Sing

by Vivi Greene

  Maya looks at me. Her eyes are a soft amber color. “Maybe it’s the coming home part you need to work on,” she says. “Whatever that means for you.”

  “I wish I knew.” I sigh and look down the long wooden staircase, the rickety beams leaning against the ancient boulders and steep cliffs. A cloud of tiny black insects zips past and Maya shoos them with one hand.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say softly. “I know it’s ridiculous. I came out here to get away from this kind of thing. Bouncing from one relationship to the next. Getting wrapped up in all this drama. And now I’m right back where I started.”

  “That’s not true,” she says. “You may not have found all the answers yet, but I think you know more than you’re letting on.”

  “I do?”

  Maya looks at me with a warm smile. “You know what to do,” she says. “You’re just waiting for it to be easier.”

  I look at her. “When does that happen?”

  Maya smiles. She stares at the ice cubes in her glass, before clinking it lightly against mine. “It doesn’t.”

  Jed’s sedan is parked at the end of a short line of cars at the harbor, waiting to get off the island. I rap gently on the darkened window and pull the door open, climbing into the seat beside him.

  “Hey,” he says, stashing his phone in the center console and turning down the volume on the radio. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to show.” I stare through the windshield as the ferry pushes into the harbor, both decks crammed with squinting day-trippers; luggage carts; eager, panting dogs. “Where are your bags?”

  I stare at my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry,” I say softly.

  “You’re not coming,” he says, almost a question, like he’s halfway convinced it’s a joke.

  I take a long, deep breath. “I can’t. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks coolly. Jed has limited patience for what he calls touchy-feely talk. Like me, he’s been trained to act quickly and decisively. He makes a plan; he sticks to it. It’s not that he intentionally doesn’t follow his heart; he just doesn’t spend a lot of time consulting it.

  “It means that I’ve worked really hard to get here,” I say patiently.

  “Where?” He looks around dramatically at the parking lot, the minivans overloaded with beach gear, the work trucks jammed with fishing poles and tools. “Here?”

  I squeeze the sides of my bare knees between my hands, the fraying ends of my cutoffs tickling my wrists. “I was feeling stuck, like I was writing the same songs over and over again. And now I’m not. I have to honor that. I have to believe that I’m here for a reason.”

  “Is this about that guy?” It’s the first time Jed’s mentioned Noel since they met in the driveway. I thought for sure he’d want to know more about him, but he hasn’t even asked his name. “The guy from the other night?”

  I shift uncomfortably on the leather seat. “He’s part of it,” I admit. “But it’s more than that. I like who I am here. I haven’t felt this way about a place since I was a kid.”

  Jed raises an eyebrow at me. “What about who you are everywhere else? What’s going to happen when you go back on tour?” he asks. “He’s going to come with you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say softly. “Maybe it’s time for me to put down some roots and . . . I don’t know, take a real break.”

  “A break?” Jed asks. “You mean, from touring?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Every relationship I’ve been in has ended because of my career, or somebody else’s. Everything I’ve done, every thought that’s come into my head has had something to do with work. It’s been nice to turn that off. If I can’t be happy and make music at the same time, what’s the point?”

  Jed looks at me like I’ve suddenly sprouted extra body parts. “The point?” He reaches across the car and puts a hand on my shoulder, like I’m falling and he’s trying to hold me up. He leans in so that I have no choice but to look at him. “The point is you don’t get to choose, Lily. Your voice, your songs . . . that’s who you are. You can hole up at the end of the earth for as long as you want, but you’re still going to have this gift. If you can’t find a way to live with that and someone else, I don’t care who it is . . . you’re never going to be happy.”

  24

  46 Days Until Tour

  July 28th

  IT’S LATE WHEN K2 drops me off and I half expect/half hope to find Noel’s shack empty. But one window is lit up by the lamp on his desk, and I can see his hunched-over silhouette through the old blue-and-white-striped sheet he’s rigged up as a curtain.

  Since Jed left this afternoon, I haven’t been able to get his words out of my head. You’re never going to be happy. What if he’s right? No matter how much I try to make things work with Noel, no matter how much I love being here on this island, could I ever truly be happy without making my music, seeing my fans, singing my songs on tour? I can’t just pretend that’s not a part of me anymore. The songs I’ve written since I’ve been here . . . I’m prouder of them than I am of anything else I’ve done. It wouldn’t feel right not to share them just because I’ve decided to be happy. And what about the songs I write next? Even if staying here with Noel is what my heart wants most, it doesn’t mean I can—or should—do it.

  But I don’t want to leave him. The idea of moving on without him hits me like a swift kick to the stomach. When I think about losing him, I can’t breathe.

  I knock twice on the door before pushing it open. “Noel?” Moths swarm the naked lightbulb that hangs over the patio and I shut the door again before they flutter in behind me.

  Noel is at his desk in plaid flannel pants and a T-shirt. His hair is wet and tousled and a towel is in a damp heap on the dusty wood floor. “Hey,” he greets me, startled. He shoves his chair back, and steps forward like he wants to hug me, but then stops awkwardly, as if he isn’t sure if it’s still allowed. Instead, he tucks his hands in his pockets, biting the inside of his cheek.

  I’ve never been in his little house before. The space is crowded, with hardly any room between each piece of mismatched furniture: the square kitchen table that doubles as a desk, a squat chest of drawers, the lofted bed pushed against the windowless back wall.

  He looks around uncertainly. “Sorry. There isn’t really any place to sit. I mean, there’s the chair, but it’s not really comfortable. It used to have a cushion but it smelled like moldy cheese, so I took it to the dump,” he explains, the sides of his neck flushing pink. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

  I laugh and take a step forward, so that it’s almost impossible for our bodies not to touch. I put my hands on his shoulders and kiss him. I feel his arms folding around my back, pulling me in closer. We stay like that for what feels like an eternity, balanced against each other. I feel my body going slack, like it could melt into his. I don’t ever want to pull away.

  Noel leans back ever so slightly, our noses still centimeters apart. “Does this mean you’ve made up your mind?”

  I run my hands down the smooth contours of his strong arms and quickly kiss him again. “It means that I’m jumping,” I say. “I love you, too, Noel Bradley.”

  Noel links his arms around my waist and pulls me tightly to him. His grip is so strong that my feet leave the ground. When he puts me back down, I rest my head on his shoulder. Something on his desk catches my eye: an open notepad beside a pile of stubby charcoal pencils. There’s a half-finished sketch of a boat—his boat, shadowed and full of breathtaking detail.

  “Did you do this?” I ask, leaning in to get a closer look.

  “What?” Noel asks. “Oh. Yeah. I needed something to take my mind off . . . everything,” he explains shyly.

  “It’s incredible,” I say. “You drew this on your own? I mean, it’s not from a picture?”

  Noel smiles and taps the side of his head. “Just what’s in here. I’ve probably spent more time on that boat than anywhere else on the planet,” he says wit
h a shrug. “I know it pretty well.”

  I flip through the notebook and find a series of equally impressive drawings—a tower of rusty lobster crates, a surfboard angled against a tree—each one more precise than the last.

  Eventually, I look up from the drawings, at him, ideas suddenly flooding my brain. “Come with me,” I say all at once, like it’s the only option.

  “What?” Noel laughs lightly, closing the notebook and stuffing the pencils inside an old mason jar. “Come with you where?”

  “Everywhere,” I say. “I don’t want to leave you. And I don’t want to leave the island. But I have to go. I’ll always have to go. Touring is . . . it’s why I do this. At least for now . . . being onstage, seeing my fans, it’s everything to me.”

  Noel sinks down onto the chair, a conflicted look passing over his face. I reach out and grab one of his hands. “It’s almost everything,” I say. “What we have is so amazing. And I don’t want it to end when the summer does. I want you there with me. It will be totally nuts—weeks of rehearsals, living out of suitcases, flying every other night—but I’ll have some days off, and it will just feel . . . right, knowing that you’re always nearby.”

  Noel blinks slowly, like he’s suddenly exhausted. I curl into his lap, looping my arm around his neck. “And when we’re not together, you can do this.” I nod at the notebook on the table. “Or whatever you want! I know how much you love it here—and I love it, too—but the island isn’t going anywhere. Come with me.”

  I feel myself starting to slip down his legs and Noel hauls me closer. He glances out through the window, toward the main house, where the pale blue flicker of the television glows from the living room.

  “I don’t know,” he says softly. “I don’t know if I can leave them.”

  My eyes float up to Sidney’s bedroom window. I imagine her wedged between two computers, hard at work beneath a web of thumbtacks and postcards, dreaming of who she’ll someday be.

  “I know,” I say, tucking an errant strand of silky hair behind Noel’s ear. “But promise me you’ll think about it.”

  Noel nods vaguely and I lean in to give him another kiss. “And I promise not to distract you,” I say between fluttery kisses. “Too much.”

  25

  36 Days Until Tour

  August 7th

  “THIS THING IS a total beast.”

  Sidney squats in the front yard, a rusty lawn mower turned on its side in the dry grass beside her. Her hands and jeans are covered in grease, and there’s a black smudge near her ear, where she uses one forearm to wipe her frizzy blond hair away from her face.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, pushing through the screen door of Noel’s shack. It’s been over a week since Jed left, and I’ve spent nearly all of it at Noel’s house, hanging with Sid and their dad, or out on the boat. I called Terry a few days ago, and we’re going forward with the plan for a tour tie-in EP. “Anchors” will be out as a single by the last week of rehearsals, which should be enough time to get people excited. With the anxiety of finishing the music off my chest, I’ve been able to relax—I want to enjoy the rest of my time here, since the future with Noel is still an unknown. We haven’t talked much about what comes next, but the question is always there, like a secret, a hidden, special electricity constantly flickering back and forth between us.

  “Dad said if I take this thing apart and figure out what’s wrong with it, he’ll buy the parts I need to fix it,” Sidney says, wrestling the metal innards apart with scary-sounding clanks and groans.

  “And then you get to use it!” Noel calls out from behind the wooden doors of the outdoor shower, where he’s busy fiddling with a leaky pipe.

  “No dice,” Sid mutters in response. “I don’t mow. I tinker.”

  I pull up an old lawn chair. A few of the rubber slats are twisted and broken but I manage to get comfortable, crossing my ankles in the grass. I peer into the mess of gears and wires, watching Sidney work. With her low, furrowed brow and set jaw, she looks just like Noel does when he’s on the boat, working.

  “You like this stuff, huh?” I ask.

  Sidney grunts and sifts through a pile of tools. “Beats working on my tan.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s what the girls in my class do all summer long.”

  “You don’t like the beach?”

  “Who said anything about the beach?” she scoffs. “They all meet up at Laura McMahon’s house, the big one at the end of the point? She’s got this huge deck and they line up their towels and fry like skinny pink sausages.”

  The shower whines and squeals as Noel turns it on and off to test it, and I hear him chuckling.

  “They do!” Sid insists. “I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

  I pull my sunglasses out of my hair and settle them onto my face. “Where you headed?”

  “Anywhere but here,” she says, twisting a wrench deep inside the tangled machinery. “Gonna meet up with Mom somewhere as soon as I graduate. Maybe go to college if I get in.”

  “If you get in?” Noel pops out from behind the shower door, drying his hands on his striped board shorts. “You’ve been taking community college classes since the seventh grade. You can go anywhere you want.”

  Sidney grunts again, struggling to disconnect two pieces of twisted metal. There’s a faraway look in her eyes, like her body is here but the rest of her is somewhere else. Her focus is mesmerizing.

  “Who wants ice cream?” Noel asks, ducking into the cottage to switch out his dirty shirt for a clean white one. “My treat.”

  I hop up from the chair and stretch my arms high over my head, tilting my face to the sun. “I do.”

  “Sid? You coming?” Noel asks.

  She ignores us for a few seconds before tossing the wrench at the ground. “Fine,” she says. “I need to read the manual anyway. Hopefully it’s in Japanese. I’m working on my translation.” Sid walks briskly toward the house.

  “Ask Dad if he wants anything,” Noel calls after her.

  Sid waves him off. “Real ice cream. Not frozen yogurt,” she demands, before disappearing into the house.

  I laugh as Noel grabs my hand and leads me to the truck. He sits on the hood and I snuggle between his legs, my back against the bumper.

  “You’re getting freckles,” he says, looking down and playfully tapping my nose.

  I swat his hand away. “I know,” I say. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “I like it,” Noel says, squeezing me around the waist. “If that counts for anything.”

  “It does,” I say, tilting my face up to give him a kiss.

  “So where to first?” Noel asks, settling back against the windshield. I hop up on the hood beside him.

  “Ice cream,” I answer. “Right?”

  Noel reaches for my hand. “I meant on tour,” he says, staring at our fingers as they tangle together. “It’s coming up fast.”

  “Six days until I leave.” A pit opens up in the bottom of my stomach and I start to feel faint. This has been happening lately, whenever I think about leaving, so I’ve made a concerted effort not to do it.

  “But who’s counting,” Noel teases. “What’s the first stop on the tour?”

  “LA,” I say. “But I have a few weeks of rehearsals in New York first.”

  “Cool,” Noel says. “That should give me some time to learn my way around.”

  “What?” I shift abruptly on the hood to face him. I pull our hands, still woven together, into my lap. He smiles slyly. “You’re coming?” I practically screech.

  Noel shrugs. “If you’ll have me.”

  “Yes!” I wrap him in a hug. “I mean, sure, if that’s what you want . . .” I clear my throat and feign disinterest, smoothing my features into a mask of nonchalance. Noel laughs and hugs me tight. There’s a lightness spreading throughout my body, the hollow in my stomach filling up with warmth.

  “What about work?” I ask, pulling away to glance back at the house. “What about Sid? Your dad?”
r />   Noel turns his rope bracelet against the knobs of his sturdy wrist. “They’ll be fine,” he says. “They’ve got their own little routine down now. I mostly just get in the way.”

  I study him carefully, skeptically. “You’re sure you won’t miss this place?”

  “I’ll definitely miss it,” he says. “But like you said, it’s not going anywhere. You are.”

  I put a hand on the soft sleeve of his T-shirt and lean in to kiss him.

  “I thought we agreed this was a PDA-free zone,” Sidney shouts from the driveway, hurrying toward the truck. “Don’t make me separate you two.”

  Noel holds my hand as we hop down from the truck. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Lily, that was spectacular.”

  I set my guitar on my knees and reach for a glass of water. The booth is hot and sticky, my throat dry and parched. As the countdown to tour continues, Terry has convinced me to schedule a few short interviews and radio spots. I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon—a perfect, cloud-free beach day—locked in the dark, musty sound booth of the local high school’s radio station, whipping through interviews and live performances, while Sammy and Tess make faces from the other side of the glass. I’ve played “Anchors” at least six times, landed on the same, Terry-approved sound bites (“Time away has been just what I’ve needed” and “I can’t wait to get back on the road and hang out with my fans!”), and only mixed up the superanimated hosts’ names twice.

  This one, Joey Z out of Tucson, sounds like a chipmunk on speed. He zips through the usual roster of questions about the new album, the breakup, and my self-imposed exile from the city. But then, just as I feel the interview winding down, he catches me off guard:

  “So tell us about this Noel guy,” he stage-whispers for dramatic effect. “I’m guessing he’s the anchor we’re hearing so much about? Sure looks like he’s got a hold on you, from what I can see.”

  Sweat prickles under my arms. What he can see? There’s a rapping on the window and I look up to see that Sammy is holding her phone to the glass. Her browser is pulled up to TMZ, and there on the homepage is a full-page photo of Noel, Sid, and me getting ice cream yesterday in town. Noel and I are holding hands, and Sidney trails behind us, the cone angled to her face, mid-bite.