I see him at the far end of the parking lot, idling on a motorcycle. He wears the same full-coverage helmet that hides his face, but I am certain he is the rider I saw outside the mayor’s party. The same one that seemed to be watching me then, too.
Was he working for Simon or something?
There’s only one way to find out. I start making my way toward him, sticking close to the perimeter of the school, but he must sense me coming, because he revs his engine and peels out of the parking lot before I close in.
I chase after him, running at top speed over the bridge that leads off the school’s island, but my legs are nothing compared to his motorcycle. He speeds away and disappears into the night.
chapter thirty-eight
DAPHNE
I wake to the smell of burning.
A shout from Joe sends me running downstairs in my pajamas to investigate. I find him in the kitchen, muttering swearwords, a smoking frying pan in his oven-mitted hands. The counters are littered with eggshells, spilled flour, and various half-empty containers. Batter oozes out the side of a waffle iron, which sits haphazardly on a stack of Us magazines.
“Oi, Daphne,” Joe says when he sees me. “Grab a towel, eh?” He indicates the toppled-over milk container that’s busy glugging out a waterfall of white liquid from the marble island to the hardwood kitchen floor. “Knocked it over while I was trying to save the eggs à la Vince.”
I pull open a drawer and grab Joe’s entire collection of dish towels—all three of them. “Where’s Marta?” I ask, righting the milk carton. I drop the towels on top of the mess. Much to her displeasure, Marta is usually in charge of breakfast. Which usually consists of cinnamon oatmeal for me and a weird concoction of tomato juice, lemon, and Worcestershire sauce for Joe. Basically, a Bloody Mary sans the alcohol.
The dish towels aren’t enough, so I grab an entire roll of paper towels.
“Gave her the day off,” he says, spooning a hefty portion of very crunchy-looking scrambled eggs onto a couple of plates. “Thought we could spend the day just the two of us. I’ve got the whole thing planned out.” Joe opens the waffle iron. The tops of the waffles have stuck to the apparently ungreased upper plate of the appliance. He tries to scrape them out with a fork.
“You planned something for today?” I can’t hide the incredulity in my voice. I’m not sure I want to.
“I thought, after breakfast, we could duck out of Olympus Hills for a few hours. My drummer and his brother are opening up a burger joint that has onion rings to die for, and the planetarium is putting together a light show based on my Saturn’s Ring album. Which means I was able to pull some strings to get us a private tour.” Joe presents me with a plate of food that somewhat resembles breakfast.
“I don’t know, Joe.…”
He pours a healthy portion of maple syrup over the contents of his plate. “You still like stargazing, right? Because they’ve got one of the biggest telescopes in the country.”
The mention of telescopes and stargazing makes my stomach churn. Or maybe that’s from the smell rising up from my plate. I’m pretty sure scrambled eggs aren’t supposed to be made with cream cheese and … mustard? I push the plate away. “I can’t, Joe. I’ve already got plans.”
“But, Daph, I cleared my whole schedule for you.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought to make sure my schedule was clear before making all these plans. Did you just suppose I’d have nothing better going on? I have a life of my own, you know?”
“Oh,” Joe says. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I should have checked with you first.” He sounds so dejected, I almost waver.
“I need to get ready,” I say, before I can be talked into changing my mind.
I leave Joe at the breakfast table. I look back before heading up the stairs. He stabs a forkful of eggs à la Vince, shoves it in his mouth, and then promptly lets it all fall back out onto his plate.
“Bloody hell,” he says, wiping his tongue with the sleeve of his bathrobe.
I stifle a laugh and head for my bedroom. I pick up my phone from my bedside table and dial a number I never thought I’d actually call when he gave it to me.
“Hello?” Haden answers. He sounds surprised.
“Are you busy today? I thought we could fit in another lesson.”
“I’m available,” he says. There’s a touch of eagerness in his voice before he tempers it. “What did you have in mind?”
“A field trip,” I say, wanting to get as far away from Joe and Olympus Hills as possible for the day. “I think it’s time I give you a more advanced musical education. Pick me up in two hours.”
“I don’t even know where to start. I mean, there’s the classics. Like Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Debussy, and then some more modern stuff like the Kinks, the Zombies, the Beatles of course, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, the Velvet Underground, the Who … Ah crap, that’s just the 1960s.”
“This is starting to sound like it’s going to take a year,” Haden says.
“I know. This is even more difficult than I thought it would be.”
I researched online and found a music store a few towns over from Olympus Hills that still has an old-school listening booth in it. I’d already arranged with the manager—thanks to the generous cash allowance Joe had given me—for us to have use of the booth for the entire afternoon. But that isn’t feeling like nearly enough time at the moment.
I take a great big breath and let it out in a puff. “Okay, I’m just going to grab some of my favorites from different decades. This might take a bit.” I look up at Haden and see that he’s watching my hands as I pluck different albums from the bins.
“What should I do?” he asks.
“Hmmm. Go pick something out. Anything you want.”
The strangest look passes over his normally stony face. Hesitancy? Uncertainty? Almost like no one has ever given him the option of picking something out for himself before. It’s the first time I’m seeing him with an unguarded expression.
I smile at him reassuringly. “There’s no wrong choice. Just surprise me.”
He nods and that stony mask of his slips over his face again. I miss the more open look.
I watch him for a moment, his long fingers curling over the edges of the CD cases as he flips through the albums. He glances back at me. I look down at the album in my hands.
After I’ve got a stack of CDs that’s almost as tall as I am, Haden comes back with an album. He holds it up for my inspection. Shadow of a Star by Joe Vince. The frown forms on my face before I can stop it. Of all the thousands of albums in this place, he had to choose that one.
Haden pulls the CD back. “I chose wrong, then?” His voice is gray with disappointment. “It’s your father’s album, yes? I thought it would be good to familiarize myself—”
“Pick something else,” I say abruptly. “Anything else.”
“Why?” he asks.
The personal question interests me, since he’s always trying to deflect mine, but what’s more is that I actually find myself wanting to tell him.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
I sigh. “I’d only ever met Joe four times before I came to live with him back in September. The last of those times was when he made a surprise appearance at my tenth birthday party. He made a big deal about giving me his guitar, the first one he’d ever bought with his own money—and he taught me the words to his favorite song. He cried when I sang and he said I had his voice, and he told me that this time he was going to stay in Ellis.