Love Song [Instrumental] (Hidden Springs #1)

13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

While her mother was showering and getting ready for the day downtown, Callie went hunting for her old music notebooks. Her mother had said that she’d put the keep out box in Callie’s bedroom closet, but the closet was so jammed full of old clothes and random junk that Callie couldn’t find a thing. As much as she wanted to find the notebooks, she feared that if she pulled out any single item, the rest would tumble down in a dusty, feathery mess.

When she finally spied the corner of a cardboard box on the top shelf, far back in the corner, she knew what she needed to do. Gritting her teeth, she began unloading the top shelf onto the bed. Little Mermaid sleeping bag. Milk crate full of mermaid and princess costumes. Another milk crate full of hats, some with feathers, and several feather boas. Extra comforter for the bed (mermaid, of course). Milk crate full of grade school memorabilia. Knitting bag overflowing with yarn and a single, yet-to-be-finished project. The yarn had tangled on something at the back of the shelf, something Callie couldn’t see. Tugging gently, Callie dragged the object forward.

She had snagged a picture frame. Lifting it down, she realized it was the photo of her first real gig. Her mother had placed the five-by-seven print in a sterling silver frame, now tarnished, that featured elaborate loops and swirls. The yarn had hooked on one of the swirls. At the time the photo had been taken, she had felt unbearably mature and professional, but looking now at her eleven-year-old self, she couldn’t help but smile. So young, and so fearless.

She had played, coffeehouse-style, during the after-church rush at Lucy’s. That first gig had gone well, so she had continued, playing every Sunday from eleven thirty to one thirty for the whole summer. Her father would pull up in the minivan just after one o’clock, slipping in the door to listen while she finished up the set. He would wait patiently while she gathered up her gear, accepted payment from Lucy and (every time) turned around and used the money to buy doughnuts. Lucy had offered to pay her in doughnuts, but Callie had loved being able to say she had a paying gig. Then the two of them would drive home, talking about music, one professional to another.

It was all she had ever wanted to do: play music, get paid, buy doughnuts. Callie laughed quietly to herself. Why couldn’t life be that simple? And why hadn’t she been back to Lucy’s for doughnuts yet?

Her smile faded as she remembered the day she had put the photo up on the closet shelf. It had been during her sophomore year of college. She had brought Brian home for the day, to meet her parents and see her lake, imagining an afternoon of playing music with her two favorite people—Brian and her father. She and Brian had just formed the band. They were in the first flush of dating, feeling the rush of discovery, dismissing each other’s faults as endearing little quirks. She had wanted the opposite of Adam, and she had found him.

The day had not gone as well in real life as it had in her imagination. Brian and her father had been stilted and awkward together, and she had never found the right moment to suggest that they play music. Her mother had asked a million questions, making Brian defensive. Her father hadn’t said a word. So she and Brian had retreated to her room—leaving the door open, per the house rules—where she had hoped that, if nothing else, they could reconnect with each other.

She had never seen her bedroom through the eyes of a stranger. As they entered the room, she felt herself grow younger as he grew older, the gap between them widening by the second. Suddenly the Little Mermaid poster on her wall seemed childish rather than classic, the matching comforter mortifying. Even the gauze draped over her four-poster bed, which she had thought so bohemian and shabby-chic, looked stupid.

Brian had carefully seated himself on the bed, as if he were afraid the Little Mermaid images would permanently tattoo his rear end. His smirk said more than she wanted to hear, so she had turned her back on him and walked to the window, staring out at the lake and trying to ignore the ache in her chest.

“What’s this from, open mic night?” he had asked. She had turned to find him holding the picture of her first gig, which he had picked up off her night table.

“It’s nothing,” she had answered, swallowing the lump in her throat. “My Mom just likes to take pictures.” She had grabbed the frame from his hands and shoved it between two milk crates on her closet shelf, as far back as she could reach.

The whole idea of bringing Brian home had been a mistake, and she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. So she had turned back to him, arms crossed, and pulled the plug.

“Let’s get out of here,” she had said, her bleak mood turning darker when he visibly brightened. “It’s not what I thought it would be.”

He had laughed. “You’ve totally moved on, babe. This place has nothing to do with who you are. This is who you were. Let’s blow this joint and get back to reality.”

And that was the last time Brian had visited her childhood home—until this summer, of course. She hadn’t been a frequent visitor herself. She had hit the major holidays, most years, but they had been working so hard to build a reputation, always touring or rehearsing or recording, and the band had always come first. Brian had always come first. Whenever she had gone home, whenever she had walked into her bedroom, she had remembered the feeling of being there with Brian, and home hadn’t felt like home anymore.

It was time to exorcise some demons. It was time to connect the Callie of today with all her former selves. It was time to open the box.

She placed the framed photo gently on her night table, where it belonged, and returned to the closet. Standing on tiptoe, she reached into the back corner and caught hold of the keep out box, dragging it toward the center of the shelf, then tipping it down into her arms. It wasn’t all that big, but it was surprisingly heavy. She set it down on the floor and sat cross-legged beside it, opening the top and breathing a sigh of relief when she saw all her notebooks tucked safely inside.

Callie ran her fingers along the wire spirals. She had filed away her musical life so neatly, the colorful assortment of spiral-bound school notebooks arranged in perfect chronological order. She pulled out the last one, which should be the first, chronologically speaking, and checked the cover. Sure enough, she had written ‘Freshman Year’ in black marker on the teal cover.

She laughed when she opened the cover and saw what she had written on the first page:

‘Warning: The music and lyrics in this notebook are the property of Callie James and you do not have permission to use them in any way. Close this notebook immediately and return it to Callie James.’

As she paged through the notebook, she understood why her mother had found it so confusing. The pages were more of a mental map than a carefully edited collection of songs. There were snippets of lyrics, notes about song concepts, guitar tabs, melody lines, sketches of song structure, even a few doodles. None of it would make sense to an outsider—only to her.

She flipped through page after page, notebook after notebook, retracing ebb and flow of her high school experience. Her heart began to ache, then her throat, and then her eyes blurred so that she couldn’t read anymore. She set the notebook aside and wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her forehead on her knees and letting the tears fall. She cried for the first time in years, mourning the brave, passionate girl she had been and lamenting the quiet, compliant woman she had become.

She might have stayed there all day, wallowing in self-pity, but for a light knock on the doorframe as her mother breezed in.

“Well, dear, I’m off to the big city—” Dora stopped mid-sentence. “Oh, sweetie, what’s the matter? Are they ruined? Did they get wet?” She dropped to her knees beside Callie and wrapped her arm around Callie’s shoulder. “Oh, sweetie, please don’t cry.”

Callie sniffled and turned her red, bleary eyes on her mother.

“I’m fine, Mom. Really. And the notebooks are fine. I just…I wasn’t prepared for this particular trip down memory lane.”

She wiped her eyes with the hem of her t-shirt and slowly climbed to her feet, grabbing a tissue from the box on the desk to blow her nose. Dora stood also, stepping back to study her daughter .

“You don’t look fine to me,” said Dora, putting her hands on her hips.

Callie gave a watery laugh. “Mom, please. I needed a good cry. Now I’ve had one, and I’ll wash my face and get on with my day.”

“Maybe you should come with me to Chicago,” suggested Dora, clearly uneasy at the thought of leaving Callie alone.

“Stop it,” insisted Callie, blowing her nose one last time. “I’m all done crying. You have your day in the city. I’ll have my day in the country. Then, over dinner, you can tell me the latest from Mel and Tessa and I can tell you about all the cool stuff I found in my notebooks. Okay?”

Callie was prepared to hustle her mother out the door if necessary, but in the end Dora went willingly.

“Promise me you’ll call me if you need me,” said Dora as she backed slowly out of Callie’s room.

“Go. Have fun. I promise I’ll call if I need you.” This last promise did the trick, and Callie breathed a sigh of relief as her mother finally walked away. This mini-breakdown would only add fuel to the fire when her mother and sisters dissected her life over lunch today, but at least Callie could finish airing out her emotions privately, without fear of interruption.

When her mother had driven away, Callie returned to the notebooks. Leafing through them now, she felt lighter, better able to embrace her teen angst with compassion rather than grief. She may have lost the intensity of those years, but she had not lost the core of herself. She had submerged it beneath a pool of very deep, cold, still water. All she needed was a dose of sunshine and she would be fine.

In the last notebook, the one from freshman year of college, she found what she had been seeking. Not that she had been looking for one particular song, but if she wanted to reconnect with herself, the easiest way to do it would be to pick a work-in- progress from all those years ago and, in essence, collaborate with herself to finish it.

The song wasn’t complete. It was more a jumble of notes and ideas, but the core of it was there. She had barely begun the transition from concept to creation when she had brought Brian home for that visit. When they had driven away, she had left the notebook behind. There was no way she was going to finish a song inspired by homesickness called “Find My Way Back Home.” She was moving on, not going home.

Ten years later, back home—really back home—Callie felt a tug as she read the title. She studied her notes carefully. She had written lyrics for the refrain, strong lyrics that still felt right.

I press my face against the glass

I watch the miles go rolling past

I know where I would rather be

The only place I feel like me

The only place I call my own

It’s time to find my way back home.

She wouldn’t change them. There was a decent sketch of the song structure, but she would rewrite the hesitant attempts at verses. She could draw on a richer pool of experience now, and she had learned a lot from her time away. As she studied the tabs, and her scribbled melodies, she realized that she could work with the building blocks she had left behind. She didn’t need to start from scratch.

Setting the notebook aside, Callie replaced the top on her keep out box and stretched, her muscles stiff after sitting in one position for so long. She got to her feet and surveyed the chaos she had created by unloading the closet. Then she glanced out the window and saw the sunshine dancing on the water.

It was a gorgeous day. The mess could wait.

A loud crash from next door, followed by a steady a stream of curses, caught Callie’s attention on her way down to the lake. She detoured across the lawn and slipped through the fence, weaving through the shrubs until she could see what was going on. She found Adam wrestling with a long metal pole, one end of which was supported by a sawhorse, the other end near a hole in the ground full of something gray, possibly wet concrete. As she watched, he coaxed the one end toward the concrete, but the other end—the one on the sawhorse—slid as well, threatening to crash onto the ground again. When he saw her, he paused, resting the near end of the pole on the ground and wiping the sweat from his face with the bottom edge of his t-shirt.

The stolen glimpse of his abs struck her nerves like a tuning fork, sending a shiver through her entire body. For the first time in her life, Callie fully appreciated the term ‘treasure trail.’

She swallowed hard and called out to him.

“Everybody okay over here? I heard a crash.”

“I’m fine,” he answered tersely. “Nothing to worry about. Just lost my grip.”

He didn’t look fine. He looked like he was trying to do a two-man job by himself. Were all guys idiots? Or only the ones that she knew?

“What are you doing?” asked Callie.

“I’m putting up a basketball hoop for Danny.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. The pole looked awfully long. “Will he be able to reach the basket?”

“It’s adjustable.” said Adam. “And four feet of the pole will be in the ground.”

“Oh,” said Callie. That made much more sense.

“Can I help you get it up?” she asked, then flushed when she realized what she had said .

He grinned. “How can I possibly refuse?”

She blushed harder and crossed her arms. Maybe she would just watch him struggle with it and wait for him to wipe his face again with his t-shirt.

“If you can lift from that end, I’ll guide the pole into the hole.”

She caught his smirk, but couldn’t think of a response. There was no way to talk about poles and holes without making some sort of innuendo.

“All you need to do is walk it up slowly,” he said. “And be gentle.”

She snickered, unable to help herself, then walked over to her end of the pole and got a strong grip.

He seemed distracted, just stood there staring at her hands wrapped around the pole.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” she said. He snapped out of it.

“On three,” he said. “One…two…three.”

She did exactly as he had asked, lifting her end slowly and smoothly while he guided the pole into the concrete. In less than a minute the job was done.

“That was easy,” she said, now standing beside him and steadying the pole. He knelt at the base and secured a metal collar brace with four massive bolts.

“You were hoping it would be harder?” he asked, looking up at her over his shoulder.

She laughed.

“No,” she answered, struggling to keep her expression serious. “I thought it would take longer. I don’t like to be rushed.”

They were actually flirting. She had seen other people do it, but couldn’t remember ever doing it herself. She and Adam had been too intense for flirting, and Brian was more into biting sarcasm.

Adam pulled a level out of the back pocket of his jeans, checking to make sure the pole stood straight, then rose slowly to his feet. His movement brought them face to face, just inches apart. In that moment, the humor slid away, leaving only the buzz of awareness in its wake. Callie let her hand fall away from the pole.

“Thanks,” he said softly.

“Anytime,” she answered.

They stood frozen for a few heartbeats, a shared breath, and then he stepped back, giving her a half-smile.

“For the record, I don’t like to be rushed either.”

She blushed at that and dropped her eyes, unable to keep up the banter. She remembered all too well that he liked to take his time.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” she said, turning back toward the opening in the fence. “Hope your pole stays up,” she called over her shoulder. She giggled. Flirting was fun. Maybe she should do it more often.

She had reached the fence when he called out to her.