The Ballerina and the Rocker

Zacky

The tour was almost over. The band only had a few more cities left to play and it all seemed to be going by too fast. They had just finished playing at a hole-in-the-wall place in Dallas, Texas and went out for a few drinks at a bar covered in cowboy hats and boots before calling it a night.

When they got back to their motel just after 2am, the red light on the room’s phone was blinking. Val lifted the phone and listened to the message as the guys began crashing.

“Uh, Zacky?” Val said. Zacky lifted up his sleeping head from the lounge chair in the corner and looked at her. She looked worried.

“Hm?” he said, groggy.

“You have a message.” She handed the phone out for him to grab. Reluctantly, Zacky got up from from his chair and walked over to Val to grab the phone. Once he did, she pressed a button on the keypad and the message replayed.

“Hi Zacky, it’s Audrey,” the message began. Her voice sounded shaky. “Your mom told me which motel you guys were staying at so I thought I’d call… Um, I just wanted to let you know that, uh… our dad died…” Audrey’s message had a long pause and Zacky felt himself sober up instantly. “So, uh,” the message continued. “I know you’re super busy with the tour but I just wanted to tell you and let you know that the funeral is Sunday at 2… Not that I expect you to come since it’s incredibly short notice but I know I’d regret it if I at least didn’t let you know… I know Quinn would have done so, but she’s in such a rough state she’s barely been able to talk to me, so I can’t imagine she’d be able to talk to you… Anyway, yeah… I don’t really know how to end a message like this… so, um, I’ll just say bye.”

The message ended with a beep and Zacky hung up the phone, unable to find any words or any thoughts. His mind was just… blank.

“Zacky?” Val said, snapping him out of his void. Zacky turned around and looked at her; her eyes were glossed over with water.

“I have to go to the funeral,” he heard himself say. Val smiled a sad smile.

“Of course you do,” she agreed.

“But… how? The funeral is tomorrow and I don’t have enough money for a round trip plane ticket, and that’s the only way I’ll be able to get to Albuquerque in time for the next show…”

His stomach churned and he felt sick, but it wasn’t from the alcohol. Quinn’s father was dead. Her best friend. And no matter what his relationship with Quinn was, Zacky would never not be there for her in a time when she really needed someone.

“We can pool our money,” Val said. Zacky was about to protest but Val continued. “Yes, we can. This is important and I know the guys would agree with me; we’ve been surviving on a budget so we’ll be able to live on a smaller one no problem.”

Zacky didn’t know what to say, so he just walked over to Val and pulled her into a hug.

Quinn

Quinn woke up and slowly opened her eyes. To her left were her sister and mother, both still asleep. Since she had gotten home just a few days ago, Quinn and Audrey had slept every night curled up with their mom in her bed. It was a queen size and barely fit the three of them, but when they curled up close the small space didn’t bother them.

It didn’t feel real.

Ever since the moment Quinn found out her father had died she hadn’t been able to feel a thing. It was as if her entire body had just shut down.

“How did it happen?” she had managed to ask her mother as soon as she had gotten home from New York just a few days ago.

“There was an explosion,” Jo explained. She was barely able to keep herself together as she told the story to her daughter. She continued to explain what the military had told her but Quinn tuned it out. Those words there was an explosion were the only ones that registered.

In the four days she had been home Quinn had barely spoken to her family. She couldn’t find any words to say.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Jo said to Quinn when she woke up.

“Morning,” Quinn said back. Her mother kissed the top of her head and the two stayed in bed in silence for another half hour until Audrey woke up.

After three cups of coffee and a half eaten blueberry muffin, Quinn declined joining her mother to meet with Mason at the funeral home.

“I have to go pick up flowers,” Audrey said after their mother left. “Want to join me?” Quinn shook her head. “Ok. I’ll see you later then.”

Left alone in the house, Quinn went up to her room and grabbed the box on her desk where she kept all the letters her father had sent her while he was on duty. She sat on her bed and re-read each and every one. How was it possible that the person who wrote these letters wasn’t around anymore? When she read them she could pretend her father was still alive…

Later in the afternoon, Quinn, her mom and her sister went to the John Wayne Airport where they met Mason and Stephanie. The family had special clearance to go onto the tarmac where they stood next to an airplane. Audrey grabbed Quinn’s hand and squeezed it tight.

To the left of them was 10 or so men from the Navy in complete uniform stoically standing in silence. The bottom of the plane opened and the highest ranking officer gave a command to the others; 6 of the men walked onto the plane. Quinn looked past Audrey and saw Mason holding his wife’s hand while his other arm was wrapped around their weeping mother’s shoulders. Audrey’s grip on her hand tightened. Quinn looked back to the plane and saw the 6 naval officers reappear from the plane holding a flag draped coffin.

As they carried the coffin, the remaining Naval officers saluted it as it passed by. A black hearse was parked a few feet away and the pallbearers placed the coffin inside. The commanding officer walked over to the Hartford’s and began speaking to Jo. Instead of listen in, Quinn locked her eyes on the hearse as it drove away to the funeral home.

Zacky

“Please return to your seats, we are beginning our descent into Los Angeles,” the stewardess voice echoed over the speakers.

After Zacky had gotten Audrey’s message, he went to the front desk of the motel and sought help in buying a last minute plane ticket. Luckily there were seats available for a 9 a.m. flight that morning, meaning Zacky slept for approximately four and a half hours before he headed off to the airport. The guys were so supportive and, just as Val had said, they didn’t mind pooling their money to get Zacky the flight there and back.

“You have to be there,” Brian had said. “Plus, we’ve got a - what is it - a 10 hour drive from here to Albuquerque? So as long as you get there Monday night at 6 then we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“We only wish we could all go,” Val had added, with a nod and murmur of agreement from the guys.

Zacky wondered what he had done to deserve such great friends.

It was just after noon when his plane landed, and Zacky wasted no time in hailing a cab (usually he would have just taken a bus but since he had the money from the band he might as well splurge a little bit). When the cab drove into Huntington Beach, he informed the driver to drop him off at the hair salon where Gena worked.

“Oh my god!” Gena shrieked when she saw Zacky walk through the door. Seeing as she wasn’t doing anyone’s hair at that moment, she skipped over to Zacky and threw her arms around him. He smiled and hugged her back.

“Hey,” he said.

“What are you doing here? I thought you still had a few more weeks.”

“Last minute thing… I’m here for a funeral.”

“What? Who’s?”

“Uh, Quinn’s dad.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah. I just found out and came here last minute. I’m really only here for that and then I leave again tomorrow… but it wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t at least say hi to you.”

Gena smiled and kissed Zacky.

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

After his quick visit with Gena, Zacky headed off to his house. When he got there he didn’t go inside right away but instead stared at Quinn’s house (which he figured to be empty). He felt an uncomfortable knot in the pit of his stomach.

“Zacky?” he heard his mother say. He turned his attention from the house to his mother who was standing in the doorway wearing a dark blue dress. “I thought that was you!”

Zacky smiled, walked over and hugged his mom, and then went inside to change for the funeral.

Quinn

The sky was a bright, clear blue, and a gentle breeze hushed through the cemetery. Quinn sat with her family in the first row of many white chairs facing her father’s casket, draped in the American flag.

“Lt. Colonel Daniel Hartford served his country with dignity, courage, and fortitude,” the chaplain said. Quinn kept her eyes fixated on her father’s coffin, counting the stars on the flag. There were still 50.

To her left her sister was crying. To her right her mother was crying. She bet that on the other side of her mother her brother also had some tears. Quinn wanted to cry. She wanted nothing more than to lose control and cry until her eyes became red and puffy and it became difficult to breathe because her nostrils were filled with mucus. Instead she felt frozen, almost as if she had to keep herself together until the rest of her family was done crying. But they would never be done.

“For we know,” the chaplain concluded, quoting something biblical, “that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Three service members from the Navy stepped forward with their rifles and fired a three-volley salute. After the third and final shot rang through the air, another military officer, further off from the funeral site, played Taps on the bugle. The sound of the lone instrument cutting through the silence sent chills up and down Quinn’s spine.

After a final military salute, the funeral was at its end and all those who came to pay their respects silently made their way out of the cemetery.

“Ready?” Audrey asked Quinn.

“Yeah, uh, I’ll be right there.” Audrey squeezed her arm and walked away towards the crowd as Quinn walked closer to the coffin.

As she stood there staring at it, someone walked up next to her. She thought it was another family member coming to tell her to get going, but when she turned towards them to tell them to get lost she saw the last person she would have ever expected to see.

“Zacky,” she said almost in a breathless whisper. He gave her a sympathetic but friendly smile.

“Hi Quinn,” he said, bringing his voice to match her level.

“But… what are you doing here?”

“I’m here for you.” For the first time in days, Quinn managed to smile. It may have been the smallest smile every recorded, but it was a smile nonetheless.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice almost breaking. Zacky smiled again and put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him.

As she stood there leaning against her estranged friend and looking down at her father’s coffin, Quinn felt her eyelids begin to quiver and suddenly her vision was blurred from the tears plummeting down her face. She felt Zacky put his other arm around her and, almost instinctively, her knees buckled and she fell into him. Zacky held her close as he guided them both to the ground, and Quinn continued crying into his chest.

“It’s ok,” he whispered as he rocked her back and forth on the grass and she let out the most painful sob. “You just go on and let it all out.”