Burning Muses

by J. R. Rogue

  “You have the face. The ‘I-write-lyrics-that-make-women-swoon’ face.”

  “I didn’t even know that was a thing!” He laughed. It was a beautiful laugh. His laugh was music.

  “It is. I just created it.” I lied down next to him. It felt too strange to be leaning over him like that. Like I was hitting on him.

  “Well, the best songs come from sadness. And I don’t think your brother’s band wants to sing songs like that.”

  “You like country music, don’t you? All sad sappy songs?” I never listened to country music once I moved away. Lately I was surrounded by it again.

  “They aren’t all sad. But yes, country music is home to the most meaningful sad songs.”

  “Well, you don’t come off as a sad guy at all. So I will just say yes, you write swoon-worthy music.”

  “If you’re trying to get me to sing a song I wrote to prove you wrong, it won’t work.”

  I shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying, Sir.”

  “I think you’re adopted.”

  “What!? Why?” I rolled on my side again, nearly knocking my wine glass over. Chace quickly grabbed it, and then set it in the grass. He stared at the sky, never turning to me.

  “Your mom is the sweetest woman in the world. You’re mischievous.”

  “Am not,” I pouted.

  “Yes you are. This is the first I’ve seen it. But it’s definitely there.”

  “Whatever. You’ve barely been around since I moved in.”

  “You’re shy, but once you get a glass of wine in you, watch out!”

  “Ah, this is true. Okay the wine is mischievous. I am an angel.”

  “I like it.” He still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Thanks.” I made myself lie on my back again. Perhaps I was making him nervous. “So, my mom said that this Sunday she would like to have lunch over here, or at her house, I can’t remember. She says she needs to take another look at the landscaping. So yeah, here.” The wine was making me fuzzy.

  “Yeah, she texted me that too. About an hour ago.”

  “You want to help me take care of the food?”

  “Yeah, I can do that. Anything in particular you have in mind?” He stretched his arms out and nestled them under his head.

  “Mexican.”

  “What exactly?”

  “Nacho bar, and I make these amazing steak tacos.”

  He leaned up and tipped the last of his beer back and set the bottle on the pavement. I found myself watching his movements. The wine was doing bad things to my brain. He turned and caught me staring, returning my gaze with a shy smile. “Want to see something?” He asked, standing. So I nodded. He offered his hand, and I grabbed it. His touch was not helping. I dropped his hand as soon as I was on my feet.

  I followed him to the shed on the other side of the house. Upon reaching it, he slipped a small key from his pocket. Growing up, my grandfather had always kept this building locked. I had not been in it since I returned. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I reached up, rubbing my nerves away.

  I followed him in, curiosity pushing my anxiety away. He flipped the light on and there was no question what he intended to show me. The shop was littered with bicycles. It was too much to take in all at once. My eyes rapidly scanned. Some were new, some old. Some rusted, some with brand new paint. Some were cruisers, some road bikes, some mountain bikes. I saw a tandem bike in the far corner. They were all so beautiful. The collection was amazing. My eyes came back to Chace, who was bouncing on the seat of an older model bike that had been restored. Candy apple red.

  He smiled at me. “I have a problem, huh?”

  “No. It’s awesome. When did you start buying them?”

  “High school. It’s become an obsession. Honestly it’s part of the reason I have so many jobs. This hobby is not cheap. I should just sell some of them and take a semester or two off from working. It would be easier. But I can’t part with any of them.”

  My mother had been the same way growing up with typewriters. She had tons and could never resist when we found one at an antique mall. I loved them, too. They were so beautiful. She left many behind. They were never just for looks. She used them. She let me use them. “Do you ride all of these bikes?”

  “I try to get all of them in running condition. If not, those are the ones I sell. They aren’t appealing to me if I can’t ride them.”

  “How often do you ride?”

  “Every week from spring until winter.”

  I recalled the bike rack on the back of his jeep. I myself had not been on a bike in years. When I was a kid, I desperately wanted a teal mountain bike. I had seen one at Wal-Mart and it was love at first sight. My mother and I had ventured to the store in her small car, so taking it home along with the groceries was not an option. At dinner that night I talked incessantly about the bike. I wanted one of those little license plates on the back with my name. I begged to return to the store to purchase it.

  My grandfather told me that he had a perfectly good bike in the shed I could use. He could give it a new paint job and it would be good as new. Of course, this was not an even trade in my young eyes. I wanted the shiny new one at the store. Many of my friends had new bikes of their own. I never got a bike that year, but my grandfather worked on the old Schwinn in the garage. Out of guilt. Hush money.

  The next spring he had our mile long driveway paved. Some might have thought it a waste of money, but my grandmother wanted somewhere to walk, and driving into town each day to circle the park was a pain. My desire for a bike came back just as he was finishing his restoration. He had installed a new seat, and a basket. The body was painted sea foam green, and a new set of tires were put on. It was beautiful. I loved it.

  I would ride back and forth down the drive each night, passing my grandmother and saying to her in a sing-song voice “I’m faster than yyooouuuu!” She would laugh at me and wave me on. When I went off to college, I reminded my mother repeatedly that my bike was to never be sold. The memories I shared with my grandmother were tethered to it. I didn’t know where it was now.

  Sunday brought with it beautiful weather. Ideal for the get together at noon. I took a couple Advil PMs the night before to ensure I would fall asleep at a decent hour to rise early and assist Chace. My mother would be coming over, as well as Paul, who I had not seen yet since making it home. He worked often.

  My mom remarried the summer after I graduated high school. She had been engaged to Paul for two years, and they didn’t live together until after their vows. It was a strange thing to do in these times, but my mother didn’t want to move me out of the house we shared with her parents so late in my high school years. I should have told her it would have been a relief.

  Paul treated my mother like a queen, and was always caring towards me. His son was very important to him. He wasn’t a part-time father. He shared custody of Andrew with his ex-wife. I didn’t get to spend much time with Andrew back then, between our parents living in separate houses, and the time he spent at his own mother’s, but I loved him. He was a hyper child and made me laugh. I knew early on that he would be like a flesh and blood brother to me. I was happy he would be coming over today too. I had never seen him interact with Chace. I was curious about their friendship. They were so different.

  Chace had Aiden over. Another relationship I was curious about. I could hear them downstairs in the kitchen as I applied my makeup and fixed my hair. I loved the sounds of the house now. Maybe I could stitch up my wounds with these new sounds.

  My opened balcony door allowed for a breeze to enter. Being back here reminded me I didn’t need a regular family. The first stories I wrote were all different ways my childhood could have been with a loving father around. After finding out he played no part in my life, the stories changed.

  I wondered how and if we would ever meet, and if our relationship could just start anew. Other nights, I fantasized about telling him off. Screaming at him about how he was a horrible father, and that I had
a new and better dad. When I began writing poetry, many pieces were about him. I never let my mother read them. I feared she would blame herself, and I never wanted to cause her pain. No other mother, in my eyes, could be her. I wrote about him to exorcise him from my mind. Certainly, he had forgotten about me long ago.

  Now here Chace was, all of 22, being a positive male figure in the life of a child. I found the two boys around the kitchen island, chopping vegetables. Chace, working on his own pile, darted his eyes over to Aiden every couple of seconds. The child’s hold on his knife perfectly matched his mentor.

  “Need any help?” I wanted to be useful. In a real way, not in a way I could buy. Chace stopped chopping and waved me over.

  “Can you finish with this? I’ll go out back and start pulling the patio furniture out of the shed.” He handed the knife over to my reluctant hands. I was a lousy cook with only a few go-to recipes to turn to. Surely I could handle what he had left.

  Once Chace headed outside, I walked over to the small radio on the counter and began switching stations. I found a country station playing Garth Brooks and immediately stopped. I knew every hit he put out, thanks to my mother. I remembered her excitement when he came out of retirement. I turned back to the counter and Aiden’s unimpressed face.

  “You like country too? That’s all Chace listens to in the car. I hate it.” He scrunched up his nose and shook his head animatedly.

  “New country is horrible. This is old country.” I knew every 90’s country hit by heart. My mother would blast it in the summers when we would ride into town to pick up groceries. The windows would be down and our hair would whip in the wind as we sang at the top of our lungs.

  “That’s what he says. I don’t like any of it.”

  “How about we finish this song then you can pick a station. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said, smiling, and returned to the task at hand. My phone dinged. It was Kat.

  Kat: What should I bring today? What time again?

  Me: Just whatever you want to drink. Noon.

  Me: No, wait, bring tortilla chips. And an extra sour cream. You can never have enough.

  Kat: Sounds good. See ya soon.

  Chace walked back in as I set my phone back down. He raised an eyebrow at me and my small pile of vegetables.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m not a fast chopper.” He playfully waved me away from the cutting board. I walked around to the bar stool and sat.

  “Aiden, why don’t you go outside and get Artax? Bring him inside. He needs a bath before people start coming over and petting him. Use the downstairs bathroom. His shampoo is already down there.” The child sprinted off at full speed. Chace laughed. “I’m glad I have today off for this.”

  “So why do you work so much anyways? Other than to buy a million bicycles. Do you have a big payment on your jeep or something?” I was glad he was here too.

  “No, that was a high school graduation present from my father,” he answered, flatly.

  “Oh.” I didn’t want to ask more about his family. Lie. I did want to, but I was afraid. I had learned a little through my mother and through him the night before. But I hadn’t pressed. When Chace was near, I felt off. He was this strange mystery. I wanted to read him. I wanted to know his secrets.

  “I want to take the summer off. From school and from work. I want to hang with Aiden when school lets out. His mom is working two jobs and going to school full-time. I don’t want him to just go to some babysitter’s house all day. She doesn’t have family around for him.”

  “That’s, that’s amazing.” His heart. It was something beautiful. Men his age, unattached, didn’t want to do these things. They wanted to have fun, and be free.

  “Nah.”

  “No, it is,” I affirmed. “This kid isn’t your family. I’m assuming you don’t want any money to watch him. Correct?”

  “No.”

  “You’re doing something wonderful.” I knew he was aware of this. It was the reason he was doing it. Because it was the right thing to do. He was not the type to tell someone to receive attention. He did it simply because he was good. I wanted to be good the way he was good. I was grim grey toned morals and sin, someone who wore bruises since they were 10-years-old.

  “Thanks. He needs a man in his life. Someone to set a good example. Someone he can count on.” Poor male figures broke little boys just as easily as little girls.

  “You’re going to be a great dad one day.” If only my father had been that kind of man. How would I have turned out? Would my life have been the way my silly stories described? It was no use to wonder. I had this life and I did not need him. I had proven that time and time again.

  “Yeah, maybe in five or ten years. Not until I’m completely stable and ready.”

  “So you’re not in a hurry like every other kid your age around here?”

  “No, definitely not. I want to do a lot of things before I start a family. I have a lot of places I would like to travel. Like you have. There is this huge world out there away from this town. You know that better than most. I want to see it.”

  “You said you could raise a family here one day, but have you ever thought about moving away? You mentioned Nashville. Anywhere else you could see yourself?”

  “Saint Louis is another possibility, it’s where my dad and aunts are. But I’m not close with any of them. I’m close with your family. I’d move for them sooner than my own.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he insisted. “Family is important to me; it just isn’t a priority to the one I was born into anymore. Things happen. People grow apart, or are torn apart.” He stopped chopping vegetables and went to the sink to wash his hands.

  “I know. I do miss my family. I fly my mom out every summer and holidays.” I felt a little guilty for not being there more for the family he loved so much. I just couldn’t bring myself to face this house until now.

  “I always wondered about the daughter who never came home,” he said as he turned back to me, smirking.

  “Yeah, I know. Kind of shitty of me. I just figured giving them a chance to visit New York was a better option than me coming back to this tiny town. I really have no excuse though.”

  “What’s the hardest part of your job?”

  “Book signings.” There was no question about that.

  “Really? Why?”

  “There’s never enough time. Before I sold the rights to the books, my singings were smaller, more intimate. I was able to really talk with each reader. They would last hours and I would feel like I was there for just a moment. Now, it’s insane. Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for my success, but most of the time I only have time to sign a book and take a photo. I know that upsets people, and I really don’t blame them. Some fans drive from hours away. I just wish I had more time to give. I try to throw a little bit of goodness out there to make up for it. I do big prizes at the events.”

  “I’m sure they appreciate that.”

  “I guess,” I shrugged. “I just hate letting anyone down and after each singing I get emails expressing disappointment. I’ve done more signings recently though despite not having any new material. I figured since I can’t write I should get out there a bit and see people.”

  “That’s good of you. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You can’t help the fact that you have too many fans to make the time to talk to each and every single one of them.”

  “Thanks.” It didn’t feel like enough sometimes.

  “You’re living the dream aren’t you?”

  “I am very fortunate. Sitting in my tree house scribbling away on my spiral notepad, who would have thought it would end up this way?” All this success for writing that wasn’t from the heart. It felt like the biggest lie of all. It had been luck. Chance. I didn’t deserve it. Would I have been a hit with my poetry? Probably not. I stared at my hands on the counter in front of me. Who was I? Someone living a borrowed life?

  “I’m sure anyone who pick
ed up your work could have guessed.”

  “Maybe I’m a horrible writer. I doubt you have read anything.” I wanted to joke with him. I wanted to pull myself from the ugly feelings that had crept inside my head.

  “You don’t think I read your books?” He cocked his head to the side, coming around the island to where I sat on the barstool.

  “There’s no way you do.” I turned in my seat to face him. No way did he read my stuff. No freakin’ way. All of my sin and debauchery, the thought of his eyes on it made me blush. He was pure and all things good. I was the devil sitting in this kitchen with him.

  “Maybe I do read lady porn. You don’t know me.”

  “What have you read?” Say all of it. Say none of it.

  “Everything.” He didn’t smile. He simply stared into my eyes. He didn’t blink.

  “Quit messing with me.” I hopped off the stool, warm from his gaze. I went to the refrigerator and kneeled inside to get the orange juice out.

  “I’m not.”

  I popped back up and looked at him over the door. “For real?”

  “This whole town has probably read them! Even the ones who like to bad mouth the books. You’re my best friend’s sister. You’re the famous writer who emerged from our tiny town, the only one besides Mikey Finn to do something extraordinary.”

  “Mikey Finn?” I wanted to change the subject. Desperately.

  “He graduated a couple years ahead of me. He’s in the NFL now.”

  “Oh wow, that’s great.” I shut the refrigerator door and turned away from him.

  “Yeah, quit trying to distract me from complimenting you. You’re a great writer.”

  “Thank you, Chace. I can’t believe you read the books.” I pulled a glass from the cabinet and began pouring.

  “Well, it’s not like I carried them around to class with me. I’d never live that down. But, you have this huge library here. And your mom has all of your books in it.” He walked over to me and pulled a glass out for himself. “Can you pour me some, too?”