Grace Note: Part Two
Part One
---
Mikey, Gerard’s secretary and brother, holds one long finger up when Ryan walks in the waiting room to stop him. He continues his conversation on the phone, making a low hum of agreement every once in a while, but he rolls his eyes towards Ryan, shaking his head at whoever is on the other line.
“Sure, we’ll fit you in on Thursday,” Mikey says. His other hand, the hand not holding onto the phone, is typing away on the computer. “Uh huh. Yep, that’s right. We’ll see you then.”
He puts the phone down and turns his attention towards Ryan. “Do you work with a Pete Wentz?” he asks, looking down at a small slip of paper with Pete’s name messily written across the top.
Ryan peers down at the paper and looks up at Mikey. “Yeah.” He frowns. “Does he go to Gerard?”
For a moment, Ryan panics, wondering if it’s possible that Pete went through his phonebook, but he lets the blind paranoia pass since Gerard is a rather respected and highly unusual therapist in the city. Two things that Pete loves.
“He’s starting on Thursday,” Mikey says. He picks at the edge of the slip of paper, rolling up the sides. “He seems like a character.”
“He is,” Ryan agrees.
Mikey snorts. “I figured. Not everyone I talk to tells me that I’d be a great phone sex operator.”
“Oh God,” Ryan bemoans. If Pete is already hitting on Mikey, via the telephone no less, then Mikey doesn’t even know what he’s going to be faced with. Ryan gives Mikey a weak smile. “You’ll have to tell me how it goes.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Mikey answers. “His appointment is right before yours on Thursday.”
Ryan’s stomach flips. It’s not like he’s embarrassed that he goes to a psychiatrist, but it’s not something that he necessarily shares with people. And Pete isn’t the most closed-mouth person.
He clears his throat. It should be fine. Really, it is nothing to worry about, and Ryan even manages a little laugh. “Well, just remember to tell him that no means no.”
“Will do,” Mikey says, grinning and pushing up his glasses that have fallen to the edge of his nose. Ryan has stopped telling him when that happens though, because apparently sometimes Mikey likes to wear it like that. “You can go on in now. Don’t worry, I promise Frank isn’t there,” he jokes, and Ryan tries not to think about that time again. It’s traumatizing to see your psychiatrist is such positions, and the irony isn’t lost on Ryan.
“Okay,” Ryan says, nodding. “Talk to you later, Mikey.” That in itself is an improvement. Not too long ago, Ryan would simply stare down at a book or ancient magazine while in the waiting room just so he didn’t have to have an awkward interaction with his shrink’s brother.
Ryan crosses the waiting room and opens the door, not bothering to knock on it, because Gerard apparently hates that. Something about creating more boundaries than the millions of ones already put into place by the patriarchal society that binds and gags individuality.
Gerard is sitting on the floor, of course, but there’s a huge sheet in front of him, with different paint colors set up amongst the side. His shirt is splattered with the bright colors, and his hair is even more messy than usual.
“Hey?” Ryan says, the words coming out more like a question, and Gerard looks up.
“Ryan!” he exclaims, putting down the paintbrush. He waves Ryan over, until Ryan relents and he sits down next to Gerard, careful to not get some of the spilled paint on the floor on his $200 jeans.
Gerard leans back against the carpet, and Ryan can see as some of the still wet paint transfer down onto the fibers of the carpet. He really hopes the paint is washable.
“So how’d the big pottery class go?” Gerard asks, reaching up to swipe at a piece of falling hair, and he leaves a streak of blue paint behind. “Meet any nice people?”
Ryan thinks about Greta and Audrey, thinks about how the class wasn’t that bad after all, but mostly, he thinks about the music he had heard, that soft melody that wouldn’t leave his mind.
“It was good,” Ryan allows. Gerard doesn’t say anything, waiting for Ryan to go on, and Ryan is reminded of their first sessions, way back, when Ryan and Gerard would just stare at each other. Ryan learned that you should never attempt to play mind games with a shrink. You’ll rarely win. “I talked to some people,” he relents.
Gerard smiles and nods. “Great. Tell me about them.” He looks down at the sheet for a second, smearing a puddle of paint with his finger before he looks back up at Ryan again.
“Right.” Ryan says. He hates this part, but with Gerard, it’s easier than it was in the past with his other therapists. “Well, I sat at a table with these two girls, Greta and Audrey, and, I don’t know, it was fine. It wasn’t weird or difficult or anything, really. It was fine.”
“Sometimes sharing an activity makes things easier,” Gerard relays. He picks up a brush and hands it to Ryan. “For example, let’s paint and just chill for awhile, yeah?” He picks up his own brush and starts sweeping it across the sheet. “Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about the right way to paint or any of that bullshit, just do whatever the fuck you want, and in the meantime, we’ll just talk.”
Ryan bites his bottom lip as he looks down at the sheet. The paintbrush feels cool in his hand, intimidating almost, and he doesn’t really know how to paint. The sheet below him seems to have some sort of pattern, but Ryan tries to do what Gerard says, and he brings the brush down to the paper, arching some red across the top.
“How’s work?” Gerard asks, adding little swirls to Ryan’s red arch.
Shrugging, Ryan starts to draw some birds just because he can. “We have new assignments later today,” he says. He had been thinking about it a lot, honestly, remembering Pete’s promise, but he is trying to not get his hopes up. He is used to disappointment.
“You’re getting a real story this time, yeah?” Gerard asks. “It’s about time, Ryan. You need to start expressing yourself for real. Stop hiding behind others and show people what you are capable of.”
Ryan scoffs. “Gerard, I get that you’re supposed to help me with self-esteem and everything, but really.”
The motion of Gerard’s paintbrush stops, and he wraps his fingers around Ryan’s wrist, stopping Ryan’s motions as well. “Ryan,” he says, looking him straight on in the eyes, making Ryan feel a little bit uncomfortable because he’s still not quite used to such intimacy. “You’re capable of so much, you just don’t see it.”
Ryan looks away. He looks away from Gerard’s gaze and stares down at the sheet, his eyes following the flight of the birds he painted there.
---
Ryan hates these meetings, but once a month, at the beginning of each new issue, he has to suffer through it.
“I don’t see why I can’t do another in-depth interview with Britney Spears,” Gabe complains, waving his arms wildly around, and Ryan ducks quickly as to not get slapped in the face. It would hurt a lot, even if it were an accident. Gabe has a tendency to wear heavy rings.
Pete lets out a loud sigh. It’s the tiniest bit overdramatic, but Ryan can’t really fault Pete, since Gabe does this every month.
“Because I already have an in-depth interview planned, and you’re not allowed within a hundred feet from Britney,” Pete reminds.
“Stupid fucking lawyers,” Gabe grumbles, but he settles back into his chair. Ryan doesn’t know the whole story with Gabe and Britney, but he’s not quite sure that he wants to. Some things are better left a mystery.
“Moving on,” Pete says. “I’ve okayed all of your story ideas, but now it’s time to talk about our lead story.”
Ryan’s heart starts racing a little faster, still hesitant to believe that Pete will actually stay true to his word. He’s ready for the opportunity, he knows he is, but still, a little shiver of panic runs through him when he thinks that if he does get the lead story, Pete is going to announce it in less that ten seconds.
For a moment, a second of pure cowardice, Ryan thinks about backing out. He’s pretty happy with his job the way it is. He gets to say what he wants, and true, while that opinion is based on the original words of people daring enough to take a chance themselves, Pete usually lets Ryan have free reign.
He thinks about it, he really does, thinks about maybe asking to talk to Pete outside so that he can change his mind without the entire writing staff staring at him, but he keeps his mouth shut. Instead, while he’s waiting those few short seconds for Pete to talk again, Ryan thinks about Gerard and how he thinks that the article will be good for Ryan. He thinks about how he really does need to start putting himself out there.
He knows that he needs to stop living life through the familiar only. It’s been seven years since that fateful day, since that stupid fucking letter, since his entire world came crashing down, and Ryan knows that it’s time that he moved on from it.
“I’m sure that all of you have heard about the break up of Industry of Being,” Pete says, pulling Ryan from his memories, from the way that her handwriting had looked on the scratchy yellow paper.
Ryan actually hadn’t. He had heard rumors, nothing more, but he remembers the strong, clear voice of the lead singer and thinks it’s a shame. He also thinks that he should probably stay more up to date on music news, considering that he’s about to start writing a lot more about musicians in the present day.
Around the table, Ryan watches as his co-workers nod and mumble in affirmation. A couple of people actually look upset at the news.
“I’ve talked with a couple of inside sources,” Pete continues, smiling a little. Ryan knows all about Pete’s ‘inside sources’. Well, as much as you can know with something as shady as that. “They inform me that Brendon Urie is having some sort of manic musician episode.”
A couple people laugh, but Ryan isn’t one of them. He doesn’t see anything funny with that. Apparently, neither does Pete, and once again, Ryan is reminded at how, oh God, Pete is starting to go to Gerard, too.
“Anyway,” Pete says, halting the remaining laughter of some people, “Ryan and I have talked about him taking on some more serious writing tasks, so he’s going to be covering it.”
It takes a second for Ryan to process this, because, wow, that’s a huge story. He knows, even without knowing much about the band, that the story of their break up is going to be the lead story on every music magazine in the country. Even on some non-music magazines. The expectations suddenly seem to grow exponentially in Ryan’s mind.
“Ryan, if you could stick around after the meeting, I’ll give you what I have so far,” Pete says, giving Ryan a comforting sort of smile, but it doesn’t do much to quell Ryan’s nerves.
He knew that Pete was going to give him a story, a feature article even, but he had no idea it would be this big. Plus, Ryan doesn’t know if he really wants to interview a musician who is apparently going through a manic musical episode.
Vaguely, Ryan listens as Pete talks with the rest of the staff, having them all talk about their story ideas, opening the floor so that other people can put in their opinion or ask questions. He’s relieved that Pete didn’t make him do that, but he supposes that after he gets more information about the story, there will be another meeting just talking about what exactly he is going to write about.
When the other writers start to filter out of the room, Gabe still muttering under his breath about Britney Spears, Ryan moves from his seat to one closer to Pete. He waits for Pete to wrap up his conversation with one of the interns, Alex, and he turns a new, fresh page of his notebook, pen ready and poised to jot down anything that Pete tells him.
He’ll probably type the notes up later just in case his handwriting gets a little sloppy. Pete has a tendency to talk fast.
Pete finally ruffles the intern’s hair and sends him away. Ryan’s happy to notice that those sexual harassment classes seem to be working, since Pete doesn’t slap the boy’s ass.
Clapping his hands together once, but once is enough to startle Ryan, since the room is suddenly now almost silent, Pete smiles down at him. “So, are you excited for your first big story?”
“Sure,” Ryan responds. He doesn’t want to lie, but he doesn’t want Pete to think that he’s not grateful for the opportunity, because he is.
“Great!” Pete exclaims. He plops down in the chair next to Ryan, the force of his body hitting the edge causing Ryan’s hand to jerk and a line of ink to appear on the paper. He sighs and turns the page.
“Okay, so uh…” The thing is, Ryan’s never really done this before, so he’s a little lost, but he knows that Pete’ll help him along the way, so he doesn’t feel that ridiculous asking what could be interpreted as stupid questions. “I guess I need contact information?”
“Oh shit,” Pete says, reaching to the side of his chair to rummage through his suitcase sitting there. “Right, I’ll just give you what preliminary stuff I have.” He grins as he searches. “I have this friend, well, you know him, that radio guy, Patrick Stump?” He looks over at Ryan, who nods, because yeah, he knows who that is. “Anyway,” Pete goes on, crinkling some paper, “Patrick knows someone who knows someone who knows the drummer of Industry of Being, so I have some contact information.”
“The drummer?” Ryan asks. “So, uh, the lead singer, the one who left,” Ryan can’t seem to remember his name, but he goes on, “he doesn’t know that we’re doing this article?”
Pete shrugs, straightening out as he finally finds the sheet of paper, wrinkled and torn at the edges. “He will when you call him to set up an interview,” he says. Ryan knows that his face must have a terrified expression on it, because Pete pats him a little on the shoulder. “Hey, you’ll do fine, Ross.”
He hands over the piece of paper. There are a couple of phone numbers there, a couple of emails, and written in a messy cursive, there are the three names of the band members: Brendon Urie, Spencer Smith, and Jon Walker.
“Brendon’s the singer, right?”
Pete snorts. “You better hit up Wikipedia.” He smiles fondly at Ryan. “And don’t fuck this up. This is a huge story, Ryan. I know that you’ll make sure that it goes perfectly.” He starts to gather up his things. “Just be relentless.”
“Relentless?” Ryan’s a lot of things, he knows, but he’s not sure that he would qualify himself as a relentless person. Or anyone he knew, as a matter of fact. Expect for Pete, of course.
“Relentless,” Pete repeats. “These guys probably don’t want to talk about this. They might be rude. They might ignore you. Hell, they might take a swing at you, but you have to get the story.” He stuffs the rest of the paper back in the bag. “No matter what.”
Ryan nods, looking back down at the crinkled piece of paper, and his finger traces over the names written there.
When he looks up, Pete is gone.
---
Wikipedia is a Godsend. After only about an hour of searching and clicking on connecting links marked at the bottom of each entry, Ryan knows all there is to know about the band Industry of Being.
He knows that Brendon Boyd Urie and Jonathon Jacob Walker met in the local New York suburb little league baseball syndicate. He knows that Spencer James Smith V was in Brendon’s high school Latin class and they bonded over their mutual fascination with Caligula. Brendon liked that he made a horse a Senator, and Spencer liked that his name meant ‘little boots’.
Ryan learns little random bits of facts about them, like that Jon is allergic to orange food coloring and Brendon’s favorite color Sour Patch Kid is red.
He catches himself up with the band’s history, tracking them from their inception as a stupid high school boy’s dream in Jon’s garage to when they made it big back in 2005 and their coast to the top of the charts. He looks at tour histories and even filters through a couple of gossip sites.
The break up is already covered in specific detail several places, but most of it seems to be speculation. There are people claiming that Brendon wants to make his own album, people claiming that Jon and Brendon were dating and broke up, people claiming that Brendon lost his voice. There are so many different theories, but one thing remains consistent: Brendon leaving.
Most of his attention is directed toward Brendon, since he is the one Ryan’s supposed to interview, and he learns that Brendon dated a model for a while. Learns about the rumors of his homosexuality. He finds out things that seem way too personal to be put up flippantly on a website, like the fact that Brendon’s parents died when he was three and he spent a good nine years jumping from foster home to foster home.
He reads about this boy, this man, who he doesn’t know much about, but who apparently the rest of the world thinks they do. There are fan manifestos, picspams of various poses or pairings or body parts.
Ryan clicks through all the websites, fascinated, but part of him feels like he’s intruding. He quickly brushes away that thought quickly though, because he knows that if he’s going to be a real journalist, a serious journalist, a good journalist, then he needs to dig. He needs to not worry about boundaries or privacy or anything like that.
Just like Pete always tells them: If famous people really wanted to have a private life, then they wouldn’t have tried so hard to become famous.
Ryan just wants to write a great article, he wants to prove himself, so he pushes past any hesitation and researches more.
In the background, simply a low noise, Ryan is playing Industry of Being’s latest album. Brendon’s voice rings out, that voice that somehow curls around Ryan’s brain in such a way that even in the silent gaps, the quiet din of the songs changing, it resonates powerfully. He doesn’t pay too much attention to the lyrics, though he knows that Jon writes the majority of it with Brendon adding more and more as of late, because when his eyes scan over the various articles, interviews, or fan sites, he has a tendency to zone out. Every once in a while, though, Brendon’s voice will jolt Ryan back to reality.
He compiles a huge stack of research, meticulously organized, and he’s drawn up a preliminary plan of action. Ryan isn’t going to let anything get fucked up - he wants this to all go perfectly.
The research is the easy part. Ryan knows that soon he’ll have to put aside his computer and actually talk to a person . Talk to Brendon.
When the clock creeps toward five o’clock, Ryan knows that he can’t put off the next step any further. He’s a little hesitant, but he knows that if he wants to do this properly, he needs to call Brendon and actually arrange an interview.
Normally, one would go through a manager to speak to an artist, but considering that Brendon is no longer under representation, there is only a private number for Ryan to type in, Brendon’s home phone or cell phone, most likely.
How does Pete get these things?
Ryan types the number in with hesitant fingers. He double checks, then checks again one more time just for good measure, that he has dialed the right number before he presses send.
Part of him wants the phone to go straight to voicemail, the thought of actually talking to Brendon seems a little overwhelming, but even that option is cut off, because as soon as Ryan presses send, the phone beeps, informing him that this number is no longer in service.
He tries the number again, thinking that maybe he typed in the digits wrong, but again, the same voiceless message comes up. It plays a third time and then a forth, and after about ten tries, Ryan is still getting the same result: nothing.
Ryan lets out a huff of frustration and looks out his window around the office. It’s a little after five, and unsurprisingly, most of the staff is gone for the day. He knows that most likely Pete is gone, too. Though he is often a workaholic, Pete tends to come into the office in the middle of the night rather than stay past dinner.
Frustrated, Ryan contemplates for a moment what he should do. He doesn’t have another number for Brendon, and he doesn’t have an email like he does for Spencer and Jon. He sighs, trying to figure out a way around it all, and then he figures that he may as well try to get in touch with the other two band members.
After all, he’ll need to interview both of them for the article: see how they’re doing, see what they have to say about Brendon - if they still talk to him, if they blame him. See if they have a way to contact him.
Ryan looks down at the paper, finger tracing underneath Jon’s name, and he dials the number.
The phone picks up after the first ring.
---
The Starbucks is crowded when Ryan gets there, but he spots Jon within only a couple of seconds of peering his head around, painfully aware of how asinine he must look. Jon looks relatively the same as most of the press shots, expect for less put together.
His beard has grown, appearing a little overly bushy, and even from across the coffee shop, Ryan can see that he looks exhausted. The shirt Jon is wearing is wrinkled, and he’s not smiling that easy, content smile that was stretched across his face in all those pictures, one arm usually slung around Brendon’s shoulder, looking like it belonged there.
He’s sipping from his coffee mug, a huge dark blue cup, and Ryan wonders about the protocol of the scenario, wonders if he should order his coffee first or go sit down next to Jon. The line to order is pretty long, so Ryan forgoes his caffeine fix and crosses the room, swiveling his hips as he goes as to not run into anyone, and approaches Jon.
He’s a little nervous, and clenched in one hand, Ryan holds a spiral notebook with a pen securely held in place by the wires. When he’s only a couple of feet away, Jon looks up at Ryan, his eyes rimmed a dull red.
“You’re the guy from that magazine, yeah?” Jon asks, and his voice makes Ryan think of the rust one gets after a night of hard partying.
“Ryan Ross.” He holds out his hand, feeling a little ridiculous since they’re in a Starbucks and all, but Jon doesn’t hesitate to take it and shake.
“You seem like less of an asshole than most journalists,” Jon remarks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I’m not really a journalist.”
Jon shrugs. “Well, you’ve got the damn notebook like one.” He casts a semi-smile at Ryan as Ryan sits down. “You gonna let me see what you write in that book? This one time we had a journalist follow us on the road, and he was always writing down every fucking thing we said. Never let us look at the notebook.”
“Oh,” Ryan says. “I, uh, haven’t thought about my policy on that,” he admits.
“Honesty is a good policy,” Jon relays. He lets out a little startled laugh. “Damn, it certainly is a lot easier to give advice than to take it.” He shakes his head. “Actually, man, Ryan, honesty is a terrible policy.” Another laugh comes. “But, then again, I wouldn’t really know about that either.”
The way Jon is talking is seems a little disjointed to Ryan, a little manic, almost, but Ryan figures that considering Jon just lost his band, lost what all the fan sites were saying was his dream, lost his best friends, it makes sense.
“So how do you want to do this?” Jon asks. “You want to ask me about what I’m doing? Nothing, man. You want to ask me about our plans? I don’t fucking know. You want to ask me about Brendon?”
Brendon’s name, for some reason, comes out in a different tone than the rest of Jon’s words. Before, his voice seemed a little defensive, as if he’d been dealing with a lot of questions about the band, but when he says Brendon’s name, his voice just sounds tired. Resigned.
There’s a pause, and Ryan takes advantage of it. “Have you spoken to him since the band broke up?”
“I tried at first,” Jon says. “The band’s been broken up for only two weeks, but I could only handle a couple of days of silence, you know?”
There’s something vulnerable about Jon’s face, about the way that he’s talking. Something about it that Ryan can’t really pinpoint.
“Spence and I still talk,” Jon continues. “See each other most days.” He sighs. “It seems like he’s dealing with this all a lot better than me.”
“I have a meeting with him later in the week,” Ryan tells him.
Jon nods. “That’s good. He’s got a good perspective on it all.” He takes another sip of his coffee, closing his eyes for a second, like a prolonged blink, and when he opens them again, he looks even more tired. “So yeah, I talk to Spencer, but Brendon’s turned into a fucking hermit or something.”
“I tried to call his phone,” Ryan says.
“Cancelled it,” Jon responds, a little bitterly. “Deleted his email, too. Probably even put a stop to his fucking mail.” He leans back a little further into the soft leather of the chair, burrowing back against the material, looking a little relaxed for a moment, but it passes.
Around them, Starbucks is loud. There are people everywhere, chattering without a care. Cell phones are ringing and people are shouting over others to be heard by their companions, but to Ryan, it seems like Jon isn’t taking in any of that. He doesn’t strain forward in his chair like Ryan is.
He doesn’t fight to be heard.
“I went by his apartment a couple of times,” Jon said. He looks at Ryan. “You’re not writing any of this down.” He frowns. “Is this not on the record? I’m not going to have you fucking make up my words.”
Ryan raises a defensive hand, trying to overcome the anxiety of Jon’s suddenly raised voice. He can do this, he knows he can. “I just wanted to talk today,” he says. “Just wanted to get to know you a little, Jon,” he assures.
Honestly, Ryan doesn’t feel right about using this. There’s something too deeply personal about all this. Besides, it’s not a waste. No, he’s getting a feel for the story, getting to know more about the band, about the guys involved.
“Sorry,” Jon apologizes. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” He leans back once more into the chair. “Everything’s just been fucked up lately.” He sighs. “Truth is, Ryan, Brendon is… I don’t even know, but I know that whatever the fuck he’s doing will pass. It’ll pass, and we’ll start the band up again. I know that he’ll never really leave me.”
Ryan catches it, catches the pronoun, and he doesn’t even wonder if Jon meant to say ‘never really leave it’, meaning the band.
“Would you mind giving me Brendon’s address?” Ryan asks.
Jon looks at him suspiciously.
“I just want to get his side of the story,” Ryan says. “Figure out what he’s going through.”
It takes a second. At first, Jon just sits there, a frown playing at the corner of his mouth, but he finally nods. “Okay,” he relents. “But will you tell him to call me, please.” He sets down his coffee mug and runs a tired hand through his hair. “Just tell him I want to talk. Tell him I’m waiting.”
---
They’re making bowls today.
“God,” Audrey says, laughing, “think of how much shitty pottery I’m going to have lying around my apartment at the end of all this.”
Greta shakes her head, amused. “Don’t worry, Aud. I’m sure you’ll manage to break them all within a week.” She shapes the clay in front of her, moving the clay in such a way that Ryan is suspicious that she’s actually a pottery savant. He, however, clearly, is not.
“I can’t get my sides to even out,” he says, loading more clay on the top of the forward edge. “It’s all lopsided.”
“It’s clearly a statement on society,” Audrey throws in, grinning as Greta rolls her eyes. “What? Mine is obviously about the gender inequities in America.” She pokes at the side. “I’m going to put a penis right there.”
“Here,” Greta says, reaching over the table. “Let me see yours for a second, Ry.”
Ryan gladly passes over his strange bowl. He doubt that it could hold anything, and he watches as Greta starts to smooth over the lumps. “Hey, you guys like Industry of Being, right?” he asks, hoping it comes off as small talk. He doesn’t have too much experience with small talk, but he’s generally heard that it’s quite simple. A default.
Audrey snorts. “I’d like to fuck them, if that’s what you mean.” She sticks her tongue out as she starts to roll some clay on the table. “It’s a shame they broke up, though. Bands can never work if there’s unrequited love.” She sighs. “Such a shame.”
“Oh, stop with that stupid slash gossip,” Greta comments, handing Ryan back his bowl looking a whole lot better than it did when Ryan last saw it. She tells Ryan, “Audrey, here, swears that the bassist is in love with the lead singer.”
“He is,” Audrey confirms, now rolling a ball of clay. “It’s so fucking obvious. And it’s the reason that the band probably broke up. I bet he told Brendon and Brendon couldn’t handle his feelings. It’s so tragically romantic.”
Ryan had heard rumors about that, but he didn’t know that the theory was so popular. He thinks about it for a second, thinks about Jon’s sad expression, the hopeful way he had talked about Brendon, but he disregards it. The thought is almost laughable.
In his back pocket, seemingly burning a hole through his jeans, Ryan is all too aware of the sheet of paper folded there with Jon’s messy writing, Brendon’s scrawled out address.
He’s working up the nerve to go.
“Hey, Ryan,” Greta says, pulling Ryan out of his thoughts. She smiles at him, her sweet smile so unlike the wicked on that Audrey seems to be constantly wearing. “You want to come with Aud and me to our friend’s dance recital next week?”
“Huh?” Ryan asks, trying to put some sort of design on the bowl. Right now it looks so sad and undecorated. He wonders if he could do a floral design without making it seem too ostentatious.
“Our friend Keltie teaches a dance class here a couple of times a week,” Greta explains. “They’re having their showcase next Thursday.”
“A bunch of wannabe dancers that have no rhythm,” Audrey throws in.
Greta shrugs. “Pretty much,” she relents, “but it should be fun.”
Ryan’s just about to say no, is just about to make up an excuse, when he thinks better of it. Greta and Audrey are nice. Interesting, yes, but they are people that Ryan can see possibly becoming friends with, and Ryan knows that if he goes to this dance thing Gerard will be ecstatic.
“Sure,” he says.
Both girls beam. “Awesome,” Greta says.
“If you were straight,” Audrey tells Ryan as she starts to attach a phallic looking structure to the outside of her bowl, “you and Keltie would be a perfect couple.”
Ryan doesn’t really remember telling Audrey or Greta that he’s gay - doesn’t really remember telling anyone. Except for Gerard, but there’s something to be said about the privacy laws of HIPAA. He hasn’t even so much as kissed another guy in far too long. Lately, Ryan thinks he’s less of a homosexual and more of an asexual.
He just laughs, though. “Too bad, then,” he jokes.
When the class ends, Ryan and the girls separate to wash their hands, and when Ryan walks down the hallway towards the Men’s Room, he strains his ears, remembering the music he had heard last time. That music that still lingers in his mind.
The hallway is silent though, and the only noise he can hear is the faint echo of Audrey’s laugh.
---
It takes Ryan until Wednesday to gather up the nerve to visit Brendon’s apartment. He figures that if things, for whatever reason, get to be too much, at least he has his appointment with Gerard the next day to fall back on. The appointment that, oh God, Pete was going to be at only an hour before.
He finally does gather up the nerve to visit, though, the chutzpah, if you will, and sets off to the address that Jon gave him.
Ryan’s prepared. He refreshed himself on the band’s history, refreshed himself on Brendon’s history. It felt strange, reading through it all again. It was almost like Ryan was studying for some test, memorizing dates, marking down events and quotations, but it’s a person’s life. It’s Brendon’s life. This guy that he doesn’t even know but has heard so much about.
He’s been listening to their music, listening to the progression from record to record, and it’s not hard to notice that the newer the record is, the more noticeable the gap is between Brendon and the rest of the band. Brendon just seems to be…better - on a different level.
It would be harsh to say that Jon and Spencer were holding Brendon back, but Ryan can see how some people could come to that conclusion. He figures that it’s not just other people that think it too - he wonders if Jon and Spencer do - they must have. Or Brendon.
Maybe that’s what this is all about.
He doesn’t know, though, and he won’t until he asks.
Ryan checks once more that the address of the building on the paper is the same to the one that he’s standing in front of. It matches, Jon’s slanted numbers adding up, and Ryan takes a calming breath as he approaches the intercom.
The apartment building isn’t in the best part of town, but it makes sense to Ryan that Brendon would live here. Well, at least makes sense with the little that Ryan knows about Brendon. It’s in a so-called bohemian section. Full of starving artists that aren’t really starving, considering the amount of money they have to have to afford the rent. But Ryan feels like Brendon deserves a little credit for at least not living up in a penthouse in the Upper East Side.
The intercom on the brick wall has faded tags, delineated for each apartment, but the button next to the number that Jon gave Ryan doesn’t have a name assigned. He hesitates for a second, but presses the white button in, waiting for Brendon’s voice, a voice he had heard on interviews and concert videos, to sound in.
No one answers.
Ryan frowns and presses the button in again, but the low buzz sounds and no one answers. It’s frustrating, but just because Brendon’s not answering doesn’t mean he’s not there. Ryan remembers what Jon said about Brendon’s new hermit ways, and he presses the button again.
“Excuse me,” a voice calls behind him, and Ryan shuffles out of the way for a man with dreadlocks to pass by, but as the door swings shut, Ryan sticks his foot out and follows into the building.
He isn’t going to let this story beat him, isn’t going to give up, so Ryan starts to climb the staircase, forgoing the wrought-iron elevator because it looks a little shady, to the fourth floor.
When he gets there, only a little bit out of breath, Ryan walks to the apartment at the end, the one with the number that matches that on the slip of paper that Jon gave him. It’s Brendon’s apartment.
Faintly through the door, Ryan can hear what sounds like…a bassoon? He listens a little more closely. Yes, it’s definitely a bassoon.
Strange.
Ryan raises his hand, forms a fist, and knocks on the door, three clear taps. The bassoon halts for a second, but then starts up again, louder than before.
Ryan shuffles his feet, glaring at the door and knocks louder, but the noise of the instrument increases as the force of his knocks do. Finally, Ryan relents, and turns the knob of the door.
Surprisingly, it turns in his hand, and with a tiny push, the inside of Brendon’s apartment is exposed to him: the wide open space, sunlight pouring in through bay windows, scattered sheets of paper, instruments everywhere, a gleaming piano, and a person who Ryan recognizes to be Brendon, hair messy with only jeans on, playing a bassoon in the middle of the room, the noise stopping a second after Ryan opens the door.
Part Three