Page 39 of Take You Down

I saw it in the way he played the drums that day in the studio. I saw it in the way he talks to his bandmates or Arun. And I saw it this morning in his interaction with the worker at the skydiving place.

I wonder how many people would die to have James Walker looking at them the way he’s looking at me right now.

“So, Scarlett Lane, tell me. Is that a stage name?”

Starting off easy, I see.

“Sort of. My full name is Elaine Scarlett Whelan, but I never felt like Elaine suited me. Scarlett just always felt like that perfect pair of pants where it fits in all the right places and you feel great in them. When it was time to decide what name I wanted to put with my work, I knew I didn’t want to keep my family last name for it. And knew they sure as hell didn’t want it attached either. So Boone suggested a play on my own name so it still felt familiar, but a new identity. So, I went with Scarlett Lane.”

“Elaine Scarlett Whelan…” Walker says out loud, chewing on the name and seeing for himself how it tastes.

I take a sip of my drink, relishing the cool and sharp carbonation. “How long have you been playing drums?” I ask, taking my turn to ask a question.

Walker slumps back in the booth, blowing out a breath. “Fuck…almost twenty years at this point? As you may or may not have guessed, I was a bit of a hyper child.” He winks at me.

No surprise there.

“So my parents got me involved in as many activities as they could. Drums, swimming, soccer, dance, anything to keep me busy and try to drain some energy. Drums were the only thing that stuck.”

And I can see why, even at this moment right now, he’s tapping the fingers on his left hand rhythmically against his glass.

“Did you always want to be in a band?” I ask him.

He nods his head vigorously, taking a sip of his beer, a bit of froth sticking to his upper lip that he quickly licks away with a flick of his tongue and I can’t help but track the movement.

“I just knew music was the only thing I seemed to be any good at, and I love it, I really do. So I had planned to move to L.A., as soon as I graduated high school from the time I was in middle school. Planned to make it out there and see what I could get going. But then I met Hayden in 9th grade social studies and we instantly hit it off. We started playing music together after school everyday, watching videos on YouTube of bands playing together to study how they moved around on stage.”

Walker gets a faraway look in his eyes, nostalgia coating his face as he’s brought back to that time in his life.

“But you need more than just bass and drums to make a good song or a good band. And I had known Nikolai from when I was younger and playing soccer, though we hadn’t talked much over the years. I’d seen him carrying around a guitar case at school, showing it off to all of the girls, even though he wasn’t in any of the band programs where he’d need to bring it there.” Walker laughs and the sound of it fills me with something soft and sweet. “So I recruited him and he brought Reid onboard.”

“Did you know Reid beforehand?” I ask.

Walker shakes his head. “Nope. He transferred to our school sophomore year, so he was very much the new kid there. But you wouldn’t know it watching him. He walked around like a king in his land from his first day.”

I can definitely picture that. Good to know Reid has had arrogance in spades for years.

“Who came up with the name?”

“That would be me,” Walker says, smiling proudly. “And Reid too. We were always teasing Nikolai for being such a charmer, even back as teenagers. He’s never been at a loss for a pick-up line or struggling to find the right thing to say to a woman he’s interested in. We would watch him out at parties and always joke about what sweet nothing he was whispering in some girl's ear, and the name Whisper Me Nothings just sort of came to us.”

“And the rest is history?”

“The rest is history.”

Our food arrives and we enjoy a comfortable silence while we dig in, both starved after the morning we had. The barbacoa beef tacos are so out of this world amazing that I don’t even care that I’m burning my mouth as I eat bite after bite, too impatient to let it cool.

“Now I’m going to ask you something,” Walker says, not asks, “and I want you to be honest with me.”

I chew the bite I just took slowly, apprehension rising. “Ok…”

Walker wipes his mouth with his napkin and leans an elbow on the table, propping his chin on his fist. “Why did you skip out on watching me the other night?” He studies me closely, gauging my reaction, seeing if I’m going to go on the defensive, or answer him honestly.

I choose the latter.

“I got a phone call from my sister.” I exhale, pushing my plate away from me so I can place both arms on the table. “Right before I went on.” I leave out the part about going into the greenroom and standing in front of their bar table, itching for a drink. I don’t want to get into that on top of telling him about my conversation with Beth.

He stays quiet, waiting for me to continue.

---