Crossroads Read online

  She was definitely still a bit stoned. There was a delay in her processing. Then sudden clarity: “Are you a music agent?”

  “In my own little way.”

  “Tell me your name again?”

  “It’s Gig—Guglielmo, for the adventurous. Gig Benedetti.”

  “You’re here to see the Bleu Notes.”

  He seemed delighted with her. His eyes darted down to her body and back up to her face. “Either you’re a very good guesser, or you’re the person I’m hoping you might be.”

  “Which person is that?”

  “The one with the voice. I’m told it’s gotta be heard to be believed.”

  There was another delay in her comprehension and then a clutching fear. The voice could only be Laura’s. Until this moment, Becky hadn’t given one thought to her encounter with Laura behind the church. It was like a drunk-driving accident she’d fled the scene of and forgotten.

  “You must mean Laura,” she said.

  “Laura, yeah, that sounds right. Obviously, if you’re Becky, you’re not Laura.”

  “Definitely not Laura.”

  “You had my hopes up for a minute. There’s ten freaking inches of snow out there. The only reason I’m waiting around is to hear that girl sing.”

  Now there was no delay in Becky’s comprehension—she was immediately offended. Gig ought to have been waiting to hear Tanner, who was at least as talented as Laura and was the one with the ambition. Laura didn’t even care about getting an agent.

  “It’s really more Tanner’s band,” she said.

  “Tanner, right. Talked to him this afternoon. Nice guy. Friend of yours?”

  “Very good friend, yes.”

  Again his eyes went up and down her body, lingering at her breasts. It was a thing older men had been doing more and more often, especially at the Grove. It was gross.

  “So, his girlfriend?” Gig said casually.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh, well then. How would you feel about grabbing a drink with me?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I thought, they’re playing a church, how late can this thing go? I thought I’d be outta here by nine, nine thirty at the latest. But, no, we gotta hear from Peter Paul and Betty Lou. We gotta hear from Donny Osmond Santana and the Lilywhites. I’m not hitting on you, Becky. Or, like you say, not exactly. I just happened to notice a little tavern down the street. It could be an another freaking hour before we see your headliners.”

  “I don’t drink,” she said, as if this were the issue.

  “Pfff.”

  “Also, I’m pretty much with Tanner, so.”

  “Good, good. We’re up to pretty much. But that’s all the more reason you should get to know me. I’m praying to God these guys are—wait. Are you in the band?”

  “No.”

  “More’s the pity. My point is, if I can’t sign them, I suffered through Peter Paul and Betty Lou and drove eight miles in a blizzard for no reason. I’m already favorably predisposed, if you take my meaning, and if they end up signing I’ll be seeing you around. Why not start things off with a little drink?”

  “I can’t. In fact, I should be—”

  “Follow-up question: Why aren’t you in the band?”

  “Me? I’m not musical.”

  “Everybody’s musical. Have you tried the tambourine?”

  She stared at him. There was a gold chain around his neck.

  “The reason I ask,” he said, “is your presentation is extremely classy. I could really dig seeing you on a stage.”

  She tried to unfog her brain and calculate whether being nice to Gig would further incline him to sign the Bleu Notes, or whether she should even want him to be Tanner’s agent, given his apparently icky character. Deeper in the fog was the upsetting news that he was there to hear Laura.

  “Ugh, listen to me,” he said. “I totally sound like I’m hitting on you, although I bet you get that all the time. You’re a seriously good-looking girl. If I may say so, it’s good to see you dressing like you know it. I don’t think I ever saw a dowdier crowd than what’s downstairs. Clodhoppers and overalls and thermal underwear—is it a religious thing?”

  “It’s just the style of the youth group.”

  “Which you don’t want any part of. I get it. I presume that’s why you’re up here hiding?”

  In the sanctuary, Becky had promised Jesus that she would live in accordance with his teachings and not shy from proclaiming it. Now she could see how much courage it would take to be a Christian in the mundane world. “No,” she said. “I came up here to pray.”

  “Oh boy.” Gig laughed. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, being as we’re in a church. But—pardon my forwardness. I didn’t realize.”

  “It’s okay. It’s actually the first time I’ve ever really prayed.”

  “My timing perfect as always.”

  It was wrong to apologize for praying, but she didn’t want to hurt the Bleu Notes’ chances. “It’s just me,” she said. “The band isn’t, you know, religious or anything.”

  “I don’t care if they’re Hare Krishnas, as long as they show up on time and play some Billboard hits. Which, by the way, I’m serious about the tambourine. You can be as Christian as you want on the inside—it’s all about keeping people buying drinks. That is the sad little secret of the business I’m in. Something for the ears, something for the eyes.” His own eyes went up and down her yet again. “‘Why, yes, we’ll have another round.’”

  “I’m sorry,” Becky said, “but I’m so hungry. I need to go eat something.”

  Gig peeled back an apricot leather sleeve and exposed an enormous watch. “Not sure we quite have time for dinner, but there’s bound to be something salty at the tavern.”

  “The band is really excited that you’re here, I—I’ll see you later, okay?”

  She ran away, actually ran, for fear of being pursued. At New Prospect Township, one little flick of her disdain was enough to drive away aggressive boys, and at the Grove, whenever an older man tried to flirt with her, she frostily asked him for his order. If she ended up with Tanner, despite her new willingness to renounce him, she would be entering a world of older men, men like Gig. If only to help Tanner professionally, she would need to learn to play the game. It was disturbing to think that her looks might be of use to him. When she saw people flirting, she saw people who wanted to have sex, and sex still seemed more than gross to her; it seemed—wrong. In the light of her religious experience, it seemed even wronger. Sweet though Tanner was, there was little doubt that he had sex with Laura. Maybe it really would be better to leave them to it and simply be his friend.

  Halfway down the church’s central staircase was a landing that led to the rear parking lot. Outside the glass door, someone in a peacoat was smoking a cigarette in the snow. With a lurch in her heart, she saw that it was Clem.

  She hesitated on the landing. Catching sight of Clem usually brought a rush of happiness, but the feeling she had now was the opposite of happy. His new peacoat reminded her of the walk they’d taken at Thanksgiving, his boasting about sex with his college girlfriend, but it was more than that. She was afraid of his judgment. She’d smoked marijuana, and, worse yet, she’d been praying. He was so contemptuous of religion, he would make her ashamed of finding God.

  Worried that he’d come to the church specifically to see her, she continued down the stairs. She thought she was in the clear, but the door behind her clanked open, and Clem called her name. She looked back guiltily. “Oh, hey.”

  “Hi, hi, hi,” he said, running down to her.

  His peacoat, when he hugged her, smelled of winter air and cigarettes, and he wouldn’t let go. She had to squirm to extricate herself.

  “Where have you been?” he accused. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “I was just … I’m getting something to eat.”

  She started down the corridor to the function hall.

  “Wait,” Clem said,
grabbing her arm. “We need to talk. There’s stuff I have to tell you.”

  She yanked her arm away. “I’m really hungry.”

  “Becky—”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I need food.”

  The function hall was much hotter than the corridor. Raising her arms to make herself narrower, she entered a humid thicket of dark bodies. Hands were clapping to the beat of Biff Allard and his congas, and Gig was right: he looked like Donny Osmond. The crowd was so large that it pressed against the food tables in the back. Becky went around behind them, pursued by Clem. The first table was nearly depleted, but there was still a respectable wedge of Bundt cake, spangled with red and green cherries. She took out her pocketbook, paid for a slice, and retreated to the back wall to eat it.

  “Where have you been?” Clem shouted.

  Her mouth full, she waved a limp hand. Clem was practically thrashing with impatience. She was relieved to see Kim Perkins and David Goya coming their way.

  “There you are,” Kim shouted. “You had us worried.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Kim reached for a fragment of Bundt cake, and Becky raised the paper plate above her head. Kim made a jumping pass at it.

  “Down, girl,” David shouted.

  From the stage came a thunderous coda, every instrument at full volume. The hall erupted in applause.

  “Thank you,” Biff Allard shouted. “We’ve still got one act coming, our own Tanner Evans and Laura Dobrinsky, with the one and only Bleu Notes, so stick around! Good night!”

  The hall lights came up. Becky ate the last bite of cake feeling more famished, not less.

  “I should have warned you,” David said to her. “That shit is pretty killer. They grow it indoors in Montreal.” He patted her arm, as if to make sure she really was intact, and nodded to Clem. “Thanks for finding her.”

  Clem was watching them with a demented kind of fixity, his face haggard.

  “I need more food,” she said.

  “Somebody has the munchies,” Kim said.

  A woman on a mission, Becky marched over to the other food table. In the middle of it, as in a holy vision, sat two-thirds of a loaf of cheese-and-chive bread.

  “Can I have, like, all of that?” she asked the sophomore boy taking money.

  “Sure. Buck-fifty?”

  This was too little, but she didn’t offer more. When she turned away from the table, clutching the bread like a squirrel, Kim was there to grab at it.

  “Fine, fine,” Becky said, tearing off a hunk.

  David, in his harmless way, had engaged Clem in some topic of interest to himself, and she took the opportunity to slip through the crowd and back out to the corridor, where there was a drinking fountain. The bread was delicious but her throat was parched. While she was bent over the fountain, someone came up behind her. Afraid that it was Clem, she kept drinking.

  “Becky.”

  The voice was Tanner’s. Turning around, she experienced the rush of joy that seeing Clem hadn’t given her. Somehow her intention to renounce Tanner had made him even more gorgeous. He was like a young Jesus in a fringed suede jacket. Without saying a word, he took her head in his hands and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  She was too surprised to kiss him back. Her arms hung at her sides, the ridiculous bread in one hand. By the time she got over her surprise, he was pulling her away from the fountain and leading her up the hallway.

  “We’re so fucked,” he said. “Laura’s gone. She went home.”

  “She went home?”

  “An hour ago. She quit the band.”

  Becky was horrified. It was like learning that the accident she’d fled the scene of had been fatal. So much for Gig hearing the voice he’d come to hear.

  “Just play,” she bravely said. “You’ll be great. I saw the agent upstairs—he’s been waiting to hear you.”

  Tanner stopped in the front hall and looked around it, very agitated. When his eyes alighted on Becky, it was as if she was the very thing he’d been looking for. He took her head in his hands again. “I did what you asked me to.”

  “Oh.”

  “But now—I had to redo the whole playlist. I’m not sure Biff and Darryl know half of it.”

  “It’ll be fine. Gig told me he wants to sign you.”

  “You talked to him? What’s he like?”

  “I don’t know. Just—a guy.”

  “Shit. Shit shit shit.” Tanner let go of her and gazed down the corridor, toward the function hall, where failure awaited him. “Tonight of all nights. I really didn’t—and now—shit. It’s going to be a mess.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You were right. It had to be done.”

  “Okay, but…” She took a breath. “Something amazing just happened to me. Upstairs, in the sanctuary. Tanner, it was so amazing. I think I saw God.”

  This got his attention.

  “I want to be a Christian,” she said. “I want you to help me be a real Christian. Even if it means—I don’t know what it means. For us, I mean. Will you help me?”

  “You saw God?”

  “I think so. I was praying for the longest time. I could feel God in me—I could feel Jesus. He was there.”

  “Wow.”

  “Have you ever felt that?”

  He didn’t answer. He seemed a little frightened of her.

  “You can go back to Laura,” she said. “I shouldn’t have tried to pressure you. It was selfish of me, and I wanted to tell you that. I want to be a better person. If you just want to be friends with me, or whatever, it’s really all right. I’m sorry I pressured you.”

  He stared at her. “Do you not want this?”

  “I don’t know. I did, but—I’m saying there’s no hurry. I bet if you went back to her now—maybe you should go back to her. Tell her you’re sorry and see if she’ll play with you.”

  “We’re going on in ten minutes!”

  “You can be a little late, no one’s going to leave. You should go. Just go. Go get Laura.”

  Tanner seemed confounded. “But you made such a big deal out of this.”

  “I’m sorry! It was wrong! I’m sorry!” Becky threw up her hands and found a loaf of bread in one of them. She set it down on a table arrayed with church-related literature. Tanner enveloped her again.

  “You’re the person I want to be with,” he said. “I should have been clear about that. I’m crazy about you. This is going to be a really hard show, but I’m not sorry about Laura.”

  Over Tanner’s shoulder, Becky saw Clem standing halfway down the corridor. He looked—demented. A few hours ago, she’d wanted nothing more than to be seen in Tanner’s arms, and now the impediment of Laura had been removed, now her wish was coming true; but the person seeing her was Clem.

  She wriggled free of Tanner. “You need to go and get her.”

  “No way.”

  “Well, someone needs to get her. You need your full sound tonight.”

  “I don’t even care. The only thing that matters is that you believe in me.”

  “Yes, but you still need to get her. Just say—whatever it takes, just say it.”

  “Are you saying you don’t believe in me?”

  “No, I do, but…” Becky imagined Gig Benedetti’s disappointment, his anger, when the Bleu Notes took the stage without the singer he’d come to hear. It was all her fault, and she had to make it right. “Where does she live?”

  “At this point, I doubt she’d even let me in the door.”

  “I’m saying let me go. I owe her a huge apology anyway.”

  “Are you kidding me? The only person she’s madder at than me is you.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “In the apartment above the drugstore. With Kay and Louise. But, Becky, there’s no way.”

  She buttoned her coat. She was reluctant to part with the cheese-and-chive bread, but it wasn’t a convenient thing to carry around. While she considered where to hide it, Clem walked up.
r />   “Clem,” Tanner said nervously. “Welcome back.”

  “I need to talk to my sister.”

  Becky unfolded a church bulletin and draped it over the bread, concealing it no better than she’d been concealed by Tanner’s blanket the night before. Tanner collared her from behind and kissed her cheek. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I need to know you’re in the audience.”

  He hurried off toward the function hall. The pleasure of his kiss had been killed by the discomfort of Clem’s seeing it. Without looking at her brother, she ran outside. There was a new layer of snow on the shoveled pavement, and Clem was right behind her.

  “Stop following me,” she said.

  “Why won’t you talk to me? Are you high on drugs? I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  She slipped on underlying ice, and he caught her by the wrist. “Tell me what is going on.”

  “Nothing. I have to talk to Laura.”

  “Dobrinsky? Why?”

  She wrenched her wrist free and pressed onward. “Because Tanner needs her to play and she won’t do it.”

  “So, wait. Are you and he—”

  “Yes! Okay? I’m with Tanner! Okay?”

  “But when did this happen?”

  “Stop following me.”

  “I’m just trying to—you’re with Tanner?”

  “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “You only said it once.”

  “I’m with Tanner and he’s with me. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “No. I’m just surprised. Davy Goya said—are you smoking pot now, too? Is that because of Tanner?”

  She strode alongside a ridge of plowed snow on Pirsig Avenue. “It had nothing to do with Tanner. It was just a mistake.”

  “I always wondered if he smoked pot.”

  “I can make my own decisions, Clem. I don’t need you to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. What I need right now is for you to stay out of my business.”

  She could see the drugstore ahead of her. Lights were on upstairs.

  “Fine,” Clem said huskily. “I’ll stay out of your business. Although I must say…”

  “What must you say.”

  “I don’t know. I’m just surprised. I mean—Tanner Evans? He’s a good guy. He’s super nice, but … not exactly a live wire. He’s kind of the definition of passive.”