Tempo Change by Barbara Hall Read Free Book Online Page B

left. Gigi and Viv took the bus and Ella rode her bike in the opposite direction. Gigi and Viv had been talking in a very animated way, and I noticed that Gigi was a lot more relaxed than I had ever seen her. Viv had a glow to her, too. The band was good for everyone but me. I felt exhausted.
    “Three hours, one song. Pretty good,” Jeff said.
    “Don’t start.” I collapsed on the curb beside him.
    “No, I mean, it sounded pretty good.”
    “I don’t know how we’re going to get there. We’ll be all right for the talent show but if we’re going to get into the Whisky show, we have to have a bunch of originals.”
    “Then I guess I’ll have to keep inspiring you.”
    “That song is not about you,” I said.
    He smiled.
    “You do it the way anything gets done,” he said. “One foot in front of the other.”
    “Is that gearhead wisdom?”
    “I don’t know why you think I’m a gearhead.”
    “Because you say things like ‘one foot in front of the other.’”
    “Oh,” he said, dashing his cigarette on the asphalt. “I thought I was being poetic.”
    “Everybody thinks that about themselves.”
    “You guys need help schlepping stuff? If you make it to the Whisky show, Toby will probably let me use one of the vans. I can be your driver.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    He grinned. “I’m dependable.”
    “Thanks, Jeff,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it. That would be good.”
    “Just keep making the music, Street. That’s your new job.”
    He walked off, and I sat staring up at the moon, which had jumped out of nowhere.
    Sometimes I pretended the moon cared about me.
    Just like I pretended my father did.

Ed the Guitar Guy
    T HE NEXT NIGHT I WAS SITTING IN MY ROOM DASHING through my homework so I could get back to working on my songs when my mother tapped on my door. I looked at my watch and was surprised she was still home because this was certainly the having-pots-of-tea-with-Louise-at-the-Fig-Tree hour. My stomach knotted up because I knew she wanted to have one of those talks.
    I hadn’t really told her about the band. How could she know? I wasn’t ready to talk yet. “Mom, I’ve got an AP history test next week.”
    “This won’t take long.”
    The door opened and she walked in with a tall, skinny guy her age who had dark blond hair to his shoulders, wide blue eyes, suntan wrinkles, six earrings and a nose stud. Hewore Levi’s and a long-sleeved shirt untucked and stood with his hands on his hips smiling at me.
    “This is Ed,” she said. “Ed, this is Blanche.”
    “Hi, Blanche. Nice name.”
    I was too stunned to say anything.
    My mother didn’t generally bring men home. I knew she dated them occasionally, but she was very particular about who she let into the house. In all the time my father had been gone I’d met two guys. One was Lance the corporate attorney who wore squeaky loafers and short-sleeved button-down shirts and said “sweet” a lot.
    Lance lasted exactly one month.
    Next came Timothy and he lasted almost six months because he was broody and depressed and had a novel that no one would publish. She’d never admit it but I think my mom gave him some money. For some reason, he got a grant to continue his novel-in-progress and he went off to a writers’ colony in New York and that was that. I wasn’t sure who dumped whom but the whole scenario was a little too much like the one with my father.
    Ed didn’t look like either one of those extremes. He was something in the middle.
    Anyway, back to my name.
    My mother couldn’t resist filling him in on the history:
    “She’s not named after Blanche DuBois, which is what everyone thinks. She’s named after Blanchefleur …”
    “Oh,” he said, “from Tristan and Isolde.”
    I wish you could have seen the look on my mother’s face. It made me very nervous.
    “Yes,” she half whispered.
    “It’s a pretty well-known legend,” I said to calm her down.
    “Tristan’s mother, Blanchefleur. Which of course