Brad was pointing his index finger, slicing the air with it, along with his words. “Remember that summer in Myrtle Beach? You and that cheerleader and her—”
Clay looked up, locked eyes with him.
“Whoa now. Just having some fun, killjoy.” Brad put his hands together like a small child. “You know that’s my favorite bedtime story. Tell it again, please, Daddy.”
Man, he really didn’t want their last night to end like this. He had to let it go, not let Brad get him riled. Clay smiled. “‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child . . .’”
“Oh, here we go. The hermit has a proclamation. Continue, please.”
David, as he always did so well, chuckled through the awkwardness. “Here you two go again.”
Clay looked at David’s big grin, the way he shook his head; then Clay chuckled a little too. He threw down the cash.
“When do you start, man?” David asked Brad, beautifully redirecting the conversation.
“As soon as I get there. Tomorrow will be my last local show.” Brad took a short drink and cast a thoughtful look to the table. “And then I’m off. I can’t believe it’s really here.”
“So, tomorrow . . .” David raised his glass. Clay did too.
Brad hesitated, his face conflicted with more emotion than Clay had seen in a long time. He cast a wary look toward Clay. “It could’ve been the two of us, you know.”
Clay only smiled. “I’m 100 percent certain you are going to do just fine alone, Lucky Chucky.”
Brad cracked his famous grin. “Well, thanks to the show, I won’t be alone for a very long time.” He raised his glass. “To infamy!”
IT WAS HER LUCKY DAY. She always counted her day lucky when she woke up before her alarm. There was almost nothing as soothing and comfortable as opening her eyes to silence, watching the hazy morning light drift across the room, her mind swimming to the surface from whatever dream world she’d just been to.
Amber stroked Mr. Joe as he lay quietly by her side. She was mostly unpacked and settling in fairly well. She’d taken a couple of days to wander the town, get her bearings, find out where the good restaurants were, and try to find a job. It wasn’t easy competing against desperate and really broke students. But she kind of blended right in, and nobody so far had asked her if she was or wasn’t in college.
College. Ugh. One of her biggest regrets. And now, ironically, she was in a college town.
“No sad feelings,” she said, rolling her head to look at Mr. Joe, who blinked slowly in agreement. “Not today. This is my new start. And what’s more fun than organizing a new home?”
She stretched her arms lazily over her head and—
The peace of the morning was suddenly shattered by her clock radio. Amber sat straight up in bed to a guitar riff—which wasn’t half-bad because she was a huge fan of the instrument. It was much better than the voice that followed.
“Women. Are. Stupid.”
Amber stared at the ceiling. Either she’d mistuned her radio when she set the alarm or her ex-boyfriend, Mac, had finally hunted her down. She turned her head, looked around the room. Nope. She was all alone.
“Every single one of them loves to believe in some kind of fairy tale,” said the voice.
Amber looked at Mr. Joe, who seemed to sense that whatever was coming out of the radio was nonsense. She smiled. “That part’s true. It’s in our DNA.” She rose and headed for the coffeepot, wondering if this voice was going to correct himself over the statement that women are stupid.
“They like to pretend everything is going to be okay, offer the illusion of security. And abracadabra! Lines are open, folks. Let’s see what you got for me today. . . . Oh, come on, let’s be real. You want to know what I’ve got for you, don’t you? Nobody really cares what you got.”
“This should be interesting,” Amber said. She waited a second for the coffee to finish brewing, then poured a mugful and sipped it as she leaned against the kitchen counter, studying her bulletin board. Last night, she’d finally found the right place for it. It always had to be the perfect wall. And for all the places she’d lived, she always found it. If ever there was a house that didn’t have the perfect wall, she would know it wasn’t the house for her.
“Tim from Lakeland, you’re on the air.”
“Live the dream, my brother!” Tim sounded like he needed about a week’s worth of sleep.
“Live the dream! That’s right! Do you have what it takes?” the host replied.
Tim explained that he did have what it took, for whatever that supposed dream was. Amber had given up on defining dreams. Most of the time they left her a little disappointed and also made her miss a lot of adventure. She decided to just go. Do. Be. Tim from Lakeland sounded like he could use a few pointers.
“Hey, man,” Tim continued. “Just wanted to say congrats on your new gig in Hollywood!”
“Thank you. Looking forward to it. Do you have any idea how many hot, stupid women there are in California?”
Tim replied that he couldn’t count that high. Amber pulled out photographs from her box and began tacking them on the bulletin board. Every memory made her smile. And every pinhole through each photograph was a reminder of how many times she’d done this. She couldn’t count that high—just like Tim, she guessed.
Mr. Joe was staring her down. She put her hands on her hips. “Really? Now you’re my conscience too?”
He let out a soft meow.
“Fine.” She stomped over to the ancient rotary phone. “But you know these never go well.”
Mr. Joe just blinked.
“I’m going to dial, it’s going to be busy, and I’m going to waste my time.” She punched in the number that the shock jock kept repeating over and over.
“Name?” a female voice asked.
Amber raised her eyebrow. “Anonymous.”
“Chicken.”
And then the next thing she knew . . . “Next caller. Anonymous, you’re on the air.”
“You’re disgusting.” She punctuated it with a strong, disapproving look that only Mr. Joe was presently witnessing.
“Mom, is that you?”
“If I was your mother—”
“Yeah? Keep going.” He laughed. “Would ya punish me?”
“Men like you—”
“Yes? Men like me . . . ?”
Amber shook her head at Mr. Joe like there was no hope.
“Hey, quick question. How much do you weigh?”
Amber slammed down the phone. “Thug.” She walked over to the radio. She’d had enough of this nonsense.
“Fine, so I’m no knight in shining armor,” the host continued as she reached for the dial. “There are no knights in shining armor.”
Amber let her hand drop. She blinked slowly, sat down on the bed, listening to this guy say his thing.
“But you think you’re Cinderella, don’t you? Don’t you? See, I wanna help. I want to help you see the truth. And—news flash—the truth is there are no Cinderellas either. Sure, you say you want the sweet guy, the Prince Charming, but I know you. Guys like that bore you to tears, don’t they? Following you around like a lost puppy dog until your mind, not to mention every other part of you, goes numb. Are you sweet? Are you faithful? Huh? Are you honest? All those things you say you want? No.”
Amber looked at her hands. Mr. Joe hopped onto the bed, but she stood and walked to the window, gazing out over the quiet street.
“On those late and lonely nights, when you can’t sleep, when you’re in your bed alone, solo, twisting in the sheets, clutching the corner of your pillow . . . you want one thing, and that’s a guy like me. And you know it, so you get what you get, girlfriend. Women are just like men. Everyone wants it both ways. So don’t come crying to me, Cinderella.”
Amber turned and shut the radio off. “That’s where you’re wrong, buddy. I never, ever believed I was Cinderella.”
Clay gently drove the last nail into the custom frame and then p
ropped the poster so he could see it. He wiped dust off the glass and stepped back. There it was, perfectly set up. An original movie poster of Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe. If he’d watched it once, he’d watched it a thousand times—but the very first time with David, who swore up and down that Clay would love it. Being a film professor, David always had an authoritative opinion—which was usually right.
Maybe Clay was as idealistic as he was sentimental, but either way, it just didn’t get better than Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. It had everything: The pure American with the funny sidekick. The main character exploited by the bad guy, aided by the tough woman reporter, who then falls in love with him. The famous speech by the Colonel on the “heelots.” But his favorite line was by the reporter who refers to Jesus as “the first John Doe,” who already died for everyone.
If he could get transported into a Frank Capra film, he would. In a heartbeat. And never look back. He was certain he would look good in a fedora, too.
He gazed at the poster, his mind wandering to Brad. To David and Lisa. To . . . the girl upstairs. It was unusually quiet. He’d expected her to wake up to something with a bass beat. But since he’d opened shop today, there’d been nothing but footsteps, the best he could tell. And maybe the TV was on. He thought he heard faint voices, but then that was gone.
Amber.
To keep referring to her as “the girl upstairs” wasn’t too respectful.
Amber. It was the color of the dawning light as it passed through the shop windows and seeped into the back room. It was the honey he put on his toast every morning. It was the wheat fields right outside of town.
He’d had a hard time getting her off his mind, and that wasn’t boding well for his theories. In fact, she seemed to be just the opposite of who he’d always imagined might draw his attention. His dream woman, if there was such a thing, certainly didn’t play loud music and seem so . . . uprooted.
“Knock, knock.”
Clay didn’t have to look up; he knew who was there. But he liked to ask because George always had a different answer. “Who’s there?”
“I ain’t thought that far ahead yet. Let’s go. Get the lead out. Come on. I’m a busy man.”
George stepped farther into the shop when he saw the poster. “Ooooh. Now there’s a woman for you. Oh, my, yes. Wow.”
“Only you could sexualize a Frank Capra film.”
“You’re telling me that when you look at Barbara Stanwyck standing there in the flesh—”
“Or on cardboard at the very least.”
“—you wouldn’t just want to—”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Okay, maybe he would. But some things were better left on movie posters.
George sighed, the rattling wheeze in his chest whistling in the air. “You’re no fun—you know that, right?”
“Just please don’t start talking about all the posters you had hanging in your bunker during the war.”
“Sometimes it’s the only thing that got me up in the morning, kid.” He blew Barbara a kiss. “Come on. I’m a busy man.” And they walked out the door at a snail’s pace.
The sun was bright in the late morning. Clay shielded his eyes and blinked, trying to get used to it. Sometimes he worked so long in the back of the shop that he didn’t even know what time of day it was. He’d been known to walk out expecting sunlight, only to be met with darkness.
George, smelling strongly of mothballs on this particular day, threw open the back of his delivery truck, which actually had duct tape holding part of the paneling together. Inside, as usual, was a whole mess of antiques. An old traffic light and some street signs were tucked into one corner. Frames. Mirrors. Vanities. Knickknacks. A garden stone in the shape of a squirrel.
Clay sighed. “George. There is no rhyme or reason here. And look at how they’re all banged up against one another. Why don’t you use some bubble wrap? I’ve told you a hundred times—wrap them in bubble wrap.”
George grumbled, chewed his lip like an unlit cigar. “You’re like bubble wrap, to tell you the truth.”
“Funny.”
“For being an antiques dealer, you sure like things squeaky clean. Maybe you should open an IKEA.”
“Hilarious.”
“I got a couple of pieces in the back you might like.” George hovered next to him. “Like anything? Did you see that squirrel?”
“All right, give me a second to dig around.”
“Want me to go get you some hand sanitizer? Because—whoa!” George stopped midsentence, which caused Clay to turn around.
George was stepping away from the back of the truck, his chest bowed out like he was about to take a superhero stance. “Hello there.”
Clay ducked out of the truck to see what George was staring—oh.
Amber was standing by the railing, hanging a small rug over it. She waved. Her hair waved too, blown sideways by the breeze, shiny and rippling like a chocolate river.
They both waved back. Only Clay was wearing the sloppy smile, though. George leaned into him and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I saw that. You’ve been holding out on me.” Then to Amber he yelled, “Where you been?”
She smiled graciously, not understanding. “What?”
“All my life, where you been?”
Clay rolled his eyes, redirecting George’s attention to the truck, trying to give an apologetic gesture to his new tenant. “How’s the wife, George?”
George deflated right there in front of him. You could almost hear the air seeping out of his body. “Mean as a snake.”
“Uh-huh.” He looked up at Amber, who was still messing with her rug. “Um, settling in okay up there?”
“So far so good.”
“Just call me if you need anything.”
“And call me,” George added enthusiastically, “if you need anything else.”
Amber smiled at them both. “I’ll do that.”
And she disappeared behind the screen door.
“Behave yourself,” Clay said. “She just moved in.”
“Lucky you.”
“Not my type.” It hadn’t come out with any conviction, by the way George was eyeing him.
“Really. How do you know that?” George asked. “Wasn’t hanging her rug out quite right?” He shook his head. “So help me, man, I worry about you.”
“I’ll take the wall mirror,” Clay said.
George climbed into the truck, and Clay stepped out of its shadow, hoping to get a glimpse of Amber through the open window. But all was still, except the cat, who sat on the windowsill glaring at him.
George took the mirror into the shop and returned, slapping Clay on the back. “Can’t believe you didn’t take the stoplight. I gotta get going. My high-end clients are waiting for me.” He hopped into his truck and started it, then hopped right back out without turning it off. “I gotta go relieve myself. I’m going to have to downgrade my thermos size. Getting old is a killer, man. An absolute killer.”
“Yes, you can use the bathroom, George. That’s all you’ve got to say.”
“Here’s what I’m saying: seize the moment. You’re not getting any younger. Not everyone can be this good-looking at sixty,” he said, gesturing toward himself.
As George disappeared into the shop, Clay heard that old, familiar voice filtering out from the truck radio.
“So this is it. The time has come, my brothers. It has been a tasty ride so far, but remember, this isn’t good-bye to you—the faithful. You’ll know where to find me. I’m not going anywhere.”
Brad’s voice fell silent just as a cloud drifted overhead and a spattering of rain fell. Clay let it wash over him. It felt good. Clean.
“What is wrong with you, boy? Get yourself inside.” George ambled back to his truck. “You’re just about the only one that I’m worried might really melt in the rain.”
“I think I’ll be okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, George.”
Clay lingered in the misty rain for a moment longer, hoping Amber wou
ld come out to grab her rug. After a while, he returned inside his quiet shop, his only company the sharp, frozen image of Gary Cooper holding Barbara Stanwyck.
“Well,” Amber said, closing the window, “I guess storms don’t just pass on by here, Mr. Joe.” It had been raining since late morning, but she didn’t mind rain. It helped her to stay in one place, not leave all the time. She had a bad habit of wandering off from duties and commitments.
Not the guy downstairs. Clay Walsh. Sunshine or rain, that guy was like clockwork.
That she could tell, he rarely left the shop once he arrived. She’d watched him buy a mirror this morning off the chatty guy’s truck. He stood in the rain for a while. But a lunch break? A trip into town? Not that she’d seen.
Mr. Joe jumped into her arms. She gestured around the apartment. “Well? What do you think?” She was fully moved in, just needed to take the boxes out to the trash. They had one too many moves under their belts and were held together by duct tape that had been stretched to its limits. New boxes were in order, but not today.
She placed her empty glass jar right on the kitchen counter so she’d see it every time she came and went. Her lamp was placed by the couch, where she liked to read. Her TV—not the flat-screen kind—sat on a broken table that had to be held up by two books.
She planted a kiss right on Mr. Joe’s fur. “Yeah. I agree. Not bad.” Sparse. Simple. But not bad.
Mr. Joe jumped from her arms and trotted toward his water dish.
“Good idea. Rainy day. New digs. All I need is a cup of tea.”
She filled her teapot, probably the oldest thing she owned. It had been her great-grandmother’s. And as the story went, she stole it from Jesse James. But that part had yet to be confirmed. Especially since most of her family was gone. She thought she had a cousin in Tampa, but that had yet to be confirmed too.
Amber set the old tin pot on the stove. It had probably given her some kind of lead poisoning over the years, but she didn’t care. She liked it. It was small and fit nicely into a box, about the only thing in her life that really did. She turned the gas on. But nothing clicked. She tried again. No flame.
Then she did what she normally did when stuff didn’t work. She shook it.
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