I struggled for a comeback. “If they were so great, why did they only have one hit?”
“They were visionaries. Commercial radio didn’t appreciate them, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t groundbreakers. They didn’t fit into a convenient slot. Besides, Hence left the band right at their peak….”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Who knows what they would have done if they hadn’t split up.”
I shrugged, then reached for a package of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts and tucked it under my arm.
“Besides all that, he’s a good person.” Cooper tossed a couple of boxes of cornflakes into his cart. “He took me in when I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t have money or any place to sleep, and Hence gave me work and a bed.” Speech over, he clammed up. Splotches of red blossomed on his cheeks from the effort.
Hence, a good person? I knew I should say something polite to show Cooper I’d heard him and would try to give Hence another chance, but my mind was blank. While I regrouped, I stood on tiptoe, failing to reach a bottle of chocolate syrup on the top shelf. With one swift motion Cooper palmed it and slipped it into his cart.
“You should say thank you,” he told me.
So I did.
“Not to me. To Hence. For letting you stay in The Underground.”
“I will,” I said, not sure I really meant it. “If he ever stops barking and glowering at me.”
Cooper gave the shopping cart a shove, and I hurried down the aisle after him.
“Do you know anything about a Jackie Gray?” I asked his back. “She was a friend of my mom’s. Hence knows her. He said so.”
Cooper slowed his pace. “Sorry,” he said over his shoulder.
“Meaning you don’t know her? Or you won’t tell me about her?”
“I’ve never even heard her name before.” He paused in the international aisle, watching me through the lock of light brown hair that had fallen into his eyes.
Emboldened, I tried another approach. “What about Hence’s ex-wife? Nina Bevilaqua.”
A storm cloud crossed Cooper’s face. “I wouldn’t mention her to Hence. Unless you really want to rub him the wrong way.”
“Well, sure. But you could tell me about her.”
“Tell you what?” He started loading up on refried beans and taco shells.
“Where she lives,” I said. “Her phone number.”
“So you can track her down, and she can complain to Hence? I don’t feel like losing my job, thanks. Not to mention my home.” He grabbed a jar of salsa from the shelf, scowled absently at it, then replaced it.
“You said you could tell me things,” I mumbled in the direction of Cooper’s back. Feeling discouraged, I followed him to the checkout aisle and dug in my pockets for cash.
Coop unloaded the cart in silence and we waited for the cashier to ring up the old guy in front of us. Finally he sighed. “Please don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I just kicked your dog.”
“But you did just kick my dog.”
“Nina won’t know anything recent about your mother. She and Hence are barely on speaking terms. The only contact they have is once a month, when he writes her an alimony check, and every six months or so when she calls to scream at him. You selfish bastard.” Cooper spoke that last bit in a whiny falsetto. “I wasted the best part of my life on you. She’s so loud I can hear her from across the room.”
“Sounds like they deserve each other.”
Groceries paid for, we trudged toward The Underground. The wheels in my head spun without getting traction. So Hence’s ex-wife couldn’t tell me anything, and all I knew about Jackie Gray was her name—a name so common a Google search would probably give me thousands of hits. Hence wouldn’t help me and Cooper couldn’t tell me anything without losing his job, and God only knew how long I had before my dad guessed my whereabouts and showed up on the doorstep of The Underground. Maybe I should beat him to the punch and just go home and accept whatever punishment was waiting for me. Dad could only ground me until my eighteenth birthday, I figured.
As if he were reading my mind, Cooper interrupted my thoughts. “Your dad called.”
I froze, thinking I must not have heard him right. I’d only been gone for a little over a day, and he’d found the missing letter already?
“He sounded really worried about you,” Cooper added.
My mouth had trouble forming words. “What? When?”
Cooper’s reply seemed to come in slow motion. “This morning. You’re lucky I was the one who answered the phone. He said he was calling every possible place you might have thought to go, and he knew it was a long shot, but had we seen you?”
“What did you say?”
“I lied for you.” The pink splotches returned to Cooper’s cheeks. “I said I’d let him know if someone who fit your description showed up. He seemed to believe me….”
Cooper had covered for me? I threw my arms around him, completely forgetting the grocery bag slung from my wrist and accidentally whacking him with its contents.
“Sorry. I can’t believe you lied for me.”
“I didn’t like doing it,” Coop said. “He sounded really worried.”
I pushed aside the image of my frantic dad making phone calls to everyone he could think of. “You won’t tell Hence my dad called?”
Coop looked pained. “I probably should, but I won’t.”
“I don’t think he’d mind my dad suffering. He seems to really have it in for my father. I can’t imagine why.”
“You can’t?” We reached the back door of the club. Cooper set his bags down and fumbled in his pocket for the keys. Once we were in, he grabbed a notebook and pen from a countertop, ripped off a square of paper, wrote something on it, folded it in half, and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“You need the WiFi password, right? So you can do your sleuthing?’
I thanked him and slipped the paper into my pocket. We rode the elevator together and Cooper lugged all his bags off at the second floor. As the elevator made its slow way up to my mother’s appartment, I unfolded the little square of paper and took a look.
The password was CATHERINE.
Catherine
A few days after the Splendid Weather show, I crept up to Hence while he was mopping the floor of the main room. Though he’d basically saved my life, we hadn’t spoken of it since that night; in fact, we’d hardly spoken at all, which just seemed wrong. Hence froze when I walked into the room. Without a word, I slipped something into his hand.
“What’s this?”
“A guitar pick.”
“Right.” He leaned his mop against the wall. “I mean, why are you giving it to me?”
I took the pick from his hand and turned it over. “You see that?” The white plastic was embossed with a guitar in shades of black, pink, and purple. “It belonged to Joe Strummer. Dad took me to see The Clash when I was maybe ten. Joe tossed it to me at the end of the show.” Was I boasting? I hoped it didn’t come across that way.
Hence looked down at it with something like wonder. “Joe Strummer? Are you serious?”
“It’s my prized possession,” I said. “Or one of them, anyway. I want you to have it.”
His smile disappeared. “You don’t have to do that, just because…” His voice trailed off, but I knew what he meant. “Anyone would have helped you. It was nothing.”
“Anyone wouldn’t,” I said. “Anyone didn’t. It was more than nothing. That guy was about to…” I paused, unnerved by the memory. “I don’t think I could have stopped him without your help. But that’s not why.” I pressed the pick back into his palm and closed his fingers around it. “I knew you’d appreciate it. Maybe more than I do.”
Hence looked at me for a moment. He moved his lips like he was about to say something, but he didn’t speak. Then he slipped the pick into the pocket at his hip bone. The gesture seemed oddly intimate, as if he’d put a sma
ll sliver of me in there. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll take good care of it.”
A moment later he was back to mopping the floor like the whole exchange hadn’t even happened. Even so, for days after, my pulse sped up each time I thought of him carrying my pick, pulling it from his pocket, looking at it with wonder, and maybe thinking of me.
From that moment on, it felt like Hence and I had an understanding. Every day I’d pop into the club at least once to say hi. And while he still wouldn’t say much about himself, I could get him to talk about the bands he admired. X, Bad Religion, The Shaggs, The Del-Lords, The Ramones. The list was long and varied. And he would listen to my tales of woe—my angst over calculus, whatever humiliation had happened that day in gym, the ins and outs of coediting the Idlewild Prep literary magazine with a peppy sophomore whose taste favored syrupy verse about butterflies and rainbows. I’m sure my problems seemed bourgeois and boring compared to whatever Hence had known before he arrived on our doorstep, but he never made me feel fluffy or overprivileged. He listened as though he really heard me, and I wanted to do the same for him, if only he would let me.
“Where do you go on your days off?” As secretive as Hence was about his past, I wasn’t at all sure how he’d feel about the question, but I was dying to know. “I’ve seen you heading out with your guitar.” We were sitting side by side on the stage, our legs dangling. There wasn’t a show that night, so the club was relatively quiet, and Hence had more time than usual to chat.
To my surprise, he answered eagerly. “I’ve been jamming with some guys I met at Sweet Daddy’s Music.”
“You’re in a band?”
He shook his head. “They’re great guys, and decent musicians, but they just play for fun.” And though we had the main room all to ourselves, he lowered his voice and leaned in closer, and I caught the green-apple scent of his shampoo and another, fainter scent—like baking bread. “I’ve been looking for something more serious. In fact, I just lined up my first audition.”
“That’s fantastic! Who with?”
It turned out to be a band I hadn’t heard of, but Hence had done his research. “The Pickup Sticks are feel-good pop—heavy on the synth. They mostly play covers. They’re kind of lightweight.”
“But trying out will be good practice,” I said. “So when the right band does come along…”
“Exactly. I’ve never auditioned before. Even though the stakes are low, I’m all keyed up. I don’t want to look like an idiot.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Just ask ahead of time what they want you to play and what equipment you’ll need. The equipment is key; if you don’t have your own, they won’t take you seriously. When you’re warming up, play the kind of stuff they play, because they’ll be listening even if it seems like they aren’t. Oh, and see if you can get the scoop on who you’ll be replacing, and act as much unlike that guy as possible.”
Hence’s eyes grew progressively wider as I spoke.
“What? I may not be a musician, but I’ve been hanging around in their world my whole life.” A harebrained idea occurred to me, but I quickly dismissed it. “Too bad I can’t come along to the audition and give you feedback afterward.”
“You can’t?” Was it my imagination, or did he actually sound disappointed?
“I mean, I could. I’d love to. But I’ve heard stories… a guy brings his girlfriend along and she makes suggestions, or talks a lot, and it drives the band crazy.” Had I just implied I wanted to be Hence’s girlfriend? I rambled on faster to distract him from my slip. “Even if she sits in the corner and says nothing, most bands assume there’s something wrong with a guy who brings a girl to an audition. Come to think of it, the whole thing’s kind of sexist.”
Hence leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the ceiling. “But since I don’t really want the job…” he said, letting the thought hang in the air above our heads.
I waited for the rest of it.
“I want the music part of the audition to go well,” he continued. “I’d be embarrassed if it didn’t. But I don’t care if they like me as a person.”
I leaned back on my own elbows, and we both scrutinized the ceiling’s track lighting and pockmarks.
“I want you to come with me,” he concluded. It was exactly what I’d been hoping he’d say. He scooched a hair closer, his arm brushing mine, but only for a second. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
If I didn’t mind?
Over the next few days, Hence and I talked strategy. He would introduce me to the band as his girlfriend—his idea, not mine. I wouldn’t say much, but I’d watch closely and take notes. I’d be able to help him prep for bigger auditions in the future.
I coached Hence on what to wear—a black-and-white checkerboard T-shirt we picked out together at Unique Clothing Warehouse and regulation skinny black jeans. That Thursday, I put on a slinky leopard-skin dress I’d stumbled on at Vintage Threads. I did my hair up in a high ponytail, and even put on lipstick. Though I normally wasn’t all that into fashion, I couldn’t resist the chance to dress up for Hence, if only to see what his reaction would be.
By the look on his face when I met him in front of The Underground, I could tell he hadn’t expected me to dress the part of a rocker’s girlfriend. “You look…” He seemed to struggle for the right word. “Convincing.” The expression in his eyes was as appreciative as I could have hoped.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, trying to sound flippant. “I’d offer to help you carry your equipment, but in these heels it will be all I can do to stay upright.”
There wasn’t time to bask in the moment; we had to get to Chelsea. We caught the A train at Canal Street and found two side-by-side seats, but he seemed too preoccupied to talk, so we fell silent. We arrived early, just as we’d planned, with time for Hence to set up. The guitarist before him—a big-haired glam-metal guy who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about dressing the part—was finishing up his audition as we arrived.
When Hence introduced me to the guys in The Pickup Sticks, saying, “She’s going to sit in—I hope that’s not a problem,” the bassist and the drummer rolled their eyes at each other. But any annoyance I felt was wiped away by the thrill I got from watching Hence play. The drummer had pulled up a folding chair for me to sit on, and I perched as far from the stage as I could get in that shoebox of a room, trying to look blasé and probably failing spectacularly.
Hence had taken my advice and asked what songs the band wanted him to play at the audition, and he’d practiced them for hours; all week I’d been able to pick out bits of “Come On Eileen” and “Blister in the Sun” wafting from behind the basement door. Now he played them like a pro, and it was easy to see he could have outplayed the others if he let himself. Instead, he was focused on blending in, the way I’d suggested… but not so focused that he didn’t look over at me from time to time, as if making sure I was still there.
After the audition, we walked to a diner up the street. Hence was oddly quiet, considering he’d just had such a great audition. “You were awesome,” I said once we’d placed our orders. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they called you back, even if you did bring your ‘girlfriend.’ ” I surrounded the word with air quotes.
“If I get called back, it will be because the keyboard player wants to get your phone number.” Hence had been tapping his fingers rhythmically against the Formica tabletop, as if he couldn’t stop making music once he’d started. Now he slapped both palms down on the table and looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. There was a coldness in his dark eyes that took me by surprise.
“Ha,” I said breezily, though I, too, had caught the ultraskinny keyboard player watching me more than once.
“I’m serious,” Hence said, his voice very still. “I didn’t like how he was looking at you.”
This was a side of Hence I’d never seen before. Was he jealous? A thrill ran through me—equal parts excitement and fear, though of what, I couldn’t
say. “He’s not my type at all,” I said.
Hence’s expression softened, but I still detected doubt in his eyes. How had I hurt him? That was the last thing I’d intended to do.
“I wouldn’t go out with him on a bet,” I continued. He’s not you, I thought, the words echoing in my head so loudly that for a moment I worried I’d actually said them aloud. As soon as they took shape I realized how true they were. I didn’t want anyone but Hence.
“If The Pickup Sticks call, it won’t have anything to do with me.” I chose my words with care. “It’ll be because you rocked the audition.”
This seemed to do the trick. Hence’s jaw muscles relaxed. “You really think so?”
I smiled, resisting the urge to grab his hands and hold on tight. “I totally do.”
The Pickup Sticks did call Hence back, and he told them he wasn’t interested. “They couldn’t believe their ears,” he reported. “They couldn’t imagine me not jumping at the offer.”
“There will be other bands,” I told him. “Better ones.”
Hence nodded, and his smile made my heart do a little flip in my chest. In the few days since the audition, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what had passed between us, obsessing over what would—or wouldn’t—happen next. If Hence liked me enough to be jealous when another guy looked at me, why didn’t he just ask me out? But I was his boss’s daughter. Maybe he thought that made me off-limits?
I’d worked out a little speech, and now I took a deep breath and tried to sound breezy. “Do you have anything lined up for this coming Thursday?” I happened to know that was his next day off. “I know you like to get together with your friends from the guitar store and jam, but I was thinking maybe we could go to the Angelika for cappuccino and a movie. Or check out the Strand bookstore.”
The reluctance on Hence’s face made me wish I hadn’t asked.