Leaving Amarillo(39)
Chapter 14
Austin MusicFest—Day 4
GAVIN’S PHONE RINGS ELEVEN TIMES DURING OUR INTERVIEW with Scott Levinson, a hipster thirty-something from the Indie Music Review. Scott adjusts his rectangular black-framed glasses frequently while he asks about everything from how we developed our unique sound to Emmylou.
Dallas is midway through explaining our sound to Scott when another one of Gavin’s attempts at silencing his ringer before we hear it fails. Mandy gives him an icy glare. She has an authoritative presence about her that makes me feel even younger than I am. I keep waiting for her to confiscate Gavin’s phone the way teachers did in high school.
“Everything okay?” I mouth silently to Gavin over my shoulder after we finish the interview and prepare to play a few numbers for Scott and Mandy. He gives me a slight nod but averts his gaze and focuses on his drums.
Dallas said Mandy suggested we ditch some of our reworked editions of classic hits and replace them with acoustic versions of billboard chart toppers. Right now I don’t really care what we play. I just want to know what’s going on that has Gavin’s phone blowing up.
I stare at him until Dallas plays the opening cords to our new show closer.
The sound of Gavin’s cymbals shattering the silence sends a delicious shiver down my spine. I watch him tap the snare lightly, and notice the line between his brows. Playing is usually an outlet for Gavin, always has been. But right now he’s working through something and I have no idea what it could be. Guilt prickles at the edge of my awareness because it’s possible that his frustration has something to do with our one night, and yet I have a persistent intuition that whatever is bothering him has to do with his relentless caller.
We’ve just finished a slightly modified set when the sound of Gavin’s phone buzzing interrupts Scott telling us when the edition with our article will run.
After Scott and Mandy say their goodbyes, Dallas shakes his head while yanking a cord free from our amplifier. “Take five. And Gavin, answer your f*cking phone and tell that chick to move the hell on.”
Dallas jogs out of the warehouse, chasing Mandy down to apologize, I suspect.
“Gav? Something going on?”
“It’s nothing,” he answers quickly without looking at me. “I’ll turn my phone off.”
But he doesn’t.
My stomach curls painfully inward. Could be one of his randoms calling like Dallas suggested. Though I don’t think I’ve ever known one to be quite this tenacious. The thing about Gavin is that he’s always honest with them. He doesn’t pretend to want more and they know this going in. Just as I do.
“Maybe you should just answer it.” As if conjured to life by my words, the phone buzzes in his hand. He must’ve turned the ringer off but not the phone. He closes his eyes as it continues to vibrate. Whoever is calling is upsetting him. A lot. “Okay. I’ll answer it then.”
I’m impulsive enough to snatch it before he can stop me.
“Hello?”
An automated voice answers me. “You have a collect call from an inmate at the Potter County Women’s Detention Center. Say yes to accept. Say no or simply hang up to decline.”
My mouth drops open but no words come out.
The robotic female voice begins detailing the instructions that I should follow if I no longer wish to receive calls from this number, but Gavin snatches the phone from my hand and presses the disconnect button before she’s finished.
“What are you going to do?” I’m barely able to harness my heartbreak for Gavin and my murderous rage for Katrina Garrison. It has to be her. He’s bailed her out more times than I can count on one hand. Nobody deserves this kind of mother, and the injustice of Gavin being stuck with her has my blood pressure rising steadily.
“What can I do?” He gives me a half shrug as if the weight of the world on his shoulders is too much to allow a whole one.
“Don’t go,” I whisper, knowing better. I’ve never known him not to bail her out. Ever.
His tormented gaze meets mine and I know. He’s going.
I do some quick calculations in my head. When my mental math gets to be too much, I begin working it out aloud.
“Potter County is about eight hours from here, seven the way you drive. There’s still no way you could make it there and back before tonight’s show, obviously. We could leave right after we get offstage tonight. But then you figure they probably won’t open for visitors or bail until eight tomorrow morning. And then it’d probably take an hour or so for the paperwork, but if we didn’t stop for food or to use the restroom too often we could make it back in time for—”
“Stop. Just stop.” He shakes his head, looking at me as if I’ve just rattled off my thoughts in a foreign language he doesn’t comprehend.
“Gavin, look at me.”
He complies and I can see from the way his hazel eyes have dimmed that he’s switched over to autopilot. “What makes you so sure I’m going to go?”
“The fact that you always do.”
Tension ripples along his jaw, but he doesn’t argue with me.
“I know you’re going to go get her, and I know you’d probably prefer to go alone, but think about how much time you’d save if we could drive in shifts. Straight there and straight back.”
The thought of him going alone hits me like a fist. If he goes alone, gets sucked into his mother’s dark, depraved bullshit, I fear I’ll never see him again. Dallas never told me the full extent of the details, but I know that during my time in Houston—the year we stopped performing together as frequently—Gavin sank like a rock in a black sea. I can’t lose him again. I won’t. There’s no way in hell I’m letting him go home alone.