Missing Dixie

by Caisey Quinn

  They really are my family, which is why I never wanted to cross the lines I can’t uncross. As much as I want to believe that, though, that it’d be for the best if I’d never been inside Dixie’s body, I don’t regret it. I only regret the pain I caused, the way I handled, well, everything.

  When rehearsal ends I feel bereft. Hearing Dixie sing was soothing balm to my jagged wounds and now that we’re done, the rawness is returning.

  I don’t want to be away from them, don’t want to go back to an empty trailer on the side of the highway, but Dixie has her shield up and I am fluent in reading her emotions. So I pack up quietly and head to the truck I borrowed from Mr. Kyung to get here.

  “Hey, man,” Dallas calls out. “Want to get some food?”

  I do. I want to have a meal with the only two people in the world who’ve ever given a damn about me. I want to sit and talk and crack jokes and hear Dixie’s laugh. I want it more than I want food or water or air. But the flash of pain on Dixie’s face hits me like a slap. “Can’t. I need to get back to the Tavern. Jake covered for me but I need to get going.”

  “All right. Holler at me if you need anything.”

  “Will do,” I call out before climbing into the truck. I’ve only just shut my door when the one on the other side opens.

  “Give a girl a ride? I feel like playing some more so I thought I’d drop by the Tavern, too. Work this new song out on that piano.”

  “I . . . you . . . uh,” I answer, but it comes out jumbled and all run together so it sounds like a grunted battle cry of some sort.

  Verbal skills have vacated the premises.

  “Yes or no, Gav? If you don’t want me to ride with you it’s no big. Dallas can run me by there or I can just work on the song at home.”

  I have no idea how she can be so relaxed, so nonchalant after what I did, how I treated her.

  I love you, Gavin. Bigger than your mistakes and bigger than the pain you cause me.

  “No, it’s cool. I mean, yeah. Yes, you can ride—I can give you a ride . . . I can . . .”

  Fuck it all.

  “So . . . that’s a yes then?” She hangs on to the door as if waiting to figure out if she should climb in or slam it in my face.

  I nod. Sentences are apparently outside my realm of capability at the moment.

  Staring straight ahead, I force myself not to stare at her arms while she buckles in. Dallas doesn’t look thrilled as we pull past him but Dixie’s a big girl now. She makes her own decisions. Not necessarily great ones, but they’re hers to make.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry that I hurt you, that I came there drunk, that your pain was some half-assed premeditated attempt on my part at setting you free from my bullshit. I saw today, though, that what Dallas keeps saying is true. I won’t ever really be able to cut either of you off because you’re my family and that won’t ever change unless either of you want it to.”

  “We won’t,” she says abruptly. “Ever.”

  I nod. Neither of us says much for a few minutes. It’s not uncomfortable silence, though, just intense and thick with emotions and words we aren’t ready to say just yet.

  I sneak a quick look at her left arm but all I can make out are the words addicted and poison.

  “Shoot,” Dixie says suddenly while looking at her cell phone in her hand. “I forgot. Crap. Can you just drop me at home?”

  I turn the truck around and hop on a back road I know will be a shortcut. “Sure.”

  “I’m so sorry. I hope I don’t make you late for work.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t think the place will burn down without me.”

  She laughs softly and the sound warms my chest. “I have this one kid . . . he doesn’t seem to like playing piano much but he shows up without fail. Barely talks, just kind of wanders over to the house. Reminds me of someone else I used to know.”

  A warning bell goes off in my head but I’m not sure why.

  “I checked around and his name is Liam Andrews but I don’t know much about him. I think he lives near you and I’m hoping he’s not crossing the interstate by himself. Can’t seem to find out much about his family.”

  “Andrews, you say?” There is only one Andrews near me.

  No, please, please do not let her be even remotely associated with Carl fucking Andrews.

  “Yeah, why? You know him?”

  My foot presses harder on the accelerator.

  “Gavin!”

  “Dixie,” I begin slowly, working hard to keep my voice even. “I am trying not to get worked up and or lose my temper while operating a motor vehicle. But you absolutely cannot have anything to do with Carl Andrews or his kid. Ever.”

  “Um, well, I’m not sure Liam is his kid for certain. He’s just constantly angry. I was going to talk to you about him because he kind of reminds me of you.”

  I’m mildy offended. “I’m not constantly angry.” She gives me a look that says she’s calling bullshit so I shrug. “Not constantly.”

  “Okay, maybe I phrased that wrong.” She frowns and I can see from side-eying her that she’s thinking extremely hard and choosing her words carefully. “It’s like he’s struggling to . . . find . . . something. A reason to be afraid or upset or violent, or I don’t know. He’s just a really angry kid and he’s only seven years old. What is there to be angry about at seven?”

  My grip tightens on the steering wheel and I watch my knuckles turn white.

  “If Carl Andrews is his dad, trust me, kid has plenty to be angry about.”

  Carl is the owner of the local crack house, the one my mom has been spending her time in lately. He was with her in the bar the other night and he and I are not on good terms at the moment. I know I am heading into something bad, I can feel it in my gut, but all I can think of is getting him away from Dixie and keeping him the hell away from her. And then the troubling thought tugging the edges of the blanket of rage currently covering my mind.

  He got custody of that kid? How in the hell could anyone give that disgusting fucking animal a kid?

  “ . . . drum lessons?”

  I only catch the last part of whatever she’s saying because that’s the thing about actual fits of rage, they sort of block out all your other senses.

  “What?”

  Dixie sighs and holds on to the dashboard as I take a curve a little faster than I should. “I was asking if you’d be willing to give Liam drum lessons. He has a lot of anger and it seems to help you, playing, so I thought it might help him.”

  “It does help me. But I’m not exactly kid friendly. You know this.”

  She scoffs at me. “How do you know? Have you ever hung out with any kids?”

  I contemplate this, desperate to focus on something other than the thought of Carl alone with Dixie in her house. “No. I guess not.”

  “Then you don’t know, do you? You could totally be kid friendly. But even if you aren’t, this kid doesn’t respond well to friendly anyways.”

  “No?”

  She looks so sad for a moment I almost pull the truck over.

  “No. And all my other kids like me—they hug me and call me ‘Miss Dixie,’ which is really sweet. But he just averts his eyes and keeps his gaze on everything but me.”

  Her mouth does the quirky turn-down thing it does when she’s about to cry. Hearing her call them “my kids” helps me to appreciate how important giving lessons is to her. It’s about more than filling her time. It’s her way of sharing her gift even though she’s not performing much right now.

  “Maybe he just doesn’t want the lessons but he isn’t sure where else to go. Maybe you’re the first smiling face he’s ever seen.” The sad truth is, that’s pretty much how I ended up on her porch all those years ago. And why I kept coming back.

  She appears only mildly comforted by my words. “I am pretty fun. We play games and I give out candy. I even made him cookies. Special ones, just for him. I even put his name on them in icing.”

  She’s a persistent one, my
Bluebird. She will make you love her one way or another if it’s the last thing she does. Poor kid doesn’t stand a chance.

  “Cookies, huh? You never made me cookies with my name on them.”

  “Gav . . . I’m serious. I don’t get it. He’s like, I don’t know, afraid of me . . . or something. I don’t know why he keeps his shield up all the time but I can’t reach him no matter what I do and it breaks my heart.”

  I break her heart, too. And I’m about to again because the very minute we pull up to her driveway I see the beat-up blue Ford pickup and beside the driver’s door Carl Andrews is slapping the shit out of his kid. I see red and then blinding white.

  Somehow, I throw the truck in park. Somehow I get out and get to Carl before he can land another blow to the back of his kid’s head.

  They always hit you in the back of the head because marking your face up will get social services called. It’s like they have a special seminar for child abusers.

  One minute I’m there, in the moment, and the next thing I know I’m transported back in time to when one of the dealers my mom used to let crash with us used me as a punching bag and Carl’s face transforms into his.

  Devlan was his name and I was sure he was the devil himself.

  I can hear her screaming from somewhere behind me. Begging me to stop.

  I know it’s because of me, but I can’t stop.

  I just can’t.

  When the police pull me off Carl he isn’t moving.

  And I can’t feel my hands.

  17 | Dixie

  “HE MADE BAIL. I had to call a bondsman,” I tell my brother over the phone. For the first time I’m grateful that Katrina Garrison got arrested during Austin MusicFest and I knew what to do because I’d gone with Gavin to bail her out.

  “They’re going to charge him with assault,” Dallas says evenly. “He has an attorney from . . . previous stuff. I just talked to her.”

  “Previous stuff?” After seeing the side of Gavin I saw tonight and now this, I feel like maybe I don’t know him at all. Maybe he’s always kept a part of himself hidden from me and I’m starting to understand why.

  “Long story. And one he should tell you.”

  I sigh. Bro code. Those two have always kept secrets from me for as long as we’ve known each other and, frankly, it’s getting old.

  “According to the arresting officer, Carl regained consciousness in the ambulance and said Gavin had assaulted him before. Do you know anything about that?”

  Dallas sighs loudly and I know I’m not going to get an answer.

  I huff out a breath right back. “Look, I know you have the nursery to finish, and Robyn probably needs you, but I . . . I can deal with getting him out I just . . .”

  “I’ll be there in under an hour. Promise.”

  “Thanks, Dallas.”

  “Hey, Dix?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Gavin’s hands . . . are they majorly fucked-up?”

  It takes me a second to realize why this is even an issue worth discussing at a time like this. Musicians have to be careful with their hands, especially if they use them to make a living. They can be as important as any instrument.

  We have only one more week until the battle, but if Gavin’s fingers or knuckles are broken, he won’t be a part of it.

  “There was a lot of blood, D,” I whisper, closing my eyes and trying not to remember that terrifying look in his eyes as he pounded on Carl. I was able to get Liam out of the way but just barely. “I don’t know if it was his or Carl’s.”

  My voice wavers at the end because the last few hours have been a complete draining nightmare.

  Watching Gavin brutally attack another human being like that, watching the cops cuff him and put him in the back of the car, getting Mrs. Lawson to keep Liam while his dad is in the hospital. It hits me all at once when the adrenaline rush wears off and I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

  As much as I know in my heart what Gavin did was wrong, I saw Carl hit Liam, saw the way Liam cowered in fear, and honest to God, I wanted to pummel the son of a bitch myself. I was torn between pulling Liam away and cheering Gavin on. Not sure what that says about me.

  “Okay. Don’t worry about that right now. I’ll take him to get an X-ray when they release him. See you soon.”

  I mumble goodbye to my brother and drop heavily into a metal folding chair. When we disconnect our call I see the time on my phone. It’s nearly one in the morning. I’ve been here for over four hours and I have no idea when they’re going to let him out.

  “Here, sleepyhead,” I hear my brother’s voice say from beside me. “Drink this.”

  I blink myself out of the nightmare I was having about Gavin being arrested only to find it wasn’t a nightmare at all. I’m still at the county jail but at least Dallas is here now. And he has coffee, good coffee from the all-night donut shop next door and not the crappy weak kind they have here.

  He looks as tired as I feel and like he could use a shower and a shave.

  “Sorry you had to come all this way,” I tell him. My voice sounds like that of a transvestite phone sex operator. Not that I know what they would sound like but I imagine it would be close to how I sound right now. I make a mental note to add that to the list of backup careers.

  “Don’t be. I would’ve been super-pissed if you hadn’t called me.”

  I give him a pointed look that he doesn’t seem to understand. “I caught a glimpse of the arresting officer’s computer screen while I was giving my statement. Gavin’s record was pulled up. This isn’t Gavin’s first rodeo and guess whose name is always on the bailed-out-by line?”

  Except once. One of the times Gavin’s mom’s name was typed in, which makes me wonder if he owed her last time and that’s why he drove all the way here from Austin. I couldn’t decipher the exact things he’d been arrested for because they were in number codes but considering I never knew he’d gotten arrested, it hurt to see that he was in the system at all, regardless of what each time was for.

  “It’s complicated, Dixie Leigh,” Dallas says before taking a long drink from his own coffee cup. “You were in Houston for most of it.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “The two of you are eventually going to tell me exactly what happened while I was gone.”

  Dallas averts his gaze from mine.

  “Dallas Walker Lark, I am serious. If we are going to do the band thing, for real, like one hundred percent all in, this keeping stuff from me for my own good has got to stop. Period.”

  He nods and takes another drink. “So you’re still good with that? Giving it another shot and going all in?”

  I nod. “You know I am. But on two conditions.”

  Dallas’s eyes lighten a shade. “Name ’em.”

  “One, you and Gavin have got to come clean about everything. Everything and anything I missed or that has been kept from me.”

  Dallas’s eyes go dim. “Dix, I know you think that would help. Women typically do seem to assume they need every detail of every event ever, but trust me, there are things you are truly better off not knowing. Especially when it comes to Gavin.”

  I want to argue, but I can’t unsee what I saw tonight. So maybe he has a point.

  “But—”

  “No buts. I’m sure he plans to tell you the bulk of it, but some details are just that, pointless details and mistakes that don’t matter. You have to learn to accept what he’s capable of giving and not torturing yourself over things that have nothing to do with you.”

  “If it has to do with him, it has to do with me,” I say quietly.

  My brother puts his arm around me and gives me a light squeeze. “I know it feels that way sometimes, but believe me, even if that’s true, it would kill him for you to know some of the things he’s done at his lowest points.”

  “It’s killing me not knowing.”

  My brother takes a deep breath and rests his head on mine. “I know, little sister. I’m sorry.”

  The clack o
f heels rings out like gunfire on the tile floor. I glance around Dallas and see her, the owner of the heels and the purposeful walk.

  Gavin’s complicated blonde.

  She looks entirely too put together for nearly two in the morning with her white silk shirt and black dress pants. I can’t be sure because I can’t see the bottoms, but I’m almost positive her heels are Louboutins. Robyn has a similar pair.

  “What is she doing here?” Maybe it’s exhaustion or sleep deprivation, but seeing her here now confuses me to no end.

  “Her name is Ashley Weisman. She’s his attorney.”

  She looks too young to be an attorney, but whatever. And the way she was behaving with Gavin the night I first saw him at the Tavern sure didn’t look like an attorney-client relationship to me, unless there are extra attorney-client privileges I don’t know about.

  I can feel my anxiety amping up as we watch her confer with an officer at the front desk.

  When she walks over toward us, my heart pounds harder with each noisy step she takes. “How in the world did he afford her?”

  Dallas closes his eyes as if I have asked a question far too complicated for him to answer. “It’s—”

  “Do not say ‘complicated.’ I am serious,” I warn him. “It’s not a hard question. Lawyers cost money. She looks expensive. Gavin is not exactly rolling in cash.” I slow my speech to an intentionally drawn-out speed. “How. Did. He. Pay. For. Her. Services?”

  He tries to look away before I see it, but Gavin is right. My brother and I do not have any type of poker face to speak of. We wear everything we think and feel right there for the world to see.

  What I just saw makes my stomach clench and my chest ache. I can already smell her expensive perfume from where I’m sitting and she’s not even all the way to us yet.

  “She hardly seems like his type,” I grumble under my breath. But then maybe I don’t know Gavin’s type. Maybe she’s exactly his type.

  He said he loved me.

  Over and over actually. I tried not to make a “thing” of it because he can be twitchy when it comes to emotions, but he said it.

  The corners of Dallas’s mouth quirk up slightly. “She isn’t. Believe me.”