Page 1 of Drive
Chapter 1
Jacques Gilchrist awoketo the strains of his grandfather’s accordion and questioned his lifechoices.
White sunlight blazed through his bare windows straight onto his bed, but that had not been enough to drag him from sleep. Not after a night when he dropped his last rider off at 2:12a.m.
And there was his problem. As an Uber driver, his busiest hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights were from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Prime time for bar departures. Which meant he’d slam into bed near three in the morning, but Pere Albert — or “Pal” as Jacques had called him since he was eleven — believed sleeping past eight was a cardinalsin.
“Joe Pitre à deux femmes… Joe Pitre à deux femmes…”Pal bellowed from the bottom of the stairs, his accordion a merry assassin to the quiet of the morning.“C’est Rose et Rosa… Et moi, j’en ai pas.”Pal stomped his foot in time with the traditional Cajun song, and for a seventy-six-year-old man, he was still strong enough to make the windows in Jacques’s roomrattle.
Jacques pushed himself up and scrubbed a hand over his face, wondering for the ninety-third time why he didn’t get his ownplace.
Pere Albert, pronounced the French way (Al-bear), went to bed every night at nine sharp. He rose at five on the dot, and Jacques knew the old guy did so without an alarm clock. He just sat up, stepped into his brown scuff slippers, and shuffled to the kitchen to make coffee. Pal had probably done this his whole life, but Jacques could only vouch for the last fourteen years — the span they’d livedtogether.
“Eight hours a sleep and a good wife,”Pal used to say on weekend mornings when Jacques would stagger downstairs as a grumbling teenager.“Das all a man really need.”Other than cringing in embarrassment at his grandfather’s thick Cajun accent, Jacques usually had noreply.
Of course, that was before they’d lost GrandmaLucille.
So, for the last five years, every time Jacques managed to get up before eight, he’d come down and find Pal sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the empty space across from him. And in those moments, Pal wasn’t in his seventies. And he wasn’t Jacques’s grandfather. He was just a man missing the woman heloved.
Which was why, at the age of twenty-four, Jacques Gilchrist still hadn’t moved out. Without Jacques sleeping past eight, Pal would have no reason to rattle a cast iron skillet on the stove for a good two minutes. Or have a sudden coughing fit in the hall right outside Jacques’sbedroom.
Or stand at the foot of the stairs with his accordion, singing “Joe Pitre” at the top of hislungs.
Pal wrapped up his song with a flourish as Jacques descended the stairs and stepped into thekitchen.
“Morning,” he mumbled to his grandfather before heading for thecoffeepot.
“It almost nine,” Pal cautioned, setting his accordion down on an empty chair. Not, Jacques noted, in Grandma Lucille’s old spot. “Dat gonna taste like crank case oil bynow.”
Jacques just nodded, poured the coffee dregs into the sink, and cleaned out thebasket.
“Might as well make enough for the boat of us,” Pal observed, taking his seat at the head of the kitchen table and flapping open the newspaper he’d surely finished reading an hourbefore.
“As if I’d do anything else,” Jacques said, waking up a littlenow.
Pal just snickered into thenewsprint.
“No gig last night?” Pal asked after Jacques filled the reservoir and flicked the button that read “Brew.”
“No gig last night,” he confirmed, moving to the table and sitting across from his grandfather. “Without the band, I’m not ‘brand specific’ for some of my usualvenues.”
His band, Epoch — the central focus of his life — had fallen apart a month ago, and Jacques hadn’t quite recovered. When word spread that he’d be playing solo, Jacques Gilchrist could gather a crowd, but not as many venues wanted a one-man act. People had flocked to the stage when he had drums and a bass to back him up. They’d danced. They’d sung along. They had made him believe it might happen forhim.
But Chris, his bass player, was getting married in June and said he needed to“cut that shit out.”Jacques had asked him more than once why getting married meant he had to give up performing, but his buddy’s only response had been,“C’mon, man. We gotta grow upsometime.”
He should have seen it coming. Chris had been missing the odd rehearsal to go look at houses with Courtney, and he’d been working later at H&R Block and talking about finishing the coursework for his CPAcertification.
Not cutting anotheralbum.
Pal lowered the corner of his newspaper and raised a brow. “What you gonna do ‘boutdat?”
Jacques met his grandfather’s gaze and refused to shrug, even though he wanted to. At least Jacques hadn’t been surprised when Blake bailed after Chris. They weren’t tight. In fact, Blake barely spoke to him outside of rehearsals and gigs. The drummer had found a new spot in a folk-rock band so fast, Jacques wondered if he’d been planning a move even before Chris pulled out. Jacques knew a few musicians who could spot him now and then, but they were all committed to other bands on a regular basis, and, frankly, the ones who weren’t justsucked.
Which meant for now, he wasscrewed.
“Find a new band,” he said. “It just has to be the right band.” He didn’t kid himself. The noose of time was tightening. He was in his mid-twenties. Make or break time. And he wanted to make it more than anything. He was good. He knew that, but he needed the right act to begreat.
Pal gave up the pretense of reading the paper and set it down. “Well, I know you been writing songs,” he said, his mouth twitching. “You think I don’t hear you playin’ without the amp, but Ido.”
