I pulled my car over to the side of the road and shifted it into park. “Mike,” I said quietly, and my brother opened his eyes with what looked like real effort. “We’re here—you’re just going to have to walk from here to the house, okay?”
Mike nodded, then winced. “Don’t let me do that again, okay?” he asked faintly.
“What, nod?”
Mike started to nod, then winced again. “Yes,” he muttered.
I grabbed one of the bagel bags, and Bill took the other one, along with the terrible maroon suit that was apparently now ours. I opened the door for Mike, who squinted, even though the day had gotten more and more overcast. When he nearly dropped his bag twice as we all started to walk—very slowly—up the driveway together, I reached out and took it from him.
“Thanks,” he muttered, stopping to rest for a moment before taking a breath and continuing on.
I turned to Bill, only to see that he was staring at the van, his brows drawn together.
“Charlie?” He looked up at me, his expression grim. “I think we have a problem.”
CHAPTER 18
Or, That’s the Way You Need It
* * *
I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” I SAID, shaking my head. Bill and I were standing on the driveway with Glen, the lead singer and manager of Any Way You Want It. Glen was probably in his late forties, balding but with long hair, with leather wristbands and a tattoo sleeve on one arm. “We already have a wedding band.”
I stamped my increasingly numb feet on the driveway to warm them up and looked at Bill, who was turned slightly away from me. He was still on the phone, just like he’d been ever since Glen had introduced himself. Mike had gone inside with the bags of bagels, and I’d texted J.J. to meet him by the front door and get him upstairs without too many of our relatives seeing the extent of his underage-drinking aftermath.
I’d been trying ever since to understand what Glen was doing here and why he was talking about needing to see our setup so that he could get his amps plugged in.
Glen held up his arms, one of which had DON’T STOP tattooed over his bicep. “Hey, I just go where they tell me,” he said, pulling out a creased piece of paper from his back pocket. He smoothed it out and squinted at it. “We’re supposed to be here to set up and be ready to play Duncan Kaufman’s bar mitzvah at six p.m.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling myself start to breathe easier. “There’s been some mix-up. I think you’re at the wrong address.”
“Nope,” Glen said, holding out the paper to me and pointing at it. There was our address, clearly printed—and above, who the e-mail was coming from. Clementine.
“Bill,” I said, just as he hung up the phone and turned back to me.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “I just got off the phone with Party in the Stars. They’re up in Maine getting prepped to play a bar mitzvah.”
“Maine?”
“Party in the Stars?” Glen asked, looking impressed. “Whoa. They’re, like, big-time.” Then he blinked and added, “But, uh . . . we’re really good too.”
“Apparently this was another Clementine mix-up,” Bill said, shaking his head. “And when my uncle confirmed the band yesterday, he just assumed they were going to the right address. . . .”
“Well,” I said, trying to think fast. “It’s okay. Maybe they can get back here in time?”
Bill shook his head. “It’s nine hours away. Without traffic.” I tried to do the math, but he was right—there was no way they could safely get back in time before the wedding. “Also, then nobody would be playing Duncan Kaufman’s bar mitzvah.” I didn’t really care about Duncan Kaufman at the moment—I was fighting the urge to go track Clementine down, wherever she was, so that I could scream at her.
“Wait, so we’re not supposed to be here?” Glen asked.
“No,” Bill said. “But—since you are here—we’re going to need you to sub in and play a wedding tonight. The original wedding band is playing your gig in Maine.”
I looked at the van again, now understanding the acronym and trying to see the bright side. Any Way You Want It as a name seemed promising, at any rate. So maybe they would be able to roll with the music choices Linnie and Rodney had planned. “Do you guys have a list of the songs you can play?”
“Sure,” Glen said, still sounding a little thrown, as he pulled out his phone. He held it out to me, and Bill and I leaned over the screen together.
“That’s it?” I asked after a moment of staring at the song titles and trying to get them to make sense. When we’d seen Party in the Stars’s list, it had gone on for pages and pages.
“Wait,” Bill said, looking at Glen. “Why are all these Journey songs?”
Glen looked at us like he was waiting for one of us to tell him we were joking. “Seriously?” he asked. “Because we’re a Journey cover band.”
“What?” I asked, even though I’d heard him perfectly.
“We’re called Any Way You Want It,” Glen said, pointing to the van. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”
“I thought it just meant that you were super accommodating,” I said. “Like, you could have the wedding music be any way you wanted it!”
“No. That’s why we were booked to play this kid’s bar mitzvah. The theme is Duncan’s Journey to Being a Man.”
I glanced at Bill, feeling my hopes deflate. It was bad enough we didn’t have the band we wanted—and now we were stuck with an eighties-era cover band?
“We’re really good, though,” Glen said, maybe sensing what I was feeling. “We’re the tri-state area’s second-best Journey cover band, according to Best of the Gold Coast. I can send you the article if you want.”
“There’s more than one Journey cover band?” Bill asked, sounding surprised.
“Oh man, you have no idea,” Glen said darkly. “It’s really stiff competition. We should have won, but the Streetlight People had some pull with the judges, so . . .” He sighed and shook his head. “Well—some will win. Some will lose.”
I tilted my head to the side. “That’s a Journey lyric, isn’t it?”
“Steve Perry is a poet of the ordinary,” Glen said reverently.
“That may be so,” Bill said. “But the thing is, we didn’t know you were a Journey cover band. I’m sure you’re great. But . . . we were kind of expecting a regular band.”
“But we’re so much better than a regular band,” Glen said, looking appalled by this.
“Do you play any other songs?” I asked, hoping against hope that they did.
Glen brightened at this. “We have some originals.”
“No,” Bill and I said at the same time.
“I’m sure they’re good,” I added quickly, since Glen was looking offended. “But we were really hoping for some, you know, songs by other artists.”
“Why would a Journey cover band play other bands’ songs? We’re not a jukebox. Also, you need to respect the cover band turf. If we started playing Michael Jackson suddenly, the Men in the Mirror would not be happy about it.”
“Oh,” I said. “I had no idea.”
Glen nodded. “It’s a tough business. Welcome to the jungle.” He paused for a second. “Which is, incidentally, the name of my brother’s Guns N’ Roses cover band.”
“Do you think you could give it a shot?” Bill asked. “We’ve just . . . had a lot of things go wrong with this wedding already, and I’m not sure the bride and groom can handle anything else not going according to plan.”
“I can talk to my bandmates,” he said grumpily. “But I have to tell you, I don’t know how good any songs are going to be if we’re learning them day of.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering if maybe one of my siblings or one of the guests had really well-curated playlists on their phones, or something. “Just . . . try? And let us know?”
“Fine,” Glen said, still not sounding happy. “We’ll try.”
I heard the sound of a bike coming down the street and turned to see Sarah Steph
ens riding right in the middle of the road. When she passed me, she took one hand off the handlebars, then pointed to her eyes, then at mine, the I’m watching you finger point that I’d honestly not expected to be on the receiving end of from a middle schooler.
“What is that?” Glen asked, sounding panicky, and I saw that he was also looking at Sarah. He turned to me and Bill. “Do you guys see that too?”
“That’s just our papergirl,” I said, as Sarah biked away.
“Oh, good,” Glen said, looking hugely relieved. “I thought I was having a flashback, or that it meant I only had twenty-four hours to live or something.”
“So,” Bill said, turning to Glen. “You’re going to talk to your bandmates . . .”
“Yeah,” he said, not sounding all that enthusiastic about the idea. “But right now, I just need to know where we’re going to be playing. Despite the fact you don’t like our music . . .” He muttered this last part in an undertone.
“Around back,” Bill said, gesturing for Glen to come with him, and I followed them around the side of the house to the backyard—which was now filled with people wearing Tent City shirts. They were in the midst of erecting a tent while Will paced around, shouting instructions, and my uncle Stu followed in his footsteps, giving advice that I had a feeling wasn’t actually wanted or at all needed.
“So, I’ll show you where the stage is going to be,” Bill said, pointing across the lawn.
“I’ll take that,” I said to Bill, gesturing for the garment bag with Ralph’s terrible suit inside.
I crossed the deck to the house and opened the kitchen door—only to stop short and grab on to the counter to stop myself from toppling over. There was a very large man in a bright-blue shirt kneeling in front of the door, peering at the alarm panel. PISCATELLI SECURITY SYSTEMS, it read in bright letters across his back, and then in smaller, cursive type underneath it, Don’t be alarmed!
“Um. Hi,” I said, maneuvering around him. He nodded at me but then went back to fiddling with the alarm panel. I looked around the kitchen, which had gone much the way of the backyard and the driveway—suddenly much busier and crowded than when I’d left it.
My dad was standing behind the alarm guy, leaning over his shoulder, and he shook his head at me when I walked past him, clearly letting me know that my part in wrecking his flower beds had not been forgotten. Danny was standing on the other side of the kitchen, talking on his phone and pacing around, and getting in the way of the people that I presumed were the caterers—they were wearing white shirts and black pants, at any rate—who had appeared since I’d last been there.
The kitchen island and the counters were now covered with food, and the caterers were bustling around, getting things ready for tonight. Two people were chopping veggies on the kitchen island, and two more were preparing trays of food, assembly-line style. I could see on the kitchen table the remains of the bagels I’d brought—it looked like while we’d been talking with Glen in the driveway, most of them had been devoured.
I dodged around one of the caterers, who was en route to the oven with a baking tray, gave her an apologetic smile she didn’t return, then headed over to the kitchen table to see if there were still any poppy seed bagels left—narrowly missing a collision with J.J., who came storming in with wet hair, in his robe, carrying a bow tie.
“Do you have a sewing kit?” he asked the kitchen in general—though neither the caterers or the alarm guy responded.
“Me?” I asked after a moment.
“Anyone!” he said, sounding annoyed. “Mom!” he yelled, continuing through the kitchen.
“Don’t yell,” my dad yelled after him.
“Have you seen Rodney?” I asked.
“No,” my dad said, leaning closer to the alarm panel. “But did you see we’re getting the alarm fixed? Leo here is going to get this sorted before tonight.”
“I’m doing my best,” Leo the alarm guy muttered, shaking his head as he examined the panel once again.
“Is there any more coffee, Jeffrey?” Mrs. Daniels asked, coming into the kitchen, holding a mug.
“I’ve got it,” I said, giving my dad a smile, hoping this would help make up for his garden dreams getting crushed. I crossed over to take her cup, dodging around Danny, who shot me an apologetic look. Work, he mouthed to me, and I gave him a sympathetic grimace.
“No, I don’t understand,” Danny said into his phone. “We were supposed to see contracts months ago. . . .” He turned and left the kitchen, heading for the front hall, just as Max came barreling in.
“Hey,” he said, looking around and pulling on his beard. “You don’t have any milk, do you?”
“Milk?” my dad echoed. “Sure—try the fridge.”
I poured Mrs. Daniels a fresh cup of coffee, then handed it to her as Rodney came in. “Mom, do you have a sewing kit?” Rodney asked. “J.J. needs one.”
“I think I should have one upstairs,” she said, nodding her thanks at me. “I’ll use that when you’re done, Maxwell,” she said to Max, who I just noticed was starting to leave the kitchen holding the carton of milk.
“Oh,” Max said, looking down at it, like he was surprised to see it there. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes, but it really did seem like maybe Max should take the occasional day off, since his recreational habits were clearly starting to affect him. “Right,” he said, coming back with the milk carton. He held it out to Mrs. Daniels.
“Can I get you a glass or something?” I asked Max.
“I don’t need a whole glass,” he said. “Maybe just like a cup . . . or a dish or something?”
I pulled a mug out of the cupboard. “Here,” I said, handing it to him.
“Thanks,” Max said, pouring the milk into the mug, then handing the container back to me and hustling out of the room.
I went to put the milk back in the fridge, reaching for the door just as one of the catering staff did the same. “Oh—sorry,” I said. He gave me a tight smile, one that didn’t meet his eyes, and I stepped away quickly from the fridge, feeling like I was very much in the way.
“What does J.J. need out of the sewing kit?” Mrs. Daniels asked, and Rodney shrugged.
“Not surprisingly, he didn’t elaborate.”
“Um,” I said to Rodney, feeling like the sooner I did this the better. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Rodney’s eyebrows flew up. “Sounds serious. Did everything go okay with the suit? Is that it?”
“Wait!” I practically yelled as Rodney took a step toward the garment bag. He paused, looking at me, eyebrows raised. “Um—can we talk in the other room?”
“Hey.” Priya came out of the dining room, stretching her arms over her head. “When are the hair and makeup people coming? I want to jump in the shower first.”
“Um.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, since I was pretty sure I had the information somewhere. Bill would probably know, I realized—but he was still outside, presumably dealing with our unforeseen cover band. “Let me just check. . . .”
“Linnie?” my mom called as she came into the kitchen from the back stairs, then stopped short when she saw the alarm guy. “Oh good. I’m so glad you were able to come,” she said as she edged past him into the kitchen. “We have a wedding here today.”
“You don’t say,” the alarm guy muttered.
“Where’s your sister?” my mom asked me.
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen her this morning. Why?”
“I have her something borrowed,” my mother said, crossing the kitchen. “Linnie!” she called.
“Seriously,” Rodney said, taking another step closer to the suit, “what’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just—”
Just then, the alarm sounded, an earsplitting electronic shriek, the loudest it had yet been. I jumped and automatically pressed my hands to my ears.
“What is that?” one of the caterers yelled.
“Alarm,” my dad yelled back.
“S
orry,” Leo yelled above the sound. “This might take a second.”
I heard the sound of nails skittering on the wood floors and turned in the direction of the sound to see Waffles, ears flying, tearing into the kitchen, managing to run and howl at the same time.
“Aw, there’s my cutie,” Mrs. Daniels said, reaching out to pet him as he came running past, but she wasn’t fast enough. Waffles clearly wanted to be wherever this sound was, and stopped just a few feet from the alarm guy, threw back his head, and started howling along, making the sound exponentially worse.
“Can you do something about your dog?” Leo yelled.
“He’s not our dog,” my dad yelled back. “He’s a loaner.”
The volume on the alarm got louder, and the dog responded in kind, matching the sound of the alarm in an unexpected harmony, like this was the world’s smallest, and strangest, a cappella group.
“What’s happening in here?” I turned to see General Daniels come into the kitchen. “Is there an intruder?”
Waffles stopped howling for a split second and regarded the General for just a moment, then threw his head back and started up again.
“Um.” I looked over to see Mike in the doorway, still looking like death slightly warmed over, wincing. “Is there any way we could . . . not? It’s just a bit . . . loud.”
Leo just shook his head as he punched buttons on the keypad, and a second later, the sound shut off, all at once. Waffles continued to howl alone for a few seconds before he seemed to realize the sound had stopped. Like he was embarrassed, he slunk over to the kitchen table and plopped down at the feet of Mrs. Daniels, who immediately bent down to rub his long ears.