Page 1 of Intermission

August 9th

Present Day

Somewhere between Michigan and Iowa

Tick-tick-tick-tick.Thrum-bum-bum.Tick-tick-tick-tick.Tick-tick-tick-tick.Thrum-bum-bum.

White dashes cut the interstate lanes like staccato sixteenth notes, arguing time signatures with a Rodgers & Hammerstein waltz, the current selection on my Broadway playlist.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.Thrum-bum-bum.Tick-tick-tick-tick.Tick-tick-tick-tick.Thrum-bum-bum.

Ugh. So annoying. At least my car’s iffy power outlet is cooperating with the ancient-but-necessary adapter today. I can ignore background static as long as the tunes flow from my phone to the car’s speakers without interruption.

Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I press the pedal down. The dashes blur, but only until I glance at the speedometer. Oops. I ease my foot off the gas. The clock confirms what I already know. I’m two hours ahead of schedule, and a working college student’s budget leaves precious little wiggle room for unnecessary extras, like speeding tickets.

Setting the cruise control at an almost-law-abiding number, I turn up the volume, hoping the encompassing magic of Broadway will transport my anxious mind to the stage and speed the hours of this long-awaited trip.

It works. For three or four songs. And then a random pothole euthanizes the show tunes I spent hours arranging into playlist perfection.

The sudden silence pulls two unbidden exhalations from my lips. “No-ah.” My Broadway illusion shatters on those shallow syllables, yanking deep cords of an aching hope.

He was my Noah once.

Back then, any doubts that arose were quickly snuffed.

Today, they own me.

I pull the adapter from the power outlet and blow on it, though I doubt there’s scientific evidence of why that might help. I stick itback in. Static. I try again, twisting left, right... nothing.

My pulse increases as desperation builds in my throat. Music. I need music!

Remove. Blow. Replace. I repeat the process with the end attached to my phone. Nothing but static. With a groan, I unplug both and toss them onto the passenger seat.

My five-year-old Siberian husky mix lifts her gray and white head from the back seat and pants a smile.

“Well, Janey,” I say, glancing at the blue-eyed beauty in the rearview mirror, “looks like we’re at the mercy of the radio.”

Clearly, Janey is unconcerned, but her calm does not stop panic from wrapping a chokehold around my windpipe. I was counting on that playlist to distract me from the “what-ifs” of this long-awaited road trip, from thinking about what may or may not be waiting on the other side of the promise I’m in the process of keeping.

“He said he would come.”

I repeat the reminder like a mantra as I hit the seek button.

“He said he would come.”

Janey barks a happy sled-dog sort of sound that seems not only out of place on this hot August day but entirely too optimistic, all things considered. I guess she’s forgotten the part that lets Noah off the hook if he—

No, I can’t think like that. Not yet.

But neither can I handle the twangy country station the radio finds. I hit the seek button again. And again. Do theymakeanother kind of music in this part of the world?

After tapping the button five more times, each tap a little more desperate, a little stabbier than the one before, the smooth caramel croon of an old Michael Bublé song saves me from the clutches of a desolate musical landscape.

Saves me... and wrecks me, because it floods my mind with the memory of another crooner—Noah—and his spot-on Bublé impression.

Tears threaten above the smile I cannot contain. I blink away the blur, but it doesn’t clear the view in my mind’s eye.

His eyes, a shade of blue so honest they should have a crayon named after them.