Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Henry
October 1st, 1996
Lucy Barlow is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
I’ve also said a grand total of five words to her in the years I’ve been attending this church with my parents. She’s Pastor Timothy’s kid, and I’ve never been too keen to draw his attention my way by telling his daughter that the light from the chandeliers makes her hair look like spun golden thread. Or that listening to her sing hymns takes me far away, to a room with only the two of us in it, her grayish-blue eyes chilling me even as the curves of her body send a rush of blood to somewhere that’s definitely not appropriate for church.
I shift on the piano bench. Images of my grandma standing stark naked in the bathtub while Mom washes her play like the world’s worst slideshow in my mind. Anything to keep from getting a boner while my parents chat with the pastor in the next room over.
It’s our own little Sunday tradition. I allow myself to be dragged from my bed and shoved into a pew for two long hours, and in exchange, they commandeer a moment of Pastor Timothy’s time after services have ended. For those glorious minutes each Sunday morning, I take advantage of the petite grand piano to the left of the green-carpeted stage. The nicest thing this small-town church owns, it was donated by a parishioner who came from old money and passed with no one to inherit it. Now it’s used to bang out choppy hymns that Lucy somehow turns into music with her angelic voice, and for me to spin notes and melodies into songs that will never be heard outside these four walls.
They could be though. Sometimes I allow myself to wish for as much. I’ve got pamphlets for music schools tucked away under my schoolbooks at home. In the dark of night, I convince myself I could make a go of it. Really give this music thing a shot. My parents wouldn’t sign up to go into debt over a career that may never make money, but Nashville isn’t too far away. Perhaps I could skip college altogether and just move there when I graduate. Play in the bars after nightfall and get discovered by some unsuspecting agent…
“What is that you’re playing, Henry?”
I jolt, my fingers seizing on a glaringly loud minor key. When I look up, blinking the imagined cigarette smoke of some faraway bar out of my eyes, there’s Lucy, perched on the other side of the piano. Her delicate elbow is balanced to the right of the lid prop, cheek cupped in her petite hand. There’s a silver purity ring twinkling on her third finger, a reminder to herself and everyone else of her promise to wait.
I’d wait forever for Lucy Barlow.
Anxiety bubbles in my abdomen. She’s staring at me expectantly, but I’ve forgotten every word in the English language except beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Her gaze takes its time roaming over my face. Suddenly I’m certain all my secrets, the hours I’ve spent sitting in the pews rapt as she sings to the congregation, are written plainly for her to read. I flush crimson, glancing back at the keys and my trembling hands resting atop them.
“Is it an original?”
“What?” I croak.
“The song.” She moves around the piano and gestures with the flick of a hand for me to scoot, which I oblige. When she sits down beside me, the scent of honeysuckle fills my lungs. “I’ve never heard it before. Did you write it?”
“I—” My mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air. I’m floundering. Even so, her rosebud lips turn up at the corners. The softness in her features, so unlike the fire and brimstone of her father, relaxes something in me. I exhale slowly and smile in return. “It’s just something I like to play around with.”
“Can I play too?”
“Yeah—yes.” I smile, this time so hard my cheeks ache. “I don’t really know where I’m going with it.”
“That’s okay.” She spreads her hands over the keys, trilling a little melody as a warmup. “We can find out together.”
And we do. When we start to play, music flows from me in a way it never has. Like it’s a language I’m speaking that only Lucy knows, and she answers with a gusto that hits me hard in the chest. It stretches and splinters, embeds itself in every piece of me. Sweat beads at my brow. A lump forms in my throat. The harmony we have found unfurls and bellows through the cavernous sanctuary. It dances between the pews. Creates shadows behind the stained glass. An entire story—an entire world —is born beneath our fingertips. It’s birth and death; it’s the beginning of the end.
I don’t know how long we play, only that I’d do it until my lungs give out. Until my muscles melt away from my bones and I am nothing but a memory. But eventually the song finds its way to the end. Lucy’s long, thin fingers trill that same melody she used to warm up, and it’s the perfect ending. I wonder how she could’ve possibly known.
“You’re magic,” I whisper. Completely unintentionally.
She hears, though, and it’s her turn to blush. It colors the apples of her cheeks and dusts the tops of her ears. Her hands fall to her lap, spreading her yellow cotton dress flat over her thighs. I let my gaze trail across their swells and valleys. My fingers flex. I’ve never touched a girl, but I instinctively know what Lucy would feel like. How soft, how warm she would be.
A throat being cleared throws a bucket of cold water on my thoughts.
“Lucy, what are you doing?”
She glances up at her dad, and the spark our playing ignited in her gaze morphs. The one before melted her eyes into pools of the brightest blue. This one turns them glacial.
“We were playing some music, Daddy.” She stands up, back ramrod straight, and steps away from the bench. Every inch of distance she puts between us tightens the noose around my heart until I’m certain it’s going to stop beating.
Pastor Timothy folds one hand over the other, a Bible clutched in his grasp, and presses them against his protruding belly. Waylon Parker, a kiss up who follows the pastor everywhere since leaving the military a year ago, echoes the movement. Part of me wants to ask if he does it on purpose, or if he’s just that far up Pastor Timothy’s ass. The other part of me—one with a bit more self-preservation skills—decides to refrain. For now.
“You know our son, Henry,” Mom says, extending a hand with nails painted ruby red in my direction. Her other clutches the string of my grandmother’s pearls around her neck. “He’s always had a knack for music. Hasn’t he, David?”
Dad is zoned out, probably thinking about the football game he’s missing at home, when Mom’s elbow connects with his rib.
“Huh? Oh, yes. Loves his music.” He rubs a hand over the affronted rib. “Can’t hardly get him to focus on anything else these days.”
Pastor Timothy is watching me with one bushy black eyebrow cocked. Lucy got her blonde hair from her mom—a quiet woman who works in the nursery each Sunday and stays there with Lucy’s younger brother and sister until it’s finally time to return home to the parsonage. There is no darkness in Lucy. Not like her father.
He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s Waylon whose voice comes out. “Lucy, we were going over the plan for that special Wednesday night service you and I discussed.” His eyes, dark and guarded, bounce off my face like I’m nothing to think twice about. Asshole. “We thought it’d be nice if you sang while I played guitar.”
“You play guitar?” I don’t mean for the snide tone to leak into my voice, but it’s there. I can tell by the way Waylon and the pastor bristle. And by the tiny smirk Lucy hides behind a cough.
“He does,” Pastor Timothy grits out. He throws an arm around Waylon’s shoulders and squeezes. “Mr. Parker here has not only paid a great service to our country, he also delights in music—mostly for the benefit of the church—and studies agriculture at the local college.” There’s pride in his smile, more than he’s ever shown for Lucy. An ache forms behind my sternum. “You’d do well to follow in the footsteps of a man like him, Son. I know you’re not currently in any small groups—perhaps joining Waylon’s would be a step in the right direction.”
I’m tempted to mention that the now-pious Waylon left a less than stellar reputation behind at our school for beating up freshmen for sport. I learned early on to steer clear in case he started branching out to the middle schoolers. He also loved to tell the whole student body about the things he’d force his girlfriends to do underneath the bleachers, but I doubt Pastor Timothy wants to hear about that .
Uncomfortable silence settles around us, seeping into the green carpet. With our song still buzzing beneath my fingertips, it feels glaring by comparison. I glance at Lucy, willing her to look at me, to acknowledge that she feels it too. But her eyes are trained on that puke-colored carpet. And her dad’s, when I check, are still glaring at me.
If he doesn’t stop, it’s going to be puke covered soon.
“We’d better be going,” Mom says, injecting a bit of her perpetual sunshine into this awkward moment. She’s good at that. Always looking at the bright side of things. I, like my dad, tend to not be so upbeat. “This one has some chores to attend to.”
She reaches out a hand for mine. I stand but don’t take it. Not in front of Waylon. Not in front of Lucy.
I swallow, summoning all the bravery I have in my wiry teenage body, and turn to Lucy. “We should do that again sometime.”
She tilts her head gently, a sad smile tugging at her lips. Before she can answer, her dad interjects. “Come on and look at the music for Wednesday with Waylon, dear, and then your mama will need your help with the baby.” He beckons her, and she jolts forward as if tugged by a leading rope. When his hand meets the place between her shoulder blades and she winces, my hands curl into fists.
One day, I vow, I’ll touch that same place, and it will be everything. With my fingertips, my lips. One day I’ll be able to hold her and replace all that fear with something sweeter. Something right.
Because everything about this, about making music with Lucy, felt absolutely and completely right. And now that I’ve tasted it, I’ll be chasing it forever.
She follows Waylon’s lead out of the room, head hung low, while her father continues to watch me. My mom smiles at him politely and loops her arm through my father’s. “We’ll see you next Sunday, Tim.”
My parents walk together down the aisle. The midday sun illuminates the double glass doors at the other end of the room, and they make their way toward it with heads tilted together, discussing something in hushed voices.
I close the lid over the keys and take a step in their direction, but the pastor captures my bicep in a firm grasp. I tip my chin up to look at him while tugging my arm away.
His hand drops to his side, but his gaze hardens. “Boy, I know my daughter is pretty. She gets that from her mother. But she’s not allowed to date anyone I don’t approve of, you hear me?” I try to speak, but he holds up the hand clasping the brown leather Bible to stop me. “I was young once. I know what goes through a kid’s brain. Just say you and me have an understanding, all right?”
I swallow, my Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yes, sir.”
He smiles—an awkward, bitter thing—and claps that Bible against my shoulder. “Good. Now go on and have a blessed Sunday.”
I nod. He turns away without another thought spared in my direction, and strolls after Waylon and Lucy, whistling to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” My feet beg to scurry after my parents. That part of me—my fear—is still very much a child. But my heart yearns for the girl in the next room with golden hair and a yellow sundress. My hands itch to roam over her thighs, spread them open, explore what’s underneath.
Perhaps Pastor Timothy was right about my intentions.
It’s not purely physical, though. How could it be? Before today, I knew Lucy Barlow was beautiful. But now I know what her mind can create. The music that lives just beneath her skin. And with everything I have, I want to let it out. To set her free.
One day, Lucy. I promise we’ll make music again.