A snippet of the novel I wrote last year

A little fan fiction, from roughly this time last year:

Back at home, Leah put on Cibo Matto’s Super Relax and settled into her early morning routine, scanning the business section listings even though she’d already decided to check out the seminar on “Getting Out of Your Own Way.” She flicked her eyes up and saw the postcard she’d tacked up titled, “When the beat meet the elite,” with an elegantly dressed lady at a fancy restaurant table saying, “Do you come here often?” and the reply balloon next to the waiter’s hand spooning from a serving dish: “Get hip, Lady – I’m the waiter.”

Oh, I am older today than I was yesterday, Leah sighed. Get hip, Lady, we’re the band.

The waves of sadness flooded through her again, a painful blush. Gomez had filled that part of her heart; she’d had no idea how big that chunk of heart had been until now. What drew her to that kind of near-obsessional interest she had no idea. While losing her illusions about it made her feel more alone in her world, she caught a glimpse of her friends and her sister reaching out to her with ropes and ladders and floaty rings.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” said Leah, watching her bleary-eyed sister shamble into the room.

“What time is it?” Sarah rubbed her eyes and squinted out the window at the thick fog hanging over Sonoma, typical January weather.

“It’s just about eleven. You still haven’t missed anything, though.” Leah said.

“What’s up with you? Hey, how was the concert? You’re so quiet. Usually you’re bustling around and on your way out by now.”

“Yeah, it was an interesting night. I learned a few things.” Leah’s voice broke on the last word.

“What’s up?” Sarah looked closely at her sister. “Just a sec. Is there coffee?”

“In the thermos,” Leah sighed. That’s where it always was, but Sarah always asked.

Once she had her mug of coffee and cream in hand, Sarah reclined on the couch, folded her legs under her, and listened to the tale of Leah’s disillusionment.

“So what happened?”

“Well, nothing. I talked with Tom for a minute. More this time than at the last show.”

“Really. What did he say?”

“He’s nice. You know, gracious. Knows how to behave in public. I stopped him when I saw him after their set and I asked him if I could buy him a drink, you know, ’cause it’s never worked out so far. He told me he was wanted in the VIP lounge. So I asked him, ‘May I join you?’ I just meant I wanted to walk him over there, but he misinterpreted me.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Ah, I fear they would not let you.’ Gave me the brush-off. But then he kind of stopped and looked at me, and asked me, ‘Who are you?’ Like he recognized me but couldn’t place me. So I told him my name, but it was loud and I don’t think it meant anything to him. I could have told him I was grrlpower and he might have recognized that—”

“Is your name on the message board? grrlpower? Huh,” Sarah said. She envied her sister her boldness in such things. She could never imagine blogging or writing messages that lots of people would read. Writing was not her forte at all.

“I could have told Tom I came as a groupie for Halloween,” Leah continued, “and that I wanted to know if they were going out for a drink after the show, but of course I didn’t think of it in time. And then he was gone. And that was that.”

“So you’re saying nothing happened.”

“Nothing. Sarah, I saw how much I really meant to these guys, which if you could measure the size of it would be about as big as one of their eyelashes, maybe. A fingernail clipping. So after that I got my coat and since my friends were still into the show and said they could find their way home with some other friends, I drove back to Boulder alone, which took forever because all these sections of the road were closed. So I had tons of time to think.

“Oh, but check it out!” Leah interrupted herself. “I got to drive under the new art museum there, the one that Daniel Libeskind designed – it’s awesome, Sarah! At night when there’s no traffic, you start at the top of the street by the capitol building. You drive down this street where the lights are timed so you don’t have to stop, except for one little bump of a pause just before the new museum building – and then you can drive under a wing of it. It looks like a big crumpled-up piece of paper or something. No right angles, all wings flying every direction. And there’s this giant broom and dustpan out front, which really makes it look like a piece of paper blown in on the wind. I couldn’t help myself – I circled around and drove by it two more times! I can’t wait to see the inside.”

As soon as Leah flew off on that tangent, Sarah knew her sister would be all right. She could easily imagine Leah’s disillusionment about her favorite band shaking her to the core in a scary way, triggering another depression. After their parents had died so suddenly, everyone knew Sarah would follow in their footsteps but wondered whether Leah had the inner resources to make her own way in life, especially now that she didn’t really have to, with all that their parents had left them. Leah always seemed to be looking somewhere else for what others believed was already buried somewhere inside her. But Sarah also knew that the shortest nights of the year were over now, which made much of the danger of a depression for her sister obsolete, for several months, anyway. Right now, Sarah saw before her a woman who knew spring was coming back for her.

“How are you feeling now?” Sarah asked, steering her sister back to her subject.

“Well, it’s still a bit of a shock to realize they really don’t know me at all. On the flight this morning, I thought about that the whole time. I realized I haven’t given anyone much to go on, you know?”

Here it comes, thought Sarah: the plan. Her sister usually wanted to fix everything and came up with a plan as quickly as possible. Was there another cliché that captured the opposite of someone who wallowed in regret? But again her sister surprised her.

“I don’t what to do. But I do wonder whether anyone really knows me,” Leah said. “How do I help people understand me? Does that mean I don’t understand myself, or just that I don’t give people much to work with? Who am I, anyway?”

“You’re a good friend,” Sarah said. “Anyone can see that. You’re always rushing to your friends’ aid, flying around and helping out with projects and stuff. You’re Actiongirl!”

Leah grinned at the image of herself in a red suit and mask, black cape and boots, and a big gold A gleaming on her chest. “OK, so now I know what my costume will be next Halloween,” she laughed. “But for now, what can I do? How can I let people know who I am?”

“That’s a big question,” Sarah said. She had been wondering when this existential crisis to bubble up to the surface. Only recently had she realized what it meant to her sister not to have that all figured out, something she had taken for granted in herself since she had decided to follow in her parents’ footsteps and make people happy by making good food. Leah was always searching for something, like a shortcut through the trees, only every path she followed seemed to make her journey longer after all.

To herself, Leah thought she might drive into The City (what she and everyone she knew always called San Francisco), to look around at the music store, maybe even post an ad and find a band to play with. But she wasn’t ready to tell Sarah this part yet. Instead she told her about the talk she’d picked out to go to today, which reassured Sarah further.

Mentally, Leah considered the ad she wanted to post. She’d list her influences, Gomez, Zero 7, The Beatles and Stones, Radiohead, and so on. She knew she’d need to say she wasn’t very experienced, that she was not looking for a professional, gigging band. It made her nervous to think of actually posting something, but she knew she would do it. And planning this felt hella better than moping about Tom’s “Who are you?” all over again.


***


She had posted her ad and now she wanted to play. Leah usually tried out the keyboards but today she spied an electric guitar, a glowing, gleaming maple Strat-style hardbody in fuchsia. She picked it up and it was solid and warm. The action on the strings felt sweet. She found a cable, plugged it in, and snapped on an amplifier. She tuned up and fiddled with the pickups and the amp settings until she got a crunchy sound with lots of attack and some reverb.

She cranked up the sound on the amp and strummed a few chords fast and hard and then slid into a bluesy vamp with some little runs and riffs. She picked out a new melody. She was starting to warm up and feel good, and while the other shoppers browsed they listened to her practice and tapped their feet or hummed along with her riffs.

She was trying a tricky little bit but couldn’t have told you what key it was in when Ben Ottewell from Gomez walked in. She had no idea they were in San Francisco – she’d thought they were headed straight back to England after the Denver show.

“Hallo, don’t stop,” he said with a wave, a nod, and a smile. “Sounds good!”

She couldn’t believe she was playing guitar in the same room with one of her favorite guitarists in the world – and he wasn’t even playing. Damn! There was still room for this band in this big heart of hers. She put her soul into the next riff and tried some fast fingering a friend had been teaching her. The music carried her and she closed her eyes.

When Leah opened her eyes again, Ben had picked up a guitar and started noodling on the other side of the room. She started picking up notes and forming chords around his lines, and then she’d take one and riff on it, while he strummed behind her. They traded solos for a little while until her fingertips burned.

Leah laughed and threw up her hands. “You’re in shape for this! I’m not! I surrender!”

“That’s probably the only good thing about being on tour for twenty-eight days straight,” laughed Ben. “So I get the impression you know who I am, but I don’t know who you are.”

“My name’s Leah. I do know who you are. I saw you in Denver the other night, and I came out to interview you in Brighton a few years back. And, well, I’m just another musician making stuff up in my room,” Leah replied, suddenly feeling more than shy: tongue-tied.

“Well, you’re good. You ought to keep doing it. You know how to listen. Amazing how many people don’t know that. They know how to play, but they don’t learn how to listen. Do you play with other people?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, you should. Lots.”

Leah blushed furiously and put down the instrument. “I guess I’ll take this one home then,” she said. “It seems to be good luck.” Immediately she regretted saying it that way. But he didn’t seem to notice.

“How about you? Are you buying a guitar today?”

“Oh, I doubt it. But it’s always fun to look, innit? Hey, nice playing with you. Good luck to ya,” Ben said with a broad smile.

Leah reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thanks! That means a lot to me, you know. Take care. Get some rest!”

“Right. Cheers!”

Leah walked out of the shop with her head filled with Ben’s words of praise, her ad posted on the bulletin board, a beautiful new guitar in a hard case, and a flying good mood that kept all her old doubts at bay for another hour.

Yet where Leah’s musical meeting with one of her guitar heroes would have only a couple of days ago sent her farther into her fantasy world, dreaming of all the potential doors it could open in her life (Maybe I really could play with them on a stage some day!), an hour later she saw it for what it was: a brief, chance encounter that wouldn’t change his life or hers. In their world, she had little significance, even when she'd had the opportunity to talk and play one-on-one. She saw how much harder she would have to work now to create her own textures and colors and possibilities, instead of relying on the members of Gomez to provide them. Or on anyone else for that matter.