51.
I tried listening to an audiobook as I drove the two and a half hours to Chapel Hill the following day, but at least two thirds of the novel was lost on me. If Jeannie hadn’t been with a client today, I would have called her to help steady my nerves. She told me to call tonight after I saw Lisa, no matter what time it was. “I’m not going to be able to sleep till I hear from you anyway,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it: tonight I would see Lisa. I’d gone over and over my plan in my mind, but it depended on so many things working to my advantage. Mostly, it depended on Lisa being willing to see me, and that was a huge unknown.
The traffic bogged down when I reached the Beltline around Raleigh. I passed the turnoff I used to take to go to Bryan’s apartment, and for the first time since our breakup, the memory of him didn’t tear me in two. I’d barely thought of him in days, I realized. The two years I’d spent waiting for him to officially end his marriage suddenly seemed like a colossal waste of my time.
A car on my right honked at something or someone, and I hoped it wasn’t at me. I brought my attention back to the road. I was very early. I’d be in Chapel Hill by a little after five and the doors at Dulcimer wouldn’t open until seven. I could spend the extra time finding someplace to have dinner, though the way I felt right now, I doubted I’d be able to eat. I’d sit in my car and wait, instead, thinking through every possible scenario that might come up as I waited to see Lisa.
* * *
The rush hour traffic clogged the streets of Chapel Hill, yet I managed to find a parking place only a block from Dulcimer. I turned off the ignition and wondered what to do next. It was five-twenty. My plan was to see the concert and then find Lisa backstage … but maybe I could track her down now, since I was so early? Bad idea, I thought. How could she perform after meeting up with me? Besides, I wasn’t ready yet. I wondered if I would ever be ready. Once Lisa’s world and mine collided, there’d be no going back.
With the air-conditioning off, my car quickly grew intolerably hot and I lowered all four windows. Chapel Hill was a college town and the sidewalk was filled with students, their chatter loud and lively as they passed by my car. They looked and sounded so much younger than me. In the last couple of months, I felt like I’d aged a decade.
In the distance, I saw some people in front of Dulcimer and suddenly wondered if the show might be sold out. Even though I’d never heard of Jasha Trace, it was clear from their Web site that they had quite a following. I began to perspire, from both the heat as well as from that new, unsettling thought. I raised my windows, then reached into the backseat for Violet’s case. Bringing her along had been a last-minute impulse. I got out of the car, my purse over my shoulder and Violet in my arms as I headed in the direction of the club.
It was a little after six and the box office was open. I bought a ticket easily—so easily that I felt sort of hurt for Lisa that Jasha Trace wasn’t going to have a sold-out performance after all. Stepping away from the box office, I looked up and down the street to determine my next move. There was a small music store a few shops away from where I stood and I ducked inside, hoping to find something to occupy my mind until the doors of the club opened.
I imagined Grady’s record store had been something like this one, cramped and hot. I pictured Lisa working in that tight little space. She’d only been seventeen when she arrived in San Diego and I could only imagine how alone and frightened she must have felt. My own stomach was cramping from nerves right now, and I was twenty-five and not on the run from anyone or anything. How had she survived the fear? How had she survived the guilt of having killed someone?
I tried to get my bearings in the store, but was overwhelmed by the press of bodies and the eardrum-piercing music. I clutched Violet to my chest as I maneuvered my way through the narrow aisles toward the door. Outside once more, I walked a block to an empty bench on a patch of green lawn, and sat there, Violet on my lap, pulling my phone from my purse every few minutes to watch the time tick closer to seven.
* * *
By five after seven, I was inside Dulcimer, where rows of folding chairs faced the raised platform that served as a stage. The room was smaller than I remembered, and high redbrick walls made it feel even tinier. The occupancy sign on the wall read 150. Both of the concerts I’d seen at the club had been general admission, and Bryan and I had stood shoulder to shoulder with other members of the audience, so I was surprised—and relieved—to see the chairs. I didn’t think my legs would hold me up for the length of a concert tonight.
Standing near the concession booth, I looked toward the stage. The platform was elevated only a foot or so off the worn wooden floor of the club. A drum set and keyboard had been pushed against the back wall as if unneeded for this particular concert, but a couple of stools and a few microphones were near the front, along with a guitar on a stand. Seeing those props made everything real to me. In less than an hour, Lisa would be up there, only a few yards away from me. Finally.
I bought a beer and a paper container of nachos I’d have to force myself to eat, but I thought I’d better have something in my stomach to sop up the alcohol. People around me laughed and talked as they greeted one another. It was clearly a crowd of regulars and I was aware of being the odd man out. I looked toward the seats, which were starting to fill. Should I sit in the front row where I’d be way too visible or in the back where I could watch Lisa unnoticed? I compromised, picking a seat smack in the middle of the room, and I sat there feeling very alone as I chewed a tortilla chip that tasted like cardboard.
The building grew noisier as it filled up, voices bouncing off the brick walls. I noticed that many people wore T-shirts with the letters JT emblazoned on the back, and it took me a good ten minutes to realize that JT stood for Jasha Trace.
I felt conspicuous, alone in my center row clutching Violet between my knees, but as more and more people filed into the seats, it looked like there would be a decent crowd. The young guy sitting to my right read the back of a Jasha Trace CD, pointing to something on the case as he spoke to the woman he was with. The seat to my left was empty, and I was glad for that little bit of breathing room.
To the right of the platform was a door that appeared to be the only way to get backstage. I focused on it, picturing myself walking through it. I was still staring at the door when a burly young guy dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt took his post in front of it. A yellow plastic badge hung around his neck. Security, I guessed. I would have to get past him to get to Lisa.
I’d finished my beer and half the nachos by the time the houselights dimmed, and I put the bottle and paper basket beneath my chair, knowing I’d never remember to toss them when it was time to leave. I had the feeling they would be the last thing on my mind.
A middle-aged woman with a sleeve tattoo and short, bright purple hair took the stage. She talked about the exits we should use in an emergency, told us to silence our cell phones, and then spoke endlessly about the upcoming concerts, and the audience grew restless. Or maybe it was just me. The beer and chips sloshed around in my stomach and I wondered how I’d get out of this row if I needed to be sick.
Jasha Trace came onstage with zero fanfare—the men with their banjo and guitar, Celia with her mandolin and Lisa with her fiddle—and started right in on a fast-paced song I recognized from one of their CDs. My heart raced along with the music. I couldn’t take my eyes off Lisa. Her hair—a natural-looking blond-streaked brown—hung a few inches past her shoulders, and it was loose and swingy as she played. Her features were sharper than I remembered from the pictures I’d seen of her, and under the harsh lights above the stage, I could see fine lines across her forehead even from where I sat. All four musicians wore jeans and T-shirts. I was pretty sure Shane was the guy with the beard and Travis the one with the shorter cropped blondish hair and glasses.
Celia no longer wore that short edgy hairstyle that was on their Web site and CD covers. Now her dark hair was in a sort of bob, the razor-cut ends radically layered and choppy. It was a very cool cut that made her look younger and hipper than Lisa, and my heart cracked a little. Lisa’s life hadn’t been easy. Not as a child under pressure to perform, or as a fifteen-year-old giving birth away from her family and friends, or as a seventeen-year-old on the run. Yet when the song was over and she lowered her fiddle, her smile softened her face and I saw the light inside her. The joy over what she was doing. Over the life she’d created for herself. She started playing again, the bounce of her hair like a symbol of the freedom she’d stolen for herself. I looked away from the stage, lowering my gaze to the back of the chair in front of me, suddenly wounded. She had a healthy family and I didn’t. I wanted to be happy for her, but I couldn’t help it. That hurt.
I must have stared at the back of the chair in front of me for a good five minutes before I looked at the stage again, and it was as though I was finally hearing the music for the first time. They were good musicians, all of them. Lisa sang harmony, but the vocals really belonged to Celia and Shane. The fiddle, however, was Lisa’s alone, and when she took off on a solo riff, she had the audience on its feet. I stood up myself, but my knees shook and I had to clutch the back of the chair in front of me to stay upright.
They took a break about an hour in. Holding tight to Violet, I waited in line to use the too-small and overworked restroom. I wanted the numbness another beer would give me, but I couldn’t afford the foggy brain that might come with it, so I bought a bottle of water for the second half of the show.
When they took the stage again, my anxiety intensified as I realized I had no idea what time the performance would end. As they played song after song and the minutes ticked by, I began to panic. What if they rushed out of the building afterward? Ran from the stage to a waiting car in the alley behind Dulcimer? What if this whole trip had been for nothing?
And why had I stupidly picked a seat in the middle of a row?
I waited until the end of the next song before getting to my feet. Mumbling “Excuse me” over and over again, I stepped on toes and forced people to stand as I slid past them, trying not to whack any of them with the violin case.
The burly guy dressed in black had been leaning against the brick wall, watching the concert, but when he saw me heading for the stage door, he took two steps forward to block my entry.
I gave him the warmest smile I could manage, and he leaned over so I could speak into his ear. I had to shout to be heard, the music was so loud this close to the stage.
“I need to see Jade after the show,” I said. “I’m her sister and I have her old violin.” I thought it would be best to go with sister rather than daughter, although I was certain either word would set off alarm bells when Lisa heard it. The guy frowned at me and I remembered reading Lisa’s online biography: the only child of a doctor and a nurse. I hoped he’d never read her bio. I smiled at him again. “I wanted to surprise her with it,” I said.
“Let me check it out,” he shouted into my ear, and I followed him to a narrow shelf on the wall near the door. I couldn’t blame him. For all he knew, I was carrying a weapon in the case. I worried that Lisa might see Violet as exactly that.
I rested the case on the shelf and opened it. He didn’t try to remove the violin, but felt all around it with his fingertips. Then he shouted, “Come with me.”
I closed the case and followed him through the door into a corridor painfully lit by bare fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. A few closed doors were to my left, and an open door on my right led into an office. The woman with the purple hair sat at a desk, and she looked up when the guard and I appeared in the doorway.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“This is one of the band’s sister,” the guard said.
“Jade’s,” I said to the woman. “I live nearby and I brought her old violin. I thought she’d like to have it. Can I see her after the show?”
I could tell the woman wasn’t buying it. “She didn’t say anything about anyone coming.”
“No, I know. I didn’t think I’d be in town, but I am, so I wanted to surprise her.” I was speaking quickly. I sounded like I was making up my story on the spot. Which I was.
“I checked the case,” the guard said. “It’s a real violin.” He glanced down the hall. “I’ve gotta get out there,” he said. He left me standing in the doorway as he retreated back the way we’d come.
The woman looked at the digital clock on the wall. “I’ll ask her when she’s off the stage,” she said, getting to her feet. “Sounds like they’re wrapping up now.” I could hear the applause, louder than before. “What’s your name?” she asked.
I didn’t want to tell her my name, but could see no way around it. “Riley,” I said.
“Okay.” She walked past me. “You take a seat in here.” She pointed to one of the two chairs near her desk. “I’ll let her know.”
I sat down and watched her disappear into the hallway. I was breathing fast and hard, my hands sweaty on the violin case. This wasn’t going to work. She’d tell Lisa and Lisa would panic and escape before I had the chance to see her. I sat there for a few minutes, Violet on my lap. The applause wound down and I heard the sound of chairs scraping the floor and the hum of a hundred voices. I pictured Lisa leaving the stage. The woman with the purple hair approaching her. And then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stood up and rushed into the hallway to find my mother.