Oscar

Now

I smacked the door of the auditorium hard, walking out without looking back even once. I felt a small jolt of pain in my fingertips. Not the first time when Cordelia Buchanan made my blood pump so hard I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.

Had I known who she fucking was? Of course I had.

I’d seen her eyes; I’d seen them on her as a child and the life and the spark in them hadn’t diminished over time. Her gorgeous, dark eyes. Fixating me with that instant lust and want that made her pupils dilate. The moment she met my gaze, I was done for.

I’d barely stopped myself from touching my fingers against her lip. It had trembled when I’d raised my eyebrow, questioning her identity.

I’d heard that melody in her voice that had obsessed me for years.

Seen her shape beneath her baggy, weird clothes. Seen the woman she’d become. She was a goddess able to set everything on fire and torch me into the ground. Not that I’d let her. Not again.

How dare she? Coming back into my life so serenely . . . and what was she playing at? I’d seen the flash of recognition that was followed by a pain seemingly so harsh it almost knocked her off her feet. Then she’d turned blank. It suited her better.

Shaking my head, I swallowed back the bitter node forming in my throat. I checked my phone again for directions and went into the building’s basement. It looked like the school had decided to maximize all its spaces, even the musty ones. There were a few small audio rooms and what looked like a theater prop and make-up room beneath the building.

I assessed what appeared to be my destination. There were three guys my age, maybe a couple of years older, loitering around. One of them had a shaved head and he had his face resting against a set of drums that looked so old and decrepit I wasn’t sure how many songs they still had in them. The one with the dark hair was tuning his guitar with his eyes closed, lost in space. And a blonde guy in a corner who never spared me a look was writing something frantically.

“Are you the ones looking for potential band members?” I asked instead of a hello. Hellos were so overrated.

The guitarist and the drummer spared me a single glance.

“Yo!” said the drummer, only lifting his eyes, and not the rest of his face from the hard surface.

“You Enzo?” I barked my question, not really feeling like wasting my time. Singing in a band was not on my list of priorities. It was just a hook-up my buddy insisted on me to take. That these guys were “good.” I didn’t see it. “We spoke on the phone, I’m Oscar, I said.” That gave me some attention.

“Oh, he’s the piano player I talked to you about,” Enzo said, this time in a livelier manner. “Man, you have no idea how rough the last hour has been. We’ve auditioned some pretty lame guys. I just don’t think I have it in me to instruct one more person on how they should tune their own shit.” He stood from his small stool and gave me a vigorous handshake. “I play drums, Corbin is guitar and voice. We’ve tried singing as a duo last summer but I wasn’t keen on the sound. Too much like the White Stripes, know what I mean?” I nodded as took back his place behind the drums. “Ajax over there is a brilliant bass player who doesn’t want to say yes to any of our pleas for him to join us, but he agreed to listen to our auditions today. As you can see, what we’ve heard so far has sent him into depression,” Enzo said softly.

They don’t know depression.

I lifted my chin toward Enzo and took out the portable board and patches before looking for a plug.

Corbin whistled. “He brought the right kind of toys,” he mused. There was something in his baritone that gave me pause. I couldn’t quite place it but my ears never failed me. My gut, maybe. But my ears? They were golden.

I grabbed a stool from a corner, took a seat and freed my shoulders. When Corbin and Enzo nodded, I placed my fingers on the keys, alternating them and pressing them all along with rotating, exaggerated movements. Warming up was necessary always, but all the more important when I used the electronic board instead of the piano.

“We’re auditioning because we have something scheduled with a guy who has the power to help us make a name for ourselves. If we want it. In the beginning, we just want to make sure we’re compatible—you know?”

“Which guy?” I asked him, my curiosity peaked enough for me to stop touching the keys.

“Micky Barrett,” Enzo said proudly. I didn’t want to show it, but I got excited. I knew Micky Barrett; I’d heard records of his piano solos and having his name dropped made this whole band idea more appealing.

“What do you want me to play?”

“If we get the gig,” Corbin said, “we’ll need to do mostly covers. We’ll throw in a few of our originals, gradually, and see if they stick.”

“You write?” I asked him.

“I have a few songs I wrote; and a few that Ajax wrote for us that we can rehearse together,” Corbin answered and came near me.

His dark eyes had a light in them that was familiar enough to make me believe I was making connections where there weren’t any.

What was the name of her brother? She had spent hours talking about him, but for the life of me, I could dredge it up. I remember they had been really close, so if she was here, it was a small . . . very small possibility that this guy was him. It was far more likely that he was just some guy with no relation to her.

“So, if we’re doing covers, can you learn them on a weekly basis?”

“Dude, any song after The Stones came to play and I’m good to go.”

He smirked.

“Hit me with your best shot.”

I heard the double entendre in his voice and fired away the first verse of Pat Benatar’s song, without even looking at the keys. I paused, caught his approving grin and the suddenly relaxed look on Enzo’s face. Then I added my voice to the key sounds. After the last note, I didn’t pause.

“Give me another.”

“Let’s do “Hotel California,” and we’ll join you. I want to see how well we can synchronize. Ajax?” Enzo said, hopeful tone in place. Ajax didn’t stop his writing.

Enzo hit his sticks together, Corbin started humming songs and I played along. I played along so well, I forgot where I was. We went through five different styles and double the number of songs. These guys were good. They had the advantage of being tuned in to each other’s styles after years of practice, and Corbin’s deep voice reminded me of a young Michael Hutchence from the 80s rock band, INXS.

“Man, you have some vibrato!” I complimented Corbin during a water break.

“They’ll teach you how to do it during this semester—you’re a freshman, right? “Corbin said and I nodded. “My little sister’s a freshman too. Cordelia Buchanan. Lives in Brittany. You’ll meet her in Essay,” he said next, and sent my heart into a faster rhythm. There it was. Small world after all.

“Yeah, I kind of know your sister.”

If I was going to play with this guy, I had to give it to him straight.

“We met like a thousand years ago, in a camp. But I doubt she even remembers my name,” I said and bit my tongue at the questioning look that shadowed his face.

“Auditions are over!” Enzo yelled toward the door. There was a guy lingering there, studying the water-stained ceiling and wearing what was probably the same look I had earlier.

“Okay, well, if you ever need a new sound, I play the trumpet,” he shot to nobody in particular, then turned his back at us. There was a spectacular brass hanging on his shoulder. Too bad, I kind of wanted to listen to him.

I turned back from my reverie and checked out the guys, a question coming up.

“Do you have a name?”

“Nah, we’re undecided whether we’re gonna be a band or not,” Enzo said quietly. He’d come to the center of the room and laid his arm on Corbin’s shoulder. They were blatantly discussing me in hushed tones.

“But if you want to come rehearse with us at the Clive Institute for a few nights this week before we get ready for Micky, we’d be happy to have you.”

A small weight lifted from my chest, one I would never have admitted, but one that felt good. Recognition in any form did my soul good.

“Sure, man. I’d love to,” I answered.

“Welcome to the no name thing!” Enzo boomed, while Corbin came toward me to shake my hand.

“So, are we playing anything original today, or tomorrow?” Ajax gritted from the corer. His raspy voice had something from another era in it.

“I will record you on my phone so I can reproduce it later, okay?”

The next couple of songs they gave me were so complex in their beats and so unique in sound that I started to think I was really in the right place and at the right time.

“Stunning outro!” I hollered toward Corbin. “Can I do one of mine now?”

“Sure, dude. We’ll try to sync with you.”

It was Ajax’s response. At some point, he had come out from his corner and joined us.

I stroked the keyboard in a lazy movement. My heart sang with just one song. I’d written it at seventeen, and it seemed fitting to share it right then.

“Aw, man, that’s cool!” Enzo said loudly, over the rapid rhythm of my intro. Corbin had his eyes closed and was counting my angry r & b beats as I led them into the lyrics.

You or him

You left me speechless on that bus,

I don’t even know why I care,

You two can shove your god-damned pair

You and him . . .

The chorus came with force and I cried out the lyrics that were slicing through my heart with the same burn that I’d tried to bury so long ago.

There’s only hate, hate, hate,

Best fuel in the world,

And I can’t even retaliate,

I’m irremediably unfurled.

I closed my eyes, my forehead lifted toward the ceiling. I heard the three guys in the background slowly catching up to my sound. I kind of liked it. I left my fingers work the keys in ways they’d memorized long ago. And I saw the beautiful face of the treacherous girl I’d met a lifetime ago.