I check the parking lot next door. No cars, but I’m sure this is where Angela will be. She always felt best working on new material down in the basement. There is power inside those rooms and if she’s this close, I’m sure it’s called her back.
I nod. “You wait here on me?”
He doesn’t bother to answer. The radio squawks to life as I climb out and walk around to the side door that Angela led me through all those years ago. It’s unlocked, and I hear the murmur of music even before I descend the dark stairs. A voice sings the lyrics I’ve written. Not one of the new songs, an old one sold for a pittance. As I hit the bottom step, I promise it’s the last one they will have.
“You need to focus,” a male voice says. “You’re a bit flat.”
I don’t wait to hear Angela’s response. I knock on the door, stand back as the couple inside murmurs about the intrusion. A long-haired man opens the door and tries to block the entryway with his frame. I don’t recognize him. Probably one of the newer members, a replacement in the cyclic iterations the band went through after I left. He’s handsome, a strong jaw jutting forward from a face framed by curtains of blond hair. He looks like some studio head’s suggestion. A companion who would look appropriate alongside Angela onstage. The man grips a guitar by its rosewood neck.
“What are you doing?” he asks. “Get outta here.”
“Who is it?” Angela calls.
I reach for the door and the man recoils from the possibility of my touch.
“Look, this is private property.”
I shoulder past while he holds the guitar up like a shield. The room is more spacious than I remembered, the antiquated recording equipment replaced by a small couch and a large mirrored vanity someone probably installed in anticipation of the band’s arrival. Angela sits in front of the mirror trying to attach her false eyelashes. The left lash is already applied. It flutters like a butterfly wing as she blinks. The right one is missing and allows me to see her iris unobscured by any adornment. I still prefer her eyes drawn in the feline arch of poorly applied black shadow, but some stylist has scrubbed the runaway ecstatic out of her.
“It’s okay, Felix,” she says. “This is Hollis Bragg.”
When she says my name, her voice takes on the same tone she often whispered into my ear after a night of standing beside the amplifiers. Her legs look longer with the tall heels she wears, and when she stands, Angela clacks forward with grace she never carried before. She takes my hand. Her palms are cold, fingers tacky with the adhesive from the eyelashes. She’s aged, but the makeup hides most of it aside from laugh lines that become genuine and deep as she smiles.
“I figured you’d be down here,” I say.
“Nobody wanted us to come downtown,” she replies. “They act like its Baghdad or something. I have to admit, it’s worse than I remembered. All the empty shops.”
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
A slight coo comes from the far side of the room. A bassinet rests in the corner with a small child swaddled inside. Mittens cover its tiny hands and a knit cap gives it the sexless look of all infants. Felix sets the guitar down and goes to the baby, picks it up and rocks it slow in his arms. The gesture is too natural for him not to be the father. Still, Felix rocks too fast and the baby begins to fuss. Angela takes it from him, hefts the child and pats its back.
“I didn’t think you’d even remember this place,” she says.
“How could I forget it?” I don’t want this small talk, but it’s a performance I’ll have to endure. “What did you name him?”
“This is Aaron,” she says. “That’s Felix.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Felix says. He shares the same blue eyes as his son. “That’s some amazing material you’ve sent us.”
My stomach is sour. I don’t know if it’s seeing Angela with the child, or if it’s left over from my meeting with the lawyer, but all the pleasantry is sapped from me. Spite roils in my gut. I resist the urge to snatch the guitar and shatter it against the wall for daring to play my songs. I’m more upset by what’s coming. Outside, I’ll have to face the knowledge that a life like this could have been mine. That could be our son Angela sings to sleep at night, my wife’s lullabies serenading us, but I drowned any chances of that future under a tide of fear.
“I didn’t write them for you,” I tell Felix. “She stole them from me.”
“That’s not fair, Hollis,” Angela says. “Look, I met Rosita and thought her project might be something you would benefit from. You’re so hidden out here. I’ve been worried about you.”
“You’ve been worried because I cut off the supply,” I say. “You can’t have these songs. I’ll turn in my work for the album, but not these tracks.”
“You’ve been selling work for a decade,” Felix says. “And just decided you were a rock star all of a sudden?”
“Felix,” Angela says, but the baby’s cries cause her to go quiet. She bounces and shushes him.
“What would you do with it?” Felix continues. “You’re a good songwriter, so why not stay in your lane.”
“I’m going to play them,” I say.
Felix smirks. “For who? Drunks and unemployed coal miners?”
“Felix!” Angela snaps again. “You’re right, Hollis. How about we give you full writing credit and double the commission? The lawyers can work out royalties.”
It’s the best opportunity to get the music out of barrooms and open mic nights where the audience will only come for the freak show, but my pride still won’t allow it. Angela could have ghostwriting from the best in the world; whole teams of musicians working just for her. If she wants my songs this bad, I know I truly have something.
“I’ve already turned your lawyer down.”
Angela turns away, and I get a closer look at the baby’s fat cheeks, the bewildered eyes that are seeing everything for the first time. What would it be like to see that way again? For every mundane image to be rendered a miracle? Closer, the child almost exclusively resembles Angela, but a small mixture of Felix’s genes certainly blended into the boy. Already the tiny jaw juts in a way that seems ridiculous on an infant, but he’ll grow into it, make women want to nuzzle against the growth sprouting on that cleft. Locks of wavy hair like his father’s fall out of the boy’s cap. It’s not the sort of child we would have produced, but I can’t help pretending for a moment. My son perfect and whole despite the legacy of illness that should’ve condemned him. Saved by luck or love or sheer will.
“Look, we’ve still got time to negotiate something fair. Will you be at the concert?” Angela asks.