This Is What It Feels Like Read online

  Dia had thought it then: This is real.

  The third track played in Dia’s ears, crackly and frenetic. Their music was all like that, two-minute snarls of anger and excitement. You could hear it: the impatience, the energy, everything waiting to break out and run wild. They were like lightning, burning bright and hot.

  And in the end, just as brief.

  Sophomore year started out good: they had more shows, that rep’s card, and almost enough money for a slot at a recording studio in Longport. But then in November, Elliot died.

  The day after Christmas, Dia took the first of many positive pregnancy tests.

  On New Year’s Eve they found Hanna passed out in the parking lot of Clark Bar, eyes rolled back, and had to take her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped.

  (What’s that saying about things in threes?)

  Jules wanted to keep going, but Hanna was getting worse and Dia was tired, heartbroken, and half hated Hanna for not being good enough.

  It was easy to avoid her once summer rolled around, once Lex made her screaming arrival. Easier than it should have been to tell Hanna that she couldn’t be around the baby, that she was out of control.

  And so by the time junior year came around, they were completely fractured.

  Dia listened all the way through the five tracks of the EP, three originals and two covers (a punked-out version of “Crazy in Love” and a Placebo track). Then she skipped it back to track one and listened through. Back, and through. Back, and through. The sun disappeared and pink streaks raced across the sky, the curtains billowing in the breeze from her open windows, and she closed her eyes to the sound of the past.

  After work the next day, Dia scooped Lex up off the floor, where she was sitting in her pajamas, bashing at her baby-tiny keyboard. She got into her bed, allowing herself fifteen minutes of luxurious snuggly Sunday-evening baby time. “Hi, baby,” Dia said, rubbing the tip of her nose against her daughter’s cheek. “Did you have fun with Grammy today?”

  “I found bugs,” Lex said, holding her hand out and wiggling her fingers like little creatures. “And I saw Waffles!”

  “Wow,” Dia said, making her eyes wide. “Did you say hi to Waffles? Did she lick your hand?” Dia pulled Lex’s hand to her mouth and pretended to nibble on it. “Like this?”

  Lex squealed, a wild giggle. “No, Mama!”

  “Silly Mama,” Dia said. “Hey, Lex. You’re going to be two soon. Two! Can you believe it?”

  “My birthday?”

  “Yeah, your birthday. We’re going to have balloons and cake and presents, all for you.”

  Lex yawned, her tiny teeth peeking out. “Presents,” she said, sounding content. “Balloons.”

  “You’re sleepy,” Dia said. “You want a song?”

  Her daughter nodded, thumb slipping into her mouth, and Dia gently took it out. “Okay.” She flicked through her mental catalogue of lullabies and then, running her fingers through Lex’s damp curls, she sang a rendition of something her dad used to sing to her. She couldn’t remember all the words but she knew the melody, and it worked. Lex’s eyelids fluttered shut and stayed that way.

  Dia leaned down and placed the softest kiss on Lex’s head. “I love you,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

  She slipped out of the bed—she’d move Lex to her crib in a little while, once she was fully out—and sat at her desk again, running her fingers over her laptop keyboard. She opened a new browser window, typed “sun city radio contest” in the search bar, and hit Enter, bouncing her feet off the floor.

  It was almost too good to be true, right?

  And Dia knew: when something seemed that way, it almost always was.

  She clicked on the first search result and the radio site loaded, with a bright banner at the top of the page:

  SUN CITY AND GLORY ALABAMA PRESENT THE ORIGINALS CONTEST

  She skimmed the intro and slowed down when she got to the main section, her lips moving as she read it.

  Round One: Submit an original track. The submission portal will close on 06/13. The entries will be judged by our expert panel of listeners, and those that meet our standards will go through to Round Two.

  Round Two: You’ll perform for our judging panel, one-on-one. Three entrants will go through from this to the final round.

  Round Three: The winners will be announced at the Revelry Room on 07/27 and they’ll receive $15,000 cash, the opportunity to open at one of Glory Alabama’s Sunset Revue Tour dates, and more.

  Give us your music NOW.

  June 13. That was a week and a half away.

  She clicked through to an interview with Astrid Parker and Luisa Savante, the lead singer and drummer for GA. They wanted to give back, they said in it; they’d had the idea to come back home and partner up with Sun City to find new talent, give them the opportunity to kickstart their music career. Astrid said:

  It’s hard to even get on the bottom of the ladder if you can’t afford new equipment or studio time or transportation to other places to play different venues. Golden Grove is where we started, and it’s where we want to go back to so we can help people in the same position we were in thirteen years ago.

  Dia read it through twice, and then went through the fine print again, to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. But she wasn’t. This wasn’t a joke, someone’s exaggerated rumor running wild. It was real.

  All she had to do was enter one song and she could have the chance to win fifteen thousand dollars. Not only that, but an opening slot for Glory Alabama, too. No amount of money could buy you that.

  She looked over her shoulder at Lex, fast asleep and snuffling-snoring now. Dia’s hands were itchy and her stomach doing that adrenaline-fueled swirling. Yeah, she was going to take music classes at community college, but that was months away. This was different, what she really wanted to be doing. And it was only one song.

  She could do this, and if she didn’t win, everything would carry on the way it was. But if they liked her music, if she actually won?

  One song. That was all it would take.

  Her guitar was propped up in its usual corner. Dia got up and moved Lex from her bed into the crib, settling her carefully. She’d need a real bed of her own soon, especially now she was trying to escape more and more often. The never-ending expenses of motherhood, Dia thought. Oh, did I say expenses? I meant wonders.

  With a last glance at Lex, Dia grabbed her guitar and left her bedroom. She passed by the living room and called in to her mom. “I’m getting some air,” Dia said. “She’s out like a light.”

  “Okay,” Nina called back, the rustle of a magazine page turning. “Everything okay, baby?”

  “Perfect,” Dia said.

  She slipped out the back door and closed it behind her, sitting down on the steps that led down to their tiny patch of lawn. One day Dia wanted to live in a house with a big yard, big enough for a swing set and a pool and a trampoline, and space for them to breathe. Alexa could run around and they could eat dinner outside under the setting sun, and it would be perfect. That was Dia’s dream.

  One of them.

  She settled her guitar on her knee and dragged her thumb over the strings, listening intently for any discordance. A quick tighten until the flatness was pulled up, and she played an E minor chord: better. Dia shifted the capo down a fret and picked out a simple melody, something that’d been rattling around her head for a few months without her doing anything about it.

  She wanted to enter this contest.

  She was going to.

  But she didn’t want to do it alone. Jules could be convinced, she was pretty sure, but it might take some work. And Hanna—

  Hanna wasn’t part of them anymore.

  We’ll figure it out, Dia thought. We’ll find somebody new. This town is full of musicians. There are other drummers. Ones who won’t let us down. And we’ll enter and we’ll win, and then . . . glory.

  Or maybe not.

  But the possibility, the wonder of it, was e
nough. Dia wanted it, bad.

  She took her phone out and typed out a text to Jules in a rush. Come see me after your shift tomorrow. I need to tell you something.

  Then Dia tipped her head back and looked at the tiny sliver of moon high in the gray-blue sky. Good things were about to happen. She could feel it.

  Hanna

  “Molly, let’s go!” Hanna wound her hair into a topknot as she waited for her sister to come downstairs. “You’re going to be late on your first day!”

  She pulled the car keys from her back pocket and weighed them in her hand, the weight of trust and responsibility. The night before, her parents had sat her down at the kitchen table and given her this set, staring her down as her mom outlined the rules: “You’ll take me to work in the morning, and then you use to the car to drive Molly, and to go to work, and that’s it. No road trips, no picking up your friends, nothing. And you drive it carefully—any scratches or bumps and you’ll pay for them yourself. Understand?”

  Road trips? Hanna had almost laughed. Who would she go with? The phantom friends her parents seemed to think she had?

  But then Hanna had looked at her parents, really looked at them, with their foreheads creased and worry setting their mouths in hard lines, and felt the guilt swell. She only had these rules because she’d proven she needed them. They only looked so worn out because they had an alcoholic daughter to worry about. Rehab didn’t come cheap; they were still paying off her two-week stay, four hundred and eighteen days later. Plus those two ER bills. And all that energy they’d spent, searching her room for bottles and making sure she hadn’t lifted cash from their wallets. Yes: she’d brought this all on herself, hadn’t she?

  Then the guilt had given way, as it often did, to the burn of resentment. They were going to make her pay for it for the rest of her life, weren’t they? Nothing she did would be good enough. Nothing she said would ever convince them.

  But she’d nodded anyway, and promised to play by the rules. “I understand,” she’d said. “Thank you.”

  “Molly!” Hanna stomped to the bottom of the stairs. “Come on.”

  “I’m coming! God!” Molly appeared at the top of the stairs and flounced down, her mouth pouty and covered in shiny lip gloss. “Why are you yelling at me?”

  “Because we’re going to be late, and I’m going to get in trouble, and I’d really rather not,” Hanna said.

  “Well, I’d really rather not go to this boring thing at all,” Molly snapped, and then her face lit up. “Oh! Let’s go to the beach instead. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Hanna opened the front door and stepped out into the blazing heat of the day. Molly was right: it was a perfect day to head to the ocean, to cool off in the surf, eat boardwalk junk and inevitably spend the evening smearing aloe vera on their sunburns. She hadn’t been to the beach in years, though, and she wasn’t about to change that so Molly could get out of this. “Get in the car, Molls.”

  “It’s not fair,” Molly said. “I don’t even like theater.”

  “Well, Dad says you can’t stay at home by yourself all day every day, and it’s cheap. And you’ll have fun!” Hanna said, not even convincing herself. “If you really don’t want to do the acting part . . . make costumes or something. Paint scenery. It’ll be fine.”

  Molly turned to Hanna. “I’m thirteen! I don’t need a babysitter,” she said. “And besides, I wouldn’t be alone at home. I’d be with you. Why can’t I stay with you?”

  “Because,” Hanna said, and she faltered. Because maybe her parents trusted her to drive Molly around and hang out, but that was about it. If Hanna was left to watch over her for the whole summer—who knew what would happen? Molly might develop a taste for bleach-scented vodka, exactly like Hanna had.

  “Because what?” Molly said.

  Hanna looked at her sister’s hopeful expression and shook her head. “Because Mom and Dad say you can’t,” she settled on. “That’s it.”

  “Well, that’s a stupid reason,” Molly said, and Hanna wasn’t sure she disagreed. But what else could she say? “Hey, Molls! Mom and Dad don’t want me to fuck you up the way I fucked myself up, okay!”

  It was funny, in a way. Her mom so badly wanted Molly to turn out different from Hanna, and she’d wanted so much from Hanna in the first place, and the pressure of it all—the constant arguments and her mom picking at her and stubborn silences at the dinner table—had been what pushed Hanna closer and closer to drinking. Her friends, her hair, her grades—everything was a way for Hanna to accidentally disappoint her mother. After a while, Hanna had gotten tired of trying to please her. And shortly after that, she’d found a way to forget it all for a few hours at a time.

  Not that she blamed her mom, her problems were her own, but—she’d helped Hanna get there, for sure. And wouldn’t it be hilariously tragic if her desperation to keep Molly pure had exactly the same effect as it had on Hanna?

  Well, not hilarious. Just tragic. But maybe her mom would learn something, finally.

  “Let’s go.”

  Molly lingered in the doorway. “I don’t want to.”

  Hanna took a second, pushing down the urge to snap at her sister. “Well, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to,” she said. Like working two days a week at a secondhand furniture store, making just enough money for junk food and cheap clothes, because it was the only place that would hire her. Like talking to herself instead of other people, because other people didn’t like to listen to her. “Like driving your little sister around when she’s being a brat.”

  Molly glared. “I am not a brat.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” Hanna said. “I said you were being one. So let’s go.”

  She held Molly’s gaze until her sister gave in and dragged herself to the car. “Fine, whatever.”

  “That’s more like it.” Hanna slid behind the wheel and took a deep breath. A cigarette right now would cure her shakes. It wasn’t healthy, she knew, but at least it was better than drinking. She’d only gotten her license three months ago, years behind everyone else. When she’d been drinking she’d been too out of it to ever care, and once she quit she’d been too focused on staying sober and finishing school. But now she’d passed all the tests and she had the keys and there was nothing stopping her.

  She slid the keys into the ignition and turned, and the engine didn’t so much roar to life as whimper, but that was all they needed, really.

  Jules

  Speed-scanning frozen vegetables and cereal was a skill Jules had come to perfect in her time working at Callahan’s Grocery and Deli. It was a very necessary skill around Thanksgiving and Christmas and Fourth of July, when the whole town seemed to turn out to wrestle in the freezer aisle and yell at her when their out-of-date coupons wouldn’t scan. And Jules actually liked those times—the more rush and crowds the better, because who had time to be bored when they were scanning, scanning, scanning?

  In summer, though, on a weekday afternoon, it was a dead zone.

  Jules shifted her weight and glanced at the door to the manager’s office, closed tight. “Okay,” she called. “Go!”

  At the end of the cereal aisle, her coworkers Malai and Henry began stacking Pop-Tart boxes end on end, making precarious towers. This was their daily ritual when their manager, Greg, wasn’t around: Grocery Olympics. So far, Malai held the record in both Pop-Tart stacking and apple juggling. But Jules had a plan to beat her.

  Henry dropped a box of chocolate frosted. “Penalty!” Malai yelled. “Minus five points.”

  “Aww, come on!” Henry said. “Ref?”

  Jules held her hand up. “Call stands,” she said. “Don’t be whiny, Henry.” She glanced at the office again, and this time the door was opening. “Shit. Clean it up!”

  She busied herself straightening out the dividers, and when Greg came around the corner Malai and Henry were back where they were supposed to be, arranging paper towels. By the time he’d told them about the special delive
ry coming later and then left, Jules had customers. She scanned three carts of stuff and then she was five minutes past her break. “I’m out,” she called, setting the LANE CLOSED sign on her register.

  She made it through the almost-empty store, past the door marked Staff Only, and into the break room, which she’d expected to be empty. But a girl she’d never seen before was tying up her hair in front of the only window, and she looked at Jules and all of a sudden Jules felt the earth shift beneath her.

  It was as fast as that.

  One moment she was Jules in her world, and the next she was

  Jules

  on

  another

  planet.

  A planet where a girl who could make Jules’s heart stop

  with

  one

  look

  actually existed.

  The girl did a double take, her eyes wide, and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Jules said, and did her voice sound breathless to this girl or was it in her head? “I didn’t—” Stop. Focus. On your words, not on her. Okay: try that again. “Are you new?”

  The girl finished putting up her hair—her hair in multiple shades of peachy pink and bright lilac and the blue of tropical waters—and nodded. “Autumn,” she said. She looked at Jules and smiled slowly, shiny teeth sparkling. “Hi.”

  “Autumn,” Jules repeated, and the fall name felt sunshine warm in her mouth. “I’m Jules.”

  Say your name again, she wanted to say. And You are so beautiful. And Do you feel this, too?

  But to say any of those things aloud would have been ridiculous, right, and so Jules shook her head. Come on. Get it together. This is clearly just a girl and you’re losing it from lack of exposure to the outside world and also to girls as beautiful as this. Girls with rainbow hair, wide hips and thick thighs, skin that looked pillow soft were not common occurrences in Jules’s life. Because Jules did not live on a planet where girls who could make her heart stop with one look actually existed; don’t be ridiculous.