Sway (29 page)

I wasn't going to argue. “Are you going to give me a hot dog or what?” I asked.

“I want you to say you miss having me around and you want us to be friends again.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said with an ironic frown of agreement, “because I miss having someone around who pukes in my car and constantly talks about stupid sci-fi books.”

“I knew it,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “If it was a lie, you'd be willing to say it but since it's the truth, you can't. You do miss having me around.”

“Pffft.”

“Admit it. I'm your best friend,” he said smugly. “If you admit it, just once, I'll forgive you for being a heartless, amoral asswipe and be your friend again.”

I took a minute to mull it over, then asked, “And if I admit it, will you also give me a hot dog?”

“Maybe,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

I glanced back over my shoulder at the line of people watching our exchange, with interest or impatience depending on their worldview.

“Fine,” I said. “I'll admit it, but only because I'm starving.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I want you to say it. Say I'm your best friend.”

We eyed each other coldly for a long minute before I relented. I really was hungry. “Okay. You're my best friend.”

“And you miss having me around.”

“And I miss having you around,” I mimicked.

His face spread into his signature lopsided smile and he triumphantly handed me a soggy hot dog wrapped in tinfoil. “That'll be three dollars,” he said, then barked to the next person in line to give him their order, dismissing me without another glance.

*   *   *

During the second half of the games Cynthia, aka Flipper Girl, sat beside me in the bleachers. She wasn't allowed to do most of the events, because her heart condition prevented her from participating in the more strenuous activities. She held my hand with her non-flipper arm and sometimes rested her head against my shoulder as we watched the spectacle together. I sang her James Taylor's “Something in the Way She Moves” because it made us both feel better, and I wished I had my guitar with me to do it justice.

At the end of the day there was an awards ceremony, during which everyone was given a medal for being awesomely unique. Bridget was there, hugging each of the kids as they walked off the stage, a big smile on her face, her eyes shimmering with tears. Watching her brought a smile to my face too, even if I had to experience her joy from a distance. I left before I had the chance to talk to her. Ken was out of the picture now, but it didn't matter anymore. Bridget was out of my reach.

 

THIRTY-NINE

It was good to hold her in my arms again.

B.B. King had named his guitar Lucille, after a woman he saw two men fighting over in a bar once. I had never named my guitar. There was no woman who was her equal. At least, there never had been before. Maybe a lifetime from now, I would start calling my guitar Bridget, but I doubted it.

My right arm rested comfortably on the curve of the guitar's body, like resting your arm on the curve of a girl's waist while you lie in bed. Natural.

The inmates at Sunrise Assisted Living liked it when I played the older music, like the gypsy tunes of Django Reinhardt or the ballads of Jim Croce. It was the point at which I connected with them. Good music never stops being good, no matter how old it is.

“It's so nice that your grandson comes to play,” one of the old ladies was saying to Mr. Dunkelman, loud enough that I could hear. They said everything loud enough that everyone in the room could hear, had forgotten that when you're young you can hear everything and read small print.

“Yeah, he's a dumb-ass, but he's an okay kid,” Mr. Dunkelman said, his arms crossed over his belly as he sat back in his wheelchair, waiting for me to play. “Jesus, hurry up, would you?” he said to me. “
Dancing with the Stars
is on in forty-five minutes.”

“If you keep talking, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to start playing,
Gramps,
” I said to him as he rolled his eyes heavenward.

I gave one last tug on the tuning pegs and caressed the strings to test their responsiveness. The calluses on my left hand were still fresh, the skin around them red and raw. I had let the nails on my right hand grow a little long, like the bluegrass players who used their nails to pick out a tune instead of relying on a piece of plastic.

I spoke to the cluster of old people who sat around in straight-backed chairs waiting for me to play. “Ladies, I'll play a love song if you promise to control yourselves. This is a, uh—” I stopped to clear my throat, stalling. “—this is a song my dad used to play for my mom. It's by Herb Alpert, who was slicker than snot when it came to making the ladies swoon. I can't sing like he did, but at the very least it will be in tune. So, it's called ‘This Guy's in Love with You.' It's one of my favorites.”

As I was playing I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Normally once the guitar and I were otherwise engaged I didn't notice much of anything around me, but when I was at Sunrise Assisted Living my senses were always heightened for the possibility of running into her.

Bridget.

She sat toward the back of the crowd, Dorothy beside her, lost in her own fabricated world. Dorothy and I had that in common.

I played a few of the old hippie tunes that were my dad's favorites. Played a few for the sake of beauty, Bob Dylan and James Taylor, including Cynthia's favorite, “Something in the Way She Moves.” I wrapped up with a John Denver, “Rocky Mountain High,” to a round of everyone clapping and singing along. It was the first time I had hit the high note on “fly” without my voice breaking since before puberty.

A few of them stopped to congratulate me on my playing, but soon they had all moved on to their eight o'clock TV commitment,
Dancing with the Stars
.

Bridget hung back, still in her seat at the back of the cluster of chairs once everyone else was gone.

“Hello, Jesse,” she said, on her guard but polite as always.

“Hey,” I said as I carefully set my guitar in its case and latched it. “It's good to see you,” I said honestly.

“I didn't know you played guitar,” she said. “You're really good. Amazing, actually.”

“I haven't played much since my mom died.”

“Was she a musician too?”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “She was a muse.”

“Right. Your dad. Pete told me he plays in a band.”

“I'm sure my mom had plenty of better offers than the one she got from my dad. But he used to play for her. That's how he got her to fall in love with him.”

“Better offers, how?” Bridget asked.

“Maybe from guys who could hold down a steady job instead of being a flaky musician. Maybe someone who could afford to take care of her.”

“Oh, I don't know,” Bridget said thoughtfully, her chin in her hand, elbow on her knee. “She probably enjoyed having someone to play for her more than she would have enjoyed having a lot of money. Money can't make you happy.”

“I suppose,” I said noncommittally as I slung my guitar case over my shoulder and turned to wave to Mr. Dunkelman before I left, but he was completely engrossed in his show and didn't notice me.

“I saw that you were at the Siegel Center event at school,” she said as we started walking toward the exit together.

“Seemed like the kids had a good time,” I said.

“They did,” she agreed with a nod. “They had a great time. I'm glad you came to watch.”

“I talked to Pete when I was there,” I said.

“Oh?” she asked in a way that told me he had already repeated our conversation to her verbatim. “How did that go?”

I shrugged. “He gave me a hot dog and it wasn't laced with poison, so I guess that's progress.”

“Yes. It's nice when your friends don't want to kill you,” she said without any apparent irony. She thanked me as I held the door for her.

“So, I uh … I guess you're not seeing Ken anymore,” I said, broaching the subject in a roundabout way.

“You guessed right,” she said flatly. Bridget pulled up the collar of her coat and reached into her pocket for a pair of gloves.

There was a light snow falling. Christmastime was late for a first snow in Massachusetts. The tiny snowflakes would not survive their fall to earth, but they drifted onto Bridget's eyelids and turned her hair into a shimmering halo under the streetlamp.

“I never should have tricked you into going out with Ken,” I said, wanting it off my chest. “You have every right to hate me, but I wanted to tell you—”

“Was that your idea?” she asked, cutting me off. “The fake cousin with Down syndrome?”

“Two months ago I probably would have used that line myself to get you to sleep with me,” I said.

“But you've changed?” she asked skeptically.

“No,” I answered quickly with an earnest shake of my head.

She paused, seeming to debate with herself what she should say next. I waited patiently until she said, “Look, I know you were the one who arranged for Theresa to win homecoming queen. I know you were the one who got it so Burke would let us use the school for the kids' Special Olympics event. Your friend, Joey, she told me everything. I even know that you got your grandfather to donate the money that paid for the whole event.”

My grandfather. Maybe that was a confession to save for another time. I was already mentally composing the angry text I was going to send to Joey for meddling. What I said was, “Whatever. I don't want to talk about any of that. I just wanted to tell you…”

She raised her eyebrows expectantly but said nothing.

“Well … shit, I'm not good at this,” I said, my eyes on the sky.

“Did you want to tell me you're sorry?” she asked helpfully after a long silence.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Yeah, I guess that's it. I am … sorry.”

“Is that it? Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Badgering the witness.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But it's all I'm going to tell you right now.”

“Okay,” she said, and turned as if to move away.

“You want to go get a coffee or something?” I called after her. “If you don't want to, I would understand—”

“That would be nice,” she said.

She stepped in closer to me, and there was a look in her eyes that I hadn't seen before. A look that was kind of nervous, but like she might just kiss me if I didn't say anything to ruin the moment. I picked up a lock of her hair and rubbed it between my fingers. “If you don't ask me for much, I could spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you,” I said in almost a whisper.

We played the silent game again, my eyes locked on hers as her lips started to melt into a pucker.

This time I won. A first.

“I thought I told you,” she said, and there was a smile in her voice, “I'm determined to like you even though you don't want me to.”

“Like me enough for me to kiss you?” I asked. “That kind of like? Or like me the same way you like the kids at the Siegel Center? You know, want to volunteer your time to try and rehabilitate me?”

She laughed and shook her head but stopped abruptly when I lifted a hand to trace my finger down the line of her jaw, my eyes on her lips instead of meeting her gaze. Her lips were right there—full and soft and warm—and her breath was tickling my chin. She was just opening her mouth to say something when I put my lips on hers and kissed her the way I had wanted to kiss her since the first time I saw her playing kickball with those dopey kids. As I put my arms around her and pulled her close, Paul McCartney started crooning “Maybe I'm Amazed” in my head and somehow I knew that meant this was it. This is what love felt like.

I'd have to tell Carter the next time I saw him.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I feel almost guilty having just my own name on the cover of this book. It actually wasn't even a very good manuscript until my editor, Sara Goodman, got her hands on it. Mad props for her incredible sense of good storytelling. And Eliani Torres did an amazing job of copyediting what I mistakenly thought was a pretty clean draft.

Many thanks to my wonderful agent, Barbara Poelle, who took exactly nine days to find a publishing house for this book. Over a holiday weekend, no less. Talk about your unbridled enthusiasm. I will forever have a mental image of you doing cartwheels in your office, Barbara.

There are a lot of people who deserve more thanks than I can express in a limited word count: my husband, Kevin, for giving me the gift of time to write and encouraging me to put my stories out into the world; my freeloading kids, for being amazing and funny and kind; my mom, Ba, for teaching me to love the written word and helping to raise my children so they don't turn out to be wild animals; my dad, David, and his brothers, for gifting me a highly developed sense of humor; my aunt, Elizabeth, for believing this was a publishable work even after reading just a crappy draft; Laura Curzi, for keeping me sane, or at least maintaining the public appearance of sanity, while also reading and commenting on hundreds of drafts of my manuscripts; Chris(tina) Sobran and Kimberly Teboho Bertocci Riley, for knowing all of my faults and loving me and my family unconditionally anyway; Paul Lusty, for being a mentor, friend, and poop confidant; my Lucky Bar peeps, for providing me with endless clever dialogue (Jonny Newkirk) and wacky character inspiration (Chris Chernes); my beautiful cousin, Denise, just because it will make her cry to see her name in print; our Boston family, the Curzi-McCabes, for taking us in and treating us like blood; the incredibly selfless and loving friends and family who have shown so much support and enthusiasm for my writing and this first published novel; Michelle Wolfson, for her encouragement and advice during the early stages of my publishing quest; Dana, for being the perfectly attentive bartender and giving me a comfortable place to write; and, last but not least, Greta, Shonda, and Toni, for keeping my head on straight and my butt in shape.