The Great Big One Read online

  But no commentary. No give this a listen, bro.

  On the run-up to show week, Leo worked and reworked the set list of ten songs. Five covers, five originals. He and Thomas made all final decisions. Griff had been cut out, but he’d happily play AC/DC’s “Stiff Upper Lip” ten times straight if it meant he got to open with Charity. Their room 5 rehearsals continued to be beautiful, flowing, magic—but no French goodbyes. No ear explorations. The atmosphere with Leo and everyone seemed too tense, too barreling-forward, and any extra thing would be like sticking your arm out the window at 100 miles per hour.

  The simmer of excitement in the hallways rose to a boil by midweek. At lunch on Wednesday, Thomas hid in the ThunderChicken with his PB&J to avoid being asked about the show.

  CAN’T HANDLE IT, DUDES, he texted. Sent a picture of himself in the fetal position, curled up in the backseat with sandwich crusts.

  Somehow, the show was growing into a Big Deal.

  “Break a leg, boys,” Slim said Thursday, swinging by their lunch table. He smiled over his tray of two white milks and grilled cheese. He looked earnest. Proud, even.

  “Thanks, Slim,” Griff said.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Leo said. “See you there.”

  “Slim seems sweet,” Charity said.

  It seemed an okay level of sweet. But the growing excitement gave everything a trembling, up-on-two-wheels feeling. With every backslap, every shout of his name, Griff felt like flinching. Like a shoe would kick into his heel and he’d have to fight to keep on his feet.

  Maybe middle school trauma. But maybe something else—like that haunting little animal-brain twitch that shot rats into Grecian streets and drove snakes from their dens in China.

  He and Charity had nearly finished Open Water. As the week rolled on, it was clear they had an unspoken agreement. They’d finish the puzzle the day of the show.

  “You and me, Tripp,” Charity said with a smile. “Today’s the day.”

  Griff was suddenly beaming. A dumb puzzle maybe—but it was tied up in everything. Miraculously, he and Charity had been to the Ruins. They’d said big hellos and French goodbyes and somehow his greatest and most secret desire of knowing Charity Simms had come true. More days with red circles than without. And something about locking an impossible puzzle to completion on the day of a first live show was appropriately brilliant. A perfect, if slightly forced, omen. Until Charity’s eyes hunted across the table at the handful of pieces, and Griff saw the math on her lips, five, six—

  “What?” Griff asked.

  Her hands moved quickly, twisting, snapping in. The countdown, palpable. Griff grabbed the box. Opened it, touched the empty corners.

  Dropped to the carpet. Hand and knees, fingers combing the tight blue-loop pile. A desert of tiny paper scraps, eraser tailings. Griff and Charity sat and locked eyes over the horizon of the table.

  “One piece,” Griff said.

  They examined the hole. Blank, right where the sunlight should be.

  “Close,” she said.

  Except that piece was the best part. The climax. That little hole—a tiny tear in the picture they’d built. But big enough. If it were real, the water would come gushing through, fill the school like an aquarium, drown the whole town.

  Griff didn’t have to wonder anymore. The universe had just confirmed it:

  Something bad was going to happen.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SHOW NIGHT.

  “Dude,” Thomas said, “Charity’s mom is here. Dude—Ms. Simms!”

  Leo had already gotten out of the ThunderChicken and was halfway to the front door of the Urchin when the white Bonneville came crackling into the lot. This close to the beach, every car sounded like it was driving on gravel. Griff made himself exit the ThunderChicken.

  Brake lights flared. The car stopped. Parked.

  Griff’s breath hissed through his teeth. Charity’s mother. Given her descriptions of this phone-restricting, churchgoing woman, perhaps the door would open with the sweep of a nun’s habit and clapping thunder. His mental image did not map onto the woman who climbed out. Young-looking. Energetic. Charity’s same springy, dark curls but this woman was very put together. Outfit like interlocking pieces of a fashion set; blue blazer, skirt, and a shirt with swimmy blue and green, like an Impressionist painting. They walked the same. Same determined eyes.

  “Hi, boys,” she said. Her voice, like a teacher. “Sharon Simms. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Oof,” Charity said.

  “You must be the twins I’ve heard so much about. Are you—”

  “That’s Griff,” Charity said. “The one I’ve been rehearsing with.”

  “Oh,” her mother said, voice lifting a full octave. “Griff.”

  What did oh mean?

  “Lovely to meet you. You too, Leo, Thomas.”

  But no octave for Leo.

  “It’s been good for Charity to have a musical outlet,” she said.

  “Mother,” Charity said. “You make me sound like a plug.”

  Ms. Simms looked at the Urchin. Seeing it beneath her sharp eyes made the space look seedier.

  “No drinking,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” Charity said. They all nodded.

  “I’ll smell your breath.” She looked pointedly at each of the boys. Walked away. They stood still, as if their commanding officer hadn’t released them.

  “You can move now,” Charity said. “It’s okay.”

  “So serious,” Thomas said.

  “Always,” Charity said.

  “Charity, can you give me a hand with the mic setup?” Leo asked. “I’d love to check levels.”

  “Sure.”

  They went into the Urchin together, the wraparound bar more full than before. Louder. A Friday-night feeling. Rab came hustling over with his captain-at-sea walk, but frantic now—as if the enemy had pivoted their ship for an eight-cannon broadside.

  “Are we good with a three-dollar cover? Or five? People are asking.”

  “I think three is fine,” Leo said.

  “And the marquee, son of a bitch.”

  He set a stack of clattering black letters on the bar.

  “I could only find one I.”

  They could be LONIZED or LIONZED or just MUSC TONIGHT? They decided on MUSC TONIGHT and the room seemed to tilt, everything liquid and rushing toward showtime. As with any show, problems multiplied. Cables gained fresh knots, feedback manifested like a poltergeist. Microphone stands had shrunk an inexplicable four inches. Meanwhile, the atonal bell rang in each new guest like an apocalyptic herald.

  Here’s Don Osterling from geometry—KA-TUNK

  And Scruggs, done up, beard combed, like a kindly professor; their parents, Dunbar—TINK, TUNK, TINK—Mandy Thompson, Chris Adams, Xi Nile—

  And Leo constantly demanding:

  “Charity, can you help me out with this ladder—”

  “Charity, can we run another check—”

  “Charity, I think there’s one more box in the car, can you give me a hand?”

  She went outside with him. There were no windows in the bar, so Griff smiled past some friends, waved to Slim and Jonesy up front, and went out to see what was happening. Why couldn’t he help his brother with the box? Charity still needed to change for the show.

  Leo and Charity stood by the ThunderChicken.

  They were not talking about the box.

  Leo looked desperate. Cheeks flushed. Hands flashing back and forth. His words came in bursts and snatches, carried by choppy gusts, once, can just, why—and Charity shook her head, twice, three times. Leo popped the trunk. Jerked the box from the back of the Thunderbird. Charity turned toward him and Griff ducked inside.

  THUNK—

  Swallowed by crowd sounds, the humidity of a full room, bright lights.

  Rab called—“Fifteen minutes until show!”

  Charity was missing.

  He scanned the crowd, which had grown into a strange fever dream—a
cobbled-together landscape of foreign and familiar faces, classmates, Preppers, townies—was it possible the music had drawn them? Logging guys burled up to the bar like they’d sprouted there. Surfer Boys, gangly and half bearded, ripping through buckets of Buds on barstools. The Patriots in the wraparound corner booth like a shaky nest of eight balls rattling in the pocket. Cowboy hats. Flannel and Carhartts, and somehow slipping through the room and stepping on stage—Charity Simms.

  Her presence put a hush into the crowd, stopped Griff’s breathing. Her dress was purple, blue, and dim red, layered like a slow sunset. Her eyes danced. She made the room hum, just holding the silence. Beside her, Leo and Thomas looked like set pieces. Charity was the star.

  When Griff finally wove his way up to the stage, she and Leo were talking:

  “It’s Rab,” Leo said.

  “Bullshit,” Charity said. Griff had never heard her swear.

  “What’s wrong?” Griff asked.

  “Leo suddenly has a problem with our set.”

  “What’s up?” Griff said. “We agreed on three songs, right?”

  “It’s Rab!” Leo said. “Because we’re minors. We can put you guys at the end, if there’s time. But it’s not fair to the band if we don’t get to play our full set.”

  “Your set,” Griff said.

  “Hey,” Leo said. “Don’t worry. We’ll work it out.”

  Leo climbed down. Sitting up front, Slim and Jonesy. The scene at the table looked like a tableau exercise from sophomore-year improv theater. The scene would be called: Jonesy Snuck Something Alcoholic into His Drink. Jonesy clutched his tall cola like it was a pigeon that might fly away. Slim was scooted way over, as if the drink were a bubbling caldron of poison. Jonesy passed the caldron to Leo, who took a sip.

  Griff glared at him—before the show? Instinctively, he looked for his parents. Then Charity’s mom. She was there—visible in her blazer toward the back.

  “What’s going on with Leo?” Griff asked Charity quietly.

  “I’ll tell you after,” Charity said. “I should’ve waited.”

  “For what?”

  She waved him off. They’d arrived at showtime. Rab leapt on stage, taking the microphone and talking too close. Popping Ps like firecrackers.

  “Hello, people! Welcome! Please everyone—”

  Although Griff had been privy to every practice, every falling-domino decision that had led explicitly to this moment, it seemed absurd that this show should be permitted to happen at all. He was suspended in the energy of the moment, which carried him to his piano, dropped him onto the bench, and applied his fingers to the keys.

  When his hands settled on the instrument, they stopped trembling.

  Leo introduced the band. The applause helped. Playing helped even more.

  The mechanics of performance crowded out panic. Leo sang and played the few chords he’d learned on guitar. Charity backed him up. Thomas looped their voices and instruments, which doubled and tripled, expanding around them until somehow they’d finished their first original song. More applause! The next song, Leo and he played together as a duet. “Wildflowers,” by Tom Petty. When Leo joined Griff at the piano, the audience cheered before they got started.

  “The Tripp Twins!”

  Somehow, they were a hit.

  The first four songs moved smoothly—better than rehearsal. Thomas and Leo had wisely alternated original music and Americana, an original, then Petty, Ryan Adams, another original—then the fifth song, “Wayfaring Stranger,” modeled after a Rhiannon Giddens banjo performance. For this one, Charity owned the microphone completely.

  Leo and Griff played understated piano. Charity plucked a ukulele (“Banjo,” she had explained, “I have no talent for.”) and Thomas worked on atmospherics. When Charity began, the silence turned palpable. At the bar, ice hit glass bottoms like boulders. A lotto machine tweeted obscenely in the back room. A man in a trucker hat stood and found the cord. His shoulder jerked and the machine went black.

  I know dark clouds will gather round me, I know the way is rough and steep

  Charity cast her spell. Griff’s eyes went watery and it wasn’t even her best—just halfway to her truest voice. Wild applause snapped the brothers out of it, but they woke from different dreams. Griff was beaming. Leo looked unsettled. It took him a long time to set up the sixth song.

  Expectant silence ebbed, gave way to barroom chatter.

  “Leo,” Thomas said. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Just wait,” Leo said.

  Chatter turned to drunken laughter. People shouted requests. Leo took the microphone and switched the set order. Another original. A piece called “Space and Time”—their newest and far from their best, but they followed Leo’s lead. Only after the long break, they couldn’t quite get the crowd back. After each pause between songs, Leo insisted on tuning, conferencing with Thomas.

  “Turn us up,” he told Thomas. “More on the mic.”

  They were sliding backward. Thomas kept turning them up. But volume was not a substitute for attention. Leo started talking more—

  “So great to see you all. I’d really like you to listen to this one!”

  The crowd was happy, but they were no longer his.

  “Here’s our last song!” Leo said.

  Big cheer. They played their final original, “Wrinkle in the Sky.” A strong song, but rather than end with a hard beat, as they’d planned, Leo trailed off into a long rudderless jam. When the song wrapped to modest applause, Griff stood and walked to his brother. “Should I introduce us?”

  “What?”

  “Charity and me,” Griff said.

  “Oh,” Leo said. “Shoot. I think we might be out of time.”

  A strong single burst of applause from behind the bar. It was Rab, clapping his meaty hands, approaching the stage.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Let’s give it up for Lionized!”

  The crowd all came back. Shouts and cheers and Griff and Charity smiled, then shared a panicked look, what was happening—

  “But don’t go!” Rab shouted. “Don’t go yet. What did you think of this girl with the golden voice?”

  Pounding of the tables. Charity! Go Charity!

  “We’ve still got a headliner for you—”

  “Not the headliner,” Leo said.

  “—what do we call you?” Rab asked Griff and Charity, his eyes bloodshot.

  “Just Charity and Griff,” Griff said.

  “Just Charity and Griff!” Rab shouted.

  Charity lowered the microphone. Griff adjusted the bench, moving it where he wanted. Feedback in the monitors. Leo climbed down and joined Jonesy and Slim at their table. Thomas came back to run sound. He turned the lights up, maximum bright.

  The crowd went still and in the howling moment of a second, Griff realized his invisible wall had collapsed. Right here, in front of Leo and the whole world, was everything he’d ever wanted.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  IN THE SPOTLIGHT, CHARITY HAD THE SAME DETERMINED SET TO her jaw Griff had noticed in her mother. She suddenly looked years more experienced, like she’d stepped into a brand-new version of herself, miles ahead of this stage. Griff wondered how long in this short life he’d be lucky enough to know her.

  He spread his hands over the keys. He had all eighty-eight.

  When Charity began to sing, the audience went still as a held breath. Sometimes in practice, it took her a while to warm up. Not tonight. Charity was fearless—went down deep, pulling up the sweet, clear sound. Her voice flew a four-octave range from a low rumble to a place so high it cracked. In ten seconds, she had the room right where she’d left them after “Wayfaring Stranger.”

  Griff played his whole heart. Charity was the real thing.

  When they finished the first song, the room clapped like their home team had just won in overtime. Like they’d just remembered they were alive. People in Clade City did not stand and cheer for anything without a ball and protective equipment—
but some stood now. Griff clapped too, like he hadn’t been part of it. The whole place beamed golden light except one quiet cluster up front Griff could feel like a cold pocket in the ocean.

  Leo, Jonesy, and Slim.

  Leo and Jonesy had fresh drinks poured and sat a distance from Slim. They had a look in their eyes like kids in a parking lot about to throw rocks. Leo found Griff’s eyes right away. His face twitched. Puckered lips, bug eyes. Leo was mocking him.

  Piano Face.

  Hands shaking, Griff put his fingers to the keys and it didn’t matter. No one was looking at him anyway.

  The second song was their most raw. Slow and challenging for a barroom crowd.

  It began to sacred silence. Charity threw her voice up to the top two octaves, where it held on trembling and then broke off. Unlike the first musical exploration, this one came with words—

  —Sometimes you find them, sometimes you won’t—

  When she repeated the line, it came with an awful echo. Griff looked at Thomas, on the sound board. Thomas wasn’t watching the monitors. He was staring at Leo and Jonesy, who were both laughing. Griff didn’t know who had started it, but Leo went next. Griff watched his brother’s mouth wrap around Charity’s words. Right there at the front of the room, he cawed back at her—

  Saaaaawwwwmtimes—

  Mocking. Cruel. That face of his.

  Him and Jonesy together, the audience quiet enough to hear them. Griff stared at his brother and flubbed the keys. Charity stuttered as if stirring in deep sleep, not quite awake—please don’t wake up! She sang, but Leo and Jonesy were contagious. Tables were watching them now, smiling. Shaking heads. Slim watched. He swallowed, like he’d just put down a stone.

  Shhhhometimes you dawwwn’t—

  He saw the understanding land behind Charity’s eyes. She’d heard it. They ended the song early to generous applause, but Charity’s voice shook when she said:

  “Last song.”

  In the opening, a wordless melody was meant to imitate the wind. The purposeful shake and crack of her voice—being the most beautiful—lent itself to the most brutal mockery. Leo and Jonesy did it again. Griff tried to keep playing. They’d brought along another table in the cruelty, a voice farther back in the bar.