Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
L ucas hadn’t seen a jukebox in years. The ancient-looking machine sat in the motel bar with the air of something left behind from another era. It was dark green and mahogany, and its record collection featured everything from ABBA and The Beatles to Gwen Stefani and Nickelback, modern songs that didn’t quite fit the vibe. Lucas and Gale hovered over the great jukebox contemplatively. Again, Lucas had the sensation that they were characters in one of Gale’s screenplays—acting out a series of events before they fell madly in love.
You’re such a sap. He heard Monica’s voice in his head.
Behind Gale and Lucas in the foyer was the man at the front desk, who’d told them there was just one room left at the hotel that night. They’d have to share. He’d handed them the key with an apology, then returned to his online computer game. Lucas could just barely make out the sound of explosions through the younger man’s earbuds.
Admittedly, it was probably awful to work as a late-night receptionist at a hotel right off the highway. Lucas had sympathy.
Lucas and Gale had agreed to have one nightcap before they went upstairs. The bartender, who wore a tie, said they only had beer tonight, so beer was what they went with.
“We can pick four songs for a dollar,” Gale explained. “You pick two; I pick two.”
“Deal.” Lucas raised his pint and turned away to give Gale privacy as she selected her first. He heard the machine purr and whirr as it drew her record down and played it. Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” began.
The bartender gave Gale a kind smile. “Nobody ever picks that one,” he said. “A classic.”
“If you want to know about its history, all you have to do is ask this guy,” Gale said, pointing at Lucas with her thumb.
Lucas felt a blush crawl up his chest. The bartender hardly listened to Gale and instead turned around and cleaned a glass. Gale and Lucas shared a private smile, and Lucas thought, why does it feel so easy with you, Gale? I can’t trust it.
And then he thought, I have to sleep on the floor tonight. I have to be a gentleman.
Gale stepped away from the jukebox and bowed, adding, “You’re up, sir.”
Lucas took her place and inspected the tracks. What would give Gale the very best impression? What would illustrate him to be interesting, artistic, nuanced, and sure of himself? Gale was singing the lyrics to “Don’t Stop Me Now” and flailing her arms through the air in a way that made him nearly bark with laughter.
“This place never gets anyone just hanging out,” the bartender told Gale. “It’s usually just people passing through. People who want to rest. I don’t think the jukebox’s been played in four or five months.”
“We can’t rest upstairs quite yet,” Gale explained to him. “We’re on a mission.”
The bartender looked briefly intrigued. “What kind of mission?”
Gale swung her arm around Lucas’s shoulder. The action was so startling and swift that Lucas nearly leaped out of his skin. He yanked around, but Gale didn’t remove her arm.
“We’re eloping,” she explained. “My mother, the queen of Denmark, doesn’t approve of our marriage, so we’re running away to Florida to save our love.” She sipped her beer. “That and eat as much marzipan and chocolate as we can.”
The bartender rolled his eyes but played along. “Are you really eloping? My sister did that. It’s crazy. But I get why people do it. There’s too much expectation around the wedding and the marriage. The whole thing is so weighted.”
Gale dropped her head back so that her hair flowed down her shoulders. Lucas wanted to reach out and run it through his fingers.
“You have a lot of opinions about this. Does that mean you’ve been married before?” Gale asked the bartender.
“I have,” the bartender said. “And you?”
“I have,” Gale said. “And sometimes I wish I’d never done it. Other times, I remember it was one of the single-greatest events of my life. It led to my daughters. It led me here.”
The bartender was nodding earnestly. Lucas thought, uh-oh. How did we end up here, philosophizing with a bartender? But then he remembered it was all a part of being on the road. He had to be alive to great and wonderful encounters like this.
“Everything gets us somewhere else,” the bartender said. “I have a kid, too. She’s my world.”
The bartender poured them each a shot and glanced at Lucas curiously. Lucas still hadn’t selected his two songs. He was beginning to think of this decision as the single-biggest of his life. Dramatic, but very true at this moment. What if Gale hates what I pick? His palms were sweaty. Just be cool.
“What about you, Cowboy?” the bartender asked. “Do you have children?”
Cowboy?
Gale blinked at him. It occurred to Lucas that he didn’t know how to answer this question. He let his hands drop.
“Um. Yes?”
The bartender laughed. “You don’t sound so sure of that. Usually, that’s something you know one way or the other.”
“I’m sure,” Lucas said, although his voice wavered. “It’s just been a little bit of time since I’ve seen…them.”
Gale stared at him in a way that suggested she could see all the way through him. Lucas turned his back to the bartender and Gale and hit two random buttons on the jukebox—a B and a 7. It was the song “Rhiannon” from Fleetwood Mac. It was melancholic and sweeping, and it exactly suited his mood.
When it played after Gale’s second selection, Lucas watched Gale’s eyes in anticipation. They glinted. She filled her mouth with beer and hung her head.
“This song always breaks my heart,” she said quietly as Stevie Nicks’s vocals filled the horrible little bar, and the bartender cleaned another glass.
Lucas’s own heart seized. He hadn’t wanted to break hers.
But she touched his hand with the tips of her fingers and assured him, “It’s a good feeling, sometimes. It reminds me I’m still alive.”
After two beers, Lucas and Gale headed upstairs to get some much-needed shut-eye. Lucas quickly changed into a white T-shirt and got into bed while Gale brushed her teeth and washed her face in the bathroom. He liked listening to the sounds of the running water. He liked listening to the North Carolina winds rush against the side of this horrible little hotel.
Gale tiptoed through the dark and slipped into the opposite side of the bed. Lucas tried to keep very still although, on the inside, he was screaming this is the first time I’ve shared a bed in years. The bed was a California king, though. It meant Gale was so far away that the mattress hardly shifted under him when she got in.
“Today was one of those days,” Gale whispered into the dark. “One of those days when I felt like my old self again. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
Lucas blinked back sudden tears. “I get it.” He swallowed. “I have this weird sense that I’ll go into the bathroom tomorrow morning, and the reflection I’ll see in the mirror will be me, but twenty years ago. Twenty-five even.”
Gale shivered with laughter. “A time-traveling hotel in North Carolina. I would read that book.”
“Maybe you can incorporate it into your next screenplay.”
Gale was quiet for a moment, and Lucas stirred, worrying that he’d said something wrong.
“I normally don’t like to talk about my work,” Gale whispered. “But I feel like we could talk about anything on this trip. It wouldn’t bother me. Like the rules have changed.”
Have the rules changed because of me? Or have the rules changed because of Lilian?
He felt Gale turn onto her side. He felt her peering at his shadow through the dark.
“I’m sorry I never asked you about your children,” Gale offered.
Lucas focused hard on his breathing: in, out. In, out.
“It’s okay,” Lucas decided to say. “We’re still just getting to know each other.”
“What are their names?”
“There’s just one,” Lucas said. “Nora.”
Even saying the name aloud felt like a curse. His tongue might have turned black.
“Just like Nora Ephron! I love that name,” Gale said. “I wanted to name one of the twins that, but my husband didn’t like it.”
“Does your husband have terrible taste?”
Gale cackled happily. Lucas breathed a sigh of relief. That joke was a little too far. He was glad she rolled with it. She didn’t have to.
“He does, actually,” Gale said. “He cheated on me with half of Providence. But I’m biased. Maybe all those women are better than me.”
Lucas’s tone was firm when he said: “I can’t imagine any woman in Providence being better than you.”
Silence stretched heavily over them like the blanket they shared.
Lucas waited with anticipation for Gale to say something. He yearned for her to pull closer and put her head on his shoulder. He wanted to feel the heat of her body, just as he’d once felt Monica’s deep in the night during black and cold Nantucket Januarys. But very soon after that, he heard the rise and fall of Gale’s breathing. Mercifully, sleep had found her. It had left him behind.