I’m lying on my bed in the middle of the day, using the Gibson as a pillow instead of an instrument and hugging my journal instead of writing in it.
Gavin told me to make my song more about me and my memories, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do, but it’s the hardest thing. I’ll be thinking about one sad memory, like the day Pepper went to sleep in 2009, and I’ll be back there in the lobby at the veterinarian’s office while Mom and Dad are in the room with Pepper and the lady at the desk gives me a lollipop. And just seeing that lollipop sends me to another memory of being at camp in 2011 when I lose my lollipop and I find it stuck in Harper’s hair. And that memory makes me smile and I come back to today and I realize that the contest deadline keeps getting closer but I still don’t have a song that can spread around the world and be a reminder for everyone.
But I can’t quit because Dad always tells me that he knew I’d be a musician when I was just a baby. He would play me songs on his guitar and I’d sit in my jumper and stare at him. I’d reach for the strings and he’d make different chords and let me strum. Dad says he realized back then that I had the music bug in me, the same bug he had and his mother had. I was too young to remember all this myself but I’ve heard him talk about it so many times, it’s almost like one of my own memories.
But Dad can’t help me now and I’m not getting anywhere on my own. I take my journal and grab the Gibson and walk past the kitchen, where Mom is busy teaching a boy, and I go down to the studio. Gavin’s door is open so I walk right in and turn on the light. His naked arm is hanging off the bed.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you were sleeping.”
He sits up in bed and gives his blackbird hand signal and then he falls back down like he just used up all his energy.
There’s a box of photos on the floor and on the top there’s a girl I know looking up at me. “Is that my mom?”
He rolls over and sticks his face off the bed and tries to see the photo. “Yes.”
In the photo, Mom’s hair is cut straight across and she’s sitting next to a guy with yellow hair. “Is that Sydney?”
Gavin groans, which means I guessed right. I look at the younger Sydney and the younger Mom and I try to imagine what they were saying to each other when the picture was taken. But I’ll never know and that’s frustrating.
“Dad has pictures of Grandma Joan from when she was really young,” I say. “I like looking at them but they also make me mad, because I wish I’d known her back then.”
His eyes are squeezed thin, like he wants to see me, but the light is bothering him.
“She was one of my favorite people,” I say.
He nods and looks down at the photo. I enjoy telling Gavin about my memories of Sydney, but I don’t want to get into that right now because we have a lot of work to do on our song. “I’ve been waiting for a good idea to come, but nothing’s happening. I need your help.”
Gavin lifts himself up onto his elbow and looks at his phone. He nods like he agrees with what the phone is saying and then he tosses it onto the mattress. “I can’t today. I have to take care of something.”
He gets out of bed, as slow as an old man, and then he grabs the empty glass from the dresser and leaves.
Now I’m all alone in his bedroom. I kick a dirty sock into a pile of clothes in the corner. On the nightstand there’s a cereal bowl, wallet, phone charger, and a few books from Dad’s bookshelf, including Songwriters on Songwriting, which is a book full of famous rock stars talking about how they wrote their best songs. John Lennon isn’t in the book. That’s what gave me the idea to write my very own John Lennon’s Ten Rules of Songwriting.
I grab Gavin’s wallet and open it. On his driver’s license, his last name is Deifendorf, not Winters, and his birthday is March 17, 1975. He’s five foot eleven, which is the exact same height as John Lennon.
“There’s not much cash in there,” Gavin says. He’s back and holding a full glass of water.
I toss the wallet onto the nightstand. “I was just looking. I don’t know why.”
He doesn’t seem to care and now I’m focused on his stomach, which looks like a waffle maker but with bigger squares. I’m noticing he doesn’t have any tattoos or hair like Dad has.
And now I’m focusing on his face again and it looks like he might be sick. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll let you ask me anything as long as it’s not that.” He takes a long drink of water and when he’s finished he makes a sound like he was very thirsty and the water was very good. “Sorry, I just don’t like that question.” He looks into his glass but there’s no water left. “Have you tried a change of scenery?”
“I don’t think so. What’s that?”
“Go outside. Take a walk. Do anything but focus on your song.”
That probably won’t work because I have a really hard time getting my brain to think about what I tell it to think about. I guess I’m going to have to lose a whole day because Gavin is too busy to help me. I walk over to the door.
“Where are you going?” he says.
“I can’t do a change of scenery. It won’t work for me.”
“Wait,” Gavin says, and he takes a big breath, kind of like when you ask the man in the ice cream truck for a Choco Taco but he tells you there aren’t any left so you sigh and order a vanilla cone with sprinkles, even though it wasn’t your first choice. Gavin picks up one of Dad’s books; I don’t know which one. “Have you ever been to Café La Fortuna?”
“No,” I say. “What’s that?”
I open my drawers and pull out my clothes with the best memories: Sparkly shorts from when I won a stuffed animal on the boardwalk (Thursday, August 2, 2012); fox socks from when Grandpa took me fishing and I caught a flounder and I threw the flounder back and promised never to go fishing again (Sunday, June 5, 2011); white button-down shirt from when the audience clapped for me at my piano recital (Friday, April 19, 2013). I’m being extra-picky because New York City is a special place where they have important events like basketball games, concerts, meetings, and award ceremonies for contests.
Mom hands Gavin some money, but he gives it back, and then I grab my journal and we’re finally gone. We walk down the big hill near our house and through the town of Hoboken and each time we cross the street, Gavin holds my hand. His fingers are smooth like wet soap, not like Dad’s fingers, which have calluses from playing drums and guitar.
We reach the train station and I want to tell Gavin that I was here once before with Sydney on Friday, May 21, 2010, but I don’t say it right now because I don’t want to slow us down. We walk down the steps and now we’re underground. Gavin slides a card into a slot and we go through the gate and walk onto the train. I copy everything he does.