Cecelia thought of Soren. She pictured him as she always did, with fawn-colored hair, slender and wan, but she knew he could look any way. He could be husky, with a black crew cut. He was losing the happiest part of his life on earth, the part before you noticed what was missing, before you thought in terms of fixing anything. Soren himself needed to be fixed. He might have authored a miracle, but now he was awaiting one.
After the vigil Cecelia headed to campus. She was drowsy so she stopped off and bought a huge iced coffee. She took a sip and balked at the taste — cloying and scorched — then drove the rest of the way to campus with the unwieldy beverage sweating onto her jeans.
The university was deserted except for a homeless guy sleeping on a bench and a few nibbling critters. The dorms, where people might be up and about, were on the other end of campus. Cecelia approached the rehearsal spaces. She’d turned her keys in when she’d gotten fired, but Marie had let her copy the music building master. Cecelia had the key and she had a pocketknife her mother had given her as a child, a pink Swiss Army knife, and she was still lugging the iced coffee, which was wetting down her gloved hands.
She went in and eased the door closed, set her drink down on the floor. The place smelled like insulation. Cecelia looked around the room for cameras, scanning the high corners. She knew there weren’t any cameras. She stripped off her jacket but kept on the gloves.
She walked over to Thus Poke Sarah’s Thruster’s guitars, three of them, one a bass, all leaning at the same angle against a step, and one by one she held them by their necks, business end on the ground, and stomped on them until they cracked in half. The guitars made a low crunch when they gave way, like a bone breaking, and then they hung in one piece by their strings. Cecelia dropped them all in a heap. She went over and did what she could to Nate’s drums with the pocketknife, slicing up the taut hides. She got her iced coffee and poured it down into the biggest amp. The liquid drained without hurry down through the machinery and onto the floor. Cecelia had felt her blood humming when she’d come into the room, but now it was stagnant. She didn’t feel triumphant or even tough. When she’d burned the barn she’d told herself she had no fear, but now she really didn’t. Fear was what made anything worthwhile. Without fear, she was going through motions. She had the sensation that she’d been driving for days without stopping and had forgotten her destination. She felt like a madwoman, but it didn’t feel good.
She moved on to the keyboard, her blood tepid. Cecelia stared at the thing. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light. Cecelia saw the kid’s name on the keyboard, in silver marker: T. ANDERTON. She sat down at the instrument. She flipped the power switch and red lights appeared all over the control panel. You could set it to sound like an organ if you wanted or like a synthesizer or like a regular piano. It had a bunch of dials and pedals. Cecelia didn’t touch any of them.
She heard footsteps approaching the door outside and it didn’t take her long to resign herself to being caught. She was engaging in a criminal act, damaging property, and in a moment someone would catch her. All there was to do was wait and see who that someone was. It could be a security guard who’d be thrilled to finally bust someone for a serious crime. It could be that homeless guy from the bench looking for a warmer spot to bed down.
Cecelia heard the doorknob turning and then a moment later she and a guy about her age were looking at each other with identical frankness. The guy had on a tight-zippered sweatshirt with a hood and long plaid shorts. He didn’t pull his hood off. Cecelia recognized him from when she’d spied on Nate’s band. He released the knob and the door shut. He was the keyboard player. He looked at the carnage of the guitars and then at the drum set, then he squinted and said Cecelia’s name.
“How do you know me?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” the guy said. “I do, though.”
He looked at her coat on the floor, not far from where he stood.
“Are you up late or early?” Cecelia asked him.
“I’m always up at this time.”
The guy looked around again and shook his head, seeming both disappointed and impressed, then he walked over and sat on the bench next to Cecelia. He seemed like a person with a reasonable, fair burden. He understood that things got complicated. He tapped one of Cecelia’s gloved hands with his finger.
“Fashion or fingerprints?”
“At first they were to keep my hands warm,” Cecelia said.
“You don’t seem drunk.”
Cecelia shook her head.
“You’re, like, a badass.”
Cecelia could smell the guy. He didn’t smell bad.
“Barry and Sam are going to lose their shit,” he said. “Those dudes pride themselves on their bad tempers.”
“You’re not mad?”
“The only thing that makes me mad is when people don’t keep secrets, but I can forgive that too.”
“Nate will replace all this stuff,” Cecelia said. “Probably with better stuff.”
The guy yawned, then he said, “He’s kind of a dickwad, I know. I’m not going to tell on you.” He pulled his hands out of his sweatshirt, both of them, like he was going to do something with them. “They don’t know I write songs,” he said. “I come early, when everybody’s asleep. I write pop songs. I write songs they can play at the beginning of sitcoms. I’m not a delicate genius.”
Cecelia thought of when that kid had caught her on his screened patio. She could remember feeling confused, about everything. Now she didn’t feel confused. Not that she’d figured anything out, but at least she was in charted territory.
The guy told Cecelia he was only in a band to work on his stage presence, to get used to collaborating, access to instruments, rehearsal space. In time he was going to move to a music town like Austin or Seattle.
“You’re a slimeball,” Cecelia said.
The guy winked.
He was more savvy than Cecelia and Reggie had been. He was using Nate.
“What does the T stand for?” Cecelia asked him. “T. Anderton.”
“Terry Anderton is who I bought this from. His parents got it for him, but he wants to be a veterinarian.”
“Then what’s your name?”
“It’s going to be Nevers. No one knows that. I’m keeping the name secret as long as possible. don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t like when people tell secrets. I can forgive it, but I really don’t like it.”
Cecelia reached behind the guy and with two fingers tugged his hood off. He looked upward with only his eyeballs. His hair was red and very short. His red hair and his tan skin clashed.