6. You Have to Eat, Right?
6
YOU HAVE TO EAT, RIGHT?
PRENTICE
I came home from the gala committee meeting with a bad case of the grumpies.
I tossed my purse onto the sofa and approached my galley kitchen with very little optimism. A person like me, who had flirted with eating disorders in the past, had to make a determined effort to fuel the body. It was already eight at night, but I hadn’t had dinner.
I didn’t want dinner.
And there was nothing tempting in my fridge. I knew without looking. Sigh.
Then—like a hero riding out of the sunset as usual—Mal texted me. I caught up my phone with a flush of adrenaline.
Whatcha doin
Staring at my kitchen
Is it doing any good?
Well, I haven’t found two weeks of vacation on the pantry shelf so . . . no. Not much good yet
I was just trying to force a large hamburger into existence by will alone. Didn’t work
Hot dog on the grill
Lemon meringue pie
Now I know what I wish I could find in my fridge
That diner on South Harbor Road used to have three inches of meringue on their pie. That place still there?
Rocky’s? It’s still there
Halfway between you and me. Meet me there
Now?
Right now. Want to?
I stared at my phone. Was it crazy? I did a rough schedule in my mind. It was just after eight. Half an hour to Rocky’s. Eat. With Mal. Would that take . . . forty minutes? Half an hour home. I’d be back by ten.
That was a perfectly reasonable hour to arrive at my little over-the-garage apartment after a productive day at work and a sensible committee meeting.
One might even say it was a respectable hour.
And I had to eat, right?
It would only be sensible to go.
See you there at 8:30?
Score! Bet I beat you
My fatigue had fallen off me unnoticed. The grumpy mood had vanished. I was as light as air. Foolishly excited.
Shit. What was I wearing? I looked down at my work clothes. At the committee meeting, my mother had frowned at my tailored, sage-green slacks and cream sweater, but if she thought I was going to wear some designer outfit to work at this tiny nonprofit, she needed to get over herself.
On the other hand, in the face of an actual rock god—a drummer in a hot band—I looked like I was about fifty years old and drab as a sponge. I might as well have been off to bingo at the American Legion Hall, or maybe to join my mother’s bridge club. No, I’d need a perfectly tied scarf to fit in with the bridge club.
Every minute spent deliberating was time he’d be waiting for me at Rocky’s. I stripped to my underwear, clothes flying across my studio apartment like they were being shot out of a wood chipper.
Low-rise jeans—shit. In the laundry. Okay, black leggings. White tank top. Silk-blend denim shirt.
Chunky necklace? Yes or no? I stared at the boring selection hanging off my mirror for too many frozen minutes and then gave it up as a bad choice. No jewelry. Not for burgers at Rocky’s. But some eyeliner? A brush of mascara? A quick coating of pale pink lipstick? Yes. Worth the time.
I was almost to the door when I thought . . . perfume? One splash of scent?
Fuck! It was already 8:15. Go, girl, go!
The early April sunset had faded. I flew down those twisty roads in darkness, my little Honda chasing its headlights along the coast roads. I got caught behind an impossibly slow sedan at one point but managed to scream into the Rocky’s parking lot at 8:41.
Shit. So late.
Mal was leaning against a white van, talking to a man and woman in the parking lot. By the time I put the car in park, he was at my door and handing me out in gentlemanly fashion.
“I’m so sorry to be late! Were those friends of yours? Do they want to join us?”
He grinned, hitting me with a smile that melted my spine. “Fans. Isn’t that wild?” He dropped my hand politely once I was on my feet, and I was sorry. He was so warm.
“That’s amazing. Chatting with your fans! They recognized you?”
“They did. They were at the Paramount last Saturday.”
“That was such a good show. Did I tell you?”
The chatter with Mal was easy. It always had been. We found a booth, and I tried to focus on the menu, but it was hard to stop looking at him. In the end, I just ordered a bowl of beef barley soup.
Mal frowned. “That’s all you’re having? Did you eat already?”
“No, this will be enough.”
He ordered a cheeseburger from the waitress. “I’ll have that with fries, which this young lady is going to help me eat.”
I laughed. The waitress did, too, but that may have been just a reaction to how handsome Mal was.
“Okay,” he said once the waitress left. “Tell me everything you did today.”
I smiled and hung my head, shy of how dull my day would sound to a professional musician. “Went to work. Had yet another committee meeting for this gala, even though it’s now three days away. Why did we need to meet tonight? The Club has an event planner who’s doing all the work.”
His smile was a work of art. “Why did you meet, then?”
I shrugged. “So women like my mother could get away from their husbands? To show off their day jewelry?”
“That’s a thing? Day jewelry?” He sat back to think about it. “Day diamonds and evening emeralds?”
“Afternoon opals and morning . . . ….mmmmoonstones.”
“Good one! Twilight topaz?” Our conversation tapered off as we both tried to come up with other times of day for various gemstones. “Suppertime sapphires?” he tried and then waved his hand. “I give up.”
“Me too. I like the idea, though.”
“So the meeting was useless.”
“Pretty much.”
“What about your job? Tell me. You’re getting kids into arts programs?”
“We’re trying.” I gave him the elevator pitch about the loss of arts programs in most schools, and the resulting rise in disciplinary issues and other more hidden consequences. “People need the arts,” I finished. “Even if the benefits don’t show up in standardized testing.”
He held out a hand. “Consider me a case study. I got drafted into the Caumsett marching band before the football team could get to me, and the rest is history.”
“Drum line.” I remembered fall afternoons watching them practice, Friday evenings cheering at the games, Mal growing into the array of drums he’d carried from his shoulders with strength and unconscious ease.
With style.
It had been hard to look away from him when he was setting the cadence for the band.
“Drum line. It wore me out too much for fighting. And now I’m a decent, responsible, law-abiding member of society. Thanks to the arts!”
I chuffed a disbelieving laugh. “Didn’t you also attend the Manhattan School of Music? I’m pretty sure they don’t have a marching band.”
“Well, there might have been some Chopin mixed in with John Philip Sousa, but either way you look at it, once I started holding drumsticks, I lost the scars from slamming my knuckles into someone’s teeth, you know?” He threw a mock, slow-motion punch at me.
I swatted it away. “Wax on,” I said.
“Ha! The Karate Kid . Right you are!”
“As I remember it, the fighting ended when you were no longer in school with Johnston.”
He shifted uneasily, looking away. “What was it with you and that guy? I never thought to ask when I was a kid, but I’d like to know now. Why was he perpetually after you?”
I sighed. The waitress brought my soup and Mal’s burger, and we took our beginning bites. He pushed his plate toward me. “This is going here so you can get at the fries. Eat some, will you?”
I took one to appease him, and they turned out to be pretty good. “Thanks.”
“Yeah. What about Furneau?”
Not dropping it, huh? Okay. After so many rescues, maybe he did deserve an explanation.
“I think our mothers are to blame, really.” I spooned up a little more beef barley to stall. A moment of reflection. “Honestly, my mother is an amazing lady. Everyone loves her. I definitely do. But she’s really hung up on ancestry. Like it matters who anyone’s grandparents are.”
He looked down to take another bite of his burger, but his raised eyebrow was his acknowledgment.
I went on. “So she keeps track of the local families with, um, similar ancestry.”
“Is that a nice way to say . . . with similar money?”
I waved him off. “You might think so, but having money isn’t enough. To her, it’s better to be poor than to try to buy your way into her circles with what she calls ‘new money.’ Isn’t that gross?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“No, it is. I can tell you. And according to her, the likeliest family on the North Shore—I mean, the best of the old money—is the Furneaus.”
“So your mother thinks you should marry Johnston?”
“It’s worse than that, I’m afraid. At least my mother pretty much keeps her opinions to herself. But Johnston’s mother?—”
“Gigi,” Mal supplied.
“Yeah, Gigi. She’s a second wife. When he was young, Jack Furneau was married to some woman who now lives in Arizona or something. Gigi is his second wife, and that puts my mother’s circle on high alert. They hate the idea that someone younger might step in and get in the way of their marriages. But Gigi is dying to be one of my mother’s group. And I’m pretty sure she’s the one who told her only son that Bitsy Luce’s daughter was the only girl for him.”
“She wanted to marry her way into your family. Through her son.”
“This is just my guess,” I cautioned. “But things that Johnston has said over the years make me think it’s true. Gross, but true. So, he doesn’t want me—I don’t even think he likes me—but he already thinks I belong to him. That I’m part of what he deserves for being Jack Furneau’s only child. Really, the only son, which is even more important to some people, you know? People like Jack Furneau.”
Mal was examining his burger again. I kept going, warming to the idea of talking through my theories with the only person who had ever really defended me when I was most vulnerable.
“And that attitude—that I was part of the prize he was owed? That’s been a real problem for me in the past.” I pushed my half-empty bowl away from me and took another of Mal’s fries. “I was always grateful for your stepping in when Johnston would start in on me.”
“I’ll tell you, Prentice, I really hate that guy.”
I nodded. “I figured. I hate him too. So . . . for every time you made him back off, thank you.” Bravely, I laid my hand on top of his.
He rolled his wrist immediately and captured my fingers. “Anyone would have done the same.”
The heat of his skin—the feel of his hand cradling mine—was the fulfillment of many an impassioned and virginal adolescent dream. “ Anyone didn’t. You did. Believe me, I definitely noticed. Nobody else would stand up to Johnston, no matter how much I hoped they would.”
His hand tightened involuntarily on mine. He eased his grip as soon as he saw me look down at our linked fingers, but he didn’t let go. “Have another fry.”
I leaned back, not moving my hand from his. “Are you going to boss me around now?” I smiled.
His mouth twisted. “You look hungry. Would you like something else? Three inches of meringue, perhaps?”
I watched, fascinated, as his fingers slipped around mine. He was playing with my hand like it meant nothing. “Huh?” I realized I hadn’t responded. “Three inches of meringue. Um, sure. Or at least . . . maybe a bite of yours?”
Someone stopped by our table. I looked up. Not a single someone; rather, it was a cluster of girls looking like high-school–era fans.
“Are you Mal from Aftermath?” one asked.
He nodded with a smile and had to let go of my hand to sign autographs. While they were taking selfies and being giddy all over him, I ate some more of his fries, secretly proud to be the one who got to stay with him once they had to move on.
I got to be the one who could eat fries off his plate.
“That’s definitely not getting old anytime soon,” he said once the fan club moved on. “I still can’t believe I get recognized. Did I tell you our agent says we’re almost sure to be invited to the Grammys this year?”
“Holy crap! That’s awesome! But no surprise. You guys really are good.”
“He got this hotshot to produce our next album. Have you ever heard of Laser?”
I was confused. “Laser? Like a concentrated light beam?”
Mal shook his head. “Laser. He’s produced three of the current top-ten albums in the country. And he wants to work with us. He wants to work with us . We don’t have to beg or anything!”
“I think you really don’t realize how good you guys are. I don’t know why you’d be surprised that you’re going to the Grammys.”
He leaned forward, and I did, too, closing the space between us. “Phil? Our agent? He thinks, um . . .” His voice dropped to a whisper. “He thinks we might get nominated.”
I made a “duh” face. “Of course you will. Why are you whispering?”
He hunched forward more, his big shoulders folding in. “Might be nominated for a Grammy,” he repeated.
“I heard you. You can say it out loud, you know. You might do something really surprising, in fact. You might win!” I shouted the last words with a grin, and he blinked, astonished.
“Hush! Don’t say that. It’s too much.”
“Bring this man some lemon meringue,” I shouted. The waitress behind the counter turned in astonishment. “Bring him two pieces! He’s just one album away from winning a Grammy!”
“Shush!” Mal grabbed my waving arms, blushing. The man was blushing . He was so cute. “Don’t! You might jinx it!”
“Okay, I get it. You’re superstitious. Fine. I’ll be quiet. But you’re going to have to learn to say the possibility out loud.”
He shook his head, a quick, short, nervous movement that filled me with laughter. I’d never seen Mal Becker demonstrate a single second of anxiety before, and it made me feel better to know that even he wasn’t immune.
“Stop that,” he said. “I’m sorry I told you.”
“Don’t be sorry. I won’t tease. And we’ll take this one step at a time. You whispered it. That’s a start. Good for you.”
The waitress brought the pie. Two slices. I was going to have to choke it down. “Coffee?” she asked. “For the Grammy winner?”
Mal was horrified. I burst into laughter.
He had a cup, a slice of pie, and time for his blush to die down. I had a cup of decaf, half a slice of pie, and asked for the check.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I looked on the yacht club’s website and saw how much the tickets cost to the gala. The least I can do is buy you a bowl of soup.”
“Such a gentleman. Thank you.” Like it was a date. A real date.
Was it?
Please let it be a real date.
He walked me to my car, and despite the potential of that moment, I yawned.
“Don’t fall asleep driving home,” he cautioned.
“I’ll be fine. I hope that coffee doesn’t keep you up too late. Don’t text me if you’re awake at three in the morning. I’ve got a full day tomorrow!”
“Pah. That coffee is nothing. I’m a drummer. This is like midmorning for me. Anyway, I have to head into the city tonight.”
“You’re going into Manhattan? Tonight?” I checked my watch; it was almost eleven. Was he meeting a girlfriend?
What a terrible thought.
He seemed to read my mind. “I’ve got a date with a guy named Alfredo. He’s hooking me up with a tux.”
“Oh.” I tried not to sound too relieved. “Really, I’ll pay the rental fee. I wish you’d let me.”
He waved my concern away. “I’m a badass rock star. I actually have money for the first time ever. I can handle a little black tie!” Then, as gracefully as if his heart wasn’t beating as hard as mine, he leaned down and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you Saturday. Pick you up at five, right?”
I must have slipped into autopilot because I was safely in my car and buckled before I could form a conscious thought. I looked up at him through my opened window. The soft, fresh air of nighttime in early April cooled the flush on my cheeks. “Five, yes. That would be great.”
“Text me when you get home so I know you’ve gotten home safe, okay?”
“Are you going to text me when you get home from Alfredo?”
He laughed. “Text me. Go on. I’ll wait to make sure your car starts.”
Mother of God. The man was woven from my deepest fantasies.
Saturday night could not come quickly enough.