Cassie
On the road, 2003
The Midwestern label rep’s name was Daisy.
She had long blond hair, an easy laugh, and a maternal air, even though she couldn’t have been much older than thirty.
That morning, she looked wide awake and fully caffeinated in her jeans and low, immaculately white sneakers.
They were probably expensive, suspected, even though they looked like regular tennis shoes.
Zoe would know.
, herself, did not.
“You guys know the drill, right?”
Daisy asked, as they piled out of the van that Ronnie, the previous rep, had been driving them around in, all of them grabbing luggage and instruments and following her across the pavement.
’s mouth tasted grungy.
Her skin felt filmed with travel dirt.
She was torn between desperation for a shower and never wanting to bathe again, because, at some point between Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, Russell D’Angelo had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder, and she imagined that her sweatshirt might smell faintly like his shampoo.
She still couldn’t believe it: where she was, what had happened.
Eight weeks ago she’d been home, practicing Liszt, imagining the only life she’d ever pictured for herself, the only one she’d ever wanted, and now, she was here, in a band, on a tour that would take them across the country.
Their manager, CJ Carver, had explained how it would work, after he’d handed them each a copy of the schedule—ten pages, double-sided, full of names of radio stations, label reps, performance venues, and hotels—before putting them on the first in a series of vans.
“It’s going to be a lot,”
he’d warned them, back in New York City.
CJ was thirty-two, mild-mannered, Midwestern, and gay.
( hadn’t noticed.
Zoe had told her.) CJ had a round, freckled face, light-brown hair that was already thinning on top, and an endless collection of Hawaiian shirts, which was all the sisters had ever seen him wear.
He looked like Charlie Brown if the comic-book character had purchased his entire wardrobe in Maui.
“But when do we get to go home?”
had asked.
Her sister had smirked, but Russell had looked sympathetic, and he’d been the one who answered.
“I think we’re going to be on the road for a while,”
he told her.
That had been three weeks ago, and CJ hadn’t lied.
It was exhausting, playing two or three shows a day, carrying their own equipment to each performance and driving for hours between them.
It would have been unendurable, if it hadn’t been for Russell.
found that she was brave enough to talk to him, as long as the subject was music, and they’d converse in the vans for hours, each playing for the other bands and songs they hadn’t heard.
knew much more classical and Broadway music than he did, while Russell knew a lot more pop, and they could spend hours going back and forth, trading songs.
Somewhere in New Jersey, Russell had bought a splitter for his CD player that let him plug in two pairs of headphones at a time.
Sometimes, he’d sit beside in the van, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his thigh and his shoulder next to hers, and give her one pair, and pull on the other, and he’d play her something, a song or an album or an artist he wanted her to hear, asking her what she thought, urging her to improvise lyrics, to add more harmony.
When Russell listened to her, he had a way of going very still, his eyes heavy-lidded, half-shut, all of his focus fixed on the sound of her voice.
had never felt attention like that; had never been its object.
She could never have imagined a man looking at her while she talked, his face open and shining with appreciation, even awe.
Those hours were perfect.
That morning, had kept her eyes fixed on the line of his shoulders as they crossed the parking lot.
His hair was getting long enough to curl over his collar, she saw, as they followed Daisy into the SUV.
Russell and Cam, their new bass player, put their instruments in the back, and then Russell helped settle her keyboard, making sure it was secure.
Tommy, the drummer, ’s old classmate and Zoe’s old bandmate, had stayed back in Philly.
If there were any actual concerts, Jerry said, the label would fly him out, or they’d find someone local to sit in.
But, for the time being, the Griffin Sisters was a foursome, with on keyboard and vocals, and Zoe singing backup, contributing the occasional harmony or, very rarely, a chord or two on her guitar, and mostly looking pretty while she shook a tambourine.
Russell played lead guitar, and Cam played bass.
Tommy had not been happy about being left behind.
Tommy still had a desperate and, as far as knew, unrequited crush on her sister, and he was convinced that Zoe was going to hook up with Russell or with Cam, or that she’d meet some other guy on the road.
didn’t think Tommy had to worry about Cam, who was almost thirty, and who had a girlfriend back in New York, a puppeteer who worked for Sesame Street.
Cam had bleached-blond hair and an easy smile, and tattoos of vines and mermaids, skulls and spiders crawling all over both of his arms, along with a pair of enormous wings on his back.
Cam smoked, in ’s admittedly untutored opinion, an absurd amount of pot.
He loved to do yoga poses, backbends and handstands, before every show, and he could turn anything into a bong, including a whole pineapple, but he was harmless, a cross between a big brother and a golden retriever, friendly without actually being their friend.
That was a relief.
It meant wouldn’t have to think through the steps of every interaction with him, reminding herself what to say, how to look, when to smile.
She could just give Cam a nod or say “good morning”
or “excuse me”
or “let’s run it again,”
and Cam wouldn’t be mad or look at like she was some creature, something barely even human, the way her sister, and her sister’s friends, sometimes did.
Russell, though ...
saw the way Russell looked at Zoe, with admiration and desire.
She figured they’d become a couple.
The thought gave her a sick, plummeting sensation in her guts, a feeling she didn’t understand.
She liked Russell, liked being near him, singing with him, writing music with him, but she didn’t like him romantically.
What would be the point? The very thought of it was ludicrous, like an elephant falling in love with a Christmas-tree ornament.
They didn’t make sense together.
Russell would never want her that way.
Especially not with her sister around.
had spent years watching Zoe effortlessly attract any man she wanted, and many she didn’t. She’d seen her sister hook up with guys, then cast them aside when she got bored or when someone better came along, like they were outfits she was trying on and carelessly discarding, tossing to her bedroom floor, never to be picked up or considered again. Zoe was beautiful and charming and sexy. Of course Russell would want to be with her. What else could expect?
She tried not to think about it.
She did her best to focus, instead, on everything happening around her, the unexpected novelty of this new life, and how rapidly it had all come to pass.
She was still shocked that this had happened.
That she was no longer at home with her parents, in Philadelphia, no longer a classical pianist in training.
That she was part of a band—a band, of all things, making popular music! It had always been Zoe’s dream, never hers ...
and, was sure, Zoe had never suspected that being in a band was so unglamorous, such a repetitive, exhausting grind.
On the road, every day was the same.
Up at seven o’clock, in a hotel room that looked the same as the room from the night before ( would sometimes have to check the hotel stationery or her printed schedule to remember where she was).
She’d shower quickly, so that Zoe could take her time in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, doing her hair.
She’d pack up her things, and go down to the lobby for breakfast. Mostly they stayed in chain hotels that offered a free buffet. Sometimes there’d be eggs and bacon and sausage and even a waffle station. Usually it was just packets of oatmeal and containers of yogurt, paper plates and plastic silverware and a bowl full of waxy-looking fruit.
By eight thirty, they’d be in a rented car, with their label representative at the wheel.
The rep would go over their itinerary, reading out the names of towns and cities, the radio station’s call letters and format—Top 40 or classic rock, adult contemporary, variety, giving them the names of the station manager, the program director, any DJs they’d meet.
would memorize the names on her way into the station, and then forget them before they’d left the parking lot.
Once they’d arrived, they’d unload the trunk, carrying their gear into the conference room at the station.
would set up her keyboard on its stand or, if there wasn’t room, right on the table; Russell and Cam would plug their bass and guitar into whatever amplifier the station had on hand (the amplifiers, Russell had told , came in two categories: crappy and crappier, and he had not been wrong).
The station personnel would file in.
Greetings would be exchanged, with the label rep doing her best to sound as enthusiastic as she had on the very first day at the very first station.
“I’m excited for you to listen to the Griffin Sisters from Philadelphia, the next big thing!”
would look around as she stood behind her instrument.
It was endlessly amazing to her, how male DJs who sounded handsome and dashing and young almost always turned out to be middle-aged schlubs.
Then again, she supposed, she might sound beautiful to anyone who couldn’t see her.
The station managers and program directors would have newspapers, copies of Billboard or DownBeat or Rolling Stone, cigarettes and cups of coffee.
The DJs would sip from mugs of honeyed tea or suck on lozenges.
Everyone, including the interns, would look uniformly bored, disinterested, like they wished they were anyplace else.
Until the music began.
Then, sometimes, their expressions would change.
would lead them through a three-song set—one cover, which rotated, sometimes Annie Lennox, sometimes Aretha Franklin, if felt like showing off, and two original songs, “The Gift,”
which the label was trying to break as their first single, and “When You’re Here,”
the first song and Russell had written together.
At the last song’s conclusion, the rep would thank the radio people for their time, hand them a copy of the band’s two-song demo, and then they’d do the whole thing in reverse, packing up their stuff, loading the car, driving off to the next performance.
Sometimes, the DJs would look interested, or some of the audience members would applaud.
Sometimes, would see at least a flicker of interest or appreciation, especially from the younger staffers or the interns.
More often, though, their faces would give nothing away; their handshakes and goodbyes would be carefully noncommittal.
No DJ had, so far, declared them the next best thing; no programming director had raced off to the DJ’s booth, insisting that he play the song right this minute, and once an hour every hour after that.
The reps assured them that this was to be expected, that they shouldn’t worry, that all was well and the tour was proceeding just as they’d hoped.
thought the reps were right.
As careful as the radio people always were, as unreadably blank as they kept their faces, she could feel their attention and admiration, could tell, from how the quality of the silence changed when she sang, that they were impressed.
She didn’t mind people listening when she played and sang.
She hated that they were looking.
The attention, even if it was positive attention, was unsettling, destabilizing and confusing.
Part of her wanted to close her mouth, to hunch her shoulders and shut her eyes and say stop looking at me.
Or, maybe, stop looking at me like that, like I’m impressive, like I matter.
You’ve got me mixed up with my sister.
Every time, in every conference room, there was a brief moment of absolute terror before she began, a moment when she could feel the notes she’d play and the words she’d sing fleeing her memory, like fleas racing off a dead dog’s body, and she’d think I can’t, I can’t, don’t make me.
Then she’d turn her head and see her sister mouthing, You got this.
She’d turn to the left and see Russell, his face calm and expectant, unbothered.
Between Zoe’s support and her own growing desire to see that impressive, admirable version of herself reflected in Russell’s gaze, would find a way, each time, to perform.
She learned to endure it.
And then, in one of the most startling developments of her life, she began to enjoy it.
When she played and sang, she could pretend that she had ceased to be a body and was only a voice, a ghost, or some supernatural creature that had no physical form, a thing that was made of music.
And oh, she loved it when she sang with Russell.
That was the best feeling of all.
“You make me feel,”
she’d sing, and his voice would join hers, low and raspy, and— flushed every time she thought it—sexy.
“You make me feel like a natural woman.”
“Thank you,”
the head of programming would say, in Altoona and Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Cincinnati.
“We’ll be in touch.”
The label rep would thank them, and would be back in her body, ungainly, unlovely, unlovable.
The band would pile back into the car and drive to the next station, the next city, to do it all again.
Cam, who’d been in Sky King with Russell, and two other bands after that, was used to the routines of the road.
He always sat in the very back of the van or the SUV, on the driver’s side, with his eyes closed and his portable CD player’s headphones on.
usually sat on the other side of the back row, ceding the middle row to Zoe and Russell.
Her sister would chatter at Russell, drawing him out, telling him stories; asking him questions, making him laugh.
She’d brush his fingertips, his upper arm, his shoulder, with little, fluttering touches, like her hands were birds that would alight and fly away.
She’d lean against him playfully, or pretend to fall asleep on his shoulder.
Maybe she was actually falling asleep on his shoulder.
had her doubts.
She would sit and watch, unable to make herself turn away.
Not when she could see the way the corners of Russell’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, or memorize the exact shade of his lips.
She collected every smile, cherished every story, even if the smiles and the stories were for Zoe, not for her.
And sometimes, Russell would ask to join him.
would see her sister’s tight-lipped face as they traded spots, Zoe climbing into the back seat and clambering over the back of the seat, feeling enormous and ungainly, to take her place beside Russell.
She’d be shy at first, her lips and tongue feeling thick and slow, her body feeling even larger than it actually was, but he’d say, “Hey, listen to this,”
and hand her a set of headphones, and then they’d be together in the music, and she’d find her feet again.
She loved listening to him play and talk and sing, loved hearing him laugh, loved his excitement, the way he’d gesture, moving his hands in the air when he talked about a song he liked.
She knew that it was hopeless.
A joke.
But she could not keep herself from yearning for him, quietly, privately, in the locked rooms of her own heart.
She’d imagine him coming to her, finding her alone somewhere, making a declaration, like a hero in a movie or a romance novel.
I want us to be together, the Russell who lived in her imagination would say.
Or, sometimes, thrillingly, shamefully—I have to have you.
I’ll die without you.
She could imagine him saying things, taking her hand, touching her face.
Beyond that, her imagination stalled.
She couldn’t picture Russell touching her body, much less her own hands on him.
She told herself that it didn’t matter, that no one would ever have to know how she felt.
Not Zoe.
Not Russell.
Not anyone.
She would never say anything, and Russell would never guess her secret.
But then, one afternoon in Wisconsin, somewhere between Platteville and Madison, after they’d played their third showcase at their third radio station of the day, everything changed.
It was after six o’clock, not dark yet, but on its way, and Daisy was driving them to the Holiday Inn where they were staying.
Cam, unexpectedly, had taken the front passenger’s seat, trying to wheedle Daisy into taking them to a steakhouse for dinner (“No, I told you,”
Daisy was saying.
“We can only do steak once a week.
That’s from the big bosses.
And you guys got your steak two nights ago.”
She’d given Cam a scolding look.
“You do know that the reps all talk to each other, right?”)
Zoe was curled up in the corner in the middle row of seats.
could tell she was asleep for real, not just sham-sleeping as an excuse to lean on Russell’s shoulder.
Her mouth was hanging open, giving her a slatternly appearance and the illusion of the tiniest double chin.
And she was snoring: harsh, unlovely sounds.
Russell turned around and caught ’s eye.
He nodded at her sister. “Shh,”
he said, pressing one finger to his lips.
found herself smiling at him, wondering how his lips might feel if she were the one touching them.
She couldn’t imagine touching his body, certainly couldn’t imagine kissing him, but she could allow herself to think about brushing her fingertips against his mouth.
Russell turned around.
Just when was thinking, Well, that’s that, he turned on his side, stretching one arm back, and felt his fingers brushing her ankle, just over her sock.
She stared down in disbelief, breath caught in her throat, watching herself being touched by a boy for the first time ever.
Russell wrapped his fingers around her ankle and gave it a gentle, fond squeeze.
“Hey,”
he whispered, so softly that only could hear him.
“Hey,”
she whispered back.
And that was it.
A quick touch, a single word.
That was all it took for to fall in love, to decide that she would love him forever, even if she couldn’t have him, even if she never got anything more than that single touch.
She would love him quietly, secretly, in the privacy of her own heart, and maybe no one else, not even Russell himself, would ever know.
But it would still be love.
They had a concert that night: an actual concert at a bar, in front of regular people, not a conference-room showcase at a radio station, in front of staff.
It would be their first show in front of an audience.
In the hotel room, Zoe had been beside herself with delight, trying on all the new clothes she’d bought that afternoon, during an hourlong sprint through the East Towne Mall, while sat in the food court and ate a hot pretzel and waited.
To , the outfits all looked the same: low-rise, dark-rinse, boot-cut jeans; shirts that were cropped to show her flat, fake-tanned belly; platform-soled sandals; and a half dozen gold necklaces of varying widths, some with charms dangling from the center, some with fake diamonds that would glitter under the lights.
had shrugged.
“They all look good.”
Her sister had been given money to go shopping.
had been sent a single choice: a black polyester pantsuit, a garment with the single goal of concealment.
They’d probably picked it out because it matched the venue’s curtains, she’d thought, touching the scratchy fabric, noting the baggy arms, the absurd shoulder pads.
She wouldn’t look pretty, could only hope for invisible.
But it didn’t matter, she thought, still glowing all over from the memory of Russell’s fingers on her skin.
“Okay, but this one’s got silver sequins, and this has puffed sleeves,”
Zoe was saying, when focused again.
“Come on, you’ve got to help me pick one.”
could tell that one shirt was pale purple, lavishly ruffled, and that another was icy-blue satin with no sleeves, but the subtler distinctions eluded her, and the more she tried to assist, the more frustrated Zoe became, until she’d gathered up all of her options and flounced off to the bathroom.
had pulled on her own clothes dreamily, wondering if maybe they’d be sent on an international tour.
Maybe the plane would crash over the ocean, and her sister and the rest of the band would be swept out to sea (and eventually rescued, thought guiltily), while she and Russell would drift to some white-sand, windswept island, where a diet of coconuts and mangos would finally leave thin, and the sun would turn her skin golden, and, after weeks or maybe months went by, Russell would realize that what he felt was not just admiration, or respect for her musical talent.
He would see that he loved her too.
“Which one, which one?”
Zoe muttered, emerging from the bathroom to stand in front of the full-length mirror.
She held one blouse in front of her, then another one, turning from side to side, bending down, then whipping her neck up and back to send her hair flying.
“That one,”
said, pointing randomly at one of the tops.
“This one?”
Zoe asked, sounding skeptical as she smoothed the shirt’s fabric.
“Yes,”
said.
“And hurry.
We’re going to be late.”
Half an hour later, the band pulled in front of the Up North Bar, just off campus, near the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
shivered as wind blew off of either Lake Mendota or Lake Monona (she’d seen, on a map, that both were nearby, but had no idea which was responsible for the breeze).
She carried her keyboard across a street thronging with college students around her age.
It made her feel a little superior, to be a working girl, with a job.
She was earning her own money, making her way in the world.
She was not a kid going to class on Mom and Dad’s dime.
But it also made her feel a little wistful, the tiniest bit envious.
Nobody asked anything of these boys and girls, except that they show up for their classes, study, do their homework, and pass their tests.
Nobody would wake them up early, day after day, drive them to radio station after radio station to play show after show, the country flickering past them like a deck of quickly shuffled cards.
Watching the kids, bundled up in down coats and hoodies, hearing them call to one another—“Hey! Wait up!”— felt unmoored, unsettled.
Homesick, she realized, and wondered if Zoe felt it too.
“Welcome, welcome!”
said the guy running the bar.
He’d given Daisy a kiss on the cheek, and ushered the band to a greenroom barely the size of a closet.
At nine o’clock on a weeknight, there wasn’t much of a crowd, maybe thirty or forty people.
could hear the rise and fall of their voices through the flimsy walls.
“You’re going to be fine,”
Zoe murmured, as stood in the wings with her eyes shut, wishing there was a way to teleport herself onto her piano bench.
She’d gotten relatively comfortable at radio stations, but here, again, were regular people, peers, who would judge her in a different way.
She knew that she could close her eyes as soon as she arrived at the instrument, but she couldn’t navigate her way across the stage unless she was looking ...
and looking meant keeping her eyes open.
Looking meant seeing the crowd, knowing that they could see her, imagining their scorn.
It was terrifying.
The voices felt closer, and they sounded louder; not like dozens of people, but like the voice of a single creature, a monster from under the bed, something many-eyed and many-limbed, hot-breathed and hungry.
“You’re fine,”
Zoe was telling her.
“You can do this.
You deserve to be here.”
nodded.
She always heard the part that Zoe wasn’t saying—I need you.
And I’ll kill you if you don’t get out there and play.
She was nervous ...
but, she realized, less nervous than she would have been the day before.
Her stomach wasn’t fluttering, and her heart wasn’t thudding in her chest.
Maybe it was because she could still feel the place where Russell had touched her.
She wondered if she could get that spot tattooed, a circle of flowers or a wavy line or a row of hearts to mark the spot.
“Give it up for the Griffin Sisters!”
the bar’s owner shouted.
There was a smattering of disinterested applause.
walked the gauntlet, onto the tiny stage, which was barely a foot above the bar’s floor, with barely enough room for a drum kit and a piano.
She settled herself on the bench, hoping her pantsuit did, in fact, help her blend in with the curtains and the walls.
She watched the other band members find their places, Cam beside her, Russell and Zoe in front of her, Russell on the right, Zoe toward her left.
Their borrowed drummer clicked his drumsticks.
Russell counted, “One, two, three, four,”
and it was like windshield wipers clearing away rain so that she could see, like a cinched corset loosening so that she could breathe.
She raised her hands, knowing she could trust them, that the notes were at her fingertips and the lyrics in her brain; that everything she needed was there, and when she reached for it, she’d find what she required.
As the four of them had gotten more familiar with one another, they’d sounded better together, smoother and more proficient, with every radio station that they’d played for.
They’d gone from competent to good and, by Wisconsin, had been verging on very good ...
and that night, they vaulted right past very good and excellent.
That night, they were transcendent.
It was like they’d found another gear: the harmonies more perfectly blended, the sound more balanced, every word of every song imbued with meaning.
Instead of the crowd as a terrified, many-eyed monster, felt its members as people, people who were thrilled to be hearing their songs, to be witnessing their show.
The crowd sent its energy, in the form of enthusiasm, toward the stage, and the band used it as fuel, turned fuel into music, and sent their songs back out.
knew she’d never sung more beautifully, and that Russell had never been more in tune with her, in his singing and in his whole self.
They closed the show with “Flavor of the Week,”
’s and Zoe’s voices twining in high harmony, Russell’s voice an octave lower, grounding them, and it was glorious perfection.
By the second time the chorus came around, the audience was on its feet, singing along.
I was just your flavor
If I saw that girl, I’d save her
I’d tell her no
I’d tell her go,
I’d tell her run, and don’t look back
I was just your flavor
If only I’d been braver
But I was just your flavor of the week.
Cam’s final chord hung in the air.
There was a single breath’s worth of electric silence, and then the audience was cheering, stamping and clapping, whistling, and shouting for more.
looked at Zoe, watching as her sister kissed her fingertips and raised her hand in the air, exultant, a gesture she made after every show.
Then she looked at Russell, and found he was looking at her, his eyes soft, mouth a little open.
Dazzled and adoring.
And, in that moment, could almost believe that what she felt was reciprocated, that what she dreamed of might actually, someday, come true.