Chapter Three #2
He spent all of his time now holed up at Principal Penwell’s house, only leaving for his lessons.
He told her that their conversations in the auditorium were the best part of his being stranded.
She had trouble believing it had anything to do with her personally; she could have been any girl as far as he was concerned.
But it didn’t matter, because their conversations were the best part of his being stranded for her, too.
She loved the way his shoulder brushed hers when he sat beside her.
And how he threw his head back and laughed at her when she would say something that wasn’t intentionally funny, which no one here would ever dare do.
Like when she told him that an hour was one minute longer here for a reason no one knew, so everyone who came to town had to adjust their wristwatches.
“So when your grandmother kicks the can, will you inherit everything? Or will your parents?” he asked her one day. He liked talking about Gram, fascinated by the hold she had on the town. “Or is she immortal on top of everything else?”
“You can joke, but I guarantee there are some here that actually believe that,” she said.
“But, yes, she’s leaving everything to me.
It would have gone to my dad, but he died in an accident at Camp Lejeune.
He enlisted as soon as he could, just to get away from her.
My mom then showed up here with me as a baby to demand money, apparently ignoring everything my dad had ever told her about Gram.
She left with money, all right. But not with me.
Gram’s terms were that I stay here with her. ”
“She must love you.”
Love was a tricky conceit to Wills because, in her experience, it was all transactional. “I think she sees me as a kindred spirit.”
“Are you?”
“No,” Wills said, and she was surprised by how quickly, how vehemently, she answered.
“I’m not like her, and I never will be. I’ll sell the downtown buildings, when they’re mine.
Gram would hate that. She likes keeping things small, because it’s easier to control.
But I don’t want to be a landlord. And the only way to keep the town alive is to bring new people in. ”
He paused and looked down, picking at a fret callus on his finger.
“What?” she asked at his silence.
“You’re never going to leave?”
“Why would I? I’ll have everything if I stay. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think I’d hate a life where people didn’t know who I was.”
“Come on, do you really think this is the only place you can be seen?”
“You wouldn’t have glanced twice at me anywhere else.”
He gave her a strange look. “You would be extraordinary no matter where you were, Wills. You’re a walking expectation, holding everything in, trying not to burst with pent-up energy, with life. I guess I get it, though. You can only be a big fish if you’re in a small pond.”
She poked him in the side with her elbow, making him say oof. “I don’t think your life choices give you room to judge.”
“Fair enough,” he said, rubbing his side.
“I had a grandmother who loved me, too, you know. We lived with her because the old man was out of work most of the time, and she kept me alive until I could get away from him. There was this crawl space off the kitchen she used tell me to hide in when he got drunk.”
Wills’s smile faded. She hadn’t expected this to turn so serious. So real. She reached over and put her hand on his.
He just shrugged. “She bought me my first guitar.”
“That one?” Wills indicated where he’d left the case at the end of the row.
“No. I stole that one out of a club a couple of years ago. That first one, man, I loved it so much. But one night when the old man was drunk and couldn’t find me, he smashed it to get me to come out of the crawl space.
I’d just turned sixteen, so I was too old to be hiding anymore, anyway.
We fought and he busted my lip, and I left.
It was raining that night and my grandmother ran after me and gave me all the money she’d saved in a coffee can under the sink, and her umbrella.
” He suddenly stood and walked over to the case.
He opened it and took out the black, old-fashioned umbrella strapped to the interior lid.
“It’s the only thing I have left of her. ”
“I wondered about that.”
“It protects me from the storm, just like Mim did,” he said, opening the umbrella and twirling it.
“You called her Mim?” She liked that.
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly, like he’d never admitted it to anyone before. “She died a few years ago, and sometimes I think I’m forgetting what she looked like. Her obit in the paper didn’t even have a photo I could cut out.”
“Gram calls photographs paper ghosts. She says they’re the only ghosts everyone can see.”
“I’m officially changing the subject.” He reached over and made her stand, then led her into the aisle with him. “Come here.”
“What are you doing?” she asked when he put his arm around her waist and started swaying.
“I’m singing in the rain.”
“You’re not singing, and it’s not raining.”
“Says the girl who thinks an hour is a minute longer here. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
He was quoting Shakespeare again, while dancing to a song no one could hear, under an umbrella when there wasn’t a storm, with his hand to her waist as if it were meant to be there.
As if they were meant to be there, together.
He slowed to a stop and they stared at each other. What was this man doing to her?
“I should go,” she said awkwardly, taking a step back and quickly gathering her things.
It had crept up on her in the weeks they’d spent here, pretending these stolen moments in the auditorium could actually add up to something real.
But they never would. She knew that. He only had one week of lessons left. She had to stop this now.
“Wills…”
But the door had already closed behind her.