Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Somewhere between revisiting my middle and high school years, Renee presses her leg a little harder into mine. When I turn, our noses are just inches apart, so close that I have to squash an impulse that scratches in my chest.
“Do you remember how you said I have a theater face?” Renee murmurs.
It takes a second for my brain to make the multiple leaps to catch up with hers, but I do remember.
I picture her dancing in my living room and prattling on about Grease.
The look on her face was the same then as after the park district show, when she kissed my temple and I floated the whole way home.
I could live a hundred lives and never forget that look.
Glowy. Confident. Like the world is made out of hope.
“I remember.”
“Good.” Renee nudges my leg a little harder, and the goose bumps fly. “Because I think you have an Outpost face.”
The implication shakes every branch of my nerves, but as she often is, Renee might be right.
This place is written in my DNA. It’s what music has always been about for me—creating something honest with the people I care about.
My heart soars toward an idea, a future I could build for the Outpost that’s not so different from its past. If I only get one life, I don’t want to spend it working with the Solas Callaghans of the world, regardless of what Aidan thinks it could do for my career.
It’s my career, and I admire Aidan, but I want to build something that matters to me.
It’s a liquid-gold feeling, but it shrinks away at the sound of Chrissy’s cackle, then disappears entirely when she plunks one manicured finger on a scrapbook page, pointing to something I can’t see. “That,” she says, “that right there is Classic Alice.”
Shame spills through me as Chrissy passes the scrapbook. Gin laughs, and so does Rishi, and I’m almost too afraid to look. I brace for the worst, but when the scrapbook lands in my lap, my mind erases like a whiteboard, leaving only one giant question mark behind.
I haven’t seen this picture in years, but it’s one of my favorites: I’m thirteen years old, tucked behind my upright bass at my last middle school orchestra concert.
I’m wearing the same pressed red polo and black dress pants as everyone else, but my slacks are tucked into a pair of glittery teal cowgirl boots.
It is, I would argue, Classic Alice, but not the way Chrissy has used it in the past, so I have to ask.
“What…what do you mean by that, Chrissy? When you say something is…Classic Alice?” The words turn to ash on my tongue, but Chrissy doesn’t hesitate.
“Oh! You just do your own thing, y’know? You’re a rule breaker. A rock star. I mean, I know you’re not a rock star rock star anymore, but it’s still in you, ya know?” With a wink, she adds, “Maybe it’s genetic.”
My brain stalls. My breath freezes. I feel like I’ve been staring at an optical illusion for an entire summer and have only now been told this rabbit is actually a duck.
I turn to Gin, waiting for her to disagree.
Instead, a smile creases the corners of her lips, and something unfolds inside me.
A map smoothed flat. An answer key to my own secret code.
All this time I assumed Classic Alice and Blackout Alice were the same, but I was wrong, and maybe Gin was right.
I’m not defined by my worst moments. None of us are.
When I pass the scrapbook to Renee, my eyes skate across the tattoo on her wrist. The moon is meant to change, and so are we.
For dinner, we polish off what’s left of yesterday’s biryani, then it’s off to the concert, a swarm of us descending from the house on the hill.
Renee, I realize, has changed into her puffy-paint T-shirt, and I jog ahead to see what it says.
When I’m close enough to read it, I stumble.
My heart just might roll down the hill without me and leave me in the dust, because Renee has covered her shirt, front and back, in her favorite lyrics off Songs for Alice.
I know. I know. I know.
Mom and I peel off to join the band backstage in a greenroom a fraction of the size they’re used to.
We all suffer through shots of zero-proof whiskey in Dad’s honor, then Nathan—the rhythm guitarist—is the first to pull me in for a hug.
“We miss him like hell, kid.” He thumps me on the back. “And we’ve missed you, too.”
My heart is a guitar string wound too tight, and my voice comes out accordingly taut and high pitched.
“I know” is all I manage to squeak out before I’m biting back tears.
Karl, the bass player, squeezes my shoulder before roughing my hair.
Kurt folds me into a hug. And last but not least, the new lead singer steps up to shake my hand.
Julie must be ten or twenty years younger than the rest of the band. Her denim coveralls stack over a pair of turquoise cowboy boots, and beneath a vintage The Handful trucker hat, her shaggy brown hair is cut a lot like mine.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Julie says brightly. “Your dad was a legend.”
“I know,” I tell her. “He always will be.”
Mom hangs back with Kurt and the rest of the band, but I’m ready to find my place in the crowd.
The theater is packed beyond capacity—even the overflow seating spills over, averaging two people to each metal folding chair.
Eight or nine rows up, I spot the neon puffy paint on Rishi’s black T-shirt—he waves his arms overhead, and I take the steps two at a time.
They’ve saved a seat for me next to Gin, and when I arrive, Chrissy cheers loud enough to momentarily confuse the audience into thinking the show has started.
“Sorry! False alarm!” Chrissy alerts anyone within earshot—which, for her, may well be the entire county. Not a split second later, she’s yelling again. “Oh my God, Renee, would you get off your damn phone?” She swings her handbag into Renee’s gut.
“Sorry, sorry,” Renee grumbles, eyes still locked on her screen. “Work stuff.”
“But you don’t have a job!” Chrissy whines. “Wait, sorry, is that okay to say?”
“Yes, Chrissy. That’s true. It’s fine.” Renee drops her phone into her purse, but before the screen dips to black, I swear I see a flash of a familiar picture.
I reach for my own phone and confirm it.
The Galena Playhouse website, the same photos from the brochure.
My mind whirs like a coffee grinder. It could be nothing.
Or it could be work stuff. My thoughts criss and cross, but I set the tangled knot aside when the house lights fade and this little theater puts on its stadium voice.
The band takes the stage with humble waves, and it’s all so familiar—I’m every age at once. And then Julie struts out, and it could only be now.
“We’re The Handful,” she growls, “and we’re gonna play loud enough that Ricky Pierce hears every note.”
What follows is nothing shy of a baptism.
Songs I’ve heard a thousand times sound brand new with Julie’s vocals, but the words still fall off my lips like they’ve been waiting there all year.
Julie doesn’t try to sound like Dad; her warm, round tone is nothing like Dad’s gritty, broken tenor, but it works.
At least once every song, she holds the mic out to the crowd and lets us take the vocals.
It feels less like Dad has been replaced and more like we’re all stepping into the space he left behind.
When The Handful kicks off the title track from Songs for Alice, I’m soaring, ascending to the rafters while my feet stay firmly planted on the ground.
The chorus comes around, and even a few seats away, I can hear Renee singing along, her voice cutting through the noise like a comet through the sky.
She catches me watching, but I surprise myself.
I don’t look away, and neither does she.
The rest of the crowd falls away, and for those last few bars, there’s only us, and Renee is singing just to me.
I let myself feel it—this golden moment I’ll never be able to replicate.
This woman I am absolutely certain about.
I know. I know. I know. I may not know if it’s possible, this thing with us.
I don’t know if she feels the same, but the way she looks at me, I don’t feel like I’m holding on to hope; it feels like hope is holding on to me.
Dad,
Well, it’s 12:01 a.m., meaning I have officially made it through the first anniversary of your Gone Day. I’ve survived one full year of firsts without you, and I’m still here, and you’re still gone.
Did you catch tonight’s concert from wherever you are? The band sounded great, and Julie is a showstopper. It’s funny how things can be exactly the same in a brand-new way.
That’s how I feel about the Outpost, too.
I love it here, Dad. It’s the same as it’s always been, but I’m starting to see what it might become next.
Renee says I make the same face talking about this place as she does when she talks about theater, and I…
well, I think she’s right. I don’t think I can sell it back to the band.
I’d be ignoring my own advice—if I’m passionate about this place, it’d be a waste to walk away.
But it’d be a waste to walk away from the person I’m passionate about, too.
I feel more certain about Renee than I feel about much of anything right now, but I’m not sure that she feels the same, even if she did before.
I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to get involved, but I would blame myself if I never gave it a shot.
So you’re the first one I’m telling, Dad. I’m keeping the house, and tomorrow, I will talk to Renee. Hold me to both of those, would you?
Love,
Your Dallas Alice