Wreck the Halls: A Novel

2009

The second Beat Dawkins entered the television studio, it stopped raining outside.

Sunshine tumbled in through the open door, wreathing him in a halo of glory, pedestrians retracting their umbrellas and tipping their hats in gratitude.

Across the room, Melody witnessed Beat’s arrival the way an astronomer might observe a once-in-a-millennium asteroid streaking across the sky. Her hormones activated, testing the forgiveness of her powder-fresh-scented Lady Speed Stick. She’d only gotten braces two days earlier. Now those metal wires felt like train tracks in her mouth. Especially while watching Beat breeze with such effortless grace into the downtown studio where they would be shooting interviews for the documentary.

At age sixteen, Melody was in the middle of an awkward phase—to put it mildly. Sweat was an uncontrollable entity. She didn’t know how to smile anymore without looking like a constipated gargoyle. Her milk chocolate mane had been carefully styled for this afternoon, but her hair couldn’t be tricked into forgetting about the humidity currently plaguing New York, and now it was frizzing to really accentuate the rubber bands connecting her incisors.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.

Then there was Beat.

Utterly, effortlessly gorgeous.

His chestnut-colored hair was damp from the rain, his light blue eyes sparkling with mirth. Someone handed him a towel as soon as he crossed the threshold and he took it without looking, rubbing it over his locks and leaving them wild, standing on end, amusing everyone in the room. A woman in a headset ran a lint brush down the arm of his indigo suit and he gave her a grateful, winning smile, visibly flustering her.

How could she herself and this boy possibly be the same age?

Not only that, but they’d also been named by their mothers as perfect complements to each other. Beat and Melody. They were the offspring of America’s most legendary female rock duo, Steel Birds. Since the band had already broken up by the time Beat and Melody were born, their names were bestowed quite by accident, without the members consulting each other. Decidedly not the happiest of coincidences. Not to mention, children of legends with significant names were supposed to be interesting. Remarkable.

Obviously, Beat was the only one who was meeting expectations.

Unless you counted the fact that she’d chosen teal rubber bands.

Which had seemed a lot more daring in the sterility of the orthodontist’s office.

“Melody,” someone called to her right. The simple act of having her name shouted across the busy room caused Melody to be bathed in fire, but okay. Now the backs of her knees were sweating—and oh God, Beat was looking at her.

Time froze.

They’d never actually met before.

Every article about their mothers and the highly publicized band breakup in 1993 mentioned Beat and Melody in the same breath, but they were locking eyes for the very first time IRL. She needed to think of something interesting to say.

I was going to go with clear rubber bands, but teal felt more punk rock.

Sure. Maybe she could cap that statement off with some finger guns and really drive home the fact that he’d gotten all the cool rock royalty genes. Oh God, her feet were sweating now. Her sandals were going to squeak when she walked.

“Melody!” called the voice again.

She tore her attention off the godlike vision that was Beat Dawkins to find the producer waving her into one of the cordoned-off interview suites. Just inside the door was a camera, a giant boom mic, a director’s chair. The interview about her mother’s career hadn’t even started yet and she already knew the questions she would be answering. Maybe she could just pop in very quickly, recite her usual responses, and save everyone some time?

No, I can’t sing like my mother.

We don’t talk about the band breakup.

Yes, my mother is currently a nudist and yes, I’ve seen her naked a startling number of times.

Of course, it would be amazing for fans if Steel Birds reunited.

No, it will never happen. Not in a million, trillion years. Sorry.

“We’re ready for you,” sang the producer, tapping her wrist.

Melody nodded, flushing hotter at the suggestion she was holding things up. “Coming.”

She snuck one final glance at Beat and walked in the direction of her interview room. That was it, she guessed. She’d probably never see him in person again—

“Wait!”

One word from Beat and the humming studio quieted, ground to a halt.

The prince had spoken.

Melody stopped with one foot poised in the air, turning her head slowly. Please let him be talking to me, otherwise the fact that she’d stopped at his command would be a pitiful mistake. Also, please let him be talking to someone else. The train tracks in her mouth were approximately four hundred pounds per inch, and the teal dress she’d worn—oh God—to match her rubber bands didn’t fit right in the boob region. Other girls her age managed to look normal. Good, even.

What was it TMZ had said about her?

Melody Gallard: always a before picture, never an after.

Beat was talking to her, however.

Not only that, but he was also jogging over in this athletic, effortless way, the way a celebrity might approach the mound at a baseball game to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, the crowd cheering him on. His hair had arranged itself back to a perfect coif, no evidence of the rain that she could see, his mouth in a bemused half smile.

Beat slowed to a stop in front of her, rubbing at the back of his neck and glancing around at their rapt audience, as if he’d acted without thinking and was now bashful about it. And the fact that he could be shy or self-conscious with charisma pouring out of his eyeballs was astounding. Who was this creature? How could they possibly share a connection?

“Hey,” he breathed, coming in closer than Melody expected, that one move making them coconspirators. He wasn’t overly tall, maybe five eleven, but her eyes were level with his chin. His sculpted, clean-shaven chin. Wow, he smelled so good. Like a freshly laundered blanket with some fireplace smoke clinging to it. Maybe she should switch from powder fresh Speed Stick to something a little more mature. Like ocean surf. “Hey, Mel. Can I call you that?”

No one had ever shortened her name before. Not her mother, classmates, or any of the nannies she’d had over the years. A nickname was something that should be attained over time, after a long acquaintance with someone, but Beat calling her Mel somehow seemed totally normal. Their names were counterparts, after all. They’d been named as a pair, whether it had been intentional or not.

“Sure,” she whispered, trying not to stare at his throat. Or inhale him. “You can call me Mel.”

Was this her first crush? Was it supposed to happen this fast? She usually found members of a different sex sort of . . . uninspiring. They didn’t make her pulse race, the way this one did. Say something else before you bore him to death.

“You stopped the rain,” she blurted.

His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

I’m dissolving. I’m being absorbed by the floor. “When you walked in, the rain just . . . stopped.” She snapped her fingers. “Like you’d turned it off with a switch.”

When Melody was positive that he would cringe and make an excuse to walk away, Beat smiled instead. That lopsided one that made her feel funny everywhere. “I should have thought of switching it off before walking two blocks in a downpour.” He laughed and exhaled at the same time, studying her face. “It’s . . . crazy, right? Finally meeting?”

“Yeah.” The word burst out of Melody and quite unexpectedly, her chest started to swell. “It’s definitely crazy.”

He nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off her face.

She’d heard of people like him.

People who could make you feel like you were the only one in the room. The world. She’d believed in the existence of such unicorns, she just never in her wildest dreams expected to be given the undivided attention of one. It was like bathing in the brightest of sunlight.

“If things had been different with our mothers, we probably would have grown up together,” he said, blue eyes twinkling. “We might even be best friends.”

“Oh,” she said with a knowing look. “I don’t think so.”

His amusement only spread. “No?”

“I don’t mean that to be offensive,” Melody rushed to say. “I just . . . I tend to keep to myself, and you seem more . . .”

“Extroverted.” He shrugged a single shoulder. “Yeah. I am.” He waved a hand to indicate the room, the crew who were still captivated by the first—maybe only—meeting of Beat Dawkins and Melody Gallard. “You might think I’d be into this. Talking, being on camera.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But it’s always the same questions. Can you sing, too? Does your mother ever talk about the breakup?”

“Will there ever be a reunion?” Melody chimed in.

“Nope,” they said at the same exact time—and laughed.

Beat turned serious. “Look, I hope this isn’t out of line, but I notice the way the tabloids treat you. Online and off. It’s . . . different from how they treat me.” Fire scaled the sides of her neck and gripped her ears. Of course he’d seen the cringe-inducing critiques of Melody. They were usually included in articles that profiled him, as well. The most recent one had whittled her entire existence down to the line, In the case of Trina Gallard’s daughter, the apple didn’t just fall far from the tree, it’s more of a lemon. “I always wonder if it bothers you. Or if you’re able to blow that bullshit off.”

“Oh, I mean . . .” She laughed, too loudly, waved a hand on a floppy fist. “It’s fine. People expect those gossip sites to be snarky. They’re just doing their job.”

He said nothing. Just watched her with a little wrinkle between his brows.

“I’m lying,” she whisper-blurted. “It bothers me.”

His perfect head tilted ever so slightly to one side. “Okay.” He nodded, as if he’d made an important decision about something. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Nothing.” His gaze ran a lap around her face. “You’re not a lemon, by the way. Not even close.” He squinted, but not enough to fully hide the twinkle. “More of a peach.”

She swallowed the dreamy sigh that tried to escape. “Maybe so. Peaches do have pretty thin skin.”

“Yeah, but they have a tough center.”

Something grew and grew inside of Melody. Something she’d never felt before. A kinship, a bond, a connection. She couldn’t come up with a word for it. Only knew that it seemed almost cosmic or preordained. And in that moment, for the first time in her life, she was angry with her mother for her part in breaking up the band. She could have known this boy sooner? Felt . . . understood sooner?

Someone in a headset approached Beat and tapped his shoulder. “We’d like to get the interview started, if you’re ready?”

Unbelievably, he was still looking at Melody. “Yeah, sure.”

Did he sound disappointed?

“I better go, too,” Melody said, holding out her hand for a shake.

Beat studied her hand for several seconds, then gave her a narrow-eyed look—as if to say, don’t be silly—and pulled her into the hug of a lifetime. The hug. Of a lifetime. In a millisecond, she was warm in the most pleasant, sweat-free way. All the way down to the soles of her feet. Light-headedness swept in. She’d not only been granted the honor of smelling this boy’s perfect neck, he was encouraging her with a palm to the back of her head. He squeezed her close, before brushing his hand down the back of her hair. Just once. But it was the most beautiful sign of affection she’d ever been offered, and it wrote itself messily all over her heart.

“Hey.” He pulled back with a serious expression, taking Melody by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Mel. You live here in New York, I live in LA. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but . . . I guess it just feels important, like I need to tell you . . .” He frowned over his own discomposure, which she assumed was rarer than a solar eclipse. “What happened between our mothers has nothing to do with us. Okay? Nothing. If you ever need anything, or maybe you’ve been asked the same question forty million times and can’t take it anymore, just remember that I understand.” He shook his head. “We’ve got this big thing in common, you and me. We have a . . .”

“Bond?” she said breathlessly.

“Yeah.”

She could have wept all over him.

“We do,” he continued, kissing her on the forehead hard and pulling Melody back into the second hug of a lifetime. “I’ll find a way to get you my number, Peach. If you ever need anything, call me, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, heart and hormones in a frenzy. He’d given her a nickname. She wrapped her arms around him and held tight, giving herself a full five seconds, before forcing herself to release Beat and step back. “Same for you.” She struggled to keep her breathing at a normal pace. “Call me if you ever need someone who understands.” The next part wouldn’t stay tucked inside of her. “We can pretend we’ve been best friends all along.”

To her relief, that lopsided smile was back. “It wouldn’t be so hard, Mel.”

A bell rang somewhere on the set, breaking the spell. Everyone flurried into motion around them. Beat was swept in one direction, Melody in the other. But her pulse didn’t stop pounding for hours after their encounter.

True to his word, Beat found a way to provide her with his number, through an assistant at the end of her interview. She could never find the courage to use it, though. Not even on her most difficult days. And he never called her, either.

That was the beginning and the end of her fairy-tale association with Beat Dawkins.

Or so she thought.