“Oh… Do you want it? Like, a private sale?”
Another long pause. The latte guy seemed to have found what he was looking for on his phone, because he started playing “Kennedys in the River.” You’d think this was a rare event in Arlo’s life, but it wasn’t. Everybody loved doing that, once they found out. It wasn’t always in a nice way. A lot of middle-aged white men used to play lead guitar in high school bands. A lot of them thought they’d been screwed out of fame.
“I don’t want to buy it. It’s nothing personal.”
Arlo nodded into the phone and it occurred to him that when people say it’s not personal, what they mean is: It’s 100 percent personal. “I should say I’m sorry. I messed it up for you guys. I think about it every day. I can live with what I did to myself. But I hate that it broke up the band. I know you made a lot of that professional stuff happen. I never thanked you for getting us signed.”
Arlo could hear somebody else on Danny’s side of the phone. Some fellow musician, probably. “I don’t think about it,” Danny said.
“Oh.”
“What I’m saying is, how often do bands ever stick? We had a great ride. We made some good money. I got my life out here because of ‘Kennedys in the River.’ I’d never have gotten work writing music without that Grammy with our names on it.”
“That’s really great.”
“I wish I’d said something. You were so high. I knew it was your dad. But I couldn’t believe somebody would get their own kid hooked, just to steal everything. He was the worst manager. I look back and I wish I’d said something.”
“Naw.”
“Yeah. I should have said something.”
“It’s my fault. I blew it.”
“I don’t think so. Me and Chet are fine. We’re working the business now. You’re the one who wrote the music.”
“So, you don’t hate me?”
“I did. But not anymore. Listen, my sound guy’s giving me the stink eye. I should go.”
They promised to talk again, which maybe would happen and maybe wouldn’t. Then they got off the line. Arlo was shaking when it was over. Relief and something else. He’d felt enormous shame for a long time, to the point where hearing his own music had been like needles under his skin. But after apologizing to Danny, some of that subsided now.
Baby, run away with me.
We’ll shake these blues…
The song finished playing, and Arlo remembered why it had resonated with so many people. It’s nostalgic for something that isn’t real, and it’s sad about that. Everybody’s nostalgic for glory days that never happened.
“Kennedys in the River” ended. The latte guy was looking at him with recognition. Arlo nodded as if to say: Yeah. I’m that guy.
The latte guy’s face scrunched in anger. He pointed the phone at Arlo. “I know you,” he said.
Like always happened when threatened, Arlo’s hands turned to fists. The latte guy stood from his table and walked backward, phone held higher, like a weapon. Now the barista, the other patrons, and Julia and Larry were looking, too.
“I know what you did to that little girl!” Latte guy screamed.
Creedmoor Psychiatric Center
Wednesday, July 28
Another day at the hospital. Julia’s parents were angry but not saying why they were angry, which made Julia think they were mad at her. If she’d been faster, grabbed Shelly by the arm or taken the fall instead, this wouldn’t be happening. People wouldn’t be saying bad things. Strange men at Starbucks wouldn’t be yelling. Their house and pictures of their family wouldn’t be on the TV.
A lot of this was happening because Shelly’s body was missing. Everybody knew, for her dad to prove his innocence, they needed the body.
After visiting hours, they didn’t go back to Starbucks, because people in Starbucks are crazy and yell crazy things. They did get ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. In cups not cones, even though Julia preferred cones. But her dad did the ordering, and he looked tense as a rubber band about to snap. She’d decided to go with the flow, take the cup.
Julia got plain vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. Larry got pistachio for the green. Their dad got three scoops of chocolate plus syrup. He acted pretend happy. She hated when he did that. He said all the right, reasonable things, and underneath, you could tell he was boiling.
“You’re gonna get fat,” Larry told him, deadpan. “Mom says keep the ice cream, spare the syrup, or it’s jelly belly city.”