All She Wanted (2) (16 page)

Charlie

Something felt different on the ride
home. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Briggs seemed lost in space. We had
talked and joked like normal, but there was no fluidity to our conversation.

Did
something happen at work?

He didn’t seem upset, just a little out
of sorts—like he was deep in thought. I decided to leave it alone. If he wanted
to talk, he would. Briggs didn’t keep stuff to himself for
long,
I’d learned that about him over the last month. Whatever he thought, he said.

I took comfort in that.

He wasn’t the strong silent type that I
used to find so appealing. I had actually come to understand that there was
more strength to a man who could verbalize what he wanted, needed, and expected.
True, that sometimes it meant an all-out-verbal-war on the back patio fighting
about a secret wedding that wasn’t actually in the works, but the air was always
cleared faster having someone like Briggs around, without a doubt.

My
wedding.

I pushed the thought from my mind. I
wasn’t ready to think about that.

I didn’t
want
to think about that.

Briggs parked his truck in the
driveway.

“So-,” we both began.

“You go,” I said.

“No, you go,” he said.

We both laughed.

“I was just going to tell you that I
need at least an hour of good practice time. I have a lot to do for Tori’s
processional still and it’s only two weeks out. I’m meeting her next week to
show her what I have, and since this happened,” I said raising my right arm in
the air, “I don’t have much to show her.”

He nodded. I started to open the door
and slide out of the seat when I felt his hand on mine. It rested on top of my
left hand, engulfing it completely. The warmth sent an army of goose- bumps
marching up my neck and into my scalp. I searched his face, my stomach flipping
instantly when I saw his expression.

Despite the rapid increase of my
heartbeat, my breathing slowed dramatically. I waited for him to speak.

“Can I take you out to dinner tonight,
Charlie?”

Random, incomplete fragments of thought
floated in my head.

I tried to tell myself that this dinner
was just the same as
every
dinner we’d
shared together over the last four weeks. That it was probably just some new
place he wanted to try, or maybe he was tired of the same old take-out we had
been getting. I tried to tell myself that his deep, husky voice was in relation
to the allergens in the air.

That the intense look of longing on his
face had nothing at all to do with me…

But lying to myself never seemed to pay
off in the end. And even more than that, I wanted it to be true—I wanted it to
mean something new, something
more
.

Afraid to speak, I simply nodded at him.

“Okay, well…why don’t you go in and
spend some time being Beethoven, and I’ll come find you around seven. That
work?”

I nodded again before getting out of
the truck, forcing myself to walk away with steps I hoped were regarded as
normal.

Inside though, I was skipping.

**********

I sat down at the piano and rotated my
wrist for the hundredth time that day. Though it was still fairly stiff, the constant
ache was gone. It was nice to not be in pain anymore. The ice, the anti-inflammatory
meds and even the stupid wrap had made all the difference, and of course
time
had also played a key role in my
healing as well.

A week…I had actually gone an entire
week without piano. Unbelievable.

I laid my hands on the keys and closed
my eyes thinking of the melody I had heard in my heart for Tori.

Without more than a second’s
hesitation, the notes came out fluidly. I could picture the walk of her
bridesmaids, the stroll of the ring-bearer pulling the wagon with her niece on
board, and I could visualize the start of Tori’s walk. I paused the higher
notes for dramatic effect as I repeated the bass line, preparing for what would
be her grand entrance.

Then, the melody came again, like a soft,
delicate whisper.
 

The next two times through, I wrote out
the music as I played. Though my strength was to play by ear, the university
had pushed me to hone my music theory and composition skills to a new level.
Writing music was now like brushing my teeth. Not much thought was involved; it
was second nature.

I laid the sheet music out before me
and played it through again—although I closed my eyes halfway through. I hoped
Tori would be pleased with it. Even though I hadn’t known her long, I felt this
composition was tailored for her. We had spent a few evenings together now, and
within that time, I had learned that she was truly someone very unique. I
wanted that quality to shine through this piece.

I wanted
her
to shine through this piece.

Briggs

After showering, I studied my face in
the mirror, rehearsing in my head the words that were written in my heart, the
words that Charlie had written on my heart.

I can do
this.

I’d seen the way she looked at me when
I asked her to dinner. She knew something was different about tonight. Much to the
delight of my nerves, she hadn’t looked worried.
She’d looked…surprised?

It was hard to know for sure, but her
eyes had been
happy
. That, I knew.

I left the apartment and headed down
the stairs, my phone buzzing in my pocket.

The
station.

“Briggs here.”

“Hey man, it’s Thomas. I think you’re
gonna have to come in tonight.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Five guys just left here…all with what
I think is food poisoning.”

“What? No way…was it the Thai food?” I
asked.

“Yeah…uh, dude I need to go…I’m not
feeling so hot myself, but we are way understaffed now.”

“I’ll head in. I can be there in thirty
minutes.”

I threw my head back in frustration as
I entered the house.

So much
for a nice, quiet night alone with Charlie.

I thought of the chief’s words to me, about
her being the
priority
. But this was
an emergency and Charlie hadn’t even tried to break the rules since that first
weekend I was here. As much as I hated to leave her, it was the right thing to
do.

At most, it would be forty-eight hours
until the new rotation was back on, but I couldn’t leave them high and dry. I
wouldn’t.

Urgh. Responsibility
sucks sometimes.

I sounded like Cody.

**********

I didn’t know how I got to the French
doors of the music room. I had no memory of it. I didn’t know how long I stood
watching her—studying her, as she played with her eyes closed. I didn’t even
know
what
she was playing. That didn’t
matter.

What I did know was that I had never experienced
anything like it before.

When Charlie played, nothing short of
transformation took place in everything and everyone who was nearby. I was certain
that she didn’t just play a melody, she
played
her soul. It was the kind of awakening that separated life from death, or light
from darkness.

I was completely mesmerized.

If I had thought Charlie beautiful
before this moment—and I certainly had—this undoubtedly trumped any of my
previous assessments of her. How could one appreciate the full potential of
beauty until it was seen in its truest form? It would be like looking at a
caterpillar before it metamorphosed into a butterfly, or a seed before it had
grown into a flower.

But
this,
this was Charlie’s truest form of beauty.

She
was
her music, and everything about it was breathtaking.
     

As her last note resonated in the room,
I clapped. She jumped of course, and then a slow, shy grin appeared on her
face.

“I thought you weren’t going to use
your creepy-stalker-skill for a while?”

“Technically, I was standing in the
open. You were the one with your eyes closed.”

She smiled wider. I walked to the bench
where she sat.

“You were—that was—I honestly don’t
even have the words for it, Charlie.” I said, getting lost in the aqua of her
eyes.

Her cheeks blushed pink and she looked
away, briefly.

“Do you play an instrument?” she asked.

That’s
not what you just did.

“Not anywhere close to that level,” I
laughed.

“But you do play something…I bet I can
guess which one, too.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “Guitar.”

 
“How
did you guess that?”

“You’re too cool to play a horn, too
punctual to be a drummer, but you’re just the right amount of cocky for a
guitarist.”

“You do know me well, Shortcake.” I
laughed.

My smile dipped as the words soured in
my mouth.
Yet there are still some things
you don’t know
about me.
I scooted
her over with my knee and sat down next to her on the bench. Her bare arm brushed
against mine, and I fought the urge to reach for her hand.

“So, was that the song for Tori’s
wedding?” I asked.

“Yes, but be honest, do you think
she’ll like it?”

Her brows wrinkled with the question,
and I wanted to kiss them both—reassure her that she and it were perfect, but I
didn’t.

“She will love it, I have no doubt.”

“Are you in it—the wedding, I mean?”
 

“Yeah. Crazy, huh? Kai entrusting me to
be his best man.” I nudged her with my elbow.

“Oh, I don’t know…it’s the crazy ones who
make life more fun.”

And that was it. My willpower was gone.

I took her hand in mine, and slowly laced
my fingers through hers. I heard a faint gasp come from her mouth, but she
didn’t pull away.

“Charlie, let me take you to the
wedding—as my date?” I asked, looking into her eyes.

An eternity passed before she spoke,
but her eyes never left my face. We were so close. I could feel her breath, I
could see her neck pulse,
I
could count her eyelashes.

“That’s ten points to you, Briggs.”

I smiled. “That’s an affirmative?”

“Yes.”

Charlie

The angle was too awkward for kissing,
but that didn’t make me want it any less.

Our eyes held for a second more while
my insides turned into a hot liquid that bubbled inside me with each breath I
took. The touch of his hand on mine had started this molten reaction.

He broke our gaze, looking down at our
united hands.

“I have some unfortunate news…”

“What?” I asked, startled back into
reality.

“Food poising has hit the firehouse.
Bad Thai, I guess. Good thing you weren’t feeling it tonight…’cause we would
have really been feeling it later if we’d stayed,” he said.

I chuckled a bit before disappointment
overtook me. “So, you’ll be gone tonight through when? Sunday?”

“Most likely. I’m sorry, Shortcake. This
isn’t how I wanted our night to go.”

I felt another bubbling sensation in my
belly as tingles shot up my arm from where he rubbed his thumb over my
knuckles.

Our last weekend together…gone.

“How many guys are out?” I asked.

“The count was five as of twenty
minutes ago, but I’m sure it’s more now. Usually we all share one large order,”
he said shaking his head.

“So you have to leave, now?”

“Yeah. I probably should have left
already, but I couldn’t miss the performance of a prodigy.”

I smiled at that. “Okay,” I said.

He slowly withdrew his hand from mine, wrapping
his arm around my shoulders instead. I leaned closer to him, resting my head on
his chest as I did.

“I’ll make it up to you, Charlie—soon.”
With my ear against him, his soft words resonated as if his heart was the one
who had spoken them to me.

I nodded, not trusting myself enough to
speak.

“You gonna be alright here, Shortcake? You’ll
call me if you need anything, right?”

I lifted my head and smiled, “Yes,
Manny. I’ll be just fine. You should probably get going though.”

And unfortunately, that was exactly
what he did.

**********

With Briggs gone, a vortex of emptiness
seemed to surround the house. I worked on Tori’s composition for a few hours
more, perfecting it as much as I could. I ate cold cereal for dinner. I watched
the Late Show. And then I stared at my cell phone as if willing it to ring.

It didn’t.

Overall, the night was a bust.

Around two in the morning I climbed the
stairs to my bedroom, hoping I had tired my mind out enough for sleep. But my
hope was in vain. I stared at the ceiling fan directly above my bed, wondering
if the rhythm could hypnotize me.

I closed my eyes, but never found rest.
 

**********

For as
long as I could remember, the man had come.

I never
knew when or why, but he always came. He knew my mama, though I didn’t know
how. He would bring one brown bag of food every time, and every time the
contents were the same: peanut butter, cheese-its and bread. The food never
outlasted the hunger, but I was grateful for that bag, and for the man who
brought it. He would talk to mama for a while, and then he would leave until
the next time I saw him.

One day
after watching Cinderella—the video he had put on for me during a visit—I asked
him if he was like the man on the screen.

“What do
you mean, Charlotte?” he asked me.

“Are you
like the prince?” I asked again, while trying to untangle my hair with my
fingers, which was an impossible task.

“No,
Charlotte. I’m afraid there are only princes in fairytales. Life doesn’t work
like that,” he crouched down before me, and it was the first time I saw him so close.

He had
black and silver eyebrows and a big nose, and his eyes were very sad.

“I want
to live in a fairytale,” I said quietly, careful not to speak too loudly inside
the apartment.

He put
his hand on my head. “I wish things were that easy. I wish your mama’s life had
turned out differently, but life’s cruel, and we usually get the opposite of
what we wish for.”

“What
does…op-
po
-site mean?” I asked, repeating each syllable.

“It
means your mama never wanted this life. She never wanted to be sick, or poor,
or a mother. You see, fairytales just aren’t real, Charlotte. It’s best you
know that now.” He turned and ejected the video from the VCR.

As I
watched him leave and walk down the stairs to the parking lot, I saw him throw
it into the dumpster on the way out. He never brought another one. I stared at
the blank screen in front of me for a long time that day, tears rolling down my
cheeks as I heard his word again, “…your mama never wanted to be sick, or poor,
or a mother…”

Maybe I
was the reason that fairytales didn’t come true.

**********

I jolted awake, gasping for air, my cheeks
damp with tears. I was glad to see that it was after nine—at least I had
managed to get a few consecutive hours of sleep. I picked up my phone. Briggs
had texted, but before I could respond to it, another text caught my eye—no,
not a text, a
reminder
.

Today is my wedding day!

I threw my head back on the bed and
covered my face with a pillow.

The man was right: Life was cruel.