Chapter 41
Walking to work the next day—a little later than usual, thanks to the late-night dance party on Liberty Lane—to Bad Bad Leroy Brown by Jim Croce was an experience.
I’d never had theme music to follow me through life before, but something about the song, the timing, and my good mood made me feel Amos was playing it just for me.
Jack was nowhere to be found after I’d taken my morning shower following breakfast, though he’d cleaned up the kitchen before absconding.
So, I left the house and swaggered down the steps and across the lawn.
As I made my way into downtown Possibly, I whistled along to the song, pumping my arms to the beat, unable to keep the smile off of my face.
Not that things were perfect—I still had to resolve things with Auggie—but life was good.
The previous night’s activities had made something inside of me shift.
Shed a light on something I’d been ignoring ever since settling in at Jack’s place.
Possibly was weird.
And weird was okay.
Weird was perfect.
Especially when everyone was allowed to be weird without judgment. Possibly didn’t have to be perfect. It didn’t have to make sense. I didn’t have to understand the town or every Possibilian to simply sit back and go with the flow. Life should be easy; Possibly was easy.
What more could a guy want?
Levi Lee was outside of Starbuck’s when I got to work, dry as a bone, thanks to the temperate day the storm had delivered to us. He was in ballet tights, a t-shirt, and sneakers, performing ballet. Poorly. Just like his green-screen suit, the tights proved to be overly obscene on Levi Lee.
It was a complete shock when I realized that maybe I should—and possibly wanted to—enjoy the view instead of worrying about whether or not it was obscene.
No one else in Possibly gave a damn that Levi Lee made such a display of…
himself…so who was I to be offended for them?
And…I found that I did enjoy the view. Though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to figure out everything that meant.
But, just like Possibly, I didn’t have to understand it. I could just enjoy it.
So, I did.
“What do you think?” Levi Lee asked, half out of breath as he came to a stop mid-spin as I approached Starbuck’s. “Ballet? Maybe it’s my art?”
I chuckled. “You know what?”
“What?” He beamed at me.
“Who’s going to stop you, man?”
He thought about this for a minute, then his grin widened.
“Yeah!” He thrust a fist in the air. “Who’s going to stop me?”
Levi Lee reached up to push a tangle of golden curls off of his forehead, and though I wasn’t concerned about enjoying his display, I made sure to keep my eyes on his face. There is a thin line between appreciation and creepiness.
“Hey,” he asked, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said, stopping short of reaching for the door handle of the coffee shop. “Ask away.”
“Do you think I’m any good at performance art?” he asked. “Honestly? Maybe it’s not my thing, you know? I’m a great handyman, but maybe I’m just not meant for art? What do you think? You’re pretty honest.”
I smiled at him, unsure exactly how to word what I wanted to say. Finally, I realized exactly what needed to be said.
“Do you want to do art?” I asked.
“Well…yeah,” he said with a goofy grin as though it was the oddest question ever. “It’s what we do here.”
“Are you doing art you enjoy?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’re creating art. You’re living your life on your terms. That’s art.”
Levi Lee stared at me for the longest of moments, his smiling growing exponentially on his face.
“Life is art,” he said, finally.
“It is,” I said. “I think I’m finally getting that through my thick skull.”
He laughed and I joined in as I reached for the door handle.
“Hey,” he said.
“Yeah?” I asked, my fingers wrapping around the steel bar.
“Weird question…”
“Surely not in Possibly,” I said. “Everything’s so normal here.”
Levi Lee chuckled. “Do you want to get a coffee?”
“Come on inside,” I shrugged. “I definitely need a pick-me-up. And I’m sure Starbuck won’t care.”
“With…me,” Levi Lee asked, looking down at his sneakers for a second before meeting my eyes again. “Together. A coffee.”
It took a second for what he’d proposed to register with me. When it finally struck me, I was both panicked and proud.
What Levi Lee was implying—and could possibly be true—made my heart do a few jumping jacks. The fact that Levi Lee—out of all people in Possibly—had asked me to have coffee took the sting out of the scare, though.
Honestly, even in Possibly, where everyone did whatever came naturally to them, it was taking me forever to figure out who I was. Had Levi Lee figured it out before me? Did I want to “have coffee” with him?
I knew of one person that I wanted to have coffee with, but I wasn’t certain it was all that sudden of a realization.
“How old are you, Levi Lee?” I chuckled nervously.
“Nineteen last time I checked,” he said with a proud smile.
Another mystery solved. Levi Lee was nineteen.
To me, that was age appropriate. At least we were both teenagers.
However, I’d mostly asked his age because I was curious, and an opportunity arose where I could ask without simply being nosy.
There was no breaking of the unofficial Possibilian Code. I sighed and smiled at Levi Lee.
“I don’t think I do, man,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Levi Lee smiled and shrugged.
“Life is art,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I chuckled, hoping I hadn’t hurt his feelings and he was simply brushing off the pain.
“Sometimes you think you’re throwing clay and it ends up you’re painting a landscape,” he said, cryptically.
Or maybe not.
“Yeah,” I nodded with a smile. “Sometimes it doesn’t quite work out the way you think.”
“Still friends?” he asked.
Friends? I hadn’t thought of Levi Lee as having been a friend. Or anyone in Possibly. Besides Auggie. I liked the way the word sounded coming from my fellow Possibilian.
“Always,” I said.
Levi Lee beamed and took a few steps back.
“If you want to bring me a frappe later—as friends—I wouldn’t say ‘no,’” he said before doing another twirl.
“Sure thing, man,” I said with a laugh and headed into Starbuck’s to start my day.
Over the course of the next two hours, Two Doors Down by Dolly Parton and Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight & the Pips played from the radio behind the counter in the shop.
Amos had broken his pattern. Of course, he still played all three songs back-to-back all day long, but he was no longer stuck on one song all day long.
It was possible that Lovelorn Pass Bridge did more than cure lovesickness, I thought to myself.
All morning long, the sounds and smells of Possibly returned.
Customers came in and out of Starbuck’s for sugary treats and even sugary coffee.
Wyatt’s pistol could be heard nearly every fifteen minutes.
AMOR played its three songs of the day. Levi Lee practiced his new art.
When Agnes wheeled herself into the shop for a coffee two hours into my shift, she told Starbuck—with great surprise—that Grandy was thinking of stocking new items in his store.
Things were normal. As normal as they could be in Possibly.
It seemed that sometimes all a place needs is a good storm to set things right.
I took my break around the time Agnes came in for her coffee, delivering a frappe to Levi Lee as promised.
He was grateful for the drink, choosing to sit and talk with me and cool down as I took my fifteen minutes away from cleaning.
Mostly, he rambled on about his art and how he was going to discover what he did best sooner or later.
I mostly nodded along and encouraged him.
It didn’t escape my attention, halfway through my break, when Jack and Sofia appeared outside of the post office.
Apparently, he had come into town to get the mail himself.
Apparently, he’d decided to stick around and…
visit. They stepped out of the door together, smiling, with Sofia talking his ear off and swatting at his arm playfully.
I wasn’t sure the conversation was one-sided or not, but when Jack signed to her and she responded, I had my answer.
The Mystery of Shirlene was answered. Even if I was the only one who knew it.
It was obvious, not just from their body language as they canoodled at the front stoop of the post office, that Jack had a thing for the postmaster. From what I could tell, she was not averse to the attention from my stepfather, either.
Jack said his “goodbyes” to Sofia, both of them grinning ear to ear, before he walked away, a distinct lilt to his walk.
When he passed by Starbuck’s on his way down the road back to his place, he caught my eye.
Levi Lee was still talking my ear off, oblivious to anything else around us, so I just gave Jack a wink.
His cheeks grew rosy and he tried to avoid my eyes, but he finally winked back before hurrying on his way.
That made me smile.
Even Jack could be embarrassed.
After my break, I headed back in to continue “swabbing the decks,” as Starbuck would have put it.
Not before I reassured Levi Lee that we were friends and he hadn’t done anything to change that fact.
Levi Lee made me smile. He came off as what a lot of people might have referred to as “na?ve,” but he was a nice guy.
He made me laugh. He didn’t care that he wasn’t great at his art.
Being friends with Levi Lee—even if we never got a coffee together in the way he’d suggested—would make my time in Possibly better.
For however long that was.
And, I suddenly realized, I didn’t mind if that was a long time.