20. Greta
20
Greta
Ready or Not
T he front door is barely closed behind Derringer before I have to let it out. “Still think you’re so right about him?”
Law takes a deep breath. “I know what you want me to say here, but I also know you value honesty. So, yeah. I still think he’s not ready, and I still doubt his big break is ever going to come because I’m not convinced that he’ll ever be ready.”
“He might not need you. You’ve thought of that, right?”
“I have. And if someone else can save him from himself, then they deserve to sign him. They can claim to have discovered him, and he can write me out of his story completely. Honestly, nothing would make me happier than to be wrong about him, but I can’t keep pouring so much energy into someone who doesn’t know what to do with it and won’t listen when I try to tell him.”
“Maybe if you tried in a softer voice, Law.”
“A softer fucking voice? What do you want me to do, whisper sweet nothings in his ear?”
I glare, and I hope he knows he’s on thin ice here.
“The last thing I want to do is let you down again,” he says. "But I don’t see a softer voice reaching him.”
“We’re not talking about me and you.”
“I want to. Can we?”
“I don’t know, Law. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be ready?”
“Because I have questions. And I’m not sure you’re willing to answer them, but if you want to talk about the possibility of there being an us, then I need you to be ready to do that.”
“Ask me whatever you want to know.”
“Why do you always say you know so much about Derringer when you don’t seem to know anything about him at all?”
He sits on my couch with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Finally, he looks up and spits it out. “I got signed at his age.”
“Signed to do what? Baseball?”
“No, Greta. I didn’t play baseball. I played guitar and sang. Just like Derringer. Well, not just like him because there are few people who have ever picked up a guitar and stepped up to a mic who are as good as he is. He’s got a voice that stands out from a sea of talented voices. They’re all similar. He’s unique. But those similar voices that aren’t nearly as good? They’ve got a far better shot because they’ve got more than just the voice. The voice alone isn’t enough. Not even a voice like his. The reality is that people far less talented than him are going to accomplish a hell of a lot more.”
“You’re a singer?”
“I was.”
“What happened?”
“I was madly in love by the time I got the deal. On top of the world after. We moved to Nashville and found a one-bedroom apartment that felt like a pitstop on our way to a mansion. But it didn’t happen as fast for me as we thought it would. And I was to blame for most of the delays. I bought into my own hype, and thought I knew more than I did. Thought I knew more than everybody did.”
“And?”
“And she got tired of waiting. She met someone who understood things I didn’t, someone who knew how to actually take control of a career while mine was spinning out of control. She got her mansion.”
“And then what?”
“I quit. Gave up.”
“Please tell me you are fucking joking! Some gold digger walked out on you, and you just gave up on life?”
“She had aspirations that included wealth, yes, but blaming her for my choices isn’t fair. I know now that she and I never would’ve lasted, but I was young and in love. It was the realest thing I’d ever known. When I lost her, I thought I was losing everything that mattered. The truth is I knew I’d already fucked up so much more. I was scared and confused and heartbroken. I wasn’t ready, Greta. Not for any of it.”
“You never wanted to try again?”
“Some chances only come along once in a lifetime.”
“That sounds like some cop-out bullshit to me.”
“What happened to kindness and understanding? Softer voices?”
“I think you need tough love more than you need any of that.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. I am right. Derringer has made mistakes, but you’re projecting yours onto him, and that’s not fair.”
“There’s more to it than that. I know what it takes to make it, and it’s hard at any age. But he needs a few more years of the real world before he takes that leap. He’s not ready. If he gets his shot now, he’ll fuck it up.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t if someone believed in him enough. Even if he did fail on the first try, he might have the guts to try again. And he might not fail the second time out. Not everybody lassoes the stars on their first attempt, Law.”
“You about done?”
“Are you?”
“What are you asking me, if I’m done listening to you call me gutless or done babysitting Derringer?”
“It doesn’t even occur to you that the question might’ve been about you? Just you? Not you in relation to me or you in relation to Derringer?”
“All I know is I don’t want to be done with you. I don’t know why you would be willing to give anyone a second chance after what you’ve been through, but I want one. So, this is me asking, can I try again with you? Will you try again with me?”
“We still have a lot to learn about each other.”
“We do, but we’ve learned a lot in the past twenty-four hours. We both had a secret. I used to be a singer, and you write songs.”
“I bet you could be a singer again, if you wanted to. And I’m not a real songwriter. I’m actually the last person in the world who should be writing songs. I know nothing about music. I can’t read it. I can’t write it. The best I could do is hum to give someone an idea of what I have in mind, and even that would be terrible, because did I mention I also can’t sing? I can’t carry a tune. Can’t recognize a chord or name it . . .
“But I understand people and emotions, and I just have this strong pull to write about that. And I don’t know why I need my words to be lyrics instead of short stories or novels or poems for the sake of poetry, but that’s all I can see them as. Lyrics. With no music.”
“Huh. If only you knew a guy who knew something about music.”
“Are you saying you want us to write songs together?”
“I’m saying I’m willing to give it a try if you are. But you’d have to actually show me the lyrics.”
The way this possibility makes me feel is not like me at all. As if a switch just flipped inside me, I say, “Okay. Yeah. Let’s take a chance on each other.”
He pulls me onto his lap and kisses me. His hands are in my hair, and there’s such a natural rhythm to our kiss that I’m sure every kiss before I met him had to have been bad, even the ones that seemed great at the time.
I don’t want to let my guard down too much yet, but I melt into his kiss. This is the kiss that made me believe in second chances. How does something so fundamental change so fast and so entirely?
His sudden stark honesty stripped away layers—of what I don’t know, but it’s all gone.
When the kiss breaks and I look into his eyes, I know he’s not gutless. It took courage to admit how he feels and ask me to try again. I want to write songs with him, but I want to hear him sing, too.
“I promise I’m not putting any conditions on us when I ask you this, but will you get on stage again? Even just one night somewhere local, so I can hear you sing?”
“Yeah, I’ll sing for you.”
“And will you please hang in there with Derringer for a little while longer?”
I know that look. That look tells me I’m pushing my luck, but I had to ask.
“I still think I’m right about him, Greta. But I can’t fucking say no to you.”
Lying awake later that night in my bed alone, I hear a guitar being randomly strummed. I’m no musician, but I know he’s tuning a guitar on his side of the wall. I’ve never heard him playing a guitar over there. But he’s playing now, so I close my eyes and listen. I don’t recognize the song, but I like it. It’s soothing. Things are changing on both sides of our shared wall.