Page 15 of Sounds Like Love

Perhaps that was why I loved my parents’ old music hall so much, why it felt like home when little else did, because in the darkness and the silence, I could still hear the reverberations of all the songs that came before me, and the possibility of the ones after. It made me feel not quite so alone.

It reminded me, even now when I felt the edges of my soul tinged with dread, that I wasalive.

Mom didn’t drop my or Gigi’s hands until we had passed through the Revelry’s lobby, its walls lined with grainy photos of musicians who had stopped by in the music hall’s long and illustrious life.Some were famous, some not so much—but it didn’t matter. They all papered the walls with their faces and signatures. Once, when I was bored of mopping the hardwood floor near the doors, I’d looked through the hundreds of photos and googled the people I didn’t know. Roman Fell was there, looking moody as ever even thirty-odd years ago with long curly brown hair, acid-washed jeans, and an unbuttoned vest showing off his skinny torso, tucked in beneath an Elvis impersonator and the Indigo Girls.

As we wove past the ticket counter, down the short hallway to the doors to the theater, Mom shouted happily, “Hank! Hank! You wouldn’t believe who I found on the sidewalk—battered! Broken!Destitute!”

I rolled my eyes, letting her lead me. “I wasnot—”

“She crawled all the way here from the far-off land of lost angels!”

“I took a plane,” I deadpanned, but inside, my heart warmed at the familiar joke. Mom was so many things—but most of all she wasdramatic.

The Revelry was a long building. The lobby was at the front, the box office in the middle with two ticket windows, and on either side were hallways to the restrooms. There were stairs leading up to the sound booth, and past the stairs were metal doors that opened onto the theater. The bar was in the middle right when you got in, shelves lined with every kind of alcoholic beverage and mixer you could think of, and most nights there were tables spaced out through the general admission standing area. On the far side was the stage, the curtains faded black, golden tassels at the ends. There were steel bars in the rafters, and a bird or two who had found their way inside and nested up there. The floors were a deep, scratched cherrywood,and the walls were a dusty red brick, and there was nothing quite like this place when it was packed shoulder to shoulder with a song swirling all around you.

Mom went straight to the bar. The counters were a red mahogany, marked up from years of broken glasses and sentimental drunks carving their names into it. A soft yellow glow came from the under-shelf lights in the liquor cabinets behind it. There were flickering neon beer logos and song lyrics, and a single framed dollar bill above the cash register. People always asked what it was for, but Mom would only shrug and say, “I bet an old friend they’d come back.”

Though, with the dollar still framed, it was clear they never had.

Who that old friend was, neither Mitch nor I had a clue, and when we finally asked Dad, he shrugged and said he’d forgotten.

We didn’t believe him.

“Hank! Are you even listening?” Mom went on, marching over to where Dad was setting out the peanuts for the night, tugging me along in her righteous indignation.

“Huh?” he asked, popping a nut into his mouth. “Did you say something, dear?”

Mom threw up her hands. “Unbelievable! I found youronly daughteroutside on the sidewalk, cold and hungry and destitute, and you’re in here eating peanuts!”

“That’s not very fair, I haven’t had dinner,” he replied, fixing his thick black glasses. They were the kind that made his eyes comically large, because he had such bad eyesight, but he refused to spend any money to get newer lenses. That, coupled with his impeccable sense of western fashion—button-down shirts and cowboy hats and decorative ascots and a pipe he rarely left home without—often made him look like he’d walked right out of some wacky sitcom.

He blinked at Mom and then recognized me behind her and gave a gasp. “Wyn! Why didn’t youtellme our long-lost daughter came home?”

I rolled my eyes. “Surprise,” I said flatly, making jazz hands, “I’m home.”

He flipped a bar towel over his shoulder and hurried around the counter, throwing out his hands. “Daughter!” And he pulled me into a hug. “You should’ve told me you were coming!”

“I come every summer.”

“Heh,” Gigi snorted, coming up to the bar, and I threw her a glare.

Dad asked, “Who picked you up?”

“Your other daughter,” Gigi said.

He beamed. “Our favorite daughter.”

I gave him a look of utter betrayal.

Dad’s watch went off, and he stopped it with an extravagant press of a button. “You have perfect timing, daughter,” he said, though it wasn’t clear whether he was talking to Gigi or me. Probably both of us. “It’s time! Gi, could you take the bar tonight?” he called, power walking to the front of the venue. The doors always opened at seven o’clock sharp. Ever since I was little. The doors would open, and a flood of patrons would swarm in.

As Gigi slipped behind the bar, tying on an apron, I asked, “Where’s Mitch? Doesn’t he usually bartend on weeknights?”

“He’s picking up the band. They had a tire blow up near Kitty Hawk.”

“Oof, that sucks,” I muttered. “Who’s he picking up?”

Mom took her normal seat at the corner of the bar. “The Bushels.”

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