Our Song (22 page)

“All that practice paid off,” Nanny said, squeezing Jacob's arm with her good hand. She placed my camera case on the ground as she went into teacher mode. “Now, you still have to watch your wrist. And I want you to play me that part where you went
dee, dee, DEE, dee
. Remember? That was really special. . . .”

While Nanny and Jacob chattered, I slumped against the giant flatiron, feeling my heartbeat gradually slow. Between the music and the almost-kiss, it had been
racing
. Now, as the adrenaline of the moment drained away, I felt as limp as a rag doll. I slid down the smooth, cool metal of the sculpture until I was cross-legged on the sidewalk. With nothing else to do, I pulled out my camera to peek at the photos that Nanny had shot.

Squinting at the small screen, I found Nanny's first images. They were of Tamara and Victoria, hamming it up as they played together on a street corner. Then it was Will looking serious and studious on another. Shana and Harley's photos alternated between them playing blissfully together and arguing. It made me laugh because they completely reminded me of my parents.

And then, I clicked on a photo of me and Jacob.

Of us.

Of us gazing into each other's eyes while we played.

There were also shots of us with our eyes closed while we communicated only through rhythm and tone.

There were some frames featuring the hipsters dancing in circles with their arms linked; of them tossing coins into our cases.

Finally, there were a few photos of me and Jacob both looking completely and simply happy, absorbed in our music.

Or maybe we were absorbed in each other.

But what could we do about it if we were? My grandmother was here, and after that, we'd be back in a van full of people. Then it'd be the dining hall and the sing-along. We'd be surrounded at all times.

What's more, we were all heading home the day after next. Our time left together was so fleeting, you could count it down by the hour.

It's too late,
I thought miserably. I turned my camera off, and the image of me and Jacob—like an alternate reality that would never come to be—went black.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

T
he next morning I woke
up early, my mind busy playing and replaying my day in Asheville with Jacob.

Annabelle stirred.

I turned on my side to find her staring up at the ceiling, just as I'd been. Her top sheet was twisted in her slender fingers. I wasn't the only one awake and obsessing.

“Owen?” I asked.

She didn't look at me as she nodded.

“Jacob?” she said.

“Oh yeah,” I sighed. “Are you sad to be leaving him?”

“Yes,” Annabelle said immediately. “And no. I mean, my next phase? College? It's all about freedom. About studying and traveling and dating and not dating and definitely not being tied down
by someone who lives thousands of miles away. I want that freedom! I do. But then I think about Owen and . . . I don't. I wonder what it might be like if I wasn't going to Brown or he wasn't going to Berkeley.”

“Maybe it would have been easier,” I said, propping myself on my elbow, “if you guys hadn't gotten together at all?”

“
Definitely
,” Annabelle said with a sigh. “Nell, I'm going to
cry
on my plane trip home tomorrow. I'm probably going to think about Owen every other minute for a long while. I might think about him
forever
. It's really going to make it hard to write my feminist theory thesis. It was going to be all about the rise of the new Amazon.”

I covered my mouth until Annabelle laughed, authorizing me to let out my own giggle.

Then Annabelle did something equally unexpected. She said, “But you know what? I don't regret a thing. I'd do it all over again.”

She got out of bed and stepped over her suitcase, which was open on the floor and already half-filled. As she headed for the bathroom, I stayed in bed. I listened to the water pipes groan as Annabelle turned on the shower. I heard her say good morning to one of our other dorm mates.

I stared at the ceiling and pictured Jacob's face. I pictured his hair, too long now after a month at Camden. The dark tendrils of his bangs kept flopping over his glasses. His pale skin had turned ruddy early in the month, and now it was golden. He was maybe
a little skinnier than he'd been when I'd first met him, which only made the muscles in his arms and legs pop more.

He had new freckles.

He had a smile that lit up his whole face.

I didn't know if I could bear to look at that face for six hours on this, our last day of class. Not when we'd be leaving each other so soon.

And not when so much had—and hadn't—happened between us.

I rolled out of bed and shuffled to the closet. I dug into the bottom of the badly folded stack of clothes on my shelf. I found a plain ribbed tank top and a pair of long cargo shorts. I tossed them onto my bed and grabbed a handful of hair clips off my dresser before heading to the bathroom.

If I hurried, I could make it to Nanny's cottage before breakfast and explain why I wouldn't be showing up at breakfast, or at our last class.

•  •  •

I was tentative when I pushed through the big barn doors. But as soon as they spotted me through the gloom, the blacksmiths treated me like their long-lost sister.

Clint whooped and rushed over to give me a hug that left sooty fingerprints on my upper arms and squeezed all the breath out of me.

Coach grinned at me so hard, his eyes disappeared into his bushy brows.

“What brings you back to the barn, Olive Oyl?” he boomed.

“Well, I never did finish that platter I was making,” I said. “And I missed the beast!”

I pointed at the forge. Michael was pumping away at the bellows to liven up the fire. He waved at me between pumps, seemingly oblivious to the great gusts of heat that poured over him through the forge's open door.

“So it's okay that I'm here?” I asked Coach. “I don't want to get in your way.”

“Please, you're welcome here,” he boomed. “Anytime, my dear. Anytime.”

I found my platter, looking dirty, crooked, and pretty pathetic, under a pile of the other guys' work. Their pieces were beautiful, even the horseshoes.

I knew there was no chance that my platter would be pretty. I just wanted to finish it before I left.

Even more than that, I wanted somewhere to hide. In the barn, my flushed face could be explained away by the two-thousand-degree fire in the forge. Tears would just blend in with the sweat. And the jangle of hammer on iron would drown out my thoughts.

At first it worked. As I struggled with my tongs and pounded my lava-colored platter, all I could think about was trying not to incur any more scars.

But then I got back into the rhythm of the ironwork—the loop from fire to hammer to hissing water bath to fire again. I luxuriated in those moments of rest, when my piece was heating
up in the forge. I felt that familiar, incredulous zing as my tray thinned out further and even took on a respectably oval shape. I loved the way my hammer made a pattern of dents in the iron, a substitute for my fingerprints.

Mostly, I rocked out to the dissonant sounds of the barn: the different notes we all made with our hammers, the offbeat rhythm of our clangs, thunks, and hisses, and the rise and fall of the guys' chatting, joking, and, of course, swearing.

I was almost dancing to it.

“Look at Olive Oyl,” Clint called out. “She missed us so much, she's doing a happy dance.”

Okay, I guess I
was
dancing to it.

“Don't you guys hear all that?” I said. “It's like music.”

Then I froze.

My arm dropped to my side, and I narrowly missed clocking myself in the kneecap with my hammer. I slowly put it down on my anvil and drifted over to one of the dirty barn windows, which was propped open with a worn-out dowel. I gazed at the long grass and shriveling, late-June wildflowers outside. They rippled in a breeze, filling my ears with rustling and just a hint of a crackle.

I looked at the gravel path and realized that all summer long, I'd been
crunch-crunch-crunch
ing through those rocks with a beat.

I hear music everywhere,
I thought.

It was such a basic fact about myself, and so true, that I
couldn't believe I hadn't realized it before. All this time, I'd been fighting my birthright, reluctantly playing my fiddle, and taking music completely for granted. But all this time, I'd also been hearing music in everything, constantly.

Almost gasping, I hurried over to Coach, who happened to be admiring my platter.

“Nellie!” he said. I couldn't help but smile. He only called me that when my work bore no evidence of Olive Oyl's noodle arms. “This is good! You just need to give it a good file and buff and you're good to go.”

“I'll totally do that,” I said breathlessly, “but I just realized—There's this thing—”

What was I supposed to say to my teacher?
I've just had an epiphany about my entire identity, and I have to go tell the boy that I'm pretty sure I love?

Instead I just blurted, “I'll be back!” and made a break for it.

I tried not to burst dramatically through the barn doors—but failed.

Then I tried not to gasp even more dramatically when I saw Jacob running toward the barn.

Yeah, failed at that, too.

“What are you doing here?” I said when he reached me, looking wild-eyed.

After bending over at the waist to catch his breath, Jacob looked up at me and said, “You didn't come to class. Or breakfast. But also . . . I think I just realized something.”

“So did I,” I said. Somehow I was just as breathless as Jacob, though I'd only run a few yards.

He straightened up, and I noticed something in his hand. It looked like a wadded-up napkin.

Following my gaze, Jacob rolled his eyes.

“Oh man,” he said. “I brought you this, and then I went and squashed it while I was running.”

Gingerly he peeled back the napkin to reveal a cinnamon-scented mush of bread and frosting.

“Ms. Betty made cinnamon rolls,” Jacob explained. “I know they're your favorite.”

“What, no steak? No pork chop?” I complained with a grin.

Jacob laughed again and moved closer to me, looking adorably awkward as he wrestled with what to do next.

I think he wanted to kiss me.

No, I knew he did. Finally. I knew.

And I wanted to kiss him.

I also wanted to tell him everything that had just raced through my mind. And listen to everything that had raced through his.

But it was very possible, after my ridiculously girly exit, that most of the blacksmiths were peeking at us through the window.

“Can we take a walk?” I asked Jacob.

“Definitely,” he said.

Without discussing it, we headed in the same direction—up
the hill toward the Saturn trail. We were headed for the creek where our first kiss might have been.

Of course,
I thought, shaking my head,
I could say that about so many parts of Camden.

I'd imagined myself and Jacob—myself
with
Jacob—everywhere here. I could never separate this place from him.

The silence between us as we walked wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't easy, either. It crackled with longing and anticipation and anxiety.

I found I had to focus on putting one foot after the other, on swinging my arms, on breathing.

Luckily, the walk was short. We made it briefer still by walking fast. I exhaled hard when we reached the creek. Now, in the height of the summer, it was less lush. The water was lower, and the dirt next to it looked dry and sandy. The cicadas hiding in the trees sounded agitated and shrill.

Still, we sat down there, side by side. I dug my boot heels into the sand and gazed at the water, burbling over the rocks.

“Okay, you first,” I said to Jacob.

“No, you,” Jacob insisted.

“Well . . .” I felt nervous, of course. But unlike all those other moments that I'd let slip away, I was determined. “It's kind of a two-parter.”

Jacob smiled. “We've got time.”

Except that wasn't really true. There was hardly any time at all. The knowledge made a lump rise in my throat, but I
willed it away. There was definitely no time for that.

I tucked my feet beneath me so I was perched on my knees. The things I wanted to tell Jacob seemed too momentous to say while sprawled comfortably in the sand.

“Well, first,” I began, “music. I've realized that it's just like what you said. It
is
in my blood. It's in my
bones
. I can't get away from it, and I don't think I want to. Not anymore.”

Jacob's eyes went wide.

“But my family's music?” I went on. “The old-timey, preservation stuff? The Appalachian dances and the front-porch jams that are basically endless variations on a theme?
That's
not me. What I want to do is make my
own
music. Write my own songs.”