Adam’s first reaction was to smile with pride. “I wish I could’ve seen that.” But then his eyes clouded over and his lips fell into a frown. “Why’d you downplay it?” he asked. “Why didn’t you call me after the audition to brag?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, this is great news,” Adam said, trying to mask his hurt. “We should be celebrating.”
“Okay, let’s celebrate,” I said, with a forced gaiety. “We can go to Portland Saturday. Go to the Japanese Gardens and go out for dinner at Beau Thai.”
Adam grimaced. “I can’t. We’re playing in Olympia and Seattle this weekend. Minitour. Remember? I’d love for you to come, but I don’t know if that’s really a celebration for you. But I’ll be back Sunday late afternoon. I can meet you in Portland Sunday night if you want.”
“I can’t. I’m playing in a string quartet at some professor’s house. What about next weekend?”
Adam looked pained. “We’re in the studio the next couple weekends, but we can go out during the week somewhere. Around here. To the Mexican place?”
“Sure. The Mexican place,” I said.
Two minutes before, I hadn’t even wanted to celebrate, but now I was feeling dejected and insulted at being relegated to a midweek dinner at the same place we always went to.
When Adam graduated from high school last spring and moved out of his parents’ place and into the House of Rock, I hadn’t expected much to change. He’d still live nearby. We’d still see each other all the time. I’d miss our little powwows in the music wing, but I would also be relieved to have our relationship out from under the microscope of high school.
But things had changed when Adam moved into the House of Rock and started college, though not for the reasons I’d thought they would. At the beginning of the fall, just as Adam was getting used to college life, things suddenly started heating up with Shooting Star. The band was offered a record deal with a medium-size label based in Seattle and now were busy in the studio recording. They were also playing more shows, to larger and larger crowds, almost every weekend. Things were so hectic that Adam had dropped half his course load and was going to college part-time, and if things kept up at this rate, he was thinking of dropping out altogether. “There are no second chances,” he told me.
I was genuinely excited for him. I knew that Shooting Star was something special, more than just a college-town band. I hadn’t minded Adam’s increasing absences, especially since he made it so clear how much he minded them. But somehow, the prospect of Juilliard made things different—somehow it made me mind. Which didn’t make any sense at all because if anything, it should have leveled the field. Now I had something exciting happening, too.
“We can go to Portland in a few weeks,” Adam promised. “When all the holiday lights are up.”
“Okay,” I said sullenly.
Adam sighed. “Things are getting complicated, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. Our schedules are too busy,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant,” Adam said, turning my face toward his so I was looking at him in the eye.
“I know that’s not what you meant,” I replied, but then a lump lodged itself in my throat and I couldn’t talk anymore.
We tried to defuse the tension, to talk about it without really talking about it, to joke-ify it. “You know I read in US News and World Report that Willamette University has a good music program,” Adam told me. “It’s in Salem, which is apparently getting hipper by the moment.”
“According to who? The governor?” I replied.
“Liz found some good stuff at a vintage-clothing store there. And you know, once the vintage places come in, the hipsters aren’t far behind.”
“You forget, I’m not a hipster,” I reminded him. “But speaking of, maybe Shooting Star should move to New York. I mean, it’s the heart of the punk scene. The Ramones. Blondie.” My tone was frothy and flirtatious, an Oscar-worthy performance.
“That was thirty years ago,” Adam said. “And even if I wanted to move to New York, there’s no way the rest of the band would.” He stared mournfully at his shoes and I recognized the joking part of the conversation had ended. My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.
Adam and I had never been the kind of couple to talk about the future, about where our relationship was going, but with things suddenly so unclear, we avoided talking about anything that was happening more than a few weeks away, and this made our conversations as stilted and awkward as they’d been in those early weeks together before we’d found our groove. One afternoon in the fall, I spotted a beautiful 1930s silk gown in the vintage store where Dad bought his suits and I almost pointed it out to Adam and asked if he thought I should wear that to the prom, but prom was in June and maybe Adam would be on tour in June or maybe I’d be too busy getting ready for Juilliard, so I didn’t say anything. Not long after that, Adam was complaining about his decrepit guitar, saying he wanted to get a vintage Gibson SG, and I offered to get it for him for his birthday. But then he said that those guitars cost thousands of dollars, and besides his birthday wasn’t until September, and the way he said September, it was like a judge issuing a prison sentence.
A few weeks ago, we went to a New Year’s Eve party together. Adam got drunk, and when midnight came, he kissed me hard. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll spend New Year’s with me next year,” he whispered into my ear.
I was about to explain that even if I did go to Juilliard, I’d be home for Christmas and New Year’s, but then I realized that wasn’t the point. So I promised him because I wanted it to be true as much as he did. And I kissed him back so hard, like I was trying to merge our bodies through our lips.
On New Year’s Day, I came home to find the rest of my family gathered in the kitchen with Henry, Willow, and the baby. Dad was making breakfast: smoked-salmon hash, his specialty.