The Promise Read online

  “Sounds . . . peaceful.” I grinned back.

  “I wish. Except it’s not the drums that keep me up, it’s Moose playing Xbox with some kid in Omaha at three in the morning.” Theo rolled his eyes.

  “Moose?”

  “You’ll see.” Theo smiled at me again, so easy, I could almost forget every fumbled apology and halting conversation I’d tried to have. Even the memory of my humiliating kiss couldn’t mar this moment in the dark of the club, with the crowd shifting closer and a new heat of possibility, bright in the air.

  There wasn’t anywhere in the world I’d rather be.

  “Finally.” Kelsey’s bored exclamation broke through the din, and I turned as the next band strolled out on stage. The lead singer was tall, all leather and sienna curls with his guitar holstered like a weapon across his body. There was another guy behind the drums, fierce concentration on his compact face, and a larger guy on bass guitar, face hidden behind a wild thatch of dirty blonde beard and messy too-long hair.

  “Moose,” I guessed, and heard Theo chuckle beside me.

  “That’s the one. It started as a bet,” he said, casually moving half a step closer and leaning in so I could hear his voice over the bursts of static soundcheck. “Guy offered him a dollar a day he went without shaving. We all pitched in once he hit a month, and he’s still going strong. Nearly a year now; he says he won’t give it up until we owe him an even grand.”

  I didn’t reply. I could feel his breath, hot against my cheek, and the warmth from his body, a halo just out of reach.

  “Time to get a good spot,” Kelsey decided. “Come on.”

  She took off, striking a path through the packed bodies with all the determination of a battlefield general. I looked to Theo, and he answered with a shrug and a smile, so we fell into Kelsey’s wake, following the noises of surprise and annoyance as she pushed them out of the way with a well-placed elbow or a low, pointed kick. Soon, we had the best view in the house, two rows back from the stage, where the lights burned hotly and anticipation shifted, restless all around.

  The singer, Guy, gripped the mic and glared at the crowd. “You fuckers ready to make some noise?” he demanded, the words softened by his British accent. The crowd whooped and cheered. “Yeah, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

  He nodded to the other guys, then launched into a fast song, all wild chords and crashing beat, his lyrics howled too quick to hold, something about a girl, and a plan, and a bedroom door; his body flailed across the narrow stage, a man possessed.

  They were good. Chaotic and messy, but with the hooks to pull it through. You could feel it in the crowd, that moment when everyone decides it’s worth the cover charge and the hours they spent waiting, when they give it up and let the music take them under, and this band? They had us all in the palm of their hands in ten seconds flat. Even I forgot Theo, there beside me, and Kelsey’s judgmental stare, and let myself feel it, the deep striking bass and crashing lift of the melody, quicksilver through my tired veins as my synapses sparked alive and I remembered what it was like to lose myself with everyone else, strung out on the same looming waves, a single crest in the ocean, a rallying cry in the dark night.

  People never took me for a music girl. Even Hope was surprised the day she scrolled, bored, through my phone for music in the car and found the world I kept hidden between my headphones. I didn’t broadcast it like some people, with band stickers and vintage shirts, lyrics scribbled on notepad covers, and playlists shared all day long. To me, music was a private conversation between me and the song playing on the other side of the shivering speaker set. I didn’t stay in a straight and narrow lane, from Lucinda Williams to Jamie Cullum, Drake and Beastie Boys and Florence and the Machine, and yes, even Taylor Swift. I would raid my parents’ old record collection, feeling a begrudging spark of respect when I found their Fleetwood Mac vinyls, pressed and precious, and the dog-eared Motown jukebox hits my dad always sang along to in the car.

  It was all part of the same miracle to me: how brushstrokes on a page, a few printed words, those chords strummed sweetly into the smoky evening air could make you stop in your tracks, hold your breath to feel something so deeply, so profound. Art was like that, it could set you free, or reveal the bars set just outside the window; it could show you a life you’d never dreamed of, and make a heart swell or break. And nights like this, in that small, dirty club, watching the band fall deeper into their songs, and the crowd leave themselves behind—it was a masterpiece, all on its own.

  It was three songs later before we all surfaced, as the drummer threw down his sticks with a clatter, and Moose’s guitar wailed into static, Guy turning to gulp from the beer bottle waiting set on a speaker amp. I gasped for air, my heart racing in my ears, the crowd blinking awake from our communal dream and remembering themselves again. I caught Kelsey’s eye, seeing the flush in her cheeks and the bright fire in her gaze. “They’re great!” I yelled to be heard.

  “Not bad, I guess.” She shrugged, still clinging to her detached cool, but her own quick breaths betrayed her. I looked around for Theo, still soaring, but all I saw was the back of his head as he ducked away through the crowd, the neon glare of his cellphone, gripped tightly in one hand. I didn’t have time to wonder: before I could take another ragged breath, there was a war-cry of drums from the stage, and then we were gone again, lost to the sharp endorphins and crash of chords and bass, lifted out of our frail bodies and into something greater, just for a little while.

  Theo reappeared just as the band stumbled off stage looking drunk on the crowd’s applause and their second encore.

  “Everything OK?” I couldn’t stop myself asking. The audience was in no hurry to disperse, they lingered, talking in raucous tones and still swaying to the ghost of melodies gone by.

  “What? Yeah, fine.” He gave me an absent smile, as if part of him was still outside, huddled in the cold with his phone pressed to his ear. “What did you think of the show?”

  “They’re good. Really good.”

  “I know.” Theo looked rueful. “It would be easier to deal with Guy’s rock star routine if they didn’t have talent.”

  “That bad?”

  “You’ll see.” His smile brightened a little, coming back into focus as if from far away. “Come meet everyone.”

  “Sure. Kelsey?” I asked.

  “I guess.”

  He led us through the crowd to a door back by the stage. It wasn’t a big venue, no security here to bar the way for adoring fans, but I still felt a frisson of excitement following Theo into that off-limits hallway. Equipment and boxes were piled haphazardly in the way, and a door was open, a dressing room of sorts with disintegrating furniture, black lights, and a clatter of empty bottles. The band already had company: Moose was collapsed on a threadbare sofa with a couple of icy-looking girls, while the drummer rattled anxiously against a bare dresser, and Guy paced, clearly still pumped.

  “Did you see that?” he demanded, when Theo stepped into the room. Guy strode over and clasped him in a hug, pounding him on the back in an amped up rhythm. “Fuckin’ aces, man. Fuckin’ A.”

  “You didn’t altogether suck,” Theo told him, good-natured, and Guy barked with laughter.

  “Tell that to the crowd, they couldn’t get enough, man.” His eyes landed on Kelsey and me. An eyebrow quirked. “And who are these lovely ladies? Come on in, don’t mind the sweat and grime. Moose, where are your manners? Get these girls a drink!”

  He was all swagger and theatrics, gesturing wildly as he pulled up a couple of chairs and fetched us beers. Up close, I could see he was made for the stage: his broad features almost too large for his head, the kind of face that’s always in motion and needs a spotlight, to be seen, all the way to the back. The group around us swelled, more people arriving from the main club, until the room felt packed, with a loose, loud party feel.

  “So what did you think, ladies?” Guy asked, when I was perched on a seat, and Kelsey kicked back in a ch
air, drinking beer. “Did you like what you saw?”

  Kelsey deployed her shrug with devastating accuracy. “You’ve got potential. A little originality wouldn’t hurt, but hey, you guys are just starting out, right?”

  A girl beside me inhaled in shock, but there was a teasing smile on Kelsey’s lips I’d never seen before, a vivid purpose in her smudged, smoky gaze. I followed her stare all the way to Guy’s open mouth. He snorted with laughter. “Tell us how you really feel, why don’t you, luv?”

  Kelsey smirked. “I’m sorry, were you looking for a fangirl? There’s plenty out front, I could go fetch one for you if you want your ego stroked.”

  Guy grinned. “Nah, let them wait.”

  He took a beer and collapsed heavily on the chair beside her, leaning in to murmur something only she could hear. The other girls in the room narrowed their eyes, watching his arm drape around her shoulder, their heads bent close. Kelsey shot me a quick glance, smug with victory, and I realized that this had been her plan all along. Indifference as bait, to reel in the most prized catch of all. And Guy couldn’t get enough.

  I felt a sense of betrayal, swift and hot, and I had to look away. I didn’t understand it, the games people played. They were sparring with each other, bitching and teasing, like that was worth anything at all. They could talk around each other all night, as if they had all the time in the world. As if moments like this would last forever.

  “So, is this what you wanted?” Theo asked quietly beside me.

  I turned.

  “Hang backstage with the band,” he quoted, watching me.

  I felt my cheeks heat. “It’s not . . . that wasn’t my list, the one you found. It belonged to my best friend,” I added softly, twisting my bracelet again, a nervous habit. The small room was packed, but still, nobody was listening to us over here in the corner. “She kept it for all kinds of crazy stuff,” I told him. “Dreams, ambitions, things she wanted to experience, before it was too late.”

  The past tense weighed heavy with every word, and I felt a suddenly rush of something like bravery. I didn’t want to be like Kelsey, spinning circles in a game that could never be won: revealing nothing, asking for nothing in return.

  “She’s gone now,” I told Theo. “She died before she got to finish it, so now it’s my turn. Cancer,” I added, before he could ask. “She didn’t live to see nineteen.”

  Theo’s clear-eyed gaze didn’t waver. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, and unlike the platitudes I’d born that year, I could tell he meant it.

  “Me too.” I felt the sadness swell, a familiar ache behind my ribcage. “She would have loved this, she was always the life of the party.” I looked around, at the clatter of noise and laughter and flirting, hungry smiles. “She would have given Kelsey a run for her money, though,” I added. Guy was arguing loudly now, trying to convince her of something while Kelsey just smirked at him and ran her fingertip around the rim of her bottle in a silent invitation.

  Theo grinned and shook his head, watching them. “Why do girls always go for the lead singer?”

  “Because we want someone to write songs about us.” I smiled. Theo arched an eyebrow. “Come on, you have to admit it’s pretty tempting, the idea of being immortalized. A public declaration. Our way to live forever. That was another thing on Hope’s list,” I confided, smiling at the memory. “She wanted a boy to write a song about her.”

  “And did she get it?”

  I nodded. “She seduced this guy who played in coffee shops around the city, she was like a guided missile, he didn’t stand a chance.” A smile played on the edge of my lips at the memory: Hope’s careful lingering after one of his shows, the wide-eyed interest, the coo of her voice, leaning in. “Her plan backfired though.” I grinned. “He wrote this terrible song, tried rhyming her name with everything he could think of.”

  “Rope. Nope,” Theo suggested.

  “Soap. Dope.” I laughed along. “It’s not exactly going to set the charts on fire anytime soon, but, she got to tick it off, at least.”

  “How many do you have left on the list?”

  I let out a slow sigh, reality settling back around my neck in a cold, heavy weight. “You saw it. I’ve barely gotten started.”

  “Still, you’ve got tonight, right? Another one down.” Theo’s smile was encouraging.

  “Thanks to you.”

  I paused, the question itching at me. I knew I should ignore it, should just be like the other girls in the room, so casual and undemanding, but I felt it bubble up, too insistent to ignore. “Did Brianna not want to come tonight?” I tried for casual, but even I could hear the quiet intensity behind my nonchalant tone.

  Theo paused. He didn’t look over, just sat beside me, watching the room. “We . . . decided to take a break.”

  His voice was even, but my heart lurched, absorbed his words for a brief moment, then took flight.

  “Oh,” I exhaled, as a thousand questions sounded like drumbeats in my mind. “I’m sorry.”

  Theo turned then, tilted his head towards me with a look in his eyes that I’d never forget.

  “Are you?” he asked quietly.

  Our gaze caught. The drums beat louder, reverberating through my entire body until I was just empty impact and the heart-stopping crash of pure desire. I was on the edge of something, poised to fall into his waiting blue eyes, but for all my scorning Kelsey’s cool games, when it came to stepping off that ledge myself, I couldn’t take the leap. I was paralyzed from saying the one true thing that sang with every shaking heartbeat, my voice failing me, my glittering hopes binding my lips tightly closed.

  No, I wasn’t sorry, not at all.

  I don’t know how long we stayed that way, waiting to spill all my private secrets into the waiting, smoky air, but it felt like an eternity. Then Theo’s phone sounded again, flashing bright with a demanding ring.

  He looked away, checking the screen, and the shutters crashed hard over his face. In an instant, that golden thread between us was severed, the moment melting away like it had never existed at all.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said shortly. “Sorry, I can’t stay . . . I’ll see you around, OK?”

  He was gone from the room before I could even exhale, and although I waited there, in amongst the droll gossip and strummed guitars for another half hour, he didn’t return.

  It was too late for the subway, so I walked back alone across the bridge at two a.m., watching barges drift lazily beneath the darkened steel, and the lights of the city beyond wink their promises to the black horizon. I could feel it, even then, the shift in the air like the first pale rays of spring, the day the earth shrugs a little on its axis, turning slowly towards another season. Autumn was still bleeding into winter in that chilled corner of the world, but my heart was already tasting that sweet future. A slow awakening after years of slumber, a gasp of sunshine through the dark, misty clouds.

  A thousand headlights sped past on the ribbon of highway, and I saw his eyes in every glimpse of light. Theo. Theo. He was a part of my pulse now, a heartbeat sounding, low and steady with every breath. I knew it would end in heartbreak, my own if I was lucky, but that night, I let myself hold his memory close, suspended in that dark corner of that backstage room together, close enough to touch. Even now, I can see us there, feel the wild hope that beat so furiously in my chest. If I’d managed to say something. If I’d told him the truth, from the start . . .

  But I can’t change it now. And if I’m honest, it was already too late for that, too far down that hurtling one-way track, tumbling headfirst into the sun. So I walked home alone, hugging secrets to my chest that burned like fire.

  Chapter Seven

  Halloween arrived with the last blue skies of fall. Mika demanded we all adopt the festive spirit for the café, so I spent an afternoon with craft supplies and a row of fat new pumpkins, carving into their flesh and roasting the innards to string in autumn garlands around the room. The jack-o-lanterns sat in a stately line above the coffee
machine, keeping watch over the café with their ghoulish smiles.

  “If you look at the one on the end just right, it kind of looks like you, Kelsey.” JJ peered up at them. “It’s got this suspicious sneer. And that one’s like Mika—look at all that straw sprouting out of the top of its head. Claire?”

  “Must be a coincidence.” I turned away, hiding my smile under the dark bangs of my bobbed wig. Mika had insisted on costumes, too, but I didn’t need convincing. Halloween had always been my favorite holiday, an excuse to unleash that mischievous inner child for one lone day of mayhem, to don a costume and disappear into the idea of being someone else. Last year, even Hope had insisted on a monster mask and fake bolt through her neck. “Frankenstein’s monster, hooked up to his machines,” she’d cracked all day long, waving her IV tubes and heart monitor sensors until I laughed along too, so hard it hurt to breathe.

  This time, I spent a giddy afternoon trawling every thrift store along Mass Ave to assemble my costume. I found the perfect witch’s gown, the heavy bodice embroidered in black, with long skirts that swung low around my lace-up boots with every step. The sleeves trailed in wispy black lace down to fingers I adorned with heavy silver costume rings and tipped with black and scarlet polish, but best of all was the wig. I picked it up as an afterthought from the rainbow display at the register, a nondescript little bobbed style in inky black. Somehow, with my hair tucked up tight underneath, and those glossy strands curved sleek around my cheekbones, I looked like a stranger. My eyes seemed larger, their gaze now foreign and elusive, and topped with a crooked pointy hat, my transformation was complete.

  Even Kelsey was approving, at least that’s what I figured when she dug deep into her bag, then held my chin tight as she smudged a smoky layer of liner around my eyes. She was caked in white makeup and gruesome dark liner herself, her torn nightgown making her a fearsome zombie bride. “Sexy,” she drawled, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “Teddy boy won’t know what hit him.”