Chapter 9 #2
“Yes, but also because every day is different and surprising. For example, an old man came in last week looking for a mystery novel to read to his wife while he drives. I explained the concept of audiobooks. I’m not sure he’s sold on them, but I gave my best effort in convincing him that driving and reading at the same time is dangerous.
Not just for him and his wife, but everyone else on the road! ”
As she talks, she absently rubs her bare neck or tugs on the ends of her hair near her chin. I get caught up in her stories and realize neither of us are eating very fast. That’s fine with me. The moment she leaves, I’m going to feel how empty this place is.
“So a new job, just in the library,” I say.
She nods as she chews and swallows. “I imagine it’s normal to be a little bored at a job. Not everyone loves what they do all the time. Do you love your job? Or, I guess, jobs.”
“Yeah, I do. I wish I had more handyman work. Like you, I enjoy that it’s different every day.
But managing the hardware store is pretty good too.
Roger’s ready to retire and wants to sell me the business, but I haven’t decided if that’s the direction I want to go yet.
” I point to her plate. “Do you want anymore?”
She leans back in her chair. “No, I’m stuffed, but that was delicious.”
“Hopefully not too stuffed for dessert.”
I take our plates to the sink, then from the cupboard grab the small, double layer cake. A candle is already on top, and I quickly use a lighter to light the wick.
Surprise, then delight crosses her face as I sing “Happy Birthday.” When I finish, she claps.
“How did you know it was my birthday tomorrow?”
“I have my ways. Make a wish.”
She closes her eyes, then blows at the flame.
It flickers, but doesn’t go out. It’s a trick candle because I think they’re hilarious.
After five tries, the flame is still dancing.
She’s laughing which makes it hard to get much force behind her puffs.
Finally, she wets her pointer finger and thumb with her tongue and pinches the flame out.
“I don’t know why you told me to make a wish when now it won’t come true!” she says.
“The harder a candle is to put out, the more powerful the force behind your wish.”
She rolls her eyes as she laughs. “You’re full of it.”
The cake is small, so I cut it in half and split it between two plates.
“I didn’t get the chance to buy any ice cream,” I admit. “I didn’t want it to melt on my door step before I made it up here from work.”
“I’m amazed you had a chance to get the cake. It’s not like you knew I was coming into town before noon today.”
“I have connections. Lana at the bakery was happy to put something together for me.”
She sinks a fork into the cake and takes a bite. “This is delicious. I’m full, but I’m going to eat this whole piece. Now tell me how you knew about my birthday?”
“If you don’t want people to know the date you were born, you probably shouldn’t have it visible on Facebook.”
“But you don’t get on Facebook!”
I frown. “Why do you think that?”
She pauses. “You never post.”
Of course she would have looked at my Facebook page. I looked at hers. There isn’t much for her to see on mine since I deleted a lot of it after my divorce.
“I don’t have to post to log in,” I say. “That’s how I contacted you.”
“Good point.”
We both take a bite of cake.
“I looked through your pictures,” I say. “Is there anywhere you haven’t been? You went to Egypt! That’s like a mythical land. It exists, but people don’t actually go there. Except for you. And Fiji. Ireland. You visited Hobbit holes in New Zealand! I haven’t been anywhere outside of a few states.”
“Do you want to travel?”
I think about it for a minute as I lick frosting off my fork.
“It’s not that I don’t want to travel, it’s that I have a hard time leaving home.
People here rely on me. The one time I took a week off to go to California,” for my honeymoon, I think, but don’t mention, “All I heard about for a month after I got back was how they needed me for something, and I wasn’t here. ”
She’s thoughtful for a minute. “I’ve been to a lot of places, and I’ve loved it all, but for a while now, travel has felt like a consolation prize. It’s not my first choice on how to spend my life, but it’s a pretty awesome back-up plan.”
I’m not exactly sure what she means, but she points her fork at the cake and changes the subject before I can ask. “New Zealand does not have cake that tastes like this. It’s delicious.”
“Lana is a miracle baker. Which is why, on my itinerary for next Saturday, our first stop is her bakery to get apple donuts for breakfast.”
“You have an itinerary?”
“I promised to give you a grand experience, and that is exactly what you’ll get. And one of the best parts of the jamboree is how much good food there is. Apple ice cream, apple pie, apple fritters, apple donuts. Fresh apple cider.”
“If it all tastes like this, I’ll be sure to wear my stretchy pants next week.” She covers her face. “Let’s pretend I didn’t say that.”
I tell Stella to leave the dishes, but she doesn’t listen. She washes while I put away the leftovers.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“There was a teenager at the bookstore. Julia? Do you know anything about her? Mr. Long bought her lunch.”
“Everyone in town knows about Julia. Her grandpa owned a farm and was active in the town council. About ten years ago, his daughter moved back from wherever she had gone, and brought Julia home with her. When Julia’s grandpa died, the land went to her mom, which she sold as soon as possible.
All except the house. Julia’s mom isn’t the most reliable, and we all think the money is long gone. ”
“Who is ‘we’?”
With the food put away, I grab a dishtowel and start drying.“Everyone who owns a business along Second Street. We have a Second Street cooperative and meet once a month. Julia hangs out in the bookstore after school, so she comes up in our meetings a lot. Why the interest?”
“I was worried about her. She seemed … alone. Adrift, maybe? Like she didn’t have a place to call home.”
I’m so familiar with Julia I don’t know how closely I’ve looked at her the last little while.
I haven’t seen her mom in the past month, and she usually comes into town at least once a week.
Julia’s mom doesn’t make it easy to help her since she acts as if we owe her a living.
Julia on the other hand, is the opposite.
It’s impossible to get her to accept help from anyone, except for Mr. Long at the bookstore.
“I’ll go out to her house and check on her this week,” I promise.
When the last dish is put away, Stella leans her hip against the counter. “Do I get a tour? The living room and kitchen are lackluster. Maybe you’ll surprise me with the rest.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess that I won’t, but come on. Just promise to overlook the mess.”
“You don’t have anything to make a mess with.”
“Haha.”
The first room along the hallway is my bedroom. There’s a bed and a dresser. The bedspread was a gift from my mom for Christmas last year.
“No comments?” I ask.
“There’s nothing to comment on.”
The second bedroom is my music room. The couch I had before I married. My guitar sits in its stand. A battered desk that belonged to my step-dad has music scattered across the top. Then the old, upright piano my mom’s neighbor gave us when I was fifteen. It’s very utilitarian.
I see what Stella means about boring.
“You play the piano?” she asks.
There’s a note of doubt in her words, so instead of answering, I sit down at the piano bench. “The Fellowship” melody from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack is always a fan favorite. I’ve played it so many times, I have it memorized.
Stella sits next to me and watches my fingers raptly.
I meld it into Taylor Swift’s “Love Song,” Quinn’s favorite.
I don’t know why I play it exactly, but it feels almost like an exorcism.
I used to play it all the time, but stopped once she moved out.
I’m banishing her from this room and replacing those memories with Stella.
“You play the piano really well,” she states. “I am impressed.”
“Thanks. I started lessons when I moved here but the guitar is my real passion.”
“Will you play something on your guitar?”
My hands are suddenly sweaty. The piano is easy, but I remember how Caleb said the reason he wanted to learn the guitar is because it’s the quickest way to win a woman’s heart.
Not that I want to win Stella’s heart, but when I was a kid, I would have passed out if I were given the chance to serenade her while she looks at me like she is right now.
I move to the couch. She stays where she is on the piano bench, but straddles it so she can face me.
“Any requests?” I ask as I tune the strings.
“How about your favorite song?”
“So many to choose from.” I decide on Green Day’s “Good Riddance.”
Half way through, Stella starts to sing with me and doesn’t miss a word. I strum the last chord, and Stella claps enthusiastically.
“Do you have any more?”
I can’t resist a captive audience, so I play a song by the band Oz and the Wizards, then the Beatles. She sings along when she knows the words. I’m not sure what I expected when I invited her over, but it wasn’t this.
“Do you play any instruments?” I ask.
“No. I have no musical talent.”
“That isn’t true. You have a beautiful voice.”
“Thanks, but that’s about all I’ve got, and I only sing melodies. No harmonizing.”
I wave her over to sit next to me. “I’ll teach you a few chords.”
She hesitates, but stands and walks over slowly. “I’m really not good with music.”
“It’s just a few chords. If you don’t like it, then you don’t ever have to pick up a guitar again.”
She sits to my right. I place the guitar in her lap and show her how to strum.
“Do you know the song ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ by Van Morrison?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“It’s easy. Only four chords.”
“Easy is relative. Four is more than zero, which is how many I know now.”
I move her fingers on the fret board to form the G chord.
Then C, D, and Em. She practices going from one chord to the next, strumming a measure of each.
She might not be musical, but she does have a good memory.
I call out a chord and her fingers move where they need to go.
She’s slow, but she’s doing better than Caleb on his first lesson.
When she has the chords down, I sing “Brown Eyed Girl,” pausing between words for her to find the next chord. At the end of the song, she has a huge smile on her face.
“Look at that,” I say. “You’re musical.”
She presses her thumb against the tips of her fingers. “That was fun, but my finger tips are numb. Your turn.”
I play songs while we talk on my couch. A calmness settles over me, and I don’t want Stella to leave. It’s depressing to think if she hadn’t come to town, I would have made macaroni and cheese from a box and watched college football.
It’s almost eleven when she finally stands. “I’ve got to go.”
“Will you be okay driving home?” I ask. “You could take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She shakes her head and yawns as we walk to the living room. “Naomi will kill me. Her kids are making me breakfast tomorrow. If I’m not there, they’ll be devastated.”
“Let me walk you down to your car.”
She slips her hoodie over her head. “No, don’t worry. I’m still parked at Triple B.”
“Look at that.” I nudge her arm with my elbow. “You sound like a local. But I’m still walking you to your car.” I grab my jacket by the door.
“Are you saying Blissful isn’t safe for a ten minute walk?”
“It’s safe, but I’m a small town gentleman. It’s what we do.”
She slips on her flip flops. “In that case, I’ll stop arguing.”
The moment we’re outside of the building, Stella shivers. “It’s cold here.”
“It’s really not. Wait a few months, then I might agree.”
When we reach her car, I want to hug her. Really, I want to touch her, but I couch that desire in an appropriately friendly goodbye. Before I can hold out my arms, she unlocks her car door and stands on the other side like she did last night, putting a barrier between us.
“Thank you for making this a great weekend, Drew. Without you, it would have sucked. Today was perfect. Even though my fingers still hurt.”
“They’ll get tougher the more you practice. Any time you want a repeat, let me know. I’m always here.”
She ducks her head but nods. “See you next Saturday.”
“Don’t be late, or there won’t be any donuts left.”
“I thought you had connections with the bakery?”
“They don’t extend past nine o’clock.”
“I’ll be on time.”
I watch as she pulls out of the parking lot and drives out of town. Saturday is too far away. What am I supposed to do with myself for the next six days?
I take my time walking back to my silent, lonely loft.