by Eli Lang
I was careful not to let my head touch Cara’s leg. She’d been the one to suggest the whole thing, but that didn’t mean I could push into her personal space any more than I already had. For a second, I worried about drooling or snoring in my sleep, and how mortifying that would be. But then my eyes were closing, the long day finally getting the best of me, and any worries I had faded away as I drifted off.
I woke up with a start to turbulence and the place bouncing underneath me. I clutched at the seat, disoriented from sleep and the weirdness of realizing I was traveling through the air. I wondered if I should sit up, but my bleary mind was telling me I should figure out what was going on first and try to decide if I needed to panic.
A hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, gentle but firm, grounding. “Nothing to worry about.” Cara’s voice was soft and low. I woke up some more, glanced around. The plane was quiet, the lights all dimmed except for the tiny strips of gold that outlined the center aisle. Outside the windows, the sky was black, only the lightest spatter of stars visible. I took a deep breath and tried to orient myself, remind myself that it was fine.
“Some bumpy weather,” Cara said. “That’s all it is. No big deal.”
I nodded and briefly considered trying to go back to sleep, but I didn’t think I could. I must have been out for a while anyway. I sat up slowly, and something slid off my shoulders into my lap. I caught it before it fell to the floor and saw that it was a gray hoodie, fleece lined and warm. Something I’d wear, but it wasn’t mine. I handed it back to Cara. “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “You looked cold.”
I smiled at her. I was grateful. It seemed to me that small gestures like that were sometimes the hardest to do, but they were the sweetest. It definitely felt sweet to me, and I wanted to sit here and savor it. But it reminded me of Tuck too, of all the thoughtful but nearly mindless ways he took care of me, the habits we had between us that were so ingrained in us that we didn’t even have to think about them anymore. Making sure we were comfortable, always being there to make lunch because we knew the other would forget to eat otherwise, being someone to call because we always knew when we needed someone to reach out to. To cover the other while we were napping. That was Tuck for me, and me for him. Except it was different now, so different, and that had been so painfully obvious on this last tour. I loved that Cara had given me her hoodie. I wanted to take it in the lightness and kindness with which it was meant. I wanted it to be simple. My mind was just making everything so goddamned complicated.
I tried to shove all of that back. When I was nervous, or awkward, or unsure, I tried to remember that I was, technically, a rock star. As technically as you could define that label, anyway. And although I definitely didn’t think that made me any better than anyone else, I could pull that persona on like my own soft, fuzzy hoodie when I needed it, and let it keep me safe. Let it carry me, at least for a while. I tried to do that now, tried to remember that if I could be confident enough to get up on stage in front of thousands of people, I could damn well carry on a conversation. I grabbed for something to say, something to break the awkwardness that was growing between us, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“Why dance?” I asked finally, because that had been interesting, and it was the only thing I could think of.
Cara looked surprised with my abrupt shot at conversation, but she let it go. She leaned toward me, over the seat that separated us, and I leaned in too. Her voice was quiet when she started talking, likely so we wouldn’t wake anyone around us. “I don’t know. I wanted to move, I think. I had a lot of energy when I was a kid. My mom thought it would be a good idea, something for me to try. And I was good at it.”
It was a simple answer, but she seemed like she was actually considering it, like maybe if I gave her enough time, she’d tell me even more. I wondered if she’d have answered that way if we weren’t in this confined space, in the dark, amidst the warm, soft sounds of people sleeping. It felt intimate, suffocating and magical at the same time, in the oddest way.
“Do you like it?” I asked, because liking it hadn’t really come into her answer.
She opened her mouth, then closed it and tilted her head in something that was almost a shake or a nod, but not quite either. “It’s kind of like being in love,” she said after a minute. She blushed right away, enough that I could see it, even in the dark.
And yeah, it was a silly thing to say. But I thought maybe I fell a bit in love with her right then, because she had said it. In this weird pocket of intimacy, it seemed particularly secret and special. Even though we were strangers and would go our separate ways, so it didn’t matter what we said to each other. People didn’t say that kind of thing. I nodded, keeping my expression serious, so she’d know I wasn’t laughing, and she continued.
“When you’re in love, you’re, like . . . blissful and crazy and angry and it’s awesome, but it’s tiring and awful too. But you don’t want to stop being in love.” She laughed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “That sounds crazy. Sorry.”
I shook my head, was shaking it even before she finished talking. “No, it doesn’t, not at all. That sounds . . . about exactly right.”
She laughed, just a puff of air escaping her lips. “Yeah? What do you do, then? Something that makes you feel like being in love?”
I pulled in a breath and nodded. She had no idea how close being in love was to what I did. “I’m a drummer in a rock band.” It still felt weird for me to be able to say that and have it be the first and last truth about my life, the rock I built everything else on. It was all I had wanted, all I had gone after for so long. For so many years, when it had been exactly as wonderful and awful as being in love, when it had seemed like it was impossible and would never happen, no matter how hard we tried. But now it had, and it felt surreal and better than wonderful.
Didn’t stop people from giving me some serious side-eye when I pulled that out as my career, though.
Cara didn’t, quite. Maybe because she made dance her career, so she was used to doing things that were a little different than what people expected.
“Why drums?” she asked, throwing my own question back at me. It didn’t feel like a challenge, though, or not exactly like one. It felt like the same curiosity I’d had.
I shrugged. “It was all I ever wanted. It fit for me.” The words just spilled out, but I figured that was as close to the truth as I could come without talking and talking, so I left it there.
Cara nodded. “So you do know what I mean.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I do.”
“And you’re . . .” She grinned, and I thought I saw the blush come back. “You make a living doing that?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You make a living dancing?” I wondered what type of dance she did. Ballet? Did she wear one of those frilly outfits?
“Sorry.” She glanced down. “Shouldn’t have asked like that. But yes, I do.”
I waved my hand between us. “It’s fine. And yeah, I do too. Sometimes we even get played on the radio.”
“Oh yeah?” She leaned slightly closer. “Have I heard of you?”
I hated this part. I was never sure what answer I wanted from someone when I told them my band was Escaping Indigo. If they knew us, that was awesome, and I was so pleased that we could actually be recognized by name. But they always had an opinion, and whether it was good or bad, whether they kept it to themselves, it changed the way people saw me. And if, on the other hand, they didn’t know who we were, then everybody was embarrassed.
I pointed down at my carry-on, tucked under my seat. I had a patch sewn onto it, with our band logo. It was probably pretentious to have it there, but I loved my band, and I liked the idea that people saw it and maybe wondered. And I wanted to be able to see our name, remind myself that it was real. Cara followed where I was pointing, and I could tell before she even looked back up at me, by the way she went still, that she was in the first camp of people, that she knew who we were.
She turned back to me, and I smiled, but I was nervous. She blinked and smiled too, but it looked as hesitant as mine felt. “I’ve heard of you.” She sounded honestly surprised.
I wanted to be pleased, and a big part of me was. Awfully pleased. How many times in the past had people asked, and I’d said our band name, and they hadn’t known we existed at all? It went more the other way these days, and that was definitely okay with me. “We do all right.”
“I haven’t heard a lot.” She sounded apologetic. “I don’t listen to the radio very often. But I liked what I did hear,” she added, fast, leaning forward like she wanted to press that into me.
I laughed, and it wasn’t an uncomfortable laugh, but a real one. Honesty I could deal with. “That’s totally fine. Some of my best friends are in bands who make music I can’t stand.”
“I really did like it. I’m not telling you that to make you happy.” She pulled her mouth down tight at the corners as she absorbed what else I had said. “Seriously? Do you tell them you don’t like their stuff?”
I shook my head. Short pieces of hair were escaping my ponytail, getting in my eyes. I pulled the tie out and ran my fingers through my hair, hoping it wasn’t as much of a disaster as it felt. “We don’t talk about it. But no one’s going to like everything. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re great people.”
She was staring at me, and I wondered if I’d said something weird. Then she laughed and pinched the bridge of her nose before she dropped her hand. She was still grinning at me, and I smiled in response, even though I didn’t know why.
“That’s . . . a really generous way to think.”
“Nah. It’s selfish. Lets me have more friends than I probably should.”
Cara’s smile went soft. “I’m glad you were the one I sat next to tonight, Ava.”
“Yeah?” It occurred to me, for the first time, that I’d been flirting with Cara—to the best of my flirting abilities, which, admittedly weren’t much, but still—this whole time, and I didn’t even know if she was into other girls that way. But I thought my flirting had been pretty obvious . . . okay, maybe not the flirting itself, but the staring, probably, had tipped my hand. She hadn’t stopped me, or rebuffed me, and now, as she watched me with that curious, half-timid look that you only gave someone you were interested in, I thought maybe she was. Maybe I had actually gotten lucky enough to sit next to a gorgeous, kind girl who might even find me attractive. And when we landed . . . what? Was I going to be bold and ask for her number, when I wasn’t even going to be around for very long? I mentally shook my head at myself. Flirt, I told myself. Have fun. Remember what it’s like to be with someone who isn’t a quick bang in a parking lot or a dressing room. And then call it done. That was really all I could do here.
I still wanted to ask for her number as we were getting off the plane, though. We’d talked quietly for the rest of the flight, and it had been . . . easy. Yeah, there were still those awkward pauses that happened when two people didn’t know each other. But it hadn’t been enough to make us stop. The hum of our voices had surrounded us, made a pocket for us on the plane. Sometimes Cara would make a wry joke, and I’d laugh out loud, then have to cover my mouth to keep myself from waking everyone else. And I had liked it. It had felt so good to sit with her and . . . be absorbed in her and our conversation, for those few hours.
When we landed, the sun was just coming up, making the clouds we’d flown through pink and pearl gray. The sunlight in the airport was almost blinding, after all the darkness, the shadows of the airplane cabin. I rubbed at my eyes and hoisted my bag higher up on my shoulder. Ahead of me, Cara was already weaving her way through people, headed to baggage claim. We’d said goodbye on the plane, both of us saying how great it was to have met, but it had been more than pleasantries for me. It had been the truth—I really had been happy to sit next to her, and I thought maybe it had been the same for her. But I still didn’t ask for her number, and she didn’t ask for mine either.
I’d gotten to be an expert at packing a lot in a small bag and not carrying as much, since we’d started touring, so my carry-on was all I had. No reason to follow Cara any farther toward the baggage claim. I made my way toward the rental cars instead. The people at the counter looked me up and down when I got there, and I had to show my license to prove that I was over the twenty-five-year age limit. The little slip of plastic with my picture on it proved the truth—I was pushing thirty. Not very old, but I still didn’t like telling people. I wasn’t vain. I didn’t buy into that bullshit about getting old. But rock stars had expiration dates. There was no getting around that. Everything had to be done so quickly, so you could fit yourself into that magic age slot. We tried to pretend it didn’t happen, and if you actually ended up making it in music, that expiration date got pushed way back. But I didn’t think any of us ever completely rid ourselves of the fear of being over twenty, over thirty. It was too ingrained.
I was still sneakily pleased when the rental people had to hand the car over to me.
The sun had come over the horizon by the time I started driving to my parents’ house. It was low enough, however, that it was hitting the trees just right, gilding them in light, turning the greens gold and emerald, and making everything look so lush and gorgeous and perfect that it was hard to see any flaws, almost hard to remember that I hated it here. The leaves threw shadows on the car and the road, making the light flicker as I drove underneath. It was beautiful, but confining too, the forest bumping right up against the guardrails. I thought about turning on the radio, filling the silence in the car, but I half imagined that all that greenery and light would soak up the sound. We had trees back home, and our foliage was actually probably far more lush, the semi-tropical weather ensuring that even our weeds grew well. But it wasn’t old growth like this. It didn’t loom over you and feel like it might swallow you up in a swirl of summer colors. Even though I’d grown up here, I always forgot exactly what it was like, and I had to get used to it each time, all over again. And each time it took longer than it had the time before.
I drove back roads to my parents’ house as much as I could. The streets were narrow and twisty, and squirrels kept darting out in front of me and stopping in the road, making me slam my brakes on. It seemed too closed in, too wild, to be a neighborhood, but houses, some set back, some sitting right on the road, were scattered every acre or two. An old neighborhood, with old houses to match. Low ceilings and decorative lintels. Moss growing up the clapboard and brick. They were pretty and tiny, cramped and quaint. I’d grown up in a house like these, with uneven floors and doors that stuck in their jambs, and a huge backyard with scruffy gardens along the edges. It had been an adventure, as a kid, had always felt comfortable and . . . like what my adult mind imagined home was supposed to be.
Apparently it hadn’t been quite as much like a home to my parents, because they’d sold it right after I’d switched colleges and moved across the country. They still lived in the same town, but now their house was newer. Squished together with other houses, with a tiny, neatly trimmed lawn. Doors that opened silently on well-oiled hinges, jambs that hadn’t been warped by time and damp. Floors that were shiny and even. Plumbing that didn’t croak when you ran the water. Sterile in appearance and design, but neat and easy. Less maintenance. Cleaner. I got the appeal in that. I got wanting things to be easy.
Didn’t mean I really liked the place, though.
I parked in the driveway, and my dad had the front door open before I even got out of the car. For a second, I stared at him through the windshield. It hadn’t really been that long since I’d seen him, and he looked nearly the same, with his gray sweater-vest and his glasses perched on the end of his nose. Nerdy chic, I’d always called it in my mind. Or comfortable and warm. And I realized that I’d missed him, more than I’d expected, or allowed myself to think. I left my bag where it was and jogged up the short path to him. He opened his arms without a word and wrapped me up in a tight hug.
&nbs
p; He pushed me a little bit away, holding my arms so he could study me. I was almost looking at him eye to eye. That always surprised me, that I was as tall as my dad, since I wasn’t very tall myself. His glasses were slipping down his nose, and I reached up and pushed them back for him. He smiled at me.
“You look so tired.”
I sighed and wondered if anyone was going to notice anything about me while I was here aside from my lack of sleep. “Not what a girl wants to hear.”
“Not what anyone wants to hear,” he replied, gently but still chastising. He’d always been able to do that, put me in place or drive home a point without ever raising his voice, without even really changing his tone.
“I’m fine.”
He nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. I figured that topic wasn’t done, but he was letting it go for now. “Come inside.”
I went back to the car and got my bag. My dad offered to carry it for me, and I let him, even though I spent my life toting around drums that weighed ten times what was in that bag.
He brought my carry-on inside and set it down by the door, and I stood in the foyer and gazed around. I had to give it to the house—it was bright. Our old house had been so surrounded by trees that it had been like living in a fishbowl, all shadows and watery light. But this place was filled with sun—airy and open and clean. My mom loved that about it, that she could actually see what she was doing, that she wasn’t constantly fighting with a house that was older than she was.
Like I’d summoned her with the thought, she came around a corner and into sight. She walked toward me and held her arms out like my father had. She let me go quickly, and leaned back so she could stare at me, pushing my hair away from my eyes and taking me in. Making judgments about how I looked and what it meant. I knew she was. But she didn’t say anything. I almost wished she would, so we could have it out of the way. The rest of me was glad for the momentary reprieve.