Volume Two: In Moonlight and Memories, #2

by Julie Ann Walker

  “Horseshit,” Luc grunts. “Don’t fall for his hang-dog humble act, Maggie May. The man has a vision. All I’m doing is helping him realize it.”

  “What about the bedrooms? The bathrooms?” I ask.

  “Work zones you want no part of,” Cash assures me. “Besides, since you’re here, I want to get your take on paint colors.” He walks over to one of the folding chairs and picks up a thick binder filled with paint swatches.

  A trill of pleasure skips up my spine.

  He wants my take on paint colors?

  I try to act casual when he hands me the binder, but my insides are throwing a dance party complete with keg stands and body shots. Flipping through the swatches, I take my time walking from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen and back again.

  “This one.” I finally point to a dreamy blueish gray. “It’s soft enough not to overpower whatever color scheme you decide to go with, and yet it still makes a statement.”

  He looks down at the swatch, then up at me. “What statement would that be?”

  “Home.”

  When his mouth curls up at the corners, my toes curl inside my boots.

  “Silver Mist it is.” He folds the swatch to mark its place. “Now”—he takes the binder from me and sets it back on the chair—“about dinner.”

  “What do y’all say we grab hot dogs from a Lucky Dogs vendor and head to Fritzel’s?” I propose. “The band will be starting soon, and I’d like to tell Eva I made an effort to go listen to her cousin.”

  Lord forgive me, but I think I’ll have better luck bringing up the issue of Dr. Stevens if I can get Cash into a party atmosphere. He’s always been more receptive to things when he’s in a festive mood.

  “I’m game,” Luc agrees easily.

  “Cash?” I turn to him. “Do you think it’d be too loud at Fritzel’s? Would it hurt your head?”

  He shrugs. “Let’s give it a shot and find out.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting at one of the long, wooden picnic tables inside the jazz club.

  Most locals wouldn’t be caught dead on Bourbon Street. The famous thoroughfare is strictly for tourists. But Fritzel’s is the exception. It boasts enough authentic New Orleans flare to put the pepper in everyone’s gumbo.

  We’ve finished our hot dogs when the band stops tuning their instruments and jumps into the first song of the night. Not long after, the waitress arrives with our drinks.

  I lean over and whisper in Cash’s ear, “How’s the volume?”

  He gives me a thumbs-up. It’s all the encouragement I need to bide my time and enjoy the show.

  Eva’s cousin proves to be a savant on the piano. He doesn’t tickle the ivories, he thrills them. In fact, all the musicians at Fritzel’s are at the top of their game. The trumpeter wails. The bass player thumps. And the saxophonist delights.

  With the whole bar clapping and stomping and singing along to songs like “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Muskrat Ramble,” an hour passes in the blink of an eye. By the time the band takes its first break, the room is stuffy from the press of too many bodies, Cash is two drinks in and smiling lazily, and I figure there’s no better time than the present.

  “Let’s get some fresh air!” I holler above the noise of conversation and ice clinking in glasses. When Luc and Cash follow me out the back door into the small courtyard, I try to calm the butterflies in my stomach by covertly taking deep breaths.

  The smell of the climbing nightshade vine growing along the back wall sweetens the air. The sounds of Bourbon Street echo in the background. And above our heads, the sky is an expanse of black silk shot through with pinholes of silver starlight.

  It’s a gorgeous Southern night. The kind that happens only in early spring or late fall when it’s not too cold and not too hot. The kind that makes you grateful to be alive.

  “I forgot how great this place is.” Luc’s grin stretches from ear to ear, making those dastardly dimples wink.

  “I know, right?” I happily agree. “I don’t come here often enough.”

  “Maybe we should add it to our regularly scheduled get-togethers,” he suggests. “Every other Sunday morning at Café Du Monde and every Thursday night at Fritzel’s.”

  “Except I can’t make promises when it comes to working the evening shifts at Bon Temps Rouler. I never know when Gus or Chrissy will want a night off.”

  “Right.” He gifts me with a pitying look. “Tough being a working stiff, huh?”

  I stick my tongue in my cheek. “On that note…y’all haven’t said a thing about your plans for opening your security business.”

  “’Cause we don’t have any plans. Every time I bring it up, this one”—Luc points at Cash—“cuts me off and tells me, ‘One thing at a time.’”

  “House first,” Cash insists. “Business later. Besides, right now our hands are full with those other things that need taken care of.”

  The mere allusion to Rick Armstrong and George Sullivan is enough to make my heart skip a beat. And just that easy, this perfect Southern night is wrecked.

  Since that’s the case, here goes nothing…

  “I received an email from that neurosurgeon I wrote to about your head.”

  I don’t know what I expected, but what I get is crickets. Nothing. Nada. It turns into one of those never-ending moments that stretches into eternity, and even though folks are usually scared by loud noises, it’s silence that’s truly terrifying. The hairs on the back of my neck lift as Cash continues to stand there and stare at me.

  Swallowing convulsively, I place an unsteady hand on his shoulder. “Cash?”

  “I told you to leave it alone.” The words barely make it past his clenched teeth.

  I carefully remove my hand and curl it into a fist. “I know. And I understand. But if you’ll think about it for a minute, you’ll see—”

  “Think about it?” His eyes cut into me like daggers. “Think about it? You think I don’t think about how my fucking head is fucking broken every fucking minute of every fucking day?”

  I wince as his voice rises with each word. Groups of people who’ve come outside to cool off turn in our direction.

  “Cash, come on now.” There’s a warning in Luc’s tone. “Maggie May only wants to help.”

  Cash turns on Luc. “Well, she can help by butting the fuck out!”

  “I know you’re trying to be strong about this.” I keep my tone soft and modulated, like I’m talking to a spooked horse. “But you don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to deal with this on your own. You have me and Luc to—”

  “Trying to be strong about this? Woman, I’m not trying to be strong about this. I am being strong about this. You have no fucking clue how—”

  “Lower your voice,” Luc interrupts, his words a quiet counterpoint to Cash’s fury.

  “She’s questioning my strength.” Cash stabs a finger in my direction.

  I open my mouth to object, but Luc beats me to it. “No, she’s not, you dumbass. She’s saying you don’t gotta be strong all the time. We’re here to help you. And besides, you’re not being strong, you’re being hard. There’s a difference.”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me what the fuck that is.”

  Every time Cash says fuck, I feel its percussive effects inside my chest. Not because of my delicate sensibilities, but because it shows he’s growing more livid with each passing second.

  This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake.

  “Strength bends.” Luc maintains his steady tone. “Hardness breaks. So, how about you bend a little, huh?”

  “Hardness breaks? You think I’m broken?” Cash swings back to me. “You think I need to be fixed? Well, I hate to tell you, but this is me now!”

  His lips are curved into the kind of sneer I’ve only ever seen directed toward school bullies. It’s a steel arrow straight to the tender center of my heart.

  “This is as good as it gets!” he yells, uncaring of the audience we’ve attract
ed. “And I’m not asking you to take it or leave it! I’m telling you to fucking leave it! Leave it alone! Leave me alone!”

  “That’s enough!” Luc bellows, finally losing his cool. “Don’t talk to her that way. You need to adjust your attitude for gratitude, man.”

  “Fuck you!” A big vein snakes up the center of Cash’s forehead. In this moment, I can see some of his dad in him, and it makes me ill. “And fuck you too, Maggie, for making me feel worse about myself than I already do!”

  He spins on his heels and slams through the door back into the bar.

  I want to go after him, to explain or cajole or somehow make things right, but my world tilts off its axis and my knees go unsteady. Luc keeps me upright with a hand under my elbow.

  “Easy,” he says.

  “We need to—” I realize I’m crying when my voice catches.

  “Give him some space.”

  “But—”

  That’s all I manage before he pulls me into his arms. “Show’s over!” he calls to the people milling around the courtyard. “Go about your business!”

  I hear the scuffle of feet over brick as the crowd quietly shuffles back into the bar. Luc can be pretty darn imposing when he puts his mind to it. And even though I can’t see his face with my cheek pressed against his chest, I know his expression brooks no argument.

  Wiping the wetness from my eyes, I whisper, “I sh-shouldn’t have done that. He said he didn’t want my help. I should’ve listened.”

  “Don’t.” He holds me at arm’s length to point a finger at my nose. “Don’t blame yourself ’cause he’s a horse’s ass. You love him. You’re scared for him. And instead of sitting on your hands and crying, ‘woe is me,’ you had the gumption to do something to help him. He should be thanking you, not screaming at you in a courtyard full of folks.”

  “He won’t forgive me for this.” Even as I say the words, I pray they’re not true.

  “Hell yes, he will. He won’t have any choice.”

  I search his face in confusion. “Why’s that?”

  “’Cause y’all are meant to be. I mean, you gotta be, right? You both held a flame for each other for ten years. If that’s not destiny, I don’t know what is.”

  Five minutes ago, I would have agreed with him. Now?

  “You truly believe that? You truly believe anyone is meant to be? Or is it simply life and circumstances and peculiarities and timing that bring people together? And then pigheadedness that keeps them together?”

  “Who cares?” He shrugs. “The point is, if ever two pigheaded people deserved each other, it’s you and Cash.”

  I’m startled to find myself smiling through my tears. “You’re the only one who can do that, you know.”

  “What?”

  “When I’m suffocating, you make me able to breathe again.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  ______________________________________

  Cash

  Dear Cash,

  It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, so this afternoon I took the streetcar from the Garden District to The Quarter and stood for a while in front of the Faerie Playhouse. That little Creole cottage is so sweet with its pink paint and big wooden hearts.

  It reminds me of the times you talked about owning a place exactly like it. “Not pink,” you’d say. “And no hearts. But everything else is perfect.”

  You know what I think? I think you LIKED the paint and the hearts. I think you liked the story of the guy who lives there having decorated it in tribute to his lifelong partner who adored Valentine’s Day.

  You try to hide it, but you’re a romantic when it comes right down to it.

  Anyway, by the time I got home, my throat was KILLING me. Auntie June got out the flashlight and looked inside my mouth. She’s diagnosed me with strep throat, and I have an appointment to see the doctor first thing tomorrow morning. But tonight, I’m lying in bed, feeling wretched, and thinking of the gummy bears you brought me the last time I was sick.

  That was over a year ago. Can you believe it? In one way, it feels like it was only yesterday. In another way, it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime since then.

  So much has changed.

  But that brings me to my point. Which is that despite all the changes, I’m still a romantic too. It doesn’t matter how many days go by, or how many miles separate us, you’ll always be my Valentine. My one and only.

  Love, Maggie

  “Love is the truly great manifesto; the urge to be, to count for something, and, if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclimation—in short, to remain a memory.”

  I’m not much for foreign writers, but a long time ago, Luc gave me a book by some Italian guy named Cesare Pavese and that one quote has stuck with me.

  Love is the great manifesto. The end-all, the be-all. The answer to the big question, Why are we here?

  If we do it right—love, I mean—then our lives count for something.

  Which means…yeah… I need to fix things with Maggie.

  Been an ass to her in the week since Fritzel’s, ignoring her texts, not answering the door when she came to drop off a bag of groceries, and generally keeping to myself like an ill-tempered ogre in a cave. Been an ass to Luc, too, telling him to stick to surveilling Rick’s house and staying the hell away from me.

  My only excuse? Pride. Plain and simple.

  And maybe too much booze.

  Okay, definitely too much booze.

  I hate what I’ve become. What I’m becoming. But I hate it more when I see the shadow of my former self reflected in the eyes of the only two people I love.

  With them, it’s impossible to ignore that I’m so much less than I was. And the fucking unfairness of it all makes me want to scream. But when I scream, my head splits in two. And when my head splits in two, I reach for my flask. Then pop goes the weasel!

  Love is truly the great manifesto. As I climb the steps to Miss Bea’s front porch, I remind myself it’s the only thing that matters.

  Once I’m standing in front of the massive wooden door, I bask in a hundred memories of the times I came here to pick Maggie up for a date. Back when things were easier, sweeter. Back before life and death and love got so tangled and twisted up.

  I press the doorbell with a shaky finger. A hollow-sounding gong echoes inside the big house and inside my head. On a scale of one to ten, my headache is sitting at about an eleven. But the second the door swings open, I forget about the pain because…

  Maggie.

  My breath hitches.

  “Cash?” Her voice is tentative.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.” Feel like scuffing my toe against the ground like a conscience-stricken kid.

  “I didn’t know if you’d come. I thought—” She stops and steps into me, going up on tiptoe so she can wrap her arms around my neck.

  I close my eyes at the feel of her, the smell of her.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispers in my ear. Always so ready to welcome me back. Always so quick to forgive.

  “Come in. Come in.” She motions through the open doorway once she releases me.

  “Mind if we sit out here for a bit?” I hitch my chin toward the porch swing.

  Her brow wrinkles, but she quietly closes the door behind her. When we’re seated, I set the swing rocking, listening to the delicate creak of the chains and breathing deeply of the soft autumnal smells of mums and sweet, wet leaves.

  We had a rain shower last night, a short burst of precipitation, but the drumming of fat drops on the roof was enough to wake me. After lying there for hours, staring into the darkness and feeling the loneliness of the empty house seeping into me, I finally made the decision to get over myself and come today.

  “I’m sorry,” we blurt in unison.

  I laugh, then insist, “No. I’m sorry. Never should’ve said those things to you at Fritzel’s. And I definitely never should’ve wasted a week ignoring you. I’m a fucking idiot.”

  Before I finish speaking, she’s shaking
her head. “You told me to let it go. But I didn’t listen. I went crashing around and breaking things between us.”

  “Nothing you do could ever break things between us, Maggie.”

  “No?” She searches my face.

  I shake my head, and her angel eyes are so relieved, so optimistic I have to look away.

  My gaze lands on the two live oak trees. They’re huge and ancient looking. If they could talk, what stories would they tell of the lives that have passed beneath their branches? What births have they seen? What deaths? What promises of never-ending love have they heard? What words of hate and heartlessness?

  Compared to theirs, the span of my own life seems wispy and insubstantial, like the Spanish moss that hangs from the them.

  “Give me the information for that doctor.” I make the decision in that moment. “I’ll have my records sent to him.”

  “You will? Oh, Cash! That’s fantastic news!” She has her cell phone in hand before I can blink. My phone buzzes in my pocket barely five seconds later.

  “I forwarded his email to you,” she says excitedly. “And I know you think you’ve come to the end of the road where your head injury is concerned, and you want to be left well enough alone to deal with it as you see fit, but maybe Dr. Stevens can help. That’s his name, by the way. Dr. Stevens at Johns Hopkins. He’s the best neurosurgeon in the country. If anyone can find some answers, or come up with some solutions, he can and—”

  She cuts herself off. “Sorry. I’m babbling.” Her smile is brighter than the noonday sun. It sets my heart on fire. “But I can’t help it. I’m so happy you’re going to let him try to help you. And I know you’re going to be—”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “Sorry. Babbling again.”

  Her hopefulness threatens to become contagious, so I jump up and offer her a hand. “We better go inside before Miss Bea comes out and scolds us for ignoring her.”

  She makes a face and motions toward Smurf. The ancient blue pickup truck is sandwiched between a long line of cars parked at the curb. “Luc’s here. You’re not his favorite person at the moment, just FYI.”