Going Solo (New Song) (2 page)

"I got plain donuts," she said biting into one. "It was a weak attempt to pacify myself that it is not as unhealthy as the ones with coating."

She licked her lip and then bit into the donut. "Oh, by the way, I have the balance sheet stapled up here. She pointed to another sheet of paper on the notice board. We are in the black."

"So can we set up a gym here then?" Logan asked. "I think it would be a wonderful idea to work out here."

"No," Melody said, shaking her head, "You guys all have access to gyms and gym equipment. Bring the equipment here and work out. I want to spend the money on stuff to do with the band: traveling expenses, et cetera, and I want to talk about uniforms."

Ian rolled his eyes. "I am not wearing any uniform, especially if it has anything to do with a suit and tie."

Melody smirked. "We'll see about that." She picked up her bag. "Have a good practice." She waved at them and left.

Logan blew kisses in her direction and smiled, looking at his other band mates. "The Bible is right: ‘He that findeth a wife findeth a good thing.’" He headed to the mini fridge and took out a bottle of water.

Carson snorted. "I beg to differ."

"Oh, yes." Logan loosened his tie, and looked back at Carson, "Mia claimed that she saw Alice."

"But Mia doesn't know Alice." Ian chipped in. "She may have seen somebody who looks like a picture she has seen of her."

Carson shrugged. "I don't know. The person made enough of an impact to spook Mia and the lady was asking about me."

Aaron put down the guitar and picked up the saxophone. "I hope it's her and she's really here. Then you can move on with your life. Get a divorce. Marry that girl at church who has been making bug eyes at you since forever. What's her name again?"

"Pat," Carson said softly. "Patsy Henry."

Ian snorted, "I don't like her for you. She's too... something, can't pinpoint what it is."

"She's not Alice." Logan said raising his eyebrows at Ian. "That's a big negative right there."

"No," Ian said frowning. "I don't mind if Carson moves on with somebody else. Ten years is a long time. I often encouraged him to do so through the years. I think Alice was cold hearted and..."

"Here we go again." Carson sighed, "Ian, I know what you think and I know what Ruby thinks too. By the way, tell her to stop feeding bad information about Alice to Mia."

Carson looked at his watch. "Where is Jayce? It's almost five-twenty. I can't stay too late tonight. I have a vulnerable, needy little girl who needs some daddy time."

"She needs some
mommy time
if you ask me." Ian snorted, "And I won't be telling Ruby anything. We were all there when Alice was around, Carson. We remember. We are your family. We had to pick up the pieces when that poor excuse of a woman left. Remember how it was, Aaron?" Ian asked earnestly.

Aaron nodded solemnly. "Carson was a wreck, wasn't eating or sleeping."

Logan was sipping on his water quietly. He touched Carson on his shoulder. "I am here if you need anything, Bud."

Carson nodded. "Yes, I know."

He sighed and leaned back in the chair, clasping and unclasping his hand. He remembered how it was too. Oh Lord, did he remember. At first he understood but as the years went by without contact with Alice, he had gotten a bit bitter. He had concluded that Alice had never loved him enough to stay.

"I am here." Jayce walked through the door, puffing like he was on the verge of an asthma attack. By the looks of him, the gym would be justified. Before reaching inside, he would always start complaining about having to climb the stairs. He looked at his band members, his eyes settling on Carson and his raised eyebrows.

"Believe you, me, I have a good reason why I am so late."

He looked at the digital clock on the wall and then shut the door, leaning up against the wall and puffing.

"I spotted this lady behind the wheels of a gray Honda Civic; she was right beside me in the traffic, heading in this direction. Her car window was down and she was nodding her head to some music and..." Jayce paused breathlessly.

"Why don't you stop chasing ladies, Jayce?" Ian grinned.

Jayce wheezed, "I wasn't chasing her for me, I was chasing her because I said to myself,
Why does that lady look so familiar?
I actually followed her all the way to the Hip Strip. She was sitting on the sea wall, crying. I mean like heaving, puffing kind of crying, the kind of crying you do when your heart is broken beyond repair. I must have made a sound cause she turned around, and when she did, I saw that it was Alice, Alice Murray... er... Alice Bell. Our eyes connected and I should have waved, but I just reversed and got the hell out of there." He walked toward the pastry box and picked up a donut.

Carson's heartbeat was doing a funny tripping thing by the time Jayce was finished speaking. His breathing was not quite even. He inhaled, "Guys," he stood up. "I can't stay for practice tonight."

The guys nodded with understanding.

"We'll sing an old favorite for the item at the church rally this weekend," Ian said quickly. "Maybe Jayce can take the lead in the song?"

Jayce nodded. He was looking contrite. He did not mean to blurt out his sighting of Alice like that. It was insensitive. It may have been years since she left but Alice had always been Carson's weakness. She was both his poison and the antidote.

Carson felt his pocket for his car keys and mumbled. "I am sorry about this."

"Go," Aaron said firmly. "Give Mia an extra kiss for us tonight."

*****

Carson drove into the quiet middle class neighborhood where they lived. He turned left onto Sunrise Drive and slowly crawled up the hill. Mia was looking out the window; her face looked sad. Usually she was talking a mile a minute but this evening she was ominously quiet. Her ponytail was undone, and she looked as if she had taken her fingers and pulled her neatly combed hair all over her head.

He patted her leg reassuringly then concentrated on the road. Alice would not know where they lived now. The thought came to him as he pulled into the garage of their four-bedroom house. They had only moved in two years ago. He had scrimped and saved, and put every bit of excess he had into building this home. It was a difficult few years because he had expanded the business as well.

The house had a big yard, with a lawn, and a nice enough view of the city of Montego Bay. If you went upstairs, you could even catch a glimpse of the sea. Living on one side of him was a lawyer and on the other was a sprightly returning resident couple that he sometimes leaned on to baby-sit Mia. It was a far cry from his old neighborhood that was littered with zinc fences and board houses, in cramped yards with outdoor kitchens and bathroom sheds.

He sometimes felt surreal when he drove into the community. This was a very different atmosphere from the district where he and Alice grew up.

The garage door closed behind them and he turned off the car. "Aren't you coming out, Muffin?" He looked at Mia.

She nodded listlessly and clutched her backpack to her chest. "I don't feel like eating," she said, looking at her father.

"Come on, Mia." Carson said, getting out of the car. "You were fiery this evening. You had energy, verve and spirit. You were defiant. You wanted us to slam the door in Alice's face with disdain, and then suddenly you now have no energy."

"I have thought about it over and over," Mia said, walking behind him as he opened the door leading to the kitchen, "and, I concluded, that something must be wrong with me for my own mother to abandon me."

Mia walked past him and went into the kitchen, dropping her backpack on the floor.

Carson grimaced. "Then something must be wrong with me because she left me too."

Mia sat around a barstool. She was so self-absorbed that she did not hear her father's attempt to get her to lighten up. "Am I ugly, Daddy?"

"God, no!" Carson said feelingly. "You are the most gorgeous twelve-year-old ever, and you are very beautiful where it counts most—your attitude and how you treat others. You, my girl, are a gem."

Mia giggled. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." Carson hugged her to him and closed his eyes. She reminded him of her mother at this age, beautiful inside and out. He released her.

"Go bathe. You smell like that stray dog that you have been playing with at the shop."

When she marched off to her room, he picked up her backpack from the kitchen floor and sighed.

Dinner felt almost normal. They had Mia's current favorite dish, macaroni and cheese, and they skirted the issue that was uppermost in both their minds—Alice. They watched a documentary together in the living room until Mia fell asleep on his shoulder. He scooped her up and carried her to bed upstairs, tucking her under her zebra sheets. He was grateful that she was not awake to ask him questions about Alice.

He turned off the television and sat in his recliner. He was not ready to go into his room just yet. He turned off the lights and sat in the dark. Only then did he allow the flood banks of his memory to be released. He closed his eyes from the impact of it.

Chapter Two

Summer 1990

Carson was sure that there were important things going on in the world that summer. Yet for him the hottest song that was ever made was getting heavy rotation on the radio. He could not control himself, even in church he was singing M.C. Hammer's
Can’t Touch This
. It seemed as if everyone was using the “you can't touch this” line.

He was bopping his head and swinging his body in the back row of Sister Kirk's class at church. She was looking over her glasses, her church wig slightly askew. She was talking about Samson and how disobedient he was, and how it resulted in him being ultimately blinded and dying with his enemies. She had pointedly looked towards the back where Carson, Ian, and Xavier were sitting. Whenever she looked away, Carson would whisper, "All the talk you talk, you can't touch this." It sent Xavier into a giggling fit, and Ian would imitate the neck movement that M.C. Hammer made while dancing.

Before long, Aaron was looking around. He was placed one bench ahead of them by design. Sister Kirk did not want them sitting together. Aaron's fair skin was flushed. The effort it took to ignore his friends was telling. "I have it on cassette." Aaron whispered.

"You do?" Ian asked, his mouth hanging open. "Cassette?"

"Yup and daddy bought me a walkman, so I listened to it all day yesterday." Aaron continued. His wavy hair was slicked back. He looked slightly oily, as if his mother had smeared his forehead with the oil.

"Can we get a listen?" Ian asked, his eyes widening in wonder. Having a walkman was a very big deal to him and Carson. Their parents could barely find food much less buy a frivolous item such as a walkman.

"Listen to what?" Sister Kirk's voice seemed louder and when Carson looked up, he saw that she was almost on top of them.

"You boys!" she huffed, "You are talking about devil music in my class…on the Sabbath?" Her voice was accusing. "I divided you, seated you in twos in different rows, and you still managed to disrupt the class! Okay." She slowly and purposely removed her glasses then said, "So you love music. Do you?"

"Yes." Carson nodded vigorously.

"Well," Sister Kirk said, "all six of you, get up here." She hobbled back to her seat at the front of the class. She had recently acquired the limp from a dog bite and she had unwisely treated it with candle wax and various herbs. The sore had festered and she had finally been forced to go to the doctor for treatment.

"But we didn't do anything!" Jayce said, pointing to himself and Logan. "We are at the front."

"You are guilty by association!" Sister Kirk said sternly. "All six of you are like one guilty mind."

When all six of them gathered at the front of the eighteen-member class, Sister Kirk nodded. "Now boys, I want you to find Psalm 96."

They all had blue Gideon International Bibles that they had gotten from their school. Those Bibles only had the New Testament and the books of Psalms and Proverbs. They took them out of their pockets reluctantly.

"Now," she said, "these six boys will read the first three verses. No mistakes or else you will have to start over."

It took them a while to find Psalm 96. It had so many verses and when they eventually found it, Sister Kirk had them stand beside each other in a straight line so that she could see their lips moving.

"Start," she intoned threateningly.

Together they read, "Sing to the
Lord
a new song; sing to the
Lord
, all the earth. Sing to the
Lord
, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.
 
Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples."

Ian kept mispronouncing the word "proclaim", and they had to start over several times until they finally got it right.

"Now," Sister Kirk said with a glint in her eyes, "I want you six to sing to the Lord a new song, not that devilish song you enjoy so much. Since you like music so much, I figure you should be singing to the Lord. Don't you think? Didn't the verse just state that you should sing a new song?" They all nodded like automatons.