20. Avery
Avery
F or the first time since I agreed to this tour, being around Wes feels like a choice. Not an obligation. Something I’m excited to wake up and continue showing up for in the morning.
But I don’t even have to wait until the next morning to hear from him again. After I shower and change, I curl up outside to watch the sunset, and my phone starts ringing.
“Hello?” I ask tentatively.
“Um, hi. Is it okay to call? If not, I can hang up right now and we can pretend I didn’t,” Wes says, and I picture him staring at the contact in my phone for thirty minutes before pressing it and praying for the best.
“It’s fine.” I pull the thin blanket on my lap higher and burrow myself into the corner of my patio furniture. “Is there something you need?”
“I’m going to do my best to make this sound normal, but I got home and was settling in for the night and thought, I wonder what Avery is doing right now , and my brain just automatically inserted this image of you playing your guitar until midnight like you used to, and then I realized I have no idea what you do and I’m just hanging on to what you were like ten years ago.
” The words spill out of him until he’s breathless.
He gasps then asks, “So, what are you doing right now?”
“I am watching the sunset and will probably sit here for a few hours because my legs feel like Jell-o. I fell asleep out here last week and woke up in the middle of the night shivering.” As I speak, there’s a rustling on his end of the call and the swish of a door.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but I think I already know.
“Watching the sunset with you.”
There’s a pause and neither of us hang up as it continues to stretch. The sun sends golden spears through the jagged teeth of the skyline and as streaks of vibrant blues and pinks stretch as far as I can see.
“Shit,” Wes says just when I’ve almost forgotten he’s there. “It’s gorgeous. Though I do miss the stars. That’s the worst bit about cities. The lights are down on earth in all the buildings instead of up in the sky.”
“Yeah, not like back home,” I say without thinking.
“Do you think you’ll ever be ready to see the stars there again?”
A few days ago, I would have said no. But right now, that's all I want. I don’t know what tipped the scale. The dive bar. The fact that Wes and I are just existing in space comfortably without feeling like we’ll cause a natural disaster. Either way, home has a nice ring to it.
“Yeah, at least one more time.”
“Just promise me when you are, you’ll let me be there with you.”
“I’d like that,” I say through a yawn.
“I can let you go to sleep, but would it be okay if I picked you up tomorrow? If you have a favorite place for breakfast, I can bring that by.” When I don’t respond, he says, “Avery, are you still there?”
“Sorry, I was just thinking that I don’t know if I have a favorite place or even favorite breakfast food. I just grab whatever and it works. So, if you have something you like, just bring that.” I’m happy he can’t see the way my face must be red from embarrassment as I answer.
The next morning, I’m waiting on my couch when his car pulls up.
When I hop inside and buckle myself into the passenger seat, I’m greeted with a mouth-watering aroma.
Resting on the partition between the front seats are two containers.
One with a steaming breakfast sandwich and the other with a cinnamon roll.
“Please tell me you don’t eat like this every morning, or we’ll have to have a serious talk about your heart health.”
“First time trying these. But the restaurant came highly rated.”
“So, these aren’t your favorites?” I hedge tentatively.
He shrugs. “I asked for yours and we’re going to find them. We have two weeks left before the first show and every morning we can try something new. I’ve added this search to your list.”
“Ahh, because getting my spark back involves bacon now. I’m so glad you know that because I would have never figured it out on my own.”
“How else am I going to know what to get you after a bad day? It’s hardly economical to buy an entire menu.”
“You’re doing this for your wallet. I see how it is,” I say, instead of acknowledging the heat spreading through my limbs at the knowledge that Wes is making an effort to take care of me, not just now, but in the future too.
“I’m doing this because I want to relearn who you are, so I’m starting with the food that fuels you.” He plucks up the cinnamon roll and breaks it in half, offering me the larger section. “But I’m getting my share too.”
And for the next two weeks, I wake up and he’s there with a strawberry banana smoothie so thick I have to eat it with a spoon, or huevos rancheros that stay at the top of my list of favorites—an actual list Wes starts to make on his phone when he thinks I’m not looking.
Once, I check to see where the restaurant for scallion pancakes is located and I find that the family-owned Chinese restaurant is an hour across town.
Each time his CR-V pulls into my driveway, there’s a voice in the back of my head that says he’s still showing up. He’s still here.
I never invite him in for breakfast, even though his car is cramped, and I continue to spill sauce on myself whenever I ram my elbow into the window.
And he never asks to watch the sunset together after rehearsal.
And for that I’m grateful, because as we talk, I don’t have to see his face likely pinches with hurt as we discuss the expanse of years between us, because I know mine does.
The first time I got to know Wesley Gaflin at twelve years old, I pretended I wasn’t scared of getting invested in someone only to have to leave them behind.
Now twenty years later, I’m not pretending. I’m scared because I know what it’s like to lose Wes and I don’t want to experience that ever again.
The weeks spin by, and we reach the night before our first show.
During one of our breakfasts, Wes and I started to discuss throwing a party for everyone on the tour and ended up splitting the costs for the open bar on this hotel rooftop.
A celebration, but also a thank you for sticking around and not quitting when we were more preoccupied with being at each other’s throats than with being productive party.
I sit with my feet in the water of an unoccupied heated pool at the far end of the roof.
The white linen skirt I’m wearing scrunches up around my thighs as to not get it wet while I make a call.
“Hey, I was just calling to let you know that I have tickets reserved for you at every show. I know it’s not exactly your scene, but if you’re in the mood to stop by…
” I trail off. The voicemail sounds ridiculous.
It’s now been over a year since I’ve talked to my grandparents.
They don’t come to my concerts, but maybe this is the olive branch we need to move on.
I mean, I’d like to. There’s a part of me that thinks that after a show, looking at my grandmother’s eyes, the ones so much like Dad’s, I’d know a fraction of what it would be like to have him there.
That through some cosmic magic, it would give me closure on the promise Wes and I made to him all those years ago.
I hate begging, but I do it for my eighteen-year-old self who never got to share this world with him.
I did everything for her. Recorded songs I hated, but were guaranteed to be chart-toppers before they faded into obscurity.
Attended parties with people who said they wanted to be my friends, but really just wanted to be seen with me.
Offering this olive branch to my grandparents is just one more thing to add to the list.
I listen to the recording and delete it before starting over. “Hey, I hope you’re doing well. I don’t know if you remember but the tour is starting tomorrow, and I have tickets for you. I’ve sent your assistants the schedule—”
“What are you doing?” Wes interrupts my best take yet as he walks up to me with a glass of water in one hand. He’s aglow with the low hanging sun at his back.
“Just leaving a message for my grandparents.”
He reaches down and grabs my phone. Unprepared, I let him.
Keeping an eye on me, he takes a step away, holding the phone to his mouth.
“Hey! Ivy. Nolan. It’s been a minute. It seems like you might have forgotten, but your granddaughter is one of the greatest musicians of our generation.
If you don’t show up, you’re missing out.
” He’s grinning wide, and I know he means every word.
“You can’t send that,” I protest, but don’t mean it. Really, it’s what I want to say but don’t know how to without sounding vain and childish.
He releases a breath. “I already did.” With one hand braced on the ground, he lowers himself to sit next to me.
After taking a second to cuff his jeans and roll them up to his calves, he puts his feet into the heated pool.
In addition to the jeans, he’s wearing an unbuttoned linen shirt that gives me a clear view of his chest. I can’t stop myself from stealing glances.
“I guess I’ve missed a few chapters if you’re talking to them of your own free will. ”
“You probably think I’m stupid. But I know what they’re like.
I know that I’m essentially a trophy that they can show off as some accomplishment they didn’t earn, and they’re withholding that because Jamie cheated on me and instead of checking up on me, they cut me off so I don’t make them look bad by association.
” My voice has risen closer to a yell. I force myself to calm, kicking my foot against the water, sending out ripples. Then I whisper, “I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were. I think they’re the stupid ones for not showing up, and I don’t regret sending that voicemail just now because they need to hear it.
You deserve people who show up for you. To cheer as loud as they can until they can’t talk the next day.
” His eyes say the rest. And that should have been me.
Throat raw. Cheeks soar from smiling. Running backstage to tell you just how amazing you are.
“It’s okay.” I forgive you. You’re here now.
“It’s not.”
“It will be.”
Both of us fall silent as the sun inches down to a familiar point on the horizon. Wes pats his pocket for his phone, an automatic response even though I’m right next to him. When he realizes he’s doing this, his cheeks flush and he lays his hand next to mine on the rough pool’s edge.
“Is it just me or does this feel like how it used to? When we listened to music together on my roof,” he asks, bumping his hand against mine. “We thought we knew everything, picking apart songs we could barely play, and lyrics we thought we understood.”
“A little, but mostly it’s different.” My eyes are still set in the distance, so I feel more than see him flinching away.
“That’s not a bad thing. We aren’t teenagers anymore.
We’re not going backward. That’s impossible.
We’re going forward and I think that’s amazing.
Back then we were in such a rush to get where we are now.
Let’s just enjoy being here before we’re on the road. ”
For years, I chased that feeling.
Going. Going. Going.
The security of a full calendar planned out for me by someone else. Being told what to do and who to be. No gaps. No room to sink into a moment and feel good or bad about what I accomplished.
Now I’m giving myself a chance to, and I feel proud that I’ve gotten to this point with Lydia, Kendal, and most of all, Wes.
After a long moment he asks, “What is the biggest worry in your head right now?”
“What you’re getting me for breakfast tomorrow. Is there something I should be worried about?”
“If this is your way of asking what I’m getting you tomorrow, my lips are sealed.
Because if I tell you that, you won’t need me.
But yes, there is something you need to see.
” He grabs my hand and the glint in his eye tells me that despite his new sense of urgency that I don’t need to be worried at all.