Chapter 4
4
Caleb
The living room falls silent after Valerie steps outside. We all stay seated, a little stunned, staring at Jane’s colorful rug.
I have good reasons to be upset with Valerie. She hurt me and I hurt her, and we both said horrible things we can never take back. But I’m a little taken aback by the anger in the room tonight. Everyone thinks Valerie made me leave the Glitter Bats, but they don’t know what really happened in Vegas. It’s as much my fault as hers.
And sure, after a lot of therapy, I reached out to Jane, then Riker, and finally Keeley a couple of years ago to apologize. Even though each conversation was tough, I thought we’d cleared the air enough that our past wasn’t so tortured. We started staying in touch, a little. Sometimes Riker will send me pictures of new gear he’s considering, or Jane will text me to ask how I’m doing. Keeley will send me memes out of the blue or demand dog pics. It’s all safe, casual conversation, but we’re okay.
They’ve forgiven me for my part in everything, but they’re still blaming Valerie for hers. Maybe that’s because even after my apologies, I didn’t give them the full story. I’ll never be ready to reveal everything, but I need them to understand.
“Why are you all so mad at her when I’m the one who quit?” I finally say into the silence.
“She cut us all out of her life after that last show.” Riker’s mouth twists into a sad, wry grin. “And she’s the reason you left the band anyway, right? You wouldn’t just give up on us.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I shift uncomfortably on the giant chair. “It wasn’t all her.”
If I hadn’t forced her hand…maybe this wouldn’t be a reunion at all. Maybe we’d be on album number five with a few Grammys to our name, the way we always dreamed.
“But it was mostly her, right?” Keeley asks dryly.
“No, it…” I swallow thickly, fighting back a lump of something . Honestly, I haven’t thought about how that night made me feel in a really long time. It’s not that it made me cry—I’ve always been a crier, so that’s nothing new—but it made me feel so lost.
Everything that was important to me exploded beyond repair.
But I know that Valerie’s not the villain in this story. If anything, we’re both antiheroes. My therapist helped me see that there’s no clear good and bad side in this scenario, even if that’s how it looked to everyone else.
And it’s time I told more of the truth. My heart hammers as I try to figure out how to begin.
“It wasn’t mostly her,” I finally say, letting out a sharp breath. Part of what went down isn’t my story to tell, but I can at least try to explain what happened. “Things were complicated between us in the weeks before, and I’m sure you all felt it. When we got to Vegas for that final show, we were distracted by an argument and it made us both sloppy onstage. After the concert, we stayed back in the greenroom while you all went to get food. I’m not proud of this, but…” I clear my throat. “I gave her an ultimatum, and what happened to the band was because of that decision I forced her to make.”
My heart hammers in my ears after I finally admit it out loud, even in vague terms. I’m not some wounded puppy in all this. It was my fault.
I said I would leave if she insisted on hiding our relationship, and she wasn’t ready to make things public.
I didn’t know what they were at the time, but I was having anxiety attacks too. Trying to keep track of which things between us were secrets and what I could share with the press wrecked my mental health. It felt like living a lie. And I was just so tired of collaborating with Valerie at a safe distance in public and being together in secret. I pushed her to make a decision neither of us was ready for, so of course she pushed back.
So I decided the best thing to do was run. My therapist calls it avoidance.
“Dude,” Riker says. “Why didn’t you ever tell us?”
“I was embarrassed?” A dry, bitter laugh escapes my chest. “I was twenty-two and heartbroken, and I ran away from everything instead of facing my feelings.”
“I had no idea,” Riker says. He nudges my shoulder. “That’s why you disappeared for so long, huh?”
I swallow hard, nodding. I told myself I wanted a clean break, but really…I was such a coward. Apologizing to everyone was both one of the toughest things I’ve ever done and long overdue.
My eyes fall to the front door. Through the glass, I can just make out Valerie’s blond strands from her spot on the porch, like she’s standing just outside my view. She’s the one person I never apologized to, because I never knew exactly what to say.
How do you repair a connection that’s been shattered into a million pieces?
Keeley sighs. “So what? I’m not going to just let Valerie off the hook. Whatever happened between you sucks, but nothing I said was untrue—she does have a pathological need to be in charge, and she is using this as a last-ditch effort to save her show.”
Valerie probably can’t hear us from her spot outside, but Jane lowers her voice anyway. “Maybe it’s hard for her. The media is eviscerating her reputation, and she probably feels backed into a corner. I heard rumors that The Network won’t renew Epic Theme Song unless she cleans up her image.”
Cleans up her image? Valerie alluded to that at my house, but what is she supposed to do, become a nun? I hate this industry, and that’s part of the reason I left, but just because Valerie stayed doesn’t mean she deserves this. A wash of some kind of emotion ripples through me, and after a beat, I realize it’s indignation. I want to head to The Network offices and yell at everyone who is treating Valerie’s private life like it’s any of their business.
“How’d you hear that?” Riker asks Jane.
“She knows everyone,” Keeley says for her.
“I work on a show for The Network too. I hear lots of things.” Jane sighs. “Personally, I think The Network is using this as an excuse. They’ve been dragging their feet on this show for months, and pinning this on Valerie now is just convenient for them. I’m sure the involvement of another cast member doesn’t help. No wonder she’s scrambling to find a solution.” She clears her throat. “But no matter what started it, I think we all want this to be a good show. Fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
“That doesn’t excuse all the ways Valerie hurt us,” Keeley says.
Riker nods. “We didn’t hear about the reunion from her. Everything went through Wade. If we’re going to pull this off, we’re going to need to, like, actually talk to each other the way we used to, figure out our shit.”
I’m definitely not talking to Valerie about our fallout in front of the band, but Riker’s right. All these pointed jabs and tense silences are not conducive to the creative process. And it also just sucks. The Glitter Bats used to be the only people in the world who really knew me.
The music bonded us, and once, we thought it was for life.
When we started the band, we were just teens at music camp connecting over s’mores and shared big dreams for what could have been only a summer, if we hadn’t all been so determined. Valerie and I were best friends from the moment we sat next to each other in kindergarten. The rest of us were strangers, and it was just luck—or fate—that we all lived in the Seattle area. Jane and Keeley went to the same high school, but they were in different grades and social circles. Riker didn’t go to school with any of us.
It was tough to coordinate practices, write songs, and find gigs we could actually attend when we were so sprawled out. Only Jane could drive in the beginning, but we were committed to the music, and we made do with Seattle’s public transportation system. We played anywhere that would take us: coffee shops, a random assortment of parties, clubs that allowed underage musicians as long as they stayed away from the bar—one time, we even played for Keeley’s Aunt Daisy’s knitting club. We survived the grind together. In the two and a half years that led to our big break, we became a family.
And we needed one another. With the exception of Keeley, whose family is all sunshine and literal supportive rainbows, the rest of us had a lot of issues at home when we were kids. My parents worked all the time, and Cameron basically raised me and Carrie until she went to nursing school. Valerie’s mom, Tonya, was too involved in her business but never emotionally available to her daughter. Jane’s parents have always been the scary, controlling kind of religious, and Riker’s were one disastrous argument away from their inevitable divorce. We kind of saved one another.
I might not want to be around Valerie this summer, but after the part I played in this band’s collapse, I owe them this. I can suck it up and play my bass, sing my songs, and smile for the cameras.
Valerie steps inside with a stack of pizza boxes before the conversation can turn any more sour.
“Food’s here,” she says quietly.
“Great, I’m hungry!” Jane says, a little too eagerly. The energy in the room shifts with Valerie’s return.
Keeley ordered a truly unhinged amount of pizza, and we eat it on the floor while passing around the Costco-sized bottle of rosé and talking through Valerie’s proposed set list. Once we’ve gone over it a few times, the time and care she put into it is evident—she’s trying to feature everyone’s talents and explore our discography as widely as possible. Other than swapping a few songs around for instrument changes and tech requirements, we’re all in agreement that it’s a good set.
I’m not surprised. Valerie’s always been smart about this industry in a way I wasn’t. The media calls her calculating, but I think she just knows her shit—and doesn’t take any.
I gloss over the acoustic portion that has Valerie and me singing “Every Touch” and “Making Memories” back-to-back. My neck heats, and I wish I could just volunteer Riker to sing those for me. If it were any other concert, we could get away with changing up more parts, but the fans will want to see Valerie and me together. I’m not prepared to sing with her the way we used to, though, sharing one microphone like we were trading secrets.
We’re all a lot more relaxed after stuffing ourselves with pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeno pizza and habanero wings—and plenty of rosé.
“My sinuses haven’t been this clear in years. I’m ready to go sing,” Valerie says.
“Ugh, after all that dairy?” Keeley asks.
“You’re the one who ordered pizza!” Riker adds.
Jane smiles. “We can rehearse more in the morning, but want to play through something? I have a little studio in the basement.”
“No time like the present!” Valerie says.
“I vote for ‘Making Memories’ because I don’t have to sing on that one,” Keeley says.
I open my mouth to protest, but Riker’s already clocked my discomfort. “I can’t do a ballad or I’ll fall asleep. That yummy wine is making me all warm and fuzzy.” Riker’s always had a hilariously low tolerance for someone built like Chris Hemsworth.
“Fine. Let’s do ‘Midnight Road Trip,’ then, since we can play it blindfolded,” Keeley says.
The others head downstairs, but Riker hangs back with me to tidy up the dishes. “Thanks for that, dude,” I murmur, when everyone else is out of earshot.
“I wasn’t going to let you clean up on your own. That would make me look like a dick.”
I roll my eyes. That’s Riker, always deflecting. “I’m talking about the song.”
Riker shrugs. “Figured ‘Memories’ might be a bit heavy for day one. Baby steps,” he says.
“Appreciate it.”
Once the kitchen is clean, we gather water bottles and head downstairs. I hadn’t paid much attention to the space when I lugged my instruments down here earlier, but it’s practically a shrine to all of Jane’s work—including Glitter Bats.
There are official photos and candids, framed vinyls of each album, even her statuette from the one major award we won: an MTV Video Music Award for “Ghosts.” My chest tightens. All of my own Glitter Bats memorabilia sits in plastic storage containers in the back of my closet, packed neatly away where it can’t remind me of old dreams.
Very old dreams. I’ve moved on from all of this. There’s no way I’m giving Label another album, and I hope the others are on the same page.
Suddenly, I’m nervous to get started. But even though my hands tremble, I go sit on a stool next to Valerie and pick up my bass. The usual pre-rehearsal ritual begins: Riker hooks a guitar into his amp and starts to fiddle with pedals, Jane plugs a laptop into her Korg and launches her MIDI controller, and Keeley fiddles with her drum kit and cymbal setup. I hum a soft vocal warm-up while I tune my bass, and Valerie joins in like it’s second nature.
“Maybe just the original arrangement to warm up?” she asks as everyone finishes their adjustments.
We’re all in agreement, and after we turn on the amps, Keeley counts us off, sitting jauntily on her throne.
It’s been a while, but the chords come to me like riding a bike. Still, I have to really focus on what my fingers are doing—I play more piano than bass or even guitar these days, and my calluses are gone. It also doesn’t help that every inch of me shakes with anxiety.
And when Valerie opens her mouth to sing the first verse, I nearly fumble the bass line.
It’s not like I haven’t heard her sing in years—Carrie made me watch some episodes of Epic Theme Song the last time she visited, but that’s different. Valerie has a great voice for the musical theater style, but she was really made for rock. Her warm mezzo-soprano is rich like honey but sharp as a knife. Something about the way she sings our songs has always captivated me, and tonight is no different.
When we get to the chorus, I don’t even have to think about it—I jump right in with her.
midnight road trip, windows down
let’s go now and leave this town
It feels almost too easy, singing these words. They’re cheesy—I mean, what song isn’t when you wrote it at eighteen—but hearing our voices together after so long gets my heart racing.
It feels like the first time we all played together at camp twelve years ago. We were doing a cover of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” for the final performance, and we decided to mess with the arrangement to split the vocals between Valerie and me. We’d practiced it a hundred times that week, but on the night of the showcase, something clicked. Even at fifteen, Valerie sang like an angel, and when I jumped in to harmonize with her…
It felt like destiny.
Valerie catches my eyes as we sing together, something strange and beautiful and determined crossing her face, and it makes my pulse pound even faster. We’re not miked, but the room is small enough that we don’t have to be.
our destination’s in the sky
we’ll chase the stars in our eyes
Despite her earlier reservations about singing, Keeley joins in on the bridge so Val and I can both jump the octave, and it just works . Like magic.
After we finish the song, Riker whoops. “Fuck yeah!”
“That was solid,” Keeley says. “I knew we could do it in our sleep.”
Jane’s tearing up. “I’m sorry, I might be a little tipsy from that stupid rosé, but I can’t believe it took us so long to play together again. I’m really glad we’re doing this.”
Valerie is suspiciously silent. I turn to her, expecting to see joy or triumph on her face. Instead, she’s frowning at her hands.
“Val?”
“I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed,” she says.
And then she leaves the room without another word.