Page 61 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

It was long past when I should have gotten out of bed, but the unexpected September cold snap made me reluctant to emerge from my comforter cocoon.

I grabbed my phone and swiped to turn on Courtney’s album.

I’d lost count of how many times I had listened to it since it dropped last week.

It had exploded in popularity, as anyone who knew Courtney’s talent and Demetrius’s brilliance and tenacity would have expected.

I had overheard two clients whispering about Courtney having worked in the bookstore and no one knowing. College students played it loudly in their cars as they drove down the streets around the St. Clare Park neighborhood. It was inescapable.

And I didn’t want to escape it.

I had received fifteen books since Courtney left, and they all sat on my nightstand even though I had read most of them.

If I managed to get out of bed, I was contemplating eating a piece of the ice cream cake that had arrived on dry ice yesterday for breakfast. The ice cream cake had come with a slightly different book.

A bound version of one of those inanimate object “romances” in which a woman falls in love with her birthday cake and then eats it…

out. I fell asleep last night still laughing about it.

Sometimes the books arrived with longer letters, and sometimes they just had a quick note as to why Courtney liked that book.

They each came with a bookmark or some other indication of where she had bought them.

Courtney always seemed to find time to visit a bookstore in every city she played in.

Sometimes the books were new, and sometimes they were used.

Every single one had a clinch cover—except the birthday cake one of course.

A month ago, Samantha had stopped by Squid to ask Denise a question at the same time that I received a package.

There had been no way to hide how much I lit up with excitement to receive it.

I suspected Courtney had heard because the books arrived a little more frequently after.

Courtney had also started underlining certain parts.

There were never notes in the margins, but it seemed like she wanted to draw my attention to certain places that she particularly loved.

The last book package that arrived had been from Seattle.

It arrived on the day the album had dropped.

I had the day off work and spent most of it in bed just like I was now, listening to it over and over again just like I would have if I hadn’t been in love with the woman who turned out to be Kestrel.

I couldn’t decide which song was my favorite.

“Peg Board” was another of the songs I listened to on repeat.

It described the process of figuring out someone was a lesbian in a series of particularly hilarious vignettes.

I had seen too much of Courtney’s mind and soul to be surprised by how good the record was, but it was absolutely surreal to think about certain memories of Courtney while listening to her songs.

The sexy song that had been leaked was a little different in the final version.

On the album it was called “Pulp Fiction,” and somehow the lyrics of the forbidden fruit sapphic ballad were even hornier than the leaked version.

You drank me dry, honey

Til my lips were bruised

Crushed, infused, and flooding in my core

Take another bite, baby

Slice the rind with your quick fingers

see what’s hidden deep inside

where all I need, all I need is more (of you) to keep

It was definitely crass to be unable to browse the Trader Joe’s produce section without one’s underwear becoming damp every time she saw the display of split, prepackaged papayas.

You can pretend they never knew

How you plucked me in the sunshine,

And sucked me down to the last seed

But I know you walked away

with bits of me stuck like citrus peels

beneath your pretty painted fingernails

Always lingering with need

I wanted to know who hurt Courtney. I wanted to know everything about whoever inspired that song. The ending made me both sad and angry. And if I were being honest, a little relieved that Courtney had seen through whatever woman had led her on.

You spit me out and said I was your worst addiction

But to me, honey, your overripe, sugar-tongued words

Were all just another pulp fiction

Needing to stop my overanalyzing of Courtney’s lyrics before it drove me to insanity, I grabbed the book splayed open on the cold pillow beside me.

I had been reading it slowly since receiving it. This book was a contemporary romance, and it got smutty much quicker than a lot of the other books Courtney had sent. One third of the way into the book, underlining appeared.

I turned the pages faster as heat rose in my core. The next page was basically completely underlined. And for the first time there was a note in the margin. Not a note exactly, but a small doodle of a mushroom. I read on and saw exactly why Courtney had underlined the hell out of the page.

Obviously the dialogue and setup were different, but it was so, so close to a conversation we had had the night after we got back from Flint Hills.

There were other similarities as well.

Holy shit.

Okay.

I had held out as long as I possibly could.

It wasn’t just because my favorite vibrator’s charger broke this morning that I was sure I might die if I didn’t do something. I missed Courtney more than I had ever missed anyone. Courtney was doing everything I had wanted her to. She had fought for her career, and it seemed like she had won.

When I finished the book and rolled over into the late-morning Saturday sunshine, I knew it was time for me to do a little fighting too.

The next day I walked over to the bookstore on my break before my evening clients. Billy Gibbons the bearded dragon was behind the counter, and I nearly burst into tears. This time he stayed in his carrier, so at least there wasn’t any reason to scream.

“Is Samantha here?” I asked the new hire working the counter.

“She’s in the office in the back. Right down the hall.”

I headed down the narrow hallway, and a familiar voice froze me to the spot before I could knock. It took me a few tortured seconds to recognize that it was a recording. It was one of the live streams of the Violet Trikes concerts that people had been posting.

“—yeah when I wrote that one I was still so far in the closet I was practically in Narnia. When my crazy Christian parents let me read that series, I’m not sure that was the part of the story they hoped I’d relate to.”

Laughter and applause.

Courtney cleared her throat. “Guess there’s definitely a few people with religious trauma in the audience.

” More cheering applause. “That’s what this next song is about.

The problem with growing up in a high-control religion is that it doesn’t just distort your reality in the obvious ways.

There’s the surface stuff that’s obvious when you walk away from it and realize how actually bonkers most of it is.

But it leaves these cracks. Like for a while I had this pretty gross idea that if I fell in love with someone, I had to be willing to sacrifice everything of myself for them.

On some level it sounds poetic. It’s some Romeo and Juliet shit.

But when you get down into it, the best love stories end in the people falling in love and through falling in love with someone else, they learn to embrace their truest selves. ”

More applause.

I sank to the ground in the dusty hallway.

“So this song is called ‘Roast Sacrificial Lamb,’ and I actually wrote it a long time before I understood what it meant when someone who says they love you asks you to give up who you are. Now I know that a person who loves you would never ask you to be less than your whole self.”

The song was halfway through when the door to the office opened.

When she saw me sitting there, Samantha smiled knowingly before beckoning me back to join her.

“She’s so good.” I sat on the small office couch.

“She really is.” Samantha nodded and joined me.

We sat together listening to the next two songs, and then the live feed cut out.

“I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been meaning to come by to see you.”

“Oh?”

“Two reasons. I wanted to ask how Marshall is doing. Haven’t seen him around, and I wasn’t sure what was happening with the pub.”

I smiled. “He’s doing good actually. Better. He’s gone right now because he’s in this business seminar in Philly. Also doing a lot of interviews with chefs. He’s getting some things fixed in the kitchen while he works out what he wants to do next.”

Samantha nodded. “Smart.”

“He is. Despite his best efforts to hide it.”

Samantha chuckled.

“What was the other thing?”

“I’m looking for someone to take over one of the romance book clubs—specifically the queer one.

It’s early, but the person running it right now is going to graduate in the spring.

Starting in May, I’m going to need someone else to run it.

I know you have a lot on your plate, but it seemed like something that you might enjoy. ”

“Oh wow.”

“And given the way you started bullying a customer who picked up a book you didn’t enjoy and handed her one you did the other day”—Samantha’s eyes twinkled—“I thought you might like having a more formal role in helping people pick books.”

“When would I start?”

“May first. This one’s usually the first Wednesday of the month. You can pick the location if you want. We’ve had a lot of interest in a book club like this, and I think I’d also rather a queer person run it or pick the books for it.”

“That makes sense…”

“No pressure at all though. I don’t need an answer now. Maybe next week?”

I grinned. “Thank you. I’m really trying to get better about rushing into things and taking on too much.”

“Thanks for considering it.”

I nodded and sat in silence, rolling a stray thread on the couch between my fingers.

“Everything okay, Thea?”

“If I wanted to send Courtney a letter… or something… could you get it to her?” I blurted the question out so quickly, I wasn’t sure Samantha had caught any of my words.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could.”