Page 9 of Caught in a Storm
Rebecca continues. “ ‘I attached a pic of us playing your dopest song, “Power Pink,” which is hot AF, by the way. We played it for our music teacher, Mr. Gustavo. After he recovered from having his face melted off, he said we’re awesome. I’m emailing you to invite you to come down to Baltimore to rock out with us, because holy shit that would make our dreams come true. Also, the pretzels here are incredible. Yours in rock, Mazzy.’ ” Rebecca looks up. “How amazing is that?”
“Wait,” says Margot, “are pretzels a thing in Baltimore?”
Rebecca looks momentarily defeated. “Crab cakes, I think. But that’s not really—”
“The point,” says Margot. “I get it. Is the picture cute?”
“Absurdly cute. See?”
She hands over her iPad, and Margot looks at four tween girls in a garage. The little bass player has pigtails, and the guitarist is mid jump. A girl with an AC/DC T-shirt shouts into a microphone. The drummer holds both drumsticks in the air, presumably Mazzy. “That is cute.”
Rebecca looks at Margot’s drum kit, glances at a dying plant. “With artists who have, shall we say, been out of the spotlight for a minute,” she says. “Who are, you know, between projects. It’s sometimes helpful to think outside the box, right? You know, in terms of publicity.”
Margot sits on her legs now, making herself a little taller. “Rebecca, I appreciate the coffee. But why are you here?”
Rebecca takes a deep breath. “I have an idea.”
“An idea?”
“Yeah. And, Margot, Axl and I think it could be a total game-changer.”
Chapter 4
It’s Saturday again, and Billy and Caleb are on a sun-drenched side street in Baltimore a few blocks from Billy’s apartment. Caleb showed up a few minutes ago, and now they’re messing with the Champagne Supernova, which is what Billy calls his casually unreliable forty-year-old light-beige Mercedes station wagon.
The car has been slow to start lately, idling weird. Billy doesn’t know why, because he has no idea how cars work. He tugs at some wires. “Maybe it’s these things.”
Caleb, who knows even less about cars, kicks a tire with one low-top Jordan.
Since Billy last saw Caleb, things have happened. A few days ago, after school, Caleb was in his bedroom at his mom and stepdad’s house studying when he got a call from New York City. Normally Caleb ignores unknown numbers, because he’s not an idiot, but no one’s ever called from Manhattan before.
“Um, hello?” he said.
A girl, young sounding, like a teenager, told him she was with Stage Dive Records. “I’m hoping to speak to Mazzy,” she said, and the air left Caleb’s body all at once, like when you’re ten and fall off playground equipment and land flat on your back.
There were so many things Caleb could’ve done next. He could’ve hung up. He could’ve told the truth. Apologized. Started speaking in Spanish. Burst into tears. Set his iPhone on fire and thrown it out the window. Instead, he panicked. “This is Caleb,” he said, making his voice a little deeper. “I’m Mazzy’s dad.”
Billy doesn’t know any of this, of course. What he does know, however, is that his son is clearly anxious. Also, he shouldn’t be here. “Wait, why are you with me right now?” he asks.
“Um, what do you mean?”
“It’s your mom’s weekend,” Billy says. “Don’t be a jerk. You know it hurts her feelings when you’re here on her days.”
Caleb looks down at the mess of German mechanics. “I figured I’d help you, I don’t know, stare at this thing.”
A very large man walks by with a pit bull on a leash. The dog stops to sniff a tree root that’s busted through the sidewalk, and the guy smiles. “Hey, yo, you’re the piano man, right?”
“Hi,” says Billy. “Yeah, that’s me, I guess.”
“Nice. How about a little Stevie Wonder next time?”
The dog sniffs up at Billy. He never gets tired of this—friendly requests from his neighbors—like Fells Point is the set of an upbeat urban musical. “Yeah, I can do that. Old-school Stevie, or are you more into ‘Ebony and Ivory’ era Stevie?”
“You’re the pro,” the guy says. “But maybe aim for old. My dad raised me on that shit.”
Billy says he’ll see what he can do, but he’s already arranging “Superstition” in his head. When the man and his dog are gone, Billy watches Caleb look at his phone for the fiftieth time. “Okay, what’s going on with you?” he asks. “You look like you ate bad clams or something.”
Caleb exhales, squeezes his forehead, kicks the tire again. “Dad, I screwed something up. It’s…it’s not good.”
