Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-five
I was naive to think we could ever scrape thirty years of Ricky Pierce out of the Outpost. Mom, Kurt, and I spend two days hauling dozens of trash bags’ worth of junk from the house, plus seemingly infinite trunkfuls of donations.
It’s exhausting work, and I spend nearly every minute of it thinking about Renee, wondering how that ride home went and if she came clean about her job after all.
I’ve heard nothing from her—or anyone else—except in the group chat, and those texts are pure wedding logistics.
Still, every time I stumble across some funny knickknack, anything of Dad’s that sparks a memory, I have to resist the urge to text Renee about it.
If things were smoothed out between us, I would want her here. Everything is better with Renee.
We hold on to a few small things that matter.
Kurt rescues Dad’s leather jacket. Mom and I each fill a box with his T-shirts and keepsakes, but even when we’ve cleared out all Dad’s belongings, he isn’t gone.
Ricky Pierce has seeped into the foundation of this house.
Each creaky floorboard sounds like the first chord of a song he never finished.
I suppose I’m meant to finish it for him, to carry on my father’s legacy, but I’m no closer to knowing what that looks like than I was two days ago. No rush, I remind myself.
Back before I graduated with my music degree, I asked Dad if he thought I should give it a shot—start a band, be like him.
It was spring break, that one infamous night Gin, Chrissy, and I overlapped with The Handful.
Dad and I sat shivering on the porch swing, and I remember the haze in his eyes as he sipped his whiskey.
He told me that so long as The Handful was relevant, Ricky Pierce’s kid had opportunities as a musician.
But that wouldn’t last forever. The band’s tour and album sales had dipped, and my last name was likely a depreciating asset.
Not every door stays open, Dad said. You better walk through ’em while you still got the chance.
I can still hear him now in the low whine of the porch swing as I sip my coffee, watching for my truck—Dad’s truck—to pull up.
After this weekend, Renee and I won’t have the wedding in common, no organic reason to interact.
I’m running out of chances to have this conversation.
The door is closing, but I’m no closer to walking through it.
What I would give for a template, a friend of a friend with an excellent spreadsheet for a situation just like this. I’m beginning to understand Renee’s love for a well-organized plan. It must feel nice to fool yourself into thinking you’re in control.
Rishi’s parents are the first to arrive, then Chrissy and Chris with a baffling number of suitcases.
Mom and I help them lug it all upstairs, where we begin to negotiate the bedroom situation, but then I hear it—a faint but irritatingly familiar melody building in the distance.
My eye twitches, and I stomp down and out to the porch just in time to witness my personal nightmare: My own truck crunches up the driveway, every window rolled down, blaring “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease.
Gin seems to be the culprit. She’s smiling in the driver’s seat, shamelessly turning up the volume.
Beside her, Rishi puts up his hands either in surrender or just to show he’s not controlling the playlist. All I can see of Renee are a few golden strands of hair billowing out the back window, but just knowing she’s here makes the air feel thick, harder to breathe.
Gin jogs up the steps to return my keys, and I put on my I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed face. “You know better than to play show tunes in the truck.”
“But I’m the bride!” Gin reminds me. As if any of us could forget.
She says something else, too, but I don’t hear it.
My attention is locked on the long tan legs draped out the side of the truck.
Renee hip checks the door shut, pushes her sunglasses into her hair, then looks directly at me, her gaze unflinching.
I’m not prepared; I have to steady myself against the banister.
It hasn’t even been that long since I’ve seen her, but I missed her.
“Alice?” Gin’s voice is a playful warning.
I can feel her watching me, but I can’t tear my gaze from the slow swing of Renee’s hips as she breaks our eye contact, rounds the truck, and lets down the tailgate.
Gin jogs down the steps to help unload all manner of wedding supplies but not before casting one last baited line over her shoulder.
“Don’t blame me for the show tunes,” she says. “Renee is the one who had to practice.”
My thoughts zigzag. “Practice?” But I don’t get an explanation, because just then, Kurt calls for me from the living room. I sigh, then turn inside, where Kurt is slouched on one of the couches, flicking a pen against a notepad.
“This should all be down there in the studio, butcha might have to do some digging.” Kurt tears the perforated page from the notebook and hands it off to me. It’s a list of audio equipment for the wedding.
“Would you mind…lending a hand?”
“Would if I could.” Kurt pats his thigh through his cargo shorts. “I’m no spring chicken, kid, and all that house-clearing took it outta me. I gotta keep the stairs to a minimum.” As if to prove his point, he slowly extends one leg, and his knee crunches like a bag of potato chips.
“Yuck,” I say, accidentally out loud, and he laughs, then looks past me, one wiry brow arched.
“I bet she’ll help ya out.”
Even before he says it, I know.
“It’s…Renee, right? Wouldja mind giving Alice a hand?”
I haven’t yet been down to the studio this week, and with Renee at my heels, my nerves feel stripped raw.
A single bulb lights the gray slatted basement steps that used to trip me up on drunken nights, but even stone-cold sober, I stumble on my way down.
A muted red Persian rug hides all but the corners of the concrete floor.
Any wall that isn’t covered in spongy gray-black sound paneling boasts dozens of pedals, basses, and guitars.
Dad’s Gibson hangs among them, a cherry-red electric guitar with its own gravitational pull.
Renee runs her fingers over the fretted neck, and I feel it in the arches of my feet.
“Wow.” Her whisper ripples through me.
“Yeah. Wow is right.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment wait here at our fingertips, all state of the art and hidden beneath a blanket of dust.
I walk a slow lap around the studio, switching on one lamp after another.
Not a single bulb has burned out, and the resulting glow is so warm and sweet, I would sip it from a mug if I could.
Every breath tastes like whiskey and amber with a heavy pour of fabric softener, an expensive cologne spritzed on a dive-bar napkin.
Renee’s eyes drift throughout the room—from the deep wood of the Songs for Alice platinum-album plaque to the enormous mixing board below it, dappled with knickknacks and tour souvenirs.
My mind latches on to one of so many futures for this place—this could be my recording studio, forever.
My mixing board. My tour souvenirs. I could run it as my own studio or just lock myself away to make whatever music I want until the money runs out.
But I’d be leaving behind my life in Chicago—Gin.
Gentle Giant. Renee, if she’s even mine to leave.
It would be lonely, but I’ve been lonely before.
I picture the alternative—selling the Outpost back to the band. It makes the most sense. Take the money and run. What business do I have with a five-bedroom house when I could use that money to build a studio anywhere else? But it’s hard to stomach the thought of letting go of this place.
Renee turns back to me, and I’m sure she’s about to say something, but the thought splinters when her eyes catch on mine.
My skin hums to life, like every cell in my body is competing to be seen by her, to spend just a second pinned beneath that soft blue stare.
Her lips part on a breath, but she turns away.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. You were going to say something.”
Her eyes come back to mine, but they’ve steeled over again. “Nothing,” Renee says. “Just tell me what to carry.”
Tucked beside the laundry room, the storage closet is beyond well stocked.
I’m steeped in that same golden ticket feeling I get at Gentle Giant.
But this is different. This is mine. I’m Charlie Bucket with an entire chocolate factory dropped in my lap, and my biggest problem is what to do with it.
I didn’t ask or work for it. Not like Renee worked for her master’s degree and every role on her impressively stacked résumé, and still she can’t find a job.
I want to tell her about the house. I want to tell her about everything, but even if we were on speaking terms, I can’t imagine the guilt of flaunting my champagne problems while she’s still skimming the bottom shelf.
Though there is one practical question that begs to be asked, if only for Renee’s sake.
Even in the safety of a soundproof studio, I keep my voice low.
“Hey, Renee? Am I still keeping your job situation a secret?”
She chews her lip, eyes cast low. Silence. I turn to dig out a cable, and then—
“I told them,” she says. “Gin and Chrissy. I didn’t want to make up another lie as to why I’m so available to help this week.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “Anyway. No need to be secretive about it. Thanks for checking.”
A dampened silence spills out between us.
“Okay,” I finally say, and I should leave it at that, but the next thought barges out anyway. “I’m proud of you.”
More silence, and Renee still won’t look at me. I can’t blame her. I’m the one who ruined this thing between us. She picks up a coiled cable, and with a pointed sigh—“The things we do for the wedding, right?”
I try to smile, but it doesn’t really work. I feel pliable, like a cheap wire hanger that can’t take the weight of all the unknowns. One thing at a time, I think. One mic stand. One cable.
Kurt’s equipment list was solid, but I take a few liberties.
Upstairs, I walk him through my vision for the live sound setup, and surprise fades to pride in his eyes.
He isn’t Dad, and he’s not a Grammy-winning engineer like Aidan, but Kurt’s approval still means something.
It’s a zap of energy, one I wish I could distribute throughout the house because, damn, the group is fading fast. Chrissy and Chris are draped like matching throw blankets over the couches.
At the kitchen table, Rishi’s parents sleepily fold napkins like it’s a punishment.
“Coffee run?” Gin suggests. The mere mention of it gets the whole house’s attention, and Renee sets off collecting orders. Gin requests that I tag along. Renee will need a second set of hands to carry coffees, Gin insists, and there’s no use arguing with the bride.
As I’m sliding on my sneakers, Kurt stops us by the door, holding out a thick metal credit card like a sideways cigarette. “Coffee’s on the band,” he grunts.
“Thanks, Kurt.” I pluck the card and grin. “Chocolate croissants are on the band, too.”
We’re nearly halfway down the hill when Renee finally cracks the silence. “It seems like you and Kurt are on decent terms.”
“Decent,” I allow. Then with a sigh, “He’s a good guy for my mom.”
“And how are things with your mom?”
“Better. Not perfect, but better.”
“Glad to hear it,” Renee says, and even in the silence that follows, there’s a warm, swirling reassurance, knowing she still cares.
It’s a sun-soaked afternoon in downtown Galena, the whole town like a living postcard photo.
Tourists mill about clutching coffees and shopping bags.
A bespectacled shopkeeper in a checkered apron sweeps the sidewalk like a character in a play about a charming small town.
Galena is a menagerie of darling details, and Renee’s eyes leap from one to the next.
Watching her see Main Street is a view of its own.
“Have you been here before?” I ask.
“Once or twice. We’re only about an hour from where I grew up.”
“In Iowa, right? And your parents are still there?”
Another nod, then she fixes her eyes straight ahead. It’s not much, but it’s nice, these tiny doses of conversation. It’s better. And probably about as good as it can be right now.
Past the popcorn, fudge, and ice cream shops, the playhouse is a big brick castle of a building, much grander than it stands in my memory.
Renee slips a brochure from the box on the door, a little reading material for the surprisingly long coffee shop line.
Just glancing at the brochure, I’d guess that the Galena Playhouse does not employ a graphic designer.
I’ve never seen a Canva template go so horribly wrong, but the venue photography is stunning, a showcase of a gloriously restored historic theater with steep auditorium-style seats.
“Capacity of 520,” Renee reads aloud. “That seems really small for The Handful.”
“I think that’s the idea. Since it’s a memorial show, I think they wanted to keep it intimate.”
Intimate. Intimate. Intimate. I couldn’t have chosen a different word?
At the counter, Renee sets the brochure down, and I pick it up, mostly as an excuse to move closer to her than I should.
She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind, and I wish I knew which.
If I could brush back that soft blond hair and peer into her thoughts, maybe I’d know exactly how to play this.
Am I too late? Is she done with me? When I figure out what to say, will she still be around to hear it?
I’m paging blindly through the rest of the brochure, sorting out my own messy head, when my eyes land on something that makes every other thought skid to a stop.
The playhouse is putting up two musicals this year: Rent and Grease.
It feels like a sign. I’m just not sure what of.