AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” Brady told me through the phone, as if this were some nugget of information I should find brilliant. Brady was constantly stealing people’s lines and making them his own.
“Doesn’t absence make the heart grow fonder?” I asked. I smirked to myself. I couldn’t help messing with Brady a bit, throwing famous lines and sayings right back at him.
“That might be true for your love life, but not for rock and roll,” Brady told me. He launched off into a list of the theaters and arenas that were ready to book our band for a summer tour. I wasn’t surprised that Brady was pushing us to keep performing. After all, Brady got a big cut of any money the band made. And despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars my bandmates and I had raked in for Brady, it never seemed to be enough for the guy.
“Brady, look,” I said, ready to put an end to this conversation. “I’m taking the summer off. You can’t convince me otherwise. And I already cleared it with the guys.”
“The other guys are ready to go back out,” Brady assured me. “They’re ready to extend the tour.”
I sighed again as I passed a cafe I didn’t recognize. The decor was bright and rustic, making the place look more like the hipster coffee shops I usually saw in major cities. When did Maplewood get something so modern?
“They’re at a different place in their lives, Brady,” I said. I glanced at the posters hanging up in the windows of the cafe, advertising community theater musicals and the local farmer’s market. As my eyes crossed from poster to poster, I was surprised to see my own face staring back at me: Callum Jones. One Night Only. A special acoustic event.
This concert was how I convinced Brady to let me come home.
“I got a solo gig back home in Maplewood,” I had told him. “It’s a fundraising event. Something to give back to the community. I’ll be home for a few days, tops.”
Brady had loved the idea—he wouldn’t stop talking about the “positive public relations angle”. He pitched the story of a benefit concert in my hometown to reporters and radio personalities all over the country to drum up positive press.
It was only my email this morning that told Brady this little trip home would be for a more extended period.
“You know I’ve been eager to try things on my own,” I said, letting frustration filter into my voice. I was trying not to yell at Brady, but I needed my manager to listen to me. “I told you I want to work on a solo album. I’ve wanted that for a long time.”
“But it’s not the right time—” Brady started, but I cut him off.
“Enough, Brady!” I yelled. “You’re not listening to me. I’ve been trying to tell you for months that I need a break. I’ve been telling you that I’m unhappy running around from city to city and taking red eyes to God knows where. And you haven’t listened. So I’m taking the summer off. And you all need to deal with it.”
I hung up with a grunt and had the urge to throw my phone onto the pavement. Luckily, I kept my cool and simply shoved my phone into my back pocket with enough energy it tested the seams. I took off down the street, walking with all the anger that had accumulated in my body.
I was tired of people not listening to me. Brady was high on this list, but my bandmates were also to blame. For months I had been trying to tell them I was burnt out. The pressure of writing all our music and serving as the lead singer and guitar player in the band was weighing on me, especially with a full tour schedule. But no one seemed to hear me. They simply asked about new music and then talked about what they were having for dinner.
And so, when Liz invited me for the summer, laying on a lot of guilt about how I was going to forget what my niece and nephew looked like, I said yes. It was the break I needed. Brady calling me today had just solidified how much I needed this time away to decide what I really wanted.
I felt a little better having told Brady off. I let the adrenaline of that conversation rush out of me as I walked down Main Street. I even smiled as I passed the comic book shop I used to visit as a kid. I hadn’t been back to town since college, so it was fun to find the stores or trees or road signs that I recognized.
As I passed a new clothing store, I recognized the hardware store on the corner that had been in town long before I was born. I remembered visiting the place as a kid. But from my spot across the street I could see the shades drawn and a “Closed” sign in the window. It was strange the store was closed on a Saturday.
Just as I was about to keep walking, another sign caught my eye in the window, this one nearly as surprising as seeing my own face on that poster: “For Sale”.
The hardware store’s for sale? I thought. It was the last place I would expect to shut down. I had an unmistakable urge to see inside again, to remember visiting with my grandfather and helping him pick out the right-size screws for whatever project he was working on in the garage.
I crossed the street to get a better look.
3
DARCY
“Ifeel lost, Dad.”
I stood in the middle of my dad’s hardware store, talking to the empty room.
The smell of sawdust and leather wafted around me, bringing back memories of running through the store’s aisles as a kid. I had spent many happy afternoons after school refilling buckets of screws and sorting the bolts by size as my dad rang people up on the cash register that was almost as old as the building.
This hardware store had been in our family since 1901 when my great-great-great-grandfather opened its doors to the town. Generations of my family had run the store, helping neighbors pick out shovels for their gardens or telling them what paintbrush to buy. As I stood in the aisles I could picture all the families who had been in and out of our front door.
It’s what made me so sad the place was currently closed.
My dad passed away eight months ago from an aggressive cancer that moved far too quickly. Not that any amount of time with my dad would have been enough. After my mom died when I was young, my dad was a single parent, seeing me through all the usual childhood milestones all by himself. He had coached my soccer team and learned how to braid my hair for school picture days.
