She got up to leave, put on her jacket and stood for a moment, staring into space. Then she walked towards me.
“Alex, thank you for helping us out,” she said, standing behind me so I couldn’t see her face. Her voice was thin and stretched out, like when you have to thank your auntie for giving you a hideous sweater for Christmas.
When I turned to respond, she’d gone.
Dee
As much as I hated Alex, I had to admit it was jolly decent having a good rehearsal space. Even after a few sessions, we’d improved a ton. My playing had become more confident but, more importantly, we were starting to work together as a team. We could anticipate what each other was going to do. Our timing just worked at a higher level.
We’d be headlining now, just on a Wednesday night but that was so much better. It seemed unfair to me that we’d got ahead so quickly.
“Rock’s all about unfair,” said Pete. “Do you think it’s fair that some guys hammer away at this for literally decades and get nowhere, while a bunch of kids can become overnight sensations? Hell yeah, because it’s all about talent and luck and a million other things. Not what’s fair.”
He was right but, with us, it wasn’t talent or luck or even hard work. It was a pay-off to help Alex with his guilty conscience.
I’d started work on a new song. All our material up until now had been taken from Jake’s notes. I’d pieced together things, filled them out, even written verses, but they’d all originated from him.
I wanted to write something new, something that was all me. I had a few ideas but I couldn’t get it started. Maybe I just lacked the skills to write a song from scratch, maybe the things I wanted to say overwhelmed me. Either way, this wasn’t happening.
I thought about playing the few bits and pieces I’d strung together to the band but I didn’t even have enough to go on to get their input. A few chords, a few words, that was all. I was worried Pete would laugh at me. Surely writing a song couldn’t be that difficult. It was just that the things I wanted to say didn’t come out right. I’d keep it to myself until I had something concrete.
Instead, we worked on some of the older material, making sure the set would be solid when we played.
Ferdie interrupted a few times with suggestions, bits and pieces we could mix up.
“The songs are fine as they are,” Pete said. “We don’t need to slow things down or speed them up.”
“No, let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we can play it the old way.”
Pete was so resistant to change. It wasn’t like anything was written in stone. Ferdie and I both liked to experiment, to see if things could be improved. Pete hated that. And that was another reason I didn’t want to mention my song.
I wanted to rehearse Jake’s unfinished song. The one we’d tried to play the other night. It haunted me. When I played it, it seemed like I could get inside Jake’s mind in those last days.
“Best we don’t,” Pete said.
“We can play it if we want,” I said. “Alex can’t control us.”
“Still, we’re obligated to him. He’s helping us out, and I don’t care what his motivation is. It’s a step up the ladder and we can climb all the way.”
I didn’t want to push it. We could play it some other time. I had no idea why that song, in particular, got Alex so riled up. It was a simple love song, one among many Jake had written. Maybe he’d written it about some girl, a girl that Alex liked too. They’d never talked about things like that in front of me and I’d not ever wanted to consider what Alex did with other girls. Even now, the thought that Alex would react so strongly over a song about some chick twisted my insides a little.
We were about to wrap up rehearsal when we heard voices. Alex and his band had come in.
“I guess you’re going to hang out with your buddy, Alex, now,” I said to Pete.
Normally, Pete brushed off things like that but this time he swung around to me, his expression black with anger.
“I’ve had enough, Dee. Alex and I were friends before any of this happened. We were in a band together. Remember that.”
I gulped. Pete had been funny lately. While my hatred for Alex burned like a massive bonfire, with fuel constantly added, Pete’s was like a dying ember. I wasn’t sure how to react. I just knew that, when the time came to take Alex down, I’d not get Pete involved.