The final notes of
Heart of Darkness
faded away, and Danny
hung up his microphone and left the stage. The crowd was rowdy, and he was
stopped several times by spirited Saturday-night revelers. He kept darting
glances her way as he worked his way through the crowd, and the set of his
shoulders told her he was upset about something. He reached her at last, his
face thunderous, his eyes steely. “I need some air,” he said, brushing past
her without stopping.
In the alley outside, he lit a cigarette and began pacing. His
voice tight, he said, “Jake’s quitting the band.”
It was the last thing she’d expected to hear. Jake Edwards was a
talented drummer, and he’d been with Danny for years. “Oh, no,” she said.
“Why?”
“Brenda’s pregnant.”
Her mouth went suddenly dry. “And?”
“And,” he said bitterly, “they’re flat broke. He’s going to sell
his drums and go to work in her father’s shoe store.”
“Oh, Danny. Isn’t there any other way?”
“He says they’ve talked the subject to death, and it’s the only
answer. He’s throwing away his whole damn future.”
The warm glow inside her had gone cold. “Maybe,” she ventured,
“they wanted a baby.”
He snorted. “
She
wanted a baby, not they. She stopped
taking her birth control pills and neglected to mention it to Jake. I’d
throttle any woman who ever did that to me.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Not that you ever would,” he added. “You have your priorities in order.”
For some reason, she was having difficulty breathing. “What
happens now?” she asked.
“We run an ad. Audition people. Hope to Christ we find someone
we can work with.” He flung his unsmoked cigarette on the ground and crushed
it with his foot. “Did you feel it tonight?”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I felt it the minute I
walked through the door.”
He leaned against the dirty bricks of the building across the
alley and kicked at a clump of dead weeds. “We’ve never sounded better, we’ve
got more work than we can handle, and he decides to walk. Why? Why now?”
Casey thought about Benny Juarez. About Brenda Edwards, and about
her own sister, Colleen. Then, squaring her shoulders, she crossed the alley
to her husband. Beneath the cool silk of his shirt, his muscles were taut,
hard. “We’ll figure something out,” she said.
And he took her in his arms.
***
The week the band began auditioning drummers, Benny Juarez left
St. Peter’s for the foster home of a young black couple in Mattapan. Casey
could have made the trip out to Mattapan to visit, but what was the sense? Her
heart had already been broken once, and she wasn’t sure it could take any more
good-byes. It was better for both of them if she made a clean break.
So she buried her despair in work. The drum auditions weren’t
going well. Jake was getting antsy because of the heat Brenda was putting on
him. Travis paced and muttered and shook his head, while Danny and Rob turned
down hopeful after hopeful, both of them intent on finding a drummer of Jake’s
caliber.
It wasn’t easy. From Lowell to Fall River, every young hotshot
with a drum set wanted to be a member of Boston’s hottest rock band. Hoping to
weed out the amateurs from the professionals, Danny reworded his ad to say
serious
musicians only
. But it seemed that all the kids thought they were
serious. Everybody wanted a piece of the action. So he tried again:
working
musicians only.
But that was a flop, because the working musicians
weren’t looking for work.
A month later, when they still hadn’t found anyone suitable,
Brenda Edwards issued an ultimatum: her or the band. Brenda had been raised
in a devout Christian home, and she’d always hated Jake’s involvement with rock
music, hated the late nights and the raucous atmosphere and the trashy women
who threw themselves at him. Her father had offered Jake a job that he
wouldn’t hold open forever, and she’d already found a buyer for his drum set.
Brenda made it abundantly clear that Jake’s loyalty belonged to his wife. He
didn’t owe anything to Danny Fiore and the rest of that bunch. If they
couldn’t find another drummer, that was their problem, not his. It was time
for Jake to settle down and become a responsible adult.
So in the end, they had to settle for what they could get. Out of
the plethora of young drummers they’d auditioned, they picked Peter Farrell, a
twenty-year-old from Somerville. Pete was a personable guy, slightly
intimidated by Danny but eager to please. Although he had a tendency toward
flashiness that Danny planned to break him of immediately, Pete’s sense of
rhythm and timing weren’t bad, and while Danny popped Rolaids like they were
candy, the band went into intense rehearsal.
And during off-hours, Casey and Rob wrote furiously.
Colleen
and Jesse’s son was a perfect, rosy-cheeked baby with wispy blond hair and his
father’s eyes. Mikey was healthy and alert, content to be by himself for long
stretches of time, and it quickly became apparent that he had inherited his father’s
even temperament. Casey made the trip home to help out for the first couple of
weeks, and while Mikey’s mother recuperated from the rigors of childbirth, it
was his Aunt Casey who fed him his bottle and changed his diapers, rocked him
and sang him to sleep. When he awoke in the middle of the night, it was Casey
who got up to tend him. Colleen had been through a rough labor and delivery.
She needed her rest, and so did Jesse, who was burning the candle at both
ends. So Casey slept on the living room couch, next to Mikey’s cradle, where
she could be at his side in an instant.
One
night near midnight, she was curled up on the couch with the baby asleep in her
arms when the phone rang at her elbow. She snatched it up immediately, afraid
it would wake the entire household. At the other end, Rob said, “I knew you’d
still be up.”
“MacKenzie!”
she scolded in a stage whisper. “Do you have any idea how late it is?”
“Sorry,
pudding, but this couldn’t wait. I think I’ve found
a solution to the problem we’ve been having with the new song.”
Her interest was immediate and focused. “So tell me already.”
“Our thinking’s been too narrow. After the first eight bars, we
need to take off in a completely new direction. Listen.” As he played the
familiar intro to the song they’d been struggling with for weeks, she pondered
the fact that even over the static of a long-distance phone call, the sounds he
could evoke from a simple six-string guitar were almost ethereal. “Okay,” he
said without breaking rhythm, “here’s where it changes.” And he shot for the
moon with a bridge that was a brilliant counterpoint to the original melody.
She felt that familiar excitement in the pit of her stomach, the
sensation she always experienced when the music grabbed her and took her to
some magical place beyond her own physical boundaries. When he finished
playing, she was silent for several seconds, still caught up in the spell. And
then she let out the breath she’d been holding and said, “How do you do it?”
He didn’t ask what she meant. He didn’t have to. “I don’t know,”
he said. “It’s just there.” And just as he’d understood her question, she
understood his answer.
“Do you want me to work on the lyrics?” she said.
“Sure. Want to hear it again?”
“I don’t need to.” Any melody, once heard, was permanently
imprinted upon her brain. “Hey, hot stuff,” she said. Thanks.”
“No prob. Listen, kiddo, want to talk to your old man?”
Her heartbeat quickened. “Danny’s there?”
“And chomping at the bit. Here he is. So long, babe.”
And then Danny was on the line. “Hi,” he said, and that velvet
voice made her go warm all over.
“Hi,” she answered, and they were both silent, the vibrations
radiating between them as eloquent as words.
He cleared his throat. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon. Colleen needs me right now.”
“I need you right now.”
“Just a few more days, darling. I promise. How are things
working out with Pete?”
Danny sighed. “He’s a good kid and he’s trying hard, but
something’s missing. I don’t know if the audience can feel it, but I can.
We’ve lost the sound.”
“Sweetheart, you can’t let him drag you down. You’ve worked too
long and too hard.”
“I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s not working. He’s trying
so damn hard. Maybe my expectations are too high.”
“I’ll be home in a few days,” she said, “and then we’ll
brainstorm.”
“Brainstorming isn’t exactly what I had in mind for you.”
“Oh, really?” Her voice softened. “What, exactly, did you have
in mind?”
“I’m not at liberty to say right now. But feel free to use your
imagination.”
She toyed with the telephone cord. “That could get me into
trouble.”
“I was hoping,” he said dryly, “it would remind you of where you
belong.”
“You have a one-track mind,” she told him.
“All men have one-track minds. Some are just better at it than
others.”
“He said with humility. Good-night, Daniel.”
“
Ciao
, baby. Sweet dreams.”
She hung up the phone, her hand still lingering on the receiver,
as though she could somehow prolong their contact. Her mind was still with
Danny, in Boston, when Jesse said softly, “Everything okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did the phone wake you?”
“I wasn’t asleep. Want a cup of coffee?”
“I’d love one.”
While her brother-in-law puttered in the kitchen, Casey studied
the sleeping child in her arms, the perfect head, covered with peach fuzz, the
blue veins showing beneath milky, translucent skin. For just a moment, she
allowed herself to pretend he was hers, instead of her sister’s. And then she
felt ashamed.
Jesse returned with the coffee. “You look so natural,” he said,
“sitting there, holding him.”
“Jess,” she said, “Is it too late to say I’m sorry? Do you hate
me?”
“I don’t hate you. I was hurt for a while, but I never hated
you.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“It was my pride that was hurt, more than anything.” He toyed
with his coffee cup, and the baby yawned and stretched and settled back against
her breast. “We were together,” he said, “because everyone expected us to be.
Ever since we were kids, everybody expected us to get married. It never occurred
to either one of us that it might not happen.”
“Instead,” she said, “you married my sister. Who would have ever
thought it?”
He looked into his coffee cup. “I’ve just been accepted to
graduate school. Colleen doesn’t know it yet.” His mouth tightened. “She
won’t like it.”
Surprised, she said, “Does Dad know?”
“He’s the one who pushed me to do it. Who knows how long this
place will be able to support two families? I already have a teaching degree.
With a Master’s degree in English, I’ll have something to fall back on.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “Is Dad in financial trouble?” she said.
“No. Nothing like that. But you know how risky farming can be.”
“Well,” she said, “you certainly are full of surprises.”
He set down his coffee cup. “Casey,” he said, “I think you should
go home. You belong with your husband.”
“But Colleen needs me.”
“Mikey’s ten days old. Colleen’s had plenty of time to
recuperate. I know you’re just trying to help, but he needs to know who his
mother is.”
Casey looked down at the bundle in her arms and felt something
akin to grief. Jesse was right. She’d known it since the day Mikey came home
from the hospital, but because the situation had fulfilled her own needs so
well, she’d stubbornly refused to face it. Her sister had allowed her to take
over the role of mother, and it might continue indefinitely unless Casey
relinquished that role to its rightful owner.
“I don’t want you to think I’m pushing you out,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re right. Mikey needs to know who his
mother is. And Danny needs me. I’ll take the first bus out in the morning.”
***
When she opened the door, she thought for a moment that she was in
the wrong apartment. She set down her suitcase and gingerly fingered the dirty
tee shirt that hung at an awkward angle over the shade of her hurricane lamp.
She took a step and knocked over a half-empty beer can. Its contents spilled
and ran, pooling in a yellow puddle beneath the couch. Cigarette butts
overflowed from the ashtray on the coffee table beside a plate that held the
fossilized remains of something that might once have been food.
Rob came in from the kitchen, carrying a bag of trash and looking
comical in one of her aprons. When he saw her standing in the doorway, he
stopped so abruptly that Danny, following behind him with the broom and
dustpan, crashed into him. Danny looked up and met her eyes. “Shit,” he said.