Heartstrings (17 page)

S
tepping back
into his old life was
weird.
Cal felt like a stranger when he landed at DIA. He slung his backpack onto his shoulder and took the escalator down to the pedestrian waiting area.

When Yanmei rolled in to collect him, they paused for a moment, eyeing one another up like some sort of well-meaning Mexican standoff. He sized her up, concerned for her well-being. She looked him over from head to toe, presumably to see if rock-star life had ruined him.

Then they shared a quick hug and he climbed into the Forester with a contented sigh.

By the time they pulled into Cal’s apartment complex, Yanmei had briefed him on the plumbing situation at The Garage: there was a leak in the sprinkler system. They’d had to shut the kitchen down for a few days. It turned out that the crud they kept in fire sprinklers wasn’t even water. It was some sort of brown chemical sludge that was extremely toxic to human life. Who knew?

Cal was eager to get back to work, but was also too tired to do much other than ask if Yanmei wanted to hang around for lunch at his place. Lunch that was likely to be KFC.

“As much as I’d love to eat greasy chicken with you, I’ve actually got a date,” she said. “Travis has a rare afternoon off. We’re going to play laser tag.”

Cal tilted his head, watching her, amused.

“Laser tag? Really? How old are you?”

She stepped out his front door, laughing heartily.

“Old enough that I couldn’t care less what Judgey McJudgerson thinks about my hobbies.”

Cal’s expression softened a bit. He gave her what he hoped was a fond smile.

“It’s good you’re getting out. You always told me to do more of that.”

“Exactly,” she said. Then she bounded off down his front steps, taking the two flights down to the parking lot. The last thing he saw before he stepped inside was Yanmei waving, then ducking under the carport.

Right. So now Cal was home again. He wished he could come up with a better word than
weird
, but that was how it felt. Like stepping into a life that wasn’t really his anymore.

* * *

S
trolling
around the interior of his empty apartment, Cal sought out something to do. It became clear shortly thereafter that he’d cleaned up everything that needed cleaning before he left. The trash cans were emptied, the dishes were washed, the bills were paid, and nothing needed fixing. He lived in a modest brick complex, secure and well-insulated, if older and sort of drab.

At a loss for what to do, he considered heading over to the bar. But that felt like giving in to every stereotype Yanmei and Blake had ever had about him. They both made excellent points: there had to be more to his life than work.

But deciding what that “more” should be was trickier. What was he supposed to do, enroll at the local community college and start taking classes?

Without Blake around, without their relationship to explore, without at least music to play, Cal felt like he was spinning his wheels.

You should call your dad,
he thought out of nowhere. It had been a while.

He checked the time. Early afternoon on the East Coast. If his father wasn’t out at sea, chances were he’d be around. Cal checked the battery on his phone, finding there was more than enough for a lengthy conversation. His calls with his father didn’t usually fit that descriptor.

Like Cal, Tucker Lindsay was a man of few words unless you really got him going. But now that Cal and he lived so far away, talking on the phone had gotten a little easier by way of necessity.

Cal sprawled out on his couch and queued up the number on his phone.

His father picked up on the fifth ring, launching straight into conversation without so much as a “hello,” as was typical for him.

“Well I’ll be,” Tucker said. “I figured you’d call eventually. I could only go so long getting second-hand news about my own son’s new life as a rock star.”

Caught off guard, Cal laughed. One of his dad’s friends must have shared the news. Yanmei of course had plastered it all over The Garage’s social media—free publicity, why not?—but Cal wasn’t sure his dad was the type to check up on his old bar on Facebook.

“It was short-lived,” Cal said.

“Doesn’t make it worth any less.”

In the background, behind the rough rasp of his father’s voice, Cal could hear water. Waves lapping against something.

“Are you on the boat?” he asked, grinning. After leaving the bar in Cal’s hands, Tucker seemed to spend every one of his retired days either on a fishing trip, unpacking from a fishing trip, or prepping for a fishing trip.

“Not quite. We’re at the docks loading up. Going on an overnighter.”

Cal stared up at his apartment’s textured ceiling, letting his eyes relax. Sometimes he could spot shapes in the stippled patterns.

“What are you going out for?” he asked, mostly to indulge his dad and let him ramble about fish for a while. Cal always liked the sound of his father’s voice when it was relaxed. When he was talking about the things he loved.

“Grouper, amberjacks, the whole rainbow of snapper. Maybe a mahi if we’re lucky. Always seems like you have a better chance of snagging a mahi when you use Spanish sardines. None of that Swedish crap.”

“They import your bait all the way from Sweden?”

“I think so, or one of them Scandinavian countries. The writing on the frozen herring looks Swedish to me.”

Cal’s father was as red-blooded American as a person could feasibly get. He’d never left the continental United States in his life. When Cal was younger, they’d had a rocky period, a combination of Cal’s coming out and his mother leaving the house after a messy divorce. But if anything, they’d grown stronger because of it.

“Glad you’ve got the good stuff this time,” Cal said, unable to keep up with the fishing talk in too much detail.

On the other end of the line, Cal’s father grunted. There was the sound of something heavy impacting something else. Cal tried to imagine the scene in his head: his father in an old jacket and shitty jeans, hefting a couple of bags onto the boat, probably a good four weeks into a beard like he let himself get these days.

Cal imagined he’d look
healthy.
And that was the most important thing.

“You feeling pretty good?” Cal asked, hoping the question wasn’t too intrusive. He worried sometimes about his dad’s health, about whether he was too far away from his limited support structure all the way down in Boca Raton.

“I’m probably faring better than you if you’re drinkin’ as much as you did the last time you and Blake used to tour around together.”

Cal laughed, caught off guard by the jab.

“No, Dad. I’m not. We’re too busy to drink. Or at least Blake is. I was just along for the ride.”

“And how’s he doing? I’m glad you two finally got over yourselves.”

Cal never told his father the real reason why he quit Keys To The Old Horse. His father just assumed they’d had some dumb teenage falling out and had called it such for years. Even though they weren’t teenagers at the time it happened. But that was kind of the way of fathers everywhere, wasn’t it?

“So am I,” Cal said. A little lick of warmth kindled in his chest when he said it.

“He was always a good influence on you. I worried you’d make the kind of friends I had at your age, back then. But instead he turned out to be a good egg.”

Cal wondered if he should tell his father that he and Blake were possibly a couple again. Had his dad figured it out the first time? He wasn’t ever sure. Tucker didn’t interfere much in Cal’s teenage life. They both had jobs to do, bills to pay. It wasn’t until years later that Tucker discussed this sort of thing with his son at all.

But before Cal could break the news, his father spoke again:

“I’ve got to get going. Alonzo’s sister and her kid are coming with us this time. I’ve got to make sure there’s enough room aboard for all their crap.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Cal said.

“I wouldn’t.” Hundreds of miles away in Florida, Cal’s father laughed. “Anyway, you and Blake should come down for a trip one of these days. Spend that rock-star money of yours on something other than hookers and blow. You might even enjoy it.”

“You never know,” Cal said, warmth in his words. “We just might. Love you, Dad.”

“You take care,” Tucker said. He’d only dropped the
I love you
out loud a few times in Cal’s lifetime. A regular phone conversation didn’t quite warrant it.

They said goodbye to one another and hung up. Cal let his arm fall down, knuckles grazing the carpet. He shifted on the couch until he achieved something resembling comfort, staring up at the ceiling still. No patterns manifested out of the texture at the moment. He thought he saw a fox, sometimes.

The whole time he’d been away, he’d worried about getting home in time. In time for what, though? Work stuff? Even though he trusted Yanmei completely?

Now that he was home, something felt as though it was missing. That something, he knew, was Blake.

B
lake remembered
his first trip to Nashville. Back when Carousel Records first invited the Sinsationals to town for a chat. The trip that led to their first big-kid record deal. Nashville had a sort of overwhelming mystique to it. Blake wondered if the feelings it evoked in him were the same as Old Hollywood felt to every starry-eyed would-be actress that moved to Los Angeles.

The pride that welled up in Blake when he found out he’d be recording an album in Nashville—he didn’t even care what studio, it was
Nashville!
—was unforgettable. The shadow of it still pulled at his heart every time he flew into town.

He knew this time it would be different. Palmer and the band’s lawyers and Blake’s personal lawyers and the label’s lawyers and Rhett’s lawyers were all convening for some all-important powwow that would decide the band’s future. Or at least start the process of deciding it.

Truth be told, Blake wanted no part of it. He wanted to finish the tour, go out on a high note. He wanted to sit in that aquarium with Cal again. He wanted to write some music to get the sickness out of his soul.

One of the hardest truths to face about being a professional musician was just how much time Blake spent
not
doing the things he loved to do. More and more, as things with Rhett got worse, Blake had started to wonder if it was even the right path for him.

He’d stomped all that doubt down when Cal returned, though. Because playing music with Cal again felt as right and natural as walking on his own two feet.

Maybe a change won’t be so bad,
he tried to tell himself.
Maybe you are meant to do this, just not here. Just not with Rhett. And maybe that’s perfectly all right.

But as much as Blake tried to talk some sense into his anxiety, it gripped his heart in its frigid hands and held on tight. He wished Cal were with him more than anything in the world. But it would have looked strange, him bringing Cal and nobody else. And Palmer’s people made the travel arrangements last-minute.

What a mess.

When the receptionist finally called Blake into the meeting with all the other bigwigs, he felt like a man walking to the gallows. He hoped they’d make it quick.

* * *

T
he meeting was not quick
. They’d already been at it for a while. Blake’s ass was in that seat for almost three hours. He barely had to say a word, instructed to keep quiet by his own legal counsel. It was a surreal feeling, sitting there in a chair and listening as other parties fought for his band’s survival.

Across the long, glossy wooden table, Rhett slouched back somewhat in his own seat. He looked right at Blake the entire time, eyes locked on, an insufferable smirk curling at his mouth. His relaxed, carefree posture was the worst of it though. Like he barely had any stake in it. Like he barely even cared.

Blake kept his mouth shut by the grace of God and the fear of his lawyer alone.

All the legal terminology flew right over Blake’s head. The suits talked about statutory royalties and primary and secondary copyrights and letters of intent and good-faith agreements and Blake was only able to parse bits here and there. At one point, his own lawyer asked him to look over some paperwork. One sheet was a statement that Rhett had attacked Blake first and that he’d agreed not to press charges, another was a copy of his initial record contract, every page faithfully initialed and dated by every Sinsationals member and their management.

After all that, one signature and one read-over was all they needed Blake for. When the group broke for lunch, they told him he was free to go.

Unmoored and purposeless, nothing keeping him at the Carousel office, Blake headed out into the street. He took an aimless right turn and passed a long, tree-dotted grassy field. In the distance, the dome of Bridgestone Arena rose up, the skyline of downtown further beyond it. Staring up at the sky—pale blue, wisped with faint gray cloud—Blake tried to figure out some way to occupy himself until the hammer fell.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his blazer, Blake hoofed it down the path, easing through a couple of knots of tourists, their cameras focused down toward the ground. An elderly woman turned around a little too quickly, the lens of her hip-level camera thwacking into Blake’s forearm. He hissed and jerked his arm back, shaking out his hand.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she stammered, stepping back. She wore a visor, gray-black curls pinned back behind it. When Blake glanced down and caught the mortified look on her face, he waved a hand, dismissive.

“Not your fault,” he said.

“He was always my favorite, I had to get a photo.”

Blake blinked, unsure what she meant. He looked around from side to side and didn’t see any men nearby, unless she meant several yards down the sidewalk.

“Who was?” he asked, curious.

The woman pointed down, toward Blake’s boots.

“Roy Orbison. And the Traveling Wilburys, too.”

Blake followed her gesture, peering down at the sidewalk beneath his feet. He was standing on the very corner of a large black paver embellished with a red star.
ROY ORBISON
was written in a corner of the star in block letters.

He was at the Music City Walk of Fame and he hadn’t even noticed.

Suddenly self-conscious, Blake stepped off the edge of the paver.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” the old woman said. “It’s not like he’s hanging around haunting the place.”

Blake let out an awkward laugh. He wasn’t worried about Roy Orbison’s vengeful ghost. Somehow, stepping on the pavers just felt disrespectful, now that he knew they were there.

“I can grab a photo of you and Roy if you want,” he offered, extending a hand. The woman regarded him for a moment—possibly sizing him up a potential camera snatcher—and then beamed, unlooping her camera strap from around her neck and handing the DSLR rig to Blake with care.

“The settings should be fine,” she said. “Just step back a bit so we’re not cropped in too close.”

Blake took a few steps away from her and crouched down, putting the viewfinder to his eye. The woman pulled her Windbreaker tighter around herself and smiled hugely. Blake snapped a few photos, then turned the camera back toward her for inspection.

“These are just lovely, thank you.” She smiled at him and gave him a pat on the back of one hand.

“My pleasure.” Blake reached up to tip his hat to her, but he wasn’t wearing one. He let his hand fall awkwardly back to his side.

“You take care of yourself, son,” she said. He bid her the same.

Resuming his walk, Blake stared down at the stars as he passed them. He passed Emmylou Harris, The Crickets, and Jimi Hendrix. It wasn’t until he got to an upright display that explained that the Walk wasn’t just for country stars, rather anyone who had made a significant contribution to the Nashville music scene, that he understood.

I wonder if they’ll let me have one of these someday,
Blake thought.

And with that thought, he knew he was still on the right path. Even his vague, wispy definitions of
someday
included country music. Whether it was with the Sinsationals or in a different package altogether, he was doing what he was meant to do.

Rather than feeling bolstered with fresh confidence, this revelation drove the spike in Blake’s stomach further in. If he was doing what he was meant to do, how could he stand by and watch a bunch of overpaid lawyers take his band away from him? Shouldn’t he be doing something about it?

Sick with worry, Blake paced the streets of Nashville until his phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked it, saw Palmer’s name on the notification, and turned back towards Carousel Records.