3. Four Houses Down #4
Sometimes there were envelopes of money in the mailbox with "For the kid" or "Charlie, thanks!
" written on them. Sometimes there was a plate of food on the step, like pierogis from Mr. Romano, or chocolate eclairs from Mrs. Dutch.
And once, there was a pair of embroidered leather work gloves with "C.W.
" carved into the leather and a note that said "Take care of your hands, kid! "
Charlie wore them until the fingers split.
Ed and Diane never mentioned any of it. They never acknowledged their daughter's reputation in the neighborhood, and only smiled with closed mouths when people stopped them on the street to compliment Charlie's work, talent, and skills.
Eventually, the neighbors stopped thanking Ed and Diane and made sure to thank Charlie directly.
Everyone seemed happier with that arrangement.
Frank's garage always had music. An old 8-track player sat on the workbench shelf beside the oil cans and socket wrenches, and Frank kept a small stack of cartridges he'd collected over the years.
Mostly jazz. Some country. A few things Helen had picked out for him that he pretended to tolerate and secretly loved.
But the one that played most often, the one Frank would slide in when it was just him and Charlie working on the Cutlass on a Saturday afternoon, was Fleetwood Mac.
Charlie was fourteen the first time she heard "Rhiannon" come through the tinny speakers of that 8-track while her hands were inside the Cutlass's engine bay.
She didn't know the song, didn't know the band, but the guitar made her stop and listen.
Frank watched her from his lawn chair and said nothing.
He just let the music do what music does.
"Landslide" came on a few tracks later. Charlie's hands went still again. She stood there with grease on her fingers, listening to a woman sing about being afraid of changing, and felt something she couldn't name press against the inside of her ribs.
"Who is this?" she asked.
"Fleetwood Mac," Frank said. "The album's self-titled. Came out last year."
Charlie wiped her hands on her jeans and looked at the 8-track player like it had just told her a secret.
From that day on, whenever she was in Frank's garage, she'd glance at the shelf to see which cartridge was loaded.
And if it wasn't Fleetwood Mac, she'd swap it herself.
Frank never said a word about it. He just made sure the cartridge was always within reach.
On evenings after good days at the Beckmans, Charlie would hum on the walk home.
She never noticed, but Katie did. One summer night, when they walking back to their home with their stomachs full and their fingers still sticky from cookie dough, Charlie was humming something low and warm without realizing it.
"What's that song?" Katie asked.
"What song?"
"The one you're humming."
Charlie thought about it. "It's one I heard on the radio today in the garage. I liked it. It reminded me of summer."
"I know the one you're talking about!" Katie replied. Then the two of them hummed the song all the way home.
The song was "My Girl" by the Temptations. The girls didn't know that at the time, they learned the name later on. But from that night forward, every time it was on the radio, they both smiled and remembered the summers together and began to hum along.
As Charlie began to spend more time in the garage at her house as well as the Beckmans', she found she liked to sing while she worked.
She'd started doing it since the radio first went on in the garage, but it had only begun as a low hum, eventually becoming her singing the words when she forgot anyone could hear.
Charlie didn't know she had a voice. She treated singing the way she treated breathing, like something that happened without permission or effort.
But Katie did.
Katie noticed Charlie's voice the first time she heard her sing and every time after, the way her voice lifted and settled like a blanket over the garage, turning it into a place that wasn't just a workspace, but somewhere expression wasn't stifled.
A place where Charlie could be herself without hiding.
Katie never pointed it out. She understood that if she had ever said "you have a beautiful voice," Charlie would stop singing. So Katie kept it for herself, filed away in the same place where she kept the extraordinary things.
One night, late, after the sun had set hours ago and the crickets had quieted in the grass, the garage got cold around them while the radio played low.
Charlie had her hands inside a neighbor's stereo receiver and Katie was in her usual spot on the step, the blanket wrapped around her legs and her book laid open on her lap.
A song by the band Kansas faded out on the radio and the DJ came on, saying something about the late-night request line.
"You should call in and request 'All by Myself,'" Katie teased. Charlie popped her head up from her work.
"How could I do that when I always have you?" Charlie scrunched her face and Katie rolled her eyes. Charlie laughed before returning to the machine in front of her.
Though she would never admit it to Charlie's face, Katie loved that her sister wanted her around.
A new song started. Piano first, spare and strange, then guitar. A voice came on that they both recognized but couldn't name.
Katie watched Charlie's hands still.
The song told the story of two people on the wrong side of a wall with nothing between them and the world.
No safety, no time, no promise that the next day would look like this one.
And it begged and pleaded that they choose each other anyway.
Not because it was smart or because it would last, but because being together, even for one night, was worth everything it could cost.
Charlie stood up with grease on her hands and cold air on the back of her neck, listening to every note. Something opened in her chest that night while listening to that song. A room inside her heart she hadn't even known was there. And that song walked in, sat down, and stayed.
On the step behind her, Katie had closed her book. She was watching Charlie and trying to figure out what it was that was happening behind her eyes.
Then the song ended and the DJ came back on.
"That was 'Heroes' by the one and only, David Bowie.
Man, I love that song. That goes out to Carolyn from Rob on our request line.
Carolyn, Rob says he'd stand up against anything to be with you, even just for one day.
Rob, we hope it works out. Sounds like you've got a love worth fighting for.
Now, next up, we have..." As the DJ's last words trailed off into the air of the night and the next song started, Katie watched Charlie move back to the repair in front of her, ready to begin again, almost erasing the moment she'd just witnessed. But Katie didn't want it to be erased.
"That was a good song," Katie said.
"Yeah," Charlie said. A smile spread across her face. "It sure was."
Charlie would remember the name later. She would find the album, buy the cassette, and play it on her Walkman until the tape wore thin. She would carry the song with her, and it would lead her to places she couldn't imagine. It would matter more than the girl in that garage could ever know.
But on this particular night, with her sister on the step behind her, Charlie just stood in the cold and let the song course through her. Then she smiled over at Katie, picked up her tools, and went back to work.
It was on a morning not unlike any other at the Beckman kitchen table when Charlie realized she'd never learned how Mr. and Mrs. Beckman became just that: Mr. and Mrs.
"So," Charlie began, snatching a chocolate chip cookie from the pile in the middle of the yellow breakfast table. "How did you two meet, anyway?" she asked Frank and Helen.
"Were you ever on the Enterprise, too, Mrs. Beckman?" Katie asked as everyone watched Charlie shove the whole cookie into her mouth, crumbs falling from her lips onto her lap.
Helen laughed, loud and warm and filling the kitchen.