by Inmon, Shawn
Melody didn’t ring the bell, but threw the door open and bounced into the hallway, saying, “Mom, Dad, I’m home!”
A woman who appeared to be in her early fifties came around the corner, wiping her hands on a dishrag. She had blonde hair streaked through with gray. Something about her made Dominick like her immediately. Again.
Hello, Louise.
“Hello, Melody, who’s this you’ve brought with you?”
Dominick stepped forward and said, “Hi, I’m Dominick. I’m a friend of Mel and Emily.”
“Oh, you’re Dominick. How nice. I’ve been hearing a lot about you. Louise Esterhaus. Very nice to meet you.”
“Emily in her room?” Melody asked.
Louise nodded. “Go on back. She’s there with Burke and Sandy.”
Burke. Yippee.
They went down the hall to a bedroom on the left. They went in and Dominick stopped dead. Emily, Burke, and Sandy were all lounging around the room. A small record player in the corner was playing a 45 of the Eagles Please Come Home for Christmas. One entire wall was covered in paintings and drawings. He gawked at them.
Everyone looked at him and laughed. “Yeah,” Emily said, “It’s a little crazy, I know.”
Every painting was different, but there was something that connected all of them. They looked like images that might be used on the cover of a science fiction novel. One painting was a large landscape with alien trees bending over an inky ocean, three moons hanging in the sky above. Another showed a massive city with architecture that had never been seen on Earth, with swooping lines and towering spires. Among the paintings were charcoal drawings that looked like concept drawings for other fantastical realms.
“What ... who did all these?”
“I did,” Emily said, with a mixture of shyness and pride.
Emily, I always knew you liked to dabble, but I never knew you could do this. Why did I not know?
“They’re amazing. Mind blowing.” Dominick stepped up to one for a closer look. “The detail is incredible. Did you ... copy them from somewhere?”
As soon as he said it, he thought Emily might take offense, but she didn’t. She just shook her head. “I don’t know where all this stuff comes from. Sometimes I dream about places. Other times, I guess I just feel like I’m there. I don’t feel like I am making things up, I’m just painting what I see.”
“Amazing. Are you studying art?”
“No, Mom and Dad would never go for that. I’m either going to major in Accounting, or go for my teaching degree. Haven’t decided yet.”
“Hey, guys,” Sandy said. “Everyone sit on the bed for me, K?”
Emily and Burke scooted over and made room for Dominick and Melody.
Sandy pulled a Polaroid camera out of a bag. She pushed a flash bar into place. “Now, say ‘cheese!’”
No one said cheese. Instead, everyone stuck their tongue out at her. She pushed a button, the flash went off, and acrid smoke puffed up. A whirr followed, as a picture ejected itself from the camera.
“Now, one where everyone doesn’t look cross-eyed, please.”
The four of them gave a relatively normal smile, and the camera produced another flash of light and smoke.
Melody started to get up, but Dominick said, “Hey, would you take one that I could have?”
“Yeah, of course! Positions!”
Another flash, another puff, and a third picture ejected from the camera. Sandy took it, shook it, and handed it to Dominick. “Merry Christmas.”
The best Christmas present I can imagine is a picture of Emily. Now, I just have to wait another decade or two for Photoshop to be invented, so I can erase Burke out of the picture.
Melody elbowed Dominick. “Speaking of Merry Christmas, are you the kind of guy who brings a bunch of presents with you, then doesn’t give them out, or what?”
Dominick looked at the small pile of presents. “Oh, right. I forgot. It’s not much. I just wanted to get you guys something. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last couple of months. Probably would have gone crazy.”
He handed a present to everyone. Typical teenagers, no one was embarrassed that they didn’t have anything for him. Dominick had done all his shopping in one place, One More Chapter, the used bookstore down by the college.
“I know not everyone is a reader, but I tried to find something you might like.”
Or, to be honest, I found three books for three of you, so I could give one book to Emily without raising eyebrows.
“One at a time, please,” Emily said. “I love to watch people open presents.”
Sandy opened a copy of Giants in the Earth, by Hans Rolvaag. “I got that for you, because you said you love the Little House on the Prairie books. This is like that, only even better.”
“Thank you, but of course, nothing can be better than Little House. Still, I love it. Thank you.” She leaned over and hugged Dominick.
Burke opened a copy of the previous year’s Guinness Book of World Records. “I figured that would help you win a few bar bets, if you memorized it.”
Burke waved the book at him, and said, “Thank you, man. Very cool.”
Melody tore the wrapping off hers, to reveal a copy of Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. She looked quizzically at it, then opened the cover to read the inscription: To Melody, my Water Brother, from Dominick, Christmas, 1977.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Mr. Davidner,” she said, thrusting her shoulders back and pushing her chest forward, “but I am no one’s brother.”
Dominick laughed, and said, “Once you read the book you’ll understand. It’s a term of endearment, and friendship, and trust.”
“I trust you,” she said seriously and planted a kiss on his cheek that tingled with warmth.
Dominick took a deep breath, turned to Emily, and said, “Your turn.”
“I can’t wait to see what you think I would read,” she said, sliding her finger along the tape and slipping a thin book out of the wrapping.
I cheated, Em. I bought you your all-time favorite book, you just don’t know it yet, because it just came out, and you wouldn’t have found it for another year. I’m willing to cheat a little when it comes to you.
Emily turned the book over. Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.
A question crossed her face.
“I know you’ve never heard of it. It just came out, but I read it, and it just made me think of you.”
If Burke was bothered by this familiarity with his girlfriend, he didn’t say anything.
She opened it. On the first page, Dominick had written, “Your friends will know you better in the first minute, than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”
“Did you write that?” Now Burke leaned his head over, so he could see the inscription.
“No. I’m not that smart. It’s from the book.”
“What’s it about?”
“Well, it’s about a man who flies around the country, giving people rides in his old bi-wing airplane. He meets a man who may or may not be a modern day messiah. You’ll have to read it and decide on whether he is or not for yourself.”
And I already know the answer, as you had a small, blue feather tattooed on your hip. Very un-school marm-ish, Teach. I love you, Emily, and I’m so glad I get to give you that book. I hope you will think about this moment and smile, every time you read it.
Three days later, back at BJ’s, with cups of hot chocolate steaming in front of them, Emily leaned across the table to Dominick. “Illusions was the most amazing book I’ve ever read. I don’t know what made you think to give it to me, but thank you. I’ve read it twice already, and I bet I’ll read a hundred more times in my lifetime.”
Dominick nearly pulled a Han Solo, and said, “I know,” but he checked himself. He looked into her never to be forgotten gray eyes, and said, “Good. I got lucky.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Three month
s later, life was still unchanged for Dominick. He worked at the gas station five days a week. He made enough there that he wasn’t depleting his savings any more, but he wasn’t getting ahead, either. He was also bored stiff, doing the same menial tasks over and over again.
He was beyond frustrated with his relationship, or lack thereof, with Emily. The Fearsome Fivesome hung out as much as ever, sometimes going places, most often just sitting together in someone’s bedroom, listening to music and talking. Dominick liked all of them—even Burke—but being so close to Emily, yet so far from the relationship he wanted to have with her, was driving him to distraction.
They even came to Dominick’s place. The first time they did, Melody led them to the side door. Dominick had never seen the front door of the house actually open, although beyond Crow’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, he didn’t know the reason for it. Unfortunately, it was Gene Crow who answered the side door the day everyone showed up. He made Emily, Melody, and Sandy so uncomfortable that Burke had stepped in front of them.
“Can you just show us where Dominick is, please?”
Crow waved a hand in the general direction of the stairs, but didn’t take his eyes off the girls. When they found Dominick’s makeshift room, the first thing Sandy said was, “Oh my God, you live in a blanket fort!” Then, she added, “And I don’t ever want that man to look at me again. His eyes were handsier than a senior on prom night. He was undressing me from across the room.” Sandy and Emily agreed.
Inside his room, they noticed the window above his bed.
“Does that open?” Burke asked.
“Yeah, it slides open. Why?”
“Because next time we hang out here, we should just all come around and drop down onto your bed.”
“Great idea,” Melody said. “But I won’t wear a short skirt when I do.”
EVERYTHING CHANGED one Tuesday afternoon in March. Melody had stopped by the service station just as his shift ended. “What time do you get off?”
Dominick eyed the Put a Tiger in your tank wall clock, and said, “Not long. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
“What’s up?”
“Emily and Burke broke up.”
The blood drained from Dominick’s face. He did his best to keep his voice steady. “What?”
“Yeah, Emily just broke up with Burke. She called and told me. She sounds okay, but I think she might need us around. So, get going gas jockey!”
Dominick wiped his hands on a rag, went to the office and told his boss, Sal, that he needed to knock off a few minutes early—that he had a small emergency.
Sal looked out his office door at Melody, dressed that day in a pair of tight jeans and a warm sweater, and said, “That’s the kind of small emergency we all need in our lives. Get it while you’re young.”
Dominick opened his mouth to explain, but instead said, “Great, Sal. Thanks. I’ll be here first thing tomorrow for my shift.”
“With a smile on your face, no doubt.”
Dominick jumped in the Chevelle and headed to Emily’s with Melody in the lead. When they pulled in front of the house, Dominick noticed that Sandy’s car was already there, but Burke’s was nowhere in sight.
Dominick got to the front door first, but waited for Melody. Even after a dozen visits, he wasn’t prepared to just blow in with a jaunty, “Hi, Mom!” like Melody did.
They let themselves in and made their way back to Emily’s room. They found Em and Sandy, sitting on the bed, leaning back against the wall. Carol King’s Tapestry was playing on the stereo in the corner.
Dominick’s heart leapt at the sight of Emily. There’s no reason in the world we can’t be together, now. Can you see me now, like I see you?
Dominick sat crossed-legged on the floor, and Melody scrunched down into the orange bean bag chair beside him.
“So, what’s up, chickie?”
Emily shrugged, and Dominick saw that although she was clear-eyed, there was sadness there.
Take it easy, take it easy.
Finally, after everyone had finished listening to Carol King sing So Far Away, Emily said, “Burke just has his whole life planned out. He’s known since fourth grade that he was going to go to college and study architecture, just like his dad. He knew from our second date that we were going to get married. He knew exactly when we were going to start having kids. He even knew what we were going to name them.”
That was an arrow through Dominick’s heart. We tried, but we were never able to.
“That’s all great, but I’m eighteen years old. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. The only thing I’m sure of right now is that I don’t want to make up my mind today. I just want to live first.”
Sandy leaned her head over against Emily’s shoulder and took her hand.
“The thing is,” Emily continued, “I can’t help but wonder. Am I blowing it? Burke’s a really good guy. He’s smart, and kind, and I love his parents, and ... I don’t know. Should I hold it against him that he has his shit together?”
Dominick hadn’t said a word. He felt a little out of place there, as if his maleness was intruding on the sanctity of a female bonding experience. He cleared his throat.
“You want to know what I think?”
Emily looked at him as if she was realizing he was there for the first time. She nodded.
“I think you need to listen to the small voice you hear inside yourself when no one else is around. That’s your intuition, telling you what to do.” As long as it’s not telling you that you made a mistake and to go running back to Burke.
“You’re so wise, California-boy,” Melody said, patting his knee.
“No, it’s just my answer to everything. It’s how I ended up here, in this room, with you guys.”
DOMINICK KNEW THAT the first few weeks after Emily’s breakup were critical.
Don’t want to jump in too soon, like a shark circling for blood in the water. But, I also don’t want to meet everybody one night and find Emily holding hands with some dude who didn’t know she had just broken up with her boyfriend and asked her out.
Dominick just enjoyed being the only man in the trusted inner circle of Emily, Melody and Sandy for a month.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. The thought of Emily, just a few miles away, likely doing nothing in particular, was too much for him. He went upstairs to the main floor at Crow Mansion, looked around to see if Gene Crow was nearby—he didn’t want another lecture about the phone ...again—then went into the dining room, picked up the heavy black receiver and dialed Emily’s number from memory.
After a few rings, Louise Esterhaus answered. “Hello?”
“Greetings, Mrs. Esterhaus.”
“Louise,” she corrected. “Hello, Dominick.”
“Sorry. Louise. Is Emily there?”
“Sure. Hang on.”
Dominick heard the phone clump down on the counter and Louise calling Emily. A click as Emily picked up the pink princess phone in her room, then another as Louise hung up the kitchen phone. She was not the type to spy on her daughter’s calls.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Em. It’s Dominick.” It’s such a miracle to be able to say those words.
His hands went suddenly slick, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat. This is ridiculous. We were married for ten years. I know everything about you. There’s nothing to be nervous about.
He wiped his hands against his jeans.
“Hey, what’s up?”
What’s up is, I love you. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you in my first lifetime. Now, we’ve been apart for ten years. You don’t know it, but I do, and I feel the weight of our absence. I want to spend every day of the rest of our lives with you.
“Not much. Just wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight?”
“Umm, sure. You want me to call Mel and Sandy?”
“No, not really.”
Silence hung in the air for two beats, then three.
“Oh.” That single syllable came out as soft as a feather pillow. It spoke of a realization that the direction of the wind had changed.
Dominick started to lose his nerve. “Would that be okay? If it’s not, I understand.”
Hollow silence, broken by small bursts of static stretched into what felt like an eternity to Dominick.
Finally, strong and clear, Emily said, “No, that would be good. Nice.”
What we had wasn’t just nice, Emily. It changed my whole life. But, for now, I will take it.
“How about if I pick you up in an hour? Maybe we can just go to BJ’s and have some coffee and split an order of their fries?”
“Sounds good. See you then.”
Dominick slipped the phone back into the cradle.
DOMINICK PULLED INTO Emily’s driveway less than an hour later, but she must have been watching for him, because she came out before he even had a chance to turn the Chevelle off.
She slid into the passenger seat and said, “Nice wheels, Nicky.”
He feigned surprise. “What, have you never been in my car before?’ I know you haven’t. You always rode with Burke or Mel.
He drove slowly to BJ’s. It was raining steadily, but the windshield wipers slapping back and forth just added to the coziness of being alone with Emily. When he turned into the parking lot, the steady rain turned into a downpour.
“Let’s wait it out,” Dominick said.
“If you don’t like Wisconsin weather in the springtime, just wait five minutes. It’ll change.”
Small talk.
Dominick turned around in his seat. The rain thrummed a rhythm against the roof. It was cold outside, but very warm inside.
Emily turned slightly and stared at him, wide-eyed.
Calm washed over Dominick.
Ever so slowly, giving Emily a thousand chances to pull away, he leaned toward her.
She did not pull away, but leaned toward him slightly.
He closed his eyes, and when his lips met hers, he knew he was exactly where he belonged.
Chapter Thirty-Eight