Heartbreak Town

by Marsha Moyer

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I just laughed. I had no intention of letting it go." Ash leaned back in his chair and stretched. "But over the last couple days, I admit I've been thinking about his offer."

  "I can't believe you're serious."

  "Why not? Why not take the cash and get the hell out of Dodge?"

  "And go where? To do what? This thing is never going to quit dogging you until you turn around and face it head-on. Haven't you gotten that through your skull by now?"

  We sat quietly for a minute before he said, "I can't do it by myself."

  "Nobody's asking you to."

  "I wouldn't blame you for hanging it up right now, Lucy. I want you to know that."

  "Would you just be quiet and let somebody else do the talking for once?" I picked up a chocolate chip cookie and held it in my hand, thinking of the daddy I barely knew, of my mama crying in the dark with her head on the kitchen table, of how something as small as the word no could turn out to have such enormous consequences. "I think we should go see Punch," I said. "I think he'll be able to tell us what to do next, where to start. But you have to promise to listen to him, Ash. You can't start hollering and breaking everything in sight if he says you need help. For one thing, he's liable to hit you back. If he says you need to go back to rehab, I think you have to believe him."

  "Goddamn it. You know how I hate hospitals."

  "Would you rather spend a month in the hospital or the rest of your life screwing up?"

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On what's waiting for me when I get out."

  "A house on the water, for one thing. And music. If you're bound and determined to do it your way, then I believe you'll find a way."

  "What about you?"

  I shook my head. "I just—I want it to work, Ash. I do. But I think we have to play it as it goes."

  "That's not much of a guarantee."

  "There are no guarantees. Isn't that what you always used to tell me?"

  "Yeah. But I never knew it would come back to haunt me." He stood up. "Come here a minute. I want to show you something."

  We walked to the edge of the yard, a spot near the back fence. "Look there." Ash pointed to where, hovering over the last band of rose and gold over the rooftops, Venus and Mars blazed bright against the purple sky. "Supposedly they're closer right now than they've been in our lifetime and will be in the next one."

  "Where'd you hear that?"

  "I think it was Saul Toomey, over at the cafe."

  I laughed. "We all know everything Saul says is gospel."

  "What difference does it make whether it's true or not? It's pretty, isn't it?" And it was, the great expanse of heavens, comets, and stars coexisting like a mirror image of us down below.

  "Ash? There's something I need to tell you."

  "What's that?"

  "I'm going to Rome."

  "Rome, Italy?"

  "To see the Sistine Chapel."

  He reached over and brushed my hair off my jaw with the backs of his fingers. "You think you can wait a month or so?"

  In the distance, car doors slammed. A dog barked down the block. I gazed up, feeling the breeze against my face, smelling the damp, dark earth beneath my feet. If I stood still enough, I believed I could feel it turning, one infinitesimal revolution per second, in time to the beating of my heart. I pictured myself, gray-haired and crookbacked, rocking on the porch with Geneva, saying, I have seen the Sibyl of Delphi. I have walked in the footsteps of Caesar. I have seen theAppian Way.

  Suddenly the patio lights burst on and a crowd came tumbling out the back door, all jabbering at once. Ash dropped my hand and shrank back into the shadows.

  It was time to tell him what I knew: that there were only minor charges pending against him, that Hardy Knox had left town, that all Dub wanted was his word to set things right; that nearly all his debts had been paid in full. But before I could get my mouth open, Jude called plaintively, "Mama? Daddy? Where are you?"

  "I swear, they were right here five minutes ago," my mama said. "Now, don't tell me, after all I've done for that boy, he's run off and taken her with him!"

  "Her car's still out front, Mama," Bailey said. "They can't have gotten too far."

  "Hey, you two!" Geneva hollered. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

  "What do we do?" Ash whispered. His mouth was so close to mine I could feel his breath, smell the soap my mama had laundered his shirt in, his shaving cream, underneath it all the sweet, dark, inimitable scent of him.

  "I say we turn ourselves in."

  "You sure? No going back, now."

  "I'm sure."

  He leaned over and touched his lips to the peak of my hairline. "Ready?"

  I nodded. "Ready."

  "On three."

  We counted quietly under our breaths—one, two, three—-then we threw out our arms and went running, whooping and laughing, out of the darkness and into the light.