The Bad Decisions Playlist (12 page)

“Okay,” Shane is saying, “I got time for one last song tonight. Here's one I think you might know.” He strums the opening chords to “Good Fun.” The song I sang for the girls at the lake. Everyone starts applauding again, a shared
ahhh,
like an old friend has finally arrived at the party. I turn my eyes back to the stage, and I can feel Josephine watching me.

Shane is vamping, playing the opening chord progression, like he wants to stretch the moment out longer and knows we want it too.

“I love you, Shane!” someone shouts, and everyone laughs, Shane with them, and he says, “I love you too!”

A glance at Josephine. She's still watching me.

Josephine is watching me.

Maybe you just need the right girl watching you,
says Alex.

It propels me, that gaze, gets me moving, stepping off the riser.

The gaze moves me through the crowd​—​not toward Josephine, but to the stage, slipping past and around people effortlessly, like they're clearing the way for me, and then I'm at the edge of the stage itself, then I'm hoisting myself up onto it, the surface pitted and scuffed under my hands. The crowd murmuring. Shane has been playing with his eyes closed but opens them just then and notices me, and it's almost like he was waiting for me to do this​—​the faintest moment of puzzlement, instantly replaced by a smile that spreads, says,
Welcome. What took you so long?
Then a quick shake of his head at the black-clad roadie who is moving onto the stage to cut me off.

Shane keeps the chord progression looping as I pick up his mandolin from the stand behind him, put the strap over my shoulder. He keeps playing as he moves himself a step to his right, an invitation to join him at the microphone. I'm aware of the sense of anticipation and mystery in the room, everyone silent, leaning forward, waiting, breath held, and then Shane gives me a nod and we start to sing and play together.

It's like a dream where you're flying.

Where you can do it because you've forgotten that it's impossible. The delight, the freedom, the nonsensical joy. While a small part of you wonders,
But how? But how?
And then just shrugs its shoulders and watches.

The glare from the stage lights renders everything but the first few rows invisible. Is Josephine smiling, I wonder, or shocked or impressed or even still there? But I try not to think about it too much, because I'm afraid that I'll become too self-aware and remember that gravity exists and then
ahhhhhh!
the dream will end.

We get through the first verse and to the chorus, and I'm the one who sends my voice up to soar, Shane on the lower harmony, and I hear the calls of surprise and pleasure, people clapping.

It ends too soon, the applause exploding as we finish. All those faces looking up at us, eyes shining, the blurred flutter of all those hands. Shane reaches out to shake my hand, his other hand resting on my shoulder. As the cheers and applause crest he leans forward to his microphone and says, “This talented young man right here is Austin Methune. He's my son.”

The one you see up there, that's me /

the one in the bright blue sky / the one that's free

I float from the stage. Hands patting me on the shoulders and mussing my hair, drunk people shouting to me from six inches away that it was awesome,
I
was awesome. I'm so high I want to hug them all, to take everyone in the room in my arms and squeeze them and share the warm heaven I'm feeling inside.

And I want to find Josephine.

But she's gone.

I'm searching for her, attempting to move through a crowd that's reaching for me, murmuring at me, while I'm standing on tiptoes and jumping up to get a better view over the sea of heads.
There!

I move in the direction where I think I spotted her, but then​—​“DUUUUUDE!”​—​Mohawk Patrick is in my path, engulfing me in a bear hug so intense that there're popping and cracking noises and I fear my internal substructure is going to give way. When he releases me, I realize his face is wet with tears. “Duuude!” he repeats. “That was incredible! Incredible! You friggin' made me friggin' cry! That's the power of music, straight up, yo!” He grabs me again and crushes whatever is left uncrushed inside me, and by the time I've escaped and reinflated my lungs Josephine is nowhere to be seen. Then Amy snags my arm and gives me a hug​—​“What a fantastic surprise!”​—​and there are more hands to shake and people to meet and I give up on Josephine.

We spill out onto the sidewalk, everyone milling about and talking and laughing and smoking, then Shane emerges with his guitar and ignores everyone else and comes straight up to me and grabs me in his own huge bear hug, his voice warm in my ear as he says, “Great job, kid. Great job. Great job.” And it's euphoria on top of euphoria. There are more hands patting us, people pulling Shane's attention away, and I'm still twisting and turning around and searching for Josephine, even though I know she's long gone.

Then I see her.

First I see the people in formalwear who are streaming slowly out of the fancy restaurant a few doors down, stopping to chat on the sidewalk, a parallel-universe version of our group, older and wealthier than ours. Then, wait, is that her sister? It is! It's Jacqueline! Then an instant later a woman emerges who just
has
to be their mother: a senior version of Jacqueline, blond and tan, a woman who'd be introduced as the wife of senatorial candidate Gerald Lindahl, and you'd say,
Ah, yes, of
course
she is.

Mother Lindahl is pretty, or could be pretty, but right now her face is deformed into an angry snarl. She's in snippy-hissed-lecture mode, and her target is Josephine. Josephine is walking a step or two behind her mother with the pinch-lipped, eyes-front glare of any kid on the receiving end of that sort of talking-to. I see her make a few attempts to say something, each of which her mom shuts right down. Father Lindahl is unaware of or ignoring the whole thing, focused on glad-handing and schmoozing with the other formalweared folks. Jacqueline, though, might as well have a bag of popcorn, enjoying the fireworks with the sort of venomous, satisfied grin that makes you yearn for a voodoo doll.

They've all paused on the sidewalk so Gerald can continue his handshaking. Josephine has her arms crossed, jaw set, while her mother repeatedly performs an amazing feat: alternating between sniping at Josephine and then turning to deliver a dazzling smile to whichever VIP has wandered within reach​—​handshake, hug, kiss-kiss​—​then right back to vicious sniping with about as much transition as a light blinking on and off.

Other people are talking around me, maybe to me, but I'm oblivious to it all, watching Josephine. Then she sees me.

It happens during one of the more extended hug-hug kiss-kiss interludes. Jacqueline is taking the opportunity to talk to her sister now, or talk
at
her. Josephine doesn't answer or even glance at her, she just pivots a quarter turn away, which leaves her facing me. She still has her arms crossed, her face locked in the same expression, but I know she sees me. She's looking right at me, not moving.

Her sister is still yip yip yipping into her left ear from close range. Now her mother is turning from the elderly couple she was talking to, her smile instantly extinguished, and she says something sharp to shut Jacqueline up so
she
can resume
her
tirade.

So now Josephine is flanked by her mother and sister, like a boxer getting an angry between-round lecture from the trainers. Jacqueline keeps trying to insert her own bits of wisdom, Mom Lindahl cutting her off. Josephine is still gazing right at me, stony-faced.

Her arms uncross and lower to her sides.

We stare at each other.

I raise a hand, cautious, hesitating, and hold it up in greeting.

She doesn't wave back. She doesn't move. Until she starts walking toward me.

Again the feeling that I'm dreaming. The way she separates herself from her mother and sister and glides away from them, wordless, still focused on me.

I can't hear her mother, but I can see her hissing through clenched teeth, “Josephine.
Josephine!
” Then some woman is touching her on the shoulder and there's a flash of murderous annoyance at the interruption, instantly replaced with that smile, and Mother Lindahl is forced to turn for the hug-hug kiss-kiss while her daughter escapes, crossing the no-man's land between their group and ours, Jacqueline staring after her open-mouthed.

When Josephine reaches me, she stops.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi.”

Behind her, I can see her mother and her sister conferring, her sister pointing toward us. Josephine notes the shift in my gaze but doesn't turn around. “It's a fundraiser for my dad,” she says. “I just had to get out of there, and then I randomly wandered over and saw the name posted outside and remembered you mentioned it . . .”

I nod.

“Anyways, that's why all this,” she says, and sort of indicates her dress.

“You look nice,” I say, because she does.

She shrugs, and I wonder if I've somehow insulted her.

“The singer,” she says. “He's . . . ?”

“Yes. My dad.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yeah, me neither, until a couple of days ago.”

“Ah. The one who was dead, and then got better.”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like an interesting story.”

“Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.”

Her father has now joined her mother and sister, and a family confab is going on, still interrupted by handshakes and hugs. This time Josephine twists to glance at them for a moment.

She sighs.

“You're in trouble,” I say.

“Little bit, yeah.”

“I'm not unfamiliar with that feeling,” I say.

She almost smiles.

Behind her, I can see that a family decision has been made, that Jacqueline is being prepped to go retrieve her wayward sister. Josephine seems to sense it without looking.

“I should go,” she says.

“Okay.”

She doesn't, though. Instead she examines me, brow furrowed. Like she's revisiting a complicated math problem and is finding a different answer than she first expected.

“Austin,” she says finally, “you were really good.”

“Aw . . . thanks. Whatever. You know.”

“No,” she says firmly, shaking her head, rejecting my deflection. “You were
really good.
”

I drop my gaze. “Thanks,” I say again, quietly. I don't want it to feel this gratifying to have her compliment me.

She looks to be about to say something else, then seems to change her mind.

“What?”

She shakes her head.

“Nothing.”

“Austin, you ready? We're heading over.”

It's Shane, starting to move down the sidewalk in the opposite direction with a herd of people.

“I'm coming,” I say. Then to Josephine, “Everyone's headed to some bar.”

She nods. Jacqueline has broken off from the other group and is stalking purposefully toward us. Josephine glances back, sees her, turns back to me.

“Time's up,” says Josephine.

“Austin, come on!” Shane again.

“I'm coming!” I shout over my shoulder.

Amy shouts, “Bring your friend!”

I look at Josephine. This time she does smile, just a bit. She says, “We're not actually friends.”

While I'm opening my mouth to answer, she says, “I have to go,” and turns and walks away, brushing past Jacqueline without a glance.

∗  ∗  ∗

“Cheers. To a great musician, a great show, and many more of them.”

“Hear, hear!”

We clink glasses and beer cans.

“And to Austin Methune!” says Shane. More cheers.

We're at a bar, squashed into a booth and extra chairs, me and Shane and Amy and Justin and Ed the engineer and some label rep named Drew, and Patrick the giant punk rock miscreant.

We've been sitting and talking for an hour, reviewing the show, discussing music, toasting, the grownups referencing people and places I don't know, but I still feel part of it all. Shane is the center, full of stories and life and joy, keeping everyone laughing, clapping his hands on people's shoulders, high-fiving, half standing to give hugs. The bonfire around which we're all gathered, everyone focused on and nourished by his energy and warmth, everyone delighted.

At one point I catch Ed observing me, nodding to himself.

“What?” I say.

He shakes his head, and I think he's not going to answer. Then he leans in and says, “You have something, okay?” Then he rejoins the flow of conversation.

Now Shane is finishing a story about a disastrous gig at a farm festival, the livestock outnumbering the audience five to one, all of us laughing. There's a moment of contented silence, the point that signals a new chapter in the night. Then Ed says, “Well, I'm heading home. Shane, we're getting back in the studio, right?”