Chapter 8 Begging for change
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
-Thomas Merton.
"Thank you, sir," followed the sound of change hitting the bottom of a small yellow cup. The owner of the voice was a nineteen-year-old young woman whose emaciated body was hidden by a jumble of sweatpants and a dingy I Love NY t-shirt, both damp with sweat from the Missouri August heat. A head of stringy blonde hair was gathered under a baseball cap and her feet, shoved in sock-less sneakers, held a paint bucket in place. The young woman paused in her drum cadence to wipe some of the sweat from her palms before tightening her grip on her drum sticks and beginning a new song.
Patricia Wilson had arrived in the United States just a year and a half earlier in May 1990 during the peak of a massive heat wave in New York City that left even the rats lethargic. She had made the move from Tasmania Australia to what most people from the island called the "Big City" or the "Big Apple." It was all in part because of a book and a postcard that called the city, "The city of dreams" which she believed to be signs.
She found the book, a black glossy tome simply entitled The Village, in the beginning of year 12 in her school's library. From cover to cover each page featured paintings, graffiti, and different buildings. It was full of photographs of painters and musicians. Huge, vibrant murals, as large as the buildings on which they were painted, and musicians captured in hazy nightclubs playing their instruments. In the centerfold of the book was one large mural whose composition made no sense to Patricia. That didn't matter, however, because she loved the feeling that she didn't understand it, that there were things out in the world that left her speechless and awestruck, but also left her confounded. But beyond the art, it was the artists themselves who interested her. The vibrant pictures, printed on glossy pages, were of the artists in their various shades of dress and personality whose eyes shone alongside their artwork with happiness and city life.
Patricia checked out the book several times in a row until the librarian told her she had to let a week pass between loans. This left her embarrassed and worried that the librarian knew what she did with it; staring at the photographs of the artists, dreaming of them, and occasionally reaching down into her jeans and pressing her hands there while she looked into the beautiful and shining artist's eyes. Patricia waited until the librarian was distracted before grabbing the book off the re-shelf cart and slipped it into her bag. With every viewing of the book, Patricia wanted to know everything about the people featured: what they ate for dinner; what scared them; who they liked to date and who they liked to fuck; how they came up with the ideas for their creations. But most importantly, were they moved and inspired by the same things that moved and inspired her? Did they possess the unbearable feeling that if they didn't create something, if they didn't feel up the world around them with the expression leaking out of them, they would explode?
Finding a postcard that literally landed right in front of her drove her to find the answers to her questions. She found it while driving her father's pickup home from work. It had landed on the front of her windshield and for some reason she felt the need to stop and examine it instead of waiting for it to blow away. It was a faded picture of the New York skyline on a black night, in all its jagged, sparkly glory. The back said: "You haven't lived until you've died in the city of dreams." Her heart stopped when she read it. The City of Dreams. The same city she'd see in the backdrop of music videos when she'd watch MTV and play her drums along with whatever song was playing while dreaming that she was in those videos.
She had no idea who the person was that the card was addressed to but she knew that the wind blew it her way for a reason. This sign was meant for her. That night when she finally got home she walked into the kitchen where her mother was preparing dinner and her dad was trying to steal some of it and told them she was moving to New York and that was final. Year 12 wrapped up three months later and she brought the topic back up to her parents. She wasn't going to stick around for her exam scores or let anyone talk her out of something she was so sure of.
"You know you don't have to go," her mother said the night before she left. She was sitting on the edge of Patricia's bed, watching her pack the rest of her clothes into an enormous tawny orange suitcase that she paid five dollars for at the local Hobart Goodwill. "You've got your entire life to explore the world. You haven't even seen your exam scores. Maybe they're high enough for university. No one's forcing you to go now."
Patricia rolled her eyes and huffed as she placed another shirt into the suitcase. "You and I both know no one can make me do anything I don't want to."
Her mother was attempting to do what everyone in town had done for weeks, which was convince her that the nautical borders of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia was where the world ended. That everything she would ever need could be found right there. But Patricia was no fool. Her book, her post card, they all proved to her that there was a wide world out there waiting to fill the emptiness in her. She refused to be stuck in Hobart along with the other washed out townies who didn't go to university, working at Jack Oliver's, the hardware store in the center of town. No one was making her leave. She was going because she physically had to. Everyone thought she was crazy to pack up and leave everything she had ever known but Patricia was smart enough to know that craziness was bravery that only she was smart enough to embrace.
"I know, I know," her mother said, in a voice that Patricia wanted to recoil from and already missed. "It's your decision. I'm just worried," she said, shifting her weight onto her hand.
Patricia's mother knew her better than anyone, because they were cut from the same cloth: unfulfillment eating at their insides, warring impulses to be comfortable or to be courageous. However, the difference was that her mother's war had been fought, her desires already mostly squashed by her commitment to her family, and she had ended up here in a house in what some might consider the middle of nowhere.
"I know but you're working yourself up for nothing," Patricia said. "I'm an adult. I'll be alright." She knew it sounded unconvincing, because she was unconvinced herself. Despite how sure she was that this was the right decision, a part of her was still worried. Would she be alright? She had no idea what she would do in New York. She only knew that it was where she needed to be if she wanted any chance at being happy. She imagined a nice apartment on the upper eastside. She imagined expensive leather jackets and new drum sets on stages in hazy jazz clubs. She imagined finding a group of people who, like her, were unfulfilled and who also wanted to fill that emptiness with music.
In a small town like this there were only so many ways to find excitement, and they were too subtle to be interesting—a snowstorm like the one on the night she was born; a litter of puppies born in town; Dustin Thomas's hand on her breast in the cab of his musty truck; the married biology teacher, telling her in his soft teacher voice that he just couldn't keep betraying his wife. Yet, despite all this, Patricia did try to spark some sort of excitement when she could—calling Mr. Haslam's house in the middle of the night, getting drunk on the bottle of rum her parents kept in the cabinet, trying to start a ska band, going to loud concerts, and drunken bonfires in the middle of empty fields. Patricia knew they weren't enough. Something to pacify her until she grew old and it was too late to chase any dreams of another more interesting life. And the worst of it all was that time in Hobart moved like the shadows that cloaked her house, so slow that you couldn't see it. Patricia feared that if she didn't get out now, her life would pass her by and when she finally noticed, her future would be behind her.
When she looked back on it now, 18 months later, Patricia realized that her arrival in NYC and the weeks that followed were great considering the fact that heartbreak belonged to the city itself—beggars on Cristopher Street, fearless rats, a hand hanging out the window of the subway at the 33rd street station, holding a knife. Her ar rival: the red-eye flight, the heavy suitcases, the air thick with that lethargic summer hope. The taxicab that smelled of urine, candy and leather. The first meal she had in a small eatery with tiling that epitomized the New York of her mind, a building with walls that made her feel adult and modern and that raced toward the skyline almost as fast as her heart. Despite the ridiculous heat and the difficulty of the suitcases, her exploration of the city was exhilarating. Patricia wove among the new streets, unnoticed. The feeling of it of not being recognized or watched—made her giddy and terrified. She could do whatever she pleased. She could take any turn. She could write on a wall herself, if she wanted; who was there to see her be sides all these people who didn't care? There was no Jaxson telling her to sweep the floors and no mother asking when she would be home.
On the plane ride there she had decided she wanted to reinvent herself and she knew Patricia Wilson wasn't going to cut it so after browsing through several magazines she settled on the name Amy. It was simple but she felt it was cool enough for a drummer of a famous rock band. So, when she met people she'd introduce herself using her new moniker. New York gave her the chance to be exactly who or what she wanted to be. She could answer an ad she found blowing in the wind. Everything awaited her. The buildings soared. Kids played in the streets in their underwear. She was arriving. This was her arrival.
That was how New York began. A willingness, and then a pause. An at titude, a confidence, and then this: cracked walls and huge bugs, her first cigarette, a nightclub with a strobe light, a man's arm with a tattoo on it, the taste of her own fear. Fear not for what might be in store but for what might not be, that her bravery, which looked so big in her hometown, would not amount to anything, that New York City would not deliver on its promise for something grand and glamorous, unknown and unknowable.
Within days she managed to find a small apartment. It was small, with a dismal bathroom with a ring of mold in the toilet bowl, the two-burner stove, the bars on the windows. Even now as Patricia sat outside this bus station and continued to play whatever songs came to mind, she remembered how her throat got caught as she asked herself what had she imagined? A fancy loft with huge squares of light coming in? A shiny Yamaha full kit in the corner and a new stereo system in the other? An authentic leather jacket? A set of high heels in the corner of a huge room, sitting pretty beside a rack of guitars she would never play but liked the way they looked?
Patricia learned that none of that was the New York she'd be given. Her New York was one hundred square feet of hell and dust. She learned quickly that she had to create a feeling of okay for herself if she wanted to survive.
As the months trailed on she kept her eyes open for the artists in her book, but they never seemed to frequent the same places she did. Instead, she met a bunch of slimy men (and some women) who were cleanly dressed and sloppily drunk and were looking for a young blonde like her to take their minds off stocks and investments and court cases. It wasn't long before she had spent all the money she'd saved, and she was ashamed to call her parents for more, not that they had any to send her. She ate hardly anything—bread and butter, candy bars, an apple—but even with her frugalness she could not afford the $233 rent the landlord was asking for on the fifteenth of the month.
When she left Australia, she knew she would need a job at least until her music was able to support her, but she hadn't even considered how she would get one, and she began to see after several failed interviews that a job wasn't going to come as easily to her as her one at Jack Oliver's did. Each day during those first few weeks, as she climbed from the sweltering underground of the subway stations or taped up a blister she had gotten from walk ing around the city aimlessly, or felt like a fool in her silly-looking sneakers, slashed with neon yellow strips of plastic, which had seemed so advanced in Hobart but horribly wrong now, she questioned her decision to come here. Each day she had countless moments where she thought she just couldn't handle the ruthlessness of New York City and she found herself often longing for the wooden walls of her bedroom, Hobart's clean air, an afternoon with nothing around her and nothing to do. And when she was finally evicted, she often found herself in tears in a phone booth or on a stoop, sometimes even in the dressing room of a clothing store whose clothes she couldn't afford. She'd look for anywhere to hide herself and her tears from the hungry eyes of the people around her. She quickly learned there was nowhere to cry in New York.
But she learned. She adapted. She soon found what parts of Central Park she could sleep in and be undisturbed for the night. She got to know the busboy of the small cafe on 8th avenue who would let her have the stale bagels and unused cream cheese. She learned that the security was lax at the local pool on Sundays and she could go in and have a quick shower. Over time, she had to get rid of some of the stuff she brought with her, unable to carry it all around and before she knew it all she had to call her own was a small duffel bag and her drum sticks. She still tried to find a job but without a home address or a phone number it was nearly impossible to land anything. It was in the middle of one of these lacrimal instances, in a mid town subway station, on her way home from a botched interview (at an independent music shop, where apparently you had to know the composers of every symphony ever written, on command), dressed in a pair of her cleanest dark jeans and a plane white Hanes t shirt that Patricia saw her first New York City artist.
Not one of those stuffy upper east side "arteests" but a real maker of beauty.
On the other side of the tracks, between the rusting pillars sat a man behind a bunch of paint buckets playing them like drums. She was awed and moved closer to the tracks so she could see what he was doing. She quickly made her way out of the station and onto the stairs to take her to the other side. She watched this mystery man who she expected was in a similar situation as she based on his dingy clothes, dirty pasty skin, stringy hair and yellowed, rotted teeth. She watched him from a bit of a distance not wanting him to notice her. She studied him, her own sticks in her hand miming what he was doing. When he turned to thank some mystery woman who just dropped some coins in his bag, he noticed her. He smiled and waved her over.
Hesitant but figuring she had nothing to lose, she checked that her bag was secure on her shoulder before going over to him.
"I saw you watching me." Patricia's eyes widened as she went to apologize and he shook his head. "I also saw you playing along."
She nodded, "Yeah. I've never seen anything like this. How do you get them to sound like that?"
"That's the beauty of it all. Figuring out how to get it to sound good. What's your name?"
"Amy."
The man smiled, "Benji." He pulled a bucket out of the one he was sitting on and offered it to her to take a seat. "So, do you want to learn how to do this?" he said gesturing to the buckets in front of them. She nodded earnestly at his offer to teach her, and so he did.
DWDWDW
Aubrey walked into her living room carrying a bowl of spaghetti in one hand and a cup of milk in the other. Today was one of the rare days where she was home alone. Her mother had taken Danny out of town to see a neurologist that she hoped would be able to provide some miracle cure for Danny's neurological problems. When her mother had told her of the trip, Aubrey just rolled her eyes and allowed her mother to live in her fantasy. She took a seat on the couch and placed her glass of milk on the coffee table. She crossed her legs in front of her and pulled one of the throw pillows onto her lap to serve as a tray before placing her bowl on top.
Her mother wasn't due to return for a few hours and Aubrey was going to take advantage. She grabbed the VCR remote and pressed play before digging into her food. It wasn't often that she had time to herself. Between school and having to take on the role of secondary caregiver for her brother since the age of 12 when her mother couldn't be bothered (which was more often than not) it was rare that she could sit down and messily eat spaghetti and watch Scooby-Doo.
Aubrey gathered another forkful of noodles and grumbled, "I don't understand how you didn't figure out he was the guy. I expect better from you, Velma." She lifted her fork but before it could reach her mouth the doorbell rang. Her eyes jumped to the clock on the wall and she frowned. Her mother was impossibly early if it was her at the door. Aubrey placed her bowl on the table and put the pillow to the side.
Aubrey didn't believe in coincidences and hated surprised but she found herself with her lips parted in shock and her eyes widened in surprise.
"Sup, Bree."
A passerby would have thought Aubrey had opened her door and encountered medusa on the other side with how stone-still she stood staring at Beca on her doorstep.
"So, it's hot as all hell and I'm sweating like a nun in a cucumber patch. Can I come inside?"
"Wh—what're you doing here?"
Beca lifted the guitar case in her hand. "You said I could stop by." She walked past Aubrey into the much cooler house. She turned back to Aubrey who stood with her back resting against the now closed door. "Um, you've got a little something…" she said gesturing to Aubrey's chin.
That seemed to pull Aubrey out of her stupor. She quickly used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe what she assumed was tomato sauce from her face. "How did you find out where I lived?"
Beca grinned from where she stood, kicking off her sneakers and dropping her bookbag on the couch. "Chloe said you were her neighbor and I've been to her house plenty of times. Plus, there's a huge label on your mailbox that says 'Posen'." She lifted the Scooby-Doo VHS case and looked at Aubrey with an amused grin as she said, "that's dangerous, you know. I could've been a stranger looking to hurt you."
Aubrey's eyes narrowed as she snatched the case from Beca and carried it, along with her abandoned food, into the kitchen. When she returned, Beca had her guitar out of its case. "Why are you here?" Aubrey asked and Beca grinned.
"You promised to fix my pickups, remember?"
"I said no such thing, "Aubrey retorted only to recall that she did make such a promise. Beca must have realized that Aubrey remembered because she grinned and held out her instrument expectantly. Aubrey rolled her eyes before instructing Beca to follow her to the basement where she kept her tools.
"Please don't touch anything," Aubrey said as they walked down the stairs. She flipped up the light switching illuminating the dark space.
"Aye Aye captain," Beca said and walked past Aubrey to place her guitar on the metal table on the opposite end of the room. Aubrey walked over to where she stood and glanced down at the instrument before sighing. "I'll go get a towel to put under it." She disappeared back up the stairs before Beca could speak.
"Alright then," Beca mumbled to herself as she shoved her hands in her pockets. She looked at the various plaques and framed certificates perched on a shelf above Aubrey's work space. Beca took a step forward to get a closer look at the photo that was posted on the cork board under the shelf. She recognized a much younger Aubrey with a medal around her neck on the shoulder of her brother, Danny. Chloe had hinted at Aubrey's brother having suffered an accident and Beca guessed this picture was taken before then. When she heard Aubrey on the basement steps she turned and smiled at her. "I know you're into the whole robot thing but I didn't know you were this good," Beca said and gestured to the awards.
Aubrey's eyes traveled to the shelves behind Beca, her eyes betraying a deep sorrow before it was hidden away as Aubrey said, "They're no big deal."
Beca chuckled, "I doubt that," she paused to lift her guitar so that Aubrey could lay out the towel on the table surface. "There's a lot of medals and plaques. Why're you selling yourself short?"
Aubrey sighed as she gathered her hair and pulled it into a ponytail. "I'm not selling myself short. I say it's not a big deal because it isn't. At least not anymore. I don't have time to spend all day down here messing with engines and wires. I do enough to stay on the team at school so I can put it on my college apps but engineering isn't the center of my life anymore…it can't be."
Sensing the tension in Aubrey, Beca nudged her shoulder with her own and, with the hope of cheering her up, Beca asked, "You'll never guess where I found this." She gestured to the instrument in front of them. Aubrey looked at her, shrugging her shoulders and Beca grinned as she said, "Do you know Damien Steele? No? Big shocker there." She laughed at Aubrey's indignant snort at her comment. "Anyway, he's the lead singer of the band Hanging Alice and he came to town at the end of last month. Anyway, one of the roadies was about to chuck it because it wasn't making any sounds when Damien strummed."
Aubrey looked at the mahogany guitar. She didn't know much about them but she recognized the name Gibson painted at the top where the strings met and knew it was an expensive brand. Beca must have seen where her eyes were because she said, "I know! He was about to throw away a damn Gibson SG. A $1500 axe that I got him to give me with the case for a bag of weed and twenty bucks."
"But, if it's truly broken then didn't you get the bad end of the deal?"
"Obviously not since you're going to figure out what's wrong with it."
Aubrey sighed and sat down on the stool she kept under the table. "You don't even know what's wrong with it. How am I supposed to know?"
Beca shrugged, "I don't know. I guess we can work together and figure it out. You can be my own personal Velma," she said wiggling her eyebrows comically.
"Yeah, except the problems she has to solve are usually right there in her face. I don't know the first thing about guitars."
"That may be true but like I said, we'll figure it out together."
Aubrey's eyes met Beca's and she could see the optimism there. She looked away quickly realizing she was making a habit of not denying Beca anything. She pushed her glasses up from where they'd fallen down the bridge of her nose and asked her if she tried playing the instrument or did she take the man's word for it that the guitar didn't work.
"No, I tried playing it and it's weird. See, when I was laying down on my bed messing around on it, my amp picked up the signal. But when I stood up, nothing.
Aubrey pursed her lips as she tried to think. "Maybe there's a short somewhere. Is there anywhere on here that'll let me see how its wired?"
Beca reached out and turned the instrument over. "Do you mean this? If you take the plate off you can see the wires that connect to the pickups."
Aubrey grabbed one of the phillips-head screwdrivers from the small rack to her left and removed the four screws and cover to gain access to the wiring. She recognized right away what was possibly wrong and the uneasiness that had settled in her stomach disappeared; she'd been afraid of the possibility of having to admit she didn't know how to fix the instrument and for some reason she couldn't discern, disappointing Beca bothered her more than it should.
"Do you know what's wrong with it?" Beca asked, her question pulling Aubrey out of her head.
"Huh?" Oh, yeah, I think so. You see these wires, they're way too long. These metal braided wires are connected to one signal and when you put the cover on, it smashed everything together." She demonstrated by putting the cover back on before placing it aside again. "What happens then is, the wires are left to flop around and they make contact with the parts of the circuit that are hot. And this is what you get," she picked up a pair of plastic tweezers and lifted the metal braid. She placed it next to the smaller wire. "It shorts out anything coming from the wire, thus leaving you with no sound."
"Is this expensive to fix?" Beca asked and Aubrey shook her head.
"I just have to trim the wires and solder them back. Shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes," she said only to be startled by Beca placing her arm around her shoulder.
"See, I knew you were a super genius and would figure it out."
Still thrown off guard by the contact, Aubrey cleared the knot in her throat and said, "Um, well I don't even know if it'll work or if that's even what's wrong."
"Nah," Beca said. "You figured it out. I know you did."
Aubrey could see the supreme confidence in Beca's eyes and said a small prayer as she grabbed her soldering iron and wire cutters.
God, I hope I'm right."
DWDWDWDW
"Well if you don't want to go, then why are you letting your mother make you?" Beca asked remembering to keep her voice low as to not be too distracting to Aubrey while she worked.
Aubrey glanced at her before looking back at the wires in front of her. "It's bad enough that I'll have to eventually admit I don't have a date but she wouldn't accept me missing the event all together."
"Well then we won't tell her. You can just not go and we can do something else instead." Beca said.
Aubrey noticed Beca's use of we but chose not to address it. "I can't. It would break her heart. I think Prom means more to my mother than it does to me."
Beca watched with fascination as Aubrey used what she referred to as a soldering iron to reattach one of the now shortened wires. "Can I ask you a question?" She asked after allowing Aubrey some time to work in quiet. Aubrey nodded but didn't look away from what she was doing. "What's the real reason you don't want to sing in our band?"
"Beca—" Aubrey began in exasperation but Beca cut her off.
"No, here me out. I know you said you don't have much free time but we only practice a few hours every day."
Aubrey sighed and put down the soldering iron before removing her protective glasses. "Why are you so insistent on me being the singer? You haven't even heard my actual voice and that old recording Chloe has doesn't count."
Beca paused, not sure if she should admit to having seen Aubrey that night at the club. After releasing a long sigh, she said, "I saw you perform live. At that club. I'm sorry that I followed you but I don't regret it because seeing you on stage was amazing. You looked happy up there."
Beca watched as the anger on Aubrey's face at her revelation morphed from confusion to a seeming sadness. She looked away from Beca and closed her eyes. "I am…happy, that is. I just…when I'm singing, I'm somewhere else completely. It's as if the songs are a mystery to me until I'm inside them where everything becomes clearer." She opened her eyes slightly and looked towards Beca. "Do you know what I mean?"
Beca smiled softly, "Yeah I guess I do. When I'm playing my guitar, I get lost in the music but the way you describe it sounds much deeper."
The two didn't speak after that of which Aubrey was glad because she knew if Beca asked her again to be the singer she might say yes. When she finished ten minutes later she looked over to Beca who was lost in her own mind. She reached out and touched her arm and said she was finished.
Beca blinked a few times to clear the fog in her head before smiling. "You know I have to test this out, right?" she said as Aubrey replaced the fourth and final screw on the back plate.
Aubrey looked up and asked, "And you're going to go home to do that, right?"
Beca chuckled and lifted her guitar by the middle of its neck. "Of course not. I have to check here so we can see if what you did worked." She made her way over to and up the stairs as she spoke.
Aubrey rolled her eyes and replaced the screwdriver in her hand. "I don't see why you can't do that at home and then call me after," she mumbled to herself as she walked to the stairs and made her way out of the basement. When she reentered the living room she saw Beca standing with her guitar hanging around her neck while fumbling with a black cable. Aubrey watched her connect it to the guitar and then to a small amp, no larger than a textbook, that she pulled out of her bookbag.
"So, do you have any song suggestions?" Beca asked when she had everything plugged in and turned on.
Aubrey frowned and walked over to the television, bending over slightly to check the time. She knew her mother and Danny would be home soon and she still had to clean up before then. She told Beca as much only for her warning to be waved off. "I'm sure you've got plenty of time." When she saw that Aubrey didn't agree she added, "Ok, I'll just play one song and then I'll be out of your hair."
Aubrey didn't respond right away instead standing with her arms crossed in front of her as she debated if she should give into Beca's request or to just stand her ground and insist that Beca leave. "Alright, just one song," she finally decided, "but after that, you have to go."
Beca raised her hands in triumph. "So, do you have anything you want to hear? I'd pick something but I don't want to push my luck by cranking out some Testament or Slayer."
Aubrey shook her head and walked over to the loveseat facing the shorter edge of the coffee table. "No, I don't have any suggestions," she said as she took a seat, "but I doubt you'd even want to play any of the music I like."
"Well, do you know Zeppelin or Aerosmith?" Beca asked and when Aubrey shook her head she followed up with, "What about Lita Ford or uh, Stevie Knicks?" When Aubrey shook her head Beca's shoulders dropped as she said, "Well, shit. What do you listen to?"
"I like the Bangles."
Beca rolled her eyes, "Anything else that's not Billboard 100 bullshit?"
Aubrey threw the throwpillow on her lap at Beca, "Hey! I really like them."
"Of course you do," Beca mumbled as she walked over to the stack of CDs that were resting next to the stereo system. "Let's see what's in here. Do you know any of these artists?"
"I like the Prince album in there. My brother and I used to listen to him all the time before my mother realized that maybe he wasn't age appropriate." Aubrey rolled her eyes remembering that her mother was the one to buy the Parade album for her without taking the time to actually listen to it.
Beca looked through the albums and found the one Aubrey was referring to. "Alright, but I'm definitely going to have to make you some tapes. Show you what real music is," she said as she placed the CD in the disc slot. She turned over the cd case and scanned the list of songs before finding one she recognized. A popular request at wedding gigs.
"Prince is real music," Aubrey said.
"I agree but you still need to learn that there's a shit ton of music that exists outside of pop charts." Beca hit play and skipped to the song before stepping back and turning up the sound dial on her Gibson. She began to play the familiar riff and smiled when her guitar produced a sound. She saw recognition in Aubrey's eyes and smirked when she saw Aubrey's lips twitch as if to sing before she looked away.
Beca got an idea and smiled to herself as she began to sing, "You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on," she began and looked at Aubrey expectantly. Aubrey rolled her eyes and Beca walked over to her as she sang and strummed. She sat on the arm of the chair and rested her head on Aubrey's as she sang, "You don't need experience to turn me out." She looked down and noticed Aubrey was trying to maintain a straight face but it didn't last. Soon enough Beca was able to cajole her into singing. And while Beca had seen it once before, she was still surprised to see how Aubrey lost herself in the song, moving her hips and body as if embodying Prince himself. She would strut up to Beca and wrap an arm around her from behind as she sang near her ear, "Women not girls rule my world, I said they rule my world" and Beca had to force herself to concentrate. The last thing she wanted was to miss a chord and break the spell Aubrey was under. Not to mention Aubrey was sixteen and Beca refused to be the creepy adult leering at a teenager. She wasn't much older, being twenty, but Beca had been on the other end of the spectrum with several of Pieter's junkie customers trying to be her "friend"; and if it weren't for Luisa's acute awareness of the world they lived in she knew she would have been taken advantage of.
Aubrey grinned at her and pulled her hair from its ponytail, shaking her hair loose as Beca began to play the solo. While originally, Beca's plan had been to get Aubrey to loosen up around her in hopes of convincing her to join the band but Beca had become as immersed in the music as Aubrey had. They had been unconsciously flirting as they played together, interweaving the notes of their respective instruments. Anyone watching could see the way Aubrey was (unintentionally of course) teasing Beca and Beca was responding, enticing her with the catching riff during what could be considered musical intimacy that extended well beyond the notes and lyrics of the song.
The song came to an end with both breathing heavily, slightly out of breath. Beca reached out to push away a stray lock of hair from Aubrey's face, tucking it behind her ear as she commented on what a great job Aubrey had done. Aubrey would later look back on the moment and argue it was the spell of the music that made her lean into Beca's touch before stepping closer to her. But at the time, however, she felt this overwhelming pull to the guitarist.
"Aubrey?"
Both girls jumped apart and Aubrey immediately grabbed the stereo remote and hit stop. Beca immediately noticed the change in Aubrey's demeanor when her mother arrived.
"Who's this, Aubrey?" Ms. Posen asked.
Danny stepped past her and waved to his younger sister. "She's pretty, Bree."
Beca chuckled but Aubrey didn't find any humor in the situation. Instead, she unplugged Beca's amp, detaching it from the chord running to Beca's guitar.
Beca sighed and unplugged her guitar, placing it in its case. She took her bag from Aubrey and said, "I guess I'll see you later." She glanced over to Ms. Posen and seeing the glare still directed at her, she added, "or not." Ms. Posen stepped aside to Beca's relief and allowed her to exit the house without trouble.
Aubrey waited until the door closed before she looked at her mother and tried to explain. "Mom, I'm—"
Her mother held up her hand to stop her. "Dinner is at six," and she walked out of the living room and into the kitchen out of sight of her daughter. Aubrey sighed and walked over to Danny to help him take off his sweater and to listen to him as he told her about his trip.
Later that night when the Posen family sat down to eat dinner, Aubrey couldn't help but think of Beca and how she had literally and figuratively barged into Aubrey's life. That afternoon saw Aubrey act completely out of character but singing brought that out of her. Like she told Beca, she became a different person when she allowed herself to get lost in the music. And if she were being honest with herself, she had a great time singing with Beca.
"Aubrey, are you listening?"
Aubrey looked up from where she'd been pushing around green beans on her plate and nodded, "Yes, Ma'am."
Her mother watched her for a few seconds before nodding and saying, "so you'll need to come home right after school so that we can head to the boutique. Carla offered to make your dress for a discount but we need to get there early if we want it finished in time for the dance."
Aubrey looked at her plate to hide the fact that she had rolled her eyes.
"I know we've decided on a champagne color. Have you let your date know so that he can match his waistcoat and tie?"
Aubrey sighed. "I've had some offers but I haven't made any decisions on who I want to go with," she lied. She looked at Danny and smiled at him as she said, "Maybe, I'll take Danny."
Her brother beamed at her but before he could speak her mother cut in with, "You will do no such thing."
Aubrey saw the crestfallen look on Danny's face and said, "Why not? I'm sure I'd have a better time with him than anyone else."
"Going to prom is what got him in this situation in the first place," Ms. Posen said and Aubrey frowned. She hated when her mother insinuated that Danny's accident was his fault. Especially, when she did it in front of Danny who clearly understood what she meant.
"You can't possibly blame him for that."
"Then whose fault was it, Aubrey? He knew that getting behind the wheel while drunk was stupid and dangerous but he did it anyway. Not someone else, but him."
Aubrey frowned, seeing the sadness on Danny's face knowing it was useless arguing the point any further with her mother. She sighed knowing she'd be spending most of the night talking to Danny about how it wasn't his fault and that his mother didn't hate him even though she said such things.
And Beca thought she'd have time to join their band. Yeah right.
DWDWDW
Amy sat outside the New Haven bus station dressed in worn yet clean clothing. She'd gotten lucky when some poor chap forgot his suitcase on one of the incoming greyhound busses. The driver, obviously disillusioned with his job, let her take it off his hands if it meant he got to go home faster instead of having to wait for the passenger to return. She had been outside the station or the past hour just playing whatever came to mind. She almost had enough to buy a ticket to get her to at least Denver. She knew she'd be on the next bus out of St. Louis tomorrow if she could just pull in another twenty dollars.
So lost in the cadence being created at her feet, she didn't notice someone had walked up to her until they were close enough to block the sun's glare.
"You sound amazing," the stranger said and Amy looked up at her. She was a short brunette carrying a guitar case in one hand and holding a Dr. Pepper can in the other. "I'd give a few bucks but I just spent the last of my money on the bus."
Amy shrugged and told her not to worry about it. The girl shook her head and said, "Maybe I can help you draw in some more money. I got my rig right here. Might get people to give more if they hear some melody with those beats?"
Amy turned on the paint bucket she was sitting on and looked at the stranger wondering what her deal was. Why was she offering to help her earn money without immediately demanding something in return? The girl chuckled and said, "don't worry I'm not trying to gyp you. I just thought that since I was once in your shoes I'd help you out. Playing my guitar is the only way I know how."
Amy sighed and thought for a few seconds before agreeing.
The girl was right next to her on one knee in an instant. Amy watched her eager, slender hands that couldn't move fast enough, it seemed, to get her case open and her Gibson out and plugged in. Amy watched her work, laughing to herself quietly. The girl got to her feet and slipped the guitar over her neck and shoulders in one smooth move. "What are we playing?" she asked and Amy shrugged. She turned back to her paint buckets and picked up her sticks. "Well what was that you were playing before?"
"Nothing really," Amy said.
"Well, let's make it something, then," she said, and Amy joined her. It was slow, then a little faster, and eventually they found a good tempo for their playing styles. Neither knew when it happened but soon they were playing classic rock songs from "Walk this Way" to "Back in Black" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." When the girl began to sing, Amy was thrown off by her voice, not expecting such a powerful voice to come from such a small body.
There were no words—at least, she didn't think there were, but it didn't matter. Her melody was what counted, and it counted a lot. It floated over the changes above them. It wove through Amy's rhythm and the chords she played, like magic over the coming and going flow of people in and out of the station, brought people over to them. Sometimes the girl's eyes came up and met Amy's, when she wasn't singing. But whenever she sang, it was all hands and strings, hands and strings, and Amy started thinking about marionettes. This girl was the puppeteer drawing people to their street performance. Dollars and silver coins were dropped in the small yellow cup Amy had placed in front of her set and she thought she even saw a five-dollar bill at one point. This girl was one of the artists that she had searched for. One that deserved to be among the others in her book. An artist that she hadn't been in the company of since Benji had been arrested trying to steal medicine for her when she had bronchitis. Benji could sing too and hearing this girl's voice brought back sad memories for the drummer.
Amy remembered how much fun Benji had been to be around. He taught her his trade; all the good spots to go to in NYC and at what time to make the most tips. Sometimes, he'd sing while she played. Other times they'd split up and meet up later in the day after they'd been chased away from their spots by NYPD. They'd split their tips using it to buy food or if they had enough, to take the path over into NJ to rent a cheap motel along route one. Since moving to New York, Amy for the first time felt like the future wasn't bleak. She wasn't in love with Benji but she knew if given time she could have been. Everything was going great…well as great as someone who was homeless could ever hope for. Until she got sick. She had waved off Benji's suggestions to spend some of their tips on cold medicine, a decision Amy would regret for years to come. She soon had bronchitis. They knew if she had gone to the emergency room she would have been treated but they wouldn't be able to afford the bill. It was while breaking into a Duane Reade for medicine to treat her, that Benji was arrested. He had managed to drop the pills into a trashcan before taking off to draw the cops away from where she had been waiting across the street.
She had waited a week, taking the time to recover, for Benji to return to their meet up spot in Central Park. When a week turned into a month Amy knew he wasn't coming back. She packed up their buckets and her few possessions before carving a message into the tree where they often slept. She managed to sneak onto a bus towards Cincinnati and from there she would play for money to afford a ticket to the next city. She planned to keep doing this until she reached Seattle, hoping to fare better there with the up and coming music scene.
Amy used the heal of her toe to lift one of the buckets to give the sound a bit of echo. She leaned over, closer to the girl and her voice. That voice—rich and sweet, crystal clear. Even over Amy's drums and the girl's guitar, she could hear every note, every trembling vibrato, every quiver, and it was glorious. Amy could tell she smoked, and probably had a shot of whiskey or two. Those vices are what gave her voice a smoky yet sweet tone.
The chorus came around again for the final time of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" so Amy began to slowly lower the bucket resting on the toe of her right sneaker and began to lighten her drum strokes until the girl played the final chords and her voice fell away.
They stayed quiet for a few moments before the girl turned towards Amy. "How was that?"
Amy laughed heartily at the uncertainty on the girl's face as she said, "It was ace! I don't think I've ever made that many tips so quickly."
The girl shrugged and said, "It's no biggie. But I bet you want me out of your hair now, right?"
"How about this," Amy began, "Play with me for another twenty minutes and I'll split with you whatever we make. Deal?"
The girl smirked before turning up the volume dial on her guitar. "I'm Beca, by the way."
Amy smiled at her as she adjusted her seat and said, "Amy. I'm Amy."
This took longer than I expected. My courses, while not technically difficult, require a lot of my time. I had this chapter written for some time but never had the chance to sit down and transcribe it from notebook to my computer. It didn't help that this was one of the longer chapters. The next isn't nearly as long so it shouldn't take as long to post either. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please let me know what you think by leaving a review.