Chapter Twenty-Nine Under Any Sky
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Under Any Sky
Griffin
It’s Valentine’s Day, and every restaurant we drove by showed people dressed to the nines. But Beverly and I are in shrouded baseball caps as we scour the craft store. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s the first time I’ve left the Elk Grove mountaintop to explore other parts of North Carolina, and despite it being risky, it’s hard to care much about potential paparazzi when Beverly is giving me a private tour of the craft aisle.
“Ava would go nuts here,” she says. “I mean, look at this!” She holds up a tiny unpainted bird, not unlike the one Ava has back home made by Tom: Tom the bird, of course.
I run a palm over my beard. “She’s probably already going nuts tonight without all…this.” I gesture around to the different shades of yarn, acrylic, and beads.
Beverly laughs. “Oh, she’s definitely knee deep in pancakes right now.” She moseys to the next aisle, her ponytail bobbing out of the gap in her baseball cap. I, a desperate man, follow.
I’m not one for Valentine’s Day, but I am one for Beverly.
I didn’t care what we did as long as I was with her.
But I do miss my other girl. Ava is back at the Larks’, likely watching movies with Nana and eating too many candy hearts and wrapped chocolates.
She probably doesn’t even notice I’m gone.
That thought makes my stomach hurt, but Beverly’s gasp pulls me back.
“Look at all this!” she says in awe.
I turn onto an aisle with rows and rows of fabric. Her hands are in the air as she dramatically says, “Griffin. I don’t think you understand: The world is our oyster here.”
My lips kick up into a smile.
“And what oystery puppet are we making?” I ask.
She traces black fabric between her fingers. “I’m thinking about pitching a new bird.”
“A new bird? But the five core birds work fine.”
“They do, but there’s something else I have in mind. I want something fresh.”
Her brain is always churning. I love seeing it work in real time, with her lips pursed to the side and her hands resting on her hips. She’s always determined. It’s what I like most about her. But it also makes our situation complicated.
Beverly doesn’t find what she needs in this aisle, so she keeps walking. Before turning the corner, she reaches out and squeezes my fingers. The gentle touch sizzles up my arm.
She’s so subtle with her touches, as if she’s testing the waters every time. I wish we had more time to test them all.
We’re less than a few weeks until she has to pitch, and I’ll be heading back at the same time. I have an album to record. An international three-month tour. But I’d be happy spending all three months in this craft store with her instead.
“What does your schedule normally look like?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re back in LA working on a show.” She wears her expressions so obviously. I know she’s considering the alternative—not having a show—so I add: “When you get the show.”
She squints at me—a simple I know what you’re doing—but continues anyway.
“Well, when we used to film…they were pretty long days. And if you’re not filming, you’re writing, and if you’re not writing, you’re finding side gigs…” Her voice fades, and she shrugs it off. “What about you?”
“Recording. Touring. Interviews.” Not much better.
“Oh wow, you love those!” she teases.
I snort, but it doesn’t make that ball of nerves in my chest dissipate.
Our lives are too complicated.
We’re an impossibility.
We enter an aisle with rows of stickers. Beverly gasps, practically skipping over to grab a small sheet with cats that look very similar to Steak.
“Ava’d love this,” she says.
I smile.
God, what do I do when we can’t be together? What will Ava do? She already lost Robin. Would this be like losing someone else?
“She would,” I say. “Her favorite color is purple. Do they have another in purple?”
Beverly hops over to grab another one, with sparkly purple cats instead, and adds it to the existing sheet.
“She can have two.”
“She’ll love it,” I say.
Beverly tilts her head to the side. “You’re a good dad, you know.”
I shrug. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re great.” She takes a step closer, reaching up to tug the end of my hair. I stiffen. She’s getting bolder. I want more of it. “A really great dad, Griffin. You know little things about her that some parents overlook. Ava’s lucky to have you.”
I wonder if she’s right. Would Robin be proud?
Beverly pulls at my hair and nods, as if she could read my thoughts.
Damn, I like her.
I like her furry purple coat and her little boots that kick up at the checkout counter when she leans over it to grab our plastic bag full of supplies.
I like her laugh when she runs back to the SUV so she doesn’t have to stay in the cold too long.
I like that she reaches across the center console to pop open my door before I get there.
We journey back up the mountain, winding beside the three-brick establishment that makes up Elk Grove, past the diner lined with families and couples. By the window, I swear I spot Greg sitting across from Daisy. I eye Beverly. She exchanges a look that says she saw it too.
I like these little moments. These secret glances that mean more than could ever be said.
When we arrive back at the house, Nana is shuffling across the yard with Ava in her arms.
“Is she all right?” I ask.
Nana waves me off. “She’s just tuckered out.”
“Too many pancakes,” Beverly says. It’s not a question.
Nana smirks. “I’m taking her back to her bed.” Not a pancake denial in sight.
I walk toward the apartment. “I’ll come with you.”
Nana shakes her head. “No no no. She’ll be fine. You two enjoy your work night.”
I watch as my little girl snoozes on Nana’s shoulder. I push Ava’s bangs off her forehead and stroke my thumb over her cheeks. She shifts a little to push me away, then squirms back to sleep. I chuckle. Nana’s right. She’s knocked out.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” I say.
“I’ll be watching TV,” Nana says. “Take your time.”
I watch her walk off with Ava, staring until the door to the garage apartment shuts behind them.
Beverly’s hand dips into my palm. I can’t help but smile at her beaming grin.
“C’mon,” she whispers, like another unspoken secret.
We enter the house, and the heating unit thrums louder than usual.
“Hello?” Beverly calls, but there’s no response. By the time we reach the top floor, we realize nobody is home. The only sign of life is the small flickering light over the kitchen sink.
I look out the sliding glass door to the porch, past the creaking chairs, and to the guesthouse, where the pulsing TV light shines through the window.
“Do you want to go back down?” Beverly asks.
“No, no, it’s all right,” I say. “Just not used to leaving her.”
“We can always work down there.”
I love her dedication, but I shake my head. “I can spend a couple hours away. I’m fine.”
“If you say so.”
We walk down the hall to the last door on the right. She ushers me inside, and with a creak that could wake the dead, she closes her bedroom door behind us. It snicks shut with enough finality to make my heart pound.
Beverly sits on the edge of her mattress, crossing one leg over the other. She’s not trying to be seductive, but Christ, she doesn’t need to try.
I immediately avert my eyes and look around her room.
She smiles. “If you’re looking for something good, there’s not much left over from high school.”
I reach for a small bookshelf, one that seems more haphazard than the rest. I remove a tattered sketchbook and hold it out. “Not this?”
“That’s more recent.”
“Ah.”
I sit down on the bed beside her and scoot back until I’m against the wall. My feet hang over the side of the bed. I start to flip through the notebook’s pages.
“And what if that was my diary?” Beverly asks.
“Well of course I wouldn’t read it then,” I say, tabbing through each page, filled with messy drawings of puppets and chaotic scribbles. Blueprints and ideas and characters and even some of my lyrics.
“You’re writing down my songs?” I ask.
“Yeah. So I have them for the pitch.”
“What about our recording sessions?”
“Oh, that helps too. But the recordings also have all of our conversations. You go off on these cute little musical tangents.”
“I didn’t know you needed a song recorded,” I say. “Let’s do that tomorrow.”
“No,” she says. “You’re working on your own album lately. I can figure it out.”
“Hey, don’t do that.” I set the notebook on her side table. “If recording some of our songs would help, then let’s do it.”
She blinks at me slowly.
“You’re so…accommodating,” she observes, giving a laughing smile. “And it comes so easily to you. You must do this for everyone.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do,” she counters. She kicks off her boots and lifts both her socked feet onto the bed, pulling her knees up to her chin.
Her dress rides up just slightly, and I have to avert my eyes.
“I saw how you were with the guys and Jimmy.” I cross my arms over my chest, and Beverly mocks my same sentence from earlier: “Don’t do that. ”
“Do what?”
“Try to pretend you’re this big selfish guy.”
“I am, though. Whatever I choose to do, everyone else has to do too. My bandmates. Jimmy. Ava.”
“But you don’t want that.”
“But it’s how things are. I write songs for a living.”
She nods toward the notebook on the side table, then to me. “Tell me more about these songs. These perfectly unselfish songs you’ve written for a living.” I scoff and she smiles. “And they are about…?”
I huff out a laugh. “Everything.”
“How mysterious. I bet you were so swoony in high school.”
I snort. “I was not. Every girl I liked never liked me back.”
She leans her cheek on her knees. “I find that hard to believe. You could have written them poetry.” She waves her hand to the ceiling as if reciting a sonnet.
“I don’t write songs about just anyone.”
“Only ridiculous puppeteers?”
That kicks my lips up into a smile. “Only ridiculous puppeteers.”
She laughs. “Funny.”
“What is?”
“You writing songs for me. A couple months ago, you wouldn’t have noticed me in a crowd.”
“Yes, I would have.”