A Song For the Road

by Rayne Lacko

Carter started a fresh page, penning the chords, strumming, then writing more of the song he’d been working on the morning Ledbetter changed his guitar strings. He could feel the shape of it now and he knew the words he had to write. The melody and the lyrics fell in line together like they’d been friends all along but kept missing each other in the confusion of Carter’s pressing forward and hanging back. He had to make a decision, and soon. Would he get a plane to Tulsa, or head out west to surprise his father? He was starting to see how songwriting could be about conflict, taking two opposing things and putting them together to see what happened. There was harmony between home and away. Maybe he’d given up or maybe he’d grown strong-willed, he wasn’t sure which. But he could play it through until he figured it out.

  Piper appeared at the top of the ladder with a sandwich. “Your song is really good, Carter. I see why Ledbetter took a shine to you.” Carter shrugged like it was no big thing, but he couldn’t help but smile. He helped her onto the roof and she took a seat on the pool lounge. “Taste this.” She held out the plate to him.

  Carter had prepped enough dishes that day to know it was her mashed pesto chickpea salad sandwich. His mother had tried to serve him chickpeas once. It was an experience he didn’t want to relive. But Piper wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Carter had always thought of himself as a meat-and-pota-toes guy, but Piper’s combination of flavors tasted bright and alive and satisfying. Familiar, yet entirely new. “It’s earthy, but I like it.” He took a seat next to her and dug in.

  By late afternoon, Piper sent her employees home. Carter helped her scrub the kitchen. He planned to catch a bus to the airport right after his early gig at The Crusty Maiden, and he if couldn’t convince Piper to come to her senses about Willard, he’d call Mitch himself.

  A band of light below the door to the dining area went dark. They both knew who stood on the other side. Piper stiffened, eyeing the low snake of shadow. Even if Carter had some idea of how to help her—and he didn’t—he wasn’t sure Piper would let him come between them. The door swung open. Willard’s hulking form dominated the frame.

  “What’s the kid still doing here? This place a daycare now?” Willard walked past Piper and opened the refrigerator. He helped himself to one beer, pausing to consider a tray of fresh brownies. “Why you got to put walnuts in them, Pipe? You know I’m allergic.”

  Piper lowered her eyes, toying with the ends of her apron strings.

  Willard rambled on about his job minding the security cameras from a darkened room in an office building. It sounded like the dullest job in the world. But Carter couldn’t help feeling a measure of pity. He knew all too well what felt like, being on course toward his dream job, when the winds suddenly changed. Carter wouldn’t even join band at school, it hurt him too much. Security work was as close as Willard would ever get to becoming a police officer, but at least he was trying. Then it hit him. What Piper needed was security. Carter knew just where to find it.

  “Hey, I got a gig tonight at The Crusty Maiden,” Carter told him. “I’d appreciate some friendly faces in the crowd. Want to come?”

  “The Maiden’s letting some toddler brat onstage?” Willard narrowed his gaze on the boy. “We got better things to do. Piper wants to watch me clean and adjust the chain tension on my Harley.”

  Carter whistled like he was impressed. “Prettiest bike in America, I reckon. Best if her rider knows how to maintain her.” He tried to get a read on Willard. His doughy face didn’t give away much emotion. “C’mon and watch my show. I’ll buy you a burger if you’ll tell me what it’s like to ride a bike that fine. I got my learner’s permit and took a few lessons on my neighbor’s Yamaha. Wish I could ride a Softail like you. Must be nice.”

  Willard yawned, scratching his fingers along the reddened scalp visible under his buzz cut. “That oughta be good for a laugh, huh, babe?” Willard unbuttoned his uniform shirt and handed it to Piper. “I could go for a cold beer and a burger.” Underneath he wore a plain white T-shirt, large sweat clouds drooping from his armpits.

  “Yeah, should be a good laugh,” she replied. Piper threw Carter a puzzled look.

  Carter jutted his jaw toward the door. “Why don’t you guys go on?” she said, catching on. “I need to file some receipts.” She backed toward her office, angling the dirty shirt away from her nose. “I’ll meet you there in a few.”

  “Sure, see you,” Carter nodded, urging Willard out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “JAILBAIT!” BET CALLED OUT WHEN WILLARD and Carter sat down at a table. From around the room, an echo of Crusty Maiden servers, security staff, and bartenders called out, “Jailbait, what’s up, man?”

  Willard scratched at the short hairs on his scalp, frowning at Carter. “You been in town for, what, twenty-four hours? And you got Bet on your good side?”

  Bet sidled up to their table and pulled a pen from behind her ear. “What’ll you have, honey? Chicken tacos again?”

  “Do you have anything vegetarian?” Carter asked. One day in Piper’s company had made his taste buds eager to find out what they’d been missing.

  “I’ll see what I can do for you, Jailbait.” She winked. Piper arrived at the table, a large tote bag over her shoulder. Carter rose from his seat and pulled an empty chair for her to join them. Willard rolled his eyes and closed his menu.

  “How you doing, Chef?” Bet greeted her. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’d like an iced tea when you have a moment, Bet.”

  “What about you, Javelina?” Bet asked Willard.

  “Cheeseburger, double. With bacon, double,” he said, his voice like gravel. “The kid’s buying. Hope it doesn’t take as long to get to the table as it did to take my order.”

  “Get bent,” Bet replied and turned on the heel of her black biker boot and stomped off.

  Carter leaned across the table to Piper and whispered, “What’s a javelina?”

  She angled her face close to his ear and held a hand in front of her lips. “A peccary; a hairy skunk pig.”

  “It’s a badge of honor if a Crusty Maiden gives you a nickname,” Willard said, too loud. Piper and Carter exchanged a smirk, but only Bet had the mettle to rib him that way.

  Carter still couldn’t believe his mother had been the one to pawn his guitar. It was too much to wrap his head around. It was good that Mama was recovering, that much he could hold onto.

  He set about planning which songs to perform, and Piper was kind enough to throw some ideas his way. If Willard was grumpy when they sat down, he only grew grumpier. No one bothered to ask him what music he wanted to hear. He choked down his burger then stood, the legs of his chair skating across the floor. Still chewing, he left them to sulk by the pool table. Carter was glad he’d taken his storm cloud with him.

  The music Piper liked was alternative rock and lesser-known indie acts Carter followed on the college radio station back in Tulsa. Thinking about home reminded him he hadn’t finished his letter to Kaia that day. Carter pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it on the table, flattening it out. It was the song he’d been working on. Grabbing his pen from his backpack, he held his hand across the top, trying to come up with a title.

  “Love Doesn’t Walk Away,” he finally wrote, stealing a glance at Piper. She stroked her bottom lip, avoiding his gaze. Carter wondered if she was stifling a smile. The song held everything he could possibly hope to say, more than he could write in a proper letter or even a whole book. Piper shot a photo of it with her phone and Carter quickly emailed the image to Kaia. Then it was time to hit the stage.

  Grabbing his guitar, Carter took his place on a single stool. “Hey, everyone,” he said, adjusting the microphone, “thanks for having me back.” A weak round of cheers went around the room. It was early yet, and only the die-hard regulars, the ones who practically lived at The Crusty Maiden, had any clue who the kid with the mahogany guitar might be.

  “I spent m
y whole life in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” he told the audience. Carter wasn’t sure when or if he’d get another chance to perform, and hoped to make the most of his gig. Storytelling, spreading good vibes, that was the way Ledbetter did it. What did he have to hide? All that time he was laying low in New Mexico, the letters he wrote to Kaia were as honest as the ties between his fingertips and his guitar. The truth prevailed, like an unstoppable wind.

  “Anyone here from the Sooner State?” he asked. Not a single Okie in the place but him. “Well, a tornado took the only home I’ve ever known, so I set out on the road. I was in Albuquerque a few weeks back,” he continued, trying a few chords. He noticed Piper wandering over to Willard like a cursed mosquito to a bug zapper. “You’ll never guess who I met: Poly Virus.” The crowd offered a few murmurs of approval as Carter started strumming the opening bars of “Shotgun Candle.” Launching into the lyrics, he figured the worst they could do was make fun of his accent. Better to be true to himself. If they didn’t like it, it didn’t bother him a lick. Far as he could reckon, he was born alone and that was the way he’d die, so he’d best be his own shotgun candle, because sometimes your own family let you down.

  Carter shut his eyes to concentrate. He’d practiced over countless hours. Playing guitar had become part of his nature, something he didn’t have to think about, just allow. He remembered Garrett and the way he held himself. Front man colored his every move.

  But he couldn’t let go. He was worried about Piper. He couldn’t stand being out of sorts with his mother. And truth be told, he was downright afraid of facing his father after all these years. A note in his song misaligned, and then another, like they’d fallen out of rhythm with his own heartbeats. He was watching his finger patterns, trying to correct his chords, when his vocals slipped out of tune. He could only maintain one thing at a time. But music was anything but one-dimensional. Around the bar, customers resumed their conversations. Bet penned an order on her pad, paying him no mind.

  He knew he had to free himself in the music, blend the thousand different ingredients that made up a song. Worrying would have to wait. No, that wasn’t it. He’d have to face every burden, every unknown, every worst-case scenario the way Ledbetter had taught him to treat the blues. Bring ’em on; let his pain, worry, fears, and sadness bleed into every note and lyric.

  The tune was still a hair off, so he slid off the stool, opening himself. Standing in the spotlight, tall as nature made him, he played on.

  The room fell quiet. Carter’s sound flushed clean, pure and honest. At the bar, Bet leaned toward the stage, watching the song find its home among the strings under his fingers. Giving up the pads of his fingertips was a small sacrifice. His unruly hair fell over his eyes as his head lolled forward, following the wild beat. He swung his head back to get it out of the way, then it rolled forward again, like every hair on his head was a wave on the ocean of his music.

  A small group of girls in platform heels and crop tops sat at a table to the right of the stage. When Poly Virus’s familiar chorus came back around, they chimed in, singing along with Carter. The evening crowd began filing in, brightening the room with laughter and good spirits, even as the sun sank below the horizon.

  Carter poured his Creativity, Victory, Heart, and Discipline into every lyric, chord, strum, and pluck on the strings. Piper watched him, mesmerized. He held the attention of every set of eyes in the house. Everyone’s except Willard’s, who was too busy stink-eyeing his fiancée, a dark scowl pulling down his thick face.

  At the end of his song, Carter leaned into the microphone and paused, unsure whether it was too early to share the song that’d been biting a hole in him since that sunrise in Albuquerque.

  “This next one goes out to a girl I never knew back home. But she sure knows a thing or two about me,” he said, his breath too loud in the mic. “It’s called ’Love Doesn’t Walk Away.’ I hope it’s as good as it sounds on paper.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  PIPER PULLED AWAY FROM WILLARD. KNEELING in front of the stage, she held up her phone to Carter, recording a video of his song. Drawing near, she shot a close-up of his hands strumming furiously with a mind of their own. Carter’s eyes met hers over the top of her phone and he sang the chorus line, the reason Mitch kept showing up every Sunday. Belting out the lyrics with all his heart, Carter caught a glimpse of his mother’s choice to go her own way, too. And his father’s respect for her space. But he was still lost in the middle.

  Willard didn’t like all the fuss Piper was making with her phone. “Time to go home.” He took hold of her upper arm. “I’ve had enough of this dung heap.” He grabbed the phone from her hand and thumbed a few icons. Carter could tell by the cruel edge to his grin that he’d deleted the video. It didn’t matter. The song wasn’t ready yet anyway. Couldn’t be, not when the people he loved were still walking away.

  Carter brought the song to an end. “Bet, can you help me out a second?” he called to his favorite server. He wasn’t about to let Willard take Piper anywhere, not if he could do something about it.

  Too brazen to miss a beat, she answered him from across the loud bar. “What can I do for you, honey?”

  “I’d like to place a wager,” he said into the mic, faking a grin. Dead center in the spotlight, he had to make it seem like what he was about to do was part of the act. “A slice of your famous chocolate cake to Ms. Piper Piedra here if she’ll get up and sing with me.”

  Bet let out a long hoot and a whistle. Willard stopped short and glared at Carter, still gripping Piper’s arm. “Been down that road, honey,” Bet told Piper, sidling up to the stage. “I’d like to say I came out a winner. You might as well take your chances on this snip of trouble with a guitar.”

  “Stop wasting everybody’s time,” Willard grunted into Piper’s ear. He pulled her toward the front door. “Let’s get out of here.” Stooping like a whupped pup, she glanced sidelong at Carter with sorry eyes and poor excuses: I don’t even want cake. It’s probably not vegan here. Carter knew it was up to Piper to stay or go. If she wasn’t ready to take a stand for herself, there was nothing he, or Mitch, or anyone could do. He sure hoped she’d fight and not follow.

  Bet lifted a fishnet leg onto an empty chair and hoisted herself up onto a table surrounded by tattooed and bearded regulars. Cupping her hand around her blood-red lips with one hand and waving a bar towel with the other, Bet booed Willard for hassling “The Crusty Maiden’s newest singing sensation.” Following her lead, Carter rallied the crowd in a chant, then pulled a second microphone next to his. The girls who sang along to “Shotgun Candle” joined Carter’s chant straight up. Faster than a metronome set to speedcore, they had the whole crowd chanting, “Pi-per, Pi-per, Pi-per.”

  When Piper dared to turn back to Carter, he met her eye. He hoped Ledbetter had made the stage a safe place for her the way he had for Carter. He held out the second mic to her and waited for her to choose which way she wanted the wind to blow.

  Piper pulled away from Willard and slumped toward the stage, rubbing at the back of her arm where he’d held her too tightly. Bet lowered the bar towel to her side and the crowd quieted down. All eyes followed Piper. Securing the second mic in a stand, Carter sat down on the stage stool. When she reached the stage, she hesitated in the dim shadow at the curved edge of the spotlight. He nodded to her, asking her to take the last step to join him. She stood frozen in the shadow and he wondered whether he was making another mistake.

  Carter stole a glance at the crowd and centered his guitar in position, strumming a chord to signal another song was on the way. He didn’t know Piper from nothing and maybe all this was stupid. Or, from the looks of Willard, darn near dangerous. Bet stepped down from the table and edged toward Piper, concern pinching the high arch of her painted brow.

  Choosing a familiar melody, Carter slowed its tempo, strumming out an agonizing wail of Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight.” The song was a gamble, but he had to take a chance. Piper found the steps to th
e stage in the dark, joining Carter. The din of the crowd settled. He repeated the intro a few times to prepare her.

  Clutching the mic, she stared at the wall behind the bar, straight past Willard’s angry glare, listening.

  Carter abandoned the intro and transitioned to the melody. All hesitation gone, the song’s familiar old lyrics poured from Piper, filling Carter’s heart with relief and gratitude. She sang of the sorrow of wandering in the night and her lonesome hideaway atop The Desert Willow. Night winds seemed to whisper through Piper’s voice, blending with Carter’s bittersweet longing for the highway waiting ahead and the miles behind him. Carter watched her, the spotlight unloading Piper’s inner demons, just like Ledbetter said it would.

  Carter and Piper were different as night and day, no doubt about it, yet Carter recognized they shared the same musical core, the kind of DNA replication he’d learned about in Mr. Russell’s science class back at Bob Bogle High School. If Carter believed Piper should be brave enough to leave Willard, give up the familiar in favor of the unknown, he ought to, too. He needed to go see his father.

  Watching Piper transform before his eyes, feeling the music flow effortlessly from his hand, and witnessing the transfixed crowd drawing closer to the stage, Carter was beginning to believe in his own transformation.

  By the end of the song, Bet was smiling up at the two of them from the foot of the stage. “Jailbait, you are something else. How’d you know that was my favorite song?”

  He hadn’t. Shrugging, he tried to make sense of it. “The Desert Willow reminds me of the weeping willows back home in Oklahoma,” he said. “Weeping willows remind me of ’Walkin’ After Midnight.’ And Patsy Cline reminds me of another music legend—my buddy, Mr. Ledbetter.” Carter grinned. “Seeing as Ledbetter taught Piper here to sing, I reckoned she might be familiar with the old song.”

  For the first time, Carter witnessed Piper’s smile.

  Song requests drifted from the floor. Piper found her mojo and the audience loved her. The downswing of her slumped shoulders straightened, opening her heart to the crowd. She loosened her choke hold on the microphone.