Losing Gabriel (24 page)

Sy had called a meeting of the band's remnants in the house's great room, not poolside, so the three of them knew it was important, different from other meetings. Three weeks gone since Bonnaroo, since Loose Change had knocked it out of the park, twenty-one days since…since…As soon as they had returned to Nashville, the guys packed up boxes of Jarred's stuff to send home to his family. Sloan had not helped. She simply couldn't touch his things, couldn't stir up new pain. She moved out of the room they'd shared, taken one at the far end of the hall, listened to Bobby, Hal, and Sy work, with every zip of the packing tape sounding like nails across a chalkboard, making her flinch each time she heard it that long afternoon.

Today they trickled into the massive great room with its soaring ceilings and oversized furniture. Sun blazed through spotless windows, cleaned just that morning, inside and out, by a janitorial service. Glass-topped tables sparkled, objects d'art rested on surfaces of expensive built-ins, and paintings worth large sums of money stared down from stark white walls. Sloan scarcely saw the room's beauty as she settled in a club chair, part of a set centered in front of a massive glass and iron coffee table. Hal and Bobby took the sofa and Sy the other club chair. Without preamble, Sy said, “My old man called yesterday. He heard about what happened at Bonnaroo and he was”—Sy searched for words—“angry. Worse than angry. He's talked with his attorneys about liabilities, blah blah blah, and he's demanding I come to New York, then to Europe for the rest of the summer. He's shutting down this house and cutting off my money. Sorry, guys, but I gotta go.”

Sloan wasn't surprised. Sy had spent days backing them out of the summer tour, making calls, giving regrets. No contracts had been signed, so dumping out had only proved embarrassing. There was no more band. Their brief shining moment was over. The day before while driving to the grocery store, Sloan had heard the ballad she and Jarred once had written and sung together on the car radio. The DJ had called it a tribute to lost talent. She'd turned it off mid-song.

“So we're being tossed?” Hal asked.

“We're all out.”

“Do you have to go to New York? Do what he says?” Sloan asked, because she knew how much music meant to Sy and how little his father's world meant to him.

“Only if I want to come into my trust fund from Granddad when I'm thirty.” Sy looked grim and sad at the same time. “And when I get my hands on it, my old man will never be able to tell me what to do again. So, yeah, I gotta walk the line. For now.”

A weird five-year prison sentence he couldn't escape, Sloan thought.

“How long before we have to leave?” Bobby asked.

“Two days.” Sy took a deep breath. “It was all the time I could buy. The old man's ballistic. Doesn't want me sullying his glorious name. Hurts business, you know.”

Sloan felt sorry for Sy. He'd carved out a unique sound for their band. And they'd come so close to grabbing the brass ring.

“What about the money in the bank for our tour?” Hal again.

“Yeah. That's part two of this meeting. I went to the bank yesterday to close out the account since I was a cosigner.” Sy made eye contact with each of them. Sloan felt as if a rock had settled in the pit of her stomach because she knew exactly what was coming. “There is no money, folks. Jarred spent it all.”

“W
hat the hell!” Hal shot off the sofa.

“All of it?” Bobby's voice cracked.

Sy calmly reached to the floor beside his chair and brought up several pieces of paper and a packet. “See for yourselves.” He tossed the paper onto the glass-topped table and Hal snatched it, stared at it, then he handed it to Bobby, who scanned it and looked up, incredulous. Sloan stayed seated, didn't even bother to look.

“You closed it out with just five hundred bucks in it? There was supposed to be several thousand in it! We've been putting in cash every week since our tour ended last summer. Plus there was the Bonnaroo money.”

“Five hundred eight dollars and forty-one cents.” Sy held up the packet, then tossed it onto the table too. “It's for you three to split.”

Hal jerked the statement from Bobby's hand, stared hard at it, leaped up, and paced the floor. “The money's been leaking out for months. What the hell did he do with it?”

Sy shrugged. “I blame myself for not checking the account more often. Sorry. If I'd been watching carefully—”

“Not your fault,” Sloan spoke for the first time. “None of us blame you, Sy.” She glared at Hal and Bobby, daring either to contradict her.

Hal growled, wadded the papers, and threw the ball across the room. “What did he do with it? With our money!”

“How much did he take to Bonnaroo?” Sloan's numbness was wearing off, replaced by cold anger.

Bobby crossed the floor, retrieved the paper ball, un-wadded it, smoothed the crinkles with his palm, and looked for the date of the last withdrawal. “Fifteen hundred. Two days before the festival. But he'd been spending it all along without us knowing.”

Hal swore. “So he must have been planning the drug buy.”

Sy shrugged. “We'll never know for sure. What we do know is that whatever price he paid it wasn't worth it.”

They went silent. Sloan's gaze darted around the room, at the tableau of friends now fractured, swimming in sunlight from the vast glass wall, of plans now changed, and of hopes shattered. Betrayed by one of their own. She hated Jarred, even in her grief over losing him.

Sy stood. “Cold beer in the fridge, guys. One final pool party just for us. How 'bout it?”

They left the room, but Sloan didn't. There was only one thought in her head, running on a loop, a refrain from an old song written long after the death of three rockers in a plane crash:
“The day the music died…”

Dawson was wrapping up his day, washing drywall mud off his arms from a hose at the construction site when his boss, Frank Younce, called him into the management trailer. He went inside from the heat of the afternoon to the welcome of the blast of cool air. Younce motioned to a chair and Dawson took it. Often such visits were called before a firing. He couldn't think what he might have done to warrant a pink slip, though. “Yes, sir.” He wanted to ask,
Am I in trouble?
but didn't.

Younce was a good-sized man with a barrel chest and massive arms. His face looked like tanned leather from twenty-five years of working outdoors. Dawson considered him a good boss, tough, but fair. His boss said, “Windemere's a small town.” Dawson nodded in agreement. “I'm just saying because people know each other's business.” The words sounded ominous, but Dawson held his tongue. “I know your father is a doctor. Good one too, people say.”

“True.” For the life of him, Dawson couldn't figure where the foreman was going with his questions.

“You want to be a doctor like your dad?”

Dawson shook his head. “Never wanted that. Taking some classes at MTSU in business. More to my liking.”

“How about your job? You like construction work?”

“Sure. Hard work, but good work.”

Younce gave a satisfied nod, as if he approved of Dawson's words. “Been watching you on the job for months. You ever think of moving up in this kind of work?”

“Move how? To what?”

“Construction manager. Hastings Construction offers paid sponsorships to people who show promise at becoming managers for the company. Headquarters asks for recommendations every so often, and I thought of you. You're a good worker, you've done a turn at almost every job on a site, and people like you. You'll make more money and you'll get more responsibility when you're a manager, and it also means you can move up within Hastings.”

The words surprised Dawson. He'd never thought about making a career with Hastings Construction. “I'm interested. What do I have to do?”

“It's good you're getting college credits, because there's a lot of construction specialties to consider…you know, directions you can go. But what's key for the job is personal skills, being able to solve problems and get along with others—not always easy with some of these guys.”

Dawson knew it was true. Some of the men walked off the job without warning, showed up drunk, and got into arguments over anything.

The foreman studied him, said, “You already have two years of construction experience, and you appear to have the people skills. You might want to consider going for a sponsorship.” Younce tossed a spiral-bound booklet on his desk, where it landed in front of Dawson. “Take this home, look it over, see where you might fit and might want to explore, then get back to me. This is a good opportunity, Berke. I think you have the stuff to make a good manager.” Younce stood, gave a nod. “See you in the morning.”

Dawson rose quickly, his head spinning over the offer. Sometimes life took a new direction when least expected.

The band members divided the money, Hal and Bobby taking $169 each and giving Sloan $170. They threw the forty-one cents into the pool. Sloan also took Jarred's car, and the guys settled on the Beast. At the last minute, standing in the circular drive in front of Sy's house, Bobby said, “You can come with us, Sloan. We can find new people, rebuild the band.”

She shook her head. “I'm over the band.”

“What will you do? Your voice shouldn't be wasted.” Bobby's eyes begged her to come with him and Hal to Atlanta, where Hal's aunt had said they could stay with her for a “spell.”

“Don't know yet. I'll figure out something.”

“You'll keep in touch?”

“Sure.” She said it but knew she probably wouldn't.

“Where will you go?” Sy asked.

“Not sure. Someplace where I can get a job.” Of course, she knew where she was going; she just couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.

They stood there awkwardly, listening to the fountain in the center of the semicircular driveway gurgle under the hot sunshine. Hal reached for Sloan, hugged her, and climbed into the bus. Sy hugged her next. “You have a great voice,” he said into her ear. “Never give up.”

“And you don't let your dad kill your heart for music.”

Bobby came last, holding her close and a little too long. “Love you, Sloan.”

“Ditto.” She told Bobby what he needed to hear but eased away, got into the hot car, started the engine, turned on the air, exited the driveway, and headed toward I-24, knowing she'd turn onto the ramp going east and take the exit for the Tennessee state road that would take her back to Windemere. She was out of options, had no money, no job, and nowhere else to go.