Chapter 10
Dane
Icleared my throat, but no one looked at me, so I tried again, louder and more dramatically. “A-hem.”
It was Sunday afternoon, a beautiful late fall day, and my family—Mom, Dad, Delia and Hunter, Sunni and Hayden, and Duncan and Rune, who was a billion weeks pregnant, or "overcooked” as she called it—were all sitting around our outdoor dining table.
"Somethin' to say, son?" Dad said, drawing everyone's attention.
"Um, yeah." I let out a breath. "So, I, uhhhh…I'm in a choir at the college, and our first concert is a week from tomorrow night. If, um…if anyone wanted to come."
Silence greeted this.
"Wow, don't everyone all get excited at once," I muttered.
Mom was the first to come up with a response, unsurprisingly. "Choir? I didn't think you were interested in music."
"I needed to fill an elective, and that's what worked," I admitted.
"But I'm finding I actually like it a lot.
Our teacher or director or whatever, Mrs. Roslin, says I have one of the most beautiful baritones she's ever heard.
She is roughly four thousand years old, though, so she could be senile.
She's a funny old bat, though, and I'm fond of her. "
Delia smiled at me. "That's really great, Dane. I'm glad to see you broadening your horizons. We'll be there."
"Broadening my horizons?" I echoed, muttering. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Sunni, on my right, patted my shoulder. "It's a good thing, Dane."
"But, what? I'm narrow-minded?" I said.
"No," Delia answered, drawling the word. "Just…less inclined to take risks or get outside your comfort zone."
Dad cut in, then. "We'll all be there," he announced. “I’ll put the word out to the tribe."
I groaned. "I just meant our family, like us, here. I'm not sure the auditorium is big enough for our whole crew to show up."
"It's what we do, son," Dad said. "Best not to fight it."
"It's you, on stage, singing," Duncan said. "Of course we'll all be there."
“Sweet," I mumbled.
"Oh no," Emerson teased in a sarcastic monotone, "the support of my whole family, how tragic."
"Shut up, Sunni," I muttered.
I felt better, now that that was out of the way.
I'd been oddly nervous to make that announcement.
What I wasn't telling them was that I had a solo.
I also wasn't mentioning that I had to wear a tuxedo with a jacket that had those long tails.
I'd made it into some sort of higher-level sub-choir thing, because apparently there's not just one choir, but also lots of mini-choirs and groups and shit. I dunno. I just show up and sing.
Another thing I wasn't telling them was that I fucking loved choir. I loved singing. I'd feel myself hit the perfect note and get the shivers. I'm not sure anyone in my family has ever ever heard me sing, because I never realized I actually could—like, not well, I mean.
I wasn't sure what to do with this newfound love for singing, but I figured I'd take it one step at a time. I don't know why I was nervous, either. It's not like my family was going to be unsupportive. It's just a big step for me.
I've worked for the same landscaping company since my junior year in high school, and I’ve never really looked beyond it. It was a good job, I enjoyed the work, and it was flexible. Or, rather, my boss was flexible.
But lately, I was wondering if it was going anywhere.
If I was going anywhere.
Suddenly, Delia's comment about broadening my horizons made a lot of sense.
I haven't really done much of anything other than work and school since coming back from LA. Two weeks ago, I got a postcard from Portland, Oregon, from Lindsey.
Thinking of you, it said, in a neat, female cursive script.
That was it. Three words on a postcard from Portland, Oregon.
Thinking of you.
Four months of silence, and I get three words on a postcard?
And why was she in Portland?
After Sunday dinner, I ambled down to the dock, sat in one of the Adirondack chairs, lit a joint, and stared at the postcard. A form settled into the chair beside me, and I, assuming it was Dunc, handed the joint over.
The fingers that took it were slender, and the nails painted a pale, matte pink.
"DeeDee," I said, coughing. "Not who I was expecting."
She puffed on the joint, exhaled, and handed it back. "I know. You were lost in thought." She snatched the postcard from me. “’Thinking of you.' No signature."
I didn't answer.
She handed it back. "Lindsey?"
"Yup."
She sighed. "How are you handling all that?"
I didn't bother asking how she knew about all that—there were no secrets in this family, and we love us some piping hot tea. I shrugged. "Fine, I guess."
Delia laughed. "Bullshit, brother."
"Fine. I'm still pissed, okay? Like…well…
" I shook the postcard. "I haven't heard a peep from her in four fucking months, and then I get this bullshit outta the blue?
You're thinking of me? What does that even mean?
Thinking of me how? And why is she in Oregon?
" I shook my head. "I just…I've been trying to move on.
Trying to not think about her. Staying busy. I even tried going on a date."
"Hooking up, you mean."
"No,” I said, my tone firm. “A date. It didn't even get past the date part. I got through the appetizer and then realized it just felt wrong, so I made my excuses and left."
"What was your excuse?" She asked.
"I, um…” I winced. "I didn't really make an excuse. I just told her I was sorry and that I had to go."
"Good. Shitty excuses are always transparent. Better to just be honest." She took the joint from me. "So you're still in love with her."
"I mean, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to be. She doesn't feel the same way. Or maybe she does, I dunno. It's all fucked up, and there's nothing I can do about it except just deal with it." I glanced at Delia. “Should you be smoking that?"
She frowned. "I'm not pregnant."
"Aren't you breastfeeding?"
She shook her head, smirking at me. "No, actually.
We switched him to formula because he has a fussy tummy.
But thanks for looking out for me." She sounded more amused and affectionate than offended, mostly because she knew I was coming from a loving place, not a judgmental one—I knew she was a damned good mama.
"Oh."
“If she showed up tomorrow and wanted to be with you,” she asked, “what would you say?"
"I honestly can't even imagine. I'd probably get all tongue-tied from having too many things I'd want to say that they'd get all tangled up."
Delia flat-out laughed at this. "You always have something to say, Dane."
"Exactly."
She puffed on the joint again and then handed it back. "You've got it bad, huh?"
"I…y'know, Delia, the honest to god truth is that I'm more worried for her than anything.
Like, right now, yeah, I feel shitty about everything.
I care about her. I miss her. I want to talk to her.
Laugh with her. Other stuff." I hurried on past that part.
"But I know that in time, if I never see her or hear from her again, I’ll be okay.
I'll get over it, someday, somehow. But Linz?
God, she's a beautiful person. On the inside, I mean.
Obviously, she's gorgeous, but I mean, who she is is beautiful.
If it's not me, it's fine, but I just hope that she learns how to let someone love her someday. She deserves it."
"Don't we all?"
I shrug. "Maybe not the assholes of the world. Fuck mean people."
Delia makes a well, I don't know about that face. "Maybe if the assholes of the world had been loved better, they wouldn't be assholes. Maybe not being loved is why they're assholes."
I groaned. "Can't you just let me hate the world's many assholes in peace?"
“Nope. Hating assholes makes you an asshole. The only way to beat assholes at their game is to not be an asshole."
"Wow, DeeDee, thanks for that stunningly brilliant piece of advice."
"Stunningly brilliant…but surprisingly difficult to do regularly."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"So, choir, huh?"
I shrugged. "I literally just picked it because it filled the hole in my schedule and eliminated a missing elective credit."
"But?" Sis knew me too well.
"But…I'm finding I like it a lot. It's…I dunno. New? Different? I dunno. I highly doubt I'm gonna, like, follow in Canaan and Corin's footsteps and become a musician or anything. I just like singing in the choir, I guess."
She exhaled smoke at the sky, glancing at me sidelong. "Purpose is a funny thing, huh?"
"But you've always had one."
She nodded. "That's what I mean. We were all raised by the same parents in the same house, but yet…"
I snorted. "But yet you, Dunc, and Sunni all have a distinct sense of purpose, while I'm out here stumbling around aimlessly like a dork."
"You've always been a late bloomer," she said.
This got a cackle out of me. "Wow, Dee, you're just really making me feel great about myself, thanks! Not only do I not have a fucking function in life, I'm SLOW!"
"That is not what I meant, Dane, Jesus fucking Christ. Take things the wrong way, why don't you?"
Her ire was intense enough to give me pause. "Well, how else am I supposed to take it, Dee? You've always known who you are and what you want out of your life. Same with Dunc, same with Sunni, same with Ella, same with Jax. I can go on."
Footsteps thunked on the deck, and we both turned to see our Uncle Lucian striding down the dock toward us.
Second youngest of Dad's brothers, he was tall and lean, built more like Duncan where I was more like Uncle Bax, shorter and denser.
He had shoulder-length hair tied back low on his neck—a style he'd kept pretty much his whole life—going gray at the temples with a few strands of silver sprinkled through it.
He had a week's worth of stubble on his jaw, his hair bound back and tied low on his neck.