“I’ll lend you my car,” Evan said. “Let me get the keys.”
Emmy’s face contorted into a pained mask.
“What?” he said. “The Subaru not fancy enough for you?”
“No. Actually, um…” She winced and fidgeted almost like she was nervous. “I don’t know how to drive.”
“Oh, okay.” He was surprised, but given the strength of her reaction, he’d been expecting something more dramatic. “I can drive you. I don’t have to go into the office today. I’ll work from home, and you can text me when you’re ready to come home.” Come back. He meant to say “come back.” Because Emmy didn’t live here. This wasn’t her home. But no one seemed to notice, so better to not call attention to the slip by correcting it.
“I actually got my learner’s permit back in the day,” Emmy said, her tone having gone completely flat, “but then I never took the test.” He sensed there was more to the story but also that she didn’t want to go there. Regardless, in her life as Emerson Quinn, there were, no doubt, people around her who drove her wherever she wanted to go.
“You need to learn to drive,” said Mrs. Johansen. “You can’t live in Iowa without knowing how to drive.”
“I don’t live here,” Emmy started to say, but trailed off when Mrs. Johansen raised her eyebrows. Maybe his “come home” slip hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“You don’t drive, either,” Evan said to Mrs. Johansen, trying not to sound peevish.
“I’m seventy-nine,” Mrs. Johansen retorted before turning to Emmy. “I get a pass. But I know how. And I do have a car.” She turned to Emmy. “I’ll teach you.”
Evan didn’t know whether to laugh at the prospect of Mrs. Johansen teaching Emmy to drive in her giant, mothballed Buick, or to forbid it.
“You know what? I can just call a taxi,” Emmy said, standing up and heading toward the door.
“Nope,” said Evan. “It’s really no problem. Let me get my keys and we’ll be on our way.”
Three hours later, Evan pulled up to their designated meeting point outside Dane’s only mall. Emmy skipped down the sidewalk toward him, laden with bags and grinning from ear to ear.
“What?” he said, smiling as he got out of the car—her goofy excitement was contagious.
“The mall!” she said after he’d thrown her purchases into the trunk.
“What about it?” he said, opening her door for her and then coming around to the driver’s side.
“It’s full of stores, and you can just go in and buy things!”
Her eyes were wide and her tone tinged with awe. He bit his lip to keep from laughing. “That’s pretty much how malls work.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that’s how malls work. I haven’t been to one in a while, though.”
“I suppose fancy designers send you clothes so you don’t have to lower yourself to mingling with the masses at the Gap.”
“Pretty much,” she confirmed.
“The idea of not having to shop is pretty damned appealing. Clothes simply show up on your doorstep? Sign me up.”
“And, of course, the other beautiful thing about a mall is that you can get everything! My assistant sent me a new credit card, and I went a little crazy.” She reached into a bag and pulled out…a giant jigsaw puzzle of a hot air balloon? He hadn’t seen that coming.
“A puzzle of a hot air balloon counts as crazy?”
“I love puzzles.” She dug around some more in the bag and, with a flourish, produced a newspaper.
The National Enquirer. “Where is Emerson Quinn?” screamed the headline, which was accompanied by a grainy photo of her in a headscarf.
He read the subhead aloud. “‘Singer hasn’t been seen in public in weeks. Social media feeds dark. Reps deny rumors that star has been stricken with cancer.’” He blinked rapidly, almost unable to believe what he was reading. “Holy shit!”
“Ha!” She pumped a fist in victory. “That photo is from a trip to the beach like two years ago. It was windy, so I stuck that scarf on my head.”
“Well,” he said, “I still think it’s possible you’re a little too thrilled with a crappy mall in Dane, Iowa.”
“I am exceedingly thrilled. I did all this stuff I usually don’t do, and as we have previously discussed, I am basically incompetent as a normal human being.”
“Hey, that’s not true!”
“Said the guy who’s picking me up from the mall because I can’t drive.” She rolled her eyes.
“So what’s up with that?” he asked. He sensed there was a story there, and even though it was none of his business, he wanted to know what it was. “You said you got your learner’s permit, but then you never got the actual license?”
She deflated a little. “Yeah. With a learner’s permit you have to have a parent in the passenger seat with you, you know?”
She was fidgeting as she spoke, so he started the car and pulled away, reasoning that it would be easier for her to tell the story if he wasn’t staring at her. “In theory, yes,” he said, thinking back to his teen years behind the wheel. “My parents outsourced it to a driving school, though. In retrospect, I suppose my father was too busy cheating hardworking people to spare the time.”
“Well,” she said, “my parents refused to outsource it or to help me themselves. So I did all the classroom stuff, but then I had no one to actually supervise the behind-the-wheel stuff.” He glanced at her. She was looking out the window as she spoke. “I was sixteen, and I had just signed with this guy Tony, who was my first manager—he’s my assistant now. He was booking me into local clubs. My parents were furious.”
“Not into the idea of their daughter hanging around clubs, I suppose,” he said, pulling out of the mall lot.
“Not into their daughter doing music at all. So they were trying to use driving as leverage. Like, quit your stupid music, get some serious ambitions, and then we’ll teach you to drive.”
“Wow, that’s kind of a dick move.”
“You know what else is a dick move?” He felt her turn to him, and it only took a quick glance at her to see the hurt in her eyes.
“What?” he asked, returning his attention to the road. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like her answer.
“Kicking your daughter out of the house, which they did later.”
His hands flexed, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. Okay, so now he had to add Emmy’s parents to the list of people he wanted to pummel on her behalf. Her parents. Jesus. Immature boy band members were one thing, but the people who were supposed to love you unconditionally? At least he had been in his mid-twenties when his own family fell apart.
“But they’ve come around now, I suppose,” he said, hoping for a happy ending. “I imagine that seeing your daughter win a Grammy Award has that effect.”
“Nope,” she trilled with false cheer. “They still think what I do is immature and unseemly. My grandma is the only person in my family who would have been happy about my musical career—but she died before she got to see it happen.” He was about to tell her what he thought of that when she said, “Anyway!” in a loud voice, signaling that she wanted to end the conversation. “The mall was awesome! It sounds dumb, but a successful shopping trip is like solving a problem, and I don’t get to do that very often. I needed clothes. I bought them. Just like a real girl.”
“You are a real girl.”
“Anyway!” she said again, “the main reason I’m so thrilled by my little mall excursion is this.” She produced a flyer from her bag and let it flutter to his lap.
“I can’t read that while I’m driving.”
“It’s a regional songwriting contest for teens!”
“Hang on now.” He knew where she was going with this.
“It’s like it’s meant to be,” she said, talking animatedly over him. “Finals are at the Minnesota State Fair, and the prize is a college scholarship! It’s perfect!”
“Final round at the Minnesota State Fair?” he echoed. He appreciated
her enthusiasm, but she was getting carried away. There was no way that Jace the near-mute sixteen-year-old was winning a songwriting contest at the huge fair their neighboring state held at the end of every summer.
“Yeah, there’s a preliminary thing at the mall next week—they’re going on all around Minnesota and northern Iowa apparently. So when he wins that—”
“Whoa. Emmy. Stop.”
She did, but only for a moment. Then she said, “Evan.” And the way she said it, all low and sort of exasperated, startled him. She’d been so excited a moment ago, the furious pace of her words keeping her voice high. This was…something different. He wondered if that’s how she would say his name in bed.
Which was a hypothetical question. Hypothetical. As in: not being tested in reality. God damn. What was wrong with him today? Probably just that he’d gone through more emotions in this short car ride home than he had in the past year. Delight at Emmy’s infectious enthusiasm, anger at her parents, incredulity at the idea of Jace entering a songwriting contest. And now…this. He shifted in his seat.
“You know how good he is,” she went on, still using the sultry voice.
“He is, but—”
“We’re not that far from St. Paul, are we?” she asked as he turned onto his street. “What is it? Three, four hours?” When he didn’t answer, she sighed, the fight seeming to leave her, and said, “I was only thinking that this might be a way forward for him. I don’t get the impression that his mom has a lot of money. She waits tables at Wanda’s, right? A college scholarship would be amazing—it would let him develop his skills but still get an education to fall back on. But even if he doesn’t win, it seems like…”
It was Evan’s turn to sigh. “It seems like what?”
“Like it would be a big deal to him. To make it to the state fair. To be good at something. To have adults believe in him.”
Well, shit. He couldn’t really argue with that. And he was the one who was supposed to be the teacher, the one helping these kids. He did have one final objection, though. “Well, all right. But you can’t take Jace to the Minnesota State Fair, Emmy. It’s one thing to hide in plain sight in Dane, but there will be tens of thousands of people there. And you’re from Minnesota.”
“Well, okay, maybe I can’t.”
He pulled the car up in front of his house, cut the engine, and turned to her. Finally, she was seeing reason.
“But you can.”
Chapter Eleven
Things spiraled from there. Emmy, even though she was clearly trying to be useful and to stay out of his way, was invading his life. His very being.
Exhibit A was a week later, when Evan arrived home on Friday night to find the house empty.
It was an odd feeling, made more so by the fact that he only realized she wasn’t around after he had burst through the door calling “I’m home!”
What did he think? That they were Ozzie and Harriet and she’d be waiting for him, casserole freshly microwaved, excited to hear about his day? That because it was Friday, maybe they’d bike into town for a piece of pie at Wanda’s?
It was just that he’d gotten the programs back from the printer for the art show, and he wanted to show them to her. Despite the fact that he’d been thinking of the event as a monkey on his back, he was getting excited. It was her doing. After he’d agreed to let her help with the execution, she had thrown herself into planning. She’d made a map and had him mark where he wanted each piece to hang, and she was working with Jerry, the barn’s owner, to get the walls properly prepared. She’d even stood over Evan, cracking the whip while he made a poster design that she then reproduced and had the community center kids plaster all over town.
But, he reminded himself, Emmy wasn’t his wife. She wasn’t his assistant. She wasn’t his anything. And more to the point, he didn’t want her to be. She didn’t owe him an accounting if she’d chosen to go out. Or if she was working on her music upstairs in her room.
“Evan?” came a voice, wafting in from the backyard through the open kitchen windows, and damned if his heart didn’t do a little jig. “We’re out back.”
We.
And damned if that didn’t temper his excitement a little.
He didn’t want to share her with Mrs. Johansen.
Or… “Jace?” The screen door almost hit him in the ass as he stepped into the yard. The teenager and Mrs. Johansen were sitting at the old picnic table in the yard, eating potato chips.
And so was…SilverCEO?
“Burgers!” Emmy announced from her perch at the grill, snapping her tongs as if in victory. “I made burgers, and I didn’t carbonize them this time!” She was looking at him the way some of his kids did—both the college ones and the younger ones at the community center—when they craved positive reinforcement.
He was about to give it to her despite the fact that he personally didn’t think she needed to make burgers or buy shorts or learn to drive to be a “real girl,” but Mrs. Johansen interrupted, trilling, “Practicing for the big barbeque!”
Emmy shot Mrs. Johansen a quelling look, and Evan spoke the line that had basically been fed to him. “What big barbeque?”
Emmy ignored the question. “Evan, this is Mr. Widmer, Mrs. Johansen’s friend.” She angled her head so that only he could see her face when she said, “friend,” and the slight raising of her eyebrows that accompanied the word warmed his insides. When was the last time he’d conspired with someone? “And Jace came over to play us the latest version of his song.” Since getting Jace and his mom on board with the idea of competing in the songwriting competition, Emmy had stepped back from helping, insisting that the rules, which specified that the young songwriters could have “adult advice but not co-writers” be respected.
“Okay,” Evan said, letting Emmy lead him to a spot at the table and accepting a beer. “But what big barbeque?” He asked the question a little louder this time, as if volume would help extract an answer.
“The barbecue next Saturday where all your colleagues are invited,” Mrs. Johansen said.
“Excuse me?” He nearly choked on his beer. Evan thought of himself as a solitary person. Well, he hung out with the seventy-nine-year-old next door, but that was about it. He certainly didn’t have his whole goddamned workplace over for burgers. “You are insane if you think that’s happening,” he said to Emmy, allowing some of his annoyance to come through in his tone. It was one thing for Emmy to overhaul his house, but she needed to stay far away from his job. Larry didn’t need any reminders of Evan’s so-called fame.
“But also the barbecue next Saturday where we’ll celebrate Jace’s performance in the preliminary round of the songwriting competition,” Emmy said with an artificially bright smile, as if she hadn’t heard his objection.
“Emmy,” he said, infusing his voice with warning.
“Evan,” she countered, and she was using the sultry voice. Whatever. He wasn’t backing down here, so he raised his eyebrows at her. He would wait her out. The barbeque was not happening.
The barbeque was happening.
“See,” said Emmy, filling up the sink for dishes after everyone left. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Consider it practice for next week.”
“Yeah, but your little multigenerational menagerie is one thing. My entire, mostly hostile department is another.”
She laughed as she immersed a stack of plates in the soapy water. “My little multigenerational menagerie! Ha!”
Evan wasn’t sure what had happened to him.
Well, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what had happened to him. He and Emmy had faced off, and he’d lost. She’d followed his initial objection with a laundry list of reasons why it was, in fact, not the worst idea in the world to have his colleagues—and his boss—over. Show them another, more casual side of you, she’d said. Ply them with drinks. Relax a little. We can totally change their hearts.
He had held out, he really had, until Jace had joined the argument on Emmy’s side. He’d had t
o pause then, and let it sink in that in a few short weeks of exposure to Emmy, Jace was not only making eye contact now, he was voluntarily engaging in conversation.
We can totally change their hearts.
Part of him thought then, hell, maybe she’s right. Maybe she could wave her magic Emmy wand, extend her quiet competence to the morass that was his professional life, and, through some kind of alchemical voodoo, deliver him the greatest wish of his heart: tenure. Job security for life, which would mean he had finally and fully broken from his past.
And he could not deny that once he’d stopped objecting and relaxed a little, he’d had fun this evening. In addition to Jace being as engaged as Evan had ever seen him, it had been great to meet Mrs. Johansen’s…boyfriend? Suitor?
He picked up a towel and started drying the dishes that Emmy had set in the drainer. “I guess we can’t keep calling Mr. Widmer SilverCEO now that he actually has a name,”
“Well, not to his face,” Emmy said as she handed him a pot to dry. “But I don’t know how long he’s going to stick around anyway.”
“Really?” Evan had been meaning to have a dishwasher installed since he moved in, but there was something satisfying about doing the dishes by hand. Or, to be honest, there was something satisfying about doing the dishes with another person as you gossiped, a party of two in cahoots.
“Yeah,” Emmy said. “Mrs. Johansen has been messaging with this other guy, Dave344.”
“Dave344?” Evan echoed, the incredulity in his voice suggesting that he was maybe a little too invested in the internet dating adventures of his elderly neighbor. “What kind of screen name is that? Even the dreaded JollyGent was more creative.”
Emmy shrugged. “The heart wants what the heart wants, I guess.”
“And what about SilverCEO?” Evan walked across the kitchen to put away a pile of cutlery he’d dried.
“She says he’s looking to get too serious.”
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