Page 42 of Resonance
“I guess that’s a weird side effect of your career? Everyone has an opinion about you or your songs. Or your life, really, yeah?” I mused. We stood in a tiled foyer with a staircase that swept down either wall. Dan studied the map of the house. “You’re this walking conglomeration of everything you’ve written or sung, and different people see you as different things?”
Dan cut a look aside at me. “I’d never thought about it that way until now, but yeah, I reckon so. Half the time I feel like people think they’re meeting some old version of me instead of the one standing right in front of them. Huh.” He grunted and cocked his head. “Quit doing that insightful shit.”
“So sorry. Want me to talk instead about how shiny that guy’s suit was? I could practically see my reflection in it. I had no idea auction people were so well paid.”
“It’s probably his only one.” Dan smiled and pointed the rolled flyer toward the staircase to his left. “C’mon, Sage.”
I liked that a lot better than Sprout and followed him up the staircase.
The second floor was just as lavish as the first, with thick-pile carpet that didn’t make so much as a whisper of sound as we walked. We passed a few people wandering in and out of different rooms. I peeked into a bedroom where a couple of men, also in suits, were measuring an antique four-poster bed.
At the end of the hall, Dan turned right into another room. I’d been expecting some sort of home studio, maybe a little antiquated or amateur, but not at all what we walked into.
There was a fancy harpsichord in one corner, big overstuffed chairs arranged in the middle, and a bank of windows across the back. It looked like something out of period movies when there were legit music parlors and the women walked arm in arm around the perimeter of the room while someone played. On either side were soaring built-in mahogany shelves that at first I thought were filled with books and quickly recognized as record sleeves. Hundreds. No, thousands. There was even a refurbished Victrola player on a table, its brassy cone gleaming in the afternoon light pouring in from the windows.
“Holy shit. How oldwerethese people?”
Dan chuckled. “The guy was an avid collector. I’ve never seen anything like this, though.” He ran his fingers along the curves of the Victrola.
“What did he do? Was he a musician, do you know?”
“Nope. Think I read he did something in finance.” Dan walked to one of the shelves, pulled out a record sleeve, and examined it. Then another and another. “Alphabetized and sorted by genre. I’ll be damned.”
I walked the length of one of the shelves, then followed it around to another wall where several guitars, a couple of banjos, and a single mandolin hung on display. They seemed a little out of place, but as soon as I peered under the curving belly of a Gibson, I got why they were up there.
“This is signed by Chet Atkins,” I breathed out, squinting at the scrawl on the guitar. Dan’s steps sounded behind me.
“Dolly Parton, Buddy Holly. Damn, that’s some collection.” He spoke reverently as he surveyed the instruments.
“You think the guy played them?”
“Probably not.” Dan chuckled and reached for the Gibson, gentling it off the wall and extending it toward me.
“What are you doing? Put that back up there!” I chided him, like he was an unruly kid. “We’ll get in trouble, and they already have it out for my rainbow Docs. Don’t tell me different. I saw it in that guy’s face.”
“He did not like your rainbow Docs,” Dan conceded, eyes sparkling with humor. He pushed the guitar toward me insistently. “They’re meant to be played, so play me something. Worst they can do is kick us out, and trust me, it won’t be the first time.”
“No?” I took the guitar gingerly, afraid it’d either explode or trigger some kind of alarm if I handled it. Shit, it might. Real talent had touched this thing, had signed his name on this thing. I waited for smoke or a lightning strike. For Chet’s ghost to appear and laugh at me.
“Got the boot one time a few years back for taking a mandolin out of a glass case. It was an antique.” Dan shrugged. “Told ’em I was thinking about buying it but that I’d just changed my mind.” His grin was all teeth. “Now go on.”
Chapter 15
Owen sat at the very edge of one of the fancy armchairs and played with his eyes squeezed shut.
The song he’d played at Howie’s had been bluesy; this was more folksy pop with a lilting melody that carried gently from verse to chorus before crescendoing sharply at the bridge.
He blinked his eyes open after, and his expectant expression made me realize I’d gotten sidetracked staring at his mouth.
“Is that something new?”
“Yep. It’s not finished yet. There’s this one part that doesn’t feel quite right.” He fiddled with his strings.
“Near the end of the chorus?”
He smiled. “So you hear it, too.”
“It’s incredibly minor, but yeah.”