Page 69 of Red Hot Harmony

I wanted to ask if he was sniffing glue but then decided that jokes about substance abuse probably weren't the best kind of jokes two recovering addicts should share. I mean, I didn’t care, but he’d be salty about it. I knew him that well. You didn’t just forget about nearly twenty years of friendship simply because you hadn’t seen each other in a few months.

“So what’s the problem?” Frank asked, finally getting back on track with the situation at hand.

I told him about the event.

“Huh... So if it’s not black tie, why don’t you just wear what you usually wear?”

“Look, her mother is a fucking Cruella De Vil. Old money. Dogging her all the time. I don’t want to bring in more heat.”

Truth was, I’d never met Camille’s mother, but I’d picked up quite a lot about the Rockwells from our conversations, and I didn’t like what I’d heard. Her parents sounded like Nazis. How Ally had turned out to be so great was a mystery to me. I figured there was a lot of resistance from Camille too.

“Show me what you got,” Frankie-boy said.

I hung up and called him back using FaceTime, aiming the camera on my semi-empty closet. In the end, after several minutes of plowing through the hangers, he suggested I wear black slacks and a vintage print blazer with a white button-down shirt.

“You don’t think I need a tie?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wore one.

“I think you’ll be okay without it.”

In the bedroom, tiny feet moved across the floor. Snowflake’s disability hadn’t prevented him from learning how to climb the stairs. But he mostly did it so he could get under the blankets. I’d once found him trying to jump up on the mattress, all bark and fury, so that had led to my putting an ottoman at the foot of the bed. He got on it first and then on the actual bed.

The little rascal was unstoppable.

Once Frank and I finished discussing my formal wear, I thanked him and ended the call. It was still early, close to lunch, and I didn’t like the fact that Camille had been summoned to Porter Ranch at dawn, and without me, but I had no control over whatever the emergency was that needed her involvement.

I did some push-ups. Then I did some stretches. Then I made a protein shake.

I drank it from my terrace, studying the darkening expanse of the sky. There were a few pieces of ash in the air and I realized that my pool was going to get ruined because it wasn’t covered.

Around one, I retreated to my music room and picked up one of the Strats I’d been using lately to practice. It was an older model I’d hardly played during live shows these past few years. But I'd favored it early on in my career, which left its body scratched up and a little worn out, typical for a guitar that traveled a lot.

I sat on a stool and plucked at the strings. Waited. My fingers were still my own despite the whirlwind of emotions that surged through my sinew, blood, and nerve endings. Something hummed in me, a tune that came from multiple parts of my body. Feet, hands, chest. My fucking bone marrow.

Closing my eyes, I brushed my palm over the instrument, feeling the warmth of the wood, the familiarity of the fretboard. The door to the music room was shut and all the sounds of the outside world had been cut off. Even Snowflake was no longer allowed in here. Not because he tended to chew on the cords and play with outputs, but because I was so terrified of fucking up in front of him.

Yep.

My self-doubt ran deeper than a drilling rig.

I brushed my fingertips across the collections of strings. They responded with a gentle weep. I listened. Adjusted the position of my other hand. Relaxed my knees. Strummed again. Tried out a random chord. Then a piece of my own riff. Modified that riff.

There were a lot of tweaks before I finally stood up and swapped guitars, needing to hear all those tones on the electric.

Time somehow swallowed me up, wrapped me into a cocoon of music and adrenaline and self-discovery. I hadn’t created anything in months and this tune—whatever it was—poured out of me with such ease, I was scared it’d disappear as soon as I set the instrument aside.

Somewhere in there, between the tries, I dug out a piece of paper and a pencil and jotted down the chords. The tips of my fingers burned and itched, wanting to do more, to play all that hadn’t been played yet. It was both terrifying and cathartic.

The digital clock on my phone showed three when I finally looked at the screen. No messages from Camille, but I knew she was probably busy.

Still shaken up by the fact that I wrote something new without having a single brain fart, I unwillingly parted with my guitar and exited the music room.

The sense of wrongness that permeated the air inside the house was heavy. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, because everything looked the same—not quite lived in yet not quite lacking character—but the same.

I looked for Snowflake, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I strode through the living room, calling his name and then realized what exactly was out of place. My mind reared up as I tried to backtrack through all my steps to the moment I’d woken up today. But no, I was positive, I’d closed the terrace door before locking myself in the music room.

Only, now, the terrace door was wide open, ash swirling across the floor.

---