by Ellen Mint
The squeak of the screen door cut him off, and he glanced up to find Ms. Cho stepping cautiously onto the porch. She glared at the man who’d set himself up to freeze to death. She’d been smart enough to put on her coat. Catching her look, Tristan gulped.
Forget her. Forget whatever truth she might divine from this. Focus on the reason.
Letting a real smile cross his lips, he gazed past the hospital room to the little girl trying to sit up higher in her bed. “What should we play today?” he asked while running his fingers over the strings in a little scale.
Olivia licked her lips and grinned. “The song. I want to hear the song!”
“Really?” Tristan risked glancing up at the woman who had no intention of leaving now. “What about something else? I was thinking…”
“No!” his audience demanded. Ignoring her mother, she crossed her arms, her face twisted into a full-on pout. A nurse tried to get her to both open her arms and rest back, but she wasn’t budging.
Giving another dance of his fingers down the guitar, Tristan swallowed a groan. Strumming the chord, he sang, “Baby shark…”
“Do, do, do…” Olivia took over immediately, pinching her fingers together. Tristan tried to keep up, but the girl overpowered his lower range with her exuberant bellow. At the mama shark, she rose to her knees, seeming to forget the pain in her body.
When the pair reached daddy shark, Tristan abandoned his guitar to slap his outstretched arms together as if they were a set of jaws. That caused Olivia to giggle wildly, her tiny body shaking on the bed. “Again, again!”
“Olivia,” her mother warned, “I’m certain that he’s very busy.”
“You’d be surprised,” Tristan muttered to himself, but it was obvious both parent and nurse wanted the girl to rest.
“Mo-om!” she whined even while lying back as told. It was doubtful she’d have had enough energy for another round.
“Don’t give me that lip, young lady. You can talk to him next time.”
“Fine,” she agreed, and darted her sunken but shining eyes to the laptop. “Bye, Tristan!”
“So long, Ms. Olivia. Rest up, and please request a different song for our next performance.”
“I’ll think about it,” the girl pronounced, clearly with no intention to do so.
As Tristan laughed at the seriousness in her words, reminding him far too much of the studio failing to ever take his requests, the camera moved. He waited for the blur to calm until Olivia’s mom appeared on screen. They seemed to be out in the hall as she said, “Thanks for taking time for her.”
“It’s not a problem, Mrs. Finchner.”
“I’m sure you’re busy with all your touring and other music things. Olivia’s already got your appearance on that talk show scheduled.”
Tristan blanched at the reminder. “Isn’t that one only for Boston locally? How can she…?”
“Kids and the internet. Says she’s got a viewing party all planned and everything.”
Tugging back his hair and swooping down the part, he sighed, “I’ll have to actually try then.”
Mrs. Finchner laughed as if it were a joke and Tristan joined in. “Thanks again,” the harried mom said, “You…you really lighten up her day.”
“I’m nothing. Believe me, speaking to her is a delight,” Tristan said. Just as he leaned to end the call, the feed cut on its own. Good timing for the twitchy internet, at least. Slowly, he closed the laptop lid and came face to face with the woman who’d watched his entire performance.
Before she could say a word, Tristan bundled up the computer under his arm as if he could pretend that hadn’t happened. To his surprise, the jaded reporter seemed lost for words.
“You have a young fan? Friend?”
“It’s… Olivia contacted me through an abandoned fan club. Purely by accident, off an old PO box address insert tucked inside a CD sleeve. Even her mother didn’t know. But she made mention of how boring her hospital stays were in the letter, so I thought to liven them up.” Tristan pulled in the frost-coated air around them. It burned down his pampered lungs and back out his nose. “Please don’t mention this.”
“Why?” She seemed surprised, as if he would want to brag about such a minor matter. Then the bloodhound picked up the scent. “Why?”
“I know what you believe about this. Musician with a heart of gold serenades cancer patient in the hospital,” he said. Ms. Cho snorted at the ‘heart of gold’ part, but he continued past it. “All it would do is bring potential grief upon the family. In truth, Olivia doesn’t know much of my music. I think she only learned I was the one who wrote and sang that song in the popular movie a month back. I am less someone famous to her and more a funny man with a guitar.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
Tristan tipped his head in thought. “About a year. Mrs. Finchner emails me telling me when Olivia’s trapped in the hospital for chemo, or checkups or other medical maladies. I once had to play Happy Birthday for three of her classmates she snuck into the room.” There’d been so many squeals, the girls carrying on as if he was a real rock star on par with their Disney Channel heroes. Far from it.
Blinking rapidly, Ms. Cho stared from out across the horizon back to him. “But why? Why agree? Why keep it secret if…?”
A snicker rolled through his frozen sinuses, Tristan remembering he was standing outside without a coat. With his foggy breath coiling around his throat like a scarf, he said, “If you need a trite answer, I do it for my ego.”
Leaving her jaw hanging at his quick summation of how little she thought of him, Tristan slipped inside. He expected the intrepid reporter to wander about outside, stomp her feet, maybe take a few pictures of where he had been sitting, then come in. But as the minutes ticked by, his thumb and forefinger absently picking at guitar strings that needed to be re-tuned, he heard it.
Swish. Thwunk. Clunk Clunk.
The noise repeated from outside, echoing off the blanket of snow that silenced the rest of the world. Thoroughly intrigued, Tristan remembered his damn coat this time and plunged back into whatever the reporter was up to. He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets, trying to savor the last of the fluffy down that was supposed to survive subzero temperatures.
A shadow loomed from the side of the house, elongating from a stretched-thin woman to one raising something sharp high above her head. With a crack, it came slamming down, splitting a head in half. Tristan gulped, his body shifting to watch another victim being placed upon the headman’s stump.
Ms. Cho was reaching behind her into the woodpile. Bark shredded in the wake and dirt clung to her gloves as she placed a cut log upon the stump. After turning it a quarter inch to the left, she raised the ax high and brought it clean down through the wood, making one end of the cut logs tumble to the rising pile on the snow-strewn ground.
“What are you doing?” Tristan gasped.
She’d opened her coat as if the exercise inflamed her body. The crisp air flattened her pink silk tighter to the flexing chest and shoulders, revealing a hypnotic sway to her muscles. Pink scaled her cheeks, brightening her once dour expression as a smile flitted about her lips.
“Getting wood,” she said with a laugh.
Way ahead of you.
Dear Lord. Tristan flinched at the crass thought that rose from his brain. She was clearly well practiced in the art—already five logs had been sent to their demise and more were on the way.
“I noticed,” Beth said, slamming the ax down fast. The right half of the log shot through the air, making Tristan shift to keep splinters from hitting him. “We were getting low and I thought to restock just in case another storm rolled in. Not that I want it to.” She cursed at the clouds, or perhaps God.
“You—” He gulped, in awe of the woman simply chopping wood. “I’m surprised that a city-dwelling reporter knows how to do that. How did you learn?”
“Well…” She jabbed the end of the ax at him for emphasis. “Probably the same reas
on a rock star musician knows how to make pancakes.”
“Because I have to eat?” Tristan shrugged, lost at how one connected to the other.
Wiping her forearm across her forehead, Beth paused as she gazed up at the crystal blue sky. Her sparkling gaze caught his and she winked. “Exactly.” The ax swung, severing another log for the fire. “Are you here to watch or do you want to help?”
While Tristan had spent a few of his younger, then older, days splitting firewood, he’d never had the deft precision she showed. And, some part of him didn’t want her to stop, nor for him to stop watching her. “I can…” He drew his finger along the pile of cut logs. “I’ll carry these inside.”
Snow clung to his gloves, the unending powder clumping up inside the log’s bark. As he pulled the first pile of split logs into his arms, the heat of his blushing body raced out to melt the snow. Beth rested the ax upon her shoulder, the sharp edge facing outward. She picked up the last pieces of timber he couldn’t manage, staring at him. For once it wasn’t malice, annoyance or even anger bubbling inside. All he could find was amusement.
What have you gotten yourself into, Harty?
With a bob of his head, Tristan scurried from her, trying to make his way back to the warmth of the cabin. A cabin he had to share for at least another night with this woman. Barry, is there any chance you did rent that military tank to rescue me?
“Come back soon,” Beth called. “I’ll have more for you.”
That you will.
Problems. Regrets. The list was endless.
Tristan tried to keep himself steady, focusing on his work, but before slipping inside he risked a glance back as she bent over.
Chapter Eight
The potentially claustrophobic and tetchy afternoon passed into dusk with relative ease. Beth spent it with her feet propped up on her traveling bags, all the logs she’d split crackling in the fire. Tristan took up the armchair, usually with his head buried in his phone. But on occasion, he’d look up, a hint of a smile on his lips, and he would even make a comment or two.
She found herself wishing he’d forgo the hunting lodge chair and sit beside her. And that thought made her frown and dive deeper into her work. Who cared where the prickly musician was sitting? What did it matter if he shared the occasional random thought on the weather with her? So what if he took time out of his schedule to play one of the most obnoxious songs in human history just to make a sick girl happy?
The fact that she couldn’t even put that fact down in her notes made her itch. But he did have a good point. If that hit the circuit during a lull when various news crews were looking for a feel-good story to fill time, it might blow up. And very few people wanted the world digging into their life when they were ill. So Beth kept it to herself, almost as if she had a shared little secret about the reclusive Tristan Harty.
When the sun dipped down across the horizon, dooming them to another night together, she moved to the counter while he… That was a sight she still had trouble with. Beth’s research claimed most of the eating counter, notebooks spilling out, old newspaper clippings crackling to dust as they found the light. And all while she was head bent into her laptop, Mr. Harty was hard at work on dinner.
He never sang aloud, aside from the baby shark, but he was humming under his breath. It wasn’t a tune she recognized, but he didn’t seem to be able to get it out of his head. His thin hips rotated to the beat. Knotted into the waistband of his jeans was their lone kitchen towel. It swayed to his attempt at dancing.
Beth cupped her chin in her palm, watching. He wasn’t without rhythm, though the dance seemed haphazard and whatever struck his fancy. Still, there was no denying how, with every outlandish move, he had total control over his wiry body. Even the crook of a finger as if encouraging a partner closer was tight and rhythmic. What else can he do with those?
Windmilling an arm outward, Tristan snatched up a pair of tongs. With a shimmy in his hips, he spun in place. The utensil flew through the air with a toss and landed safely in his right hand. Tristan reached backward to stir the bubbling pot, catching Beth watching as if in his thrall.
She sat up fast to try and hide her blush behind the unforgiving laptop screen. It had to be her imagination that he smiled on catching her, or perhaps it was her clear discomfort. “I, uh,” Beth babbled, “I have to say, I’m surprised at this level of domesticity.”
“Expect me to be crouching upon my thighs chewing into a slice of jerky and slobbering all over myself?” Tristan bit back, but there was a lightness in the words, as if he was having fun with her.
“Pancakes are one thing, but this…” Beth extended a hand to the man’s mad plan to try and whip up a fancy dinner. It began with the packets of ramen. They had ten in all should the worst come to pass. In her purse, she’d discovered a couple of sleeves of peanut butter sandwich crackers and Tristan had announced he’d formed an idea.
She’d watched from the corner of her vision as he’d ground up the crackers, worked them into as fine a dust as he could then reconstituted it all in the ramen broth. The dry noodles themselves waited for their moment in the sun next to the microwave. Dropping a small pat of butter into his concoction, Tristan smiled at her.
“I learned it on the road. Forever touring with other bands and singers, all of us teenagers and eternally voracious, we defaulted to the usual sorts.” His stirring paused as he gazed up in reflection. “I dare say on that Summer Hope tour we ate enough pizza to match Italy’s GDP.”
After banging the spoon clean on the pot, he cracked the noodles in half and dropped them into the stew. “But eating pizza and burgers at all hours of the day while also being required to have magazine-ready abs at a moment’s notice didn’t gel. So I learned a few dishes. Nothing special—most of it was salads and wraps. So many wraps.”
The reminiscing paused, and his dewy smile snapped to a frown. “Are you writing that down?”
Beth yanked her fingers off her laptop as if she’d been chastised for becoming enthralled with his story instead of doing her job. “Should I be?” she sputtered, truly wondering.
At that Tristan laughed, running his palm over his head and mussing the part further to wherever it landed. “I suppose ‘washed-up musician learns the joy of cooking’ isn’t such a bad comeback angle. I might finally get Barry to eat something other than Hot Pockets, Bud Light and Marlboros.” The attempt at self-deprecation, as if he could pull off such a thing, snapped away. “Chewing away at the book still?” He stirred the noodles but even Beth, the microwave chef, knew they needed to steep longer. “About your father?”
“Yes,” she said, falling deeper into herself at having to talk about it. Compared to his tale of learning to cook while touring in his teens, her stories seemed trite and pointless. She let the conversation topic fade, trying to focus where she’d left off. 1984, that year was in the notebook…
Beth reached for one of the five and, in doing so, destroyed the fragile containment. The blue one made a break for it, tumbling to the floor. “Ah,” was all she got out, watching the poor thing race for the kitchen tile.
In one fluid movement, Tristan dropped the spoon, bent clean over and caught the edge of the notebook. Some of the looser pages slid out, but he let them fall onto his open palm like snowflakes. “You dropped this,” he said, eyes bluer than the ocean meeting hers as he placed the notebook onto the table.
“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling an urge to hide behind her hair.
“What’s this?” Without the notebook in hand, he flipped the old newspaper clipping and Beth’s heart sank. A black and yellowed picture stretched across it. Two men in suits stood in frame while a young girl with pigtails and her trusty notebook leaned against the left man’s legs.
Tristan pointed at the obvious Korean man in the photo. “Is that your father? And…” He finally caught on to who he was standing beside. “Is that James Arrow?”
Famous news anchor, war correspondent and one of her father’s best friends.
Beth bit on her lip as she rose on the stool to reach across the counter. Rather than take the clipping from him, she pointed at the man. “Yep. And that’s me there. Kosovo. My father was working in tandem with Jim and…”
“You call him Jim?”
“Well, I called him Jimmy Jams, but I was six at the time and I doubt he’d let anyone else get away with that.”
The shock on his face turned into the awe usually seen when people learned of her connection to America’s beloved James Arrow. Tristan read over the caption. “Are you certain this was you?”
Beth snorted. There weren’t a lot of little girls who grew up in news vans and copters.
“Says here Mr. Lee Cho and Min-Ji Cho.”
With her blush a full-grade burn, Beth reached over to snatch the paper from his hands. She didn’t fold it up or stuff it away but stared down at that youthful old man preserved in newsprint. “Min-Ji is my legal name,” she admitted. “I use Beth because it’s easier on everything for everyone. But my dad, he’s always reverting to the legal one even when in the States because…”
Warm fingers brushed over the back of hers, the tips barely strumming a harmony across her burning skin. “It’s beautiful,” Tristan breathed. Steam from the cooking rested upon his bottom lip, now glistening as if begging for a touch or taste.
What are you doing?
Beth folded back to her seat, slipping the aging proof of her old life into the folder it should have been in. Tristan seemed to shake off the snow-madness moment and returned to cooking. His elbow swerved and swept as he attacked the noodles head on.
She braced herself for cold words, but surprisingly light ones came instead. “Why Beth? To me, it sounds more like Mindy.”
Smiling through the strain of a story she had told many, many times, she explained, “My dad worked with this woman named Liz. Craziest cameraperson you ever met, but she’d always nail the shot. Dangling off a cliff, middle of a militarized zone, fleeing from rubble, she got it. I guess when I was facing a sea of unimpressed faces frowning at my name, I wanted to be like her.”