The Stories We Tell (20 page)

Max speaks first. “For now, though, let's go hear Francie sing. What do you think?”

“That is by far the best idea you've had all day.”

“Wow, thanks. Not the forest or the tree or coming to work at five
A.M.
to avoid full-on warfare with one of our esteemed clients—”

“Not those at all.”

“Well, did I tell you my idea for world peace?”

“Yep, right after you told me how you planned to cure the common cold.”

“By drowning it?” And with that smart-ass remark, he pours an inch of whiskey into his glass and takes a big swallow. Then he fully grasps my hand underneath his, no longer resting his palm, but surrounding my hand with his. My body relaxes with an exhale of tension and tight control. I look at him and he at me. Then he lifts my hand and brings it to his forehead, to the place I tried only moments before to touch. Using his own hand, he runs my fingers across his forehead, only further smearing the ink: an apology of sorts. Then just as quickly he drops my hand and stands to look down at me. “Ready? Let's go. You'll really like this. Francie is good.”

“It's bad that I haven't heard her sing, isn't it?”

“Don't try to find something to feel bad about.”

“I'm not.”

“Not just a little bit?”

“No comment.”

Together, we walk outside. “I'll drive,” I say. “You're a shot or two ahead of me.”

He locks the studio doors, shaking them for security. Close by, an owl hoots, an echo. We both look toward the trees and then back at each other. “Owls aren't usually out right now,” he says.

“Me, neither,” I say, suppressing a smile.

“Well then, wonders never cease.”

“Dingle,” I say, settling into the driver's seat.

He laughs before asking, “Did everything work out okay at the bank?”

“Yes. Sure. Yes. Everything is fine.”

 

fifteen

The coffee shop is a songwriter's haven. A string of lights dangles from the ceiling, corner to corner, crisscross; the aroma of coffee permeates the air, along with the faint smell of rosemary; a podium and speakers are set up in the back corner. Chairs and café tables are scattered in a messy arrangement around the room, and there are only a few empty places. Couples hold hands and lean toward one another, while groups of college kids sit in circles, laughing too loudly. Max and I find a wiggling corner table in the back and settle in. “Can I get you a drink?” he asks over the din of the crowd.

“Yes, another of what we started.”

“Sure thing.”

When he's gone, I pull my cell from my purse, staring at the screen to see missed calls from Cooper and a text that reads “Out with clients. They're killing me. Home late. Love you.”

Max returns and sets down the glass filled with brown liquid. I drink it slowly, allowing the sharp taste to stay in my mouth, wash over my tongue. Max has only water. The music begins and I focus on the front of the room. A young boy plays a mandolin and sings about living on a farm. I whisper to Max, “I bet Francie loves this.”

“I think she's shy about it. For all her bravado, she gets pretty nervous about performing.”

“I think we're all more comfortable behind the scenes. Probably why we hide in a barn all day.”

“I know, but I keep telling her that her light is too bright to hide. All those great lines she puts on the cards? Well, they're even better in a song.”

“You've heard her often?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I feel left out, twelve years old in the middle school cafeteria with nowhere to sit. I know it's ridiculous, but there you have it.

Francie walks out from behind the bar area and moves to the microphone. The guitar strap stretches across her left shoulder. Her long hair is pulled back. “Hey, everyone,” she says.

The microphone screeches and she readjusts it, a nervous laugh echoing off the walls. “Technology.” She rolls her eyes.

A man in jeans and a baseball hat comes from the side and readjusts the wires, pulling the speaker farther away from Francie. “Go ahead,” he says. “You're on, darlin'.”

Francie swings her guitar to the front and plucks a few strings before speaking. “Thanks for coming tonight, y'all. I'll play a few songs. The first one is about an old heartbreak, but not mine. I've had plenty of those, but this one is called ‘Someone Else's Heartbreak.'”

Max leans forward as Francie's voice rings through the room, a mid-alto with such depth coming from such a tiny girl that the room falls silent, conversations stopped in midsentence.

She sings about wanting a relationship to work out and knowing it won't, about watching it from afar and her desire to fix something for someone else. She sings about trying to find the right thing to say to mend “someone else's heartbreak,” but finding herself unable. It's beautiful and full of deep melancholy, and I have the thought that I will one day lose her to this career.

Everyone claps, a few people stand, and Francie gives a quick bow of her head before delving into her next song. Max notices my empty glass and signals a waitress for another; I don't stop him.

Francie sings three more songs—the limit on open-mike night—and then wanders over to our table. “Eve, when did you get here?” she asks, leaning down to hug me.

People work their way across the room to approach Francie and talk to her. “I've been here the whole time. You're amazing,” I say. “But don't talk to me. Go talk to your fans.”

She looks to Max and then me before turning to speak to the people who've followed her, hoping to meet her. I lean across the table. “We should go?” I ask Max, draining the remains of my drink.

Together, we walk outside. The whiskey slackens my limbs, my mind. I stop in the middle of the brick sidewalk and look up at the sky, leaning backward to see the few visible stars and a waxing three-quarter moon.

“Savannah,” I say, speaking to the sky and city. “I think I need to walk around you before I go home.”

Max laughs. “Can I join you and Savannah?”

“Hmm…” I say. “Let me think about it. Hmm … yes, I'd love for you to join us.”

Our silence is restful, a place to sink into without the frantic need for filling space and time. Four blocks down Broughton and almost to the riverfront. I say, “My parents always wanted to live down here.”

“Why didn't they?”

“They couldn't afford it.”

“You miss them.”

“I do. And I regret how they left me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm sure they died believing I was going to burn in an everlasting hell. We got in a terrible argument right before they passed away.”

“They didn't really believe that, right? I mean, they were just mad.”

I stop on the brick sidewalk, and under a gas lantern, I shake my head. “No. A real hell.”

He doesn't try to answer this assertion, or fix it, or manage it with a cliché. He drops his hand onto my left shoulder. “Eve.”

It's a simple saying of my name, a soft utterance, kind. I'm falling into this peaceful place with Max and I need to wrest myself from him, from his touch. His shadow falls across my body, stretching behind, as if eradicating my shadow from the sidewalk. I step back and Max's hand falls to his side.

“Had they ever been mad like that before … at you?”

“Once. When they found those commandments and threatened to make me live with another family for a little while.”

“Who?” he asks quietly.

“A family that was part of the church.” I take a breath, stepping sideways so that I can again see my shadow on the sidewalk, feel a separate person. “I've forgotten their names. I wanted to forget their names. I wanted to forget everything about it. I could barely stand the thought of being cut off from my family. If they'd sent me, I would have run away to home. It was Willa who wanted to run away from home.”

“If that happened to me, I'd be afraid, for all my life; I'd be afraid of losing my family.”

“Well, that didn't happen to me. We got past it.”

“And you're still afraid of losing your family,” he says, so quietly that I'm not sure he said it at all. But he did. And then a single word: “Again.”

“Stop,” I say, feeling the groundlessness that comes with his soft voice. “I don't think much about it at all, so stop looking at me so sadly. You tell me a story. Your turn.”

“Matchstick girl. You know that one?”

“Probably, but tell me anyway.”

“If I ever imagine you as a little girl, it's as the matchstick girl.”

“Why? Was she usually covered in mud from the river and hiding under her bed with her sister?” I laugh and turn around, walking backward to face Max.

“Something like that.”

“Go ahead, tell me.”

“It's a Danish story,” he says. “About a little girl all alone in the world. It's New Year's Eve and it's freezing outside. The snow is everywhere, and this little girl has only a few matchsticks, just a few. She's trying to sell them, but instead she lights them one by one and watches her fantasies in each tiny little fire.”

“Uses them for dreams,” I say, and stop walking backward to turn and walk with Max, side by side.

“Exactly.”

“At least that story doesn't end as sadly as almost all your folktales do.”

He laughs. “That's because that's not the end.”

I groan. “Of course it's not. Go ahead. Ruin her life.”

“So she burns them, staring into the flames, until she thinks she sees her dead grandmother, the only one who ever loved the little matchstick girl. She stares into the last match flame, the very last one … and her grandmother comes to her.”

“Great, so she dies alone in the snow. God, Max. Can't anyone be happy in your stories?” I hit his arm lightly.

“Who says she wasn't happy?”

“She was … dead.” I drag out the last word.

“Maybe her grandmother did come.”

“Stop. Now you're lighting your own matches.”

He laughs and stops at a corner, turning to face me. “You asked for a story. I've got some happy ones hidden in here.” He taps his chest.

“Find one of those for me,” I say.

“Will do.”

A car turns the corner and then we cross, walking for a long while, quiet and still. I want to talk, to have our usual words and laughter and banter tumble out. But something unalterable has happened between us, a drawing closer, an understanding of history and personal story.

We make our way back to the coffee shop and Max reaches to touch my lower back as I waver with my face toward the sky. I don't know exactly why I do what I do now—the moon so low, the stars like holes in the universe, the fatigue or the Jameson—but I turn and face Max and then drop my head onto his shoulder, resting it there, with my face toward his warm neck.

He stands there, quiet and still, and then slowly lifts both his arms to put them around my waist, supporting me. “You okay?” he asks.

I nod against his shoulder. His body runs along mine and I settle in, placing my forefingers in the belt loops of his jeans. “Thanks.”

“For?”

“Letting me rest on you.”

He doesn't answer, and I know I've overstepped my boundaries. And yet I can't move. Then finally, he speaks. “You can rest on me anytime.”

We are here for a little longer, my weight resting into his, until he finally speaks, his voice hoarse and quiet. “We need to go.”

“Yes, we do.” I step back and take in a long breath.

He smiles. “Keys?”

“Smart man, you.”

“Not always.”

We climb into my car and I lean back against the passenger seat's headrest. When we pull to the front of my house, Max slows the car. “I'll walk down to the studio and get my truck,” he says.

“Or you can drive down there and I'll walk home. I want to check on Willa anyway. And I could use the fresh air.”

He drives to the barn's parking area, where we get out, facing each other. He hands my keys over, dropping them into my open palm. “But you're walking, right?”

“Yep.”

“Tell Willa hello for me.”

“Will do.”

It is only a small step he takes toward me, but it brings us face-to-face. He reaches forward and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Good night, Eve.”

I look up, and there's nothing to be done but what I do: I kiss him. My hand slips behind his head and my fingers wind into the hair at his neck—soft. The memory of the long-ago kiss is awake, easy and soft, and I slip backward, way, way back. I'm nineteen years old. I can decide anything or everything—nothing has yet happened to take away my choices.

Max's hand slips around my waist and he pulls me closer. This is not a chaste kiss, a quick and dry mistake. This is soft and soaked and welcoming. This is something I want to keep. His hand slides between my cotton shirt and my spine, fingers tracing along the skin until he pulls away, quickly and sharply. He leaves me standing with my hands still reaching out, my face upward.

He takes another step back and glances up the drive to my house, my home, and my family.

“I'm sorry.” I drop my face into my hands. “I'm…”

“Don't be sorry,” he says.

And for one glorious moment, I'm not.

 

sixteen

This isn't the kind of place I'd ever have imagined finding myself. But who imagines these things? I'm sitting across from the neuro practitioner, Becky Moore. The desk is stacked high with papers. Post-it notes with initials and numbers—a secret code—flag each pile.

“Pink notes everywhere. What are those called? Posties?” Willa mumbles.

“Post-its,” I say.

“Right,” she says, and looks at me. “For other patients who can't find the right words.”