Page 17

THE REVELRY NEVER had concerts on Wednesdays.

But that rarely meant that it was closed .

Growing up, Wednesdays were peppered with bingo tournaments and town halls and high school decathlon trials, but I hadn’t heard about anything scheduled for tonight—usually my parents had a calendar hanging in the box office, but they must have forgotten to put one up this year with everything happening with Mom—so I felt safe enough to pull out the Steinway piano and sit down on the stage with it.

The piano had been a part of my earliest memories of the Revelry.

It was scratched and scuffed from years of hard love, the keys a little yellowed with time, but it was the only one like it in the world.

Sometimes growing up, I caught Mom at this piano, finding the notes like they were her old friends.

Music transformed my mother every time she played—all the other times, she was just Wynona Lark, just my mom, just the half owner of an old and storied music venue in a no-name town on the Outer Banks.

But when there was music ? Her spine straightened, her shoulders relaxed, and in those moments, she was someone else—someone I barely recognized.

Her messy hair glamorous, the gap between her front teeth iconic, her chipped nails dramatic, her voice the color of autumn.

She was someone new, someone different, a glimmer of the life she would have lived, if she had stayed with the Boulevard.

And I loved that glimpse of her. I always had. In the rain at the festival, and here at the piano.

That was the part of her that I wanted to be.

I wanted to know why some notes sang while others screamed, why some melodies made you weep, why choruses made you fall in love.

Of course, later I learned that none of it was magic or mysticism—it was theory, and craft, and luck.

I placed my fingers on the keys, greeting them after years away, and played a G chord.

Then I moved down to D, then E major, then C.

One of the most popular chord progressions in Western music, but it was my favorite anyway.

It felt like a gateway, and with it I could spirit myself away to any number of songs. They were all at my fingertips.

Figuring out songs felt a lot like painting with only cool colors, throwing in splashes of yellows and oranges to surprise.

“When I Come Around” by Green Day morphed into “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, bleeding into “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, into “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver, into Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well,” into the Beatles’ “Let It Be,” into “Wherever” by Roman Fell and the Boulevard, and finally “If You Stayed,” and by then I was smiling so hard because there were so many songs that were so different and so similar, and while it was theory and craft and luck—

It was magic, too.

I laughed at myself, not remembering the last time I’d played just to play. I … didn’t feel so empty.

There was a soft warmth in the back of my head, and then—

“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” I said in greeting, tongue in cheek.

“I was going to tell you I was here,” Sasha insisted. “I just didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you, then.”

“I heard humming, and I realized it was you.”

Well, that was mortifying. “Oh. I—I was just sitting down at the piano.”

That seemed to intrigue him. “What’re you playing?”

I danced my fingers across the keys, playing a few chords. “Depends on my mood, I guess.”

“Then what are you feeling right now?”

I closed my eyes. Played the chord. It sounded bright and bitter and wanting all at the same time. Something almost there—almost real. Something that echoed in the empty expanse between my ribs, eating away the silence. “That.”

“I can only hear you , bird.”

I blushed at the nickname. “ Bird? ”

“Like a songbird. You seem happiest when you’re playing music.”

“I … I guess I am.” And I realized that this was the first time since “If You Stayed” that I felt my heart racing like I was running toward something, not away from it. “Or, I used to be. I don’t know anymore. It’s all complicated.”

“Could you sing it for me, then?” he asked. “This feeling of yours?”

“Um—um, sure,” I replied, suddenly very much self-conscious about my voice. “Or I could just call you and play it?”

“I can’t answer the phone right now, but if you’re uncomfortable—”

“No, it’s fine. Just … don’t judge me too harshly,” I pleaded, and set my fingers on the keys again. Closed my eyes. And hummed the dissonant chord. It felt silly, singing and playing it at the same time, but as I did—

A wisp of a melody took shape, like a statue out of clay.

At first, the warm feeling in the back of my head felt like someone looking over my shoulder, but slowly it migrated as he began to hum along with me, adding a musical hook to the chorus that I hadn’t thought of.

With my eyes closed, it felt a little like it had when I was six, playing with Mom on this Steinway.

My heart fluttered, and for a moment I thought when I reached up to hit a higher note, I’d bump my hand against his—

But of course, when I opened my eyes and looked, no one was there.

I cleared my throat, trying not to feel too disappointed that I was alone in the Revelry still. “So? What’s that feeling called?”

He was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, his voice rough and thick, “Something bitter and sweet, bird. Like a kiss goodbye.”

My stomach flipped in that terribly funny way stomachs did when you realized that you were on the kind of tightrope you might enjoy, with the possibility of a fall you very much would not. I didn’t need to be on that kind of tightrope. Not with a voice in my head. Especially not with Sasha .

So I scooted my bench back quickly.

“Well, it seems playing together isn’t the way to get out of each other’s heads,” I said, closing the lid on the piano, and pushing myself to my feet. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I’ve been thinking, and honestly … no. You?”

I grabbed my purse from the box office and took the keys out to lock up. “No,” I replied with a sigh. But it did occur to me that it would probably be a lot easier to figure out how to solve this if we were in the same room together. But that meant meeting him. Which meant …

Well, it meant meeting him .

“And what if we did meet? What if we do?” he suggested.

I locked the front door of the Revelry behind me. The beach was so sweltering today, even the wind was humid.

“What if I came to y—”

“Joni?” a familiar voice interrupted us.

And in front of me, on the sidewalk, Van stood in a crisp white T-shirt and dark-wash jeans that should have been an absolute crime to walk around in, and supple leather boots. He had a grease-stained bag of doughnuts under one arm from the cake shop down the street.

A smile curled across his face. “Hey! Fancy seeing you around here. I thought the Rev was closed on Wednesdays?”

“It is,” I replied, stowing my keys in my purse and awkwardly pulling it high on my shoulder. “I was just … working. On stuff.”

God, could I be any more tongue-tied?

“Are you talking with someone?” Sasha asked.

“Working even when you’re on vacation, huh,” Van said, nodding in commiseration. “I feel you. I got an email from my boss about an asset thing—it doesn’t matter. It’s just work. Boring stuff.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, because I didn’t think what he did for work was boring at all.

After he left for Boston, he joined a small gaming company where he now worked as a software programmer.

He always liked video games, so it felt like a natural progression.

I’d even tried to play one of the platformers he worked on a few years ago, but I was awful at those sorts of Metroidvaniastyle games.

“Oooh, is this that guy again?” Sasha asked curiously. “Do you have a small little cruuuush?”

I really wished there was an eject button in my head.

Clearing my throat, I pointed to the bag under Van’s arm. “Boring work’s certainly not stopping you from enjoying the little things.”

He laughed, holding up the greasy bag of doughnuts. “Guilty as charged. Sometimes you just got a craving, you know?”

“You always did have a sweet tooth,” I replied, remembering all the late-night drives for slushies and ice cream. “Did you see the new ice cream place down by the pier?”

His eyes lit up. “I hear they have bacon ice cream.”

I scrunched my nose. “Gross.”

“It might be good!”

“We’ll see.”

“Are you still flirting? Get a room already.”

I bent my head down and whispered, “Will you stop it?”

“Hmm?” Van asked, pulling out his phone.

I smiled at him. “Nothing! Nothing. There was—um—an annoying fly buzzing me.”

“Wow, as soon as another guy comes around, I’m a fly . I’m hurt, bird.”

If there was a way to mentally choke a man out, I was envisioning it.

Van said, “Well, can you give me your number? And you can text me if you ever want to go check it out?”

“You’re not going to convince me that bacon ice cream is good.”

“Challenge accepted,” he replied with a grin.

I should have said no. I should have told him that this ship had sailed, and he’d sunk it when he left me on the beach with a broken heart years ago.

But … I wasn’t very good at self-preservation, and there were so many questions I had for him.

I wanted to know how he was, if he liked his job, whether he’d completed his Terry Pratchett collection yet.

And it wasn’t like I would make the same mistake twice.

We were both almost a decade older than those kids on the beach.

We had history, and that history didn’t just go away.

And, I mean, he was still really super attractive.

Besides, what if it helped spark something in me? What if it filled the well? Cured me of burnout? I hadn’t tried this yet. Maybe …

Sasha said, sounding sincere, “You only live once, bird.”

I …

“C’mon, give him your number.”

So I did. I put it into his phone, and he looked happy with himself as he sent off a text to me. But really, my putting my number into his phone meant that he’d lost it at some point. My phone vibrated in my back pocket with his new number. “And now we can meet for bacon ice cream, yeah?”

“I’d like that,” I replied. Because I really would.

“Good. You know, not everyone can say they might get ice cream with the great Joni Lark.” He raised an eyebrow playfully.

“Joni Lark isn’t that great. She’s tired mostly.”

“Well, you don’t look tired. And my parents still talk about how great you are.”

Larry and Esther. I still had a cheap casserole recipe that Larry gave me one Thanksgiving. I couldn’t remember how many weeks I subsisted off it in LA when money got tight and I only had some ground chuck in the fridge and almost-sprouted potatoes in the pantry.

“Yeah,” I said awkwardly.

Van cleared his throat. “Well, guess I should get these home before I decide to just eat them all here,” he said, patting the bag of doughnuts. “See you soon?” he added, though it must have been my imagination that it was hopeful.

“Soon,” I promised.

He waved an awkward goodbye as he stepped around me and dug his keys out of his pocket and pressed a button on the fob. An old Ford truck parked just down from the Revelry flashed its lights as it unlocked, and he climbed into it, and with one last short wave, he pulled a U-turn and drove away.

Bacon ice cream. Not very romantic. My phone began to vibrate, and when I checked the caller ID—it said a Santa Ana area code. No, he couldn’t have …

So, I answered it with a cautious “Hello?”

“Wow, you gave him your actual number,” Sasha replied.

My mouth dropped open. “You copied it down?”

“To be fair, you thought it aloud when you put it in.”

I massaged the bridge of my nose as I started down the street toward the beach. There wasn’t a reason why I chose that direction. My body just pulled that way, a comfort embedded deep in my bones. “Of course I gave him my actual number. He’s a good guy.”

“Who you clearly have baggage with.”

“It’s … more like carry-on.”

“Huh.”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought you said you couldn’t chat on the phone, champ?”

“I figured out a way. Besides, like I was saying before we got interrupted by your crush—”

“He’s not a crush—”

“—I think we should meet.”

I almost tripped as I stepped off the curb and crossed the street. “In person?”

“In person,” he echoed. “I think it might make this whole … thing easier to figure out.”

Maybe … I chewed on my bottom lip.

Theoretically, it would be a lot easier to figure out this whole telepathic thing in person—or at least we could concentrate on it rather than just wait for the whims of whatever connected us to dry up.

But then why did it make me so nervous? Living with him in my head was one thing, but with him here? Physically? What if …

“We wouldn’t be strangers, then,” I pointed out.

“No,” he agreed. “But …”

“I don’t think we’re strangers now, either,” he said in my head.

And he was right, we really weren’t. The longer I spoke with him, the more I imagined what he looked like, how he moved, his mannerisms. Did his face match his voice?

Over the last few days, I’d started to construct this image of him in my head: tall, dark hair, a bit of stubble across his cheeks, and slate-colored eyes to match his gravelly voice.

I imagined that he dressed in sleek dark colors, and that he walked with his hands in his pockets, and the tips of his fingers were covered in calluses from guitar strings.

I’d imagined the kind of man who would call me bird around a perpetual grin, and tell me that my voice was lovely and—

And what if the real him was nothing like the man in my head at all?

I made it to the beach finally, and sat down on one of the dunes, watching a family fly a dragon-shaped kite in the breeze. It looped around and around, much like all the what-ifs in my head.

“Okay,” I finally agreed. Let’s meet.