“Are you sure?” she asks. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“Trust me, if anyone’s intruding, it’s me.”
The bellman grabs our stuff to take to our room, and the concierge leads us across the lobby. The hotel is in an old castle, but it’s been taken over with rockers and a bunch of different musicians nod and “hey” me, but I’m too nervous right now to respond. The concierge leads us to a dimly lit atrium. The band’s all in there, along with a giant buffet serving a traditional English roast.
Liz turns around first. Things haven’t been the same between the two of us since that Collateral Damage tour, but the look she gives me now, I don’t know how to describe it: Like I’m her biggest disappointment in life, but she tries to rise above it, to tamp it down, to act all casual, like I’m just one of the fans, one of the hangerson, one of the many people who want something from her that she’s not obliged to give. “Adam,” she says with a curt nod.
“Liz,” I begin cautiously.
“Hey, asshole! Nice of you to join us!” Fitzy’s irrepressible voice is both sarcastic and welcoming, like he just can’t decide which way to go.
Mike doesn’t say anything. He just pretends I don’t exist.
And then I feel the brush of Mia’s shoulder as she steps out from behind me. “Hi, guys,” she says.
Liz’s face goes completely blank for a moment. Like she doesn’t know who Mia is. Then she looks scared, like she’s just seen a ghost. Then my strong, tough, butchy drummer — her lower lip starts to tremble, and then her face crumples. “Mia?” she asks, her voice quavering.
“Mia?” she asks louder this time. “Mia!” she says, the tears streaming down her face right before she tackles my girl in a hug.
When she’s released her, she holds Mia at arm’s length and looks at her and then back at me and then back at Mia. “Mia?” she shouts, both asking and answering her own question. Then she turns to me. And if I’m not forgiven, then at least I’m understood.
The rain keeps up throughout the next day. “Lovely English summer we’re having,” everyone jokes. It’s become my habit to barricade myself at these types of giant festivals, but realizing that this is probably my last one for a while, at least as a participant, I slip inside the grounds, listen to some of the bands on the side stages, catch up with some old friends and acquaintances, and even talk to a couple of rock reporters. I’m careful not to mention the breakup of the band. That’ll come out in time, and I’ll let everyone else decide how to release this news. I do, however, briefly comment on Bryn’s and my split, which is all over the tabloids anyhow. Asked about my new mystery woman, I simply say “no comment.”
I know this will all come out soon enough, and while I want to spare Mia the circus, I don’t care if the whole world knows we’re together.
By the time our nine p.m. slot rolls around, the rain has subsided to a soft mist that seems to dance in the late summer twilight. The crowd has long since accepted the slosh. There’s mud everywhere and people are rolling around in it like it’s Woodstock or something.
Before the set, the band was nervous. Festivals do that to us. A bigger ante than regular concerts, even stadium shows — festivals have exponentially larger crowds, and crowds that include our musician peers. Except tonight, I’m calm. My chips are all cashed out. There’s nothing to lose. Or maybe I’ve already lost it and found it, and whatever else there might be to lose, it’s got nothing to do with what’s on this stage. Which might explain why I’m having such a good time out here, pounding through our new songs on my old Les Paul Junior, another piece of history brought back from the dead. Liz did a double take when she saw me pull it out of its old case. “I thought you got rid of that thing,” she’d said.
“Yeah, me too,” I’d replied, tossing off a private smile at Mia.
We race through the new album and then throw in some bones from Collateral Damage and before I know it, we’re almost at the end of the set. I look down at the set list that’s duct-taped to the front of the stage.
Scrawled there in Liz’s block lettering is the last song before we leave for the inevitable encore. “Animate.” Our anthem, our old producer Gus Allen, called it. The angstiest screed on Collateral Damage, critics called it. Probably our biggest hit of all. It’s a huge crowd-pleaser on tours because of the chorus, which audiences love to chant.
It’s also one of the few songs we’ve ever done with any kind of production, a strings section of violins right at the top of the recorded track, though we don’t have those for the live version. So as we launch into it, it’s not that rolling howl of the crowd’s excitement that I hear, but the sound of her cello playing in my head. For a second, I have this vision of just the two of us in some anonymous hotel room somewhere dickering around, her on her cello, me on my guitar, playing this song I wrote for her. And shit, if that doesn’t make me so damn happy.
I sing the song with all I’ve got. Then we get to the chorus: Hate me. Devastate me. Annihilate me. Re-create me.
Re-create me. Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you re-create me.
On the album, the chorus is repeated over and over, a rasp of fury and loss, and it’s become a thing during shows for me to stop singing and turn the mic out toward the audience and let them take over. So I turn the mic toward the fields, and the crowd just goes insane, singing my song, chanting my plea.
I leave them at it and I take a little walk around the stage. The rest of the band sees what’s going on so they just keep repping the chorus. When I get closer to the side of the stage, I see her there, where she always felt most comfortable, though for the foreseeable future, she’ll be the one out here in the spotlight, and I’ll be the one in the wings, and that feels right, too.
The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else.
This is our new vow.
It is customary in these types of things for writers to thank their editors and agents separately. But when I think of my writing career, I often imagine myself flanked by my editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, and my agent, Sarah Burnes. These two fiercely intelligent book warriors are both so integral to the creation and guidance of my work that it’s hard to separate them. Sarah advises, advocates, and helps me keep things in perspective. Julie’s greatest gift is that she gives me the key to unlock my stories. The two of them are my twin pillars.
But, as the saying goes, it takes a village. And in Julie’s case, that village consists of many, many dedicated people at the Penguin Young Readers Group. I will save some trees and not list them all but suffice it to say, there are dozens of people in the sales, marketing, publicity, design, online, and production departments to whom I am deeply — and daily — grateful. Shout-outs must go to Don Weisberg, Lauri Hornik, Lisa Yoskowitz, and Allison Verost, who is equal parts publicist, therapist, and friend.
Sarah’s village at The Gernert Company includes Rebecca Gardner, Logan Garrison, Will Roberts, and the formidable Courtney Gatewood, who, for someone bent on world domination, is remarkably nice.
Thank you to Alisa Weilerstein, for inspiring me, as well as giving up some of her precious free time to help me understand the career trajectory for a young professional cellist.
Thank you Lynn Eastes, trauma coordinator at OHSU, for offering insights into what Mia’s recovery and rehabilitation process might look like. Thank you to Sean Smith for an insider’s view into the film industry (and a million other things). Anything I got right in regard to these details is because of these people. Anything I got wrong is because of me.
Thank you to the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society for the generous use of one of my all-time favorite sonnets, “Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink.” Many of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems are incredibly romantic and yet still kind of edgy all these years later. I only included the second half of this sonnet in the book; you should all go look up the full sonnet.
Thank you to my readers at all stages: Jana Banin, Tamara Glenny, Marjorie Ingall, Tamar Schamhart, and Courtney Sheinmel for just the right mix of encouragement and critique.
Thank you to my other village — my neighborhood communityfor pitching in with my kids and generally having my back. Isabel Kyriacou and Gretchen Sonju, I am forever in your debt!
Thank you to the entire Christie Family for their enduring grace and generosity.
Thank you to Greg and Diane Rios for continuing on this journey with us.
Thank you to my family, the Formans, Schamharts, and Tuckers, for your cheerleading and cheer. Extra thanks to my sister for hand-selling my books to half the population of Seattle.
Thank you to my daughters: Denbele, who arrived in our family about midway through the writing of this book, and if she ever thought it was weird that her new mom occasionally seemed to channel an angsty twenty-one-year-old guy, never let that dent her ebullience. And to Willa, who inadvertently supplied me with so many of the book’s fictional band/movie/character names in a way that only a four/fiveyearold can. I should probably raise your allowance.
Thank you to my husband, Nick, for your not-so-gentle critiques that always force me to up my game. For your sublime playlists that bring music into my life (and books). For supplying me with all the little band details. And for being the reason I can’t seem to stop writing love stories about guitar players.
And finally, thank you to the booksellers, librarians, teachers, and bloggers. For helping books take flight.