CHAPTER EIGHT
The Broncos won the Super Bowl and the town of Burns Bog drank merrily, well into the next morning. No one except for Lily Parker showed up for work that Monday. She tried calling the other guys, but no one was picking up. Most of them weren’t even home, passed out at the bar where they’d watched Danny Fitzpatrick briefly hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy over his head, the ultimate prize in the sport of American football.
Lily listened to the radio while she optimistically waited for people to show up, so she could go over to Aaron’s house and not let him down yet again. After an hour of waiting came the reality that she would have to go to Aaron’s house and tell him that he would be living out of boxes for at least another day still.
Burns Bog only had one radio station, aptly called Burns Bog Radio. Weekday mornings were Mornings with Ted and Willy. Ted was a retired radio technician from Chicago. Willy Upnik was a Burns Bog native. He built banjos and the occasional guitar out of his little shack on the lake. The quality of Burns Bog radio was very low, crackly and finicky, because it was broadcast out of Willy Upnik’s lake house and not a proper broadcasting station.
That Monday morning, they had nothing to talk about except for the Super Bowl. Both Ted and Willy were extremely excited because, for the first time as far as they were aware, the name Burns Bog was said aloud on national television. In an interview with an ESPN reporter, Danny Fitzpatrick announced that he was retiring, heading back home to visit his hometown of Burns Bog, Illinois.
“Burns Where?” the reporter replied. Danny laughed. “What are you going to do now that your football career is over?”
“I think I’m just going to settle down, try to find someone to spend the rest of my life with, and maybe start a family.”
Kilgore, Lily’s father, came into the office at nine, two hours after the movers should have arrived. But still, Lily was the only one in. She’d been dreading the moment her dad showed up, expecting him to flip out when he found out everyone skipped work. But Kilgore walked straight into his office, seemingly without even noticing Lily was sitting there alone.
Lily stepped into Kilgore’s office. “Hey, dad?” she said sheepishly, with her hands clasped at her waist.
Kilgore looked up and smiled. “Yes?”
Lily paused, hesitant. Maybe Kilgore thought the guys were already at Aaron’s house. Maybe she was about to ruin his morning. “None of the guys showed up for work this morning.”
Kilgore looked around. “Hm,” he said, “I had a feeling no one would show up today.” He looked back down at his desk as if Lily’s bad news didn’t faze him one bit. This was the same man who once smashed a door off of its hinges because the mail boy threw the newspaper too close to the sprinkler. “Lily, sit down. We need to talk,” he said.
Lily had spent the morning nervous that her father would explode with anger. But her father’s strangely calm demeanour was even more frightening. The only other time she’d seen him this sedated was after Lily’s mother passed away. Sometimes, Lily wondered if her father’s brain was wired backwards. She sat down.
“This company’s been in the family for a long time. Sixty years. You know that, right.”
Lily hesitated to respond, scanning her father’s face for clues to explain his strange attitude. “Yeah.”
“I’ve always told you that you were going to take over the company, after I retired.”
“I know, dad. Are you retiring?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I do think it’s time for me to retire.”
Lily wasn’t surprised. She knew her father was thinking of retiring, and every day her father came in, she’d expected him to make the announcement. He was getting old, nearing seventy, and he knew that Lily was more than capable of running the operation. And his heart hadn’t been in the work since Lily’s mother passed.
“So you’re moving to Florida?” Lily asked.
Kilgore’s eyes drifted down to the desk and he looked sad. But this wasn’t supposed to be a sad announcement, it was supposed to be a happy one. Kilgore had been looking forward to moving down to Florida for years. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t talk about it, how he was going to go to all of the Florida Panthers hockey games, and all of the country clubs where he was going to become a member. “That was the plan, but I’ve been doing some thinking, and I think Los Angeles might be better, actually.”
Lily was silent, thinking maybe she had misheard. “Los Angeles? Why Los Angeles? What’s there?”
Kilgore was slow to reply, still staring down at his desk. He had something else to say—something big, something he knew Lily wouldn’t like. He was silent. “What is it, dad?” Lily asked, her gut crippling under the pressure.
“I’m going to sell the company. I’ve been talking to a company in Chicago. They want to buy all of our trucks and gear. They made a very strong offer that was too good to turn down.”
Lily opened her mouth to protest but the lump in her throat prevented her from speaking. Since the day she was born, she was told she would take over the family business. It was all she knew, all she had. Without it, there was nothing. There were no job opportunities in Burns Bog. Money, jobs, and homes were all passed down, generation after generation. The town didn’t grow, it didn’t shrink. Occasionally someone would move away, and eventually, that someone would move back. What could Lily do? There was no McDonalds looking for burger-flippers, no Walmart looking for door-greeters, no insurance companies looking for armies of adjusters, no factories looking for product inspectors. “What about the property?” Lily asked.
“What about it? It goes along with the trucks. It’s not worth anything. I think the guy said he wanted to turn the lot into a gassing stop, for trips between Chicago and Kansas City.”
Lily fought back tears. It made no sense. Why was her father suddenly so keen on selling the business? And why was he looking to move to Los Angeles? She tried to ask, but the lump in her throat silenced her once again. But she didn’t have to ask. The confusion was all over her face.
“I know this is all hard to hear, but I’m doing it all for you. I thought a lot about it, Lily. I don’t want you taking over the company. I don’t want this company in our family any longer. You need to get out of Burns Bog. You need to do something with your life. I made the mistake of staying here, with the company. Life passed me by, Lily. Now I’m finally going to try to do something with the little bit of life I have left. Now you can do the same.”
“Do what?” Lily managed to ask. Her voice was shaken. Her world had been flipped on its head. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t have any college. I don’t have any experience outside of moving. I like working here, Dad.”
“No you don’t, you just think you do because it’s all you’ve ever done. There’s lots of time for school and experience, Lily. Trust me. You’re not even thirty. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste it here in Burns Bog like I did. Come to LA with me. The money we’re getting from the company is enough for a few years of school at least. Just think about it, Lily. Go home, take the day off, and think about it.”
Kilgore grabbed a file out from his desk and then stood up. He reached for his coat.
“Where are you going?” Lily asked, still sitting frozen in her seat, Kilgore’s bombshell still pinging around her head, unsettled.
“I’m going to the bank to sign some papers. The deal’s already been made, Lily. The only thing left to figure out is possession dates. I’m serious—go home, get some rest, and think about it. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.” Kilgore left the room while Lily remained silent and still at his desk.
CHAPTER NINE
It was noon when Aaron finally woke up. He’d set an alarm, knowing that the movers were going to be there bright and early, but he’d slept through it. “Shit,” he muttered to himself as he sat up, feeling the previous night’s bourbon rushing into his skull, putting pressure on his brain, pushing against the backs of his eyeballs.
The house was silent. The movers had probably come and gone when they realized he was still asleep. Hell, they were probably waiting outside for him to wake up so they could start working. He wondered if Lily told everyone who he was, or if, like Lily, they already knew and had been pretending the whole time. They probably did know and had been making fun of him behind his back, mocking his lost career while they went out on his deck for their smoke breaks.
As Aaron shuffled towards the bathroom, he remembered Lily’s awful interpretation of his song, Calling to the Trees. Maybe she wasn’t just a terrible singer, he thought. Maybe she was intentionally flat, mocking the song, mocking Aaron’s voice.
How humiliating.
Even a little hick town in the middle of nowhere thought Aaron’s career was nothing but a big, dumb joke.
Aaron walked into his kitchen to start the coffee maker then jumped a foot in the air when he realized Lily was in his kitchen, sitting on the floor, single-handedly unpacking boxes of kitchenware. “Jesus Christ, what are you doing in here?”
She looked over her shoulder and forced a quick smile. “I’m unpacking your kitchen. Everyone called in sick this morning, so I’m here on my own.” Her voice was low and hoarse as if she’d been crying. Her eyes were red.
Aaron remained still against the wall of his kitchen. This Lily girl was starting to freak him out—a borderline sociopath, a stalker—knowing his secrets, letting herself into his home, now she was going through his things, sitting on the floor, hunched over like a ghost in some Japanese horror movie.
“You’re going to unload everything yourself? That will take forever.” With an eye on Lily, Aaron inched towards the coffee maker.
“You’re a paying customer. It’s my job.” She kept her head down, pulling item after item out from a large cardboard box. Her voice was monotone, emotionless, but sad. It was the voice Aaron imagined serial killers used before taking a victim.
He kept his gaze glued to Lily while he went to fill the coffee pot. “Ouch!” he said, retracting his burnt finger away from a full, hot pot of coffee.
“I figured you’d want coffee so I made a pot. Mugs are in the second cupboard to your right.” She still didn’t look back.
Aaron pulled his gaze away from Lily to inspect the coffee situation. Maybe she wasn’t a crazed serial killer after all, he thought. Or maybe the coffee was full of powerful sedatives. He brought the pot up to his nostrils. It smelled normal, like regular ol’ coffee. He swirled it around, looking for any remnants of crushed pills.
Lily took the pot and poured herself a cup, sipping it in front of him. “It’s just coffee,” she said in her monotonous tone, with an accompanying scowl. She returned to her pile of boxes and resumed working. Aaron took another good look at the coffee.
“Thanks,” he said, finally taking a sip. The coffee quickly began to wash the toxic bourbon out from his skull. On the table was the photo of Lily and her mother, out of its frame. Aaron picked it up and looked at it. “What’s this?”
“It’s the picture from the staff room. You asked if I was really a fan. I really am.”
Aaron looked closer at the photo and noticed the Gunpowder Girls Tour shirt. “When was this taken?”
“Last year.”
“I haven’t seen someone wear that shirt in… Jesus, probably a decade.”
“I wear it all the time. You smell like a bottle depot,” she said.
He was too tired to care. “Thanks,” he said.
“You should take a shower. Have you taken a shower since you moved in?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s gross.” She picked up an armful of small appliances that Aaron had never touched a day in his life, and brought them to the counter. “You have the most beautiful shower I’ve ever seen in my life. You should use it.”
“Okay. I will.” He watched Lily move back and forth from her organized piles to various cupboards and shelves. He paid her for the work, but that didn’t make him feel any less guilty, watching as she set up his home while he stood stupidly and sipped coffee that he didn’t even make. “So the other guys called in sick?”
“Yep,” she replied, still making no eye-contact.
“Probably all hungover, right?”
“Probably.”
“So you’re working by yourself.”
“Yep.” She placed a heavy KitchenAid stand mixer down with a loud thud. “What on earth do you need a stand mixer for?” She finally looked to Aaron with her eyes narrowed into a scowl.
“I don’t know. The decorator of my last house bought it. You can have it if you want it. I don’t use it.”
“Do you use any of this stuff? Do you even cook?” Even from all the way across the large kitchen, Aaron could see the stiff tension in Lily’s shoulders, which sat up near her cheeks. He could practically see the steam rising up from her ears.
“Occasionally,” Aaron said.
“There are still price tags on everything. You paid seven hundred dollars for this fondue pot. That’s how much I make in a month. And you spent it on a fondue pot.”
“Fondue is the one with the chocolate, right?”
Lily sighed. “Yes. Fondue is the one with the chocolate. Or cheese.”
“If you want it, take it.”
Lily tossed the fondue pot into a cupboard. “It must be nice having all of this money.” She grunted as she picked a heavy box filled with more useless appliances up off of the ground.
The guilt remained with Aaron as he watched Lily stomp through his kitchen. “Seriously. Just go home and come back tomorrow with the rest of the movers. You’re going to throw your back out.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said in a low growl.
Aaron scratched his cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew who I was?”
Lily continued to buzz back and forth, ignoring Aaron’s question.
“Lily.”
“I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I guess I didn’t want you to think I was some crazy fan and scare you away.” She climbed up onto the counter and shoved a bread maker into a high-up cupboard.
“Leave the toaster on the counter. I make toast every morning. Well—I haven’t made toast in a while. I’ve been more of a cereal guy lately.”
“Unless you’re baking the bread that you toast, you shouldn’t need this bread maker.”
“That thing makes bread?”
“Hence the name.” She jumped down from the counter. “Why’d you quit?”
“Toast is good, but having it every morning gets old fast.”
“No. Why did you quit playing music? Why don’t you sing anymore?”
Aaron looked down at his feet. He’d heard that question more times than he could count, and he still didn’t have a good answer for it. Everyone always wanted an excuse, but no excuse was ever good enough. The truth was, Aaron was sick of having to make excuses. He was sick of critics demanding to know why he made certain choices in his music, fans demanding to know why he didn’t hit a specific note in their favourite song, label execs demanding to know why new songs weren’t charting like Gunpowder Girls. Everyone felt entitled to know everything about his life.
“I was a big fan of yours, you know. When I was a teenager. I had a poster with your face on it above my bed. After I saw you in concert, I wrote your name on my wall with a sharpie, and it’s still there.”
“Thanks... I think.”
“But it doesn’t make a difference. It’s not like I was only being nice to you because you were some big shot celebrity.”
Aaron kept his mouth shut. He’d heard it all before, and it always ended the same. ‘I like you for you—not your money or your music,’ the last girl he’d dated said to him. She seemed genuine enough, at least until he found out she’d been selling stories to Star Magazine for five-hundred bucks a pop. “Does everyone in town know?” Aaron finally said, breaking his silence.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. No offense or anythi
ng, but I don’t think anyone here remembers who you are.”
“Ouch.”
Lily’s cheeks turned red, realizing the unintended cruelty of her remark. “I mean, they weren’t your target audience. People here listen to country music and old Bing Crosby records, you know what I mean? Not rock or pop music.”
Aaron was torn between the relief that his identity was safe and the painful reminder that he had become obsolete. He simply forced a smile and turned his eyes back to his coffee.
“Well, I think you should get back into it. I liked your music. You’re very talented.”
Aaron just shrugged, watching as his coffee swirled in his mug.
Lily stood awkwardly silent in the middle of the kitchen for a moment before returning to her duties.
“You didn’t see my Grammys, did you?” Aaron asked.
“I just recognized you. Like I said, I was a big fan of yours when I was younger. I had your poster on my wall and everything.”
“No, I’m asking if you’ve seen my Grammys?” They were in a foam box. I haven’t seen them since I left LA.”
“Oh—no. But I’ll let you know if they show up.”
She picked up a large toaster oven, the weight of which nearly knocked her onto her ass. And it would have, had Aaron not jumped behind Lily, reaching around her to secure the clunky device. The two stood still, awkwardly, sharing the weight of the oven in silence.
Lily was totally enveloped in Aaron’s body, her arms snuggled neatly against his, and her back pressed securely against his chest. He was firm, warm, and strong.
“Where does this go?” Aaron asked, finally breaking the silence.
“On the counter, over there.” Lily continued to hold the small oven. For a moment longer, the two remained still, in silence.
His cheeks were red. Lily smelled nice and her body was soft. Her firm butt, snuggled firmly against his legs, made his heart beat rapidly. “You can let go. I’ve got it,” he said. Lily slipped out from Aaron’s hug.
LIMELIGHT LOVE: A Small Town Rock Star Romance Page 5