Read Online A Song for Julia by Charles Sheehan-Miles - Free Book Online

Yeah, that look. The one that made all of us feel like ten-year-olds caught in the cookie jar by our mothers. Mark shut up. Serena was awesome that way.
    “Can you play it through one more time?” she asked me. “I want to get the feel for it.  Pathin, you caught the end? It needs some pretty powerful drums there.” Serena was in her element. Disorganized, crazy, sometimes inspired, she often acted as the band’s artistic director, if we had such a thing.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
    So I played through it again. And then a third time. On the fourth, Serena jumped in with a strong backup rhythm, and Pathin and Mark came in with the drums and bass, and suddenly it was a real song. And I loved it. It was the quickest and easiest I’d ever written a song before. And possibly the best.
    Even Mark looked excited by the time we did a run through. “I’ll admit,” he said. “It is powerful. Even if Crank is a complete asshat.”
    “Powerful is not the word,” Serena said, her voice droll. “Heart-wrenching. The girls are going to be ripping their clothes off for Crank.”
    I snorted and Mark said, “So what’s new about that?”
    “Knock it off, Mark,” I said.
    “I’ll knock it off when you stop bringing drunk groupies back here after our shows. I’m tired of having to listening to them giggling and thumping through my bedroom wall.”
    Then he did an imitation, thumping rhythmically against one of the wood benches with his foot while he cried out, “Oh! Oh! Crank! Oh!”
    “Shut up!” the rest of us yelled.
    Mark smirked. “Let’s get the rest of this set done.”
    “About time,” I muttered.
    The rest of our practice was uneventful, though it went smoother than typical. But that’s the way things went: up and down. Our shows were consistently solid, but in rehearsals, the ebb and flow of emotions, arguments and just life tended to impact all of us. 
    After practice, Serena ordered a pizza, then went off to grab a shower. I collapsed, exhausted, onto another throwaway couch in our living room upstairs above the studio. It had once been a conference room or something for the warehouse. Since we’d moved in, Serena had decorated it with brightly colored drapes and shawls she’d brought from India. Mark turned on the television and found The Osbournes. Seriously? I couldn’t believe that show had survived a single night, much less an entire season. 
    Five minutes later, Serena stood in the door to the hallway and said, in an odd voice, “I found Julia.” 
    “What?” Mark asked.
    I raised my eyebrows. What was she talking about?
    “Come on,” she said. “You guys gotta see this.” She didn’t even look at me as she said the words.
    Mark and Pathin followed her back down the hall. Whatever this was, I didn’t want any part of it. But then Mark shouted, “Holy shit!” and suddenly I was interested.
    I walked down the hall and looked into Serena’s room, where the three of them were crowded around her computer.
    What the hell?
    Splashed across the screen was a photo, a good one. Me and Julia, kissing in front of the White House. 
    Serena was reading the words below the picture:
    “Young Ms. Thompson was found in passionate embrace of Crank Wilson on Saturday evening in front of the White House. Wilson is the lead singer-guitarist of a mildly successful alternative punk-rock band, which plays the local circuit in Boston and Providence. His rap-sheet is nearly as long as Ms. Thompson’s transcripts.”
    Mark laughed. “Dude, you banged that college girl from Saturday?”
    “What? No.”
    “Not what the article says.”
    “What the hell? Why in God’s name is that there, anyway?”
    Serena looked at me, her eyelids lowered. “It’s not you, Crank. This is a society gossip blogger. She’s not interested in trash from South Boston. She’s interested in this girl … Julia. Why didn’t you just tell us about her? Are you hung up on her?”
    I shrugged. “What the hell,