “Don’t you have special ketchup to formulate or something?”
“Nope.” She sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “Right now, I have all the time in the world.”
“Lucky us,” Eric grumbled, turning back to the other guys. “Okay, let’s try ‘Prom Queen’ again, from the top.”
Mac counted to four, and then they began playing again, sounding a bit disjointed at first before gelling, somewhat, by the end of the first verse. Despite Layla’s ongoing commentary, I saw her tapping her foot as I came up beside her.
“Front-row seat, huh?”
“Hi!” She looked genuinely happy to see me. “Well, it’s hardly the real Logan Oxford. But at least we don’t have to go far. Here, let me get you a chair.”
“Oh,” I said. “You don’t . . .”
But she was already going into the shed, squeezing past Ford and his bass to retrieve a battered pink lawn chair patterned with palm trees. As she plunked it down in fro
nt of me, a couple of dead spiders fell off it. She ignored this, wiping it clean with her hands before presenting it to me. “Best seat in the house. Or this house.”
I sat. The band was still playing, although Eric had stopped singing and turned around, his back now to us. I said, “So this is where they practice?”
“Sometimes,” she replied, plopping back into her own seat. “There’s also Ford’s basement, but there’s always laundry going down there and Eric claims the smell of fabric softener gives him a headache.”
“Rock star problems.”
“Eric problems.” She sighed. “They’re like first world, but even more privileged.”
I looked at the man in question, who had now stopped playing altogether and was tuning his guitar, a frustrated look on his face. As Mac and Ford moved alone into the chorus, I realized they actually sounded better without him. Maybe this was why I said, “You’re tough on him.”
“Eric?” I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s from a good place, I swear. Before he met Mac and started coming around, he was such a freaking jerk. Just a total know-it-all blowhard. But the thing was . . . it wasn’t really his fault.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “His parents, they tried to have kids for, like, ever. All these fertility problems, miscarriages. They’d basically been told there was no way it was ever going to happen for them. So when his mom got pregnant without even trying, it was like . . . a miracle. And when Eric arrived, they treated him accordingly.”
“Like a miracle?”
“Like God’s gift. Which was what they thought he was.” She shifted in her seat. “The problem was when it became how he saw himself, and there was no one there to tell him otherwise. Then he met Mac.”
“And Mac did?”
“In his way,” she replied. “That’s the thing about my brother. He’s subtle, you know? And a good guy, a guy you want to like you.”
I cleared my throat, concerned I might be blushing.
“So he just told Eric that he didn’t have to try so hard. Win every discussion, talk louder than everyone else. That kind of thing. And Eric, to his credit, listened. Now he’s not so bad, although he has his lapses. And when he does, I feel it’s my duty to speak up. We all do.”
“For the common good,” I said.
“Well, it takes a village,” she replied. “Or a city, really, in his case. A big one. Many citizens.”
I laughed as there was a blast of feedback, followed by Eric shouting something. Layla winced. “Okay, I need a break. Let’s go get something to eat.”
She got up, and I followed her across the muddy backyard to the house, where a mossy line of paving stones led up to the back door. It creaked when she pulled it open, a sound that appeared to summon the dogs, which swarmed our ankles, barking wildly, as we went inside.
“Sydney’s here,” she called out as the door swung shut behind us. It took a second to adjust from the brightness outside. But then, yet again, it was all in place: the couch, the huge TV, the two cluttered tables flanking the recliner, in which Mrs. Chatham was seated, wearing a sweatshirt that said MIAMI and scrub pants. As I watched, the dogs, having lost interest in us, jumped up and burrowed under the blanket spread across her lap.
“Welcome,” she said to me. “I hear you’re spending the night.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks for having me.”
“Don’t thank us yet,” Layla said. “You may change your mind once the music starts.”
“The music?” I repeated. I looked out the window. “They’re already playing, though.”
“Not that music. My dad’s. As it turns out, he also invited a bunch of people over tonight. Not that anyone told me.”
“I bet Sydney will love it,” her mother said.
“It’s bluegrass,” Layla told me. “Nothing but bluegrass. All night long. If you don’t like mandolin, you’re in trouble.”
“You have a door on your room; feel free to use it,” Mrs. Chatham said, in a tone that, while cheerful, made it clear it was the end of the discussion. “Now, go make some popcorn, would you, honey? I want to talk to Sydney a second.”
Layla glanced at me, then turned, walking into the kitchen. For a minute, I felt like I might be in trouble, although I couldn’t imagine what for. When I looked at Mrs. Chatham, though, she was smiling at me. I sat down in a nearby chair just as Layla turned on the microwave.
“So,” she said as one of the dogs shifted position on her lap. “I saw the article in the paper.”
Over the last few months, I’d realized that there was really no ideal way for anyone to talk to me about Peyton. If they avoided the subject, but it was clearly on their minds, things felt awkward. Addressing it head-on, however, was often worse, like a train coming toward me I was helpless to stop. Really, nothing felt right, yet this gentle inquiry was the closest I’d gotten. An acknowledgment and sympathy, while still respecting the facts. It took me by such surprise, I couldn’t speak at first. So I was glad when she continued.
“That must have been so hard for you, and your family,” she said. “I can’t even imagine.”
“It is,” I finally managed. “Hard, I mean. Mostly for my mom. I hate what it’s done to her.”
“She’s suffering.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.” I looked down at my hands. “But . . . so is that boy. David Ibarra. I mean, he really is.”
“Of course.” Again, no judgment, just a prod to keep going. So I did.
“I think . . .” I began, but then suddenly it was too big to say or even exist outside of my own head. It was one thing to let these thoughts haunt the dark spaces of my mind, but another entirely to put them into the light, making them real. She was looking at me so intently, though, and this place was so new, with no semblance of the world before except for the fact that I was in it. “I think my parents see Peyton as the victim, in some ways. And I hate that. It makes me sick. It’s just so . . . It’s wrong.”
“You feel guilty.”
“Yes,” I said, the vehemence of this one word surprising me. Like simply concurring made my soul rush out, gone. “I do. So much. Every single day.”
“Oh, honey.” She reached out, putting her hand over mine. In the next room, the popcorn was popping, producing the buttery smell I associated with movies and after school, all those lonely afternoons. “Why do you feel like you have to shoulder your brother’s responsibility?”
“Because someone has to,” I said. I looked into her eyes, green flecked with brown, just like Layla’s. “That’s why.”
Instead of replying, she squeezed my hand. I knew I could pull away and it would still be all right. But when Layla came in a few minutes later with the popcorn, that was how she found us. I’d let so much go, finally. It made sense, I suppose, that right then I would maybe just want to hold on.
CHAPTER
12
“HOW MUCH farther?”
“You always ask that.”
“And I always mean it.” A pause. Then, “Seriously, how much?”
Up ahead, Mac turned around, shining the flashlight back at Layla. “If you’re angling for a ride, you should just ask.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t want to impose . . .”
In response, Irv, who was walking alongside Mac, dropped back so we could catch up with him. “Hop on,” he said, crouching down, and Layla climbed onto his immense shoulders, piggyback-style. Then we continued on into the darkness.
I’d felt so shaken after my talk with Mrs. Chatham that I was grateful, actually, for the chaos that followed. After we had polished off the popcorn and watched one episode of Big Los Angeles (one catfight, two breakdowns, too many gorgeous outfits to count), Mac, Eric, and Ford had come inside to raid the fridge. Then Rosie showed up with a couple of her Mariposa friends, who were in town doing a week of perform
ances at the Lakeview Center. The house already felt packed, even before Mr. Chatham came home and his friends arrived, instruments in hand. After the constant quiet of my own house since Peyton had been gone, I expected the contrast to be overwhelming. Instead, I found that I liked the constant hum and noise, the fullness of many people and much energy in a small space. I could hang back and just watch, yet still feel involved. It was nice.
Dinner was a huge amount of pizza, salads, and garlic knots from Seaside, which we ate in the outbuilding while Layla’s parents and their friends filled the living room and kitchen. It was just starting to get dark when I heard the first strains of music coming from the house through the open back door. It sounded like the jukebox at Seaside, but more real. Alive.
I’d assumed we’d head inside for the music, but everyone else had other plans. After checking in with Mrs. Chatham to see if she needed anything, Mac returned with a duffel bag, which he took into the garage. A moment later, with the bag visibly fuller, he returned and hoisted it over his shoulder. Layla pulled a flashlight from a nearby cabinet, while Irv, who had arrived post-popcorn and pre-dinner, grabbed the backpack he’d brought with him. Eric packed up his guitar, and then they all headed outside in silent consensus. I followed, the only one who had no idea where we were going.
As it turned out, it was into the woods. They all started toward it, as if entering a huge swath of dark forest at night made total sense. I guess to them, it did.
“Hey,” Layla said, looking over at me. “It’s okay. Come on.”
When Peyton and I went into the trees behind our house, it took a few minutes to leave our yard and the neighborhood behind. Here, though, it was different. We’d no sooner stepped in than we were swallowed up, lights from the Chathams’ house dimming, then disappearing altogether. I was grateful for Mac’s white shirt, which seemed to almost glow as he led us deeper and deeper into the trees. We’d been walking almost twenty minutes when Layla first complained. Once she was on Irv’s back, we easily doubled that time.
“I always forget how freaking long this takes,” Eric complained, his guitar case bumping against his leg.