16
LUKE
“We found her.”
Eleanor’s words echo in my ears.
I feel like the worst person alive.
Scratch that, I am the worst person alive.
I could have nipped this in the bud the first time I met her. The second I saw that photo I could have told her the truth.
See, I’ve known. From the beginning, I’ve known exactly who the woman in the picture was.
Diane Bloom isn’t a stranger to me the way she is to Eleanor. Not at all.
At the time, I was caught off-guard to see her in the photo. To see the year on the photo. I needed time to process. And by the time I sat down with Eleanor at the Fried Polyester show, I decided to let the picture be a mystery to me, too.
It was selfish. I know. The actions of a guy who was thinking with his dick. Although, that’s unfair to me. My feelings for Eleanor were never purely physical. It might sound a little na?ve, but there was something about her, from the moment our eyes connected. Something I needed. So, when she offered up the photo, I saw the possibility of an adventure with a woman that my heart was calling for.
The truth . . . the truth is that Diane Bloom was Aunt Diane to me. A friend of my parents that us kids called “Aunt” simply because she came around a lot. I remember her long dark hair and her effervescent smile. She’d bring her guitar with her whenever she visited and we’d sit up late into the night listening to her play, laughing and singing along. We spent many beautiful summer nights out under a big Texas sky listening to Aunt Diane playing anything from Chicago blues to Greenwich Village folk. She had a particular love for Willie Nelson (who doesn’t?), and she had a couple of Linda Ronstadt songs she would play on repeat.
Those nights are like pillars of my childhood. Something I thought would last forever until suddenly summer nights were quiet and Aunt Diane didn’t come around anymore. I don’t remember how old I was.
But I know by 1993, I’d seen Aunt Diane for the last time.
I’ve needed to know just as Eleanor has. More than, probably.
It’s wrong of me to have led Eleanor along on this wild goose chase for so long. But once I stepped into the lie, I couldn’t step out of it. Each day I was just digging myself deeper. I let her follow the trail, doing my best to support her at every turn, just as I am now with her tucked under my arm.
How would she have reacted if suddenly I just said, “I’ve known from the beginning who that woman was”? She wouldn’t have let me keep coming around, I can tell you that much.
And now . . .
Now there’s no way she can ever know. Because by admitting I lied, I’d lose her.
I can’t lose her. I just can’t.
She’s become so special to me in the short time I’ve known her. Her pensive, thoughtful expressions, the way she speaks about and sees the world. Her softness. Her stillness. My little shutterbug.
I want to be a part of her world.
I’ve never been so scared to cross a line with a woman as I am with Eleanor. Because even as she leans into me, a part of me doesn’t quite believe she’ll take me seriously.
“Can we hear it again?” Eleanor asks once the recording fades out.
Skip turns in his seat and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
I nod. “Yeah. Let’s hear it again.”
I’ll do whatever I can to make Eleanor happy.
Even if the guilt kills me.
* * *
In the car, the exhaustion hits me. It’s well past midnight and, though I’m a night owl by trade, nature is starting to catch up with me.
Eleanor sits alert in the seat beside me, bobbing along to another one of Diane’s songs that plays through the speakers of my car.
It took some teeth pulling, but I got Skip to send over the MP3s. What good would they be doing just sitting on the computer with no one to listen to them?
“God, she’s so good,” Eleanor says, putting her hands on the sides of her head and leaning back in the passenger seat.
I laugh through closed lips and nod. I always thought the same. Children, of course, love the things they love without knowing the quality of it. As an adult, though, I can now say that objectively, she is good. A little rasp of Lucinda Williams with a tough of Emmylou Harris lightness.
“I can’t believe she didn’t get famous,” Eleanor says, glancing out the window as the scenery rolls by.
“Music scene is tough,” I say simply and readjust my fingers on the wheel.
“I know. I mean, all art is tough,” Eleanor replies. “But this is really good! What’s wrong with people?”
I chuckle. “You should start evangelizing the gospel of Diane Bloom.”
“You’re right, I could start a new religion.”
I glance at Eleanor for a moment to capture an image of her. Corkscrew curls tumbling from the top of her head like a fountain, a serene smile on her lips, eyelids lolling low in that delicious hypnosis of good fucking music.
I could start a new religion too. “You think this discovery could help with the exhibit?”
Eleanor sighs heavily. “I mean, it certainly helps. But without an original photo, it feels like it might be a fool’s errand.”
“You should still try,” I say, turning onto Eleanor’s street.
“I will, don’t worry.”
My chest warms.
I pull the car in front of her apartment, and put it in park. Eleanor makes no move to go, and I’m grateful. I want to bask in her a little while longer.
“Sorry, just want to finish the song,” she says.
“I’d never dream of interrupting that,” I say.
Eleanor throws a smile in my direction, then lets her eyes close.
“ Something told me you were mine / But the world had a different plan . . .”
The lyric hits my chest like a dart as I watch Eleanor listen. Something is telling me she’s mine. Something deep in the core of my being. But gut feelings are often an excuse for people to act rashly. Maybe the world’s plan doesn’t align with the way I feel.
I’m breaking my own damn heart before I even give Eleanor a chance to.
Her eyes pop open. “I should have brought my camera.”
“I’m shocked you didn’t.”
“Yeah, well I don’t usually have guys calling me in the middle of the night to take me on adventures,” she says with a smirk.
“You don’t? I’m shocked,” I say. And I mean it.
Eleanor laughs it off. “You’re the first, Luke.”
First. Only .
The song ends, and Eleanor still doesn’t make a move to go.
I trace my thumb over the top of the steering wheel. What do we have to hold us together if not for the photo? “Well, I hope that the museum appreciates your research.”
“Me too,” she says in a soft voice. “I’d like to stay in Austin if I can.”
I withhold a grin. “Austin would like you to stay in it too.”
Eleanor giggles. “Sounds dirty.”
Thank god it’s dark in here. I know I’m blushing. “That came out wrong.”
“I’m just giving you a hard time.”
If only she knew how true the double entendre in that was. “Fun plans this weekend?”
Eleanor tilts her head from side to side. “No, not really. You’ve been my plans most weekends.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, leaning onto the center console subtly.
“Mhm. You have singlehandedly prevented me from being a hermit,” she says. Her eyes fall to my arm on the console, then rise back to meet mine. “I think I’m overdue for a weekend where I rot alone in my pajamas all day.”
I tense the muscles in my thighs. If only she knew how sexy that sounds. “Well, I think I have to uphold my tradition of making you leave the house.”
She quirks her eyebrow. “You’ve got some ideas?”
Lots . All kinds . “Yeah, I’ve got one.”
“I thought you were busy.”
“I have Saturday night, shockingly,” I say.
“Don’t you need a night off?”
“Would rather spend it with you.” Why dance around the truth?
Eleanor pauses. Her lips lift. “Okay, I’m listening.”
I peer down at her feet. “Let me guess. You haven’t worn your boots once yet.”
“Hey! I’m working up the courage to!”
“ Eleanor , it’s your right as an Austinite to wear your boots!”
She crosses her arms over her chest and pulls a foot up to rest on the edge of her seat. “I’m not technically an Austinite.”
“I’m an Austinite and I’m dubbing you an Austinite, alright? I’m making you shed your Chicagoan skin.”
Eleanor’s face squinches together. “Fine.”
I laugh. “We’ll hit a honkytonk this weekend. You’ll break in your boots the best way I know how.”
Eleanor’s face falls. “Oh no . . .”
“Two-stepping!” I say with a cheerful smile.
“Please, god, don’t make me dance,” she says, putting her hand over her face.
“Eleanor, I’m not friends with people who don’t have rhythm.”
“That’s not true, because I’m—"
“Nope. It’s the truth. The universe wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if you had bad rhythm.” The universe wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if I had been honest from the beginning either.
Eleanor laughs and shakes her head. “What am I going to do with you?”
I can think of a few things. I lean in a little closer. I’m not going to take the moment, but if she takes it, I won’t say no. “Come dancing with me,” I say in a low voice, one I save for those “Wanna get out of here?” moments at a bar.
Eleanor’s teeth settle onto her lower lip. Does she have to do that? I’m a gentleman, but she’s making it so hard not to just kiss her. “Fine,” she says. “But you have to promise that if I’m bad you won’t get mad at me.”
“You won’t be bad,” I say. My eyes swoop across her mouth. So kissable.
Eleanor darts forward and, for a second, I think she’s going to kiss me. Finally . But she misses my mouth and lands the kiss to my cheek. Polite. Not passionate. Dammit .
Still, her lips brushing against my stubbly cheek sends a shiver down my spine.
I’m head over heels for her and she doesn’t even know it.
Eleanor draws back. Not far enough to make my heartbeat slow. “Thank you for everything.”
All the guilt creeps back in. I swallow. “No thanks necessary.”
“Don’t do the modest southern boy thing,” she says.
“You do the modest Midwestern thing all the time,” I reply pointedly.
Eleanor scrunches her nose and pushes me away by my shoulder. “Oh, whatever.”
I laugh and retreat back to my side of the car. “So, Saturday?”
“It’s a date,” she replies.
My stomach drops. “Is it?”
Eleanor shrugs one shoulder and pushes her door open. “It’s a figure of speech.”
Fucking Eleanor. “Right . . .”
Before she closes the door, Eleanor gives me a final smile. “Text me when you get home.”
“I will. Night, Eleanor.”
As soon as she makes it inside her apartment, I let out a breath I’ve been holding in since the moment we met. The lie. The closer Eleanor and I become, the heavier the weight. I don’t know if I’ll survive getting as close to her as I’d like.
But the image of her hearing Diane’s song for the first time doesn’t leave my mind. The whole ride home, I remember. The joy. The contentment.
Knowing I helped make it possible.
I’m so consumed by the image that I forget to text Eleanor until I’m in bed. I hope she’s dead asleep by now.
I’m tempted to type out a lyric from Diane’s song, one that stuck so clearly in my brain.
In the morning, please remember me.
Would be a leap. Would be . . . a little sappy. It’s how I feel though. I’m consumed by her, and I can only hope she’s at least thinking of me in the in between moments. I wouldn’t wish the way I feel on anyone. Still, though . . . to be thought of.
Eleanor’s got my head all in knots. I don’t know how to be the man I’ve always been. I want to be the right one for her. And her lips still burn on my cheek.
Instead, all I write is, “ Home. Sleep well. ” Then put my phone aside, praying that I’ll dream of her .