by A. E. Radley
Melody studied me silently for a moment. “I think you should stay until it heals, too.”
“I need to go home, though,” I said.
“This is home.” She let the statement hang in the air for a long few seconds. “And besides, it’s not like there’s anything you can do in Los Angeles that you can’t do here.”
“I don’t know about that,” I countered. “I can’t meet with my manager in person. I can’t record new music here.”
“You telling me there’s not a single recording studio in all of Atlanta?” Andrew said.
“You should stay, Aunt Hope,” said Max in his serious big-man voice.
Thomas, who wasn’t old enough to have a serious voice yet, leaned over and threw his arms around me. “Stay with us!” he said. “Stay, stay, stay!”
Gigi followed her brothers’ cue. She clasped her hands together at her chest and squeezed her big blue eyes shut. “Please?” she asked.
These kids. They were my kryptonite.
I pried Thomas off of me. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
The kids cheered and I gave Mel a weak smile.
Two glasses of wine and dishes scrubbed clean and dried later, Andrew announced, “It’s a good thing you came for Thanksgiving, Hope. The kids and I have been working on something special just for you. We were going to show you over Skype, but since you’re here…”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Go get comfortable on the couch,” Andrew said. “We’ll be ready in a couple minutes. Max, go get my guitar.”
The fact that Andrew could play guitar competently was one of his few redeeming qualities. But I guessed a boy who didn’t play guitar would never have earned Uncle Billy’s approval.
Max nodded and scurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I looked at Melody. “Guitar? Am I about to be serenaded?”
Gigi took me by the hand and pulled me towards the couch.
Mel smiled. “They really have been working on it for a while now.”
A few minutes later, the kids settled in on the floor, and Andrew sat in the chair behind them, guitar across his lap. He tuned it, then started in on the opening cords I knew all too well.
“Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago — two years ago on Thanksgiving,” Andrew started in his best Arlo Guthrie impersonation, “when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant…”
My eyes misted as I laughed and looked at Melody. Her eyes were misty, too. “Alice’s Restaurant” had been Uncle Billy’s holiday favorite, something we’d sing together as a family each and every Thanksgiving.
I was so busy reminiscing that I lost track of the song until the kids broke into a jumbled harmony with the chorus:
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want… at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in, it’s around the back
Just a couple miles from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.
I couldn’t deny it anymore. I couldn’t lie to themselves or to me about what I was doing here. I’d come home for the holidays, and I would stay until I recovered.
THANKSGIVING DAY
I swatted Max’s hand as he reached for the tray of pumpkin pie-flavored cookies cooling next to the oven.
“No you don’t,” I said. “That’s for later.”
He smirked and shrunk away from the counter, which made me chuckle.
I hummed “Alice’s Restaurant” to myself and went back to work on the green bean casserole. My leg was bothering me a lot today, probably the after-effects of traveling across the country, so I stood with almost all my weight on my right foot.
“Thank God you built me a house with two ovens,” Melody said as she pulled out pies from the smaller oven.
“You wouldn’t need them both if you’d do some of the preparation beforehand,” I admonished.
We’d been up since nearly five in the morning, because Melody, unlike Aunt Tina, for some unknown reason believed in making the entire Thanksgiving dinner the day of.
“I’m not Mom,” Melody said, as if she’d read my mind. “She was always more organized than me. You take after her. I take after Daddy.”
We both fell silent after that, probably because we each realized that this would be our second Thanksgiving without Uncle Billy. I remembered him being as impish as Max, trying to sample Thanksgiving dishes well before it was time to eat.
“Oh no you don’t,” Aunt Tina would tell him, and he would smile and lift his palms in a gesture of “Okay, you caught me” surrender as she chased him from the kitchen. On the years that it was warm enough, he’d grab his guitar and sit out on the front porch, nursing hot coffee and picking at different songs for an hour or two before he got too bored or too cold and came inside, where he’d flip through channels until he found a football game that would satisfy him.
I probably learned to play at least three or four new songs every Thanksgiving that way. And once I was in college and writing my own music, I tried out all my new material on Uncle Billy over holidays breaks before I ever played it for a paying audience.
“What if you tried an A chord there instead?” he would suggest, and we would sit there tinkering with my songs until Aunt Tina called us in to eat. We fine-tuned music and lyrics that way, sometimes for hours at a time.
“I like that,” he’d say with a satisfied nod, and that’s how I knew the song was finally finished. I finalized almost every song on my first album that way, sitting with Uncle Billy on the front porch, playing them over and over again until I got that final, definitive nod.
“What’s your mama gonna say when she realizes you didn’t cook a thing ahead of time?” I asked Melody. I cringed when I heard myself: I’d been back in Georgia for less than forty-eight hours and already my accent was back in full force.
“She’ll do the same thing she does every year,” Melody said. “She’ll fuss a while and hobble around the kitchen, point out everything I’m doing wrong, then complain that her back hurts and go sit down with Andrew to watch football.”
I let out a half-laugh. Andrew had gone to pick Aunt Tina up from the “retirement community” where we’d settled her after Uncle Billy died. Her memory had gotten too bad for her to live on her own. At the time, watching her lose her memory had been sad. But since the gunman opened fire on my concert in Chicago, I was actually glad for it. According to Mel, she couldn’t seem to remember that I’d been shot. Most days she couldn’t even remember that I was living in Los Angeles. I supposed it was best that way.
“It’s strange, thinking of Aunt Tina in one of those assisted living places,” I said aloud. “Strange to think of her admitting she needs assistance at all.”
Melody sighed and shook her head. “I know. We thought about having her move in with us — Lord knows we have enough space. But Andrew worried that we wouldn’t be able to take care of her the right way. What with the kids and with both of us working.”
I nodded.
Melody wiped her hands on a dish towel, put it on the counter, and turned to face me. She propped her elbows on the countertop behind her.
“Thank you, by the way,” she said. “For this house. For supporting Mom and Dad these last few years. I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”
A lump formed in my throat and I shrugged. “Being famous sucks, mostly. But getting to support y’all… after everything your family did for me growing up…” I smiled ruefully. “And after everything I put Aunt Tina and Uncle Billy through.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “Gawd, you were an awful teenager, you know that?”
I laughed. “Why do you think I don’t want kids? I’d probably end up with someone just like me. Karma or whatever.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “Karma? You’re such a Californian now.”
“Call it whatever you want,” I said seriously, “but having a chance to give back —
it’s the only part about being a big shot that I actually like.” I glanced down at my leg. I’d been doing it again — holding all my weight on my good leg without meaning to. “Not that I’ll be a big shot anymore. But maybe that’s for the best.”
Melody picked up the dish towel and snapped it in my direction. “You stop that. You’re going to be back to twerking across a stage in no time. I know you. Nothing stops you.”
“A bullet might.” I paused. “Fourteen dead fans and one dead bodyguard. That might, too.”
She didn’t say anything for a second. Softly, she said, “You know it isn’t your fault, right?”
“Most days I do.”
“And the other days?”
“And the other days… I couldn’t go to my bodyguard’s funeral. Charles. Don’t know if I told you that. His wife — his widow, Margie… Those two loved each other so much. He used to call her every single night when we were on the road, didn’t matter what time zone we were in or how exhausted he was. He’d call her, and they’d talk for at least an hour. When it came to Margie, Charles was just a big ol’ teddy bear.” I gazed at Melody’s feet so that she couldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes. I remembered all the nights that listened to the muffled sound of Charles’s voice in the room next to mine, talking to his wife. “I couldn’t bear to see Margie. I just couldn’t. So I sent flowers like a chickenshit. Paid for the whole funeral. But I didn’t show up.” I gave a sardonic laugh and looked back up. “That’s what you do when you’re rich. You make yourself feel better by throwing money at the things you don’t want to face.”
“You’re not a chickenshit,” Melody said. “You’ve always been the most fearless person I ever met.”
I shook my head. “I’m the opposite of fearless. Everything I’ve done, I did it out of fear. I was scared of being stuck in Georgia the rest of my life, so I moved as far away as I could. I was scared of spending the rest of my life selling CDs out of the trunk of my car, so I changed up my style and sold out to a big label.” And I’m scared of having my heart broken again, I added to myself, which is why none of my relationships last more than a few weeks.
“So stop feeling sorry for yourself and use fear, then,” said Mel. She sounded like Aunt Tina now. Aunt Tina always preferred tough love to coddling. “Be scared of letting some whack job with an assault rifle dictate what the rest of your life is going to be like, and do something about it.”
“You think I’m not doing anything?” I said defensively.
“I think you came back to Georgia because you’re hiding.”
I crossed my arms against my chest. “Last night you told me to stay here until I recovered. But now I’m hiding?”
“You can stay here because you’re recovering or you can stay here because you’re hiding,” Mel said. She tapped the side of her head. “They look the same, but there’s a difference up here.” She reached down and tapped her leg. “There’s no difference here.”
A timer went off, and Mel slipped on a mitt and opened the oven, pulling out a sweet potato casserole and setting it on a cooling rack on the counter she’d been leaning against.
“By the way, I invited someone to Thanksgiving dinner,” she said, her back to me while she worked. “Someone you haven’t seen in a while. If Andrew and I can’t straighten you out, I’m sure they will.”
I frowned. “Who?”
Her voice was sing-song when she said, “You’ll see.”
I pestered my cousin for a few more minutes about the mystery guest, but she held fast to keeping it a secret. Not long after that, Aunt Tina and Andrew arrived, and I forgot to wonder who was going to sit at the extra place setting.
Until the doorbell rang.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3 (TWO AND A HALF WEEKS EARLIER): “I WILL BUY YOU A NEW LIFE,” EVERCLEAR
JULIE ARON
[ SECOND VERSE ]
National Public Radio came on along with the engine, and I turned it down reflexively as I checked the rearview and backed out of the driveway.
“…thirteen confirmed dead,” said the familiar baritone voice I associated with Morning Edition, “with at least three more listed in critical condition.”
Great. Another mass shooting. Just the news I wanted to hear to start my week.
“Concert goers said that at first they assumed the gunshots were a part of the show’s pyrotechnics,” said a female reporter.
“We heard this rhythmic ‘pop, pop, pop,’” a man said. “But we just kind of tuned it out, because — ”
I flipped from NPR to Pandora. “Tuning it out” sounded like exactly what I needed to do. I’d fought with Karen again the night before and had a full day of back-to-back-to-back clients; I didn’t want to begin the morning with depressing news.
Here is the money that I owe you
Yes so you can pay the bills
I will give you more
When I get paid again
I ground my teeth and hit the skip button. From bad news to a bad song that reminded me about the money problems Karen and I had fought about. I’d thought Karen was on board with my plan to save money for the gym I wanted to open, but then her parents invited us to Tybee Island for Christmas last month, and all of the sudden it was, “You aren’t really going to open a gym, are you? That’s not going to work around here,” and “You’ve never been good at business,” and “What if you went back to school, became a real physical therapist?”
The ongoing argument had died down recently, but last night Karen had picked and picked at the issue until the tentative scab we’d formed broke and it bled all over both of us.
Just because I wasn’t a quadzillionaire today didn’t mean business wouldn’t pick up. If I stuck to the plan, I’d have my car paid off and enough money saved to open my own gym by the early part of next year. I didn’t know why Karen had to be so impatient about it, why she couldn’t support me instead of constantly digging at me about money and my career.
And I’d never liked that Everclear song much anyway.
Pandora picked a Cranberries song for me on my 90s alternative station, and I turned it up, singing along to get last night’s fight out of my head. Stay positive, I told myself as I drove to my first client’s house. Stay confident. Don’t let her doubt become your doubt.
But it was too late. Of course her doubt ate at me; how could it not?
The damn Everclear song got stuck in my head the rest of the day, and along with it, my fight with Karen over money.
I hate those people who love to tell you
Money is the root of all that kills
They have never been poor
They have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas
I knew all the words even though I didn’t like it. “Welfare Christmas” I thought when I finished up with my first client. “Welfare Christmas” I thought as I drove to the second.
They have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas
“We can’t both afford to go to Tybee Island for Christmas,” I’d told Karen. “Besides, if I take a whole week off work, it will set me back on my financial plan.”
“You and your damned plan,” she’d groused. “Saving for something that will probably never even happen.”
“Go to Tybee Island without me. I’m sure we could afford that,” I’d said, proud of myself for not taking the bait about my gym. “I’ll stay here, take care of the dogs.”
I thought it was a reasonable suggestion. A kind, self-sacrificing type of gesture. I had no idea it was going to be the opening volley to World War III.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” she demanded. She slammed the dish she was washing down in the sink so hard that Wilson and Spalding, our two huskies, lifted their heads in alarm. “When you were a physical therapist assistant, you made more money and worked fewer hours. Now we can’t even go anywhere for Christmas!”
“Karen, I — ”
“With the amount of money you’re about to pour into that stupid gym idea, you could go back to
school and become a real physical therapist.”
“I told you before. I don’t want to be a — ”
“You don’t want to be an adult. That’s what you don’t want to be.” She snatched a dish towel off the counter and dried her hands with such force that I was surprised she didn’t take her skin off along with the suds.
I counted to five slowly in my head. Concentrated on my breath instead of the sharp retort I wanted to throw at her. It was one of the corny anger management techniques our couples’ counselor had taught me.
“Karen,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I’m not going to have this discussion with you again.”
“No, you’d much rather take what little savings we have and flush it down the toilet than discuss it. Wouldn’t you?”
One. Two. Let out a breath. Three. Fou —
I snatched my keys off the pile of mail sitting on the kitchen table. “I’m leaving,” I said. “You don’t want to be reasonable and I still need to go to the grocery store.”
“Whatever you say,” she snarked, crossing her arms against her chest.
Karen is wrong, I told myself. I have a good client base already. There isn’t a lot of competition out here. I can make a gym work. I can make it work, and eventually…
They have never been poor
They have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas
looped in my head over and over again for the rest of the day. I was still humming the song as I pulled into Mel and Andrew’s driveway:
I will buy you a new car
Perfect shiny and new
I will buy you that big house
Way up in the west hills
I will buy you a new life
Yes I will
Melody opened the front door before I ever made it up the porch stairs. She looked me up and down.