“I’d rather not make Meredith and Ellie cream their pants,” Claire said as Marlena and Marcus began to harmonize:

You’ll take those Idaho eyes back to where they belong

 And I’ll come too

 I don’t belong anywhere except next to you.

“Anyway,” Claire said, “I think I get the gist.” Over in his baby jumper, Charlie pounded his fake piano keys again, and the metallic notes from that mixed with the lush sounds of the song. Claire’s head began to throb.

“Why are you so weird about this song?” Amara asked, laughing.

“Because it’s my band!” Claire snapped. Amara reached out and paused the music, and they sat in silence except for a fading sound from Charlie’s contraption.

“Was my band,” Claire said, looking down into the mug of tea before her, unused to saying it aloud. “They kicked me out because they found someone better, and then they got famous, and here I am.”

* * *

—

Vagabond had been in the home stretch of a three-week tour when Claire’s boyfriend, Quinton, called to tell her that he might have cancer.

She answered the phone flushed with excitement, fresh off having played through “Idaho Eyes” for the very first time in rehearsal, a spidey sense telling her that this new song was the best thing they’d ever done. Her first thought, when she heard the way Quinton said, “Hello,” was that he had called to break up with her, and she felt a pang of sadness, because Quinton was so normal compared to all the charming, aimless artists she’d dated in the past. Quinton, who had gone to law school, got eight hours of sleep a night so that he’d be well rested for his job at city hall. He talked about art and politics with aplomb. He was training for a half marathon. Claire had a nice time with Quinton, and meanwhile, every time she turned around, another person she knew was getting engaged. She and Quinton had gone on a double date with Thea and her wife, Amy, and Quinton and Thea had traded law school stories. When he left to go to the bathroom, Thea had said to Claire, “You should marry this guy.” Since Claire barely spoke to her parents anymore and didn’t much trust their opinions anyway, Thea was the most valuable family approval she could get.

But on the phone, what Quinton had to say was far worse than a breakup. Quinton had a strange rash that wouldn’t go away. Quinton had a low platelet count. Quinton had gone to a doctor who told him that they couldn’t know anything definitively until the tests came back, but that it might be leukemia.

“I know we’ve only been together for five months. So if it’s cancer,” he said, a wobble creeping into his voice, “you don’t have to stay with me.”

“What?” she asked, overcome with worry for him. “No, I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t do that. Of course I’ll stay with you.”

He let out a breath of relief. “I love you, Claire,” he said for the first time.

“I love you too,” she said, unsure how much she actually meant it and how much she knew it was what he needed to hear.

Over the rest of the night, as she and the Vagabond boys played for a couple hundred people in Pittsburgh and then went out to a bar to celebrate, a new kind of panic sunk in. What had she just committed to? Would being there for Quinton mean having to quit the band? She took a shot and then another. Marcus stuck by her side that night. Sometimes, after shows, he’d disappear with a pretty fan. Other times, if no fan caught his eye, he’d “accidentally” brush his hand against Claire’s breast, then look at her to see how she reacted. (If she was being honest, she’d always carried a torch for him, but it was better to keep things professional, not to get into Fleetwood Mac territory.) She took some more shots, and this time, when Marcus put his hands on her hips, she didn’t pull away or feign ignorance. And when he followed her into the bathroom and kissed her, she kissed him back until she felt the bile rising up in her throat and had to pull away to vomit. If she hadn’t gotten sick, she didn’t know how far she would have gone with him.

The next morning, she woke up resolute (and extremely hungover). They still had one more show left on the tour, in Philadelphia the next night, but she couldn’t do it. She was going to surprise Quinton and take him to a bed-and-breakfast in the Hudson Valley, a distraction while he waited for his test results to come back.

“You guys can survive without me for one night,” she said, attempting to be casual and jokey, avoiding Marcus’s angry eyes. “I believe in you.”

“But it’s Union Transfer,” Marcus said. “This show is fucking important.”

“Hey,” Diego said, “I bet my cousin, Marlena, could step in and sing whatever harmonies we need. She lives right outside of Philly, and she’s a big fan, so she knows all the songs and totally gets our vibe.” Claire had felt such relief, even kissed Diego on the cheek in gratitude, as Marcus reluctantly agreed.

So Claire and Quinton had hopped on a Metro-North train and hiked among the changing late-autumn leaves, holding hands, Quinton smiling stoically at all of Claire’s frantic jokes.

On Saturday night, as Vagabond was preparing to take the stage in Philly, Claire and Quinton wandered, tipsy, down the streets of the little Hudson Valley town, which people said was the place where hip Brooklynites moved when they got tired of city living and wanted to have a family. Claire looked at Quinton. Maybe that wouldn’t be too bad a life.

Music wafted out the door of a local bar, and they went into the noise, pushing through a crowd and ordering sour beers. On a small stage, a band of older men, nearing retirement age, or maybe just retired, played rockabilly tunes. Outfitted in bright suit jackets and funny, music-themed ties, they were talented guys, putting their all into it, wailing away, and Quinton held out his hand and pulled her close to dance. Around them, middle-aged couples twisted and waved their arms. She leaned against Quinton’s strong chest. It couldn’t be cancer. Or, if it was, they were catching it early enough that everything would be fine.

The beer coated her tongue as one song ended and another began, a Chuck Berry cover. The thirty or so people in the bar’s low light danced as if they hadn’t gotten a chance to move much lately, eager but with a certain stiffness. Quinton fit right in—he was always a little stiff when he danced. He didn’t have a natural sense of rhythm, but he tried. It was endearing, usually.

Somewhere in the third song, Claire’s feeling about the whole scene shifted. She couldn’t say why. Nothing in particular happened. A sadness just overcame her. How many of these men onstage had thought they would lead exceptional lives, had been convinced they’d be the next Paul Simon? And how many of them now looked forward all week (or all month? How often did they get together?) to this one blip of playing other people’s music for a tipsy crowd, this one chance to time-travel back to the false promise of their youth?