I do a strange kind of bow, or maybe you can call it a curtsy, as the applause fades away and I stand in the light.
21
I drive through the rain after my set at the coffee shop, steering my car past neon exits and all-night truck stops. I pass the first place we ever played and Randy’s radio station, the place where we started.
I turn down our street with no curbs, just gravel and grass, back toward home. I cross cracked linoleum, worn carpet, and a soft triangle of light on a pink rug. The quilted kittens stand by as I drop my bag and return my guitar to the corner of my room so the moon and stars can watch over me, shining.
I crawl under my covers and snuggle myself in tight, a new song starting in my head. It’s the one about falling hard and forgiveness and soft green palm fronds resting on the ground behind me. Then I close my eyes and I sink, into a downy pillow, a warm quilt, a sweet song.
I sleep with the door open.
The coffeepot gurgles on the counter the next morning. Dad is at the table, watching it bubble. Winston is one seat down, drawing mustaches on the underwear models in a catalog with a ballpoint pen, his knee bouncing under the table.
Padding across the cool floor in bare feet, I think about finding a spoon, maybe some juice. A light is on in the garage, beaming out into the foggy backyard.
I stop in front of the fridge.
A strip of pictures—the kind you get from a photo booth at the mall or a tourist trap—is slipped under the edge of the magnet that holds up our growing grocery list.
Billie and Ben.
Billie and Glen.
Billie and all the Blasting Cap boys crammed into the photo booth. One of the boys is only a skinny tattooed shoulder in that shot, another boy just a blur of dark hair and a frozen arm tucked into the lower corner.
The last one is Billie, by herself. She smiles back at me in a bright coral T-shirt, waving at the camera. Where did she manage to find a stamp?
I slip the strip of photos out from under the list. The top edge is bent and wrinkled, probably from being jammed into a back pocket and then into an envelope. I nudge it toward the middle of the fridge with my fingertip, and then set a magnet at the top, so we all can see her.
Dad slides out of his seat. He walks up beside me and rests his warm, rough hand on the top of my shoulder. Reaching past the care package he is building for Billie on the countertop—quarters for her laundry, candy to rot her teeth, and a pair of warm socks I know she’ll never wear—to straighten the photos.
He centers the magnet.
“Who’s making the eggs?” he asks.
Winston stops, mid-mustache and points at me.
“Of course.” Dad laughs, grabbing the big glass bowl from the highest shelf and handing it to me.
We have scrambled eggs with toast and jelly.
22
We are in the garage, just Ginger and me. It’s cold and sunny, the start of winter. We both are wearing hoodies, but Ginger has his sleeves pulled up, probably because his arms are so long. Dust floats in the sunshine between us.
My head is bent low over my guitar. Ginger’s knees are angled toward mine, facing the open garage door.
“Can I just play a little bit of it on my own?” I say to him, not noticing his stillness, the fact that he has stopped playing. “Just to get the—”
I lift my chin. Birds had been chirping. The street had been buzzing and whirring with the sounds of husbands who have been locked inside the house for too long. I swear it all has stopped.
Ginger’s hand hovers over his strings, quiet. I sit up and shiver.
Ty is walking up the driveway, slow and straight. He looks thin. Clean. Scrubbed somehow. As if he has been through some serious shit, something that drained him but left him stronger. Like leeches or a bloodletting of some sort.
The driveway draws out, becoming longer, the space between us immeasurable. I want to run to him in slow motion, a chariot of fire on a wet gravel path.
Ginger puts his guitar down and stands. I am still sitting.
I am a statue. Lungless. Breathless.
Here he is, on a random Tuesday afternoon. It should be an auspicious date with double digits and flags out on the street, or a full moon at the very least.
My heart is a hummingbird trapped in my chest.
Ginger and Ty smile at each other and shake hands.
I don’t really know what to do. I’ve never had anybody come back before.
I set my guitar down at my side.
Ginger ducks under the open garage door and reappears, even taller, with his gold ten-speed between his legs. He waves, rolling across the yard and toward the street.
Ty is wearing a black T-shirt under his tan jacket. When he moves closer to me, I spy a little red cupcake silk-screened on the pocket over his heart, and I push Ginger’s empty chair toward him with my foot.
Without hesitating, he takes a seat and reaches for Ginger’s guitar. He slides the strap over his neck then stretches his legs out in front of him, first things first.
He starts to strum lightly.
“Ginger told me what you have been up to,” he says as I follow along.
Watching his fingers warming up with chords and slides, I let the soft sounds flow and melt into me as I soak in the arc of his shoulders, the timbre of his voice, the substance and shape and smell of him.
Ty slows and then stops completely, waiting for me.
I grab my guitar and glide right into the middle of a song, catching him by surprise. It’s a song that was born in my bedroom and brought to life in a motel in the middle of a summer’s night, a song of lamplight and soft guitar, a song of longing and absolution, a song of mine.
He looks over at me, his eyes golden, bright, and sure.
“Where you start isn’t always the beginning, is it?” he asks.
I smile, leading him back in.
I sing while shooting stars dance and glimmer behind my eyes, lighting me up. We start again.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTINA MEREDITH writes with the music turned up loud. She is the author of Kiss Crush Collide. She lives in California.
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BOOKS BY CHRISTINA MEREDITH
Kiss Crush Collide
Red Velvet Crush
CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Natalia Martin Rivero/EyeEm/Getty Images PeopleImages/iStock.
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
RED VELVET CRUSH. Copyright © 2016 by Christina Meredith. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
EPub Edition © May 2016 ISBN 9780062062291
ISBN 978-0-06-206227-7 (trade ed.)
16 17 18 19 20 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
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