I keep hoping that will be the case, just for a little while longer, but finally accept that sleep is not coming back. I get up and trudge downstairs to find Carlson Squared eating on the deck. It’s one of those warm, seasonless LA mornings, the sun scorching the patio, the nearby lemon tree fragrant.
“Hey, I made eggs,” says Dad. “And Aunt Jeanine called about shopping. You should call her back.”
Aunt Jeanine has been taking me shopping since I was little. I’m the surrogate daughter she gets to dote on. It sounds like the perfect distraction for this morning.
I call her back, and down a bagel in my room while doing some basic band business. I post to our BandSpace forum about the Forecast: Sweaters! show. One fan, TooSexyForYourShirt, has a cousin in South San Francisco, and soon we are chatting about putting up posters. I contact SarahFromTheValley, who’s been doing the influence photo art, and ask if she can make a poster. I get Petunia to give us five free show passes to give away and then I start a contest on the band’s LiveBeat page.
When all that is done, I find myself back in Val’s world. A quick search, and I find Melanie Fowler’s Facebook page.
Since we’re not friends, all I can see are her basic stats and profile picture. She doesn’t have an employer listed. The picture is a self-portrait with a bad, bright flash. She’s smiling but it’s hazy, her eyelids kinda half asleep, dark circles beneath. It looks like a photo from the bleary end of a long night. There’s a dude in a cowboy hat grinning around a beer beside her, a cigarette in his fingers. He doesn’t look all there either.
She has her photos locked down for Friends Only, but I can see her Likes. I click there. Nothing remarkable. Bands, movies, restaurants—
And Candy Shell Records.
Their page has fifty thousand likes, but . . . it seems like an unlikely coincidence. I do a search for Melanie and Candy Shell.
A few pages in, I find results. Melanie Fowler worked for a publicity company called Ultra-Lozenge. And they ran some promotion for Allegiance to North. Candy Shell bought them up in 2000. All of this suddenly seems too coincidental.
I text Maya. Can you do me a secret detective favor?
Sure!
Can you ask your coworker Bev about Melanie Fowler and Ultra-Lozenge Publicity and see if there’s anything scandalous there?
Sure! Do I get to ask what it’s about?
Not yet. Soon. I’ll owe you many chocolate croissants.
OK!
Aunt Jeanine picks me up at ten thirty and we head for Bloomingdales and its surrounding mall. Her little vanilla-colored Pomeranian, ironically named Cocoa Bean (or maybe a subtle hint from Aunt Jeanine to the world that someone’s appearance does not necessarily dictate who they are inside) yips from her shoulder bag/kennel in the back-seat. Aunt Jeanine works for a clean water nonprofit, and travels to West Africa a few times a year to manage well projects. I take care of Cocoa Bean when she’s gone. I call the dog “the weasel,” but it loves me.
“Sanu ki,” says Jeanine as I get in the car. “Ina aiki?”
“Aiki da godia,” I say, humoring her with the one phrase of Hausa she’s taught me. It always feels forced, these greetings, as they’re so different than how Carlson Squared operates, and yet I do think it’s cool that Aunt Jeanine has this solo, world-traveling life, even if it leads one to get a weasel dog instead of a proper canine.
I ask Jeanine about work so she’ll talk and I can just gaze out the window, answering her questions in mmms and one-word replies. It’s all Val in my mind, and as Jeanine goes on about next month’s trip to Niger, I try to make sense of what I know:
Val, formerly Cassie, runs away from New Jersey on Christmas and goes to Ithaca. She must have had someone to stay with. And after being there for six months, she comes here. I wonder if her mom tracked her down in New York state. But even if that’s the case, why come here? Why Caleb? Is that coincidence? Did she just happen to know someone out here and then wanted a band to play in? But then why not change her name again? And, is it also a coincidence that she shows up and auditions for Caleb’s band right around the time that Caleb is finding out about these hidden songs? But it’s ridiculous to think she could have known about that, isn’t it? Except her mother has old ties to Candy Shell and Allegiance to North . . . and something about all that makes her purpose in the band potentially . . . what? Sinister? Could she be after the songs? It seems unlikely. How could she have even known about them?
I need more information, but it’s going to be a long wait for Maya to get back to her internship and get the gossip. Despite the suspicious mom connection, at least I now half believe Val’s story last night: her home life is more than a mess; she has no home. And no matter what wild plots I might suspect, I have to try to remember it’s innocent until proven guilty. I can’t let my own issues with Val get in the way.
Also, the fact that Val’s mom was arrested and Val ran off isn’t something I can discount. There was a real police report. Real danger. Real pain. I can’t let my snooping lead to Val’s mom finding out where she is.
“Brunch first?” asks Jeanine as we park. “I’m starving.”
We go to the outdoor café and both order Belgian waffles. As we are digging in, Aunt Jeanine says, “So, your dad tells me you’re going on a college trip next weekend.”
Crap. “Yeah.”
“Let me guess: that lack of enthusiasm is because you don’t actually want to do law and he’s totally jumped on it?”
“I don’t know that I wouldn’t want to do law someday, but yes, that’s part of it.”
Aunt Jeanine smiles. “Your father has always been like that. And is your lack of enthusiasm also because you have plans to go to San Fran?”
I swallow a rush of anxious energy. “How did you know about that?” I wonder if she, too, is following my movements on Twitter. I keep all this stuff off Facebook, because I know most of my family is there. I thought Twitter was a family-free zone.
“Actually, I saw the listing in the SF Weekly,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for it, I just happened to be reading the last bit of an article and there were gig listings on the facing page, and there was Dangerheart.”
“There we are. . . .” I feel myself deflating. At least obsessing about Val had kept my mind off this. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”
Jeanine nods. “Donald is probably not going to go for the idea of you trading college visits for a band gig. He still pictures you as the twelve-year-old with braces who hangs on her father’s every word. He’s not quite ready for you to be your own person.”
“Especially if that person isn’t the one he was picturing.”
“I’m assuming that you plan on there being other gigs,” says Aunt Jeanine. “Is this one really so important? Couldn’t you just miss it and be at the next one?”
“It’s kinda the opposite,” I say. “This gig is more important than any future ones.”
“I see.” Aunt Jeanine feeds a chunk of waffle through the top of her bag to Cocoa Bean’s snapping jaws. Then she places her purse on the table. It’s a woven bag from Niger. It’s gorgeous but the leather was cured in camel urine, a very distinctive smell that tends to linger. She shuffles through the contents and produces a thin red envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Somebody’s favorite aunt happens to be going to San Francisco this weekend. She’s going to see an opera. Puccini’s Tosca. And she has an extra ticket.”