Butterfly Weeds (18 page)

             
“Hmm, well I think we’ll head out to the farm and go skinny dipping in the lake and hope Cranky Joe doesn’t catch us,” I said, smiling.

             
“What? Really?” he asked. A sense of surprise shot to his voice.

             
“No, I’m kidding. Where would I do that here? I wish though. Life was so much simpler back then,” I confessed longingly.

             
“So, that’s what you did for fun out in the sticks?” he chided.

             
“Doesn’t it sound fun? Well, at least fun at seventeen, I guess?” I asked.

             
“The skinny dipping part doesn’t sound half bad, but I’m not so sure I can say the same about the lake. Aren’t there alligators in there?” he asked.

             
“What? Brady, it’s
Missouri
, not
Mississippi
,” I said, laughing.

             
“Crocodiles?” he asked, hesitantly.

             
“No,” I said, still laughing.

             
“Oh, well,” he said. “It’s not all that bad, even if you can’t go skinny dipping with the alligators or the crocks. You’re onto bigger and better.”

             
I paused for a moment without saying anything.

             
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I finally said softly, my smile fading slightly.

             
The weather was always beautiful. The palm trees were nice – don’t get me wrong. And an ocean in your backyard – it doesn’t really get any better than that. So, I’m not really sure why a lake in the middle of nowhere made me smile secretly to myself. Maybe it was the simplicity I missed – even if it came with an endearingly intrusive nature, like when you walk into the grocery store and the owner asks how your grandmother has been doing. It’s funny, though. The ways of a small town seemed peculiar and almost foreign to me now, but nevertheless, there remained always a special place for their allure no matter how distant they became to me. This was the one thing that I wished Brady could understand or at least appreciate. Coming from
Hamilton
, a city in
New York City
’s metropolitan area, Brady could relate very little to my youth. Though
Hamilton
was its own, little community, it surpassed
New Milford
’s size over a hundred times. And Brady, to top it off, found no solace in small towns. Despite my subtle persuasions, he could see no benefits whatsoever of living in a place the size of “a pea,” as he called it, secluded from major hospitals, booming businesses and towering high rises.

             
This bothered me on some level, even though I felt as if it shouldn’t. After all, I too had escaped from my community’s claustrophobic grip years ago, and I too couldn’t imagine going back to live there permanently. But maybe I thought that somehow and somewhere along the line my small town had become a piece of me, and by Brady not appreciating it, it meant in some twisted way that he didn’t appreciate me fully either. I knew that my meandering ponderings turned into misguided logic somewhere down the line, but nevertheless, try as I may, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unintended rejection.

             
But even though Brady didn’t comprehend me wholly, it was hardly enough to stunt how I felt about him, however. After all, I could never fully understand what it had been like to grow up in his life in New York either, and he had so many other ambitious qualities that more than made up for his inability to see the world retroactively through my sixteen-year-old eyes. In the end, he could have come from Mars and still have been Mr. Perfect. And anyway, I had always wanted more than a quiet existence in rural
Missouri
, and more importantly, in the end, I too had changed, and I knew that I couldn’t expect someone to relate to a world that not even I wholly understood anymore.

“Bigger and better,” I said again, expressionlessly into the phone, as my eyes caught the sails of a sailboat coming back into the harbor in the distance.

             
I
had made it to Saturday morning, and my alarm had just reminded me of that fact. I quickly reached over and swatted at it. It continued to ring. I swatted at it again. Silence.

             
I rolled over, groaned, and in the meantime, somehow elbowed my roommate’s cat in the head.

             
“Allie. I’m sorry, Kitty,” I called after the frightened cat now scurrying out of the room.

             
Now, I was up, but I made no attempt to put the covers and pillows back together as I ventured out into the living room. April was still sleeping – or would be until the cat alerted her of my murder attempt.

             
I slid some open books over on the coffee table in search of the remote. I didn’t find it there, so I turned to the couch and spotted a corner of it sticking out from underneath a throw blanket. I grabbed it and switched on the television, which was in the process of running a familiar commercial.

             
A big, sleepy yawn later, I made my way into the kitchen and reached into the cabinet for a small, white ceramic bowl.

             
“That’s what I said,” I mumbled, habitually reciting the catchy commercial jingle, while finding the box of frosted wheats in the pantry.

             
What do bunnies have to do with bread? I aimlessly wondered then as I poured the little white and tan bails into my little, ceramic bowl.

             
At the same time, I continued to passively listen to the television.
Good Morning Today
was just returning from the commercial break, and I quickly recognized the anchor’s familiar voice.

             
“Mr. Shawn Neville, your lovely voice means Saturday morning. I love you,” I said to no one listening then as I habitually grabbed the carton of milk from the refrigerator and poured it onto my cereal bails.

             
After I had filled the bowl halfway with milk, I stuffed the carton back into the refrigerator, scooped up the bowl and grabbed a spoon from a drawer.

             
Oh, music time. I hadn’t missed it, I thought then, as I made my way back into the living room and plopped down onto the soft couch, cereal bowl in one hand, spoon in the other.

             
My eyes, planted on the television’s screen, followed the character’s facial movements as I methodically crunched on the little, round bails, one by one.

             
“That’s your news for this hour,” I listened to Shawn Neville announce. “Now, we’re going outside live to our concert series performance with Anchor Heather Hughes.”

             
I scooted closer to the edge of the couch. My eyes had by then caught onto the methodical habit of my ears and had glued themselves to the TV as well as I watched the camera’s shot move from inside the studio to a stage just outside of it.

             
The live performances had long ago become my favorite part about morning news shows. I waited eagerly to see which band I would get to hear today. I think a part of me was still hoping to see that small band that Brady and I saw on what would become our first date those years ago. I really thought they would make it.
 

             
“So, Will, you were discovered in a small
St. Louis
pub. That doesn’t happen everyday,” my ears, without so much as a warning, heard the anchor remark.

             
Suddenly, I dropped the spoon into my cereal and let my bowl fall to my lap.

             
“What?” I heard myself ask out loud.

             
“No, I don’t recon it does, but I’m happy and thankful to be here,” the figure in dark jeans, a white shirt and a cowboy hat said from inside my screen.

             
I felt almost numb as I stared, mesmerized. I could see him standing there on the small stage and amongst a sea of people, holding his guitar across his body. I could see him, but the problem was that I was having a hard time believing it.

             
“Well, we’ve got a whole lot of people who are also thankful that you’re here, and I’m sure they’re ready for a song. So, why don’t you take it away?” I listened to the anchor ask him.

             
“What?” I heard myself ask again. My words felt like someone else was saying them. In fact, I felt like someone else was me. I couldn’t possibly be living this exact moment right now. I was beyond shocked, beyond confused. I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. I must have gone to bed hungry, and now, I’m dreaming that I’m eating cereal, and Will is the weird thing in the dream that doesn’t make sense. All dreams have that – the weird thing. Right?

             
For the next several minutes, I watched the handsome singer, captivated by his familiar, soothing voice as I listened to his lyrics flow from his lips to my ears. It was him. It was his voice. He was the singer on the stage. The singer was Will. I tried with everything I had to wrap my mind around the moment, the moment that was now transporting me back years to a summer night around a fire, a fall evening on his back porch – a hundred times in just as many places.

             
When the music stopped and the show went to a commercial break, I sat in the chair silently and as still as humanly possible for what felt like an eternity, allowing every piece – every image, every word – to sink deep into the depths of my self. And when I had convinced myself that what I had just seen was, in fact, real, I jumped up and darted into my room, coming out with my cell phone in hand.

             
My hands were shaking as I punched in Rachel’s speed dial number.

             
I waited anxiously for her voice.
             

             
“Hey, what’s up?” I heard her answer on the other end seconds later.

             
I didn’t say anything. I had just noticed my words were gone.

             
“Hello? Julia?” I heard Rachel say.

             
“What, what is Will doing on my TV?” I somehow managed to get out, though I knew I sounded frazzled – like I had just woken up to a neon pink sky.

             
“Yeah, I’ve already seen it. I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to wake you. I taped it. Didn’t he look good?” she asked, obviously not at all as fazed as I was.

             
“Wait, Rach, back up. You knew about this?” I asked her, partially already accusing her of a lie by omission.