Tempo Change (21 page)

One night Ed knocked on my bedroom door and asked if I wanted to talk and I said what about and he said he noticed that I hadn’t been playing my guitar much since Coachella.

I told him about the Fringers breaking up. He said he
was sorry to hear it but there was no reason for me not to continue playing.

I told him I was probably going to try out for the school play or do something like that next year and that would take up a lot of my time.

“Well, there’s a reason I ask,” he said. He reached for something outside my door and the next thing I knew, he was handing me a guitar case. I opened it up. It was a beautiful Gibson guitar, completely intact, no hole in the body.

He said, “We got it in the store. We haven’t been able to move it. I don’t know why. Probably because it’s discontinued, not one of their more popular models, not very flashy, but the sound is perfectly nice. And it’s a small body, I thought you might like that.”

I stared at it. I wanted to touch it but I was afraid to. I was afraid of how much I’d want it if I did. And I was afraid I’d be letting all that craziness back in my life.

I said, “You don’t have to bribe me, Ed. You’re my stepfather now and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not bugged anyway. It’s fine.”

He smiled. “It’s a gift, Blanche. You earned it. That was a lot of hard work, putting the band together and taking it as far as you did.”

“I guess,” I said, not looking at him or the guitar.

“And whatever happened up there with your father …”

“Nothing. Nothing happened.”

“Well, I just wondered if the reason you hadn’t been playing was that the guitar belonged to him.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“And even if that’s not it, a girl should have her own
guitar. They keep their vibrations, you know. The person who held it and made things happen on it or to it, those impressions stay. So this one, it’s a clean slate. It’s never been anybody’s. But yours. If you want it.”

I didn’t say anything.

He stood and smiled at me. “How about I leave it here and you see whether or not you can make friends with it?”

“Fine,” I said.

He touched me lightly on the shoulder and left.

The guitar sat in its red velvet, staring up at me, like a homeless pet.

I stroked its face and closed the case and decided to think about it later.

P
EACE
P
IZZA
. I
T BECAME MY REFUGE
. I
GOT BACK ON MY REGULAR
schedule, the one I had abandoned during the craziness of the Fringers.

I suddenly understood the name of the place. Maybe Toby had understood that when he started the business. He was a guy who just wanted to surf and hang out and he couldn’t handle ambition so he started a pizza joint and that was his peace. I always thought it was some kind of political movement but maybe not. Before, I had always looked at him as someone who had given up on life. But now that I had seen my father in action, I understood people like Toby and Ed. They weren’t burdened with all that want.

I thought maybe I could go with that idea. I could just make pizzas and not worry about who I was in the world. Pizza making was something some people did so they could
get on with their real approach to living, which was being on some kind of board, surf or skate. It was all leading to exactly where it was.

Not so with Jeff. He had been promoted to night manager but he was going to leave in July so he could start an internship with some engineering company, which was all part of his gearhead plans. He was excited about it. He hoped the internship would help him get his scholarship to MIT. After which he had even more big plans for himself.

One night while I was mixing up sauce, Jeff came and stood beside me and said, “I didn’t think you wanted me up at Coachella, so I didn’t go. What’s going on with your band?”

Of course, he didn’t know. I hadn’t shared anything with him in a long time.

“I don’t have a band, Jeff. I’m just a girl who works in a pizza place.”

“Hey, listen,” he said. “I have an idea. Why don’t I record your stuff for you?”

“What?”

“I taught myself Pro Tools on the computer. I could record you. It’s pretty easy.”

“I don’t have a band.”

“You don’t need one. I can program any sound you want. I just need you to sing because I can’t program that.”

“Where would we do this exactly?”

“At my house. My basement. My mom let me set it up like a studio. But I haven’t recorded anybody yet because, well, I didn’t know any musicians who were any good until you became one.”

“I’m not such a good musician.”

“Okay, then just be a guinea pig. I want to experiment with my producing skills.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Well, maybe that’s just what I want to do with my fancy engineering degree.”

I stared at him. I had never thought of Jeff as anything but a serious guy with serious thoughts on his mind.

Jeff smiled at me.

“After all, I helped you write your first song.”

I looked away from him and swirled sauce onto a pizza.

“You should stick to building rockets or something. Music is a big hassle. Trying to keep a band together. Trying to keep everyone including yourself sane.”

“Look, Street, I think we could make a good team.”

He leaned against the counter and smiled at me. He had one of those confident smiles that made you wonder what it was all about, what secret powers he possessed that made him seem so comfortable with being in the world. He made you want to be next to it. Or he made me want to, anyway.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Great!”

He grabbed me and lifted me up and twirled me around. I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” I asked when he put me down.

“Hanging on by a thread,” he said, winking at me.

* * *

When I got home from work I went straight to my e-mail and checked it. There was nothing from my father. There was nothing from anyone except some photos from Gigi that her father had taken at Coachella. Looking at them was strange. It’s always hard to look at yourself because the camera mushes you up and adds weight and crazy angles but really it’s just hard to see yourself out of context—that is, the context of your own head. You just don’t look the way you think you do. Suddenly you have to see yourself as other people see you. And even then you can’t be sure that’s how they see you. It just makes you confused because you understand that you’re someone who goes out in the world and because of that, you’re just exposed to all kinds of interpretations.

Even stranger is to see yourself onstage. I walked out there and asked people to look at me and listen to me and I held their attention the whole time and for what?

They only sent one photo with my father in it.

I was playing my guitar and singing into the mike with my eyes closed. My hair didn’t look as bizarre as I feared. I looked like an actual rock star with the crazy outfit on and the dark makeup. I was surprised to see how easy it was to buy me as a rocker. As the bold artsy type. I looked as if I might actually have something to say.

In the photo, my father is playing the guitar and he’s singing into the mike, but he doesn’t have his eyes closed and he isn’t staring at the audience. His head is turned sideways and he’s looking at me. He’s wearing this charming, coaxing smile, like he’s willing me to look at him and I’m not doing it.

It’s hard to tell what the expression is on his face. Maybe he is seeing himself in me. Maybe he’s just putting on an act for the audience. Maybe he really is proud. What’s more striking is the way I’m behaving. As if I don’t want to know he’s there. As if I somehow got there without him. As if that were possible at all.

Somehow I understood that it had all worked perfectly. In all its chaos, it had gone the way it had to go.

I heard the door close and my mother and Ed were laughing. I heard the TV go on and I heard Ed grinding beans to make coffee. He was heavily into grinding coffee beans and my mother was heavily into anything he did. She was into being taken care of. She was into him being there.

I picked up my cell phone and dialed. Viv answered.

“Hi,” she said. “I never expected to see your name on my phone again.”

“I’m sorry. I got so busy with Coachella.”

“You don’t need to explain. We don’t have to be friends. I’m happy for you, though. I knew you could do it.”

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“Nobody ever asked me what prayer I wrote for the prayer box.”

“I figured it was private.”

“I guess it was but the thing is, it came true.”

“You prayed to get to Coachella.”

“No. I don’t think I even need to tell you what it was. Just that it came true.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Does that mean I believe in God now or something?”

“I don’t know. Does it?”

“I don’t know.”

We were quiet for a moment.

I wanted to say a lot more but I knew I couldn’t. It was all forming in my head and it was coming together. But it had somewhere else to go.

“Okay, so I’ll see you at school. Thanks for everything,” I said.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. You taught me how to sing.”

“How did I do that?”

“By not singing.”

“Well, maybe. But you’re the person who made it happen. I wouldn’t have gone near that prayer box without you. I wouldn’t have had something to hold on to when I was lost without that. And you wouldn’t have found the courage to find the band without me. I think that events just come together and create possibilities. But possibilities go nowhere without the people who recognize them. You know?”

“I sort of know. I kind of get it now.”

“Thanks for the call, Blanche.”

We said goodbye and I lay very still on my bed for a moment.

I could see myself writing the prayer down, scribbling it very fast, not even thinking about it because I felt like it was something I thought a thousand times a day and even wished for but I had never prayed. I never got how important it was to turn it into a prayer and then into an intention. It was the difference between wishing it and living it.

I want to get to know my father.

That’s what I put in the box.

Because I didn’t realize that when your prayers get answered, it doesn’t look the way you expect it to. It doesn’t look like happiness, necessarily. It just looks like getting what you asked for.

I thought about Jeff recording my songs in his basement. I remembered how he said he was hanging by a thread. I pictured us collaborating and coming up with great ideas. I saw us talking and debating and laughing. I felt him twirling me around in his arms. I saw the future unfolding with all its mysterious promise. I saw art being part of my life but at the same time, I saw myself grounded and responsible to the people who cared about me. For the first time, I believed it could all happen.

I picked up my new guitar and started to strum.

I started writing a song and singing these words:

I
T SEEMED LIKE FOREVER THAT
I
LISTENED TO THE PHONE
ring, and finally someone picked up. It was Maggie. I recognized her husky voice.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Hi, this is Blanche Kelly. I’m wondering how you felt about my article.”

She coughed and then said, “Blanche, I got your material. It’s really long.”

“I know. I tried to cut it down but that didn’t work out.”

“It’s interesting.”

“You read it? That’s great.”

“Yeah, but it’s entirely too long.”

“Okay.”

I waited for her to tell me what to do.

She said, “Is it all true?”

“Of course.”

She said, “I pitched it to my editors. We had the idea of making it a serialized piece.”

“What does that mean?”

“We can’t print it all at once. But we’re interested in making it a serialized article—print it in parts in a couple of the magazines over a period of time. It would help if you could get us an interview with your father.”

There had been a time in my life when that would have made my blood run cold. But I wasn’t like that anymore.

“No can do. I don’t really have access to him,” I said.

“Well, without that, we really don’t know what to do with this.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

I was about to hang up. Then Maggie said, “Wait.”

I waited.

She said, “It’s a really good story. Have you ever thought of turning it into a book? We could publish the first chapter. That’s called first serial.”

“I’m a high school student. I think about grades and dates and stuff,” I told her.

“Well, I understand, but this could be your really big break. You’re the daughter. It’s a tell-all story. Think about it.”

I had thought about it already. I was having a nice summer, hanging out with Jeff and singing and writing and recording songs. There was plenty of time in my life to be great and not because of my father. I didn’t need to have it right away.