Crossroads
- Автор: Франзен Джонатан
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Crossroads». Краткое содержание книги:
Universally recognized as the leading novelist of his generation, Jonathan Franzen is often described as a teller of family stories. Only now, though, in *Crossroads* , has he given us a novel in which a family, in all the intricacy of its...
She came home to a house in the process of emptying for her and Tanner. Her father had left for First Reformed, and Perry’s duffel bag was packed and waiting by the door. The only sign of her mother was a note asking Becky to drive Perry to the church. Upstairs, she found Judson neatly packing his own suitcase for his Disneyland trip. He didn’t know where Perry was. Returning to the kitchen, she heard a dull clank from the basement. She opened the door and peered into its gloom. “Perry?”
No answer. She turned on a light and ventured down the stairs. From the far corner of the basement, where the oil burner was, came an odd huffing, another clank of metal.
“Hey, Perry, you ready?”
“Yes, I’m ready, can’t a person be alone?”
“If you want a ride to church, now is when I’m offering it.”
He came sauntering out from behind the oil burner. “Ready.”
“What are you doing down here?”
“The question seems more apposite to you. You’re supposed to be a creature of the light. Why aren’t you shining in the world where you belong?”
He skipped past her and up the stairs. She didn’t smell pot, but she wondered if he might be doing drugs again. For a short while, at Christmas, she’d enjoyed the novelty of hanging out with him, but their “friendship” hadn’t taken off. Since she’d added a shift to her schedule at the Grove, to earn money for Europe, she’d barely spoken to him.
Emerging from the basement, she saw him lugging his duffel bag into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“A moment of privacy, sister, if you would be so kind. Would do me that gentle favor.”
He locked the bathroom door behind him.
“Hey, listen,” she said, through the door. “You seem weird. Are you okay?”
She heard him huffing, heard the rasp of a heavy-duty zipper.
“If you’re doing drugs again,” she said, “you need to be open with me. Remember what we said about walking away? I’m not the enemy.”
No confession was forthcoming. Behind her, in the kitchen, the telephone rang.
She expected the caller to be Jeannie Cross, but it was Gig Benedetti, asking for Becky. She hadn’t known Gig even had her number.
“This is Becky speaking.”
“Ha, didn’t recognize your voice. How is our beautiful girl today?”
“She’s fine, thank you.”
“Do you have a second?”
“Actually, it’s better if you call me back a little later.”
“Reason I’m calling is—Tanner tells me he’s going to Europe with you. Were you aware of this plan? Did you know about this plan and not tell me?”
Her heart clutched. Apparently she’d betrayed their special understanding.
“I talked to him this morning,” Gig said. “I’ve been working my butt off, booking him into the Holiday Inn circuit, and what do I find out? He’s ditching the band and taking you to Denmark!”
“Well—yes.”
“Do you realize what a toilet Europe is, professionally? Do you know why his Danish pals are so happy he’s coming to Aarfuck? It’s because any act with half a brain can see it’s a freaking waste of time! I thought you and I were on the same wavelength!”
He was yelling, and she wanted to tell him not to. She couldn’t stand being yelled at.
“We are on the same wavelength,” she said. “This is only for one summer.”
“Only one summer—I like that. Only one summer. And Quincy and Mike? While the lovebirds are off on their honeymoon, Quincy and Mike are supposed to do what? Twiddle their thumbs and hope you send a postcard? It’ll take Tanner four months, minimum, to put together new backup and break them in. Suddenly we’re in 1973 and nobody remembers him. Does that sound like a plan to you? I thought you were smart.”
“There’s a huge folk scene in Europe,” she said stiffly.
“Pfff. If we were talking about the UK, it sort of halfway might make sense—the labels still scout London. But the Continent? Are you kidding me? Can you name one Top Forty hit that ever came out of France or Germany?”
“It’s not just about the labels, though, right? It’s about developing an audience.”
“Damn straight it is. And how do you do that? You play the Holiday Inn Rockford and then you move on to Rock Island. Hit enough big little cities, you start to get a name, and that’s what the A&R guys are looking for. You’ve got to trust me on this, Becky. Your guy is literally better off playing Decatur, Illinois, than Paris, France. There’s an act I booked into Decatur eight months ago that just signed a major-label deal. I’m not lying to you.”
“But he can still do that—I mean, the Holiday Inns. He’ll come back even better, with new contacts.”
“Listen. Baby. Sweetheart, listen. Your guy’s okay. I admit I kind of signed him as a favor, because I like your style, but I’m not keeping him on as a favor. He’s a pro, he takes direction, he’s a hit with the ladies, everybody’s making money. But my honest opinion? I’m not in love with his original material, and neither are the audiences. Time will tell if he’s got better songs in him, but there’s a million and one acts at his level. The best thing he’s got going is he’s young and super easy on the eyes, and you know what they say about the record business—the vampire thirsts for youth and beauty. The last thing your guy needs is to sit on the shelf for a year.”
“Okay,” she said in a very small voice.
“I told him, if he wants me to represent him, he’s got to flush this Europe thing where it belongs. He didn’t want to hear me, but he’ll hear it from you. You need to take him in hand and lay down the law. Will you promise to do that for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the brains of the outfit. He’ll do whatever you say.”
When she hung up the phone, the sun was still strong in the windows, but the kitchen seemed dusky, as if what had brightened it weren’t the sun but the dream of Europe. She felt punished and guilty and disappointed; sorry for Tanner, sorrier for herself. Tuning out Perry’s weird patter, she mechanically drove him to the church and mechanically drove home again. Never had she felt less like working her Friday-night shift.
To ignore Gig’s advice, at the cost of his firing Tanner, would obviously be the height of selfishness. But Shirley had died imagining her niece on a Grand Tour of Europe, Becky had already given away nine thousand dollars of her money, and the alternatives to Europe were dismaclass="underline" either another summer with her parents, waitressing at the Grove, or a succession of cornfields and depressing small cities, the steambath of July in the Midwest. She understood that this was the reality of the music business, but the vision of going to Europe and advancing Tanner’s career was too perfect to be defeated by reality. She didn’t see how she could give it up.
Her problem was still there in the morning, when she took her mother and Judson to O’Hare. She’d expected to feel liberated by her family’s absence, but Gig’s judgment of Tanner, its echoing of Clem’s, had deflated the romance of the coming week. As she watched Judson run ahead of their mother with his little suitcase, the two of them bound for a city of palm trees and movie stars, she felt desolated.
From the airport, she went straight to the Grove. Gig’s first move as Tanner’s agent had been to pull the plug on his Friday-night shows there, and Becky, having now seen better places in the city, understood why. The Grove’s earth-tone decor and potted trees were tired, not trendy, its lounge acoustics lousy, its patrons tightfisted and Nixonite. By the time her shift ended, she felt so worn down that she called Tanner’s house and left a message with his mother, excusing herself from his gig in Winnetka. Interestingly, Tanner didn’t call her back.