The Edge of Never

by J. A. Redmerski

  “Baby, you know the song better than I do,” he says. “Stop being so negative.” His black t-shirt tumbles down over his abs. He’s wearing a black and silver belt, but only tucks the shirt in a little around the buckle, letting the rest hang freely around the top of his chiseled hips. Dark jeans, the front of his tousled hair spiked up a bit—What was he saying?

  “The only thing you really need to try to remember,” he goes on as he applies a layer of deodorant, “is not to sing every line in the song—got an opportunity not to sing as much but you still sing my parts, too.” He raises a brow looking over at me. “Not that I mind, I just figured it would make you more comfortable having to sing less.”

  “I know, I’m just so used to singing along to the whole song—kind of hard to get the hang of not singing certain parts.”

  He nods.

  I slip my feet down into my new heels and go to check myself out in the tall mirror over the TV stand.

  “You are so damn sexy,” Andrew says coming up behind me.

  He slips his hands on my waist and kisses my neck, then slaps me on the butt of my tight almost-skinny-jeans and I yelp a little because it stings.

  “And as always, babe, I love the braids.” He reaches up and slides the two braids lying over each shoulder down the length of his thumbs and then kisses me playfully on the cheek.

  I recoil and push him away teasingly. “You’ll mess up my makeup.”

  He walks away smiling and grabs his wallet from the nightstand and slips it into his back pocket.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” he says.

  He moves to the center of the room and extends one hand far out to me, placing his other arm horizontally across his back and bows, grinning. The tips of my fingers inch their way across his and then he encloses my hand and pulls me along with him toward the door.

  “What about the guitar?”

  We stop just before he opens the door and he looks at me thankfully.

  “Yeah, that might help,” he says, taking the guitar up by its neck. “If Eddie isn’t there, we might’ve been shit out of luck with no guitar to play with.”

  “Oh, well then I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  He shakes his head and pulls me with him out the door.

  32

  THIS TIME WE TAKE the Chevelle. Andrew took one look at my shoes and knew I wouldn’t make it all the way into Algiers wearing these babies and he wasn’t about to carry me and the guitar. We take the freeway instead of the ferry and make our way across the Mississippi and are there by nightfall. Walking the rest of the way to Old Point like we did the first time would’ve been better, because right now as we drive closer, I know we’ll be there in no time.

  I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach.

  We park along Olivier Street and get out. My feet are cemented to the road.

  Andrew comes around to my side and pulls me into his arms, gently squishing me.

  “I won’t make you do this,” he says, having a change of heart. I’m pretty sure I look like I’m about to lose the late lunch we had not long ago.

  Pulling me away from his chest, he takes my face into his hands and gazes into my eyes. “I mean it, baby, all joking aside—I don’t want you to do it if you absolutely don’t want to, not even for me.”

  I nod nervously and inhale a deep breath; my face still cupped within his hands.

  “No, I can do this,” I say, still nodding, trying to pull my courage together. “I want to do it.”

  He brushes my cheeks under the pads of his thumbs. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiles in at me with those green eyes, which I’m starting to believe are bewitching me in some way, and then takes my hand. He plucks the guitar out of the back seat and we walk into Old Point together.

  “Parrish!” Carla says from behind the bar. She raises her hand and waves us towards her.

  Still hand in hand, Andrew weaves us through the thick crowd and over to her. The TV behind her head is playing commercials; the light from it casts a white glow around her.

  “Hey Carla,” Andrew says, leaning over the bar to hug her, “is Eddie here tonight?”

  She puts her hands on her hips and smiles over at me.

  “He sure is,” she says, “he’s around here somewhere. Hi Camryn, good to see you again.”

  I smile back at her. “You too.”

  Andrew sits on a barstool and motions for me to take the one next to him. I hop up and sit here nervously. All I can think about is how many people there are in this place. My eyes scan the room uneasily, over the tops of moving heads and through people standing up now that the band has started playing again. As the music picks up, Andrew and Carla are practically shouting at each other over the bar:

  “Got any room for us tonight?” Andrew asks.

  Carla leans in further toward him. “Us?” she says, glancing at me once. “Oh wow, are you both going to sing?” She looks excited.

  My heart just jumped ship and fell into my knees.

  I swallow down a nervous knot looking between them, but then another one just forms in its place.

  Carla tilts her head and her already huge smile warms. “Oh honey, you’ll do great—no need to be nervous; everybody here will love you.” She reaches somewhere behind the bar and pulls up a shot glass. A man sits at the bar on the other side of me, obviously a regular since he doesn’t have to tell her what he wants and Carla is already pouring him a drink.

  She keeps her attention mostly on me and Andrew, though.

  “I’ve been tryin’ to tell her,” Andrew says, “but this is her first time, so I have to cut her some slack.”

  “The first and last time,” I correct him.

  Carla grins secretly over at Andrew and then says to me, “Well, I’m not the violent type, but if you have any problems with anyone out there, just come get me and I’ll throw them out the side door just like you see it done in the movies.” She winks at me and then turns back to Andrew.

  “There’s Eddie now,” she says, nodding in the direction of the stage.

  Eddie is walking through the crowd, wearing the same sort of thing I saw him in the first time I met him: button-up white shirt, black slacks, shiny black shoes and a deep, wrinkly smile.

  “Ga, dere come Parrish!” Eddie says gripping Andrew’s hand and pulling him into a hug. Then he looks at me. “Galee! You look like dem lad’es in dem magazines, you do!” And he hugs me, too. He smells like cheap whiskey and cigarettes but I can only feel comforted by it for some reason.

  Andrew is beaming.

  “Camryn’s going to sing with me tonight,” Andrew says proudly.

  Eddie’s eyes get real big, like bright white balls of excitement fixed within the dark brown backdrop of his skin. It should make me more nervous like when Carla found out, but Eddie’s presence is actually helping to ease my mind some. Maybe I should shackle him to my wrist while I sing.

  “Oh sha,” Eddie says, grinning in at me, “ah bet you sing as preddy as you are.”

  I blush hard.

  “Well get’own up dere!” He points at the stage. “When dem’s done playin’ dis song ‘ere!”

  Andrew takes my hand and pulls me to his side. I feel like Eddie is like another father to Andrew and Andrew is happy that he seems to like me so much.

  Eddie walks beside the stage and holds up three fingers at us. “Teree more minutes!”

  “Oh my God, I am so frickin’ nervous!”

  Yep, Eddie should’ve stayed nearby.

  Andrew’s hand tightens around mine. He leans in to my ear. “Just remember: all these people here are just having a good time; no one’s here to judge you—this ain’t American Idol.”

  I take a deep, relaxing breath.

  We listen to the band finish up their last song and then the music stops, followed by the usual sound of instruments being moved or tuned or just knocked against something the wrong way. A wave of chattering voices becomes louder without the music to
drown it out, rolling through the space like an amplified, irregular humming. A thick layer of cigarette smoke makes the air feel stuffy, mixed with all of the bodies packed into the area.

  When Andrew starts to pull me toward the stage my hands start shaking and I look down, realizing my nails are digging into the skin around his knuckles.

  He smiles gently and I walk up with him.

  “Do I look OK?” I whisper to him.

  If I get through this without having an anxiety attack I’ll be surprised.

  “Baby, you look perfect.”

  He kisses my forehead and then sets his guitar next to the drum set so he can position the microphone.

  “We’re going to share the mic,” he says. “Just don’t head-butt me.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” he laughs softly, “I’m serious.”

  Several people in the crowd are already looking up at us, but most everybody else is doing their own thing. I can’t do anything but stand here and that in itself is making me more nervous. At least Andrew is able to preoccupy himself with his guitar. I’m just twirling my thoughts around in my head.

  “Are you ready?” he asks beside me.

  “No, but let’s get it over with.”

  We look at each other and he quietly mouths: “One. Two. Three—”

  We sing together:

  “Ooooh…oooh…oooh…oooh!” A one-second pause. “Ooooh…oooh…oooh…oooh!”

  Guitar.

  Dozens of heads turn all at the same time and the wave of conversations ceases like turning off a faucet.

  While Andrew plays the first riff and he’s gearing up to sing the first verse, I’m so terrified inside that I feel like I can’t move anything but my eyes. But the more he plays the more my body can’t help but move in time with the music.

  Just about everyone in the place are already swaying and bobbing their heads to the sound.

  Andrew starts to sing the first verse.

  And then briefly together again: “Ooooh…,”

  Then comes the chorus and we both sing the words and I know I’m going to have to hit a high-note in—

  I did it!

  Andrew smiles deeply at me as he merges right into the next verse, always strumming the guitar without missing a chord as if he’s known how to play this song forever.

  The audience is really getting into it. They’re nodding to one another, the kind of nod that says: They’re really good, and I feel my face just light up as I start to sing my part with Andrew again and with gradual confidence. I’m moving my body more naturally to the music now and I think I’ve almost completely shed the fear, but my solo…oh my God, my solo is next…

  Andrew locks eyes with me as if to use his gaze as a means to concentrate and stay calm and he strums the guitar.

  He stops right in time with the music and taps the edge of the wood before my first line, strums the guitar and stops again, tapping the wood after my second and so on until I hit my last note and Andrew starts to play fully again while he says in a whisper to me: “Flawless,” and then he starts to sing again. He’s grinning so wide. So am I. We press our faces close as we sing our hearts out into the mic during the faster interlude.

  “Woooh…ooooh…ooooh!”

  The guitar slows and we sing the last chorus together softly and he kisses me on the mouth after we both say: “…soul….” And the song ends.

  The audience erupts into claps and cheers. I even hear one guy say: “Encore!” from somewhere in the back.

  Andrew pulls me close and kisses me again, pressing his lips hard against mine in front of everyone.

  “Holy shit, baby, you did awesome!” His eyes are bright, his entire face lit up by them.

  “I can’t believe I did it!” I’m practically screaming at him because the voices all around us are so loud.

  I’ve got chill bumps from head to toe.

  “Want to do it again?” he asks.

  I swallow.

  “No, I’m not ready! But I’m glad I did once!”

  “I’m so proud of you!”

  A few older men walk up with beers clutched in their hands. The one with the beard says, “You’ve gotta dance with me!” He holds his arms up at his sides and does an embarrassing little jig.

  My face flushes and I catch Andrew’s grinning eyes.

  “But there’s no music!” I say to the man.

  “The hell there ain’t!” He points at someone across the room and a few seconds later the jukebox kicks on next to the vending and gaming machine.

  I’m so excited that I just got through singing that song on stage that it, along with how bad I’d feel if I told this guy no, makes dancing with him mandatory.

  I glance back once more at Andrew and he winks at me.

  The bearded man takes my hand, holds it high above my head and I instinctively twirl around. I dance with him through two songs before Andrew ‘saves me’ by smoothly cutting in and pressing my body as close to his as it will go and moves his hips around with me on them. His hands are on my waist. We dance and chat with people and even play a game of darts with Carla before finally leaving the bar after midnight.

  On the car ride back, Andrew looks over at me and says, “So, how do you feel?” His lips ease into a knowing grin.

  “You were right,” I say. “I feel…I don’t know, different, but in a good way—I never thought I would do something like that.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” He smiles warmly.

  I unhook my seatbelt and move over next to him. He drapes his arm around me.

  “So, what about tomorrow night?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you want to sing tomorrow night?”

  “No, I don’t think I could—.”

  “Ok, that’s fine,” he says, rubbing my arm. “One time is more than I expected, so I’m not going to hound you about it.”

  “No,” I say, lifting away and turning at the waist to see him. “You know what? I do. I want to do it again.”

  His chin draws back in a surprised motion.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” I smile with teeth at him.

  He does the same.

  “Alright then,” he says, hitting the steering wheel softly, “we’ll play tomorrow night.”

  Andrew takes me back to the hotel and we have sex in the shower before going to bed.

  We stay in New Orleans for two more weeks, playing at Old Point and then making our way to several other bars and clubs all around the city. A month ago, singing and performing live at clubs was probably so far down on the list of things I could ever see myself doing that it would seem ridiculous, but there I was singing my heart out to Barton Hollow and a few other songs where I could mostly shadow Andrew and not be the center of attention. But everybody loved us. So many people stopped us after each performance and shook our hands and asked if we could sing this or that song, to which all of them Andrew declined. I’m still too nervous with this stuff to be able to play by request. And to my dumbfounded surprise, I was even asked for an autograph and a photo with random people more than a couple of times. They must’ve just been really drunk. That’s what I made myself believe because anything else would just be weird.

  By the end of those two weeks, Andrew had a new favorite band to add to his list. He loves The Civil Wars as much as I do. And last night, our last night in New Orleans, we lay in bed together and sang along to Poison & Wine coming from the phone beside the bed…and…I think we told each other things through those lyrics that we’ve been wanting to say…

  I think we did….

  I cried myself quietly to sleep in his arms.

  I died and went to heaven. Yeah…I think I’ve finally died.

  ANDREW

  33

  “YOU NEED TO DO IT, just to make sure,” Marsters said sitting in his clichéd black rolling chair in his clichéd office wearing a clichéd coat.

  “There�
�s no need,” I said, sitting on the other side. “What more is there to say? What more is there to find?”

  “But you—”

  “No, you know what?—Fuck you.” I stood up, pushing the chair back across the floor and into a plant behind me. “I won’t put myself through that shit.”

  I left, slamming his office door behind me so hard the glass shuddered in the frame.

  “Andrew! Baby, wake up,” I hear Camryn’s voice. My eyes pop open. I’m still on the passenger’s side of the car. I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.

  I lift up and crack my neck to both sides and run a hand over my face.

  “Are you OK?”

  It’s night. I look over to see Camryn’s concerned gaze fixed on me until her eyes are forced to look at the road out ahead.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding, “I’m fine. I guess I was having a nightmare, but I don’t even remember what it was about,” I lie again.

  “You punched the dashboard,” she says, chuckling a little. “Your fist just shot out of nowhere; it scared the shit out of me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby.” I lean over smiling and kiss her on the cheek. “How long have you been driving?”

  She glances at the glowing numbers on the clock.

  “I don’t know, a couple of hours maybe.”

  I look up at the next highway sign to see if she did what I said to do and stayed on 90.

  “Pull over up there.” I nod to indicate a flat clearing alongside the highway.

  She eases off the road and onto broken asphalt, putting the car in park. I start to get out, but she takes my arm and stops me.

  “Wait…Andrew.”

  I look over at her. She turns the engine off and slips out of her seatbelt.

  “I’m going to drive for a while and let you get some sleep.”

  “I know,” she says looking over at me somberly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She drapes the fingers of both hands over the steering wheel and leans back against the seat.