Where We Belong (37 page)

“Damn. You really
are
my daughter.”

“Yeah,” I say, getting goose bumps. “I am.” I take a long drink of my Coke, ditching the straw on the bar, then say, “What about you? Marian told me that you used to play in a grunge band?”

He visibly bristles at the mention of her and says, “That was a long time ago. But yeah, I used to live in flannel shirts and loved that sludgy guitar sound with all the fuzz and feedback. I played all that stuff.”

“Like what?” I say.

“Nirvana. Pearl Jam. Alice in Chains. Mudhoney.” He looks fleetingly wistful, then shakes his head and says, “That was a long time ago. I’ve diversified since then.”

“Diversified to what?” I say, still trying hard to be cool, still mystified over how handsome my
father
is. It is a little unsettling actually.

“A little bit of everything. Like you. From Mike & the Mechanics to Bo Diddley to the Violent Femmes. I love classic rock. The Stones, the Beatles, Bob Dylan. Hell, I even listen to country. You get a little older and you might appreciate the simplicity of those lyrics. It’s authentic. No pretense. I mean—Waylon Jennings? Hank Williams? You gotta like those guys.”

I think of Philip’s T-shirt and say, “Yeah. But they’re not really country.”

“The hell!” He laughs. “How do you figure?”

“They’re from the Golden Age.”

“The Golden Age, huh?” he says. “How old are you again?”

“Eighteen,” I say, and his face changes again, as I wonder whether he’s thinking about her.
Eighteen years ago.
That’s when I blurt out, “So how pissed are you at her?”

I expect him to look surprised, or play it off, but instead he shakes his head, the answer clear even before he replies, “Pretty damn pissed.”

I nod, looking down at my cardboard coaster.

“Let’s be clear here, though. I’m pissed at
her.
Not you,” he says, which might seem like it should be a given by now, but still fills me with joy to hear him confirm it. “What she did was really…” He starts to say “fucked up,” but changes it to “messed up.”

“I know it was,” I say, looking into his eyes. “She knows it, too.”

“Yeah. Well.” He shrugs then cracks his knuckles.

“She was scared,” I say. “Too scared to keep me.”

“She didn’t have to keep you to tell me.”

“I don’t think she wanted
you
to keep me, either.”

“That’s pretty obvious.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“But you know,” he says, “that really wasn’t up to her.”

I say, “If you kept me, everyone would have known. She didn’t want that.”

“Again,” he says, folding a napkin in half, then quarters. “That wasn’t up to her. Even if she ultimately made the right decision for you—and it sounds like she did—she still had no right not to tell me about my own kid.”

“I know.”

We are both quiet for a second until he finally speaks.

“Well. She got her ivory-tower life. So that’s all good. For her.”

I know what he’s getting at—that neither of us was part of her grand plan for her grand life on Fifth Avenue. And although I know I should resent her, too, I can’t help feeling sorry for her, especially because I think she would change things if she could.

“Her life’s not perfect,” I say, a sudden revelation to me. “I don’t even know if she’s that happy. With all her success and money. I mean … she has this ridiculous apartment in New York—and a rich boyfriend who is probably going to propose any day now, and owns, like, the whole network…”

Conrad holds up his hand and says, “Yeah. It’s cool. But I don’t really need to know the details.”

“Right,” I say. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” he says again. “Look. It’s no big deal … It’s just … Marian and I are different. Very different. We always were.”

“Are you married?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nah … But I was. For about three years.”

“Did you have kids?” I ask, nervously awaiting his answer, although I’m not sure what I want it to be. It would be pretty neat to have a half sibling with him as our father—and I have the feeling that any kid of his would be okay with me, and probably a whole lot more like me than Charlotte. Then again, it’d be pretty awesome to have him all to myself, too.

“No kids,” he says. “She didn’t want them.”

“But you did?”

“Very much so.” He smiles at me, and I feel a chill run up my spine, thrilled to hear him say this, so much more unequivocally than Marian ever has.

“Is that why you split up with her?” I ask, thinking it’d be ironic if having a baby factored into his one breakup and not having one factored into the other.

He laughs, exchanging a look with the bartender who seems to be eavesdropping on our conversation, or at least keeping very diligent tabs on our drinks. “Not exactly.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I know that’s really none of my business.”

“No. That’s okay,” he says. “But you might as well ask her.” He points at Stephanie and says, “She’s the ex. Hell of a bartender. Shitty wife.”

Stephanie throws a lime wedge at him that he bats back over the bar. “Hey! Check yourself. I wasn’t
that
bad.”

“Yeah. If you hadn’t been pretending to be straight, you would have been the perfect wife.”

They both laugh, clearly no hard feelings between them. “I’m
bi.
Get
that
straight. And you weren’t exactly easy to live with, babe…” Stephanie laughs some more, then migrates to the other end of the bar to make a margarita. As I watch her grinding the top of the glass into a dish of salt, I say, “Does she know who I am?”

Conrad shakes his head. “Nope. I haven’t told anyone yet.” He looks at me, starts to say something, then thinks better of it.

“What?” I say.

He glances back over his shoulder toward the stage and says, “I was just going to tell you that she
does
know who your mother is.”

“How?” I ask, wondering if she went to school with them.

“Because,” he says, shrugging.

I don’t let him off the hook, but keep staring at him until he says, “Because Marian was the love of my life. For a long time. And that’s the kind of information you share when you’re young and stupid and hoping that you’re in something that is going to be even bigger and better than what you once lost. It’s the kind of shit you waste your time thinking about. Lemme tell you—it does no good. Remember that, okay? Things are what they are and there’s no point dwelling in the past or wondering what could have been.”

I stare at him, and he stares right back at me. “I know, I know. The love of my life doesn’t even tell me when she has my kid. Isn’t that some pathetic shit?” He shakes his head with a little laugh.

“It’s not pathetic,” I say.

“Yeah. Well, it has to say something—”

“I don’t think it says
anything
about you. Or me,” I say, the truth crystallizing in my head. “I think it says something about
her
. The person she once was.”

“And still is,” he says. “People don’t change.”

I tell him I’m not so sure about that, realizing how foolish I probably sound imparting wisdom to someone twice my age. My own
father.

Sure enough, he gives me a skeptical look. “Oh, really?”

“Okay. You might be right,” I say. “But at least she
tried
to fix it. She’s the one who found you, ya know? And she showed up today.”

“Sort of eighteen years too late, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” I say. “But at least we’re here now.”

He smiles, takes a long swallow of beer, and says, “Yeah. That’s a good point, drummer girl. A good way to look at life. Try to keep that up if you can.”

I smile, thinking that it doesn’t sound like me; it sounds like my parents. Like Charlotte.
Look on the bright side. Be grateful for what you have. Count your blessings. Optimism is the foundation of courage.
I feel a sudden wave of homesickness, but not the kind that makes you sad. The kind that reminds you of who you are and where you come from.

“So what are your parents like?” I ask him, sure that they are nothing like Marian’s folks.

“My dad is a bit of a nomad. Pie-in-the-sky drifter. He’s been married three times and has never really held a steady job because, you know, all of his bosses are idiots. So don’t count on him for shit … But he’s likable. Never had an enemy.”

“What about your mom?” I say.

Conrad looks at me, his eyes changing suddenly. “My mom died in a car accident when I was eleven.”

My heart sinks. “Oh … I’m sorry,” I say, wondering why Marian hadn’t told me such an important fact about him.

“Yeah. It sucked. She was an awesome mother … And I’m not just saying that because she died. She really
was
special. She had this way of making everything fun—even when we were dirt poor. And man, could she sing. Gorgeous mezzo-soprano.”

I feel myself grinning as he says, “Is that what you are?”

I nod.

“That’s really cool,” he says, smiling back at me. “So what do you think? You wanna play tonight? Sing a little?”

“On stage?” I say.

He laughs and says, “Yeah. On stage. Drum kit right up there.”

I shake my head and tell him I don’t think so.

“Why not?”

I shrug.

“You ever played live? In front of an audience?”

I shake my head.

“Well, then, it’s about time, don’t you think?”

I shake my head again, this time smiling.

“C’mon. We can do it together,” he says, sliding off the stool and leading me to the back of the room toward the stage. “You pick the song. I’m cool with anything.”

“Anything?” I say, the music getting louder as we approach the main speakers.

“Just about,” he says.

We sit at a small table just to the left of the stage, marked with a little folded reserved sign, as he orders us burgers and fries and another Coke for me. Meanwhile, a steady stream of people come up to him, say hello, ask when he’s going to sing, some even making requests.

“We’re debating that now,” he says, pointing to me, introducing me as “Kirby, a drummer and my partner tonight.”

Two hours pass quickly, with lots of good conversation and music. The crowd isn’t at all judgmental, seeming to appreciate every effort, but that doesn’t lessen the terror I feel that Conrad might actually make me get up on stage. Every few minutes he suggests a song, which I dismiss for one reason or another—the meaning, the lack of a distinct drum break, the fact that I simply don’t like it. Mostly I’m stalling, though, vetoing some of my favorites that I know I can sing and play such as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and Neil Young’s “Good to See You.”

Around quarter to eleven, when he says, “C’mon, Kirby, what do you got to lose?” I finally bite the bullet and agree to Pearl Jam’s “Small Town,” his suggestion.

“You mean ‘Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town’?” I say, recalling Eddie Vedder saying in an interview that the unabridged title was a reaction to the band’s mostly one-word song titles.

“That’s the one,” he says. “You know it?”

I nod, going over the lyrics in my head.

He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and says he hasn’t played it since the summer of 1995.

“Then it sounds appropriate, huh?” I say.

“Well, I guess so,” he says, grinning, bending down the brim of his cap in such a way that it hides his eyes. “Let’s do it.”

My heart pounding, we make our way on stage, as I take my seat on a stool behind a DW drum set in a titanium sparkle finish, a real beauty. I feel my way around it, working the pedals, gripping the sticks, even testing them out. I decide I will skip the cymbals, the way the great Moe always did.

I watch Conrad take the mic, the crowd treating him like a huge star, everyone sitting up straighter, smiling more broadly, clapping or whistling in anticipation. He is not only the owner, but clearly a crowd favorite.

“Good evening, everyone,” he begins, his voice even deeper over the speakers. He spins his cap around, the brim now in the back.

A few dozen people bellow out his name; others wish him a “good evening” back.

“Tonight I’d like to introduce you to the great Kirby Rose. A talented drummer visiting us from St. Louis. I haven’t known her for very long,” he says, turning back to look in my eyes. “But she’s a solid girl. I really like her. And I know you will, too. So let’s give her a warm, Zelda-style welcome.”

The crowd begins to wildly applaud as I feel like I might faint, sweat pouring out of every pore, the bright lights burning my eyes. Gripped with fear, I watch Conrad walk to the edge of the stage, remove his guitar from a case covered with bumper stickers, then throw the strap over his head, strumming a few chords. Just as I’m about to pass out, he turns, walks a few paces over to me, and says, “Just relax. Take a few deep breaths. And follow my lead. You can do this, kid.”

I nod, hearing the rhythm of the song in my head, the way I always do right before I begin to play.

And then the bar falls silent, everyone watching, waiting, as Conrad begins to strum his guitar, then sing the words, his tenor smooth and rich, reminding me of Eddie but with his own distinct, scratchy sound.

I seem to recognize your face. Haunting, familiar yet I can’t seem to place it.

I have chills, despite the heat of the stage, as the beat of the song comes to me, as naturally as all the notes do for him. At one point, he walks over and tells me to sing. I shake my head. And he says, “C’mon, Kirby. I wanna hear you. Sing, girl.”

So I do, finding an impromptu harmony, singing tentatively at first, then as strong as I’m drumming.
Well, my God it’s been so long. Never dreamed you’d return. But now here you are and here I am.

That’s when I look up and see her, standing in the back of the room, next to the bar, watching us.

“She’s here,” I tell him, the next time he comes near me.

He reads my lips, gives me a slight nod. Maybe he’s already spotted her, but I can hear him, see him,
feel
him suddenly playing with even more passion. He closes his eyes, strumming as I drum, both of us singing together: