Finding Abbey Road (9 page)

And, like everyone else, his default belief about Eli White is forever cemented by his dad's trickery: Eli the tragic figure, who took himself down. Who let down his fans. And Jason was one of those fans.

“Still,” says Jason, upbeat, “even just two tapes hidden across the country makes for an amazing story.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Caleb asks.

“I've already got a deal lined up for a documentary. Kellen and the boys will record the songs. And we're going to reissue
Into the Ever & After
. Not quite complete . . . but close
enough.” He looks at Caleb. “Now that you're a Candy Shell artist, we would love to prominently include you and Dangerheart. The story of Eli's son finding the tapes, tracking them down across the country. That will be
huge.
”

Don't we know it. We imagined that so many times, only we hoped it would be on our terms, not Jason's.

Caleb just nods but doesn't respond.

“You can think about it,” says Jason. “Take your time.”

My phone buzzes. My heart skips when I see the text.

Dad: We're saving you a plate of dinner. Lasagna. We expect you home soon.

I feel like I might cough my heart right out onto the table. I click off the screen. “So,” I say, trying to focus, “you have the tapes. We did what you wanted. . . .”

“You did . . . ,” says Jason, and his grin returns. Suddenly I wonder if we've been duped. This was our only shot. . . .

“And think what you want of me,” he says, “but when I make a deal, I stick to it.”

Jason reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a long envelope. He lays it on the table, but keeps his hand on top of it. “I have to say, I am sort of wondering why you need this.” He taps the envelope, and his voice dips back into that oil-slicked tone we know so well. “And where are the rest of your band mates? Shouldn't this be a group decision? Unless you've both decided to screw them over and take it all for yourself. . . .”

I hold my breath, knowing I have to both keep my cool and lie more, but also because in order for the lie to work, we have to be honest about a few things. Hello, tightropes!

“Matt is recovering from the injuries he got in New York,” I say. I can't help narrowing my eyes for what I say next: “Don't act like you don't know where Jon is.”

Jason grins sheepishly, just like a wolf. “Well, yeah, I guess you'll be needing a new guitarist. I know a few guys.”

“We'll find one,” says Caleb. “On our own.”

“Suit yourself,” says Jason. “I'm here to help. And what about your little runaway?”

“Val's mom has the police searching for her,” I say. “But she's going to pursue emancipation.” I glance at the envelope. “That's the biggest reason why we need this. She can't wait however many weeks it would take to sign the contract with you guys and all that.”

“It does take forever,” says Jason. He taps the envelope. Eyes us. Taps it again . . .

And slides it over.

“Congratulations, Dangerheart. You are officially signed to Candy Shell Records. Ms. Barnes over there is our witness to this exchange, a supplemental advance on your advance.”

I place my hand over the thick envelope. “And your boss dad is okay with this?” I ask nervously.

“I don't have to check with Daddy before every move
I make,” Jason says with just the note of stubborn defiance that I hoped to hear. “It's my job to bring in the talent. He trusts me to do that in whatever way
I
see fit. This little sum is well worth the reward.”

Perfect
, I think.
Keep your dad out of this, Jason, for just a little longer. . . .

Jason glances back at Maya then lowers his voice a touch. “Still, whatever you need to do about your Val, when it comes to the police and all that, I want to know nothing.”

I slide the envelope over to us, feel the stack of bills inside, but don't open it, even though my fingers are twitching to do so.

“So, should we get some food to celebrate?” Jason asks. “It's on me. After all, it's a business expense now.”

“No thanks,” I say. “We're going to celebrate on our own.”

Jason nods. “I so barely trust you guys right now,” he says, and then taps the tapes against the table. “But I also barely care. Even if you were to jet off right after this meal and go find the third tape, you took our money, so . . .”

“What?” says Caleb. “You own us?”

Jason laughs. “Of course not.” Then his tone lowers. “Just your music.”

A cold wave ripples through me. I take Caleb's hand under the table. It's clammy. Oh man, what did we just do?

Jason stands. “Can't wait to work with you guys.” He sticks out his hand.

Though it's the last thing we want to do, we shake.

Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil.

7:16 p.m.

It turns out, even in this era of security and credit cards and mileage accounts, you can still walk into an airport and buy a plane ticket. Or, three tickets. You can show your passports, and then thumb hundred-dollar bills out of an unmarked white envelope, one thousand five hundred dollars, times three. You can even get some change back.

It turns out the ticket agent won't even blink.

It also turns out you can walk nearly the entire way from long-term parking to the ticket counters at LAX without breathing.

Do I ever breathe anymore?

I'm getting oxygen somehow, and energy, but God knows from where. I haven't eaten a thing since breakfast.

When I was eating breakfast, Caleb didn't even know yet that his father was alive. A little over twelve hours ago. Tepidly pushing instant oatmeal around in a bowl, taking meager bites while deciding if I would even tell Caleb at all.

Eight hours later, here we are and everything has changed but when Caleb asks if I want anything from Au Bon Pain after the tickets are bought, my stomach growls a firm “hell no.”

Val was waiting for us inside the terminal, sitting sideways in a row of black airport chairs, knees to her chest, flipping her finger over her phone, small backpack by her side. When we first saw her through the blur of bodies in transit, a ghost world of identities between destinations, I almost cried. Little Val, lost sister, not to me, but still. Caleb broke into a jog, and the two of them hugged like family. I slowed my pace to get there a moment later.

She hugged Caleb hard. Of course all she and I said to each other was, “Hey.” But it's a
hey
that has history now. Miles in the van, fights, secret trips to old homes, and more miles to go. I feel closer to her than most of the people I've known a hundred times as long. I don't know where she's been these last few days; I'm just glad she's here.

“So,” she said, “let's do something crazy.” She slung her bag over her slight, wiry frame, brushed her newly lavender hair from her eyes, and we headed for the ticket counter.

It turns out, Val's passport identifies hers as Cassidy Elizabeth Fowler, and mine identifies me as Catherine Summer Carlson.

And Caleb's middle name is Richard?

“No dick jokes,” says Caleb.

And so for the five minutes that we talk to the ticket agent, we are the children our parents named us, the models they created, only now our programming has evolved and grown sentient.

We have gone rogue, and if any of them knew where we were now . . .

If any of them knew.

7:38 p.m.

The security line is the last moment. We step to the man at his little podium and he runs our passports under his little blue light. Checks our tickets.

I am so sure that we will be pulled aside, that officers will converge from unseen locations, that our parents are waiting for us somewhere nearby.

But he just waves us on.

They scan us, and though we are the bones and blood and dreams of our parents, we are also our own unique selves, and it turns out, we are allowed to dream and plot and defy and break, break, break the very rules of our universe.

“We are flying to
London . . . ,
” Val whispers as we walk together, the three of us, post-security.

People dart around us, on their way to everywhere.

“Is this really going to work?” she asks.

“I think so,” says Caleb, his breath tight, too.

We stop and check the Departures screen to be sure of our gate. We are flying Icelandair, because the only nonstop flights leaving tonight were sold out. Even that is some kind of amazing. On a random Monday in February, there are that many people who are traveling to another
continent, and London is only one city on one continent, one name in the
L
's on the huge departure board of possibility.

There are so many possibilities . . .

It feels like we can be anything.

We are only tied down by our expectations and desires.

Well, and let's be honest, by our lack of fat envelopes of cash from slimy record labels.

But still.

Here we go.

And it is something like all of the universe right there between your heart and your ribs.

Holy shit.

Yes!

Despite all of the risk in what we're doing, I am suddenly gripped by some kind of elation. Sheer terror? Perhaps. But it's making me smile and I push against Caleb. He tugs me out of the fray of moving people. We stumble to the wall and crush against each other and make out.

“Ugh,” says Val from up ahead.

“Sorry,” Caleb says as he takes me by the hand and we catch up.

“I'm so glad we're not sitting together,” says Val. Her seat is a few rows behind ours.

We all smile.

And manage to eat burritos.

And make it to the gate.

8:50 p.m.

“Welcome aboard, Ms. Carlson,” the gate attendant says to me.

And we walk down the Jetway to our spacecraft.

It turns out, we are flying to London!

But hold on . . .

There is one more thing to do.

9:08 p.m.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in just a moment we'll be closing the forward door. Please take this opportunity to make sure all your devices are in airplane mode.”

Caleb: Mom, I'm so sorry. Because of the police, I can only tell you this now. I'm on my way to London. It's about Dad . . .

Caleb: Don't worry. We bought a round-trip ticket and will be back on Friday. Please trust me. We have to see this through. I love you and I'll keep you updated. -C

Summer: . . .

“Ladies and gentlemen, the forward door is now closed. Flight attendants will be coming through the cabin to make sure that all your carry-on items are stowed and electronics are in airplane mode.”

Summer: Mom. Dad. I am so sorry. I'm sorry to disobey you

I delete all that.

“Miss?” The flight attendant looks around Caleb to where I'm slouched over my phone.

“Sorry,” I say, “doing it now.”

Shit.

My thumbs tremble over the keypad. I don't know what to say. I have to at least tell them the facts:

Summer: Dear Mom and Dad: I'm on Icelandair Flight 2043 to London. I am with Caleb and Val and we will be back on Friday. I have money and my passport and we will be safe. I

“Ma'am . . .” Another flight attendant.

I stare at the screen.

Summer: I don't know exactly what I can be, but I know I can't be exactly what you want. I need this trip. I need this week. I'm really, really sorry and I love you.

“That's good,” Caleb says over my shoulder. “That's enough.”

Still not breathing.

I hit send.

There is a light bump as the plane lurches back from the gate. Suddenly tears are streaming down my face.

Caleb rubs my back. “We'll be okay.”

I grip his hand. “I know.”

And I do. I really do.

I watch out the window as the worker waves his double red lights, guiding us out onto the tarmac, the launch pad, out of our orbit and our lives and I am crying because I don't feel guilty, and I don't feel alone. I feel like I am at the start of something wild and unknown, something made of light and furious possibility, but I am sad, too, because in order to know this, to feel this amazing, impossible moment, I have to leave those who love me behind.

The plane rumbles to the runway. It surges and rattles and gathers speed.

And we are off.

3:20 a.m., Tuesday

Awake again as we churn through the crystalline dark. Most of the plane seems to be asleep. Some seats still with their little rectangles of screen blaring blue light. Caleb is out, now. We're snuggled against each other's shoulders. It took us awhile: two movies and a bunch of video games and even the crossword puzzle in the airplane magazine before we finally dozed off.

I twist to see Val, a few rows back, curled into a child-sized ball, covered by a blanket except for the very top of her head.

Outside, there is nothing but black and stars, and, if I press my face against the glass, a red rim of moon setting behind us.

I feel weirdly numb, headachey and dried out from the airplane air, from a day spent barely eating and wringing my insides out.

I click my screen back to life. Blue light on my face. A tiny plane birthing a white line across a midnight blue map. We are over Calgary. Catherine Summer Carlson is in Canadian airspace, in the mountain standard time zone, in the upper troposphere.

Back on the surface of the earth, in American airspace, in the Pacific time zone, it is after two in the morning, and my parents . . . could they possibly be sleeping? I doubt it.

More likely they are sitting on the couch, with glasses of
wine, furious, worried. Maybe Aunt Jeanine is there. Imagining it makes the adrenaline pistons fire in my gut, and my guts are so tired from the stress and worry. All I want to think about is what is ahead. Forward.

I keep telling myself that I'll be back in four days. And when I'm back they can punish me all they want. It will be worth it, right? And who knows? Maybe by the time I get back, they'll have come around. Maybe they'll have thought about what this meant for me . . .

Could that be how it goes?

Please?

I can't believe we're on this plane.

I switch to another movie. Some romantic comedy that involves dog-sitting.

We sail on through the dark.

1:34 p.m., GMT

Greenland!

Forehead pressed against the window. Stunning. Stunned.

1:46 p.m.

Reykjavík on far too little sleep . . . The words, they sort of make sense, but only enough to make you feel like there is something wrong with your brain.

Also, you know, Vikings and stuff:

2:19 p.m.

We barely speak in the Keflavik airport. Briefly pass out on a row of chairs. I gaze out the windows at a world of volcanic black covered by folds of emerald-green moss. Clouds gallop low overhead in a constant wind. A place that feels in flux, as unfinished as we are.

Swimming out of a haze, my head a soup of pinpricks, I gaze at my phone. Still in airplane mode. Still showing Los Angeles time. It would switch to local time if I activated the network or Wi-Fi, but then I might get a text, or a voice mail. My parents must have tried to contact me by now. . . .

I slide the phone back into my pocket. Our next flight boards in a half hour. Easier just to stare off at the volcanic hills.

Caleb reads a wrinkled guitar magazine. It seems to be a nonstop assault of advertisements and dudes with questionable hair.

“How can you read that?” I ask him, my head falling on his shoulder.

Caleb smiles. “You don't really read it. More like you wander through it and see what you connect with. Like, which pedals look cool, which guitars, what musicians look like people you'd find interesting.”

“Which hairstyle you're going to get.” I point at the sneering rocker in an amplifier ad, his hair teased up like my mom used to do in high school. “Don't you need to hear a guitar to know it's right for you?”

“Yeah, but appearance is part of it. I guess that sounds kind of shallow, but it's not. It's sort of like seeing someone you are attracted to—”

“Please don't compare women to guitars—”

He smiles. “I won't, not exactly. But what happens is, you see a guitar and you imagine yourself playing it. You picture the two of you together onstage. And like, when a guitar just looks like
you
, it's almost like the sound will probably be right, or you'll want to meet it halfway, or something. It's the same with pedals and amps. Oh, and also it's interesting to read about how these musicians spend their days and what their habits are and stuff.”

“Like what vodka that dude puts in his cereal?” I'm pointing at another rocker, this one with a shaved head and plenty of tattoos.

“He's vegan,” says Caleb. “The thing about most musicians is that they're totally OCD. Have to use the same guitar picks, have to wear the same gig underwear—”

“Gross!”

“I put vodka in my cereal one time,” says Val.

We both look over. She's curled in her seat, drawing on her left Converse with a black fine-point Sharpie. “Lucky Charms,” she adds, not looking up. “They're magically delicious!”

Caleb and I both search for something to say.

“Oh, stop,” she says. “It wasn't for breakfast. And it wasn't recently.” She continues sketching a series of airplane
tails along the white rim of her shoe.

“I can't believe you're doing that,” says Caleb. “They're brand-new.”

“I think it looks really cool,” I say.

“This is part of
my
OCD musician thing,” says Val. “I buy a new pair before any tour, and make it like a journal. It's cooler than taking pictures. I was doing a pair on our Chicago–Denver trip, not that you all would have noticed.”

“Maybe that's because I couldn't see them around Matt's boner,” says Caleb.

We all crack up.

“He misses you,” I add.

“Yeah,” she says like it can't be helped.

“You were just hooking up with him,” Caleb says. “It wasn't more, was it?”

Val shrugs. She draws a tiny Icelandair logo on one of the airplane tails. “I didn't really consider it becoming anything more,” she says. “He's a sweetie, but . . . I'd just let him down.” A shadow passes over her face. “Well,” she adds quickly, “you know, after I got him off.”

We giggle again, and I'm so tired that it feels like soda bubbles behind my forehead, but I also notice that Val stops laughing far earlier than Caleb and me.

4:09 p.m.

“What are you doing?” I ask Caleb as I wake, halfway
through our second flight.

He's been typing on his phone since we took off.

“You didn't turn on the Wi-Fi, did you?”

“Nope.” He passes me the phone. The notepad is open and there are words. It takes travel brain a minute to realize they're arranged in lines. Lyrics.

“How do they go?” I ask him.

He leans into my ear, his breath warm, and sings in a whisper:

I see the future and all I see is you

I've been making plans since you took my hand

But when you ask me, I keep it to myself

It's not the future, until you see it too

Let the miles come, it doesn't matter

Let the time zones change, it doesn't mean a thing

If you're where you want to be, I want to be there too

If you're where you want to be then . . . I'll be with you.

I mash my lips against his. “You are way too sweet,” I say.

Caleb nuzzles his face against my neck. “I mean it. I feel like, if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.”

I hold him and wish these plane seats were more private. As we kiss again, I can practically feel Val rolling her eyes from three rows back, not that she can even really see us.

I sink back to sleep on Caleb's shoulder, trying to picture our future together, but my own future is still too foggy.

6:25 p.m.

It is dark by the time we land, so at first, London is just another airport anywhere.

We leave the plane and head directly for the gift shop across from the gate. We separate, stumbling around, and reconvene at the register. I put down trail mix and an energy drink. Val has a long package of plain-looking round cookies.

“What are those?” I ask.

“Biscuits,” she says. “It's what you're supposed to do. Also these.” She has a package of potato chips that are steak and onion flavored.

“Gross,” I say.

“I know, right?” She grins big, but it's interrupted by a yawn.

Caleb arrives with a city map and three wristwatches. “Check these out,” he says. They are cheap tourist trinkets, gold-colored watches on black faux leather bands, with the Union Jack on the face. “This way, we can leave our phones off the whole time,” he says.

“I like the sound of that,” I say.

Val unfolds the map and runs her fingers over the diagonal lines of the city. “This primitive technology is amazing.”

“That will be nineteen pounds thirty,” says the cashier, and I can tell we're all trying not to giggle at the awesomeness of her accent.

But then it hits me what she's saying. “Oh,” I say, “we only have . . . Do you take American dollars?”

The woman just gazes at us. “There's an exchange booth that way.”

“Can we leave this stuff here?” Caleb asks.

The cashier just sighs and sweeps it all into a bag that she stashes beside her.

“How much cash do we have left?” Val asks as we walk through the terminal.

I carefully remove the envelope from my bag and thumb through. “Six hundred and some change,” I say. Moments later, I hand it over to an expressionless young man in a suit vest, and after he makes the conversion and extracts a convenience fee, we are handed back a pile of notes and coins that is just over four hundred pounds.

“Is that enough for the week?” Val asks as we walk back to the gift shop. “I've heard London is expensive.”

I shrug. “We're going to have to make it last,” I say. “I have my parents' emergency credit card but if I use that, it might as well be for a plane ticket to Nepal, since they would kill me.”

“Aren't they already going to kill you?” Val asks. “I'm not saying you should use it . . .”

“I just . . .” Somehow the idea of using that card seems
like a huge betrayal. As if coming here wasn't enough of one. “Let's just get to the youth hostel and pay for our nights, then we'll split up the rest of the money and eat cheap.”

We get our supplies and make our way to the Tube. It takes us an hour to get to London proper, on a train filled mostly with arriving tourists. There are locals, I think, too, and if my senses weren't like a smooth-sanded stone right now I would probably be noticing interesting details about this new world, but mainly I'm staring blankly at the ads on the walls.

“How are you doing?” I ask Caleb.

He shrugs. “Somewhere between fine and completely losing my head,” he says.

“Do you want to go to Eli's apartment tonight?” Val asks. “The hostel is pretty close.”

“No,” says Caleb. “Let's sleep. I couldn't handle that tonight.”