Encore to an Empty Room (13 page)
Read Encore to an Empty Room Online
Authors: Kevin Emerson
“Well, now I have to anyway, don't I?” Maya snaps. “Even Jason makes me feel like I matter more than you do.”
She storms off.
“Maya,” I call after her, but it's halfhearted.
Matt is just sitting there. “This is gonna suck.”
Val cracks up.
“Hey . . . ,” says Caleb.
“Sorry.”
“Matt, we'll figure it out,” I say.
“No, it's . . . whatever,” says Matt. “I thought it was the right choice, too.”
I feel terrible about Maya. I also wonder if in her anger, she'll tell Jason about our Denver plan. And if she does, will he be able to connect the dots from Denver to Eli?
But she texts me about fifteen minutes later.
Maya: I'll keep your gigs a secret. But Jason will find out eventually.
Summer: I know. I'm still sorry.
Maya: Tell Matt I'm still mad at him.
Summer: ok.
We sit quietly for awhile: Caleb and I working on our lab report, Matt studying drum fills on YouTube, Jon noodling up and down the fret board.
My phone pings and I find an email from Andre about the interview:
Sorry for the delay. That's too bad about Friday. Cases are piling up and the next few weeks will be impossible. The interview has to be complete by
February 22 and it looks like the only days I have free are Presidents' Day and that following Thursday. Do either of those days work? I hope so!
Crap. Presidents' Day is when we're on our way to Denver. It will have to be that Thursday. Cutting it really close. I'm anxious just thinking about it. A flat tire somewhere in Utah, and I won't make it. But I tell him it will work and hope for the best.
As it turns out, the studio session on Friday goes great. I'm sitting on the couch as the band tears through “Catch Me” when an alarm goes off on my phone, reminding me of the interview I could have had. I forgot to delete it, and it makes my gut flood with guilt.
Everything is rocking, finally. Jon abandoned the keyboard track in “On My Sleeve,” and he and Caleb came up with a piano part that ended up making the song even better. Val is totally on point with “Catch Me.” The band is a blur of energy through the window. Jon added synths, this time in a good way, and now this song sounds like a chase through a futuristic city by hover car.
All that is great, but it means I easily could have slipped out for the interview.
We also got good news from Jason: he's fine with us finishing our school EP. His response is so breezy that I don't trust it.
But at least now we have things set up just like we want.
I've even warmed up to the idea of signing with Candy Shell. The more time I spend with Caleb, and especially with this recording sounding so good, the more I imagine that this, right here, is how I want to spend next year.
And yet . . .
Two hours later, when I walk in the door and my dad looks up from the couch and asks how the interview went . . .
(Because I never actually mentioned the reschedule . . .)
I clench my gut against a wave of nerves or guilt or both and reply:
“It went great.”
Formerly Orchid @catherinefornevr 4hr
Winter break! Taking a road trip to see cousins. Now taking your playlist suggestions. See you in a week!
Calculating Route
Mount Hope to St. George, UT: estimated travel time 5 hr 30 min
summerc
this has to be the name of #Dangerheart's alter ego band.
summerc
don't blink?
Calculating Route
St. George, UT to Denver, CO: 9 hr 15 min
summerc
all the erosion happens in Utah.
summerc
my window as a future national park caretaker and recluse.
summerc
the view from Mars.
summerc
Hay bale tractors=YES.
summerc
“We must go through the mines!”
West of Denver
This has maybe been the greatest two days of my life. There has been so much of everything, too much coffee, and somehow no time to spare even though we have been in the van for fifteen hours at this point. Other than posting pictures under the guise of taking a family trip, I haven't been able to share the details because of the top secret nature of our adventure. And I have been considering whether that makes it all feel more or less special. Less special because if a band shares a single woolly mammoth ice-cream cone in the wilds of Utah and doesn't post a picture of it, did it even happen? Or more because these experiences are mine, and only mine, and no one gets to know?
My parents enjoy the pictures I send. I got word over the last month that I will have interviews at Colorado College and Ponoma, both a couple weeks after I get back. Carlson Squared is at peace. But all that feels like another life, forever from now.
Here in the moment there is only me, Caleb, and our band. We all share these smiles sometimes that almost hurt my heart with how personal they feel. It's just us.
It's almost my shift to drive again, but before I forget:
Things to Remember:
-The way Las Vegas looked like a moon base from a distance
-When it was Jon's turn for music and out of nowhere he put on
Fearless
and we were all horrified because, yeah, we knew every word
-The way our new EPs look. We finished the recording, mixing, and mastering with little drama as January slipped by, and we got the box right before we left. I like to run my finger over the slippery shrink-wrapped spines. The cover is this awesome logo that my friend
SarahFromTheValley
drew, where “Dangerheart” is written in this cool font across a big red heart. There are flares at the beginning and end of the word, with stars and planets in the swirls. It looks like a tattoo that a swashbuckling pirate, or a mercenary, would have on his upper arm, the one he wouldn't show you until a quiet moment around a campfire, or something.
-There is no smell quite like the smell of Cool Ranch Doritos mixed with six bodies in a van.
-The sound of four boys through the wall when they discovered that the pay-per-view channels in the Creek Edge motel ($59 a night!) were unblocked
-Val and I flossing together. The clicking sound. HILARIOUS. Why? We'll never know.
-Moonrise at a roadside canyon rim with Caleb. He's
been the quietest of us on the trip. Now that we're back on the hunt for Eli, he gets lost in his head. But on a canyon edge in Utah we held each other and picked out the constellations and kissed in the millennial yawn of the wind over sandstone, kissed atop cliffs that were once beneath a sea, kissed until it became pointless because we were getting oxygen starved, becoming impulsive . . . and also needing lip balm. (Pro tip: desert air is dry.)
-The sense of leaving the world behind. No practices, classes, or obligations. No routines that you sleepwalk through. Everything is vibrant and new. And we could literally be going anywhere. But we're not. We're on a mission. And nothing can change the indescribable magic of that. All the jokes the same, all the stories told, and the extra intangible of being the “band from LA.” Like that would be written on the side of our spaceship. Like astronauts. Like great explorers. Like rock stars.
-I don't know what awaits us in Denver, or in the future three days or three months from now, but I don't know how it could ever get any better than this.