Every Little Piece of Me Read online

  Sam gently pulled her thumb from her mouth. “It’s okay.”

  “But what if it’s not?” she whispered. “What if we don’t make it? What if this is it?”

  Sam was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t know.” She could feel his body tense, and she realized he was scared too. And if they kept talking this way, they would drag each other down into a pit of doubt.

  Reluctantly, Mags pulled herself away from Sam and picked her kilt up off the bed, fingering the heavy material as she thought about what to say next. “Okay,” she said eventually. “I believe you. If you feel it, you feel it.” It was a lie, of course. But it would make everything okay, for the moment. “I still have to go to Mahone Bay tonight. But I’ll make sure I don’t miss any more Align Above shows.”

  “That’s a relief,” Sam said. “I was beginning to think we’d made a mistake trading Becca for you.” Mags rolled her eyes and threw her kilt at his face.

  * * *

  When the Brigatines’ set was over, Mags bolted from the stage to the bar, ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser, and stood there pounding it back while daring someone—anyone—to approach her, to touch her arm, to call her “sweetie.”

  When she looked down the bar, she saw the man from the dance floor standing next to her, his head in his hands while he waited for the bartender to finish pouring his draft. Close up, Mags had to admit he was attractive, possibly even younger than he first appeared. Somehow it made it worse, that he was leading on this young girl when he most certainly could have any woman he wanted. Mags finished off her beer, wiped her mouth, and narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Where’s your child bride?” She hadn’t meant it to come out. Or maybe she had.

  The man raised his head. “Excuse me, what did you say?”

  “Nothing,” Mags said. On the other side of the room, a table full of older couples burst into raucous laughter. She tilted her head back and studied the ceiling, all dark wooden beams and wrought-iron fixtures, a line of nautical signal flags strung up along one side. What am I doing here? Mags thought, a faint thrum of panic growing in her chest. This isn’t where I’m supposed to be.

  When the bartender put the man’s draft down on the bar, Mags snatched it up immediately and took a long drink.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the man asked.

  Mags paused. “This is payment,” she said. “For having to watch you grope that little girl on the dance floor.” She brought the beer back up to her lips, staring him down. He stared back at her, trying to comprehend what she had said. Come at me, Mags dared him with her eyes. But he just got up from the bar and walked away. Mags finished the beer, put down the glass, and signalled to the bartender. It was only 8 p.m. The Alderney show would be about to kick off. “Can you call me a cab?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  “Halifax.” The bartender raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything, only picked up the phone. Mags glanced over at the stage, to where the rest of the Brigatines were getting ready for their next set. She felt a twinge of guilt, but it was fleeting, a muscular flick that pulsed once then melted away.

  As she stood outside and waited for the cab to come, the cab that was going to cost her more than she’d have made if she stayed, she thought about that night in Thunder Bay. Standing up there on the stage, feeling the energy around her—for the briefest of moments, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were going to make it. And even in her darkest hours, that feeling was still there—even though it was buried beneath the piles of bills and unanswered phone calls and torn-up pages of song lyrics and overflowing ashtrays and catcalls from the audience, even though it was buried under all the bullshit of her ordinary days, it was still there, an ember burning quietly beneath the ash.

  The Brigatines would survive without her. And maybe Align Above would survive without her too, but she would not survive without them.

  The Shore

  A Website for Halifax

  Music>>Reviews

  Show review: HarbourFest II at Alderney Landing

  By Henry Cullen

  If you’ve ever had your morning jog along the beach at Point Pleasant ruined by a used condom stuck to your shoe, you know that Halifax Harbour, despite a certain mayor’s delusions, is not going to clean itself. And for the past two years, local bands have wanted you to know that they, too, care about the raw sewage being pumped into our biggest local attraction. This year’s HarbourFest lineup included some local favourites as well as some newcomers, who managed to hold a rowdy crowd’s attention for a combined three and a half hours. Openers Halo and Shark Church kicked out high-energy sets that place the bar high, and hometown heroes Holster—in one of their last local gigs before relocating to the Big Smoke—kept the party going with a set list that included a number of back-catalogue favourites as well as newer material. But it was last-minute addition Align Above who really stole the show, working the already-primed audience into a frenzy with their combination of searing guitar, driving bassline, and the powerhouse vocals of Mags Kovach tying that big sound all together with an emotional and sensual performance that will surely be talked about for years. Align Above might not have been household names before, but at least for the 8,000 people stuffed into Alderney Landing last night, they certainly are now.

  Sally O’Grady

  @ograderz

  Heads up, Gardeners! Eden is going to be filming Zoe Conrad tomorrow at 2 pm. Meetup will be at the side entrance of the March Theatre at 9 am. See you there! Also: a reminder you have 36 hours left to fill out our latest Facebook poll, If Eden Were My Daughter! #gardenofeden #edenhart #hartsdonyc

  11:23 pm – 20 March 2013

  103 Retweets 2,854 Likes

  Melvin Walton @melvinwalton524 15 min

  Replying to @ograderz

  I’d take her to Disneyland and Instagram photos of her riding the teacups! #gardenofeden #iloveyoueden #wherethehartis #hartsdonyc

  Todd Kim’s Grandmother @kim_t0dd 14 min

  Replying to @melvinwalton524 @ograderz

  I’d build her a treehouse in the backyard where she could have sleepovers with her friends and play Truth or Dare! #gardenofeden

  Sally O’Grady @ograderz 14 min

  Replying to @kim_t0dd @melvinwalton524

  Those are great ones! Make sure to add them on Facebook! #gardenofeden

  Wherever you go @bee_reality 13 min

  Replying to @ograderz @kim_t0dd @melvinwalton524

  Just heard all the Harts are outside their old apartment! Can anyone in the Upper East Side confirm?????? #gardenofeden

  Sally O’Grady @ograderz 13 min

  Replying @bee_reality @kim_t0dd @melvinwalton524

  Omg heading over there right now!! Will report back! #gardenofeden

  Todd Kim’s Grandmother @kim_t0dd 12 min

  Replying to @ograderz @bee_reality @melvinwalton524

  Meet you there! #gardenofeden

  Ava

  March 2013

  HIWTHI S05E01:

  Hart to Hart

  The following spring, the network decided it was time to bring the entire Hart clan back to New York for a week, to hit the talk show circuit and do a photo shoot for Celebrity magazine, as well as film scenes for their Season Five premiere. It was the Harts’ first publicity tour as a family. As if any of them mattered except Eden.

  “I don’t see why I have to go,” Val complained as they waited in the airport lounge. Ava and Val were being chaperoned by Antonio during the flight to New York, where they would meet up with Bryce and David and Eden, who were already there. As if they even needed a chaperone. Ava was sixteen—in the olden days, she would have already been married with three kids.

  “I thought you missed New York, bud,” Antonio said.

  “I’ll save my thoughts for the confessional.”

  Ava had felt the same way as Val. This wasn’t at all how she had imagined returning to New York—briefly, as part of her you
nger sister’s entourage. But still, as the day approached, she found herself getting excited at the prospect of going home. Not that she was going to let Antonio know that—especially after he presented them with the world’s hokiest script, loaded with New York clichés and big-city banalities. “I hope you talk about being glad to be back in the hustle and bustle,” she said. “And how much you missed the bagels.”

  “Hustle and bustle might be the stupidest phrase in the universe,” Val said, glaring at Antonio.

  Antonio leaned back in his seat. “What’s bugging him?” he asked Ava, who dropped her eyes back down to her book.

  “He doesn’t want to leave Christie,” she said.

  “Who’s Christie?”

  “No one,” Val mumbled.

  “His new girlfriend. He doesn’t want you to know about her because he doesn’t want her on camera. You know, in case Carmella sees it.”

  “Who’s Carmella?”

  “His old girlfriend.”

  Val slid down in his seat, flicking his hair over his face to cover his eyes. “And thank you for that, Ava,” he said, glaring at her as he popped in his earbuds.

  She and Val were supposed to sit together on the plane, but Antonio slipped into the seat beside her, shoving his bag under the seat. “Your brother’s mad at you,” he said.

  “What else is new.”

  “Well, you’re reading a book. That’s something I haven’t seen before.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Ava closed the book quickly and stuffed it into the seat pocket in front of her. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention.”

  Antonio was silent for a moment. “You’re right,” he said finally. He pulled out his phone and held it toward her. “Tell me something I don’t know about you, Avalon Hart.”

  Her hand flew up to her face, but then she splayed her fingers and peeked through. “Are you filming this? God, don’t you ever stop?”

  “This isn’t for the show. It’s for me.” He shifted in his seat, grinning at her. “Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.”

  “No!” She was trying to be indignant, but a smile crept onto her face. “I mean, I don’t have any secrets. And if I did, you’d probably already know about them. You’re like Father Confessor over here, getting everyone’s most private thoughts all the time.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “We all know those aren’t real. Give me something. Something just for me.”

  “Okay, I do have a secret,” she said, levelling her gaze at him. Maybe it was because New York was waiting on the other end of the flight, but she felt bolder and more at ease with herself than she had in a long while. “But I can’t tell you what it is.”

  “What about if we play Twenty Questions?” He switched the camera to front-facing. “This is Antonio Rivera, reporting live from seat 17D, where we’re about to play What’s Avalon Hart’s Big Secret?”

  Hearing him say her full name sent a shock through her body, and she was suddenly hyper aware of everything around her—the scratchy airplane seat upholstery against her skin, the vibration of the plane’s engine, the air from the vent above caressing her face. She felt it all. “You can try,” she said, closing her eyes. “But you’re never going to guess it.”

  “Does it involve another person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it involve a family member?”

  “No.”

  “Someone at school?”

  “No.” Ava shifted in her seat, opening her eyes and staring at him. She lifted one eyebrow, something she had practised in the mirror after watching Vivien Leigh do it in Gone with the Wind. “I don’t think you really want to know this.”

  He lowered his phone. Held her gaze. “Maybe I do,” he said.

  “Would either of you like a drink?”

  Antonio turned from her abruptly, flashed a winning smile at the flight attendant. “I’ll have a rum and Coke, please and thank you.”

  “Me too,” said Ava.

  “Hold the rum in hers.”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “No fair.”

  When the flight attendant left, Antonio picked up his phone again, but he didn’t turn the camera on. “Don’t wish it all away, Ava,” he said, twirling the phone in his hands, watching it spin.

  “Don’t wish what away?”

  “Your youth. It’ll be gone before you know it and then you’re going to wish you had it back.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “You’re going to wish it so hard that it almost kills you.”

  Ava took a sip of her Coke, feeling it crackle on her tongue. The fizz expanded in her gut, prickling through her entire body, building up in all the corners of her—the crooks of her elbows, the backs of her knees, between her legs. She turned her face away to stare out the window, watching the plane’s wing shuddering under its own velocity, thinking that she knew how it must feel.

  * * *

  New York in March, slate grey and damp, was nothing like Ava remembered it. She felt as though she were on a movie set made to look like New York, everything flimsy and fake and too much of itself, like someone’s idea of what New York should look like. The people were all just extras in a movie, the street signs made of Styrofoam, the buildings like two-dimensional cut-outs that she could knock over with a brush of her hand. She missed it, of course she did. But maybe the New York she missed no longer existed anywhere but in her own mind.

  They drove from one old haunt to another—the park, their school, David’s favourite deli, the used bookstore Bryce used to take them to on Sunday afternoons—the camera following them, always following them.

  “Oh, the koi are all still here!” Eden said as they stood in front of their old apartment building. “There’s Charlie, and Marvin, and Bubbles…”

  Ava blinked at her sister, the sound of the traffic and the stench of the sewage making her eyes water after so many years away from it, a city girl no longer. “You’re making that up,” she said. “Those fish never had any names.”

  “They did!” She turned to David. “They did, right? You told me they did.”

  David shrugged. Bryce next to him burrowed down into his coat. The city seemed to shrink him. Maybe it was shrinking them all. Except Eden, who in the past couple of years had transformed from an adorable, anxious child into a beautiful, neurotic preteen, long and lithe and taller than everyone in her family, everything about her getting stretched, exaggerated, over the weeks and months. Instead of sucking her thumb, she now toyed with her hair, curling the ends around her finger and pulling on them to varying degrees, depending on how upset she was. Now, Ava could see the tip of her finger protruding from the tangle, purple and engorged with blood as she stood there staring at Ava expectantly.

  Ava peered into the pond. “Those probably aren’t even the same fish.”

  “He told me they had names,” Eden said softly, letting her hand dip into the water.

  A crowd of people stood watching them from behind a row of large men in black jackets. Private security, Antonio had told them, just in case. Ava tried to picture the worst-case scenario: the crowd moving toward them, morphing into one entity, a limbless amoeba with a thousand sets of crazy eyes, a thousand protruding arms waving a thousand flashing cell phones, a thousand wet mouths screaming I love you I love you I love you as it swallowed them whole. Was this what Eden had to deal with every day? Ava felt a flash of pity for her sister, but it disappeared just as quickly as she watched Eden raise a mittened hand to the crowd, beaming at them from behind her protective detail.

  “Can we go now?” Ava asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s freezing out here. Plus, those people are creeping me out.”

  “Imagine,” David boomed, not paying any attention to her, as usual. “Up there, fourteen storeys in the sky, is the place where you all were raised, where you took your first steps, where we laughed and played and learned to be a family.”

  “Oh god,” said Ava.

  “Don’t call him that,” said Val. “One of these days he’
s going to start believing it.”

  “Right here, on this very sidewalk where we now stand, is where you all learned to ride your bikes…”

  “I didn’t,” said Val.

  “You’re making this up,” said Ava. She narrowed her eyes and it felt as though her family was fading away from her, in and out, in and out. It seemed like it had been years since they’d all been together like this, and now they were like old friends at a high school reunion, awkward and strange, without anything to talk about except remember-whens.

  “I fell and skinned my knee!” said Eden, skipping across the path. “Right here, in front of this fountain. I cried and you told me that I had to get back up and try again, because that’s what life was about—getting back up and trying again.” She turned to David, suddenly skeptical. “That’s what you told me.”

  “Right, honey,” David said, without meeting her eyes.

  “I think we have enough now,” Antonio said. They all shoved their hands into their pockets and turned away from the pond, blocking out the crowd that had been steadily growing around them, as they wordlessly made their way out to the street.

  Next to the car, Antonio’s wife, Molly, waited with Micah. “I think that’s very sweet, what you said about getting back up and trying again,” she said to David, hiking Micah up higher on her hip and giving Antonio a kiss on the cheek. “Tony, you should tell our baby that, when the time comes. Tony? Will you tell him?”

  Ava rolled her eyes so hard she thought she was going to pass out. Ava had learned everything she needed to know about Molly the second she came rushing toward them at LaGuardia, dirty toddler in tow, exclaiming we’ll be best friends, I know it as she enveloped Ava in a vanilla-scented hug. Molly had probably worked at a bank or in an insurance office until Micah was born, then stayed home after her maternity leave. She wrote a mommy blog about finding yourself after your baby or getting your body back after baby or pursuing your passion after baby or something like that. She ordered printed photo books off the internet. She knew how to roast a chicken, and she was proud of it.