Chapter Twelve Leather, Winter, and Mint
Chapter Twelve
Leather, Winter, and Mint
Beverly
I jolt awake in bed, scattering papers beneath me.
I could have sworn I heard crying.
But then I realize that it might have been me. In a dream, obviously. I think.
I swipe my palm down my cheek and groan.
Seeing that memorial to my grandfather and Birds on the Block must have triggered something in my brain.
Not that I’m a therapist or psychic or whoever, but I had a dream I couldn’t figure out the voice for Bernie Bird.
I was six again, and Grandpa was there, sitting across from me, giving me that gentle smile that said I was being too hard on myself. He always had that way about him.
Once the sunrise crests the tree line, I call Finch.
“Funny dream, isn’t it?” I say. “You think I’m going insane or…?”
He is quiet before asking, “When was the last time you slept? Really slept, a good full night’s rest?”
I sip my coffee. “Well, I dreamed, so…”
Finch doesn’t respond, so I take another loud, slurping sip of my coffee to break the ice. It doesn’t grant me even a hint of laughter. Tough crowd.
“Anyway,” I continue, “uh, listen, do you think you could give me the number for Paula? I wanna ask if she still has some development research lying around.”
Finch deadpans. “I bet it says ‘Sleep is important for children.’ ”
“Psht. That’s…I mean, yes, probably, but that’s beside the point.”
Throughout the call, Finch tries to bring the conversation back to my lack of sleep multiple times, but I keep saying, “That number? You got that number for Paula?”
Eventually, he caves.
Now, at dinner, waiting on a response from our former childhood-development coordinator, I can barely hold up my fork. I blink through visions of cornbread and chili, interspersed with lines of a script and Bernie Bird.
“Bevvy?” Nana nudges my arm.
I shake my head and refocus.
Around the dinner table, everyone hounds Greg, who insisted on experimenting with dessert tonight. Everyone except Griffin, who stares at me across the table. He tightens his jaw, bobbing his Adam’s apple with a swallow.
Nana pokes me again, forcing me to tear my eyes from him and his very symmetrical face.
“You’re hunched like a gargoyle,” Nana whispers.
“Am I?”
I look down and see how close I am to my plate. I straighten my posture. My back pops.
“You all right?” Nana asks.
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m good.”
I let my gaze catch Griffin’s again. He narrows his eyes.
I’ve got to pull myself together. I’m losing it over here, and this man is watching me like a hawk.
Of course he is. His career hinges on my ability to write scripts.
He needs inspiration, and I’m doing a terrible job of providing him anything but zombie impressions.
I’ve barely finished the second script, and the first is so atrocious I still haven’t let him read it. He can’t write songs until I do.
Beau once said that Birds on the Block was my world—that even he couldn’t compare.
Sure, he followed it with laughter because puppets aren’t even alive, which, of course, I know that.
I’m not a child. But Beau never really understood my work.
As I watch Griffin over my plate, I know he won’t get it either.
Not after he so easily dismissed the display case.
What happens if our partnership doesn’t work out? I’ve wasted not only my time but his too. Neither of us will have anything to show for it.
“Hey, did you wanna play guitar soon?” Rob asks.
Griffin’s eyes finally swivel away from mine. “Sure do.”
I wonder if he’s regretting that promise to my brother. It’s hard to tell with Griffin. At least with Beau, I could recognize when he thought my brother was being annoying.
Greg slaps his palms together. “All right, before we whip out guitars, I made some chocolate-mayonnaise cake. Anyone want some?”
The whole table groans.
“I think you’re trying to torture me,” Momma accuses.
Greg laughs. “I’m playing with recipes!”
“I liked your tomato hobby more.”
“Hydroponic plants,” he corrects.
“Why mayo?” Rob asks.
Greg shrugs. “Hey, it’s a good substitute for eggs, all right? Linda isn’t laying right now.”
Momma rolls her eyes. “It’s really nice that you’re taking care of Daisy’s chicken while she’s gone, but do you think maybe the girl just doesn’t like you?”
Greg clicks his tongue. “Linda or Daisy? Either way, the answer is no. They both adore me.”
“You wish,” Rob coughs.
“Listen here,” Greg threatens with a grin, but Rob laughs and dodges our uncle’s playful shove. I’d join in if I weren’t so tired.
I stand. “I’m gonna make coffee if anyone wants some with their mayo cake.”
Greg laughs. “It doesn’t taste like mayo!”
Dad raises his hand. “I’ll take some coffee, sugar. With some sugar, please.” Everybody groans.
I journey to the kitchen and open the cabinet to get coffee filters, but we’re out. Our spares are on the top cabinet (thanks a lot, tall Dad). I stand on my tiptoes to reach it, but another arm beside me extends higher.
Griffin is at my back, his large body hovering inches from mine. I stiffen in place. He smells like leather and the cold bite of winter, like a freeze stuck to his flannel sweater. A wintergreen mint. He pulls the coffee filters down and hands them to me. I gingerly take the pack.
“Oh. Thanks,” I mumble.
As I’m placing one in the coffee maker, Griffin leans down toward my ear. He murmurs so quietly the words almost rumble in his throat. “You all right?”
Definitely mint.
“I’m good,” I say.
“You don’t look like it.”
You’re one to talk, I think. My face must announce this for me because air leaves Griffin’s nose in a pseudolaugh.
“I’m fine,” I answer. “Just working a lot.” I don’t want to talk about it. “How’s the music making going?”
I shake coffee grounds into the filter. No scoop. We measure using our hearts in this house.
“Fine,” Griffin says. He strokes a palm over his beard. “I promise I’ll teach your brother songs that aren’t about bedtime or counting to ten, though.”
“You really don’t have to play with him if you don’t want to.”
“I said I would. I brought my guitar.”
“You did?”
His eyes dart to the guitar case in the corner.
“Also,” he adds. “No pressure, but…I wanna show you my song ideas.”
I blink. Maybe I’m still dreaming. But Griffin reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a ragged notebook in a beat-up black leather holder, pages folded and ripped and stained. He extends it toward me and sets it on my open palm.
“I…thank you,” I stammer out. “I didn’t know you were…”
“Like I said, it’s all I can write,” he says with a shrug.
My lips twist to the side.
He’s trying to get things moving. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible. This isn’t helping him write a new album like he thought it might. I’m wasting his time.
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
Griffin’s brow immediately furrows.
“Hey.” The back of his knuckle brushes against my forearm. “Don’t do that.”
I freeze. “What?”
“Normally, when you say ‘Okay,’ I can tell you believe me. You didn’t believe me that time.” His brown eyes—the color of old wood, of Elk Grove fir bark—dart between mine. “I want to write music for you. For your show. Okay?”
A chair screeches against hardwood back at the dinner table. I fumble the container of coffee grounds. Griffin catches it before it falls, accidentally sliding his hand against mine. His warm, rough fingers are like a whiplash lick against my freezing cold palm.
Greg rises from his seat. “Mayonnaise cake, anyone?”
I set the container on the counter and recap it. Griffin snags the bag of filters and slides it back into the overhead cabinet.
“I’ll try it, Greg,” Griffin offers, raising his hand.
“See?” Greg says, holding out his palm. “A brave man.”
But I’m still thinking about our conversation.
Griffin can tell when I’m lying?
I look back to him, and it’s immediately a mistake.
Griffin gently cuts into the side of the cake with his fork and raises the small chocolate piece to his lips.
Heat rises in my cheeks as he dips it into his mouth.
His mouth purses as the fork glides out, his bottom lip catching on the tines.
His tongue whips to the corner of his mouth and licks away the remaining drip of chocolate icing.
My throat is so dry.
“Tastes just like chocolate cake,” he announces.
Momma groans. “Fine. I’ll try it.”
Honestly? I think about that tongue for the rest of the night.
I’m shameless.
Absolutely shameless.
This is Griffin Harvey. In my household.
Eating cake. Unpacking his guitar. Playing songs with my brother by the fireplace.
Talking him through chords. He doesn’t make a single comment about Rob’s slow guitar picking.
And when he notices it’s out of tune, he takes the time to show Rob how to correct it on his own guitar, patiently waiting for him to get it right.
He doesn’t steal the guitar to do it himself like Beau used to.
“We should get going,” Griffin announces.
I don’t know how much time has passed or who said what to me for the last hour.
Griffin removes a sleepy Ava from Nana’s arms in the recliner. He gently cradles her to his chest, moving carefully and deliberately so as not to wake her up. She’s exhaling little snores into his neck. He looks relieved.
Griffin grabs the handle of his guitar case and holds it up to me. “See you tomorrow.”
“Right. Yeah.”
He slides past me, and I smell the leather again. But this time, there’s chocolate as well. And I swear, just the smallest hint of mayonnaise.
I wake up to the sound of crying again.
My stomach is hot. My laptop is overheating on me. I shift it to the side.
I still hear crying. It sounds like a child’s.
I’m definitely not dreaming anymore.
Maybe I’m losing my mind?
Good lord, I don’t have time for that.
I sit still, trying to gauge where it’s coming from. The crying sounds distant, which means this is not a dream. It’s real.
I pick up my headphones and lean in toward one speaker. No songs or videos play.
I stand from my bed and tiptoe across the whining hardwood floor on fuzzy-socked feet.
I creak open my door and peer out into the hall.
The house is silent, save for its usual nighttime sounds—Dad’s snores, the heater from Nana’s room humming.
I walk back to my room. When I close the door, the sound gets louder.
And louder still when I walk to the window. I crack it open.
The wails are coming from outside?
And it hits me.
It’s Ava.