Catherine Page 2

  I examined the evidence in front of me—a sea of unfamiliar faces sprinkled here and there with one or two I recognized: Blondie, The Ramones, Green Day. A link took me to The Underground’s history, a formidable block of text in red letters on a black background. The Underground has outlived its competition—even the famous CBGB—and remains THE place to catch cutting-edge underground music….

  This was all very interesting, but I was scouting for information I could actually use. I found it in the second paragraph. Visionary founder Jim Eversole… Could that be an uncle of mine? I did the math quickly and realized he was about the right age to have been my grandfather. After Jim’s untimely death, the torch was passed briefly to his son, Quentin, who remade the site into an upscale steak house. But The Underground’s original vision was revived by its current owner, Hence, former frontman for Riptide….

  What kind of name was Hence? Was he a relative of mine, too? I scanned the screen for my mother’s name but didn’t see it. No matter. I had a strong feeling I was on the right track. I couldn’t waste the rest of the afternoon waiting around for The Underground to open. After all, how much time did I have before my father guessed where I’d run off to and came looking for me? I’d been careful not to leave any clues. Still, I could imagine Dad getting home from work, finding me gone, and going on a frenzied search. How long would it be before he thought to look for the letter, found it missing, and guessed where I’d gone?

  Back at The Underground, I tried pounding on the front door until my hands ached. Nothing. I walked around to the rear of the building, stepping over fast-food wrappers and broken beer bottles. I found another door with an actual doorbell beside it. I pressed it and heard a buzzer ring inside the club. No answer. I rang again.

  Just as I was about to give up, the door opened and I came face-to-face with a guy exactly my height and slender, with brown bangs that fell in his eyes and splotches of pink on his cheeks. We stood for a moment, staring at each other. This couldn’t be the club’s owner; he was too young—around my age, or a little older. He wore paint-stained cargo shorts and a faded purple T-shirt with black letters that read PUNK’S NOT DEAD. Head cocked questioningly, he looked at me, not saying anything.

  He was probably just an employee, but my hopeful side wondered if he could be related to me—maybe a long-lost cousin? “Hello. I’m Chelsea Price.” Would my name mean anything to him?

  It didn’t seem to; his head remained cocked. “We’re not open yet.”

  “I’m looking for the guy who owns this club. Is he here?” When he didn’t answer, I tried again. “Hence. That’s his name, right?”

  “He’ll be in later tonight,” he said, reaching for the door. “I’m not sure when.” And he started to close the door on me.

  “Wait! Please…” I could hear my voice getting higher, the way it does when I get upset. “I took a bus all the way from Massachusetts to see him. I’ve been dragging this backpack around since five this morning….”

  He hesitated. “I don’t think Hence would like me to let you in.”

  But something about his hesitation gave me hope. I leaned forward a little, so that to close the door he’d have to slam it in my face. “My pack is heavy,” I said. “And it’s so hot out.”

  The guy sighed, but he didn’t shut the door on me. “You want to fill out an application? I’ll give it to him when he gets in….”

  “No! I’m not here for a job. I’m looking for my mother, Catherine Eversole.”

  The expression on his face changed.

  “You’ve heard of her?”

  His response was tight-lipped. “I know the name.”

  “You do?” I asked. “Is she related to the guy who founded the club? She’s his daughter, isn’t she?” I was pretty pleased with myself for having figured this out, but he didn’t answer. Still, he swung the door open and let me in.

  I followed him down a long hallway that reeked of fresh paint. We passed a door that led into an industrial-looking kitchen and another that opened into a room stacked high with mixers and musical equipment, its walls smeared with graffiti. So this was what a nightclub looked like.

  “This way.” He opened another door and flipped on a light switch, illuminating a steep staircase to the basement. I followed him down the creaky steps. At the bottom he clicked on a bare lightbulb dangling by its wire from the ceiling.

  The basement’s floor and walls were stark cement, adorned only by a poster of some band I’d never heard of called Black Watch—three bare-chested guys in eyeliner and tartan plaid pants. A metal cot was covered with a few scratchy-looking blankets and a lumpy pillow. Against the foot of the bed leaned a battered electric guitar. “You can stay here until Hence gets in.” He turned to leave.

  “Is this where you sleep?” I asked his retreating back, not wanting to be left alone for God knows how long. “Wait!”

  He paused. Before he could disappear again, I asked, “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Cooper,” he said. “Coop.”

  “Are you Hence’s son?”

  He laughed, as though I’d said something funny. “No. I work here. And I need to get some painting done. I’ll let you know when Hence gets home.” He took the stairs away from me two at a time.

  When he was out of earshot, I allowed myself a heavy sigh. I perched on the cot’s crinkly mattress, with nothing to do but wait. The small, ancient TV in the corner got about four stations, all of them too staticky to watch. I thought of the phone in my pocket, but I couldn’t exactly call anyone. Larissa was still on the Cape, and even if she hadn’t been, I couldn’t trust her not to crack under my father’s interrogation.

  After at least an hour had passed and I was about to die of boredom, I started poking around Cooper’s stuff. Not that there was much of it—a heavy English lit textbook under his cot, and a battered trunk plastered with stickers and stuffed with a tangle of jeans and T-shirts with names of bands I’d never heard of. I fought the urge to fold his clothes for him—that would have just been weird.

  Instead, I picked up his electric guitar, slung the strap over my shoulder, and stood in rock-star stance, giving it a strum. Not that I knew how to play. Those piano lessons Dad had forced me to take revealed I wasn’t the prodigy he’d hoped for, and in a few months he’d gotten tired of nagging me to practice. Now, wondering if my mother had been musical, I ruffled my hair and drew my lip back in a sneer, trying to look like the pictures on The Underground’s website. I gave one last muffled, tuneless strum. According to my watch, it was five thirty. What if Cooper forgot his promise to come and get me? Would I have to stay trapped in this basement all night?

  And then I started worrying about Hence. Cooper had seemed nervous about my being here, like his boss would bite his head off for letting me in. Why else would he be hiding me in the basement? But if I really was the granddaughter of the guy who founded The Underground, didn’t that make me something like rock-and-roll royalty? Why wouldn’t the current owner be happy to meet me?

  Suddenly tired, I thought about lying down on the cot, maybe crawling under the blankets, but they smelled like boy and probably hadn’t been washed in months. Instead, I dug into my backpack, zipped on a hoodie for warmth, and put a T-shirt between my head and the grungy-looking pillow. Earbuds in, I hit play on my iPod and shut my eyes.

  When I opened them again, groggy and disoriented, someone was standing over me, watching me sleep. I bolted upright, struggling to recall where I was. The someone was a guy, familiar and strange at the same time, looking down at me with a wry little smile, like I was a puzzle he was working out how to solve. I yelped, scrambling to my feet, and our heads collided.

  “Ouch!” The pain jolted me back to the present, and I remembered where I was and how I’d gotten there. “Geez! What were you looking at?” It didn’t seem fair, watching a person like that while she slept.

  “I came to get you.” The flush on his cheeks deepened. “I was trying to decide whether I should wake you u
p.”

  “You scared the crap out of me.” I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’d always been cursed with a tendency to blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. It was something I’d been meaning to work on.

  “Sorry.” The flush on his cheeks deepened.

  I felt bad for snapping at him, so I changed the subject. “Anyway, is Hence here?”

  Cooper nodded. “He’s not in the best mood.”

  I shook the hair out of my eyes and slipped my hand into my hoodie pocket to make sure the letter was still safely there. “That’s okay. Neither am I.”

  “No, seriously. He can be prickly. It’s easy to get on his bad side.” He paused to look me squarely in the face with eyes that were midway between blue and green. “And I’m guessing you can be prickly yourself.”

  True as that was, I didn’t much like hearing it from a complete stranger. “I’m not prickly.” I drew myself up to my full height. “And I’m not afraid of your boss.” Because, really, how bad could this Hence character be?

  “Hokay.” Cooper’s mouth twitched, like he was holding back a grin. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And with that he led me up the creaking staircase, into the heart of The Underground.

  Catherine

  My life changed forever on an ordinary Tuesday. I was rushing home from school so I could get together with Jackie and start on our homework assignment. The school year had barely begun, and already I was feeling frazzled and more than a little frustrated—I wanted to be doing my own writing, not some lame collaborative book report. It was a hot, sticky afternoon, the kind of late-summer day that made me want to hang out in a sidewalk café with an iced tea and a fresh pad of paper, eavesdropping on the conversations around me and jotting down every crazy idea that popped into my head. It felt wrong to be wearing an itchy school uniform and lugging a backpack, and even more wrong to have homework.

  When I took the corner, I saw him right away: a slender guy with shaggy black hair camped out on my front stoop next to a guitar case and a big duffel bag. My first thought was Oh, no, not another one. One of the most annoying things about living above a nightclub—and believe me, there are plenty—is the musicians who are always trying to introduce themselves to my dad, hoping to convince him to put them on the bill. It’s a waste of time, of course; Dad books his acts a year in advance, and he knows exactly who he will and won’t let play in the club. A band not only has to be great, it has to be on its way up, about to go national. “The Underground has to stay relevant. We’re more than a place to hear music. We’re tastemakers”—that’s how he puts it. He’s not exactly humble when it comes to The Underground, but why should he be? The place is kind of famous, and Dad’s a legend in the rock-and-roll world. Or so everybody has told me all my life, to the point where I get a little tired of hearing about it.

  Really, I’d gotten so sick of coming home and finding stray guitar-god wannabes on the doorstep that I was thinking about sneaking around to the back door so I wouldn’t have to talk with this one. He was staring down at his feet—lime-green Chuck Taylor All Stars—so I could have slipped right around the building without him so much as noticing me, except he happened to glance up as I was passing, and the look on his face stopped me. He was striking, with dark eyes, glossy hair, skin like coffee with extra cream, and the sharpest cheekbones I’d ever seen, but it was more than that. He looked hungry. Literally. Like he hadn’t eaten in days. I had this feeling he needed someone to be kind to him. It was written all over his face: He was on the verge of losing hope, and he needed someone to urge him to keep going, to fight for what he wanted.

  It was the strangest thing. It’s not like I’m usually good at reading minds. If anything, I’m the opposite—dense about what other people are thinking and feeling. But something flashed between me and the guy on the stoop—a kind of understanding. So I went over to him and he scrambled to his feet and dusted his hands off on his jeans. He held out his hand and I shook it—like we were executives meeting at a business luncheon. His touch surprised me; the palm of his hand was dry but hot—almost feverish.

  “Do you work here?” His voice sounded hopeful, but right away his gaze shot back down to his sneakers, as if he didn’t dare meet my eyes for long.

  It was a strange question, considering I was wearing my school uniform and carrying a knapsack.

  “I live here.” I threw my shoulders back and brushed a stray lock of hair from my eyes.

  “You live in The Underground?” Now he was looking at me in disbelief, as though I’d claimed I lived in the Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace.

  “Not in it. Above it.” I fumbled in my knapsack for my keys. “My father owns the place.”

  “Seriously? You’re Jim Eversole’s daughter?”

  I had to hand it to him; he’d done his homework. But the hope in his voice made my stomach lurch. Like all the others, this one would turn out to be way more interested in my father than in me. Why had I thought, even for a moment, that there might be more to him?

  “You want Dad to book you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s not why I’m here.” He sounded defensive. “I know I’m not ready for that yet. For now, I just want a job. Any job. Waiting tables, maybe.” From closer up, I could see the faint scruff above his upper lip and along his chin. Despite the heat, he had on a black denim jacket, and under it his faded blue T-shirt was speckled with small holes, one wash away from dissolving into shreds.

  “I don’t think my dad needs any more waiters.”

  “I’ll wash floors. I’ll even scrub toilets. I just want to get to know the place from the inside.” He dug his hands into his front pockets and looked back down at his sneakers, as if he knew he was asking for a huge favor and didn’t want to pressure me one way or another.

  Maybe he wasn’t like the others who had tried to worm their way into The Underground. I paused a moment, weighing my options. When I opened the door, stepped inside, and beckoned for him to follow, I wondered if I was making a big mistake.

  I usually hate giving tours of the club to my friends. Call me paranoid, but I get the feeling that where I live is more important to most people than who I am. But showing this guy around made me see the place through new eyes. First I took him through the main room. As we approached the stage, he paused for a long moment, staring like he could see the ghosts of all the acts who’d played there. So I waited beside him, recalling some of the bands I’d seen—The Magnetics, The Faithful, and Hot Jones Sundae were a few of my recent favorites—and I had the feeling that if I grabbed his hand and squeezed my eyes shut I could share my memories so that he’d have them, too.

  But I didn’t. What would he have thought if I’d tried it? Most likely that I was crazy—or hitting on him.

  Instead, I cleared my throat and led him onward, into the mixing room with its tangle of wires and crates. I let him take a peek at Dad’s office, and at his wall of glossy photographs of bands who’d come through the club. I saved my favorite spot for last: the dressing room where so many rockers had graffitied the walls into a multilayered, psychedelic mess. I pointed out a doodle drawn by Joey Ramone, and he studied it closely, as though trying to decipher its secret meaning.

  “Thanks,” he said when the tour was over. “For letting me take up your time. And for giving me a tour.”

  I shrugged. “No problem.” There was nothing more to show him, really, but I wasn’t ready to head upstairs and start dinner just yet. “I’m Catherine.” And when he didn’t reply, I said, “You have a name, right?”

  “Hence.”

  It took me a while to wrap my mind around that one. “Hans?”

  His answer came through gritted teeth, like he’d been asked that question a thousand times. “Hence. Like therefore.”

  I wanted to ask him if it was short for anything, and whether he had a last name, and where he’d come from, but he crossed his arms over his chest and cast a glance toward the front of the building. I got the distinct sense he was abo
ut to bolt. “You want to leave a phone number? In case my dad wants to get in touch with you? If he’s hiring?”

  Hence grimaced again. “I don’t have a phone,” he said. “I’m not really staying anywhere. I’m… I’m looking for someplace.” He swallowed hard and I remembered the impression I’d had earlier, that he was on the verge of giving up. Had he been sleeping on the streets? Or in a shelter?

  So I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I invited him up to our apartment, into the kitchen. At my urging he sat down on one of the stools along the counter, perched uneasily like a stray cat who wasn’t sure if he was going to be stroked or shooed. I cooked him one of those make-it-yourself pizzas heaped with everything I could find in the fridge. He practically swallowed it whole, so I made him another. Either he wasn’t much of a talker or he was too busy eating to make chitchat. To fill the silence, I talked about myself—about how I wished I were musical but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so I wrote poetry instead, and how most of the girls at school thought I was weird because I liked vintage clothes and would rather spend an afternoon reading than shopping. I went on and on until I noticed I was whining about my relatively nice life to a guy who probably didn’t even have a roof to sleep under.

  The realization brought a blush to my cheeks.

  “No,” Hence said, frowning down at his plate. “Keep going. I’m interested.”

  “I’d like to hear about you.” I stole a glance at the kitchen clock. It was 4:15, and Dad had told me that morning to expect him home at about five. My father’s pretty cool about most things, but even so I didn’t want him to come home and find me alone with a boy whose last name I didn’t even know. Same thing goes for my brother, Quentin, who was due back from school any minute, and who could be a bit overprotective and big-brothery sometimes.