Stay Until We Break (23 page)

For my final moment? To help Soft land a deal with the indie label we’ve been dreaming of for years?

“Fuck yes, I’m here,” I say, and feel a good glow come on from the core of me. “Let’s do this.”

The lights in the house go down for our encore. The roar of the crowd is insane. I can’t figure out what’s behind this energy. All I know is it feels like there’s enough of it that it’s going to last me a good, long while. I look down at my feet, and there she is, just the girl, just the girl, the girl I want. Sonia, her eyes closed as she starts to sway to the opening chords of “Amber Orbit,” and I’m playing just for her.

She doesn’t know it, but every note I play is for her.

***

Right after our set, I avoid everyone I can and head straight down to the gear alcove, a narrow hall with a bench and band graffiti and stickers all over the walls. I need a moment to collect myself before I deal with my family, Sonia, and Matador Records, for fuck’s sake. I sit right under the big cartoonish-looking
Soft
tag that Travis Sharpied on the wall the last time we played here. I put my bass back in the case and try to push away the thought that I won’t be the one taking her back out again. I can’t figure out how to say good-bye. I don’t
want
to say good-bye.

My ears ring, my head pounds with frustration. What did I think it was going to feel like to quit my whole life and walk the hell away? I expected it to feel bad, sure, but I guess I didn’t expect it to feel so fucking
wrong
.

Sonia comes downstairs carrying Emmy’s Gretsch and pedal bag. I pull myself together and snap the latches on the case down. She leans against the wall, across from where I sit, which is so close our knees are practically touching.

“I have something I need to say to you,” she says. She smooths her hair, puts her hands on her hips, the Sonia battle stance.

“Okay,” I say, not sure what to expect. My stomach churns with doubt as I brace myself for whatever she plans to say. But then, Anton and Elliot come bounding down the stairs.

“You guys fucking?” Elliot asks, hopefully.

“Does it look like this when you fuck?” I ask. “Tell your wife I’m sorry.”

“We need our guitars.”

We hand them their guitar cases and they run back upstairs, Anton giving me the thumbs-up for good luck as he leaves. With the look on Sunny’s face, I guess I’m going to need it. She stands so close I can smell her hair, her skin, and I’d like to pull her down into my lap, but right now that’s probably about as good an idea as trying to cuddle with a rabid honey badger. She reaches down and draws her finger along the rope of my tattoo, over to the single thread, and sighs.

“I’m so mad I can’t break you free,” she says.

Yeah, well, with everything else Sonia seems to be able to influence, I’m sure it makes her nuts that she can’t get me to stay in the band. Especially now. If anyone could, it would be her, for sure.

“I am free,” I say. “I’m sorry, Sonia. I’m just not the guy you thought I was.”

“No, you really aren’t,” she says, and just punch me in the gut, why doesn’t she? I look up at her to see if there’s some kind of explanation on her face, but the softness of her eyes doesn’t match the harshness of her words. “You’re so much more than that,” she says.

I don’t know what to say, but I know what to do when she kisses me, so sweet and unsure. I take her in my arms, cherish the feel of those soft, full lips against mine. Get my hands in that thick, shiny black-and-blue hair and hold her as close as I can, while I can.

“What are we going to do?” she asks, her eyes wide as she looks to me for some kind of answer. It’s not like Sonia to ask me what to do—she always knows what she wants to do. And I’m guessing she knows what to do now, too. But maybe she just can’t do it without my help.

“If Soft signs a deal with Matador, you guys are going to have to get on the road and stay there,” I say. “That’s your dream, isn’t it?”

Pain crosses her face, but then she nods. We both know how bad she wants a piece of this—it’s all she’s been working for ever since she got to Rutgers. What am I supposed to do, tell her to give it up? Am I going to see her in twenty-five years, all bitter and full of regret because she gave up her dream for a plumber? Hell no.

“That’s what we’re going to do then,” I say, tracing my finger down Sonia’s arm, resting it next to the bird as it flies off into the future. “You’re going to go after that dream for both of us. And then one day when it all comes true, I want you to look back and remember me as the open door—not the cage.”

Cole

Why does doing the right thing have to suck so fucking bad sometimes? Any philosopher out there who can explain that one, I’m all ears.

After my talk with Sonia, all I want is to go home or get drunk or maybe go home
and
get drunk and call it a night. A year, even. But when I go upstairs, my sister, mother, and Patrick are all waiting for me and I have to get some sort of game face on so I can say thanks and send them on their way. Patrick slaps me on the back and tells me how surprised he is to see I actually know how to play—that this band thing I’m in is actually, you know, pretty good. Claire goes on and on about the fact that a real record label is here and wants to give us a contract (which isn’t exactly true, not yet, anyway). But the entire time they talk, my mother says nothing.

“Are you feeling all right?” I ask her. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“Can we talk outside for a minute?” she asks.

My mother never asks me to talk about anything, so this is a surprise. We go for a walk down Frank Sinatra Drive, along the Hudson. The street is pretty quiet for a Saturday night, just the occasional late-night partiers. Across the river, the lights of lower Manhattan look like all the stars of the sky.

“You know,” Mom says, looking out across the Hudson. “I always felt like you never came home from the youth house. Even after you got out you were never home, you never talked. Always with the band, though. Always out of the house. This show, that show, practice. I thought you were just out there partying all the time.”

Of course she thought that, because if it had been her at my age, that’s what she would have been doing. But I swallow that bitterness because the fact is, Mom is here and she spent all night in a bar sober just to see me play and that’s pretty cool.

“Well, I’m glad you got to see what it’s all about before I quit.”

“Cole, I don’t think you should quit,” she says.

I look square at her. Quitting is what she’s been wanting me to do ever since I got out of the youth house. She even blamed the band for getting me into trouble! “Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she used to accuse me. Now she doesn’t want me to quit? Just like that?

“It’s time,” I say. “I’m going out on a high note, so it’s as it should be.”

“But aren’t you about to get a record contract?”

“Who knows?” I shrug. “Even if Matador signs us, it’s not a guarantee I’ll ever make a living playing music.”

“But Cole, you’re really good. I mean, I may not know much about punk rock . . .”

“Indie rock, Ma,” I say. “Or just rock.”

“Whatever it is, I was wrong about it,” she says, shaking her head. “All wrong. About so many things.”

Then, right there on Frank Sinatra Drive, she tells me things that I never in a million years thought she would ever say.

“I’m sorry, Coco,” she says. “It’s my fault you ever got into all that trouble in the first place.” Says it was because I had such a shitty childhood that I got into selling weed, and she says that was all her fault, which it wasn’t. I mean, she had me when she was sixteen and that was rough. But it wasn’t her fault that she got knocked up by a fucking drunk who never worked and used to beat us both alike. “I should have protected you better,” she says. “I should have tried harder to get away from your father.”

I remind her that she tried that, and, well, she probably doesn’t remember exactly what happened that night and I’m not going to bring it up now.

“I’m so sorry,” she says again, and we’re standing here on the sidewalk and she starts really crying. Tears, shaking, sobs, the whole waterworks. Do you know when I’ve ever seen my mother cry like this? Never. And as bad as this sucks, I’m glad she’s crying, because if it wasn’t her right now it would be me, and no way am I crying in front of my mother out here on the damn sidewalk. I put my arms around her and try to think of something I can say to make her feel better, but I’m coming up blank. I guess it’s great she’s been going to therapy and AA meetings and all, but fuck, I am not prepared for this. I don’t know what to say, so I just hold her tighter.

“I know Uncle Pat is glad to have you back working for him,” she says. “But I just can’t see you turning a wrench for the next thirty years.”

“Aw, come on,” I say. “I know I’m no genius but I can probably manage being a plumber. If Patrick can pay me well enough to foot Claire’s tuition, I’m glad to do it.”

My mother sighs and drops her face into her hands. Then she turns to look out over the Hudson and grasps the gold crucifix hanging from her neck, asks the Holy Mother for forgiveness, for guidance.

“Cole McCormack,” she says, “that guitar might be the only good thing God ever gave you and I’m not going to watch you turn your back on it.”

“Ma . . .”

“I’m not finished,” she snaps, now sounding a lot more like the Katelyn McCormack I know. “Tonight, watching you and your band, was the first time I really believed that in spite of everything that I let happen to you, you’d still be okay.”

I remember my mother’s face the day I got sentenced to the youth house, like it was carved out of stone. I know how ashamed she was, how disappointed and scared, too, but she never let me see it. Now my mother looks up at me with those dark brown eyes, red-rimmed from crying, and her face is totally different. Teary and broken and desperate, it shows everything she’s feeling right there on the surface. I can finally see it all—my first report card, my dyslexia diagnosis. I can see my broken arm and the lies she told the ER doctors. But I can also see that glimmer of hope she has for me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite that look from her before.

“Mom, I’m okay,” I manage to say, though my voice cracks and I have to clear my throat before I can speak again. “Honest.”

“Then don’t quit the band,” she says, reaching up to hold my face in her hands, warm and strong and deadly serious. “Please,” she says. “If you can’t do it for you, then do it for me.”

And now I cry.

My mother and I stand on the sidewalk together, and fuck, I’m a mess. She holds me while I just rain tears down her and my body shakes with the effort it’s taking to pull my shit together. People walk by, and I can’t do anything but breathe as my mother whispers, “There, there, Coco. It’s all right. We’re gonna be all right now.” And I remember that soothing, broken voice. I remember these arms. I remember being held.

It’s just been a while.

***

I’m sure Crown is nearly finished with their set by the time Mom and I finally pull ourselves together and walk back to the club. Patrick is waiting on the sidewalk for us and I thank him for bringing Mom down tonight.

“Thank your girlfriend,” Patrick says. “She’s the one who convinced your mother to come see you play.”

“Wait, what?” I say, floored. “It was Sonia who got you to come out tonight? Not Claire?”

“Yes, when she called this week. She put me on the guest list,” Mom says. “When are you going to bring her up for dinner, anyway? I’ll make a roast.”

My fucking heart, man. What can’t that girl touch and turn to gold?

Patrick pulls me to the side and tells my mother he’ll meet her at the car, he needs to talk to me in private. And I know what he’s going to say.
Don’t be an idiot, it’s not sexy, but being a plumber is a solid stream of income. Totally respectable line of work, you can join the union, you’re not a kid anymore, blah, blah,
the usual.

“Don’t worry,” I say, heading him off at the pass. “I’m not gonna jump ship or anything. I know Mom is all worked up, but I’m not going anywhere.”

But then he starts talking about how I should probably just stay in New Brunswick because, you know, I’ll just eat up all my money in gas and tolls driving back to Hub City to see my girl all the time, and I can’t bring myself to tell him Sonia isn’t my girl anymore. Guess I can’t even admit that to myself, because when I saw her having a beer with the guy from Matador earlier I wanted to choke him to death.

Patrick also seems to think I’m about to become famous and that I need to stay in the band. I explain, no, that’s not how this works. At all. And what the hell, does he think Claire’s tuition is going to pay itself? And Mom’s medical expenses? And the rent? This isn’t the lottery here.

“Look, Cole, no thanks to you, I got that contract for five new strip malls from that developer up in Tenafly,” he says. “I already covered Rutgers for Claire.”

“You what?” I say, my jaw hitting the sidewalk. “You paid Claire’s tuition and nobody bothered to tell me?”

“I just did tell ya, didn’t I?”

Patrick is about fifty pounds heavier than I am, taller, too. He was a football star in high school, always wanted to go pro but never made it. He’s ten years older than me, but he could take me in a throw-down, pretty sure. And it makes no sense that I’d want to take a swing at him right now, but the guy clearly does not understand how I’ve completely fucked myself in life, here, thinking that my sister’s future is riding on my back. Thank God for those anger management classes they made me take in the youth house, because I’m putting all that deep breathing shit to work right the hell now.

“I’ll need Katie to do books for me, and I can pay her all right,” he goes on. “That shouldn’t bug her asthma too much. Then when you’re number one on the Billboard chart, you can take over the bills, deal?”

“That will likely never happen,” I say.

“Then you’ll be off the hook, won’t ya?”

Unbelievable. I’m speechless here, trying to figure out how the hell my entire life got turned so inside out, when it slowly dawns on me what’s happened. My mother never needed me to come home to work at all. She and Patrick were just scared I was out there fucking my life up, and they knew exactly how to bring me back. It wasn’t Claire they were trying to help—it was me, the whole time.

And I guess they still are.

“You’ll bust your nuts trying to install all those toilets alone,” I say. “You’ll need the extra hands.”

“Well, ya still need a job, right? You can do a bunch of overtime when you’re around, take time off when you need to go on the road. We’ll work something out.”

“You’re serious?”

“Cole, you can always be a plumber. But this band thing is your dream, right? How many chances do you think you’re gonna get to follow it?”

What the hell can I even say to that? I guess dreams aren’t such a luxury after all. Either that or I’m more damned than I realized. Or maybe more blessed.

After he finally leaves, I lean against the brick wall of Maxwell’s, my hands in my pockets, just trying to feel calm again. Normal. At the moment I feel thin and shaky and smaller than I’d like. I look up at the sky. You can’t see a lot of stars from Hoboken, but I’ve been a few places now where the stars are countless. And I think about that, about how it’s all the same sky, but how different it looks, depending on where you look up at it from.

For the first time in a year, I look into my future and I can’t see what’s there. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. But at least I know what
not
to do.

I’m not letting Sonia go.