The Sound of Us

  There aren’t many bars that will hire ex-marines with a rap sheet. Never mind that he has a wife and kid at home. Never mind it’s not just my life this will affect, but everyone else’s, too.

  “Shit happened. And I’m so, so sorry.” I sit down on the counter, lacing my fingers together. “Saturday’s our last night, guys. Forever. You’ll be compensated for the rest of the month, though. That’s really all we can do.”

  I begin to slide off the bar when Geoff slams his fists down, rattling his empty beer bottle. I freeze. “You’re kidding, right?” he snaps.

  “We’re doing the best we—”

  “We’re not even going to fight?”

  Mom chimes in, “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “But this is our home,” Geoff argues furiously. “I’ve spent more time here than my apartment! I’ve spilt blood on this bar, boss. I’m not going to just give it up. We still need naked Jell-O wrestling. I still need to pick up that hot beardman who comes in every Thursday. We can’t just leave!”

  “But we can’t stay.” I wring my fingers together nervously.

  “Well, I’m not going down without a fight. How much do we owe?”

  Everyone looks to Mom for the answer. Even I don’t know. She never told me, but I expect it to be something that we can’t just refinance to fix.

  Flustered, she hides a tissue in her bra and waves her hands about in the air, as if she can summon up the number. “Oh, dear, close to one-hundred thousand dollars or so.”

  “One hundred thousand,” I repeat. The price of admission into an Ivy League college. The cost of a jetpack. A small house in suburbia. So much money, I almost can’t believe this tiny bar is worth that much. “We owe…one-hundred thousand dollars.”

  Geoff whistles. “Damn, never mind.”

  Barbara pours herself another mimosa. “Why don’t ya get your boyfriend to hand ya the money, Junie? He’s loaded, ya know. Being a rock star an’ all.”

  I give her a strange look. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Jess scoffs. “Oh, please. We all read the magazines.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I reiterate forcefully, hopping off the bar. A hundred thousand would just be a drop in the bucket for a multi-platinum pop star. But I can’t ask Roman for money like that, not now and not ever. It isn’t his problem. It’s mine.

  “We can’t raise that much,” Hal mutters, more to himself than to us, but his voice is loud enough that it carries.

  Geoff rolls up his magazine, and taps it on the end of the bar. “Then let’s have a party. Celebrate it. If we can’t save the Lining, we can damn well go out in style.”

  Chuck agrees, squeezing Mom’s shoulder tightly. “That’s a great idea. We’re uninvited to the cookout this weekend, anyway.”

  My bartender throws his hands into the air. “It’s settled then! Party, Saturday night. It’ll be the best damn thing in town, mark my words.” He slides his gaze to me, and gives me a reassuring, sparkling grin. “It’ll be a bash worthy of the old man.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Everyone thinks bars are for hooking up, but anyone who’s ever owned a bar knows the truth. It’s where broken hearts go to die. What better way to tell your girlfriend you found someone better, prettier, and skinnier than her than at a bar where alcohol is readily available for the wound?

  You get to thinking what happened, what went wrong in those few months, weeks—days, even—between the connection and the fallout. The more I watched, the less I understood it.

  But now I understand. It just takes a taste, a glimpse, of something better to change a person.

  To change me.

  I’m so lost in thought as I go through the motions of cleaning up—taking the garbage out, putting the money in the safe and locking the office door, making sure the freezer light is out— that I barely realized Geoff’s been talking to me the entire time.

  “…Like, he expects me to just forgive him! But like hell that’s going to happen. He fucking lied to me, boss.” Geoff mumbles as he gets ready to leave, pulling his one-strap backpack over his shoulder, and grabs his bike helmet from under the bar. “I can’t do this.”

  I cut off the lights to the break room and close the door. “Maybe he’s changed.”

  “After just a few days?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Boss, you’re too nice—no offense.”

  I shrug. “Maybe he’s trying, then.”

  “To change? People don’t change, they just fake it.”

  I study him as he zips up his burgundy jacket. He fiddles nervously with his zipper, able to feel my eyes on him. “I think people can change if they want to.”

  “Like your boyfriend, boss?”

  I stiffen. “Caspian’s not my—”

  “I’m not talking about him,” he interrupts softly. “I mean the rock star.”

  I begin inspecting my fingernails, as if they’re suddenly more important than the conversation. “Pop star,” I correct under my breath.

  “Oh whatever. You fell for him, didn’t you?”

  “You can’t love someone you’ve only known for a few days,” I argue.

  He throws his head back with a sigh. “That’s why it’s called falling. You just trip and there you go, freefalling for some shithead who doesn’t even know what he wants.” Now I know he’s talking about Caspian. He sighs and leans against the counter. “Then what is it, if you’re not heartbroken?”

  I downcast my eyes, twirling a lock of hair around my finger. “Scared, I guess.”

  “Scared?”

  “Not...not like horror-movie scared.” I pull my hair over my shoulder and begin to braid it, trying to keep my voice level, trying not to think about how much I just want to cry. “Scared like I’m looking down over a long, dark drop, and know that there’s no way across and...” I blink back the tears that begin to burn in my eyes. “What am I going to do after the Lining, Geoff? What can I do?”

  Geoff drops his backpack to crush me against his chest in a hug. He smells like aftershave. Maybe it’s his smell, or how tight he’s hugging me, but the tears evolve into a outright sob.

  “I can’t do anything,” I cry into his chest. “I never could do anything else. I don’t have any talents and all I can do is fuck up everyone’s lives and—”

  “You do not fuck up people’s lives.”

  “How about Roman’s?” I point out bitterly. “If I’d told Roman about that stupid paparazzo sooner, if I’d cared a little more—I don’t know. I just screw it all up. I couldn’t save Dad, and I can’t save his bar and I messed up everything with you and Cas...”

  “None of that was your fault, boss,” he shushes tenderly, putting his chin on the top of my head. He’s always been like the big brother I never had. “Especially not with Caspian.”

  “I just can’t save a-a-anything,” I choke, and swallow the snot already dripping into my throat. If I thought Roman was an ugly crier, I must be the Quasimodo of criers. “I—I—I’m j-just a stupid girl.”

  “You aren’t stupid,” he says firmly, pulling away from me. He bends down and looks me straight in the eyes. “Don’t you ever think you are, boss. You’re Supergirl.” He scrubs my head. “Get some sleep tonight. You’re looking like complete shit.”

  I rub my nose on the backside of my hand. “You always know how to make a girl feel terrible about herself.”

  “That is my charm,” he nods in agreement, slings my purse over his shoulder with his backpack, and escorts me, like a gentleman, to my car.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  When Chuck drops me off the next day at the Lining, Geoff’s leaning by the cash register, the Lining’s black phone propped up against his shoulder, spinning the curly cord around his long first finger.

  “Who’re you talking to?” I ask him as I dump my purse in the break room and take out a piece of gum.

  He quickly hangs up on the landline and spins around. “Hmm?”

  “Who was that?” I motion to the phone we ra
rely use.

  “Oh,” he waves his hand in the air to dismiss my question, “just someone wanting to know where we were located.”

  I shrug and offer him a piece of gum. He pops it into his mouth before challenging me to a game of darts for who’ll clean the toilets today. I suck at darts, but it beats looking through our contacts book for a last-minute booking for Saturday night’s party. Getting a great band to come in at last minute will be a miracle—hell, getting a good band will be tough luck, and with the money we contract them to play, I doubt most of them will ditch whatever other contracts they have for the night to come to our “Sorry We’re Closing” bash.

  I realize, two games in and three darts down, I should’ve just sucked it up and gone through the contacts list instead.

  “Oh, c’mooon, go already!” Geoff whines, twisting around on his barstool. He takes a swig of beer and throws his other fist into the air. “Let me win!”

  “Shh! You’re throwing off my groove…”

  “Boss, have you seen your other darts? Oh, no, of course you haven’t because they’re all in butt-fuck Kentucky.”

  I drop my aim to whip around and glare at him. “Shush from the peanut gallery.”

  He shrugs innocently. “I’m only being honest.”

  Somewhere behind me, one of the waitresses—I think Mindi—is fumbling with the radio. She swears up and down that there’s a football scrimmage at the University of South Carolina today, but she can’t for the life of her remember the radio station. She flips over a few country stations, Keith Urban, Blake Sheldon, and Renee Prosperity, as I rock my dart back and forth, getting ready for the release.

  My tongue slides out of the side of my mouth in concentration. I pull back my hand to throw the dart—

  —As snip of a song bursts through the bar, so familiar all I need is the first word—

  THUNK.

  My dart strikes the wood paneling and falls limply to the ground.

  “Oh my God, I’ve never heard this one on the radio before!” exclaims Mindi. Jess asks if it’s a new song. Mindi rolls her eyes. “Duh, it has to be.”

  “He’s only been back for a week! Gosh, he works fast,” Jess comments.

  “It’s not like his usual stuff, though…” Mindi scrunches her freckled nose. “I don’t like it. It’s too…”

  “Not Roman,” Jess finishes as she ties her dark hair up into a ponytail. “What is it?”

  “‘Your Song, Sweetly,’” I say over the music. They give me questionable looks. “I, um, heard it before.”

  Suddenly I’m remembering his voice all over again. How it was soft, and timid, and how he breathed into the microphone like it was an intimate conversation.

  Jess picks at her lip. “But I thought you didn’t listen to…”

  “I don’t,” I reply quickly, turning around to throw another dart, “and can you change the station? You know I hate that sort of trash.”

  She quickly turns it to the rock station.

  Geoff leans toward me, trying to be inconspicuous while giving me the eye. “Listen, boss…” If he begins talking about Roman, I think I might throw a dart at his head—and refuse to miss. “I got this great band…I think your old man would love them. You think they could play Saturday night? You know, as a send-off?”

  I close one eye, aiming for the bulls-eye. “Are they a tribute band?”

  “They can be.”

  I mull it around for a moment in my head. “Are they cheap?”

  “Oh yeah,” he nods, “practically free.”

  Rocking the dart back and forth, I let it fly. It thwacks on the wood paneling with the others.

  “So…?” Geoff eggs, handing me my last dart.

  I heave a half-hearted sigh. “Sure, fine. Why not? Tell them they’d better be here at six sharp—and no Top 40s. Got it?”

  “Not even one?” Jess yells from her seat beside Mindi and the radio.

  “Not even one,” I deadpan. It rules out almost every Roman Holiday song on the market, which for once might mean I get what I want. I throw the next one without even looking—and it snags into the green outer rim.

  Geoff pouts. “Damn it.”

  I grin. “Get to cleaning, suck’ah.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  DJ Rayman picks up on the third ring. “This is WNKY The Pop on this glorious Friday afternoon, what’s your tune?”

  “Yeah, hi,” I greet nervously, twirling a lock of hair around my finger, “do you have that new Roman Holiday song?”

  “Ah, a big Holidayer, huh?”

  Just because I request one song it makes me a Holidayer? Oh, if only they knew the haikus I could write about how much I loathe them. “Sure,” I reply tightly, and hang up before he can continue.

  I don’t care. I don’t want to care.

  I just want to hear this stupid song.

  Laying back on the shag carpet, I stare up at my ceiling fan and wait. I couldn’t get to sleep last night after closing the bar, and this morning I couldn’t sleep in, either. There’s too much buzzing around in my head, and not even listening to Bon Jovi helped. Not that I think listening to this song will either, but what could it hurt?

  Three ear-splitting pop songs later, DJ Rayman comes through for me. I close my eyes and finally, for the first time, I listen to the words. His voice, liquid and light, floats across the notes as though he’s made to sing this song. It’s sad, and slow, probably something that’ll get played at proms and graduations and probably some weddings. People will slow dance to it without really knowing the words.

  It’s a beautiful song, and despite how he keeps promising and promising he’ll sing her song sweetly, the music is anything but sweet. It’s wrapped in sharps and minor chords, and trapped in a key that makes me only think of dark and bitter things.

  He didn’t write this song for a girl.

  He wrote it for Holly.

  A knock at my door startles me out of my thoughts.

  “Come in,” I call, and Chuck inches into my room. I bolt up into a sitting position. “Oh, it’s you.”

  He motions to my radio, and I crawl over to turn it down. He sits at my desk and twists back in forth in my swirly chair like a kid who can’t sit still. “Yep, it’s me. I thought we needed a talk.”

  I quirk an eyebrow. “Did Mom put you up to this?”

  He scrubs at his beard nervously. “No, actually. It’s about what you told me last week…”

  “That got me put on house arrest,” I deadpan.

  “Right, I wanna talk about this man, Robert—”

  “Roman,” I correct, looking down into my lap. “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

  When he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, I look up to see if he’s still here. He stopped twisting in my chair, and sits perfectly still, his hands on his knees. His dark eyes study me, and I can’t help but to squirm under them a little because they remind me of the way Dad used to look at me, as if I was nothing but endlessly exhausting surprises.

  Finally, he rubs his nose and says, “I realize Sherry and I were…hard…on you last week, but you gotta admit it sorta took us by surprise. The news vans are still taking us by surprise, but if this boy means something to you…” He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Listen, I’m not proud to say this, but this entire week he’s been—”

  Mom suddenly calls from the living room, “Oooh, ooh, Junes! It’s that rock star from last week! He’s on TV!”

  I set my lips into a thin line. I don’t care. Why does everyone think I care what he does anymore? It was just a stupid week, and a stupid decision and a stupid—

  “And he’s talking about you!”

  Chuck and I exchange a look.

  The next second, I’m scrambling up off the floor and tearing down the stairs to the TV in the living room, my stepdad quick on my heels. Mom has the TV turned to the Morningside Show with Nick Lively, a small fifteen-minute news segment about celebrity culture. Maggie watches it obsessively, and records t
he segments she can’t watch when she’s at work. I recognize the obnoxious block furniture, and the pink wallpaper behind them.

  Nick Lively smiles in his red chair, sitting across from three men on a long white couch. Jason Dallas is on one end looking like a black smudge in leather, and Roman is on the other in cut-off jeans, a white Rolling Stone t-shirt, and those god-awful suspenders. He’s dyed his hair back to its natural honey brown, but when the light hits it there’s still a strange orange shimmer. And between them, looking uncomfortable as hell, is Boaz.

  A banner scrolls across the bottom that reads JASON DALLAS AND ROMAN HOLIDAY TO PERFORM TOGETHER AT THE GARDENS?

  My breath catches in my throat. So Roman did fight for the Gardens. He’s going to play there—with Jason Dallas. The audience is a madhouse of paparazzi and fans, cameras flashing and crazy people heckling.

  When I sink down to my knees in front of the TV, Nick Lively is asking Roman how he met me. “It was at the beach, right?” the news anchor says with a bleached smile. “How long before the memorial did you know you wanted to get serious?”

  “We didn’t get serious,” Roman replies, and oddly that hurts more than it should. “And it was a few days. She’s a good girl.”

  “You know what they say about good girls,” Nick Lively chuckles at his own joke, but no one else seems to find it funny.

  Jason Dallas lounges back on his side of the couch, looking paler and more greasy than usual. His guyliner is smudged, and his eyes are bloodshot, like he’s been having problems sleeping, too. “He didn’t sleep with her, Nicky,” he says dryly. “Roman doesn’t go for good girls—thought you would’ve realized that from Holly.”

  “Check yourself, bro-ha,” Boaz interjects as Roman stiffens. Jason shrugs and looks off into the audience, grins, and waves one finger at a time at an apparent fan.

  Nick Lively looks down at his cue card and pulls at the collar of his shirt. “Speaking of Holly, when did you realize that Junie Baltimore had given you the photos? Where did she get them?”

  “From a paparazzo,” Roman replies, the muscles in his jaw twitching.