I turn back to my Moleskine and write Pull me in and let me drown. I find my focus and the next lines come fast and easy. You don’t have to act surprised that I won’t call for help. I don’t want to be rescued, rescued from you.
“Avery,” Madison says, tapping my shoulder with her pen. I jump and she’s staring at me with those ocean-colored eyes.
“Yeah?” The word gets caught in my throat and comes out more like a croak.
“You were singing.”
Shit. “Was I?”
“Yeah. What are you working on? A song?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“It sounds good. May I see it?” She asks and leans across the table for my notebook.
I slide it out of her reach. “No. It’s not done yet.”
“Oh.” Her frown kicks my knees out from under me.
“But maybe when I’m done?” I offer.
She smiles again and I swear it’s like the sun just started shining after a thunderstorm. “Do you want to go get some coffee?” She asks, glancing around nervously.
I follow her gaze and see Maura at the reference desk. She hasn’t seen us yet. I push back the sinking feeling that Madison is asking me out to coffee to get me out of the library before Maura spots us together.
“Look, you don’t have to come if you don’t want.” Madison bites her bottom lip and it slays me in the best way possible. “It’s totally getting stuffy in here and I can’t think. If I’m ever going to finish this I’m going to need caffeine, you know? Mr. Kaplan is seriously insane for assigning us a fifteen-page paper, don’t you think?”
“I think I’m glad I’m not in AP World History,” I say trying to hide my surprise. I was under the impression that she didn’t want to hang out with me socially because then she’d be labeled a lesbian by association. Maura has disappeared from the Reference Desk.
“So, coffee?” she suggests.
“Sure,” I say. “I love coffee.” Madison is bound to get sick of me and I won’t be seeing her in the library. We’ll go back to our own orbits and I’ll chalk this up to Mercury being in retrograde. So I’m going to take this chance while I have it.
“Where do you want to go? Do you have a favorite place around here? If not, there’s Tully’s.”
I shudder. “No way. Their coffee tastes like it was brewed in a dirty gym sock. Scott and I always go to Bean Tree in the town center. Plus, it’s cheap.” The coffee at Bean Tree also sucks, and no one ever goes there anymore, not since Tully’s opened up across the street from the high school. But Bean Tree will be quiet and Madison will be safe from gossip, if that’s the reason her eyes are darting around the library.
“I’ve never been there,” she says. “Normally I go to Tully’s. I don’t know if you remember my brother, Brad? He graduated last year?” I nod and she continues, “He got me hooked on their peppermint mochas when he was home from UF at Christmas.”
“I’m sure the baristas at Bean Tree can make a peppermint mocha.” At least I hope they can. I stand up and shove my stuff into my bag.
Madison slides her pen into a pencil case before standing up and flashing me that grin that sends my heart into overdrive. “Let’s go get caffeinated.”
NO SOONER DO Madison and I get our drinks and secure a couple of chairs in the corner next to the faux fireplace, then two dozen old people filter into Bean Tree and commandeer the place. The music abruptly changes from “I’m Making Eyes at You,” a song I absolutely adore to what sounds suspiciously like “La Bamba.” I strain to hear the song over the chattering seniors. It is “La Bamba.” Señora Catalana had us memorize it for extra credit in Spanish last fall and I occasionally still sing it in the shower.
“What the flying fuck is going on?” I ask Madison. Our legs are only six inches apart but it feels like miles. I have an overwhelming desire to move my knee and make it touch hers, but I don’t. It’s taking every ounce of my willpower to not brush against her. I want to feel the heat of her skin on mine. Instead I focus on the swirls inside my latte. It looks like a deformed heart. Madison’s foam is a blob. The baristas here suck nearly as much as the coffee does.
“I don’t know.” She turns her head to survey the cafe and her ponytail whips from the motion. God I love that ponytail. I fight the urge to reach over and touch it. “But it’s really cute that they’re all here. Maybe this is their hangout?”
It is not cute that they’re all here. I know this isn’t a date but they’re ruining everything. “They look like they’re multiplying,” I say. Every seat around us is full and it seems like we’re the only two non-octogenarians in Bean Tree. The barista is now flitting about bringing the seniors paper cups of coffee and plates of treats.
Madison hands me a neon green flyer. “Have you ever done one of these?”
I scan the paper. Open Mic Night Fridays 8 p.m. “Nope. I’m not really a solo artist.”
“Why not?”
“I like the safety of a band. Someone to have your back if you screw up.”
“You wouldn’t try it?”
I shake my head. “I like to stick to shit I’m good at, and I’m good at being in a band.” Or at least I’m good at being in the band when we aren’t divided about Austin.
A guy with a gray beard and Hawaiian shirt positions himself in front of the crowd. “It’s great to see all of you here today,” he says strumming the acoustic guitar in his hands. “We’re going to sing “Happy Birthday” to a very special lady who turns 100 years old this month. Her name is Virginia.” Virginia is easily spotted, after all she’s the only one here who looks like she’s lived for a century. Also, she’s wearing a sequined zebra-print top. According to Scott, “No one over the age of 25 is allowed to wear animal print.” He would die if he saw her.
The crowd sings “Happy Birthday” to Virginia. I can’t help but join in. There’s something about singing “Happy Birthday” to someone that brings me joy, even if that person looks like they used to commute to a one-room schoolhouse via Stegosaurus. Madison raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me and starts to sing along. The room breaks out into applause and a woman in a purple sweater and green hat begins passing out cake to everyone but us.
The guy in the Hawaiian shirt strums his guitar again. “Talk amongst yourselves for thirty seconds while I tune this old thing.” He plucks at the guitar strings and frowns. “Well, we might not be in tune, but that’s okay.” He starts to play and the guitar is so out of tune that my fingers itch to grab it and tune it for him. He strums and I wince. “You may have picked up that our theme is Valentine’s Day.”
For the first time I notice that most of the old people are dressed in variations of pink and red, even though Valentine’s Day is weeks away. There is heart-shaped garland draped around the door. I’m all for love, but the commercialization and all the glitter makes me throw up in my mouth. Romantic gestures should be genuine. Hawaiian shirt continues, “First up is ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’ You’ll find sheet music at your table.” Everyone begins singing a song I don’t recognize, probably because it predates old Virginia.
Madison texts throughout the song. She catches me watching her and smiles before slipping her phone back into her pocket. “Sorry about that,” she says. “My mom wanted to know what I wanted for dinner. Dinner at our house is kind of a big deal.”
Jealousy stabs at my heart. I haven’t had a real family dinner since my dad died six years ago. I push past the pain and ask, “Your mom can text?”
“Yeah. Yours doesn’t?”
“No,” I force a laugh. “She tells everyone that her phone doesn’t text. Honestly it does, but she doesn’t want to do it.” We fall silent as the geezer glee squad works their way through more songs I don’t recognize. As they sing my mind drifts to Rory, the girl I wrote “I Just Wanna Know Your Name,” about. We had twenty-four days of fooling around on the lumpy futon in her apartment before she stopped calling and started ghosting me. I was heartbroken at first. I was infatuated w
ith Rory and her crazy red hair and the tattoo sleeve with the lyrics to Kate Nash’s “Nicest Thing,” but as it turned out, I missed the way she turned me on more than I missed her.
“This is our last song. Elvis Presley sang this back in 1956. You might have heard of it before. It’s called, ‘Love Me Tender, Love Me Sweet.’”
Madison tries to hide a smile behind her three-dollar peppermint mocha. Despite the weirdness of being in the middle of this octogenarian flash-mob, I match her smile and feel the familiar flutter in my stomach.
Elvis ends to a smattering of applause. “You’ve been a great crowd tonight.”
“Thank God that’s over,” I say.
“C’mon, it wasn’t that bad,” Madison says. “It’s really sweet that they do this. It probably keeps their brains from atrophying.”
“Did we listen to the same thing?” I ask. “Why aren’t your ears bleeding like mine?”
Madison shrugs. “I liked it.”
“Seriously? You like old people?”
“Yes, I do,” she says a little defensively. I’ve always known she was nice. But I didn’t realize that she was this nice.
“Remember folks, we do this on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Hope to see you at the end of February.”
“Note to self,” I mutter.
The old people are milling about. A woman in a leopard print top and bifocals keeps hovering near us. Finally, she points at Madison and asks, “Are you my granddaughter?”
“No,” Madison says. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” The woman deflates. “You look like my granddaughter.”
Madison smiles at her. “I’m sure she’s lovely. Would you like to join us?”
Please say no, I think. I never know what to say to old people, especially old people dressed in animal-print.
Suddenly a woman in her late forties, maybe the caretaker of this group, appears. “Come along, Mary,” she says as she guides Mary back to a table of seniors.
I think back to the sign on the door of the cafe when we walked in. “I think she has Alzheimer’s,” I say.
Madison nods. “That’s what I thought. My grandma had Alzheimer’s. She died last year.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. We have something in common after all.
“Thank you.”
“Were you close?” I ask.
“Yeah, we were.” She glances up and there are tears swimming in her eyes.
Mr. Hawaiian shirt interrupts us before I can ask Madison more about her family or tell her about mine. “Thanks for coming out. Hope you enjoyed the show,” he says, like we’re geezer groupies.
“Great set,” I lie. As a fellow musician I can’t bear to tell him how terrible it really was. “Thanks.” He beams and reaches out to shake my hand. It’s like touching a frozen chicken.
“Your hands are cold.”
“It’s because I’ve had two failed marriages,” he jokes.
Madison and I share another look.
“I thought it was cold hands, warm heart,” Madison says. “That’s what my grandma always said.”
Mr. Hawaiian shirt laughs. “I’ve got cold hands and a cold heart.”
This guy is killing me. “You know,” Madison says. “Avery is a musician, too.” She gives me a sly smile.
“Is that so? What do you play?”
“Guitar,” I answer hesitantly.
Mr. Hawaiian shirt claps. “Fantastic! I’m sure you could do a better job than I did today. Our regular guy at the senior center died last week, so I was trying to fill in, but as you may have guessed, I’m not the greatest.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He was 98. Not as old as Virginia over there, but he did okay.”
I hope I can still play at 98.
“Maybe you’d like to fill in for us next month? I could give you the sheet music and you could show up here and play?” Mr. Hawaiian shirt points to the group who are shuffling around putting on their coats. “We don’t practice or anything, so it wouldn’t be much work on your part.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not a solo artist.” I don’t think I really have time for it. Not between school and the band and my Netflix queue.
“C’mon Avery, it’d be fun,” Madison begs and nudges her knee against mine and I want to melt into this raggedy-ass armchair. Holy hell. Touch me again, I silently beg, but Madison moves her leg back like she didn’t feel it. “You could try something new. It’s less pressure than an Open Mic Night.” She grins. “You’d be awesome.”
“Listen to your girlfriend,” he says.
Madison’s smile freezes. “I’m not her girlfriend,” she says way too quickly. The expression on her face tells me she would rather be a million other things than my girlfriend. The heat I felt twenty seconds ago turns to ice in my veins.
Mr. Hawaiian shirt looks at us with a puzzled expression on his face and I realize that’s not what he intended. But Madison doesn’t notice. She’s still frozen in her chair, embarrassment radiating off of her. I need to do something. I can’t leave her hanging like this, not if I ever want to hang out with her again.
“Fine. I’ll do it. But only for next month,” I say. “That’ll give you time to find someone to play for real.” My stomach clenches at the thought of playing by myself. I’ve never performed solo before. I might as well try it in case the band heads to Austin without me.
“Great!” He claps his hands again, and his belly jiggles under the hibiscuses on his shirt. “I might even have next month’s music in my case. Hold on a moment. I’ll go check.”
As soon as he’s out of earshot, I hiss, “What the hell?”
“What?” Madison looks more relaxed than she was a minute ago, now that it’s clear that she is not my girlfriend. “I thought it would be really sweet if you helped them.”
“It’s not,” I say. “I don’t like old people. And I don’t play solo.”
“Then tell him you changed your mind.” She shifts in her seat and her knee collides with mine again and she doesn’t move it away. I get another jolt of heat. Madison takes another sip from her mocha.
“I can’t back out of a promise. That’s not how I roll,” I say. She holds my gaze and I get even hotter.
“Sorry,” she says leaning forward slightly. She smells like peppermint mocha and oranges. “I just thought it would be something fun we could do together.”
“What do you mean?” I heard her sing “Happy Birthday.” She’s as tone deaf as all of the old people here.
“You play, they sing, I record.” She holds up her phone. “It’d be great to have some photos for the yearbook for the community service page. It’ll look really good for you and for Lion Pride.”
Great. I’ll lose all my fucking music cred if a video of me singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to a bunch of geezers goes up on YouTube. I haven’t given much thought about what I want to do post-graduation if I don’t go to Austin, but if this gets out, I’ll be stuck playing children’s birthday parties. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m sure the yearbook has some great photos of the Thanksgiving canned food drive.” I move my leg away from hers.
Madison pouts. There’s a blob of mocha foam on the corner of her mouth and I long to reach over and brush it away with my thumb. “But I like to watch you perform. You look really good when you’re singing.” She has to be fucking with me. She’s never seen me perform. “You really ought to use your talent to help people.”
Maybe she’s not fucking with me. “Even if I’m singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow?”
“Even if you’re singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
She bumps my knee with hers again. Maybe playing a bunch of songs for the senior center next month won’t be the kiss of death after all. Since Madison is all about helping people I guess I can do it once.
Mr. Hawaiian shirt comes back and hands me a stack of sheet music that looks like it’s been used weekly
since 1950. The stuff I’ve seen in the library isn’t this old. I flip through the yellowed, crumbling pages, and read the song titles. I actually recognize some of these. My dad had been a Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie fan. My mom still has all of his old CDs. I could totally do this. He would have loved to see me play these songs.
“Thanks,” I say.
Mr. Hawaiian shirt beams in such a way that I know I’ve made his day. “Great, so we’ll see you next month?”
Madison’s smile melts my cold, old person hating heart. I still feel the heat of her leg pressed against mine. “I’ll be here.”
VALENTINE’S DAY IS tomorrow. All week student council has been selling carnations as a Prom fundraiser at a table in front of the cafeteria. For the low, low price of two bucks you can send someone a limp-ass flower. Or you can be a total douche canoe and send them a stem for a couple of quarters.
“You’ve got yourself a little racket going on, don’t you?” I ask Madison as Scott and I approach her table stationed in the hall outside of the cafeteria.
She’s sorting through flower-gram cards and looks up. “I guess?”
I point to the photo of a red carnation on Madison’s poster board sign. “You know that these things only cost like ten cents each, right? My math might be a little off, but that’s what, a 200% markup? That’s extortion.”
“We sell the stems for fifty cents.” Madison says defensively. “You don’t have to spend money on a whole flower.”
Scott snorts. “Avery will go broke if she sends a stem to every single twat waffle in this school.”
“How many have you sold?” I ask.
“Five hundred give or take,” Madison says. “More than enough to pay a band and a photographer.”
Scott coughs into his hand. “Avery has a band.”
“I know,” Madison says. “They’re really good. And I’ve heard her sing.”
“You have?” I would remember if Madison was at one of my shows. “When?”
“That day you drove me to the library. And at the coffee shop.” Scott raises an eyebrow but I don’t offer an explanation. “I also saw you play a few weeks ago at the show up in Harbor Heights at that outdoor festival.”
Secret Heart Page 2