“I don’t know, Joe.…”
He pours a healthy portion of maple syrup over the contents of his plate. “You still like stargazing, right? Because they’ve got one of the biggest telescopes in the country.”
The mention of telescopes and stargazing makes my stomach churn. Or maybe that’s from the smell rising up from my plate. I’m pretty sure scrambled eggs aren’t supposed to be made with cream cheese and … mustard? I push the plate away. “I can’t, Joe. I’ve already got plans.”
“But, Daph, I cleared my whole schedule for you.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought to make sure my schedule was clear before making all these plans. Did you just suppose I’d have nothing better going on? I have a life of my own, you know?”
“Oh,” Joe says. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I should have checked with you first.” He sounds so dejected, I almost waver.
“I need to get ready,” I say, before I can be talked into changing my mind.
I leave Joe at the breakfast table. I look back before heading up the stairs. He stabs a forkful of eggs à la Vince, shoves it in his mouth, and then promptly lets it all fall back out onto his plate.
“Bloody hell,” he says, wiping his tongue with the sleeve of his bathrobe.
I stifle a laugh and head for my bedroom. I pick up my phone from my bedside table and dial a number I never thought I’d actually call when he gave it to me.
“Hello?” Haden answers. He sounds surprised.
“Are you busy today? I thought we could fit in another lesson.”
“I’m available,” he says. There’s a touch of eagerness in his voice before he tempers it. “What did you have in mind?”
“A field trip,” I say, wanting to get as far away from Joe and Olympus Hills as possible for the day. “I think it’s time I give you a more advanced musical education. Pick me up in two hours.”
“I don’t even know where to start. I mean, there’s the classics. Like Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Debussy, and then some more modern stuff like the Kinks, the Zombies, the Beatles of course, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, the Velvet Underground, the Who … Ah crap, that’s just the 1960s.”
“This is starting to sound like it’s going to take a year,” Haden says.
“I know. This is even more difficult than I thought it would be.”
I researched online and found a music store a few towns over from Olympus Hills that still has an old-school listening booth in it. I’d already arranged with the manager—thanks to the generous cash allowance Joe had given me—for us to have use of the booth for the entire afternoon. But that isn’t feeling like nearly enough time at the moment.
I take a great big breath and let it out in a puff. “Okay, I’m just going to grab some of my favorites from different decades. This might take a bit.” I look up at Haden and see that he’s watching my hands as I pluck different albums from the bins.
“What should I do?” he asks.
“Hmmm. Go pick something out. Anything you want.”
The strangest look passes over his normally stony face. Hesitancy? Uncertainty? Almost like no one has ever given him the option of picking something out for himself before. It’s the first time I’m seeing him with an unguarded expression.
I smile at him reassuringly. “There’s no wrong choice. Just surprise me.”
He nods and that stony mask of his slips over his face again. I miss the more open look.
I watch him for a moment, his long fingers curling over the edges of the CD cases as he flips through the albums. He glances back at me. I look down at the album in my hands.
After I’ve got a stack of CDs that’s almost as tall as I am, Haden comes back with an album. He holds it up for my inspection. Shadow of a Star by Joe Vince. The frown forms on my face before I can stop it. Of all the thousands of albums in this place, he had to choose that one.
Haden pulls the CD back. “I chose wrong, then?” His voice is gray with disappointment. “It’s your father’s album, yes? I thought it would be good to familiarize myself—”
“Pick something else,” I say abruptly. “Anything else.”
“Why?” he asks.
The personal question interests me, since he’s always trying to deflect mine, but what’s more is that I actually find myself wanting to tell him.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
I sigh. “I’d only ever met Joe four times before I came to live with him back in September. The last of those times was when he made a surprise appearance at my tenth birthday party. He made a big deal about giving me his guitar, the first one he’d ever bought with his own money—and he taught me the words to his favorite song. He cried when I sang and he said I had his voice, and he told me that this time he was going to stay in Ellis.
“I followed him everywhere for the next few days. He taught me to play the guitar, and took me out at night to see the constellations. He told me the stories behind them, and we even wrote a song about the stars together. But five days into what I thought was the best week of my life, he left me standing at my front room window with a telescope, waiting for him until it was almost midnight and I realized he wasn’t coming. One of his handlers sent a note the next day, saying Joe had gone back to California. Without even saying good-bye.
“I spent the next year learning every single one of Joe’s songs until I could sing them even better than him, thinking somehow if I did this, he’d be impressed enough to come back. But he didn’t.” I shrug one shoulder. “I’d call him with the hope of singing to him over the phone, but he never answered. He never sent postcards. Never visited again. And after a while, I moved on from my father’s songs and started writing my own. Joe likes to tell people I have his voice. But he’s wrong. It’s mine.” I point at the album in Haden’s hand. “That song, ‘Shadow of a Star’—that’s the song I helped Joe write when I was ten years old. It’s considered one of his greatest hits—the one that solidified his ‘God of Rock’ status. But I hate it. I turn it off anytime it comes on the radio.”
“I can see why,” Haden says.
“You know he had the audacity to invite me to go stargazing again today? He arranged this whole, grand daddy-daughter day and rented out the planetarium’s telescope. He didn’t even get why I didn’t want to go. I had to tell him I had plans so he’d drop it.”