Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Fisher
I hand Juniper a glass of wine and she pats the space next to her on the bench. “You look like you have a lot on your mind.”
“Yeah, I just can’t shake something Gerry said to me. It’s probably bluster, but he said something about how I’ve taken something that’s his, and how he’s trying to level the playing field.”
“He’s trying to make things equal between you?” she asks, and leans her head on my shoulder.
“I suppose that’s what he means by levelling the playing field, but why? What does he think I’ve done to him?”
“Have there ever been any romantic entanglements?” she asks. “Like maybe—and I’m not saying you knew—but maybe you dated his girlfriend, or maybe a girlfriend left him for you?”
I shake my head. “Gerry’s been married since before I knew him.”
“Huh. I thought for sure that would be it. Did you go to college together? Like, was he at your college and you didn’t know? Maybe something happened there?”
“I was a geek at college,” I say. “My mom and dad went through a really bad divorce just before I left for college, and I spent my college years a little dazed. Their divorce came out of nowhere, as far as I was concerned.”
“I’m sorry, Fisher,” she says, and slides her hand into mine.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “But it had lasting effects. I went off to college determined that I wasn’t ever going to fake anything.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
I sigh and set down my wineglass. “I spent my entire childhood thinking my mom and dad were the happiest parents of all my friends. Some of my other friends used to have parents who argued all the time. Others never spent any time together. But my mom and dad seemed to genuinely love each other. We’d spend the weekends as a family doing stuff.
Even as a teenager, my favorite thing to do was to hang out with my parents.
How geeky was that? They were just so much fun.
I look back on those days, and I just remember laughing and…
like you and Riley when we were having the kitchen disco. Every day was like that.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Juniper says.
“It really was,” I reply. “They made it wonderful.”
“Do you know why they decided to divorce?”
Darkness gathers in my chest at the memories of the conversation around the kitchen table. “When they told me, it was as if they were telling me that we were moving house or something. Mom was still full of smiles. Dad was cracking jokes. It was all so… fake.”
She squeezes my hand, like she wants to transfer her strength to me.
“I stopped believing what I saw from then on. I learned to read what was under the surface in people’s words and actions.”
“You stopped trusting people,” she says. “Because if you can’t trust your parents, who can you trust?”
“Exactly. So I was a bit of a loner in college. I kept to myself until I learned to operate in this new world where no one was who they said they were. Music was my sole companion.”
“Oh, Fisher,” she says. “That sounds terribly lonely.”
It was lonely. It felt like when I left home, I took nothing with me. No sense of security. No understanding of what was right and wrong. No real ability to cope with the world. I didn’t trust anyone and I didn’t trust myself.
“It was at first. I grieved the old world through music and created a new one. At first, I couldn’t listen to anything I associated with my parents, and that was everything I listened to before I got to college.
It pushed me to look for new artists and new types of music.
I became a musical gannet,” I say on a laugh.
“Looking for salvation through new music. And I found it. Music became my therapy.” I blow out a breath.
Thinking back to that time still stings.
“It wasn’t until after college that things started to change,” I say.
“I figured out that I could be authentic, and so there must be others in the world capable of not faking it. I learned that I had to keep my circle of trust small, but still interact with the world knowing it was full of bullshitters who were pretending to be happy, competent, capable.”
“But you work in the music industry. Isn’t that all about image?”
“Right. But I know that. I learned how to keep my distance from all the pretense. Emotional distance, anyway. I try and focus on the music. Because that’s what I love.
The rest of it… I have my shields up. The industry is full of people pretending to be someone they’re not.
And I don’t just mean the artists. People are so desperate to ingratiate themselves with the artists that they’ll bend and change depending on who they’re talking to and what those people want. ”
“Sounds awful.”
“It’s actually okay, because it’s so easy to spot. At least it is for me. It’s so obvious. All I can control is myself. I know I’m authentic. And I expect nothing of anyone else.”
“Fisher,” she says, shifting and looking up at me. “That’s still a very lonely place to be.”
“Is it?” I ask. “I have great friends. It’s not that I isolate myself. I’m just careful.”
“And when we were dancing in the kitchen, having fun with Riley and me, like you did with your parents, did you think that was real?”
I sigh. “That’s about as real as it gets. Kids can’t fake stuff like that. And you?” I look into her trusting, open blue eyes. “You’re exactly who you say you are.” I press a kiss to her lips and her warmth travels through my body.
I pull back, and she snuggles in closer to me.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says, echoing my thoughts.
“Me too.” I don’t know what else to say. Our lives are so different, lived at almost different ends of the country. I can’t offer a compromise or any kind of long-distance connection. It just wouldn’t work. And I won’t lie to her. I refuse to pretend.
“If you’re ever in New York, you should let me know,” I say.
She lets out a laugh, because what I’m saying is ludicrous. We both know it, but I said it anyway. I said it because I mean it. I don’t know why, but the idea of leaving without any possibility of ever seeing her again creates a slice of sadness that lodges in my gut. It doesn’t feel right.
She doesn’t ask me to call if I’m back in Star Falls, and I understand why. She doesn’t want to be waiting for me to ride back into town. I get that. She needs to get on with her life, and I need to get on with mine.
“You never know,” I say teasingly. “Grace Astor might tempt you to New York yet.”
She doesn’t say anything. Riley is her priority and Star Falls is her home.
I get it all. I’m just pissed, honestly.
Why did a woman I enjoy so much, the first woman I’ve ever been able to be one hundred percent myself with, turn out to have roots in a small town in Colorado?
Why couldn’t she be in an apartment in the East Village or even a walk-up in Brooklyn.
“How’s Vivian?” she asks, changing the subject to safer ground.
“She left this morning. As I was talking to Gerry.”
She lets out a half laugh. “That must have been satisfying.”
“More than it should be. It’s not like I can keep him away from her forever.”
“She seems lovely. Not the kind of person who would go behind your back to talk to another label.”
I let out a cynical laugh. “You’re right. She doesn’t seem like that kind of person. But most people will take a call or a meeting if it might mean it could earn them more money. That’s just human nature.”
“Well, it’s not how we do things in Star Falls,” she says.
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I think that’s probably true.”
I think Rosey was right. Star Falls is a magical place. It’s a place I’ll be sad to leave, but I’ll be forever grateful I got to spend some time here.