The Edge of the Light (21 page)

“Can I?” she asked again. “Maybe it would be just for tonight. I won't make any noise. I won't be any bother. I can even hang around at G & G's till Mr. Darrow goes to bed and I can leave before he gets up and there won't be a reason he'd even know I was there because I wouldn't say a word.”

Becca bit the side of her lip. For a horrible moment, Jenn wondered if Becca, too, was deserting her. She couldn't understand how that could possibly be. They were BFFs, and she wasn't asking for
anything
but a couch to sleep on. No food, no water, no . . . nothing.

Becca said the unbelievable then. “Can't someone from the club help you out?”

“
What
club?”

“The Gay Straight Alliance. Haven't you gone to a meeting?”

“Why would I go to a meeting?”

“I was just thinking that other kids have probably gone through this and—”

“What? Gone through what? What're you saying?”

“It's just that you're saying . . . I mean, what you're saying about your mom and everything else, like G & G's . . .”

Jenn couldn't believe her ears. Becca, too?
What
was going on in her world? She said abruptly, “Just forget it. Forget I even asked.”

“But, Jenn,” Becca started. “It's only that Mr. Darrow—”

“Never mind. Like I
said
, forget I asked. Forget everything while you're at it, Becca. I thought we were friends, but obviously—” Jenn was horrified to feel tears threatening. There was nothing to do but walk away.

Becca called after her. “Jenn! Wait! I was only—”

Jenn swung around, “Forget it,” she cried, and she didn't care in the least that about fifty kids were nearby, heading to class, witnesses to her confrontation with Becca.

T
he solution to most every problem in Seth's life was making music. This had long been the case, and when Prynne joined the gypsy jazz group, this turned out to be doubly true. Even more than playing by himself or playing with Triple Threat, Seth discovered that with Prynne there was a complete musical understanding. There was virtually no need even to shoot a look between them to indicate who was to dominate a particular moment in what they were playing.

This was what allowed Triple Threat to shine at their next rehearsal. The group generally rehearsed in Langley at a place called South Whidbey Commons, a Second Street cottage where local kids learned how to be baristas, man a cash register, sell secondhand books, and take care of customers. South Whidbey Commons also provided a garden with seating out in front and public spaces inside for small meetings and such. It was in a room farthest in the back of the place that Triple Threat did their rehearsing of what was their specialty: the wildly complicated gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt.

Reinhardt's music had always been a draw when they were rehearsing, and this day was no different. People had started
wandering in from the front of the Commons during their first number, and more slipped into the room as they went on.

Their practice session was two hours long with all its starts and stops. When they played their final tune, they were more than ready to call it a day. They acknowledged the applause of their listeners and were packing up their instruments when a woman unknown to any of them made her way through the departing crowd.

Her clothing said Seattle: None of it matched but it all seemed to work, from her après ski boots to her untied bow tie to her drooping dreadlock storage cap to her man's tuxedo jacket over jeans. She introduced herself as Steamer Constant, which sounded to Seth more like a drink than a name, and she went on to tell them her line of business.

She was, she said, a scout. Triple Threat exchanged looks because none of them had the first idea what she was talking about. She went on to add that she was a
talent
scout, there in Langley to attend the piano festival that was taking place at the town's art center.

“Between concerts,” she said, “I've been checking out the coffeehouses. Never seen so many in a town so small. Today it was this place's turn. How long've you guys played together?”

For the original members it was four years. With Prynne, it was just over six months. When Seth told her this, Steamer Constant asked if they had representation, because her job was to look for talent.

“You an agent or something?” Jackson, the mandolin player, asked.

“Consider me an agent for the agent,” Steamer replied. “Like I said a talent scout. You've heard of that, right?”

Well, they weren't exactly idiots, Seth thought.

Steamer went on to ask if they'd cut any CDs yet, if they had demos she could take with her to Seattle. They did have one, but they'd made it inside Dane the banjo player's garage, and with a look at each other, they silently agreed that they sure as hell didn't want some talent scout listening to that.

“Too expensive to do a decent one,” Seth settled on telling her.

She nodded, as if this struck her as wise. She dug in a briefcase for business cards, which she handed around to all of them. She said, “C'n you get into Seattle sometime to play?”

“What, for you?” Prynne asked.

“For the agent I'm scouting for,” Steamer said.

They looked at each other once again. Then they looked at her as if she were the angel Gabriel come to make his big announcement to the Virgin Mary. They all spoke at once, variations of they sure as hell could come to Seattle and play for an agent and when when when would Steamer Constant like this to occur?

“No hurry,” she said. “Any time you're ready. Give me a call and we'll set it up.”

That said, she was gone, leaving them holding her business card and looking from her departing back, to the card, to each other. A miracle had occurred.

• • •

AFTER SEVERAL ROUNDS
of high-fiving each other, Triple Threat split up and headed off. Seth and Prynne picked
up Gus who'd been outside the Commons, attached to an exterior faucet and waiting patiently. With the dog between them, they took off up Second Street, up to the corner of Second and Anthes, where the climb out of the village began. Here Seth had parked his VW, in front of the bright white village museum.

Gus, however, was not inclined to get into the car without a little action in reward for being so patient. He pulled in the direction of the small city park across the street. Seth said to him, “Later, okay? We get back to Grand's and I'll throw your ball.”

The Lab didn't look happy with this idea. Prynne said, “Poor guy. Hey, I need some new strings and rosin, Seth. Why'n't you take him over to the park. I'll get what I need at the music store and then we can take off.”

Langley Music was close, tucked inside an artful collection of shops gathered around a patio and a walkway planted with ferns and flowers. There, musical instruments and supplies were sold and lessons were given: mostly to retired baby boomers who decided now was the time to start playing guitar.

Seth said, “Good idea.”

Prynne smiled and replied, “One of many, buddy,” and she kissed him, slinging one arm around his neck. “I got another one, but I'll tell you later,” she murmured.

“Epic.” He laughed.

Contentedly he watched her walk in the direction of the music store. She was so . . . He didn't know what. She was just Prynne and he loved her and how she made him feel.

Seth said, “Come on, boy,” to Gus and he could see how the dog brightened up at that. Life was
so
looking up, Seth thought. Prynne was back, Triple Threat was cooking, and now a talent scout wanted them all to come to Seattle and play for an agent.

He hadn't ever felt this happy. The future was bright. With Prynne at his side, it seemed that anything was possible.

W
hen Prynne said, “But this has always been just a temporary thing. You know I'm a solo act,” Seth didn't know what to think. It didn't make sense to him that someone might not
want
to play in front of a talent agent. But that was what Prynne told him when he reported to her that, a couple of days after she'd heard them play, Steamer Constant had tracked him down via South Whidbey Commons and asked Triple Threat to come into Seattle ASAP. Prynne said, “It's Triple Threat, not Quadruple Threat,” when he protested that she
had
to go.

Seth figured her hesitation had to do with nerves. He was nervous, too. So were the guys. But if they didn't take this opportunity, who knew when another would come along? So despite her reluctance, Seth talked Prynne into it. On the appointed day, she stowed her fiddle in the back of Jackson's dirt-encrusted RAV4, Seth did the same with his guitar, and they took off.

Down in Clinton, there was no ferry line and they rolled right on, along with motorcycles, cars, and a school bus. Jackson and Dane stayed inside the SUV for the fifteen-minute crossing, but Prynne said she needed to go above and use the rest room. She'd
been awfully quiet and she wasn't looking so great. Seth said he would go up, too, because if she was as nervous as she seemed to be, he figured she needed either moral support or someone to comfort her if she upchucked her breakfast.

The crossing was a smooth one, the waters of Possession Sound so glass-like that had anything broken the surface, you could have seen it nine hundred yards away. Seth waited at one of the windows, watching tree-studded Hat Island slide by in the distance. When Prynne joined him, she was still pale, so he bought her a sugar cookie from the cafeteria and pressed it on her. She tucked it into her shoulder bag, and they returned to the SUV.

Within five minutes of arriving in Mukilteo across the water from Whidbey, Seth knew that something was wrong. They were heading up the hill away from the water when he noticed Prynne's head had fallen forward onto her chest. He murmured, “You okay?” as the SUV hit a curve. She rocked against him and murmured something he couldn't understand. He said quietly, “Prynne, you okay?” so as not to freak out Jackson and Dane in the front of the vehicle. She didn't respond but merely smiled. She finally murmured “Sleep,” scooched away from him, and then settled across the back seat with her head in his lap.

Dane glanced back and said, “She okay, man?” and Seth decided to say, “Up all night. She's totally nervous about this thing. She'll be okay, though,” to which Jackson said, “Hope so,” with a look into the rear view mirror.

What Seth knew was that hope was an up-in-the-air thing
because Prynne was stoned out of her mind. The first thing he thought of was that she'd somehow put her hands on more Oxy. Or it was something else, but whatever it was, Prynne had taken it in the ferry bathroom. His only hope was that the effects would wear off by the time they got into Seattle.

The talent agent's office was in an area called Fremont, a quirky part of the city nudging a canal that led from Lake Union into the greater waters of Puget Sound. What characterized the place was a large statue of the Russian leader Lenin, a humongous concrete troll that sat beneath the Aurora Street Bridge, and other fanciful outdoor art. Like every other Seattle neighborhood, Fremont had its own downtown with shops offering everything from junk posing as antiques, to consignment shops, to thrift stores posing as consignment shops, to galleries offering the wares of the neighborhood's artists. From the downtown area near the canal, Fremont climbed a long hillside to a place called Phinney Ridge, and it was practically to Phinney Ridge that they had to drive before they found a parking space.

The talent agent had an office in the downtown area, above a shop called Dusty Strings, where handmade musical instruments were sold. They'd spotted this as they drove around looking for a place to park, and once they found a spot, they had a hike in front of them to get back to it.

Prynne was still out of it. No way could Seth keep claiming she was just sleeping off a bad night. Jackson opened the driver's door, got out, leaned back in, and shot a look at Prynne where she remained sprawled across Seth's lap. He said, “What the hell,
Seth. What's she on?” and when Seth tried to make an excuse, Dane opened the back door of the RAV4 and grabbed Prynne's shoulder bag before Seth could protest.

He dumped its contents onto the floor of the vehicle, at Seth's feet. He pawed among them and then he swore as he grabbed up a small labeled bottle and tossed it to Jackson. “Oh great, oh too perfect, oh
hell
,” Jackson said. “Weed oil, man. She's downed half the bottle.”

Seth wanted to say, stupidly, that it wasn't against the law. Weed oil came in various strengths, depending on what you wanted it for, and Prynne was old enough to buy it, so what was everyone freaking out about? That's what he
wanted
to say, but he didn't because when Jackson passed the bottle to him, he saw that for some insane reason Prynne had scored the strongest of the oils and according to the label it was intended to help you sleep.

His first reaction was that he wanted to kill her. His second was to tell the two other guys that he would handle everything. They should head in the direction of the talent agent's office, he told them. He'd get Prynne straightened out and meet them there.

When Jackson's response to this was, “Get her straightened out
how
, man?” Seth told him just to leave it to him. He added, “C'n you take our instruments? We'll catch up,” and when Dane said under his breath “Like that's going to do any good,” Seth said, “Hey, back off.”

Dane retorted with, “No way is she going to be able to play.”

“She'll play. Just get going, okay?”

Once they were out of sight, Seth heaved Prynne out of the vehicle. He stood her upright, and this was enough to get her to open her eyes. He snapped at her, “What the
hell
, Prynne. Why did you
do
this?”

She squinted at him. “I tried to tell you . . .” was all she could get out.

“What?” he demanded. “That you had to get stoned because you're just so totally
nervous
? I believe that like I believe . . . I don't even know what. Like I believe anything you ever say because obviously everything you say is a lie because why would you do this?”

He started her walking in the direction of Dusty Strings. She stumbled a bit but she was able to walk. She said, “Sorry, sorry,” but the words were a mumble. “I didn't know it would . . .”

“Like hell you didn't,” Seth replied. “Like you couldn't have just done a little weed, huh? It had to be the oil. And not only the oil but the strongest, right? You had to have the strongest on
this
day of
all
days? I can't even believe you're real.”

They came to an espresso bar. Seth ducked in quickly and bought her a double. He stood there on the sidewalk and made her drink it. Then he went inside and bought another. He didn't know if it would do any good, but he had to try something, and this was the something that came to his mind. Once she'd drunk them both, they walked on. He had nothing more to say to her. He felt like a dog she'd decided to kick.

Upstairs at Dusty Strings, they found Jackson and Dane in a
reception area of the agent's office. They weren't the only ones there. A lady cellist and her guitarist partner were also waiting, and Seth recognized them from Whidbey. Steamer Constant was also in the reception area, having just come out of an inner office as Prynne and Seth entered. She frowned when she saw them and said, “Is she okay?” in reference to Prynne. He said, “She got real sick last night. She didn't want to come today, but I talked her into it.”

“Will she be able to play?”

“Think so,” Seth said.

“I c'n play,” Prynne added.

Luckily, the cellist and the guitarist went first, so they had extra time for Prynne to recover. She walked back and forth in the reception area. Jackson and Dane wouldn't look at her.

She began to tune her fiddle as the others saw to their own instruments. She had some trouble with the bow and with the tuning keys and when she finally said, “That's close enough,” Dane rolled his eyes and Jackson swore under his breath. The cellist and guitarist continued to play energetically inside the agent's office.

When they finally emerged, they were all smiles, casting thank-yous over their shoulders. One of them said good luck to Triple Threat, and that was it. Their time had come. Seth could only hope that Prynne's recovery was sufficient to allow her to shine.

The agent was a tattooed woman given to lots of fringe that hung about her clothes in a leather rainfall. Her name was Freda
Windsarm, which suggested Native American birth, but she didn't look even vaguely Native American since her hair was bleached to the point of no turning back and her skin was so pale she looked like one of those Japanese dancers who wear white masks. She was at the window of her office, blowing cigarette smoke into the street below, and when she said to them, “Give me a sec,” they had a chance to check out the space, which was characterized by photographs galore: Freda with Kurt Cobain, Freda with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Freda with Snoop Dogg, Freda with Jay Z, Freda with Britney, Freda with Cher, Freda with Queen Latifah, Freda with Michael Jackson, and on and on. It was sort of strange, Seth thought, because in each picture she looked exactly the same no matter how long ago it had been taken.

They set up to play for her in an area designated for this: a square of hardwood floor sitting beneath an enormous poster from
Star Wars
, Han Solo and Chewbacca at the controls of the
Millennium Falcon
. By the time they were ready, so was Freda Windsarm. She sat down behind her desk, gave them a nod, and said, “Let's see what you've got then, Triple Threat.”

• • •

NOT MUCH, AS
things turned out. What they had wasn't a disaster, as Jackson and Dane had thought it would be. But what they had was marginal. Prynne did her best, but her performance was riddled with mistakes that the rest of them tried to cover. And even when Freda Windsarm said with a frown, “Let's have
the fiddler sit the next one out,” the rest of them were so stressed that they weren't anywhere in the same hemisphere as their best. Thus all of them knew what the outcome would be even before Freda Windsarm said it: “We'll be in touch. Thanks for coming in,” after which she shot a look at Steamer Constant that clearly said, What the hell were you
thinking
?

They plodded back to the SUV in silence: stony on the part of Jackson and Dane, sorrowful on the part of Prynne, crushed on the part of Seth. It wasn't till they got to the vehicle and piled inside that Jackson turned to Prynne and said, “You sabotaged us. Happy about that?” For a moment no one said anything. Then Jackson went with a choice epithet said under his breath, which caused Seth to spring to Prynne's defense with a “Hey, back off,” which caused Dane to suggest Seth would say or do anything just as long as he got laid. This put Seth into a real state—Hey, what do you think? That his thing with Prynne was all about sex or something? he demanded—which caused Dane to remark, “You said it, we didn't, man,” which caused Prynne to say “I
tried
to tell you,” which caused Jackson to shout, “Shut up, Prynne,” which made Seth want to punch his lights. He made a lunge for him, but Prynne put a stop to that.

“It's not Seth's fault! It's mine!” she cried, and having said that she dumped out her shoulder bag, found the bottle of weed oil, and drank the rest of it in front of all of them.