by Theresa Weir
Without a word, Emerson grabbed the stub, pretended to check the number, then mumbled something about going into the back room to find it. As always, his gait felt weird as he walked away. Kind of jerky and stiff at the same time. Like a robot trying to act human.
In the backroom repair area, he stepped over amplifiers and cabinets to get to Lola’s dad’s guitar case. He grabbed the handle and turned around.
He dreaded this part. The part where he would have to talk to her. That never went well.
In the front of the shop, Emerson placed the black case on the counter, unfastened the three silver catches, and swung the lid open. Without lifting the guitar, he explained the adjustments he’d made.
“I raised the bridge.” He pointed with a shaky finger.
She leaned so close he could smell the woodsy, organic scent of her hair, and he could smell rich coffee and dark chocolate. He glanced up, and, not for the first time, he marveled at the color of her eyes. Amber. And her lips… Pink today, but sometimes they were a deep red. She wore dangling earrings, and a black leather bracelet, and a necklace that dropped deep into the V of her dress.
He looked away very quickly.
The guitar. Look at the guitar.
He looked at the guitar, then went over some of the minor tweaks he’d made. “Humidity has bowed the neck some. You might want to tell your dad that. W-warn him about keeping it in too much humidity. N-never keep your guitar in an environment you wouldn’t want to be in yourself.” Shit. She would know that. Her dad would know that.
Talking about the guitar seemed to open her up, the lack of emotion she’d displayed when she’d handed Emerson the ticket evaporated. She wrapped her fingers around the neck of the instrument and pulled it from the case. “I love this guitar,” she said with the same kind of reverence he’d felt while working on it.
“It’s a beauty,” he agreed. Surprisingly, these words came out okay. These words sounded strong and fine and normal.
Carefully, she placed the guitar back in the case, then closed and locked it. “Oh, a cat!” She was focused on the area near her feet. “This looks exactly like my sister’s cat! Where did you get it?”
“It’s not mine. I mean, it’s nobody’s. I mean, it just showed up. It followed me home. I’m going to put up flyers.” He couldn’t talk anymore, so he lifted the flyer he’d just made. There was the cat, staring boldly at the camera.
“Oh, my god.” Lola dug in her messenger bag and pulled out her phone. “I have to call my sister.” She scrolled and tapped, and when the person on the other end answered, Lola began talking very fast. “Melody, is Max there? No, I don’t want to talk to him, I just wanted to know if he’s run away. I know he does that sometimes. Or at least he used to. What? I’m at Let It Be, picking up Dad’s guitar. And there’s a cat here that looks like Max!”
She bent a bit at the waist. “Wait. Well, he’s a lot like Max, but now that I look closer…he doesn’t have a mustache! This cat doesn’t have a mustache. But wow. He acts like Max. Like stares right into your eyes. Okay. Give Max a hug for me. I’m glad he’s safe at home.”
She disconnected, tucked her phone away, and looked at Emerson. “Phew. I thought this might be my sister’s cat, but it’s not. Sorry to freak out like that.”
“It’s okay. I freak out all the time. I freak out all day long.”
“So you’re going to put up flyers?”
“Yeah.”
“What if nobody claims him? What will you do?”
Emerson hadn’t really thought about that. “Do you want a cat?” Why had he said that? To her? Something so forward?
“I don’t know. I might. He’s so cute. My sister’s cat has a black mustache. Some people call them kitlers, but I think you’d just call this one a tuxedo cat.”
“Yeah, I think that’s right.” Emerson noticed that his voice wasn’t as tight. And he wasn’t as jumpy inside. “Maybe I’ll keep him.” Yeah, he liked the idea. He liked it a lot.
“They say cats choose their owners,” Lola said.
“I’ve heard that.”
“I wonder what his name is.” The cat was rubbing against Lola’s leather boots. She bent and picked him up, cradling him in her arms. He purred even louder.
“Sam.” Emerson was surprised when the name just popped out of his mouth. “Maybe I’ll name him Sam. If I keep him that is,” he added.
She rubbed the cat’s head and bounced him against her. “Sam. I like that. You look like a Sam.”
“Like Andy Warhol’s cats,” Emerson said. “All of his cats were named Sam except for one.”
She laughed.
“Sorry. That sounded pretentious, didn’t it? I’m a fan of pop culture, especially seventies pop culture.” He gave his head a small shake, as if to clear it. “I don’t even know if the cat is male or female.”
“Sam works for a girl, but he looks like a dude to me. Ernest Hemingway had a weird thing about cats, too,” Lola said. “All of his cats had an extra toe.” She lifted one of the cat’s fat paws and examined it. “Nope. No extra toe. You aren’t a Hemingway.”
She put the cat down and paid for the guitar repair. Emerson handed her the receipt. Paper touched by him, then touched by her. A connection, but just a receipt. He was beginning to doubt his sanity. “Would you want to leave your phone number with me?”
She paused with her hand on the guitar case and looked up in surprise. God, those eyes. Really, they were amber. It was on the tip of his tongue to comment, to tell her just what color they were, but she must know that. They were her eyes, and she had mirrors.
“In case I can’t find the owner,” he said, explaining the phone number request. “In case I don’t keep him. In case you still want him.”
“Oh.” Now she was acting flustered, embarrassed that she’d misunderstood. Or thought she’d misunderstood.
She tucked a strand of silky hair behind her ear (and Emerson imagined his own fingers doing the tucking), grabbed a pen from the cup next to the cash register, and wrote her name and number on the small notepad they kept on the counter. She ripped off the top sheet and handed it to Emerson. He folded it and tucked it into his shirt pocket, right over his heart, and gave it a pat and gave her a smile.
Near Emerson’s red-sneakered feet, the cat named Sam meowed and arched his back as the girl left.
Emerson was already missing Lola when the bell above the door rang again and she was back. “I forgot to ask.” She held up a band flyer. “Can I put this in the window?”
Emerson did something bold for Emerson. He left the safety of the counter, walked across the wooden floor, skimming guitar cases and amplifiers, and helped himself to the poster, bending his head to read it as she held one side and he held the other.
The image was a ten-by-thirty sepia print. Lola was dressed in a ruffled skirt and black boots, a violin under her chin. Sitting on a stool next to her, was an elderly man he recognized as Lola’s father. “Your band?”
“Oh, my god. I’m so embarrassed. My dad has been after me to play with him for years.” She made a face. “I’m not very good! This will probably be my first and last gig.”
“Conjurer’s Daughter. Nice.”
A blush crept up her neck. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, it sounded fun when we were talking about it. And when we were playing in his practice space. But to actually play in front of people…” She shook her head.
“The first time is never easy for anybody,” he said. “But you just have to dive in and do it. You’ll feel like you’re messing up all over the place, but trust me when I say most people won’t realize it unless you tell them.”
She was watching him with those eyes, those wonderful eyes. And those eyes were looking at him with gratitude. As if he’d just given her something she needed.
“You should come,” she said.<
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He thought about the strange turn the past several minutes had taken. He thought about all of the times she’d come into the shop, and all of the times he’d waited on her while trying to keep his shaking to a minimum, grunting out a word here and there, keeping his head down until she walked out the door. Then he would watch her leave, and wish he’d said something. Anything.
He must have had a favorable expression on his face, because she said, “I’ll put you on Casablanca’s guest list.”
He nodded and smiled. “That would be cool. And here—” He slipped the poster from her hand. “I’ll put this up.”
“What’s your name?” she asked. “For the guest list?”
“Emerson.”
“Emerson.” She smiled.
“Emerson Foshay.”
“Oh, I like that.” She was looking at him as if they’d just met, as if she’d never seen him before. “It’s funny,” she said. “I come here all the time. I live nearby, so my dad always has me pick up his gear.” A puzzled shake of the head, and nervous little laugh to introduce her next revelation. “I always thought you hated me. I couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t figure out what I’d done to you to make you hate me so much. I mean, you acted liked you loathed me.”
Maybe his mouth dropped open. His mouth probably did drop open. “That’s not it at all. You were wrong about that.”
No way would he tell her she scared the hell out of him. That he was so infatuated with her she left him tongue-tied and speechless. “I don’t know what gave you that idea.” His uncool awkwardness and admiration wasn’t the kind of thing he could confess to her. It was almost better to let her think he’d disliked her than for her to find out what a social disaster he was.
She let out another nervous laugh, and glanced down. “Look where Sam is. Right between us.”
They were standing just two feet apart. And between her brown leather boots and his red sneakers, was the cat named Sam.
Emerson
Chapter 4
It wouldn’t be fair to say that Emerson was terrified of women in general. He wasn’t afraid of females he felt no attraction to, but whenever he was around a girl he found appealing he became this person who wasn’t him. Not him at all. And maybe he did turn it around and instead of giving off something like interest, he put out a signal that told them to keep away. Far, far, away.
He didn’t know when the awkward behavior started. He remembered people talking about his shyness when he was little, and it probably didn’t help that he had no sisters and that his mother died when he was eleven, leaving a house of nothing but males. And it probably didn’t help that they’d lived on a farm in southern Minnesota with a workload that kept him from participating in school functions.
In fact, the night the cat found him or he found the cat, he was trying to numb his social anxiety and got carried away. It was easy for him to drink too much before he realized it, especially when downing one beer after another.
But social anxiety didn’t keep him from going to Lola’s show, because he was still riding on the positive encounter at the shop. They’d had a normal conversation, right? He’d said things he would have said to anybody, right? Well, except for the stuff about Andy Warhol and his interest in pop culture. But after the conversation got going, there’d been no sweating. No stammering. Words that made sense had come out of his mouth. He could do that again, right?
* * *
As soon as Emerson stepped inside Casablanca he knew it was a mistake. His heart began to pound, and his mouth went dry. He pulled out his ID and told the guy at the door that he was on the guest list. And he was. There was his name, maybe written by Lola. The back of his hand was stamped with a black owl, and then he moved out of the light, finding a dark spot in a corner.
Casablanca, located a few blocks off Lyndale in southwest Minneapolis, was one of those little neighborhood jobs wedged between a mystery bookstore and a biker café, a place as old as the neighborhood, probably started as a bar where factory workers hung out.
Three years ago it was bought by a young couple with a little kid and a dog, and now it was fast becoming the hot spot for new bands. Minneapolis and St. Paul had a lot of venues for local music, but the cities also had a lot of local musicians, so it could be tough to get that first gig. Of course Emerson was sure it hadn’t hurt that Lola’s dad was Ben Brown.
Emerson didn’t have a chance to order a beer before Lola spotted him, before she was right in front of him, smiling and talking too fast. She must have seen him come in. Maybe she’d been watching for him. That should have made him happy, but it didn’t. Instead, it terrified him.
“Oh, my god. I’m so glad you’re here.” She grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze. Friends? More? “I’m so nervous! Tell me it’ll be okay. Tell me what you told me the other day.”
She looked at him as if he could be more than he was. Looked at him as if he could offer her support and encouragement, as if he could say wise things.
He stared. He opened his mouth. He tried to remember what he’d said in the shop, but the words wouldn’t come. He tried to mutter something like: ‘Don’t sweat the little things,’ but it came out, “D-don’t s-sweat.”
“What?” she asked with puzzled confusion.
He stared in horror. She was so perfect. And he was…such a mess. What was he doing here? Talking to her? Why did he think he could possibly handle this? He was behaving the way he always behaved when confronted with Lola Brown. A babbling idiot.
He did the only thing he could do. He turned and ran.
Sam and Emerson
Chapter 5
I’m sitting in the back window of Emerson’s car enjoying the view when the pounding of feet sends me into high alert. A second later the front door opens and Emerson drops behind the steering wheel. I can feel the chaos in him. He’s panting, like somebody who needs to breathe into a paper bag. He’d only been in the bar a few minutes. What could have happened in minutes? I should have gone with him.
I jump from the back window to the front seat and into his lap. He lets out a surprised gasp, as if he’s forgotten I was there. He pets me, but the hand on my head is tense, more like a claw than a hand.
Somewhere along the line this poor guy experienced serious rejection. Or loss. But this is where I excel. I soothe people. Even my last owner had been an unwitting recipient of my calm influence.
I purr and rub against Emerson’s chest. I hear his heart thundering, and eventually I hear it slow. The claw on my head turns into a hand, and I feel his body relax.
I haven’t known him long—way too soon to connect telepathically. Sure, I’d done a little in the shop…almost by accident when I told him my name and the stuff about Andy Warhol. That was easy. The kind of thing I do with my eyes closed.
But Emerson needs me now.
Problem is, I have to be close for it to work. So I tell him to go back inside. And I tell him to take me with him.
It might be my new owner’s heightened state of despair, or maybe just his vulnerable sweetness, but Emerson is by far my easiest human yet. Getting into his head is like strolling through an open door into a nice patch of sunshine.
I don’t change who a person is. That’s not how it works. I give them suggestions. Like the expensive cat food Third Owner used to buy? Suggestion, that’s all.
With Emerson my goal is to calm him down so he can be himself. But if he’s in trouble I can’t deny that I might feed him some lines, because I’m not going to leave him fumbling for something cool to say. I will be his cool if he needs me. These are the things I promise him while he sits behind the steering wheel petting me, immersed in his misery.
Finally calm, he unzips his sweatshirt, tucks me inside, and zips it back up. Then he gets out of the car and strides confidently toward the door and the lights.
Show time.
* * *
Emerson d
isplayed the back of his stamped hand to the guy at the door, got a nod, and went inside. He quickly scanned the room and spotted Lola standing at the end of the bar where he’d left her. She saw him, glanced away as if looking for an escape, then glanced back, clearly annoyed.
Without hesitation, Emerson walked right up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to run out on you, but I forgot Sam.” He unzipped his sweatshirt and extracted the cat.
She melted. She forgave. Instantly. And then she was petting Sam and cooing over him. “I can’t believe you brought him inside.”
“I don’t think they’ll care.”
“It’s noisy.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“What a weird cat.”
“He’s pretty cool,” Emerson said.
“I hope you can keep him.”
“Yeah, me too.” He glanced toward the stage. “When do you play?”
“Soon. Like ten minutes or so.”
Now he saw she had a drink in her hand. Something clear. She took a swig, then another. Courage.
“I’m not in a band anymore,” Emerson said, “but I know a lot of musicians. They all say the first gig is tough, but it’s also kind of euphoric to get it out of the way. You just have to jump in and do it. Try to have fun.”
“Right.” He could see she didn’t believe fun was possible.
“Here.” He handed the cat to her and pivoted around. “Put Sam in the hood of my sweatshirt.”
She set her glass aside and tucked the cat inside the hammock made by the hood.
Emerson spun back to take advantage of her free hands. He grabbed them both and looked into her eyes. “It’ll be fine. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“I play some screeching note? I pass out? I throw up?” She didn’t look thrilled by any of those ideas.
“The screeching note? Maybe, but probably not. Look at it this way. If you don’t do it, you’ll always regret it. Go for it. Do it. Dive in. That’s what life is all about. It’s not about running. It’s not about hiding.”