Our Song (11 page)

Before I could think twice about it, I jumped behind him and grabbed his shoulders.

“Don't stop!” I said when his bow squawked and threatened to come to a halt. I prodded him until he'd turned to face the river, where a mini rapid of white foam was swooshing around a series of rocks.

“There's rhythm and beauty and any other inspiration you could want right there,” I said over the sound of his playing. “Look at that.”

He did, and a moment later, I watched his arm go rubbery, as fluid as the water he was looking at.

“You did it!” I squealed. “You bent your forearm!”

Jacob paused in his playing and stared at me.

“I did not!”

“You did!” I insisted. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

He stared at the fiddle and bow in his hands and looked around wildly. And all of a sudden, I knew.

He wanted to find a place to toss those things so he could
throw his arms around me. Maybe even pick me up and swoop me around. Maybe even kiss me.

And it might have been amazing.

But it would also have ripped him out of that moment, that pure instance of the Joy that I knew Jacob had been looking for all week, maybe all his life.

I couldn't bear to let him step away from it for even a moment.

Even for me.

So I cried out, “Don't stop. You're in it! Keep going!”

With an exuberant laugh, he started playing again.

And again, he nailed that indescribable, rubbery-limbed sweet spot where he'd ceased to play an instrument and started making
music
.

He was so full of the Joy that for a moment, I actually wished I had my fiddle with me so I could join in.

But then I spotted a nicely graspable stone just at the edge of the river and remembered what I had in my back pocket.

An instant later, I was backing Jacob up with a little percussion—tapping that rock against my iron spike with sweet little clangs. I sang, too.

“When I die don't bury me at all

Just hang me up on the spinning room wall

Pickle my bones in alcohol,

It's hard times everywhere.”

Just as when we'd sung “Clementine” together, I barely noticed the dreariness of the lyrics. As the last note rang out, then drifted away into the sky and the woods, Jacob whooped with joy.

“Yeah!” he yelled. “I can't believe we did that. And with you playing a . . . a nail?”

I laughed and shrugged.

“Spoons, washboards, nails, whatevs,” I said. “Hey, do you like it? I made it!”

I held out my spike for him to see.

“It's . . .” He smiled politely, at a loss for words.

“It's okay,” I said with a laugh. “It's a big-ass, bizarro nail, but I'm still in love with it. Because it used to be just a chunk of metal. I hammered it into submission!”

“That's great,” Jacob said.

But his smile had faded, and he no longer sounded poised to scoop me into a celebratory hug. I dropped my hand and resisted the urge to hide the spike behind my back like a little kid.

“You think it's dumb,” I said.

“No!” Jacob protested. “But—”

He halted, but I gave him a look that said,
You can't get out of this now. Just come out and say it.

“It just kind of kills me that you can do
this
,” Jacob said, holding up his fiddle and bow, “like,
so
much better than me. But you choose to do . . .”

His eyes fell on my spike.

“. . . that.”

I felt heat rush to my face.

“So you don't think I should have a choice in the matter?” I said. “I should just join the family business whether I want to or not?”

“No,” Jacob said quietly. “I just don't believe that you really don't want that. Not when you play fiddle the way you do. Not when you can't help but turn a railroad spike into an instrument.”

I blinked at Jacob.

And that's when I realized that there were two sides to swooning.

A moment ago Jacob had looked past the black circles ringing my nails, my ash-dusted skin, and my dirty tank top. He'd seemed to swoon for me.

But maybe the swoon had only happened because Jacob had thought that I was just like him. He couldn't understand that music was an obligation for me, a tether holding me back. All he knew was what it was for
him:
a pair of wings, setting him free.

He didn't really see me. He saw who he wanted to see, and
that's
who he liked.

I couldn't speak.

Because when your heart hurts as badly as mine did, it takes your breath away.

That makes it hard to dash into the woods and hurry back to your dorm, then linger too long in a shower and maybe even cry a little bit.

But those things—I managed to do.

Chapter
Eleven

A
fter my shower, I didn't
have the heart to do my usual twenty-minute hair ritual, slathering it with product, then laboriously blowing it straight. Instead I just flopped onto my bed, grabbed my e-reader, and spent the twenty minutes staring at it without comprehending a word.

Annabelle came back to our room just before dinner. She froze in the doorway and said, “Oh! Your hair!”

I jumped, and my hand flew to my now-dry hair. It felt soft and poufy—like a dandelion.

“Uh-oh, how bad is it?” I said, swinging myself off the bed. “I got it cut into this bob a few weeks ago, and I haven't let it air-dry since.”

When I peeked into the mirror over the dresser, I gasped.

“I look like a goth Orphan Annie!” I whisper-screamed. My hair had frizzed into ringlets that sproinged up and out all over my head. So not only did it feel like a dandelion, with its fuzzy, spherical shape, it looked like one too.

“Urgh,” I groaned. “By the time I get this straightened out, I'm going to completely miss dinner.”

Annabelle frowned at me.

“Nell, can I give you some advice?”

Normally, I would have hesitated. Every time Annabelle offered me advice, she used all these life-coachy terms like “listen to the universe” and “get in touch with yourself.” All of it made zero sense to me.

My mom, on the other hand, would have loved Annabelle. They both did yoga and wore the kind of gauzy skirts you can buy off a street rack for fifteen dollars apiece.

Also like Annabelle, my mom wore her curls long. They trailed down her back, all soft and springy, the same dark-blond color my hair had been before I dyed it. Black and blunt suited me better, or so I'd thought.

But given my currently desperate situation, I said to Annabelle, “Okay, yes. Please tell me what to do about this mess.”

“Well, don't call it a mess, for starters,” Annabelle said. “Your hair is part of you. You have to embrace it. You have to love it!”

“Easy for you to say,” I said, pointing at her glossy, tightly corkscrewed mane. It was tied loosely at the nape of her neck, and
a few tendrils bounced adorably on her cheeks. “You've got the hair of a goddess.”

“Well, it's
not
easy,” she reprimanded. “I
hope
I don't have to tell you about the history of African-American women and their hair.”

I tried not to sigh as Annabelle launched into a lecture about the social politics of hot combs and relaxers. I wondered if she ever got tired of being so
meaningful
.

As she moved onto a history lesson about Madam C. J. Walker, she also began to work on my hair. She sprayed it down with a water bottle, then worked some fruity-smelling hair gel through it. She quickly worked her way around my head, coiling small sections of my hair around her fingers. Finally she grabbed a couple of lobster-claw clips out of a dish on her dresser and loosely clipped my bangs back at the temples.

“And . . . done,” Annabelle said. She put her hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the mirror.

My mouth popped open.

My hair was frizz free. The curls that had been standing straight up, looking frazzled and angry, were now prettily framing my face. But I hadn't been transformed into a clone of Annabelle or my mom. My hair was still a bit blunt and edgy, the way I liked it, but instead of being crisp and straight-edged, it looked light and springy.

It had taken Annabelle all of five minutes to achieve.

“You're welcome,” Annabelle said, before I could get it together to thank her.

“I—I love it!” I said.

“Just promise me you'll
own
it,” Annabelle said. “Your hair is
you
, Nell. Always remember that.”

I nodded even as I was thinking,
No, Annabelle. Hair is just hair.

Nevertheless, I did feel kind of different, even floaty, as Annabelle and I walked together to the dining hall. Something about my head feeling so light and breezy made my hurt feelings lighten too.

That didn't mean I was ready to face Jacob yet. At our table, I strategically positioned myself three seats away from him. I was far enough from him that we couldn't talk, yet close enough that we couldn't make eye contact across the table. Our view of each other was blocked by Marnie and Isabelle chatting animatedly between crunchy bites of radish salad.

I ate as quickly as possible and headed for the kitchen. Not only did I have Jacob to avoid, it was fried chicken night again, and I really didn't need to watch all the carnivores enjoying their dinners, not tonight, when I really could have used some comfort food.

There is
nothing
comforting about radish salad.

In the kitchen, I gave the staffers a quick, morose wave hello, then headed for the supply closet to tie on my apron and grab my hat. When I made to leave the closet, though, Jacob was blocking the door and
looking
at me.

My body seemed to be running a few hours behind, because as usual, my heart quickened and my cheeks went hot at the sight of him.

But my brain. It was weary and sad after the day's emotional roller coaster.

“What is it, Jacob?”

“Your hair . . . ,” he said.

“Oh, that.” I gave my ringlets a self-conscious pat. “Annabelle did it.”

“It's . . .” Jacob stopped himself, then started over. “Well, it looks nice.”

Inexplicably, this made a lump form in my throat. So I just stared at the floor and gave him a quick nod of thanks before pushing past him out of the closet.

“Hey,” Ms. Betty called from the stainless-steel table where she was cutting butter into a big bowl of flour. “Don't forget your hat, sweetheart.”

“Oh yeah,” I muttered, glancing down at the baseball cap, forgotten in my hand. I smushed it down over my curls.

I trudged to the dining hall window to load the first wave of dishes onto the cart. Next, I should have delivered them to Jacob, who was waiting at the sink. But I still didn't feel fully ready to face him. So I stopped and called out across the kitchen, “Ms. Betty, the scones at breakfast this morning were delicious.”

“They were
not
,” Ms. Betty said, waving me off with a plump hand. “They looked terrible.”

“Well, yeah, they
were
pretty ugly,” I admitted. “But they
tasted
amazing. That's what matters.”

“Well, bless your heart,” Betty twanged at me. In the next
instant, though, her rosy, smiling face went hard. “But you're all wrong, kid. Martha Stewart's scones are perfect golden triangles, and so shall mine be. You'll see.”

“I'm rootin' for you,” I said while Ms. Betty laughed.

I laughed too. It calmed me enough to deal with Jacob. I pushed the cart toward him, my head ducked low. The brim of my baseball cap prevented me from meeting his eyes.

But I couldn't help spotting the plate he held in his hands. It wasn't an empty, waiting to be scrubbed. In fact, it was neatly covered with a grease-dotted paper napkin.

“I—I got this for you,” Jacob said, thrusting the plate toward me.

Warily, I stepped around the dish cart, took the plate, and peeked beneath the napkin.

Then I nearly swooned.

Jacob had given me a piece of fried chicken.

It was a big drumstick with a deep-brown crust. I could tell, without even touching it, that it was super crunchy, just the way I liked it. It smelled better than delicious—it was intoxicating.

I stared at Jacob.

“But—?”

“Listen, I was an idiot earlier,” he said. “I want to apologize.”

My knees suddenly felt weak, either from the apology or the smell of the fried chicken. Probably a little of both.

“But,” I said, “why are you apologizing with . . . a chicken leg?”

“Nell.” Jacob's serious sorry-face was starting to twitch with amusement. “I know.”

“You know
what
?”

“I know,” he repeated, failing to fight off a smile, “you're not really a vegetarian.”