Tyler wraps an arm around my middle and heaves me off my feet, squeezing me against his bulk in a one-armed bear hug.
“Ack! You’re all sweaty! Let go, let go!”
Complaining only makes him plant a fat kiss on my cheek before dropping me back down and heading into the living room. At least he seems more confident as he slips his guitar back over his head. Steve counts them off again. The song rises and collapses again. Rise and collapse. Rise and collapse. Rise and … rise! Notes scuttle up the walls like blue-tailed skinks. Britney squeezes my hand. Her feet drum to the beat. My heart thumps to it.
The song falls apart, but we’ve seen how good it can be. “Yay, guys!” Britney cheers. “You’re so close!” Everybody’s hungry for it now, despite the sludgy heat.
Steve launches into the now-familiar intro. Rise and collapse. Rise and … rise … and rise … Holly, they’ve got it!
Frog-slick with sweat, Max sings and bobs to the sound; he knows they’ve got it this time. Tyler bounces along the rhythm Max lays down, pushing and pulling against it. I’m dancing with Britney. We have to dance or we’ll explode.
The last chord shivers to silence, then everybody shrieks, wild and wordless. We rush Tyler. Britney kisses him, and I hug his neck. The three members of Stratofortress lean together for a few seconds, then straighten up. Max says, “All right Tyler, we need a rhythm guitar for Thursday, and you need somewhere for your girlfriend to stay.”
“Girlfriend? No, Jane’s not my—”
“I’m not his girlfriend.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Whatever. But if you want us to help you, you’ve got to help us. So either you’re in the band, or we sell her to a Saudi prince’s pleasure dome.”
I blush pink, but Tyler just snickers. “Fine, fine. I’ll play.”
There are fist-bumps all around. LeighAnn leaves to get more beer. Everybody’s exhausted—even me and Britney somehow. I step out onto the back patio for some fresh air. The summer night feels like temptation itself. The air is as hot as tangled sheets. It smells like magnolia and honeysuckle, like sweet boys just vanished into the dark. Stratofortress’s song is still rattling around behind my breastbone. Even in the quiet, I can feel its rhythm in there, in place of my busted-watch heart. By the time Tyler comes out and sits down beside me, the song has almost faded away. But I’m still smiling, really smiling for the first time in a month.
“Thanks,” he says. “For that pep talk back there.”
I shrug, twisting my bare toes into the cool dust. “Didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“So tomorrow, want to go look for this Mattie Peake? I mean, Decatur isn’t that big a town. We might get lucky and find somebody who knows her.”
“Sure.” I nod, not bothering to mention that it’s still a Hail Mary play.
“And listen. I’ve got some money saved up. Why don’t you take it.” Opening his wallet, Tyler pulls out several twenties.
“No. Thanks, but I’m okay.”
He persists. “It’s not a big deal. It’s money my grandmother sent me for my birthday.”
“No. I don’t need it.” I push his hand away. I could use the money, but I’m embarrassed to take it.
“Jane. We’re in this together. Whatever I can do to help you, I’m going to do it.”
“Then … ” My hand is still on top of his. His skin is like soft leather, but the muscles underneath are as hard as steel cable. I trace the callouses at the tips of Tyler’s fingers. I want him to help me be happy again, Holly, even if it’s just a few minutes at a time. I want to feel my heart beating again. “Then teach me to play guitar.”
“S-Seriously?”
“Yeah. Will you teach me?”
“Like right now?”
“Right now.”
He shrugs and puts the money away, saying, “Sure. You got it.”
Thirteen
“Can we take this stuff outside? It’s like a furnace in here.”
“Sure, just unplug that amp. Be careful, it’s heavy.”
Isn’t it kinda weird if you think about it, Holly? All those years hanging out with you, and I never learned to play music.
I goofed around with your guitar sometimes, but I never had any time to really learn how to play. There was always too much other stuff to do—church projects, youth group stuff, looking after my brothers and Faye. Besides, I had you. You knew all the songs I could ever want—the rejoicing ones, the gentle ones, the ones pulpy and wet with raw life.
I lug the amp out of the living room. Behind me, Tyler is winding cords around his arm. Max appears in the archway. “Um, you guys robbing us?”
“Jane wants to learn to play.”
“Seriously?” Leaning out the window, Max shouts down the street. “LeighAnn! Jane wants to play guitar!”
“Really?” She starts jogging up the block with a six-pack of beer in each hand. “Give me a second. Don’t let her start yet.”
Suddenly, I’m plagued by experts.
“Here, cinch this up; your arms are shorter than Tyler’s.” Max tightens the guitar strap while Tyler worries with the little knobs. The light on the back patio has burned out, so there’s just a string of old Halloween lights to see by—cheap plastic skulls grin down at us.
When Ultimate Steve plugs the amp in, the guitar comes alive, humming, trembling gently against my stomach. I jerk my hand away from the strings, and LeighAnn laughs at me. “Relax, it won’t bite.” She sits in the grass, leaning back on one elbow, beer in the other hand.
Unwinding my grimy bandage, I flex my sweat-soft fingers. “Okay, what should I learn first?”
“Freebird! Whoo!” Britney shouts.
“‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ is kinda the universal first song,” LeighAnn says.
“‘Mary Had a … ’” I roll my eyes, “Come on, that’s lame. Even I know that’s lame.”
Max balks. “Have you ever heard Stevie Ray Vaughn’s version of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’? It’s baller. It’s so baller, it’s banned in, like, sixteen countries.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Right hand to God. Banned in all those Islamic countries ’cause women kept ripping off their burkas and going nuts.” As Max talks, he presses a thin black pick into my hand and bends my fingers to the frets. It makes me wince; my hand and arm are still covered in scabs from where you grabbed me. “Okay, just strum all the strings, and that’s a G chord,” Tyler says.
I strum the strings. Notes fall thick and flat or buzz strangely. Everybody groans. “What was that? Come on.” The experts swarm again.
“Don’t go straight down with the pick. And stiffen your wrist up.”
“Here. Don’t let your fingertips touch the other strings; that’s where that buzzing came from.”
“Don’t grab the neck like a baseball bat. You want to almost be cupping it in the palm of your hand.”
“Yeah, hold it like a little baby bunny.”
“Okay, okay. Let me try.” Maybe this was a bad idea, but I shoo them back for a second try. Biting my bottom lip, I squeeze the strings against the frets and strum.
The chord comes like bottled thunder, knocking the wind out of me. It startles Hobbit and Cookie. They begin to bark frantically. Stratofortress cheers, and by the time Hobbit and Cookie calm down, other dogs in other yards have picked up their panic, filling the neighborhood with howls. The racket spreads across the night like ripples across water.
Everyone hoots and laughs. I clap my hands over my mouth as hiccupy giggles bubble up. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to be so loud.