by Dave Connis
She bounces in her seat. “But, Adam … pie.”
“What is this?” I ask. “What are we?”
She keeps bouncing, unfazed by the question. “You sound like Mr. Cratcher.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“A prospective couple going on a prospective date.”
“Why can’t this just be a date?”
“Adam, pie!”
“Answer me,” I say.
“You know why. Please don’t ruin our first date by arguing.”
I sigh. “So this is our first date?”
She laughs. “Yes, yes. Okay, this is our first date. Now, good lord, pie, Adam!”
I smile. I mean, she did say it.
I’ll take it.
We walk into the place. It’s a quaint little house. A “specials” board sits against the wall and I lose Dez to it.
“Holy pie!” She says, pointing at the board, smiling. “Strawberry cranberry orange pie, Adam. Adam! Strawberry cranberry orange pie!”
A hostess looks at me. “Two of you?”
“Hostess!” Dez says. “Tiramisu waffle pie.”
I nod. “Yes. Two.”
The hostess holds her hand out. “Right this way.”
She brings us into a small room with a few tables and chairs, but we’re the only ones in it. The windows are decorated with red bows and garland. While Dez continues to freak out over the menu, I continue to watch her, loving her more and more for the amount of joy she has simply because of pie. She orders the Frito Chili pie and, I admit, even I freak out when I see, and order, Mac and Cheese pie.
We try to picture the restaurant as the house it once was and figure out we’re eating in a bedroom attached to the living room. After that, we recap all of the random facts we’ve learned about Mr. Cratcher and his life in Nashville.
“The dude was a rock star,” I say. “He definitely gave up a lot to move.”
“Didn’t you say he chose to leave?” she says. “I think, more than anything else, he wanted to love Gabby better. I mean, she chose to support his release in the trial. If that kind of love doesn’t deserve the sacrificing of an empire, nothing will.”
“Yeah. Give up an empire to gain a kingdom.”
“What’s the difference between the two?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’d just rather be a king than an emperor. It might just be because I watched Star Wars a lot when I was little and hated Emperor Palpatine. I still think he’s a dick.”
“I think that’s accurate,” she says. “Both in personality and in looks.”
I laugh and grab her hand. She flashes me a smile that makes December feel like July.
“I still want to know what the difference between an empire and a kingdom is,” she says.
I look at the sun setting in a marbled orange and pink sky. I don’t know if I’m just in a hallelujah moment, but I feel like I’m home. “I guess an empire is a place to fight for, but a kingdom is … a home worth fighting for? I don’t know.”
“I like that,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, way to BS intelligence.”
“We should totally have babies and save the world from the impending stupid apocalypse.”
“Of course.” She brushes the hair out of her eyes. “That definitely sounds like a purely strategic proposal, not recreational. Sometimes, if you really want to make an impact on the world, you have to pick high-quality mates to keep from creating inept babies.”
I nod. “I’ve never considered myself a high-quality anything.”
“Adam, I’d personally trade eighty bear skins for your DNA.”
“Only eighty?”
“Did I mention they’re polar bear skins?”
We both chuckle and fall into a few seconds of comfortable silence as the waitress brings our savory pies.
“So, how’s addiction going?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I just haven’t heard much about where you’re at right now.”
She sighs. “That’s because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So, what does that mean?’
“That means I don’t want to talk about it. Do we have to talk about addiction on a first date? Gosh, Adam, you aren’t very good at this.”
“Dez, every time you go to Addiction Fighters, you talk about everything you’re addicted to in front of a giant crowd. Why can’t you tell just me?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Dez, tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing new.”
“Dez.”
“Percocet,” she whispers. “I’m addicted to pain pills. There, happy?”
Okay, though unexpected, I’m not really surprised by this. It makes sense. It’s subtle but effective enough to keep a buzz.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
She sighs again, this one deeper than the last. “No, I’ve been meaning to say something about it.”
“Where do you get them from?”
“My mom has chronic back pain. I just take them from her.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Yeah. It is. Can I—can I tell you a secret?”
I push my chair next to hers and pull her into me. “Anything.”
She runs a hand through her hair and swallows. “I—I haven’t been telling the total truth. About my addictions, I mean. I’m just … really afraid someone knowing the truth will rub me raw.”
“Remember that time I didn’t want to tell you about trying to give girls money to have sex with me?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what made me consider telling you. The fact you trusted me enough to tell me, yet I haven’t told you this, has been eating at me.” She takes a deep breath. “I know I’ve said I’m addicted to everything and that I cycle through things. I know that you think I’m addicted to the addiction, but I’m only addicted to everything else because I’m trying to avoid Percocets. I’m afraid of them. It started when I was twelve, when I first started noticing that I didn’t want to be like my family, which in turn turned their wrath on me. I was addicted to them, pretty intensely. By the time I was fourteen, I’d gotten bored with them, and a friend said I should move onto something harder. I did and I almost died.
“I got scared for a while and didn’t do any drugs. I tried changing, but my parents didn’t. I was still always a disappointment. Still never enough. So I went back, and when I got bored with Percocets, I didn’t have the guts to go harder, so I’m trying everything else. Looking for something that will keep me from ending up like Mark. Percocets are a gateway drug, and Mark is evidence of what happens when you stand in the gate for too long. They’re always available. No one notices. Everything else—smoking, drinking, and such—is so obvious. No matter how hard I try to stay away, I eventually come back to them because I love having a vice that can fit in my pocket.”
I kiss her on the forehead, just like she did to me when I told her about getting suspended, about taking advantage of someone who needed me to protect them. “Which pocket?”
Her jaw tightens. “Right.”
I slide my hand into her pocket and find two pills sitting in the deepest corner. I take them out, wrap them in a napkin, and put it on the table for the waitress to take next time she comes around.
“You equal greater than that.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
“Dez, you’re so much greater than that. You’re enough.”
“Adam—”
“You’re enough.”
I say it for myself as much as I say it for her. A tear rolls down her cheek. She closes her eyes and starts to stand.
Not this time.
I won’t let her run away. I won’t run away. We will face ourselves.
I grab her wrist and pull her into my arms. She breaks down. Right there in the bedroom of The Loving Pie Company.
“I don’t w
ant this to be my life,” she says.
“We can change,” I say.
She shakes her head, but she doesn’t say anything. She just cries into my chest. I look at her, and for the first time I don’t see her as sexy, confident, stubborn, different, and untamable Dez. I see her for what she really is: an innocent girl who’s lost in the chaos and trying to find her way back home.
Just like me.
—
To make up for making her cry on our first date, I let her choose where we go next. She picks the giant atriums and indoor gardens of the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Because we’re so close to Christmas, everything is decorated accordingly. Garland has been wrapped around posts and handrails. Shimmering lights coat both fake and real trees. We wander around the indoor manmade rivers and pathways for hours, talking and laughing like normal people do.
As it gets dark outside, the atriums fills with people, all here to see the massive display of Christmas lights hanging from the metal trusses and walkways supporting the expanse of glass ceiling. Globes, presents, and stars all hang in the air like they were placed without any struggle. However, I’d imagine that setting up the massive light displays are the one event the hotel workers try to avoid at all costs. Putting up lights with my dad is hard enough, and we only have one strand of lights that we hang off the gutters. Christmas cheer comes at a cost, but there’s nothing else in the world like Christmas cheer, which makes it priceless.
The hugeness, mystery, and winter wonderland–ness all combine and make us feel oddly adventurous, and we begin to take random little turns, looking for something new to explore. After I buy her eggnog ice cream, she disappears to find the bathroom and, while I wait for her, I end up wandering up a set of stairs to stand next to a waterfall. All of it. The cheer. The Christmas. The girl. The Addy. The friends. The place I get to go back to.
I feel in love.
Calm. Peaceful. Like I’m nothing but a boy. Like The Woman never left. Like I’ve never been addicted to porn. Like the Puget Sound dreams have never happened. Like I’m not a volcano. I’m watching drops of water slam into the river below when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and see Dez.
She wraps her arms around my shoulder and, with no ceremony, she pulls me into her and kisses me. Her lips could be as rough as sandpaper, but right now, they feel like the softest thing in the world. I hold onto her waist, pulling her as close as physically possible without being Siamese twins. In this moment, I think I feel everything, but I feel her so specifically I can’t define how. I don’t know how that works, but that’s how everything works with her.
She pulls away, but just barely. Her forehead still rests against mine, and I can feel her breath on my lips.
“I’m surprised you were okay with kissing me in such a cliché place. Especially one surrounded by such an American display of Christmas deco,” I say, breaking the silence. “I figured you’d try it in a gas station bathroom or something.”
She laughs, and then gives me that smoldering, definition-scattering smirk. “I thought about it.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“I want to believe in change,” she says. “I know it’s not fair that I expect you to do all the believing in us. I just don’t know if I can believe anything other than addiction. But, if I don’t try, I won’t know, right?”
“Nope, you won’t.”
She looks around and then nods. “Alright, well, if we’re going to have our first kiss in the middle of a cliché, we might as well make the best of it.”
“Certainly, Mademoiselle.”
I slide my fingers up her neck and into her hair. She presses her palms into my back. We make out—no, we have a hallelujah moment beside an indoor waterfall. A place almost as beautiful as the natural world, but without the volcanoes.
I guess everything is possible.
BRIDGE STUDIOS
The next morning, we’re eating bacon-wrapped Pop-Tarts, talking about what the name Hounds of Eden means, when Dez suddenly sits up in the Hamana.
“Guys,” she says, giving us all a giant smile.
I remember our clichéd waterfall kiss. I remember that she trusted me enough to tell me her Percocet-addiction secret. Part of me is insanely happy about it, another part is scared shitless, and another part is worried for her. Each feeling is so distinct and new, and they’re battling for priority. I put three extra pieces of bacon on my Pop-Tart to ease my mental tension.
“I’m so excited for today,” she says. “What if we don’t just find an album? What if we find something that clears Mr. Cratcher’s name? What if we do it all before he dies?”
I feel the same fear I felt yesterday when we talked about this. I don’t know if it’s because we had such a good time last night, but it’s even more unsettling today.
“That’s a lot of what ifs,” I say.
“Yeah, but I bet there’s something out there, right?” Trey adds.
Dez’s face tightens. “Well if the optimist is on my side, I should probably lower my expectations. Let’s just go find Mr. Cratcher’s house.”
Thank you, Trey. Thank you so, so, so, so much.
—
We drive through downtown Nashville and take an exit that dumps us into a suburb called Historic Edgefield. As we sit at the bottom of the exit ramp, waiting for the light to turn green, Dez points at the neighborhood sign gleaming in the sun across the road.
“Turn right here. It should be the third house on the left.”
Addy turns, and a few seconds later, we pull up to a normal, non-Brentwood house. It has a small concrete stoop and faded green seventies shutters next to the two front windows.
“Everyone have their clipboards?” Dez asks.
Dez bought all of us clipboards at the drug store because she thinks the clipboards will make us look like professional journalists instead of nosy kids.
“This is crazy guys,” Addy says.
Dez makes a tsk noise at her. “We’ll leave you home if you suddenly want to be all adult-ish.”
Addy laughs. “I never said I didn’t want to do it. I just said it was crazy.”
“So, who’s going to talk?” Elliot asks.
“Adam should take this first one,” Dez says. “Addy, keep the car running in case we need to run.”
“I feel like a chauffeur,” she says. “You make out with my brother one time and suddenly I’m just the driver.”
Trey snaps his fingers. “Ooh, man!”
Dez grins. “Imagine what will happen next time we make out.”
Elliot scoffs. “Teen pregnancy?”
Dez’s cheeks explode with red and we all laugh.
Elliot stops mid-laugh. “Teen pregnancy isn’t funny.”
Trey shivers and gets out of the car. Dez follows.
“No teen pregnancy,” I say to Addy when we’re the last two in the car. “I promise.”
Her eyes look at me through the rearview mirror. “I trust you, Papi. Now go get your information.”
We walk up to the house door, and after ten knocks or so, it’s obvious our adventure isn’t being filmed in a Hollywood studio. After driving two thousand miles, four teenagers stand on the stoop of their dying mentor’s old house only to have no one answer.
This is as anticlimactic as it can get.
Dez crosses her arms. “Let’s just look around, see if a door is open.”
“We can’t break and enter,” I say. “We’re on a journey for justice and resolution, not criminalism.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“We’ll just have to come back. It’s not a problem.”
“Hey!” someone yells.
We turn around. Standing on the porch of the house directly across from Mr. Cratcher’s is a man maybe a little older than my dad, leaning against his railing and watching us like … like we’re about to look around and see if a door is open.
“What are you kids doing?” he asks.
“We’re an independent research team,”
I yell, certain he won’t expect that kind of answer from a group of teenagers, one of which looks like he’s about to destroy something in emo-laden spiky bracelet rage.
“My colleagues and I are trying to gather some data on a cold case.”
The man scratches his beard. “What case?”
“The murder of Elias Harper,” Dez says.
The man stares at us for a few seconds. Trey fiddles with his clipboard to make sure our inquirer sees it.
“Wasn’t that in the seventies?” he finally asks.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
A few more seconds of awkward silence pass before the guy nods toward his house. “Come in. I might be able to help.”
—
We sit around the stranger’s table. He kindly offers us some soda, but Elliot is the only one of us who accepts.
“So, why do you want information on Elias Harper?” he asks.
“We’re journalistic hobbyists,” Dez says. “We use our school breaks to research cold cases.”
“We’ve gathered enough evidence to get cases reopened,” Trey adds.
I try not to let my face show it, but I feel like his comment pushes our cover a little too far. Luckily, the man doesn’t dig any deeper.
“Well,” he says, “it’s cool to see kids applying themselves to stuff that isn’t dangerous or to drugs.”
We look at each other. Dez has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“I don’t know any details about it,” he says, “but my dad might. He lived here when it all happened.”
Trey slaps the table. “Fantastic!”
“As long as you don’t tell him you talked to me,” the man says, “I can put you in touch with him, but I can’t guarantee anything. He doesn’t talk about anything unless money is involved.”
“Where does he work?” Elliot asks.
“At some recording studio. At least, I think he still works there. I haven’t talked to him in years.”
“Why?” Dez asks.
Awkward. Why would anyone ask that?
The guy doesn’t blink at the question. “He’s an ass. Simple as that. Do you want his number or not?”
“We’d love his number,” I say.
—
We sit in the SUV in front of Mr. Cratcher’s old house while Dez calls The Ass. Considering his reputation, we figured the guy would stay on the phone longer for a female.