“No, stay, stay. Play the song for Chey.” Johnny eased himself onto the folding chair behind his keyboard. We were cramped in there, and I felt like the walls were closing in. Harry looked at me, waiting for some cue, some hint to know whether he should stay or go. I needed to tell Johnny my news—our news—and I wanted Harry out of there in the worst possible way, but I was kind of stuck. I didn’t know how to ask him to leave without giving everything away.
Anyway, maybe Harry could read all that in my eyes, because he said, “No, really, I should go. I’ll play it for the whole band when we jam Monday.”
“Stop,” Johnny said. “Just play it. Really, she’s going to love it.”
Classic Johnny. Issuing orders and talking about other people like they weren’t in the room. As much as all of our relationships had grown and changed, the foundation of who we were was the same. While it didn’t happen as much as it used to, when Johnny gave a command Harry was programmed to follow.
Harry sat down on the edge of the bed, lifted Johnny’s acoustic onto his lap, and started picking. I leaned against the doorjamb, listening and watching.
Harry was nervous. I could tell because he does this thing with his forehead, crinkling the place where his eyebrows should be, kind of like a pug. The music was much slower and more ballady than anything we’d ever played before. But the riff was hypnotic. It was haunting. Then Harry began to sing.
Phones ring.
Voices meander, like waves
beating up the air.
None of those voices ever sing.
She wonders if
She even cares.
She’s nearly a saint.
And no one notices when
she scrapes the ground.
She wishes she had the time
To hear pleasant sounds.
He stopped.
“I’m still working on some of the lyrics, but it has a bridge, too.” He started strumming, going from the main riff to a series of power chords.
Run away,
Go away,
Hide away,
Sneak away.
There’s got to be an easier way
To face each day.
Then the bridge flowed back to the main riff, like a musical river.
Her ears ring,
Deafened by noise of boys playing with toys.
But the noise is nothing;
Maybe it’s why she’s so silently annoyed.
Johnny started messing around on the piano, but I wished he hadn’t. It almost ruined the moment.
“Pleasant Sounds”—that’s what it’s called—was maybe the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. And here’s the thing: I knew it was about me.
I could see it in Harry’s eyes.
I could feel it in the chords.
I can’t really explain it. I just somehow knew.
Johnny was clueless. When it came to music, he wasn’t the same as the rest of us. Johnny was, in some ways, the most talented guy in the band, but it was coming from a different place. With me and Richie and Harry, it came from the heart. With Johnny, it came from the head. I actually think that’s a good thing for a band, to have some of it coming from the heart and some of it coming from the head.
Anyway, Harry and I were in the middle of sharing this incredible moment, and Johnny was sitting there, grinning like an idiot, missing the whole thing.
“Isn’t that great?” he said to me. “Don’t you love it?” he pushed. Johnny always pushed.
I started to cry. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, or maybe the song was just that beautiful, or maybe the long walk from the number twenty bus had done me in. Whatever the reason, I lost it.
“Chey?” Johnny asked, this time with a gentle voice.
“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Harry said. He put down the acoustic guitar, picked up his Strat, and walked out of the room. I heard the front door to Johnny’s house close, and we were alone.
“Pick, are you okay?” Johnny pulled himself up—like I said, he wasn’t wearing his leg—and took a hopping step toward me. I saw him stifle a grimace of pain as he tried to pull me into an embrace. It didn’t work.
We flopped down together on the bed, Johnny landing on top of me, pretty hard.
I panicked for a second, thinking, like, Oh, crap, did he just squash the baby? But even I knew that was silly. He must’ve seen my eyes go wide or heard me gasp with fear or something.
“Chey, I’m sorry. . . . I’m not . . . it’s not what you think.”
It would’ve been so easy to just tell him right then and there. To say, “No, Johnny, I don’t think you’re hitting on me. It’s that I’m worried about the baby in my belly. Our baby.” But I couldn’t. His eyes were darting back and forth, and they were all glassy. Everything about him seemed lost, like he was in some kind of maze and couldn’t find his way out. Johnny was still going through so much shit that I couldn’t dump this gigantic thing on him. I just couldn’t. It would just have to wait a few more days.
I managed to choke back my tears and tried to smile.
“No, it’s okay,” I whispered, talking about us falling onto the bed. “I know, I know.”
And then Johnny McKenna did something I’d never seen him do before.
He started crying.
HARBINGER JONES